Fantasy Football Today - Five Big Topics! Chiefs Offense, Kyle Pitts, Best Schedules (10/25 Fantasy Football Podcast)

Episode Date: October 25, 2021

Recapping a sloppy Sunday night game between the Colts and 49ers! How legit is Eli Mitchell? Is Deebo Samuel a Top 10 WR rest of season or could Trey Lance crush his value? Is Michael Pittman a must-start at this point? And we'll give you the latest news (12:00) around the NFL ... Five Big Topics! What's going on with the Chiefs (16:50)? Should we be selling high on Kyle Pitts or is he legit (20:10)? Is Khalil Herbert going to be a problem for David Montgomery (27:30)? ... We give you some players who have great upcoming schedules (33:00) and talk about some guys who are mostly irrelevant now but could become "a thing" later (40:10) ... Email us at [e-mail] 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 touchdown. Oh, he's done it again. Now here's some combination of Adam, Dave, Jamie, Heath, and Beck. We've got five big topics and a recap of Sunday night football, a rainy, sloppy game with some terrific running back play. Welcome to Fantasy Football Today, Adam Azer and Chris Towers. Jacob Gibbs will be joining us in just a little bit to talk about our topics today. The Chiefs, they're 3-4, but do they have any offensive concerns that should

have fantasy managers a little worried? Kyle Pitts, back-to-back 100-yard games. He's just going to keep crushing it out there. Results of a Twitter poll that I thought were very interesting. Is Khalil Herbert a problem for David Montgomery? We'll take a look at upcoming schedules and who's got good schedules coming up. It's not the easiest exercise, but we'll try.

I got a quarterback with a great schedule coming up. Get excited. And players that could just bust out. Not, you know, players that are sort of irrelevant right now that could bust out. What's up, Chris? Hello. Hello. I know.

Long-winded intro. Yeah. No, but it was good. I think you hit all your marks, and you should feel good about that one. I do. I feel pretty good about it. Maybe a little bit shorter next time, but now everybody knows what's coming up. I thought it was perfect.

Thank you. That is what they call in the industry a tease. A very long tease. A very long tease. A very long tease. So, you know, that little fumble slash interception from Carson Wentz last night, you know, where he just gave it away? He had Pascal wide open. I was watching it again today.

That could have been a touchdown. He was about to make a great play, and it slipped out of his hands. You can't hold anything that happened in that game against anyone. It would, the conditions were so bad. There was that, like the pick six at the end was such a weird play because it didn't seem

like anybody realized that he hadn't gone down. It was, it was just a weird game. There were what? Four fumbled snaps between the two quarterbacks. The conditions were not ideal. I think it's fair to say. You said you can't hold anyone responsible for anything.

What about Brandon Ayuk's punt return adventure? I don't know if that was weather related or not. I think he just kind of kicked the ball into the end. So it ended up being a touchback. But that one might have just been a bad play. Look, it happens. It does. You try standing out in the rain for three hours.

I've done it at a football game. I've done it. Ruined my cell phone one time. You didn't have to do anything. You know? It's true. Kyle Shanahan did not exactly commit to Jimmy Garoppolo starting next week.

Oh, no. He said, you know, he said probably. I would guess so, I think, was the way he phrased it. Is Jimmy Garoppolo your starter in said probably. I would guess so, I think was the way he phrased it. Is Jimmy Garoppolo your starter in week eight? I would guess so, I think is what he said. Yeah, so we'll see. He also said, like, we'll see who's healthy. But, you know, we don't, I think for Deebo Samuel's sake,

we'd rather it be Jimmy Garoppolo. Let's talk about this game, though. 30-18 Indianapolis over San Francisco. And Taylor and Mitchell both had 18 carries for 107 yards and one touchdown. That's pretty amazing. How much are you buying Elijah Mitchell? I think he's an RB2 moving forward. He's the starting running back in a Kyle Shanahan offense,

and they've basically shown no interest in using anyone else, really. Trey Sermon, I think, played two snaps in week six. Michael Hasty got three carries today. Trey Sermon, I don't even know if he got on the field. I think that is a situation where Elijah Mitchell is, as long as he's healthy, he's going to be the lead back. And that should mean fairly efficient production and a decent chance of scoring a touchdown. I don't think he'll be an RB1 at any point moving forward. I mean, he'll have some RB1 weeks, but

he's not really involved in the passing game so he's going to be a little touchdown dependent but like i would rather have elijah mitchell than damian harris moving forward yeah and they're right they're similar in that yeah i agree i agree but i think mitchell's in a better running game yeah and i'm just you know he's a 49ers running back and they always get hurt. So I know it doesn't seem... They also have a type. He's a 49ers running back in that he's really fast and pretty small. And so, you know, if he gets 20 carries a game,

you have to think at some point he's going to break down. That's been the way it's worked for pretty much everybody who's been in that situation. But Jeff Wilson's not coming back for, I would think, at least a month um so elijah mitchell's got some runway here okay and then as far as debo samuel goes i think we gotta just if anyone is still doubting him stop it he had another hundred yard game he's eight or more targets in every game and he's had a pretty easy schedule if you look at his four big games, they've been against Detroit, Philadelphia,

Seattle, and the Colts. Philadelphia has actually been good against wide receivers, but he's done well against pretty easy competition. So there is that, but it's not like he has a super hard schedule going forward. But yeah, I think the only thing

that could slow him down is Trey Lance. Do you agree with that? Yeah, I think that's probably true. I mean, I guess if Brandon Ayuk ever starts playing better, but I don't necessarily know if that's something we can rely on at this point because he is playing a decent role. I think

it's 72% of the snaps every game or 72% of the pass routes over the last four games. So it's not like IU is not out on the field. No, I think Samuel probably has to be viewed as a top eight, top six wide receiver moving forward. His target rate has been 30% plus pretty much every week. That is so high. I know, but he had a 34% target share coming into this.

Kittle has been out. Look, I mean, top 15, yeah, top 8. You can't name 8 wide receivers you'd rather have than Deebo Samuel? Especially with a quarterback change potentially looming? Let's try it. Okay, so I think we can do this.

Here's the whole list of wide receivers who have been better than him. Okay. Cooper Cup. Yeah. I would. Yep. Terry kill. Let me get this fingers in the video.

Yeah. All right. Jamar Chase. Devante Adams. Uh-huh. I think it's fine to take all four of those guys ahead of him. Uh-huh. Yeah.

I'm still going to go with digs and Jefferson. Digs and Jefferson. That's fine. That's, I'm still going to go with Diggs and Jefferson. Diggs and Jefferson, that's fine. That's seven. I'm going to go with A.J. Brown. I think that's really close. I just am very afraid of Trey Lance. Be afraid, be very afraid. You were like, is A.J. Brown a bust?

Me? Like a week and a half ago. The hell are you talking about? I asked the question. No, Chris. I asked the question. I did Chris. I asked the question. I did not think A.J. Brown was a bust. I said there's no reason why A.J. Brown

shouldn't just be really good from here on out. I am all about A.J. Brown. Okay, so there's no... I'd rather have D.K. Metcalf. I assume Wilson will be back fairly soon. When Wilson's back, I'd rather have Metcalf. That's not even... I think that's pretty close, but I don't know.

It's just like, why are we... Why should we be skeptical of Devo Samuel? He was really good as a rookie. I'm not. The touchdowns weren't there. I'm skeptical of Trey Lance. Look at Allen Robinson. Look at Allen Robinson.

Trey Lance is worse than Justin Fields, in my opinion. I'm terrified of Trey Lance. I have more faith in Kyle Shanahan than I do Matt Nagy. That's fine, but that's still his quarterback. And George Kittle hasn't played. George Kittle's barely been on the field. Sure. He was really good when George Kittle did play.

Yeah. He was leading the league in receiving yards when George Kittle played. He did have some kind of big, kind of fluky plays, but no. Really, it's semantics because he's in the must-start territory. I'd rather have Mike Williams. No, I don't think so.

And who am I missing here? I'd rather have Deebo Samuel than DeAndre Hopkins. I'd rather have Deebo Samuel than DeAndre Hopkins. I'd rather have him than CeeDee Lamb. Yeah, I guess so. Mike Evans? I'd rather have Deebo. I'd rather have Debo.

I'd rather have Debo than DJ Moore. I'd rather have him than DJ Moore, yeah. I'd rather have Evans. What about Terry McLaurin? I'd rather have McLaurin. You'd rather have McLaurin? I would, yeah. And you'd rather have Mike Evans than him? Yeah. Come on. I think that when, I think that

from this point on, well, Evans has what? Evans has I think that from this point on, well, Evans has what? Evans has seven touchdowns. Debo has six. No, Debo has five. Debo has five? Okay.

No, he has four and a rushing touchdown. 52 yards more in one game fewer than Mike Adams. No, right. He's been better. Look, it's all about Trey Lance for me. If they're really going to go to Trey Lance, then I think that's going to be a problem for him. Okay, anyway, he's a must-start player. Is Michael Pittman a must-start player?

Four catches for 105 yards and a touchdown on only four targets. He was started in 60% of leagues. Is Michael Pittman a must-start? I mean, he was having a pretty nothing game until that touchdown at the end, right? I guess he had three catches for like 70 yards before that. Yeah, I don't know. This is again, it's it was a game where the weather was terrible. They couldn't really throw the ball that effectively had four targets on 26 pass attempts but is that a result of the weather he he you know with ty hilton in last week his target share was way down so i think that's a

concern but i don't know i i don't think he's a must-start wide receiver but i think he's in the 25 to 30 range moving forward gonna be hard to sit him in a three receiver league put it that way and then moe cox yeah 28 rostered moe cox another touchdown for him so his last four games he has 42 yards and two touchdowns at miami 50 yards at baltimore a 28 yard touchdown catch against houston a 25 yard touchdown catch at san francisco he's finding the end zone only one of his touchdowns has been from inside 10 yards but it it's five, four, three, three targets for Mo Alleycox.

It's just not the type of player that we typically buy into. And he's 28% rostered for a reason. He's a streaming touchdown or bust head end. There's like seven guys who have similar roles who are in similar offenses. Like I'm also not buying into Hunter Henry. I don't know if that makes me kind of an outlier on this podcast. I feel like it does, but I think Hunter Henry is mostly a streaming touchdown

or bust tight end at this point, too. All right, and that's pretty much going to do it for Sunday Night Football. Another great game for Jonathan Taylor, another bad game for Naeem Hines, but he could have had a huge play. He dropped on a wheel route. He was wide open. He had a bad drop late in the first half. If you want to hear more about

who Chris is believing in and who he is not believing in, make sure you subscribe to his newsletter, the Fantasy Football Today newsletter. Go to cbssports.com slash newsletters and learn everything you need to know about fantasy football. Starts and sits, waivers, all that stuff. Eight newsletter, eight a week, right?

Yeah. Eight a week eight a week, right? Yeah. Eight a week, right into your inbox. All right, some injury updates here. Just saw this on Miles Sanders from NFL Now. Eagles running back Miles Sanders is believed to have suffered a sprained ankle, the kind that looks serious but aren't usually serious or aren't usually as serious as they appear.

So we shall see. I mean, dream matchup at Detroit in week eight. And then the Chargers, they've been terrible against the run. They're going to get a little healthier. So that might be a different type of matchup. But you couldn't. And then Denver. I mean, you couldn't ask for a better stretch right here

for the Eagles backfield. Let's hope it's Miles Sanders. And if Sanders doesn't play, I'm not sure. Like, I think you can probably start Kenneth Gainwell as an RB2 in Week 8 against the Lions because they've been so bad against pass-catching running backs especially, but

he actually, I think he ran four times compared to nine rushes for Boston Scott after Miles Sanders left with the injury. Gainwell played 22 snaps. Scott played 20 Gainwell went ran a route on 17 of those 22 snaps so it wouldn't shock me if Boston Scott was the leading rusher here but I think that would probably only be like 10 to 12 carries anyway and Gainwell would probably get six to eight either way and you're just hoping

that his passing game role makes him uh a starting caliber running back but i i'm not as confident as i thought i would be in the event of a mile sanders injury after yesterday oh yeah i think i mean i don't think i ever was this i just don't trust the Eagles. It did look like Miles Sanders was on his way to a good workload, unfortunately. We don't know about Josh Jacobs right now, but there was some optimism yesterday that he won't have to miss any time as they go into their bye week.

Zach Wilson out two to four weeks with a sprained PCL. So that will be Cincinnati, the Colts, the Bills, and the Dolphins over the next four weeks. And right now, Mike White is the quarterback. Probably good news for Michael Carter. It could be, yeah. He catches yesterday. And then I also think five or six for Ty Johnson.

So that could just be a Mike White tendency throwing to his running backs. Patrick Mahomes expected to play this week against the Giants. Deshaun Watson could be traded this week if you want to pick him up. Now might be the time. I'm just going to tell you straight up, I won't have him on any of my teams,

but I don't want to sound like I'm endorsing Deshaun Watson, but... I've reached the point where if he gets traded, I'll talk about it. Until then, I'm not going to speculate. No, but I mean, everybody's going to pick him up if he gets traded. People are going to make moves just personally.

I'm not going to tell you what to do or not to do with that guy right now. Sure. There are other NFL examples that it's like, is it just hypocrisy? Can I really roster this guy and not this guy? It's a lot to get into. DJ Chark is out for the season. There was some hope that maybe he could come back late, but he won't be. New England slot cornerback Jonathan Jones is out for the season. That's a hope that maybe he could come back late, but he won't be. And New England slot cornerback Jonathan Jones

is out for the season. That's a big deal. He's a very good player. Baker Mayfield was not seen at practice. Nick Chubb, he didn't practice Baker Mayfield. Nick Chubb did. Looks like he's good to go for Sunday against Pittsburgh. He's trending in that direction.

Same with right tackle Jack Conklin for the Browns. Meanwhile, Jarvis Landry and Odell Beckham, they have a shot to play. Beckham is, I just don't know how you can trust these guys, but Beckham is not going to have shoulder surgery as of now until the offseason. We are going to take a break, and Jacob Gibbs is on the other side of it.

Our five big topics. Jacob and I can start our Monday night trash talk, see if he's going to go to the chief giants game. All right. We'll be right back. That one's going to work out for you. I don't think so either. We'll be right back on fantasy football today.

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I don't know how you do that, but... Be very afraid. We're only a game back of the Chiefs. You know, 3-4 versus 2-5. Technically true. So sad. That's kind of true. Chiefs are only 10-point favorites. Man, you got to hammer that.

They're going to crush the Giants. But anyway, the first question, Jacob, is actually about the Chiefs. Diggs559 says, Mahomes, what's going on? Let's expand it to the entire offense here. Look, they're coming off a terrible game. They're now eighth in scoring per game they were fifth going in they were averaging more points this year than they were last year so it's just the Tennessee game makes it look a lot worse but Jacob do you have concerns about the Kansas City Chiefs

offensively as it relates to fantasy no not really I did dig into to my home's specific data just a little bit to see if anything stood out because he does kind of look like he's pressing, especially this last week. So specifically, I wanted to check out what I guess you would call maybe like tendency rates. So things like how long he's holding the ball before he's throwing, his average depth of target, how often he's targeting different areas of the field. Just kind of looked into all that in specific situations, when pressured, when blitzed, long down distance, you know. And it ended up all being a tremendous waste of time.

Really nothing has changed. Like his tendencies are almost identical to what we've seen from him. I think he's been pretty lucky. I think he's near the top of the league in dropped interceptions over the past few years. And I think we're kind of seeing that work against him now where he's getting a little bit more unlucky, you know, had another 50, 50 ball tipped in the air this week, diving interception. He's had three of those right now this year where receivers have dropped the

ball and it's been intercepted. He's had one, you know, tipped a line of scrimmage intercepted. I don't know. I, maybe it's biased, but I have watched, you know, every game and I'm, I'm just not very worried about it really. I think, I think the offense is a little discombobulated right now but i think it's more likely they're going to get things figured out yeah chris we could probably be fairly quick on this i mean as far as kelsey mahomes and tyreek he'll go just you're just total total faith in them uh yeah yeah more or less i mean i guess mahomes injury you know if like it wouldn't surprise me

if he had late onset concussion symptoms that's not something that is all that rare we'll see a guy get cleared on a sunday and then go into the concussion protocol later in the week so that's something to keep an eye on but yeah as long as he's healthy i don't really see any reason to be worried about them they're they're such a long track record here of being a dominant offense and like you said they were fifth in scoring coming into this game this was the second time mahomes career where he's been below 10 fantasy points in a game both of them he left with injuries so yeah i don't see any real reason to be concerned at all. Okay, and then as far as Tyreek Hill goes, I know it's been a little bit frustrating,

but you might be surprised to know he's still a top three wide receiver. He's had just two mega huge games and a lot of catches this year. He's on pace for 119 catches in 16 games and 126 catches in 17 games. He's getting 10 targets per game. And yeah, I think we're fine with the Chiefs. So let's go to our second question here, our second big topic from Joshua Grubb.

Will Kyle Pitts keep this up or sell high? Jacob Gibbs, you answer the question from Joshua Grubb because you have the same initials. No, definitely, definitely do not sell high on Kyle Pitts. I mean, when you have the best tight end prospect in the history of the sport and he's like hitting his stride, I think you just enjoy the ride, right? Like, I mean, especially if you drafted him or whatever, like you believe him enough to take the chance on him.

And now he's proven you're right. And the usage has been great all year. I mean, he's running routes on nearly 80% of his land is dropbacks um that's up there with the best tight ends the nfl it's been that way all year but really like the only problem was atlanta's offense was you know super conservative we've talked about it on past podcasts and we've seen that change over the last few weeks um it was the same thing coming out of the buy and it's kind of you know now back to what we've grown accustomed to with atlanta they're passing on the highest rates in the NFL. They're providing a ton of air yards.

Ryan's eight out was 9.2 last week. It's been over nine in each of the past three games, which is in the top 10. And then on top of just like the team producing more passing volume all around, Pitts is taking a larger chunk of that volume as he gets more accustomed to the league. He was targeting on just 16% of his routes in the first three games. That's up to 26% over the past three, which is like approaching Darren Waller territory. That's really, really good.

And he's being targeted more downfield. His average depth of target is up from 7.8 in the first three games to 12.6 over the past three, which is just insane. He has 340 air yards over the past three weeks. That's as many as T.J TJ Hawkinson has on a year. Noah Fant has 300 on the year. He's just an entirely different beast than other tight ends, what we're looking at here. He's barely a tight end, which is what we said coming in.

He's only played 80. He's third on the Falcons in snaps at tight end this season. Right, yeah, that's what I was getting to next. Lined up as a tight end. That's what I was getting to lined up as a title. That's like why he's able to get these downfield targets is because he's running these routes. He's only been lined up in line as a tight end, 25% of the time over the past three games down from 34%.

And then last week, first week out of the bio is only 19%, which is the lowest in the season. So they're continuing to find, you know, creative ways to get in the ball downfield. His role is elite. And by all indications, his talent is elite. like it was advertised as so i mean he beat zavian howard on that last drive did he beat zavian howard lined up in isolation on consecutive plays

for 20 plus yard games like that's that's absurd for a tight end he's third at the position of receiving yards despite playing a few one fewer game than most of his competition. He leads the position in air yards per target. There is just basically every indication that he's an elite tight end. The only question is, is he better than Mark Andrews and Darren Waller? It's not like a, should you sell high on Kyle Pitts? You probably shouldn't because you can't. What would you get back for him?

Maybe if someone was willing to give you... Okay, if it were Dallas Goddard and what for Kyle Pitts? I think I would need a top 15 or 20 wide receiver or running back. Actually, not sure I would do it for a top 20 running back. If it's in that 15 to 20 range. Elijah Mitchell and Dallas Goddard for Pitts. I don't think I would. No.

I like Goddard, but I think Goddard and TJ Hawkinson are the Spider-Man meme. I got a good one here. I got a good one. Dallas Goddard and Cordaro Patterson or Kyle kyle pitts oh i think i might do that yeah yeah i think i would i mean what we saw from patterson this week was really really exciting by the way it was in it it was interesting because they did they used to more as a running back obviously the 14 carries compared to what five for mike davis that was huge but he also

lined up as a wide receiver more often yeah than we've seen at any point in the season and there's my cat um and so if both of those things are going to increase man Cordero Patterson could be a must-start player moving forward oh I but yeah Pitts he's a must-start now you can make a very very strong. We were talking about this on the FFT video show earlier today. I think you can make a very, very strong argument that Kyle Pitts should be the number two tight end moving forward. And that's not to say he'll be better than Darren Waller or Mike Andrews on a per-game basis,

but they have their buys coming up. And Kyle Pitts doesn't. Yeah, that's true. So if you had to pick one of them, I don't think Kyle Pitts would be the wrong choice. And Matt Ryan has thrown 35 or more passes in every game. He's thrown 40 or more passes in four of six games. So there's just,

they're throwing the ball a ton and they are yards. Like we keep mentioning her up. So I did this Twitter poll. Who would you rather have in Dynasty? Kyle Pitts or Jamar Chase? And Jamar Chase got 84% of the vote, 2,500 votes. I mean,

I don't think it should be that lopsided. This is basically like, who would you rather have in Dynasty? Travis Kelsey or Devante Adams or something like that. And if they were the same age, you know what I mean? If Pitts is going to be this good, I'd probably prefer Pitts. People are really ready to crown Jamar already.

Everybody has him as wide receiver one for Dynasty, which I get, I guess, but it's just a small sample size we're dealing with still. Look, I would rather have Chase than Pitts. I would, because I'm more convinced. I'm convinced they're both pits I would but because I'm because I'm more convinced I'm convinced they're both gonna be great I'm sure but I feel a little safer that chase is gonna is gonna perform even though I feel pretty good about both of them I mean they're both giving you elite like all-time elite production for a rookie right yeah if pits if pits is gonna be

if he's gonna keep being this good, then it should probably be Pitts. Yeah, it's really just a question of like, is Pitts 90% of Travis Kelsey? Or is he 95% of Travis Kelsey? You know, like that's kind of where I'm at. Or maybe 85 to 95 versus like, can Jamar Chase legitimately be the best wide receiver in football moving forward?

And I think he definitely can. Absolutely. It's not the single most likely outcome, but it's not a terribly unlikely outcome. This is it's real fun. Oh, it's great. Yeah, I think luckily I have both of them on one team. Oh,

the next three years. So I don't have to make that choice. Thanks for letting them fall to number four and five in the rookie draft, guys. Wow. Oh, I don't know what you're talking about. I'm not in that league. No, you're not in that league.

Nobody is. Oh, you were talking to your friends. Okay. So, yeah. What was I going to say? I think one of the real big appeals for Chase is just the ability to grow with Joe Burrow. You know, this just seems like the Bengals' offense

could be pretty good for a long time. All right, next question. We have Just A Whiny Millennial. Bears backfield. Can they go back to Monty or Williams after Big Herb's past two showings? A lot of nicknames here from the whiny millennial. So Khalil Herbert has been freaking awesome.

Three games in a row with 75 to 100 rushing yards and 18 or 19 carries against the Raiders, the Packers, and the Bucs, the first running back to rush for 100 yards against the Bucs since Dalvin Cook last year. I got an interesting stat to give on Herbert that we can talk about, but Jacob, what do you think happens when Montgomery comes back? I mean, he's definitely gonna be involved, but I don't know how Herbert won't continue to be involved in some fast. I don't know what that role will be. Cause when Montgomery has been healthy, he's played almost

all situations. Um, but we did see, even with Williams back, we saw Herbert still dominate the snaps, um, play on third downs downs playing the two minute offense some um so that's encouraging um but yeah i read there's no real answer i think it will hurt montgomery you do yeah i mean i think he's still someone you view as a top 24 running back um but i don't have him in the top 15 range anymore of our forward chris the one question i do have about herbert's usage this week and it's sort of unanswerable, was how much of that was Damian Williams coming back from COVID? He was symptomatic, and we know one of the longer-term symptoms is shortness of breath. So was Damian Williams up to playing a bigger role? He only played 10 snaps in this one.

That's the question moving forward. But I do think Khalil Herbert has some runway to continue to prove himself. It's just, man, it's a tough, tough slate of games before the bye. They've got 49ers this week and then the Steelers in week nine. And then they have the buy and then David Montgomery is expected back by all accounts and they have Baltimore so it's they just had Tampa Bay and they just had Tampa Bay they had Green Bay before that Green Bay's solid I mean Herbert looks awesome yeah you know the Baltimore matchup guess. I just want to see what...

Pittsburgh's not elite against the run. Who was it a couple weeks ago that got them? He was the first one to score against them two Sunday nights ago. I can't even remember. I'm sorry. They give up

4.5 yards per carry to running backs. They just hadn't given up any touchdowns. It was Alex Collins. Collins yards per carry to running backs. They just hadn't given up any touchdowns. Oh, it was Alex Collins. And Collins had 100 yards and a touchdown. So, you know, I don't know that he can't beat that matchup. What I thought was really interesting is pro, and I just, I mean, I went back and I watched like 40 of his carries this morning for Khalil Herbert. Pro football reference has him with one broken tackle this year

on 58 carries, I believe, but 3.9 yards before contact per attempt, which would be second among running backs. Only Chase Edmonds has more yards before contact per attempt. Meanwhile, David Montgomery, according to Pro Football Reference, already has seven broken tackles and 1.9 yards before contact per attempt.

So that is double the yards before contact per attempt for Herbert than Montgomery. But I will look back, and I counted more than one missed tackle. So it's really just a matter of what they actually consider a missed tackle. Matt Nagy said about Khalil Herbert, he said, you cannot arm tackle him. We've seen that. So he's tough. he's tough to bring down i think i think he's pretty good but i suspect that i suspect it's like ezekiel elliott and tony pollard that it won't hurt montgomery really all that much that's my guess because i i just feel like all of the mate all of the high value touches would basically go to montgomery the goal lines, the touchdowns, all that stuff.

He might get spelled by Herbert. This is my total guess. Damian Williams becomes irrelevant. Herbert gets like eight carries a game. They still run the ball a lot if they can, and Montgomery's still pretty good. I'd be higher on him than Jacob is. Yeah, I think the question ultimately would come down

to passing game rule for Montgomery because that was really what unlocked his upside last season. Yes, he ran the ball really, really well down the stretch especially, but if he can continue to be someone who gets four-plus targets per game, then I think he can continue to be a must-start guy even if Herbert is getting 30% of the running back carries or whatever it might be. If he's not really getting third downs and Herbert's cutting into some of the goal line work

and he's getting 30 to 35% of the running back carries, then it gets a lot tougher, especially if, as it looks, this offense is just going to continue to be a tire fire for the rest of the season. I don't know whether it's Matt Nagy or Justin Fields, who is more to blame for how bad this offense has been since they made that quarterback switch. I can't help but feel like it wouldn't be worse if Andy Dalton was quarterback right now, because it'd be better.

Whether Fields is just not ready which I think is possible there there's certainly a lot of evidence there or whether Matt Nagy's offense is just not working and not he's not taking advantage of the things that would make Justin Fields great which I think is a a pretty significant part of that if you look into the data there have been very very few designed runs the data, there have been very, very few designed runs for Justin Fields. There have been very few. Maybe he's just giving the ball up in read option scenarios, but he had coming into this game, he had like, I think two carries and four starts that were read options. And so it just doesn't seem like they're putting Justin Fields in position to

be successful in addition to him playing poorly let's go to our next question here is from american girl who has the best schedules moving yeah what all right oh petty yeah that's good kind of over that song i mean it's a great song and i love tom petty Petty, but I've heard it just so many times. I can't hear that song enough. I hate to distract from Tom Petty, but just real quick, Herbert on True Media has seven broken tackles last week, six the week before that.

That's what I thought. I wouldn't watch him, and he's definitely breaking tackles. Right, that's what I thought too, yeah. So I don't know. I guess I can't really put much stock into that. It's probably, no, I don't know what it is. It's how they measure it, apparently. Or it's just wrong.

Okay, back to Petty here. Schedules moving forward. Did you guys even bother with this? I know it's not really your thing. I got some. One of them is David Montgomery, by the way. Bears running backs after this stretch of Niners, Steelers, by Baltimore.

Yeah, got another good stretch to close out the season. Yeah, it's Detroit, Arizona. Arizona gives up the second fewest fantasy points to running backs, but they have one of the worst run defenses. They just don't get run on a lot. Then Green Bay, Minnesota, Seattle, the Giants. That's how they end. They have a favorable schedule.

Ezekiel Elliott is incredible, but his schedule gets so good that he might just win you the league. I hope Antonio Gibson can take advantage of two matchups against the Philadelphia Eagles in the playoffs, weeks 15 and 17. I've got Derek Carr as a big winner here. So after the bye, he gets the Giants, Chiefs,

Bengals, that's a tough one, Cowboys, football team, Chiefs, Browns, Broncos, Colts. So that is teams that rank 21st, 31st, 25th, 32nd, 31st, 29th, and 26th. There are two teams that are tough matchups. Everything else is 21st or worse, so basically bottom 10.

It's such a good schedule for Derek Carr on paper. If one of the two Broncos running backs could actually get significant work, they've got a great schedule going forward. Except they play the Chargers twice, and as I mentioned, the Chargers have been really beat up on defense. It's possible they get healthy and they get better,

but they're one of the worst run defenses in football. And I will add with Antonio Gibson, you mentioned you hope he gets healthy in time for a good schedule. I think the problem with him, though, is that it's not just is he facing a good run defense. Is he facing a team that won't go up big yes well that's the eagles the eagles won't go up big on them maybe yeah i mean you would hope so they're gonna go up big on the eagles his last four games of the fantasy regular season are cowboys eagles cowboys

eagles and he's got the raiders seahawks and buccaneers uh in three of the four games before that coming out of the week nine by so if russell wilson's healthy the seahawks game the Buccaneers in three of the four games before that coming out of the week nine by. So if Russell Wilson's healthy, the Seahawks game, the Buccaneers game, the Raiders game, the two Cowboys games, those could all be JD McKissick games. There's no such thing as a JD McKissick game. Did we learn that this week? Sure there is.

No, they've been bad in almost every game. Almost every game they've been trailing. In fact, I want to say every game they've been trailing. Their two wins, come from behind win against the Giants, come from behind win against the Falcons. And McKiss, those were his only, no, he's had three really good games. But was he good against the Chargers?

They lost that game? No. They lost by 21, I think, to the Bills. Was he good? No. Was he good last week? Okay, but he had four, but they were down in the fourth quarter. Sure. He had four catches last week. He had a nothing game on Sunday, yesterday.

Regardless whether you want to call it a JD McKissick game, they are not Antonio Gibson games. Yet Gibson's still been pretty solid up until the last two weeks. Well, yeah, the last two weeks have been tough. He's obviously playing through something. Well, and the week before that if he hadn't had the you know he had the 73 yard screen pass but if it wasn't for that it wouldn't have been a or no that was week three that was against it wasn't for that that

would have been a pretty bad game so i think the bigger thing is i looked up this stat and it's astounding um they have had 75 pass plays on third down this season. Antonio Gibson has been on the field for three of them. That is unbelievable. I hate to see it. That is 4% if you do the math. So, yeah, that's... He is so context-dependent in a way that is... I don't know.

It's hard to make sense of except for his injury, but even when he was healthy, it was the same thing. All right, so big takeaways for me. Derek Carr, great schedule coming up. The next three weeks for Zach Moss, I'm hoping can be pretty good. Miami, Jacksonville, and the Jets. Good game scripts could really take advantage of that. Schedule gets tougher later for him, but if you're clinging, if you're 3-4, 2-5, maybe Zach Moss is a buy low. I don't know.

This is a tough exercise at this point. I want to wait a few more weeks to see what these matchups really look like. I think we'll know more. I always do a segment later on in the year about who's got the best playoff matchups, but I'm not quite ready to do it yet. I've got one. Oh, all right. What you got? I would mention Miles Gaskin. Did you guys talk about Malcolm Brown being put on the IR? No but I'm not quite ready to do it yet. I've got one. Oh, all right. What you got?

I would mention Myles Gaskin. Did you guys talk about Malcolm Brown being put on the IR? No, no, I did not. Yeah, Malcolm Brown's on the IR. You mentioned it right, but like literally like 10 seconds before we started the show, too. I forgot to put it in the notes. Yeah, so I mean, two of the past three weeks, we've actually had really encouraging usage from Gaskin.

Take that for what you will. It's really hard to tell if there's any predictability in Miami. But I mean, they get the Bills this week, who just play a lot of you know deep to too deep zone and just kind of funnel targets to the running back position and we've seen Gaskin target a really high rate and then they play the Texans um they also have games against the Jets and the Giants and the Jets again coming up Titans in uh week 16 so I don't know I keep telling people that like there's hope for miles gaskin and then the next week he'll go play 20 of snaps or whatever so i don't want to do that again but like

there might be hope he's also just been stunningly inefficient in the passing game like he has a 78 catch rate and he's averaging 4.1 yards per target i don't think there's much predictability there because he was at 8.3 yards per target last season which is a leap for a running back and so it's he's having such a weird year he's three touchdowns as a as a receiver on 36 targets somehow too despite not being good i guess partially those two those things can be related but yeah it's i don't know i guess guess if Malcolm Brown's out for the season, that makes it much less likely that he's going to face competition in those valuable passing situations.

It's a big deal. And rushing situations. He was in, at first in goal, he was in goal to go in week seven. I think it's a big deal if Malcolm Brown's out. Yeah, and I think this offense isn't going to be terrible moving forward. Yeah.

Maybe that's take lock, but I think T offense isn't going to be terrible moving forward maybe that's take lock but I think two is playing really well and he's going to be even better when it's Deshaun Watson so this is last ones from Jamie who has the best chance to become a thing guys like Bateman or Herbert or Tony etc all worth

discussing who could be a thing Jacob who could emerge I mean or Tony, etc. All worth discussing. Who could be a thing, Jacob? Who could emerge? I think those names are all good. I've been really excited from what we've seen with Rashad Bateman. I think with both Bateman and Tony, you have to take it with a grain of salt

because it is context dependent. We haven't seen Tony play with Shepard really very much at all. We haven't seen Bateman play with Watkins. But what we have seen is great. the you know per route data for both those guys is really really exciting um so they're showing an ability to produce if they have an opportunity um and i would think given what their teams are invested in and those guys they'll continue to get an opportunity even you know when the injuries are all cleared up but we just don't know that for sure i'm i'm a masochist so i'll say will fuller whoa i have him on so many teams already and i've dropped him on several

uh but i still think you know having said that i think two is playing really well he's doing that without davante parker and will fuller i think will fuller still the best playmaker on that offense when he's healthy so hopefully he can avoid bad luck and get back from this broken hand. Rondale Moore, I think it's less likely now that Zach Ertz played. He only ran, I think, 14 routes in this game, which is really discouraging. Clearly, he's not the guy there. Brandon Ayuk, I don't know what it's going to take,

but the way he played last season, he's got to play a lot better than he has this season, clearly. But I still think the talent is there for that to happen. Is T. Higgins too good to be on this list? Yeah, I think it's got to be a roster percentage kind of thing. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I guess it doesn't because, you know,

Herbert's pretty almost universally rostered. But two guys that are available on waivers that, one, I would definitely pick up. One, no, not yet. But T.Y. Hilton could once again become a thing. And Curtis Samuel. Let's see. Curtis Samuel, Ryan Fitzpatrick connection.

Maybe there's something there. I love the talent, man there I love the talent man I love the talent I love the fit with Ron Rivera the way they used him in 2019 but yeah he's got to stay healthy and I'm very skeptical that that's going to happen at this point

and Terrace Marshall if he can get back from this concussion relatively soon like Robbie Anderson has been historically inefficient this has been he has 55 yards on 27 targets over the last three games I believe which is just shockingly bad but even if you look at the whole season for players who have had at least 49 targets through their team's first seven games he has the second lowest yards per target at like 4.1 the only one worse was eddie royal in 2009 so at some point you gotta think they either get

robbie anderson going or they just stop going to him and terrence marshall i think is an intriguing talent who showed some things early in the season, uh, who could benefit from that. Okay. I've got another one. That's really off the wall. Uh, to Michael hasty. Oh,

I was going to say that. Yes. He returned and did exactly what he was doing before he got her, which is like assumed all of the passing down work. Um, which wasn't much given, you know, the circumstances of the game,

obviously, um, they put the bears this week. Um, so they probably won't need to pass the time, but after that, they play the Cardinals and the Rams, you know need to pass the time but after that they play the Cardinals and the Rams so they could be playing from behind in those games

they've got games against the Vikings and Seahawks later in the year they'll be competitive as well so he's somebody who could, and he's been targeted at a really high rate when he's been on the field for whatever that's worth Yeah and Elijah Mitchell is a 49ers running back, they cannot stay on the field for more than three straight games so I'm going to pick up Hasty this week. I still think that

Daryl Henderson's one of the most injury-prone running backs, unfortunately. There's not a ton to back that up because he hasn't had a long career, but you know they were worried about his health coming in, and he's been banged up in his young career, so Sonny Michel would be an absolute must-start if that situation arose,

and I would say Taysom Hill could become a thing. Yeah. Let's hope not. He could. He could become a thing. I hope not for Alvin Kamara. Yeah.

For sure. I'm not sure the offense as a whole would be worse than what it has been. But I also don't quite understand what Sean Payton's done with that offense this season. I think that they're going to play well tonight. I don't know. We'll see. Maybe I'm saying that on an island game. I think that they're going to play well tonight. I don't know. We'll see.

Maybe I'm saying that on an island game. I sure hope so. I think so. And, sorry, there was one more player I wanted to say, but it's okay. We can move on. Okay. We can move on to the end of the show. Although I know Jacob was just trying to jump into the screen. Okay, AJ Dillon. Trying to jump into the screen to give his AJ Dillon. Trying to jump into the screen

to give his thoughts on Debo Samuel. So go ahead. You can finish the show. Close it out. On Debo? Yeah, well, we were having that discussion. Debo top eight, top 15. Oh, gotcha.

Trying to name wide receivers that we'd rank ahead of him. Yeah, just one guy you forgot and everyone forgets is Deontay Johnson. I don't know what he has to do to get respect other than get double digit targets every single week that he plays.

But like he has produced like a top tip. In fairness, Debo has also had double digit targets. I think every game except for one. Yeah. But I mean, Deontay is doing it. We've been seeing him do it for a whole year and like he just lost Juju who

like has a lot of route similarity to him and does draw targets whereas debu has kittle definitely coming back and possibly has some form of iuke that will be more evolved at some point yeah um whereas there's really no one in pittsburgh to take targets from dionte i don't think um so he's just another name i wanted to mention i think everything you guys said was spot on i think he's right on the top 12 um you know peripheral there. I think I would take him over Evans. But, yeah, Deontay, give this guy some respect.

I always struggle with Deontay just because, like, I think he's a good player, but I think his fantasy value is so much a function of the dysfunction of that offense. Like, if that offense actually worked, I don't think Deontay Johnson would be anywhere near as good for fantasy. He is so reliant on Ben Roethlisberger's

utter inability to hold on to the ball for more than one second. But that's not fair because you don't know. No, it's not fair because you don't know. You haven't seen him. It's not like he played with a good quarterback and struggled, right? Right, right, right.

You don't know that he wouldn't be better. No, no, no. I'm not saying he would struggle with a good quarterback and struggled, right? Right, right, right. You don't know that he wouldn't be better. I'm not saying he would struggle with a good quarterback, but his last 16 games, it was before the last game where he didn't get many targets, so I'm sure it's different, but I think it's his last, let's say his last 17 games where he didn't leave with an injury. He has 187 targets.

Yeah, that's great. That's great. But in a real NFL offense, that wouldn't happen. Don't you think his yards per target would be better? He's not Pete Calvin Johnson. Don't you think his yards per target would be better in a real NFL offense? Unquestionably, but I don't think he's a guy who's going to average 10 yards per target in an alpha role. I just don't think he's that kind of player.

The Steelers have thrown seven touchdowns in six games. How about if he got into a real offense, he might be able to make up for it. Roethlisberger will not throw multiple touchdowns. All right, we got to get out of here. Thanks for watching and listening, everybody. For Jacob and Chris, I am Adam.

We'll talk to you tomorrow on Fantasy Football Today.