Fantasy Football Today - Trade Deadline! Claypool, Hines, Hockenson and More (11/01 Fantasy Football Podcast)

Episode Date: November 1, 2022

We react to all of the trade deadline moves. T.J. Hockenson to the Vikings. Chase Edmonds to the Broncos. Chase Claypool to the Bears. Nyheim Hines to the Bills. Bradley Chubb to the Dolphins. Who are the big winners? Did the Steelers pass catchers get a big boost? Who are the losers? Is Devin Singletary's Fantasy value in trouble? Follow our FFT team on Twitter: @FFToday, @AdamAizer, @JameyEisenberg, @daverichard, @heathcummingssr, @ctowerscbs Follow the brand new FFT TikTok account: https://www.tiktok.com/@fftoday Watch FFT on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/fantasyfootballtoday Get 20% off Fantasy Football Today merch: https://store.cbssports.com/collections/fantasy-football-today%20?utm_source=podcast-apple-com&utm_medium=web&utm_campaign=buy-our-merch&utm_content=fantasy-football-collection Join our Facebook group https://www.facebook.com/groups/FantasyFootballToday/ Sign up for the FFT newsletter https://www.cbssports.com/newsletter You can listen to Fantasy Football Today on your smart speakers! Simply say "Alexa, play the latest episode of the Fantasy Football Today podcast" or "Hey Google, play the latest episode of the Fantasy Football Today podcast." To hear more from the CBS Sports Podcast Network, visit https://www.cbssports.com/podcasts/ To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with iGaming Ontario. The trade deadline has come and gone, and a top five tight end was moved. Two players named Chase are... Wait, was it my right? Chase Edmonds? Yeah, yeah, two Chases were moved. That's right. They were on the case.

Chase Edmonds and Chase Claypool on the move. Welcome to the Fantasy Football Today bonus show. Sorry about that. Let's talk about the winners and the losers here. Hawkinson to the Vikings. Chase Claypool to the Steelers. Chase Edmonds to the Broncos as part of the Bradley Chubb package. Bradley Chubb going to the Dolphins.

Jeff Wilson also to the Dolphins. Calvin Ridley to the Jaguars. William Jackson to Washington. That's a cornerback. No, Pittsburgh, sorry. From Washington to Pittsburgh. And just before the deadline, Naeem Hines going to Buffalo. All right, Jamie.

So big winners, big losers. Let's start on the winning side. The winning side would be, I like naeem hines going to buffalo i think that's a good move to help his fantasy value given how the bills use the running backs and what he should be able to do for their passing game unfortunately bad situation for james cook and we'll see what it means for devin singletary but i think you got to view him as a loser um the winners pittsburgh receivers have to be winning pittsburgh general just great day for them i mean to get a second round pick for. I mean, to get a second-round pick for Chase Claypool

and to get William Jackson for, I know they've got to pay him, but still the compensation, not giving up much, is a pretty good bargain on what he could be in that defense. Kirk Cousins, big winner, getting a weapon like TJ Hawkinson. That's a good situation for him, for his fantasy value moving forward. Got to say Justin Fields is a winner, right? Getting a better upgrade at the receiving core. That's a nice situation for him for his fantasy value moving forward um gotta gotta say justin fields is a winner right getting a a better upgrade at the receiving core you know that's a nice situation for him um i guess you give you a monroe st brown as a winner josh reynolds as a winner you know

just taking t.j hoxha off the field you know that should free up a few more targets there for them yeah so and then you know some small winners i think you know you look know, you look at Jeff Wilson is a winner going to Miami. You know, he's an injury away now from being fantasy relevant again. Clearly, you could have said the same thing maybe in San Francisco, but Elijah Mitchell's impending return, you know, probably would have made that a messy situation should Christian McCaffrey, you know, miss any time. Chase Adams is a small winner.

You know, now he gets a chance to play, hopefully, in Denver. So there's a lot of different ways you can go about this, just looking at it. I think the biggest winners, though, for me would be the Steelers receiving core, Kirk Cousins, and Naeem Hines. Okay, and I think Darnell Mooney, loser? Slightly. Slightly.

I think you want to see how this works, because it goes two ways for me. One, yes, he could go from the number one to the number two in the Bears' offense. But you would have to hope, which is what we see when teams do this, is they're trying to beef up their passing game, right? They're trying to make it where they're going to throw the ball a little bit more. So if he's five, six targets in a low-volume passing attack

with Chase Claypool, he's awful. If he's six to eight to maybe 6-10 targets, 8-10 targets in this offense because they're throwing the ball a little bit more, then I think he's a slight winner to be honest with you. Well, you're giving him more targets now so you're saying they're going to throw the ball more. I'm hoping.

I'm not saying hoping. Claypool is going from one of the worst passing teams in the NFL to the maybe I shouldn't use the word worst, but the least prolific passing team in the NFL. No team throws fewer times or for fewer yards than the Chicago Bears. So hopefully that will change and they throw the ball a little bit more. But obviously you want Justin Fields running.

He's better as a rusher than he is as a passer. So Claypool is someone who is available, uh, 60% ish rostered. And like, does he become a waiver wire priority for you now? Um, would you rather have him or Josh Reynolds,

who is also about 65% rostered and, and Reynolds is the red zone and green zone target leader for the Detroit lions. They lose the guy who was second on the team in those two categories. St. Brown's had some injuries or he'd probably be ahead of them. But, you know, would you rather have Reynolds or Claypool right now? I think I'd rather gamble on Claypool's upside, you know, just to see what happens there because he could be the number one receiver

as opposed to, you know, Reynolds still being the number two guy. If not, you know, maybe the number three guy if Jamison Williams ever gets on the field. So, you know, I probably would take a chance on Claypool, but I can see where you're going with Reynolds. Hopefully this frees up some things for him and makes him a little bit more attractive. Do you drop Chase Claypool?

Do you drop him for someone you really like on waivers like a Josh Palmer or a Rondell Moore, or is this a big enough boost for him that we should hang on? Well, I would hang on to see what happens. I mean, we sat here for the last two weeks. You know, I know Heath said two weeks ago in terms of Justin Fields, the schedule,

you know, the bear schedule is very favorable, you know? So how quickly he gets on the same page with Justin Fields is going to be the interesting part of this. You know, so I reordered the list, a receiver. You'll see an updated version of the waiver wire for what we talked about from Tuesday morning. So the reordered list of receiver for me is still Rondell

Moore 1, Josh Palmer 2, Romeo Dobbs now 3, Devin DuVernay 4, I put Darnall Mooney 5, and Claypool 6. So I still would pick up Mooney ahead of Claypool just because, again, rapport, familiarity, all those things. And again, the hope would be that this goes from a 23 to 25 pass attempt

type of scenario on a good day to a 27 to 30 maybe pass day on a better day or improving. I butchered that. Yeah, I got you. Throwing the ball a little bit more. And keep in mind, they just traded Roquan Smith. They lost Robert Quinn. They're going to be in situations where they're probably in some

shootouts. Now their shootouts are typically Justin Fields running the ball, but now you have the better passing attack, better weapons on the field to help the passing attack. So hopefully that's the chase, but the case for, uh, there's,

you know, when it comes to the volume in the passing game. I did see some Paw Patrol costumes yesterday. So I think that's why I butchered that whole chase thing earlier today. All right, let's talk about TJ Hawkinson here. So he actually just statistically is getting a downgrade in passing offense. Jared Goff is averaging 272 yards per game. Kirk Cousins is averaging 247 yards per game. We're talking 25 fewer is that more like 24 fewer yards per game. Kirk Cousins is averaging 247 yards per game. We're talking 25

fewer is that more like 24 fewer yards per game, but we're hoping that that improves for Cousins. He said it extremely inefficient, almost career low 6.6 yards per attempt. We know he's better than that. The touchdowns typically favor Cousins quite a bit, though. He's usually a 30 touchdown guy. Golf's been 19 to 22 touchdowns in three straight seasons it is kind of weird to look at the tight end standings and see hockinson as tight end five per game in ppr one game i know and it was it was against one game and it was against the worst team against tight ends in seattle so i was considering dropping him i i have schultz and well i can't drop him this week because it's schultz on a buy but um i didn't really value him as a must have tight end even even though tight end so thin. How do you

think this is any better for him? Any worse? And how do you value Hawkinson? I'll give him a slight upgrade because we know that Cousins in his history, not necessarily in this offense, but you did see, you know, the last two games they've thrown two touchdowns to their tight ends. Week seven against Miami, excuse me, week six against Miami, then they're buying week seven. Irv Smith scored against the Dolphins. Week eight, you know, Johnny Munn scored against the Cardinals.

So maybe there's some things that are evolving there with their tight end group. You know, there's now no more, oh, another trade, wow. Zach Moss? Oh, Brandon Cooks was traded. What? No, not traded, sorry.

Oh, Zach Moss was traded for naeem hines by the way and brandon cooks was not traded well i like that from from us um so i think you know you look at uh you look at hockinson you know the touchdown potential may may help him i think espn stats and research they tweeted out um cousins has the lowest qbr of the 33 qualifying quarterbacks throwing through his tight end of the season now you know take that for what it's worth or i'm sorry maybe he's 30th of 33 i don't know he's near the bottom um take that for what it's worth because you know earth smith missed the start of the season who knows how long it took him to get fully healthy and then this offense just has a lot of mouths to feed i kind of just think he's the same you know he's

going to be a guy that'll pop up with a productive game every now and then he'll be in that low-end starting range of evan ingram and now now hayden hurst and you know maybe slightly worse now but similar to how we've kind of viewed gerald everett you know uh just a slightly uptick above the above the streaming guys you know so someone good enough to use we'll have a big week every now then, but you'll be largely probably more frustrated than not because of what the expectations are. Would you drop him for Evan Ingram? Probably not just to see what happens, but I would drop him for Gerald Everett if somebody dropped Everett. Okay. Let's talk about Raheem Mostert.

So, Jeff, they've shared a backfield before these two. And this is going back to 2020. There was a four-game stretch late in the 2020 season where Mostert and Wilson split carries almost evenly. And they were both on San Francisco. And one thing that's interesting here is that Mostert has been more of the third down back in the Dolphins' offense. But back then in 2020, he had, in those four games Mostert has been more of the third down back in the Dolphins offense. But back then in 2020, in those four games where he split evenly with Jeff Wilson,

Mostert ran zero routes on third down. Wilson ran 18. Jarek McKinnon was there. He ran 17. So I wonder if Jeff Wilson has an impact on Raheem Mostert. I think you could probably say that he's an upgrade over Chase Edmonds. Edmonds not having a good year. Let's talk about the two backfields here, the Dolphins and then the Broncos.

But how do you... Raheem Mostert's the number 19 running back in PPR over the last five games. That's when he really started getting his consistent 14-plus carries per game. Do you think he's still a number two running back? Do you think he's worse now? Talk about the dolphins.

Then move to the Broncos. I think it's probably slightly worse for him, but you know, I also think that he's established himself as, you know, such a significant piece of this dolphins offense. He's been with the team. The rapport is there.

He's got a better work. He's got better work in the passing game. I would think than Jeff Wilson, who's never really shown that. I just said that they favored him. They favored Wilson over most of the passing game two years would think, than Jeff Wilson, who's never really shown that. I just said that they favored him. They favored Wilson over Mostert in the passing game two years ago. Yeah, but I guess it's fair. I guess I just want to see it first.

Mostert's been making plays for the Dolphins in the passing game. That could be a Shanahan versus McDaniel thing. Who knows how that unfolds? Fight! Shanahan versus McDaniel. Sorry. I do think, though, this is a win for Wilson because he was headed to disastersville in San Francisco with, with Elijah Mitchell coming back. Now he's an injury away from being the starting running back for a very explosive offense.

So if you're asking me, uh, of the running backs who were dealt, I would rank them Heinz one, Wilson two Edmonds three. Like, I, I just think that Wilson's got a lottery ticket upside. He's got the potential to work in tandem with Mostert. In terms of Mostert, I'd just give him a slight downgrade. Like, I don't think it's going to impact him for this week because who knows how quickly Wilson gets up to speed. You got to figure that there's a lot of familiarity

because the language is probably the same in the playbook. But still, I think Mostert will still be worth using as a number two running back. And until he doesn't prove to be a number two running back, I think that's when you start to pivot away from any impact on the Broncos running backs. You think chase Edmonds cuts in even more announced a three-way, I would drop Melvin Gordon at this point. You know, I think going into his bi-week Latavious Murray's been better than them the last two

weeks overall. Um, you could drop Murray too, if you want to, just to speculate that Edmonds, you know, could be the guy there, but it feels like this was just the throw in, you know, the dolphins saving some salary on their end, you know, to get rid of Edmonds. I'm not sure exactly how it's going to impact the cap, but, um, you know, Denver probably just searching for some answers there, you know, not, not being thrilled with two guys, you know, in their early thirties or Gordon 29, whatever, um, to see if Edmonds can become the guy. But I mean, you kind of know what Edmonds is at this point, right?

You know, he couldn't make it work in Miami. Never really was consistent in Arizona. Is this Denver offense with how they've been running the ball without Jermonte Williams going to make him into a star player? It's hard to say. So, crowded backfield, I would say, you know, probably one to avoid. If you want to speculate on any of them, it's Edmonds. You think so?

I mean, you know, Latavius Murray's been a touchdown guy. So, better than Gordon. I don't know. It could go one of three ways at this point. Who's the handcuff for Jonathan Taylor? I would say it's Deion Jackson. I think he's

somebody worth that. I'd probably take him at this point over Edmonds. I'd put him after Wilson. You know, we saw Deion Jackson have a 10-catch game in the game against Jacksonville Week 6 when both Naeem Hines and Jonathan Taylor were out. I would imagine that if something happens to Taylor, we'll see eventually a shared backfield with Zach Moss and Deion Jackson, but they clearly like Deion Jackson enough to make this move.

So, you know, Jackson will probably absorb the minimal production that Naeem Hines has given you. It's just wacky that he only has 28 targets, 25 catches, Hines did. So granted, you're missing time, but I think Deion Jackson can end up being in that three to five catch range and maybe end up being as a low-end flex playing PPR.

Yeah, I mean, I think I'm looking at the chat right now, and I think there's a little bit of buzz on Zach Moss, and I just don't really... But to do what, though? To be the handcuff, you know. Well, I'm probably just looking at a few comments and generalizing here, but I would think Deion Jackson would be ahead of Zach Moss.

This is not... I would be shocked if he's not. Yeah, this is not an earth-shattering, hell, my gosh, I got Zach Moss kind of deal. It was maybe a throw-in. This is an upgrade for him. Yeah, it's probably an upgrade for him. Huh?

Right, it's probably an upgrade for him. Well, he gets a chance to prove himself on a new team, and God forbid Jonathan Taylor does miss time, then he's going to get more work. But I'd be shocked if he's not headed for another few healthy scratches. I really hope that Naeem Hines doesn't ruin Devin Singletary. I hope he does. You do?

Yeah. Then we're going to have two useless running backs. Well, I hope he ruins them to the point that he's better. But how would he be better? I don't think he's going to take the carries from Devin Singletary. I totally agree with you, but you're just talking to a guy that dropped a lot of nine-point. The only chance you have of having a Bills running

back be fantasy relevant is the guy gets both the rushing and the passing down roll. That was the case. Singletary has the second most catches on the team. He has 23 catches. Moss and Cook have combined for 12. Hines could very well get those catches now,

not get the carries, and you've got just two useless running backs, just like it's always been in Buffalo. I honestly thought I would like to see what Naeem Hines could do in a feature role in this offense. Okay, and well, yeah, I mean, that would be... I think just based

on how he catches the ball, I don't think he's necessarily more explosive than Devin Singletary or even a better running back than Devin Singletary. I think Singletary gets an unfortunate knock for kind of how he's been pegged. But, you know, this is a telling move because they started to play James Cook a little bit more. Devin Singletary's obviously done some nice things.

You know, it's getting them a... I don't know what the compensation was fully. I think it was a six-round pick, something going back one way. So they probably didn't give up a lot for it, plus throwing Zach Moss in the deal. But, man, with Josh Allen and this offense, he could be a lot of fun. I'll see if I can get that compensation here. All right, let me ask you this.

Deontay Johnson and George Pickens and Pat Fryermuth, is this a big upgrade for them? Chase Claypool had 50 targets. That's second on the team. Deontay has 76. Chase Claypool has 50. He wasn't super productive, but this is a pretty big deal. I also

want to say before I forget, Chase Claypool was running pretty short routes for him. His ADOT was way down this year, and he's at his least productive by far this season. So now he goes to a team that averages more air yards per pass attempt than almost any other team. Justin Fields is a deep, deep thrower.

Get him on the outside. Maybe he can become more efficient because he's just been crap with his targets this year. But that's the topic, I guess, for another show. So I don't know why, but it could be a topic for this show. But for Pickens and for Johnson, losing the number two guy in targets seems like a big deal on paper. At the very least, you can't drop them now, right?

Right. So you were on HQ with me and Heath on Monday, and Heath's topic for Believe It or Not was all the Steelers wide receivers are droppable on their bye week. And you brought up the point, which I thought was valid, that they didn't have a concentrated offense to funneling their targets. I don't know exactly how you phrased it, but I know that's what you meant. Exactly, yeah.

So now you have, hopefully, those three guys operating like what we tend to see from top tier wide receivers and top tier tight end they're not the upper echelon of guys but they're certainly have the potential to be if kenny pickett can be you know something resembling what what a developing quarterback and maybe eventually what he can become you know featuring these guys so yes i think the it's not like the target volume hasn't been there for Deontay and at times for Pickens. So it's hard to say like, they're going to see that much more work,

but maybe this just opens up more opportunities for them in some key situations, some short yardage things, which have been beneficial for Deontay Johnson during his, you know, breakout run the last couple of years, maybe it helps George Pickens a little bit. Maybe it helps Najee Harris. You know what I mean? Maybe now some of those targets go his way and we see him be, be back in the good graces of in the passing game that he was like he did with Ben Roethlisberger.

So everybody wins in Pittsburgh without Chase Claypool there just because there's more chances to touch the ball. All right. Gone round and round here. Fun day. You know, I glad the NFL trade. You know, that got laughed at. I'm going to tell Dave and Heath tomorrow. They scoffed at me a little bit when I said the NFL trade deadline is something.

Now it's something like that. And they were like, what? Like, you know, 15 years ago or whatever. We didn't have a day like this. This didn't exist. No, this is like the NBA. Yeah, this is not, you know, it's not quite MLB and NBA, but it is it is getting better. And maybe one day it will be.

It just keeps seems to get more exciting. So thanks for helping out. Another trade. Nuh-uh. Oh, the Chiefs. Oh, that's interesting. They traded Rashad Fenton to the Falcons. That is weird.

Fenton was a really important player for them, so I thought. I mean, the one game they played without him recently, maybe they played two games without him, his replacement got absolutely torched. I can't remember. It was a primetime game, whatever, as that's a starting cornerback going to the Falcons who really need a starting cornerback. All right. That's pretty interesting. And of course, you know, we look at the Dolphins as well as this incredibly easy matchup now for quarterbacks. Well, their

pass rush just got much better. So we'll have time to talk about that as we take a look at the week. One other trade we should discuss for dynasty purposes, the Calvin Ridley trade. Oh, yeah, thanks. You know, going to the Jaguars, and I think it's a great move by Jacksonville because, you know, you get him. There's a lot of incentives built into it.

It goes high as a second-round pick if they sign him to a contract extension. I wonder what that means. Like, if he signs a one-year deal, is that considered a contract extension? They've got to give him a second round pick. But in any event, clearly Atlanta moving on. We had what ends up

being a really stupid suspension because of what he did by comparison to a lot of what other players have been suspended for. Gambling on a game. Shouldn't have done it, but I don't think the penalty... I think the punishment fit the crime. You do?

Well, I just think that I know what he did is not anything compared to, you know, people who have committed... I'm not even going to say it, but we know. But you just cannot gamble on the sport. The integrity of the game is... I get it. You have to do that.

You have to let everyone know that any type of gambling of any kind will not be tolerated at all. I, so I understand like, you know, for Deshaun Watson to not even have a year suspension, although he did miss all of last year and for Ridley to be, I get it.

It looks hypocritical. It looks, it looks weird, but I also understand you got to really, really make sure no one ever even considers gambling on the sport. If he's anything close to what he was, which is hard to expect, I think he'll be 31, right, if I'm not mistaken? No. Maybe.

I think 29. 29 or 30. I'll tell you right now. Keep talking. I'll let you know. You're looking it up? Yeah, I'm looking it up. I was going to compare him to Michael Thomas.

I'm sorry. He'll be 29. You're right. He's going to be just like Michael Thomas, basically. He's going to be out of football for essentially two years, coming back at age 29. The only difference is he's not injured, really, in Thomas' world. Right. So if he's right, we were just having this conversation, me, Dave, and Pete Prisco. How many teams have a number one receiver, like a number one receiver not in and and this team's a good

example because christian kirk you wouldn't think of as a true number one receiver like an alpha justin jefferson cooper cup type of guy so could calvin really be that if he's right you probably put in that category right wouldn't you he's he earned that i think two years ago i don't know what happened last year but but he earned it two years ago. Take a chance on him and hope that he can grow with Trevor Lawrence and work with Kirk and what I think will probably be Zay Jones. I think Marvin Jones will be gone

by next year. That's a pretty nice receiving core if they bring back Evan Ingram also. We'll see what that means for Trevor Lawrence. I think he gets a boost dynasty-wise. Calvin Ridley is somebody that if you have a team that's contending and, I'm sorry,

if you're a contending team looking to trade Calvin Ridley to a non-contending team for something that could help you now, that's probably what we should make. Okay. We've got another show tomorrow. We'll tell you all about Heath and Dave's thoughts on these trades and trades you can make as well as we are in the second half of the fantasy season.

Thank you to Jamie. No, no, not yet. Half time of next week. Okay, okay, that's fair. Or maybe like after the one o'clock games, Ed, you know. Thanks, everybody, for hopping on. Good stuff here from you in the chat. I'm Jamie. I'm Adam.

Talk to you tomorrow on Fantasy Football Today.