Fantasy Football Today - Beyond the Boxscore: Stroud and Pierce struggle, Levis and Hopkins dominate, & more! (10/30 Fantasy Football Podcast)

Episode Date: October 30, 2023

Fantasy Football Today is available for free on the Audacy app as well as Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts and wherever else you listen to podcasts Is Austin Ekeler back? What happened to D'Onta Foreman? The crew recaps Bears-Chargers on Sunday Night Football (2:00). Then, we discuss Kirk Cousins' Achilles injury (7:33) and what it means for the Vikings' skill players like Justin Jefferson, Jordan Addison, and TJ Hockenson. Next, we dive into advanced stats on CJ Stroud, Dameon Pierce (15:00), Javonte Williams, George Pickens, and others (23:04). Finally, we answer your five big topics: what should we expect from Will Levis and DeAndre Hopkins for the rest of the season? (39:05) How about De’Von Achane as he gears up from a return from injured reserve? (47:20) Plus more! SUBSCRIBE to FFT Dynasty on Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/fantasy-football-today-dynasty/id1696679179 SUBSCRIBE to FFT Dynasty on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2aHlmMJw1m8FareKybdNfG?si=8487e2f9611b4438&nd=1 Follow our FFT team on Twitter: @FFToday, @AdamAizer, @JameyEisenberg, @daverichard, @heathcummingssr, @ctowerscbs Follow the brand new FFT TikTok account: https://www.tiktok.com/@fftoday Watch FFT on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/fantasyfootballtoday Get 20% off Fantasy Football Today merch: https://store.cbssports.com/collections/fantasy-football-today%20?utm_source=podcast-apple-com&utm_medium=web&utm_campaign=buy-our-merch&utm_content=fantasy-football-collection Join our Facebook group https://www.facebook.com/groups/FantasyFootballToday/ Sign up for the FFT newsletter https://www.cbssports.com/newsletter You can listen to Fantasy Football Today on your smart speakers! Simply say "Alexa, play the latest episode of the Fantasy Football Today podcast" or "Hey Google, play the latest episode of the Fantasy Football Today podcast." To hear more from the CBS Sports Podcast Network, visit https://www.cbssports.com/podcasts/ To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Now, here's some combination of Adam, Dave, Jamie, and Heath. Welcome to Beyond the Boxcore, everybody. Halloween Eve. It is Monday, October 30th. Adam, Dan, and Jacob are here with five big topics. We're going to talk about Devon Achan, some struggling running backs, Ken Walker, DeAndre Swift. He's been a little bit, he scored yesterday.

That was good, but a little bit underwhelming lately. Obviously, Will Levis we're going to talk about as well, and some players that we think could win you your fantasy leagues in the second half. These are advanced stats from Simple People, and we are going to start with Los Angeles and Chicago. But first, Jacob, I understand you got a little dressed up over the weekend and partied.

Are you dressed up right now? I can't tell. This is a Naruto hoodie, and over the weekend I dressed up as Ash Ketchum, so I'm just, I guess, outing myself here as a bit of a weeb, bit of an anime fan. Yeah, it was a good time. It was a good time this weekend. Oh, boy. I understood about 30% of the words of that sentence.

Ash Ketchum from Pokemon, which you might know is the most popular franchise of all time anything. Is that right? I couldn't believe Adam didn't know who Ash Ketchum was. I'm not like an anime fan or anything, and I don't know much about it. I have heard that I would like Airbender. That's apparently a show that goes beyond the anime range. And I just watched Invincible. Jacob, have you seen that?

That show is really good. Invincible is great. Yeah. But the fact that Adam didn't know Ash Ketchum, where were you living, Adam? You were in that age range, too. First of all, Adam, did you not play Pokemon Red or Blue on your Game Boy? Did you not do that? I think I'm in a slightly different age group than you.

A slightly different age group. No, I didn't. You never played Pokemon Game Boy Red or Blue? Those are the greatest. That was the greatest game ever. What year are we talking here? You didn't get to experience the joy and the pain. You don't even know what a Game Boy is. The Game Boy I had was much,

much different than the Game Boy you had. I had the original Game Boy. It was black and white. So I don't even know what you're talking about. Let's get to the Game Boy. Los Angeles 30, Chicago 13. Keenan Allen had three catches on the first possession. It looked like he was about to have a huge night

and he totally underwhelmed with a decent game, 14.9 points. It's a bad game for him, but whatever. But there's more to talk about here. But it was nice to see Justin Herbert, lowest air yards per pass attempt by far. I think four and a half. Yeah, four and a half air yards per pass attempt. Kind of dinked and dunked his way to a really good fantasy game. Herbert scores 30 points against the Bears.

But Jacob, your fantasy takeaways from Sunday Night Football. We saw the Austin Eckler receiving usage that we were a little bit worried about. I think that made sense that it was probably going to come, and so that was good to actually see it. Quinn Johnston, they went out of their way to get him

involved, get him some catch-and-run opportunities. They had previously kind of just been using him as a mike williams look-alike um which was not going very well but his average route depth was way down it was above nine in every game before last week and then it was 6.4 yards this week um so a role change there could make him fantasy relevant his route participation was still only 66% though, Quentin Johnston, which is not ideal. Um, nothing really stood on the Chicago side. Did you guys have anything? My, my thoughts are mostly focused on the charger side. I thought it was really interesting to see them kind of evolve the offense a little bit from when they lose Mike Williams, they go back to the drawing board and they don't do too

much different. At least in the beginning part, they almost look like they're just going to try to replace him with a player and keep the same thing going. This game, you saw a little bit of difference in the actual game plan. Like you mentioned, Jacob, a re-involvement of Austin Eckler in the past game.

I think that's really big for Austin Eckler owners, our managers moving forward. And also, like you said, the Quinton Johnson was a player I talked about with Chris Towers on beyond the, or I'm sorry, on FFT and five last week as somebody you have to have stashed on your bench going into this weekend. And I think now it might be too late at this point, his role is only going to keep growing. I liked how they used him around the line of scrimmage

because I always felt like the thing he can offer the most is actually yards after the catch early on as a rookie. And he made a really good catch by the way, on one of his plays, a low ball thrown that you don't expect from Quinton Johnson had some issues with catches and drops in college. So I I'm mostly excited about Eckler and Johnston coming out of this game from the Los Angeles side. Yeah. I mean, look, it'd be nice if Eckler could run the ball effectively 17, what was it? Uh, 15 carries for 29 yards. He he's got a 55 yard in week one, and he hasn't had a run longer than 11 yards on any other carry all season long. So, look, he had a really long touchdown catch and run,

but if he doesn't start running the ball better, he might disappoint you a little bit. But you're still going to start. Actually, he was 100% started coming off a bad game. Josh Palmer, you know, the snap counts were lower for everybody, but that's because there was a blowout and they didn't play much down the stretch, but Palmer just didn't really have that good of a game, and obviously he's

dealing with a knee injury, so we'll keep that in mind. And Donald Parham, I would think Everett's got a good chance of coming back next week, but Justin Herbert is throwing a lot of touchdowns to tight ends. On the other side of the ball, Deontay Foreman had to me a fairly predictable letdown. Can I vent

for a second, Adam? This pisses me off about fantasy. In my main home league, I got Deontay Foreman. Last week, had other options, didn't start him. He blew up for 33 or whatever on my bench. This week, I knew this was coming. And yet, you were put in this fantasy position where you're like,

I can't bench a guy. The guy just got 33. What am I going to do? I can't bench him. Gotta play him. Gotta play him. It's probably going to cost me a matchup where the two guys I was considering had 19 and 12 points, but I had to play Foreman after his 33-point blowup where they gave him every touch. You watch this game, they're not even giving him the ball.

Because they got blown out. I know. I know. They went to Darrington Evans in the fourth quarter, but Evans actually scored a touchdown in the second quarter. But yeah, no, this is the problem with Deontay Foreman. I don't know what's going to happen, but he is. If you go look at his game log last year, I mean, talk boom or bust to the max, but touchdown dependent.

Don't get fooled by Gus Edwards, okay? They're pretty much the same. I think Edwards is probably a little bit better, better offense, better chance to score, but they're, you know, they're pretty much the same.

All right. And then, I'm sorry, but until Justin Fields is back and even when Justin Fields is back, I'm not as high on DJ Moore as other people are. He's got three straight games

with right around 50 to 55 yards with Tyson Bajent. I don't consider him a must start. I consider him a probably start, but he's not a layup. Yeah. Hopefully he's better with fields, but I'm still skeptical of fields as a passer.

But, you know, look, I get it with DJ Morris, streaky player for sure. Probably going to start him probably going to get a lot of targets most weeks. Hopefully he can do something with them.

All right. We got, let's see. What are we promoting today? How about Sportsline? It's as good as it gets, man. Terrific fantasy content. You can get the Beyond the Box score article on Sportsline from Jacob Gibbs.

You've got stuff from Jamie at Jamie's DFS lineups. You've got Heath's content, Dave's content. Just everything you could possibly need to set DFS lineups to make your best bets. And of course, to win your fantasy leagues all on Sportsline. What's your promo code, Jacob? Promo code Gibbs.

Yeah, you can pretend it's for Jameer Gibbs if you want. Promo code is Gibbs. First month is one dollar on Sportsline. Oh, there's a look. If you're watching on YouTube, YouTube dot com slash fantasy football today, You can see some of the offerings on sports line, but that's just daily fantasy we're looking at here. So there's a lot more than that. News and notes.

All right. We got a lot of it here and we had some breaking news before the show started on Leonard Fournette, but Kirk cousins with the Achilles actually haven't seen the confirmation, but we know about that. Would you guys like to give your thoughts on the Vikings offense, I guess? Jacob, going forward? It looks really bleak. Kirk Cousins really helps elevate the fantasy value of his pass catchers and just the overall volume of the offense, his ability to maintain drives.

I am pretty worried about all of them like the running back split was gross again i don't think either one of those guys are like top 28 30 running backs going forward for fantasy and hawkinson top six that in top five that in still um but not very excited by him he's really the only one that i think will endure this like edison already was going to be questionable week to week because of the types of downfield routes that he's running and i think some struggles i have with press and man coverage and now it's just going to be really hit or miss with him as well so he's yeah it's tough all around i i hate it because cousins is one of my favorite quarterbacks in the league yeah i mean jacob nailed this one it for those who watch tape like i do in the way that i do we all

come to the same conclusion kirk cousins is a much better quarterback than people realize on tape and that's just the truth of it he throws to all three levels of the field he throws with timing he rips balls into tight spots and he throws before he gets hit that's none of that is going to happen the timing of the past game is going to collapse without kirk cousins completely and the funny thing is even though he is in my opinion one of the five or seven best quarterbacks in film that's still not good enough in the nfl to win a super bowl consistently or compete for one, which shows just the state of, you know, building a roster out. But aside from that, for the fantasy standpoint, it's just going to struggle. The timing of the passing game is going to collapse on itself.

I think Jacob's right that Hawkinson has a chance to survive this because typically you'll see backup rookie type quarterbacks and experienced quarterbacks check down a lot to the tight end or just use them as a safety valve, but it's going to be very low a dot. It's going to be very low ceiling with, with Hockinson. It's no longer going to be difference making at the tight end position there anymore. And we're losing a lot of tight ends, fast Aaron Waller, Hawkinson, and it's all starting to collapse at that position at the top as well. But the other guys, Addison, the running backs, like Jacob said, I don't even know if they're going to be tough to start at this point, which is crazy. But it's bad. All right, Will Levis is expected to start this week.

They have the short week for the game at Pittsburgh on Thursday where he might be facing Mitchell Trubisky. Terod Taylor has the ribs injury, but Daniel Jones has been cleared for contact. They haven't committed in Atlanta. So Daniel Jones is going to start this week at the Raiders. They haven't committed in Atlanta to Ritter or Heineke. I did watch this game this morning, the Falcons-Titans game,

because we're all going to talk about Will Levis. But Heineke looked pretty good, you know? And he did it without Drake London for most of that. London got hurt late in the third quarter. I think Heineke benefited a little bit from the Titans taking a two score lead and easing off, you know, with their defense a little bit,

but I don't think it's a downgrade from Ritter. If Heineke does replace him. However, it seems like Arthur Smith is based on his words, wants to get Ritter back in there if he's healthy. Yeah. Matthew Stafford hurt his thumb and I have not seen an update on that. Kendrick Bourne tore his ACL.

That stinks. Just so he's coming on strong, he tore his ACL. Kendrick Bourne is out for the year. Devontae Parker left with a head injury, and we'll talk about Demario Douglas and any other options in that Patriots offense they have Washington next week. One thing on the...

Yeah, go ahead. Go ahead, Adam. One thing on the Stafford thing, did you see McVay's quote that it possibly might land on ir potentially with this injury i did not see that i saw that yeah he said it wasn't good so if it if it goes to ir for stafford and we're turning to uh brett rippin this is going to be really bad news for cooper cup really bad news for buka nakua i mean at that point we're talking about what we just discussed with the Vikings offense,

the same thing with the Rams. You all right, Adam? No, this week sucks. It is depressing. It's super depressing. We're losing passing game. Like, you can't lose Stafford and Cousins from an already bleak season

from a fantasy standpoint. We already don't have many passing games that work around the NFL. But yeah, I just going to keep an eye on that one because it's a big, big, big downgrade for cup and Nuku, if that happens. And the other two big injuries on offense would be Darren Waller and Drake London Waller with the hamstring London with the groin. Um, uh, Grady Jarrett for the Falcons is out for the season, big time defensive tackle for them. He's out the year uh minka fitzpatrick's out this week for pittsburgh but they could be getting cameron hayward back this week so that's nice

and jacob what do you think about leonard fournette signing with the bills i mean this podcast is just so depressing like leonard fournette signing with the bills i think just makes things worse for james cook and it's already been frustrating for james cook for notes the exact kind of guy that comes in and gets work and plays on passing downs and in the red zone, like short yardage situations. If he's going to be relevant at all, it's going to be in those ways where he's taking Cook off the field for important fantasy reps.

I hate it. James Cook is really good, man. They have nothing but, well harris is hurt but between latavius murray and leonard for now these guys should not be taking james cook off the field they just shouldn't and it's crazy i watched the game and i commented this on on the twitter watching them on the standalone thursday it's like james quick cook processes blocks as well as he processed them at georgia he is unbelievable at setting up his blocks processing where the holes are going to be vision cutbacks he gives you a better chance on every single down. That doesn't mean you have

to play him every down. If you're the bills, I get it. He's not somebody you want to give a massive workload to, but at the same time, it has to be more than this. And it can't just be take him off on pass downs where he can also help you. It's crazy to me. I don't understand the cook thing at all. All right. And there's some other stuff, but, uh, nothing too big, uh, Al woods for the jets he's out for the season defensive tackle yep and uh whatever all right let's get to some advanced stats oh actually before we do that i have a couple of comments okay dan looked like he was ready for arctic exploration friday and now he's ready to hit the club in short sleeves.

Yeah, look, I'm taking a lot of heat for that hoodie that I wore on Friday. I thought it looked pretty good in it. A lot of people said I had a little drip, which I've never heard the term to describe me in my entire life. I'm probably the negative anti-drip kind of guy. But you know what? I might have to go back to that hoodie look because people were liking it. And then this one. I see Dan is wearing the Smedium shirt again.

It's not a Smedium shirt. It's a regular shirt. This is probably a large. It just weirdly cuts off at the sleeve. Probably. This is actually probably a large shirt. Right. You don't even like it.

You don't even know it's a shirt. Actually, it reminded me. I forgot. I am now in costume. I am wearing my costume. I am dressed up as Dan today. Oh, yeah. Just going to go ahead and get the biceps going here.

Put a couple of socks up there, you know. Adam is so screwed when we finally match up in any kind of athletic competition. What do you have to do, Dan? You have to sit. Just look at him. You have to sit like this so people can see the biceps. Not an ounce of muscle on Adam's body at any point. Nowhere across the body

it's true it's true plus this is one of my better shirts i don't want to stretch the sleeves yeah yeah be careful um all right uh okay advanced stats jacob what do you got for us today all right um we'll start with the houston texans i want to hear dan's thoughts um i think he dug into the offense as a whole so we we'll talk about Damian Pierce later. We'll kind of save that for this discussion. I wanted to bring up that this is a good point from a Texans beat writer that I saw on Twitter, John Crumpler, that the Texans were basically just given favorable, neutral running looks. And that's Carolina just like really was hands off and like

was like we're gonna stop the passing game we're gonna stop these wide receivers they only played the panthers only played man four percent of the time which was the fourth lowest of any team in any game this season and so if we see this if we see teams you if we see teams, you know, really overcommit to stopping Tank Dell and Nico Collins and the explosive plays, it could be pretty detrimental for Houston's offense. Cause the offensive line continues to be a mess and lost their starting center this week. Yep. And if they, if they can't move the ball on the ground, they can't get any momentum going because they're switching up the running back so often. Like, I don don't know what to expect i'm curious if you saw anything from the passing game from stroud specifically because nothing that i looked at in the underlying numbers stood

out as like him having a particularly bad game or getting thrown off of his tendencies you know it was just kind of i don't know also their play volume was super super low houston's was this week so that makes things look even worse but they had had the lowest overall plays of any team. Well, I just want to, before Dan jumps in, I'm reading this article right now from a USA today, Texans wire.usa today. And so this is saying that the Panthers use the exact blueprint. This is a quote. I'm going to, the author is Brian Barefield. The Panthers use the exact blueprint that their NFC South division opponent, Atlanta Falcons set three weeks prior when they defeated the Texans 2119. They basically,

they played back. They took away all the downfield passing options and only five of Stroud's 16 completions went for 10 or more yards. And Stroud said a lot of teams are being smart and playing back. Even when I do take the check down, this team was knocking it down. That's an adjustment. D'Amico Ryan said after the game that teams are making adjustments. I didn't know exactly what he was referring to.

Apparently, it's this. They are playing back and taking away anything downfield. And yeah, you're going to have to run the ball. If teams are going to do that and they can't run the bar, what'd you see, Dan? Yeah.

Well, first of all, I just want to say what a testament that is. The CJ Stratton is a rookie that defense is already playing that too high shell look against him, which we've seen defenses try to use to stop burrow in the past and Mahomes great testament to him. And this was an example of when you watch the tape,

it looks a lot different than the box score, the perception. Because I thought C.J. Stroud had an unbelievable game in this one. I'll point out a couple throws. 14-18, quarter two with third and ten. He had the perfect timing, perfect ball placement, and perfect velocity on a seam bender to Noah Brown between one of the tightest windows I've seen a ball thrown into. But then you see throughout the game,

the Texans kept putting Stroud in horrible positions. Bad pass protection breakdowns led to, you know, simulated pressures were getting there. They only bring four, but they put six or seven on the line of scrimmage that really confused and mess with the Texans offensive line. And this one, they had long fields, a tight end fumble, the ball in a horrible spot to put them. And what I came down was there was just no run game consistently due to a combination of two things, one poor execution, of course, but it's two, just not sticking with Damian Pierce long enough. You want to see one of the best runs of the week. It came from Damian, Damian Pierce on a second 11 with five 20 to go in the third quarter, immediate penetration should have been a tackle for two negative two or three

yards. Pierce did a great job, jump cutting, getting through that and turning into a 14 yard game, but they have to stick with him. They have to keep him in the football game. let him get into some kind of rhythm. They took him out all the time. Mike Boone was getting snaps, but you know, on tape, there wasn't many, what you just said is true. Like, except for the six 59 in the first quarter throw where Stroud missed Nico Collins on a deep ball that I actually think was more Nico's fault because it was the one time they got no safety elbow for the top. And if you look at the route, Nico Collins is running a vert and he in at the, at the end of the route, he kind of stems inside to stack the DB,

which might be taught. I'm not exactly sure what the call is, but if you look at where the ball lands, it was perfectly in stride for where Collins ran 90% of the route straight, but then he cuts inside at the very end to stack the DB. And then the throw is a little off target, but that was really their only opportunity for a deep shot the entire game. And that was in the first quarter on the first drive. So you are right. What you know, this analysis is correct. They took it away. Can I say, but the only way to another thing that he

said was, um, we've got to take some shots. We've got to be more explosive and do some things down the field. We can't just let people dictate what we do just because we're not throwing the ball short. I mean, that's me getting more trust from the coaches and the guys getting their depth in the routes. Sure. And that's, that's, that's fair too. But you know, outside of that, he made some really good throws in this game. Stroud. I thought the one I talked about earlier that seam vendor, and then one where he bootleg left, uh, the opposite, his right shoulder and then put perfect trajectory and touch on a pass. I think it was like a 22 or 26 yard gain to Noah Brown late in the game. But the big thing here is we got to get Pierce on the field more.

Like I, it just, it doesn't make sense to me to put in Mike Boone and to put in Singletary and that may not be the solution because sometimes this happens, Adam and Jacob, where teams will go revert to that too high shell, take away all the big shots and really give you these light boxes where it says, okay, run the ball. You have an advantage in the run game, but if you're blocking execution on the interior offensive line is not there and it's not there for the Texans, it doesn't really matter if you have a favorable look and an advantage in the box, you need to still be able to execute the blocks. And that just wasn't really happening on this game tape against Carolina defense. I don't know if it can improve against other defenses or maybe they get healthier on the line.

But like Jacob said, another injury to his center. They've already lost major pieces for the year. And the Panthers have been the easiest team to run on this year. There are two teams where they have negative expectation against opponent rushes. It's them and the Raiders. It doesn't get better than this matchup. Yeah. No, it's them and the Raiders. It doesn't get better than this matchup. Yeah, it's disappointing. I got to say, I'm less gung-ho to start any Texan next week.

Collins, I think, was the only one I felt was a borderline must-start because they spread the ball around too much. Noah Brown led the team in receiving. But if teams are really going to be taking away the deep ball, that's directly impacting Nico Collins. So to me, it's like I kind of feel like they're back to where we started. We're looking at flex options here until I see otherwise. Hopefully they can make a quick adjustment.

A lot of teams are able to adjust. You've identified the problem. Now you've got a counterpunch. We'll see if it happens. What else you got, Jacob? No, Brown. Hold on, hold on. let me take a break sorry okay we're a little overdue for for a commercial break here we'll be right back on fantasy football today everybody with more advanced stats from jacob and analysis from dan did you know that across ontario utility damage happens 19 times a day that's over 4222 incidents a. Don't let your next dig be one that causes costly

delays or safety risks. Before you break ground, make it a point to request a locate. It's not just the law. It's a step to keep your team and community safe. Visit ontarioonecall.ca and avoid unnecessary damages to get the job done right. Data sourced from the ORCGA 2023 Dirt Report. So you said Noah Brown led the team in receiving. He also ran more routes than Nico Collins. I thought maybe that was just a weird, you know, Robert Woods veteran thing, like, but no, Nico Collins continues to be third on the team in routes run, which is just annoying. Like you talk about trusting him, but really I don't trust the role. He has to be unbelievably efficient to be productive on a week-to-week basis for fantasy just because of the depth of his targets and then also only running around on about 80%,

85% of the dropbacks. So that's just frustrating. Yeah, I'm moving these Texans guys down for the time being. Some positive news. Arizona, Trey McBride, second news, Arizona, Trey McBride, rookie or second year tight end Trey McBride joined Rob Gronkowski and Aaron Hernandez as the only tight end since 2000 to record 14 or more targets in a game at the age of 23 or younger. And so this is interesting because McBride was somebody who we saw be an elite target

drawer at the collegiate level, 29% target per route run in his third year. And then in his fourth year at Colorado State, 33% target per route run is really unprecedented for the tight end position. And then last year, his per route data was horrible. 12.5% targets per route run as a rookie. And so I was a little bit worried, but also it's a tough position to adjust to. We've seen this time and time again with tight ends. And so to see them really getting him the ball, I think his target per run rate is up there in the top five on the year. I think it's maybe just behind Travis Kelsey, obviously 14 and one game inflates

things, but, um, there's not much in Arizona and we've seen Zach Ertz be targeted at a really high rate. And so I think with Nick bride taking over here, he's got a runway to really be pretty relevant for fantasy. We're going to talk about him in more detail later. So I'm just going to keep this moving. 56% snap rate for Zach Charbonnet, 44% for Kenneth Walker. Walker didn't practice all week. And it was a brutal matchup against the Browns on the ground where Seattle really kind of aired things out more than usual.

And Charbonnet got those snaps. So I wouldn't overreact to it but it's at least noteworthy for Charbonnet because he really hasn't had very many positive data points from a usage standpoint this year. Javante Williams talked about positive data points 30 touches and we talked about Javante last week obviously that his efficiency has gotten much better as the year's gone on. He's starting to avoid tackles and look healthier, and the usage has really followed. Season high, 84% of the running back rush here in Denver last week. Only an 11% snap rate for everybody's favorite running back, Jule McLaughlin, who continued to be amazing on a pre-touch basis. Yeah, I know, I know.

Yeah. George Pickens, another guy we got really excited about last week. We highlighted how he was winning at all different levels. Matt Canada just couldn't help himself. Had to get him back to a 63% go corner or post route rate for George Pickens this week. So average route depth was almost 12 yards downfield. How did he watch the tape that he had from last week

when Pickens ran different routes and ran them really well, including the slant where he created more separation than anyone I've seen basically on the slant, and then go back to that? I just don't get it. No, he ran one slant this week. So very, very cool stuff there that's going to make Pickens tough to ever start, really.

Some actual positive news, Demario Douglas, rookie six-round pick for the Patriots, got a lot of preseason training camp hype. He's kind of the only man standing right now in New England. I mean, for reference, Jalen Rager was second on the team in routes run this week. I didn't even know he was with the Patriots, but Douglas has target shares of 20 and 25% in his past two games. His target per route run rate over the course of the full season is 26%, which is really pretty high. They're short yardage routes. This is exactly how he's used in college as well. So there's limited upside, especially in this offensive environment. But if you're in a full ppr league uh i think he's

going to be somebody you can start most weeks because he's running around in almost every drop back and there's not really anyone else to throw to i'm curious if mike gosicki maybe could emerge because he really doesn't play tight end he's available in every league obviously his routes didn't increase much this week but like if you're the Patriots and you're looking at who you have, who else are you going to run out there? Gasicki, only 17% of his routes have been in line at tight end compared to 62% from the slot

and 19% out wide. So I think it makes sense that he could play a larger role and we've seen him be productive in the past. So for an offense that really is looking for any help, I don't know. He's somebody to keep in mind.

Well, you know who else could catch some freaking passes for them? How about Ramondre Stevenson? Right. That would be great. Yeah, you got Juju. Maybe he could work in there. Hunter Henry could get some more targets.

We'll see how it goes. But short area target. Remember we talked about how the last two weeks, weeks six and seven, Kendrick Bourne had had two big games with an eight out of two yards. So maybe that could work for Demario Douglas as well.

All right. Is that it? Or is there more? Do you want me to keep going? I feel like we're just kind of spiraling and getting more and more depressing the more we talk about this. It's making me sad.

I'm already depressed. So you can't knock me down anymore here um i did have a just a couple of comments i think mostly about dan um this one adam looks like he's working on his taxes yeah i was i was definitely deep in thought i was looking at um kyler murray's tight end throw percentage over the last two seasons pretty low actually like not even top 20 in tight end uh target rate for kyler murray however zach hertz has been kind of a must start with kyler murray so i think i think trey mcbride could also be that um and some of that in 2021 i believe was half the season, well, not quite half, but without Zach Ertz because that was a mid-season trade.

We'll see if we have a mid-season trade this year. That'd be great. Also, this one, Dan's t-shirt rest of season? Yeah, I think this is a drop. This is not a good t-shirt. It's not a good t-shirt for you. I don't think it fits you right. It doesn't fit you right. This is actually a great t-shirt.

It fits me great. Jacob, can you confirm this? It's hanging off. Look-shirt for you. I don't think it fits you right. It doesn't fit you right. This is actually a great t-shirt. It fits me great. Jacob, can you confirm this? I think it's hanging off. Look at the back right arm. I think it's hanging off a little bit. I think the neck, you got a little bacon neck. This is an amazing t-shirt. Look how good I look in this freaking t-shirt. Adam, somebody like you needs to understand a couple things density to your body, you're like the least dense person I've maybe ever met in my life, Adam.

Obviously, shirts are going to fit differently on people like you. But on me, it's hard to find a good fit, okay? You have to work through it. And I think this is a fine fit. Jacob, what do you think? Dan, you look great, brother. Thanks. That's a big question.

There was a funny there was a funny comment um i'm trying to find it said oh yeah no muscles for adam and yet he didn't play pokemon what did you do as a kid adam it's a great question i played i can't believe you didn't have the joy and the pain of playing pokemon red on game boy and then seeing one day after you put hundreds of hours into it as a kid your game file is corrupt because Game Boy was a crappy system back then. Do you know what I'm talking about, Jacob, when you got corrupt games? Jacob is so bored. Jacob just left.

I think he's going to get something Pokemon related. I can scratch and reach my back, Mike. We have a poll question on YouTube. Jacob just left the shot, came back, and yawned. That's how bored he was. But there he's got Game Boy. There it is. He's still got it. He's still got the Pokemon Game Boy. Love it, Jacob.

The YouTube poll is, were you a Mortal Kombat or a Street Fighter kid growing up? And even though the answer is both, we were forced to pick one. And I picked Mortal Kombat, which has 51% of the vote, compared to 34%. If you have to pick one and i picked mortal combat which has 51 of the vote uh compared to 34 if you don't have to pick one mortal combat yeah mortal combat for sure who's your guy who'd you fight with me sub zero yeah sub zero six somebody said raiden that's a great call somebody

brought up cabal very very cool i actually really loved nightwolf um i kind of like the darker characters like him and cabal well that, that must have been like Mortal Kombat 8. I don't even know who you're talking about. Scorpion, Sub-Zero, Reptile. I was usually one of them. All right. We'll move on. We have some other topics to talk about. We have our five big topics to get to.

And yeah, why don't we just get into that now? Let's do it. Five big topics. We'll start with from Scott. Who is the guy that you were high on going into the season that's fallen short of expectations? And a guy going forward you think can win you your fantasy leagues and championships?

Yeah, I'll start here. I look through my rankings, my tiers before the season, before this to try to figure out the best example of this. And this has definitely been one of my better years for the tiers. I'm not going to lie. games my tears before the season before this to try to figure out the best example of this and this is definitely been one of my better years for the tears i'm not gonna lie just looking at some of the guys i have in green and in red but the biggest one that i would missed on or the one i was highest on who i missed on was probably so my biggest miss is travis etn for sure but that's the other way the one i was highest on that missed, looking at this now,

Garrett Wilson would be the one that comes to mind. No, that's not your fault. That's not your fault. I don't know. I had Tony Pollard ranked pretty high. I had Tony Pollard not as high as everybody else. I had him as RB9, but that was still pretty high, and Tony Pollard's been a biggest miss. I would say the answer probably has to be Pollard here,

and that's probably a lot of managers are going through that. I'm trying to get to Darren Waller was a huge miss for me. I thought Darren Waller would be. It's just like, I don't have any misses. No, no, no. I have some misses. I have some misses. ETN was a huge miss.

I'll go first on this one. I didn't have any misses. Darren Waller. Okay. That was a big miss for me. Tony Pollard, I had ranked high as well. KK Dobbins, but that was a big miss for me yeah yeah tony pollard i had ranked high as well um kk dobbins but that was injury yeah there were some there was there were definitely those were the players that come to mind for me i had debo samuel ranked higher than consensus but again

probably more injury related there um all right let's get it let's get an answer from jacob here what do you got jacob damian pierce easy answer for me i was really excited for damian pierce i thought he from a talent perspective like couldn't really miss and i i thought the offense was going to be a lot better which it has been obviously got concerned when the line got super banged up before the season started so moved him down a little bit but still was pretty cautiously optimistic that we're going to see a huge year from pierce thought he'd be more involved as a receiver he has not been at all um his route participation is way down and then yeah just looking at him as a rusher he's been mid to bad

like and you can blame that on the offensive line if you want uh but his avoided tackle rate is down from 28 to 19 he doesn't have a run of 20 or more yards all year. His explosive rush rate in terms of 10 plus yard runs is down from 11% to 7%. It's been horrible. And I just straight up could not have seen that coming even with the offensive line and everything.

I still thought he'd be like a low-end startable RB2, but he's not, man. It's really brutal. So my bad on that. Sorry. And there's one guy who's just torpedoing my season

and my seasons i think is actually playing pretty well it's not translating to fantasy you should know you've done enough shows with me you should know who i'm talking about anybody want to guess in the chat jerry judy no you were high on him again uh i was hot high yeah i was before his injury. Give me a position. Give me a position. He's the quarterback on like 80% of my teams. Oh, you were high on Trevor Lawrence? No, Lawrence.

Trevor Lawrence. QB 18 per game. Unbelievable. Of a 6-2 team. And I truly think he's having a good year. I don't know if people really feel that way. But his fantasy production is just not there um and I don't really know I think his touchdown rate will go up a little bit but I don't see him dropping like 30 point games at this point if you

get 23 points from him you'd be thrilled so yeah um I'm really disappointed that that's that's torpedoing my and Calvin Ridley I think goes with that i was pretty unimpressed when i went back and i watched calvin ridley catches and targets uh against pittsburgh there's just i think we've talked about this before there are no layups for him you know like nothing easy but also he doesn't really look like an explosive player so i'm not sure he's if he had an easy one that he'd do something after the catch with it. So my faith in Lawrence and Ridley is pretty low at the moment from a fantasy perspective. From a real-life perspective, I think Lawrence is having a very nice season, but it's not working out for me. Who's going to turn it around?

Yeah, I was going to say on the flip side of that question would be who's going to turn it around, but I think it's just necessarily who's going to be your league winner type. And it's a player I'm going to throw out there who i brought up last week did a ton of analysis if you guys want to listen to his film breakdown last week and then jacob discussed him a little bit earlier today it's giovante williams of the broncos i mean he looks much better last week at least i didn't see his film from this week now the touches are increasing every week there's involvement in the red zone the broncos defense has finally figured out how to be competent.

I took a while. I mean, they had a defensive coordinator running a system he wasn't familiar with from a philosophical standpoint, which to me is one of the craziest things I've ever seen to start a season there with Vance Joseph trying to run Fangio type principles. But it seems to now be figured they're figuring it out. They're settling in as a defense, or at least they have been in recent weeks. And that's going to mean more opportunities for Javante Williams. Cause it's obvious what we saw this week with the Broncos. They basically tried to hide Russell Wilson and that was the game plan. And that's

where they're at with this quarterback. He's not somebody who you game plan around anymore. He's the opposite. So with that said, that means more opportunities for running backs. And in this case, Javante Williams, because like Jacob said said he's starting to take over almost completely the workload there so i really think he has a chance to be that guy who ends your season as like our fringe rb1 rb2 and is that type of player who can pull you through the playoffs and when he's healthy man giovante williams is an absolute monster like highest avoided tackle rate of any running back at the collegiate level over the past five years damn and then he comes in and immediately does it as a rookie like leads the league and avoided tackle rate so get this guy healthy and he's got a pretty nice runway here

matchups down the stretch other than like new england they're all pretty soft detroit that's not a great matchup um but yeah i think he could put up some pretty big numbers assuming denver's offense doesn't completely implode and let me say one thing about avoided tackle rate real quick because i think it's an excellent stat. That's really in a lot of ways, predictive. We've seen some studies show it, but that was always my concern when I was down on ETN this,

this off season as a fantasy asset, I was concerned about losing some receiving work. I was concerned about red zone work and those fantasy kind of situational concerns brought me down on him, but he always had that really high avoided to miss tackle rate as well. Jacob, correct on drivers. He can,

yeah, Clemson that dates back to last year. And he's showing this year that that's a good sign of what could be a potential breakout. Cause he is breaking out this year in front of our eyes, ETN. And so just something to focus on when we bring up these missed tackle rates and avoided missed tackle.

So overall for a running back, it's, I think it's a really good indicator of what could be to come unless you're damien pierce yes all right let's move on to our next one unless jacob you want to just i've got some guys yeah hn obviously i think could be a league winner um if you've been able to be patient or buy him tajay spears we don't know exactly what's going to happen in tennessee but if derrick were to be moved like he definitely could and then even if derrick henry gets an injury or anything like there's a few passes spears really going off and the offense looks like it could be better under will levis we're going to get to that

more detail dk meccaf this is kind of an off the wall one that i wanted to bring up um his underlying data is pretty much in line with what we've seen he's been used down the field more but his target rates about the same and because of that combination is explosive reception rate is way up. And so like the fact that he's averaging more yards per run than he has in several years, even with Seattle's offense looking pretty rough, um, in terms of an efficiency standpoint in the passing game is encouraging to me. He's got some, a lot of winnable matchups down the stretch. And I think he's just somebody you might be able to get pretty cheap right now he's really not been productive at all um he's

coming off of 14 target games so i'm i'm cautiously optimistic about him he like he what if he's the next cd lamb you know what i mean where you've been waiting for it all year you know the player's good and then he just has the blow-up game and all of a sudden it's like yeah lamb is back to being a top eight guy like we knew um yeah i would i would be buying that cup if i could okay uh riley's second big topic for us riley says the titans resurgence and outlook rest of season where do you rank i don't know that i want to really get into where i rank will levis and deandre hopkins i mean we can obviously and der Derek Henry. It's tough. They asked us to get on Friday, but I'm

excited. I mean, Levis was great. I did watch, like I said, I watched the Titans-Falcons game and damn, he was good. But he had an 11.5 intended air yards per pass attempt, which is incredibly high. Second

highest of the week behind only Derek Carr. Nobody throws deep that often. But hard not to be impressed with him. Just hard to know. It was almost like a Devon Achan type game from a quarterback. Like huge plays. You're like, ah, he can't do this again.

We'll see if he can back it up. All right, what do we think about the Titans? Are we buying in to Hopkins as a must start going forward? And by the way, it is not a certainty that Will Levis is going to stay at quarterback. If he doesn't do well on Thursday and Tannehill's healthy, there's no guarantee that Levis is staying. But we'll see. So anyway, the question is, are you buying Hopkins as a must-start guy?

I think he's approaching that territory. His target data and all of his receiving volume has been really good all year. They just haven't been producing very much offense overall in terms of play volume. And then the opportunities that he gets are pretty low-quality ones, just given the state of the offense. But if what we saw this week is realistic at all,

which I'm definitely curious to hear what Dan thinks about Levis, then yeah, definitely this setup could be there for Hopkins to be a top 24 guy. Yeah. Should I get into the film analysis of the offense? I mean, I'll start with Hopkins to answer that question. I would say that with Will Levis, Hopkins becomes a much more appealing wide receiver for me based on the style levis is playing or at least played in this game and i think will likely carry over though this

was very well game planned i think by the titans they took advantage of a lot of what the falcons tried to do from a standpoint of let's stop the run let's make this game about derrick henry let's be like oh we're facing a rookie quarterback they don't really like to open it up. And they gave them a lot of looks that opened up these opportunities for one-on-ones that Will Levis did take advantage of. He wasn't your typical rookie quarterback. There were positives and negatives to this game. I don't think it was like a perfect game from Will Levis on tape. I think the negatives, which I'll go over first, and they were outweighed by the positives, but the negatives were that the timing was still off

on a lot of the spacing concepts, and those are timing-based pass plays where the ball just needs to be out of his hand when the receiver gets out of, basically before the receiver gets out of his break, but not like three seconds after, which it was at times. Ball placement, he missed a conco for what should have been a massive play. Really great design. He was wide open

by like 20 yards. He just threw it behind him. Are you talking about the one that Okonkwo dropped? That's not a drop, though, Adam. I'll show you that on tape. That's not a drop, Adam. He's wide open. That's not a drop. He should have caught that ball, hit him right in the hands. That ball was behind him, and he turned like this to try to catch it. He's running

a deep over on the vertical plane. The ball needs to be ahead of him. That's a bad throw. Every quarterback coach will... You have to credit the quarterback for that. If a conco has to turn around to a ball like that, he also missed a conco on an out route, like 13 yards, where it was just low and away on a third and four. But outside of those two throws,

things I really liked about Will Levis on tape, he stood tall and poised in the pocket from the very first snap. He looked very comfortable in the pocket. A lot of rookies, you'll see, they don't have that pocket presence. They don't have that pocket manipulation ability. He had that right away. And like I said, the positives definitely outweigh the negatives. There was the first touchdown. One thing they did great in this game, the Titans, they used a lot of screens. They called a lot of screens for Levinson. His first start, they had a quick pass on a fast three in motion from Tajay Spears. They had

designed fake rollout left pitch where they did the chiefs red zone play. Um, the first touchdown wasn't, was max protect. They used a lot of max protect in this game with two, uh, two man route combinations, which is smart in my opinion, for a quarterback like Will Levis, who is big, tall throws over the top, has a huge arm. I think that's just a good way to do it. And that first touchdown to Hopkins was a field side throw. That's what impresses me the most. And what I mean by the field side throw is when you watch football, I've explained this before, but I'll explain this again. Think of where the ball is snapped from and then those two, the lines in between them.

And if you're throwing to the field side, it means you're throwing from that hash, the far hash, to the far field side. And that's a throw that a lot of quarterbacks don't even attempt in games. Like Daniel Jones can go a whole game without attempting a field side throw. I see this for most quarterbacks who I watch and Levis is not afraid. He threw the field side. Then there was another throw later in the game, which was a field side throw.

Again, a lot of max protect, which was good. But the best throw this game by far was the 706 quarter for second 11 touchdown throw to Westbrook. Yes. The fourth. I forgot how to Brown. The fourth. Oh my gosh. I put it on Twitter from the end zone angle. So those who want to watch, go take a look at it.

It's one of the best throws in the entire season for many quarterback. They had a designed rollout, right? Where I'm pretty sure the Titans are so well aware of will Levis's arm talent that they designed this play to be a throwback across the formation. But Levis rolls all the way, almost all the way out of bounds to his right stops his momentum flips his his shoulders back and then rips the ball across his body to the left and leads the receiver perfectly in stride but doesn't throw it to where he's open throws him in stride

to the opposite pylon in the end zone almost a full field throw it was unbelievable and that was the kind of flick that you saw that people liked about his arm talent, that ability to kind of just naturally get the ball out with a really quick flick release. And yet it was perfectly thrown in stride with a crazy amount of velocity too. That was one of the best throws of the season by any quarterback. So I think when it comes to Levis and fantasy, it comes down to this. He's going to miss some, I still think he's going to mess up some of the easy stuff, the spacing, the quick timing routes, the ball placement at times is going to keep them off schedule, but he's going to make up for it when you give him these one-on-ones and he just says

F it and he throws it and his arm talent takes over. So I think that's the type of player who can actually help you in fantasy leagues. He's going to be a really big help for Hopkins because he's willing to throw those passes that maybe Tannehill was a little more hesitant on for better or worse. And maybe Tannehill wants a little more hesitant on for better or worse. And maybe Tannehill wants to keep the offense on schedule more than Levis does, but Levis is going to make these throws and they're going to lead to big plays. I'm still a little skeptical. I'm just going to put that out there, but definitely from a fantasy standpoint, helps Hopkins. And he's the type of guy who can potentially be a good for a QB to, uh, for two quarterback kind of league.

Okay. And, uh, people are not agreeing with your take about the Oconco play, but I will say you are right. I just went back and watched it. It was a bad throw. It was, it was wide open for the entire play. A hundred percent should have caught that ball. That was an easy catch.

It was a bad throw, but it was an easy catch. I mean, he had to adjust back. People don't understand how hard that is. No, dude, you could have got, someone said, Dan could have caught that ball how hard that is. No. Dude, you could have got—

Someone said Dan could have caught that ball. I agree with that. I do believe you could have caught that ball. I would have never caught that ball. It was an easy catch to make, and probably a 50-yard game. 40 to 50 yards. I mean, if Conco is wide open on a deep over, the ball has to be ahead of him. Yeah, it was a bad throw.

I hate when people blame these on the receiver. This is a bad throw. I'm not blaming the receiver. It was a bad throw, but he absolutely should have caught that ball. He definitely should have caught that ball. I guess. All right. Yeah, I think also Derek Henry looked pretty good in this game.

And if they're going to be more competitive, if they're going to be able to move the ball, it's going to help Henry. Tajay Spears is super fun. I mean, the guy is just like he's electric, and I don't think he's going to matter unless they trade Henry, which I don't think they're going to do. I doubt they're going to trade Hopkins, like I said yesterday.

How do you say, oh, hi, Will Levis. Here, go out there and win some games. And by the way, we're trading away your only good receiver, basically. It's Mike Vrabel. Vrabel plays for the now. I never thought they'd be sellers. He thinks he can win this division. He might have a shot to. No. Come on.

Jaguars are running. We'll see at the end. The Titans always end up competitive in these seasons. It's a competitive division. It's not a bad team there. All right. So let's, uh, let's reassess after Thursday, but a good start for Levis obviously need to add them in two quarterback

leagues. You might want to take a shot. I mean, maybe he gives you a, if you're the cousins manager or Stafford or whatever, maybe he gives you a little jolt here. Um, Pittsburgh,

Tampa Bay, Jacksonville, Carolina. There's some good and some bad there. Uh, third one is from bada Bing Bada Boom. And he says Devon Achan is inching towards a return, but what is he returning to, Jacob?

I think the setup is really good for Achan when he gets back. Most third looks like maybe he's wearing down a little bit. Jeff Wilson hasn't taken any significant work really so i would expect hn to come in and fill the exact role that he had been before the injury and he was a people remember starting to like look like the 1a with most of being the 1b in terms of usage um red zone work all kinds of stuff most of it was running a little bit more um routes than hn but everything else was leaning towards hn from usage standpoint so i think when he's back he's a top 12 top 15 fantasy running

back with the upside for a lot more um i thought i i liked what we saw from miami's offense this week it looked a lot better um i guess i don't understand the question are we like concerned that the offense is not going to be as productive as it was when A-Chan was healthy? I don't know. I think A-Chan's one of the more interesting, puzzling players to project. How can you project a guy to average 12 yards per carry or whatever he's averaging, 12 and a half? How can you expect a guy to be as good as he was?

I want to say he had one carry in week two or three, and then the three games after that, he was, I want to say in the three, he had one carry in week two or three. And then the three games after that, he was, I want to say RB two behind McCaffrey. Maybe he was RB one, honestly, but with 18 carries, eight carries and 11 carries with four, three and one catch.

And he scored four touchdowns, two touchdowns and one touchdown. So I don't think he's going to be getting 15 carries. I think he's going to be in that 10-11 range, hopefully a few catches. I think he could push up into 15 carries. I think we haven't seen it yet. Can he stay healthy, though?

If you're the Dolphins, and this guy is already hurt, we know he's smaller, do you really put that on his plate? He had a bigger workload, though, at Texas A&M. It wasn't like he was somebody who just played in that bit role like a Damian Pierce did at Florida. And I think, to me, the most noticeable difference is just schematically what the Dolphins are able to do when he has been healthy and on the field this year

versus the games he's been out. And part of that is also their issues on the offensive line. They're going to have to get healthier there. They have majors on the left side of the offensive line schematically speaking it changes everything they can do because they put him in motion they use him as a receiver they use him as a fast three they do all these different things as eye candy for the defenses and that's not something they've really been able to replicate with him off the field in my opinion that's the difference here right now like salvinamed doesn't have that kind of like nobody really views that from a defensive standpoint like the oboes and coordinators don't

really game plan to stop anyone but a chan from that running back room yeah so we got this question i got it in an email from mike got in the chat here from kenny devon a chan or tony pollard rest of season that's a really interesting question i think injury risk exists for both of them um and hn to me stands out as a guy who has more upside pollard has not shown really any semblance of upside and then if you look at the like underlying advanced rushing metrics they're on opposite ends of the spectrum where hn this is something i wanted to bring up yeah he's like producing this ridiculous efficiency and everything but it's not just long runs where he's busting through holes and not getting touched. He's avoiding tackles at the highest rate of any player.

Almost a 40% avoided tackle rate, whereas Tony Pollard is last in the league or has been near last in the league all year long. I think I might actually choose A-Chain, which seems insane. I would go A-Chain as well. All right. We'll take a break here. When we come back, is the luster

wearing off of Mostert, Ken Walker, and DeAndre Swift. Are they RB ones or RB twos? Uh, that's one of our questions. And then we'll talk about tight ends to finish the show. We'll be right back on fantasy football today. All right. Two more topics here is the luster wearing office from Texans, Rob, by the way. Thank you. Texans Rob is the luster wearing off of Raheem Mostert, Ken Walker, and DeAndre Swift? Are they RB1s or RB2s? Dan, are you particularly concerned about Mostert, Ken Walker, or Swift? Not particularly. I'd say they're closer to the borderline RB1, RB2 range.

Mostert might be the one I actually am concerned with of all those three, just because of what Jacob said. Maybe there's some wear and tear. He doesn't really have a history of massive workloads. Could it be possible that he either gets injured or just is so ineffective that his role gets diminished with HN coming back? So that would be the one I'm most worried about most for sure. But the other two, I'm not as worried about. I think Walker was more, he just didn't practice all week. Wasn't a big part of the game plan for that reason. People underestimate how important

that is a lot of the time. And then on Swift in Swift's case, it's just, I think the Eagles offense just hasn't been as effective for whatever reason since that jets game uh might be defense i have to look into it more and watch some tape on it but could be defenses adjusting to their scheme i'm not exactly sure but something has been going on there with the run game not being as effective okay on most third he avoided almost six tackles per game uh through the first six games and then over the past two he has just two total avoided tackles in those through the first six games. And then over the past two, he has just two total avoided tackles in those games. Could be a blip on the radar, could be

random. But that is worth noting that it does seem like he might be slowing down. And then obviously he has a chain looming. So to me, he's like clearly the most concerning of this group. Similarly, in terms of like potentially wearing down, we've got DeAndre Swift with a 32% and 38% avoided tackle rate in his first two games as the clear-cut starter. Since then, he has not been above 13% in a game. That is pretty wild to me, to not have a single game with more than three avoided tackles since then. I could see them going away from him a little bit they've really been giving him a ton of work and he's somebody who we've never really seen be able to hold up

to this kind of a workload um so i am a little bit concerned about swift as well walker's the guy whose data doesn't like worry me nothing we've seen from walker suggests that he's falling off i think he's actually been one of the most improved players at any position um from 2022 to 2023 i've really loved everything we've seen from kenneth walker but on the flip side of that zach charbonnet has been really really good with the opportunities that he's gotten and it wouldn't surprise me if walker if he's banged up right now, if Charbonnet gets more opportunities and Piquero really likes what he sees. He's the kind of running back, you know, you've heard this a million times. He's the kind of running back who Piquero falls in love with

and he does everything right and he hasn't done anything wrong so far. And so like if he gets more opportunities and does well, maybe this just develops into more of a split backfield than we've seen up until this point. And I don't know if the offense is necessarily good enough to support a split backfield where Kenneth Walker is still producing RB one fantasy numbers. No,

they don't throw to their running backs enough. Yeah. I'm a little bit worried about all of them for different reasons, but Walker from a talent standpoint, I think is the one who like gives you the least reason for concern. So what Pete Carroll said about Ken Walker last week is one of the knock on But Walker, from a talent standpoint, I think is the one who gives you the least reason for concern. So what Pete Carroll said about Ken Walker last week, I guess one of the knock on Ken Walker was that he was just all or nothing.

A lot of really negative plays and a lot of home runs last year. Pete Carroll said, quote, I think he realizes that you can't try to break everything. He's making a little clearer choices about hitting the line of scrimmage. And there's good things that happen when you do that, too. Breaks, like breakaways, come from that also. I think he's doing really well. He's a highly creative runner. You have to give him space.

He's going to go for stuff. And that's the only way he's going to make some of these amazing plays too. How would you rank them? And by the way, Swift, Swift in his last five games, he's averaging 3.65 yards per carry. And out of 41 running backs with 30 or more carries in that stretch, he's 33rd in explosive run And out of 41 running backs with 30 or more carries in that stretch, he's 33rd in explosive run rate out of 41 running backs.

He's 33rd in avoid rate. He's 16th in percentage of carries for zero or negative yards. 16th lowest rate. So that's good. But the metrics are concerning. However, he's better than Eckler in those metrics. He's better than Pollard in those metrics. And this reminds me a little bit of Nick Chubb last year on this show,

breaking that down. Nick Chubb had a bad stretch, and it was kind of unlike what we'd seen from him in his career. And, of course, he turned it around because he's Nick Chubb. So I'm hoping these are just bad stretches. How would you rank those three rest of season, Mostert, Walker, Swift? I would go Walker, Swift, Mostert. Same.

Yeah, me too. And then Jerry. Swift has some tough matchups coming up too. He has Dallas twice. He has the Chiefs. He has San Francisco. Look, if they keep throwing to Swift,

I don't care. But that hasn't been the case. I think three targets in two straight games. Jerry, with our last topic, the state of the tight ends, LOL. Let's rank them rest of season. Interested to see where McBride

and Taysom Hill end up. LOL is right, because that's just how I feel any time I'm asked to rank tight ends. Just do the top two, and you're fine. Right. So after Kelsey and Andrews,

I would go Sam Laporta and then George Kittle, and then TJ Hawkinson. We talked about the injury to the quarterback being super detrimental to him i think you could even push him behind evan ingram dalton kincaid and dallas goddard i would say right now i would sell so high on george kittle we have so much evidence yeah that whenever debo and iuk are both on the field they they all suffer, but especially Kittle. But he's in a little bit of a groove right now, so I will give him that.

But I do think worse times are ahead for Kittle. After that top eight, which I think ends with Ingram, Goddard. Can I have it again? Yeah, Kelsey, Andrews, Laporta, Kittle, Hawkinson, Evan Ingram, Dallas Godddard dalton kincaid okay i think from that point you get into the kyle pitts jake ferguson territory david and joku darren waller and that's when i think trey mcbride is a totally reasonable name to bring up i actually

have him ahead of in joku ahead of waller ahead of luke musgrave michael mayer tyler higby tight end 11 i like it I mostly agree with those rankings. I don't know who I would have at tight end 3. I think Laporte is a pretty good call. Man. Yeah, that's fine. I'll say this about Trey McBride just because I did study his tape

and I'll do this quickly. I think he has a chance to break into the top 12 potentially. I don't know. And only because I think this offense takes a lot of shots to tight ends based on the new coordinator they have in there pet sing but i was not impressed with his day most of the production came in garbage time they used him on three seam benders against basic two high zone coverages one where he made the best catch he made

the only thing that impressed me about his film at all was the catch at um 59 seconds left in the fourth quarter garbage time i just think he did a great way to great he did a great job of high pointing and catching away from his frame and then coming down with it but not much after the catch there in my opinion he had the touchdown where they didn't blow it dead they should have blown it dead and they just pushed him into the end zone as all his the rest of his team oh that was crazy i don't know that i've ever seen a touchdown that's so obviously should have been blown dead should have been blown dead it was so obvious on tape too i just not much juice there i wasn't a fan of him coming out of colorado state and i just i don't see much personally with dre mcbride outside of big hands which he did a good job with but he's bigger than

i thought dan i like he's not he's not it doesn't look like a speedy receiver tight end he's he's big he's yeah yeah he was comped as like his best cases, Jason Whitten, which I never saw because Whitten was a really good blocker and McBride wasn't, but we'll see what happens there. I don't have too much faith in him being a difference maker at tight end. Do you guys want to talk about Taysom Hill? He was in that. Oh,

question. Sell, sell, sell. I think right. Cause he lost his role. He lost his role. He's not,

he didn't, you know, you can't count on the goal line touchdown. So maybe you can, he's their goal line guy. He's not, he didn't, you know, you can't count on the goal line touchdowns. Although maybe you can. He's their goal line guy. He did it last year. But, right, what do you want to say? Because he did not,

he was not used in that same encouraging way with Juwan Johnson back last week, right? Yeah, no, I don't want to say anything about him. I just didn't know if you guys did. I mean, look, Juwan Johnson's done nothing this year. Taysom Hill was actually good in those two games. Taysom Hill,

I think he's one of the best short yardage backs, whatever you want to call him, in the NFL. If I had to give the ball to somebody as a direct snap at the three-yard line, I don't know how many guys

I'd rather give it to than Taysom Hill. He's really freaking good at that. I think he's going to be very hard to trust in fantasy if he's not playing tight end like he did in week six and seven. But as soon as Juwan Johnson came back and the routes disappeared,

the only question I would have is, did he earn those routes? Because I guess Johnson's been a zero this year. Taysom Hill was a difference maker for them. Maybe they actually let him play, but until they do, and I don't think they will, I think then you're he's just a you better hope he scores otherwise you might get like 1.5 fantasy points i put him at

tight end 16 rest of season right after darren waller luke musgrave michael mayor i think there's some hypothetical upside with those guys but after that you get into like tyler higby pat fryermuth cole command logan thomas where it's like, the best case for these guys is what? They're tied in 12. Right. Yeah. All right, guys. Thanks for a great show. Appreciate it. Happy Halloween. I'll wear my costume tomorrow. Not my, not my Schneider costume. I can't stretch out any more shirts. Um, maybe I'll try to, I have a green shirt. Maybe I'll take it kind of tear it apart.

Stretch it out. I can't wait to back this guy down. Fire my body into it and then just lay up easy, easy laying baskets. At least I didn't go to a concert by myself. All right. We'll talk to you tomorrow with the waiver wire. Actually, we'll talk to you tonight. We'll talk to you tonight at 730. Take it easy, everybody.