Fantasy Football Today - 🚨 Christian McCaffrey to the 49ers! And a Saints-Cardinals Recap (10/21 Fantasy Football Podcast)

Episode Date: October 21, 2022

Holy cow! We didn't see this coming! Christian McCaffrey is off to the 49ers. Is this good or bad for his Fantasy value? Does this change anything for Deebo Samuel or the rest of the 49ers? Should you add D'Onta Foreman or Chuba Hubbard? Is this actually good for D.J. Moore? We also recap the Thursday night game which was a Fantasy bonanza! Welcome back, DeAndre Hopkins.  Follow our FFT team on Twitter: @FFToday, @AdamAizer, @JameyEisenberg, @daverichard, @heathcummingssr, @ctowerscbs Follow the brand new FFT TikTok account: https://www.tiktok.com/@fftoday Watch FFT on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/fantasyfootballtoday Get 20% off Fantasy Football Today merch: https://store.cbssports.com/collections/fantasy-football-today%20?utm_source=podcast-apple-com&utm_medium=web&utm_campaign=buy-our-merch&utm_content=fantasy-football-collection Join our Facebook group https://www.facebook.com/groups/FantasyFootballToday/ Sign up for the FFT newsletter https://www.cbssports.com/newsletter You can listen to Fantasy Football Today on your smart speakers! Simply say "Alexa, play the latest episode of the Fantasy Football Today podcast" or "Hey Google, play the latest episode of the Fantasy Football Today podcast." To hear more from the CBS Sports Podcast Network, visit https://www.cbssports.com/podcasts/ To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Visit amex.ca slash business platinum. Are you kidding me? Christian McCaffrey to the 49ers. This is awesome. Welcome to the show, everybody. It's supposed to be fantasy football today at 5. We'll see how long this one goes. I'm Adam Ager with Jamie Isenberg.

Oh, man. Chris Towers is going to be upset that he's not working tonight. This is what you live for reacting to a trade like this. Wait, what? Were you doing it by yourself? Yeah, I was going to do it solo. I thought it was just going to be a game recap. I had no idea.

And then we get this news that Christian McCaffrey going to the 49ers for second, a third, and a fourth round pick in 2023, and then another pick in 2024 as well. They have no picks next year. 49, yeah. All right, so first of all, we don't know how much he's going to play this weekend.

I don't know if it's the... What? Rappaport said that he's likely to play in some packages. In the red zone, yeah. So I don't know that we're going to do start or sit with him just yet. It's only Thursday night right now. But let's just talk season long. Value up, down, or the same for McCaffrey?

I mean, it's hard for him to go up. So I'm going to say same at best. Probably a slight decline, but not anywhere close to where he's going to be sat in any leagues. This is clearly an offense that is going to be fantastic running back. My first thought was, they always get hurt. Like every player always gets hurt.

So I hope the training staff there is ready for, you know, keeping him upright. And then my second thought was, well, here we go. They have another leading rusher for the sixth year in a row under Kyle Shannon. Wow. Nobody predicted it would be Christian McCaffrey, though. You know, we thought it would be Trey Lance. Yeah. I think, you know, first off, really, to me, this is more about what's left in Carolina.

If we're being, you know, just what's the impact? Because, you know, Jeff Wilson, you can't use him anymore. Elijah Mitchell, poor kid. Like, why didn't they send one of those guys back? Like, they could have just, you know, made this a little bit more easy on the Panther side of things. You know, throw back one of their running backs. Tyrion Davis, probably somebody.

You know, give somebody a chance on a different roster. So, yeah, McCaffrey, you're still starting him. They clearly are fantastic running the ball. He should have the opportunity for more points. They should be able to throw him the ball quite a bit and still be McCaffrey. So is he going to catch 100 passes in this offense? I doubt it. Can he catch pro-rated 75 the rest of the season?

It's still pretty good. Yeah, he's a must-start guy and a better offense, so that's a great thing. And then the value goes down for Debo a little bit because why would you put him in the backfield anymore? Kittle's still fine. Ayuk is still fine. I mean, you're not sitting, Debo, but

I just think you're losing the opportunity for him to get touched. I'm just working through this as I'm saying it. I'm sorry. Look, I'll throw it out this way. You could argue that everyone on the 49ers, including Christian McCaffrey, just lost value. Maybe McCaffrey to the least degree here, because this is a team that never throws to its running backs. And I think that's going to change. You don't acquire Christian McCaffrey to never throw it to your running back.

And that that just means fewer targets for everybody. You love the fact that they're going to figure out ways to scheme him and get him out into space and let him be amazing. But, you know, this could be really bad, I think. Because we've seen it's tough for that offense to sustain three guys, right? You know, week after week. They just don't throw that much. And now it's four guys.

You never had to deal with this. A guy out of the backfield getting a lot of targets. The most catches in the last four years on San Francisco by running back is 33 by McKinnon. In 2017, first year under Shanahan. 59. That was 2017. That was the first year under

Shanahan. Since then, 33 is the high for running back. My gut reaction is that it's bad news for everyone on on san francisco except for mcafree and i and garoppolo it's fair yeah i mean you know i i again it's there how do you defend them at this point you know because they you know you know they were going to run on you with whoever was back there. Now they have still one of, if not the best running back in football. So there's that threat.

There's a lot of pressure on Garoppolo because he's going to have to support these guys and not make mistakes. Can you imagine if Trey Lance had become Trey Lance and then making this move? So, yeah, I guess to put a blanket statement on yes they probably all lose value to whatever extent but I don't think you're not sitting Kittle because the position he plays you're not sitting Debo until you see that he's going to really suffer and you're not sitting McCaffrey Iuke was always a borderline guy to begin with yeah so you know take that for what it's worth. And the flip side of this is, as we saw last week,

and who knows if this continues, their defense is so beaten up. Right. Oh, man. Please let him play a decent amount of snaps against the Chiefs. That would be so fun to see. Oh, my God. All right, listen, so we're going to break it down on the Friday morning show with Dave and Jamie.

Let them debate it a little bit. Let's turn our attention to the Carolina Panthers. Both running backs are pretty widely available as we record this at 11.55 p.m. Eastern. Not in our league. It was in Mad Race. You know what? I'm going to tell you the truth, man. I looked before everyone else, basically, in our leagues, and I passed in a few leagues that they were available. How do you feel about them?

It's not a great situation here. It's an awful situation. And so take that for what it's worth. I picked up, and here's the crappy thing, is I had a lot of Chuba Hubbard last week when this rumor was out there, and I dropped him this week in a lot of tuba hover last week when this rumor was out there and I dropped them this week in a lot of leagues um just to see I the way that I I view it is I I think I said this at some point during the week I don't remember it was on our podcast or on on HQ that the the

thought would be if you're making this move not necessarily from a tanking standpoint but what do you need to see from Deontay Foreman? He's not part of your future. Chuba Hubbard's not your feature back moving forward, but he might be a third down back depending on how the direction you go with your next running back that you add. You know, if you're not adding a McCaffrey-like die, you're not adding a three down threat

if that's the route you go, maybe Hubbard can play some on pass downs. He's not been good. Foreman showed a little bit last downs. He's not been good. Foreman showed a little bit last year. He's not been good. You know, so in a situation where they're chasing points and they're throwing every pass behind the line of scrimmage essentially right now. Yeah, makes it interesting.

I would think Hubbard has a slight edge if he's going to play on pass downs. But we just don't know. So, you know, it's the way I would view it is half and non-ppr i'd probably lean toward foreman full ppr i lean toward hubbard um don't drop anybody of significance for him like i in a 10 team league the only player that i dropped just because he's on a buy and i'll probably try to get him back next week was alexander madison um because the shallow league that was the the you know i dropped cam acres in one league because I was just waiting to see if he was going to get traded. I dropped Russell Wilson where I benched him essentially

and not going to play him. You know, these are the type of players that I dropped him for. Naeem Hines in one league where I had a lot of running back depth. See, that's an interesting one because I was going to, it was either going to be Samaje Pirine or Hubbard or Foreman. Pirine's easy. No, but it wasn't easy for me because I have Joe Mixon and I have enough running backs

where I don't think I'm ever going to start Chuba Hubbard. And I just thought, I would hate to drop Pirine, have Mixon get injured, and then Pirine would be so much more appealing than Chuba Hubbard is right now. I just said, you know what? Forget it.

I just don't see myself. You're playing out a scenario of Mixon getting hurt for an extended period of time or the season yeah i i just don't i just don't think that these running backs are going to be all that useful personally so i i didn't i mean you know you say that and i'm with you because the situation is that bad but mike Mike Davis, two years ago, was a serviceable fantasy. He's the only guy, though. True.

Last year, it was frustrating. Last year, it was bad with Chuba Hubbard. You know, I think it was okay at the start, but then they started working. I can't remember who they started working at. Amir Abdullah. Yeah, you know. I didn't want to drop upside.

I would have dropped a boring player. I don't know if Piran is what I would consider upside. Fair. Because you could have two starters for your fantasy team as opposed to waiting out Mixon's injury. Do you think this helps DJ Moore? Here it comes. DJ Moore.

No. That's a lot of targets. I mean, it's pretty much all they're doing is throwing to McCaffrey yeah let Darnold play and let's see what happens Heath was funny on HQ today he said I couldn't wait for Sam Darnold to get out of the lineup to help DJ Moore and now I'm begging for

Sam Darnold to come back and help DJ Moore I mean they're a dumpster fire. So someone's going to get work there. I would just, like I said, lean toward Hubbard in passing situations. But if you value somebody on your fantasy team, in your case, Samadji Pirine has a pretty low floor. So you're not making a move. I think most people probably drop Samadji Pirine for Ch Chibahub over here, let me ask you this.

Let's say McCaffrey got traded tonight and Joe Mixon were out for the year. I hope that doesn't happen. Then who would you have picked up? Oh, you're right. That's my philosophy here. I'm just for a rainy day, basically. Yeah, I totally understand that. I also think, you know, barring know barring you know mixing getting hurt this

weekend you have an opportunity to see it unfold you know so you you have a good chance to get p ryan back yeah barring injury you know i gotta get one of these guys looking at the panthers run schedule they've got some pretty easy run defenses coming up not this weekend not this weekend but they got Atlanta twice. Not sure about their running. It's not very good. The Bengals have been bad without DJ reader. As I mentioned on the podcast,

Baltimore has been a bad run defense. Denver has been a bad run defense. Seattle, Pittsburgh has been a good run events, Detroit in week 16. It got some good matchups. I don't know if they'll be able to, it's going to be a fun conversation in the fantasy playoff.

All right, let's, let's take a look at their,. Oh, that's going to be a fun conversation in the fantasy playoffs. Yeah. All right. Let's take a look at Thursday. Yeah, that's about it for that game, for that scenario. Let's take a look at Thursday Night Football. This was incredible. 42-34, the final score. Andy Dalton with a massive game. Started in 3% of leagues.

For both teams. Yeah. He threw five total, six total touchdowns. 1-0. What was fun? I'm curious to talk to Dave tomorrow. So Dave's MVP on DraftKings, on the lineups we gave on HQ, his MVP was the Cardinals DST.

And my MVP was Jawan Johnson. Very good. I have to check to see how the rest of my lineup worked. Kyler did not help. But who would have thought that they scored that many points to Kyler Murray how the rest of my lineup worked. Kyler did not help. But who would have thought that they scored that many points to Kyler Murray's The Dud? Yeah, who would have thought they would have had such success

running the ball near the goal line? Ingram and Benjamin both getting in. There are so many fantasy storylines here, but what really stood out to you in this game, Arizona and New Orleans. Uh,

James Winston will be back as a starting quarterback for the saints next week. Most likely. Um, look, I, you know, Chris Olave,

you know, we'll stay with New Orleans, Chris Olave, another great performance for him. Um, you know, shattering the, uh,

number one receivers can't do well against the Cardinals. Um, John Johnson, if, if Chapman stays out, I I think can be a streaming option. I like what I saw from him. Don't throw to Marcus Callaway in traffic. I wouldn't do that again.

Kamara, still fine, you know, with Dalton. You'll see what happens with Jameis from a reception standpoint. For the Cardinals, look, welcome back DeAndre Hopkins. He was just fed over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over. Yes, he was. So that was fun. And maybe rest James Conner another week.

Yeah, you know, one thing that yeah, well, first of all, I really think those guys are quite possibly better for the Cardinals than Conner. I'd rather see Benjamin out there at this point. I don't know what's going to happen, but this can't be good news for Conor, right?

You've got to at least give Benjamin a little bit more work when Conor comes back. You know, if there is a bright side for Conor, you go back to what he was with Chase Edmonds last year. He wasn't what he was when he was without Chase Edmonds, when he was a top three running back in that five-game stretch. But he was scoring touchdowns.

The offense was moving the ball. So, you know, if he has that role with a little bit more work, then you could feel comfortable about him at least as a number two running back again. But for now, yeah, I would agree. You know, Benjamin looks the part more so than Connor looks the part.

Thank you. One thing that disappointed me was just, again, you look at this Cardinals offense and they just don't get any big plays. And Deandre Hopkins certainly did not help that. He was just, well, Benjamin had a big run passing plays.

Sorry. They did have a 31 yard pass to Rondell Moore at the very beginning of the game on a scramble was really nice play by Kyler Murray but that was Rondell's only catch of the game and yeah it's just this is I think I think this is my theory about them well I know this is my theory you know they can move the ball but because they get so few big plays and because they have so few air yards their drives stall and they didn't really today because they finally were able to run the ball. But I think this is what's holding them back and holding Kyler Murray back to a degree.

This is four games for Kyler Murray with fewer than 20 fantasy points, three very good games, four kind of not so great games. But yeah, Hopkins didn't help that. He was a very reliable possession receiver, 10 catches for 103 yards on 14 targets, but nothing downfield. We'll see if that changes as they get more on the same page um well it's also i think you know they realize that with marquise going down he was probably going to be that guy for them with hopkins on the field which is why they go get robbie anderson you know so find a guy that can run and maybe take some shots down the field

and see what that you know turns into um if you feel like your team is playoff bound at this point, you know, 4-2, 5-1, 6-0, going to 7-1, 7-0, whatever the case may be, and the Kyler Murray fantasy manager is frustrated, if Marquise Brown does only miss a month and you get that quarterback for what he could be in the playoffs, not a bad move to make, you know, trying to see if you can acquire him cheap.

Alright, that's going to do it for Fantasy Football today in 15. Thank you to Jamie for hopping on and for all of you for waiting patiently and listening to our spiel. I appreciate it. We'll talk to you tomorrow with Starter Sit for the AFC home games. See ya.