Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - QB trends and TJ Hockenson's timeline and eventual impact

Episode Date: September 26, 2024

Matthew Coller and Mike Schopp of The Deep End Fantasy Football podcast and WGR550 in Buffalo talk about the QB trends, including Josh Allen rising, Patrick Mahomes not crushing it so far and Jayden Daniels going off. And what about TJ Hockenson's return? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey everybody, welcome to another episode of Purple Insider, the Purple Insider Fantasy Shope with myself, Matthew Collar, and Mike Shope from the Deep End Fantasy Football Podcast, also of WGR 550 in Buffalo. Two 3-0 podcasters coming to you here. And the show, of course, presented by our friends at Underdog Fantasy, the easiest place to play fantasy sports, also the fastest growing fantasy app in the industry. Later in the show, we will give you our pick-ems,

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Must be 18 or older. Terms apply. Concerned with your play? Call 1-800-GAMBLER or visit ncpgambling.org all right mike you and i both felt the same way going into the national football league season we were saying look the buffalo bills they don't have that number one wide receiver and they could say all day long that they're just going to throw it to everybody but i'm pretty skeptical about that well uh josh allen might just be that good uh that he can just throw it to whoever he but I'm pretty skeptical about that. Well, uh, Josh Allen might just be that good, uh, that he can just throw it to whoever he wants. I was looking at their target

distribution. It literally is everyone. It's just throw it to all people. Uh, however, it hasn't exactly been the toughest stretch of opponents for the bills to start against this season. So give me your analysis of Josh Allen's start to this year. Were we just ridiculously wrong and he is one of the great quarterbacks and now he's establishing himself as maybe ever if he could do this without Stephon Diggs? Or is it three weeks and people could figure it out and let's give it time? Yeah, I mean, I think it's both.

Allen's excellence was really not the point. He was generally, I mean, there are these occasional surveys and things that he comes into question. But that just gets us through the offseason. I think most people would tell you he's one of the two or three best in the league. And so the Bills knew that going in. He's not old yet, right? That was kind of established. The question was, what else was going to happen around him, including on defense?

What would that all add up to this season? So I think it's not surprising to see him, even in this situation, really thrive, which he's done. This third game, the Jacksonville game, they threw the ball more. You had low numbers, especially in week two against Miami. We had 10 different receivers catch a pass and they won by 37 points. Now at Baltimore, at Houston, at the Jets, their next three, and that's just a different situation entirely, I think. Not that the Bills can't win all of those games. I mean, they've been that good. They have the league's longest ever streak of consecutive games

without a single seven-point loss or more. It's 44 games in a row, which is incredible. So, again, their excellence is established. The Jacksonville game on Monday, I was there, and it just doesn't get any cleaner than that. They couldn't pressure him at all. It's man coverage. I think it was a simple game for him.

And really, that's the kind of game where you'd expect him to really just dominate, which is what happened at the Ravens, at the Texans, at the jets, you know, that that's going to be tougher. Although Baltimore, who they play on Sunday night has given up a ton through the air so far this year. So who knows if that isn't that even isn't a nice matchup for him again. So I guess the, the, the fantasy spin here, of course, everyone would have drafted Josh Allen as their quarterback, but the distribution of bills, wide receivers, is there anything interesting to you in that mix? Yes. I would. So Khalil Shakir is on top so far and he has a lot of fans. I never, I always, I was questioning the ceiling. We talked about what you would really get out of any of these guys, if it's going to be the way they're talking about it, and it mostly has. But Shakir is playable in fantasy football as a wide receiver three or a flex. I mean, I think Allen loves him and they trust him. He's been here. So I think he is safe enough. I think the other side of it is, I'm saying now,

I don't think there's any way Kincaid becomes like a dominant pass catcher in this offense. The questions, we try to predict these seasons in real life or in fantasy, and you're trying to figure out a balance between what the organizational investment is, like how good or bad do we look depending on what we get out of this player. Here's a first round pick and they're on the hook. They've traded Diggs now, just seemed logical to think they would really lean into Kincaid,

but coaching doesn't have to care about that or even know. I think if you have a perfect situation, that's kind of, well, is what it is. You know, I'm glad you were drafted in the first round. You're probably paid better than the next guy, but I'm going to use you the way I think it's best to use you. And he's not running more routes than Dawson Knox. Like he is playing a complimentary role. He's good when they get the ball to him.

And he showed that on Monday night. But I would say at this point, it's very unlikely he puts up like a big season because he's just, you know, he's got eight catches through three games. And that's saying all this. It's tough to start a guy like that in fantasy football. It's tough to start any tight end this year so far in fantasy football so you're not getting buried if you're running out kincaid because the next guy isn't doing much better hey johnny munt scored a touchdown i i told you guys johnny munt tyler conklin yes you i was heckling you online uh about that last week and uh you know even you know a secondary receiver jaylen naylor was another guy

who keeps uh producing and scoring touchdowns but as far as tight ends this seems like a personal crisis for you as trying to figure out is there any tight end I imagine all the fantasy owners as Kirk Cousins lofted a ball in the direction of Kyle Pitts in the end zone and a Chiefs player plowed into him taking him out of the play and there was no flag and he didn't catch the touchdown. It has not been a great year. This is why actually we said you might want to consider drafting TJ Hawkinson, even though he's not going to play for the entire season, because when he does come back, he is going

to be a major factor for the Vikings. We haven't seen a ton of production from Johnny Munt or Josh Oliver, but that position is huge in the offense for Kevin O'Connell, or it eventually will be with as good as TJ Hawkinson is. So those people who decided to go out on a limb, and I think Hawkinson's going to be back pretty soon here, as soon as he gets off IR, I think he might end up getting rewarded there you think before the buy possible possible he might uh because he could come off after week four um I don't know how a plane ride and the turf over in London is going

to impact that entire formula I mean what I know about TJ Hockinson is that the guy is not going to take any more weeks off than he, than he needs to, right. Because he's just that kind of guy. But if I, if I were the team, I would be saying,

I'm a little worried about London turf and having him debut out there. And this is the week. And maybe Wednesday, as we record, this is the day where players on the pop list or on IR can start to practice. I think there's like a, maybe the rules are different one versus the other,

but there's a 21 day window. I think of Jonathan Brooks in Carolina where I'm eager to find out if he's on the practice field, which would obviously be a good sign. Look, Hawkinson, that was a underdog is one thing. Managed leagues are different.

In the underdog tournaments i drafted hockinson a number of times as a second or even third tight end he did not go very high because everybody knew his status and like you said you know eventually you get there and as we've talked about in those tournaments what really all that matters is those last few weeks if you can make it to week 15 and be live there, then to have a guy like that, if he's healthy and producing is huge. In managed leagues, he almost wasn't worth drafting. I think because you're not going to have tons of bench space and you're going to have injuries. If you've got Debo Samuel and Puka and

McCaffrey, any collection of these guys and you drafted Hawkinson, you maybe have had to cut them already because you're not cutting those guys and, you know, you need help. Now we're 0-3 maybe in fantasy football and you got to act, you know, it's going to get away from you pretty quick here. So trades and that kind of activity is how you can stay alive. You know, Hawkinson, though, well, there's that. You say he's coming back pretty soon. Maybe that's good. Everything you said on how productive he might be able to be.

The one thing, though, whether it's underdog or anything else, like I said about Kincaid, whoever you picked that you've been starting, you're probably not getting beat too badly because the other guys aren't doing anything either. It's really incredible. Like Kelsey doing so little so far. Laporta, not much, and then injured. McBride, okay, and then injured. Andrews isn't even on the field for Baltimore. What's going on with that?

Pitts, Kyle Pitts' life is him getting, you know, targeted in the end zone, but interfered with or it just misses. The one big play he had Sunday night, he gets tackled at the one-yard line. The flag icon comes up. No, it's against Kansas City. We'll take it. You know, it's like a parade you want to hold when Kyle Pitts makes a catch

and, you know, for yards like that, even if you don't get the touchdown. Kittle hurt hurt Engram hurt and Joku hurt Ferguson was hurt you know you're surviving I looked at my best ball portfolio on underdog this morning and you tried you know where are my good teams who who looks good you know how good what's out there and almost without fail every team i looked up that is in first or second place in these tournaments is getting nothing out of the tight end position you know i had a noah fant team that got 10 points or something or bowers at least you know you've had

this week was a step back so there have been a couple the likely week in week one uh was huge but nobody's burying you because no one else is scoring either yeah is it is it random is it the passing is down i mean injuries is definitely a part of this but i guess i was wondering if teams trying to take away the middle of the field has played into this to some extent that at times and the Vikings have really taken advantage of this since they've gotten Hawkinson as opponents direct their coverage toward Justin Jefferson there was just a lot of opportunities for TJ Hawkinson in the middle of the field but I don't know if that's something that strategically teams have tried to deal with a little bit more that has taken away these easy

buckets for tight ends? I'm open to that. You know, I'm like you, I'm curious about that stuff. Like what's the cause. But I think if you go back, go back down the list of players, there are other factors that might supersede any of that. I don't know that Travis Kelsey is a victim of, you know, coverages. He's always been better than that anyway. Now he just looks, he's 35. You know, you wonder if there's a lot left there. A lot of teams are playing two tight ends more. Take Buffalo.

If Dalton Kincaid were all of the tight end usage, then that would be fine probably so far. But Dawson Knox has a contract, so that isn't the case. And then you have injuries like we went down the list. So there might be the problem with Conklin or even Hunter Henry, you know, some fans, some of these guys that were barely drafted,

if they were drafted at all in your home leagues is the position shows over the years. And these players in particular, there's just no consistency. So the guy that brought up Conklin to us after last week's show, I asked on Twitter Thursday night, Hunter Henry or Pitts, and you said Conklin. I'm like, come on.

He tweaked me for that, but I did have Conklin in lineups the first two weeks, and he caught maybe three passes total. And that's tight end life. That's why in these tournaments, it was very much in vogue to make sure you got one of the top guys of whom there were six or seven and they've all busted. So right now, as in the industry, we're sort of looking up what's happening. Oh, you needed Saquon Barkley instead of Sam Laporta. You needed Kyron Williams or David Montgomery or Kamara instead of Kittle. They went at about the same range. And that can change back.

And I think to some extent it will. I'm really sort of confused by the Andrews one. He's 29. He had off-season surgery. He had a car accident in the summer. But he ran four routes against Dallas, and they were way ahead. So that might be part of it, too. It's still very early, but sure, there might be some scheming. We've seen the trends about teams turning to their running game more. It's often the quarterback doing that running.

Do I want to, at least in in theory have two tight ends on the field to get more out of that that would make sense so since you brought up Kelsey because I don't have a great explanation for this other than also it's only been three weeks and there's no way to tell what's going to happen the rest of the season it may have just been a random thing that's happened and Andrews may be battling through injuries to even be active on game day but can't be as effective as he was and you mentioned some of the other guys who've gotten banged up it might have been opponents there's a lot of different factors that could go into it but with Kelsey in particular he has been a total non-factor and it's probably

because he's dating a singer. That'll teach you. He's the first NFL player ever to have a girlfriend. I think so. It's ruining the sport, if you ask me. That's the way it was treated last year. But I'm actually interested in Patrick Mahomes' average depth of target. Because when you look at Mahomes' stats through the first three weeks, and I am always willing to say that a player like Patrick Mahomes,

even if he doesn't have the biggest stats, is finding ways to win on a weekly basis so much more than everyone else that he can have a bad day and win a game, and it happens all the time with the great quarterbacks in history that they don't necessarily need to have a great box score day to find a way to get that one big drive, that one big completion when they're hanging in a game. But at this point, we are going on a year plus of his statistics not being very good. Sam Darnold is kind of blowing

Patrick Mahomes out of the water right now. And I want your opinion on this. I mean, he won the Super Bowl last year, so we can't knock him off the number one peg as the top quarterback but it ran through my mind as i was watching josh allen absolutely annihilate the jacksonville jaguars that the best quarterback in the nfl might be josh allen and that and i don't want to say that because mahomes this is an icon this is somebody who's played better at this point in his career than anybody else, probably in history from start to where he is now. But his numbers just aren't really the same. And I wonder what you think of that.

It's one of the most interesting debates in sports is the world of QB wins. I mean, you and I have enjoyed that forever and it's been our type to just try to mock it, right? Like they're just come on with, with QB wins. The quarterback only has so much control. However,

I have a really tough time sort of bumping the homes down in any way because they do win all the time. They have won in the playoffs. And it's kind of personal for me because the Bills, this is great how they've started, but they're at a stage in their evolution where really it's only the playoffs that matter. Allen will be remembered for wins, for championships. That's how it goes. And if Patrick Mahomes isn't putting stats up, but they're 3-0 and they just want a ring, what can you say? I don't want to be caught criticizing him for that

because they are winning these games. I liked Atlanta last week, and you're one play away, and Baltimore and Cincinnati were also one play away from beating them, but ifs and buts right so I think like I said earlier about Allen we've seen it a lot in his career he's had monster games and that one was one of them but it just isn't going to be about week three in the end for either guy you were right about Mahomes and stats in fantasy. That's what we care about. He has one game, regular season game, over 21 fantasy points in his last 16, like almost a full season. It was against the Chargers last year who they play this week, new coaches though. So I have teams where it's Mahomes or Darnold, literally, or it's like it was Derek Carr and Richardson

or Geno Smith and Richardson. Oh, Richardson is the cheat code. I mean, he's going to run. He's not scrambling at all. His passing is really, really bad so far, turnovers, and I don't know what I've got there. So me, I'm not, I could go down this way. I'm not ready to start the likes of Darnold and Carr or Andy Dalton over Mahomes and Richardson and even Fields is tough. Fields is easier. But those guys that we drafted so early, I want to trust that. And that can go either way, right? I mean, maybe Darnold will keep it up and have like a

great season. So far, so good. He started well before. Interesting test for him this week in Green Bay. But I can't bring myself to, as soon as you, it just feels this way in life. As soon as you do it, then you get beat. Like I had a team two years ago with Trey Lance, was it two or even three years ago? And he was, I think a rookie or yeah, it had to be his rookie year. His second year, he got hurt right away, broke his ankle. So rookie year, everybody's excited. Top five pick. It's only Jimmy Garoppolo. This guy's going to happen. And I had a team in the main event at FFPC with Tom Brady and Trey Lance. And, you know, Brady's in Tampa. We'll see.

He's 40, 41. And there was a week where Lance got the start. These are the ones you never forget, Matthew. Lance got the start in Arizona because Garoppolo got hurt. And Brady started against the Dolphins, I believe. And I just couldn't wait to put Lance in. Like, this was my bet that Brady's ceiling is kind of limited. And here comes Trey Lance.

And he's inevitable. And he's going to run. Just like the advantage of the running quarterback, Brady never runs at all. Here we go. And Lance just did okay. And Brady threw for six touchdowns. You have to ask yourself, with due respect to Darnold, he's been a really good pick so far in these best ball tournaments. I love the teams that have him on it. And that all happened late after the McCarthy injury,

when nobody was really drafting him at all. Before that, I love that setup, but you have to ask yourself how you're going to feel on Monday if you benched Patrick Mahomes or even benched Anthony Richardson for one of these, if you will, journeyman types, and it doesn't go well. That is not a good feeling when you lose on a play like that. Yeah, and there's always points in each season where Mahomes has not played the same way and they find ways to win and then the light goes on Andy Reid makes an adjustment last year it was Rasheed Rice and his emergence and what that meant this year it might be Travis Kelsey playing himself back into shape as an older player which the ramp up takes a lot longer it might be seeing

new stuff from defenses because every year defenses are cooking up things to try to stop this Super Bowl winning offense. And Mahomes has to try to stay ahead of that. And sometimes I think he just gets a little too Mahomes-y. Like I'm going to just make plays all the time and they kind of forgets to just run on schedule. And yet still it'll click in at the right time for him.

Yeah, I would never rank anyone above him. forgets to just run on schedule and yet still it'll click in at the right time for him yeah i would i would never rank anyone above him but i i just thought as of who's playing the best right now it's not even a question that josh allen is and we'll see where it goes from here as far as qb wins where i landed on that uh overall is the huge sample usually does tell the story and with tom brady it's like we say one score games are random right are pretty random over a long period of time brady is i think 30 or 40 games over 500 in one score games so it's not completely random when you have people like that uh who win over and over and over that payton manning is 50 60 70 games over 500 for his career i don't think that just happened no right so i

think it does but i think we can use it to give us context of how we got there. Right. Like what did case Keenum need to get to a 13 win season is a great question. If we just look at his stats without saying it was a 13 win season, what, what context do we have? It kind of grounds us in what we're looking for. Yeah. It should correlate, especially over time with your overall win percentage, right? I mean, if your quarterback can somehow stay in the lineup winning 40% of his games, you kind of want him to win 40% of his close games. But there's never enough games in football. We're not running 10,000 Sims. There's never enough games to really know. If Brady and Manning played in their time, in their prime

rather for a thousand seasons I mean I think my personal opinion is that Manning would come out on top but you know that didn't happen over a decade or 15 years and so you have what you have and everybody considers almost everybody considers Brady better which I do not but yeah it's a fascinating discussion that kind of never ends because you want there to be, as a sports fan, you want there to be some real there because the quarterbacks are our heroes. They're who we talk about. They're the ones that we think you can't live without. And so you want there to be that piece piece where they can actually determine they can make the difference late in games um which that you know the debate goes on yes it does you know it's

the viking team from two years ago too by the way i mean there's the kingdom season but then there's the year where they lose to the giants where you had the whole season like no i mean point differential come on no no and then of all teams to sorry for this but of all teams to beat they lose to the giants where you had the whole season? Like, no, I mean, point differential, come on. No, no. And then of all teams to, sorry for this, but of all teams to beat them in the playoffs, the giants, I mean, just sort of like perfect, not in a fan way, of course, but just numbers way. But I think that that 2022 season is really instructive about QB wins because Kirk cousins throughout his entire career was mostly a seven to nine win type of quarterback. But the question was always, how could you get him over the top? How could he have one of those Peyton Manning type of seasons? Because a lot of quarterbacks,

if they're good enough, Matt Ryan is an example, Phillip rivers, where they are good enough year in and year out. So you're never going to be horrible with that guy. Even if your team is really bad and gets injured and it's a bad defense, that guy's good enough, but they rarely are good enough to elevate you all the way to the top, to that Mahomes, to that Allen type of level. And so what would it take?

What it took was eight fourth quarter comebacks. It took a team missing a field goal at the end. It took interceptions. It took all sorts of kind of random events. And then he, when he gets injured, he's four and four, the next season kind of goes right back to the same type of thing. But it also showed that it is possible for someone like that to have that type of year. So as a franchise, you're trying to to decide do we kind of ride it out through the average seasons waiting for the one where matt ryan wins mvp or joe flacco or something or do we always try to play this game where you move on over and over and i i think that's that's the

conundrum that the vikings were in with cousins for a very long time uh let me shift to a young quarterback who had the most exciting game of the week among i think anyone in the nfl jayden daniels i you know i looked at the box score and then i had to look again and then i had to because every once in a while espn tweaks out and they'll have the box where i'll just be a data jumbled mess and you're like well let me let me reload and make sure this is right oh it was right it was right 140 quarterback rating 21 for 23 passing scary terry mclaurin gets a quarterback who could throw him the football uh is this is this jayden daniels is this what we're dealing with now in the national football conference mike it's one game uh but it was incredible the The pass, the eye test, the pass to win it was amazing. The hit he

takes, he stands in there, throw it away, fourth down, kick it. No. By the way on him, did you notice that the last, if you watch the game, the last few plays, he was angry, yelling at the bench, Kingsbury, get the play in. You could easily read his lips. Get the play in. Come on, come on, come on. And they did, but he was frustrated, and they called a timeout before that play, and he did not go to the sideline. And I don't remember ever seeing that, like, you know,

unless it's just sort of an obvious we're lining up to kick or something. Like, when does the quarterback not go to the sideline? Rookie in that spot, game on the line. I think he was so pissed that he just didn not go to the sideline rookie in that spot game on the lines like he was I think he was so pissed that he just he just didn't go to the sideline and he throws that pass on the next play I mean that is boss kind of stuff um fantasy wise he might be what we've wanted Richardson to be there are comparisons to Lamar Jackson I think there are comparisons to Jalen Hurts. You have a younger, fresher version of that. And in terms of fantasy football, he was much cheaper than all of those guys. So you could have, if you have Jaden Daniels on your team,

you might have Kyron Williams or Chris Godwin instead. Whereas if you picked Richardson, and I know this because this was me, if you pick Richardson, then you're looking at Jerry Judy or somebody like that. You'd much rather have the Daniels side of that right now. One game, but it's very exciting. We live for this. We love it as fans and as fantasy players, just a dual threat. And to see him make those throws is the most exciting part because you know he can run. You don't want to see a Justin Fields who really can only run. And he's just not delivering that pass, especially with the game on the line. And there's a lot of that in the NFL right now. So Daniels gives us hope. They have Arizona this week. And here's to that game going off it'd be great i made a decision going into this last draft

because i know that in our industry we try to be right as much as we possibly can but because the vikings were drafting a quarterback my idea was whoever they get i'm just all in on that guy because i don't know i'm not going to say oh, well, they drafted McCarthy and I didn't like him in Michigan. So they made a mistake because I've gotten caught with that before. And Josh Allen is probably one of them where I thought, oh man, I would have taken Josh Rosen. That's one of the worst opinions I've ever had in my entire life. Josh Rose is not even in the league. And so I thought, you know what? I'm not any better at this and picking quarterbacks than anyone else.

So I'm going to look at what the guys can do and what they can be in the environment that they'll need to succeed. And with Jaden Daniels, what I thought was my biggest concern was Kingsbury actually. But what I thought was if he can just get opportunities to hit deep balls and then make plays with his legs, he can manage the rest. And if it clicks, this guy is going to be unstoppable. And what we saw the other night was that's, that's the click. And we don't know if it's going to happen every week, but when you see that click in, I don't think we have yet for Caleb Williams.

It may at some point where it just, the light goes on for him. He's going to need some pass protection first, I think, uh, for, for that light to go on. Washington does have that pretty well. Um, but I think that's so much more fun than it is to pick which quarterback you think is going to be the best and your order and then just try to ride that out forever rather than just we don't really know until these guys are here and whoa jayden daniels is here yeah um that's definitely one of my mantras over the years is i feel like i i very much very well know what i don't know and that can be annoying maybe to listen to when you're turning on sports radio and you got the guy in the box who's just talking about, well, I don't know this,

but I think it's right. And then somebody might tell you, well, you know, you, you, you get it wrong, quote wrong. And like, well, you know, that's why you're not a GM. Well, they get it wrong just as often. Like, come on. What do you think? There's some secret. You don't think the NFL makes mistakes? I mean, pay attention. So yeah, I mean, it's important to know what you don't know. In fantasy, there does come a time where you want to have those player takes. And for me, as somebody that is mostly entrenched in, yeah, this is all going to be pretty random, and we're all kind of just guessing at a lot of it. Even players that are established in the league,

they change teams, or it's coaching change, and you really just have very little confidence in what it's going to look like. It comes down to cost. And this year in fantasy football, you and I battled a little bit on whether to lean into rookies. And he was a guy that, so was Drake May, but it never really, it's still, you know, this has been right, been clear, like when he would go in, whereas Daniels was always, like Williams, was always going right in. So that was good to feel good about. There are also players who will never come out. So in a best ball format, that felt really good to have Caleb Williams or Daniels because you know if they don't get injured, they're playing 17 games,

and the upside is really there. So I do like being aware. It's good in life to be humble about how unpredictable a lot of this is, but you do have to make bets here. And betting on a guy like this always made sense to me. It is very similar to Lamar Jackson coming out. I mean, Heisman winners, best running quarterback of all time. Daniels is maybe on that same level.

And if the passing hits and you saw both guys, Jackson never got near enough credit for how good of a pocket passer he was. He was the best pocket passer in that draft with Allen and Mayfield and Rosen and Darnold. And he still shows that to this day, but his misses get exploited and he sort of came into the league with that stigma. Whereas Daniels, I think maybe we learned from Jackson. I mean, Daniels got more respect in that area.

And that play and that game against Cincinnati definitely supports that. Oh, I think Lamar Jackson completely changed the way the team's draft. I don't think that anyone even would have picked Anthony Richardson until the fourth round, if not for someone like Lamar Jackson and Josh Allen, the running quarterback who could be developed. And, uh, I, there's a lot of development that needs to be done still with Anthony Richardson. That's this is we're not at the point where I'm concerned yet about him, but a little bit, he just, he needs to play more football games. What I was thinking with Jayden Daniels about him is these quarterbacks are coming out it used to be if you drafted a quarterback that was 24 years old you were just a fool like what are you doing you can't develop

that guy but now the way that quesia da fomenta put this i asked about the combine like how do you deal with the fact that mccarthy is 20 going to be 21 and you know bo nicks and jayden daniels are 24 and he basically said that they sort of looked at it as minor league seasons. Like they would have to try to adjust for that, but that they were still developing and getting better. And you see that in their numbers and everything else. When they were in college, more reps is always going to be good for these guys as far as their adjustment. And I think I think we have to give it to the old the old school i i always felt like at times that the old school guys were like you need to sit your

quarterback for two years you're like okay grandpa simpson you're yelling at a cloud that's cute let's get to the quarterbacks playing but i mean now that we see sam darno playing well gino smith is a borderline great quarterback at this point. Yeah. And then we see some of the, and I know Daniels is doing it right away, but he's 24. Bo Nix looked a lot better. Michael Pennix is sitting. I'm starting to get on board actually with as complicated as defenses are

becoming and as hard as playing quarterback is, it might almost just be something everyone has to start planning for is letting the quarterback develop for a year before he goes in. Yeah, it really interesting stuff like it does ebb and flow. Andy Dalton steps in in Carolina and is like, watch this. And he puts up literally the first game of the NFL season with 300 yards passing and three touchdowns with the season that the league is

having that Andy Dalton in Carolina what looks like a total disaster it's like watch this here let me show you how to do this Andy Dalton uh so and then Burrow by the way did the same thing on Monday night so now we have two 300 yard three touchdown games in the league this year uh it keeps it keeps us on our toes. It keeps us guessing. I agree with you on Geno. And I just love it. I love the unpredictable nature of it. We'll see if teams slow down on their quarterbacks because the rookie deal

part of it doesn't change here. You want to find out as soon as possible. But it's just great stuff. Everybody's having fun with how you brought up some quarterback ages, how Darnold is younger than Burrow. Somebody mentioned that on a live stream the other night. I was like, no, you can't be serious. But, well, and that's the thing.

You throw Josh Allen in, I believe, in week three against the Vikings. He jumps over Anthony Barr. But even if we look at, I mean, that's now a long time ago in the NFL, as far as defensive advancements. And when I watch Brian Flores absolutely pummel CJ Stroud, who is still a young quarterback in the league, I'm like, who could, what young quarterback could face this and survive and identify all of this? If Brock Purdy and CJ Stroud are struggling with it, I'm going to ask, Chicago's going to ask Caleb Williams to try to figure it out.

Good luck to him against this defense. And it's not the only one who's doing a lot of this, making sure that they're not showing anything until after the snap. And now that they've figured out how to do this, it's so much different. Peyton Manning used to go up to the line of scrimmage. He would look around and go,

okay, that is zone coverage over there it's man coverage over there i know this defense on tape they play cover two and in these situations marvin harrison you run that way and i'll throw you the ball and that's not to downplay his intelligence but it's just to say that that those reads were more static and now this is just catching you know a lightning in a bottle trying to even understand what's happening it's just flashes that you have to react to and there's so much that he has to go into it schematically for the offense to try to solve it and answers and things you have to memorize and everything else i i imagine jj mccarthy is sitting at home being like you know what is actually probably better that sam's doing this instead of me i was thinking that last week as will anderson tried to take sam darnold's face off and those guys too the number of edge rushers

as well so it is it's a fascinating subject but you know who doesn't struggle rookie receivers now this is where you do you want to do a little dance there uh neighbors or harrison which one would you prefer going forward uh boy uh dynasty i probably would still say harrison this year i might flip to neighbors but i don't think it i don't think it's obvious i mean neighbors has everybody would tell you the same thing, how good he looks. The target share is there. It looks like a mistake in retrospect in fantasy drafts all off season to have picked Harrison so much earlier than neighbors. However, you know, in, in quote home leagues, that was the difference, a difference of a

few rounds usually because Harrison was so hyped and a casual player is more likely to be like, oh, well, Daniel Jones, you know, forget it. I'm not doing that versus Kyler Murray. But where that's been compensated is by just the target volume. And even if it is Daniel Jones, you're still getting there with neighbors who's able to make these incredible catches on maybe less than perfect passes. And, you know, to the credit of the people, most of the people in the industry, like in the fantasy space, they acknowledge that that gap should be smaller between Harrison and neighbors.

So neighbors would go by the end of the off season, he would sometimes go in the second round, whereas Harrison would go earlier in the second round. So I think that was pretty accurate. I'm not looking to sell high on neighbors. I mean, I think it's pretty good. And even if it is the Giants who won in Cleveland, you have the right coach for it.

I love having him on my teams right now. Maybe no one except for Rashi Rice because he was cheaper. It gives me that same sort of feeling of, all right, yes, I can win because I have guys like this. Just got to stay healthy. But I'm not down on Harrison. Tough week one, has a huge first quarter in week two. Okay, last week. I think that should also get better. And it's not just them. Odunze had a huge week three for Chicago in a troubled offense, so you probably didn't start him, but now you're going to want to. And, you know, generally. And Brian Thomas looked good, looks good for Jacksonville. Coleman got in the end zone for

Buffalo. We'll see if we get Pearsall on the field. I think Legat in Carolina is well positioned now with Dalton in and feeling out. So probably take some time. But yeah, I loved investing in all these rookies. So, you know, all offseason and teams where I have them on them, that feels good. I've only seen I've seen neighbors in person, so I've only seen Harrison on TV. It's a little different, but the explosiveness of neighbors, how fast he can accelerate, how high he can jump. It's not quite Megatron, but he is enormous. And I think that is unstoppable almost no matter what I don't see quite the same with Harrison as far as the, he takes two steps

and he is by you. That is a neighbor's thing. Or if you throw it up, it's not just, can you catch it? It's can you rise up like Derek Rose, dunking a basketball and just keep going, keep elevating and make those catches. I would probably lean a little bit toward neighbors. The other thing is too, I just don't know who else Daniel Jones is going to throw to all season long other than that uh going into the season i thought well maybe this hyatt guy will be good he's not and he barely plays um it's just wandale robinson yeah uh who's getting a little bit of volume underneath and you know that's okay but you're right like that was always the question about the Giants and why it was, looks like correct to think about neighbors upside.

It's just Wanda Robinson is my seventies folk album. So I've made up a name there. You could have, I do know Wanda Robinson. Okay. Before we get to the pickums, I just want to ask you about the, the Packers. Jaden Reed is their leading receiver in the old fantasy football. Jordan Love may come back this week. I kind of think that he will shout out to Mr. Malik Willis, uh, for, uh, playing as well as you could have. And their

coaching is elite elite, uh, for being able to figure that out the last couple of weeks. But I think love comes back this week. week uh what do you think about their distribution so far of their the run game the targets to the receivers jacobs obviously is going to take a step back when love comes in but he's been really good i running games i think are now coming down to just can you block it and can you coach it i think jayden reed looks like a great player. With the Packers, we discussed in the offseason how tricky it was to be, you know, in a managed league, who do I actually start here? Can I start Christian Watson? Can I start Dontavion Wicks?

Dobbs even. Like, those were tough calls with Love Healthy. And then they were like, easy, no, when it came to Malik Willis. But Reed, you know, has done last week, you know, pretty good. He looks like the number one guy, I would say, about Green Bay. Kraft looks like the number one tight end there over Musgrave. And we're just trying to find anything usable at tight end. I think Emmanuel Wilson is interesting for the Packers as the complimentary running back to Jacobs. I think he looks better than Jacobs.

And LeFleur has always used two. That's one thing about the offseason drafting. We loved Marshawn Lloyd or even A.J. Dillon, but Dillon was miserably bad last year. So Lloyd became kind of a hot item as a complimentary running back, but he's been injured like the whole the whole year. And that left Wilson, who looks like he has some juice. So if Love plays, you know, you do start Jacobs, you probably start Love, although he's interesting for the context of the young quarterbacks against Flores. Did he face Minnesota once or twice last year? He did the first time he got destroyed.

And the second time he destroyed the Vikings. That's the story of his year, right? Yes. The second time, though, the Vikings were banged up on defense. So it was a little bit different. But he certainly earned my respect from seeing him in person. The number of off-balance throws, high difficulty plays that he was able to make his i am curious about his mobility though because he isn't mobile in the way that he's going

to run for 100 yards but he's mobile in the way that he's going to buy time for himself and then be facing one way and juke his body in a matthew stafford type and let it rip is he in good enough shape with his knee to just be torquing his leg on the ground and letting it fire away because you have to do that sometimes against the floor is defense it's a great game and it's like the the rivalry is renewed here with different quarterbacks you know it's it's not the old days really green bay minnesota and there's so much to like about both teams, that chess game piece as well. You think Addison plays? I do, yeah. It sounds more and more like he's going to.

So today they're having a walkthrough, which means that we'll get an estimated injury report. I am suspecting that he will be limited in that estimated injury report. By the time people are listening to this, it's out, but that's my guess. Just the way KOC has talked about it. It sounds like he made a lot of progress last week. It also matches up with that injury. Two,

three, four kind of weeks is in the range. And I guess he's dealt with this before. So it's something he knows how to, how to work his way through. How about Thursday night football? What is your, what is your pickums for this one i i have my my silly one you do i'm right and i'm ready for it yeah i thought about maybe not

putting mine in and then including yours but i did go ahead and put it in and you know we we lost pretty badly last week on the patriot jet game iet game. I don't know if this is, there's nothing to say about this process. I just felt like when I was making my choices for Pickham today, it was a little bit too kind of donkey chalk kind of picks, but it still felt right to me. I'm going higher on both the big receivers. I think Lamb, who is by far their number one guy, primetime game. Just think of Dallas's last three home games. The Baltimore loss, arguing on the sideline,

mostly a blowout. They made it close. New Orleans game was the same, only didn't get close. And then the Packer playoff loss. I mean, they have just been killed in their last three home games. Now they go to play the Giants, who they've owned. And, you know, if I do get rational coaching out of the Cowboys,

Lamb should have a big game, I would think. So higher than 81.5 on CeeDee Lamb. Likewise, I'm going higher on Neighbors. Right now I feel like they can't make those numbers high enough. And there might be still a little bit downward pressure. Always a rookie, Thursday night football, Dallas, maybe it doesn't hit, but I'll take my chances. So I don't like being this way, but higher on the obvious stars for each team. I'm also going higher than 14 and a half rushes for Devin Singletary. Singletary has become a player now for his third team where coaches just do not want to take him off the field.

And so if the Giants can hang around, which is a big if, then I think we get to 15 rushes for Singletary, who is their clear lead back. And because I can't just only pick hires, I'll go, look how smooth I am, by the way, with the higher lower these days. I mean, it's only week four. Lower on Brandon Cooks at 38.5 yards because I don't think the game is exactly a shootout. And I do see Dallas going to Jake Ferguson again and Jalen Tolbert, who did a little bit recently in a couple of spots for the Cowboys. So I'll take my chances going lower on Cooks. If you've been playing these pick'ems on underdog, underdog is great at giving you perks. And one thing they'll do is give you kind of like a freebie.

So I got, and maybe you would have too, Patrick Mahomes over one half passing yard. So you look for those and you can add them to your pick'ems and, you know, exponentially increase the payouts if you're right. So I threw the free Mahomes pick on there, which leads me to 10 bucks to win 210. If, you know, all five go right. If you'd like to play along underdog fantasy, use the promo code purple helps the show. And it's a lot of fun. We do it each week with these.

My ridiculous pick for this one so i went a little bit a little bit creative here there are a number of players who don't play a lot of snaps who just need one touchdown but they give you odds on this so if uh you get it right you know your money for daniel bellinger touchdown is nine times higher than what it normally would be. So I'm thinking about combining here, Luke Schoonmaker and Daniel Bellinger for some one of those two players catches a touchdown. All you have to do is just be in the red zone. Everyone's guarding neighbors. Everyone's collapsing in and you just, Oh, there's Daniel Bellinger. Dump it off.

Touchdown. Going for it. Is it a good bet? No, that's why it's got the odds, but I'm going right. Right. I could see the Dallas one happening more easily than the giant one. I mean, last week, Tolbert scored. Can't say Turpin.

They've got a fullback. They throw two now. Like Dallas can get like that. And Schoonmaker maybe is okay. Bellinger is okay. They have Theo Johnson as well. But creative coaching, maybe. I love the spirit of it.

That is the spirit. The spirit is for me to take a swing at Carson Steele getting one carry, which we got, or the Tyler Conklin incident from uh last week yeah he had a huge game I mean we should we should acknowledge that against New England and you heard about it uh so anyway we'll see we'll see how this if my streak-ish uh keeps rolling along but our streak of really fun shows in the fantasy universe has continued on the deep end fantasy football podcast, WGR five 50 and every week here on the purple insider fantasy football show.

So thank you so much, Mike. And we will have so much more to talk about. I'll be coming home from Lambeau next week. And we'll see if we got some four and Oh, Minnesota Vikings. That will be very exciting to talk about. So thanks for your time as always. Thank you.