Fantasy Football Today - Dishing on Robby Anderson, Michael Thomas, the Ravens Offense and More (11/16 Fantasy Football Podcast)

Episode Date: November 16, 2020

We start with injury updates and a recap of the Patriots-Ravens game (3:30). What is wrong with the Ravens offense? Can you drop Marquise Brown? Is Lamar Jackson a must-start player? Is Jakobi Meyers more valuable than Cam Newton rest of season? ... Revealing our Five Big Topics for today's show including another discussion about trading for studs vs. maintaining your roster depth (17:51) and if QBs are more valuable than RBs (21:45) this season ... Deep discussions on Michael Thomas (29:40), Jonathan Taylor (34:35) and Robby Anderson (35:40). How are we feeling about these players going forward? ... Email us at [e-mail] You can also download and subscribe to the full-length Fantasy Football Today podcast here: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/fantasy-football-today-podcast/id261735167 Follow the new FFT Twitch channel: https://www.twitch.tv/FFToday Follow our FFT team on Twitter: @FFToday, @AdamAizer, @JameyEisenberg, @daverichard, @heathcummingssr, @BenSchragg Watch FFT on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCviK78rIWXhZdFzJ1Woi7Fg/videos Join our Facebook group https://www.facebook.com/groups/FantasyFootballToday/ Sign up for the FFT newsletter https://www.cbssports.com/newsletter 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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BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with iGaming Ontario. This is Fantasy Football Today from CBS Sports. On his way to the end zone. I'll tell you what, that was a spectacular play. It's time to dominate your fantasy league. What a play. Off to the races.

Touchdown. Oh, he's done it again. Now here's some combination of Adam, Dave, Jamie, Heath, and Ben. All right, it is Monday afternoon, everybody. What's going on? As you get ready to make your waiver claims tomorrow, watch a little Monday Night Football this evening and reflect back on what happened Sunday.

We've got your five big topics, plus a recap of the Patriots and the Ravens. Adam Azer with Chris Towers and Ben Schrager. Surprising game last night, Schraggy B. Big win for the Pats. It was. I didn't see it coming. But, boy, that weather played right into the hands of both offenses. And you know what?

The Patriots took advantage, and now they're in contention in the AFC East. I hate to say it, but they kind of are. Nah, they're not going to win the AFC East. I don't think so. I think the Bills are a much better team, but sitting at 4-5. How about that? What a record. What's up, Towers? Nah, they're not going to win the AFC East. I don't think so. I think the Bills are a much better team, but sitting at four and five.

How about that? What a record. What's up, Towers? The Bills aren't even the best team in the AFC East. Hey, that might be true. That might be true. It's actually like the Dolphins have a much better point differential than the Bills. The Bills are actually mediocre by that measure,

so watch out. Okay. All right. Miami has the Dolphins, the greatest football team. Stragger, do you know the Dolphins fight song? No, I know the Dolphins fight song. They've been terrible my whole life. The Dolphins have been terrible my whole life.

So what? Miami has the Dolphins, the greatest football team. They take the ball from goal to goal like no one's ever seen. That's it. It just keeps going. Yeah, it does. It used to be also, so it goes, Miami Dolphins, Miami Dolphins. But it also used to be the Houston Oilers song.

Yes. You go, Houston Oilers, Houston Oilers. Miami Dolphins works much better. Miami Dolphins does work better. Got a much better cadence. Did you know that there used to be a team called the Houston Oilers? Are you aware of that? Yes, I collected football cards growing up.

Growing up? You grew up three years ago. They are now the Tennessee Titans. Injuries, news and notes. Teddy Bridgewater questionable for this week. Didn't have a serious knee injury. That's the good news, but he's questionable. They get Detroit. Christian McCaffrey, it does not seem good right now

for this week. Then he's at Minnesota, and then they have a bye. So what if he misses the next two weeks? Then it's three weeks in a row because he got the bye in week 13, that weird bye week where it's just the Panthers and the Bucs. So, yeah, that's disappointing with McCaffrey. Mike Davis will have another opportunity to hopefully not let us down. Drew Brees has got the rib issue.

Don't know if he's going to play. He called his rib issue a cumulative thing. It wasn't just one shot to the ribs. So I would say right now you should expect him not to play this week. And he's been fighting through a shoulder thing as well for the last couple of weeks. So it really does sound like he's just kind of beat up. Andrew Whitworth is on IR left tackle for the Rams with a torn MCL.

Let's get right to it. Let's talk about the Patriots and Baltimore, but a sneak peek ahead to the rest of the show. Our five big topics are about, I'd like a deeper discussion on consolidating talent or having team depth. We'll talk about that. Are quarterbacks more important than running backs this year? What to do with michael thomas

now robbie anderson and what was the fifth topic uh jonathan jonathan taylor yeah all right so that's coming up in a bit so let's talk about the ravens offense chris what's wrong with the ravens i don't know, man. Much smarter people than me are trying to figure that one out. And they haven't seemed to be able to do it. I don't know. There's a sense that Greg Roman's offense tends to get figured out or tends to get stagnant after a few years with the same team. I think we saw a little bit of that with San Francisco,

like year three of the Kaepernick era. We definitely saw that with Buffalo, where the first year with Tyra Taylor, they were decent, and then it just kind of got progressively worse. So it's entirely possible that that's the case. Lamar Jackson said last week that the opposing defenses are calling out their plays beforehand. So it does seem like it could be that. It could also just be that Lamar Jackson hasn't been good enough as a passer. And I think that has certainly been the case to a certain extent. You know, he hasn't been an effective deep ball thrower, which has really hurt Marquise Brown.

He hasn't really been able to get on the same page with Mark Andrews, which has really hurt him. Those are his two best weapons in the passing game. And so I think it's a combination of a lot of different factors. But I also think you have to assume they'll get better moving forward. They're not... Do you, though?

The problem with getting better is like it's still not really going to help us as fantasy managers because they get better. Their run game gets a little better. They're still going to split three ways. Maybe Lamar is great and Mark Andrews becomes great, but I don't think Hollywood Brown is going to become great. I think what you're hoping for is just the passing game gets better.

I think as long as all three of Ingram, Edwards, and Dobbins are healthy, it's just going to be a mess and you're not going to be able to trust anyone there is anything more than a flex um but i think mark or lamar jackson's going to play better as a passer and we're going to see a little better production from mark andrews who i don't think you can sit at this point. There's just like, yes, he hasn't been good. Name a tight end who has, who isn't Travis Kelsey. You know, right now going into Monday night in PPR leagues, he's tied.

Mark Andrews is number one this week because he had seven catches. He's tied with Rob Gronkowski who had two catches, but scored a touchdown. Tight end sticks. In non-PPR, it's not going to be quite the same. Let's see where Andrews is. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, In non-PPR, it's not going to be quite the same. Let's see where Andrews is. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9th.

No, he's tied. He's tied for like 6th in non-PPR with 6 fantasy points. But in full PPR, he's number 1 with 7 catches. And we did get 34 pass attempts from Jackson. They were trailing. We did get 249 passing yards. If you want to just look at a tale of the tape comparing 2019 to 2020, you look at some key stats. Baltimore ran three and a half more plays per game,

scored six more points per game last year. Jackson's throwing slightly more, but he's rushing. He has 1.7 fewer rush attempts per game this year. Yards per carry is down, but it's still 5.82. He's still on pace for 932 rushing yards and five touchdowns. And by the way, the 932 includes a game where he was hurt all week

leading into the Cincinnati game, and he rushed for three yards. If you get rid of that game, we're talking about a 1,000-yard rusher here. So it's still impressive. And 25 passing touchdowns. I think the big problem we're having with Lamar Jackson is that the entire quarterback position has gotten better. Offense in general. Yeah, and he hasn't.

You know, you say the Ravens are scoring six fewer points. Relatively speaking, it's even worse. Huge deal. Yeah, huge deal. Because everyone is scoring more points. So, Ben, talk to me about Marquise Brown. We can all agree, like, you're just going to start Mark Andrews. He has a 21.2% target share this season. Marquise Brown, basically the same. They have about the same amount of targets, but I don't know if you

caught the moment where it seemed like Brown and Jackson were exchanging words after coming off the field, I believe on a turnover on downs and Brown wants the ball and it, you, and it's just not working. Do you see a guy that's a buy low, that's a hold, that's a drop? What do you see with Marquise Brown right now? I'm fine dropping him. I think if he does well for the rest of the year, he's going to have three or four games where he's startable. He's still going to have these down games. And I think he's being used as a guy that's a deep threat

when Lamar Jackson can't throw the ball deep that well this year. And Lamar Jackson has been utilizing his bigger receivers like Duvernay and Andrews, if you want to call him that over the past week, this week, and then over the past few weeks, excluding Andrews more. I don't think Hollywood Browns target share is significant enough given that they don't throw that much. So I, I would be fine dropping him. You're probably going to hold onto him because he's going to have a boom week. I don't

know how to predict that boom week. I don't think anybody knows how to predict that boom week. So it's going to be very frustrating to continue to roster Marquise Brown. Okay, and let's go to the Patriots side of the ball. By the way, anyone interested in Willie Sneed? I'm not. This happens

occasionally. It does. It does. Willie Sneed will occasionally happen I'm not. This happens occasionally. It does. It does. Willie Sneed will occasionally happen. To the Patriots side of the ball, you know, Damian Harris, what a great game Damian Harris played. 22 carries, 121 yards. Now, you gotta talk about the Ravens' defense

and the injuries. They were already playing without Calais Campbell. Then they lost Brandon Williams, their nose tackle. They were already playing without a starting defensive back in Jimmy Smith and a starting linebacker. They lost another cornerback during the game. So their defense is just really beat up

and they are much easier to run against without Calais Campbell and Brandon Williams. We saw that last year just with Williams being out. But still, Harris, this is why PPR frustrates the hell out of me, Chris. 22 carries, 121 yards was so important in this game. He's right now, with Dalvin Cook still to play, the number 20 running back this week.

You just don't get enough of a reward because he doesn't catch the ball. He has two catches this year. But what do you do with him? He's 71% rostered He has two catches this year. What do you do with him? He's 71% rostered and 11% started this week. I would just point out that that's not just a PPR thing. He's only the 15th running back in non-PPR.

This is the problem with Damian Harris' role in this offense and it's the problem with Sonny Michel. He has to be exceptional as a runner not just good but exceptional because he's not going to catch many passes he has two targets on the season you said two catches yeah two cats uh he's played six games he has over 100 yards in three of them but he's this it's kind of similar to buffalo except they're you know

splitting work evenly whereas damian harris is at least getting a lot of carries, but you're playing with a quarterback who is going to take up at least half, if not more of your goal line carries and your touchdowns. He's a better goal line back than anybody else. And so he's going to just need to rush for a hundred yards every week, or he's going to be a middling fantasy option. And that's a really tough needle to thread. I think Damian Harris is a decent-ish low-end number two running back.

And this is... I mean, I kind of think it reflects his real-life value. Like, yeah, running for 121 yards on 22 carries or whatever it was, it's good, but you're not winning NFL games solely because of that. Well, I guess if you have a good defense, you can, you know. So here's the rushing touchdown breakdown for the Patriots this year. Harris has one. Michelle has one.

Burkhead has three. Cam Newton has nine. If he doesn't score, you're just in trouble. He's a lot like Kenyon Drake, I'd say, Damian Harris. Who would you guys rather have, Drake or Harris? Drake. He's in a better offense. Yeah, I'll have Drake as well,

and I think they're going to be in a better chance to have five goal-line drives, whereas the Patriots may only have three goal-line drives in a game, and Cam Newton's probably getting all those opportunities. Who has more value rest of season and Cam Newton's probably getting all those opportunities. Who has more value rest of season, Cam Newton or Jacoby Myers? As a quarterback? Jacoby Myers.

So I was on, I did my CBS Sports HQ hit after the game last night, and my big takeaway from this game is is there any... Like Mark Andrews and maybe Damien Harris, is there a single must-start player on either of these two teams? Skill player. I think Lamar Jackson is a must-start even though he's been disappointing.

All right, well, I'm going to question you on Lamar Jackson being a must-start in just a second. But to answer your question, just Andrews. Just Andrews, but my Myers is pretty encouraging. I mean, he, I don't know what happens when, when Edelman gets back was they play the same position, but there is a very obvious noticeable connection between Cam Newton and Jacoby Myers. And I, how many times did I say it throughout the week? If you want five catches for 60 yards, something like that,

you're probably going to get that from Myers. He nearly nailed that. That seems to be his floor of 10, 11 PPR fantasy points. So I do think he's a must start in a three wide receiver league PPR. Sure. Aside from that, no. Aside from that, it's just Andrews. Is Lamar Jackson.

I would drop Hollywood for him. He's consistent enough where I'll take his floor over Hollywood's one or two potential good games for the rest of the year. Okay. Is Lamar Jackson really a must start?

Yes. I know he's only 10th in per game scoring in both four and six point per touchdown leagues, but the upside for him is so much higher than basically anyone you're going to be able to reasonably have. We haven't seen the huge boom games, but we know what they look like. We know that if Lamar Jackson throws for two touchdowns and avoids turnovers, he can have 35, 40-point games because of that rushing ability,

because he can rush for 120 yards in a touchdown. That just gives him such an edge on your Ryan Tannehill, Joe Burrow, Carson Wentz, Ben Roethlisberger types who need three, four touchdowns to really have that huge ceiling. Okay, I should also mention that Jacoby Myers was wide open in the end zone. Should have had an even better game. Just wanted to bring that up.

Cam Newton missed them. And that is it for that game. Ben, what are we promoting today? Oh, we've got the Apple Podcast Review Mailbag coming, not only on Wednesday's show, but Saturday's entire show. I hope you guys enjoyed the show with Ben Gretsch last week. But remember, leave those five-star reviews on Apple, whether it's a start set question or a trade question or rest of season value question, we'll try to get them all into the show. So leave them on Apple five-star

review and tonight, Monday night football props game. Every single week, we're giving away $1,000 for Monday night football props. You answer seven prop questions, including who will have the most passing yards tonight, Nick Foles or Kirk C kirk cousins what do you think chris i think it's foals easily he's probably going to throw 10 to 15 more passes he's got a better matchup um yeah the cousins it's always can he hit one or two big passes if he does he can get to 300 yards. If he doesn't, you're probably looking at a nice, efficient 210 yards on 26 pass attempts. And that's the problem. That's the toughest matchup you could have, if not the toughest, the top three toughest matchup,

whereas Foles has the great matchup. Adam, did you end up starting Foles over Baker Mayfield? I did. I did. Yeah. So I'm with Foles, too. I know that, yeah, it ended up being a good one. And I didn't check the score in that league because I'm afraid to because my entire team sucks this week, but I'll check it now and see if it matters. I had Jared Goff, Mike Davis, Jonathan Taylor.

It was, it was another thing, but I do know that I'm, I have a pretty big lead in two leagues and I'm facing Alan Robinson in one and I'm facing Darnell Mooney in one. So I, I don't want Nick Foles to do too well tonight. I'll say, how do you feel when you personally have a good week for fantasy, but like a bunch of your lineup calls were wrong and Oh, horrible. I feel horrible. Like everyone played like the, like this was not a great fantasy week for like the league as a whole we expected that coming in there just weren't a lot of points i think there were eight different teams that scored fewer than 20 points which is a rarity this season uh it was oh it was the crap week

it was the oh gosh crap but i somehow went eight and three this week in my leagues and that makes me think like oh man maybe my teams are just actually bad no it's it's that uh a lot of everybody's dealing with the same stuff right now you know you look at your roster and like geez i have to start this guy how many of us aren't dealing with that and let me tell you like i just told you about my 2qb league with nick foals yeah it was i had jonathan taylor marquise brown jarvis landry, Noah Fant, Mike Davis in my lineup. But Will Brinson has Sam Darnold, C.D. Lamb, Odell Beckham, Kenny Galladay, and Mo'Ally Cox in his lineup, and the Cowboys DST. So I'll take that win over Will, who has completely given up on life

and is going to be 1-9 in this league. And if you want to win thousand dollars tonight if you had a terrible game this week just go to cbssports.com slash props boom there you go there you go no but you're you know chrissy it's a good point as the last actually it's been now three weeks in a row where i i have a general idea of how my teams are doing based on what's going on in the one and four o'clock games. And I'm like, oh boy, this isn't going to be good. And then I look and I'm like winning these matchups because everybody's dealing with so many injuries and, and you know, the bi-weeks are obviously we're in full swing and you're, uh, it's just been a weird year. It's been a year with so many injuries

and you are just banking on, uh, players that aren't great and timeshares and things like that. Everybody's in the same boat. So yeah, luckily, I think if you played the waiver wire well this year, then you're probably having a good year. All right, let's go on to our five big topics. From Josh Allen Stats, I'd like a deeper discussion on the topic you addressed last week. Is this the season to consolidate talent or to build depth?

Now, Josh Allen's stats is in a 16-team league, and I feel I have the deepest roster, but I lack top-end talent. I need to make a move now if I'm going to consolidate. Yeah, so let's talk

about it generally, and then we'll talk about it for a 16-team league, but it's basically a good segue as I was just talking about all the injuries and all that. Are we still on team consolidate?

Ben, what do you think? Yes. Generally, yes, but it really depends. If you're talking, you have a deep roster, but depth means you're starting Philip Lindsay because he's getting

touches as a running back. Mike Williams as a wide receiver who has boomer bust potential, and that's your depth. That's one thing, but if your depth is legitimate top 24 guy, you have four top 24 guys at wide receiver, yes, I really want to consolidate still. But if your depth is meh, meh, meh, try to consolidate, but you may not be able to get much out of it.

I would like to consolidate. It depends on where you are, too. If you're six and four after this week, you probably don't have that luxury because consolidating is all about making the highest upside possible team, not necessarily the team that every single week is going to perform. You might consolidate by trading for Christian McCaffrey, in which case if you're seven and three, eight and two, that's probably a smart move because you can probably get Christian

McCaffrey for fairly cheap and put yourself in a position for when the playoffs come, you've got hopefully two elite running backs because if you're eight and two, presumably you already have at least one. So it really depends on what your situation is and what your margin for error is. If you're eight and two, your margin for error is a lot wider. And so you could afford losing some depth, having an injury hurt you in week 12, but still be able to be one of the best teams come playoffs.

And come the other side too, though, if you're in a win-now situation and you've got three guys on your bench who are startable for other teams, you may want to consolidate four right now to get the best starting lineup for this week and next week. Sure, yeah. And one thing that you might want to look, I don't know that anyone is

going to give up a must-start running back for Ronald Jones and some other part. But I think that we've seen enough of these committees where all season long we're reevaluating and whatnot, and Tampa Bay sticks out the most. I would do anything I could to trade Ronald Jones right now if I could get a must-start solid

player. And I think what you try to do is you get a wide receiver. You look for a fantasy manager who's got really bad running backs and just needs a Daryl Henderson or a Ronald Jones. Jones obviously has more value now, but a week ago, Henderson had a lot more value than Jones. And this is my point. Get out from under those situations and trade them for someone that you consider a must start wide receiver. I don't think you're going to be able to get a running back. But if you can pull that off and give so you just take advantage of depth, right? I've got running back depth, I don't need it. So I'm going to give you this running back because you have to start him. Otherwise, you're starting Philip Lindsay, or Melvin Gordon or

something and give me this wide receiver. You've got some depth there. That would be my advice of taking running back death and turning it into a wide receiver. I'm not sure you're ever going to be able to pry Kamara, Cook, maybe McCaffrey because he's injured, but I don't know how you're going to pry. Maybe Aaron Jones right now.

Maybe. If people are panicking, I hope they aren't. Maybe Chris Carson, something like that. I would guess it's easier to trade out of position if you're trying to upgrade. All right. Okay. Second topic from B-Darts. Quarterbacks matter more than running backs,

at least for this season. Tell me I'm wrong. I would want to know what the reasoning is first. Well, I agree with him. So I will say that. And the reasoning would be, I looked at the numbers this morning. If you just compare this year to last year,

quarterbacks are scoring a lot more than they did last year. And running backs really aren't. Not to the same degree. Now, the difference is, last year you had one running back in McCaffrey who was scoring like 28-ish fantasy points per game in PPR. This year you have three. McCaffrey's one of them, so take that for what it's worth. But Cook and Kamara are the others.

So you do have more super elites this year than you had last year. But you look at the number 12 running back per game last year, number 24 per game last year compared to this year. It's very similar. Whereas last year we had, um, three quarterbacks. No,

last year we had a one quarterback that scored more than 25.6 fantasy points per game. This year we have nine quarterbacks scoring.6 fantasy points per game. This year, we have nine quarterbacks scoring 25 or more points per game. Number 12 is averaging 23.2. Last year, QB 12 was averaging 20.4. It's almost three full points more. This is in six point per passing touchdown leagues. So that would be my argument. Also, I think there's a pretty decent level of consistency when you look at the quarterbacks who are doing well every week. Obviously,

you get Matthew Stafford one week and Ben Roethlisberger and whatnot, but the only real bust has been Lamar Jackson. And Dak got hurt. Everyone else that we took as a top seven quarterback has been a complete stud.

Deshaun Watson's been interesting. But yeah, that would be my argument. My argument is quarterbacks have taken the 2020 bump and running backs really haven't. They have. I don't think that we should have drafted them any higher than we did. The running backs, if you look beyond the top three

that you're talking about on a per-game basis, James Robinson could have been picked up at the very... I think that's a different discussion, though. It's not so much what happened during drafts. I interpreted this question as

quarterbacks matter more than running backs, at least for this season. Like, rest of season, I think that having the elite quarterback is not as important as having one of those top three running backs. But it might be like Kyler Murray might be more valuable than any but those top three. That is the distinction. However, it's really like six quarterbacks are more valuable than running backs because really once you get past like you got Justin

Herbert and Aaron Rodgers are six and seven if you take out Dak Prescott and points per game and six point per touchdown and they're at 28.5 and 27.3 fantasy points per game then there's a two-point drop and then from Deshaun Watson at number eight, all the way down to Drew Brees at number 21, there's like a three-point gap per game. That's not nothing, but unless you have Kyler Murray, Russell Wilson, Patrick Mahomes, Josh Allen, Justin Herbert, or Aaron Rodgers, you really haven't been getting this week-in, week-out

huge edge on your opponents. And then you have to account for the fact that Kyler Murray may score 17 rushing touchdowns this season. It's entirely possible he looks unstoppable in the red zone. But every time we do the, this guy is the new best ever at this thing, it's almost always not true. It wasn't true with Russell Wilson early in the season, sustaining his touchdown pace. the new best ever at this thing, it's almost always not true. It wasn't true with Russell Wilson early in the season, sustaining his touchdown pace. The last few weeks he has fallen on somewhat tougher times.

We don't expect it to be the case for Justin Herbert moving forward, that he's the best rookie ever by a wide margin in fantasy. I personally don't expect Josh Allen to continue playing quite as well as he has. He's slowed down from his early season pace as well. I think there are six true difference makers and a handful of those guys are probably going to

play less well than they have so far. Right, but Camara and Cook and McCaffrey might play less well too. Like they have, they have some unsustainability in what they're doing somewhat. Yeah. So, but I think the point Chris is that for me,

you named six guys. That's a lot. That's the difference. That's the league this year. Right. This year. The, they're just more,

many more elite quarterbacks. like each of the last two years we've had mahomes and jackson and maybe like matt ryan you know we've had maybe two or three and one guy who was so much better than everyone else this year yeah yeah this year just feels like if you don't have one of those six you're in trouble and i think brady i think brady could finish that strong i think lamar jackson could finish that strong. I think Lamar Jackson could finish that strong. And that's probably as far as I'd go. I hate Watson's schedule. Yeah.

And the other thing I will say is like if you have that six, that's great. But you know, let's say Aaron Rodgers, he's the low end of that six, 27.3 points per game. Let's say the replacement level at quarterback is like the 16th quarterback. Like that's the guy who you could probably find on waivers.

And the 16th quarterback right now is at 22.5 fantasy points per game. So that's not nothing in a gap, but you know, the replacement level running back, the, the level is so much worse. If you say the replacement level is, you know, let's apply kind of the same logic and say it's the 29th running back that's 12 points per game and that includes from wait okay so you're comparing that to 24 to well like the elite guys are at 28 27 then number four is 20 points per game then you got a couple guys at 18 17 right i just i think it it comes down to a math problem you need more running backs and i think that's the biggest part of why the elite running

backs are always going to give you more value than the elite quarterbacks if your elite running back can score for two running backs you're essentially getting one roster spot with two roster spots worth of production, and quarterbacks generally don't do that. Okay, Ben, any final thoughts, or shall we move on? I agree. There's just not enough elite running backs this year because of injury, and the top 12 running backs right now on a points-per-game basis,

four of them are hurt, and that doesn't even include Saquon. So that's an issue too. But yes, I think the elitist of the elite running backs are the most valuable. But beyond that, Adam, I do agree on some of the quarterback points. Okay, well, thank you. Let's take a quick break here. When we come back, we'll talk about

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All right, big topic number three is from Joe. What to do with Michael Thomas now that Breeze is going to miss time? Can we trust Jameis to get Michael Thomas going? And first of all, we don't know that Breeze is definitely going to miss time, and we don't know how much if he does. But the question still, what do we do with Michael Thomas? Ben, what do you say? If you have him,

you try to sell him to the number one seed who is in the playoffs and would love the potential of Michael Thomas being a top three, top five wide receiver. Otherwise, you're probably just starting him this week, seeing what happens with Jameis or Taysom Hill or Drew Brees, whoever does start against the Falcons. And is it the Michael Thomas who gets peppered with targets?

Or is it the Michael Thomas who gets peppered with targets? Or is it the Michael Thomas? Who's just a bit of a role player as he's been the past couple of weeks coming back. It's a very tough time to sell him. It's going to be tough to do it, but as a number one seed in leagues, you're thinking, yes,

let's, let's get Michael Thomas because he has that potential, but otherwise you're not going to be able to sell them for very much. How do you guys feel about a 30% target share? It's very high. It's what he had last night. It's what he had yesterday. They threw 23 times.

That is maybe clouding our judgment here. However, he didn't do well. He's got less than 100 yards in three games. Twice, he probably saw a lot of Carlton Davis. But still still it's it's a little alarming and if i felt more more secure in his health you know who knows how healthy he is uh then i'd be like he's fine whatever but that's my only question yeah okay he played 78 of the snaps yesterday which was up from 55 part of the problem is the two games he's played the saints haven't had to

do anything like they've been i know yesterday's game was kind of close ish they only won by 14 but it was never in doubt there was never a point in this game where it felt like the 49ers were a real threat to the saints and so he's played in two games where the Saints didn't have to pepper him with targets. And I think you don't learn a lot from football teams when they're up or down by a lot of points. You learn about a football team when they're running the offense that they need to run to score points. And the Saints have not been in that situation basically at any point in the two games since Michael Thomas came back and so what do you think what do you think about him with Jameis though let me ask you that I think

it's better I think look I don't think Jameis Winston is better is a better quarterback than Drew Brees at this point but I think he is better in fantasy for the guys he is throwing to and I think that we're kind of seeing a test case of that with Tampa Bay right now, where yes, they have more guys, but also Chris Godwin and Mike Evans have seen a diminishment in their production. And I think that is the result. That's the result of Jameis Winston being a more aggressive player. Well, I think it's the result of they're not, they're still throwing a lot, but not

as much as they did with Jameis. Their defense is a lot better. They're trying to run the ball and Brady spreads the ball out more. I don't know. Maybe if that, maybe, maybe he'll lock on to Michael Thomas. Uh, Brady makes safe throws and so does Drew Brees. And that's not a knock against them. They are incredibly efficient.

Michael Thomas is a, is a safe throw kind of guy. He has been, but I think that's because he's played a knock against them. They are incredibly efficient. Thomas is a safe throw kind of guy. He has been, but I think that's because he's played with Drew Brees. I don't think it's better. I think I can't say it's better because like, we don't know what Jameis will be, but we know Drew Brees will throw that 10, eight to 10 yard slant to Michael Thomas all day.

And that's what he ate last year. He ate it. He absolutely ate it. Yeah. So we'll see. Yes. Jameis is better for weapons but it might be better for Emmanuel Sanders downfield and Traquan Smith if he if he's healthy and Jared Cook maybe I don't know if it's better for Michael Thomas but Michael Thomas may not be healthy that might be the underlying problem yeah for me it's just if he's not healthy then it doesn't matter much. But if he's healthy, I don't think Michael Thomas can't make plays down the field. And so where Drew Brees might look for Michael Thomas more in the intermediate and short range,

Jameis Winston might look for him in the intermediate and long range. And I also just think, look, the fact that Jameis turns the ball over, that helps their fantasy options. I wonder if they're going to run the ball a little bit more because they did not throw that much with Teddy Bridgewater last year. He was averaging 32.5 pass attempts per game

whereas Breeze this year throwing 35.6 pass attempts per game. I think they threw more with Breeze than with Bridgewater last year. So we'll see if they change their strategy at all. They also have the Taysom Hill thing. I can't say this is good for Michael Thomas. I won't go that far.

I don't think it's bad for him. I think it's worse for him. But I also don't think this is a long-term injury. I mean, this might be one week. So that's fingers crossed. It might be zero weeks. Might be zero, yeah. All right.

Can I trust Jonathan Taylor from Innes? Can I trust Jonathan Taylor in my lineup? Hell no, you cannot trust Jonathan Taylor. What is my next question? Yeah, no, you can't. You have to sit him. And it's such a shame because his matchup's like, we always talk about it every week.

Green Bay's 30th. Tennessee's 25th against running backs, although they've gotten better a little bit. Houston's 31st. Las Vegas is 29th. And then Houston's 31st. This is next five opponents. Each of them are 25th or worse against running backs. But no, you can't trust them until he gives you a reason to trust him. And I just want to give you this weird stat. Big plays last year. Marlon Mack had nine carries of 20-plus yards. This year, Jonathan Taylor has one. The longest rush of the season for the Colts is 22 yards. It's by Jordan Wilkins.

Last year, Wilkins had a 55-yard run. Jonathan Williams had a 48-yard run. Marlon Mack had a 63-yard run. There's no explosion in this running game, and that is a hindrance right now. So no, you can't trust Jonathan Taylor. Nick P, this is a great question. Is Robbie Anderson still a

thing? Is Robbie Anderson still a thing? Yeah, he's absolutely still a thing. I'm not scared at all of the 4-for-21 production that he had this week. The week before, he had nine catches. He's still averaging over eight targets a game. He's just a short yardage guy right now.

So, yes, you're not going to get a ton of games over 100 yards, and you're probably not going to get a ton of touchdowns, but you're going to take that PPR floor of five-plus catches that he's almost a lock for. Chrissy, can I get nerdy? Oh, yeah, it's Monday. That's what we do on Monday. It's Monday. Let's do it.

And this is going to apply to a larger sense than just this. So earlier in the year when Ezekiel Elliott had the five fumbles in three games or whatever it was, or four games, I went and I did a very nerdy thing where i created a an excel chart uh with i did like his entire game log for his career and i did his fumbles per game which was like one every five games or something for his career and i did a random distribution based on how often he fumbles the ball and if you looked at the random distribution with no like the previous event did not matter to the next event. It basically was distributed about the same as his actual fumbles. He would have some stretches where he had 20 games without a fumble.

He would have some stretches where he had four fumbles in five games. We don't like to think about sports in that way, that things that happen are random and i'm not saying that they happen randomly but over the course of any given season 16 games you're going to have some stretches where a guy puts up 100 point 100 yards in four out of five games like robbie anderson did technically it was 99 uh and you're gonna have some stretches where he doesn't talk top 75 in a four game stretch like he has over the last four. That doesn't necessarily mean that something dramatically changed

in those four good games versus those four bad games. It could have been matchups. It could have been the game plan change, but the game plan hasn't really changed all that much for him. He's still the number one option. In one way, that supports Robbie Anderson if you're making a pro Robbie Anderson thing, and that's for him. He's still the number one option. He has, in one way, that supports Robbie Anderson if you're making a pro Robbie Anderson thing.

And that's just this. In two of the last three games, Teddy Bridgewater has thrown 24 or 25 passes for like 135 yards in one game and 185 yards in another game. And that's just unusual. And he's been,

so Anderson's been a little bit of a victim of circumstances. And in the other game, that's just unusual and he's been so anderson's been a little bit of a victim of circumstances and in the other game it was disappointing because he got 13 carries and he what did he have 13 targets nine catches for 63 right so that was a little disappointing his his right right his value is much different robbie and, in PPR versus non. He's currently on a per-game basis. They have another bye, but a per-game number 35 in non-PPR, but number 23 in PPR. Now listen to this. He has the fourth most targets, the fourth most catches,

the fifth most yards among wide receivers, and he has one touchdown. And every wide receiver who's in the top 16 in targets has two or more touchdowns except for Robbie Anderson. So I do think touchdowns could be a bit of an issue for him because Teddy Bridgewater's just not throwing many. He has 13 touchdowns, and he's never thrown a lot of touchdowns even when he's been a starter for the Vikings.

But this is still really bad luck. I mean, he's got to get in the end zone. It's kind of like the luck DJ Moore had last year. Yeah. He had four touchdowns. He only scored in three games. And now DJ Moore, I think has five touchdowns already this season.

Does he have a career high? And like DJ Moore is a good example of, of that larger idea that like he had three straight games with 93 plus yards. 93 yards exactly. Then he had 55 and 18. Then he had 96. Not that much changed. He was still getting a similar number of targets.

He was still getting a similar amount of air yards. It's just sometimes you hit and sometimes you don't. And we want to look for trends where they may not exist. And in this case, I think there's no trend with Robbie Anderson. I think he's still getting a ton of huge target share, a high efficiency number of targets, and it's just he's had like three weirdly inefficient games. Okay.

And hopefully the touchdowns come for Robbie Anderson. And was there anything else I wanted to say? No. No, I think that pretty much wraps it. Oh, oh yeah. He's second on the team in red zone targets and he's tied for second in targets inside the 10 yard line. Number one in both is Mike Davis,

but it's not, you know, he's still getting like, he has four more red zone targets than DJ Moore and four fewer touchdowns, I think. And let's not forget, Robbie Anderson has, definitely has the skill set to take a slant 70 yards. Like we've seen DJ more do a couple of times. It's not like Robbie Anderson is Jarvis. He did it once.

Well, it wasn't exactly a slant, but he did it in week one. Yeah. But this is a really fast, big play receiver who just hasn't happened to hit on any, but he still has that potential too. In addition to the healthy role that he has in the offense.

All right. Usually we save some time for key stats i apologize monday is kind of a housekeeping day doctor's appointments and things like that so i am off to the vet for my cat's doctor's appointment and i apologize i feel better adam yeah yeah you know i've got some hair balls to deal with things like that but um licking your arms. I've got to take some business here. So thanks for listening, everybody. And we will talk to you with the Waiver Wire show.

See you.