Fantasy Football Today - QB Upgrades, Tier 2 RBs, MIN-SEA and more (10/12 Fantasy Football Podcast)

Episode Date: October 12, 2020

Need an upgrade at QB? We'll talk about Andy Dalton and other QBs you can add on the waiver wire (7:10) plus buy low guys like Matthew Stafford and Lamar Jackson ... Recapping MIN-SEA (18:30)! Any concerns about Tyler Lockett? Then we've got some news and notes (22:40) and Five Big Topics as we cover the ever-changing NFL schedule (26:00), the 49ers offense (27:21), the unpredictability of Fantasy Football on a week-to-week basis (30:23), the state of the tier 2 RBs (35:15) and a quirky stat you need to know ... 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, @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

Kick off an exciting football season with BetMGM, an official sportsbook partner of the National Football League. Yard after yard, down after down, the sportsbook born in Vegas gives you the chance to take action to the end zone and celebrate every highlight reel play. And as an official sportsbook partner of the NFL, BetMGM is the best place to fuel your football fandom on every game day. With a variety of exciting features, BetMGM offers you plenty of seamless ways to jump straight onto the gridiron and to embrace peak sports action. Ready for another season of gridiron glory? What are you waiting for?

Get off the bench, into the huddle, and head for the end zone all season long. Visit BetMGM.com for terms and conditions. Must be 19 years of age or older. Ontario only. Please gamble responsibly. Gambling problem? For free assistance, call the Connex Ontario helpline at 1-866-531-2600.

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, that was a spectacular play. It's time to dominate your fantasy league. What a play. Off to the races.

Touchdown. Oh, he's done it again. Now here's some combination of Adam, Dave, Jamie, Heath, and Ben. What's going on, everybody? It is Monday afternoon, and we're checking in with some fantasy football news and advice for you here. Adam Azer, Chris Towers, and Ben Tracker.

Chris, question for you. Yes. When you saw the greatness of my FanDuel lineup, did you hack their system and mess up all their stats so you wouldn't have to pay me? That is exactly what happened. I figure I lost. I don't know because I don't think their scores have updated yet,

but I did have Dak Prescott. So my assumption is that I lost. Well, I had Amari Cooper, so, you know, it wasn't so good there. But I had Kyler Murray. So I hope I won and I hope I get those results. I'm sure everybody does. Hope you had a good DFS weekend. Hope you had a great regular seasonal weekend. Hope you had a great

regular seasonal fantasy football day with two more games to go. Monday night and, of course, Tuesday night. Ben Schrager is here. What's up, Ben? What's going on? Ready for Monday Night Football? I am ready for Monday Night Football. I know Michael Thomas, but hopefully Jared Cook. He looks good and Mike Williams might play as well.

Let's get right into it. We're going to talk about quarterback replacements. You need replacements for Dak Prescott or maybe you just need a better quarterback. We'll give you waiver wire options. We'll give you buy lows. Let's talk about Andy Dalton. We also have our five big topics. Our big topics today are the 49ers situation

and their offense right now. The NFL schedule and what we should expect going forward. Mid-tier, tier two running backs who have risen, who have fallen, and those we're not quite sure about. That's actually a good topic. And Matt Ryan, rest of season. And we might have some stats for you as well.

Okay, Andy Dalton. If you want to be optimistic about your Dallas Cowboys or maybe even Andy Dalton, we have to just look back to 2018. Because that year, he played his first eight games with A.J. Green and Dalton was on pace for 4,200 yards and 34 touchdowns with 16 interceptions. He's going to throw some picks. A.J. Green was on pace for nearly 1,400 yards and 12 touchdowns on 152 targets. Tyler Boyd was on pace for 1,240 yards and 10 touchdowns. So just two years ago, Andy Dalton was delivering big time for Tyler Boyd and A.J. Green and for himself. Again, 4,200-yard, 34-touchdown pace for Andy Dalton. So anyway, guys, how are you feeling?

I asked Dave and Heath yesterday. Chris, Ben, let's start with Chris. How are you feeling about the Dallas Cowboys passing game going forward? Well, I guess Jamie's opinion doesn't matter. I didn't ask him that. So that's fine. My general feeling about the Dallas Cowboys passing game is that the big three guys are probably only going to see a marginal drop in production.

And I think the bigger issue is going to be with the rest of the players. I think Ezekiel Elliott is not going to see as many targets. I think Dalton Schultz is not going to see as many targets. I think, thankfully, Cedric Wilson is not going to see as many targets. I think the most likely outcome Wilson is not going to see as many targets. I think the most likely outcome here is Dalton's fine. I think he's going to be good enough. I think he Dalton

not Dalton Schultz Andrew Dalton. Yes, I think he's going to be fine. I think he could be a fantasy relevant quarterback and I think they're going to throw a lot less. But what you usually see in situations where, you know,

teams are really spreading the ball around, you know, playing from behind, playing fast is, you know, like say you got to hurry up for wide receiver offense. You're going to see a lot more wide distribution of targets. Whereas when a team's playing by their game plan, you typically see a more concentrated target profile. And so that is my expectation, is that we're going to see the Cowboys play slower. They have been the fastest paced team in the NFL. Last I saw, they were fast on average between snaps four seconds faster than the second fastest team, which is just an absolutely absurd situation.

So I would guess they're going to play slower. There's going to be less volume, but there's going to be a higher share of the targets going to Gallup, Lamb and Cooper. And frankly, if you're the defense playing against the Cowboys, every time they don't throw it to Gallup, Lamb or Cooper, that's a win for you. Even if't throw it to Gallup, Lamb, or Cooper, that's a win for you.

Even if they throw it to Ezekiel Elliott, as good as he is in the passing game, the Cowboys are more dangerous when they get the ball into those three guys' hands. And with a downgraded quarterback, I would expect there's going to be more of a focus on getting it in those three guys' hands. Okay. Ben, would you like to follow up? Yeah, I mean, I think the volume is still going to be there for the most part.

I think Dalton is fully capable of throwing a ton. It's not going to be anywhere near the pace they're on already. I'm a bit concerned about the consistency of anyone except for lamb. I mean, Amari Cooper played 91% of snaps in week one and he was down to 63% this week. Michael Gallup this week was the guy on the field the whole time and he really didn't see that many targets until the end of the game.

I think it's going to be super tough to predict any of these pass catchers, but yes, Dalton Schultz is a big downgrade. Zeke may not get as many targets. I now firmly believe Alvin Kamara is the number one overall running back, but I still think the three wide receivers are usable. Gallup is still a really boomer bust one thing I will say is Gallup actually has led that team in snaps and routes run pretty much every week at wide receiver he's the guy who never comes off the field actually yeah which is kind of

surprising because he's been the least consistently used he's the downfield guy you know he's he's got his role and you just hope he comes down with him he made two terrific catches and won them the game yesterday basically all right so dalton um is not a bad free agent option with arizona coming up this week and uh he's four percent rostered right now i think i'll get up 30 30 percent by uh by wednesday morning over under on uh on Andy Dalton roster percentage. I'll take the under. I'll take the over just because we do have Derek Carr, Drew Brees,

Justin Herbert, and Russell Wilson on by this week, in addition to probably no Cam Newton. I mean, we don't know yet, but he hasn't been cleared yet, at least. And so there's a need for quarterback out there right now. How, I don't know how you keep track of who's on by, but good for you. I'm,

I'm judging. I'm giving the benefit of the doubt that the scoreboard page on CBS sports for week six has been updated. And it looks like it has because the dolphins are playing the jets. And that was not the case four days ago. Yeah. So actually, if you go to our player pages in your league, if you have Andy Dalton or something, you go to his player page, you check his schedule.

Those schedules are all updated, so good to go there. So how about replacements? Waver wire replacements. Shraggy B, anyone jump out to you that could be available? This is a general. You could be the Dak Prescott manager. You could be frustrated with Carson Wentz. You could be in quarterback hell, and you need need a quarterback who are we looking at on waivers

then we'll talk about buy lows let's start with the waiver wire yeah my favorite is Ryan Tannehill but his roster percentage is too high for me to consider him like a widely available guy he's over 70% rostered so widely available it's Ryan Fitzpatrick he has the Jets next week of course this is when Ryan Fitzpatrick gets started in a lot of leagues and probably doesn't score any touchdowns. But I do think it's a great matchup. They're going to be in the red zone a lot and he's going to be able to move the ball.

And they don't have their vulture anymore from the one-yard line. It's not an automatic handoff to Jordan Howard anymore from the one. So maybe Fitzmagic will even run in a couple of touchdowns. Yeah, he's now scored 24 or more fantasy points in six-point-per-passing touchdown leagues to Jordan Howard anymore from the one. So maybe Fitzmagic will even run in a couple of touchdowns. Yeah. He's now scored 24 or more fantasy points in six point per passing

touchdown leagues in eight of his last 11 games, but he's already, he's failed to do that twice this year in five games, but he's come through in three or five games. It's hard to argue with the results. Well, I guess he's come through. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Like his last four games, 28, 27, 20, and 33 fantasy points. Jets coming up, as Ben mentioned.

Jimmy Garoppolo is 55% roster. Fitzpatrick, by the way, is 43%. Garoppolo is 55%. Baker Mayfield, 60%. And Chris, what do you think about Derek Carr? 48% rostered. 24 more fantasy points in three of his last four games.

You know, very good receivers. Now, well, okay. I don't know. That might be a stretch. But an upgrade with Ruggs back. Waller's obviously a stud. Jacob's getting involved in the passing game. What do you think about Derek Carr?

He is on by. And then Tampa Bay next, you know, when he comes back. And then the schedule actually looks great. After Tampa Bay in week, that would be week seven weeks, eight, nine, and 10. He faces teams that are currently 27th,

28th and 29th and fantasy points allowed to quarterbacks. Your thoughts on car. The problem is I'm not adding a second quarterback who I'm not going to use until week eight. And that's the case with Derek. I mean, look, you,

you don't have to not start him against the Chicago Bears or Tampa Bay Buccaneers in week seven, but you probably won't. You probably have a better option. And so if you're looking for a replacement, Derek Carr is not good enough to view as someone that you're going to ride with on your bench for two weeks, I don't think. If you've got a deep bench, fine, but I would much rather have Ryan Fitzpatrick. I would much rather have Kirk Cousins, especially if I need week six help in

particular. He gets Atlanta Cousins gets Atlanta week six. All right. How about some buy lows? There any quarterbacks you guys want to buy low on Matt Ryan is the obvious answer. He's been dreadful three weeks in a row, but he also basically has not had Julio Jones in those three weeks. And Calvin Ridley looked fine this week. He looked like he was back to himself. And I think the biggest thing with Matt Ryan and watching him, obviously I'm not inside of his head, but it looks like he just doesn't trust the guys that he has, you know,

watching the last two games, especially the, the biggest thing that I've taken away is that he's just, he's been unwilling to pull the trigger with especially the intermediate and deeper plays. And when Julio Jones gets back, and presumably that will be in week six because he was expecting he was a game-time decision on Sunday, I would expect Matt Ryan is going to play much more confidently and that

should work out extremely well. Ben, anyone for you? I'll throw, I'll throw Lamar Jackson in there. I think there's a couple of situations that you can try to target. If the Lamar Jackson manager has Aaron Rogers on his bench, because he was a late round pick. If he has, you know, he picked up Teddy Bridgewater and he's confident in what Bridgewater has done. He may be willing to move them. And there are a lot of teams out there that are still struggling at running back still struggling a wide receiver with injury if you can get lamar jackson for your wide receiver two or running back two i am totally cool with it but even lower than that i i think lamar jackson's rushing floor is amazing and the volume won't go up that much but

he is a top 10 quarterback if you're really struggling at the position he could still be in the top two yeah this is this is a perfect time to buy low as well coming off a game where he rushed i believe for twice for three yards which is career lows across the board and i think that's just he was he mispracticed for the first time on consecutive days in his career, had a knee thing, had an illness. Neither of them was considered serious. But, you know, coming off that, he

probably didn't play his normal style. And moving forward, I would expect he will. I'll also throw out Cam Newton, who, you know, the person who has him has another option at this point, or presumably does because he hasn't played in two weeks. And once he's back, I think he's going to be himself.

He's been asymptomatic, and I think you might be able to get him for fairly cheap. And then Matthew Stafford. I think now that they're past their bye, Kenny Galladay should be fully healthy. I think Matthew Stafford is going to be a lot better moving forward. Yeah, and his schedule is pretty damn good,

at least for the next five weeks. Maybe the Colts not good, but Stafford's next two games are at the Jaguars and at Atlanta. So those matchups are about as good as it gets. Boom. Let me ask you about Lamar Jackson and what you'd be willing to give up for Lamar Jackson. Would you be willing to give up DK Metcalf for Lamar Jackson and what you'd be willing to give up for Lamar Jackson, would you

be willing to give up DK Metcalf for Lamar Jackson? No. Because Metcalf might be your third receiver. If I'm starting Metcalf on a week-to-week basis as my third receiver, I have three

top 10 wide receivers. He might have been the third receiver you drafted. He might be your best receiver, but you could have two guys that are still must starts. And now you take a position of strength and you turn it into Lamar Jackson because you just lost Dak Prescott. You know, you might be in a situation where

the way football is right now, the way Russell Wilson and Kyler Murray and Josh Allen, and I guess it was Dak, the fact that Dak got hurt actually makes everyone who does have a bad quarterback, it does make your team a little bit stronger because you're not going to lose to Dak every week, if that makes sense. But I guess what I'm saying is if you feel like, man, I have Carson Wentz and Matt Ryan right now, or Carson Wentz and Stafford, I don't know. If you don't have an elite quarterback

that you can, then you can't really win. You can't compete with the five or six teams that do. Then I think trading Metcalf for Lamar Jackson is justifiable. I would give Woods. I would give Evans.

Those are two guys I would try to sell high on after their touchdowns. Evans is absolutely, I think, the tippy-top sell-high guy right now. Well, yeah. I would rather have Metcalf than those guys, too. I think DK is really, really good at them.

I get it. I guess my point is you just might have to overpay to get a stud quarterback if you feel like you can't win without one and i sort of feel like you can't win without one this year it's gonna be tough i would try to get through at least this week with like fitzpatrick and then see what happens okay dk mechapp's pretty good huh it's yeah you're right uh it is the perfect combination of player and wide receiver and

quarterback it's just it's magic yeah it's pretty great we gotta talk about tyler lockett Yeah, you're right. It is the perfect combination of player and wide receiver and quarterback. It's just magic. Yeah, it's pretty great. We got to talk about Tyler Lockett. People are a little concerned about Tyler Lockett. Ben, what are we promoting today? We are promoting Apple Podcast Reviews. You can leave an Apple Podcast Review.

We will get your question answered. We do them on Wednesdays on that trade show. We also do it a Saturday episode dedicated to your Apple podcast questions and your emails. But if you leave that five-star review, I will literally manually go through there and copy paste your question, put it in Adam's notes. So it'll be answered. So you go in there, leave your question. We'll get it answered. It could be trade, like I said, or start set. Either one works. Also join our Facebook group, facebook.com slash groups slash fantasy football today, or just search fantasy football today.

We have a post every single day, whether today is an early waiver wire post, we'll have start set. We'll have threads about trades. And you could ask any of our fellow listeners. There's over 20,000 of them in there for advice. And Adam goes in with a Q and a, I have a Q andA every Thursday afternoon.

So it's another way to interact. Facebook, search Fantasy Football Today. Join the group. Ben and I have had a little bit of pushback on the Apple podcast questions because I'm not sure if you've noticed, Draggy, but we're getting a lot. Your promotion is working.

And we're getting to the point where I don't know that I can answer all of them. But I would say you have a very good chance. Just in case we don't read them all. I don't want people to feel like we falsely... It's not a guarantee. Okay, that's all. I don't want people to feel like we lied to them.

So I will try my best. I promise. We will try our very hardest. But it is not easy. It is not easy. And also some of the names on there are very vile. So very naughty stuff. You should be ashamed of yourself, everybody.

Yeah, keep doing it. It's funny. All right. Seattle, 27. Minnesota, 26. Vikings. Wait, Adam. Yes.

One. Uh-huh. If you weren't on the FFT Twitch stream on Sunday morning, Adam got got with a great name. That was a fantastic moment. Should I just spell it for everybody? What's that? Should I spell it?

Yeah, I'll spell it. That's your call. Yeah, I'll spell it. Go for it. So, yeah, everybody on Twitch, I try to say their name. And sometimes it's just like a bunch of jumbled letters and numbers. And I don't really know how to pronounce it. But I look at a lot of them.

I'm like, is this going to get me in trouble? I always say no, but sometimes the answer might be yes. So it was H-O-W-S. I think it was U-R after that. H-O-W-S-U-R. And then A-S-P-E-N. Like the city. Yeah, there's a city in Colorado.

Yeah, how's your... And I said it out loud. And also... And I was like, oh, no! One other thing. I'm sitting right here. You guys just promoted a bunch of stuff. No love for the Fantasy Football Today newsletter.

Go to cbssports.com slash newsletters. It's in the plug schedule, Chris. Subscribe to the Fantasy Football Today newsletter. And, you know, it's good. You get stuff directly to your email every morning. You have two... slash newsletters and subscribe to the Fantasy Football Today newsletter. It's good. You get stuff directly to your email every morning. You have too many guitars looking at your room right now. I have four guitars, a bass, and a mandolin. Are you good enough at guitar to justify having four guitars, a bass, and a mandolin?

One of the guitars is currently not constructed because that's like a long-term project and I'm trying to build one. And I mean, no, I'm not good, but I try. I'm impressed. We all need hobbies.

I only have one guitar up here, so you know, I miss my guitar i miss my electric guitar chris i see yours every day when i when i'm on with you i get a little jealous um all right seattle 26 and minnesota 20 oh it's out 27 minnesota 26 uh vikings have a formula for success they will run run run run they had the ball for 39 and a half minutes in this game so again you know I bring up time of possession a lot if you're like why did Chris Carson only

get how many carries did he get eight carries they had the ball for 20 minutes and 32 seconds so it wasn't working in their favor this was actually like I thought a really promising game for Chris Carson seven targets I love it was not at all a Chris Carson game,

and he still had, what, 19 fantasy points or something? He's on pace for 67 catches. Yeah, he's not coming off the field. No. In fact, somebody asked us, one of our topics is tier two running backs who have risen. I think you could argue he's a first-round pick right now. Yeah.

Of course, Rashad Penny could come back at some point. I don't know that that matters. Carlos Hyde's injured, but again, I just... He's the... What a great touchdown run he had, by the way. He's playing great. It's been great for him. From the Vikings standpoint, let's talk about Alexander Madison. All we know right

now is that Dalvin Cook is having an MRI on his groin, and Madison 72% roster should be close to 100 by Wednesday, right? Unless we find out that Cook's playing this week. Probably should be close to 100 either way. Yeah, probably. Honestly, not

much to be said there. He's going to be a workhorse and you're going to be happy if you have him. He had 20 carry. He had 20 carries in a game in which Dalvin Cook had 17 carries. They run the ball. Thielen, great game. That's two in a row.

And if you have Tyler Lockett and you're frustrated because Lockett has six catches for 83 yards on nine targets in his last two games, well, weeks two and three, Adam Thielen had six catches for 60 yards and a touchdown on 13 targets. Not much better. In fact, fewer yards. So, you know, don't be

too afraid, I guess, of Lockett, but I'll get your thoughts on that. D1 has a 32% target share. Give me your thoughts on Justin Jefferson, who was quiet, and your thoughts on Tyler Lockett. Ben. Thoughts on Jefferson is that the volume may not be there at all, because

this was a game that Kirk Cousins did throw a lot through 39 times and he just went to feel and then he spread out the targets throughout he threw to the running backs he threw to the tight ends more than he has so Jefferson's going to be a big player bust guy I like him a little better than Michael Gallup but he's going to be in that same conversation you're hoping for the big plays super talented player but he's just that boomer bust flex wide receiver three and then on the locket standpoint look russell wilson threw for 217 yards and most of that came on the last drive with dk metcalf being his go-to i am not concerned at all russell's gonna throw for much more and lockett is gonna continue to be involved

great time to buy low he's my favorite buy low wide receiver. Tyler Lockett is. Yep. Okay. Tyler Lockett. Let's see. Man, I always get to the same names. I'll try to do some running backs.

Tyler Lockett or Todd Gurley? Lockett. Lockett. Tyler Lockett or Chris Carson? Carson. Mixon. Mixon. Interesting.

James Robinson. J-Rob. Lockett. Lockett. Okay. You know, so many times we get emails, grade the trade, and people are giving up running backs. And you look at the trade, and on paper it might be a good deal, but I always tell people, like, don't underestimate the importance of your running back depth.

You don't know how important it is until you need it. And look, McCaffrey, Barkley, Cook all got hurt already. Running backs get hurt, and it's frustrating. So I don't know. That was a bit of a tangent. I'm sorry. Well, the other thing of note there is like, it is a lot easier to pick up a random wide receiver

who has the upside to score 12 points than it is a running back. Exactly right. Better way of saying it, my point. All right, that's it for that game. And your news and notes, you got Christian McCaffrey unlikely to play this week. So Mike Davis should have another good game against the Bears.

Raheem Mostert is the Falcons interim head coach. Do we have any hot, spicy takes on this? Not at all. Okay. Kyle Allen's going to remain the Washington quarterback if he's healthy. And as a Terry McLaurin manager, I'm happy to hear that because Alex Smith, I don't know. He was so bad.

I would anticipate Smith gets better, but I do feel like Allen will throw for more yards. You said Raheem Mostert is going to be the Falcons interim head coach. Raheem Morris is going to be the Falcons interim head coach. That would be stocked down for Raheem Mostert. I don't know if they play at the same time every week, but that would be really hard for him to pull off. Yeah, my bad.

But yeah, no impact. I was just saying, I think Kyle Allen will throw for more yards than Alex Smith would. Yes. I don't want to be that guy, but Alex Smith did not look like he should be playing in an NFL game yet. Give him a little slack.

You love to get his feet wet. Right, right. But like, I hope he proves me wrong if he does end up playing more. But from what we saw yesterday, they had two first downs on the first half on the first drive of the second half with him in. And I think everything else was either three and out punt or a turnover

on downs. So random thought because you're good at this. Do you have the second half stats for Baker Mayfield because he was having like a huge first half and somehow he couldn't crack 20 fantasy points only through a couple interceptions late in that game, right?

I don't recall. You can do it, right? I'm looking. Okay, you're good at that. You'll get it. Let's see. No positive test results for the Patriots and the Titans. We'll see.

Chris has a few hours to figure it out. Is he still going to start Taysom Hill over Josh Allen? I hope not. What does he need? Well, let's see. A braid. It might not work because that was the 2QB league

and I was projected for like 190 points regardless. So, I mean, look, the thing is they went two days without a positive test before having the positive tests on Sunday. There's no justification for this.

You have to start Josh Allen over Taysom Hill. It's not like you're getting a four. Taysom Hill's four is zero, just like Josh Allen. Exactly. In fact, Taysom Hill has a game with negative one. All right. Matchup is a little closer than I thought. Okay.

Amari Cooper, Zach Ertz, and Malcolm Brown. Michael Thomas not going to play. Jared Cook seems like he'll play. Mike Williams could play tonight. Dallas defensive tackle Tristan Hill may have torn his ACL. That's the last thing. Well, that's one of the last things they need. Giants linebacker Lorenzo Carter could be out for the season.

That's a pretty big hit for them. Kansas City offensive guard, Kelechi Osemele. Remember, they lost both of their starting guards from last year. Now Osemele tore tendons in both knees, so that's a tough loss for the Chiefs. And Cleveland put cornerback Greedy Williams on IR. He hasn't played this season, but they also lost

a safety, Ronnie Harrison, in the concussion protocol. Harrison, I believe, was filling in for an injured starter. So that secondary is banged up and they are at Pittsburgh next week. Time for our five big topics. Big topic number one from Andrew Courtney. How much crazier can the schedule get? And will we get a week 18 or even a week 19 by the end of this year?

Schedule can get a lot crazier. We can definitely have a week 18. The NFL has said they want to avoid week 18 at all costs, but they are probably going to have a week 18. What makes it complicated for us is if week 18 has three games, we're not going to push the championship of the playoffs back for fantasy. But if week 18 is a full slate of games, we're probably looking at a week 15, 16, 17 fantasy football playoffs. And I think that I love to look at schedules and matchups coming up, even though it's a little unpredictable, but everything in fantasy is unpredictable.

So it's just, it's a guide. It helps. Based on what happened last week, you know, you definitely have to put a little bit less stock into upcoming schedule. You know, the teams are going to stay the same, but the arrangement, the order in which teams are going to play their opponents could obviously change quite a bit. So to sit here

and say, oh, Matthew Stafford has two great matchups coming up, yeah, odds are it's going to stay that way. But it's very possible that games get flipped around. So take that with a grain of salt. The Vegan Pagan asks, does the 49ers quarterback situation downgrade George Kittle, around. So take that with a grain of salt. TheVeganPagan asks, does the 49ers quarterback

situation downgrade George Kittle, Deebo Samuel, and Brandon Ayuk? Jimmy Garoppolo wasn't healthy yesterday. He shouldn't have been playing. I think Dave pretty much acknowledged that. Kyle Shanahan pretty much said that,

both at halftime and at the end of the game. So maybe he doesn't play in Week 7. But George Kittle just had 15 catches for, what, 158 yards with CJ Beathard and Nick Mullins. I haven't met a 180. The worst game of his life. 183 yards. Yeah. So like I think Debo Samuel and Brandon Ayuk are fringy options right now. Anyway, I think you're probably not looking at them

as anything more than wide receiver threes who, you know, both have big play potential. Both are dangerous with the ball in their hands. And so you're hoping one of them scores a touchdown in any given week. But who are you trading? Or, I mean, you can't even think about sitting George Kittle, but you're not trading him. There's like four good tight ends. Right.

But are you still willing to trade for him, treat him like a second round pick, George Kittle? George Kittle is... The one thing about George Kittle is, so more than any, I think more than any wide receiver or tight end, he is responsible for his production because he is routinely in the top 10 in yards after catch every single season,

despite the fact that everyone else in the top 20 is almost always running backs. His ability to make plays with the ball in his hands is like no fan. John Smith have shown some potential for that, but it's basically unprecedented in the current NFL. There's nobody else who can consistently create with the ball in their hands after the catch the way George Kittle does. So he doesn't need a super accurate, a super accurate 15 yard, uh, you know, air yards kind of play to, to get a big play.

He can catch the ball from eight yards out and score for, you know, score an 80 yard touchdown. We've seen him do that several times. And if you want to go back to recent history, just go back to 2018 and Nick Mullen started the last eight games of that season, and he was actually on pace for more than 4,500 yards and 26 touchdowns, and George Kittle was incredible. He was on pace for almost 1,600 yards and 158 targets. I mean, he wasn't going to be that good over a full season, but Kittle was great. The only difference is that he didn't really have much competition that year. He had so many more targets

than anyone else on the team. This year, we just saw last week, Debo got eight targets, Ayuk had six targets, Bourne had four targets, and Kittle had eight targets. Maybe the target share goes down a little bit. However, the good news, their defense is not as good this year. They are throwing

5.3 more times per game more this year than they did last year, so should help uh jeffrey baker i asked for hot topics he said a discussion on how fragile it seems a fantasy roster can be week to week this season whether it's injury pendulum swinging performance or simply guys not getting touches all we as fantasy managers can do is laugh and move on well i don't agree with the last portion of it because i think we should continue to have fun with this and not just move on but this year we're seeing more running back splits than ever we're seeing a lot of wide receiver cores not have super concentrated targets and we've still the lack of running back concentrated touches is a lot to do with the injuries. So yes,

it stinks, but there are waiver wire options every single week to pick up and fill in. And in almost all of my leagues, actually every single one of my league, I don't have starting lineup of guys. I drafted. Usually there's some leagues where I drafted a team and I can at least pull together some starters from who I drafted this.

It's kind of 50 50 at this point with waiver wire pickups and guys I had to trade for. I do have one league where I've basically only swapped out my quarterback every week, but that's just good luck. This is something that our dearly departed friend Ben Gretch wrote about in the offseason and talked about quite a bit was how the NFL, the way the NFL is changing and the way NFL offenses are running, it's more spreading the ball around. It's more using multiple running

backs. We see the Texans, we see the Cardinals, we see the, you know, there are teams with, you know, who are running routinely two running backs on the field at the same time, true running backs. And so this is an argument, I think, in favor of expanding fantasy rosters and giving yourself more opportunities to take advantage of... There are 50 wide receivers in any given week who could score 12 fantasy points in a PPR league. And you often have to make the decision between two guys who are in that group of 30 to 50. And there's not necessarily any difference between them.

They're all useful. They're all viable. And so this is just where the NFL is going. And I think it's probably something where we should probably expand the standard fantasy lineup to take advantage of that. It's an opportunity, is what I say. But what he's touching on, what he's getting to, Jeffrey Baker, is what I think in terms of professionally, it's the most frustrating thing.

Oh, of course. You can sit here and research and watch and think you've got a grip on something, and then it's sports. It's completely unpredictable. Just think about, for me in particular, I have Daryl Henderson in four leagues, and the way I feel about my team every week is so different.

And I have Ronald Jones in a lot of leagues too. Those are two of the most frustrating guys. You probably benched them for some good... Henderson, anyway. Probably benched them this week. I did in three out of four leagues. So it's frustrating. I think if you can, if you somehow can,

you try to turn these players into, no doubt about it, studs. Obviously, you have to give more. But the second you can sell high on someone who you know is going to be up and down, you do it. And you try to get a player that you know you're going to be starting every week.

With Jones, the one thing... I think Jones is a good example of one of the ways know is going to be up and down, you do it. And you try to get a player that you know you're going to be starting every week with Jones. The one thing I think Jones is a good example of one of the ways in which what we try to do on this Monday podcast is kind of get into some of the numbers that are below the surface level. And so Jones is a good example of after week two, everyone's like, oh, God, Leonard Fournette.

This is his job. Leonard Fournette just made Ronald Jones completely irrelevant. And then if you actually looked at game log, Leonard Fournette, this is his job. Leonard Fournette just made Ronald Jones completely irrelevant. And then if you actually looked at game log, Leonard Fournette basically played like two drives where he got all the touches. And before that, it was completely split evenly, if not tilted towards Jones. And so you have to do more research now

and you have to listen to more analysis and read smarter analysis and you know i like to think we we do a pretty good job yeah but you know who doesn't care about your research chris bruce bruce arians yeah bruce arians doesn't care about your research like i mean you got to feel pretty good about ronald jones at least being start worthy. But how many 17 carry 100 yard performances are remaining for him? If Leonard Fournette's back next week, it might be zero. It might be one. What I meant was more the opposite. That everyone was like, oh, wow, this is Leonard Fournette's job.

Oh, yeah. That was like the default heading into week three. But it was the kind of thing where if you actually looked into it a little more, it didn't necessarily seem like that was actually what they were doing. I'm not necessarily saying Ronald Jones is, I think probably there might be too much certainty on Ronald Jones now. Yes. But do you,

do you have a different example? Let's spin it forward now. And maybe this goes into our next question from Al risers and fallers in the RB two tier. Areers and fallers in the RB2 tier. Are we seeing anything, guys, in some below-the-surface numbers that would tell us something about a backfield right now? Well, so I'll look at, like, Jonathan Taylor is a good example. He was one of my winners in my winners and losers column this week.

And, you know, I think he only had 15 touches in this game, which is not a huge number, but this was not the kind of game where Jonathan Taylor looked like he was going to play well, at least the way the game ended up going. Phillip Rivers, I think, threw a season-high 37 passes in this one, if I'm not mistaken. They only ran the ball 18 times total

or something like that. And so my assumption had been, well, that's the kind of game that Naheem Hines is going to play a big role in. And it turns out Jonathan Taylor does seem to just have kind of a game flow proof role. And David Montgomery is another example of that. I've been kind of touting him the last couple of weeks since the Tariq Cohen injury. And I think Thursday night, he didn't play well, and he had 19 fantasy points. There are situations like that, I think,

where if you have a guy who, no matter how the game goes, looks like he's going to have a consistent role, I think those are the guys who are rising. Chris Carson, another one. David Montgomery, it's going to be ugly, but there's no style points in fantasy. And if he's going to get six targets every game, like it looks like he is with Tariq Cohen out,

and he's going to be 85% of the carries for them, David Montgomery is going to be a must-start fantasy running back. Right. And let me tell you something about Jonathan Taylor. I'm just going to read. This is a really useful tool. And again, we've only played five games, so things will change. But here are where his upcoming opponents rank in fantasy points allowed to running backs. 20th, 31st, 5th, 26, 32, 26, 26th, 28th, 29th, 28th. That goes right up to week 15.

And then Pittsburgh in week 16. Yeah. On paper, his schedule is great. And I buy it. Cincinnati, Detroit, Tennessee, Green Bay, Tennessee, Houston, Las Vegas, Houston. Yeah. We're pretty sure that much of that is a is, is a bad run defense situation there.

Not just, we haven't seen a, we haven't seen a great Jonathan Taylor game yet either. Like we know he, no, well, we, I assume he's better than what he's done so far.

We, yeah, me too. Week two, 26 carries 101 yards and a touchdown. That's the best. Even that that's less than four yards per carry, right?

We haven't seen him explode. Uh, and, uh, he has scored. And maybe he's going to be touchdown dependent, but quite frankly, I think Taylor's going to score touchdowns. He's got three of rushing touchdowns so far. All right, Ben, so let me throw it to you, right?

The question was risers and fallers in the RB2 tier. So I had the kind of obvious risers from... I took this as draft day RB2. Kareem Hunt, Chris Carson, Jonathan Taylor. Those are the most obvious ones. I had Raheem Mostert as a riser because they're not

as... They're not spreading the ball around to running backs as much as they did last year. And he's been freaking great. I had Devin Singletary there, but there's a bit of a question mark because I don't know what Zach Moss' role will be. Find out hopefully tomorrow. Who stands out to you?

I have Ingram, Akers, Swift, and Dobbins are obvious fallers. Yes. But Ben, yeah, Ben, Mostert, Singletary, Le'Veon Bell, Todd Gurley, Ronald Jones, Melvin Gordon, David Johnson. Where do they fall? Where do they fit in? So I think David Johnson is one that I'm pretty confident in will continue to be just an RB2,

not going to have RB1 upside, but not going to fall off. I'm scared of Melvin Gordon. I think what Phillip Lindsay showed early on when he did play is that they probably are just going to split and both be pretty efficient. One name that you don't have on the list, but I wanted to include was James Robinson because he wasn't drafted as an RB two, but he is an RB two, maybe even RB one. And this week, super promising performance, even though it was his most disappointing performance,

you look at the point total, he had a fumble. So you subtract two points out of there. He only rushed for 48 yards, but seven targets, five catches on the field until the last snap, which is something that he didn't have early on. They hyped him up before this week as a guy who is finally, you know, ready for pass protection, going to be used more. And he was used more. So he's a guy who I think is a huge riser. And I have him not as high as Kareem Hunt, not as high as Chris Thompson,

Chris Carson, but right around that Raheem Mostert, Jonathan Taylor level. Yeah. Okay. Chris Carson, but right around that Raheem Mostert, Jonathan Taylor level. What about are Ronald Jones or Le'Veon Bell must-start guys going forward? I think, unfortunately, Le'Veon is. I think the volume's not going anywhere. He played two-thirds of

the snaps this week. He played over 90% of the snaps in that first game before he got hurt they're going to continue to use him i don't think he's very good but the state of the running back position is if you can guarantee me 15 touches 12 to 15 touches i'm probably starting you as my flex maybe even rb2 i don't think we know much about singletary i don't think we know much about jones because when f for nets back, he will have some sort of role. And I, maybe we know something about Todd Gurley.

He had some targets this week, but at the same time, he has looked really, really bad up until this week. So I don't know about Gurley. I hate Adam Gase. So does Le'Veon Bell. Did you see the tweet he liked? It just like,

if you didn't see it, he only had one target in that game i i'll admit i did not watch the new york jets closely i try to avoid that if at all possible i watched the game gotta you just gotta take care of your mental health i agree like this yeah um long year so i was like oh well maybe they worked him in slowly that no he played 46 out of 69 offensive snaps he was on the field for 33 of the 45 passes how does he only get one target when you don't have any wide receivers besides jameson crowder who belong in the nfl why are you blaming adam look i'm fine hating adam gaze

yeah but what do you think adam gaze told joe flacco don't throw to levy on bell i don't think he's on the field you're the like you're the coach. This is your job. Like your job is to put guys in the best situations. And Le'Veon Bell got one target. Yeah, he just kept throwing a Crowder. Yeah, that's just like in Crowder. Great throw to Crowder.

But like Jeff Smith had what? Eight target 11 targets 11 targets. Throw the ball downfield a little bit late. But like this was the thing is that in training camp at at the end of training camp, when it was like, oh, wow, Frank Gore looks like the best running back in camp, which, okay. But they were using Le'Veon Bell split out wide more. That was a thing that they were,

and he was apparently looking really good in that role. And he's a talented wide receiver. He can do that. They did it three times this week. Put your guys in positions to succeed, and that is not something Adam Gase does unless you're a slot-wide receiver. Well, he puts players in position to succeed

as soon as he trades them. When they leave. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, look, it's tough with Bell. You know you're going to get work. You're going to have to start him. So, look, one attitude could be, okay, I'm just going to start him.

Or one attitude could be like, I'm going to trade him to Chris Towers and be like, your problem now. Sure, but I probably wouldn't give up much of anything for him right now. How would you value him?

Is he a top 60 overall player, the fifth round pick? Yeah. Probably low end there. Would you get it? Would you rather have a CD lamb or Le'Veon Bell? I would not trade CD lamb for Le'Veon Bell right now. No.

I mean, if CD lamb is my flex and I don't have an RB2, I'm probably doing it because you're struggling if you're just trying to rely on a waiver wire guy at RB2 and you don't hit with a couple of the big guys. Right. Running back is a position where you can take a player who you might not think is very good. And maybe I'm wrong about Le'Veon Bell. I mean, I've made my opinion pretty clear. Maybe he is good. I don't know. I'm not a scout. I could be wrong. But just generally speaking, you can take a player that you don't think is very good,

but you know is going to get opportunity. I'm not so sure how many people really thought David Johnson's like this great player, but they just saw like Carlos Hyde got all this work. I'm just going to draft David Johnson and you're getting the results. He's been fine. I don't personally, I don't care if a running back is good. I'm old enough to remember week one of the 2019 NFL season when the entire fantasy football community thought that Matt Nagy was

the worst coach in the history of football because he was giving Mike Davis touches over David Montgomery. And now Mike Davis just replaced the guy who we all consider the best running back in football and has been better. So talent doesn't really matter. There are marginal differences, but for the most part, it's the opportunity.

The problem with Le'Veon Bell is I just don't trust that the opportunity is going to be as good as I would like it to be. If he was getting five to six targets every week, if he was getting goal line work and I could feel confident in that, then he would be a top 20, maybe top 15 running. I mean, that is so interesting. We still don't know who the goal linebacker is. They don't get goal line looks.

It might not matter. All right. Last question was from Will Reese, and he asked Matt Ryan, rest of season. I do think we sort of covered that. Is it as simple as if he has Julio, he's going to be great? If he doesn't, he's going to struggle? I don't even think great i think he's going to be a startable quarterback with julio i mean could sneak into the top three if he throws a lot of touchdowns but he doesn't

have the rushing floor and like you're just relying on typically second half garbage time points from matt ryan and it has worked over the past two years, but he does need Julio, and he probably needs a favorable matchup as well. I think you're being a little harsh. It is similar to what we just talked about with running backs, with Matt Ryan, actually. It's just, it's opportunity. He's going to

throw the ball. He's also a great player. He's pretty good, but they almost threw the ball 700 times last season. Yeah. He's going to throw. He's going to throw. It doesn't really matter if he's good. He's pretty good, but they almost threw the ball 700 times last season. Yeah, he's going to throw. He's going to throw. And so it doesn't really matter if he's good. He's fine. I think he's one of the 14 or 15 best quarterbacks in the NFL probably, but if he has Julio Jones and he has Calvin Ridley

and he has to throw the ball 46 times every game, then Matt Ryan's going to be a top 12 fantasy quarterback. Okay. We just have one stat to give and then we're heading out. Ben Schrager, you're on the clock. One stat, most targets without an end zone target this year, Jamison Crowder, 33, makes sense, a lot of targets. Brandon Cooks, 33, makes sense.

Robert Woods, 31 targets without an end zone target. This is something where we've been like oh we're waiting on the robert woods touchdowns they're gonna come positive regression it's gonna come he's just not getting end zone targets if you're gonna get a robert woods touchdown it's probably a rush or a pitch inside the five but don't expect these targets and touchdowns to come in the end zone for ro Woods. And I'd be cool selling him high. Although in PPR, he does get enough targets to warrant that wide receiver two status. You know, Jamie and I have talked a lot about the Rams and I've said they're basically the 49ers.

Now they just run the ball. Or I think I said, Jared golf is like Jimmy Garoppolo. He's extremely efficient and he throws about 30 times per game. So Jamie made a good point. You know, they're going to get into their division. They've basically just beat the crap out of the NFC East so far. They have 4-0 against the NFC East. They have as many wins against the NFC East as the NFC East has

combined. They have four wins and the NFC East has four wins. Wow. So I looked at their schedule today, the Ram schedule, and they only have two games rest of season against teams that currently rank in the top 10 and scoring. And both of those games are against Seattle who's second in scoring points

per game. Um, now that said San Francisco, that's their next appointment, a point opponent. They could get better. Miami's 13th. Tampa Bay's 11th. So it's not like they have a bunch of bad offenses. Arizona's 16th. But their schedule has a lot of teams that they might not have to throw that much against is my point. So

that's just something to keep in mind if you're looking at Robert Woods, who had his second longest touchdown catch of his career. You are not going to get long touchdowns from him typically. What did he have in this game? Six targets? He had five targets.

Not even six. He's probably on pace for less than 100 right now. Totally fine player. Not saying give him up for anything. Ben just said it. Maybe an opportunity to sell high on robert woods yeah i like robert woods i like him too i'm i'm nervous to say it it's got to be like really high you need running back help this could be a guy you you flip it's i just i love anybody

whose team tries as hard to get the ball in their in his hands as he as the rams do and uh you know he had the what 18 19 carries in 2018, 17 in 2019. That's just part of his game. He's going to get an extra 150 to 200 yards and maybe a couple of scores every year because of that. Would you trade Robert Woods for Jonathan Taylor? Let's say in full PPR? I would rather have Taylor.

Yeah. I think it's a fairly realistic trade in PPR because the catches haven't been there for Taylor. All right, guys. Great show. Thank you very much, Chris and Ben. I think it's a fairly realistic trade in PPR because the catches haven't been there for Taylor. Alright guys, great show. Thank you very much. Chris and Ben. I'm Adam. We will talk to you on Tuesday with the Waiver Wire podcast and if you need more Waiver Wire help, you can come hang out with us while we watch some football

Tuesday night and tell you who to pick up on the Waiver Wire on Twitch, twitch.com slash FF today. We'll talk to you tomorrow with the Chase Cosey show.