Fantasy Football Today - Five Big Topics: Aiyuk, Rodgers, the Steelers, Titans and More (09/13 Fantasy Football Podcast)

Episode Date: September 13, 2021

Recapping the Bears-Rams game and wondering if now is the time to try to trade Darrell Henderson and if Allen Robinson will bounce back from a bad Week 1. We've also got your latest news (8:40) including updates on the 49ers backfield and Brandon Aiyuk ... We get into our Five Big Topics as we wrap up our thoughts on the 49ers (21:00) and then tell you which players you may have drafted late but should not drop yet (21:30). And we react to James Robinson's disappointing week (26:15). Buy low or heck no? ... The new Steelers offense looked like the 2020 Steelers offense, so what does that mean for Fantasy (28:50)? And how worried are we about the Packers and Titans (32:30)? And finally we give you some snap counts and advanced stats to know ... Email us at [e-mail] Fantasy Football Today' is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Google Podcasts, Castbox, and wherever else you listen to podcasts. Follow our FFT team on Twitter: @FFToday, @AdamAizer, @JameyEisenberg, @daverichard, @heathcummingssr, @ctowerscbs, @BenSchragg Watch FFT on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/fantasyfootballtoday 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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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. 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. Snap counts, post-game quotes, defensive injuries, other things you may have missed from Sunday's action. Welcome to our Monday afternoon show. Adam Azer and Chris Towers here on Fantasy Football Today. I am talking to the guy who absolutely pantsed me in one of our leagues.

It feels so good because you criticized every single one of my drafts. That's not true. Every time we drafted, you were just like, this is the worst team I've ever seen. So how does it feel? Oh, it doesn't feel good. But you were the highest scorer in this league. I still have Justin Tucker.

If he puts up 50 points tonight, I'll win. I think you've got a chance. I think I had Aaron Rodgers and you had Kyler Murray. So that was 40 points. I had Kamara. I had Kamara. That was great. You had McCaffrey.

You had Mostert. I won that. I had Ridley. You had A.J. Brown. I had Devante Smith. You had Tyler Lockett. I had D.J. Moore. You had Cooper Cupp.

You just beat me all over the place. So congratulations. Big win for you. This is a league we drafted back in June. You had Cooper Cupp. You just beat me all over the place. So, congratulations. Big win for you. This is a league we drafted back in June. You got to be feeling pretty good.

So, I hope week one was good for you, Chris. I hope it was good for everybody out there. What did you think of the game last night? Let's talk about Rams.

Now, I don't care anymore about your glorious teams and the ass-kicking they gave me. Let's talk about the Rams and the Bears. What we're going to do today

is we'll talk about Sunday Night Football. We got five big topics. You want to know about the 49ers running backs, the Packers, the Titans, the Steelers, players that you should not drop, James Robinson. We're going to cover it all.

But let's go Rams 34, Bears 14. What were some of your takeaways from this one? Matthew Stafford's a good fit in this offense uh I think that's pretty clear by now well one thing that's you know kind of interesting is you know I think there's going to be a big obviously there's a big gap between how people are viewing Cooper Cup and Robert Woods coming out of this first game and I think that makes sense what's interesting is that

Cooper Cup's usage actually both of their usage didn't really change all that much from last season Cooper Cup did have 10 targets but an average depth of target of 7.2 he really only had I think the one deep target that was on the touchdown and Woods only had the four targets 5.6 or 5.7 yard average depth of target is pretty low but that's also influenced by the fact that two of his four targets 5.6 or 5.7 yard average depth the target is pretty low but that's also influenced by the fact that two of his four targets were in the red zone or in the end zone on uh like you know goal to go two to three yards out plays one of them obviously scored a touchdown on the other one it was a tough throw for stafford the pocket was, but Woods was wide open. He could have very easily had a two-touchdown game. Yeah, disappointing throw.

Yeah, yeah. You get one. One of the few blemishes for Stafford. You can have one bad throw in a game if you're Matthew Stafford. I think that was probably the one. Yeah, he looked great. David Montgomery looked really good. He sure did. He looked fast.

He had said that he had worked on his speed. That wasn't really his thing. He was a good tackle breaker, but he wasn't a burner. And he had tried to fix that over the offseason, and he looked absolutely terrific in this game. And he rushed for 100 yards. And nobody rushed for 100 yards on the Rams all of last year. Montgomery does it in week one.

Yeah, and, you know, I think some people will look at Damian Williams getting six carries and four targets while Montgomery only got one target and 16 carries. Williams, it was a lot late. After that game was very much in hand. So I don't think there's much to be concerned about with that split. Well, what about the third down? Obviously, you'd like to see Montgomery thrown two more.

Yeah, do you know the third down numbers, though? Because Montgomery missed a little bit of time in this game. He left. So, yeah, don't worry about Damian Williams' role in terms of the running game, but the passing game, that I just wasn't sure about. And I did find that interesting, that he only had one target, David Montgomery.

But he looked awesome against a really good defense. Stafford, by the way, I'm really only giving this stat because I love the name in the stat. Matthew Stafford, according to the Elias sports Bureau is the first player to throw two touchdown passes of 50 yards, more than 50 yards in his first game with a new team since Lee gross cup in 1962.

I hate when you have a gross cup. Yeah. You just left it out overnight and it starts to get like a... Yeah, you just... You gotta clean that. See, I was actually going more of the football gross cup thing.

That's also... Yeah, that was also... A little grosser. I don't like to work blue, Adam. I don't know about you. I don't know what that means. Andy Dalton probably didn't do enough to lose the job.

He was fine. He threw an interception in the end zone. I don't know what that means. Andy Dalton probably didn't do enough to lose the job. He was fine through an interception. I mean, he should have in training camp and then in the preseason, but that's fine. But if they weren't going to bench him, then I see no reason to think they will today. The third down David Montgomery did get

five of eight. They played and had eight third down snaps on offense. He got five of them. Williams got two. I don't think there's much to be concerned about there, one way or the other. Let me look at how many routes they ran just to confirm. Yeah, they each ran 20 routes on, I think, 45 total pass plays. Again, not really concerning.

I guess Montgomery went from playing nearly all of the passing downs last season to splitting half of them. That's not ideal, but if he's running 20 routes a game, he's going to get three or four targets, I'm pretty sure. All right, Allen Robinson only started in 79% of leagues. Montgomery was only started in 68% of leagues, and Robinson did not come through. And he was not shadowed by Jalen Ramsey.

This is actually pretty interesting. Makes Ramsey more appealing, I think, in IDP leagues because he was used in this very cool hybrid role. I think they were calling it a star position. He played out of the slot a little bit. Yeah, he covered Allen Robinson a little bit, but he also was just kind of this ball hawk on defense, almost playing like a linebacker.

And that was fun to watch because he was balling. Yeah yeah i think if you have one concern about this game for robinson it's just that andy dalton didn't really throw the ball deep at all um you know i think i think robinson had something like 40 air yards on his 11 targets or something, which is pretty low. But I don't think it's a huge concern moving forward. Yeah, 42 air yards on 11 targets, but the 11 targets is what matters. And he'll be fine moving forward. He won't play a defense this tough. If somebody's excited about Daryl Henderson

because he got almost every snap, he had 16 carries, Sonny Michel had one. Now 10 of Henderson's 16 carries came in the fourth quarter when they had the lead and they were just taking the air out of the ball. And the Bears, the Rams only had the ball for 25 minutes,

a little less than that. They just didn't run that many plays. But anyway, if somebody's excited about Darryl Henderson, who would you look to trade for if you were trying to sell him? I think you'd be looking for a top 20 wide receiver who had a bad game. So, I mean, I would be surprised if you could get Allen Robinson, but if you could do that, I would do that very quickly

because, yeah, Henderson dominated snaps this week, but based on what we know about how they've used him in the past, that won't be the case moving forward, and it would probably be bad for him in terms of his health if they did. So, yeah, an Allen Robinson, a Mike Evans. How about a Julio Jones? I think you might be able to pull off

Julio Jones. You would do that? Yeah, I would love to do that, yeah. Okay. Yeah, I have to think they won't play. I mean, it would be fun if Chandler Jones just got traded to every team that played the Titans and could end up with like 80 sacks this season, but that probably won't happen either.

And as far as Stafford goes, he threw 26 times and scored 30 fantasy points. And again, they didn't have the ball that much, and all they did basically in the fourth quarter was run. This looked like a team that's going to throw the ball a lot. It's one week. We'll see what happens, but they were very pass heavy when they had the ball.

Tyler Higby, nice game as well. Six targets, five catches, 68 yards, second, most targets on the team. Okay.

News and notes. Ryan Fitzpatrick's going to be out a while with the hip injury. Taylor Heineke, you know, look, look, he hasn't played much with Washington, but he hasn't played poorly. He came in as a sub in week 16 or something against Carolina late in the year, and he was 12 of 19 for 137 yards and a touchdown. And then in the playoffs against Tampa Bay, he scored 26 fantasy points,

306 yards and a touchdown, plus another 46 rushing yards and a touchdown. He can run a little bit. So he's a 2QB league guy, but yeah, he's not terrible. Yeah, probably must add in 2QB leagues. Although I will say, it did sound like Kyle Allen would have been the number two quarterback

if he hadn't had, I think he had ankle surgery in the offseason. He wasn't ready for the start of camp. So it wouldn't be surprising if Kyle Allen ended up starting before long. He has a history with Ron Rivera going back to Carolina as well. So, you know, we'll see, but

it's bad news for the offense. Yeah, it is. It is. McLaurin in the playoff game that Heineke started had I think it was 70 yards, but it's not good. 40 plus attempts, I think. Yeah, 44.

All right, we got some interesting news here. Patriots running backs. ESPN reporting that Damian Harris and Ramondre Stevenson could both kind of be punished. It could be J.J. Taylor instead of Stevenson, and it could be less work for Damian Harris. They both fumbled.

Harris kind of lost the game for them with that fumble. So J.J. Taylor is another guy we'll think about adding on waivers. We'll talk about that on the Tuesday Waiver Wire show. Yeah, but hopefully it's James White who benefits. I don't know that he's going to get more carries. Yeah, yeah, we'll see. Yeah, maybe. I don't know.

This kind of summed up, like, my concerns with Damian Harris. He's not going to fumble every game, obviously, but, like, he had a really, really great game rushing the ball and ended up as RB27 in non-PPR and 25 in PPR. Yes, because he fumbled, but also because if he doesn't score a touchdown, the margin for error is really slim for him. Right.

That's basically what Daryl Henderson did, except Henderson scored. Yeah, he got that late touchdown. Yeah. And there's a lot of running backs, I think, that... It's just so interesting when you compare him to a guy like Chase Edmonds. It's going to come down to the touchdown. And you got a much better chance at a touchdown with Damian Harris,

but if you don't get it, there's a low floor. Probably, you know what I'm saying, kind of a higher floor for a guy like Edmonds in PPR, but maybe a higher ceiling for Harris because he'll probably score. Let's just say he doesn't lose his job. Probably a 10-touchdown guy this year. Edmonds rushing plus receiving, I don't know, 5-6? Hard to say, obviously.

Yeah, because James Conner did mostly seem to be in the Kenyon Drake role. He was on the field for four of their six snaps inside of the 10-yard line. So Edmonds' touchdowns are going to be an issue, but yeah, I would take Edmonds' touchdowns are going to be an issue, but yeah, I would take Edmonds over Harris moving forward, for sure. I wouldn't do it

in non-PPR. I don't know that I would in half. Sure, sure. Full, yeah, that's fair. Half or full, I would. Brandon Ayuk is still learning how to be a pro, according to NBC Sports. Matt Mayoka, I don't know how to pronounce his name, I'm sorry, but he, look, he's coming back from an injury.

Kyle Shannon admitted that was part of the reason he didn't play that much. He didn't have a target. Trent Shurfield, they like him, it seems. But, you know, is this a good buy low opportunity, or is this a bust in fantasy, Brandon Ayuk? Where are you leaning right now? I mean, this is like exactly what happened to dante pettis in 20 was that 18 or 2019 um obviously iuk was better as a rookie but pettis had a lot of hype coming into his second season

uh was a top 45 pick in the nfl draft so it's not like he didn't have a pedigree and yeah he just fell out of kyle Kyle Shanahan's favor. It seems like Trey Sermon, the same thing's happening to him. Kyle Shanahan is not a sentimental coach, it appears. He's going to go with what he thinks the best results are going to come from. That being said, Brandon Ayuk did run 20 routes in this game. Shurfield also, I think, ran 18. So it wasn't like Ayuk was buried.

I don't know if you can look this up, though. I think a lot of that came in the fourth quarter. Might have, yeah. I'm pretty sure it did. We'll see what happens this week. This is a big week for Brandon Ayuk. They're at Philadelphia. I don't think anyone's going to have confidence starting him.

But let's at least see him out on the field more. Let's at least see him as the number two wide receiver because this is a little bit concerning. I'm not sure. I'm not willing to put the just blanket buy low offer on him. I wouldn't trade Mike Williams for him. I know that might sound nuts. They were five rounds apart, four or five rounds apart, but I wouldn't do it. I think it's a legitimate enough concern right now, And I'm legitimately encouraged by Williams. So I know, would you do that? Would you trade Mike Williams for Ayuk? I think so.

I mean, I had my own concerns about Ayuk's ability to live up to the hype that he was getting this preseason. I wasn't sure that he was better than Debo Samuel. And Debo Samuel. Debo Samuel looked really awesome yesterday. And I think either way, he was going to be the number two option in this offense. So I think I would probably stand pat on that,

but I think it makes perfect sense. Yeah, and there was also something in the write-up in the athletic that kyle shanahan said that there's no firm hierarchy for the running backs this year and so you got mosher with a knee injury you you have you've got jeff wilson on ir you've got sermon inactive obviously everyone's going to get more in on the waiver wire he's going to be probably the most... Mitchell, sorry. Elijah Mitchell. Elijah Mitchell. He's probably going to be the most added player. And he should be. I don't know that I agree with this no hierarchy thing.

I feel like when most are healthy, there's a hierarchy. He's going to be the guy if he's healthy. Yeah, I mean, look. It sucks for Jamie that his start of the week got hurt after two carries. It was the right call, clearly with the way Elijah Mitchell played. Elijah Mitchell's kind of a Raheem Mostert clone.

They're basically the same size. They're both like 5'10", 5'11", 205 pounds. Both ran like four 440s. They're really fast. So he could just be the perfect Raheem Mostert replacement. That being said, if Trey Sermon's active for week two, which I would assume Raheem Mostert replacement that being said if Trey Sermon's active for week two which I would assume he is if Mostert's out it also wouldn't surprise me if Trey Sermon got off to you know got a couple carries in the second quarter got hot and

you know ended up cutting into that role you know we're talking about yeah two rookies without a track record but Sermon did have more draft capital. I don't know how much that matters to Kyle Shanahan. It doesn't seem like it matters at all. Let's all remember Joe Williams being the guy that Kyle Shanahan was famously pounding the table to draft. So, yeah, I wouldn't be dropping Trey Sermon yet. That's for sure. Yeah.

All right. Other 49ers news. And by the way, listen, it's not too late to do this. Jamie's the commissioner of a lot of our leagues, and he did this in every one of his leagues. He moved waivers to Wednesday night instead of Tuesday night. And I'm not doing that in the one league. I'm the two leagues.

I'm the commissioner of the podcast leagues. But if you want, I think now's the time. Reach out to your league and ask them, because you're going to want more information. Maybe we'll have it your league and ask them because you're going to want more information. Maybe we'll have it on Mostert but you're going to want more information throughout the year. Look, ask...

Actually, I hate it for fab leagues. I hate it for fab leagues or always waiver leagues. Why? Because if you don't get... If you don't get... If you need a fill-in for...

Like if you need a streaming defense or a kicker or a tight end or a quarterback because your guy's on a bye this week or they get hurt and and you don't get your guy in that first fab run you're screwed so you need it so you're saying it needs to be a league where it's waivers or fab for wednesday night and then it's free agency after that yeah if you want to do it like thursday's a free agency day and then you go back to fab on thursday night and friday that would work but

just having one opportunity to pick people up before the first game of the week I I just think that's that's a recipe for for chaos and we'll see how it plays out I've done leagues like that before I didn't really encounter that problem but I could see how it would come up all right anyway that's your choice as a commissioner the fantasy cops are not going to rule on this one. You guys do whatever you want out there. All right, more San Francisco news. They had a lot of

defensive injuries in this game. Jason Verrett may have torn his ACL starting corner for them. They should get Emmanuel Mosley, another starting cornerback,

next week, but he didn't play in week one. Linebacker Drake Greenlaw left with a groin injury, and then when Verrett got hurt, Kyle Shanahan

pulled some of his starters, and that's when the Lions got back in the game. And then when Verrett got hurt, Kyle Shanahan pulled some of his starters. And that's when the lions got back in the game. And Shannon, Shannon kind of admitted he pulled the starters a little bit early. You know, we know what happened to them last year. So just keep that in mind with the lions at all the points they scored, they were doing a lot of it against backup.

They played 84 snaps in this game too. You know, I think especially with Jamal Williams, he only played 35% of the snaps for them. So, you know, we talked about that on the FFT video show today. Can you trust both Jamal Williams and DeAndre Swift? I think Jamal Williams is a flex,

but I thought he was a flex before this game. Yeah, I don't know. Look, I don't know how your leagues work. Maybe you get a middle finger back, but sometimes you can trade Jamal Williams for Julio Jones, and it gets accepted. Oh, yeah. So try.

Sometimes you can trade him for Mike Evans. It doesn't hurt to ask. That's right. I got five trade rejections in the 2QB league over the weekend. Five. And the worst part is, Chris, I wanted to start Jameis, but I had so many trade offers out that I didn't put him in my lineup

because I didn't want to have no quarterback. So I forgot to put him in, and he's on my bench. I won with my Andy Dalton-Tyrod Taylor combo. Thank you. I don't need your pity QB offers. I was thinking about your Tyrod Taylor team. That was well done.

All right, Marshawn Lattimore is going to miss a couple weeks after thumb surgery, and Marcus Davenport has a pectoral injury. These are two of the best defensive players for the Saints. Detroit cornerback Jeffrey Okuda out for the season with a ruptured Achilles. That's a tough break. Chicago lost two left tackles yesterday. Jason Peters, longtime Eagle, their starter, left with a quad injury,

and then his backup, Borum hurt his ankle not long after. And the only thing I want to say about Jerry Judy that we didn't say yesterday is we didn't talk about Tim Patrick, but he's going to be another guy that you can pick up. They are at Jacksonville and then they have the Jets. Tim Patrick Yeah, Teddy. Teddy got a real nice start to the season. I thought

he, I really thought he was great. Absolutely great. He looked great. Yeah, I mean, the thing is, the thing he looked best at is the thing i thought he i really thought he was great absolutely great he looked great yeah i mean the the thing is the thing he looked best at is the thing i think he's always been best at which is navigating the pocket he's one of those quarterbacks who when things break down he has to move and scramble he always keeps his head up and so you know with a group of playmakers like this that could be really, really valuable. All right. Also, Denver guard Graham Glasgow

had to go to the hospital after the game last night. He had an elevated heartbeat. So that's something to keep in mind. He's their starting right guard, I think. All right. Let's talk about our five big topics. But first, let's talk about the newsletter that Chris writes. Great stuff.

CBSSports.com slash newsletter. Stay up to date every single day. Write to your inbox all the news, the injuries, the storylines, the buy lows, the sell highs. CBSSports.com slash newsletter. The only place to get my rankings where you can find that I had Jarvis Landry, wide receiver 24.

What a look. Got a little bit lucky there with the rushing. No, no, lucky. It's a good job though. No, this thing is like five big topics.

These are from our listeners. All right. Topic number one is from Joe. Uh, you know what? I feel like we kind of addressed this. Yeah, we did.

All right. Topic one is covered. It's, it's the 49ers basically. And, and sermon and, and Iuke. So I'll skip it. I think the biggest thing there, especially with the 49ers, basically, and Sermon and Ayuk. So, I'll skip it.

I think the biggest thing there, especially with the running backs, is just don't have a preference. Just whoever's going to get the carries, they're going to be good. That's the thing about this offense, Baltimore's offense, a couple others, that just if it's Jermichael Hasty, if it's Raheem Mostert,

if it's Trey Sermon, if it's whoever they pick up off the street, they're going to be good because that's what this offense does. It creates efficient rushers. And so it's just all about who the lead back is. And right now it looks like, uh, Elijah Mitchell.

Okay. This is from Randy Mal. Oh, four. Who are some fringe starters or stashes that we should remain patient on despite low production? On the podcast last night slash this morning, Dave mentioned that we can give up on MVS, for instance, though he tied Adams for the team lead in targets.

So I guess Randy doesn't want to give up on MVS. Any players that you think, no, I'm not ready to give up on him yet? Marquez Valdez-Scantling.antling well yeah that's what he had an incredibly no that i know that's oh that's i'm agreeing with him he had an incredibly valuable role fourth in the league in air yards in week one um aaron rogers just played really poorly uh he overthrew mS on three or four deep balls that he had a chance on, including what could have been a touchdown. So I would hang on to MVS. I think what he did yesterday was actually very promising for the future, especially given the hype he had coming

out of training camp. I'll also add Emmanuel Sanders. People might be a little concerned that he was third in the receiving hierarchy. He was sixth in the league in air yards. And Josh Allen overthrew him for an easy touchdown in the first quarter that if he hits on that, we're probably talking about Emmanuel Sanders as one of the top waiver wire targets this week. He's 66% rostered. I would go at him if he's not rostered in your league. Elijah Moore, one catch for negative three yards is not what you want to see from a hyped rookie in his NFL debut. He had 92 air yards in this game, which is a really good total for only four targets. He had a couple of deep targets, one that he should have caught. The other one was overthrown and tipped by the defender, but Zach Wilson's willing to take those

chances and he looks comfortable with Elijah Moore in taking those chances, so I would hang on to him. Rondell Moore, he's the clear number four wide receiver right now for the Cardinals, but he still ran, I think, 19 routes in this one, which is a pretty good number. Was targeted in the end zone in the first quarter. I would say should have been a defensive pass interference. He would have caught it if not for that. And then three design plays otherwise, which we know he's going to have. So I would hang on to him as a speculative ad. One guy I would say the opposite about is Michael Pittman.

I'm not saying you should drop Michael Pittman because he played 97% of the snaps and ran every route. He was 121st in targets per route run last season and 101st in yards per route run. And that's out of 141 players who were targeted at least 50 times. So the thing, you know, we got kind of excited about Michael Pittman when T.Y. Hilton got hurt, but he was already playing nearly every snap for most of the second half of last season. And outside of a couple of games, he really didn't get many targets. I worry that Michael Pittman's not that good, that he's got the opportunity, but may not be able to take advantage of it. So just putting him on notice right now. We'll see what the next couple of weeks look like. Carson Wentz threw 15 of his 36 passes

or whatever it was to his running backs. So I don't think that'll happen every week, but something to keep an eye on. Running back's harder to say. It's sufficient, Chris. I think you got it. We got it. Okay.

Yeah, no, I just want to talk about it. Yeah, let's move on. Well, there's one, you know, I don't know who has Adam Troutman, but look, so the thing is, I want to talk about it. Yeah, let's move on. Well, there's one, you know, I don't know who has Adam Troutman, but look, so the thing is, based on the snaps, based on the targets and all that,

you should drop Jawan Johnson for Adam Troutman or you should prefer Adam Troutman over Johnson. Yeah. But then you also wonder, hey, this is Johnson's first chance to really show anything and he caught two touchdowns. Maybe he gets an increased role, but he had almost no role.

Troutman was very involved and led the team in targets. So that's an interesting choice, but I think there's something there. I think you're going to get some tight end production from the Saints this year. They barely threw 20 passes in week one. One thing I'll add on that is you should expect Jawan Johnson to play fewer snaps than Adam Troutman because he's not going to block. I think he might have been in one play where he didn't run a route. Troutman's going to be on pretty much every snap, including rushing plays because they like him as a blocker. But yeah, I think Jawan Johnson, he's the speculative play. I think he's the upside play there.

All right, let's go to our next hot topic here. James Robinson. Kelly wants to know about James Robinson. He's got the drops. He's worried that Carlos Hyde is going to continue to take over the role. I don't think that's going to happen, Chris, but this is not someone I'm looking to buy low on. I'm terrified of the Jaguars.

I just think they suck. And Urban Meyer is I can't trust him. And yeah, I got better days are ahead, but I just don't know how reliable James Robinson is going to be. Yeah, we got that JLC report on Sunday morning about, you know, kind of frustrations with Urban Meyeryers approach so far they looked like a disaster last night or yesterday afternoon and carlos hyde started the second half which is really stupid but it's true um the one thing i will say in james robinson's favor is he did play more snaps. He was out there for most passing downs or pass plays. He split out wide a handful of times. Three of his six targets actually came out from out wide,

and he looked pretty good in that role. There were a couple of drops, which is frustrating. You wonder how much that played a role in him having a smaller role in the second half. But I still think he's definitely the guy to roster there just because I... Carl's head's not good. So hopefully... Oh, he's definitely better than Hyde to roster.

But what about Daryl Henderson or James Robinson? I still have more faith in Robinson. But I'm certainly not going to rank him as an RB1 like I did last week. Yeah, he won't be in my FanDuel lineup for a long time. Thank you, James Robinson. All right, we're going to take a quick break here. When we come back, we'll let Chris talk about how much he thinks Ben Roethlisberger is washed up.

So still, anyway, still washed up. So after this break, we'll talk about the Steelers and then the Packers and then the Titans right here on Fantasy Football today. 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 welcome back thomas davis says will the steelers be good but still a fantasy disaster because of a lack of production concentration? In other words, too many cooks in the kitchen. But what's your read on the Steelers? I think it might be the opposite. I think they might be. I mean, that was kind of true of last

year, too. I think they might be just not very good, but pretty good for fantasy, at least in a handful of places. Najee Harris playing every single snap is very promising. I think he is someone you can still view as a number one running back moving forward, despite not having the best NFL debut. And Deontay Johnson still got his 10 targets. Ben Roethlisberger still loves throwing to him. If you watch those 10 targets, there were a lot of bad throws among them. I think Ben Roethlisberger is probably a bad quarterback

at this point in his career. That will be taken as controversial, but he's 39 years old and wasn't great last season. But from what we saw from this new look Steelers offense yesterday, it was still just a ton of short throws. They kind of abandoned a lot of the Matt Canada installed stuff in the fourth quarter, especially. They moved away from all the pre-snap motion

and Roethlisberger under center and the play action and actually transitioned to a pretty heavy RPO-based offense. I think his final 10 attempts I read were, or final 10 dropbacks were RPOs. So that's something to keep in mind that benefits Deontay Johnson, I think, because it's going to be short throws. I think it's bad news for Chase Claypool,

how Ben Roethlisberger looked yesterday, because I think he's still going to be a touchdown dependent guy, still going to be a deep ball guy who plays on a team that's not going to throw it deep. Ben Roethlisberger threw one pass further than 20 yards yesterday on 32 attempts. I mean, it was definitely concerning.

I think if you want to be optimistic about Claypool, I didn't really like him in this matchup because the Bills take away the deep ball. That's just what they do. They do it year after year. They're really good at eliminating big plays. So it just wasn't the right setup for him. They've got the Raiders and the Bengals in their next two games.

The Bengals don't have that bad of a secondary. But the Packers might, and they're three weeks from now. I want to read something about the Packers' secondary, or defense, which is amazing. We'll talk about that. And I will throw one thing out there. I'm all in on Najee Harris, by the way. I still like him a lot.

I still want him. Top 12 running back. Yeah, I'm fine with it. And that's somebody I'm targeting in trade offers this week. Yeah, I'll add in Roethlisberger's favor because I don't want to be all negative. He did look both a little more agile than last season and more willing to, you know, move in the pocket and let plays develop and scramble if he had to. So, you know, that's a good thing because last season

he was just releasing the ball so quickly that there was very little chance for routes to develop. This last one is from 2libras but also everyone else on Twitter. All of the Packers and all of the Titans, people

are obviously a little worried about what we saw. Are you worried about all of the Packers and all of the Titans? people are obviously a little worried about what we saw. Are you worried about all of the Packers and all of the Titans? Let me just give a couple of things here. Derrick Henry had three catches. You probably were encouraged. You out there probably were encouraged by that.

Two of them came in the fourth quarter. I don't think anything's changing in terms of Henry in the passing game. They're not going to get blown out like this. And the Packers admitted, at least Aaron Rodgers did, that they were just overconfident. They expect to be a great team,

and they thought they were going to just move the ball up and down the field. They got humbled in this game. So what's your level of concern for the Packers and the Titans? Very low, at least, especially for the Packers. Aaron Rodgers just looked uncomfortable. He looked inaccurate, which is not something that we expect from Aaron Rodgers and not something that I think we should expect moving forward. It just, it wasn't his week, but I don't think there was, you know, I don't think there were like structural reasons to think that that'll be the case moving forward. Like I said,

with MVS, you know, he overthrew, you knowrew a lot of passes in this game in a way that you don't generally expect Aaron Rodgers to do. So I think they'll be fine moving forward. If it happens again, then you start to be a little concerned. Maybe they're falling back into that 2018-2019 range where they were still a good offense, but they weren't an amazing offense, especially not for fantasy. Um, but I'm willing to give them a mulligan on this one and the Titans to a certain

extent as well. Chandler Jones just played the game of his life. Um, five sacks in that one. I think one other player got a sack for the Cardinals as well. Uh, but he was just wrecking their offensive line. That's a little bit of concern because the offensive line is supposed to be a strength for the Titans. Taylor LeJuan was just getting beat over and over in this one, and I think he apologized to the fans on Twitter for his performance.

But it's the first game with Julio Jones. They had so much turnover in their receiving core that it's not necessarily super surprising that they struggled like this. I obviously didn't expect them to, but I'm not hitting the panic button yet. I still think Julio Jones and A.J. Brown can both be top 12, top 15 wide receivers,

and obviously no concerns about Derrick Henry. Although it turns out he is mortal i guess is one takeaway from this game he can be slowed down um but it's not the second half of the season so that's right he hasn't fully reached his superpowers yet tennessee's at seattle next week green bay meanwhile hosts detroit that should be pretty good for them. It better be. Also, another thing Aaron Rodgers said was that defensive coordinator, Dennis Allen for the Saints, he

kind of surprised the Packers with the defense he ran. They played a two-shell system, and they didn't use a lot of pass rushers. They just kind of played back, kind of dared the Packers to run, I guess, and Green Bay didn't do anything well. Aaron Jones and A.J. Dillon both had five carries in this one. That was

surprising to see how little the running backs got used. Let me read you this. This is amazing. Again, from The Athletic. You can tell where I do a lot of my reading on Monday. Packers head coach Matt LaFleur chose not to bring back defensive coordinator Mike Pettin. Instead, he hired Joe Barry. Now I'll read verbatim. Barry had been a defensive coordinator for four years prior to arriving in Green Bay, 2007 and 8 in Detroit, and 2015 and 16 in Washington. According to True Media, the 2007 Lions ranked 31st in total

defensive EPA. Expected points added. The 2008 Lions ranked 32nd. Washington ranked 15th in 2015 and 30th in 2016. In other words, Barry's defenses have largely been awful when he is their coordinator. Interesting. Let's keep an eye on that. Alright, Chris. Any snap counts or advanced stats or anything that you want to end the show with? Yeah, I'll point out a couple.

Jonathan Taylor, Nick Chubb, Mark Ingram, Austin Eckler, and Justin Herbert all had the most touches inside of the 10-yard line this week. Ton of opportunities for the Chargers in this one. They probably should have scored a lot more than they did. Eckler obviously had the weird game with no targets, but he was out on a route for, I think,

like 55% to 60% of their snaps, so it's not concerning yet. I wonder how much the hamstring had to do with that. But four touches inside of the 10-yard line, all carries. For a guy who we were convinced would have no goal line role, that's a pretty good sign. Josh Allen had three touches inside of the 10, Alvin Kamara, Daryl Henderson, and Najee Harris as well.

Devin Singletary had two, including a target, so that's interesting. But yeah, on the running back side, that's a pretty good sign for those guys mentioned. And gosh, I'm sure I have more numbers, but I don't have them. Oh, I wanted to point out Kenneth Gainwell played 35% of the snaps,

was the clear number two running back for the Eagles. He had that rushing touchdown along with his nine carries. He also had a receiving touchdown nullified in the first half by an illegal man downfield penalty. So could have been an even bigger game for Kenneth Gainwell. I really liked what we saw from him. And Antonio Gibson was actually used more in the passing game than J.D. McKissick. He didn't play a third down snap, which is kind of confusing,

but they've showed since the preseason they were willing to scheme up touches for Antonio Gibson in the passing game on first and second down. And he ran 13 routes while McKissick ran 12. So I think that's a pretty promising sign. And let's see. Yeah. Yeah. I think

oh, and Justin Jefferson had a touchdown that was overturned that I think should have been a touchdown. Right. Well, we talked about that yesterday, and I celebrated as a Dalvin Cook manager in three or four leagues. Oh, and one other thing I want to add. I think the player who might have seen his value increase the most

in my eyes this week is DJ Shark, who only had three catches yesterday. Trevor Lawrence did not look particularly great. There were some really nice flashes, but it was really inconsistent and inaccurate. Uh, DJ shark, I believe a second in the NFL right now in air yards, 199 yesterday, Tyree kill had like 240 or something ridiculous. Um, but 12 targets, 199 air yards, obviously had the long touchdown, had another one that Lawrence underthrew that if he had hit him in stride would have been a touchdown.

At least in week one, DJ Shark looked by far the best wide receiver for fantasy for the Jaguars. So if you're bullish on Trevor Lawrence, I think you can buy uh, you can buy, uh, DJ shark who I was not particularly high on coming into the season. And some snap counts that I thought were interesting. Darnell Mooney played a hundred percent of the snaps.

So if this is another guy, if you bought into him and you don't want to drop them, never judge him one game against the Rams. Uh, so, you know, I'm not a huge Mooney guy, but 100%, but, you know, he played a lot.

Chase Claypool didn't. Chase Claypool played 67% of the snaps. James O'Shaughnessy, deep league Scott Fishbowl, he played 80% of the snaps for the Jaguars, and he had eight targets. And this was disappointing. Gerald Everett caught a touchdown, but he and Will Disley both played about 70% of the snaps.

Disley had three targets. Everett had two. So I'm not sure you're really going to get any type of breakout from Everett. Yeah, that was one of the things we saw in the preseason too, was Disley and Everett were both. I mean, Disley's been good when he's been healthy.

He's just suffered a serious injury every single season. With Curtis Samuel out, Deami Brown played 93% of the snaps. Didn't do much with it. And I just don't really... We can end with this, but... Oh, well, first Melvin Gordon and Javante Williams both played 50% of the snaps.

That was interesting. But, you know, the Myles Gaskin usage was really weird to me. He only ended up playing 54% of the snaps, but I still think he established himself as the clear number one guy, and the Dolphins only ran 52 plays. They only

gained 259 total yards. Their offense sucked, and they came away with a win, but Gaskin just really didn't get much work in the second half. I don't know. I still think it was positive for him. He was the guy for them.

I think if you're judging based on how we reacted to the first preseason game, it was positive. But Myles Gaskin last season played at least 65% of the snaps in every game that he played in. And Sivan Akhmed played 65% of the snaps, I think, in four of the other games that Gaskin didn't play out of six. So, you know, he was at 54% this week. Nine of the 17 running back carries. Five of the eight running back targets.

Malcolm Brown did come in near the goal line at a couple of points. I'm not sure he's good enough to be a must-start guy without dominating work the way he did last season. I'm willing sure he's good enough to be a must-start guy without dominating work the way he did last season. I'm willing to wait. He will probably still be a top 20 running back for me this week, but it was not exactly what I hoped for from Myles Gaskin. They've got Buffalo this week. All right, that's it for Fantasy Football today,

this Monday afternoon edition. We've got the waiver wire for you on Tuesday. And of course, make sure you're listening to Fantasy Football today in five every single morning. Quick way to get your fantasy football fix. For Chris Towers, I'm Adam Azer. We'll talk to you tomorrow.