Fantasy Football Today - Rankings Risers/Fallers, Waiver Wire Targets, Kirk Cousins Injury Impacts Vikings Core, & More! (10/31 Fantasy Football Dynasty Podcast)

Episode Date: November 2, 2023

Looking to dominate your fantasy league just like your redraft league? Look no further than Fantasy Football Today Dynasty hosted by our very own Heath Cummings! Download and follow Fantasy Football Today Dynasty on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and wherever else you find your podcasts.  Matt Donnelly joins Heath Cummings on FFT Dynasty! (0:00) The guys discuss Kirk Cousins's injury (7:00) and how it impacts Justin Jefferson, Jordan Addison, and TJ Hockenson. Then, we discuss the players that broke out in Week 8, including Will Levis (10:51), Jahmyr Gibbs (14:00), Trey McBride, (17:10) and Dalton Kincaid. Next, the guys dive deep into the waiver wire. (21:30) Are Taylor Heinicke, Royce Freeman, and Demario Douglas must-add players this week? Finally, we wrap up with risers and fallers, (31:20) including Sam Howell, Dameon Pierce, Miles Sanders, Cooper Kupp, and others. Follow our FFT team on Twitter: @FFToday, @AdamAizer, @JameyEisenberg, @daverichard, @heathcummingssr, @ctowerscbs Follow the brand new FFT TikTok account: https://www.tiktok.com/@fftoday Watch FFT on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/fantasyfootballtoday Get 20% off Fantasy Football Today merch: https://store.cbssports.com/collections/fantasy-football-today%20?utm_source=podcast-apple-com&utm_medium=web&utm_campaign=buy-our-merch&utm_content=fantasy-football-collection Join our Facebook group https://www.facebook.com/groups/FantasyFootballToday/ Sign up for the FFT newsletter https://www.cbssports.com/newsletter You can listen to Fantasy Football Today on your smart speakers! Simply say "Alexa, play the latest episode of the Fantasy Football Today podcast" or "Hey Google, play the latest episode of the Fantasy Football Today podcast." To hear more from the CBS Sports Podcast Network, visit https://www.cbssports.com/podcasts/ To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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 Dynasty. I am your host, Heath Cummings, here today with a very special guest, Matt Donnelly,

and his big, bad mustache, making my little Halloween mustache look like a baby. Matt, I was going to introduce you as my friend, but you've made my mustache look so bad. I'm just going to say, how are you doing today? Anytime my mustache can make another mustache feel inadequate i feel good about myself so i mean it's basically the only thing i got going for me and i'm feeling good i mean we've had a lot of downtime the last few months as we recover post-op for the second hip surgery so far in the last six months but it's getting better and what that means is more time to produce content more time to dive into stuff and more time basically for football here.

So I appreciated everything I get going here. Man, we are glad to have you. And we've got a lot to talk about. It was kind of a wild week eight. On today's show, we will be talking about Will Levis, of course, Dalton Kincaid, Trey McBride, Demario Douglas, deep waiver ads, and much more. But we always start our shows with three questions for the guests. And the first thing i'd like to do matt is just give you an opportunity to tell people where they can find your content specifically dynasty vipers and everywhere else that you are producing content yeah i mean you head over to dynasty vipers on the youtube channel there the vipers network you're going to get all

my stuff the weekly show with major caldwell and tara roberts who we both know and love we get together every week we talk about the week that was the week that's going to be with our starts and sits so that shows on there each and every week and then again when I get bored I throw more content out there for no apparent reason so it's something that I enjoy doing of course you can catch me over at Rotoballer every week with my starts and sits videos there on their YouTube channel as well as on their discord and then over at Fantasy Points as well. So I try and keep myself about as busy as I possibly can right now, this time of year. That is fantastic.

And you mentioned Tara, and I have to ask, did you watch the Will Levis coffee video, and wasn't it fantastic? It was, you know what, I've never cheered for Will Levis to throw a fourth touchdown more than I did when I seen that video come up I'm like all right what careful as someone you understand I've made some bad bets in my time from drinking Big Mac smoothies there I've lost that bet to jumping out in my underwear in the snow piles like I mean if there's a bad bet to be made I usually make it and I usually lose it so as soon as I seen that bad bet going on I knew exactly how this was going to play out and I usually lose it. So as soon as I seen that bad bet going on, I knew exactly how this was going to play out and I couldn't have been happier. That wasn't one of the three questions, but I just absolutely loved,

I loved just everything about that. We were talking to her about that last night. Who is the one veteran that you would say a contending dynasty team should be buying this week? I'm all in on Marquise Hollywood Brown.'s my guy right now I mean I've been on him I've been banging that drum since the beginning of the season he's good without Kyler Murray he's different level when Kyler Murray returns and we just seen Joshua Dobbs get basically booted out of the quarterback room there in Arizona they're telling us that Clayton Tooney could possibly be starting stop it we know Kyler Murray's coming back there's you don't just get rid of Joshua Dobbs because you watched film the next day,

which, by the way, Arizona, Coach Gannon, that kind of ticked me off a little bit because I already did my starts and sits video based on Joshua Dobbs being available for that contest. But you look at what happened with Brown prior to those injuries back in 2022. He was the wide receiver six for Kyler Murray, averaging 18.3 fantasy points per game in PPR format. So he's going to be able to give you that production, I think, almost immediately once Kyler Murray returns. And you're not going to put him into wide receiver one territory.

You're not going to get many wide receiver ones come week number nine. And I think the best thing about that call is a lot of times when we think of veterans that dynasty managers can buy it's guys that we don't know what they're going to be doing next year they might be in a boot broadcast booth somewhere marquise brown might have three four or five years as a top 20 wide receiver yeah so so absolutely a great one there and then i you know i saw this on your twitter account i know you are a big shark week guy. I believe you were playing for the Sharks and the Pros versus Joes. What's your favorite shark and why?

You know what? I've always been a Mako shark kind of guy. They are like a great white, but they're sleeker. They're sexier, but they're not as well known. It's like the Steve Young to the Joe Montana, right? The great white is the Joe Montana. Well, the Steve Young is kind of that make-all

waiting for its opportunity. They're a distant cousin. They got the same aggressive. They're faster. They're just not as big. They're not as intimidating as the great white, but they do everything that the great white does. So, I mean, it's just one of those things I love.

I mean, the Shark Week is my favorite week of the year. I mean, better than Super Bowl for me because I get to sit down with both my boys who both enjoy sharks as well. We sit downstairs, we watch it all together, and it's like a week's worth of time where I could actually bond with both my sons over my daughter's not so much. They're not big into shark week, but the boys, they absolutely eat it up. So it is probably the best time of the year for me. But bonus question. Do you, do you love shark NATO?

I do actually. I've watched every single one. It's, It is so bad that you've got to watch it. It's so bad, it's good. I love it, yes. You grew up in the same time I did, where the bad movies turned out to be fantastic. Like Child's Play. Remember Child's Play? It was so bad, it was good. Gremlins, so bad, it was good. Evil Dead, so bad, it was good. There were so many bad movies when we were growing up that are like, you know what, I absolutely love this movie.

It's not because it's scary or anything, it's because it's so bad that you have to laugh at it throughout the whole show and sharknado is definitely one of ones up there lava tarantula or whatever they had going on all those movies it's worth a look all right so i want to say a thank you here to brendan for giving me the opportunity to do a little mini promo here asking where the dynasty rankings are if you go go to the CBS fantasy website, you go to the football homepage. If you look on the far right side in the upper right-hand corner, you will see the dynasty hub. Sometimes it's called the dynasty landing page, one of those things. And within that quarterback runnings, quarterback rankings, running back rankings, wide receiver

rankings, tight end rankings, something new this year. Those are being updated every single week. So by tomorrow morning, there will be freshly updated quarterback, running back, wide receiver, tight end rankings. And if you're looking for the trade charts, and I'd say charts, it's multiple now, there's a one QB and a super flex chart that also updates every single week over at Sportsline. If you don't have a Sportsline subscription, it's just $1 for the first month with the promo code HEATH. Okay, we have a section called the big news, and I think we've got some big news waiting to drop today. Obviously, the NFL trade deadline is today. But the big news in the last 24 hours that it's been confirmed, Kirk Cousins has torn his Achilles. Obviously terrible for Cousins' value, a 36-year-old quarterback who knows what he's going to be when he comes back.

We've got Justin Jefferson on the IR. We've got TJ Hawkinson. I was looking at my tight end dynasty rankings. I was legitimately wondering, do I really even like TJ Hawkinson more than Dalton Kincaid anymore? What's your thoughts on the impact of this to the Vikings in terms of their dynasty value? We don't know who their quarterback's going to be next year. I've been thinking, as somebody who has Jordan Addison

on a competitive team, that he might be someone just to trade to a team that's rebuilding to see if I can get a starter for this year. You know what? I like that way of thinking in there for you right now. I mean mean it's absolutely crucial I had Jordan Addison's my number one wide receiver for redraft as a rookie I mean I think Jackson Smith and Juba has more dynasty value than what Addison has and now it looks even more apparent I mean this is crushing if you don't sympathize with Kirk Cousins I don't know if you

have a heart when it comes to fantasy he is the everyday person I mean I look at him as more than just a football player I look at him as like some dude I bump into at Coles on a random like Tuesday or Wednesday I mean this one hurts he was the quarterback six in fantasy on a team where let's be honest many Minnesota fans didn't really want him to be there and he kind of kept them from being great but he kept them from being bad which really kept them out of the whole conversation of a number one quarterback when it came to this year's draft. I don't know where Minnesota goes because now they find themselves, I think, at three and four.

Four and four. Four and four. They find themselves basically in that playoff purgatory, if you will, where are you going to make a push for the playoffs? Are you going to try and tank the rest of the season what do you do here and do you go out there at the trade deadline and grab a guy like joshua dobbs do you go out there and grab a guy like jamis winston as a maybe a bridge quarterback until you can find yourself a quarterback to draft i don't know if hall is

that guy for minnesota from a dynasty perspective he did some great things there i think at byu but i don't know what the answer is here for Minnesota because there's so many things up in the air. They've got a team that can contend. They're a quarterback away. It's like the whole New York Jets situation there with Zach Wilson, why they brought in Aaron Rodgers. They were a quarterback away from contending.

Well, Kirk Cousins was doing things that no other quarterback was doing this season, and that's a big blow not only to the Minnesota playoff playoff hopes but to the hawkinsons the addisons and even i don't even know what you can do with madison who's already struggling you put a quarterback in there that can't throw the ball i think madison's unstartable even at this point it's he he would be if it wasn't for terror how terrible running back is and the fact that there's four teams on a buy like i was i was looking for 24 running backs to rank ahead of them this week. I could not find them. This,

this is almost like exactly what's happened to my baked burger dynasty league. And I know you don't know what that is. That's a dynasty league. We just started this year. Adam Azar actually took it over and I, I just drafted. I'm going to win.

Now I went out and got Travis Kelsey who I missed week one. I got Cooper cup who was on IR and now may not have a quarterback. I drafted Jonathan Taylor, who hasn't been himself. And my quarterbacks in that league were Matthew Stafford, Justin Fields, and Ryan Tannehill. So yeah. And guess what? I sit at four and four, right in that spot to where I don't want to be. I do think though, because I spend a lot of time in my analysis talking about not wanting to be where the Vikings find themselves right now, where I find myself in that league right now. I want to be a true contender or a rebuilder. But we don't have to make that decision quite yet.

See what the trade deadline is in your league, and let's push that decision out as far as I can. If I get to six and four, then maybe I'm going to trade that first round pick next year, and I'm going to try to go ahead and push in and go for it. If I'm at four and six, then I think it's time to probably sell Kelsey. See if you can sell Cup if maybe Stafford's come back. Get rid of those vets. Try to play for next year. I do emphasize that be a winner or be a rebuilder, but you don't have to make that decision in

week eight, especially with as crazy as this season has been. And as week eight was, we're going to talk about the week eight breakouts in just a moment after this break. Did you know 66% of utility damage is caused by not requesting a locate? Don't let your project become part of this statistic. A quick locate request can save you from unexpected downtime, financial penalties, and keep you safe. Don't let avoidable damage So there were definitely four breakouts, Matt, Data sourced from the ORCGA 2023 Dirt Report. So there were definitely four breakouts, Matt, and I'm going to throw in a fifth because, like, based on what he's done so far in his career, I would say he broke out as well. The four for sure were Will Levis, Jameer Gibbs, Trey McBride, Dalton Kincaid, monster performances from those guys. The fifth, I'm adding Quentin Johnston because, hey, he scored 10 PPR fantasy points. He hadn't done that at any point ever in his life. Let's start with Will Levis. I was pretty skeptical of him coming into the NFL. I did think there was a point to where the perception of him dropped so low that his upside made it

worth it. Then he comes out and does this in his first NFL game. We know that perception is going to swing back in the other direction. I had him at QB 30 before last week. I've moved him into my top 24, but not my top 20. How do you feel about Levis? I think he got him in the right spot there about 24. He's a good, solid QB too. And again, anyone who can make Tara put mayo in her coffee is a winner for me. So I bumps

him up a few more spots in my rankings as well. But you look at him coming out of college, you're talking about a guy, what, six foot three, 230 pounds. He had all the tools necessary to make an impact in the National Football League. He ended up third on the depth chart in the offseason simply because he was hurt. And I mean, Malik Willis wasn't going to hold him back when it was all said and done Ryan Tannehill we know what he what he is so at some point we knew we were going to see Will Levis this season he's got the arm strength that was probably the best in the class better than Stroud better than Young better than um Richardson even as far as arm strength is concerned right there at least with Richardson because we've seen Richardson do some pretty amazing things throwing that ball but he threw with more velocity than pretty much every quarterback here

he played in a pro style offense in kentucky so we know that that was going to translate at some point and we know that he could have he was able to throw off platforms and get creative the problem was he was inconsistent with his accuracy and that is something that you can learn in the offseason in practices and stuff like that. So his timing was not there. He was a little inaccurate coming into the National Football League there after the draft. So if he was able to fine tune those things, and we've seen this happen with many young rookie quarterbacks, given some time to sit back, he had all the tools necessary. It was just the other things that he needed to work on.

And as he continued to work on those things, we could see that translate here last week. I mean, he's not going to throw four touchdowns each and every week, even that one to DeAndre Hopkins. I'm pretty confident it was probably offensive pass interference when it was all said and done. I mean, basically Hopkins turned the guy around and then kind of ran it in for a wide open there. But I'm not expecting Will Levis to do this.

But you have to remember, he's actually more athletic running the ball than people give him credit for because he's so big. It's one of those things like Anthony Richardson, we forget how great he is at running the ball. We forget how great Trevor Lawrence is as a runner because he doesn't look like a runner. He looks like a giraffe running in the savannah there. So when we look at what Will Levis is capable of doing, he's big, he's strong,

he can throw the ball as good and hard as anybody, but now if he gets that timing down, he is going to be a great dynasty asset. The second Week 8 breakout, and definitely one that everyone's going to believe much more, Jameer Gibbs, 29 fantasy points, taking advantage of a great matchup

against a bad Raiders team. I know your fandom is up for grabs right now. It's probably too soon for me to suggest the Chiefs for a Raiders guy, I know your fandom is up for grabs right now. It's probably too soon for me to suggest the Chiefs for a Raiders guy. But Gibbs last night, he's kind of bounced around my top five running backs. He's not going to get to number one with B. John Robinson there. He's behind Brees Hall definitely for me now. I've moved him back up to number three. It's been three, four, five for most of this season. I think the thing that people wonder for this year is what happens when David Montgomery comes back. And my expectation is David Montgomery is the goal

line back and probably the hammer down the stretch and probably has more rush attempts than Jameer Gibbs rest of season. But the fact that he's shown us the ability to do this in year one, it really does give you a lot more confidence that he should be a top three running back, right? Yeah, I've got him right there in the top four i mean you can throw jonathan taylor into that mix too now he's back so you mean you can argue any one of those guys the biggest knock on jameer gibbs was his size and his pass protection again pass pro is something you can work on as a rookie throughout the year and improve on but he was a little bit undersized to be an every down bell cow type back well dan camp Campbell don't care about that because he gave him 31 touches, 26 carries against the Raiders

just to see if he could do it. But I think we're going to see this backfield go back to what we thought it was going to be at the beginning of the season. No one thought that David Montgomery was going to take this job and get like an 80% share that he did. I mean, I think that surprised a lot of people out there. But I think a lot of us expected Jameer Gibbs to be that between-the-20s type running back for this Lions team.

That pass catch, the third down back, the two-minute back, all that kind of stuff. Even though David Montgomery is more than capable of catching passes himself, he is that plow guy. He's that guy who's going to fill that Jamal Williams-type role while Gibbs fills that DeAndre Swift-type role. And I argue this, and I got a lot of flack there in the draft process because I really did struggle with Jamar Gibbs versus Bijan Robinson

as my number one running back because of what Gibbs can do in the open field. There's no other running back that can do what Gibbs does in the open field. Man, the man is electric. Bijan Robinson is good. Do not get me wrong on this. I'm not knocking Bijan Robinson, but Jameer Gibbs is special when he gets that ball in the open field. And then the mismatches that he creates as a running back when he lines out in the slot or the wide, that is next level.

B.J. Robinson creates mismatches, but Jameer Gibbs, you can't defend him one-on-one. You can't defend him with a linebacker. You can't defend him with a safety. You just can't defend him. And I think that's what I was expecting a lot of was David Montgomery as the running back. Jameer Gibbs split out wide somewhere for a lot of this Lions offense.

So, I mean, I'm excited about Jameer Gibbs moving forward. I mean, he's still going to be a top four. He's got a huge – his IQ, he's got vision, he's got pace. I mean, everything you want in a running back, Jameer Gibbs has, except maybe a little bit of that size. I want to talk about the tight ends now. And it was funny because Thursday night, the Dalton Kincaid breakout happened and like, it was glorious and it was everything that we were hoping for. And I think everybody just fully bought all the way in. He's a top five dynasty tight end for me.

But then Trey McBride comes around with Josh Dobbs and is the number one tight end of the week. And McBride was actually more efficient before this week than Kincaid. He was better in terms of targets per route run. He was better in terms of yards per route run. Top five in both of those metrics. The only two tight ends other than him who were both top five in those metrics, Travis Kelsey and Sam Laporta. That's pretty good company. So I think both of these guys are elite dynasty tight ends.

Both of these guys are top six, seven, eight type tight ends for me. I still do favor Kincaid just a little bit because I think he was a better prospect, but McBride's not far behind for me. No, we talked about McBride coming out of Colorado State as one of the best tight ends we've seen in a long time. We've only seen, what, two, three tight ends ever before the age of McBride to have 14 targets in a single game, and that's with a Gronk involved there. I mean, what McBride did last week, 10 catches, 95 yards, 14 targets

against a very good Baltimore Ravens team. We're talking about one of the best when it comes to defending tight ends in fantasy. He made them look foolish with Joshua Dobbs. I mean, apparently it takes a rocket scientist to figure out this Ravens defense, but still, now you throw Kyler Murray into the fact, I mean, McBride, he's going to shoot right up there.

He is going to be one of the best ones. We've seen that transition from Zachary to McBride the previous two weeks prior to that big, huge breakout that we saw. We saw more real participation coming from McBride. We saw more target share coming from McBride. We saw more target share coming from McBride. So we knew it was coming. I just did not expect a 25-point fantasy performance

against the Baltimore Ravens. And Kincaid, you mentioned this, he also had a little bit of something showing us a little bit before. I think it was a week before, five catches, 65 yards and a touchdown is what he had against on Thursday night against Buffalo. And then the week before, eight catches, 65 yards and a touchdown is what he had against on Thursday night against Buffalo. And then the week before,

eight catches, 75 yards against New England. So we were starting to see that transition to Kincaid finally becoming what we thought he was going to be, the best tight end in the class. Unfortunately, he's just been overshadowed by what Sam Laporte has been doing there in Detroit. And it's not a knock on Kincaid because we're used to tight ends not being there as rookies.

In fact, we don't even expect a tight end to perform as a rookie, except everything that Sam Laporte is doing has made us rethink our evaluation there. He's not a tight end. I don't care what anyone says. Dalton Kincaid is not really a tight end. He's a tight end the same way that, like, Vernon Davis was a tight end.

He's the guy out there. He's a little undersized, but his his ball skills his route running that is as of a wide receiver basically he's like cole beasley what cole beasley was this buffalo bills team is what kincaid is and what he's going to be moving forward which is going to be a great target for josh allen so if you're in ppr yeah absolutely kincaid is a top five six tight end and we know what this tight end position looks like for fantasy. It is an absolute wasteland. So the more tight ends we can get in there that are being fantasy productive, the better for everybody.

Okay. I'm going to put you on the spot here. I've got four tight ends for you to rank. And I guess it's not that much on the spot. It's your job. You do it. So rank these four tight ends, Sam Laporta, TJ Hawkinson, Dalton Kincaid, Trey McBride. Well, I would have had Hawkinson ahead of everybody prior to the Kirk Cousins news.

But I think that changes things for us right now. I think you got to, I got Sam Laporta there ahead, followed by, I'm going to put Hawkinson in there just as a veteran presence. And then it comes down to Kincaid versus McBride. And I do believe right now this comes down to um how I see these quarterback these tight ends being used so I will give Kincaid a slight advantage over McBride but I mean that could flip very easily very quickly especially with Kyler Murray and what we see him doing when he comes back yeah I think it's the easy way to look

at it is and I have it pretty much in that order Laporta, Hawkinson, Kincaid, McBride and if you're a contender it's still in that order and if you're a rebuildorta, Hawkinson, Kincaid, McBride. And if you're a contender, it's still in that order. And if you're a rebuilder, then Hawkinson's last. You do kind of have to look at rankings different depending on where you're at in the process. But yeah, those four in that order. Hawkinson falling to the back end if you're not playing for anything this year. And it's not like he's old, 26 at the start of this season. But compared to the other guys, and I mean, who knows who TJ Hawkinson's quarterback is going to be, not just the rest of this season, but compared to the other guys and I mean, who knows who TJ Hawkinson's quarterbacks is going to be not just the rest of this season, but in 2024,

let's talk about the deep waiver wire. And listen, there's a lot of quarterbacks that are going to probably start over the next couple of weeks that are available on the waiver wire. If you're in a super flex league, it won't be hard to find a second starter, but there's one that I think could actually be helpful in a super flex flex league. And that's Taylor Heineke. He got the second half for the Falcons. I thought looked considerably better than Desmond Ritter as a pastor Ritter has done some nice things running the ball and he's had a couple of okay games. But if you're asking me second half

of the season, who scores more fantasy points, I would say Heineke over Ritter. And he's got Drake Lennon. He's got Kyle Pitts. He's got Bajon Robinson, who you already mentioned. If Heineke gets named the starter and gets this job for the second half, can he be a high-end QB too, you think? I think he can. We saw him do this back, I think it was with Washington, right,

before everything kind of shake out. We know what Taylor Heineke is capable of doing. doing and the thing is he's probably clearly the more accurate quarterback of the two and I mean if you were a Kyle Pitts manager or a Drake London manager you have to be getting excited about this we've seen I mean Ritter is going to turn into a fine quarterback potentially down the road I don't think that is right now And I think if Atlanta really wants to have playoff aspirations, they need to go to Heineke here because he's going to make this offense better. He's going to make Kyle Pitts better. He's going to make Drake London better.

And we've seen Ritter. He's actually played better as of late, I guess, compared to earlier on. But Heineke's the guy that we've seen him take good players in Terry McLaren we saw him deal with Johan Dotson last season we've seen him play with a good offense and make it productive so I have no problem Heineke coming in there and being one of those quarterbacks that makes the team better and the fantasy assets around him better as well this is is a low key revenge game also, right? I don't believe Taylor Heineke ever actually played for the Vikings,

but he was on their roster for like a year and a half. So if we get to see him against the Vikings, you know, all kinds of fireworks might happen, although their defense has definitely been a lot better. That's the only quarterback that I'd actually be excited. Like, I think obviously if you don't have a second starter,

you're adding anyone who starts if even no matter who it is, but, but Heineken is the one guy I think could actually be a difference maker. A couple of running backs here at different levels. Again, not exciting. It's not a great week for running backs on the waiver wire, but Royce Freeman's just been flat out better than Daryl Henderson. The last, last couple of weeks, Henderson's role has helped him to score more fantasy points, but I don't have much confidence that he's going to keep that role. He's 24% rostered. That's a little higher than I normally look at for this portion of the show. But when you're talking about a veteran like Freeman, who's been a backup, that's someone you might be able to flex this week. And then Chase Edmonds, just 4% rostered. The Tampa Bay Buccaneers haven't been able to get

anything going with the running game I wonder if they decide to give Edmonds a little bit more work there you have any interest are these just deep league only guys bench stashes and hope they they start to see 15 touches a game well it's funny you mentioned Freeman because I do roster him in the Kings classic there and uh your colleague there Dave knows all about the Kings classic it gets thin pretty darn quick there when you try to hit the waiver wire. And I've been starting Freeman the last two weeks. So, I mean, I'm okay with Freeman being there.

He's going to give you some production. So if you're looking for someone to roster and put him in a pinch, especially with these four running backs on a bye this week, it's not even just four running backs. It's four really good running backs or three really good running backs and a fourth that we are needing to replace, not to mention the injuries that we're dealing with across the league again. So Royce Freeman could come in there and be a solid flex.

Chase Edmonds, on the other hand, we've got no interest in him. I think what Tampa Bay is doing is they've decided that, hey, we know we can't run the ball, so what we're going to do is we're going to use a short passing game as an extension of the run game, and that's where we're seeing Rashad White have his success. Seven catches, 70 yards last week. Still had a very productive fantasy outing, but it was because of his pass-catching ability that we saw that.

So I would expect Tampa Bay to kind of continue that. We've seen Chase Edmonds. He was effective back in Arizona, and then he basically disappeared in Miami and Denver. If you thought that Chase Edmonds was going to be a factor, I mean, I don't know what to tell people right now because I just don't see it. He doesn't do nothing for me.

He doesn't move the needle, but I like Rashad White. I think he's going to be that extension of the run game through the pass. I like it. Bob Gilchrist has jokes in the chat. I must ask you a question. What is your, Matt, where did you get that Halloween costume? I think.

I basically took it from monsters university if you remember there's a purple one that looked very similar i mean i just basically took that idea and threw it on the face that is fantastic at wide receiver we got a couple of teammates here kendrick bourne unfortunately lost with uh to an acl injury we've got davante parker now dealing with the concussion. So you see here, Juju Smith-Schuster is 17% rostered in CBS leagues. Demario Douglas, rookie, is 6% rostered. Considering one of those guys is a rookie and may be on a practice squad or somewhere, I think it's just about equally likely that these guys would be available in your dynasty league.

Juju's the guy who got paid. He's the guy who scored a touchdown last week. He's also the guy who it looked like was the guy who scored a touchdown last week he's also the guy who it looked like was playing behind jaylen rager and might be complete dust um i'm not sure that he actually has two knees right now whereas demario douglas 25 target share last week 20 the week before he's got a 26 target per route run rate this season and he's averaging almost two yards per route run i pretty strongly prefer douglas as the guy who could be the number one wide receiver on this patriots

offense i know that's not like a number one wide receiver on any other team like it's probably a fantasy number three or four but i'm kind of excited about making sure that douglas is rostered in all my leagues look week seven four catches six targets 54 yards last week five catches 25 yards seven targets so you know the targets are already heading his way i have a general rule in fantasy and it's never juju right i'm never drafting juju i'm never rostering him i can't have his knees are being held together by hubba bubba he may be the only wide receiver in the national football league who has worse knees than i do so for that i, I am out on Juju Smith-Schuster. I don't care what he does.

I mean, if you're in a standard league and it's very touchdown heavy and it doesn't really count the receptions and yardage, then okay, I guess you could flex Juju Smith-Schuster. I'm not going to do it. I'll go with the young buck here in Demario Douglas here, nine times out of ten. And you know what? Let's make it ten times out of ten because I just can't get behind Juju.

I just can't do it. I can't. And this is another guy kind of continuing that trend that we're seeing in the NFL with the, cause he's undersized for sure. Jameer Gibbs undersized, Zay Flowers undersized. Like so many of these guys coming into the league that are, that are just making great plays, both in college and now in the NFL, aren't the traditional size that we used to see.

I think that's okay. Douglas in his last year at Liberty, 34% of his team's yards, 35%, I believe, of his team's catches, 27% of his team's touchdowns. He's played in that alpha number one wide receiver role before. He's not going to do it in the way that a George Pickens does it. But I do think that he could be a number three wide receiver this year and maybe even longer. The comp that I heard early in the offseason was that watch out for DeMario Douglas. He's going to be there. Jacoby Myers, who just nobody

thought was going to be anything and all of a sudden turns into their number one wide receiver for three years. One guy on the tight end waiver wire, and he has been an enormous bust. I've been rostering him in my 14 team dynasty league, man. I thought I had David Njoku. I had Mark Andrews. I had Chigokonko and I had Greg Dulcich. I'm just trying to trade tight ends all off season. Nobody would take Okonkwo or Dulcich. And now their value has fallen off a cliff, but I did want to bring him up because if Will Levis is competent as a quarterback and this offense gets going just a little bit, there've been a lot of targets for Oconquo the last three weeks. He missed a pretty

big opportunity last week. I still think he's going to be the clear top tight end in the passing game. Probably the second best option, maybe the third best option overall in the passing game. I think Oconquo could get going if Will Levis does. Absolutely. You know what? I hope he does because it'll justify everything I preached on all offseason. Right now, you know what? I have no problem admitting a wrong.

And right now, Chigaconquo is making me look dumber than normal, right? I mean, I do a pretty good job making myself look pretty silly from time to time. But I was in on Chigakonko I was talking like top six seven tight end coming into the season I thought he was going to be a tight end one no question about it we look at the yards per route run we look about the target share all the numbers were telling us Chigakonko was going to be that guy at the tight end position we didn't think that this offense was going to be as inept as it has been we didn't think that ryan tannahill who you know what he's never been a guy to throw for a lot of passes and whatnot but he's been one of the most efficient passers in the national football league he hasn't

needed to throw big time completions because he's always been what 21 of 24 or something like that where he's been able to hit his aj browns. Browns, hit his DeAndre Hopkins, and let Derrick Henry do his thing to open up everything. The targets, the completions, it hasn't been there for Chigga Conkle. And that's killed me. I mean, I have, like you, I have a Conkle that is basically everywhere.

I was like, oh yeah, I'll put him as my tight end too. Thinking I'm outsmarting everybody out there. And little did I know, I was going to be the fool when it was all said and done. So thank you for that but will levis can only make it better we've seen this offense how poor it has been all season long any injection of any talent at this point is going to be good news for everyone involved so hold and hope on a conquel maybe even go adam if you've got a roster spot in a deeper league maybe send me me a trade offer in our 14-team league so I can stop holding him. That'd be okay as well.

Although I'm not giving up for nothing. I've got a couple of rankings, risers, and fallers that I want to get to. Let's do it right after the break. Okay, so not a lot of huge movements this week in my Dynasty rankings, Matt. But a few guys, and one of them has been kind of ping-ponging in this QB 15 to QB 20 range, Sam Howell. Man, that guy, when things are going well, he can make you believe that he's going to be a top 12 fantasy quarterback at some day. And when things are going bad, I wonder if maybe they should be starting Jacoby Brissett. Well, they've been going well lately.

So I've moved up from QB 19 to QB 16. Do you think there's anything sustainable here with Howell's production? Or is it just like he's one of those quarterbacks that's not quite good, not quite bad. And so he's going to have these great games and then the terrible outings. I think you got a young quarterback going to go through young quarterback type situations here in Washington. And I do love Sam Howell because the things I loved about him coming out of North Carolina, his running ability, we haven't necessarily seen that translate yet. We haven't seen him be that scrambly type quarterback.

He's turned more into a pocket passer there, but he's got that ability to make plays happen with his legs. He's also got some pretty good weapons there on offense from Terry McLaren to Jahan Dotson to Curtis Samuel to Logan Thomas. Then the backfield, I mean, say what you will about Brian Robinson and Antonio Gibson, but they're still a pretty solid backfield duo. They're throwing Chris Rodriguez while we're at it. So I do love Sam Howell.

I think he can be, if we're looking at redraft, a top 12 quarterback the rest of the season. He's, I think, what, quarterback eight right now as far as fantasy is concerned? His problem right now has been limiting the interceptions if he can limit those interceptions i think he's tied for the league league well no jimmy graff has got that crown right now but he's right up there i think he's at eight interceptions if he can bring that number down i mean i don't see how he can't be a top quarterback his passing numbers this season are identical to jalen hertz's passing numbers take away jalen hertz Jalen Hurts's passing numbers take away Jalen Hurts's running ability and Sam Howell is what you have the I think they have the exact

same passing yards I think they have the same touchdown passes I mean there's no reason not to believe that Sam Howell cannot be a top 12 quarterback for fantasy so at what I could see him being a QB 16 right now and I can see that actually moving up as we progress through the season, as long as he can sustain what he's been doing. And that's going to be the biggest question, especially with young quarterbacks, is that consistency. Yeah, and I think the difference between Sam Howell and Jalen Hurts is that you take all of Jalen Hurts' rushes that go for touchdowns,

and they're either Sam Howell sacks or interceptions. Absolutely, yeah, nope. Those are the things that he does. Okay. So at running back, a couple of fallers, no big risers, but Damian Pierce, Miles Sanders, just seeing their value plummet. Pierce down to RB28 for me, Sanders down to RB32. And I feel like this is a product of, I try not to make huge rash changes from week to week. If it wasn't for that, these guys might've fallen out of my top 40. Do you have any hope for Damian Pierce or Miles Sanders in the future? Like, it's kind of weird because Pierce is the younger one,

but he's got no contract guarantees at all. And so there's really no, there's no, no, no safety there. Sanders has like two and a half years guaranteed, but he got two touches for zero yards and lost all the work to Chuba Hubbard. Yeah, look at these. I basically gave this as their, I mean, I was more hard on Damian Pierce because he had a better matchup

going against the Carolina Panthers. I mean, I think they were giving up like 33 fantasy points per game to the running back position. And then he did what he did out there. I basically, if he did that again, that again, I went on record on this. I said, if he has a poor performance, this is going to turn into Devin Singletary's backfield, and we're going to forget

Damian Pierce altogether. I wouldn't be surprised if we see the Texans move more towards Singletary. We've seen it in recent weeks where Singletary's getting more touches and making more of those touches. Then when Damian Pierce laid that egg against Carolina, I would not be shocked if we see a 60 40 split going towards Devin Singletary, not only next week,

but moving forward, which is not a good thing for Damian Pierce, whose biggest knock has been his inability to get involved in the passing game. He's always been that two down back for the Texans. And now if he can't get those two downs, what's he going to do? What can he do for you?

So Damian Pierce, I'm backing out of right now. I don't like the way things are starting to look for him. And then as far as Miles Sanders is concerned, I mean, he still has a chance to come back. I mean, he's been dealing with injuries for most of the season, so whether it's the groin or the shoulder. But Chuba Hubbard has been the most explosive running back in that Carolina backfield.

Look at the missed tackles forced. Look at the yards from scrimmage per attempt everything favors Chuba Hubbard plus he's Canadian and which is something I could totally get behind each and every week he's from my neck of the woods he's about oh from five hours north of where I'm from so I'm all in on Chuba Hubbard that means it means I'm down on Miles Sanders who by the way was another one of those guys like Chigakonko that I had good feelings about heading into the season. Unfortunately, injuries had different ideas. I love the fact that Canada is so big that five hours away is basically in the same neighborhood. You're only five hours away. You're basically in the same area. I do think that the one thing that gives

me a little bit of hope for Sanders and why I haven't buried him quite as much is the fact that Chuba Hubbard's coming out party, come off the the bye we're going to give him all the work he had 15 carries for 28 yards like he did not run away with that job no so I am hopeful that we get a little bit more Miles Sanders in the future you can't do anything with these guys you can't drop Pierce or Sanders in a regular dynasty league at this point. You just got to hold on and hope. Kind of like Okonkwo. We've got a couple of wide receivers, one faller, one riser. Cooper Cup, I'm terrified of.

I'd already dropped him a little bit. He was down to wide receiver 16. He is 30 years old. He has basically been exactly the same guy as Puka Nakua since he got back. There's not any one and two. There's not even a 1A and a 1B. I think the last two weeks, actually, Puka's been better. Now we've got this Matthew Stafford thumb thing. That trio of Sean McVay, Cooper Cup, Matthew Stafford, they're good friends. They all talked about how they were coming back to do this together. I'm really scared of what happens if Stafford is in fact shut down.

And I'm scared of what cup looks like beyond this year. If it's not with Matthew Stafford. How did Stafford even get hurt? It was on that Philadelphia special when he turns into a wide receiver again. Like, yeah, I don't get why you're letting matthew stafford of all people run wide receiver patterns there on what a two-point it makes no sense to me at all without matthew i mean what's it say it was a was a wolford there that's on the top of big buccaneers practice squad yeah i mean yeah la is like hey we want you he's like no i'm good here i mean look i look over a

bit one side i got baker mayfield i look at the other side, it's Kyle Trask. One guy overthrows, the other guy underthrows. I feel pretty good about where I'm at right now. So even he didn't want to come back to LA. So what's that tell you about what's going on with this Rams offense? I mean, who wouldn't want to play with Pukunukua and Cooper Cup? I mean, if you're a quarterback, that's got to be a quarterback dream. And I'm looking at this.

If Matthew Stafford's not there to run this offense we've i mean baker mayfield had some degrees of success last season but i don't know who they can bring in to replace matthew stafford we're down like i mentioned earlier we're down to joshua dobbs we're down to maybe james winston maybe you could pry out andy dalton which i think they still need him in Carolina, to kind of tutor Bryce Young there. So I don't know who you could possibly bring in, but the answer right now is not in Los Angeles. Let's be clear about that. The answer is not there right now.

I don't see – I mean, they even had Perkins run last season with this Rams team. So I'm scared. I mean, we know Matthew Stafford is on the back end of his career, and we know Cooper Cupp is also on that back end to a point, but he's still being productive as any wide receiver. Just between his injuries and now Matthew Stafford's injuries, it doesn't seem like they can get on the same page.

Hey, your best ability is your availability when it comes to fantasy, when it comes to dynasty, and if you can't get players who are going to be available, that's going to hurt you moving forward. Last one here, Josh Downs moving up. It feels like it's been a while since we talked about somebody moving up. It's all been negativity. He was wide receiver 33 for me, up to wide receiver 26 for the first time. He has now passed Quentin Johnston.

I feel really bad for Quentin Johnston because I said we were going to talk about him kind of tongue-in-cheek in the week five breakouts. Or week eight breakouts, talk about downs versus Quentin Johnston. It's obviously been a lot better vibes for downs early in this season. It has. I mean, when you've got a quarterback like Gardner Minshew,

who ain't afraid to go YOLO, I mean, Josh Downs is a deep threat every time you get settled there on the field and Gardner Minshew, he's never met a deep ball that he's not afraid that he's afraid to throw. Right. So Gardner Minshew has that better rapport going over and we know Mitchell has a better tendency

to spread the ball around we've seen him have success in Jacksonville moving the ball around unfortunately for Quinton Johnson he's been too low on the pecking order there were some things that limited him coming to college he was limited on his route running is his route tree there so he had some things against him pure talent wise he's there big strong fast everything you want a wide receiver he's got it he's just a little bit inexperienced and i think that comes out of that big 12 a lot of these wide receivers have a little bit of a a learning curve most likely coming out of the big 12 more than maybe some of the other conferences in the national or in college so one thing we kind of keep in track with josh downs man he has been special

and he's been making the best most of his opportunities he's been able to knock that door and kick it down and when given that opportunity to do so and he's going with michael pitman which gardner minchu is still learning both his wide receivers so he doesn't have necessarily that favorite target where justin herbert has his keenan allen he has his austin eckler i'm afraid of even Keenan Allen moving forward now because with Josh Palmer being out and Michael Williams not being there, this turns into a Austin Eckler check down type offense. We've seen this before with the Los Angeles Chargers.

So this is going to be Keenan Allen, Austin Eckler, and then maybe we'll get a little bit of a sprinkle in there of Quinton Johnson. I mean, 10 fantasy points last week, biggest game of his career so far, but it's still just a 10-point fantasy performance. Meanwhile, Josh Downs is no worse than the second option in the passing game behind Michael Pittman. So I got a couple of fun things here to finish up with here because, I mean, first off, it's

not fun. It's, you know, if you have a mustache like that, then obviously you've got some wisdom. You can help a guy out. And so I don't know if you know this or not. I'm kind of known on our show as the Grinch of Halloween. I participate and go to the party with my wife and dress up like whatever she'd like. I'm Travis Kelsey this year. That worked out okay. But today's the day. The kids will all be running around the neighborhood. I generally sit in the house in the dark and work. I received this text this morning from my wife, and I'd like for you to tell me how much trouble I'm in.

Don't care at all. Just trying to make some decisions for tonight. You're not participating at all tonight, right? Ooh, yeah. I know that. I know that text. I get that one all the time too. The I don't care.

That's like, are you sure there's nothing I can do at home for you or something? You got to throw something out there because, yeah, that's not a good start there. That's not a good start to your day. I just sent her the it's a trap gif. Yeah. I'm on to your game. Number two, and this came from Thomas thomas i think it's i think it's a good idea who is on your mount rushmore of mustaches all right so i'm going to take myself

off even though it is the greatest mustache that i've ever seen right uh tom selick obviously comes up there the old magnum pi type thing sam elliott's another one of those guys and i've always enjoyed his mustache and how it looks he's got that distinguished kind of cowboy type look. And then it gets interesting for me because I can go a few different ways. I've always respected Roley Fingerstache with a little bit of a curl to it. I mean, Yosemite Sam, big time mustache there. I mean, I can totally get behind that. If you remember, there's a guy named Genghis Kong who had a pretty sweet stache. If you look back at some of those history pictures,ro is right up there the swedish chef is another guy who had a killer mustache there for the muppets but i mean landy mcdonald he's got to be on there for me as

my third mustache because big red mustache there calgary flames hockey i mean it made a lot of sense as a guy that i know um his mustache kind of worked a little bit in my favor. And then for that fourth mustache, it's really tough to kind of go up and kind of figure out who that could be. But, I mean, it's tough to argue against Frank Zappa, who had a nice thick one. He had the sole patch kind of working for him. So, I think Frank Zappa's got to be on there as well.

I mean, it was nice. So, I mean, those are probably the guys. Maybe an honorable mention to wyatt erp if we want to historically oh that's a good one other that was another pretty dirty duster there so how many of those mustaches were canadian well probably just lannies to be honest with you matt thank you so much it's been a joy it always is to talk to you tell the people one more time where they can find your work absolutely i mean head over to the vipers network they're on the youtube channel you can see my mustache every single week and if you don't want to look at that hey major and tara they usually bring some pretty good quality uh

content for you as well we talk dynasty we talk redraft we talk just about everything along uh along the way and then over on rotoballer on their youtube channel you can catch my must start must players each and every week five minute videos just kind of go through each and every position then make sure to check out myself there with the fancy points discord where i'm there pretty much 24 7 answering all your fantasy questions throughout the week thank you to the chat thank you to everybody who watched thank you everybody who's listening later we will talk to you next tuesday