Fantasy Football Today - Justin Jefferson placed on IR, De’Von Achane and James Conner expected to miss multiple weeks, plus early rookie review! (10/10 Fantasy Football Dynasty Podcast)

Episode Date: October 11, 2023

Looking to dominate your fantasy league just like your redraft league? Look no further than Fantasy Football Today Dynasty hosted by our very own Heath Cummings! Download and follow Fantasy Football Today Dynasty on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and wherever else you find your podcasts.  Matt Waldman and Dan Schneier join Heath Cummings on FFT Dynasty! First, the guys discuss the big injury news around the league: Justin Jefferson placed on injured reserve (0:45), De’Von Achane (11:38), and James Conner (21:20) are expected to miss multiple weeks. Then, the guys dive into their early assessment of the rookie class, players like Puka Nacua (51:20), Sam LaPorta (58:02), Bryce Young (1:03:02), Jahmyr Gibbs (1:07:20), Dalton Kincaid (1:14:30), and more! Follow our FFT team on Twitter: @FFToday, @AdamAizer, @JameyEisenberg, @daverichard, @heathcummingssr, @ctowerscbs Follow the brand new FFT TikTok account: https://www.tiktok.com/@fftoday Watch FFT on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/fantasyfootballtoday Get 20% off Fantasy Football Today merch: https://store.cbssports.com/collections/fantasy-football-today%20?utm_source=podcast-apple-com&utm_medium=web&utm_campaign=buy-our-merch&utm_content=fantasy-football-collection Join our Facebook group https://www.facebook.com/groups/FantasyFootballToday/ Sign up for the FFT newsletter https://www.cbssports.com/newsletter You can listen to Fantasy Football Today on your smart speakers! Simply say "Alexa, play the latest episode of the Fantasy Football Today podcast" or "Hey Google, play the latest episode of the Fantasy Football Today podcast." To hear more from the CBS Sports Podcast Network, visit https://www.cbssports.com/podcasts/ To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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It's having the spend to power your scale with no preset spending limit. Redefine possible with Business Platinum. That's the powerful backing of American Express. Terms and conditions apply. Visit Amex. Terms and conditions apply. Visit amex.ca slash businessplatinum. Welcome to Fantasy Football Today, Dynasty. I am your host, Heath Cummings. I am so excited for today's show. We've got Matt Waldman. We've got Dan Schneier.

We had this whole rookie show laid out, ready to go. And then the NFL decided, you know what? It's Tuesday morning. Let's dump all of the news. So, Matt, we've got some injuries to talk about first. Yeah, without a doubt. But it's a pleasure to be here nonetheless. So hopefully we can have a good time doing that, even though, of course, some major players are on that list for us to discuss. Dan, it's good to have you back you've been it's been almost as long since you were on the show as it has been since matt was on the show it's been way too long it's been a busy few months obviously as an editor over here at cvs sports but like i always say if i have the opportunity to jump on with matt wallman i'll

throw everything to the side including the newsers i'm probably should be editing right now on jefferson and hm to jump on and talk football with Matt Wallman. So the idea was, you know, let's have Matt back on. We talked to you right around the NFL draft, Matt, and I've talked about this before. Your resources in terms of evaluating a rookie class before they come into the NFL, I can't consume enough of it. But you don't stop once a player gets into the nfl you don't you

don't stop evaluating these guys and i think this first month of the season we've got some guys who really outperformed what we expected in terms of fantasy points i'm not sure maybe not in terms of what you expected but and some guys who have really barely made a peep in the fantasy football world and i know there's some people that are getting a little bit antsy in both directions. So I wanted to talk about those guys first, but we've got to start with Justin Jefferson headed to injured reserve with a pulled hamstring. It does affect a rookie.

Jordan Addison has not been playing a whole lot in two wide receiver sets. I would not imagine that will be the case any longer. KJ Osborne is now going to have a much bigger role. And maybe Kirk Cousins is getting traded? I hope not for Jordan Madison. Is this a buy window? Do we go buy Justin Jefferson thinking that he's going to come back? We already see Adam Schefter talking about how he may not come back as soon as we're thinking if the Vikings don't win some games. I mean, yeah, that's certainly a possibility. Maybe they do extend that window, but I think at this stage, you probably want to buy into this as, as the best case scenario being that Justin Jefferson is probably going to miss

four to five weeks, probably five to six, um, considering that you might need a week to ramp up with this practice. And that first game may not be all that great. So still, when you think about the idea that your playoff games are far more impactful than your regular season games, and that's something that I would borrow from our buddy at footballguys.com, Adam Harstad, in terms of looking at really the impact of of weeks in fantasy football justin jefferson still you know him missing this time isn't going to be as impactful for you if you have him so hang on to him if you are in a situation where maybe you need to make some major moves maybe trading for him isn't a bad idea if you're in a bad situation right now and they'll and it just can't get much worse,

might as well go for the big play of somebody. That wouldn't be a bad one to consider. And then when it comes to Jordan Addison, I think that, yeah, the volume's going to be there. And he is a young player who's capable of growing up fast. So you've seen him, you know, make strides over the course of the season. I mean,

if you look at him in the beginning of the season, watching him against the Eagles, there are some plays that he tried to run some double moves and they weren't buying it. And then now, as we're watching him over the course of the season, he's had more success with those plays. And then he's getting targeted on other types of routes too so you know you're gonna see this offense probably run through dj hawkinson

with addison and osborne getting different types of roles that that will expand upon their volume and so to me hawkinson's the biggest buy, whereas Addison and Osborne both give you big play opportunities just in different ways. Osborne may be the guy you see more in the red zone because of his physicality and his versatility, both as a contested catch player and a run-after-the-catch guy. Addison has some of that in him. It's just a matter of he's a younger player, and you always wonder about how well he's going to hold up against veteran corners who are now, instead of him facing the number two or nickel corner,

he's facing the primary guy far more often. Hopefully, if K.J. Osborne gets another end zone target, he does not duck out of the way of it like he did in week five. Dan, I kind of view this as one of those situations where K.J. Osborne's been playing more than Jordan Addison. He's a much better blocker. He plays more in two wide receiver sets. And the targets have been really close so far.

I would expect for the time that Jefferson misses, we will see a decent advantage for Addison in terms of total targets over Osborne. Are you thinking a similar thing? I'm thinking a similar thing. I mean, entering week five, Osborne was dead last 69th out of 69 receivers in yards per route run minus busted coverages. Those aren't great numbers, but last year, actually there's more positive to take away because this is according to Adam Mazur, who I think mentioned on the podcast earlier, Osborne scored 14.6 PPR points in eight of 11 games and had at least seven targets. So it's kind of juxtaposing where you see him this year versus where you saw him last year and where his role will grow.

In my mind, every offense has layup throws baked into their system and their scheme. And in this system, those layup throws are actually at further depth downfield than a lot of different systems that are more based on like quick game. And so I think those routes will actually go to Addison. I think he profiles better to run those routes, the routes that Jefferson ran, those layup routes than Osborne. So I'm a little bit more excited about Addison than Osborne moving forward. I think the big winner here is who Matt said, TJ Hawkinson. And as far as the trading goes, I think there's a good opportunity now. And you said this best, I think yesterday on the podcast, Heath, I don't remember where I saw you say this. It might have been on a social clip, but if you're four and one or five and oh, you can afford to make a trade right now, I think for Justin Jefferson. And, and, and as Matt said earlier, like keep in mind, the playoff weeks are really the most important weeks right now. And we're talking from a redraft perspective from that standpoint. Okay, Matt okay matt so i i don't think this matters i i generally um don't buy a lot of the in-season trade speculation although we've seen more of it in the last couple of years than we used to it used to be we talked about this and it never ever happened but we i do need to at least ask it is a

rookie centered show and right now nick mullen's unable to play football. The backup quarterback for the Minnesota Vikings is Jaron Hall, who is a rookie. If something does happen and Kirk Cousins gets dealt, does this just destroy everyone's value? And is there even any 2QB value for a guy like Hall? I think there is 2QB value for Hall hall just from the standpoint that the Vikings defense is such a boom bust unit, because it's essentially a unit that isn't very strong personnel wise, but scheme wise, they're very aggressive.

So, you know, that's Brian Flores. He's that's why they brought him in. Cause they knew that they were going to be a weaker unit schematically or personnel wise. And they needed somebody to say, listen, let's get get let's bleed everything we can out of these guys and the way you do that is play aggressive football so they're blitzing a ton which means it's kind of you know

the back end is going to be exposed a lot and in that case that means garbage time for the quarterbacks um you know as probably a bigger deal so you're going to have jaron hall throwing those underneath routes the guys like hawkinson osborne and addison and they get a lot of volume maybe get an extra series worth of volume than what you might normally see as a result of that so i think there's value in that respect jaron hall is a is an intriguing quarterback prospect overall i mean he's kind of like you think of russell wilson in his heyday you would say that jaron hall is a is probably a lower middle class russell wilson maybe you know slightly better than what we saw of russell wilson last year

you know let's put it that way um so it's a you know but i would look at it this way from the trade perspective kirk cousins would have to go to a team where he already knows the offense yes and it's going to make an impact right away and help their playoff chances otherwise i don't know a team that's going to bite on an older elder statesman quarterback who has to relearn or has to learn an entirely new system on the fly. So that rumor just makes no sense. No sense whatsoever. I mostly agree.

There's two teams that obviously, if you're just looking from a talent perspective of Kirk Cousins making them a playoff team, I mean, it's the Jets and the Falcons that everybody talks about. And he is immensely better than Desmond Ritter and Zach Wilson. But those, I don't think, are either one systems that he would be extremely knowledgeable of, right? Yeah, I mean, I think the Robert Salas coach team, the system that they run there, is probably close enough. Because he did play in the Kevin Stefanski system and the O'Connell system is kind of a little bit of a merge of the McVay Shanahan tree. So that it's a similar type of tree in New York.

So you could see that happening, but are they really going to do that after they've already, then again, you say, look, they went and spent money on micole hardman after they had the same issues with um you know elijah moore like why did you go out and it's like someone who's saying i really don't need to buy a sports car anymore because i have a family

and then they go right out and buy like a lamborghini you know I mean and you know damn the college funds you know but uh but it's like that's kind of the the look that they have there and then when you think about Atlanta Atlanta would be a nice system but you just don't know I don't really know how related that's really gonna be and they still have more pieces to put together. The offense would be far better. I absolutely agree. But they're probably going to, they're a young team, so they're probably going to bleed every opportunity to give Ritter a chance to do well.

And Arthur Smith can then say, look, he was a third-round pick. It's not my fault. You know, we gave him a chance and then they can draft their first round quarterback or trade for a justin fields in the offseason who's still a younger player if the bears decide to go there and there are other factors worth considering too as to why you shouldn't be planning your fantasy season around this kirk cousins has a no trade clause even though the nathaniel hackett system has some similarities to what he's run you still no matter what system you go into,

even as the same system, you have no rapport with the receivers. You don't really, you have to learn all the nominally. It just doesn't work. That's why we don't see this happen. So I think it's just not going to happen. Okay.

So Justin Jefferson was the first piece of bad news. We received the second Devonchan, going to miss multiple weeks with a knee injury. He's not definitely going on IR yet, but I think we should start first off by just talking about what we saw from him the last couple of weeks and how completely insane it was. It's hard for me when a guy comes out in two or three games and averages 10 yards per carry to normalize that because we know he's not games and averages 10 yards per carry to like normalize that because we know he's not going to average 10 yards per carry forever and so like he looked in this offense like the most explosive running back we've ever seen there was i saw him running next to tyree

kill and it kind of looked like he was faster than tyree kill and then two plays later apparently tyree kill heard someone say that and recorded the fastest miles per hour by a ball ball carrier this season so it's just an insane speed situation there Matt what what did you think of the the glimpse we got of HN was this injury situation kind of something we had to be watching for and and what do you expect moving forward well I mean I think from a running back perspective and the fact that these guys get hit from all different angles more often than anybody else on the field, you just have to expect that injury is going to happen or a very high likelihood for any running back.

But I don't think his profile necessarily begs injury, even though speedsters can be kind of highly twitched. But you would say knee injury different than like a you know a soft tissue type of issue that usually comes with um you know very twitched up speedsters who are really tight in in their muscles and may not be as as loose but looking at it from just his production standpoint listen this is an unheard of offense because you think i was listening to kyle um long the other day on his green light podcast with howie long talking about um you know players who like bo jackson and how bo jackson was the only player where he actually they actually had a play

basically called bo don't need no Blocking. That's what they really called it. And it was a reverse where there was no blocking to the backside and it was a one-man reverse where basically Bo would run to one side then reverse field and it was a designed play.

And they ran it in New Orleans. I mean, you see it on the highlights, but what I didn't know is it was a design play. So there aren't many players ever in the league who have that kind of speed, size, strength, speed, disparity with the rest of the league. When you see that, normally it's a Power Five conference college team

versus a Division 2 unit or a lower Power 5 unit that has maybe three good players who might be NFL-worthy starting on their team. So when you look at it from that perspective, the Dolphins might be the closest thing offensively where you have Mostert, Hill, A-Chan, Waddle, and even Chosen, you know, Robbie Chosen would be one of the fastest players on any other team too. So you have five offensive skill players you can put on the field at one time

who stretch the field horizontally and vertically. And as a result of that, you basically get, as my buddy Jay Moyer would say, when HN gets the ball on these plays where they motion guys late and have them running horizontally, sideline to sideline to begin the play, he's basically running on a six-lane highway in LA at like 2 a.m right you know so it doesn't matter who got the ball in terms of chunk yardage what matters with a-chan is that he's got the speed to take it 70 80 yards as opposed to 15 to 25 yards so that's great now he's more than that but how much more than that i would say he's more of a 3.5 to 4.5 yards per carry type of back normally if you put him in the most role on a regular basis then he is an a 10 11 yard per carry back who's inheriting a role that the help of these other five world-class speedsters are creating because if it was that's what's creating the dominance right now. He's a good young back.

He's not, I'm still have questions whether he's a carry the load workhorse back. Right. I believe the Browns actually ran the one man reverse with Elijah Moore earlier this season. And it lost him like 27 yards. But I have Bo Jackson for that play. I was going to just say, I have a little bit of a different perspective on this just because I was such a big fan of a chain state at college. I felt like he was a much better runner between the tackles and he really was given credit for. He was my pick as the best system fit for any running back in this class with Miami, because I just feel like this was, this was it.

And we saw it right away. I mean, he had a 40% avoided tackle rate through his games until this game that was leading the NFL. And he had a explosive rush rate of 29%, which also led the NFL. And the first play of the game last week against the giants was one of the most insane plays I've ever seen schemed up by a coach. He had waddle and a chain on the left side of the formation, two other receivers on the right side. He motions waddle into the backfield. Then he runs like a G lead counter looking play where all the guards and

tackle the guards and tackle from the right side are pulling to the left side. And yet here comes Devin a chain coming around on the reverse. They pitched him the receivers on this side, pinned down the rest of what's left, even though all the linebackers are going this way and he just has an open field. So it is partially schemed too, but I also just don't know like who can, like, who's going to fit that role. Now people can say, Oh, they'll use like Jeff Wilson or Salvin Ahmed, but I think Jalen Waddle is actually going to start to fill the role that a chain was playing in those pony packages where they had HN and most are on the field. And Waddle will be the guy who will have a much bigger role in the offense. He, to me is the biggest gainer from this injury, actually, surprisingly,

because I think we'll have more of a role in the offense and be more of a featured player with this injury. Cause you can't really use Salvin Ackman in my opinion, or Jeff Wilson in the role that Devin HN was used in. I do think that with Wilson, I mean, his agent says he's going to be back this week in terms of on the practice field, and we'll see if he's back in a game in a week or two. I would guess, Matt, we're going to see pretty close to a 50-50 split with Mostert and Wilson. I mean, last year, Wilson came in, and the first game, he was taking Mostert off of the field. Yeah, I would expect that, too, because both of them are accomplished players.

But then you can also, you know, I think it's a great point that Dan made about Waddle being involved in that level. I can certainly see how that happens. But I would also just say, why not just reverse the roles? Now, instead of that, you take Mostert and put him in the HN role because he is also pretty close to a world-class speedster himself even though he's old and then you have wilson who may be as good or better of an interior runner between the tackles right so now you get you get those roles that way and that way you can still use waddle and hill to that level that you need because their key role is to widen the linebacker and the safety so that you create those big rushing lanes.

And, you know, and I think that that's the, that's probably going to be the easiest thing. And then you don't have to worry about Waddle getting hurt or wearing him down in the way that Debo Samuel complained about when they were using him as a runner. So I think you'll see what I agree with you.

You're going to see more. What will probably use that way. And he's such a fantastic runner. So I could totally see why you would look at it that way. But I also think that maybe that it just depends on how much they're in love with this, with this scheme and don't just go, well,

we'll go back to last year. We were good last year, you know, but I would think any coach would look at that go back to last year we were good last year you know but i would think any coach would look at that and say well we were not we're dominant when we do this so so i would think that most are gets that first shot maybe a mixture of mustard and waddle and then they can use they can use um ahmed wilson and maybe even a favorite of mine um who had cleanup duty in the bills game, Chris Brooks, maybe they can use him in that eye back.

Look, it might be Chris Brooks this week. Cause I, I don't, I mean, it'd be him or Ahmed, one of the two, but probably both will get a little bit of work. I will say like,

if you're a contender, who's got a hole at running back and everybody has a hole at running back right now. Now I feel a little bit more comfortable going and sending a pick for rain most, or cause I think he's probably got a top five running back over the next couple of weeks. That's worth a round to pick to get you a couple of wins.

We've got at least one more player out for multiple weeks, James Connor. We don't know for sure if he's going on IR yet, but it is going to miss multiple weeks with a knee injury. I spent the off season and not because I thought he was any good, but I just kept saying over like Keante ingram's the clear number two running back behind 28 year old james connor who gets hurt every year go stash kiante ingram of course kiante ingram gets hurt before james connor does and so in week five we get amare de mercado not somebody we talked about a lot i do believe his name came up once this offseason

on fft dynasty which fantastic he he looks like right now i believe they just signed tony jones onto the practice squad but but it looks like de mercato might be the lead running back for week six matt can you give us a scouting report on this guy is there is there anything more there than kiante ingram and i guess if both those guys are healthy who do you think it is well i'm a big keontae ingram fan i think he's like a a kareem hunt starter kit with a little more wiggle to his game um but he's had bad luck throughout his career five-star prospect of texas gets you know gets banged up and that that meant the bijan robinson train got started much earlier and he had to transfer to get playing time at USC where he looked very good. But now, you know, he's worked his way up from being basically a UDFA afterthought

or a late round afterthought. And now he's hurt. So it's one of those things when you look at DeMarcato, you know, out of TCU, he's more of a scat back next to Kendre Miller. He was kind of that change of pace option. Watching him this weekend, you saw that he got a little more patient as the games went along. He did a good job of being able to set up zone plays.

He did a solid job with gap plays. He took on defenders. Sometimes you want to see him maybe take on one side of a defender a little bit more, but he was willing to drop his pads and get extra yardage. You saw that he could catch the football. The burst is there for him to get around the corner. So he is a capable runner in an offense that wants to run the football

and needs to run the football. So the volume is going to be there for him if he's going to be the lead back. Damian Williams, certainly an elder statesman in the league who can give you something if needed. That's why he keeps getting signed and dumped, basically, because his salary is probably expensive unless they need him specifically in an emergency. But I would anticipate DiMarcato is going to be the guy to have right now and you get Clement as the in case DeMarcado you know falters Clement will probably be the guy that plays this week with

him unless Gonta Ingram is healthy enough to go and if he is um then I would see it a split between DeMarcado and Ingram and Ingram while his stats don't look great you have to remember that he's barely gotten any touches on a per game basis right and really never got a chance to get into a rhythm DeMarcato last week got a chance to get enough touches to get into a rhythm and I would argue that you would have seen similar from Ingram in terms of results in the box score if you were healthy maybe even better i yeah i would agree with that i went back and watched the tape with demarcato from this week i wasn't too impressed i think matt kind of nailed it the one run i thought he did a good job on was the cutback run on uh it was actually outside zone in the red zone i just

thought he did a good job of finding the cutback lane outside of that i was definitely like intrigued by the fact that they didn't shrink the playbook at all i saw duo inside zone outside zone saw g lead play saw power like and sometimes you don't really know if it's duo or inside zone they kind of look the same but i feel like that's a good sign for him potentially from a processing standpoint but i leave that to matt more so and i do think besides that one run i felt like maybe ingram or whoever was in there could have done a better job a guy you've been pretty skeptical of and rightly so far dan and i've been a little bit more optimistic about because i'm a sucker for the little guy do we can we get more rondale more playing running back please like is it could run or be the best running back on the cardinals in the absence of james

connor tayvon austin that's all i have to say he's mean, I'm sorry. I think he's better. He's a better receiver than Tavon Austin, but the best thing that they did about putting Rondell Moore at tailback is that you finally get to see plays where he's running downhill and they're not trying to make him go east west all the time because that's

where they're miscasting him in usage. But I would say, yeah, just go back to Dearcato for a minute there was a play there's a gap play that i think that where they they pulled two guys moving to the right and cincinnati did a great job of penetrating early and you could see that he was still finding his his processing because the way he approached that a veteran back would have been able to gain a little bit more than what he did on that play and so you know you maybe he'll grow into that but yeah more may get that he he's the best shot

at the big play maybe at the running back position so i would agree that maybe they do a little more with him there but yeah long term i don't think we're going to see the next, you know, I can't remember the kid's name. You know who. Warwick Dunn. Warwick Dunn, that's right. See, you read my mind. He's not the next Warwick Dunn. I do have a weekly lineup decision I'm going to have to make

for a second flex between Elijah Moore and Rondale Moore. That is, I'm just going to choose wrong every single week. The nice thing is, the guy who I should have chose is probably going to score five points as opposed to three for the other guy. So it's not going to hurt my feelings that bad. Let's take a short break and then we'll get back to the planned show. Let's talk about the rookies. Metrolinks and Crosslinks are reminding everyone to be careful as Eglinton Crosstown LRT train testing is in progress.

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the ORCGA 2023 Dirt Report. So I want to get this section started off with three questions about this 2023 rookie class. And the first one that I think is interesting because we want to stay away from take lock,

getting stuck on the same thing that we thought the before season, but we also don't want to overreact to five weeks. So I'm curious, is there anyone, Matt, who has changed your mind about them as a player in the NFL in the first five weeks of the season? I would probably say not really.

You know, if I were maybe Aiden O'Connell as someone who I'm willing to give a little bit more of a chance to see how that could develop for him down the line. But, you know, I liked what I saw preseason from him. I thought he was good in the pocket at Purdue and that he was willing to fire into tight windows. But I always, but I also thought that his processing was a little bit slow in certain areas.

So I'm, I'm, I'm willing to see, you know, how that develops with him. Okay. Dan, do you have anybody?

I mean, the smart analyst answer is no, because I don't think it's a good idea to change your opinions too much on what you've seen, but I do think it's worth discussing two players. And one would be Anthony Richardson, who I was also high on, but Matt, who I did the show with, you know, a few months ago was the highest on him of anyone I had talked to. And my opinion, look, I love what I've seen from CJ Stroud and we will talk about him in a second. Cause that's the next player I wanted to bring up. I got to say long-term, I feel even more confident about Anthony Richardson and what that skillset could mean long-term in the NFL

versus Stroud skillset, which has been great. But sometimes I see these guys hit the ground running in a system and when teams get more film on it and they take it away, the things that they are doing within that system, they can regress in time at times or sometimes Anthony Richardson, what he's done hasn't really been system-based to me. It's been more him based. So, but I will talk a little bit about CJ Stroud as well, who has done a great job of picking up this system.

And it's no surprise to me that like, you look at the best offense in the NFL right now, the 49ers on a per play basis. And just from an efficiency standpoint, the 49ers, the dolphins and not the Texans, the NFL right now, the 49ers on a per play basis. And just from an efficiency standpoint, the 49ers, the dolphins and not the Texans, but to an extent, the Texans are up there with these teams and some of these metrics, and they're all from the same coaching tree. And I've watched some of CJ Shroud's film. Yes, he's doing a great job throwing the anticipation when other quarterbacks at his age aren't, but I do think a lot of this is really good scheme as

well from Bobby slow against some really good design and route combinations as well. So I still want to give him credit for picking that all up so fast and throwing with anticipation and not throwing an intercept, all the things that he's done so far in his NFL career. But I would say those are the two that stand out to me as just two guys that I have an eye on that I've, I've watched a good, a decent amount of tape on and I like what I've seen so far.

Well, and I think Matt, he hit on a really important point and it has made me feel better about stroud for sure is that you get a rookie quarterback in the first four games who already looks like they've really been coached up and already has a coaching staff that's putting them in good position and that does make me feel a lot better about a guy over the next three or four years in terms of dynasty value, because things are, but I think I want to go back. We were going to talk about Richardson anyways, Matt. So we'll just do it right now. Cause I can't decide. I was very

high on Anthony Richardson. I didn't expect him to look as comfortable in the pocket as he has so far. And so I think that's a plus I he's played four games and left three of them with injury though. That's's that's terrifying should i feel more good or bad about anthony richardson right now yeah i mean i think that's the thing that you got to be worried about because you'll see some of the fantasy analysts who delve into injuries show the long list of injuries that he had at florida okay and you know he's had multiple shoulder injuries um he's had a couple of AC joint injuries. He's had a knee injury, things like that.

Some of the things are minor things. So what you see is I look at him, and I fear that he's going to get – they're going to try and weaponize him like Cam Newton, and he's going to be expected to play the game like Cam Newton did and get worn out too early. But I also think that when we look at jalen hurts and that's shane steichen really worked with jalen hurts i'm a little bit more put at ease about that fear um and you saw that i'm i like how they use richardson because

the first week it was like mostly passes to one side of the field. But you could see that Richardson was doing a good job of manipulating players. And I always thought the two best skills from Anthony Richardson as a passer were his pocket management movement and his ability to manipulate defenders. And then the area that was kind of streaky was it could be great or it could just be off. And that was plays past placement. And he often had great past placement in like high level layered throws, you know,

placed only where receivers can make plays and tight windows and doing it while moving in the pocket, things that you go, Matthew Stafford does that, you know? But then you'd see things where the footwork was a little off or he he didn't see it he hadn't seen the coverage enough before and he'd make a throw right into some something that he shouldn't have so they've expanded the offense gradually with him and that rams game was just unbelievable what he did with aaron you know the play he showed he had with aaron don basically he jumped throws a ball into the grasp of Aaron Donald and still gets it out. And it's pinpoint to Alec Pierce

and Aaron Donald's just looking like just disgusted that like that actually was completed. So I think it will get better. The injuries haven't been major. So I'm, I'm still hopeful with him in terms of what we're going to see down the line. I think he's, he has the highest ceiling, but CJ Stroud was my number two quarterback, I believe.

And when you look at what he's done, I love what Dan brought up about Bobby Sloan. And, and a good example of that was this weekend against Atlanta. Stroud's biggest weakness as a quarterback at Ohio State, one of the most notable weaknesses, I thought, was that he didn't really always gauge the over-the-top defender on a route that was breaking towards that over-the-top defender, whether he should throw it or not.

And when he looked at that leverage, he often would throw it and the defender would cut it off. And I saw it or not. And when he looked at that leverage, he often would throw it and the defender would cut it off. And I saw it multiple times. I remember at Penn State, I saw it a couple of times last year. Now, this portion of the season is usually a good chance for us to see, does the quarterback, rookie quarterback, look like he did on film at his school? And then the next portion is, now the defenses are going to throw new stuff at him and can he overcome those things and stretch his game to become a better quarterback that he needs

to be in the nfl with defenses having a book on him and so right now that's he's looking good because they're doing a lot quicker throws and with that leverage point that i brought up just a minute ago jesse bates nearly intercepted a pass on a route that was breaking over the middle earlier in the game and in the fourth quarter bobby slowick remembered that i and this is how i interpret it you know he remembered that because they had um dalton schultz run a double move that looked like it was going to be a post breaking underneath the jesse bates and then ran the double move and had him go right behind and stroud just folded over him so he literally took a weakness of cj strouds and weaponized it against the defense to anticipate it

to their advantage and that could have been the game winner um you know and if it weren't for the defense and and what atl Atlanta was able to do on offense. But when you see things like that, you see him getting to the ball fast. You see him dealing with a Pittsburgh Steelers defense, the way he dealt with it. That's a combination of his maturity of following the scheme and the scheme being good enough and game plan being good enough to fit his strengths and minimize his weaknesses.

So yeah, I understand why everyone should be encouraged about CJ Stroud's development. And I want to add one quick thing to that. Cause I thought it was incredible example by Matt. That really tells a lot, but I have experienced this following a quarterback who doesn't always do a good job of this,

but it's one thing to see it on the, you know, iPad or whatever they're using, what the coaches are telling you. And then it's another thing to process it the way Matt just explained how he read something that he saw earlier in the game with the way the safety was playing and the leverage they had pre-snap and then understood post-snap where that space was going to be. That to me is by far and away, the most important thing a quarterback can do. Like the biggest tell on if a quarterback is progressing or regressing is can they understand the space post snap where it's going to be and where they can throw the football to lead the receiver into and that's a great example of cj

stroud doing it as a rookie and so i wanted to definitely point that out question number two who is the most likely round one and i mean round one of rookie drafts, after five weeks, the most likely bust from round one of fantasy rookie drafts. Oh. I'll let you tackle this one first, Matt. This is my least favorite question of all. Me too. I'll let you go first. Yeah. So I'll say that, you know,

obviously some players should get more opportunities and chances. So I'll take it from the – I'll cheat a little bit and say the guy who's going to have the longer development timeline that could lead to him having busting, if I have to go towards that, is Quentin Johnston, the wide receiver out of TCU with the Chargers. First of all, we talked about him on the show, I believe, last time, which is that I've limited now to if you've seen Talladega Knights and you see Ricky Bobby after his first race and they're interviewing him and his hands keep going up like this and he goes,

I don't know what to do with my hands. That's a perfect example of Quentin Johnston on a vertical route where he has to jump up and win the ball is that he's like instead of his hands being over the top with the thumbs together attacking it early he's literally doing the ricky bobby interview i don't know what to do with my hands type of thing and that became an issue you it a little bit better in practice and isolated moments during training camp, but in games, he was still doing that.

And as a result, he's not the, he wasn't the third receiver to begin the season. And you're not seeing a lot of them right now. Well, you're going to see more of them now, but you're not getting a ton of impact out of him at this stage. I mean,

look at that. You see what he was signing at 2.8 targets a game, one point with Mike Williams out. Is that what your first round? You would think if Jordan Addison's doing twice this at this point, at least in almost every category, if not more, and he's the third guy, and now Jefferson's out? Yeah. and he's the third guy and now jefferson's out yeah quentin johnston to me is that guy that his he's a good route runner he's excellent after the catch give him quick hitting routes and he can

do fine but he's he's got a lot to learn right now and that one area that's supposed to be imagine like you have a super strength and your super strength is you've got speed and size and someone looks at that and goes the perfect scenario for you is to win contested catch targets deep but your biggest flaw is the very thing that is like like it's like charlie brown and the football with you know it's like his hands are like Lucy take it, pulling the football away from Charlie Brown, trying to kick it. I mean,

it's, it's, it's kind of tragic in a way. So hopefully he can overcome that. And there's a good chance that he can with work, but our team's really doing a good job with that because I mean, listen, you know,

the, the four letter network that we won't mention here you know was talking about this and there was somebody retweeted what i wrote because the ravens last last march they're showing all these rugby balls being thrown by the wide receiver coach and i commented on twitter i'm going that doesn't make a lot of sense that you're going to have them work with their technique on a bigger ball. Right. I wouldn't use a smaller ball to make sure that their hands are tight.

And then that network was commenting on the eight drops that the Ravens had. And these are some good receiving prospects because their hands are too far apart and they're clapping on the ball. Right. So if a team like the Ravenvens aren't getting right quality coach drilling with this type of stuff can we guarantee that the chargers are and that quentin johnson will i can't imagine the chargers messing anything up philosophically do you have anybody not named quentin johnson well i i do but i want to talk a little bit

about quentin johnson because i thought his path to success this year was actually as an underneath receiver on drag routes. And I thought that would work out to some extent with Mike Williams running the vertical route tree. Now that Mike Williams is out, that puts all that into question because on film, Matt said it best. He's not a contested catch receiver. He looks like he should be, but he's not. And I don't, I never thought he was a good vertical receiver either in college. I thought he benefited a lot from playing in the big 12 with off coverage that he's not going to see at the NFL level. And he hasn't seen at the NFL level.

So that bothers me about Quinn and Johnson. The only other player I would mention, though, I have no concerns about him long-term. So this is not less so for dynasty and maybe a possible buy low type of candidate, but short-term I am very worried from the one game I saw on film. And from some of the stats is Jackson Smith and Jigba because it doesn't seem like the Seattle Seahawks have any real interest in incorporating him in the offense the way Ohio State did, at least as of now. I've heard he's the long-term solution for Tyler Lockett, whatever that may mean, but right now they like to use a lot of 12 personnel. They like to get players like Cody Parkinson on the field because he can block.

They like to run boot action. They like to run 13 personnel. All these things don't really get Jackson Smith and Jigba the ball. And one of the games I've seen from him, the Giants game and a few other clips and some stuff I've studied, it's just these targets right around the line of scrimmage off of boot action and things like that. That's not how you use Jackson Smith and Jigba. You need to use him in the way that Ohio State used him for him to have fantasy success, at least. So I don't really foresee unless an injury comes to that receiver core anything really happening and even then i have my concerns because i like an offense to be more 11

personnel based for jackson smith and jigba to have his best chance to kind of make a fantasy impact i think that was their plan i think they even talked about doing that and then both their offensive tackles got hurt yeah and i think they just couldn't do it anymore but i do i'm still a little bit hopeful for the post buy bump from jsn and i definitely think and matt this guy was on the list so you can kind of give your thoughts on jsn as well i i definitely think when you're talking him versus johnston i see johnston as the potential we don't want to say that word i see jsn as can i buy low yet or do i have to wait for a couple more weeks of struggle can i buy low yet like just itching to go get a couple shares of it yes my buddy adam says he's the dented cannon dynasty that you want to get you know um to me and i i love how dan described everything i would only modify um one word and what he said repeatedly is that seattle likes to i think seattle needs to

because of what what what, you know, what he said is they lost two offensive tackles. And when you think of what Waldron Shane Waldron wanted to do coming from the Ram system, um, early on, like we, I think we talked about earlier in the summer too, is that D Eskridge was drafted in the second round to be that big play slot receiver. He got a massive concussion. Hasn't really been the player that they second round to be that big play slot receiver he got a massive concussion hasn't really been the player that they wanted him to be and so they went in the first round and got jsn and you know i know that there are some people out there that i've seen say well you know the before that seattle used their tight ends x amount and pete said pete carroll talked about his tight

ends and wants to use that and i go what's pete carroll gonna say about like well we really didn't want to use these two tight ends is he really gonna say that to the media and tell people that he might need those guys to be good he doesn't want those guys going i don't want to be here he doesn't even care you know so so when you look at it that that way i think they wanted to use Njigba the way that, you know, like as a Cooper Cup-esque type of player, they just can't right now. And what's funny about that is I can't remember who to credit with this, but if you're listening to this, I mean to credit you on it, is that it was brought up to me recently that cooper cup really wasn't meant to

be in the role he was in it was just that their tight ends were injured and they needed to use him as such and then and then they they discovered the pot of gold that they had and decided to roll with it i remember zimmer the former you know coach zimmer with the vikings during cooper cups rookie year looking at him and going and basically telling the CBS crew before the podcast or before the broadcast, their best receiver wasn't all the guys that was on that team at that point. They said the best receiver on their team was Cooper Cupp. That's the guy we're most worried about, especially in the red zone. And that was like five, six games into his rookie year. So looking at this, JSN is definitely a buy.

He's got a Cooper Cup role coming at some point. We have one more question. You guys will like this one better. Who is the best deep sleeper? That's a loaded term. Let's just say guys who definitely were not taken in the first 25, 30 picks of most rookie drafts that hasn't popped yet. We've had

some of these guys. We're going to talk about a couple of them in just a minute with the, with the, with the guys that have kind of come out of nowhere, but who, who's that guy who you liked beforehand? Cause I think the third and fourth round rookie picks that haven't done anything are,

are in they're on the cut line. They're in danger of moving off of fantasy rosters. Who's, who are your favorite deep sleepers who haven't popped yet out of this class? I mean, I think that certainly you know guys that maybe were i don't know if you'd say tige spears was a later guy but he

certainly fell and he's he's popping a little bit i want to talk about him more so you know i'll give him a little bit of a mention but i would say i i think chris brooks is certainly on that list for me because of what's going on in miami and you saw what he did in cleanup duty in that bills game um i think that he's someone that i would absolutely um continue to monitor in your leagues if when there's an opportunity cedric tillman i think is a player that you know maybe not this year but with uh with likely you know donovan peoples jones like unlikely to get re-signed maybe the browns saying maybe this quarterback thing with deshaun watson isn't going to work out after all you know cedric tillman's going to get a fresh start either

with someone else or get an opportunity next year so i'm happy about that um as a possibility and i and i think that i wasn't like super high on him but you know i would say tyler scott the uh the the bears wide receiver he when, when, when the bears G, um, executive group looked at Bayless Jones, I think they were seeing Tyler Scott. Um, and I think that we're going to see a little bit more of him now that chase Claypool has been traded. He'll maybe get his opportunity to be worked into the offense a bit.

So Matt stole one of mine. Mine is Tyler Scott. I felt like when I watched his tape this preseason, uh, or this march to for scouting for the giants he was open on the vertical plane and the ball didn't come his way more than any receiver besides a flowers and that's a product of this of the quarterback play that he played with but the other thing that's interesting about tyler scott is he was a

converted running back so he's the type of guy that i feel like if the dolphins were lucky enough to draft him right now i'd be adding him to every roster because he could be so good in that mike mcdaniel system but i think part of tyler scott is he was always going to be a developmental player as a converted running back he didn't he had what i felt like was a pretty limited route tree but he ran those three routes really really well and that excites me he just has difference making speed the other guy i would mention and i finally start to see him get a few snaps on one of the Monday night or Sunday night games a few weeks ago. And it's going to take some time, but I just freaking love this tape at college is Charlie Jones, the wide receiver on the Bengals. I mean, this dude had it all at college.

He wanted all three levels. He beat man coverage, beat press man coverage. He had unbelievable film against Joey Porter Jr. against Penn State last year, who was basically, it was a borderline first round pick. He was picked the first pick of day two. Charlie Jones is the type of guy that is going to work with Joe Burrow at some point, and I want to have him on my roster when he does get his opportunity. Excellent stuff.

So we've got, I think, four left that we haven't talked about on the good side, and three rookies who are maybe not quite living up to expectations, and we'll go through these, not in rapid fire, but a little bit quicker. Let's, let's start with the guy you said you wanted to talk about, Matt,

because I want to hear you talk about him. Tajay Spears, a very good game in week five. He's being used a little bit more in the passing game. He's, he is such, it's a perfect, like I remember that Brandon Jacobs

and Tiki Barber, Thunder and Lightning. The Titans have Thunder and Lightning right now, and Lightning's pretty exciting, isn't he? Yeah, man, I'm so excited about TyJ Spears from week one on, because he was my running back three in this class, and really, I would say, very close to being tied with Jameer Gibbs.

And the injury concerns post draft just completely deflated his stock you know in the early to mid spring and early summer but when the thing that was telling about him is everybody knew he could run the ball a few people realized that he was actually a very good receiver who they could split outside and run receiver routes against cornerbacks in meaningful moments of games in college and he was winning those plays what i didn't get to see was how good of a pass protector he truly was and when mike vrabel probably the most the youngest curmudgeon of a coach in the nfl right now who is like you know still acts like a linebacker in the sense of like i'm not going to say anything good about any young player doesn't need to say anything because new orleans in a deafening environment puts tige spears on the field more than derrick henry

and has him picking up and tackle and twists and he's handling them like a five-year veteran who's been known to be good at pass protection and shoving defensive tackles and defensive ends into the line with perfect technique i was blown away because the rest of that stuff i was like excited about to know that that was happening and that Mike Rabel of all people was like, yeah, first game, new Orleans, deafening you're in there.

And I trust you. That speaks volumes that, that to me, that's like the, you should be picking up. You should be trading for Tajay Spears right now, because at the end of the season, if the Titans aren't playing winning football

he is going to be the lead back um they're going to give him that opportunity if they are um you know they're using him this much right now because a he's good and b they plan to draft him because they wanted to give derrick henry some you know a lighter workload so that he's not worn down in the playoffs because as much people make about the Titans right now their run defense is pretty darn good unless they're facing Anthony Richardson and three great offensive linemen who can give them box advantages so yeah Spears to me I I'd had him as kind of like in between Felix Jones and Jamal Charles as a comp. And he's closer to Jamal Charles to me. He just hasn't had enough of the touches to show it.

But the flashes that he's shown, there's real, legit football, all-around football player skill here. Dan, two of the bigger risers in my running back rankings update this week were Isaiah Pacheco and Tajay Spears. Since Matt brought up a Chiefs running back, I'll bring up a Chiefs running back. Would you rather have Spears than Pacheco on your dynasty roster? I would rather have Spears, yes. That's pretty exciting, considering Pacheco is such a better option this moment. But I do agree with you. 2024 and beyond, Spears is such a better option this moment, but I do agree with you. Like 2024 and beyond Spears is probably the better option.

Let's, let's go to number two and I'll give you a little more time on this one because we've got to spend a little bit of time on Puka Nakua. First game with Cooper cup doesn't seem to matter. Puka Nakua is still a must start wide receiver. And, and Matt, I'll let you, you can take that any angle you want, but the, one of the questions I need you to answer is, where does he rank in this class now for dynasty purposes? You could make the case for him at number one. You could make the case for him at number one, absolutely.

But if you're really looking three years out, I'd say that he's probably top five easily, maybe even top three. I would probably put him above Jordan Addison right now, and Addison was my three. I had Njigba and Flowers as my one-two. I'll probably put Nakua as third because what impressed me about him is, yeah, he got the Cooper Cup role early in the season, and he performed that

extremely well and that's harder than what it looks like um but it's still a little bit easier than being the outside guy in in terms of how they scheme things up because you you're gonna have to win ugly against tight man coverage on the outside well this week he faced darius slay he faced james bradbury you know and maybe bradbury is not unbelievable but you know slay's pretty darn good and there were things he tried to do that you know that slay was like nah i'm not biting on that and he still won the ball he still made the play it wasn't like it was one it was the type of plays that i normally wouldn't show because it's not saying this technique was great and how look how it was it succeeded but i was showing the play anyway going see it didn't work but like a deandre hopkins or michael thomas

or stefan diggs didn't matter he still won the ball and that's and you know he didn't come he didn't freak out because he he didn't get clear separation early on. That's the sign of a good starting receiver. So he's a solid wide receiver three at the very least and probably going to be a wide receiver two if he keeps performing like that against veterans. And I don't see a reason for him not to. I think the beginning of the season gave him a lot of confidence.

He's tough, he's physical um and he's technically sound and he's shored up his hands because that was an issue that was that was only the only issue with his game to me was like kind of a an aspiring golden tate type of player who had better technique with his hands than golden tate but didn't catch the ball as well as golden Tate did. Cause golden Tate and Terry McLaurin are the two guys who I've, I've studied who had starter fantasy production, who didn't know what to do with their hands all the time. Yeah.

Go ahead. Yeah. I was just gonna say, I would add to that. Some of the things I've seen on film from Puka this year that I've watched that I've liked is he's had some reps on the outside that he's won with releases off the line of scrimmage vertically that's a really big factor for me as a wide receiver coming up he's also had a few plays where he's had to extend away from his frame and make hands catches and he's

done that those are just big time things that like for example somebody like quentin johnston we're not seeing a lot of that from yet and so and he was obviously more highly regarded going into the draft by most people. So it's been crazy to see, I'll be honest, I didn't study Puka enough coming into the draft. And I regret that to be honest, he just wasn't on my radar. And now since I've seen him at the NFL level, I've been like, Oh my God, what did I, what did I miss here? Well, I want, I want to, I want to move forward, Matt, because I can't believe I waited to 55 minutes to say this name. You were the person this summer who I saw tweeting videos of Julio McLaughlin.

And wow, do we have some videos now. A fantastic start to the season. He is averaging, and I know like yards per carry, LOL, but it's a great stat he is averaging the same number of yards per carry as giovante williams and samaj ap ryan combined this season they're both they're at 7.3 as a pair and he's at 7.3 he's also scored all three of the broncos touchdowns there's no question who the most electric running back currently in the broncos backfield is. Is this a spot start situation?

Is this a guy who eventually goes back to being a part-time back? Or could he actually be a starter in the NFL for years? He's on the cusp of the final question there, that he could be an NFL starter. The problem is 5'7", 1877 he was my running back 20 on my board but the big reason why is because pass protection if pass protect if he was capable of the pass protection you would expect he would have easily had he easily would have vaulted up probably at least 10 spots up my board um but that was probably the biggest issue with him. I said he was Philip Lindsay with receiving chops.

That was my comp for him pre-draft back in January, watching him because like Philip Lindsay, you can see that he attacks small creases with confidence and he can play physical enough to be an interior runner because he's got that momentum-based power to run through reaches and wraps and get skinny through creases with that burst. And he's just dynamic in the open field.

So, right, the likelihood of him having that type of a role is still kind of small. I'd say he's like, you know, for Sean Payton, he's like you know for sean payton he's he's you know you've got you've had darren sproles you've had alvin camara you could see him this year having that sproles camara role because he's the most explosive offensive player they have right now um after maybe you know him and marvin mims probably um but are But is he going to be a guy that they feel like they can count on to be the lead back? And I think the answer is no,

unless he can come into camp next year at like a solid 195, 200 pounds and stay there. And then maybe you get that Austin Eckler exception to the rule. Yeah, I love it. I mean, I thought Matt did a great job breaking it down there. I don't have too much more to add other than that. It did remind me a little bit of Philip Lindsay. So I liked that call a lot. And basically with that ability, just get through, get small through those creases. That's something you don't see a lot at the NFL level based on, you know, some of these backs are more bruisers, more in the two 20 range these days.

I'm going to let you go first on our last positive. And I will just say, Dan, in our YOLO league, I already had Jaleel McGough on all my roster because of Matt. I started him last week and I lost Khalil Herbert. So now he's my second starting running back behind Brees Hall who needs running backs. Sam Laporta has been like, I, and we're going to talk about Dalton Kincaid after the next break. Anybody who is claiming any sort of victory on Dalton Kincaid because they argued, don't trust a rookie tight end. You don't get to say that because of Sam Laporta, the rookie tight end has been phenomenal. Dan, talk about Laporta and tell me how many tight ends are you certain you would

rather have in a dynasty league that's a great question i would say the answer to that is none that i'm certain that i'd rather have in a dynasty there's some that i still prefer luke musgrave was my tight end one in this class and i've seen so much good film from luke i know he got chewed out by matt lafleur probably for something that that goes a little above my pay grade. And maybe that's going to lead to him not, you know, laying as much, but Luke Musgraves film this season has been phenomenal. Jordan loves missed him on like 250 yards this year that he should have, that he was wide open for, but LaPorta had great tape at Iowa. I mean, he was unbelievable at breaking tackles. He was after the catch and absolute beast. He had some film, like I'm forgetting

the game now, but there was one game where he was so dominant. I don't know if you remember this one, Matt. It was a Big Ten game. I'm trying to remember exactly. It was Penn State game. Yeah. The Penn State game that he had, he looked like he should be the tight end one in this class. Obviously, the Lions pinpointed him as a better player than people expected because they took him early round two.

A lot of people felt like he might go mid- late uh mid mid round two or late uh day three day two to be to be quite frank and so i do think there's a fair case to be made that he's the tight end one in this class given his role in the offense already the fact that we don't see tight ends have this kind of role as rookies early from both the snap share standpoint and a target share standpoint the fact that he has ben johnson who i think is one of if not the best play callers and schemers in the nfl and all of those factors working in his favor in addition to the talent that we saw on tape a case can be made that he is the tight end one right now and i'm not so sure i take anyone over him at this point i love it i mean i have sent laporta his grade pre-draft while he was third on my board in this class um in the past four years of classes

he would have been number one in three of the past or two of the past four classes and number two in three of the past four classes the only player higher than him in other classes was kyle pitts um you know i had him above pat fryer Muth and I love Pat Fryer Muth. Definitely above Trey McBride. Definitely above Trey McBride. Definitely above Colcomat. Yep, definitely.

And so he had an instant starter grade for me, a high instant starter grade for me. It's just that I had two players slightly higher. One was Kincaid and one was Luke Schoonmaker who just got hurt and really didn't get a chance. And Ferguson's a good player. And so Schoonmaker may be higher based on his blocking more than his receiving. I just saw a little bit more from his tape that I was willing to project a little bit higher as a receiver, but Sam Laporta fits perfectly in this offense because you can use him as a wide receiver

on the perimeter and run timing routes with them. That was what he showed at Iowa. That was so impressive is that you can, you can run timing routes and when those intermediate routes. So yeah, totally a big fan of him. And they're leveraging him both in the intermediate and deep passing game and able to do that because Amon Ross, St. Ron, and Josh Reynolds are playing well enough

that they can create opportunities for an open windows for him. I'm going to put you guys on the spot right now. And no analysis, just the ranking. Matt, you can go first, then Dan. Kyle Pitts, Sam Laporta, Dalton Kincaid. How do you rank them in Dynasty right now and no analysis just the ranking matt you can go first then dan kyle pitt sam laporta dalton kincaid how would how do you rank them in dynasty right now i would probably say i'm still sticking with kincaid i'll put kincaid one ported uh very quick two and you know very

very tight two underneath that and And Kyle Pitts, very tight. Number three. I'm I wouldn't be angry with any of those three. Right. No analysis. I'll still go Pitts one. I'll go Kincaid to Laporta three. And I've got it.

Pitts, Laporta, Kincaid. And I agree. Like they're all you can't have a big fight over which one of those guys should be first or last. I wish we could see Kyle Pitts with Jared Goff and Ben Johnson's offense. That would be a lot more fun than what he's experiencing right now. Let's take a short break. And then when we come back, Dan and Matt are going to make you guys feel better about Bryce Young, Jameer Gibbs, and Dalton Kincaid. That might have been a lie.

I don't know if you guys are going to make people feel better or not. But things haven't looked like the vibes for Bryce Young in this Carolina offense, especially with Frank Reich talking today about how involved the owner is and how, what an adjustment that has been for him. I don't love the vibes in Carolina. Make me feel better about Bryce Young, Matt. At some point, the owner's going to figure out that he needs to leave his fantasy football opinions to himself and stop playing billionaire fantasy football GM and let the coaches coach. Or, you know, hopefully that's not the expense at this entire regime. But you would think you already messed up with the temple coach.

You know, you already messed up with the temple coach. You know, you already messed up with Matt rule. Was it Matt? Yeah. Matt rule. You know, you probably already, you know, meddled too much in all those types of things. And,

and young to a talented player. So I think that right. Right. Kind of giving that veil call out. I like that. That takes some guts. Um, a lot of coaches don't have that kind of level of courage because

they know that their careers can be rather short um and so i understand that they don't but young young looked a little better last week and i think that you have to understand that of all the of all the teams you you know that they that he was in that the rookies that are in this uh class this was probably the worst situation he had the best veteran receiver and and adam theelin and that's showing up but what else did he have we thought maybe promising offensive line but it hasn't played they've been terrible yeah it hasn't been good has been terrible yeah but i've never been a mile sanders, which might be. But, yeah, I knew you wouldn't be.

But, you know, it's like, yeah, so Sanders hasn't been great. Chuba Hubbard's outplayed him. And that's been fascinating to kind of watch his growth. But Young's just going to need an adjustment year. And part of that, too, is his game. People are going to hate when I say this because they're going to cringe when I say Johnny Manziel, you know, or, you know, players of that ilk who have to, Baker Mayfield, you know.

The reason I'm saying that is that Young doesn't have the strongest arm, but his game was predicated on understanding the limits of his athletic ability so that he could buy time and create. He's a very creative, heady player. Now that you're dealing with a bad offensive line against a higher tier of athletes who are savvier across the board with more complex defenses, and you're thinking more

than you're processing fast you're that's an adjustment year and it's going to be an adjustment year he's got to figure out you know if you're a boxer how to gauge the punt the the speed of the punches how to like when he should get on the ropes and when he shouldn't you know all those types of things how long he should scramble when he should how long he ropes and when he shouldn't, you know, all those types of things, how long he should scramble, when he should, how long she should wait to be able to throw a ball away. When, what the leverage looks like and whether his arm could make these types of

throws that he succeeded at, at Alabama. That's a longer process. That's why he was my QB three in this class, as opposed to the other two who you knew they had the NFL arms that, that wasn't going to be as much of a thinking adjustment to gauge and experiment. You feel the same way about young that you did coming in, Dan? I don't want to go too much off of what I've seen these first five games.

He was my QB one. I felt like from this class, one of the things he did best among the whole class was throw the anticipation at Alabama. And there's just too much good tape of him at Alabama for me to give up on him now. Yeah. But one thing Matt brings up that was so important because it is true is like a lot of what he got away with at Alabama as far as extending plays by running around the pocket and doing weird things. Not weird things, but unconventional things within a pocket aren't working at the NFL level and probably won't work at the NFL level. And so that's going to be an adjustment for him

because not everything is going to stay on script where he can just throw the ball out into space and there's going to be receivers running open. Everybody talked about, oh, Alabama had the worst receivers they've had in the last five years during Bryce Young. This is a positive for Young. That may be true, but these guys were still like five-star, four-star athletes, and they're getting out into space

against college-level defenses. So I am a little bit concerned. I'm not going to lie, but I still think there was too much tape for me to kind of jump off the ledge here. Let's go to another Alabama player, Jameer Gibbs. Twitter is so mad about David Montgomery's usage. At least Jameer Gibbs had a hamstring injury this week, so nobody could feel bad about Gibbs not getting the ball enough.

I'll give a plug here to our friend Matt Harmon, who will actually be on FFT Dynasty next week. He had Austin Eckler break down the difference between David Montgomery and Jameer Gibbs as runners right now, because everybody looks at the yards per carry and thinks,

Gibbs is so much better. Why don't they just give the ball to Gibbs? And he was talking about, and I thought it was really fascinating. You should go find the clip. It's on Twitter. But Eckler was talking about how Montgomery does such a good job of taking on half of the defender as opposed to Gibbs and setting up runs as opposed to Gibbs just going directly to the hole.

And so I thought that was really interesting, Matt. I don't think anyone should have expected much difference in terms of the usage between Montgomery and Gibbs. We just saw Jamal Williams and DeAndre Swift. You're still all systems go with Jameer Gibbs, right? Absolutely. And if you weren't going to bring up the matt harman uh austin eckler podcast i certainly was that was fantastic it was the perfect it was the perfect analysis about what's going on here and then you just added the fact that david montgomery is a personal pocket protector for jaredff. And that's why they drafted, they added him as well.

And that you're not going to see screenplays to Jameer Gibbs right now because who's going to believe that he's blocking? You have David Montgomery out there. So that's another added dimension. What you saw, what you're hoping from Gibbs is that he gives you what DeAndre Swift couldn't do between the tackles. And people may look at DeAndre Swift and go, well, look how great he's playing right now.

The difference is this. In the same way that Anthony Richardson last week created a situation for Zach Moss to run 67 yards for a touchdown because two defenders were glued to Anthony Richardson on the read play. And then the interior line just allowed them to get to the second level as a result of that and open a highway-sized crevice for Zach Moss. That happens almost every down for DeAndre Swift with Jalen Hurts. They often have, in the run game, there's a man-on-man box advantage or disadvantage based on what side they're going to run to from the center.

And when you study those tape, what you see on a regular basis is that Jalen Hurts draws one to two defenders. And that means a good run is either an even man-to-man box advantage or a plus one jalen hurts sometimes give them a plus two or plus three you don't see that with jared goff jared goff's not giving anybody a plus box advantage and i yeah i want to stay on that swift thing for a moment because i saw a couple of carries this past week where deandre swift was handed the ball and that advantage was not there the hole was not obvious and i mean he just almost completely stopped yeah am i crazy or if you had a had a situation where

the hole was kind of muddy and unclear would you i think i would rather kenneth gainwell have the ball in his hand than deandre swift yep And I literally had this debate yesterday for 20 for about 10 minutes with Adam Azar on beyond the box score and this exact debate. And I think a lot of it goes back to what I'd said on the last time we joined this podcast that Matt Wallman, who's on the podcast with us today, put me onto, which is running back processing. It's a thing. People don't all know about it yet, but it's a real thing. It takes a lot. People don't all know about it yet, but it's a real thing. It takes a lot. And I had this debate with Adam about Swift versus Montgomery and why they

moved on from Swift and why they're so happy with Montgomery and why Montgomery is getting all these snaps. And he believes that he, you know, he's like, what about in Philadelphia? But Matt did a great job bringing down. It's not only that they have the man advantage.

It's also, they still have the best climber to the next level on the interior offensive line of in nfl history basically in jason kelsey like no lions often learns great but it doesn't have the same guys who can climb that second level to give to give swift some credit i i also think if you're giving me a seven yard wide hole i would much rather give the ball to andre swift than david montgomery oh i would absolutely agree that was kind of Adam's point, right? Yeah, he's the perfect fit for that system for what they need. So they took the chance.

Sure, we'll pay the what six round pick or whatever it was with the incentive on top of it. Yeah, of course, they're going to do that. That was great. Now, Kenneth Gainwell and short yardage, I would agree. That's because Kenneth Gainwell is a better processor of information. If Kenneth Gainwell had Swift's burst, they would never have needed DeAndre Swift. They would not need anybody else on that roster.

He's that all-around of a smart, conceptually sound technical player. But yeah, Jameer Gibbs is going to be fine. It's just a matter of getting usage for him. And you have to understand that Dan Campbell also, I like being kind of the evil fantasy um analyst in this particular realm of like because i joke that speed is the cleavage of the nfl and people get seduced by that all the time so dan campbell with his b-backs of jamal williams and and david montgomery guys that every fantasy person wants to throw to the to the waste bin because they don't understand the processing thing that again um rick spielman the former

vikings gm he you know he did a great draft podcast a couple years ago on the ringer talking about they've they've learned through the analytics and different types of studies that the closer you are to the middle of the line of scrimmage, the more you have to process. And what they've discovered is that processing is one of the most important things to look at for quarterbacks. And they're discovering it's the same thing for running backs because they're in the middle of the line of scrimmage. You know, so it's those guys process fast, even if they run slower. Right. I think it's the same thing for I think it exists within wide receivers as well.

And I think the evidence of that is in Kansas City with what Juju Smith-Schuster was able to do when he was even at 75% last year. Yes. And nobody, all these guys on the Chiefs right now who could run circles around Juju Smith-Schuster, and none of them can find the open spot. And Mahomes is throwing passes. He's like, why didn't you go to that place? And they don't get it yet. So we've got one more guy here, and it's Dalton Kincaid. And we've talked a little bit about him already.

I know that you guys are obviously not concerned. concerned my question is and i i maybe even asked this last week can i just wait until next september and buy low on dalton kincaid or do you still think that something might happen this season with him i still think something might happen because the and and i granted this is probably bias on my end because i think dalton kincaid is a game changer who's being used. He's a thoroughbred being used as that dime store pony that your kid rides outside of big lots. I mean, that you put the quarter in or whatever it is. That's all they're doing because they're putting them on flat routes and short little routes. And he breaks a tackle or makes someone miss on every one. But instead of, you know, they're using that rather than than going why don't you work up the seam and win the 25

he's getting the jsn treatment so that that may change only because buffalo's defense has suffered so many injuries to the daquan jones to davis white to Matt Milano, to Ron Johnson. Now this team may be getting lit up. They're a try-hard, well-coached defense without the personnel at this point that's rapidly deteriorating. And they may get in more shootouts where they're going to have to throw the ball downfield more to Kincaid. That's my hope. Now, again, it's probably more of a long shot hope. You might be able to

wait until probably June and then start. Maybe the low point will be May or June and you take him there then because like James Cook last year, you can see what James Cook is when they get good

game scripts with him and they're using him with those good game scripts. He gives you low-end fantasy one, top 15 running back production. When they're facing tough defenses, it doesn't work out quite that way. With Kincaid, down the line, they're going to look, because Gabriel Davis ain't going to be there forever,

and big play Gabe's going to go somewhere else andolina panthers will invest in him like he's a wide receiver one they'll find out what happened in carolina will still be carolina or the jets will do that you know he'll be their next nicole hardman and then you know they'll the bills will end up using kincaid as their number two weapon in that offense as soon as next year. What Dan Schneier wouldn't do for a Gabe Davis on the New York football giants right now. I don't want Gabe Davis on the Giants. You know what I want? An offensive line and quarterback. I don't care about the receivers. Enough of this receiver talk. This was definitely the longest episode of Fantasy Football Today Dynasty,

and it was one of my favorites, Matt. Thank you so much for joining us again. Please tell the people where they can find you and what type of work you're doing this time of year. Sure. I'm at footballguys.com. He's sold Stomping Grounds. I've been there since 2009. As a senior staff writer, I do a top 10 column every Monday night, Tuesday morning that gives film reviews. You can find the gut check, which is probably on its way to 700, you know, 700 editions of that.

I've been doing for nearly 20 years that evaluates film and analytics stuff on occasion. I host the roundtable for the football guys staff and then the replacements column where I try and tell you about Jaleel McLaughlin like two or three weeks before Jaleel McLaughlin pops and guys like that for you to take a chance on, you know, like Ronnie Bell. Here's a Thursday night special. Get him, you know, this one week while I use out that type of thing. And of course, you can find my YouTube channel, Matt Waldman's RSP film room. I've been doing that for over a decade where I studied the film of college and pro players,

um, Matt Waldman, rsp.com and the RSP, which, you know, we've been talking about a lot on this show just to say, you know, as you can see,

I, I've, I've been forcing Dan not, or I've been influencing Dan not to do the work that he needs to do. And I, and, and I have, and I give the longest shows. I'm probably the longest winded guest that we have that are on most shows.

So I'm fortunate that you guys enjoy me and do the work that I do because I've probably been basically wasting the work efforts of fantasy people in corporate America for 15 years now. Well, and we do appreciate it. Somebody put a goat in the chat, and we know that was for you, Matt. Thank you for joining us. Thank you for joining us today, Dan.

Thank you for everybody who was here in the YouTube comments, listening to the podcast. We will talk to you next Tuesday.