Fantasy Football Today - NFL DFS Week 7 Lineups, Picks, Stacks & Ownership Projections (10/20 Fantasy Football Podcast)

Episode Date: October 20, 2022

Download and follow Fantasy Football Today DFS! You can find FFT DFS on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and wherever else podcasts are found. Join our $5 Week 7 DFS contest over on Draftkings- https://www.draftkings.com/draft/contest/134482877 Sia Nejad and Mike McClure are previewing the NFL DFS Week 7 main slate. They run through each game, offering their favorite stacks and plays, also letting you know which players to avoid. (2:12)- Atlanta at Cincinnati (8:23)- Cleveland at Baltimore (12:45)- Green Bay at Washington (14:00)- Detroit at Dallas (23:30)- Tampa at Carolina (27:25)- Indianapolis at Tennessee (30:40)- New York Giants at Jacksonville (32:30)- Houston at Las Vegas (37:35)- New York Jets at Denver (39:50)- Kansas City at San Francisco (46:50)- Seattle at Los Angeles Chargers (52:25)- Mike’s Top-3 At Each Position (57:18)- Week 7 Cheat Sheet 'Fantasy Football Today DFS' is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Google Podcasts, Castbox, and wherever else you listen to podcasts. Follow our FFT DFS team on Twitter: @FFToday, @Mike5754 @SiaNejad Watch FFT DFS on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/fantasyfootballtoday Join our Facebook group https://www.facebook.com/groups/FantasyFootballToday/ Sign up for the FFT newsletter https://www.cbssports.com/newsletter You can listen to Fantasy Football Today DFS 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

What does possible sound like for your business? 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.ca slash business platinum. Welcome to Fantasy Football Today, DFS. This is our game-by-game preview. My name is Sian Najad, and I am with Mike McCourt, who missed last Thursday.

Fortunately, we had Jacob Gibbs subbing in, but Mike, we missed you. We're happy to have you back, man. Happy to be back. Looking forward to this, first of all, this Thursday night football game tonight, and then the rest of this main slate. I like this week once again. Can't wait for it. Yeah, I got to ask you.

So we looked at two of your lineups last week. How did you end up doing overall? Not great. You can include Showdown in that analysis as well, of course. Yeah, so Showdown typically is very, very good for me. Last week wasn't great overall that I remember. I'd have to go back and it wasn't. Nothing stood out like as a big positive or big negative week.

I probably ended very close to breaking even through the week. Whether it's up a little, down a little, not enough to cause any concern for me. Yeah, that's kind of where I ended up being at. I had a lot of those Geno Smith stacks, whether it was DK or Tyler Lockett. Those didn't work out for me. Anything that had Josh Allen related, I know one of your lineups had,

like your cash game lineup, I think had Stefan Diggs as a staple in your cash line. So that obviously worked out for you. But not a spectacular week. I'm glad you liked this week because there's like three or four games I really like. And I'm just curious to see if you like those games as well.

And I gotta be honest, a lot of the players I like are expensive this week. And I want you to kind of have this in the back of your mind as we go through each game, value. Like if there's a game, even if it's kind of a reach from a value standpoint, I'm just very interested in where you see value in some of these games that we're going to be interested in. So for everybody who didn't watch Tuesday, you might not know it's

an 11 game slate. We have four teams on a buy, the Bills, the Rams, the Vikings, and the Eagles. We have four afternoon games and actually three of the four are going to be really interesting. So normally like the last few weeks, we've had three afternoon games. I like to point all of that out for late swap purposes more than anything else. So something to consider, but let's get right into it. Let's start Mike with Atlanta at Cincinnati. I think this is a really interesting game. actually. Atlanta's plus six and a half. It's a 47 point total. Again, this game is in Cincinnati. The one thing that worries me a little bit in this game is pace. With that said, I like how efficient the Cincinnati offense has

looked over the last two weeks. And Mike, you know, I think there's been a lot of talk about the Cincinnati offense kind of operating out of the shotgun over the last two weeks and how efficient they've been as a result. And that's just not in the passing game. That's also in the running game. The last two weeks, the shotgun snaps that where Mixon has gotten a rush attempt, he's averaging over six yards per carry. That's a stark contrast from the first handful of games where he was one of the most inefficient running backs on any slate where we were discussing him. So Jamar Chase, I think he's notable because, yeah, he had a nice game last week,

which we predicted on Fantasy Football Today DFS. But one thing that I think is really interesting with him is that they're moving him all around. He's playing outside. He's playing in the slot. They're really trying to scheme him, get him the right looks. T. Higgins is going to be back for this game. He was back last game.

His route participation was great. So I think it's all systems go for both of those receivers. Mike, any interest in this game? And if so, who is it going to be? And if it's a stack, are you even bothering with a run back? I'm not bothering with a run back, but yeah, I love this game and I'm glad we started with it. Not intentionally, but it's my favorite game of the week. I love Cincinnati here in this spot. They're one of my favorite teams of the week. My favorite stack of the week is going to be Joe Burrow-based. Probably, well, it's mostly to Jamar Chase,

but I'll have Higgins mixed in there as well. Potentially a little Hayden Hurst, depending on how some of the tight end ownership ultimately shakes out. But I love, love, love this spot for them. This defense profile's pretty similar to what they just saw, right? So we just saw them play New Orleans, kind of banged up in the secondary a little bit, not super good there. Same thing here on the Atlanta side.

I expect them to have a ton of success. I also expect them to kind of run it up. Even if they're winning by a lot, I expect them to keep throwing. One thing that excites me about Joe Burrow is he hasn't thrown less than 31 passing attempts he said 30 plus passing attempts in every single game so far this season 300 yards three touchdowns last week I expect a similar result here in this one as far as Jamar Chase he's my favorite wide receiver on the slate as well makes a lot of sense with Joe Burrow. Love that Tee Higgins is another week closer to being back to 100%. I think that really, really helps Jamar Chase in his game.

So yeah, very interested here. I'm playing Joe Burrow. He's my number one quarterback of the week. Let me ask you a couple of questions with this game. And by the way, props to Zach. If you're watching us on YouTube, you're seeing that Zach is pulling up the game logs. He just had Jamar Chase pulled up here. For the record, those of you that are watching on YouTube, please hit the like button. When you get a chance right now would be great. And if you haven't already reviewed the podcast, please go ahead and do that. Let me ask you this. Any interest in Joe Mixon?

I mean, he's kind of expensive relative to some of the value that we're going to see at the running back position on this slate. I guess my question with Mixon is, like, it doesn't make a ton of sense in this type of game script to have, you know, Mixon in a stack with Burrow and let's say Chase or Higgins. But if you wanted to just pull a piece of this game out and you didn't want to stack it, so this is like not a Mike McClure stack necessarily, but you wanted a piece of this game in a positive game script for likely a piece of this game in a positive game script for likely a majority of the game and knowing the efficiency that Mixon has run with

over the last two contests, does it make sense to just pull Joe Mixon out of this game? Yes, it does. I like Joe Mixon quite a bit. He's firmly in my player pool. In the lineups that I don't play Joe Burrow, Jamar Chase, I will likely have Joe Mixon in there. It all comes down to value. I think there is enough value to make it work this week. He's also $7,000, not $8,000 like we've seen in the past from him. So yes, I like Joe Mixon. I do think he'll have a few more touches this week if the game script goes the way we think it will. I also will play him with Joe Burrow, though.

His involvement in the passing game is still very, very good in terms of we can consistently see five targets, potentially three to five targets. We can see that number spiked eight to ten in certain situations. So I like Joe Mixon a lot and I have no issues playing him in kind of an onslaught lineup where you have Burrow, Mixon, and Chase. Love it. And I got to ask you this on the other side, because the number is so eye-popping now with Kyle Pitts. I mean, you talk about like three to five targets in the context of Mixon. Like that's, you know, it's almost like you're lucky if that's what Kyle Pitts is getting you these days.

Because listen, the targets last, let's say, two games, three and four. He had eight prior to that, three prior to that, seven in week one. My question here, though, just real quick, yes or no, he's 4,300. I understand we're probably going to want to pay up for Andrews and Kelsey. In the event that a lineup doesn't have the money to do that, would Kyle Pitts sort of be in that pool of like your David and Jokus, for example, like that Robert Tunyon's in that sort of price range where you pull Kyle Pitts out because you think this might have some back and forth appeal to it.

Only if you're playing Bengals on the other side. I don't want to play Kyle Pitts on his own. There are two value tight ends that are going to be incredibly popular. So it's those two and Mark Andrews. So I'm out on pits. And so let's let the cat out of the bag. Who are the two that are going to be popular with Mark Andrews? Dolchich for the Broncos and Foster Moreau for the Raiders. And for those of you that don't know, it doesn't look like Darren Waller is going to play Sunday. He was a DNP. He's got that hamstring issue. So, you know, we had a week last year, Mike, where it was Foster Moreau week, if you recall. I think there were like two weeks.

And one of those weeks, if I recall, he really smashed with the, at least with the receptions side of it. So we'll get to that game in a little bit, but that's good to note from a value tight end standpoint. All right, let's go to one of my favorite games. I really, really like this game, Cleveland at Baltimore. This is a pretty big spread, just like that Atlanta game.

So keep that in mind. But Cleveland's plus six and a half at Baltimore. It's a 46-point spread. I do want to point out Mark Andrews missed Thursday's practice. So he missed two practices in a row. But it appears that – and the designation is knee, which, you know, there's always like fear when it comes to something like that. But it appears that it's just a rest day for Mark Andrews, or I should say two rest days in a row.

Something to keep your eye on just in case it's not. Obviously, he didn't leave the game last week with a knee injury. So there doesn't seem to be any sort of like trauma related injury relative to his knee. But got to keep an eye on that because Mark Andrews is going to be likely a big part of this slate. Probably for me and probably for Mike as well, as we'll find out later in the show. J.K. Dobbins also mispracticed, which I fully anticipated. In my redraft leagues, I went ahead and just scooped up Kenyon Drake and all those. I understand Justice Hill might play, probably not. I understand Gus Edwards is coming back soon, but if he comes back for this game, it'll be a small rushing share. But I did want to point that out. And maybe more importantly than J.K. Dobbins, it looks like Rashad Bateman is back in this

game. He's practiced two days in a row. And I think that's kind of a big deal. But let me ask you this, Mike, any interest in this game, it's a 45, you know, 46 point total. None of these defenses can really play. And what I mean by that is they're really not stopping anybody, particularly in the rushing game.

I personally, and I said this on Tuesday, I love Amari Cooper week to week. He's getting the targets, not super efficient last week, only catching four of 12. He found his way in the end zone. I think this could be an Amari Cooper game. I certainly think Nick Chubb is in play and I love Lamar Jackson. And obviously Andrews and Bateman seem to be in play for me as well. And maybe even Kenyon Drake. Do you love it? Do you hate it? What do you think? I love it. As long as Mark Andrews is playing, I love it. If Mark Andrews is not playing, I start to shy away in quite a few areas just because I think it changes Bateman's ownership. It probably drops the upside on Lamar meaningfully.

We always can play Lamar. We talk about it every week. Lamar's in the player pool every single week. He's just got way too much upside with his legs and he's a very capable passer. The team can easily put up points. So I have no issues with Lamar. I like him. He's in my player pool. I will have a Lamar lineup for sure. The most interesting piece that you mentioned to me is probably going to be Nick Chubb. He had a fantastic season going until last week against New England, threw up that single-digit eight-point performance on DraftKings here. Not going to be projecting for a ton of ownership opposite of Lamar and Mark Andrews in this spot. We just talked about Joe Mixon.

There's a number of cheap running backs or cheaper running backs that are going to be incredibly popular. So you're going to get yourself a different build. I like playing Nick Chubb as a contrarian play this week. Okay, yeah, I'm always all about Nick Chubb, especially against this Ravens defense. The one thing I did want to point out, and I think this stat implicates Rashad Bateman if he plays. This is something I picked up from Jordan VanEck on Twitter. Cleveland defense, they blitzed a lot last week against the Patriots. And I think the expectation is they'll blitz a lot against Lamar Jackson, particularly because Lamar has not been

good against the blitz over the last handful of games, over the last like three games. He's been actually quite bad, but most of that time has been without Rashad Bateman. And Jordan VanEck actually kind of posted on Twitter the splits with Rashad time has been without Rashad Bateman. And Jordan VanEck actually kind of posted on Twitter the splits with Rashad Bateman, without Rashad Bateman against the Blitz. And as you might expect, Lamar is a lot more efficient and has a lot more upside when he has his wide receiver one in the game. So that's something to consider to the extent you're down on Lamar Jackson and his passing role. We know he has the floor with the rushing, but if you're down on him with the passing role, I do think obviously Andrews makes a big difference, but because

Bateman hasn't been in, it'll be an even bigger difference for the passing game, I think for Lamar Jackson. So again, injuries are something to keep an eye on, keep an eye on Bateman, keep an eye on Andrews. If they are both in and it's all systems go, I really, really like Lamar Jackson in this game. So and actually, I want to check Rashad Bateman's price. For those of you listening and not looking at it, it's 5200. So that's obviously, you know, he's not exactly a target monster. But in tournaments against this Cleveland secondary, there's certainly some upside there with Rashad Bateman coming back.

Any anything on Kenyon Drake before we move on to Green Bay at Washington? No, not really. I really just got to watch the news on Mark Andrews. I still expect him to ultimately suit up and play, but just monitor the news. That changes everything for me on this one. All right, sounds good. Green Bay at Washington, I'll just be honest here, not a lot I'm interested in here. The pace is going to be slow.

Washington's going to try to run the ball against Green Bay's defense because that's kind of how you you beat Green Bay uh I I don't really like anything on the Green Bay side although I'll admit Mike there's some value here with Robert Tunyon with Romeo Dobbs if you want to go that direction I suppose Alan Lazard but punt tight end Cole Turner I mean I I'm just trying to like grasp at straw here straws here because it doesn't look like Logan Thomas or my guy, John Bates are playing. So these are just kind of like hail Mary plays here. Do you like anything? Is Aaron Jones a contrarian play here or just moving past this game? I'm mostly moving past it. Aaron Jones, definitely a contrarian play. I'm probably not going to end up getting there because I'm playing

five lineups total. If I were playing 20 plus I would definitely get there. But I'm not going to end up getting there because I'm playing five lineups total. If I were playing 20 plus, I would definitely get there, but I'm not going to be. So I'm pretty comfortable moving past it. Yeah, I can't imagine anybody's playing Aaron Jones. So if you're trying to like throw a single bullet into a big contest, like for fun, which I don't really advise from a bankroll management standpoint, I do think Aaron Jones is an interesting play because the Washington defense is pretty bad. They're decent against the run, bad against the pass, but this is the type of defense that can kind of like bend, not break for like two and a half quarters. And then it just like the floodgates open. And if that happens,

it could be one of those Aaron Jones, like three touchdown games, not something I'm predicting, not a guy that's in my player pool either, but it's just a consideration because I just don't think Aaron Jones is going to have any ownership whatsoever. So let's move right past this game to another high scoring game. This one, Mike, I have a lot of questions for you about because Detroit is a seven point dog at the Dallas Cowboys. It's a 49 point total. So obviously one of the higher totals. Dallas clearly has one of the more high implied totals in this game. We know the Detroit defense is terrible against the run. We know the Detroit defense is terrible

against the pass. Dak is coming back. So it's kind of like a new variable that's thrown in because it's Dak's first game back. Michael Gallup seems to be good value in this game. CeeDee Lamb is getting one third of the Dallas Cowboy targets and he's doing a lot with them. And frankly, I'm not even sure he's really hit his ceiling yet. So I just wonder what you think from a back and forth. Like I respect this Cowboys defense. I think DeAndre Swift is going to be back. I think Amon Rice Brown is going to be healthy. Is this the type of back and forth game that we're accustomed to seeing this year with Detroit or is the Dallas defense going to kind of put their foot on the throat of Detroit and maybe just this is a one-sided affair?

I lean more towards the one-sided affair. I think that people will try to force it to be that back-and-forth game like we've seen a few times earlier this season from the Lions. I'm going to avoid that personally. I'm just isolating CeeDee Lamb and that's basically it for me. Might play Dak Prescott with them in one of the lineups, but mostly just a lot of CeeDee Lamb standalone. I don't like the Lions side of it with them both coming back really at this point i think they're fine we've obviously seen the upside that they possess but it's just not something i'm going to get to

personally uh the one thing that i would also say is as far as a contrarian running back i'm not even sure how contrarian it'll be but i don't mind ezekiel elliott yeah i was going to ask you about him go go on i'm sorry i I just think that there will be, I think there will be opportunities for them, for him, even in the red zone here, where it's not going to shock me at all. If Dak plays relatively well, CD lamb has his six catches, 75 yards, maybe a touchdown, maybe he doesn't, but Zeke gets those two touchdowns here in the red zone. It's not going to shock me at all in this spot. It actually profiles quite well for that for him. So he's on the fringe of my player pool right now. Yeah. Zeke is such an interesting play. It's not a guy I've played this entire year, but

a couple of things working for him. One, it's the Detroit run defense, which again is terrible. They're allowing around 5.5 yards per carry to running back. So that's like in the bottom five or six of the league, like you would expect. The thing about Zeke is, you know, they've spent the last year and a half, the Dallas Cowboys, telling us by putting Zeke on the field that he is the better running back than Pollard and that it's not really close.

I feel like that's the message from upstairs, like Jerry Jones, because of Zeke's contract, because of who he is, what he represents for the team. They just keep force-feeding at Zeke. This is the one game so far this year where they can try to justify that. I understand Zeke is a good all-around player. He's a tough runner inside the tackles. He's good in pass protection, all of those things. But again, Pollard's role versus Zeke to me is a little unjustified. I think Pollard's role should expand. I think this is the game where the coaching staff says, no, no, no. Like this is what we've been saying the whole time.

It's this is Zeke is the running back on this team and they can kind of show him off in a way. And I, you know, I wouldn't say this about any other team because like, this is very like I'm going down narrative street in a, in a very big way. But I do think Dallas really likes the idea of proving that Zeke is the guy and against this Detroit defense. And again, you brought up the red zone touches. He doesn't get a lot of passing work, admittedly, but he's getting most of the red zone touches. And against Detroit, this could easily be a two-touchdown game for Zeke. So I think Zeke at 6K, this is maybe the

one time this entire year that I will be actually big on Zeke. So he's not like my number one running back by any means. We'll get to who I likeke. So he's not like my number one running back by any means. We'll get to who I like there, but he is firmly in my player pool and he might be the one piece I actually pull out of this game in spite of the fact that a lot of people will be stacking it on both sides. A game, Mike, that nobody's, oh, by the way, before we get to a game that nobody's going to be stacking. Any ideas with Michael Gallup here? I mean, I think with Dak back, I think Michael Gallup, to me, presents a little bit better from a ceiling standpoint. He's only 5,100. He's running all the routes. Even in the last couple

of games, his route participation is fantastic. He's just not necessarily getting, I mean, seven targets last week. He didn't do much with them, only two receptions. I could see this being a seven or eight target game potentially for Michael Gallup. And at 5,100, could he find himself in the end zone with Dak back? Yeah, I actually think he can. Is this a flyer you would take knowing that there's not a lot of value on the board here this week relative to, let's say, last week, for example? Yeah, I think this is a good spot for Gallup. I say good spot. It's certainly better than last week was. Last week was a really difficult ask for him,

kind of a deeper threat for him with Rush throwing to him on the road at Philly against a pretty good secondary. It's worth noting he had the seven targets. Two of them were intercepted by the defense. Those were two of the three interceptions. I do tend to think that you're right on, I don't think it impacts the floor much, but I think it definitely impacts the ceiling on Michael Gallup. So yeah, I don't mind playing him. I see we have some questions about it too,

in season-long fantasy. I personally would probably be playing Gallup, starting him in those situations as well. It's not going to shock me at all if he has a line that is somewhat close to CeeDee Lamb in this game. I'm glad you mentioned the questions. I do want to bring a question up here from Blake Robertson, who says, hey guys, I'm new to DFS and still figuring it out. How much should I change my lineups from each game I play in? I assume you mean when you say game, you mean contest. Keep the same core players and change others, or should I switch it all up? Thanks.

I'm starting to be a believer in a very condensed player pool, whereas I got to be honest, Mike, last year I was a little bit more liberal with how many players I would include in my pool and in my core. How would you answer that question though? Yeah. So I was watching the wording of it. It says in each cash game I play in. So if you're generally talking about cash games, I play the same cash game lineup across the board. Sometimes I'll play two. So an example of that would be if I have two cash game lineups, one would be my Joe Burrow lineup. One would be the Lamar Jackson lineup, but the core of those lineups would be very, very similar. Um, but yeah, I'm a big believer in having the core of almost all of my lineups, no matter what the format,

uh, to be very, very similar. I typically am in the camp that likes to either be really right or somewhat wrong because you're not usually really wrong. You're somewhat wrong or you're very right. And that's where I like to live. So to answer the question there, I would keep the same core players and switch out your either your contrarian play or the the value play, you know. So in this week, say there's a couple there's three tight ends you want to play. You can only play two of them at most, typically only one. You'd be rotating, you know, so in this week, say there's a couple, there's three tight ends you want to play. You can only play two of them at most, typically only one. You'd be rotating, you know, a position like that and some of the differentiation. Other spots, I guess it really, you know, you could change the quarterbacks in and out.

Although the quarterback, it sounds weird to say, but the quarterback isn't incredibly important in those lineups, in my opinion. So again, assuming you're talking about cash games. Yeah, and forgive me because I think I misread that question. He was specifically referring to cash games. And I totally agree. Like these days, I'm really personally, I'm running two cash games, two different lineups. Sometimes it'll like the second cash game lineup might even have a different stack because I just like to.

But the idea behind cash games, the way I look at them is you want to be confident with your cash game. These are like sort of like confidence plays. That's part of the reason a lot of the players in your cash games might be a little chalky because sort of like a lot of the industry likes these players. So if you have three or four type of cash lineups, to me, it means you're just not confident in your cash game lineup. Like it's one thing to not be super confident in your tournament lineup because you're kind of making you're taking some chances here and there whether it's with your stacks or with your players and and your run backs and all of that but in your cash games you should have confidence and if you have confidence

there's no reason to diversify your portfolio with your with your stacks and your players so yeah you can have maybe a couple different cash lineups and you can tweak a thing here and there. But I would have confidence with your main lineup and not change much if you're making a second lineup there. By the way, we have well over 100 people watching. Let's try to get over 100 likes. I want to do Mike's top three at each position. Like I said last week, we'll probably do it anyway. But if you can, we've got a lot of people watching. If you could hit the like button, if you can't see it, all you have to do is actually just pull down the chat

from whatever platform you're watching on. You'll be able to hit the like button and then you'll be able to pop the chat back up. Most of you can see it readily, but in case you can't, that would be the way to do it. Okay, let's move on to Tampa Carolina. I already mentioned it. This is not a game we're going to want to have a lot of involvement in, but there are a couple of players that are interesting to me. And they're kind of the obvious ones. It's Tampa minus 11 at Carolina. So that's interesting. You know, we talked about, well, you weren't here with this Mike last week, but when Carolina was playing the Rams and it was a 10 and a half point spread, you know, our sentiment was like, I don't know that the Rams should be favored by 10 and a half against anybody. And they ended up covering from what I recall. But I don't know if I should be making the same

argument about Tampa, but it feels kind of the same, especially now that they're going to Carolina. This is a game on the road. I'm not asking you to make a call against the spread, but I just find that really interesting. This line has moved up. I believe it opened at 10 or 10 and a half. It's now up to 11. Godwin is the guy that I want to pull from this game. I think he's kind of game script proof. He's getting all the targets. He had 12 targets last week, almost got you that hundred yard bonus, um, 32% target share, 90% snap share, only four targets for Evans. Godwin is that sort of like easy target. Cameron Brate's going to be out of this game. So, you know, I don't want to talk about Kate Otten in that capacity, but I just think he's going to lean on Chris Godwin, maybe guys like Leonard Fournette

even more. On the other side, I'm tempted because there's not a lot of value on this slate to consider DJ Moore, but I don't know that I'm going to get there. I also don't think I'm going to get to CMC, but we know his production. We know his floor is going to be pretty great. Any interest in any of the players I mentioned there? Honestly, probably not. I think the closest one that I could get to, let me check something quickly here. Yeah, Chris Godwin's the closest one that I could get to. The ownership is suppressed just enough

that I would have a little bit interest there. I thought that it would be a Leonard Fournette day for me, but it's not going to be based off some of the ownership projections that I'm seeing at this point. So I'm mostly off of this game and hoping that the market is essentially right on it. And by that, I mean, lower scoring game, both teams contribute 40 points total in the game. You know, if you want to isolate Godwin i think it's okay um as crazy as it sounds though

if you really are dead set on playing chris godwin i'd probably play tom brady um because if godwin's gonna have the day that gets him there to like really win you a tournament it's gonna require two touchdowns uh in my opinion, just on the slate, given the kind of the plays that we have on the slate. So if Gobbins had got two touchdowns in this game, it's likely that Brady has had a very successful day. It's relatively unlikely that it's just a 14-point performance from the Bucs if he has two touchdowns. So if you love Gobbins and really want to play him, that's how I would do it personally. I would just get a little different and play Tom Brady with it. It sounds weird saying get a little different, but Tom Brady is going to be 5% to 6% on max, right? So that's the way I would do it personally.

But as of now, I don't have anyone in this game in my player pool. Mike Chavez has a question. Do you like Cade Otten as a value tight end? I'll answer that first, Mike, and then you can. Do you like Cade Otten as a value tight end? And I'll answer that first, Mike. And then you can, uh, I don't really love it. I mean, 2,700, it's very attractive on this slate. You could play two tight ends potentially and have Cade Otten with like a Travis Kelsey or a Mark Andrews, but this isn't the type, like when I recommended Cade Otten two weeks ago, it was a different type of game script. It was a different type of potential back and

forth with Mike Evans, healthy with Chris Godwin healthy, with Russell Gage healthy, with Julio Jones healthy. I don't know that we can rely on a K. And floor like we could have two weeks ago. So that's why I'm probably off him. Mike, you share that sentiment. I do. Yeah, it's, you know, I'll mention the tight ends quickly for me. It's going to be Mark Andrews, Travis Kelsey, Kelsey Dolchich for the Broncos, and Foster Moreau for the Raiders.

Is Dolchich in even if it's Brett Rippon at quarterback? For me, yes. Yeah, I would think so too. I'm not even sure it's a downgrade at this point. I know that sounds completely ridiculous, but for like a one-game sample size, I don't think it's a downgrade necessarily. Okay, so let's move on to the next game. We've got Indianapolis at Tennessee. This is another game I don't have a ton a downgrade necessarily. Okay, so let's move on to the next game. We've got Indianapolis at Tennessee.

This is another game I don't have a ton of fantasy interest in. Indianapolis is plus 2.5. The total here is 42.5. I think there's some obvious plays here. Jonathan Taylor looks like he's trending towards playing. I'm curious if you would like him as a potential contrarian play at only 8,100. I mean, that's certainly a fair price. And it's there because he's coming off that injury.

Michael Pittman, 7,400, pretty expensive. I don't think I want to go there. I personally don't want to lean on the idea that Matt Ryan's going to be chucking around 58 times like he did last week, especially in a road environment where I actually think Tennessee might have a pretty good shot at winning and covering this game. Alec Pierce at 4,600 presents some of the value that I'm desperate for this week. On the other side, I think Derrick Henry is a nice contrarian play. I'm not 100% sure I'm going to get there. Other than that, that's kind of all I like in this game.

How about you? Yeah, the most likely player to make my player pool from this game is Derrick Henry. I like the spot for him. He's absolutely smashed the last three weeks in a row, one of them on the road against this Indy team. The thing that I like is he's being targeted in the passing game, catching passes as well. What if I told you Derek Henry had at least 30 receiving yards

in each of the last three games? We would never have thought that to be true or possible. Um, I, I love the upside that he presents because not only is he getting all those yards receiving, we haven't had a game in the last three, less than 20 carries. He only had 13 carries against Buffalo. That was the game they got absolutely crushed in. Didn't play much, right? But you know, he's good for 20 carries minimum, potentially closer to 30. Yeah, I like Derrick Henry quite a bit. Yeah. So yeah, I think my only issue there is the 8,200. And it's only because I like so many stacks that might end up being kind of expensive. But you've kind of gotten me convinced here too.

I was already kind of leaning on Derek Henry I think this is a potential blow-up spot for Derek Henry so I I I'm gonna have to agree with you there I'm gonna have to incorporate him in a few more of my uh tournament lineups in particular not a cash game play for you Mike right not at this time uh the only scenario that moves him to a cash game play for me is a scenario that we get mark andrews ruled out then it changes my roster construction significantly because spoiler alert i'm playing mark andrews again um if he's not playing then it's likely going to be foster moreau for sure possibly moreau and dolchich and then load it up everywhere else which would give me room for him so yeah not in there now but can't rule it out by Sunday all right well we got one more one o'clock

game before we get to the four four o'clock games most of which are very very interesting but before we do that let's take a break and hear a word from our partners and we are back my name is Sian Najad. This is Fantasy Football Today, DFS. I'm with my guy, Mike McClure. It is Thursday. It is our game-by-game preview. We have one more one o'clock game, Mike. It's the New York football Giants at Jacksonville. The Giants are three-point dogs, which I think is a surprise to some people. The total here is 43, so it's a relatively low total. I'm not really interested in much in this game. Christian Kirk's production has gone down quite a bit. As much as I see Travis Etienne emerging, it's not something I want to get

involved in in this particular game, his splits with James Robinson. The receivers for the Giants, maybe you like some value there, but I'm just not ready to roster guys like Wanda Robinson right now or Marcus Johnson or Slayton. Barkley's the big question, and I think I'm going to have to be off Barkley this week, whereas I've been on him the last two or three weeks. What say you? Yeah, this projects as a spot where I'd rather play Derek Henry, who we just talked about, over Saquon.

I expect him to be a little bit more involved in the passing game again here. Uh, to be honest, he only had three targets caught all three of them, but you know, when you look back at it, he had, you know, game in week four against the bears only had two targets in that game. Um, one in week one against Tennessee. So, you know, maybe he's not going to be that threat to have double digit targets, right? We actually haven't seen any more than what? Seven, seven targets is the most we've seen for him all season. So I'm going to sit it out on Barkley, which means I'm going to sit it out on this game

altogether. Uh, like you, I like Travis ETN. I think that he has played incredibly well. I think the issue that we all have with it is he's been pretty efficient with the workload that he's got. We'd like him to see 20 plus touches, not 12 to 14. So I'm going to sit this game out. Yeah, agree with that. We can move on to the first four o'clock game. 4.05 start. We have the Houston Texans. They're seven point dogs. They're at the Las Vegas Raiders. Raiders coming off a bye here. The total here is 45.5. The Raiders implied total 26.25, which is relatively high.

It's within the top four teams on this slate. There's a lot I like here. First of all, let's just get the elephant in the room out of the way. The most popular guy on this slate is Josh Jacobs, right, Mike? He is, yes. He's going to be incredibly popular here in this spot.

I think he's still a pretty good play. So no matter what the ownership number ends up being, he's definitely going to be in my player pool. Yeah, exactly. I mean, Josh Jacobs, he's getting the three-down work. We talked about him Tuesday. I think I might have said Tuesday that this is my favorite play, which of course means I moved to the market.

That's why he's so popular, clearly. But no, I mean, it's not a secret, right? Like it's pretty obvious. He's got a three down roll. He's going against the Houston defense, which is pretty terrible all around against running backs, whether you're looking at yards per carry or fantasy points scored, whatever it is.

I think the question here though is, well, what else do you like? And are there situations where you're fading Josh Jacobs and you're playing Devontae Adams, who's going to have far less ownership? Because by the way, Houston isn't very good against wide receiver ones. We know how talented Devante Adams is. Yeah, no, I love Devante Adams. I think he's a fantastic tournament play. Um, you know, the issue for me personally, versus like, say your builds, maybe I'm higher than the field on Jamar chase and Joe burrow. So I'm more likely to play

a lot more Jamar chase. I might play Devante Adams in there. Others, if you're not as high on burrow and chase Devante Adams is going to be your guy. And the good news is, is Adams is projecting a single digit ownership as is Jamar chase. So yeah,

I love the Adams play. I want to get confirmation, I guess, some Foster Moreau, not necessarily on the Darren Waller side, just on his own side. He's still recovering and coming back. I believe that he will end up playing here.

I don't think that what he's dealing with is mega serious relative to everything here. So I like the Raiders. The issue is I like a lot of Raiders, but I don't love Derek Carr. Yeah. Yeah. So that's, I, so that, that, that's the thing though, right? You can play, like there's a situation, you can play Devante Adams without Derek Carr here, right? I mean, in fact, you can even play Derek. I mean, could you play Josh Jacobs and Devante Adams without Derek Carr? Yeah, I think so. Yes. Yeah. I definitely think so. Especially if you, if that leaves you room in your lineup for,

I mean, I tell you the lineup where you'll actually end up doing that is the lineup. I keep talking about throughout the show and that's a, a Joe Burrow lineup. You can put Joe Burrow, Jamar chase, Devante Adams,

and Josh Jacobs in a lineup together. Like you, you can definitely do that salary wise. So yeah, I, I think it's pretty likely that I end up playing both of them in a lineup together. You can definitely do that salary-wise. So yeah, I think it's pretty likely that I end up playing both of them in a lineup without Derek Carr. Yeah, I think you got to have some of Adams and some of Jacobs

or at least some of one of those in most of your lineups. I'll probably play both of them in at least a couple of lineups. It's not, you know, all the targets are going there. I mean, especially if Waller is out. You know, Hunter Renfro hasn't really established himself.

Matt Collins has not reestablished himself. We're seeing the target share. Adams has a top five target share in the league, and we know what Josh Jacobs is doing on the ground and with his targets. So, I mean, if you scoop both of those guys up, you're getting, like, to me, you're getting like, to me, you're getting like 60 to 70% of the entire Raiders production on offense. And that's just a number I kind of just pulled out, but I think it's probably pretty close, if not higher. We did have a question that I wanted to answer that I, that I caught that caught my eye. Oh, you know,

it was an, you know, Benjamin question. It was, you know, from Ryan own B, you know, Benjamin or Brian Robinson? It's Eno Benjamin, right? And especially if it's PPR, it's Eno Benjamin. But even if it's standard, as much as I like – I mean, I guess if it's standard, it's a lot closer. Would you go Brian Robinson in a standard league? Probably not.

I just think the opportunity for Eno is going to be there. It'll be interesting to see the Cardinals on the red zone tonight if they force things the way of DeAndre Hopkins or if Hopkins is, it sounds weird to say, used a little bit as a decoy and Eno gets a little bit of the work. I would play Benjamin, though. Yeah, before we move on to the next game, I do want to sort of boldface what Mike said

about Darren Waller and Foster Moreau. So for that person who asked earlier, it was Mike Chavez who asked earlier about Kate Otten at 20, I think it was 2,600. I mean, you can play Foster Moreau in a much, much better game script. And a guy, Foster Moreau, who's proven himself when he's had to take the lead tight end role at only 2,800. So if Foster Moreau was healthy, again, we have to monitor not just Waller's health, but Foster Moreau's health as well. I think at 2,800, he's an obvious value, perhaps even in cash games if you don't end up paying up for the tight end. But it sounds to me like paying up for like Mark Andrews or Travis Kelsey is probably going to be a cash game lock per Mike McClure. So we'll wait and see on that.

We got the New York Jets. They are one point underdogs at Denver. A lot of confusion in Denver at the running back position, at the quarterback position. We don't exactly know how it's going to play out. It's a 38.5-point total. The only thing I like in this game is the Jets' defense at 2,600. I think an interesting contrarian defense that you're almost like leveraging,

what I think will end up being a popular defense in the Jets, would be the Broncos' defense at 3,300. Other than that, I don't think I'm going to get to Brees hall at 6,200, but I don't think it's a bad play. I just don't think I'm going to get there with all the other running backs and receivers. I like anything in this game that you like.

Yeah. I mean, look, we we've mentioned Dolce tight end multiple times. I like him regardless. You know, I actually like him a little more now with the Foster Moreau situation, because I think obviously people are going to

gravitate towards that Moreau situation just a little bit more. Um, I'm going to play both of them as far as other plays in the game, uh, both defenses, but more importantly, the Broncos defense for me, uh, it's still difficult by the jets. So they've had a great season so far. It's still a really difficult place to go in and play and win a football game. Uh, with again, still a very young quarterback, young core of that team, really, uh, wouldn't shock me to see a letdown spot, you know, from the jets in the spot. So I, I like the Broncos defense. Um, I'm not going to play breeze hall at all. I think the Broncos defense, you know, we even watched them stuff, Austin Eckler in the run

game, uh, you know, just the other day here, mostly off of this game though. I'm not playing anyone on the jet side. Yeah. Uh, by the way, I completely overlooked Dulcich's price, uh, is 2,500. I mean yeah we're talking about value tight ends and we just talked about you know k dot and which we we don't like by the way foster moreau um greg dulcich again regardless of the quarterback at 2500 uh i do think the floor i don't know about the floor actually but but it's probably there at 2500 i mean we saw how this guy's a dynamic tight end they they they they have some draft on him, and they showcased him as soon as he was ready to be showcased, which, of course, was last Monday night.

So absolutely get it on Dulcich. I think that's a pretty smart play if you need the savings. Okay, let's get to your team, Mike. Kansas City is a minus 2.5 favorite at San Francisco. It's a 48.5 point total. For those of you that might be a little confused as to why this isn't Pickham, for example, because San Fran's a pretty good team. They are really, really beat up on defense. This is another situation where we kind of have to monitor the defense, but they're not going to be at full health against Kansas City. They'll be lucky to

get maybe Bosa back. We'll have to monitor the defensive line, guys like Armstead and Kinlaw. Secondary, they've lost a couple guys or at least one guy, Mosley, for the year. There's a lot going on there. So they're not going to be at full strength regardless. And depending on how the next few days go, they might be down like five or six defensive starters. It's not a good situation, which means, Mike, you must love the Kansas City Chiefs this week. I do like them. They'll be in my player pool. Travis Kelsey for sure will be. I think it's an interesting bounce back spot for MVS. I put up a zero last week. Had a pretty big play called back on a holding penalty.

But I like Travis Kelsey here. No one's going to play him unless Mark Andrews is ruled out. If Mark Andrews is active and playing, no one's going to play Travis Kelsey in this particular spot because we just mentioned the two value tight ends and Mark Andrews is in slightly better spot than Travis Kelsey here. Kelsey, I'm projecting single digit ownership, two to 3%. Say what you want about the defense. I think that defense is pretty banged up right now at the moment. As you mentioned, Travis Kelsey is mostly matchup proof, in my opinion.

They get so creative using him in the red zone as well that I think that, you know, matchups matter, but they don't. They don't matter when the ownership is single digits, right? For a guy like Travis Kelsey, if I see ownership less than 5%, the matchup is totally irrelevant for me. So this profiles is one of those spots. I don't think I'm going to get to Mahomes as of now, but it's possible. And for the record, when it comes to matchup, like one thing that I think really gets ignored by a lot of people who give out picks or have fantasy football shows, and they'll talk about DVOA, they'll talk about this stat or that stat, but they're not looking at who the competition was. What were the matchups in the

first six weeks? And so to the extent we love the San Francisco defense and we love how the matchup looks against like whatever it is, it is a good defense, by the way. It's a great team in my opinion, but they're banged up. And also the quarterbacks they faced so far this year, Justin Fields, Gino Smith. Okay. That's not bad. Russell Wilson, Matt Stafford, Baker Mayfield. Are you impressed yet? Marcus Mariota, like not really. Right. So, I mean, again, this isn't really something to say with respect to this game necessarily, but when you're looking at, at stats, I mean, listen, we have plenty of, of a sample size, but the sample might be flawed to some degree if the matchups are just really favorable for a defense or really favorable for a quarterback.

So that second step you kind of have to take. You can't just pull a stat and be like, well, they're number three DVOA. OK, well, that's great. Who did they play? OK, now I've checked who they played. Now I can actually firmly like kind of stand by that stat that I just gave. And listen, I'm sure I've been guilty of doing that, too. But in terms of giving a stat out without some of the context behind it, but these are things that this extra layer is something to consider. I say that if the San Francisco defense

happens to be healthy on Sunday, which they won't be, but in the hypothetical that they are, you still have to go back and look at their matchups. Like what, why are they ranked where they are ranked? Let me ask you this, because I think Jimmy Garoppolo has a shot here to actually have a pretty good impact. So he's 5,500. I'm not necessarily saying I want to put Jimmy G in a stack, but I don't think it's the worst idea in a big tournament at 5,500 with Brandon Ayuk and maybe George Kittle or whatever. Ayuk and Samuel Debo's 7,600, but Brandon Ayuk's only 6,000.

He caught eight of 11 targets last week. He is the receiver one, in my opinion. I know Debo is kind of like the do-everything guy, but Brandon Ayuk is two touchdowns last week as well with those 11 targets. Is this a guy that you would absolutely put into your stacks of this game? And if not, if you're not stacking it, is he a guy that you pull out and put in your lineup regardless? I don't love it because I keep waiting for a little bit of a different distribution and some of the usage. So what I'm waiting for is way more Debo Samuel, which hasn't happened yet, frankly. I think he's okay if you want to play iuk i think it's probably a

good call out on on stacking the game because i don't think the game is going to be stacked to the level that it should be based on yeah lamar based on chase based on c Lamb, based on Devontae and the Raiders' love, I think the game will go lower owned than it should. Mahomes, Marquez Valdez, Scantling, Travis Kelsey, with a singular Brandon Ayuk run back. Love it, hate it, or you're just neutral? No, I like it. I like it a lot. Yeah. And again, I'm glad you brought MVS

because we're kind of prisoners of the moment, right? Like last week it was MVS and Juju was terrible. Now this week it's like, oh, do I pay up for Juju? I certainly don't want to play MVS. And that's just not how the Kansas City Receiver Corps works. It's any given receiver on any given Sunday outside of Travis Kelsey. So at 4,400, there's plenty of upside there. If you're debating MVS versus McColl Hardman, I just think I would look at snap share on route participation, which MVS had about twice as much as McColl Hardman. So you could take a fly on Hardman if you want. But I think MVS might be the guy this week that I would include in a Patrick Mahomes stack, but it wouldn't be the only part of my Patrick Mahomes stack. Anybody else to discuss before we get to this highest total, the Seattle Seahawks and the

Los Angeles Chargers? No, I don't think so. Although I guess I will mention totals briefly though. Just quickly, the average score so far this season and how much it's down versus the last two. In 2020, the average score in NFL games was 49.5 points. 2021, 46. And so far in 2022, that number is down to 43.3, over six points off of the 2020 season so far. What do you attribute that to? Defensive scheming, for one.

We see a lot more too high safeties, a lot more allowing teams to dink and dunk, which eats clock. Teams do that, get in the red zone, find it difficult to score, end up kicking field goals. Some of the rule changes a little bit the way they're calling things, but it's mostly, I think, a defensive scheming league-wide to not allow the big play. Gotcha. It's the last time I'll say it, I promise.

But if you haven't already hit the like button, hit that. Let's go to Seattle, plus five at the Los Angeles Chargers. It's a 50-and-a-half point total. This seems like it's going to be a high-scoring game. None of these secondaries can really play. We know J.C. Jackson. I mentioned it on the Tuesday show. He ended up getting benched.

So that big-ticket sort of acquisition for the Chargers secondary has clearly not worked out. In his defense, he's coming off ankle surgery and he's probably not 100%. We know the Seattle defense in general can be exposed here. I like Justin Herbert. I don't know if Keenan Allen is going to be back. I suspect he will be playing in this game. I kind of like Justin Herbert and Austin Eckler in a stack and just kind of scooping up all the chargers points. And I like two guys on the way back. I like Kenneth Walker and DK Metcalf or Kenneth Walker and Tyler Lockett, or even Tyler Lockett and DK Metcalf. I think this game really could have a back and forth, but I don't know, Mike, if I'm just overselling the Geno Smith experience. I'm genuinely unsure about that.

Where do you stand? I like Geno. I like Geno and his weapons. So Kenneth Walker is going to be core play pool for me. I like Tyler Lockett again. I think Tyler Lockett profiles nicely in a bounce back situation. I think his ownership will drop just a touch. He's still going to be popular.

But I think it'll drop just a touch after last week's game against Arizona. So I really like him. As far as runbacks on the other side, I'm undecided there. So for me, again, we've talked about it many times how I like to play. I like to play with a really, really narrow player pool.

And for me, this week, that means a lot of Cincinnati. It means a lot of Jamar Chase. So if I'm running a lot of Jamar Chase and I want to run them in all five lineups, it really hinders my ability to run it back with someone like either Eckler, Allen Williams, whatever it may be. So the decision that I have to make between now and Sunday is on this particular lineup, am I going to have a lineup where I don't play Jamar Chase so I can build the intentional bring back? Or do I just want to buy all in on jamar chase while he's in single digits and forget

about the run back and just go on raw points look i think jamar chase is 25 is going to outscore keenan allen's 22 whatever it may be right um so at this point in the week i can't say for sure if i'm going to have the chargers bring back i I'm not going to fault anyone that wants to. I think that you probably should. Um, however, as weird as it sounds, I think that it's not necessarily required. I think that the usage is still very clear on Seattle right now to where Kenneth Walker, Gino Lockett and or Metcalf, not altogether, obviously, but any combination of those can get theirs and be serviceable in pretty much any game script.

Yeah, I tend to agree with that. It's certainly the concentration of shares on that Seattle side is very obvious. And if Keenan Allen is back on Sunday, it really muddles everything up. Let's not forget Donald Parham is back too, which, which, you know, you know, to the extent you're counting on Gerald Everett, Parham's is digging in a little bit to that. I think the only guy though, Mike, and maybe I'm just going off of, I don't think I'm just going off the last game. I mean, we can actually pull up Austin Eckler's game log here on YouTube. If you're watching with us, he seems to be very inefficient in the running game, but they're using him like Christian McCaffrey, which is not a surprise, but 16 targets last week and, you know, catching 10 of them. And,

you know, prior to that, it wasn't nearly as much, but it does seem like Herbert is leaning on Eckler. Is Eckler the run back in a Geno staff? It could be. I want to caution on these 16 targets while that's awesome. and it could happen again, I think that we should identify games like 7, 8 to 10 as more realistic. There were a couple of things in that Denver game that really allowed for that. Number one, it was competitive. They didn't have much success moving the football on their own. The reason for that, Keenan Allen wasn't playing,

and Pat Sertan had locked up Mike Evans or Mike Evans, Mike Williams, the entire game. So he was left trying to hit. Who was he hitting? Gerald Everett. He was hitting Josh Palmer at times. So the decision for him was very easy. We're going to dump down and check down to Eckler as often as we possibly can out of

necessity. I don't think we necessarily see that here as I think the Seattle secondary is vulnerable and will be attacked. So my worry, and again, on the bring back, like you mentioned, throwing Keenan Allen in, if he plays, it really makes things kind of murky because I would expect really even distribution if they have all those guys out there, which, you know, Eckler's fine. And he definitely has a knack for the end zone. He definitely has, we know the two to three touchdown upside 30 fantasy point upside. He's got that in pretty much any matchup. Um, so I'm not going to be upset if you want to play him, but this to me projects as a week where I'd rather just play Derek Henry.

It's a very good point. Mike Williams is certainly going to see more targets in a much better matchup and Keenan Allen is obviously going to get some of those short area reliable targets as well. So while I don't anticipate 16 targets to your point, I do think eight to nine targets is in play and against Seattle, uh, you know, the rushing should be more efficient against Seattle and the, and the receptions should be there to some degree. So it's interesting. Um, but you're right there. If all the weapons are back, it does, Eckler stock does go down a bit. I do want to point out that Tyler Lockett and DK Metcalf's price, they're really not moving. I believe Tyler Lockett, he went up 200 and Metcalf went down 200. Like these guys on DraftKings are still like extreme values because you know, that's where

the targets are going. Mike, let's get to, I don't know if we got to 100 likes, but we'll give them a reprieve if we didn't get to 100. I haven't checked. Let's get your top three at each position. Let's start at the quarterback, and then you can go to running back, wide receiver, and tight end. Number one quarterback, Joe Burrow. Interesting call out, I suppose, but I really like the spot for him.

Gets to play at home against a pretty bad Atlanta defense, in my opinion. I think the game has sneaky shootout potential. We've seen Atlanta been able to put points on the board against, frankly, better defenses. So I like the shootout potential here. I like that they're healthy. Number two quarterback, little asterisk beside it because it probably won't be if Mark Andrews doesn't play, but it's going to be Lamar Jackson. I love his upside. Love that the price point is at 8k. I can still get them in relatively easily.

Love this matchup in the division game. It's a must-win game for him. It's a good get-right spot at home. Give me Lamar. And then number three on the quarterback going to be my boy, Geno Smith, having an absolute career year. Look, I think this offense is just good enough to put points on the board and the defense is bad enough to ensure that they're always going to be having to play with some tempo and a little bit of urgency, whether it's not necessarily in terms of play clock, but just desire to move the football. I like the weapons. So give me Gino Smith, Still less than $6,000. Let's do it.

Yeah, I like all three of those. Burrow is the guy that I haven't really totally come around to, but I think in tournaments Burrow is a really, really smart play for obvious reasons. He's not going to be as highly owned as some of these guys that are kind of the more obvious plays. Let's go to running back. Who are your top three? You know, very chalky at the top. I'm going to give you four. Also, Kenneth top three? Uh, you know, very chalky at the top. I'm going to give you a four. Um, also Kenneth Walker, Josh Jacobs, not fooling anyone there. Uh, they're

the best plays on the slate, uh, in my opinion. So jam them in wherever you want to. Uh, I really like Jacobs for obvious reasons, uh, against Houston and especially with Waller out, there's just a lot more usage. He's going to touch the football a ton in this game. And then Kenneth Walker, been great for Seattle, should have green light for a ton of usage there as well. Chargers not good against the run. I think it's a really, really good spot for him to pick up some big chunk plays, hopefully find the end zone. I think it's another great spot for him. And then the last two, Joe Mixon and Derek Henry. We've talked about both of them so far on the show. Love Joe Mixon. He's going to be involved

in the passing game. If I'm correct on the Joe Burrow, Jamar Chase call out, that should also mean a few additional touches for Joe Mixon later in the game. So I like that a lot. And then of course, Derek Henry, we've talked about throughout the show. All right, let's move to the wide receiver position. It looks like it's kicked off by a guy we've talked about a lot. And for the record that we talked about a lot last week, he, you know, Mike, you weren't on the show last Thursday, but it's funny how it turned out because my contrarian play for the cheat sheet was Jamar chase, but that was in my defense. It was in the middle, kind of in the middle of the week. I talked about him on Tuesday and then, and then I put him on the cheat sheet Thursday,

but his ownership like kept kind of ticking up. So by the time Sunday rolled around, he wasn't very contrarian. Obviously he had double digit ownership, depending on the tournament you were playing in. But do you like Jamar Chase again this week? Love Jamar Chase again this week. You know, last Sunday, I bet his player prop receiving yards over at 77.

He ended up with 132 and two touchdowns in that game. I expect a similar result here in this one. Number two receiver right now it's CD lamb. I might work my way down making him three or four, uh, in the player pool, but right now it's CD lamb. The value is just too good at the price point. He's a $7,500 receiver considering that offense in my opinion. Uh, and then Tylerler lockett i want to buy back in on tyler lockett the price point just does not move uh for these seattle guys all the opportunity in the world in my opinion in this particular matchup love that he put up a dud last week i think that drops the ownership by three to four percent at least uh so let's go tyler lockett

all right and finally we have the tight end position. I called it on Tuesday, not that it was like a big surprise, but I was like, it's definitely going to be Mark Andrews and Travis Kelsey for Mike. But like, that's everybody's top two, I guess, this week. You like them a lot. You're going to jam them in the lineup. So Mark Andrews and Travis Kelsey. But who's the third tight end?

Who's the money saver? Yeah, now it's going to be Foster Moreau, but I like Dolchich as well. So we're giving you four at this position. It's really one is Andrews and Cash, Kelsey in tournaments, or both together in tournaments. And then Foster Moreau, Greg Dolchich. And for the record, Foster Moreau did practice on a limited basis today.

We'll have to kind of monitor what happens with him tomorrow. It does look like he's trending towards playing. I do want to point out Hunter Renfro did not practice today. If for some reason he's downgraded to out, I think maybe you could at least think about putting Matt Collins as a part of some sort of Raiders stack or run back. So just something to consider. Certainly not a high floor play.

Matt Collins coming off a couple bad games in a row. Okay, so that's the tight end. We did everything. So let's get to the cheat sheet real quick. I will do, I'll do my cheat sheet first. Let's go Lamar Jackson to Mark Andrews. If for some reason we hear Mark Andrews is not playing, like not practicing again tomorrow,

I'll probably get a little fearful and I might change this answer. I might change my cheat sheet to something else. But for now, it's Lamar Jackson to Mark Andrews. My chalk play, Josh Jacobs. We've talked about him. No reason to talk about him any more than we already have. Fade, I had a hard time with this one. It does look like Brandon Cooks is going to be really pretty popular. And that certainly makes sense given the game he's going to be in. I just don't have a ton of faith in that offense in general. And so I guess that's my statement

in terms of like, you don't always have to have a run back. I do think Brandon Cooks is the run back in that game, but it's just not, not something I want to force even to a, to a target guy like Brandon Cooks. He hasn't had a lot of ceiling games and I'm just, I'm just not going to be on him, especially if he's going to be popular. And then finally, let's see my contrarian play. Oh, I had that wrong. Okay. So my value is Michael Gallup at 5,100 and my contrarian play is Devante Adams. I did have Brandon Ayuk as a consideration there, but Devante Adams is going to be my contrarian play. As Mike pointed out, his ownership is still kind of in that like 5% area. So he's very expensive. He's hard to put in your builds.

So if you can't, maybe you go with my second contrarian, Brandon Ayuk, but I do like Devante Adams a lot in this game, along with Josh Jacobs. Mike, your cheat sheet. Cheat sheet stack. We're going Joe Burrow, Jamar Chase.

If you watch the show this far, you definitely know that's where I was going this week. I like to make those flag plants, so to speak. Chalk player going CD Lamb. It's going to be popular. I like the price point still. Fade Brees Hall. I'm fading Brees Hall 6,200. Kind of obvious here for me, considering we like Walker, we like Jacobs, we like a lot of these other running backs we've talked about. I respect the Denver defense and how difficult it is to play football games there. Contrarian play, Travis Kelsey, still single digit ownership here. I'm thinking less than 5% owned, certainly single digits.

And then my value play for the Raiders, Foster Moreau, expect them to be one of the more popular plays on the slate by the time Sunday rolls around, but love his value at 2,800. Real quick, Mike, I want to get maybe two captains and two flex plays for showdown tonight. But I just Steve XRP is a center out again for the charges. I think it was food poisoning for him last week. Lindsley, I think he's going to play. That's my impression. Good question.

Keep an eye on that. And then there was another thoughts on playing two punt tight ends in cash and jamming in all the studs. Mike, that's probably not a good idea. If you're going to do the two tight end thing, one of them should be one of the studs, right? Yes. However, you can get away with it be one of the studs, right? Yes. However, you can get away with it. If one of the studs is ruled out, if Mark Andrews is ruled out, then you can play the two cheap tight ends and then make sure you're playing

guys like chase Devante Adams, whatever it may be. Right. So I think you or Henry, whatever, however you want to build it. I would only do it if Mark Andrews is out, though. And Mike, finally, before we get out of here, any any showdown plays you want to recommend? I have a ton of Kyler Murray and Alvin Kamara. Not a lot of groundbreaking stuff there tonight. It's very, very straightforward slate.

The targets are mostly condensed in this game. Trying to look for the most interesting call out here. Got all my exposures are up right now already on Sportsline for this. A lot of Rondell Moore expecting big things there. I have Keontae Ingram in flex on DraftKings just as pure salary relief uh this profiles is a game where you can punt with a two to four hundred dollar player that may not score a single fantasy point if it allows you to get hopkins kamara olabe rondo moore kyler murray all in the same lineup that's what i would recommend doing uh on this slate so all the exposures are up there projections will be on sports line if you want to go build those lineups in the optimizer.

For those of you that have not subscribed to Sportsline already, I can tell you right now, you have no idea the depth of content they have on there from a betting, DFS, you name it. It is truly unbelievable. So go ahead and subscribe to Sportsline. There were some Taysom Hill questions. It's impossible to predict. Do you anticipate a potential high a, a potential high floor potential ceiling game tonight, or is it just so impossible to predict? You're just not, you just don't want to be

speaking to that. Um, I'm not playing him much. Let's see. Yeah. I personally am off of him. If he goes off, that's great. The issue on a showdown slate is he's gone off so many times where his ownership does inflate to the point where there's likely no value considering the wide range of outcomes that he offers. got to be frustrating just because you, you know, that you could miss the 30 point spike game. You also know you could have them in there for a three point performance. When he throws one pass rushes of all three times, one catch. Um, I'm leaning towards less output from Taysom tonight personally, but not going to shock me at all.

The guy's ridiculous. He has all the upside in the world. So, all right. And Mike, we'll end it on this. Uh, Derek Graham has a question. Do you think DFS wise commanders or jets will be high ownership? I think they'll both be pretty high because they're both, um, you know, reasonably priced.

I think the jets is the play there over the commanders. I don't think the commanders will in terms of being able to score points. I don't think the commanders are going to get you there in that particular game. Mike, any thoughts on this? Yeah. So the commanders won't be popular at all. I have them in the bottom five. I have the jets in the top two. So yeah, jets will be more popular than the commanders. Other last second call outs here defensively. I like the Broncos a lot defensively. I think taking a stand on that game 3,300 for the Broncos or 2,600 for the Jets. I think that's where you probably want to be. Derek, Derek, thanks for the question. If you haven't already hit the like button, hit that, but it's kind of the end of the show at

this point, but go ahead and review the podcast too. We would really appreciate it. We're going to see you on Tuesday for the solo pod, for the recap, the lineup recap, and of course our early look, which I think is a really important part of the week, our early look, which will be an early look to week eight. I'm very much looking forward the week, our early look, which will be an early look to Week 8. I'm very much looking forward to it, but first I'm looking forward to cashing our lineups in Week 7. If you have questions, you can go ahead and tweet at us or message us. But for now, this is the Thursday Game by Game preview for Week 7.

My name is Sian Najab. That is Mike McCord. We will see you on Tuesday.