Fantasy Football Today - Four Big Topics! Breakouts at Each Position, Lockett's Inconsistency (10/04 Fantasy Football Podcast)

Episode Date: October 4, 2021

Recapping Bucs-Patriots (3:00) to start the show, we tell you how to approach Damien Harris, Jakobi Meyers and Leonard Fournette going forward. And is there reason to be concerned about Chris Godwin? ... News and notes and a little waiver wire talk (13:00), and then we get into our big topics for the day. First, have the rookie QBs showed us enough to have faith in their respective passing games (18:50)? And which players at each position are poised to break out (25:10)? Sam Darnold? Daniel Jones? Darnell Mooney? Dawson Knox? ... We debate the inconsistent Tyler Lockett (39:00) and the overachieving Cordarrelle Patterson (44:40). Who should you try to trade Patterson for? ... 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 Beck. All right, Tom Brady, a big letdown. But on the bright side, Mac Jones was okay. And the rookie quarterbacks had a strong week four. We're going to talk about that, plus give you some injury updates and more big topics, including the next breakout at each position right now on

Fantasy Football Today. I am Adam Azer with Chris Towers. First thing we'll do is we'll recap Tampa Bay 19 and New England 17, and then we will give you the news and then get into our five big topics when Jacob Gibbs joins us in a little bit. All right, Chris. That was a, you know, like I basically just take my fantasy temperature by Tom Brady's performance. So I'm a little salty today.

A little salty. Crap game. Yeah, the Tom Brady for Saquon Barkley trade has not worked out for you so far. With what I didn't make? Well, it would have, right? Yeah, but the hypothetical table pounding that you made about having to take Tom Brady over Saquon Barkley

didn't work out this week. But look, it's a long season. Right. And it's hard to find good quarterbacks. And it was a nuanced argument that never gets... We all knew coming into the season that Sam Darnold was going to be a top six quarterback, and you had to draft him. Well, he's only top six and four point, smartass. Oh, okay, my mistake, my mistake.

Because he has five rushing My mistake. He has five rushing touchdowns. He is the first quarterback in NFL history with five rushing touchdowns in his first four games. All right. You know, actually, I don't know where to find this. This should not be so hard to find.

Time of possession. NFL time of possession. You don't want to find that? I think that's on the official box scores for the game. No, no, no. For the season. Oh. I bet I can find that on Twitter. I don't think they do.

I don't think they do. I'm on this website. It's like my homepage pro football reference. Nope. I thought they did. They don't. It's amazing. I would love to know what the seahawks time of possession drive time is there oh what's that like traffic no traffic in the morning yeah exactly yeah how long it takes to get to the stadium

drive averages that is helpful um no what was really amazing we're going to talk about the seahawks so we have a question about ty Lockett. Their time of possession is staggeringly low. They had a game, an overtime game against Tennessee. It went down to the wire. They had the ball for like 22 minutes in that game. So they've run the second fewest plays in the NFL. We will get into all of that a little bit later. What were your major takeaways from Tampa Bay and New England?

Let's start with the Patriots. I'll just open the floor to you, sir. Your major Patriots takeaways. I don't know how much value Damian Harris has. I know obviously this was a bad game and it was coming off a bad game, but he's really only had one really good game running the ball and that was week one and i think he only ended up with like 11 fantasy points because of the fumble then week two he had

the touchdown but it was only like 60 something yards last two weeks he's been really bad and i i think he's a good runner i don't think this offensive line is particularly good right now and they i think they in the running game at least, I think they clearly miss what Cam Newton brought to the table as far as opening things up for them. Because we saw Damian Harris average five yards per carry. We saw Sonny Michel average 5.7. I think Harris is down to 3.3 for the season now. And it's just, it's not as good of a situation

as we hoped for for Damian Harris coming into the season. It's game scripts, right? Yeah, for sure. Although this wasn't really... In terms of how the game played out, it wasn't as bad for Damian Harris as we expected. They just smartly realized that there was no point in running the ball against them,

which is what Dallas did in week one. Right. Yeah. You know what he is. He's a he's going to he needs to be in a situation where he's going to get a lot of work and hopefully can score. But I think you can start him. I mean, I'm going to start him in week five against Texans. Yeah, I think he'll be a he'll be in the top 30 at running back for me for sure but um he's on a pretty bad offense you know this is an offense that's averaging right around 300 i think it's like 305 yards per game um they're actually scoring fewer points per game than they did last season they're down to 17.8 and so yeah it's um it's not a great situation for a guy who really doesn't catch many passes. So he kind of needs to have touchdowns to have upside.

I think he's usually going to be a pretty safe bet for like six to eight points per game. And whether he's like a top 24 running back is going to depend on whether he finds the end zone. Yeah, now there is one other thing. I mean, he played so many snaps and he ran a ton of routes, but it was actually Brandon Bolden who had a lot more involvement in the passing game and it's an interesting thing I don't think we should just dismiss Brandon Bolden he is six percent rostered he had six catches for 51 yards now again they barely ran the ball I don't remember how many rushing yards they had but it was uh 10 they had negative one the game? Yes. Nelson Aguilar had...

I think someone pointed it out. He had negative 400% of their rushing yards. He had four, and the whole team had negative one. All right. So, listen. This was an interesting game script where Mac Jones threw 40 times, although he has been throwing the ball 39 or more times

in three or four games. But Bolden had six catches, and somebody's got to fill that role. It's unfortunate that Harris couldn't have more catches considering all the routes he ran. But Bolden is someone that I actually already have picked up in a couple of leagues because I had so much James White. And I think he might be a very poor man's version of James White,

but someone in a pinch as the bye week start in week six, in a pinch you can maybe use in PPR. Jacoby Myers with another really good game no james white again and that's 12 targets and 14 targets in the last two games without white white got hurt early in week four uh week three sorry so you know you could probably just just plan on using him in ppr at least nine targets at least nine targets in each of the three losses right so so we'll see i mean maybe he, maybe he gets screwed next week against Houston, but,

um, I think going forward, you know, you could have a pretty reliable PPR guy there. Now, as far as the bucks go, you know, I'm sorry,

just give me a 30 second thought on the tight ends, both Smith and Henry caught touchdowns. If they catch touchdowns, they'll be fine. But I don't think this is going to be an offense that throws a lot of touchdowns, so I don't think you can really rely on them. They are touchdown or bust tight ends. I was hoping they'd be more,

but clearly those guys are not the focal point of the offense that I hoped they would be. I actually thought they might lead the team in targets, both of them, and it's clearly not the case. So I think they'll probably be between 15 and 20 in my rankings every week. All right. From the Bucks perspective, I thought this was actually a really good game for Mike Evans. I had spoken about how you don't see a lot of cornerbacks shadowing these days. It just doesn't really happen. Well, it did happen in this game. JC Jackson

shadowed Mike Evans and he came away with seven catches for 75 yards on 12 targets with Brady having an off day with only 10 fantasy points and no touchdowns. Uh, Godwin though. I mean, you know, it's a huge game in week one and then 62 yards and a touchdown on five. Well, how about that? It's just the targets five, seven, five targets in his last three games. It's a little strange. Uh, should we re-rank the uh bucks wide receivers now because i think people had goblin over evans going in do you have evans over godwin now um i'll have to take a look at the overall numbers but yeah got evans has i mean his target share is probably right around 21 if i'm doing the math in my head correct yeah 20 so it's still

pretty low and this is the problem with this offense is that no matter who's available, I mean, Gronk wasn't there, Antonio Brown was back, but no matter who's there, they're really spreading the ball around quite a bit. And obviously there's enough volume there that it doesn't really hurt anyone in particular. But, you know, Evans having a 20% target share so far and leading the team,

that's kind of telling you that what we thought was going to happen before the season is what's happening. And this is more of a situation where Evans, Godwin, and Brown are probably all more like 18 to 30 at wide receiver every week. And there will be a lot of opportunities for touchdowns, but the tight ends will be involved. The running backs will be involved. We know all these things.

And so there's big weekly upside. I think it'll be unpredictable, though. Are you buying a Leonard Fournette breakout? He was only started in 32% of leagues. He really, pun intended, carried them to the win. He was terrific down the stretch. Ronald Jones stole a touchdown from him, but 20 carries

and three catches. That's his best game of the year by far. 138 total yards. You buying a breakout here for Leonard Fournette? I shouldn't say breakout because obviously he's had big finishes in fantasy before, but are you buying a must start hood for Fournette? Yeah, he was RB big finishes in fantasy before. But are you buying a must-start hood for Fournette?

Yeah, he was RB25 for me this week. And as long as Gio Bernard's out, I think he's definitely going to be a top 20 to 24 running back. We'll see whether Gio comes back this week, but Fournette's been involved in the passing game pretty much every game. There was one game where he only had three targets and four carries against the Rams, but other than that,

he has four targets in each game. And it seems pretty clear that he's ahead of Ronald Jones now. He played 81% of the snaps in this game. That was the most for a running back in the Bruce Arians era. Bruce Arians is a mercurial type when it comes to his running backs, and it's entirely possible that Leonard Fournette can run a route a yard too shallow and get benched. Well, is this the height of his value, do you think?

Because this is his first game with more than 11 carries, and they just didn't have their passing game going, which is so rare for them. So they really had to rely on the running game. The weather was bad, and that's just the way they won the game. But typically they're just going to be throwing the ball a lot better, a lot more effectively than they did yesterday. So I don't know that whoever that'll have 20 carries in a game rest of season. And no, I wouldn't expect 20 carries most weeks, but we did see a stretch last year where Ronald

Jones was getting, you know, 15 plus carries pretty regularly. They did have 16 rushing touchdowns as a team last season. I do. They have any Jones had one last night. Godwin, Brady and Jones each have one. Okay. Last night was the first running back rushing touchdown.

Yeah. So I think that's going to be better for him moving forward. And I don't know. I think it's probably the peak of his value. And if you can get something for him, I would. But there aren't a lot of running backs you can trust right now. And I think Leonard Fournette is kind of close to that, at least. I would not trade Leonard Fournette for Miles Sanders or Miles Gaskin or anything like that.

Maybe it would work out. Definitely not Gaskin. Yeah like that? Maybe it would work out. Definitely not Gaskin. Yeah. Maybe Sanders, but yeah. I think he's in that range now. I think Gaskin's below that range. I think Leonard Fournette's in the Sanders range. I doubt you could pull this off,

but if you could trade him for Carson, I would do that. Yeah, definitely. Okay, let's move on here to the newsletter promotion. Yay chris is working hard on that newsletter 15 a week something like that no we got what do we have to eight a week i believe it's eight per week you'll get one every day except for saturday um but two on sunday and two on wednesday one in the morning one in the evening on both Sunday and Wednesday to start to sit directly to your inbox.

Waver wire. It coincides with everything that we do on the podcast on each day. And you'll keep up to date with all the injury news, all the various notes and stats that I can find and come up with. So I think it's a very valuable thing. I spend a lot of time on it. And please subscribe. CBSSports.com slash newsletters.

We have a number of newsletters, but fantasy football takes probably the one that you're going to like the best. Just based on the audience. I'm speaking to news and notes. Joe Mixon week to week with an ankle injury. Damian Williams for the bears. Luckily he's expected to be okay.

He's got the bruised thigh, but obviously Montgomery is going to be out a while. So when you look at the bangles and the bears situation, which one are you targeting on waiver wire, uh, P Ryan or Damian Williams? Man, I think it's gotta be, well, I think it's gotta be Damian Williams. I think he's a better player than Samajai P Ryan. I don't know. Cincinnati is probably a better offense, but I would guess Damian Williams is going to have a larger role than Samajai Piran. I wouldn't be surprised

if Chris Evans was taking a lot of the third down work if Piran is starting as well. And more time, too. I mean, Mixon could play this week. And Green Bay, again, the longest run they gave up to Najee Harris was 11 yards.

They have a good run defense. That's Cincinnati's matchup this week I think yeah right uh so you know it could be one week could be zero weeks I think yeah I'm gonna go with with we're still waiting on the results of David Montgomery's MRI they don't think it's a super serious injury but you know obviously the way he went down you would think he could miss multiple weeks yeah green bay is at cincinnati and chicago and i just has the i think williams might play 85 percent of the snaps for the bears yeah you know because the only guy on their roster is khalil herbert a sixth round pick i would guess they'll activate ryan null from their practice squad but you know he's never been really anything.

So I think Williams is going to get a lot of work for the Bears. Logan Thomas, week to week with a hamstring. Matt Nagy said that Andy Dalton is his starting quarterback when healthy. Fine. He's clearly not going to do what he needs to do to make Justin Fields happen. He had one run yesterday. One run and two kneel downs. And the run wasn't even a designed run.

I'm sure you watched all of his throws. I know you do that. I watched all of Fields' throws. I watched all of Trey Lance's throws. And they were very, very different. Fields made some... Fields was much better as a thrower. Much better.

Not even close. Fields made some really good passes downfield. I mean, even that 76-yard touchdown to Debo Samuel. Underthrown. Way underthrown. Yeah. Way underthrown. I mean, it was lucky that there was nobody

within 20 yards of him because that was completely underthrown. Kittle should have scored. That was a bad throw. The one that was knocked out of his hands. Lance was only good

when he was throwing basically at the line of scrimmage. Yeah. It seemed like one read and one read and go. But if he starts, he might just be a top 15 fantasy quarterback this week i don't know i rush for 41 yards and a half i yes he did but he's he's

so unprepared and there there will be some interceptions not unprepared but he's just not ready yet um yeah will fuller's week to week let me just run through all these here will fuller week to week with a broken finger not going going to play in week five, already been ruled out. Ronnie Harrison for Cleveland safety left with a concussion in the first quarter and Jedrick Wills, their left tackle. He left in the third quarter, aggravating an ankle injury, Minnesota defensive tackle, Michael Pierce left with an elbow injury, big injury there, Chicago, Khalil, Khalil Mack got hurt,

but I haven't seen much on him, but Akeem Hicks might be more serious. He left with a groin injury. That's pretty big. There's some big defensive injuries. Washington offensive lineman, offensive guard, Brandon Scherff, he's out two to three weeks with a sprained MCL. Philadelphia right tackle, Lane Johnson was inactive for personal reasons,

so that meant their offensive line was in dire straits yesterday. Jabril Peppers, giant safety. He left with a hamstring injury. Trent Williams for the 49ers, left with a shoulder injury. We've got to keep an eye on that one. That's going to be a big one for Lance, starting left tackle. And Tennessee left guard Roger Saffold left with a concussion.

Quick, quick break here on Fantasy Football today. When we come back, we'll talk about the rookie quarterbacks. We'll talk about breakouts at each position. We'll talk about what rookie quarterbacks. We'll talk about breakouts at each position. We'll talk about what else we talking about? Tyler Lockett, that frustrating Tyler Lockett, Cordaro Patterson, that incredible Cordaro Patterson, and even more right after this on FFT. Did you know that across Ontario, utility damage happens 19 times a day?

That's over 4,222 incidents a year don't let your next dig be one that causes costly delays or safety risks before you break ground make it a point to request a locate it's not just the law it's a step to keep your team and community safe visit ontario one call.ca and avoid unnecessary damages to get the job done right. Data sourced from the ORCGA 2023 Dirt Report. It is Jacob Gibbs, S-Z-N, as they say. Hey, Jacob. What's up, man? Welcome. Yeah, joining you from bedrest, hopefully the last time here. Feeling pretty good about my chances going forward.

Good. We had you on injured reserve and had to stay on bed rest for three weeks, but you're eligible to return next week. Yeah, I think probable next week to be standing up for next week's episode. I'm pretty excited for that. I saw in the YouTube comments, somebody was like,

is Jacob just a lazy analyst of all time or am I missing something here? Broken back, people. people i mean you said you wanted to stand up that sounds terrible so yeah i would i was definitely lazier than you if you want to stand up sitting is the worst so standing is really the only choice sitting really gives me a lot of pain right now but i think i could do standing next week all right standing room only for jacob gibbs all right first topic here did the rookie quarterbacks show you enough to have faith in their respective passing games?

You have to think all the way back to Thursday night. You might forget about Trevor Lawrence, but he looked a lot better. Only threw for 204 yards, but only 24 passes. Trey Lance and Justin Fields we just talked about. Then there was Mac Jones, who won't throw the ball more than five yards. And then there's Zach Wilson.

Zach Wilson's actually had product. Okay, obviously, if you watch the game, you saw the overtime. He could have cost them the game. He underthrew an open player for what would have been a game-winning touchdown, and then he should have thrown the ball away. He's making mistakes,

but when he hasn't played the Patriots, and who's the other team that shut him down? The Broncos. He scored 21 and 22 fantasy points. He's given Corey Davis a solid game. So it's not so much about the quarterbacks. It's about the wide receivers I think.

I'll start with you, Jacob. Did the rookie quarterbacks, did any of them make you feel comfortable enough in throwing Allen Robinson out there or Corey Davis out there or George Kittle, whatever it may be, for week five? You guys were just talking about it. I was definitely discouraged with how Trey Lance looked yesterday. Not for him, his fantasy purposes necessarily,

because I think the Russian will be there, but he was really erratic as a passer. So I'm a little bit worried about the guys in San Francisco. For Chicago, it was exciting to see jesse fields finally push the ball down field um his average depth of target was 13.7 yards which is the highest of any quarterback last week part of that was they're playing the lions who have like the highest opponent average depth of target and it's not even close um so i don't want to overreact to that data, but that is exciting because prior to this, Chicago was by far the bottom of the league in air yards, even below the Falcons. And so that was exciting. Definitely some exciting data points for Darnell

Mooney particularly. And then yeah, Trevor Lawrence I thought looked great. But yeah, those are the only three that really stood out to me. Chris, the combination of Lawrence looking more comfortable, and obviously I know it could just go to crap next week. That's the up and downs you get. Tennessee's on the schedule next week, so that's good. But also DJ Chark being out for the season, which is not that we're celebrating.

But it does obviously make you feel a little bit more comfortable with Chenault and even Marvin Jones. I know he had a bad game. But yeah, I think it obviously helps. Yeah, I mean, Chenault, on the surface, it looks like a very promising game, 95 air yards after he had like 14 through the first three games total. It's a little misleading because one of those was kind of a broken play that Lawrence threw deep.

It was really the only deep target he had. I think if you take that one out, it was like seven to eight yards of average depth of target for him rather than 14 like it looks like. So that's something to keep in mind. I think Marvin Jones will be more involved moving forward. He only had three targets on Thursday night. They only threw the ball at 24 times, but yeah, I think you can probably view Chenault and Jones in the probably more like the 40 range at wide receiver, at least until, you know, we see more from them

and how they're going to use them. But it's definitely, I think promising for them moving forward. Trevor Lawrence, I think is still the most talented of this quarterback class by a long shot. So, yeah, I think you can look at both of them as possible starters moving forward. And I think it's going to help the running backs too, right? I mean, you've got to move the chains and have some signs of life, and that'll help James Robinson. Lance will definitely help the 49ers running back.

You saw that this week with I think Trey Sermon's first run out of a read option play, he picked up 15 yards. I think that's going to really open things up for them, whether it's Trey Sermon or whether it's Elijah Mitchell being the running back for the 49ers. My concern

is specific to this game at Arizona, and Garoppolo's not going to play, so almost certainly. Garoppolo's not going to play. So, almost certainly. So, let's just say it's Lance. You're talking about a 4-0 team. Yeah. I don't know how good their defense is.

Looking at the NFL right now, I just don't know how many good defenses there are and if that even matters against a good offense. But if Trent Williams isn't playing and you've got that pass rush, and I could just see a kind of Justin Fields, I could see a kind of Justin Fields week three type of scenario where it's just an absolute mess for the 49ers. And then, and then you throw in the fact that the running backs don't catch any passes really, except for use check. I'm not, I'm not sure I'm going to be

as confident. I feel like the Cardinals might just destroy the 49ers, and it could be an absolute mess for them. Yeah, I look at it probably with Trey Sermon and or Elijah Mitchell probably the same way I do the Buffalo Bills running backs or Damian Harris or someone like that, where it's probably more like in the 25 to 30 range at running back, you're probably going to need a touchdown to, to really have a good game from them.

But, you know, I think this offense, the running game at least is going to be productive with Trey Lance there. Even if, you know, Arizona has a good defense and Trent Williams is out. I think all those things make sense,

but I just think the threat of Trey Lance's running is going to make things a lot easier for those guys and it's going to help them move the ball in a way that frankly, I'm not confident his passing is going to do, at least not consistently. I think people are going to

start Corey Davis at Atlanta. I think people are going to start Jacoby Myers at Houston. Jameson Crowder at Atlanta. All think people are going to start Jacoby Myers at Houston. Jameson Crowder at Atlanta. Jameson Crowder, sure. All he does is earn targets. Every time he's on the field, he gets a bunch of targets. It's a different offense. It wasn't Adam Gase, but he still was a big part of their offense

and even had a deep-ish catch. It was like a 32-yarder on the touchdown. Yeah, I was... I think Zach Wilson's okay. I don't know if the offensive line is good enough, but he's feisty. He is. He's a fighter. Alright, let's go to our next question. It's from RandyMallow4.

Which player or players at each position is best positioned for a rest of season breakout? Jacob, give me some rest of season breakouts uh so two of these guys are actually attached to rookie quarterbacks we kind of hinted at um each of them already but one is jacoby myers um and so this is a stat i tweeted earlier he didn't become a star until week seven last year and from that point on he has a 28.4 percent

target share which is davante adams and stefan dicks the only ones that are higher than that and we've seen like a double digit targets in each of the past two games i believe his area share is up above 30 as well um so just really i think everyone in the fantasy community has kind of come around jacoby myers now and understands just like how ridiculous the targets are for him um but i don't know if if his perception is is really like as high as it should be among like mainstream fantasy players because he still hasn't scored a touchdown which is just insane with all the targets he's had um so he's the first one and then darnell mooney um i don't know what to expect here it seems like alan robinson

has to get more involved but mooney's led the Bears in targets in each of the past three weeks. And during that time, he ranks eighth in the NFL in target share, 32%. And he's seventh in area audit share at 47%. So those are really, really dominant rates stats. And if we see Chicago's passing offense improve at all, if last week is to be believed in at all, then that's really exciting for Mooney for sure. I have trouble, though, Colin.

I have trouble picking breakouts on offenses that I don't trust. Right. Because the rookie quarterbacks are going to struggle from time to time. I'm not saying they're going to be bad every game, but I don't know. The guys that I had, I think, are higher end. I'm not saying they're going to be bad every game, but I don't know. Like the guys that I had, or I think are higher end. I think we just approached this differently, but Jamar Chase and Devante Smith.

I know the math, there's a math problem with Jamar Chase, pass attempts and target share and all that stuff. But I'm still just so blown away by how good he is in the first four games of his career. He's so good. He really seems like he can do it all on the football field, and his acceleration, his speed is ridiculous.

So I think there's a chance he's even better than I thought he would be in the first four games of his career. The next 13, sorry, I have to adjust to the schedule. The next 13 games, who knows what's in store for him. And then Devontae Smith gets a ton of air yards, gets a ton of target share, high target share. They throw the ball. They're not a running team, really.

So those are guys. I'm not saying that Jacob is telling you to get Darnell Mooney over those guys. I love those guys. I just wanted to give some more kind of obscure names. No, that's good. Those are both great picks. That's good, yeah. But I think it's really impressive what these two rookies have done so far

considering what we usually see from rookie receivers it bodes well going forward yeah i i think jamar chase would probably still be like number two or number three in target share for them moving forward that would be my guess but it wouldn't surprise me at all i mean he's he was a generational talent right at talent as a prospect. His prospect profile was as good as anyone in the last decade, really. And so the fact that he's come out and had this strong performance, even acknowledging that it's not sustainable. He's not going to keep scoring a touchdown once every six targets

or whatever he's on pace for right now. But he clearly fits you know the the prospect profile wasn't a fluke right like chris give me a couple uh give me a quarterback breakout well how about the guy throwing it to jamar chase you know joe burrow is only qb 16 in four point for passing touchdown league maybe a little higher in six point but i do think the pass volume is going to be there he's averaging 27 pass attempts per game right now i think that has to go up especially with joe mixon out i don't think they're just gonna give samaj ap around 20 carries a week so i think you know joe burrow looking more comfortable you know really

only had like that what was it, three passes in a row where he was intercepted against the Bears? I don't remember if it was three in a row. Three drives in a row for sure. I think it might have been three straight passes. Other than that, he has one interception on 104 targets. So he's been really good. I think the fantasy production is going to follow moving forward.

Do either of you guys think Sam Darnold or Daniel Jones could be a 2021 breakout? Daniel Jones is playing really, really well. Like not even just for fantasy. He's on pace for 5,000 yards passing and 800 yards rushing on like eight yards per attempt per attempt as a passer. He's actually.

No, he's playing really well. The most hopeful I've been. Consistently good. It's surprising. And one interception this year was on a Hail Mary at the end of the first half. One fumble this year. And the truth is, Kadarius Toney made a big difference.

Kenny Galladay is making a difference. He only had one good game, but his wide receivers have been garbage. They finally gave him some talent. And the offensive line did all right, too. I'm starting to get a little kind of excited about it, but they're still such a bad red zone team. But Barkley made a huge play for him in the passing game. They have playmakers now.

I think you should pick him up. Yeah, I think, again, nobody needs Daniel Jones, but it might not be the worst idea to have him. He's consistently, I think, going to be around 15 at QB for me. I don't think he can break into that top 11 or top 12,

however you define that first couple of tiers. And I think Darnold, you know, there's to a certain extent this is a fluke. He's not going to finish the season with 20 rushing touchdowns

like he's currently on pace for. Who do you like better rest of the season? Darnold or Jones? I think I think Jones. I don't know.

Gibbsy? It's Darnold for me, but it's really close. All right, let me just pick up the pace here. How about running backs? And the tight ends, actually, I think is the most interesting discussion. You've got Dalton Schultz and Dawson Knox, maybe Noah Fant. He's been really good. And then I'm even going to consider Kyle Pitts in this discussion here.

But running back, do you have any running back breakouts that come to mind, Jacob, from this point on? Yeah, Javante Williams. He out-snapped Melvin Gordon for the first time last week, and he just looks really good. I think he's maybe a little bit over-eager right now.

He's maybe not being super patient with finding some holes, but he's showing us exactly what he did in North Carolina, just breaking tackles at an absurd rate. He didn't get a ton of carries last week because Denver was playing from behind, but he broke 71% of the tackle attempts against them last week.

He's now third in the NFL and broken tackle rate on the year. And just finally to see him get up above 50% of the snaps is definitely exciting. So hopefully Teddy's back soon because that offense has now looked very good last week. But yeah, in terms of just the player, I'm pretty excited about what we've seen from Javante. Yeah, I think he's going to have to carve out like a 60% to 65% role to really become a must-start guy right now. I kind of view him and Melvin Gordon in that same,

like Damian Harris and whoever the other guys we were talking about, range where it's like 25 to 30. If they score a touchdown, they'll be a top 20 running back. If not, they'll be pretty mediocre. But the fact that he's this involved this early, I think only bodes well. And I felt that way since week one. I thought it was going to be more like he gets 30% of the snaps early on. But it's been pretty close to 50-50.

And Gordon hasn't been all that good. He has the 170-yard touchdown. Other than that, he's been pretty miserable. Same with... That's the problem. I want to believe this, but Moss had... We'll talk about Moss in a second. Williams had a 31-yard carry or something like that, and what was the rest of it?

Sure. Horrible. I wish I shared your excitement, because the broken tackles are there and they're fun, but there are too many negative, too many bad runs or insignificant runs, and no clear sign that he's anywhere close to out-touching Melvin Gordon. I know you said you out-snapped him, but the touches are so even every week. It's still a long-term play for me.

It's still something that requires patience. I'm going to continue to buy high on Chase Edmonds. I know James Conner is getting the goal line work. That's frustrating. I think they've split snaps inside of the 10-yard line or something like that pretty evenly but look for his career chase edmonds is not a prolific prolific touchdown score he had the one three touchdown game um but he scored a touchdown once every 25 touches in his career last season it was once every 30 if you want to take the you know the larger sample size of his biggest role. Right now, he's got 63 touches without a touchdown.

If he just scored at last year's pace, he would be QB4 in PPR scoring. RB4. What's that? RB4. Really? In PPR? Yeah, he's catching a lot of passes. Yeah, it's just he has no touchdowns but

he's averaging five yards or five catches per game he's averaging five plus yards per carry we know he gets in situations where he's going to be efficient running the ball because it's not obvious running situations so he's someone i'm going to be buying high on if he continues to get 15 touches a week i think he's probably going to be a top 12 running back moving forward. Who's more likely to be a must-start running back at some point this year, an extended point?

Fournette or Zach Moss? Fournette, because I think he's probably one next week. Well, I mean, a sustainable every-week starter, a real draft day steal slash breakout kind of you know the problem for moss is this has been the worst running back for fantasy over the last the worst backfield for fantasy over the last three seasons in the josh allen era no team has scored fewer running back points than the buffalo. And so is this early trend where he's scoring a bunch of touchdowns?

Is that sustainable? My guess would be no. And if he's not scoring touchdowns, I think he's going to continue to split work with Devin Singletary. And it's probably going to be another one of those guys where you're hoping for 60 yards, maybe 70 all-purpose yards and a touchdown every week. Okay. Tight ends, Jacob.

I put four in here that are potential breakouts. I don't know if people would even put Fant and Pitts in here, but Knox and Schultz are similar. Fant and Pitts are similar in that they were drafted. But Fant, maybe it's already happening. I don't know. If you were going to bet on one of these guys to be a stud would it be knox schultz fant pitts or how would you rank them rest of season uh pitts would be first for sure but i am really excited about fant as well both those guys

have been really exciting in terms of their route involvement the percentage of the drop x they're running a route on and then also their targets per outrun fant is tied with dalton schultz and george kittle for. Um, and then also their targets per outrun fan is tied with Dalton Schultz and George Kittle for second at the tight end position and targets per outrun, um, which is awesome. Um, who were the other two you mentioned?

Dawson Knox and Schultz. Hmm. I don't really, it's hard to tell what, what's been going on in Dallas lately with the target distribution is really strange. Um, and I think Jarwin's going to continue to be more involved.

But the last two weeks have been really exciting for Schultz. But still, I think I would take Schultz. I mean, there's more scoring upside there. The touchdowns are definitely unsustainable for Knox. But we did see him, like, run more routes. He was up to 80% snap rate last week. And then his targets were up as well. So that was exciting for Knox.

So if that continues, then, like, definitely. It's just it's been only touchdowns up rate last week. And then his targets were up as well. So that was exciting for Knox. So if that continues, then definitely. It's been only touchdowns up until last week for Knox. Yeah, I think it's just you're hoping he's this year's Robert Tunyon. And hey, there's one of those every year. Kyle Rudolph was one a couple years ago. There's always one guy who scores like 10 touchdowns and ends up a top 10 tight end. But touchdowns are so hard to predict

that I think he's still dressed just like, start him, keep him in your lineup. But I'm not expecting him to solve your tight end position. Whereas I think Fant, Pitts, and Schultz could, given the roles that they have in their offenses. Schultz, it's interesting to say that Schultz could. You feel that way because this is a team that's throwing 25 times a game over the last three weeks.

That'll go up. But Cooper, Lamb, they've been struggling. Gallup's off the field right now, obviously. He'll be back soon. You know, Jarwin still has somewhat of a role. He caught a touchdown. I kind of buy into it with Dalton Schultz, but I don't think that he's going to be consistently good.

It's pretty hard. No, but there's four of those guys. Right. Maybe four or five guys who I think will be consistently good. And we saw bad games from three of those five yesterday. I guess Mark Andrews was probably the best of the elite or sub-elite tight ends this week, and he didn't really have a huge game.

Hawkinson, I think, will be good moving forward. I mean, he'll be a must-start guy, but he's got like an 18% target share this season. He basically looks like he did last year, except the Lions are throwing the ball more. And so I don't know if he's a difference maker that, you know, there might still tight end position still bad is,

is my point. And so, yeah, Schultz, I think he can get enough work to be worth using. Next question is from Matt Johnson. Do we need to start to worry about Tyler Lockett or is it his usual boom or bust?

What do you think about this question from Matt Jacob? Do to start to worry about Tyler Lockett or is it his usual boom or bust? What do you think about this question from Matt? Jacob, do we have to worry about Tyler Lockett? I think it is usual boom bust stuff from Tyler Lockett, but I just think that the busts are going to be a little bit more prevalent because I'm really starting to believe we have enough data that shows that DK Metcalf is taking over as the guy, the target

hog there. Um, admittedly, this is some selective sample sizing, some, you know, I guess I'm doing some Azure standing here, but since that's the only way to do it, man,

since week 12 of 2020. So their last 11 games, uh, Metcalf has a 30% target share and a 46% area chair. Um, and he's been targeted on 26% of his routes during that time. Um, and that's truly like, that's an elite rate. That's like Steph digs, Keenan Allen type of a target rate. And we now have like, you know, double digit game, consecutive sample size of him being treated that

way. And lockets rates aren't bad overall during that time, but he, he definitely, I mean, he's had the spike weeks, but he has lots of down weeks because like, if they're not passing at a high rate and Metcalf is just dominating the targets and there's just not much left. Um, I mean, he's had the spike weeks, but he has lots of down weeks because, like, if they're not passing at a high rate and Metcalf is just dominating the targets and there's just not much left. So, yeah, I'm not worried about him, but I don't think he's maybe the top 10, top 12 guy that we got kind of excited he might be after the first two games.

Yeah, I think he'll probably end up close to there in my rankings every week, even though, like though you have to acknowledge that his chances of actually being that every week are somewhat low. But we've seen him be a must-start fantasy option on 70 targets, which was obviously not sustainable, but then 110 targets.

He had 10,057 yards and eight touchdowns. I think he can still do that. And so, yeah, I think he can still do that. And so, yeah, I think he's Tyler Lockett still. He's not going to be a 1,200-yard guy, but he's going to be very valuable. This offense was one I really wanted to

see more of, trying to understand what's going on. Is it different? You look at Russell Wilson's air yards per pass attempt. They're almost identical to what they were last year. They are not running many plays at all. Part of that is just they've been so outrageously efficient. They're averaging 6.6 yards per play.

Yeah, that's what I was saying earlier. Their time of possession, 24 minutes in week one, 22.42 in week two, 24.07 in week three, 28.20. They're season high in week four. They have the second fewest plays in the NFL, and they're second in yards per play. Russell Wilson, I didn't realize this, he is having a career year right now.

I mean, it's the best completion percentage, yards per attempt way up, smashing his previous career high. It's only four games and not a lot of throws. So I understand that. The more you get, the more it'll normalize or whatever. But he's having an awesome year. They just need to run more plays. And that's

affecting Lockett. He has nine targets over his last two games. And by the way, three of Wilson's first four pass attempts went to Lockett in week four and then only two more rest of the game. But I don't know. I mean, I feel like they obviously have to get the ball a little bit more. They have to maybe have a better running game. But being second to last in plays.

Running all over them. That's also true. They're allowing 152 yards on the ground per game. And they've had 133 rush attempts against them. They've probably got one of the most even splits in terms of rush pass ratio against so far this season. So, you know, I think that'll normalize they're not going to keep running 53 snap uh plays per game which is where they're at right now which would be an incredibly low number i i think that would have been the lowest in the nfl last year by about

50 or 60 i think the texans were right around 900 that's an 844 uh snap pace for the season so i think that stuff will turn around and i i think lock and matt calf are both must start guys i think they're both going to have inconsistencies because of the style of play and the kind of targets that they get um but you just have to live with the down weeks with lockett you can't try to like oh i he's not going to be good in this game but he will be good like you can't do that with a player like him. You're just, nobody is good enough at predicting that kind of stuff. You just have to live with the ups and downs.

And, you know, wide receiver production tends to fluctuate. Oh, don't even start with that. Tyler Lockett is that on steroids, Chris. And you know that he's the most frustrating freaking player. He was last year. No, he always is. He has not done that so much more than everyone else in his career. Not than everyone else, but than the average wide receiver.

The consistency is not part of Tyler Lockett's profile. That's fine. It's not fine. It's frustrating as hell. Yes, it is. You drafted him, so you knew that. No, you didn't. You were hoping that things would change with this new offense

that was supposed to get the ball out of Wilson's hands quicker, and he was going to take advantage. He had 100 catches last year. He ran shorter routes. He was supposed to be more consistent. I think where you drafted him, the inconsistencies are fine. But like Jacob said, if you were hoping for top 10, if you were hoping for a different kind of Tyler Lockett,

I don't know that it's going to happen. And that's what's frustrating. But where you drafted him, I think it's fine. It can be frustrating, but it's also not fair to get mad at a player for who they're not. You should accept players for who they are rather than who they're not. Well, that was the question.

Especially if they're really good like Tyler Lockett. That was the question. Is this just what Tyler Lockett is, basically? All right. All right, Jacob, tell me about Cordaro Patterson. Topic number four is Cordaro Patterson. lock that was the question is this just what tyler lock it is basically that's all right all right uh jacob tell me about cordaro patterson topic number four is cordaro patterson are you buying it i love cordo patterson but no i'm definitely not buying this production i think if you can sell um you know it's worth exploring he has a 43 percent target per route run rate which easily

leads the nfl um that means he's being targeted on almost half of the routes that he runs 43 percent um no one is ever above 35 percent really like only one or two players even top 30 percent each year um so obviously everyone knows that the touchdowns are unsustainable but like also he just he's not on the field enough he's not going to continue to be targeted at such a high rate and so when that rate drops unless his snaps and his routes rise like you're going to be left with someone who's just really not useful in fantasy um and maybe they will rise but they're continuing to trust mike davis on two minute drill offense third downs like they're

really not taking them off the field in like obvious passing situations or anything like that so i don't i don't know i don't think it's likely that the role changes, but I do think it's likely that the rates drop off. So I think it's time to sell. I mean, he's averaging 4.9 yards per route run right now. Alvin Kamara was number one among running backs last season at 2.2. He's more than twice as efficient as Alvin Kamara was last season. So, you know, even if you think Cordero Patterson is really, really good and will remain efficient like he's

probably 50 over what a realistic expectation for his receiving yards would be right now and so i think you you definitely have to view him as a uh a sell high candidate and if you could move him for amari cooper right now i think you should absolutely do that i i think you could like It feels like you're aiming high, but people are probably pretty frustrated with Cooper. Yeah, I think you could. Yeah, if you can move for Amari Cooper, definitely do that. But even, I don't know about, I'm trying to figure out who else. Well, I wouldn't trade him for Miles Sanders. I just, I don't see it. I'm kind of getting so frustrated. Everybody who writes something about Miles Sanders

always says, he's so good, he's so talented. The Eagles apparently don't agree, and I think that about Miles Sanders, but the Eagles don't use him that way, and I'm kind of losing hope there. So I wouldn't do that. Yeah, I agree. The other thing with Patterson,

this was his smallest snap share this week in his best game. He was also lining up as a wide receiver. He wasn't just catching balls out of the backfield. Oh, yeah. The long touchdown was

he was lined up out wide. He was a wide receiver. So, I mean, the targets per route run, I guess, could exceed what a normal running back would do. Yeah.

It wasn't just dump offs to him. He had like almost 10 yards, 10, his ADOT was almost 10, I think. It was over 9. The question is, will the roll increase? That's the other thing. It's not like Mike Davis has been running the ball so spectacularly.

He's been playing well. Cordero has been playing well every week, and it hasn't increased at all. Like we said, it was the lowest. His snapper was the lowest it's been all year. It might increase, but there's no indication that it's going to, given what we've seen so far. Alright, would you rather have Damien Harris or Cordaro Patterson?

I don't either. I'd rather have Patterson. Yeah, I mean I think you could sell Patterson for more right now. I guess I'd rather have Patterson. Okay, I think I have to end the show. I'm so sorry, everybody. Monday is a day that I need to do things,

and we've got some stuff going on at home, and I have to tend to them. So we have an appointment in like 15 minutes. I'm very sorry about that. I do have to end the show so I can get this posted and published and all that stuff. I know that's weird. I want to get to the rest of the show,

but life is in the way. Apologies to everyone out there. We will, of course, come back at you next week with another... We'll get to five big topics next time, not four big topics. We'll get to the waiver wire advice you need on Tuesday. Make sure you listen to FFT in 5.

They will have the reaction to Monday Night Football. They'll get that at 3 a.m. Eastern time if you subscribe to to FFT in 5 they will have the reaction to Monday Night Football and they'll get that at 3am Eastern Time if you subscribe to Fantasy Football Today in 5 thanks to Jacob thanks to Chris I am Adam and we are out of here on Fantasy Football Today