Fantasy Football Today - Sell Your Seahawks? Buy Aaron Rodgers? Who's the #1 Pick Now? (09/28 Fantasy Football Podcast)

Episode Date: September 28, 2020

Can the Seahawks keep this up? We'll tell you how 2020 Russell Wilson compares to 2018 Patrick Mahomes and if the WRs can continue to be elite Fantasy options. Then we recap GB-NO (10:00) and tell you why the Packers offense has been so awesome ... Injury updates (17:00) and Five Big Topics (19:15) including the best way to construct your roster, if any PHI players other than Miles Sanders are worth starting and who the #1 pick in Fantasy is if we were drafting today (30:50) ... Fun stats you need to know (36:15) like what has changed for Mike Evans, Darrell Henderson's snap counts and D.J. Moore's changing role ... 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

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BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with iGaming Ontario. This is Fantasy Football Today from CBS Sports. On his way to the end zone. I'll tell you what, 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. Your Monday afternoon episode. What's up? Welcome to Fantasy Football Today. In 40. I knew you were going to say five.

But I didn't. I didn't, Ben. You think so little of me. I changed it. I'm guessing 40 minutes for today's show. We'll see. Within five minutes, one way or the other, Adam Azer, Ben Schrager, Chris Towers. How's week three treating you guys?

Great. It was my highest scoringrager, Chris Towers. How's week three treating you guys? Great. It was my highest scoring week ever in my home league. So it was a fantastic Sunday for me. I'm really, really looking for... In my longest running league, I've won once. It was back in 2006. I was a college freshman. And I've been working as a professional fantasy analyst for 10 years.

So that tells you how long ago that's been and how much I've sucked in that league. I came into week three with a 40 point overall lead. I outscored the second. I've been the highest scoring team in each of the first two weeks. Week three, I outscored the second highest team by at least 30, probably more. I'm really looking forward to seeing how I managed to mess this team up.

I had Alan Lazard and Keenan Allen on my bench and I was the highest scoring team by 35 points. This team is ridiculously stacked and I know I'm going to lose in the first quarter. Who's your quarterback? I actually was Carson Wentz yesterday. Whoa, you're doing this well with Carson Wentz. This roster, nobody cares,

but I care. I'm actually interested. It's the most ridiculous. So it's a 10-team league. Alvin Kamara, James Robinson, Stephon Diggs, Calvin Ridley, Travis Kelsey, Chris Godwin, Melvin Gordon, David Montgomery, Joshua Kelly, LaVisca Chenault, Alan Lazard, Keenan Allen,

Ronald Jones, Alexander Madison on my bench. This team is just like... It actually didn't even sound like that good of a team. It seemed like a really good week three team. It's been the highest scoring team by like 80 points through three games, guys. I don't know if you guys heard that part. All right, with a lousy quarterback.

It's time for you to trade some players and get yourself some Russell Wilson. The Seahawks are the talk of the town, the talk of the fantasy world. They're actually not the highest scoring team in the NFL. That would be, anyone? High scoring team in the NFL. That would be anyone. High scoring team. Their third.

The Packers. The Packers. Yes. 122 points. Seahawks with 111. But the Seahawks have the number one quarterback in fantasy right now. Two top five wide receivers. Chris Carson is the number 10 running back.

So I do want to talk about them. We'll recap the Sunday night game game which was an exciting one uh 37 27 packers i think it was exciting it was an interesting game yeah uh okay and uh injury updates for you looks like dallas goddard is going to miss some time chris carson maybe not chris carson might be able to play this week uh chris godwin's going to have an MRI, so we'll give you some injury updates. Nick Foles, by the way, is going to be the starting quarterback for the Bears. But basically, let's start with this.

Can the Seahawks keep this up, or are you looking to make some sell-high trades here? And I know we talked about this yesterday, but I want to explore the numbers a little bit more today. It's kind of a more more numbers oriented show on Monday. Chris, what do you think? Can they keep it up to the degree where at least you shouldn't be selling? I'm not saying that you're going to have two top five wide receivers or anything,

but should we just hold our Seahawks and enjoy the ride? Well, we were drafting Russell Wilson as a top five quarterback. We were drafting Tyler Lockett and DK Metcalf as top 18 to 20 wide receivers. We were drafting Chris Carson as a top 15 running back and probably would have been higher if he hadn't had such a weird training camp. So yeah, I think they can mostly keep this up. It's a really talented team that has a really high concentration of their touches going to their fantasy relevant guys. And Russell Wilson is a historically efficient quarterback. DK Metcalf, you know, he's still like the amazing thing about DK Metcalf

is how many points he's left on the field so far this season through like literally like nobody's fault but his own. Just like bad drops, getting the ball punched out when he's at the two-yard line on what should have been a 62-yard touchdown, and he's still been this good. It helps playing with that historically efficient quarterback, and it helps that Tyler Lockett is one of the most talented

wide receivers in the NFL, and DK Metcalf is really benefiting from that. They won't keep this up from that so they won't keep this up the Packers won't keep this up the Bills won't keep this up but yeah I think the the Seahawks are going to be one of the best offenses in the NFL and those four guys are going to be some of the best players in fantasy but to the sell high by low question, Chris, are you trading Russell Wilson for Patrick Mahomes or Lamar Jackson? Yeah. If somebody offered me those two guys, one of those two guys for him, I would, but

who's doing that? You know, we'll see. I mean, after tonight, tonight we'll see. Yeah. Cause it'd be interesting if my home is kind of conservative again tonight. Cause he just hasn't really been throwing the ball downfield nearly as much. He has the second lowest average depth of target in the NFL so far. It's like six yards. Yeah, and he completed that big one to Tyreek Hill late in that game. But in the first game, they were just giving him the underneath stuff, and he took it.

But would you trade Russell Wilson for Kenyon Drake? That might be something that you could do. Obviously, I don't know what this hypothetical, your roster construction is, but if you had, let's say, Matthew Stafford, who could be fine, but is probably not going to win you a league, would you trade Russell Wilson to get a starting running back?

I would. If you have a hole at running back, I would take the Kenyan Drake. I would take Mixon. I would take Chubb. I wouldn't take Kareem Hunt, though. We do this. This happens every year. There's always someone who gets

off to a really good start. It's never a knock on that guy to say he won't be able to keep it up. Russell Wilson has a 14% touchdown rate. He's on pace. He has one of the highest of all time. He's on pace for 75 touchdown passes. I wanted to compare him

to Mahomes from two years ago because Russell Wilson right now has a 137.4 passer rating, which is crazy. Patrick Mahomes, two years ago when he had his incredible year, his passer rating was 113.8. But in his first three games, because Wilson just broke Mahomes' record for most touchdown passes in your first three games, in his first three games, because Wilson just broke Mahomes' record for most touchdown passes in your first three games, in his first three games, his passer rating, Mahomes, it was one, oh no, that was 137.4. So what's Wilson's right now? It's like right around there.

Sorry, I don't have that, but it's basically very similar. Their starts are very similar. And pass attempts, you know, I don't think you're going to see the high volume for Russell Wilson because it looks like they look like the Chiefs. They don't run a lot of plays. But their yards per play is going to be among the leaders in the NFL. So if you're sitting there going, well, Wilson's not really throwing the ball as much as he needs to,

well, I don't know if that's true because they are going to be so incredibly efficient and they're going to score on big plays, things like that. There's a lot of comparisons, I think, though, between Mahomes two years ago and Wilson this year. One of the key differences, and I can look this up, but entering week two, I know the Seahawks were the slowest-paced team in the NFL

in terms of average time to snap in a neutral situation. Not when they were leading. In a regular football situation, they were taking the longest time between snaps. And as efficient as you can be, as this offense can be, they're not going to be this efficient moving forward. And so it is going to be difficult for him to... I don't want to say he's not going to break a touchdown record,

but you know, Patrick Holmes, I think his touchdown rate in 2018 was like 9% or something close to that. And Russell Wilson's career high is 8.3. He has the, I believe the highest in NFL history or one of the highest at 6.2%. He's a 13.6% right now. How differently would we be talking about Russell Wilson if he

had the same exact numbers but had eight touchdowns? That would still be a really high touchdown rate. It just wouldn't be historically high. And I think that's probably what is more likely to happen moving forward is that he's going to be one of the best quarterbacks in football on a relatively low volume passing offense. And it's probably going to mean that he's like the third or fourth best. Like I would probably, I think I would still rather have Dak Prescott than him. Like Russell Wilson has to be about 50% better on a per attempt basis than

Dak Prescott. And he has been so far, but I just like the difference in dropbacks between the two of them is so big that I just think I would still rather have Dak. None of that is a knock on Russell Wilson. He's awesome. He's always awesome. Yeah, I think you could take Kyler Murray over him. It's amazing the similarities between Mahomes two years ago

and Wilson this year through three games. The passer rating for Wilson is 139 right now. It was 137.4 for Mahomes. And he got worse as the year went on, but he got worse in a way that was still incredibly dominant. And he just had that special season. And maybe he was on pace after three games for 69 touchdown passes. Right now, Wilson's on pace for 75.

Maybe Wilson is just having, maybe he's the guy who just has that year. It was Mahomes in 2018. It was Jackson in 2019. Maybe it's Russell Wilson this year. All right, our Facebook group. You can talk about it in there. Fantasy Football Today is the name of the group. Not too hard to remember.

Just search for it on Facebook, or you can click the link in our episode description. Join the Facebook group. Get involved, ladies and gentlemen. Later on in the show, we're going to answer some questions on five big topics, including who is the number one overall pick if you were picking today. I think I know what you guys are going to say, and I might say something different. It's an easy call.

I don't think it's an easy call. It's an easy call. I don't think it's an easy call. All right. I agree. It's tough. It's tough. Okay. Teaser. It's an easy call. I don't think it's an easy call. All right. I agree. It's tough. It's tough. Okay.

Teaser. It's a teaser. Sunday Night Football. Green Bay 37. New Orleans 17. Aaron Rodgers scored 30 fantasy points. That's 38, 22, and 30 fantasy points for Aaron Rodgers. Drew Brees scored 29 fantasy points.

That's 18, 16, and 29 fantasy points in three games for Drew Brees scored 29 fantasy points. That's 18, 16, and 29 fantasy points in three games for Drew Brees. Brees got a little lucky. I mean, Kamara basically did everything for him. But let's talk about Aaron Rodgers. It's not really luck. That's kind of the norm at this point. Not to the degree of what we saw yesterday. His touchdown catch where he made six guys miss

was one of the greatest plays you're going to see this year. Yeah, but you know, this is who he was before the injuries last year. This is better. Not this, but it's like Russell Wilson. This is who Russell Wilson is. It's just we're seeing the high end of the outcome. But like Alvin Kamara has been consistently

one of the best players in the NFL at breaking big plays, making guys miss. And so. But last night was crazy. He had a ridiculously good game. But like Alvin Kamara, that dude's pretty good. He's going to have ridiculous games every now and then. Especially with no Michael Thomas on the field because Breeze does not throw the ball downfield. Michael Thomas is who he's looking for,

seven yards down when he's checking down. Well, guess what? There's no Thomas there, and he couldn't rely on the other receivers. They were dropping balls left and right. So, yes, Alvin Kamara, I'm not going to say my answer for later, but right now, he's amazing.

Drew Brees' average air yards on his pass attempts right now. So, Patrick Mahomes has the second lowest of six yards. Sam Darnold's at 6.1. Jared Goff, 6.1. Drew Brees is at 4.6. His average pass is traveling 4.6 yards in the air. That is completely, it's impossible to, like that's another one that's just not going to keep up

moving forward, but it just shows you one just how little how unwilling he is to to pull the trigger have you watched though have you watched the last two games right he's been on prime time there have been including on one of these camara touchdowns by the way there have been at least two plays in each game where he's gone play action he has set up up. He has looked deep. He wanted to throw deep. I don't have the all 22, okay? So I don't know what's going on. Is he missing someone? Or more likely, nobody's open.

And then he checks down. So they want to get the ball downfield, but they don't have Michael Thomas, who's not exactly like a downfield guy, but it just opens more things up. It opens things up more so in your offense. Like Drew Brees is taking what the defense is giving him and he did fine, but I'd rather talk about Aaron Rogers.

I'm sorry to cut you off, but I just want to, I want to get an Aaron Rogers because right now he's like, boy, those throws he made to Alan Lazar were just incredible. So is Aaron Rogers, in your opinion, a must start guy rest of season?

I mean, we definitely this week against Atlanta, but rest of season is Aaron Rodgers a must start guy. Yeah. Yeah, he's the I was definitely one of the Aaron Rodgers is not as good as he used to be guys over the last couple

seasons because he wasn't he didn't have faith in any receivers besides Devante Adams and he was kind of playing sloppy like his mechanics were bad. There were way too many times in the last couple of seasons where he would just like Devontae Adams, and he was kind of playing sloppy. Like his mechanics were bad. There were way too many times in the last couple of seasons where he would just like air mail a throw or throw it short because he didn't step into a throw and he was relying on his arm to arm strength to get the job done.

And so far this season, we've seen a different version of Aaron Rodgers. And what's interesting is the way that they've constituted their offense. It's all either quick throws. He has the second lowest rate of passes at least five yards down the field. So he has, I think, entering week three, he had the quickest average time of release

after the drop back. But he also has one of the highest rates of passes 20 plus yards down the field. And so they're doing the high efficiency throws in the short game. And he has confidence in Alan Lazard, Marquez Valdez, Santling, both of whom were in,

I think the top 10 in air yards in week three. And obviously he has a lot of faith in Devante Adams too. Ben, what do you think? Anything else on the Packers you want to talk about or the Saints for that matter? Jared Cook got hurt. Manuel Sanders was better than Traquan Smith, barely. He had 12 more yards, but he caught the touchdown.

Smith actually had one more target. Oddly enough, Kamara had basically any carries. Yeah, I mean, two games in a row. At the end of the game, it was Jay Sternberger getting his first ever regular season catches. So it was almost like, yeah, Tanyan might be a waiver wire guy. And then Mercedes Lewis catches the touchdown. Jace Sternberger is in there at the end.

Oh, the pass interference. That should not have been a touchdown. There were two late game winning touchdowns yesterday that just absolutely should not have counted. Yeah, that one at least, you know, didn't 100% affect the outcome of the game, like the Bills one, but... Yeah, that was trash.

I don't think anyone's rushing to pick up a tight end for the Packers, especially if Devontae Adams is back next week. Yeah. No, but there's no Saints wide receivers either that I like because Sanders looked terrible, and then he looked fine yesterday. Traequan looked good, and then he looked fine yesterday. Traquan looked good,

and then he looked fine yesterday. No, I think Al Lazard, I'm really disappointed that I didn't start him in more places because I have him on most of my teams. MVS, they shaded the coverage toward MVS. I think Marshawn Lattimore was on Valdez Scantling more often,

which makes sense because he lines up on the outside more often. But Lazard is really good. Rodgers obviously has confidence in him. He obviously had confidence in him last year when he was, you know, kind of publicly pushing for him to play. And these are really, really big wide receivers who can go up and make tough grabs. MVS has had some drop trouble,

but I really like what the Packers are doing on offense and the fact that Aaron Rodgers clearly trusts these guys. That's the biggest thing. I think you can see the difference between year one and year two of Matt LaFleur's offense. They are doing whatever they want. They're running whatever they want. They're running the ball well.

Aaron Jones has had 16 to 18 carries in all three games, which is a great sign. They're throwing. I mean, they're just super confident. And sometimes it happens, sometimes it doesn't, where the quarterback takes a big leap in the second year of a system. It seems to be happening in this case. News and notes.

Dallas Goddard likely to miss some time with the ankle injury. Deshaun Jackson is believed to have a minor strain. Chris Carson could play this week. Do we have an update on Jarek McKinnon? I didn't even see... How late did he leave that game? I was watching.

I didn't really see. I think third quarter, I think. Okay. Yeah, because he played 48 snaps. So he had a huge role yesterday. I didn't even realize that he left because of that. Jeff Wilson had almost no role before the fourth quarter. Yeah.

He had six carries and two catches on San Francisco's final drive. He ended the game, Jeff Wilson, with 12 carries and three catches. And he had scored both of his touchdowns in the fourth quarter. So it looked like it really was Jared McKinnon's backfield. He might get another chance this week. I think they play the Eagles, but I didn't see, yeah, they do,

but I didn't see an update on him. So we'll hopefully we'll have one tomorrow. Chris Godwin is having an MRI on his hamstring and that's annoying. That's two concussions. It's two injuries. He might miss another game. And yeah, again,

we'll update you on all the injuries on Tuesday. Nick Foles is going to start this week. Jared Cook left with an ankle injury, and there were a bunch of defensive injuries. I'm not really going to get into them. Except to say this. I forgot to say this about the Seahawks. Their defense stinks.

And every week, they're getting more and more injured. Two weeks ago, they lost Bruce Servin for the year. On Sunday, Jamal Adams got hurt. Don't know the severity there. And a starting linebacker, I think he was a fill-in, but he's now a starting linebacker, he got hurt as well. So that's another thing going for Russell Wilson. The defense is probably, I'm thinking, the worst.

Right now, it looks like the worst it's been in the Pete Carroll era, or at least, I don't know, last six, seven years, whatever. It's called Russell Wilson era. So that's just different. And 400 yards passing per game, I believe they're giving up. They, wide receivers.

I mean, we got a question about starting Eagles. It's one of our big topics. Oh, I'm sorry. That's Miami next week. No, they already played Seattle, my bad. I know they didn't play Seattle. They play them later in the year. Okay. Anyway, Miami next week.

Starting wide receivers against the Seahawks. It's just like game after game. 100 yard after 100 yard. It's wild. Devontae Parker's a must-start in that game. Mike Gusecki's a must-start. And Preston Williams, you know, the fact that hopefully he can start to play better after week three.

All right. Five big topics. Here we go from Sean Brendan Lemons. What is going to be more important this year? Top tier talent or top tier talent as starters or depth throughout? Ben, what do you think? Top tier talent as starters

who do not get hurt. But it just depends because if you have top tier talent and they're not getting hurt, you are depends because if you have top tier talent and they're not getting hurt you are dominating if you have depth and your depth is just depth a bunch of rb2s a bunch of wide receiver twos it's not going to win you any league so non-answer which sucks but yeah you're going to need to get lucky more than anything this year i think this is going to be the most luck driven fantasy season we've ever had, at least

in my fantasy era. Yeah, I would say a few things that you can do to kind of lean into what we've seen so far. I know we always talk about handcuffs as like you want Tony Pollard if you're the Ezekiel Elliott manager. I think in this

type of scenario, you probably want Tony Pollard if you don't have Ezekiel Elliott manager. I think in this type of scenario, you probably want Tony Pollard if you don't have Ezekiel Elliott more because it's all about having as many guys as possible who can start every week and who can hit. But I don't know if I... I don't know. I had this discussion.

It's so weird how it's like every person I know who's more analytics driven, it says what you just said. And then I think the more, I don't know, old school fantasy football people like myself, I like...

You play scared, Adam. No, I just like handcuffing my running back instead of someone else's running back because two things. One, when it comes to roster spots, it's harder, especially when you get comes to roster spots, it's harder,

especially when you get to the bye weeks, it's harder to keep the guy that you're handcuffing that you don't even have the starter. It's harder to keep Tony Pollard if you don't have Zeke, in my opinion. And then I'm just saying,

I am so mad at myself in the Flex League that I'm in for not having Mike Davis when I had Christian McCaffrey. And I lost Christian McCaffrey. And I lost Christian McCaffrey. I needed Mike Davis a hell of a lot more than the manager that didn't lose Christian McCaffrey. So when the bids came out,

I put like a $45 bid on him and I lost like a $50 bid or something. But I just know from experience, I needed that backup running back much more than the non-McCaffrey manager did. I think it comes down to upside. There's more upside in having someone else's handcuff because when that guy gets hurt, if you have Ezekiel Elliott and you have Tony Pollard, your upside is you replaced Ezekiel Elliott

with hopefully 80% of him. Whereas if you've got Tony Pollard and someone else has Ezekiel Elliott... I understand the math here. That person's team has a huge hole, and now your team is so much better. That's the logic. I get it. I understand the theory. I just find it funny that...

Well, Ben, where do you... You're maybe in between the analytics community and the old school. Yeah, I would say before I was introduced to the analytics community, I was all Team Adam here, but I'm Team Chris at this point because I don't want my best to just be a waiting game.

Good luck holding on to those players. You're just sitting there praying for injuries. You're going to drop that guy. I get it. You're going to drop that guy. I get it. You're going to drop that guy. I've dropped my own handcuffs too. Like in leagues that I have McCaffrey, I've dropped Mike Davis before,

even though I have McCaffrey because hey, McCaffrey isn't getting hurt. He's not getting hurt. I need a spot. I'm going to drop the guy regardless, unfortunately. That's the tough thing is that

like when we're talking about like how does the strategy affect this season? You know, with all the injuries that we're seeing, it's really like it depends if you're the guy who has a bunch of injuries. There was no reason to think Christian McCaffrey was more likely to get hurt than Ezekiel Elliott. It was just bad luck.

And I think the fact that nobody really drafted Mike Davis, I think that's probably reflective of a blind spot that the fantasy community has, where is Christian McCaffrey has never gotten hurt. And so we were just like, well, he's not a risk. And it's like,

well, he's a running back, but it's not just that though. It's, I don't think people thought Mike Davis would be good. And lo and behold, he has eight catches two weeks in a row. Yeah.

So there's always that. You don't even know how these backups are going to be. I think you can feel pretty confident that Tony Pollard would be a row. Yeah. So there's always that. You don't even know how these backups are going to be. I think you can feel pretty confident that Tony Pollard would be a must-start guy, honestly, if I feel that way anyway, if Zeke got hurt. All right.

Let's go to our second one. Sean McDermott. What's up, Sean? Says, what have we learned about certain split backfields after three weeks? He cites the Cleveland backfield,

the Chargers and the Bucs, etc. What have we learned after three weeks? A lotites the Cleveland backfield, the Chargers and the Bucs, etc. What have we learned after three weeks? A lot, a little, and nothing for Cleveland, Chargers, and Bucs. I think we have learned a lot about the Bucs. Oh, yeah. We learned that it sucks. Yeah.

It's awful. That Bruce Arians wasn't lying for once. I think if you could turn, if you could try to trade, going back to this question and the previous question, anybody who's in a split backfield, you should look to trade

for someone who isn't in a split backfield. And that's hard to do. You obviously have to throw something in with it. But I don't know. Try to take advantage of that. Like maybe Devin Singletary

because like he's just not going to score a lot of touchdowns. You can turn maybe like, could you turn him into Kenyon Drake? If you add something, I'm actually a little hesitant on Kenyon Drake. So I don't want to keep going there. Well, don't be hesitant because he's going to go off this week,

but after this week, I hope so. Just see the tough thing there though, is in a season with a lot of injuries, a guy who's in a backfield split can suddenly very much not be in a backfield split all of a sudden. I think we're probably going to see with David Montgomery, where Cordell Patterson will have a role.

But I think David Montgomery is going to be really good moving forward. I don't think he's going to be that good, though. He's going to be an RB2. Let's say you had James Robinson and David Montgomery. Would you trade them for Aaron Jones? Both of them? Yes. I would.

They're both RB2s. Yeah, I would too. I would too. That kind of goes back to the first question of having depth or having elite talent. Yeah. So you would do that, Chris? Yeah.

I mean, because you probably drafted Montgomery as your RB3, and maybe someone got hurt and now he's your RB2, but Robinson's actually your RB2. So if you're in that situation where all of a sudden you can add Aaron Jones to a group that already has a really good running back, then yeah,

I would do that because you're probably only starting two running backs most weeks anyway. All right. This is drew PR. Should we be trading for AJ Brown or staying away? If you can trade a bench player for AJ Brown, I'm all about it. Yeah.

Yeah. I think like Corey Davis has been okay, but he's, I don't think he's really a threat to A.J. Brown. The Titans have actually been a ton of deep stuff for Ryan Tannehill. They're really relying very little on the short game, and so that's going to benefit A.J. Brown when he comes back. Assuming he can get back to something like full speed relatively soon, I think he'll be,

you know, that number two wide receiver that we were hoping for from DOS. Are any Eagles players not named miles Sanders, a startable fantasy player moving forward? Yeah. I think Zach is a must start. Oh, Jinx.

A hundred percent. Yep. I mean, Zach hurts. He's got seven to 10 targets in every game dallas goddard's out don't know about the sean jackson so we're going to definitely start earths we're going to definitely start miles sanders the question is are you going to have any faith in alshon jeffrey let's say he plays in week four would you have faith in starting alshon jeffrey no i think you're hoping for a four

for 51 game and you score a touchdown. It's great. He kind of is the Dallas Goddard until Dallas Goddard comes back. So yeah, it's a pretty low upside flex play. I think he can be a high upside play eventually. Like Alshon Jeffrey, you know, even in the Eagles offense has been a very good fantasy player in the past, but you need to see it first before I think you even start him given the

nature of the injury. Yeah. As far as Wentz goes, or just the offense in general, San Francisco, Pittsburgh and Baltimore are their next three opponents. That's not probably not going to be easy, although maybe they can test the San Francisco defense in ways that the

giants can't. And then after that though, check out week seven through 12. Giants, Dallas, bye, Giants, Cleveland, Seattle. There appear to be four, maybe five great matchups

for the passing game there. You know, it's three weeks from now, so you don't have to do anything about it now, but just keep it in mind. How many quarterbacks have actually looked worse than Carson Wentz this season? It's not necessarily about him,

but it could be. No, but he's playing horribly right now. He needs to play a lot better. No, I get what you're saying. There could be more production there. For Ertz, if Goddard's back at that point, they've got a soft spot. But you are looking at wide receiver core of

a lot of guys you know al sean maybe rager's back maybe deshaun's back maybe greg ward has stepped up so i wouldn't pick up al sean necessarily right now because of it but if you have an empty spot yeah i'm taking him over a random guy who is just like a low-end rb I would take him over like Andy Isabella. Yeah. Would you take him over Justin Jefferson? No. Justin Jefferson is the top waiver wire target for me. I made a big mistake yesterday and I need to correct it. I'm actually meant to correct it at the top of the show, so I made

another mistake. I had the Vikings-Titans game and I copied and pasted the Titans schedule onto Justin Jefferson's schedule. The Titans' next two games are Pittsburgh and Buffalo. Jefferson's next two games are Houston and Seattle and then Atlanta. So Houston actually hasn't been that bad against wide receivers. Seattle and Atlanta certainly have,

but Jefferson's schedule is much more favorable than I thought it was. And I am sorry about that. That was a stupid mistake I made. And they just got to throw the ball more. There's like Kirk cousins has 71 pass attempts and they've given up their That was a stupid mistake I made. They just got to throw the ball more. Kirk Cousins has 71 pass attempts, and they've given up their 78 pass attempts. They're 0-3, and they've given up 101 points.

If you've given up more points than you have pass attempts, you're doing something incredibly wrong. There's a reason for it, though. It's because they had the ball for 19 minutes each of the first two games. So I don't know about yesterday, though. Why did he only throw 27 passes there? That's because before the game, Gary Kubiak said, we need to run the ball more.

They almost won. Give him that. And they did run the ball really well. Yeah. And like, he wasn't, I don't think he was as bad as like, I saw a headline like cousins collapses.

And one of the interceptions was like Adam Thielen fell down, had the ball popped up and into the defender's hands. So, you know, like he's a relatively efficient quarterback who takes a decent amount of deep shots in the play action game. I think Justin Jefferson and Adam Thielen can both, it can be a Stefan Diggs, Adam Thielen situation if they start throwing the ball 34 times a game,

which wouldn't even really be that much. Yeah, well, I'll tell you who needs to catch more balls. Dalvin Cookie has five catches, I think, or eight catches maybe in three games. All right, final question in our five big topics comes from Philly Special. Who would you take number one overall if fantasy football started today?

Ezekiel Elliott. Alvin Kamara. Okay. I thought I knew Chris was going to say Alvin Kamara. It's between those two. Go ahead, guys. Michael Thomas was for sure out for another four or five weeks. It's Kamara.

Because I think Kamara's usage in the passing game is bound to go down compared to the last two weeks. And I think Elliot will continue to be used in the past game. And I mean, he's 58 carries already through three weeks is just typical Ezekiel Elliot. So I think nothing has changed for my outlook for either of these guys for the season. They've both kind of shown what I'm expected, but Camara has done better because of no Michael Thomas, but Michael Thomas is coming back. Yeah. But Elliot has really benefited from some circumstances that I don't think are really going to continue.

Like they've, they've attempted, let's see, 145 pass attempts this season. That would be presumably something close to a record. Well, Hey now, then, then maybe you should take Russell Wilson over Dak Prescott because earlier... Yeah, that would be 773 pass attempts.

All right, but earlier you were using that to your advantage earlier, Chris. Yeah, yeah, but that's also like it's going to come down, but he's still going to throw the ball a lot more than Russell Wilson. But the Cowboys do run the fastest offense in the NFL. They are just sprinting to the line to get more plays off, which makes sense when you've got an offense with as many options as they do that you want to get as many opportunities as you can.

But Ezekiel Elliott's on pace for 125 targets or something like that. Even in 2018, when he was a really good pass catcher, he wasn't close to that. Okay, but Alvin Kamara is on pace for 166 targets or something like that. Yeah, I mean, he's not going to get there, but 130 is a realistic outcome for Alvin Kamara, I think. I don't think...

The carries are not going to be anywhere near Zeke. Right. But targets are more valuable. And that's the thing. But who's going to score more touchdowns? Because Kamara has been a touchdown machine other than last year. But Zeke's getting one-yard touchdown runs. Kamara's getting 50-yard touchdown catches.

What's more sustainable here? It is close. I think I'd take Kamara in PPR and I'd take Zeke in non or half. But I do think it's close, Chris. And you need to apologize to everyone for saying it wasn't close. That's what I think.

In PPR especially, I don't think it's close. I think Alvin Kamara is... I mean, one, I just think he's a better player than Ezekiel Elliott. I don't know if that's a hot take. So does Chris Collinsworth, because Collinsworth said he's the best running back in football. Yeah, I mean, I don't think that's unreasonable.

And he was outrageously efficient before his injury last season. That was basically... There was a marker that you can draw on his career between Alvin Kamara, fantasy God and mere mortal. And now he's tough. There's no guarantee he will continue. Zeke's a fantasy God every year.

Yeah. Yeah. That's fair. That's fair. It's fine. I do think Alvin Kamara is going to get more than he usually does. Who's the third pick. I go, I'm going to think I'm going to go Dalvin Cook there.

I'll go Cook. Yeah. Aaron Jones would be up there. Boy, this shines off Josh Jacobs a little bit, huh? Let's see what Clyde Edwards-Ziller does tonight. Things are interesting. People change their minds so much. So much.

I don't think Josh Jacobs has a run of longer than 14 yards, but I don't know what he did yesterday in terms of that. But that's been weird. It might be like Christian McCaffrey might be the number one pick. You know, like rest of season he's not, but I'm not necessarily worried at all that Christian McCaffrey is going to come back and not be Christian McCaffrey. You know, maybe it takes him a couple weeks to get going like it did Saquon Barkley, but

I haven't seen anything from any of these people to suggest that they have more upside than Christian McCaffrey does. So if we're talking about a 2021 view, I think Christian McCaffrey is still shooting. Oh no, definitely. Definitely. Alright. We're going to take a quick break here on Fantasy Football today. Come back, give you some stats, hopefully read some emails, um, snap counts and Mike Evans,

weird stat. ADOT. ADOT is officially in the mainstream. Ladies and gentlemen, it made Sunday night football. There you go. We will, uh,

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Back here on Fantasy Football today to take a look at some statistics that you may not have seen. The New York Jets are the only team that have not run a play while leading this year. back here on Fantasy Football today to take a look at some statistics that you may not have seen. The New York Jets are the only team that have not run a play while leading this year. Yeah, this is Adam Gase's last game. They're bad. That's it. Broncos on Thursday, new coach on Friday.

Tyler Higbee. So who had this? This was a Ben stat? This is a Ben stat. All right, Ben, go for it tyler higby snap snaps uh snaps and routes played 71 of the snaps this week ran routes on 40 of those snaps he also ran routes on 40 of his snaps in week two he's just going to be an up and down tight end he's still startable he's still probably a must start but he's not a top five tight end yeah i

think he's back in that touchdown dependent tight end group. I think he's, he has 10 targets through three games. He had 10 targets through three games last season. You know, he was averaging like 9.5 during that five game around at the end of the season when he really broke out. So Tyler Higby kind of looks like he's just back to being Tyler Higby. Miles Gaskin had three carries inside the five. So maybe it's just like Jordan Howard's only coming in at the one. Yeah. Or like when there's a, when there's a stoppage of play,

it's the kind of situation where I would imagine when they're rolling and they want to play hurry up or when they want to get to the line quickly, there's no reason to take miles Gaskin out, especially since he's looked so good. Ben, Mike Evans, two catches, two yards, two touchdowns. Third player ever to do this. Awesome. No fantasy impact. Just wanted to include it.

Well, definitely some. Yeah, where's the yards, man? He, uh... When we were talking about the addition of Tom Brady and the effect it could have on the Buccaneers' offense and how it could go wrong for Mike Evans specifically, it was, well, Brady doesn't love throwing downfield at this point in his career. So maybe Mike Evans doesn't get as many targets and maybe the targets that he does get are not as valuable because Brady won't be taking those downfield shots. He'll be looking for him in the shallower depths.

And so far, Mike Evans' average depth of target is down to 8.6 yards. It was 14.8 over the previous three seasons. And his target share from last season was 23.8%. It's down to 17%. So I'm not saying you should panic. Mike Evans was great in week two. What was missing in week two, though?

Chris Godwin. That's right. He also might be missing moving forward. But I am saying that this is what we thought it would look like if Mike Evans was going to be a bust. Mike Evans, well, this is pretty bad. Mike Evans in two games that he has played with Chris Godwin, he has scored three touchdowns in those two games,

but he has played with Chris Godwin. He has scored three touchdowns in those two games, but he has four yards. He had two yards in week one and two yards in week two. That's incredible. Wow. All right, more stats for you. Calvin Ridley, Chris kind of broke it down. Calvin Ridley had, well, he had 249 air yards, which was way more than DK Metcalf, who was number two.

And a lot of yards and a lot of stats kind of left on the field, just missing barely Calvin Ridley and Matt Ryan. So a lot to be encouraged there. What did you see with DJ Moore and his ADOT? Robbie Anderson is now DJ Moore. And DJ Moore is Curtis Samuel. And Curtis Samuel is, I don't know, kind of Christian McCaffrey. He's Mike Davis and Mike Davis is Christian McCaffrey.

Yeah. The way they're using them is, is really interesting. Robbie Anderson actually has a relatively low average depth of target, which is weird given that we've always viewed him as a deep threat and DJ Moore's average depth of target is 13.5 yards. It was 11.5 last year. Anderson's 8.5 DJ Moore. There was a couple of, you know, actual legitimate deep targets yesterday, but you know, Teddy Bridgewater has mostly played how we expected him to a lot of throws within the, for the, within five yards of the line of scrimmage.

I think it's the highest rate in football, not a lot of deep targets. And so that's why you're seeing Robbie Anderson play better than DJ Moore. And it's going to be, I don't know, I'm a little worried about DJ Moore. I was all in. I was as bought in as anyone on DJ Moore. And now the fact that him and Robbie Anderson's roles are so different than we thought, it's a little concerning. But if DJ Moore does start hitting on a few more of those longer shots, it could be each target is more valuable than the ones he got last year. It's pretty interesting. He's also faced the Bucs and the Chargers in his last two games. And those are tough matchups for wide receivers. And he came through great

against the Bucs. You shouldn't have been surprised that Moore and Anderson... I shouldn't say that because I did tell everybody to start DJ Moore, but it's not a huge surprise that they struggled because the Chargers are great against wide receivers. I gave that stat. It's been two years. Two years since two wide receivers in the same game had either

10 non-PPR or 14 PPR fantasy points against the Chargers. There's one exception to that. It was a playoff game where the Patriots barely, barely qualified. Philip Dorsett had like exactly those thresholds, but it's a tough matchup. And he gets Arizona in week two,

uh, in week four. And so far they've been pretty good against wide receivers, but I'm not sure I buy that because Gallaudet scored. McLaurin had a huge game. So I think DJ Moore, you know, could,

could have a good game in week, week four. Um, all right, give me one more stat that you want to talk about chris one more stat that i want to talk about okay here's an interesting one uh austin eckler who had a what looked like a very austin eckler-esque game yesterday um his average depth of target is one point negative 1.63 yards. His average target has been behind the line of scrimmage. Last season, it was 1.49. That's not huge, but he was seventh, I believe, among running backs in air yards last season.

He did get downfield throws, and that hasn't really been there so far this season. And the fact that Herbert is throwing him the ball more is a very good sign. And I hope Herbert continues to start for the Chargers because he's better for their fantasy options than Tyrod Taylor will be. But I think Austin Eckler, you know, a big part of the appeal for him was the just outrageous efficiency.

And that may not be there to the same extent, which means the ceiling may not be as high for him as it was last year. All right, let's rapid fire through these. Ready? Jimmy Graham is second in the NFL in red zone targets and leads the NFL in targets inside the 10-yard line. That was a big thing in training camp. They talked about it a ton, how Jimmy Graham gave them a...

Jimmy Graham and Cole Kometa, actually, both of them were drawing rave reviews in camp for their work near the goal line specifically. So may remain a thing moving forward. Actually, both of them were drawing rave reviews in camp for their work near the goal line specifically. So it may remain a thing moving forward. Okay, he's rostered in 13% of leagues, and he had seven targets, then one target, then nine targets in three games. Yeah.

How about pressures allowed? You look at offensive linemen and the pressures they have allowed. Houston and Cincinnati have two offensive linemen in the top 10 in pressures allowed. It's not a major shock for Cincinnati because, one, we know they have a bad line, but, two, they're throwing the ball so much. The Giants have three offensive linemen in the top 15 in pressures allowed. So, whew, those are some lines that are struggling right now. Aaron Donald leads the NFL

with 20 pressures. Pittsburgh has four players in the top 10. Four players, I think top 10, four players with 14 or more pressures. It's not top 10. It's like top 12. That's insane. Watt, Tewitt, Dupree, and Hayward. And the Eagles have three players with 10 or more pressures. So you know, the Eagles, I feel like the Eagles defense has actually been pretty solid this year. Not a great matchup. Been in a lot of bad situations. Yeah, that's a great point. How about this, Ben?

Carson Wentz has, what, six turnovers? Daryl Henderson and Malcolm Brown played the same amount of snaps, Ben. What do you think? Daryl Henderson is going to be the lead running back, but they trust Malcolm Brown a lot more and he's not going away and he's going to get a lot of inside the five touches. So hold your horses on Daryl Henderson being a

high-end RB2 at this point. Still startable though. JD McKissick out snapped Antonio Gibson. They both had three catches. I just want to point out that the fumble for Gibson was such bad luck. It was just like a short target that he took for like 12 yards and fumbled as the

it was as the clock ran out at the end of the first half and he fumbled like as he was going out of bounds and it you know, someone jumped on it. It wasn't like an actual it wasn't really like a harmful fumble. It probably shouldn't have been a play that happened.

Okay, that's nice of you to say but Gibson and he looked good. Yeah, I don nice of you to say, but Gibson looked good. Yeah. I don't know why they're not throwing him the ball. He was a wide receiver. I don't know if the Washington football team realizes this because they have McKissick, who's also a great pass catcher and they really like McKissick.

So I'm scared to keep starting Gibson. The weirdest thing is they're not really using them. Either of them in the passing game. Well, I don't know. Maybe it maybe it's their quarterback he really has been bad yeah he's been I might like to see Alex Smith in there eventually Dwayne Haskins has not

I wouldn't say he's regressed he has not taken the step forward that I hoped for Kenny asks who is the second best quarterback in the NFC East in real life and are we sure it's not Andy Dalton I'll say it's Carson Wentz but could be Andy Dalton I guess Dalton is very close

I mean Wentz is the second lowest graded quarterback by PFF this year and I think he might be the lowest if you took out his really really high run grade so who's the lowest dalton would be the lowest haskins oh wow yeah um how is daniel jones rated higher than carson wentz yeah i mean all three of them have been just absolute disasters carson wentz it just he looks terrified. Like the protection hasn't been as bad as he seems to think it has been. It's been really weird. Yeah.

But Jason Peters has been, according to that pressure stat, has been horrible at left tackle. All right, we got to go, everybody. Thanks so much for tuning in. For Ben and Chris, I'm Adam. We'll talk to you about fantasy football today in five. Make sure you're subscribing to that

and fantasy football today tomorrow at what time? About 10 o'clock Eastern. We'll get that show out, the today in five. Make sure you're subscribing to that and fantasy football today. Tomorrow at what time? About 10 o'clock Eastern, we'll get that show out, the Waver Wire episode for you. And we'll recap hopefully what will be a terrific game tonight, Monday Night Football. All right. See you later.