Fantasy Football Today - The Chiefs are Back and Five Big Topics! (11/16 Fantasy Football Podcast)

Episode Date: November 15, 2021

Well, the Chiefs look great again but what will CEH's role be when he returns as soon as this week? And do we trust anyone on the Raiders? Darren Waller? Hunter Renfrow? ... News and notes (12:00) with Aaron Jones replacement options. And then we'll get into our Five Big Topics beginning with DeVonta Smith and his rest of season value (18:00). We'll also discuss Cam Newton (24:00) and whether or not he is a Top 12 QB rest of season ... What the heck is going on with T.J. Hockenson (27:10)? Have the veteran RBs let us down this season (34:10)? Can we rely on a Broncos RB going forward (37:15)? ... Email us at [e-mail] Follow our FFT team on Twitter: @FFToday, @AdamAizer, @JameyEisenberg, @daverichard, @heathcummingssr, @ctowerscbs, @BenSchragg Watch FFT on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/fantasyfootballtoday Join our Facebook group https://www.facebook.com/groups/FantasyFootballToday/ Sign up for the FFT newsletter https://www.cbssports.com/newsletter You can listen to Fantasy Football Today 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

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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. And it is your Monday afternoon edition of Fantasy Football Today. Excited for today's show because the Chiefs are back. Right, Chris? Yes. What happened there? Where were you?

So I'm wearing a tropical-themed themed shirt for those of you watching on YouTube. And I've got my space heater on under my desk. I'm really trying to just manifest warmth. Because it's the first cold couple of days in New York. The corner of this house, this apartment is very cold. Not good

insulation in this 100 year old building. So I'm sorry. The space heater was getting a little too hot. It was a little too close to my toesies. Yeah. They're pretty clutch. Those space heaters though. Yeah. Heat went out last year.

I had to use space heaters. Good. Very good. It's a nice thing to have. Yeah. Very nice thing I ever had in South Florida. As for the chiefs, same here.

Uh, 41, 14. I guess they're back. I don't know. This was a, I mean, look,

they scored 41 points. Patrick Mahomes threw four touchdowns, five, five touchdowns, 406 passing yards for him, but it was a very different game than what we've seen from the, from the chiefs in Patrick Mahomes career. Really?

He had an average depth, the target of, or an average intended air yards per target of 3.2 yards which was the lowest for any full game of his career he had one game where he left with an injury and had a lower one but other than that this was by far I mean it was like more than a yard lower than his previous low so clearly the Chiefs made the adjustment that we've been hoping they would make which was when teams are trying to take away the deep ball, you throw it short, you keep the chains moving,

and you move the ball that way. And they were able to do that. It was a big game for Tyreek Hill and Travis Kelsey. A huge game for Darrell Williams as a pass catcher in the backfield, which I think opens up some interesting questions about what his role is going to be moving forward. But for the most part, yes, I think you have to be pretty happy with what we saw from the Chiefs last night.

50 pass attempts for Mahomes. And from the athletic, the third time in Mahomes' career, five-year career, that he has finished with more than 400 yards and at least five touchdowns. He has done that three times. Since he entered the league in 2017,

and he barely played in 2017, since he entered the league in 2017 and he barely played in 2017. Since he entered the league, the rest of the NFL's quarterbacks have done that four times. So that's 400 yards and five touchdowns. He's done it three times in his career and it's happened only four other times. Brady, Aaron Rogers,

Deshaun Watson, and Jared Goff, one each. That is amazing. That's courtesy of the athletic. So yeah, Kansas City dominated this game. They had the ball for more than 35 minutes. Raiders had a bad

injury to their fullback, Alec Ingold, and I don't know if that influenced their running game, but they could not run the ball on what had been a pretty weak run defense, so that was disappointing. I think the Chiefs, you know, Mahomes was 96% started. The question really is about, well, first of all,

I think it's time to just drop McColl Hardman. He's not mega owned, but 48%. I don't get it. Why are we holding on to him? But anyway, we don't have to discuss that. Clyde Edwards either has a good chance to play this week against the Cowboys. Then they have a bye.

But let's just say we expect CEH to be back. You're right. this was a great performance from daryl williams and opens up some questions nine catches for 101 yards and a touchdown to highlight real touchdown catch another kind of meh game rushing the ball but yeah what do you make of it now with with ceh uh going forward i think claude-Hilaire is clearly a better runner than Darrell Williams. And I think when he's healthy, he's almost certainly going to be the lead back in that regard. And he should be much more productive.

This is, I think, suddenly a pretty good situation for running the ball in a way that wasn't necessarily the case when we entered the season or at all last season because teams are planning to take away the deep ball. That should mean more opportunities for Clyde, Clyde Edwards, a layer more space to work.

The question is whether he's going to have a role in the passing game. If he does, and they keep using, and then they keep running their offense like this with so many quick short passes, that's going to be a big deal for Clyde Edwards. He layer, and he could be a top 12 running back if he's getting four to five targets per game.

But even before all this, you know, you had Darrell Williams playing about 25 to 35% of the snaps most weeks before Edwards hilarious injuries. So I would think we're still likely to see a committee and potentially more of one. Maybe it'll be even more of an even split. And Edward DeLair will find himself in like an Antonio Gibson role where he's really just running the ball. Yeah. And then the question is, at least you know with Gibson, he's the goal linebacker.

But it was always Darrell Williams. And they trust him a lot in those short yardage situations. He picked up a big fourth down and one to set up first and goal. That ended in a touchdown. He's getting a lot of almost touchdowns, Darrell Williams. But I think he's probably pretty effective in those situations. And then they always run those

trick plays. They could always run those trick plays. I called him a buy low last week, CEH. I know he's going to have an important role, but is he going to have the fantasy valuable role, you know, pass catching and goal line, basically? That is a question, but they should be able to...

Put it this way. His yards per carry, I think, is going to be really good because it's a great situation for him. I just worry it might be like 11 carries for 50 yards every week. Who would you rather have? Clyde Edwards-Elair or Melvin Gordon or Javante Williams rest of season? They both have a bye coming up.

That's tough. I think I would still rather have CEH just because we know it's a split in Denver. I mean, it's possible that Melvin Gordon, you know, I know on FFT today, Heath said on the video show, he said week 12 is going to be Javante Williams week. And maybe, maybe Melvin Gordon, just the fumble

yesterday cost the team, uh, you know, confidence in him. And it really will be Javante Williams, the lead back moving forward, but I still think it's going to be pretty close to an even split. I'll take Clyde Abderdiler. We are going to talk about our five big topics today. We are going to talk about the Broncos running backs. We're going to talk about Devontae Smith, TJ Hawkinson, running back age,

and Cam Newton. Those are our five big topics today. More on this game. Let's take a look at Las Vegas and struggling offensively in their last two games without Henry Ruggs at the Giants. And they moved the ball very well in that game, but they stunk in the red zone.

And this was more of a struggle, I think, overall. So your confidence level in any Raiders, including Darren Waller, is what? Man, Darren Waller has been a pretty big disappointment so far. I still think he's a must-start fantasy tight end, so I'll say my confidence level in him is still an 8. But after that, I don't think there's anybody else on this team that's a must-start player.

I know Hunter Renfro seems to score a touchdown every week, and maybe he can keep that up despite getting 45 yards a game, but I can't view a guy who has two games with more than 58 yards as a must-start player. I just can't. He's getting like seven catches,

five or more catches in all but one game. PPR, how is he not at least a number three receiver well yeah i think he's in that range but that doesn't necessarily mean he's a must start you know okay i think a must start wide receiver is probably a top 20 guy all right so i don't think renfro's there just because like yes he's had seven catches or more or seven catches in three straight games. One of those,

he had 12.8 points. The other two he had right around 17, I believe, but that's only because he scored a touchdown on the other two. You know, he, he looks like someone who's probably going to get you around 10 points per game. And the upside comes if he can keep scoring touchdowns,

which I don't know how much I believe in him as a, you know, a legitimate every week red zone guy. He per game, Hunter Renfro is 32nd and non PPR 27th in full PPR. Waller had a touchdown on the second to last play of the game, called back on a holding penalty. Yep. Yep.

That was frustrating. But he also went off the week before, you know, he had 92 yards on 11 targets the week before. And in that game, he was missed on at least one touchdown. So I still could see Waller having a huge finish. I don't really get it. I don't know why he's been so disappointing. He's actually, per game, he is the number four PPR tight end.

But he's number seven in non-PPR. He just has a lot of catches. You know, he's second in targets. He's on base for almost 1,000 yards in in non-PPR. He just has a lot of catches. He's second in targets. He's on pace for almost 1,000 yards in a 16-game season. That's almost a 1,000-yard pace. It's not like he's been much worse than he was in 2019. The catch rate is way low, 62%. His average depth of target is higher than it has been

so you would expect the catch rate to go down a little bit, but 62% seems incredibly low for a quarterback as accurate as Derek Carr and a guy who's as good at catching the football as Darren Waller. So I would think we're going to see a better version of Darren Waller moving forward. Okay. Any interest in picking up Brian Edwards, three catches, 88 yards and a touchdown on four targets. No, not, not with that target share. He's going to have to see an increase, and maybe it'll happen,

but the target share has still been pretty low since Henry Ruggs' release. Would you rather have Derek Carr or Cam Newton rest of season? Huh, that's interesting. Cam Newton's schedule is pretty good moving forward isn't it oh well let's washington take washington twice the jets he would not get washington twice

doesn't get washington twice who he has washington miami a by atlanta atlanta buffalo tampa bay and new orleans so four out of his remaining six during the fantasy season are pretty good. Well, I don't know how you feel about Miami at this point. You know, have they gotten their mojo back a little bit? They've been better the last two weeks, really, right? Yes. So listen, I'm going to take Carr because he doesn't have a bye. Come on, right? Yes. So listen, I'm going to take Carr because he doesn't have a buy.

Just say that. Yeah, that's fair. But if I had to drop Derek Carr for Cam Newton, I don't know if I would hate that. And the other problem with Cam Newton could have a very good game this week. I'm kind of destroying a topic for later, but just noticing now, Cam Newton

has Buffalo in week 15 and New Orleans in week 17. So that's not going to be easy for him. All right, let's talk about the newsletter here. CBSsports.com slash newsletters. Subscribe to the Fantasy Football Today newsletter. Chris Towers writes it, gets it delivered to your inbox,

starts it advice, trades, injuries, quotes, stats, everything that you need to know in one quick read in the newsletter. So please check it out. And we'll go through the news and notes here. Aaron Jones has a mild MCL sprain. He is expected to miss one to two weeks. And that means Minnesota this this week you can count him out and then the rams in week 12 maybe he's back then you have a buy so i think you feel pretty comfortable that he's that he's at least back for chicago in week 14 that would be my guess i think if i i think it's the most likely outcome is he misses two weeks obviously i'm not a doctor i don't work for the green bay

packers but it just it would make sense aj dillon's good enough that you can just I feel like they could sit him against the Rams and you know get him that extra week of rest before um bringing him back yeah and if you really need to win now and you want to overpay for AJ Dillon. Dillon, I really think he's going to be awesome the next two weeks in an Alexander Madison type of way where, hey, if you've got to get in the playoffs, it doesn't really matter what happens. If you don't get in the playoffs, it doesn't matter what your roster looks like at week 16, right?

So I think you're probably... Now the danger is you get one game. 22 carries, two targets yesterday. I would expect the passing game role is going to be bigger than that moving forward. He's a big play guy. I mean, he's shown that so far as both a runner and a pass catcher. He's going to have a monopoly on goal line work.

I think he's probably at least a top 10 running back as long as Aaron Jones is out. Green Bay with a bad offensive injury on Aaron Jones. And on defense, Rashawn Gary and Whitney Merciless. They both left in the fourth. Well, Gary left in the fourth quarter. Merciless left at some point in the game. I don't exactly know when. If you need a running back replacement,

we got Cordero Patterson dealing with potentially a high ankle sprain, Chris. You got Deontay Foreman, maybe, Ramondre Stevenson. What are you looking at on the waiver wire at running back? I think Ramondre Stevenson probably has to be the top target. There's questions about whether Damian Harris will come back and just be the lead back, but I think Stevenson, when we're talking about upside

at the running back position, he clearly has it. He's the only guy that the Patriots have trusted as both a runner and a pass catcher this season. So I think if Harris does miss time, or if they do just opt to have Andre Stevenson take over as the lead back, which it's Bill Belichick, it wouldn't be surprising. I think he has considerable upside.

Other than that, I think Wayne Gallman would probably be second on my list. Just there's a chance that they're just going to pass on Mike Davis in the running game and just move on to Wayne Gallman. Mike Davis has just been clearly ineffective. Gallman did get most of his work in the second half yesterday, so when the Cowboys scored 20, I think, a franchise record 29 points in the second quarter, I believe is what that was.

So not necessarily guaranteed that Wayne Gallman will take over, but if Patterson's out, I would expect Gallman's going to have a bigger role. Um, and I would rather have him than Mike Davis. Okay. I'm going to fly through the rest of the notes here. Cam Newton is going to get more reps this week and probably going to

start to a tongue. Yeah. To a tongue of Iloa is going to start, but Malcolm Brown will be out and will fuller likely not going to play for this game at the jets. And honestly, the Jets are having one of the worst four-game stretches in history in terms of their defense,

and that is not an exaggeration, and that puts Myles Gaskin in play with Malcolm Brown out. Didn't see anything on CeeDee Lamb. Myles Gaskin will always be in play. Yeah, but I really think, like, Jamie should double up, make him the start of the week again.

CeeDee Lamb arm contusion, I'm assuming he's fine. Baker Mayfield, it looks like Baker Mayfield and Colt McCoy are both going to be available this week, but Ben Roethlisberger

might not, unfortunately. He's dealing with COVID symptoms. We're going to talk about Hawkinson, and that's going to be an interesting one to get into, but Jared Goff strained his oblique early in the game,

and he just had a terrible game. Just eye-opening how bad that game was. TJ Watt, with a sigh of relief, may not miss any time. Knee and hip injuries and the MRIs, everything seems pretty good for TJ Watt. More injuries for the Steelers we'll get into another time. Chase Young out for the season with the torn ACL.

Chicago hoping that Eddie Jackson, their starting safety, and edge rusher Khalil Mack can return this week against Baltimore. A.J. Brown had a really bad game. According to ESPN, Marshawn Lattimore did not really travel with A.J. Brown.

So can't use that excuse. And Lattimore actually got burned on that Marcus Johnson long catch. That was interesting. Yeah, I didn't see that excuse. And Lattimore actually got burned on that Marcus Johnson long catch. That was interesting. Yeah, I didn't see that, actually. Thank you. Yeah, but that's a tough game for A.J. Brown. Surprising.

Let's see what else here. Vita Vea had more good news. So Vita Vea, I don't know if he's going to play this week against the Giants, and that is a pretty big deal, I think, for Barkley. But he's one of the better run stuffers in football, and he will probably not go on IR. So it seems like a short-term injury for him. We know about the Dallas Goddard concussion. Denver lost another linebacker, their defensive play caller, Barrett Browning.

He left on the second defensive series of the game. Hopefully he's back after this week's bye. And two more things. I mentioned Alec Ingold, fullback for the Raiders. He left with a knee injury. Looks serious. And Seattle offensive tackle Dwayne Brown played two-thirds of the snaps, and he left with an injury. They get Arizona this week. All right. Let's bring on Mr. Gibbs.

Gibbs! What's up, man? Yeah, he's excited. Chiefs with a big win. They're going to win the Super bowl again everything's great but other topics our five big topics thank you to our listeners for contributing here and our viewers you can follow all of us on twitter i am at adam azar chris is at c towers cbs jacob is at j a gibbs underscore 23. All right. David Russell wants to know,

is Devante Smith a second half breakout? Can we trust the Eagles passing game? Jacob, the first word goes to you. I mean, I'm really excited by Smith, really encouraged by what we've seen. I think he's been doing this all year in terms of getting open with regularity and having the potential to put up huge numbers,

but it just hasn't really translated because of, you know, poor offensive environment. As far as can we trust it going forward, I don't feel really any more comfortable after one game than I did before, you know. I think it's still going to be a pretty volatile situation. I think we just kind of got a top range of outcomes outcome this past week and i was really excited but as far as like is davante legit i think absolutely everything we have from his college data profile and his time in the nfl points towards that so um i don't know a little positive and negative there but he's very skinny yes exactly i don't know if he can't be good yeah you know i mean look how would you value a guy who had 75 catches a thousand yards and seven or six or seven touchdowns it'd probably be a low-end wide receiver two high-end wide

receiver three and i think that's probably what you can view smith as moving forward i don't think he's a top 20 guy all of a sudden but you know everything really does point to like he's averaging nine yards per target um good catch rate despite you know or good catch rate for having a downfield profile 14 yard average depth of target but he's not gonna you know score a touchdown every week he's not gonna have 10 targets most weeks and so it's going to be a little hit or miss there's going to be times when he has five catches for 75 yards and a touchdown and there's going to be other times when he has you know two catches for 21 yards and you're just going to have to live with that but that's true for nearly every wide receiver who isn't elite and i think that is that is your

opportunity to turn him into something else i think there's a possibility to buy low or to sell high, I'm sorry, on Devontae Smith. I think wide receiver is so interesting because all the people, I don't know who you're going to buy low on at wide receiver. It's like, would I turn Devontae Smith into DJ Moore? Yes, I would do that. Yeah. I might lose that, though. Would I turn him into Mike Williams?

No, I would not. I have zero faith in Mike Williams now, unfortunately. Wouldn i turn him into mike williams no i would not i can't no i have zero faith in mike williams now unfortunately wouldn't turn him into courtland sutton nope what about michael pittman yes absolutely i would do that um but i do feel like right now at wide receiver it's hard for me to find a lot of bylaws i just kind of feel like it is what it is there are the the him into Tyler Lockett in a second. In fact, I'm going to. I'm going to make that trade offer.

I would absolutely try to turn Devontae Smith into Tyler Lockett. What about Antonio Brown? Yeah, I think I would. I kind of have a rule of not trading for injured players, especially this lingering thing here. He didn't practice at all last week, right? No, I don't think so. He was in a boot.

He was doing some walking drills, I think is what Bersarian said. He painted that as a very positive sign. But yeah, he may still be two weeks away. I really... But if Antonio Brown's back this week, that's probably a big win. I kind of like Devontae Smith this week,

assuming Lattimore doesn't follow him. And I don't really... I don't know that he will. If he didn't follow AJ Brown, I don't think he'll follow... I don't think he'll follow Devontae Smith. But after that, it's the Giants, the Jets, a bye, Washington, Giants, Washington.

Man, that is an awesome schedule to close out the season. Is it though? Because the problem is they're going to be able to run on those teams. Maybe not Washington. Washington has a good run defense, but the Giants are terrible. The Jets are terrible. So I just, I'm wondering, is it going to be 22, 23 pass attempts maximum? Yeah, but he has been around like a 28% target share, I think, since they made this switch. I'd have to check specifically, but he's got 15 targets over the last three games.

I might've actually written that down earlier today. His target share in his most recent games are 27, 38, 19, and 29%. Yeah, that's elite number one wide receiver stuff. This is Marquise Brown, right? Yeah, I think it's Marquise Brown last season. Last year, right. Yeah, last season, yeah.

And maybe Marquise Brown moving forward. I wanted to share one more thing on the Eagles real quick. Another thing I read in The Athletic, just from just writer speculation, not a quote, not a team quote or anything. What happens when Miles Sanders is healthy enough to return? The running back will be eligible to come off injured reserve as soon as this week. But it's fair to wonder if the Eagles won't mind if he takes his time coming back. Sanders is Philadelphia's most explosive running back, to be sure.

But he might not be the one best served by the offense's style at the moment. If he takes his time coming back, Sanders is Philadelphia's most explosive running back to be sure, but he might not be the one best served by the offense's style at the moment. If the Eagles want someone to take what's there instead of dancing in search of the big play, the Boston Scott Jordan Howard combination is working just fine. Thank you very much. I, I don't know.

I'm it. It reminds me a little bit of like, is Baker Mayfield better without Odell Beckham? And it's like, maybe? But generally speaking, playing worse players is worse for your team. And I do think Jordan Howard and Boston Scott are worse than Miles Sanders. So I think it would be a mistake

for Miles Sanders to not play or to play less than those guys. I don't know. Miles Sanders has been a or to play less than those guys. I don't know. Miles Sanders has been a pretty efficient running back in his career. So I don't see necessarily a reason that he can't be successful in this role. Maybe it's a situation where they just wait until he's 100% healthy rather than playing him at 90%. But I would hope they wouldn't do that.

I think it would be a bad decision. Okay, let's go to our next topic here from Travis. Jacob, is Cam Newton a top 12 quarterback going forward? If he means going forward as in the next few weeks, I think that's definitely possible. Yeah, I think if I remember right, he ranked as qb13 for me my initial run for this week um and i think he'll be around that range against miami as

well but he still has his bye week and then we've already you know highlighted the i think i heard you guys mentioned the schedule for the fantasy playoffs um as buffalo tampa bay new orleans so top 12 like rest of season no i don't don't think so. Okay. Honestly, I'm not going to spend too much time on it. We'll get to him on the Waver Wire show. Anybody has anything to add? How about spin it to the wide receivers? What does it mean for DJ Moore and even Robbie Anderson, who caught a touchdown from Cam?

I think it's got to be good news for DJ Moore. I mean, I don't know. You look around the NFL and specifically like Pittsburgh and you say, well, it can't get much worse with Ben Roethlisberger being replaced by Mason Rudolph this week. And it turns out it can get much worse. So there's no floor when it comes to NFL quarterbacks. But I do think Cam Newton's just a better passer than Patrick,

Patrick Walker and Sam Darnold. So I do think it's going to be an upgrade for them and it's just going to make the offense as a whole better. They're going to run the ball better. You know, we saw that a little bit yesterday. They're going to be more effective in the red zone. I think it's gotta be good news for DJ Moore and to a lesser extent,

Robbie Anderson, who I just don't think has the, the role that DJ Moore has. All right, let's take a break here. When we come back, TJ Hawkinson. What the heck happened there? One target, no catches in a full overtime game at Pittsburgh. We will discuss Hawkinson and some running backs after the break.

Welcome back to Fantasy Football Today. All right, Jeff Bates wants to know why Dan Campbell thinks Hawkinson and some running backs after the break welcome back to fantasy football today all right jeff bates wants to know why dan campbell thinks hawkinson is best deployed as a blocking tight end i don't have any data on the routes i don't know if you guys have that yeah he didn't he wasn't used more as a blocker or anything he ran around on 24 of 29 dropbacks which was second on the team swift is the only one that had more all right so that's not the issue here. Now, as Heath has pointed out, this was the first game that Dan Campbell was calling plays, and the offense definitely looked different. But also, Jared Goff threw for 114 yards and played hurt.

So, all right, Jacob, there's definitely some Hawkinson panic here for the season. He's number 13 per game in non-PPR and number nine per game in non-PPR and number 9 per game in full PPR. He does have the 5th most targets and the 2nd most catches, believe it or not, tied with Mark Andrews among tight ends. What's your take on

TJ Hawkinson? I think, I mean, if Goff is not going to be healthy going forward or if we're going to continue to see this version of Goff where there's only 124 air yards in the offense and it's just really, really gross overall, then that might be enough to push him out of the top six or seven there's a lot of tight ends that are getting from that mid-range that are getting surprisingly great usage lately um and so i could see him falling out of that but i wouldn't overreact too much

um just that one game i mean the games before that he had i think 11 9 and 11 targets yeah 31 targets in his previous three games yeah um so yeah i'm overall i'm not overreacting the routes are still there yeah yeah i think he's a must start tight end um like i don't know if you had sam or dan arnold would you start him instead of hockinson i don't think i would i do like dan arnold quite a, and I love the role he's got in the offense, but it's not like he's been a can't-miss guy. So, I still think Hawkinson is probably better than any of the guys you could get on waivers, or could have gotten on waivers recently. So, I do think... Oh, go ahead.

We said, I do think at the same time. That was cute. All right, go ahead. We both do think, but specifically what I think is that he might just be a guy in terms of his talent level. And we're three years into his career, two and a half years into his career. He's averaging 6.9 yards per target this season, which is right around where he is for his career.

Obviously, the situation this season isn't great, but he wasn't great with matthew stafford either on a per target basis so the the fear is that you know he's at a 19.4 percent target share this season if that drops to 17 for some reason you know you could be looking at a somewhat iffy kind of fringe low end tight end one because he's just not going to do a ton with the targets he gets. It's been a disappointing season. I think he was tight end five in ADP. I think he's like tight end six.

Probably he's tight end nine in points per game. So it hasn't been a huge disappointment. But given where you were drafting him compared to the other tight ends, he was kind of last of a tier you needed him to be more than just tight end nine i don't know that and he wasn't the last of the tier for everybody i really think when it came down to pits in adp pits andrews and hawkinson i think it was pretty even and it was just basically personal preference because i you know i don't i know at some point i liked hawkinson better than andrews in strictly full ppr um at the end of the at the end of it all i probably liked andrews better especially yeah especially after all you know the dobbins injury yeah so in nf in uh fantasy pros adp he was 65th andrews was 54th pitts was 48th and then then Thomas, Tunyon, and Fant were maybe two rounds later.

So at least in that regard, he was separated a little bit from the next tier of tight ends. Jared Goff, by the way, Will, it seems Dan Campbell just came out. Dan Campbell's kind of sticking by Goff. It's hard to say that he shouldn't be the guy right now. Ultimately, I still think right now he's the guy that gives us the best chance. I just think that we've got to have a conversation about touchdowns here. I know they're unpredictable, but Jared Goff has thrown eight of them. Eight this year.

And it's killing everyone. And, you know, Hawkinson has two. They were in weeks one and two. And, by the way, Goff threw, I want to say, through three touchdowns in week one. Some of that at least was against the backups for the 49ers, basically became a preseason game. He's got one of the worst passing games in football.

That's a problem. I did a lot of offseason research on that and quality of offense and what it means for tight ends. It doesn't really mean that much. You can definitely be a top five tight end on a crappy offense. But it's hard. I mean, you just need to dominate targets.

And I think he will. I mean, they're going to, well, he was, you know, before this game, because the last time you guys mentioned it, four games ago or five games ago, he had two or three targets. He had a terrible game against Minnesota. And then the next three games, he had more than 30 targets. So he's going to bounce back. Since week three, he has at least eight targets in four games.

He has one, two, and three in the other three. So he's dominating targets the majority of the time, but it's not consistent. And that's, look, the thing about targets is they're earned. You know, it's not like running back carries

where it's just a game plan thing and you just hand them off. Yeah, but the other thing about targets is I'm sure, I couldn't imagine that he's not leading the team in double teams in terms of coverage.

In fact, DetroitLions.com, before Week 10, wrote, Hawkinson's begun to get the star treatment, and star treatment is what the hometown website would write, but from opposing defenses, mostly because of his talent, but partly due to the fact that teams aren't as concerned about Detroit's ability to make plays on the outside. So that has to be a problem for Hawkinson. Sure, sure, definitely. I think the bigger problem is he's not a star. No, I don't make plays on the outside. So that has to be a problem for Hawkinson. Sure, sure, definitely. I think the bigger problem is he's not a star.

No, I don't think that's the problem. Travis Kelsey can overcome double teams. Well, fine, but the bigger problem is everything else. I'm not asking to be Travis Kelsey, but for him to just be a must-start top five tight end, I think the bigger problem is the offense completely sucks around him. I think it's really holding him back. Jacob, final word, or are you good i will say the tj hawk like like chris said the um targets have been like weirdly inconsistent and i don't have any idea what to attribute that to that might be the

double teams like you talked about but like if he does get rolling like we saw where he's getting 11 9 11 it's something that could happen to close the season um the top end is really exciting he's been targeted at least nine times in five games which is more than anyone other than travis kelsey at the tight end position um just thought that was interesting all right let's get to our next question it's an interesting one uh and kind of i think a faulty one. Sorry, Mike. AllinMike51 says, was drafting young at running back the optimal strategy this season and going forward? And Jacob, I guess the issue here

is that basically all relevant running backs are young. Yeah. So it's kind of a tough one. But what do you think? Was drafting young at running back, are we seeing the older running backs just not do that well? Yeah, that's kind of a vague question. One thing I would mention is that J.J. Zachariason from

Number Fire or FanDuel does a podcast, and he talks each year about the breakout age and how many breakouts for ambiguous backfields come from just young players in their first or second year. So I think that is relevant. I think that maybe is kind of what Al and Mike is onto here. I think there is something there. But to be clear, an ambiguous backfield isn't necessarily like Denver wouldn't count as an ambiguous backfield, right? Like who knew? I think it would if you don't know who the clear starter is.

Yeah. Oh, okay. Because I think the problem with Denver isn't so much if you don't know who the clear starter is yeah oh okay because I think the problem with Denver isn't so much that we don't know who the clear starter is is that we knew there wasn't yeah but so it's not like it's not like uh Tampa Bay entering the season or Jacksonville before last season where there was legit questions about you know is there a lead back um and that's that's why like giovante williams there's a lot of like oh has he's been a disappointment or you know we had a overreaction monday segment on fft and you know oh giovante williams overreacting to a bad game and it's like this is what we should have expected and so so I think drafting rookie running backs this year was certainly not an

optimal strategy because it just wasn't a great year for rookie running back talent or situations. Najee Harris has obviously been the exception, but I don't know. I don't think one, you can't learn too much from any one year's draft results just in general. It just, So one, you can't learn too much from any one year's draft results. Just in general, it's the kind of thing that you need several, several years worth of data. And if you just, you don't want to be fighting last year's battles is a big thing for me. So I don't know if you can learn too much from what we've seen this year, one way or the other at running back.

It's just been kind of a crappy year. Yeah, and... Right. Derrick Henry, Saquon Barkley, Christian McCaffrey, they have all missed a lot of time with injury. Mm-hmm.

And that sucks. Nick Chubb, injured, COVID. I don't know. I don't have... Dalvin Cook. Dalvin Cook is a huge bust right now.

He's not even a top 20 running back. He might be per game, but he's not full season. So... Finally got into the end zone yesterday. This has been... Yeah. It took him six tries.

He is the leader in almost touchdowns. Man. It has been a weird year, but I will say this about rookie running backs. Saw it last year. Probably this time last year, we weren't feeling great about him. then they busted out michael carter maybe that's about to happen yeah giovante we'll see that's our next topic so let's go right to that

uh all right from ty langston the broncos running backs will never be reliable. They have a bye this week, and then they have a sick schedule. I mean, gorgeous schedule to end the season. The Chargers, the Chiefs, the Lions, the Bengals, the Raiders, and the Chargers again. And then week 18 is the Chiefs again. So, Chris, do you agree with Ty that the Broncos running backs will never be reliable?

Look, never is a long time. I don't want to say never because anything can happen. If Melvin Gordon tweaks his ankle during the bye week and all of a sudden Javante Williams is the clear lead back. They're after Chris again. Yeah, the cops are after my takes. Then if one of them gets hurt, the other one's going to be a stud.

The other one's going to be a top 15 guy at least. Whether it's Melvin Gordon or Javante Williams. Let's not play that game. Assuming health, I have no reason to believe that they're going to change this approach. We did see a bit of a change this week. Melvin Gordon, I think, only had three carries after his fumble, or maybe it was three snaps.

Javante Williams did play a season-high 57% of the snaps. So if they're losing faith in Melvin Gordon because of that, that's one way it could change. But based on everything we've seen over the totality of the season, they've shown basically no desire to have a true lead back. I was just going to mention that I do have Dave Richards' tweet up, I think as maybe you were referencing. Gordon had three snaps after his

third quarter fumble, neither running back at any carries after that point. But Javante did that snap him 10 to three. Yeah. It's really interesting. Such a small sample size that that could just be like Gordon was in on one three and out and Javante got two series or, you know,

something like that. Right. And here's the, here's the concern though. So when you look at the schedule, you have to, one, factor in the run defenses, which I did, and that's why I said the schedule's amazing because the Chargers and the Lions and the Raiders

and the Chargers, again, they are not good against run. The Chiefs really aren't either. But Gordon averages 14.6 carries in wins and 9 carries in losses. Williams averages 13 carries in wins and 7.6 in losses. And there's even, I think, even more concerning signs

because when you look at four of their wins, I think they're five and five. What's their record? That sounds right. They have beaten the Jaguars, Giants, and Jets. They beat them pretty easily. Then they had that game against the Cowboys where they beat the crap out of them.

But the Cowboys offense couldn't do anything. Right. In the closest game they played, I'd say the closest win against Washington, very close going into the fourth quarter, I think you got 19 combined carries. They want to be a running team,

but when they lose, they can't be, unless it's one guy getting almost all of it. And how many of those games are they going to win? I think they could be okay down the stretch, but that is another thing to consider. So, yeah, would you put out a... I think Melvin Gordon is a great sell high because he just keeps scoring and i

i can't buy it his touches aren't there his product he's just not running well enough i would love i don't know if anybody's buying melvin gordon right but everyone wants to talk about javante jacob so do you think jacob is a bylaw do you think javante is a bylaw you're definitely bylaw thank you i think possibly one thing i was going to add is that javante um this could be randomness as well, but he played 11 out of 12 snaps in the red zone and seven out of eight from inside the 10 yard line this week. And it was the first week where he like clearly out snorped, out snapped Gordon. Snorped him. Yeah. The other thing was... When I get out snorped, he's clearly been targeted at a higher rate. He's been targeted on 20% of his routes compared to 14% for Gordon.

So like, I think if he, I think it's possible that we do see coming out of the buy him just kind of start to take a larger role on the, like last week with this week was the first step. And we start to see him like we've seen with other rookie running backs, you know, just start to take a larger role down the stretch after the buy.

That's a pretty common narrative. The other thing I want to note is that like in college, he like clearly out snapped Michael Carter on passing downs, specifically on pass blocking downs, which I think is just worth mentioning because most people think of Michael Carter is clearly a better pass catcher, especially after what he's done as a rookie. But when they're both on the same team,

the coaching staff was like clearly, clearly more comfortable with Javante as a pass blocker, especially after what he's done as a rookie. But when they're both on the same team, the coaching staff is clearly more comfortable with Javante as a pass blocker. I think it's possible that if he does start to get a role, it could be a pseudo three-down role where he's really taking most of the passing downs. That would be really exciting for Fantasy with the schedule. It is just a

little frustrating that the first game where he's got a clear edge in playing time, he has eight carries and three targets. That's noisy. That can depend on game script and a lot of other things, but it's a little frustrating what we've

seen from him. I wish he had been clearly much better than Melvin Gordon so far. I would say that he, all right, if you don't want to put the word much in there, that's fair. But I want to point this out about Javante Williams. I know I like big plays,

and the easiest one to track is just 20-yard carries. So, look, maybe if we did a 15-yard carry, things would be different. But Javante Williams has six carries of 20 or more yards on 103 carries. He has the third most 20-plus yard carries in the NFL behind Jonathan Taylor and Nick Chubb. Melvin Gordon has one carry.

It came in week one. It was the 70-yard touchdown against the Giants. That's his only carry of 20 or more yards all year. Javante Williams, I mean, all of the signs, obviously we know he breaks tackles, but so does Melvin Gordon, by the way. But all of the signs are really exciting, so that if he did get the role, then you could really be talking about a true league winner. And if you have him in Dynasty, you should be very excited

because he's doing great things. It's just a matter of work. Yeah, I agree with all of that. For me, when I said I wish he had been clearly better than Melvin Gordon, that's more from giving the Broncos reasons to go away from Gordon. I don't think Gordon's given them quite enough reasons to go away from him when it seems like

they don't really want to. That's my concern. That's a better way to put it. It's probably we wish Gordon were playing worse. Give him credit. They don't seem to want to move away from him. They want to have both of them involved, it seems. Let me ask this question.

Hopefully that changes. From Mark, would you trade Ramondre Stevenson for Javante Williams? Man. Yeah, for sure. I would rather have Javante. I guess I would. Are we worried that Harris is not going to be back? Well, I think he's had a handful of injuries this year.

He's had, I think he's left a game with bruised ribs. I think he had a wrist injury in a couple of games. And so I do wonder if there's a better chance for Andre Stevenson gets to be a lead back, especially because with the Patriots, we do know that they do not have whatever is driving the Broncos to remain loyal to Melvin Gordon. They are a deeply unsentimental team. And so it wouldn't shock me if they were just like, look, Ramondre Stevenson gives us more in the passing game.

It makes us a more versatile offense, and we can have him on the field in more situations than Damian Harris. You know, I think it's close. I think Javante Williams is a better player, but yeah, I guess I would rather have Javante. Yeah. I think what the points you, you may have made sense, but I don't think it's very close still. And I am a huge reminder of Steven's fan. I think he's really good. Um, his college data was really exciting as a rusher and receiver. I'm not surprised at all. It him balling out, but I still think he could really do it. I think they have been pretty committed to Harris

when he's been healthy over the last few years. I will say that. The last one here. Should I drop Brandon or you can pick up Van Jefferson to start him tonight? I wouldn't. I don't think I would either.

Is it just because he thinks Van projects better just for this game, just because it's the first game without Elbeck? I like Ayuk better. I'm more excited about what we've seen in the last few games. Van's been playing all year. He's been playing almost all the snaps. He just isn't someone who draws targets at a high rate. Yeah, he's the number three wide receiver,

which he was before. Maybe Odell Beckham won't play a full role this week, but I just don't think Van Jefferson's all that good. You don't know that. We don't know that yet. I think he could be good. We don't know it, but I mean... We don't know that yet.

He's considerate of reach. He's old. He's 25. He's a 25-year-old second-year wide receiver, which matters. Age, age. I guess, but we just don't know that. I mean, this is a really...

Things are going to change without Robert. Robert Woods does so many things for this offense. We don't know what it's going to look like. It's harder to draw targets when Robert Woods is on the field. Without him there, I don't know what's going to happen. We don't know. We don't know. the field without him there. I don't know. I don't know what's going to happen. We don't know. We don't know.

We don't know. Yeah, exactly. But I just haven't seen much reason to think that Van Jefferson is going to be a very good fantasy wide receiver moving forward. Maybe he's the number two target in this offense. And it turns out that I'm completely wrong. And Odell Beckham's washed up, but I would expect it's going

to be you know close to 50 percent of the targets going to Beckham and Wood and and Cup just like it was Woods and Cup so I just I don't think Van Jefferson's role is going to change that much he's averaging five five targets per game okay Adam do you think Woods I don't feel like his route to really even interacts with Van Jefferson in a very significant way, I don't feel like his route really even interacts with Ben Jefferson in a very significant way. I don't feel like it changes much for him losing Woods. Does that make sense or not? Well, but that's the thing. Right, so they play completely different roles.

But it's just, is the offense going to change? Are the passes going to be different from Matthew Stafford? I don't have Robert Woods anymore. Now I'm going to throw the ball a little bit farther downfield to Ben Jefferson or something like that. Or maybe Ben Jefferson, who, by by the way was touted coming out as a great route runner. Maybe he changes his role a little bit without Robert Woods. I just don't know. If I felt more confident

that Beckham was a healthy, dynamic player, then yeah, I probably wouldn't care that much about Jefferson. But it is possible. For the record, I like Beckham more than Jefferson. Rest of the season. I like Jefferson more tonight. It is possible that Beckham's just not much anymore. It's possible. So at the very least, I think you have to roster Van Jefferson and see where it goes. And I'm not burying

Beckham. Not if it requires dropping. I would not drop Ayuk for him. I would not. I absolutely agree. All right. Although I'm playing against Ayuk in two big ones tonight, and I am rooting against him so hard. So good luck to you, Brandon Iyuk managers, but not really. Thanks to Jacob and Chris.

I'm Adam. Talk to you tomorrow on Fantasy Football Today.