Fantasy Football Today - Michael Thomas Injury, Week 1 Stats to Know, 5 Big Questions (09/14 Fantasy Football Podcast)

Episode Date: September 14, 2020

Michael Thomas will attempt to play through a high ankle sprain. Should you try to trade him? Which Saints gain Fantasy value? And let's talk about the Rams (5:10) and Chargers (8:00) RBs. Is Malcolm Brown the best Rams RB and was Joshua Kelley's production just a byproduct of Justin Jackson's injury? ... Recapping DAL-LAR (12:15), more injury news (16:50) and a look at what the Week 1 snap counts reveal (19:30) ... We're answering big questions (24:55) about Nick Chubb, Odell Beckham, Russell Wilson and who to trust on the Bucs. Then we'll take a look at some advanced stats for Week 1 (37:15) and tell you what they mean for Aaron Rodgers, Carson Wentz and more ... Email us at [e-mail] Listen to the brand new Fantasy Football Today in 5 podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/fantasy-football-today-in-5/id1528634304 'Fantasy Football Today' is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Google Podcasts, Castbox, and wherever else you listen to podcasts. Follow the new FFT Twitch channel: https://www.twitch.tv/FFToday Follow our FFT team on Twitter: @FFToday, @AdamAizer, @JameyEisenberg, @daverichard, @heathcummingssr, @YardsPerGretch, @BenSchragg Watch FFT on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCviK78rIWXhZdFzJ1Woi7Fg/videos Join our Facebook group https://www.facebook.com/groups/FantasyFootballToday/ Sign up for the FFT newsletter https://www.cbssports.com/newsletter To hear more from the CBS Sports Podcast Network, visit https://www.cbssports.com/podcasts/ To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with iGaming Ontario. This is Fantasy Football Today from CBS Sports. On his way to the end zone. I'll tell you what, it's a spectacular play. It's time to dominate your fantasy league. What a play. Off to the races.

Touchdown. Oh, he's done it again. Now here's some combination of Adam, Dave, Jamie, Heath, and Ben. Monday afternoon as we are reflecting on week one. Lots to digest and some big injuries. Michael Thomas with a high ankle sprain. He will attempt to play through it. We got some updates on Le'Veon Bell and others.

Miles Sanders might play this week. Bell's going to miss a couple weeks, maybe a little more. We shall see. We welcome you. I'm Adam Azer with Ben Schrager and Chris Towers, a ragtag bunch of fantasy fans here to give you some advice. What's up, guys? Ben Schrager. Hello. Let's do it. Doubling down tonight. Monday Night Football. I'm pumped.

Oh, yeah. Yeah, me too. I'm going to be I usually can't make it to the end. But today, this time I will. So I'm going to be staying up. Usually I have to watch the next morning, like the fourth quarter of that last game. Oh, we'll be talking the next morning. It'll just be 2 a.m. We got fantasy football today in 5 coming out at 3 in the morning. Ben Schrager and I will be reacting to the

two Monday night games and taking a look ahead to the waiver wire. And Chris Towers will be on HQ after the games tonight, so he's going to be up late as well. What's up, Chris? Yeah, I'm trying. I actually didn't think about that. Am I going to have to do HQ at 1 in the, so he's going to be up late as well. What's up, Chris? Yeah, I'm trying. I actually didn't think about that. Am I going to have to do HQ at 1 in the morning? That's going to be... That's a lot.

I can do it for you. I don't know. If you want to go to sleep, I'll step in. What did I agree to? Week one is a late week. All right, but we had a great time watching football yesterday and talking football yesterday,

so why not do more of it? Michael Thomas with the high ankle sprain, expected to try to play through it. They are at Las Vegas, then Green Bay at home, then at Detroit. Chris, what's your initial reaction to this? It's not good. It's definitively bad. That's why you listen to this show. High ankle sprains are incredibly tough.

And the fact that he's going to try to play through it, gut it out if you want to, but these are usually the kind of injuries we see lead to a multiple week absence. And I'm just really concerned about what it's going to mean for his production. I'm actually... I've never really ended up with a lot of Michael Thomas

in any of my leagues. I'm not exactly sure why. It's never been a conscious decision, but I did take him in my home league this year, and I'm feeling real good about that after week one. Well, the problem is you have to start him. You're going to have to start him. Right. I might just try to trade him and just hope that...

I don't think I'm... It's a fairly low information league. What would you trade him for? What is his trade value right now? What would you accept? Would you accept Chris Godwin? I wouldn't. I don't...

I don't know. I would try to trade him at face value and see if i can get that and if i can't then we'll so davante adams straight up would you do it yeah i would do that oh yeah i mean because i would too but i wouldn't like i wouldn't do it for julio i think i might do it for julio the falcons you know they almost passed 700 times last year and uh they got a long way of the way there yesterday so uh this this might be you know the this is probably going to be the past happiest team in the league um you know they seem to have three receivers they can rely on so i i might do it for julio just because you know julio should give you like 85 to 90 percent of what a fully healthy michael thomas will uh but what if we don't get

a fully healthy michael thomas for three or four weeks okay so at worst he's like wide receiver three at this point we're not plummeting michael. I think, you know, also got to be concerned about Drew Brees. I think that this is probably who's this going to help the most. I mean, I love it. Yeah, that's what I was going to say. I love what I saw from Jared Cook. And let me just get the snap counts up because they were interesting. I think Emmanuel Sanders played the least.

He played fewer snap. So Camara played 66 percent. Murray 34 percent. you look at the receivers trae kwan smith 65 of the snaps jared cook 65 josh hill 53 that's their other tight end emmanuel sanders 49 not a huge difference between him and trae kwan smith but maybe it's just week one new they also had smith out there when they were running the ball primarily smith was on with latavius murray so I wasn't too concerned for Emmanuel Sanders but I didn't think Breeze looked that good yesterday and it didn't

help that you know Michael Thomas had 17 yards and that's usually where Breeze is able to go off with but I didn't think Breeze looked that great and I think the only guy who really really benefits is Jared Cook obviously Sanders becomes a flex option but Jared Cook is in my top 10 for the foreseeable future. Cool. Uh, Trey Kwan Smith is five is rostered in 5% of leagues. Emmanuel Sanders, 81% Jared Cook in 90%.

We've got a lot to get a lot to get to today. Let's get your, uh, your biggest takeaways from week one. So Chris, I know you wanted to talk about the Rams running backs, Ben, the chargers running back.

So very LA theme here. Uh, I like you wanted to talk about the Rams running backs. Ben, the Chargers running backs. So very L.A. theme here. I like this. By the way, I like the song, I Love L.A. I actually love that song. I think it's really fun. Ben, Schrager, you should listen to it. Yeah, of course. Yeah.

But anyway, I'm mad at myself for not asking more questions about Malcolm Brown, for not pressing our guys more on malcolm brown i'm not completely surprised by what happened yesterday 18 carries 79 yards two touchdowns you gotta wonder if daryl henderson barely played because of the injury cam acres had 14 carries for 39 yards brown had three catches acres had one. Henderson had none. So what is your takeaway here, Chris? Malcolm Brown rostered in 40% of leagues. I mean, we were kind of making a lot of assumptions about Darrell Henderson.

We barely got to see him play last year. I know he wasn't healthy, but even when he did get healthy, he wasn't good enough to get on the field on a team that badly needed playmaking, especially out of the backfield in the passing game. And he only ran one route yesterday. He played five snaps total.

Obviously, he's coming back from that hamstring injury. But it's possible that Darrell Henderson just isn't that good. He was a third-round pick. The chances of any given third-round pick running back becoming a fantasy contributor are a lot lower than we tend to you know think every year after the draft every third round pick after the draft we're like oh this guy's got great potential he could be a star and you know most of them don't become that and so

what if deron henderson just isn't really a thing and you know cam anchors ran 21 routes uh routes last last night as well among his his team-high 44 snaps. It's entirely possible that Malcolm Brown just stays in a two-man timeshare all year. I'd like to see another week just to see what Henderson's role is, because it could have been just the injury. He's missed a lot of time.

Ben Akers missed time in camp, role is because it could have been just the injury he's missed a lot of time yep um and acres missed time in camp and so you know both of those guys you know maybe need to get up to speed a little more um but brown is the top waiver wire target for me uh coming into week two i wrote that in the early waiver wire piece on cbssports.com yeah so there are some pretty good round three running backs tevin coleman duke johnson david johnson matt jones kenyan drake cj precise alvin camara kareem hunt deontay foreman james connor royce freeman daryl henderson david montgomery devin singletary um some good ones some bad ones for sure that sounds like a pretty 50 50 e yeah player and yeah they didn't draft acres in the second round for no reason.

Ben, what did you think about the Chargers running backs? Well, I think there was a quick reaction at halftime. Eckler doesn't have a target. Oh, no, what's going on? Josh Kelly looks really good. I think Eckler will continue to have an awesome role, but we just can't forget that Melvin Gordon was a thing last year, and Josh Kelly's probably going to have that role,

but Austin Eckler was still a top seven, top five running back with Melvin Gordon there. So I think the overreaction is on Eckler. If you can trade for him, great, because I think some people are very, very scared, and if you can send someone who isn't in your top 12 running back wide receiver for Eckler. I'm doing it. 19 carries, 20 touches is encouraging. And I think if there is a QB change,

and if we want to blame the targets on to Rod Taylor, the QB change would help Eckler. But regardless, 20 touches in this game, really, really good. I'm not scared of Eckler, although the widespread reaction was, I am scared of Austin Eckler. Yeah, actually, that was one of the questions I was going to get to later from the listeners. They do want to know about Austin Eckler. I didn't really get the fear. 19 carries is so encouraging. I know Jackson did get, or Kelly rather, did get a touchdown, and he looked pretty damn good. 12 carries, 60 yards, and a touchdown at the Bengals. He is rostered in 42% of leagues. So you're looking at Kelly and Malcolm Brown in about the same amount of leagues. Who would you guys prefer Kelly or Brown? If you're going on waivers,

I'm taking Kelly. I think that Brown was impressive, but I see Brown as almost like the Jordan Howard of last year on the Eagles. I think acres will emerge even more as the season goes on. And if there is Darrell Henderson, anything that's going to hurt Brown, I think Kelly has his role solidified. Jackson got hurt as well i think kelly's going to have the melvin gordon role in an offense that isn't going to pass that much so i think kelly's my priority here so i i do want to say that it does seem like josh kelly's role in the second half especially was entirely because of justin jackson's quad injury we don't know how serious that injury is. He was not able to return yesterday,

but in the first half, Jackson played 11, 11 snaps and Kelly only played four. And then Kelly got 14 snaps in the second half, you know, ended up with what? 12 rush attempts total. Yeah.

So, you know, he touched the ball on a, you know, 60% of the time he was ever 60 know 60 percent of the time he was out 60 70 percent of the time he was out on the field that's a really high pace he really didn't play very much yesterday so you know it will be interesting austin eckler still ran 23 routes so that's not too concerning the the thing that i guess is concerning is tyra taylor only attempted

i think one or two passes behind the line of scrimmage yesterday. And, you know, obviously, Austin Eckler doesn't need, you know, he's not the type of running back who needs to get dump offs and screen passes to be effective. He can split out wide and run routes. But Tara Taylor was looking deep all of the time. And if that's going to be the case moving forward, you know, maybe it was just one game. But if that's going to be the case moving forward you know maybe it was just one game but if that's going to be the case moving forward it I think

there is reason to be concerned about Austin Eckler um he's not going to repeat last year's receiving production oh well no of course not but to Rod Taylor in three seasons as the Bills starter was 18th 22nd and 22nd in air yards. Right now he's, what, second or something like that? He threw the ball a ton. He threw a lot of air yards yesterday. Yes, he was second behind Carson Wentz in week one. So I don't know if that's going to be his MO. Didn't necessarily seem like that was the case with Buffalo.

And Sean McCoy did have a good role in the passing game. So, yeah, we might be seeing an overreaction there on Austin Eckler's stats. So, Chris, I'm not sure you answered. We heard game. So yeah, we might be seeing an overreaction there on Austin Eckler stats. So I, Chris, I'm not sure you answered. We heard Jackson or we, I'm sorry. We heard Kelly from Ben.

Who would you rather have Malcolm Brown or Kelly? If I need immediate help, if I lost Levy on bell or, uh, yeah, there were other injuries yesterday, but I'm blanking on, but if I do need, yeah,

Marla Mac, if I do need a starter for week two, I think it's more likely Malcolm Brown is going to be a starting caliber fantasy running back than Joshua Kelly. And I would also add Naheem Hines over Josh Kelly. Okay, fair enough. So yeah, Marlon Mack out for the season.

And let's talk about the Sunday night game. 20-17 Rams over the Cowboys. Rams had the ball for more than 35 minutes. Dallas didn't really have the ball that much. They could have won the game. I did not like that pass interference call, guys. I didn't like it. I didn't like the fourth down play call either. They should have kicked the field goal.

I didn't really have a problem with that to be honest with you. I know a lot of people did, Ben. So I respectfully disagree. I respect your opinion, though. I appreciate the respect. I can't say I liked the call, but I appreciate Jalen Ramsey's gamesmanship.

Oh, yeah, yeah. Hey, do we have PFF grades on Jalen Ramsey? I don't think so. I don't think those are out yet. Okay. Would love to know. They completed a lot of passes in his direction. He didn't give up big plays, except he did give up a big play,

and it got called back on pass interference. But I'm very curious to see what his grade was yesterday. But anyway, any major takeaways from it? Look, I'm going to say that Jared Goff, even though he only scored 10 fantasy points, didn't throw a touchdown. I thought the Rams' offense was humming. It looked really good. They were getting the ball out quickly, which is important because you can't play under pressure

from the defensive line. I thought if you drafted Goff as a late-round sleeper, I don't think you really have to be too discouraged. He didn't score a touchdown, but 275 yards, 20 of 31 good start for him that was Dak just

I don't know. They didn't the ball that much and Tony Pollard did not play as much as he had last year lowest snap share if you believe lowest touch share. So it was encouraging for Zeke. Of course, it's probably worth noting Dak probably should have been a top five fantasy QB

yesterday. I know he ended up being like 16th, but he had the 40-yard game wiped off by a pass interference that probably shouldn't have been. There was a touchdown that I think was called back on a penalty, and then he had a rushing

touchdown that was overturned on replay. He was not even close, though. Right, but he was like two and a half feet away from being a top five wide quarterback. Yeah, he played five. I have no reason to be concerned at all about Dak Prescott. I still view him as a top three or four fantasy QB. So going into Monday night,

McCaffrey scored two touchdowns. Kamara scored two touchdowns. Almost three, had one overturn. Cook scored two touchdowns. And Zeke scored two touchdowns, right? And Malcolm Brown. And Malcolm Brown and Josh Jacobs scored three touchdowns. But the top five picks, four of them have played,

and four of them scored two touchdowns. Saquon Barkley, you're on the clock, my friend. I'm not thrilled with... I mean, I said it on the show. I'm just nervous about Michael Gallup this year. Yes, he should have had a big game, but that still would have only been six targets for him, which is the same as CeeDee Lamb.

14 targets for Amari Cooper was a little surprising, but it just could be a little bit frustrating with Michael Gallup on a week to week basis. Yeah. Jarwin news is sad to, you know, Jarwin was the torn ACL. We expected that to be a four,

five, four, fourth or fifth target guy for them. So that's sad. I think, look, if one of the guys is getting 14 targets a week and the other two are getting six

or that gets split somehow i think two of them will be good but i think it's gonna be tough to predict between lamb and gallop which which one's gonna have the better week i think you're starting all three of them well especially at least in the three wide receiver league i think uh you know gallop did run more routes than than lamb but it it was pretty close. And I just think they're going to have like 70% of their past attempts to go to those three guys. Why wouldn't they? Yeah, three guys are so good. And, you know, yesterday it was 25 targets total. I think out of 34 past attempts, 14 of them happened to go to Amari Cooper.

That's not going to happen every time. And so actually, I think it was even more. It was like 27 targets between the three of them. I think you're going to see more of that and less of Cooper getting 14 every week. It's going to get split between the three of them. It's a real luxury if you're an offensive coordinator. If you like the matchup with Amari Cooper,

you just keep giving him the ball because he's awesome. But you've got two other really good players. All right, guys. Today, what we're going to do is kind of focus on some snap shares and next-gen stats and area yards and things like that, a different type of analysis than you get on the other episodes. So let's get to that. I'll just run through some news and notes.

Marlon Mack is out for the season. It's confirmed. Blake Jarwin is out for the season. Dallas linebacker Leighton Van Der Esch is out for the season dallas linebacker layton vanderesh is out six to eight weeks with a broken collarbone uh right tackle cameron irving for the cowboys hurt his knee decent chance miles sanders is able to play in week two if you notice the snap counts and the and the touches for the 49ers running backs jerek jerek mckinnon was playing ahead of tevin coleman and raheem mostert got a lot of work and he had a long touchdown catch

uh this is what the sacramento Bee said about Tevin Coleman. He, quote, played sparingly, likely due to his preexisting sickle cell trait that makes it tough when there's low amounts of oxygen in the air. So I was wondering that. We knew there was a chance he wasn't going to play, but I think we might see a different split of the work for San Francisco next week at the Jets. Le'Veon Bell out a couple of weeks. Tom Brady has thrown a pick six in three straight games

dating back to last season. Wow. Cam Newton's 15 carries were the most he's ever had in a game in regulation. That's stunning as well. Some offensive line injuries. The Packers, both of their guards, Lucas Patrick and Lane Taylor, left with injuries.

Eagles right tackle Jack Driscoll, who was already filling in for right tackle Lane Johnson, he left with an injury, so they were down to their third string right tackle, and they were horrible. Let's see. Russell Wilson dropped back to pass on 18 of the Seahawks' first 25 plays, according to ESPN.

So they let him cook. James Robinson set the record for most yards by a rookie undrafted free agent in Week 1, most rushing yards. He only had one yard there. He did have all their carries. He only had one yard in the second half. But looked very good. Just didn't do much.

I think he only had four carries in the second half. I thought Devontae Parker. I didn't realize this, but he led the team in receiving and only played 23 snaps. Four catches for 47 yards. He was on his way to perhaps another good game against the Patriots. So hopefully he's back soon. Parker was doing well before leaving with the injury.

All right, some more offensive line stuff real quick. Raiders, two guys. Trent Brown, their right tackle, and then his replacement, Sam Young, both got hurt. Cleveland rookie, Jedrick W Wills left with an injury. Cleveland also played without three starters in their secondary. One of them's out for the year, the other two week to week. The Bills lost three linebackers.

Ronnie Stanley left tackle for the Ravens, not a serious injury. The Lions' three defensive backs got hurt. One didn't play, Okuda, and then Desmond Trufant and Justin Coleman, they left with injuries. So I believe that is Aaron Rodgers' matchup in Week 2. He could destroy them. And that's all I'll give you for now. Alright, snap count data. Was there anything that really stood out

in terms of snap counts? Ben, you took a look at these. What'd you see? The one that I was really happy about initially was the Chris Carson touches. And then I saw a snap count. He was only at 45% snaps. Carlos Hyde was at 34%.

Chris Carson was encouraging how much he was using the past game. And they were throwing the ball a lot, a lot more than we've ever seen Seattle throw the ball. But 45% snaps for Carson is almost unheard of. He's usually a full workload, full snap share guy. So you hope seen Seattle throw the ball but 45% snaps for Carson is almost unheard of he's usually a full workload full snap share guy so you hope Seattle keeps throwing the ball and they keep using him in high value touch situations but if Hyde's going to be on the field for 34% of the time I'm not too happy about how that offense might look for Chris Carson I don't think that's

going to be the case though because they that game was pretty comfortable for the Seahawks and Chris Carson missed quite a bit of time in training camp with dealing with a personal matter. It wasn't necessarily an injury. So it might have been a situation where they were just working him back in slowly in the game situation. Because I think Hyde got most of his carries late in that game, right? He got this touchdown late. I think I had a note about that. Chris Carson's their guy.

I mean, let's not even... He is, but they were winning the game and he had six rushes. That's a little scary to me. Yeah, but what do you think? I don't know. I don't really see them splitting. I'm not concerned about this personally.

Because Carson had six catches. I don't expect six catches and I don't expect six catches, and I don't expect six carries. I expect him to be the lead running back for a great offense. Yeah, Pete Carroll did. There was a quote where he said, like, Carlos Hyde's going to have a significant role. You know, I think we all kind of scoffed at that. You can never really take anything Pete Carroll says at face value.

But, you know, I guess it's not that surprising in that sense. But yeah, Carlos Hyde, five of his carries came in the second half. I don't know. I'm not that worried, I don't think. What else? What else? Fire away. Julian Edelman did a low snap count.

Yeah, Julian Edelman did not play that much, and Cam Newton was running the ball a lot. I don't think Edelman's the PPR high floor guy like he was with Brady automatically each week this year. Well, he's not going to be as good as he was with Brady, but he only played 58% of the snaps, whereas Demir Bird and Nikhil Harry were over 80%, but he's their only good wide receiver maybe. We don Demir Bird and Nikhil Harry were over 80%, but he's their

only good wide receiver, maybe. We don't know yet with Nikhil Harry. Edelman was still Cam Newton's guy. So, I don't know. I feel like it's just a worse version of what Edelman's been. I still think he's an okay number three receiver. Which is kind of what we expected coming into the year.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I wasn't discouraged. Five catches, 57 yards on seven targets. Yeah, and he did play a relatively low snap share. Demir Bird and Nikhil Harry were both over 50. Edelman only had 37. But in terms of routes run, they were actually pretty much all identical. And so if it's a situation where Julian Edelman's coming off the field

in run situations, that doesn't seem too concerning for me. Can we talk about Rob Gronkowski? Because he played 77% of the snaps, which surprised me. He did not have a good game. I thought he looked kind of lumbering. It didn't look like Gronk of all, but I don't know. I didn't watch the tape. I didn't see every snap he played.

But obviously, to play 77% of the snaps and have as quiet of an afternoon as Rob Gronkowski did, not good. And Chris, what's your takeaway there? And I just get the final numbers. He had two catches for 11 yards on three targets. We talked about this on FFT on HQ earlier today that, you know, maybe OJ Howard is someone to target on waivers.

I'm actually not that interested in him. Rob Gronkowski did run more routes. He led all their tight ends with 24 routes run. Howard ran 22. So I think it was less lopsided than the numbers indicate. The fact that Gronk played 77 snaps after not playing last year and having some very public concerns about his conditioning, I think that's a great sign, actually.

I'm still not super enthused about the prospect of starting Rob Gronkowski, but if you have him, I don't think you should panic yet. Okay. Yeah. I mean, I've got him in our 14 team podcast league and I might be stuck with him, but I do think Carolina in week two could be a good spot for him. Ben, any other snap count stuff you want to talk about? The one other would be Cleveland. The running backs, Kareemem Hunt 49% Nick Chubb 48% the touch total was pretty similar with the breakdown I'm not scared for Nick Chubb because I didn't draft him as a top 10 running back but he is not going to be a guy who's going to get top 10 type cut

touches I don't think he's going to be in the top five of rushing yards like he was last year i think kareem hunt's going to have a legit role but it's just scary for nick chubb if you drafted him at the end of round one beginning of round two all right i have a segment here from the listeners five big topics so let's skip ahead to that because we had a couple of browns questions here topic number one is from jord will kareem hunt surpass nick chubb as the Browns RB1 by the end of the season? No, because he won't be the Browns RB1. But I think, yes, in terms of PPR fantasy points, there is a chance that Kareem Hunt outscores Nick Chubb. But no, Chubb will be the RB1 for the Browns.

Let's say this. Okay, let's say this, right? Nick Chubb was the second-round pick. Are there any running backs that went after Nick Chubb in our drafts that you would now take ahead of nick chubb i'd take aaron jones over nick chubb at this point yeah i would take chris carson over him even with the concerns that ben just laid out i would still rather have chubb than carson i think you look at okay so he went ahead of josh jacobs joe mixon aaron jones austin eckler kenyan drake definitely jacobs uh mixon probably although the fact like nick chubb was actually the one who was used as a pass catcher more

yesterday in terms of you know routes run at least um so you know he may be a better PBR contributor than we think. Joe Mixon was still giving up passing down situations. Gio Bernard almost scored that late touchdown. He was in there whenever they were looking to pass. I don't think that's going to change. I think Chubb and Mixon are very close.

What about Drake? What about Eckler? I prefer Eckler. Drake, it was a weird game. I don't know that Kyler Murray is going to run as much as he did yesterday, but he probably will. Chase Edmonds was running a lot of routes and had a pretty good roll yesterday. So I'm a little concerned for Drake. Drake and Chubb are really close for me. I'd probably lean Chubb. It was a weird game for the Cardinals just in general, because it was just basically nothing but short passes. Kyler Murray led the NFL with like 43% of his passes behind the line of scrimmage.

He really didn't look at anyone except for DeAndre Hopkins. And, you know, it's hard to say what that's going to look like moving forward because that's not the offense that we expected. And this is the thing you always have to keep in mind in week one is we haven't seen these teams in preseason. We haven't seen them since last year.

A fourth of the league, I think, has new starting quarterbacks pretty much, and almost half have either new head coaches or new offensive coordinators. So it's really easy to overreact to the changes we saw in week one, but it could have just been one weird week. And so you don't want to overreact

too much. And with the Browns too, in a blowout against a very good defense, let's see what happens in a blowout against a very good defense. Let's see what happens in a much more normal standard matchup with the Chubb-Hunt split before we draw any conclusions, but I was encouraged by Hunt's role.

The concerning thing there is just the offense looked bad again. Yeah. It looked deja vu. Yeah, and it was Baltimore. I mean, you're right, and they get Cincinnati in week two. It's a big week. They have to look good against Cincinnati, but no, the offense looked terrible. Our next question is about Odell Beckham from Jeffrey Garcia.

Keeper sell Odell Beckham. By the way, it definitely seems like I'm the low guy on Nick Chubb. I just don't think... We have a Joe Mixon question as well. People are kind of nervous about Joe Mixon. He got a ton of carries. We know he's not going to have a huge role in the passing game,

but he's not going to have 15 catches. He's probably going to have 35-ish catches, something like that. I don't know. I just feel like people are acting like we learned something different about Joe Mixon in week one. No, we didn't. He's a workhorse running back. He didn't score a touchdown.

His rush average was bad. His offensive line might be really bad, and they had an injury, but what's different? I'll just say these are all reasons why I didn't want to draft Joe Mixon as a first-rounder. I didn't want to draft him in the first round. I thought he was a good second-round pick, though, because he is

going to get a lot of work, and he does have a high floor, and he's an awesome player. Yeah, I just think he has a high floor, but he doesn't have that top-five ceiling. No, I agree. When you're looking at what Josh Jacobs did yesterday, I don't care that he scored three touchdowns at all. I care that he had six targets

and the other running backs on that team only had four combined. And Mixon just... I don't see a role a world where that happens for Mixon. All right. Jeffrey Garcia wants to know know should we keep or sell beckham he had three catches for 22 yards on 10 targets at the ravens there's no way i can sell odell beckham right now everyone who you're going to try to sell to is going to see the oh

that's the terrible odell who was not healthy last year who did not impress the browns offense is terrible let's see what he does against the the Bengals before you try to move him. Cause right now you're not moving him for a top 24 wide receiver. Would you guys rather have Terry McLaurin or Odell Beckham? Odell. I think Odell. DK Metcalf or Beckham? Odell.

Odell. Next question is from Shane. Will Pete Carroll let Russ cook rest of season? If the answer is yes, then I will take Metcalf over Beckham. But since we don't know the answer. Yeah, it was really hilarious to see every side of D.K. Metcalf. Last yesterday, he was one of four players with at least two receptions of 20 yards or more air yards downfield.

And he was one of four players with two drops yesterday well he had one horrible drop oh yeah the one it was like for a first down right yeah it was like yeah yeah um but no i i don't think he's gonna let russ cook i think this was the time to do it against the falcons but i don't have faith in p carol he's going to be like, oh, we're just going to abandon the run that has worked really well for us and see what happens with Russ just because everyone wants Russ to cook and Russ wants to cook. I think this was a very good sign for that, but I can't say that Russ is going to cook for the rest of the year.

It was just a weird game. So many weird games yesterday. The Seahawks, I think, had six rush attempts in the first half. And he only scrambled, I think, once. I think he scrambled once and was sacked three times. So, yeah, it was like 36 rush attempts to 18 true... Or 36 pass attempts to 18 true rush attempts. And Wilson still had 29 rushing yards, so that was nice to see.

Yeah, his schedule, though, looks really great for him. I don't know about letting him cook, but New England in Week 2, okay, that might not be great. Dallas, I don't think they're going to have a very good secondary. They're going to have a good pass rush. Miami, Minnesota. We've got to talk about Aaron Rodgers, by the way. Then a bye, then at Arizona.

So after New England in Week 2, I mean, it looks like mostly very favorable matchups for Russell Wilson. Although, I got to say, Miami really might have a good secondary. As hard as that is to believe. These could be favorable matchups for the running backs or Chris Carson regardless. Maybe they're just going to be one of the best offenses in football. You know?

I mean, if they let Russ cook, they will be. They will be. He's the man. Question number four from Bopper. Can you trust anyone on the Bucs? Yes, Chris Godwin, except for the potential injury head neck that we don't know about. But once he is back, I am trusting Chris Godwin. And I could probably trust Mike Evans once he's healthy.

He was not healthy yesterday. And I don't know how Evans once he's healthy. He was not healthy yesterday. And I don't know how soon he'll be healthy. But when Godwin and Evans are healthy, I will trust them. But Brady did not look great. Brady also didn't really have any weapons yesterday. Yeah, it was weird because Mike Evans actually did lead the team in routes run. And he was only one snap behind Chris Godwin. I expected him to be more limited than that.

And I think he was targeted six times. I think we'll get better production from him if he, you know, is targeted six times plus, but obviously you want more than six targets for a guy like Mike Evans. And, you know, Tom Brady,

I think on that first drive, he had one pass 20 plus yards downfield. I don't think he had any other pass attempts 20 yards downfield until the fourth quarter when they were playing behind. And so that is the concern with this offense that this was such a high volume, valuable offense because of the deep passing, especially. And if that's not going to be as much a part of it, it makes it harder for Mike Evans and valuable offense because of the deep passing, especially. And if that's not going to be as much a part of it,

it makes it harder for Mike Evans and Chris Godwin to, you know, take a, you know, to be elite fantasy wide receivers, I guess. It's only one game. It was Tom Brady's first game with the Buccaneers. It's his first game without a playing without the Patriots in, you know, 20 years, you know, first game with a new Patriots in 20 years. First game with a new offensive coordinator in a decade. There was a lot working against him. He also just might not be good anymore.

Yeah, I'm not judging the Bucs too harshly right now. I do think the Saints have a pretty good defense. Their offensive line, though, it did struggle, and that was a concern. And, yeah, Godwin and Evans are going to be trustworthy, but, you know, I'm very curious to see where this goes with Ronald Jones because Bruce Arians insisted he was still the starter and someone had to take the job from him. And for one week he told the truth.

You can understand why Fournette would have a pretty minimal role in his first game with the team after signing a week and a half ago. But encouraging that Jones had 17 carries for 66 yards. He didn't humiliate himself against what could be a great run defense. And we'll see where it goes. They have Carolina next week. That should be a get-right game, you would think, for the Bucs, for their offense.

It's interesting to call something a get-right game after one week. But as someone who has a lot of Ronald Jones and who hated it after they got Fournette, I'm a little bit more encouraged right now. Arians did say today that they're going to work Fournette in more and more this week and next week, which is what we expected. But also Fournette, five carries for five yards.

They tried to give him a little bit of something and he did nothing with it. Yeah, I think if you watch the game ronald jones looked like a much better running back than for net but for net you know he he has the ability to pop off some big plays i just don't know how much he can do if he doesn't have good blocking yeah here's one encouraging sign for ronald jones in addition to all that he was split out wide or in the slot seven times. All right, cool. And that indicates a level of trust in him as a pass catcher that we didn't necessarily expect,

and it could be a way for him to stay on the field even if Fournette's role does grow. Maybe it's less LaShawn McCoy, who played a lot in the second half yesterday as they were trailing. But if Ronald Jones can be you know the third down back and split early down work that would be really good for his value so we'll we'll see there um he's got to overtake McCoy is the thing there because they trusted McCoy yesterday it's easy to trust McCoy in pass protection so if Jones could take over that role yeah I'm fine with him splitting with early on yeah and neither Jones with Fournette early on.

Yeah, and neither Jones nor Fournette has rated out as a good pass blocker in their career. So it might be a situation where it is truly a three-headed backfield. But I think there were definitely positive signs for Jones. All right, our last question was about Joel Mixon. We addressed that. So let's do some sort of advanced stats here. We'll take a look at air yards and a note on DeAndre Hopkins and Richard Sherman, some ADOT. We'll talk about that right after this quick break on fantasy

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Don't wait up, okay? Kids go from 0 to 18 in no time, don't they? At Intact Insurance, we insure your car so you can enjoy the ride. Visit Intact.ca or talk to your broker. Conditions apply. All right, Chris Towers, you dug into some statistics. What did you find? Yeah, let's start off with what I think was one of the biggest storylines of the weekend.

That was how good Aaron Rodgers looked. I, you know, let's start off with what I think was one of the biggest storylines of the weekend. That was how good Aaron Rodgers looked, but more specifically, how aggressive Aaron Rodgers was. Because Aaron Rodgers, he always looks good. He always makes like three or four plays every game where you just like, I don't know how a human being could do that. But the last few seasons, it's been a lot of settling for short passes and it's been a lot of throwing the ball away at the first sign of danger. There were still a couple instances of the latter yesterday, but he had the third highest rate of passes that traveled at least 20 yards downfield in yesterday's games, and that's a really, really good sign. I think Marquez Valdez-Scantling and Devonta Adams both had multiple, I think, three targets 20-plus yards downfield.

Alan Lazard had one. Should have been a touchdown. They went back to him the following play, so he could get that touchdown, which is a good sign. Yeah, I think if Aaron Rodgers trusts MVS and Lazard to make plays down the field, then we were all way too low on Aaron Rodgers because he is obviously still a talented quarterback. The issue the last couple of years has just been his approach. Last year, if you want to pour some cold water on it with Aaron Rodgers, just something to consider.

Last year, he had some huge games, typically in great matchups. He torched the Raiders. He torched the Giants. That's what he did, and he was really pedestrian in most of the other games. This might be a great matchup, especially the way the Vikings currently are. They don't have Daniil Hunter on their defensive line. They lost Everson Griffin. Who's going to get a pass rush for them? Aaron Rodgers threw 44 passes, and he was not sacked once.

Meanwhile, you've got very you know young cornerbacks the the the vikings might not be a good past defense which it's been a long time since we've said that so that would be the pessimistic side the view of it what chris said is the optimistic view we know he's aaron rogers um did not expect him to throw 44 times. This is supposed to be a ground-and-pound running team. So, yeah, the optimistic side is right in front of your face. The pessimistic side is, hey, he took advantage of a great matchup. He did that last year. So we do have to see what happens.

But Detroit is another great matchup. I just told you, they didn't have Okuda in Week 1. They lost two more cornerbacks, and they already have an iffy secondary. So he should be able to light them up if he so chooses. What else, Chris? What else stood out to you? Carson Wentz. Want to talk Carson Wentz?

Yeah, Carson Wentz had 520 intended air yards yesterday. That was the highest in the league. Gardner Mitchell only had 89, which was the lowest by far. Obviously only 20 pass attempts but still uh did not take many chances carson wentz you know that offensive line was awful he got sacked eight times it wasn't all on the offensive line you know he had the the fifth quickest uh average time to pressure on his drop backs yesterday and he was middle of the pack in terms of how long it took him to throw right That seems like a situation, and he had nine passes of 20-plus yards.

That seems like a situation where either the game plan or the quarterback needs to change and adjust to the situation on the field. He was too aggressive for, you know, it's not like they were trailing the entire game and needed to play that way. I think it's a good sign if that offensive line gets healthy that he was taking all those shots. And Jalen Rager and Deshaun Jackson, there are guys who can make those plays.

Was that? You said it, Rager. Like Frank Gore. Rager? I think it's Rager. It's Rager. Rager. Rager.

I'm more of a writer. This is my first podcast appearance. I haven't said that name out loud very many times um so yeah i think like there was good and bad signs there but he needs that offensive line to stay to get healthy quickly uh or they need to adjust their approach and either one you know if the line doesn't get healthy or they don't change their approach it's going to be tough for carsonz to be you know the the really really good fantasy quarterback we hope he can't be and Zach Ertz is their short yardage target guy typically in three catches for 18 yards yesterday was not impressive Goddard looked a lot better and I think Goddard's more athletic than Ertz but

with the lack of time for once he's got to throw more to Ertz. And Ertz had seven targets, but typically Ertz is in the seven to nine target range, but catching the majority of those balls, which didn't happen yesterday. And not having Boston Scott for the whole game, he's a good pass catcher. They didn't use him very much in that role yesterday, which was disappointing. And then when Miles Sanders gets back, obviously, I think he can be an outlet for Carson Wentz as well. DeAndre Hopkins had three catches for 22 yards on 15 plays going against richard sherman he had 10 catches for 96 yards against emmanuel mosley and they did not keep richard sherman on one side of the field in this game but they obviously didn't shadow deandre hopkins with sherman maybe they should have

um a lot of what he did too was not really up against a cornerback. It was a snap, throw to Hopkins, let Hopkins run. He didn't really run that many routes on the balls that he did catch. Like I said earlier, 42.5% of Kyler Murray's passes were behind the line of scrimmage.

It was a very conservative game plan. This, Ben, I thought was really interesting. Josh Jacobs had the most missed tackles forced yesterday with 13 and cam acres at five six most in the nfl yesterday it was interesting it was encouraging for acres because like we said earlier like both him and brown were okay to me i wasn't super impressed with either but the fact that he did force these missed tackles gives me a little bit of encouragement on that. He can really emerge as a guy in that backfield, not just a, I'm going to split with Malcolm Brown, maybe Daryl Henderson. So that part is giving me a little pause about putting Malcolm Brown at the top of my waiver

priority list. And Josh Jacobs, I mean, he looked really good to the eye test yesterday. He caught a lot of passes. And the missed tackles is amazing. I'll leave you all with this. We'll finish up. Malcolm Brown has 215 career carries. Not one of them has been longer than 20 yards. So I don't know.

The Rams just want Todd Gurley from last year basically just like a dependable guy who can score at the goal line then look if you can be todd girley from last year yeah well you'd be thrilled you'd have to get the touchdowns but it's not like girley was setting the world on fire he just got a bunch of work but cam acres hopefully is the future there and hopefully that future is going to start you know a little bit earlier and i do want to add one more note on josh jacobs okay like i said earlier the six targets were the most impressive thing to me 18 routes run for josh jacobs yesterday davante booker and jalen richard assuming this is right only ran five routes between them uh That's a really good sign for Josh Jacobs. Yeah, well, Jamie said over and over again

that John Gruden said he wanted to get Josh Jacobs more involved in the passing game, and he was pissed off that Josh Jacobs didn't win Rookie of the Year. So, so far, it is panning out. Although I don't think Jacobs is going to win Rookie of the Year now. But, you know, maybe he can. Long shot. Crazy year.

You never know. All right, that's our first Monday show. We got one every single week for you to kind of bridge the gap between the waiver wire and the Sunday games. And we will have FFT in five overnight. And then, of course, waiver wire tomorrow on this podcast, Fantasy Football Today. I want to thank Chris and Ben.

I'm Adam. Thanks a lot for listening. Talk to you tonight.