Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - FANTASY SHOW: Is this the week the Vikings weapons get going?

Episode Date: November 14, 2025

Mike Schopp is back for the Purple Insider Fantasy Show to discuss the Vikings' weapons struggles this season and whether this week, against the Bears, is finally the week they breakout. The Purple Insider podcast is brought to you by FanDuel. Also, check out our sponsor HIMS at https://hims.com/purpleinsider Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See https://pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hey, everybody, welcome to another episode of Purple Insider, presented by Fanduil, and this is our weekly fantasy show with Mike Shope, WGR 550, and ADP chasing. And before the show, I sent you a text, the only prep text that I sent, which was, are the Vikings the most disappointing fantasy team of the year. because each week, Mike, we've come in and I've said, you know what, I think this is Jefferson's week. I think this is Addison's week. Maybe Hawkinson will get it going. Finally, when McCarthy comes back, surely he will lean on T.J. Hawkinson. And none of those things have happened. Even Jordan Mason, we thought, okay, now this is the year with the young quarterback that they lean on a running back and that will be Jordan Mason.

Wrong, wrong, wrong, and wrong. And here I am this week prepared to come in and say, but you know, The Bears defense really gets lit up, and I think it could be time after a really horrible week for Jefferson that they're going to force him the football. I don't know. I feel like each week there's been some optimism toward, hey, it's right around the corner and it just has not been there for this team. No, I wouldn't, I thought about it. I wouldn't rank them as fantasy football's most disappointing team because some of it is

always, you know, you want to bake in expectations. And I think with Jefferson, the consensus, easily the consensus was it doesn't matter who his quarterback is. But Jefferson was everybody's favorite. And right away this year, McCarthy, just from the optics, McCarthy seemed to spook him a little bit. Like there was something about what wasn't happening in that offense that concerned Jefferson and he became I mean you can offer a lot more on this than I can I'm just watching the games on TV but it seemed immediately Jefferson was annoyed and we hadn't had that before we didn't have that with Nick Mullins we didn't have that with Darnold or Dobbs or anybody or even cousins right so maybe there was in sort of in private but that was a bad

development I think for for Jefferson who is still great but people are talking about whether he's quitting on routes and just whether he's on board with this. No Viking has more than two touchdowns receiving this year. So you're not getting even sort of like what you get well with Chase. I mean, even better examples probably on bad teams. Garrett Wilson was doing this before he got hurt and the Jets don't even really throw the ball at all or you get like that that floor that will save you. That's why this is a top five pick running backs or receivers no matter what. The volume is going to be there and because of that you can't lose and then you might get this super high ceiling great but you know they're not the most i'll tell you who i think is in a minute but i wouldn't

classify them as the most disappointing because there still had to be some you know modesty about what mccarthy would be and even what mason was i mean sometimes a guy plays a part-time role and he looks great. And then there's the big buy-in. It's like, okay, well, I get it. I mean, why this guy wasn't a high draft pick and playing more often for his previous teams makes sense. Right. And we're seeing some of that with Mason and San Francisco probably moved on in part because he's not a past protector. He can catch the ball, but he's not somebody that you want to use in any sort of role where he's going down the field at all like they do with Aaron Jones or even on underneath type routes. It's kind of

a checkdown swing route type of guy and that's not really a huge part of this offense unless Aaron Jones is in there. But also we should have trusted the fact that this offense was not going to lean into the run. And another big part of it too is Jordan Mason is a very specific type of guy. If you're ahead 14 to 3 in the third quarter and you have Mike Shanahan or Kyle Shanahan as your coach, run, run, run, run is going to happen. If you are. down 19 to 10 and Kevin O'Connell is your coach. Pass, pass, pass, pass is what's going to happen. The Jefferson discussion is interesting.

As we're recording this, we're going to talk to him on Thursday, and we talked to him after the game about, like, whether he was okay and he was even asked, like, physically, are you all right? And you could tell, you know, the frustration, he's never going to be the guy that comes and calls people out or something like that. But what we can say is we have a lot of years of Justin Jefferson and a lot of quarterbacks working with Justin Jefferson who have succeeded in major numbers, major ways. It's not him. He's not running routes differently. And this is the thing, though, is that when

you're not succeeding and things aren't in a flow on offense, and then you have one drop by a receiver, it feels devastating. And that's kind of what happened on Sunday. I think also he was getting probably a little beat up by Marlon Humphrey and got a little tired of that as well. But I also think he's kind of exhausted and this is with receivers we never give them credit for this and i saw people destroying kion coleman and his effort and uh maybe he wasn't putting in an effort but also you know how many miles these guys run on a sunday and it's hey on fourth and whatever 16 after you've run four straight go routes can you just run at full max speed um so i i think there was some of that when it came to the quitting on routes i think he ran 52 of them uh on sunday and i did by the end

it may have not looked the same. And Kevin O'Connell kind of said that. But something's been off and they didn't get a training camp together. And we all kind of went, ah, who cares? You know, it's Jefferson. Training camp doesn't matter. Maybe it did. Or maybe you have a quarterback who is so inexperienced and has not played that the timing

is a thing that you need from actually playing in football games, which maybe will come along. And that's why I think, you know, a week like this week, there's going to be a ton of effort put into it. They need to get Jefferson going. that this would be a week i would pick i've already been looking the fan duel over under is 71.5 i would pick over because i think they're going to really try to force that to happen um but when it comes to development of a young quarterback that's something that

none of us knows when it's going to click if it's going to click when it's going to come around and i think if you're jefferson you're probably feeling the same way like is are we going to get this right soon and when you're in a game like that that you feel like you can win i i think that this is, you know, a guy who's super, super competitive and does get frustrated. And there's also the element of personalities. And I can certainly appreciate and believe that Jefferson is the type, like he's not going to call people out, but not everybody gets along with everybody else the same way. And a wide receiver is still always quarterback dependent.

I mean, a wide receiver cannot control the game unless he has the quarterback's backing and the quarterback's, you know, ability to feed him. So who knows? I mean, Jefferson is now five years, right, into his career, whatever it is. He's got his big contract. It's time to win. And he can hear the clock ticking probably. And then there's Sam Darnold in Seattle absolutely lighting it up, which he would not be unaware of. You know, things like that can just kind of take on. You get sort of bored with other people. That could be even coaching player. And it could be easy to get frustrated. But I think, I've been thinking about lately, Matt, so every year is different. You know, the draft class can be considered good, good or bad, and that's not even going to

necessarily hold water in the end, but we've, you know, we have our expectations for it. Right now in the NFL, I think there are at least 10 teams, maybe closer to 15, closer to half the league that right now could not tell you what they want to be next year at quarterback whether whether it's somebody like McCarthy and you know depending on the coaches standing and the organizational expectations how long do we bother with this and some teams will take a long time maybe Tennessee having drafted 101 last year is like this is how my partner at wGR bulldog thinks there's no way they're not going to year two with I'm like, but do you watch the games?

I mean, do they have to? And I just think there are a lot of teams like this. The Steelers are a team like this. Not because Aaron Rogers hasn't been great, but he's not great now and he might retire. So what do they do? There are obvious teams like the Jets. But then there are some curiosities among teams that have quarterbacks in their first or second season. Carolina is certainly one.

What do you think? They're thinking right now about 2026 at quarterback. their guy isn't good. I mean, then there's, I mentioned the Titans. I think Atlanta, Atlanta's sitting at three and six. What is actually, what is this right here? What are we doing right here with this team, this season? We're kind of wasting it.

And by the way, London is almost to the Jefferson level. He's having such a great season anyway. And Bejohn, I mean, that's a short shelf life. I even think, I mean, I know how this is going to sound. I think Denver should have these conversations too, but they have this generation. Doug Flutie, who can run for a first down on third and 15 once in a while, and their defense is great, but he's not great. He's not even good, I think. But then at the end of it,

what do they all do? If the draft class isn't rich, I mean, is Kirk Cousins starting for somebody week one next year because they don't have a better idea? I think there can be some of that. Like, is Tua starting for Miami? Is Trevor Lawrence even starting for Jacksonville? there are just a lot of these teams and I don't think the supply will measure up to the demand. Yeah, that is 100% true. And I guess through NFL history, it never does. I mean, if we went

back, you know, 10 years, 20 years, 30 years, we'd be like, oh, you know, half the teams in the league have no answer at quarterback. And then that's how we get Kerry Collins, Tennessee Titans or Vinnie Testa Verdi of 41 years old, having a great season for the Jets or something because it always kind of ends up playing out

that way. If you don't draft the Josh Allen or the Justin Herbert or the, you know, the obvious you're going to have that guy be your franchise quarterback, then you're just guessing like everybody else. And I think the hardest thing in the sport is when do you know whether this guy is going to work out or not? Because you mentioned like Pennix and Knicks. And a few weeks ago, we might have all been saying, oh, yeah, these guys, they look like they're really great. And then, you know, they have a couple bad games. they go, man, maybe they're not actually good, but both of them are still second year quarterbacks.

And historically, we love to make it, well, this guy's 24 and this guy's 21, but historically, the people who have studied this have found that it's about the year for the quarterback and not necessarily their actual age. So a year two, does it really tell you everything about what they're going to be? But then again, Bo Nix cannot throw the ball

more than 10 yards down the field without flying it over somebody's head and at some point. And Michael Pennix has his own. own problems with accuracy as well. And so here's J.J. McCarthy four weeks in, those quarterbacks have played a lot more football. Their franchises are still going, kind of some good, some bad. And everybody wants to figure this out with J.J. McCarthy right away. And they're both much older than McCarthy, by the way. If you didn't even mean that in your point, they both played, you know, they're both

how many years older than he is. Right. Go on. No, right. Absolutely. And they've had some of the same types of ups and downs and way more experience and way more actual playing time that he has. and we're all supposed to decide right now whether we know about McCarthy. Bryce Young, though, is a good example of how even parts of seasons can really trick you because everybody's narrative going into this year with Bryce Young

was, hey, second half of the season, he turned the corner. Bo Nix kind of did this in the second half of last year. Then you go look at who Bo Nix played in the second half of last year and you go, oh, that's what happened. And I also think maybe teams weren't really taking Carolina seriously last year.

and sort of slept on those games a little bit. And now you look at Bryce Young and he can't throw for 200 yards and they don't believe in him or trust him. If teams don't allow him to roll out, then he's just completely out of luck. And you're like, okay, well, you know, there's, we can check that one off finally. But how long, you know, with McCarthy, how long do you know? Because Carolina is in a spot where, oh, oh, all right. Well, Bryce isn't going to be our option. But we've been building this team slowly and maybe you're set up for the next course.

quarterback, whether it's a draft pick or whether it's getting somebody and hoping their Mac Jones this year with San Francisco or Sam Darnold or something. The Vikings are not in this position. They are in a position where they just have to ride or die with this thing. And we're going to get to a point where either you feel like you're riding or you're looking for competition for him next year. But as you mentioned, I believe the Vikings were fully in belief that Daniel Jones was going to stay with them. When they sign and then he would be competition for McCarthy, and that's how they were going to do it. That what they realized was,

oh, yeah, there's a lot of other teams in the league that are looking for quarterbacks. I think they could run into the same thing if they don't have an answer, where there's so much competition for two or three available quarterbacks that might be reasonably decent that you could end up just having to stay with, you know,

McCarthy and then I don't know, Carson Wentz comes back. So it's a- And then everybody's playing 13 personnel on 80% of the play is because they don't have anybody good. So, right. I mean, that's why the, That's why it's been more of a running league in part, right?

I mean, is there's some element of that. There's not enough quarterbacks who can actually do it. Mack Jones is going to be under contract for by San Francisco next year anyway. So on one hand, he might be the guy for his stock has gone up so much this season. But it's still Mac Jones and it's a Shanahan team. And shouldn't it look like that? I mean, just even with their injuries all over the field, It's still holding up okay.

I think you saw them play an actual good team last week, and they just got, they got buried. But still, like, he, he's going to make some money off of this one way or another, whether they trade him or whatever they want to do. I think Purdy is pretty easily better than Mack Jones. So I don't, I doubt, and they've given them a contract. I doubt they have, they're having that conversation, but they're taking their time with, with Purdy at least.

Well, if I think, if I'm, if I'm Sam Fran, I'm trying to sell him for a second round pick and I bet you can get it for next year. Yeah. Yeah. And that team will then give him $35 million a year. Pretty good for him. Another interesting team, by the way, on this, that I'm kind of including in the same bucket, but I doubt they're actually going to go some other direction is Houston. Because what, what has Houston been since Stroud's excellent rookie season? Last year, the coordinator was the fall guy. They got all the blame. They had the same players, but were not. They couldn't protect him and he couldn't make that work. That was kind of the book on one concern maybe about Stroud coming out of college was their team is so perfect.

What happens when it breaks down? And you would see clips of him with the slightest kind of pressure and stress in the pocket. He'd get out of there and like, oh, well, that's not necessarily a good sign. But he had a great rookie year and maybe he's just sort of because of it's going to have a career off of it. I haven't seen him have a good game in, you know, a year and a half. Now he's hurt, to be fair. But I think almost half the league is having a conversation about what they should do next year. I mean, could we end up seeing cousins get a starting job? That's crazy.

Could we end up seeing Joe Flacco get another season out of his career? Milk, another season out of his career. Should Kyler Murray start somewhere next year? Because they sound like they want to be done. So many of these guys and so many of these teams. Yeah. And I think a part of that is. that over the last couple years,

because it felt like maybe 2020, 2020, that all sorts of quarterbacks were thriving. And I think part of that is the amount that defenses have changed just in the last couple years where we were talking about at one point, oh, Brian Flores is a total outlier, total freak. But guess what?

Everybody's got the tape. And they said, oh, okay. You know, no longer is any defense just lining up and playing. No longer is any defense playing the same coverage on both sides of the field. It's all split field coverages. They're all running sim pressures.

They're all, and why is it shocking that Joe Flacco and Matthew Stafford can play and C.J. Stroud can't because those are the guys who can pick through what's going on with the defense, right? And they've got the experience. So it feels like we've almost gone back to when Brady and Manning were dominating from the pocket because they understood what was going on on the field

better than a lot of young quarterbacks. I also think that there was a bit of a cheat code for a couple years there of, hey, run those wide zones and run those bootlegs and, you know, you could create a lot of easy passes. But then defenses started sending their outside linebackers or edge rushers up the field. So you bootleg right into the pressure

and then you end up, you know, dirting the ball or something. So they've done a lot to kind of mitigate that. And that was Stroud. They ran, like, half their stuff was just play action that first year. And it's almost a little Mitch Trubiskyist, too, where they had a great defense and they kind of just trumped up the offense enough. to like, hey, you know, get the open receivers, just have to do a little bit of this and that. But then at some point, you have to play the whole quarterback position.

And this is a bit of a Jordan love point as well. Like at some point, you have to, you can't just trick shot your way to, hey, it's a 40-yard bomb or it's a three-yard pass over and over again. Otherwise, defenses will figure this stuff out. And Buffalo is dealing with that as well with the three-yard passes and stuff. Like, at some point, you have to have the guy play full, complete quarter- or you're going to get shut down and we're seeing a lot of that like that we can't just sort of work your way and massage your way to really good quarterback play I didn't put green

bay on my list of teams in this category but I thought about it after the after the last two weeks I'm hanging well this is a conversation for next week on him as the Vikings go to Lambo right is that next week yep but man it has looked pretty bad they are down a lot of their skill guys and they had drops in that game. Oh, yeah. Love was a little bit unlucky. But they're also, those kind of details you want to see from a quarterback, whether that's clock management or just, you know, getting his team into advantages just aren't there either.

So, you know, maybe that was sort of always the likeliest outcome on love, good, not great. And, you know, sometimes guys like that win. And it's just so hard. You've got to run so pure in the playoffs if you're running up against two or three quarterbacks who are on a higher level. Well, and that's the thing is that so much is to do with circumstances for 95% of the quarterbacks to the league. And you might even say 100 with the way that Mahomes and Allen have not run over the league. I was expecting Lamar Jackson to do some really crazy stuff against the Vikings. And, you know, there was a little.

But, you know, his team wasn't as good as they have been in the past. And they've got some guards who cannot block at all. and the Vikings crush them. And it was like, okay, well, now you're not having as good of a day. With Jordan Love, if Tucker Kraft is taking five-yard passes and turning them into 20-yard passes, you're an MVP candidate. And if he tears his ACL, you stink. And that happens a lot with these guys.

Elton Jenkins is out. And we go, okay, injuries, but that's not an excuse. Well, it's certainly an explanation. When, you know, these quarterbacks who can kind of blow with the wind, whichever direction, if you've got everything working, for you, like Sam Darnold, where they're winning because of their defense, they're running the ball extremely well, and now Clint Kubiak's pulling out all of Gary's play action stuff under center. Yeah, you can average 10 yards pass. And plus you have this freaky number one

wide receiver. But if four of Darnold's best players got hurt, he wouldn't average 10 yards pass. So, you know, for a lot of years, we kind of were like, ah, well, you know, if you're really a good quarterback, you'll just push through that stuff. But I think with, the advancements in defense, the amount of talent that's come into the league defensively, the amount of creativity, that I don't think quarterbacks can just kind of power through the way that maybe they did in years past. No, I think that's right. Well, in the end, I would not, I wouldn't put Minnesota as the most disappointing fantasy

team, but I would put them in the top five or right around, right around the top five. I'll give you a three that I think have been, I would say, more disappointing. and maybe this is a little bit because I was invested in them more than I should have been. So just like how we vote for awards, like the coach of the year is the coach that did the most better than I thought. Yeah, yeah. So here are three for me. There's a, there's a definite number one. Three, I would say, might be the Raiders.

Mm, yes. With, like I believed Gino Smith would be a big upgrade there that Bowers was undeniable. And, you know, Ashton Genty, best prospect ever. And Bowers had an injury in week one and a great game two weeks ago, but that's it. And then they come back the next week against Denver and he catches one pass. Like just yikes. And Gentie has not been worth a late first round, early second round fantasy pick, which, you know, gets us back to why are we taking a running back when we need everything at six overall? You know, that's maybe a fair question.

I would say two for me would be Washington, and that's largely Daniels being hurt three times already, at least, this year. But McLaurin held out, speaking of timing work in the offseason, skipped the entire offseason, then signed, and then got hurt, and now he's just a ghost. Like every week, he gets ruled out on Tuesday. What a disaster. And nobody else, I mean, Debo's been okay. but nobody else has really gotten there for Washington. I don't think it's the least bit surprising. I was way off of that team.

I mean, I liked drafting Daniels in the late fourth sometimes, but mostly no on McLaurin, touchdown regression, no on Samuel age. And then running back, what was that going to be? We got all excited about Chikori Kroski-Marrett, look at the tape, and they talked him up, and they made room for him in the summer, and he still doesn't really play.

and when he does nothing good happens like what what can you say so they're a disappointment i mean zackertz again age whatever nothing really to like there and number one for me though would be jacksonville yeah and that's one that i wanted to believe with leum colin would take a big step i don't know now i feel dumb because like it's always just jacksonville and was lawrence ever good but sort of assuming that there was more talent hidden there with him because we all thought there was so much when he came into the league and he's had flashes hardly ever has a huge game though and Brian Thomas disaster Travis Hunter disaster hurt

they didn't shift off ETN who's always the same you know you're just going to every game you watch he puts 80 yards down but gets stopped at the one five times like why not basal tutin that was a higher draft pick than Kroski Merritt. They still just reluctant to do that. And in the end, what is it? Like it's just, now it's Parker Washington. And actually, Fantasy Show, Washington was a good play last week,

and he's a good play this week because there is no Hunter and we'll see what the rest of it is. But very disappointed this year, upset even, mad, angry, that Jacksonville hasn't been more productive for fantasy. Never think of them as a team that's actually going to be. good. But fantasy wise, there were so much talent there, at least Thomas, right? At least Thomas, but nope. So they're number one for me. Why would you have ever thought that Brian Thomas would fall off the way that he did? And the Lawrence discussion is really interesting too, because I think

when you see Sam Darnold do what he did last year for the Vikings, it sort of makes you believe that any one of these guys could have it right around the corner. Like, well, what I've seen for five years might actually be fake. And if he gets the right coach and if he gets the right receivers and that's always the hard part. You know, we're dealing with this here of, well, how much do you blame the scheme? How much do you blame the coaching? And most of the time, it's, it's the Doug Marone theory for me, which is somebody wrote that Doug Maron was like 80% to blame for E.J. Manuel's failure before he lost the quarterback competition to Matt Castle and Tyrod Taylor. But it was like, there's no way that a coach could be 80% of the blame for a quarterback. It's just not possible.

I mean, maybe it's supporting cast, as we saw from, you know, Donald who had those terrible supporting cast, maybe the player just got way better because he really worked at it. And he something clicked for him off the field and then it was the right timing or whatever. Or maybe the guy's never going to be good. I don't know. And with, you know, Trevor Lawrence, you could always see like the bones are there, but there's also things that are really disturbing. Like, he's really late on everything. He's inaccurate. It's like what what's happening here? But then as you said, every once in a while, like, oh, he gets in the playoffs with Doug

Peterson. That was the right answer. Oh, he just needs Liam Cohen's offense with two running backs or something. Just, yeah, I don't know. I think we're probably at the point with him, just like Bryce Young. We're like, okay, I think we've, we've got this figured out. Travis Hunter was the one that I was so interested in going into this year, what he would look like as a receiver. Then he looked like a corner. And now he's hurt. And, yeah, that hole we're going to trade up for this player who's going to be Shohei Otani. Not exactly looking great either. So Jag's going to jag, I suppose.

Let's talk about Vikings and Bears here, run down some of these over-unders. I am, unfortunately, they don't have a number for Luther Burden. But whatever the number would be, I would be in on Luther Burden. I'll give you the other receivers for the Bears. Roman Dunes-A, whose dad complained and then he got a bunch of yards, 55 and a half. DJ Moore 41.5 on Fanduil, which one of those do we like better, but also do we like Luther Burden better? Because I feel like this is maybe a potential turning point for him.

And as a schematical factor, the Vikings don't have three corners. They have two corners. And then they have a guy who was on their practice squad that they had to bump up. So if they want to play 11 personnel, they can absolutely. do it with getting Luther burden on the field. So I'm not as sure as I think

I should be what the bear's injury stuff looks like. DJ Moore, the projections I'm using to build lineups and stuff today kind of are acting like he's out. I'm not sure he's out though. I haven't heard that he's out. The reports are weird because they had everybody not practice

yesterday. So it's very unclear. Like there was a ton of play. I can call this up. There was a million guys who didn't practice. It was like Brisker, Edwards, Jared, More, O'Donze, Stevenson. They just had a, so I don't, I don't know as of this moment. Okay. And I told you. But if he's out, then Luther Burden even more so. Yeah. And the same projections I'm referring to like Luther Burden, which I've never seen before. So when you mentioned his name, I'm like, yeah, okay. And I also told you earlier, like I missed work yesterday. And sometimes when that happens,

I feel like I'm completely just not equipped. It's funny. At the same, time one day off and I'm sort of tilting because of whatever news I didn't hear my work requires me there's an obligation to sort of be all over Twitter so I never have to work for it like I just hear it already but then I had a funeral yesterday and I missed one day and like this morning I woke up and it's like who's even playing what what I feel like I missed everything and the bears happen to be a team where I feel especially like I'm in the dark but I know what we've said already that the numbers seem to like burden. You're talking about what Minnesota is lacking in the secondary. The question with burden this year has largely been trust that there was a complicated summer with coach

criticizing him and probably trying to get somewhere specific with him in terms of his, you know, work ethic maybe, whatever that was. And Olabidi Zakaas has been pretty much fine for them in that role and has been uh i mean william seems to love throwing the ball to him which can leave everybody else wanting and that's even in odunzee that was at the root of the odunze thing was like why did we stop throwing to him he was he was like abuka in the first few weeks and then it just completely dried up so dj more is never somebody that i really want to play but he does have the occasional big game i'm not sure what his status is Zakias is, if he's healthy, probably pretty solid, but the ceiling is low on him.

Burden is the one that can give you, in theory, the big week. It's tough right now, though, like this is week 11, and my tournament stuff, some of them end this week. Like, it's really, it's go time for your fantasy teams, and you'd rather, obviously, Matt, like, you'd rather Luther Burden have one good game before you end up starting him in fantasy. This could be the one though. It could be the one and that depends on how Caleb Williams performs against the Vikings. It's been interesting his time of matching up with Minnesota the first time that he played them at Soldier Field. I said to my friend Courtney Cronin after the game who covers the Bears. I said this guy is going to kill the Vikings for the next 10 years, isn't he? And then everything went sideways after that. They completely melted down. They fired their coach and the next time

Williams showed up a U.S. Bank Stadium. He looked like the worst quarterback of the entire world. And then it was a mixed bag in week one. He had some great plays. He had some awful plays. And I feel like that's who he's going to be. But there is a pretty clear improvement from Caleb Williams when it comes to actually standing in the pocket and throwing the ball.

His over under for this game is 224.5 yards. And I feel like that's an over for me because the Bears only play games where the other team also scores a lot of points. I mean, even with, even with the, the Giants, like, when Dart was in there, they're moving the ball and they're not having a tough time against this defense. I feel like this is an overs game for a lot of people, but I'm interested in what you think of the recent performance of Caleb Williams. Yeah, I agree.

I think when we talk over unders every week, I haven't tracked it, but I feel like I'm eight out of ten times on the under, whoever it is. Yeah, yeah. And I think I've been right most of the time because then when I think about the game, like, okay, well, yeah, there really was not anything. McCarthy was a couple of these. But I agree. My instinct would also be to go over on Williams. I think the Bears have been very lucky this season to have the record that they have.

It's a very interesting game because if Minnesota wants to fight, if they want to keep competing and try to grind out a playoff berth this year, then I think I would like them on Sunday. And that's usually what I would default to is that teams do try. At home, it's the bear. It's the rivalry. So I'm kind of leaning that way. But Williams is still getting there in terms of numbers. And he's got weapons. We've talked about a few of them here.

I like Loveland a lot. Just Tyler Warren, the other elite tight end prospect this year, got off to a great start. He's had a terrific season. And Loveland really didn't block by Earths. There's another guy who's injury thing. not sure of. He had a concussion and missed most of the game in Cincinnati, I guess it was, where Loveland really popped. That's the burden example I'm thinking of. Like, just can I have one of these first before I actually put him in? But Loveland, I guess I'd rather start Loveland than

Hawkinson, you know, in a vacuum these days. I mean, Hawkinson is at 31 catches in nine games. Yikes. I mean, not a lot is happening there. And you're not getting yards either. So he was the one where when I watch the tape back, if I'm T.J. Hawkinson, I'm, I'm just apoplectic. Like, there's so many opportunities to throw him the ball in that game. But you have to get there and you have to, you know, you have to get to the third or fourth read. But if you're Kirk Cousins, you're good at that and especially a little risk averse. So you're going to that read a little faster where McCarthy is trying to do everything and he's hanging on that first read and then he's throwing late to it and getting picked off. or whatever. So I think it's a, the tight ends are just so dictated by the offense and the quarterback. Everybody is that's a weapon, but I feel like tight ends especially if you're Rob Grancowski and Tom Brady just loves throwing that seam ball. It's like his best pass. Like you are

in heaven. You're going to get that all the time. But if you are a checkdown option in the middle of the field and the quarterback never looks your way, then you're a little bit out of luck. And I feel like with younger quarterbacks, that's, it's sort of a tell of younger quarterbacks of just not getting to that, that easy option. I was watching, so super random, but I was watching Vikings Rams 99 playoff game where Kurt Warner goes crazy. And Kurt Warner, and I know it's a way different era, but was so good at being like, is it there deep?

No, Folk. Is it there deep? No, Roland Williams. Aziz, Zihir, Haki, he was just so good at that. And again, different world. But that's something that younger quarterbacks like Caleb Williams and J.J. McCarthy struggle with. If Williams is getting it more, Loveland will be a sign that he's actually getting it because he'll be getting the ball more often. Do you want to talk about bills and bucks here?

I do. Okay. I do. I do. I want to say I would be in on Aaron Jones this week. Oh, okay. Yeah. Yeah, they should run.

But especially when, and I'm not saying that O'Connell hears the noise. No, I would never. No, no one hears the noise. No, no one hears the noise. There is no noise. How do you know there's noise to not hear? That would be a great question. How did you like Aaron Glenn a couple days ago?

Just ask Rich. Rich Samini, just not helping Aaron Glenn, in my opinion, but they ask about an injury. Just ask the reporter. He knows everything. I also don't mind conflicts, though, as a person. As just a person in general, I don't mind as you. from working with me. You know this.

And so if a coach was doing that, I'd be like, all right, let's go. I wish I was rich. At that moment, I was like, oh, I want to be rich. I want to be like, tell your people to stop leaking it to me then. Anyway. Did you see the Mina Kimes? I did. Justice for Jeremy and Joe.

Justice for Jeremy and Joe, WGR morning hosts who are the Bill's GM really kind of attacked after the draft about the lack of talent at wide receiver. Guess what? Yeah. Doesn't look good for him. I don't mind that either. like if that's how you feel then let's hear it let's say but then let's hear let's go back and forth on it because of course jeremy and joe were right that they needed more weapons it wasn't just the draft we've been saying it for two years here oh we don't need any weapons but we desperately trade for amari cooper okay well and you know and then this off season there's i don't know dk mackaff there's there's guys available cooper cup and it's nope nope nope nope nope and then here you are can't really throw the balls effectively and you year then they want to trade a first for waddle right i what what's your what's your plan here um but

he did use a cuss word on the radio which you know fans always love so uh anyhow uh but you know i don't i mean when it comes to these football people i don't want them to be afraid to share even if they're they're mad at us uh let's go with uh the bills and bucks though and they'll be right sometimes yeah absolutely absolutely and and sometimes The crazy thing about football, sometimes we're right and sometimes they're right. And anyway, so with Josh Allen, like, what's the deal here? 217.5 over under bucks. Yeah, I mean, Buck's defense has some dudes, can make some plays.

Josh Allen just doesn't throw the ball down the field anymore. I don't know. It's been a weird year for him. He wants to. I think there are glimpses in games where he just will take his chances. Throwing fourth and one deep to Jackson Hawes, Jackson Hawes. As one does. In Miami, like, I feel like we're a little bit back to 2019 where it looks off.

I mean, you're getting the turnovers again, and it's a jailbreak. First play on offense in Miami, he takes a shot on the run. to the sideline. Like, here we go. It's the first play of the game. Nothing on the passing game in the passing game is coming easy. They will not have, it appears, Dalton Kincaid for this game. It's the kind of loss where forget what you've said in the media or anything else. The deadline is over. Now you've got to figure it out. And they're a little bit broken on offense. On defense, they've had tons of injuries. And I don't even know if they have enough. We've said that all year. And we're still not sure. I'm still. still sort of pessimistic about that. But offensively, what are you going to do about it? And is that benching Keon Coleman because he can't get open? Is that moving Shakir outside? Is it, now you don't have Kincaid. He's not really a blocker so much anyway, but are we going to play the fullback? I mean, what are they going to do? I don't think personnel-wise, I think their identity is really through Cook. And I think they might, they're going to try to win this

gain that way like they try to win every week that way. But Miami just ganged up on Cook and dared the literal MVP of the league to beat them. And he couldn't even come close to doing that, the dolphins. So man, I think it's kind of a scary moment here for the bills. I do think the fans are sort of exuding that. I mean, I think for as much successes they've had, people are talking a little bit crazy almost at times about what they are. They still have a chance here. But in terms of this game, I respect what Tampa Bay has done. They've won their division four years in a row as the bills have won there is five straight. Like, that's a good team. Abuka seems to always get there. Mayfield seems to always get there. Doesn't sound like they'll have

Bucky Irving. That's a big deal. But he's getting closer to playing. I'm not inclined to lay five and a half with the bills. I'll just say that. And I'm not inclined to go over on Allen because I'd never do Yeah, definitely not this year. It's so weird to look at his numbers because they're not crazy different than a lot of other Josh Allen seasons. And even I was thinking that I was going to open his depth of target page and see like, oh, he's only throwing over 20 yards 4% of the time. It's pretty similar overall to the number of targets that he's gone deep. His numbers on these things and his PFF grades on the the throwing isn't terribly different. But yet the low moments are so low that that's where you can get there with the beating drum of each week. It's fairly consistent. And, you know, it's never completely consistent, but fairly consistent. This year feels like they score a million points coming back against the Ravens. And then you can't score at all against Atlanta and where you end up is in the middle with halfway decent numbers.

But the low points have just been so hideous. Also, the way these games play out, you have a couple of turnover. I mean, this was the Vikings last week. They fumble on a kickoff. The kickoff is completely changing games. You fumble on a kickoff. The Ravens score and the Vikings just go into total desperation mode. And then at the end of the game, it's 42 or whatever to 13 and runs and passes.

And it's like, what are you doing? And I think this can happen with turnovers, with fourth downs with the, you know, fumbles on kickoffs or big returns that just totally shape the way that someone has to play. and the bills like many other teams are probably set to play in one particular way to win and if they're not in that mode that they're going to have a really tough time. Tampa Bay, so you like them from a, I mean, 215 seems to be like an easy lock to go over

for Baker Mayfield at this point. What about as an actual contender, though? That's interesting. They're live. They're going to win their division again, almost definitely. So that's a home game and a four seed at worst in the first round. They've been down this road. They've won and lost in that spot. I think right now in the NFC, the Rams Seahawks game this week is awesome. These for me are the two top teams. Detroit is right there.

I can't say that about Green Bay at this point. And really, I don't want to say it about the Eagles. I think the Eagles are getting away with it a little bit. So that's kind of, did I forget anybody. That's kind of my top tier or tiers in the NFC. I struggle to put Tampa Bay on the top tier, but they're good enough to hang with anybody at least. So yeah, I guess I'm saying I kind of expect mostly the same result from the Bucks. I mean, they gave Detroit a great game in the playoffs. Is that two years ago now? Yeah. But, you know, they got beat there. And last year, they went out to Washington. Yep.

And then Washington won two games. So, yeah, I think it's probably, I'm not saying much by this, but my guess would be likely a scenario is similar to what we've had. And I don't feel strongly enough about them in either direction to move. Yeah, the Super Bowl odds for them on Fanduel plus 3,300, which is right next to the Chargers. And I feel the same way.

It's a good team. It's a fun team, really good quarterback, but it's probably not quite. is complete one more to discuss i mean philly and detroit is a really interesting game but i think the game of the week is pretty clear here with the seattle seahawks traveling to the los angeles rams the rams are three point favorites in this game sean mcvay uh is added again i regret to inform you to me they're the super bowl favorites i think they're the best team in the nfl i think they've got the best coach of the nfl their quarterback is playing like late stage tom brady that is not an he is unbelievable this year and they can do a lot of different things on offense they've got two

great wide receivers they've got the best d line like they they got everything and this may be the first true true true test for sam darnold because i don't think you can get ahead in a game and just run play actions and deep shots and things like that that he's been surviving on how do you feel about uh rams and seahawks i can't wait darnold going back to l a too after what happened last year is really hot. I mean, is L.A. going to play it differently against him?

I would think mostly not. Get after him. See what it leads to. And has he, does he have a way to adjust off of that? I'm curious how Seattle has not run the ball much better than they have. Fantasy-wise, it's really tough to start either

of their guys, Walker and Charbonnet, but you end up starting, I mean, Walker, I guess you end up starting. I don't have very much of him, but most of the time, because he's RB1 on a good team like that. They are an underdog here, though. I wonder if they can win this game through Walker and Charbonnet. They use them both. Charbonnet is more the goal line option, it seems, and then get enough out of JSN and their defense to hold up. I mean, Stafford, though, you said it. Like, he's thrown for four touchdowns and no picks in three straight games, and no one had ever done that

before. So it's really happening. McVeigh has downplayed the Devante Adams injury. I thought Sunday, though, he was not 100%. I thought that was pretty obvious in the game against the 49ers, but they've got it all. And I think, you know, I don't disagree with you about their Super Bowl chances, really. But I think Seattle is very good too. And they're going to play a second time later in the season also. Lot rides on this game. those two games together in that division because you could be talking about the one seed versus, well, going to Tampa

in the first round, perhaps. The overunders for Darnold and Stafford in this game, 261 for 0.5 for Stafford and 252.5 for Darnold, an expected shootout there. I do think it's going to be a struggle for Seattle in part because they lost their center to injury.

And he's been good by PFF, a top 10, pass blocking center and this is a D-line that doesn't give you any room for error with the defensive tackles and what was it that undid Sam Darnold last year was the same sort of thing so we will see if he can deal with that and kind of work around it because their offensive line for pass pro has not been great that's why they get a lot of early down play action down the field so they don't have to have him sit there on third and 10 and you know pick apart the defense that's not really his strength so I wonder if they can get a big one out of Rashid Shihid after having been there a week now.

An explosive play, yep. Yeah, explosive play. He's never been an easy start in fantasy. Best ball, though, with the Saints, you would get the occasional 25 point week. Yeah. I'm not sure that's live this week, but, you know, maybe a three for 70 one and one kind of game. This is, this is an, yeah, I could definitely see that. Like, even like a reverse or something where he goes for 50 yards.

This is an unbelievable week, man. I mean, Detroit at Philadelphia, Kansas City at the Broncos, Seattle and the Rams. I mean, there's a lot of juice here to this week. So we, of course, we'll break it all down again next week. Thank you, as always, Mike. Yeah, you're welcome. Did you have a final comment? Funny what happens when, especially for fantasy, to your point,

when Kansas City, Cincinnati, and Dallas come off by weeks, and New Orleans goes on by. It's funny how it looks better on paper. more games even there's only two teams on buy this week so more games imagine being tyler shuck where you just had a great game and then you have to have a bye week you're like can i go out there play again that was come on colts are in fairness the colts are on by too and that's yeah you know they've had a great season of course all right great stuff as always we will do it again next week thanks mike thank you matt Thank you.