Fantasy Football Today - Week 5 Recap: Bears Offense, Chase Brown Struggles + Toxic Offenses (10/12 Fantasy Football Podcast)
Episode Date: October 12, 2026Adam, Dan and Jacob start their Week 5 takeaways with the Ravens overtime win over the Falcons on Sunday Night Football (2:58), before diving into the concerns over Chase Brown's usage (9:51). They co...ver the latest injury news surrounding David Montgomery and the Eagles backfield (25:43), then dive into the advanced stats (28:45) to forecast C.J. Stroud with Marvin Harrison Jr., plus break down the struggles of Cam Skattebo & Jeremiyah Love, and the big performances from Christian Watson and Bhayshul Tuten (47:06). Next, they analyze the Bears passing game with Caleb Williams (55:15) and debate whether it’s time to sell high on Mike Evans (1:00:39). Finally, find out which struggling NFL offenses you should avoid for fantasy football moving forward (1:08:08)!Fantasy Football Today is available for free on the Audacy app as well as Apple Podcasts, Spotify and wherever else you listen to podcastsWatch FFT on YouTube
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This is fantasy football today from CBS Sports.
What a play!
Can you believe this?
It's a no idea.
It's time to dominate your fantasy league.
Up to the races and he stays on his feet.
It's just going to go the distance.
Now here's some combination of Adam, Dave, Jamie, and Heath.
Let's go beyond the box score here on Monday.
October 12th, Adam Azer, Jacob Gibbs, and Dan Schneier,
breaking it down for you at Baltimore 30, Atlanta 23.
That's the first thing we'll talk about.
Our big topics today, can Caleb Williams rescue the Bears' offense and those fantasy points that we need so badly from their receiving options?
What are we going to do with Chase Brown?
He is really struggling.
He is running back 25 per game and non-PPR, 20 per game and half PPR, 18 per game in full PPR, not playing like a first or second round pick right now.
Should we sell high on Mike Evans?
There are some compelling reasons why you might consider it.
What does that even mean?
how high are we selling, and which offenses suck, and we are avoiding them like the fantasy plague.
What's up, Dan?
What up, boys?
How are you guys doing today?
I mean, it's been a wild season so far.
I look at some of my teams and they're vastly injured.
And I just come to this show to think, how can I fix this team?
And so we talk about that today.
And hopefully the advice we give today can help everyone else fix their teams that are dealing with major injuries.
Yeah.
Now, you do this show just for your teams or for the other people's team?
I mostly do it for the other people.
Okay.
Jacob, new location.
Oh, no, is this the same location as yesterday?
Yeah, same location as yesterday.
Looking to fix some teams.
Man, on the move.
I'm starting to figure out which teams I'm going to care about rest of season.
Okay.
Yeah.
I can leave alone.
We're at that point.
We're at that point.
But we got two overtime games yesterday, and one of them did not end in a tie.
That was last night's game.
What a comeback win for Baltimore.
They win 30 to 23.
Let's start there.
Jacob, major takeaways from the Ravens'
overtime win over the Falcons,
and we're hoping Michael Pennix is okay.
He has injured ribs.
Yeah, for sure.
Definitely, like, it's brutal of Pennix is out
because so much of the Drake London stuff
has come from him.
Good to see a bit of a bounce back here for Kyle Pitts, I would say.
The Baltimore side of things is more interesting to me, honestly.
Like, we've seen Atlanta on primetime now three straight weeks,
and it's just kind of like the same thing.
Like, I guess it's sort of interesting
that their defense didn't look quite as good.
They weren't able to just completely control the game
in the way that they had the previous two games.
But Atlanta continues to look good.
Baltimore, I was just encouraged to see that, like,
we could still get some functional offense
even with Snoop Huntley in there.
Like, you never really know for sure,
and this is a new coaching staff and everything.
So I was excited to see how that would all gel
in the first time working together,
and it looked pretty good.
Yeah, I mean, I think you could argue
that it didn't look great until the fourth quarter.
Yeah.
He had in the fourth quarter in overtime, Tyler Huntley scored 15.5 fantasy points.
He had 80 passing yards in a touchdown.
He had a rushing touchdown.
He had a two-point conversion as well, I think.
No, no, he did not.
Derek Henry did.
There's just like 15 teams right now that are absolutely like you're just hoping
a prayer each week is how I feel about their passing game.
You think so?
Yes, dude, yes.
There's so many bad teams.
I didn't come away from this feeling very confident about the Ravens passing game.
I don't know how the numbers, Jacob,
you might, but to me from just watching on broadcasts, it look like generally no air yards at all in this game.
108 catchable air yards, 108. So like, it kind of reminds me of like Pittsburgh a little bit.
Obviously, it's not quite as, you don't trust him to read things out quite as well as Aaron Rogers.
But it's a lot of quick hitting stuff.
Like, Rogers had 71 catchable air yards this week, which is extremely low.
Wow.
But it's not really a problem.
Like, it worked because I think the design worked all right, you know?
Like, for fantasy, it works okay.
And I think that could be kind of what we have here with Baltimore, which is, to me, a win.
If we're just looking at, like, waiting until the Mar gets back, like, I'm just glad to not have to, like, oh, crap, do I bench A-Flowers?
Like, I don't think we're there.
I think we're there.
And I agree with that.
I just don't think, I think his ceiling is majorly capped with Huntley at quarterback.
But I do think it doesn't take that much away from Henry.
If anything, I might even add a little bit to Henry's play less or fewer scoring opportunities.
but this offense to me from watching it,
and I'll go back this week and look at the tape to see if it confirms.
It's generally just designed around the run game completely when Huntley is at quarterback.
All the motion pre-snap, all the zone read stuff where he's either keeping or giving it to Henry.
All the kind of just like you saw more power gap, I thought,
where the Ravens were pulling offensive linemen trying to get Henry out in space,
even at times Justice Hill out in space.
But passing-wise, it feels very limited.
to me, and I think that teams will adjust to this as well.
I think we're headed to a bad passing game, probably in there.
Who do they have next after this?
They're at Cleveland in week six, then Cincinnati.
I could see that being bad.
It could be.
But look, Mar Jackson could be back.
You know, he might not even miss this upcoming game.
All right, so listen, you're going to start Zay Flowers.
Mark Andrews could have had a good game.
He dropped a touchdown.
He dropped a two-point conversion.
He actually had a terrible game by his standards.
But he could have been good.
But I don't see how you can really trust Mark Andrews.
But Derek Henry, I did want to talk about it.
here because Derek Henry is RB5 per game.
Yeah.
And he's averaging 4.2 yards per carry.
He has a 4.4 explosive play rate.
That's how many, that's the percentage of his plays that are for 12 or more yards,
his runs.
That's ahead of guys like Chase Brown, Emmanuel Wilson, Omarion Hampton, Brian Robinson,
Jr., Cam Scadaboo, Ashton Genty.
He hasn't really run the ball all that well, but he's scoring a lot.
I mean, he's Derek Henry.
It just he looks more right now on paper.
Derek Henry looks more like sort of the end of the Tennessee.
tenure than the first two years of the Baltimore tenure, which was, but now almost all those years
were really good for fantasy.
2023 with Tennessee wasn't good.
But I don't know.
There are some, I think, concerning numbers here for Derek Henry.
I don't know if anyone cares because he's Derek Henry, but that's what's going on.
I think you're right from an efficiency standpoint.
I just don't think it matters, though, and that's part of why fantasy is so interesting to me.
We've done this a lot with these types of players.
but the reality is he averages 3.2 or 4.5,
it's going to be a matter of like 2.6 points per game from rushing.
And reality, and if the rushing touchdowns are still as high as they are,
and there's some receiving touchdowns, those are going to completely trump those 20 yards he's losing a game.
I don't know that there's going to be receiving touchdowns.
There was one yesterday.
Sure, if the total touchdowns are where they've been during his Baltimore tenure,
and they're completely on track as to where they've been.
And when Lamarcom's back, they'll remain that way.
Well, a touchdown is worth, you know, the 20 yards he's losing an efficiency.
A touchdown's worth three times that.
All right.
Now, I do think we'll have a conversation later in the week on how to approach the Falcons guys if Michael Panix is out because we just know.
Drake London has been unbelievable with Michael Panix, and he hasn't been anything close to that with anyone else.
And now, to a tongue of Iloa through.
How many passes in this game?
Three, and two of them were two Drake London.
And one was to...
The third was supposed to go to Drake London.
Yeah, one was to Kyle Hamilton,
but it was supposed to go to Drake London.
So maybe things would be different this time.
If you're thinking about Kyle Pitts,
he's 69% rostered.
This was his first game with more than three targets.
He had five catches, 42 yards,
and a touchdown on six targets.
He only had a 17.6% target share.
So, you know, that's not super encouraging here,
but it's a step in the right direction.
Maybe you hang on to him for another week
and see what's going on.
All right, what's the Beyond the Box Score schedule?
looking like, guys?
Putting out a lot of good stuff
or beyond the box score, as usual. Dan and I do our
signature show every Tuesday, so catch you up on
all the film that we watched from week
five and dig into waiverware options
and just all the advanced stats,
nuggets that we found.
Talk about risers and followers on that show.
And then we do
a rest of season rankings update for every
position on Wednesdays. Go through
the usage notes for every team, every player
from the previous week. And I
think I'm going to do this week,
if I've got time, bored I'd like to carve out time to make an episode that's like looking
at the offensive environments that we have and trying to figure out which ones are the best.
I think we're going to do the inverse of that today.
We're looking at which ones are the worst.
So hopefully a little bit of positivity, maybe find time for that episode this week.
Good. I love it. We need some positivity.
And you know what? One of our topics is Chase Brown, and I'm already seeing four comments
about Chase Brown in the chat. So I want to bring these up here.
He's killing us.
Yeah. You don't trade Chase Brown after a low week.
and he's going into his buy.
But take Chase Brown out of it.
You don't trade Player A, whatever, after a low week, right?
This is what we would call selling low.
But if you think that this is legitimately going to be a bus,
like I wish I had sold Amari and Hampton a few weeks ago.
His value's only gotten worse.
True.
If you think at any player is going to just be a bust,
then sell him now while some people still think he's a bot.
Some people still think he's a buy low.
Do we feel that way about Chase Brown, guys?
Do we think that we should sell low on him
because it's fools gold for the people
who are actually buying Chase Brown?
Chase Brown's really interesting,
because you might be right.
But I just...
No, sorry.
That's not my opinion necessarily.
I'm just floating that out there.
Okay.
Yeah, that idea could be right.
It's different to me than Hampton
and that the offensive environment is so much better.
Like the Chargers, like, literally everything has fallen apart.
It's insane.
I don't want to get too fixed at it on the Chargers
because I could talk about it for like 30 minutes.
But this week I was like, is Keondre Lambert Smith
at least healthy, healthy?
Maybe he'll step in and play now that their top six receivers are out.
And it's like, no, he's on the IR.
We're to Marcus Fault as scantling.
Four backup offensive linemen.
It's crazy.
Whereas like the Bengals seem fine for the most part, you know,
and we've seen some games like this where Samash Parian's a decent player,
I think is really the thing to highlight.
And you've got some context on that, Adam,
where like this has happened in the past at times.
And Chase Brown, I think ultimately has won out most of the time.
We don't know for sure that he will again this time.
But I personally would rather bet on that because we know it can be so good for fantasy.
It's seriously so simple for Chase Brown.
Show up to work.
Don't fumble.
and you're probably going to put fantasy points on the board.
Yeah, and he's been a bit, oh, sorry, go ahead.
No, I was going to say the whole P. Ryan thing,
last year there was a stretch of the first seven games of the season for Chase Brown were really bad.
He averaged 3.6 yards per carry.
He was on pace for 206 carries and 53 catches.
And he was on pace for two touchdowns.
He had one touchdown in seven games.
In his last 10 games, he averaged 21.6 PPR fantasy points per game.
He's the top five running back in all form.
you know, per game.
So, and he was on pace for 250 carries and 80 catches.
But what scares me a little bit is that when he was struggling, he started splitting
fairly evenly with Samajai Pryne.
Right.
And then P. Ryan got hurt.
Yeah.
So in week six through eight, Chase Brown had 32 carries and Pryon had 22 carries.
Chase Brown was playing 58% of the snaps in week six through eight.
We can't have that.
Right.
Okay.
Like that's bad.
What saved Chase, you can talk in one second.
Sorry, Dan.
What saved Chase Brown last week, last year, rather, was the P.
Rine injury.
Then his season really got going and he never really relinquished that.
Go ahead.
No, you made the point that I wanted to make.
And it's a great point.
We had to ask ourselves this offseason was what we saw at the end of last season with
Chase Brown because Chase Brown stepping up and they love him or because they had no options.
And if you think about it with given, just think back to what their roster was at running back last year
after the P. Ryan injury. It was no one they can trust and then Chase Brown.
But Piron only missed three games. So like after he came back, he stayed the guy.
He stayed on that point. And that was kind of the idea that like, okay, Chase Brown has taken
over this backfield. But we don't know when he came back if P.R.I. was fully healthy.
There's a lot of other factors involved there. Now it feels like he's not necessarily someone
I would trade at all because I think Jacob outlined the boom case and it's a good one.
Like even through the first four weeks before yesterday, he just wasn't,
scoring touchdowns and he wasn't getting it and that would have changed his whole um his whole outlook
essentially but he just doesn't look great out there from what i've seen that's the bigger concern
with me the efficiency is down and the passing game stuff isn't there like it was last season
the passing game stuff is also concerning because i think you know last year in that stretch he was
on pace for 80 catches but a lot of that was without p ryan two games without t higgins he had
massive target games without t higgins he had a massive target games without t higgins he had a massive
target game last week without Jamar Chase.
I think it's possible. He's like a 60 catch guy, which is great, but it's not 80.
Maybe a 60 cat.
How many catches would you project Chase Brown for the rest of season?
Because I'm thinking 55 to 60.
Probably that right.
I think that's fair.
I also think we can't overstate or I guess it would be overstate.
Just the difference, the environment's still great, Jacob, and I agree with you.
But the environment isn't what it was last year.
Last year, their defense got off the field in five plays and they gave up a touchdown in those
five plays and like a minute or two came off the clock and vangles had to come back on the field
play basically four minute offense the entire game from like the second quarter on and they're
just hurry up four minute offense and it's chase brown in the gun and he's just getting all these
dump downs and he's getting all these like carries out a shotgun when the defense drops into two
high shell or cover three covers four covers six whatever it is handoff he's got a nice running lane
or dump down and that's just not there anymore the bangles are ahead in these games their defense is
playing great and they're going under center a little more there's just
not the same type of offense, I don't think, anymore,
as what it was last season.
That, to me, is the bigger concern with Chase Brown.
Fair enough.
And, like, right now they're 12th and points.
So, okay, some context.
They're 12th and points per game right now.
Last year, they were 12th and points per game.
And for the full season, including those bad seven games start the year,
Chase Brown was eighth per game in PPR,
10th and half PPR, 13th per game, and non-PPR.
He made his hay.
He was amazing in the last six games of the season.
when Joe Burrell came back
and they were fifth in points per game.
So far cry going from fifth to 12.
Right.
So let's just finish up this conversation here with Chase Brown.
A few things here.
We're trying to assess some trade value.
I'm thinking about trading Devante Adams for Chase Brown.
This is from Wayne.
Devante Adams for Chase Brown.
Would you do that?
I'd rather have Chase Brown personally,
but I might be being stubborn.
No, I think I'd also rather Chase Brown.
I feel like it's a nice buy low,
especially if you need running back.
person probably needs it running back.
Chase Brown or this is like ridiculous.
I don't understand.
You gave up Chase Brown for Jacori Kroski, Merritt, and McKay Lemon.
That's the type of stuff people are panicking and asking.
I wouldn't do that.
I wouldn't do that.
I mean, outside of the one touchdown run yesterday where like it was just a horrific angle
by the giant safety, Jekaros, Bill did literally nothing in that game.
Yeah.
Outside of that.
He had another run.
That was like 22 yards.
He had a 22 yarder.
He had that.
Yeah, he had the 22 yarder.
He had that.
and then just was not really
He doesn't catch the ball
and Mackay Lemon is not going to be much
when Devonty Smith comes
but he's not much right now
in general he's not going to be much
in that offense
I prefer Ramandre Stevenson
over Chase Brown now
I mean his Trayvion's out
but Trayvion could be out
this week they haven't ruled him out yet
so yeah but that's a good question
I think I'd still go Chase Brown
if Trayvon's playing
Ramondra has the exact same concerns
like he hasn't run all that well
he has fumbled problems.
Like when Cory Kiner fumbled this week on Redson, I was like, oh no, Ramantre fumbled a kid.
Like, we're won away with him.
He's a worst, like version of Chase Brown, in my opinion, worst offense.
Like, I don't know, guys.
Yeah, that's fair.
The Patriots offense is starting to step up, though, and play better football again, thankfully.
Here's a tough one.
Here's a tough one.
Bucky or Brown?
It's not tough.
The bucks are terrible.
The bucks are terrible.
I know that he looks great last week.
I know that he looked great last week,
but we're talking about, like, what,
just the sentiments of the all-time high with Bucky's coming off
literally the absolute best possible outcome in his role
compared to Chase Brown and the absolute worst outcome.
Yeah.
Unfortunately, I can't disagree with anything Jacob's saying here, Adam.
Like, I just know I'm not pulling the trigger on any of these.
I'm keeping Chase Brown in literally everything that's been asked so far.
I love Bucky.
He's clearly better, but like, yeah,
but would I rather have the Bengals running back who, like,
if at any point their defense takes a step back
and they're playing that four-minute to hurry up offense,
he's just like an elite fantasy option again.
No.
Okay.
I'm not passing that up.
How about Matthew?
He's a great individual player.
Matthew,
to be clear,
oh, sorry.
No,
to be clear on Bucky,
like nothing changed last week.
He just played the Cowboys and went nuts.
Probably.
Yeah,
that's probably what we'll go back and think.
Like his role was the exact same,
unfortunately.
Because they were using him near the goal line,
not exclusively.
I think that,
I mean,
I could be wrong,
but like,
I think that that was literally just like reward Bucky
for being awesome.
and they at times were also using the other guys
of the goal line just like they always do.
Like if you look at the situational stuff,
it was basically all the exact same.
So he's Bejal Tootin?
No, Tootin gets tons of rushes around the goal line.
No, we can talk about that later.
Well, because they have a better offense or saying?
But I bet.
Yes.
There's no compartmentalized role.
But Bechal Tootin and Chris Rodriguez
carries around the goal line, even split.
And Liam Cohen has produced two top 20
producers in terms of Red Zone fantasy points of running back in each of the past two seasons.
Like, it's fine that he splits it, but he definitely is involved.
He gets tons of playing time and opportunities around the Red Zone, Basial Tutin.
But, Bucky, yeah, I'm sorry.
Bucky hadn't touched the ball inside of the 10-yard line since week one before this game,
where he happened to go absolutely ham, and so they rewarded him.
He didn't have a touch inside of the nine all year, and that was kind of the same thing last year.
I just don't think it's the same as Tudin at all.
All right, but with one edge that Bucky
has over Tutton as we've now gone completely away from Chase Brown.
Bucky Irving had 15 targets in three games with Baker Mayfield.
Bejal Tootin has 10 targets this season.
So that is, and that might be something that you compare Bucky to Chase Brown.
I mean, it's seven, four and four targets in three games for Bucky Irving with Baker
Mayfield.
They had zero and three in two games without Mayfield.
All right, two more here with Chase Brown.
Golden or Chase Brown?
Chase Brown.
I think so.
I've got notes on Green Bay.
that I think are interesting too. Their line has played a lot better these past two weeks,
and they've been able to kind of circumnavigate what's going on with the line by just really
getting the ball out quick and it's working. And Golden has some, Golden's been like crazy
dependable week over week. It is crazy for fantasy. We don't get, like there's nobody really doing
anything at receiver. And the volume, the volume that shocked me for somebody who's on the outside
doing so much downfield stuff, he just keeps having a 20 plus percent target share every single week.
He's one of like a handful of guys. He keeps catching a bomb a week. He hasn't scored any of them,
really, but he catches like a bomb a week.
Chase Brown or Gentie, rest of season.
Gosh, these two are so annoying.
Yeah, they are.
They really are.
Chanty just saves his week every week with receiving stuff.
If he doesn't get that, he's like a nightmare rushing-wise.
I'm going to go with Gentie.
I'm just, I hope that he can get healthier, but that is probably not a good guess, right,
to just be like, yeah, this guy with an ankle sprain who's like nursing the ankle sprain and still having to go out and play football.
Right.
How does it get better with one week?
Yeah.
Yeah.
All right, we got to take a break.
I think it's Chase Brown for me.
Chase Brown?
Yeah, I don't want to answer that because I don't know.
I guess I would go with Gentie because I am a little afraid that they come out of the buy and P. Ryan starts to get more work.
But maybe it's tough.
All right, let's take a break, come back, give you your news and notes.
We'll talk about Woody Marks and the opportunity that he has in front of him with David Montgomery week to week.
We'll be right back on fantasy football today.
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How about Woody Marks?
Woody Marks' longest run this year is 12 yards.
That's not great.
However, he had three 12-yard carries yesterday alone against Tennessee,
and he also had a 24-yard touchdown run that was called back on a leave-holding penalty.
So a pretty good tape yesterday, I think, for Woody Marks.
So I didn't watch all of it, but watching it right now.
He will have a big opportunity with David Montgomery,
a sideline for a few weeks.
That's your biggest headline right now.
And obviously, Woody Marks is 72% rostered,
so I'm sure a lot of people are going to pick them up.
Unfortunately, Jaguars this week.
Then the Giants, Woody Marks could be RB1 that week,
and then a buy.
So still worth getting,
but it's a super tough matchup this week for Woody Marks.
Damien Pierce might have the backfield to himself
for the Eagles, or practically.
He had 11 carries for 14 yards against the Jack Boys.
That's what Woody Marks is going up against this week.
But still, he gets Carolina this week, then Dallas.
Will Shipley's out probably a few weeks with...
He gets Dallas.
Well, it's Carolina this week, then it's Dallas.
I know, but he gets...
They're going to get to Dallas.
Shipley's out for a couple weeks.
Yeah, and Carolina's not a bad matchup either.
They're probably going to sign someone.
I can't imagine they don't bring some competition in immediately.
It's not like Woody Marks hasn't been a little.
lead running back before guys. What he marks last year, you know, I don't know how you feel about him,
but last year, average 3.6 yards per carry. His longest run was 23 yards on 196 carries. From
weeks 10 through 18, he was on pace for 274 carries and 23 catches. In fact, if you remove week 15,
when he left early with an injury, he was on pace for 296 carries and 24 catches in that
stretch. But he wasn't very good. He only scored a couple of touchdown. So Jacob,
What are expectations for Woody Marks this week against the Jacksonville Jaguars?
Yeah, you're just betting on volume.
You're hoping that it gets a touchdown or maybe a bunch of catches.
They've not really been able to run the ball very well a year.
And then this match in particular, I wouldn't expect that to be the case.
But if he's out there all the time, yeah, he could be a volume-based play that you can go to in PPR for sure.
Yeah, I actually think he's probably a start in all four matches just based on the state of fantasy right now.
You're getting a guy who's going to be one of the...
the few workhorses on the field for week six in my mind, at least.
There's nothing really else they can turn to.
And their offense, well, they can't run the ball.
It's been better, at least when Nico Collins is in the game.
C.J. Stroud, I thought, looked pretty damn good.
He had 240, and I thought he threw some really nice passes to Noel and took Nico.
And so there are some scoring opportunities for marks.
So to me, that's like borderline probably top 12.
It's probably more like 15, 16 range.
Can I give you my C.J. Stroud stats that I've got here on the notes while we're here.
good. Let me just give you one more injury note and then we'll move on to that.
AJ Brown can practice this week. Travion Henderson status is uncertain. And now it's time for
Jacob's stats. Go. Stroud has produced 200 catchable air yards in all five games this year.
He's the only one to do it. He was the only one to do it through four weeks and he did it again
this week. And this is new for anybody who's like doesn't have a frame of reference for
catchable air yards. In 2023, his best year, he hit 200 plus in 5'050.
games. Over the next two seasons, he hit it in only three out of 31 games. This series
five for five. And so I'm actually like really, really interested to see how this is all going
to look with Houston because they haven't been able to run the ball at all. But their passing
game is working pretty well. And Marvin Harrison Jr., I think is interesting. I'm curious what
his deployment will be.
If he does more of the like exclusively out on the outside being kind of an ex-receiver
like he was in Arizona, that would be, I think, awesome for Nico Collins to be able to move
around more.
But my expectation is you probably kind of just keep Nico in that role, which then couldn't
make Marv interesting, right?
Like he's, we never really seen him do anything but that role.
So I'm very interested to see what this looks, right, to see what this looks like.
because there's a chance that Marron Harrison Jr. is coming into a, like, profoundly different situation than the one that he's been in.
Marf, to me, is a clear buy right now, Marf Harrison Jr. And people will laugh at that.
They'll hear that.
It'll be like, this is just stupid. You think some guy joining an offense in the middle of the season who sucked because everybody just thinks he sucks because of where he was is a clear buy.
And I would say the answer is yes, because he gets to play with Nico Collins.
He gets to play with a quarterback who Jacob just outlined is seeing the field.
But to me, when I hear that stat, Jacob 200-catchable air yards in all of his games,
to me what that tells me is the quarterback is seeing the field better than 90 to 95% of the
quarterbacks.
To throw catchable air yards, it means you have to see what's going on post-snap,
predict it pre-snap, and then adjust the post-snap rotation to be able to throw the ball
into that space down the field.
And he's clearly doing that at a high level right now.
The offensive line is protecting him enough to allow for that.
To me, Marv Harrison feels like an obvious buy and could be like a potential
big player down the stretch first and fantasy.
In the past, we've seen this passing game be pretty
narrowed down to one to two players.
At one point, it was Tank Dell and Nico Collins,
and we've seen that pretty much throughout Stroud's tenure
as quarterback of the Texans.
If that narrows down to Nico and Harrison,
if they move Harrison into the slot like they did at Ohio State
to get him those, really, I think he should be kind of
their movesy or their slot guy because he can win
in those tight confined areas with his release package off the line of scrimmage.
He's like the slowest guy on earth.
He's slow vertically and breaking horizontally.
He's not that slow when it comes to releasing off the line of scrimmage.
Actually, that's where the best part of his game is, is release package off the line of scrimmage by far.
And that's why you saw two weeks ago when he was last active against the Giants,
he had that quick release and scored that touchdown because he gained separation in like a split second
based on his release off the line of scrimmage.
And I think a good quarterback, I don't want to say good quarterback and say Strav versus percent,
but I think a quarterback can take advantage of that skill set personally.
All right.
I've been interested that Nico Collins hasn't had like big target share numbers.
Just because of, I mean, he's running around next to like Kisham Booty and Xavier Hutchinson and stuff.
And I think that kind of speaks to your point, though.
The Stroud is seeing the field well right now and is not necessarily like sticking on Nico.
Like he's there.
When he's there, he's getting to him, but he's also getting to the other reads too.
We've seen pretty even target dispersals over the past couple weeks, even when Nico back and Jail and Noel getting involved.
So I think that that is probably a good note for Marvin Harrison Jr.
Whereas, like, what he's had in Arizona has been very much, like, very much just focused on one or two guys.
And so he's often the third guy.
It could be different here where he gets a lot more.
Might be the second.
Don't forget Tank Dell is on his way back, too.
I don't know.
That will matter.
We'll see.
Yeah.
I think Nico Collins is a goodbye, too.
Like I said, there's a chance that Marvin Harrison Jr. does get stuck in that role, where he's the sacrificial X again.
And that's good for Nico.
And either way, Nico, like, he has at least 80 catchable yards in every game,
which is a really good number for a receiver.
Like, this all seems very good for him.
He's been steady.
But we haven't really seen, like, a huge eruption game yet.
We obviously know that that's in there.
So he's interesting to me.
Obviously, I'm always a little bit nervous about selling a ton for Nico because of the hamstrings.
But the dude could be one of the top five scoring receivers.
That wouldn't surprise me at all.
By the way, you're talking about Ohio State and Marvin Harrison.
How about Wisconsin?
Four in a row?
Are they going to be ranked?
They got a gauntlet coming up.
Three top 20 teams, Dan?
It's a massive game this weekend.
Whisco, Disco, if you're still in the chat, what up, brother?
We got a big one this weekend against UCLA.
UCLA had a huge win against Oregon.
I was rooting so hard for them to win that game, so our game would matter more.
And now coming off the biweek, can Wisconsin be the underdog story?
I've never in my life thought of them as that.
I've always lived since I became a fan with them as a constant top 25 team.
Yes, Adam, yes.
Well, I mean, they're not like, you know, they're Wisconsin.
They're an underdog a lot.
I mean, they play Ohio.
They weren't during my entire childhood when I started rooting for them and my entire college experience.
They were never an underdog story.
Now they're a true underdog unranked.
No one expects anything from them.
All right.
See if they can do it.
All right.
Good luck.
Good luck.
Shout out Braylon Allen while we're here.
Yes, Wisconsin running back Braylon Allen.
It looked damn good.
I'll throw a few stats out there, but I'll throw it back to Jacob.
A couple from ESPN.
Jordan Love had five completions that traveled at least 30 yards in the air Sunday.
That tied Ben Rathlisberger.
They're the only players with that many 30-plus air-yard completions in a game since ESPN began tracking it in 2006.
That's sweet.
20 years.
So the Packers just going to let him rip?
Like, what else can you do on all?
You can't run the ball.
I think they were sticking it to the Bears a little bit, too.
For sure.
But, yeah, that was amazing performance.
Kyleor Murray had, I don't know how many scrambles he had,
but he had more scrambles in any game since 2020.
Thank God.
That's what he has to do.
Yeah, but again, he hasn't done it in six years,
but he also has completed 40 of his last 48 passes.
And this again from ESPN.
Yes.
I watched that entire game.
I thought he looked more comfortable playing the quarterback position
than I've seen from him in the last like three or four years
and more comfortable by far than he looked at any point in his Vikings tenure.
And I looked back and then I went back and watched just the second half of the week before because people were telling me that was a good performance from Kyler.
And I did think he started to show signs of it in the second half.
And then obviously he was leaning on Ockinson who got injured in the first quarter and then just kind of found a way to win besides that.
I'm pretty hopeful for Kyler moving forward based on what I've seen the last two weeks.
When he hasn't had the solution, he's used his legs again to find it and create first downs.
I think he's just moving the offense well.
And then that red zone touchdown to Jefferson was an absolute dime.
It won't get discussed.
It was a bit of a prayer, I think.
I don't know how that.
I completely disagree.
I don't know.
I mean, it was.
I completely disagree too, Adam.
You think it was probably the best throw of his career.
He made those.
He made those throws all the time at Oklahoma.
And that's why I was excited about him as a prospect.
I guess that was crazy.
People would call them prayers.
No, you're right.
No, that was good touch.
It was harsh.
It was harsh.
Yeah, anticipation and touch.
And great trajectory, the ability to throw that football there.
I'll throw that up on Twitter for later.
I thought that was the best.
of the week. Cam Scataboo has four fumbles.
Five games. This is insane. This is getting insane.
And the Saints have been so bad against running backs lately and they're super
injured. Maybe they'll get healthier. But like it'd be a good time to think about starting
Scataboo, but I don't even know if he's going to start. This is pathetic.
Well, I was surprised yesterday. He still had 63%. And then it was 18 and 16% of the
SnapShare for Najee and for Tracy. I think what the Giants need to do personally and it's gross
sounding, but I think they need to activate Singletary.
I think he might be one of their most effective backs somehow.
What do you think about Scataboo?
I mean, do you trust, can you trust Scadaboo right now?
No, of course not.
The Giants have averaged 2.8 yards per carry over the last two weeks.
They can get anything going on in their center.
And the only time they move the balls when they let James go to shotgun spread.
And they can actually run out of shotgun spread.
They just haven't really.
Their old line's not blocking well.
Scadaboo is not the red zone focal point that he was with Dart.
There's no, the backsideer runs like no one.
I mean, no one on any backside run I've seen has respected the quarterback's ability to keep the ball, so they're just crashing down.
There's just, there's no involvement really in the past game.
They're not trying to get him involved.
What is he at this point for fantasy?
Scadaboo or Hampton rest of season, L.O.L.
Hampton.
What is either one of them?
Yeah, Hampton's nothing too, I guess.
Both are roster clog.
They're both bad.
I don't even know if I could say Hampton.
But Scadaboo's dominating touches.
For now.
If they can overlook the fumbles.
The four.
including one that just cost them a win. But yes.
All right. I got one more step. I got more, but I'll cede my turn here. But if you're talking
about usage, which you guys often do, you know, I don't know that any quote unquote must start
guy had worse usage in week five than Jeremiah Love. He was started in 92% of leagues. He has played
fewer than half the snaps in four or five games. He barely played on third down yesterday.
He played eight snaps. Jeremiah Love played eight snaps in the second half.
I thought that type of game script would be perfect for Jeremiah Love.
I thought we were living and waiting for that game script.
Now it's like, oh, no, we got to that game script, and they're not even using him.
It's a second time.
It's a second time.
Week two also, they lost by 24.
He played seven snaps in the second half.
They're at the Rams this week.
They could get killed again, Jacob.
Well, he told us last week he's tired.
He's really tired.
That's what loves that after the game.
They're trying to keep him fresh for the season, for the really important season where they're one and what, four right now?
Yeah.
All right, Jacob, back to you.
Yeah, so just to build off a few things that you talked about,
Kyler Murray had seven scrambles in this game,
which was up from six in the previous three games combined.
Nice.
So that's what you want to see.
In addition to what you guys talked about,
getting the ball quick, passing looked good.
Drake May, you talked about New England,
AJ Brown coming back sometime soon.
Drake May had 304 catchable air yards this week,
which was second.
Week four, he had 288.
So that's a huge bounce.
back for May. The weeks before
that he had 172, 168,
and 126 in week one.
So, love to see that.
King is back, baby.
Love to see it. He just lost his left tackle now.
So great. That's true.
Yeah, that's true. We don't know how long.
They've already had two, so many injuries
on their whole line. Braylon Allen
was charted as gaining 102
out of his 110 rushing
yards after first contact.
What a beast. I'm awesome.
I'm curious if you think that we will get
even more of a split than we had seen in the past when
three saw was back.
I asked that last night on the recap show and to Jamie.
He wasn't too concerned.
I think one more game and I'm going to be really concerned about it.
It definitely crossed my mind.
I think he's earned it.
You know, he's playing really well.
I don't really believe in Braylon Allen that much.
To be honest, I think they look at his career.
He hasn't really been that good.
This was a freaking great game for him, though.
So, but at the same time,
Look at Breece Hall, week one, good against the Titans.
The next two games couldn't run at all.
So I kind of am worried about it.
I don't value Breece Hall quite the same as I did before yesterday.
And if it happens one more time, I'm going to really be nervous about it.
Because Allen could easily be the goal lineback.
I saw after the game the first game, not that it matters, but like I was watching on Twitter,
the first game ball that Glenn gave out, Aaron Glenn was to Braylin Allen.
And I just feel like they felt like he set the tone for them.
I don't think he gets phased out.
I don't think he's going to have a leadback roll or anything,
but any role is bad.
He was already taking Red Zone work.
Right.
On the Packers,
they only allowed one quick pressure.
I think they only allowed one pressure overall in week four.
Had an average time to throw of 2.2 seconds in week four.
So I think that that was a clear reaction to what had been happening,
what we saw the previous week on prime time,
had a sort of long week to plan that out.
This week against the Bears,
it was again one of the lowest quick pressure rates 11% in each of the first three games the quick pressure rate was 20% or higher so when I say quick pressure that's a pressure that was occurring in 2.5 seconds or less I said their time to throw is 2.2 seconds in week four last week it was 2.47 so again they're like beating that quick pressure threshold they're getting the ball quick even with what adam said which is that they're pushing the ball down the field I think that's a really good combination that speaks to good planning in terms of the
the offensive design. And I just want to point this out. So per the fantasy points data suite,
they have this tool where you can look at like player comps and it dates back to 2021. And so it's
just like recent comps who have like similar stats. You can play with it and choose whatever
stats you want. So like expected fantasy points, average depth of target, how often the players
lining up in this slot, all sorts of stuff. You can even do really specific stuff like what types
routes they're running and stuff like that.
Using their query, they're just nine that they preset for you.
Christian Watson's closest statistical comp is 2021 Jamar Chase.
And it's been like that all year long.
I mean, if you look at the dude, like he's just, he's just printing for fantasy.
There was one down week, but he's top five in points scored.
He's averaging over three yards per outrun.
And it's, I mean, going into the year, I was like, what?
if this guy who's always been his like really near the top of the league in terms of efficiency
even with a really low target rate he's been very very very good on a yard per route run rate
even with a low target per route run rate what if that target per route run rate increases
and we're basically seeing that because of the injury to jane reed and then also just them
wanting to emphasize him his target per route run rate is up to 24 percent um he also grades out as
90th percentile in their average separation score so we're getting lots of targets we're getting
more design targets, short targets,
in addition to the deep targets and the red zone targets,
I don't know.
Like maybe it changes because of Josh Jacobs or something.
Maybe Christian Watson doesn't make it through the season or something.
But like right now, this looks like a top, like eight receiver on a week-to-week basis
in terms of just what you're getting, what you're projecting.
This was the first week where Golden Watson and Kraft all scored double-digit
PPR fantasy points.
Kraft had five catches for 64 yards on five targets.
But the one time Watson didn't do well was a craft game.
Kraft had six for 42 and a touchdown on seven targets in week four.
So that might happen from time to time.
But at the end of the year, probably going to look good.
All right, anything else before we go to break?
For sure.
Brock Bowers leads the tight-in position, pending mona net football, don't kick a capacity.
Do you hear that, Adam?
Brockbowers leads the titan position in catchable air yards on the year,
and he's only played three games.
Oh, wow.
Did we make that bet, Adam?
What did we put on the line?
I don't think we put a bet.
You're lucky we didn't.
There's not a chance in hell that McBride outscores Bauer's, rest of why.
There is a chance.
I mean, there's no chance.
There is definitely a chance.
I'm just being a jerk.
Brock Bowers has at least 74 catchable air yards in every game this year.
Trade McBride's single game high is 71.
If you look around the league, there's like a handful of other games that have been above 70,
catchable air yards at the titan position.
Bowers has done in every single game.
It's like really a unique role in terms of like obviously all the targets and everything,
but also there's upside with it.
It's like a receiver role.
I know that that is like kind of obvious if you watch Bowers,
but it's just like he's different than all the Titans for sure
because these aren't just areas.
These are catchable areas.
The office is actually working.
And so it's the idea that we've always had with Bowers is here.
Andy looks healthy.
He's creating some yak and stuff too.
He's top five.
in the NFL in first three target rate, he passed C.D. Lamb this past week. So on the year,
he's top five in first three target rate, too. The office is completely funneled through him.
Can I talk about Bayshall Tooting a little bit? Yeah, but let's say we have to take a break.
Come back and talk about Bejel Tootin. We've got to talk about the Bears, the Bears offense,
offenses that we hate and was there? Oh, Mike Evans, after this on fantasy football today.
All right, Bejel Tootin. What do we need to know about him?
So the usage just keeps getting better and better and better.
He's really not, at least in week five, he didn't really split the backfield.
He had 20 of 22 running back runs.
So the first three games, the percentage of running back runs was like 60%.
And then week four is 74% and the last week was 92%.
So he's really, I think, earned a large share of the backfield.
If you look, this is obviously a specific split.
I used 60 plus as the threshold just for basal tune.
but here are the players with 60 or more rushing yards in every game this year.
Derek Henry, Bijon, Robinson, Kenneth Walker, Bachel Tutin,
60 or more rushing yards every game.
He's creating yards after contact and avoiding tons of tackles,
and it's just been something that they can rely on,
even though their run game last year was really rough down the stretch in Jacksonville,
and I think the run blocking has just not been great.
Toon, if you look at yards after contact leaders,
it's like 80 plus percent of his yards are coming out.
after contact proportionally.
It's way different than the other guys.
He has very, Ashton Gent is the only thing that's close and Tudan has way better stats.
But Jent is the only thing that comes close in terms of like, this guy's not getting hardly
any yards before contact.
Maybe that's a Tudan thing, but I think it's just the offense has kind of struggled in the
run game outside of a few well-designed plays that get yards before contact.
Otherwise, they're sort of struggling.
If you look at runs where the running back got to the line, they were not hit behind
the line of scrimmage.
his success rate is like at the very top.
It's in the same range as Javante Williams, James Cook,
Kairn Williams, like the most dependable guys.
The only backs that are definitively ahead of him
and that metric are Gibbs and Kenneth Walker.
So I think it's very clear that Bejel Toon's really good.
The problem is...
Well, a lot of people don't even agree with that.
No, it's awesome.
I think he's really good and I'm excited about him.
I'm hoping he has a terrible game this week against the Texans
and then goes into a buy.
and then I'm going to send out
100 by-lo, well, you know, as many by-lough offers
as I can. However, I have to point out
all these good things you're saying about
Beasel Tootin, he has scored fewer fantasy points than Chase Brown.
He is RB 17 right now, I believe.
It's like 20 points called back from penalty.
He's got 10 targets.
He's got 10 targets.
He splits the goal line work.
They don't run a lot of plays.
I think that'll hopefully change.
But it's possible that Bejel Tootin,
the player is better than Beasel Tootin, the fantasy asset.
I'm in on Bezal Tootin the fantasy asset.
facial Tutin, but I don't want to overrate him because he is a little bit of a trapback,
doesn't catch passes, and splits goal line work.
So we have a larger sample size of Liam Cohen running backs being freaking awesome for fantasy,
though.
I mean, Travis E.T.N, Travis A. Chan went nuts in fantasy. He's like running back seven or something
last year.
I get it, but like it's not really happening right now for Tutin because he has 10 targets in
five games. That's what I'm saying, though, is right now it's five games. They draw back to
past like 25 times for a game, that seems just kind of weird and random.
All right.
So what's going to change for him?
What's going to get better?
I think just more play volume, more scoring from the offense.
And then I also think that the short yarder stuff, people get really annoyed because when
we're watching on Sunday morning, we see Amir Abdullah in there, which, by the way, played like
two snaps all game.
And it is kind of annoying that those happen to be the snaps at the goal line.
It's a weird offense.
They're using three or four different running backs in the red zone.
When I say using, they're on the field.
They're really only using two in the red.
in terms of giving them the ball,
and it's Toon and Chris Rodriguez.
There's no clear one, though.
Both of them are getting the ball.
Tudan has, they have the same amount of snaps and touches from inside the five
with Tudan having two touchdowns that Chris Rodriguez is one.
And Tudan has one more carry than Rodriguez from inside the 10.
So, like, in close, it's very similar between those two guys.
It's not like they bring Rodriguez in all the time.
They just do that sometimes, which to me is fine.
It's not ideal, but there's lots of running backs that are still really good for fantasy.
If Toon would have scored one or both of the touchdowns that he got called back in week four,
I think we'd be really, really, really happy with him.
He'd be like a top 10 running back with good usage that just got like 24 touches or whatever he got in week five.
You know, like I think we just feel awesome.
Yeah, I know, but a lot of people don't.
Instead of, I think he's a clear by low.
Maybe you can wait until after the Houston game, but at the same time,
it's like, if he's going to get 20 touches every game and we believe that this,
offense can put points up on anybody and lots of
offenses have put points up on Houston. It could be this week.
It could be any week is kind of how I feel with Tud.
The last thing I want to point out is he's been very,
very good in short yarder situations
for what it's worth.
So over the past two seasons, he has a 79% success rate on
runs that required three or fewer
yards to get a first down.
Which is running back three out of 55 qualifiers.
Chris Rodriguez is also good running back 14,
but like Tunes been really good at that.
I don't think we have any evidence
that suggests like he's going to
lose short yardage work or anything like that.
I think his coach just really likes to use multiple guys in the red zone area,
likes to feel really smart with all the cool creative stuff that he does.
And sometimes that's good for Tune.
And sometimes it ends up being somebody else.
And that's kind of annoying.
But I think over the course of the full season,
we're going to feel really good with Tuddin if he stays healthy.
Okay.
I do feel good.
I think he's a buy for sure.
I didn't mean to say otherwise.
Just throwing out the numbers there.
All right.
Good? More?
I just want to show...
Just shout out Jalen Warren.
The dude's averaging a hundred and sixty-three scrimmage yards over his past three games.
163?
The only guys who have more scrimmage yards per game this year are Kenneth Walker,
Jamir, Gibson, B. John Robinson.
That's all.
Crazy.
He's awesome.
All right, a few more things for me.
Jacobi.
I want to talk about Jacobi Myers.
You're looking at just like a random by-low.
I don't know if he is one.
But he runs a ton of routes.
Brian Thomas Jr. is just not a factor.
Brenton Strange has been good two weeks in a row.
But Jacoby Myers has had a 21% target share or higher six straight seasons.
Right now it's 13%.
I wonder if you're doing a trade, throw him in, no one care.
Like people are going to start dropping him.
Maybe pick him up, put him on your bench.
You might be able to produce two at every three weeks or something like that.
I don't know.
Dallas Goddert ran two-thirds of the routes coming back from injury.
he ran almost 80% of the routes in week one.
So I expect more routes in week six against the Panthers.
And his target chair has been 23% and 24% in his two healthy games.
He had a huge target per route run rate.
If Dallas Goddard plays and either Saquan Barclay or Devante Smith doesn't in week five,
then I think he's going to be really good.
Kendrick Bourne, I know people are going to think, oh, Marvin Harrison's gone,
Kendrick Bourne.
There's some merit to that, but their schedule's about to get really tough.
Kendrick Bourne only ran 62% of the routes.
He did have a 24% target per out run rate.
I think that route rate could go up.
He ran 77% of the routes in week one.
But pointing that out on, on Kendrick Bourne,
I don't know how much I can buy in.
I think like a two-receiver league,
I'm not picking them up.
Jeremy Bernard played 92% of the snaps,
and he had six catches for 80 yards
on nine targets for the Steelers.
Omar Ian Hampton ran two routes.
And Wilson's going to be out now, by the way.
Yeah, Wilson's out for a bit.
And Jeremy Bernard, like, he's not to, I don't know if you guys watched, he's not that impressive to me on tape, but maybe I'm missing something.
I really like Jeremy.
He's weird.
I like Jeremy. He's weird.
I expected more speed from him and he doesn't really have that.
He's not fast.
He looks slow.
Yeah.
But he's also, I mean, it's, this isn't, it's like a Robert Wood.
This isn't right.
But he's like a Harold Fanon at the wider zero position.
He's very weirdly hard to tackle.
Um, Omaran Hampton ran two routes.
He has six targets this season.
And then this is concerning, just looking at the first half, when he's,
Kenyon Sadiq was healthy because he got hurt, I think, in the third quarter.
Kenyon Sadiq ran 19% of the routes.
Mason Taylor ran 75% of the routes.
So I don't think I can sit here and tell you to hang on to Kenyon Sadiq.
No.
All right, we're going to our big topics now.
We already knocked out Chase Brown.
Let's knock out the Bears passing game.
Will Caleb Williams save the Bears pass catchers?
Hopefully he plays this week.
They are at Atlanta.
Dan, is this the savior for these Bears pass catchers that we've been looking for?
I think so.
I think we got derailed a little bit after week one, where they went off 59 points,
had a weird, rainy, wet game against Brian Flores in week two.
And then Caleb got hurt in that game.
So we really don't know that it's not the case right now.
What we know is the case is that the Bears' offensive line is still phenomenal and relatively healthy,
I think compared to the rest of the NFL.
The past catchers are all healthy and have looked good at individual moments with two backup
quarterbacks in Keenham and Bejant.
And so if Caleb Williams can get back to playing the football he was playing, which was decisive, he had commanded the line of scrimmage, he understood what was going on, there's a chance that they can still do what Ben Johnson set out to do, which is like break records and set numbers in the passing game and not just a passing game, but from a total point scored.
And there are cracks now being shown in the bear's defense, which I expected sooner.
It happened this week.
They don't really have the talent.
They've had a lot of injuries on the defense side of the ball.
So it's shaping up to me like we could be looking at an explosive.
of offense over the course of time
when Caleb comes back. I have been trying
to buy on Rome. I've been trying to buy on all
three of these guys. Loveland, not as much
but on the other two for sure.
They're like mid to the late season
schedule gets really nice.
So I'm into buying all of them honestly
including Loveland.
Loveland just continues to be
for whatever reason, just the most cursed
unlucky player in fantasy football
this year. It's so cool.
I've got a group of
10 players who had the lowest catchable target rates in week five minimum of five targets.
There were 10 guys who had a catchable target rate of 67% or lower and three of them were bears.
They're on the screen right now.
Loveland's was 40%.
I think you look at the Falcons without panics for the first two games and you can just say
the season started for them in week three and they are now we know what to expect as long as
panics is healthy.
And you could maybe say the season's going to start in week six for the bears.
Week two, I can kind of throw it out because of what Dan said, the weather or the
Flores thing. Week one was crazy. I don't think I expect 59 point. Now let's see what they're really
about. My questions are going to be this. What is Cleef Raymond's role? He's been pretty invisible
for two straight games, but the first three games, he was annoying. He was a thorn in the side.
He hasn't been running as many routes the last couple of weeks. But he's still out there. It's
not like a huge change. He is still out there. Yeah, he is. He is Caleb Williams going to target him.
Two, what is Caleb Williams' health? How much is he going to run? How mobile is he going to be coming
back from this hamstring injury.
This could go either way for them.
It could, one, just make him a less effective player,
less, you know, less prone to make those big plays on broken plays running around.
Like, when week one, he had a 40-something yard throw to Roma Dunzee,
where he escaped the pocket and hit the Dunsay downfield.
Like, is he going to be able to do that?
But the other thing is, it looked like he wanted to be more of a rusher,
just based on the first two games.
He had nine carries in week one.
Last year he was about four or five pretty much every week.
He had five carries in week two left with an injury,
had about a half a quarter left, if I recall.
So maybe he won't run as much.
Maybe he'll just throw more.
I can see that going either way.
But I hope he's healthy and not coming back too soon.
But I'm generally optimistic.
I think the bears are going to score a lot of points.
I think it still could be frustrating for fantasy
if the targets aren't concentrated between those three guys.
So I think it's still a bit of a mystery.
And if I had to rank them rest of season, I would put Loveland last.
I think I'd put, I'd put Burden first.
Because O'Doons...
Yeah, I'd go Burt and O'Dunzee Loveland.
How about you?
I guess I'd go first, Bird and Loveland, O'Donzee.
I think they're all good buys.
I think the running backs are really good buys.
If we're including them in terms of like which ones are the best buys,
I think Swift is probably up there among the top ones, if not the top, the best buy.
I think these two offices we've talked about here recently are both really good buys.
The Bears for obvious reasons.
And then the Jaguars, they just haven't quite performed up to what they could do.
These have been, I mean, other than like Kyle Shanahan and like what's going on in Dallas,
these have pretty much been the two most, in Detroit, the two most productive play designers, play callers for fantasy football over the past three years.
Jackson played a couple really tough defenses too.
Yeah.
So to me, like, I think it's totally fair to be.
bet on these offenses being top three, top five, top eight at least, because that in terms of
fantasy points produced as a whole, because that's what they've been with these coordinators in the
past. And both offenses are interesting because we, especially Jacksonville, like, there's a lot of
different pieces. And so because of that uncertainty other than Parker Washington, nobody really
feels that much confidence in any of them. But I think Jacobi Myers is a good player to have on your
roster. Like, you can put him in a pinch and then like, what if something happened? What if something
where to happen to Parker Washington,
who's out there making heroic plays all the time.
You know what I mean?
Now it could be like a 25% target share for Jacoby
in Jacksonville's offense.
You know what I mean?
Like, same thing with the Bears.
That same type of potential exists,
the contingent upside.
And I just think these are great offices to buy.
All right, next topic is,
should we sell high on this player,
this player who has by far a career high
explosive play rate,
a career high catch rate,
way above his career average,
career high in Yakper,
cash.
career high, 3.05 yards per route run.
By the way, he's what, 33 years old,
32 or 33 years old.
He hasn't ran 80% of the routes in a game yet.
He's Mike Evans.
Should we sell high?
Yeah, he's still high.
Should we still high on Mike Evans?
It's seriously crazy watching him right now.
He's so good of football.
Well, I'm just saying like every time they show him
without his helmet on, he looks like he's excruciating pain.
So much pain.
Yeah, he's playing for two broken ribs.
Oh, yeah.
Those aren't going to heal, but I would not sell.
Sorry, he legitimately did not know who, that it was Trayvon Diggs, he said.
So he made him turn around to see who it was.
Yeah.
And I like how he was like, Trayvon Diggs was whining because I was blocking him too hard.
Like, dude, that's your fault, not his.
And I would never trade Evans.
Evans was on my bold predictions preseason pod, which is.
Getting flamed and rightfully so for the most devastating call of my career in Amarian Hampton.
But I just can't even get over how bad that is and how bad the Chargers are.
But Evans isn't bad.
Whenever Evans plays, he's awesome.
As I predicted he would be.
I don't even think we've hit the tip of the iceberg yet.
They don't, like, I don't.
Because I think every week they're finding new ways to get him the football.
And it's not just vertical, which hasn't even really been there yet this season.
He has big plays in the offensive playbook or in the red zone.
and around the red zone.
He's at two plays where he's caught it
like inside the five yard line
been knocked out of bounds.
Those could have been touchdowns as well.
So I would not sell him.
If you're selling him,
you're just like,
oh,
it's because he's going to get injured.
If that's the case,
and you're just trying to predict injury,
go ahead, sell him.
Did you sell him for Chase Brown?
What'd you say?
Chase Brown.
I weirdly still like Chase Brown.
I just can't give up on Chase Brown yet.
So we just put a comment on the screen,
Bro is Robocop about Mike Evans.
there's no way, Dan.
Like, does they even know who Robocop is?
I've heard Robocop.
I've heard the name Robocop.
Don't really know.
Is it Schwarzenegger, I feel like?
No, no.
Feels like a Schwarzenegger type movie.
He's Robocop.
Who's Robert?
Peter Weller is Robocop.
That doesn't strike any bells for me.
I wouldn't have no idea who that was.
No, but you don't even know the movie.
I know it's like a Robocop.
Yeah.
You know?
Well said.
Perfect.
A robot cop.
I would trade Evans if you get something that you feel good about.
I mean, I don't want to just give him away.
I don't want to, you know, to Dan's point, like just predict injury because we don't know.
Maybe it's season, but it does look like it's pretty painful for him every game to be out there.
And he was dealing with a lot of stuff lower body too going into the season, right?
It's not just the ribs.
And he is 33.
So, like, that's fair to me.
People are like talking about AJ Brown over and over.
Like, AJ Brown coming back is going to just light the league on fire and everything.
And I think he could.
I'm really curious to see what it's going to look like when Angie Brown gets back.
I bring this up though because like somebody made this point to me before the season that I had
age of Brown ranked too high because there had like literally never been a receiver his age to do
what I was expecting him to do based off of like his previous seasons to like outproduce those seasons
at his age. And I was like well it just feels like he could. It feels like the circumstances are so
good for him that he could. Like I don't want to be that guy and just like bet against what history is
clearly telling us. And then we immediately get the reason that.
like why that so often probably is the case that that receiver doesn't outproduce that
solely into the career is because your body doesn't hold up right.
Maybe it's a fluke thing with age around.
I don't know.
I don't know, maybe.
I don't care at all about age anymore.
I don't care.
I don't.
Devante Adams.
Devante Adams.
Derek Henry.
I mean, Samasian T.
It's like 31.
I just, you know, look, as I'm 42 now.
I've been doing this show since 2009.
Things have changed.
I mean, medical science is different.
Guys are coming back from torn Achilles in nine months.
It just doesn't matter anymore.
Was it less for kiddle?
Way less.
Whatever it was.
Like, it doesn't matter.
This used to be, if I, if he had torn his Achilles in 2009 at his age, his career is over.
He used to be career ending.
It doesn't matter anymore.
I don't care about age.
These old guys are doing fine.
Young guys get hurt all the time.
Right.
So I just like, I don't care about age anymore.
The best values are good.
The best values right now are like,
Henry Adams, like all the guys, you can't draft them.
They're too old.
They're all like the best values as always.
Like once again, Derek Henry goes underdrafted.
It's like a big,
Henry and George Kittle, guys.
I know, but it's also Mike Evans.
Like, Mike Evans is a legend.
Okay, but these are like the two best athletes I've watched.
True.
I wouldn't say NFL is that.
Like, yeah.
But Evans is still unguardable.
That's the difference.
Like, he's still one of the few unguardable players.
You cannot really match up against it.
I think Evans is going to be great when he's healthy.
I'm saying I'm a little nervous about it.
And if I could get something, a parallel move that's 27 years old instead of 33, I would absolutely do it.
I don't even know what parallel moves are left, though.
That's the problem.
There's so few good receivers that like that.
To Adam's point, he's like wide receiver 18 right now.
Yeah.
No, I think that's to Dan's point, I think it could be a lot better.
Right.
I think that's realistic.
And to Adam's point about, you know, all the efficiency stuff being the best it's ever been, it's like, well, yeah, he's playing with freaking Brock Purdy and Calhanna.
Which is what we said.
And his wide receiver.
or 18 only at him because he had the game where he was playing hurt or like left it with
the injury or whatever.
That's kind of true.
But he also just doesn't run that many routes.
I did this exercise with Luther Burden and, you know, a couple of two weeks ago,
Luther Burden doesn't run 80% of the routes.
And Mike Evans hasn't reached that yet either.
Last year, the only top 12 wide receiver, I think per game that ran fewer than 80% of the
routes when they were healthy, not for like the full year, you know.
Devante?
No, it was it was Puka.
And Pooka had a few games where he left early with the injury.
When he's at his best, he's playing 88, 89% of the routes.
So it's rare to do it, to be top 12.
He doesn't have to be top 12.
Right now he's 18th.
He's got the same amount of points per game as Drake London,
who's obviously better than him.
Justin Jefferson, who I think we'd take over him.
He's just ahead of Malik neighbors.
He's ahead of George Pickens.
You know, but like,
Devante Smith is actually averaging more fantasy points per game
Mike Evans.
Who'd rather have rest of the season?
Who knows what to expect from Philly?
Like one of the stats I was going to give you earlier
is that they dropped back way more.
42 dropbacks.
Hertz only has six games of 40 plus
dating back to 2024.
They were third and pass rate over expectation in week five.
And that was a game where they didn't have Devante Smith,
you know?
Yeah.
So like it's possible if they just can't run the ball at all,
but this is just what their offense is now,
which could be good for Devontas Smith.
I would assume your plan would be to try to get him
as many quick targets as possible.
if this is, if you're like a crappy version of the Packers is where you're at now
as an offense, then like you probably want to get Devante Smith a bunch of those looks.
Yeah, and it's one thing that hurts is still doing, you know, a great job with,
was is the downfield throws.
We saw it with Cooper.
That was a great throw by him a dime.
Why don't we go to the offenses that suck?
Because the Eagles.
Yeah, they're one of them.
They're 28th in scoring.
All they do is go three and out.
Which offenses do we avoid rest of season?
Eagles.
No, can't just.
Yeah, yeah.
What do you mean?
What does that mean?
What's that mean? You're just like not starting Devante Smith.
You're not starting Goddard.
You're just out on Barclay?
I'm not starting Goddard, first of all.
I'm 100% starting Goddard.
I just told you 30% target share or something last week.
Oh, no, 30% target run rate, whatever.
Fine.
Enjoy that.
I mean, he's fine borderline top 12 play, I suppose.
Yeah.
You're starting Smith because there's nothing at receiver.
I mean, you're still starting these guys.
Hurt.
I don't know if you're definitely starting.
All right.
Think about the Eagles, the 28th in scoring, and the team that's 209th.
than scoring the Broncos.
And think about how many more startable players we have on the Eagles than the Broncos.
You could consider Jalen Hertz.
You can't even consider Bo Nix right now.
I'd much rather have Devante Smith than Jalen Waddle.
I'd much rather have Sequin Barclay than any running back.
I'd much rather have Dallas Goddard than Evan Ingram.
So the Eagles are a problem.
And they've had a pretty easy schedule.
And their schedule is super easy going for the foreseeable future.
That's true.
They have an easy schedule.
I have looked at that.
I don't even know what to do with the Broncos.
They got Seattle on Thursday this week.
I feel like I need to take the time to watch like two.
hours of Broncos tape because I have no idea what's going on with that offense. Well, then what's the
problem? Their O-line's still great and there's no injuries. Is it just all the problems? You know what the problem is.
I know, but I thought he was getting better. I don't think they have a lot of talent outside Jalen Waddle.
That's not a good excuse. When your O-line's fine and you don't have injuries and you have a Waddle, you should be, and they're fine, those guys.
When the O-lines is as good as it's supposed to be for the Broncos, I always blame it on the quarterback. It's never the receiver's fault in my mind.
Okay. Well, yeah, O-Line looks pretty good.
figure it out, process the field and get it into space.
People are, their professionals running routes.
So, and Waddle's good.
You're going to start, you're going to start Jalen Waddle Thursday night against Seattle?
I want to, but I might have to.
Like, would you rather start Woody Marks against Jacksonville or Jayne Waddle?
Woody Marks.
You know what I want to have marks?
Marks might have more targets.
I want to research, um, when the Broncos play Thursday night home games, if defenses really
struggle on a short week in the altitude.
In the altitude.
Yeah, sure.
I want to see if that's a thing.
I said that's going to be like two games.
Offenses that we want to avoid rest of the season that come to mind for me.
Yeah.
I have more hope than you guys, or I guess, than you might add them in the Broncos.
So I won't put them on the list, but I think that's fair.
They're like, they're on the list right now.
They could come out of the list, but right now I don't want to.
I just think they could at least get better with a good old line.
But it's only one.
All right.
Like they, you know, they, yeah, I just mean more so like the offenses I think aren't
going to score a lot of points and they're going to just be.
in these constant like 10 to 17 scoring games and Titans.
Eagles, for sure, for me.
Eagles for sure, okay.
How could it not be?
Have you seen the last two weeks of their schedule?
Their schedule is so good.
Okay, what is it?
Washington and Dallas coming up.
Washington is not good.
Washington can play defense and they will play defense really well.
Carolina, Dallas, Washington Giants.
No, you're wrong.
Giants will be able to handle that.
Washington is giving up the, are you kidding me with Washington?
Washington's giving up the second most fantasy points.
There's only one quarterback that hasn't scored 30 fantasy points against
Washington.
then it was Daniel Jones.
Yes.
And that strategy, I think, will work against the Eagles.
That's my personal opinion.
The Eagles offensive line is terrible.
We'll see if I'm wrong.
When we get to that game, I want to see if Jalen Hertz and the Eagles offense lights it up.
Because I'm very curious.
We'll put that in the books.
Giants lit it up yesterday.
They didn't light it up.
Yeah, they threw for 300 and three TDs.
That's lighting it up.
But they didn't even play that well.
But Washington is so bad.
All right, fine.
Eagles, we don't agree on the Eagles.
Which offenses do we agree on?
Okay. Titans.
Titans for sure, right?
Giants.
Who?
Neighbors, likely, I guess, but I'm nervous about the Giants.
I can't believe you guys would say that.
Thank you, Jacob.
Are they going to keep James in there, man?
Yes.
Do you know who has the number one EPA over the last two weeks among all quarterbacks?
James Winston.
Oh, who did he play this past week?
Who do you play the last two weeks?
I'm getting just like tired.
I don't understand where people are at with James because I've just watched the last
two games and he's made more big time throws than I saw for an entire period of football in
2020 and 2021. Literally. He played Arizona and Washington. 34 games of watching tape of Daniel Jones
in those two years. And he got an overtime game to boost it too. Who cares about that overtime
game? I think he's going to be good this week and then after that I'm very worried about it.
It wasn't an EPA per play, right? You gave us a total EPA's that? No, it was just total EPA.
Yeah. Okay. So let's say it was five or six or eight. It's still better. It's still pretty good.
even if it's not one, it's let's knock it down a couple pegs to five or whatever you want to take off the overtime here.
But I mean, this is not like, I don't know what is going on with what people are thinking of what Winston is done.
Which teams are you worried about offensively?
Eagles, Titans.
It's just crazy to me.
The guys throwing so many big time throws.
All right.
Versus the rest of the field of the NFL.
Also, he got lucky because there was a bogus pass interference call.
He threw a touch, he threw an interception in the end zone.
They called a stupid pass interference.
on the commanders, gave the Giants a second chance,
and then threw another touchdown.
There's bad calls every week.
You think he's the only one of benefited from that.
That ended up being a touchdown for them.
I've just seen a lot of good three-seven drawbacks per game over the past two games.
Right.
I think you've got to factor in-stitch.
Which is not sustainable.
You're right, Jacob.
But it's also not sustainable than run the football.
They're averaging 2.8 yards for carry.
How long is their right time?
Why I'm worried.
How long is the Luminor out?
Bo looked fine in his couple weeks.
No, he actually looked fine.
He stinks.
What do you?
I'm going to make four.
going to do a cut up now of Bo after's podcast.
You're the first drive that you got to bleed your eyes out watching that cutoff.
You and your blue and red colored glasses.
No, this is BS, dude.
They threw for 576 and 6 over the last two weeks.
Teams take it months to do that.
The Eagles aren't going to do that for a full month.
If they played Arizona and Washington, they probably would.
But go ahead.
All right.
So we won't include, we're debating on that one.
Broncos, Chargers.
Where are we at with the Saints?
What do you mean?
What do you mean?
What Saints?
Saints are like the Giants
Kind of
They just played the Vikings
They'll be fine
What do you mean
They looked awful
Against the Falcons too
Yeah
But yeah
It's back to back weeks
Their lines more injured
People are starting to figure out
Shuck
Throw a ton
I'm good with this
I'm nervous about the Saints
Yeah I'm very nervous
We'll see on that
Their pass protection
It's gotten a lot worse
And Shuck does not look that good
Let's be honest
We were
No I don't agree
We were away
Of our skis with him
I don't agree
I mean I'm
I'm completely throwing out
the Minnesota.
All right.
Okay.
Throw it out.
Shuck bars some nuance to talk about Shuck.
I don't think Shuck's not that good as fair.
I think we're running into like the worst set of circumstances for Shuck in which he can
look really bad.
And that's where we're at and that's why I'm nervous.
But I think...
It's 5 going into last week.
Yeah.
Are you talking about fantasy points?
Yeah.
Going into week five.
Yeah.
Because he throws a ton.
He throws a ton.
Keep an eye on them.
Keep an eye on the Saints.
I'm nervous about the Saints a little bit.
Yep.
For fantasy, though, it's set up so well because it's just, you know, it's,
just like two, sometimes three guys, and they just pass like crazy.
So it's kind of similar to the Giants a little bit.
I just have more confidence in Kell and Moore and Shuck than I do the Giants.
And I'm nervous if James doesn't play well that it does go to J.J.
McCarthy.
If it goes to JJ, I change everything that I'm thinking of because I don't know what that
will look like and it could be really bad.
And it's more like.
Don't you think that it will at some point?
They traded for it.
I can't imagine why it would.
They've only been in these two games because of James's last two weeks.
And they're in first place.
Like they're not going to.
I know that's, I'm just saying like a couple of hours.
No, but it could.
Jacob's right.
They could get frustrated at any point with James.
The most important part of the fantasy season?
Yeah.
I'm worried about the Cardinals.
I feel like I'm the only.
Cardinals are a good one.
I was going to put them next.
They got such a tough schedule.
Rams, Broncos, Cowboys, Seahawks, Rams, Chiefs coming up.
Cardinals is a good one.
Dolphins obviously.
Dolphins suck, yeah.
You abandon ship on any dolphin you got.
Even Willis is not living up there.
Well, Ali Gordon is a big deal right now.
I wouldn't abandon ship on him, but I'd sell high on Ollie Gordon.
Yeah, I would sell high on.
that for sure and that would be abandoning ship if you're selling high so you pretty much agreed with
me on that thank you i'm not even roster i don't think you have to roster any dolphins except for all
obviously you're not cutting ollie gordon if you spent all that fab on him but uh i'm going to throw
the colts in here oh yeah all right interesting they're pathetic their 30th and explosive play rate
like all they really can do is run john the taylor and defenses have pretty much figured it out
that like jones is toast right now oh no no no it's never good
It's never his fault.
There's a lot.
It's got to be O line injuries and stuff going on there.
It's pretty bad.
But yeah, that's a good one.
Do we put anyone from the north in there?
The AFC North?
I feel like no.
I don't think you're dead with the Steelers.
I'm still worried about the Browns.
I'm still worried about the Jets.
I know that it was awesome this past week for the Jets.
And it continues to be really good for Denzel boss than week to week.
But I mean, it's Harold Fandon had a 40% catchable target rate this week,
or 33% or something like that.
like it's other than Boston like nobody's been exempt from the Browns week to week it's been
all over the place with the accuracy and they're not throwing down the field other than to Boston
um it's just been really really bad there uh i know it seems wrong because like both those teams
are overperformed but like i don't feel like there's clear answers to any of the clear problems
that presented themselves to both those teams and especially with the jets if they split the backfield
i think garret wilson you're probably mostly safe but you still can run into games like you got had in
week four. But that's fine. One more. One more to end the show. Well,
Chargers. We can't not talk about the Chargers. I said charges. No, no, no. I will not talk
about the Chargers on this show. Why? I've just done talking about them. I've wasted too much
breath. Well, we have to say that we feel of course. You have to make a stand. No, it's not, of course.
Like some people will be like, can they recover this season. Maybe, but no, I think it's over.
Yeah, there's a lot of season left. They can get healthy. They can be maybe the last eight games or something like that.
I think the biggest issue for me is, and this goes for all of the mass of Justin Herbert supporters, and I consider myself one of them, in the past, when all this crap has happened around him, he's played a hero ball, and he's looked unreal on film.
The opposite is happening now.
He's playing really bad, the worst I've ever seen him in his career, by far.
And so if he's playing bad and all these injuries are happening around him, there's just no out.
It feels like there's no out for this team.
Yeah, no, they suck.
Last one I was going to bring up, how surprised would you be if the Raiders just crater?
the craters.
With Kubiak, I'd be pretty surprised.
I think they had offensive line injuries they could,
but I would also be pretty surprised.
They're like a one-man team right now.
They're run games.
It's just all Bowers.
It is Kirk Cousins.
It and Kirk Cousins, who's been better than people think.
That's what the Seahawks were last year, guys.
True.
I guess that, well, they ran the ball better than the Raiders are.
Slightly.
Yeah.
But it's a good point.
All right.
for it.
This is a,
this is O-C.
That's something.
That's a jacked version of
Robocop.
Okay.
Adam, by the way, from the mailbag show, I found
the actor, I think you look like.
What the hell is wrong with me in this picture?
That is a weird picture
of me, isn't it?
You're nuffed up by Robocop.
What do you mean?
I mean, my face looks like I'm wearing a
mask. It looks like I'm wearing an
Adam Azer mask.
My arms are huge,
which is obviously wrong.
I don't like this.
Just to update the crowd for who was wondering.
Patrick Feisler, or Fishler, is the guy that I was thinking of.
Patrick Fishler.
I don't know who Patrick Fishler is.
No, we were on this email with the listener who pointed this out to us.
Oh, oh, Patrick Fishler.
That's the guy I've been thinking about that you look a lot like.
What the hell are you talking about?
No, dude, you do.
No way.
That doesn't look anything like Azer.
What, dude, the eyebrows, the five o'clock shadow.
What do they call it?
10 o'clock shadow, whatever they call it.
5 o'clock.
It's all the clock shadow.
What is the 10 o'clock shadow?
The eyebrows and the hair.
Look at this picture of him from Lost, Thomas.
Can I send this to you?
So like maybe a young version of him, but still it's not quite right.
I feel pretty good about this.
What does he play?
It plays a really creepy character.
This guy's eyebrows are so intense.
It's really hard to compare anyone to him.
You got to look at the younger pick.
Go to a lost one.
Type in Patrick Fisler on Lost.
Oh my gosh.
This is great.
This is really beyond the box.
Right?
That is, that's Azer.
Look at that first one in the left, full left.
Yeah, that's Azer to me.
Yeah, I don't look anything like that, bro.
Like, maybe you're worried that your hair is going to look like that at some point.
That is not my hair.
What the heck is that movie that he's in?
He's in old school.
It's like the assistant to the...
Yeah.
But he also has like a real creepy role in like a horror movie or something.
I feel like he's in a bunch of stuff.
Always is a side character.
He's pretty good.
He's in an episode of Curb, I remember him.
Yeah.
I do like to take that to someone else.
I think I'm wrong here.
All right.
Well, thanks for watching and listening, everybody.
We will talk to you tomorrow with the Waverwire on Fantasy Football Today.
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Out of the shadows of Paramount Mountain, three heroes level up.
Ax, Tyrus, and Gileas, battle against the evil giant death adder
to save the kingdom of Uria from so much peril.
Laser knives, ordinary dwarves, bad brothers, sentient skeletons, swords,
Scorpio, Death Armour, Fire, in this state, that thing, whatever that is, so much peril and heroes!
This is just the beginning of the story of Hampton Square!
Golden Axe!
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