Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Should the Vikings be worried about Jordan Mason stepping in for McCaffrey?

Episode Date: September 11, 2024

Matthew Coller and Mike Schopp of The Deep End Fantasy Football podcast talk about how the Vikings match up against the 49ers run game if Christian McCaffrey isn't in, the situation in Atlanta and the passing numbers that were way down this week. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

🎵 Hey everybody, welcome to another episode of Purple Insider and the Purple Insider Fantasy Show with Mike Shope of the Deep End Fantasy Football Podcast. The show presented by Underdog Fantasy. A very, very exciting week. We've got lots of results in the fantasy world. And a reminder underdog fantasy the easiest place to play fantasy sports the fastest growing fantasy app in the industry and you got to check out the pick them which we're going to talk a ton about today so

easy to play just pick between two and eight stats for your favorite players choose whether they will go higher or lower and you can win 20 times your money by going five for five sign up with the promo code purple helps the show also great for you claim your special pick and first time deposit offer up to a thousand dollars in bonus cash must be 18 or older terms apply concerned with your play call 1-800-GAMBLER or visit ncpgambling.org. Mike, we have so much football, but I want to start out in a place where there is fantasy controversy. And that is with Christian McCaffrey. Poor Jordan Mason. He has the game of his life.

He dominates the Jets. He goes to the interview. Yes, it's my time. And he says, yeah, they told me on Friday that I'm going to start. And everyone went, oh, because the injury report did not necessarily suggest that. And I, for one, am shocked

that a team would mislead the nation of underdog fantasy players with an injury report. But the poor kid had no idea what he was doing and then clearly got reprimanded after that but you know this whole McCaffrey thing it's very relevant to us here in Minnesota with Christian McCaffrey set to play against the Vikings if he's healthy so what is your take on Christian

McCaffrey's status it already sounds like he probably won't and that is how after everybody was sort of like struck by all of that on Monday night yeah he's not going to play next week either so expect Jordan Mason who was excellent in that game you know there I have a lot of thoughts on that um teams of course play games with this all the time and it shouldn't surprise anybody that there's some reason to believe that Kyle Shanahan you know kept it to himself, what was actually going to happen in that game. Shanahan did have an out on Monday night when he was hit with,

Mason said he was told Friday. And he sort of tried to wiggle away, but all he could have said was, we didn't know McCaffrey's status, and we wanted him to be ready to handle a bigger workload he kind of did say that but the starting point doesn't have to mean that McCaffrey is inactive and I think the freak out was like oh he's inactive I thought he was supposed to be nobody had that like all the national reporters that would have known that have nothing to say like they they're just going to keep it to themselves if they know. I can't assume that

they would know, but it's very rare for something like that to happen dramatically. And he was the number one pick in most fantasy drafts. So it's troublesome in a fantasy context for McCaffrey long-term. I mean, he, for a couple of years, wore the injury prone tag. A lot of us thought that wasn't quite fair. He had a couple of muscle pulls and these things will get better. And then he just had two insane workload seasons, you know, postseason games. And like, okay, that was stupid. So he all went back to picking him first overall.

Now he's inactive and he's got Achilles tendonitis and a calf thing and he's 29 and he's had a billion touches already in his career. So, you know, fantasy wise, Mason has been the, you know, the talk of the week. He and Isaiah likely two players that maybe were not drafted in your leagues. OK, well, now what do we do? A lot of leagues have just sort of a bottom to top based on the standings waiver claim process. And a lot of other leagues, you have to decide how much to bid. You get a budget of fake money, the FAB, they call it free agent budget. And then how much do I want to spend?

What percentage? And I'm in a couple of leagues where Mason was available and I spent out of a thousand dollars of fake money I bid seven well 716 right Matthew Western New York I thought that might have been good enough but it wasn't for Mason who could go back to the bench by week three I don't think it's going to be this week but he could it's just that he showed very well I got in on Mason just in time in the preseason, by the way, drafting him a lot in underdog. He became my fourth highest owned player by the end of the preseason because in the first preseason game, he looked great.

And it just looked like if McCaffrey, this is what you're trying to do. We talked about it a few weeks ago. These drafts, you know, pick up these. He's not a rookie, but these young guys who are one injury away and he's on the perfect team and he might be good so if it's not too late to get to mason good for you you might still have a chance to take advantage of that but as far as mcafree goes you have to be concerned as as far as his matchup against the vikings you're right everything seems to be pointing that way ianappaport mentioned that they are having discussions about whether to even just put him

on IR. But the thing about San Francisco is for whatever reason, Kyle Shanahan is the running freak. And so was his dad. And so was Gary Kubiak with those teams, with the, the Mike Anderson's, the Tatum bells showing up the Olandis Gary's. And with those teams, with the Mike Andersons, the Tatum Bells showing up, the Olandis Garys. And for whatever reason, they have always been able to produce these great running backs. And I think it's probably the blocking, the marrying with the pass game that they're so good with. And it did make me think for just a second, wait, should they have not traded for Christian McCaffrey? No, actually, they should. They went to the Super Bowl.

That worked out. It's fine. They were a field goal away from to the Super Bowl. That worked out. It's fine. They were a field goal away from winning the Super Bowl or something. Good thing, though. Yeah, right, because otherwise, I mean, if he had had this kind of injury last year or when they acquired him, then that would look a whole heck of a lot different. But as far as it pertains to Jordan Mason, I mean, sky's the limit because of who you play for. And if you

get fresh legs with a guy who runs that hard that's what I noticed about him is he is a he's a violent dude I mean I think that the Vikings are really in for something different with Jordan Mason than they were last week with Singletary this is a very aggressive runner who could have a lot of success for them yeah he reminded me of Marshawn Lynch watching him on Monday night. I'm not sure he's quite as big, but absolutely. And so, I mean, that's right about Shanahan and sort of his history, his trees history, if you will, over the years in the running game. And, you know, they also have George Kittle,

who is probably the best blocking tight end in the league. He's one of them. And he can catch the ball too. But what has limited Kittle in fantasy football is that he's just too good on the line of scrimmage. He's not somebody, you know, Kelsey is more of a, you know, more like a wide receiver. And then you have Trent Williams who got signed late.

And this is one of many San Francisco games where they just don't really need to push it. Even without McCaffrey, I have always kind of said they didn't need to trade for him. When you win, everything you did was right. You know, like what, what's the point of poking holes in that? And they were close enough and he's been so good. So it's hard, but they spent a lot of draft capital to get him. I never really, I never sort of liked the move. And another thing with San Francisco that's sort of ironic is that they have spent day two picks on running backs who are not even necessarily great prospects that have completely washed out. You have Trey Benson, who's now a backup in Indianapolis. Tyrion Davis Price is another one.

And, you know, here's Mason. And if you think about a team like the Niners, shouldn't they know this? Like, shouldn't they know what not to? I think they're bad in the draft, but they win, and coaching has a lot to do with that, and they have elite skill position players. Mason could end up being that guy in fantasy with McCaffrey's age and how the season has started where you just, you know,

the season's over and you take a drink and you're like, well, how did I miss that? What could I have done differently? But hopefully a lot of your viewers were keen to him because that's what we were sort of banging the drum for a month ago is rookies backups on the right teams in the right situations. Once Elijah Mitchell went to IR, another one of these guys, by the way. I mean, the path was clear for Mason, but for McCaffrey and look at how it started. I think there must be with that San Francisco running scheme,

some skillset that I don't totally understand that just works. Maybe it's a vision or maybe it's a patience element to it, where if you draft some higher running backs who may have a little more physical talent or a little quicker, but if they don't let the blocks develop the way that they're supposed to develop, then it may hurt them. But if they don't let the blocks develop the way that they're supposed to develop, then it may hurt them. And that might be something that's really difficult to identify in the draft, which guy is going to be able to properly follow NFL blocking schemes that are never used in college.

And hey, it's just this guy, Mason, or that guy, Mitchell, for San Francisco or a number of different guys. What Arian Foster played for Gary Kubiak. And what was he undrafted or something? I mean, it always seems to be the guy that you don't expect. But I think as far as the Vikings go, this is something to very much be feared. And the Vikings run defense, I think it has a chance to be very good with the amount of beef they play up front with Harrison Phillips,

who you know is a very good run defender, Jonathan Bullard. That's his thing. But we really didn't see that tested against the New York Giants because they were down quickly. They had to throw all the time. That didn't work either. Singletary didn't get that many opportunities, and the Vikings run defense looks immaculate after one week, but kind of the way that the game developed probably impacted that more than we can say, oh, wow, they're just going to be unstoppable against the run. So I think we'll find that out this week. Yeah, that's right. And that's really, I think everybody kind of knows this, but it's the most important lesson about week one is that it's one game and matchups

are so vital to, you know, analyzing those results. A lot of teams are going to look great against the Giants. I think, I mean, that was just a horrendous performance by them after, you know, you've got all summer to figure out not just, you know, execution, but your matchup, your strategy, different things. And to just be so inept the first game is a really bad sign. This team on my head is another example of that. Atlanta, Cincinnati, you almost just can't believe Cleveland that they're not sharper in that first game. We do have a Sam Darnold revenge game, by the way, coming up here.

And would you not say he was good i mean with all that said about matchups and you know what the giants might be we talked a lot about him of course purple insider like what darnold is worth in fantasy and what kind of year you might have i mean that's a very nice start it's hard not to overreact because it looked so good and the biggest thing was i saw Dan Orlovsky breaking this down on ESPN, but the biggest thing was that he was throwing with the timing of the offense. And Kevin O'Connell obsesses over this as coaches should with the timing of the footwork, marrying up with the past concepts and all that sort of stuff.

But that is how this thing works. It's why Matthew Stafford went to the Rams and then did different things that he had never done before with Detroit. Because once he got that down with his physical tools, he was pretty unstoppable. This is kind of the light version or the poor man's version of that. It's a dude who's really big and has a huge arm, as everyone saw on that 44-yard pass to Justin Jefferson, whose timing with his wide receivers in previous stops had been pretty bad.

And he had tried to scramble around and make plays and turn the ball over a lot. That was the biggest thing for me is that there were a few opportunities where he could have said, let me just gun it into this tight window and he said you know what i'm gonna just get it get it to aaron jones i'm just gonna get it to johnny munt who we talked about didn't have a huge day uh jaylen nailer with a touchdown though we talked about him and he could be very big for this week because addison is banged up again and it's the other ankle which isn't all that uh good for the vikings because now you're talking about two ankle injuries out of a two possible ankles that he has yeah that's the most

ankles that's the most it's a hundred percent analytics of ankles and uh but but i thought as far as the execution of what sam darnold was asked to do it could not have gone any better for him the thing is though, we talk about how the game played out. They're running successfully with Aaron Jones. They're ahead throughout the entire game. And I just don't know that their defense was very well suited for what Kevin O'Connell wanted to do. And their defense has three great players and a bunch of, I don't know, just guys. San Francisco has a lot more great players than that New York Giants team did. So I think it's one of those remembering it's one week, but also going, there's a lot there that could transfer over week after week after week.

But I do worry about Sam Darnold without Jordan Addison, because there were a couple, it was one of those games where the guy, look at the box score and you're like 200 yards but he hit the big throws over and over and there were a couple of out routes to Addison where he just breaks the guy off on the route the timing is perfect if he's not out there that's a little bit harder to do with these other receivers who are not elite route runners like he is right uh the touchdown pass too which was at the end of that long drive was a great tight throw as well well you know i think also jones and even chandler i mean chandler caught three passes you got you did well at running back with minnesota in week one i don't know if you want to do this now but one of the things i wanted to

talk about with you is just what happened at tight end in fantasy football in week one. I don't know if you want to do this now, but one of the things I wanted to talk about with you is just what happened at tight end in fantasy football in week one. I mean, so Johnny Munt, who was absolutely last round at best, you could, if you really just sort of felt it, you know, a vibes sort of play, you didn't get beat because like almost nobody else did well at that position in week one this was a year where a big part of the fantasy discourse was do we want to pay up for one of the so-called elite tight ends and there were about six and the consensus was yes that it was important to do that Kelsey, Laporta, Kincaid, McBride, Andrews. And that's really where the cutoff is, as I'm doing this from memory. And then you get to Pitts and Kittle and Engram.

But, I mean, Kyle Pitts went 3-26-1 in busted coverage or something. He got a touchdown, which is kind of rare for him. But what is that? In PPR, that's like 11 points or 11.6 or something. And he was tight end four for the week in the league. And everybody played no bye weeks. There was Isaiah likely who went for 30 or whatever in the opener. Then you had Foster Moreau for New Orleans.

I mean, a backup. Bowers for the Raiders was promising. And then Pitts and all those other guys Kelsey caught three balls Andrews maybe two and so McBride did all right but only because it was a late drive he caught a couple like all Kincaid had one I mean what happened so if you did in your draft wait until the very end to draft somebody like Munt or Noah Fant or whoever. Conklin hit one catch toward the end of the game in San Francisco. You didn't get buried because the top guys didn't do anything.

Former guest of this show, Tyler Conklin. Good dude. Ah, yes. And former Penguins goalie, Ty Conklin. Different person. But I'm curious about your thoughts because this sends me to a little bit broader of a place of what happened in week one, which was passing was not the passing universe we were told about. You know how when we were growing up, they said,

you know, when you get to 40 years old, there'll be flying cars. I was like, wow, that's going to be crazy. There's no flying cars. And they mean, they got two years to do it for me. It feels the same way with a couple of different concepts in football, but one of them is, you know, in the future, every game is going to be like 56 to 54 and it's going to be crazy. And that's what it's going to be like. And everyone's just going to pass for all these touchdowns. And I feel like we're in 2002 right now. Where, where's Sean Alexander right around the court larry johnson in the backfield these 300 carry running backs but it's not that way instead everybody has

multiple running backs and the everything is sort of underneath stuff and the average depth of target has gone down what do you think is happening i mean is that one of the reasons that the tight ends didn't have such big days is is there something happening or was it just a random week one or what what can we try to explain where passing went all of a sudden it's the most interesting topic takeaway from the week I think is this you know to the ends point, maybe because if I have to keep my good pass catching tight end, you know, hand down in line because I'm more run oriented, then I'm going to do it. And I think in Buffalo, Dawson Knox has been that player.

Kincaid frees, you know, knocks up, so to speak. It frees the bills up to just sort of keep him in that kind of box. But even Kincaid was blocking in this game. Like, what's that? So I do think there could be some association there. I doubt Kelsey and Andrews and McBride are going to end up, you know, as blockers, and that will change. And that's where I feel like, you know, it's just a one-week sample.

The biggest difference, I think, that accounts for this is the ability of quarterbacks to run. That's what's different from the 90s. This was the lowest average passing yards per game in a week one since the 90s and highest rushing. But it's not because we have bell cow running backs. It's because quarterbacks can run and it's increasingly more a part of what offenses are willing to do. It's even what they want to do.

It's why you draft Jaden Daniels, who had 28 or 30 fantasy points in a game they were always losing in week one. And there wasn't that much success through the air. It's why you drafted Anthony Richardson for the same reason who completed literally nine passes, but also had 28 fantasy points in week one. Like that's, it's not a fantasy football conversation as much as it is a real one, but you know, these players coming into the league have changed how teams think what's optimal.

And, I mean, Josh Allen has run for 20 touchdowns in his last 18 games, including playoffs. I mean, 18 last year, including playoffs, two on Sunday. That's no accident. The Bills wanted him to run less, and for about the first 10 games last year he did then they were six and six after 12 weeks and they're like all right that's out and then they just sort of let them out and they went went deep so that i think is the difference you're not going

to find you know these running backs just look at mcafree already as much as we like to think sort of those three down guys are the explanation for this, I don't, you're going to have a couple examples of that, but I don't think it really is. It's third and five and your quarterback is mobile. He takes the shotgun snap and what does he do? He's going to run and you can't stop him. Folks, U.S. Cellular noticed that the way we use our phones has gotten ironic. We try to put our phones down for dinner, but the menu is on a QR code.

That's ironic. We hit like on social media posts that we don't actually like. Ironic. Which is why US Cellular created Us Mode to help us reconnect with each other and use our phones less ironically. A phone company wanting people to use their phones less? Ironic. I think another part of it too is that 2020, that season, there were a lot of teams that were playing single high and got destroyed by deep plays and explosive plays. And after that season,

all these defenses said, you know what? Two safeties and we're going to draft lighter linebackers. The Vikings did this. We're going to focus everything. We're going to put another safety on the field. The Vikings do this with Josh Metellus and we are going to say everything. We're going to put another safety on the field. The Vikings do this with Josh Metellus, and we are going to say no explosives. And they all got the same memo with whatever stat told them. If you get an explosive, your chance of scoring goes way up, which obviously, yes, if you gain 48 yards on one play, your chances of scoring do go up. But coaches think this way and they all went. And then Vic Fangio had a good little run there.

So then he plays the two deep and everybody plays off. And offenses have to have a counter to that. They can't just go, well, let's just throw the bombs into these deep safeties because then you're going to get picked off. So running quarterbacks, that's easier for them. When two safeties are playing in the parking lot, well, they've got more space to run. You can hand the ball off more effectively.

You could play a little bit safer and have longer drives, which I see more. The other thing, too, is that Ryan Flores is a part of this. Defensive coordinators and their blitzing packages have gotten more intricate year after year after year, and I don't think the league has the offensive linemen to block for them. And then the other part is, too,

and I want to get into this as well. The other part is you're wearing a Carolina Panthers. Thank you. What is it called? It's not a hat, but it's a visor. Yes. There's some quarterbacks that teams are sticking with who are awful, but they have to.

Daniel Jones is one of them. Bryce Young is one of them. They have no other choice but to just throw them out there and find out in a 90s world they would have played Andy Dalton and tried to see if they could win eight games and get into the playoff race but they can't do that they drafted him number one Jim Druckenmiller sat on the sideline and watched the 49ers get Jeff Garcia or whatever I don't remember the timeline but but you know what I mean? Teams will do that. If you draft somebody at the top, you've got to play him no matter what.

And I think that also plays into where we're seeing a wider gap between the teams who have good quarterbacks and teams that are throwing out guys that are virtually unplayable. Yeah, well, that's right. And we'll see how it goes with the less mobile quarterbacks. I mean, this is just absolutely the drumbeat in fantasy and has been for years. A guy like Joe Burrow, he's a first overall pick, and he's had a lot of success. But you don't want him in fantasy football, in my opinion, over Daniels. That's even just on spec because Daniels has so much talent running the ball,

and there's so much value in that. Justin Fields, I mean, come on, when it comes to a passing offense but he was what QB six last year on a team that couldn't do anything through the air by the way Fields is about to be a favorite on the road for the first time in his career uh this week at Denver if he starts. And he did throw for 300 plus last year against Denver. So, you know, to me, he's exciting this week. The quintessential player, which is why I'm especially glad to be with you here, Matt, today for this whole conversation is Kirk Cousins, because that was an absolutely terrifying week one for Atlanta fans and for fantasy backers.

No play action passes the whole day. One play under center. It kind of makes you perhaps get why they drafted Michael Penix. So here's Cousins, who is this massive financial investment. That team is primed to win. They were the division favorite. And you do have a top 10 pick right there who they kept out of the preseason saying that they were just already so impressed. So, I mean, that's not imminent. I do think Bryce Young could come out. I think there is an argument for that because that is

so far gone. Dalton would immediately be better and a new coach might be able to get away with, look, this is going terribly. Let's take our time with him. We'll work over here on the side. Fans are going to feel like that's the end if they do that, but they don't have to be right. It still might be in the best interest of the player and the team to do that. But Atlanta is super interesting. And I told you all summer, like I'm heavily invested in the Falcons, Pitts and London and Bijan Robinson, all of it, and just an absolute nightmare of a week. Robinson did all right. And Pitts, like we talked about, at least he scored.

But London is really scary for a mid-second round pick right now because who knows what Cousins can even do. Yeah, so this is something that I don't know if you have anything like this exactly in your life this instinct sixth sense which is usually just formulated by a lot of experience and I think about Aaron Jones running the ball and how he bounced that touchdown and like I bet he's done that 500,000 times in his life and he knew exactly how this is going to play out.

I feel like this was me with the Atlanta situation after the draft where it's like, I've, I've covered these teams long enough. I know who those people are. Raheem Morris, Zach Robinson. They're not psychopaths. They didn't just roll the dice and say, well, let's just pick this random left-handed quarterback. He seems cool. And I also knew what Kirk Cousins was going through and how rare it is for anybody to come

back playing the same with that Achilles injury that the Vikings right tackle had half of that injury last year. And it took him a long time to recover. It was only the half tear. It wasn't even the full tear. And I'm supposed to believe that Kirk Cousins at 36 years old, who has taken a ton of punishment. Everybody watched that Netflix show quarterback and how much punishment he took in 2022. And he's going to come back and just be the same dude. I don't think so. And that looked scary though, for him from a health perspective because it's not that Kirk could ever run and I remember him saying to us yeah well I'm a pocket quarterback this will heal it'll be okay but pocket quarterback does not mean you can't even drop back effectively and he could actually roll out I thought it was one of his best skills roll out throw on the move

and that's something if you can't do that at all, what are they supposed to do this, that I might rather have Taylor Heineke out there because at least he can protect himself. And at least he can make some plays. But if that's what Kirk's going to look like, and when does it change the seasons here? It's not like this gets better. Oh no, my health will get better as we go along. A friend of mine said it reminded him of Ben Roethlisberger when he was totally, totally at the end, and he was just shot putting footballs.

But Ben Roethlisberger was better than Kirk Cousins. And Roethlisberger's brand was just to throw the ball to running backs. I mean, Najee Harris had one game where he caught like 14 passes or something, which is insane. That's never been Cousins. Right. No, he wants to move the ball in the intermediate areas to his wide receivers.

If you were wide receiver one or two, you usually dominated with Cousins. I think if you drafted those guys, you should be very concerned. Although, maybe not, because it could be week four and Michael Panics could be playing. The way that that looked, he's going to get hurt because you can't just stand back there and be like, Oh, I'll get rid of the football. You're going to get crunched. Uh, and he did, I thought a number of times I would be curious for you about what in week

one you were celebrating. Like, yeah, I knew it. I got this one. And what you were like, Oh, wow, I am so stupid. For me, I texted you about Jaden Reed. Jaden Reed, although who knows what happens now with Jaden Reed. But that was one where I was like, yeah, that's right. Was he the leader in all of passing for this week?

Maybe. I think, yeah. 33 points. Yeah, I think he had the biggest game of anybody. And Rasheed Rice must have been one that you were celebrating because he had an excellent week. And everybody in Minnesota, not surprised by Tyler Johnson. I'm sure the fantasy world was taken by surprise.

But he's a gopher, and everybody loved him. So what was your biggest win and loss from week one? You know, Rice, we've talked about him in the course of the summer, especially when everybody was focused on his probably being suspended, his draft position really plummeted. And with what we know about the NFL and suspensions, you can never assume. And here we are like week one and he was excellent. And so I happened to be heavily invested in him. Yes, that felt good. You know, the tight end thing didn't because I thought it was better to draft the top tight ends. And that's a little scary. You know, Andrews with what Isaiah likely did. Now, I mean, they really don't have a wide receiver, too, that's that reliable.

We'll see. I'm optimistic, relatively speaking, for Andrews. We'll see if he can't carve out a role. Nico Collins is somebody that I couldn't always get because, you know, mid early to mid second round, I'd like, I liked London. I bought into Harrison. Um, if ever Garrett Wilson or Puka Nakua slipped, then that, but I have plenty of Collins and that looks very exciting. He was the fastest receiver tracked in the league in week one, where Marvin Harrison Jr. was one of the slowest. And that's concerning. He was in Buffalo, one catch for four yards, had a drop.

And he was running, I read, plenty of deep routes, just egregious. I mean, they were in the game, but Arizona couldn't get the ball to Harrison or didn't even really try in that game. And that's not a good sign. It reminds me of the old Bills days where they drafted Sammy Watkins so high and like, you should get 15 targets a week and you get three. And like, why did you do it? You know, so that's the question about Harrison right now. Lots of wins, lots of losses, plenty of mixing, again, betting on Houston,

and mixing was the RB1 for the week. A-Chan is another one like that. He's game time for tomorrow night. One player that I almost never picked who scares me right now is Saquon Barkley because there were really, other than sort of draft strategy, and I like those receivers, like I said, that's where he would go, late first, early second, almost always. I'd rather draft receivers there, and so that's what I did.

But the two arguments against Barkley being a good draft pick, one, Jalen Hurts, the tush push, all of that, like can Barkley get in the end zone and then two some question about what is Barkley at this stage of his career he's been in the league a long time is he the explosive prospect out of Penn State you know this many years into his career and I leaned against that I mean just it felt like there were too many flags, and then the draft, the way you wanted to build your team point, it kept me sort of out of the Saquon Barkley business. And he was great in that first game on a field where nobody could keep their footing.

Scored three times, a beautiful touchdown catch. I mean, that's a player that the Eagles, like, all right, we trust this guy on this play. That's an elite player who gets that opportunity even and then makes that catch at the left side of the end zone. So Barkley is a scary one. Interestingly, in the main event, the big FFPC tournament that I draft in over the course of the summer, what they do, because there are drafts going all the way to Saturday of week one, and this year you had two games that were over by then, you can move guys in and out of your lineup that have already played that first week.

And with those new Saturday drafts, you've just seen Saquon Barkley, who was a late first round pick, score three times. He literally went first overall in these main event drafts on Saturday, or at least one. So people were not afraid to sort of buy into that. You get those points in the first week. He's somebody that I think might be in line, because I think their offense is just like so good. I mean, for fantasy, they had three turnovers.

Everybody was slipping all night. They scored a good opponent they scored 34 points i mean philadelphia you want to be in on the eagles yeah i was wondering about some eagles regression this year and after one week i'm like cut that don't bring don't mention that i brought that up saquon barkley is one of those guys where I have an extreme bias toward how they looked when I saw them in person. And Saquon Barkley was one in 2022 where there were so many runs that could have been losses for him that turned into either great plays or good plays that I was totally sold on.

The Giants just wasted this man's career because he should have been really as fantastic as everybody said, he's that talented. I wondered the same thing about this though. Older running back. Is that going to really work out for them? And he looked like him and Aaron Jones, both like plenty of juice,

uh, they're remaining. So Philadelphia could be really good. They also started out, weren't they like 10 and Oh, last year and then, uh, hit the skid.

So we'll, we'll see kind of how that plays out through the season. But Saquon Barkley definitely looks like he's got it. One area, just quickly to add to that, in fantasy where I'm not scared but I'm worried, is a lot of my strategy on underdog, you know, we talked about building teams for those late season weeks which means you want to skew younger i almost never drafted mike evans but i loved my rookies and a lot of these i mentioned harrison already a lot of these you know hyped rookie receivers didn't do anything in the first week brian thomas was good and he might be the number one receiver to have in Jacksonville, but neighbors.

Okay. Odunze hurt. I mean, Coleman. Okay. There's a lot, there's a long way to go. And I think patience is in order there because of the point about,

you know, it's rookies and even, even Caleb Williams in his first start, like just the rookies didn't all hit the ground running. It's a tough league for rookies, but the first week usually is probably the least predictive of any for the NFL season. And I'm sure that a lot of these guys will get their targets.

The Harrison Arizona thing I would be a little concerned about, but he also didn't play football for a really long time and he didn't do the combine. And we just didn't hear a whole lot about him. Kyler Murray was one where I might say, at least as of week one was disappointed with the production would have thought that maybe he would have had a little bit more there, but you know, Buffalo at least has a good defensive mind running the team. I don't know. I, you watched that game. I didn't see that that game I just kind of looked at the stat line but

how did you think he looked he was fine you know fantasy he was a very popular fantasy pick this year not that expensive and he's got great feet I mean Murray can be really dangerous player and have these blow-up fantasy weeks. I mean, as a quarterback, he just sort of blocks out half the field, and that's what got Harrison got free. You probably saw it on a late play of their last drive, and Murray had time to throw. He just never even got there visually. So I don't know. I don't think he's, you know, perfect as a player. What would drive

me crazy if I were an Arizona fan is they were down six first and 10 at their 40 with 140 left three timeouts and that drive and the previous one, they just kind of wasted plays on inside handoffs back to the running quarterback, you know, this is not a fantasy football point. That's your edge because defenses don't know what to do with you. They can't handle all of it. And so with three timeouts, run Murray, even if it's just sort of a fake scramble where he drops back and then he goes a draw or something, they wasted that and ended up losing. the Harrison play where he was alone in the secondary was early enough where Buffalo would have had time just needing a field

goal to win and I wouldn't bet against that happening but I don't know like teams are just not some teams just not all the way there to embrace what the real value is of the quarterback running and I think Arizona really blew it all right let's get into some of these underdog pickups for this week by the way my biggest victory of the week carson steel we're talking about how hey carson steel you gotta bet on at least uh one touch i think he needed to hit on that pick them and uh we went with that last week that was pretty good. We'll look at that. You saw mine, right? Last week? No, what was yours? The one I gave out on this show was

Lamar Jackson passing over. Cleared it. Derek Henry rushing under. No sweat. Zay Flowers over catches. Cleared it. Xavier Worthy over three and a half catches. Nope, but two touchdowns. cleared it Xavier worthy over three and a half catches. Nope.

But two touchdowns. So that's, that's how, you know, the season is back. Yeah. And you put in a four way pick them on underdog and just sort of have it all right.

And still lose. No, I mean, I'm back this week. I'm not, I'm not, I'm not stepping away, but it just seemed like worthy.

We talked about rice. You brought up rice and he did get there. That was, you know, that one one won if you did that instead. But I saw Worthy as being relevant in this game. He only scored twice but did not catch four passes. No, he did not. That is what they call a bad beat for you. Kind of a bad beat.

You were exactly right on Derrick Henry. I thought he was going to run a lot. And Pacheco. I wanted under on both. Yeah. Lower, rather, on both running backs, and they were. But, you know, you got to get them all. This Thursday night's game, love it.

Just what a great contest here between the Buffalo Bills of Buffalo and the Miami Dolphins of Miami. I want to start with, uh, Josh Allen makes a lot of sense here. Uh, the higher or lower number for, uh, Josh Allen. One thing that I love is that it includes receiving touchdowns as well, because it is altogether possible that Josh Allen could catch a touchdown. Uh, but 1.5 passing touchdowns is an interesting place for josh allen because we talk about just how important his running element is to it or you could go with higher or lower on 0.5 rush plus receiving touchdowns i think i would easily lean toward

him getting one rushing touchdown rather than two passing touchdowns he does have a hand injury and when asked about his status for this game monday sean mcdermott said cleared to practice which is not exactly like he's fine and he's wearing extra padding in practice so i don't't know. It just seems this is not always a winning approach. But I have an instinct for, like, all right, what seems too obvious? And Allen scores a rushing touchdown in almost every game. He's also crushed Miami. 13 starts against the Dolphins, 11 wins, 11 out of the last 12.

He's been over 300 yards passing in each of the last five, over 350 in three of those games. The higher, lower number is 244 and a half. I think, you know, that's another one where it's like, okay, well, that seems pretty obvious. And I can overthink it if you believe in overthinking. I think you've got to juxtapose that number with what just happened in the league with a point about the fewest passing yards on average for a week one since the 90s.

And, you know, the whole Thursday night game on the road, maybe it gives me pause. I'm not including Allen in my four-way pick'em that I placed at underdog earlier today. I am going higher on Tua, though. 265.5. Went over 330 in week one. He led the week. Also, didn't he lead the league in passing yards last year? He did.

So I'll go 265 because the Dolphins are not traveling, and the Bills have some serious issues in the back seven of their defense. And I might have injured running backs in Miami. Mostert's already ruled out. A-chan is game time. I think it's a game that, with all the familiarity the Dolphins have with the Bills, just the same in an almost entirely new secondary, Terran Johnson. Arizona, Ross Tucker told me yesterday on WGR, their coach is called Taron Johnson the best slot corner in the league. He's out with a forearm injury. He suffered early in

week one. I'll take the higher on Tua at 265 and a half, and I want to correlate, so I'll put in a Tyreek Hill touchdown in that game. And then if you do these, by the way, you have to make sure you, you tap into both teams. You can't just pick only one team if you think they're going to run away with it or whatever. So I picked two bills, hires, Dawson knocks higher than 10.5 yards, longest catch of the game.

I could see that happening. That happened in week one as the Bills try to figure out their target distribution. Knox has been there. I could see you need one play. You need a Carson steal. You need one play, 10.5 yards. And at a fairly modest 39.5 receiving yards, I'll go higher on Khalil Shakir. He had a nice touchdown yards after'll go higher on khalil shakir uh he had a nice touchdown

after yards after the catch guy you know and that's something where the bills really need to get going no big stats this was the concern fantasy wise about buffalo all summer like who pays you off and i don't have to worry about that so hard here if i'm picking shakir to go higher than 39 and a half 20 pick them pays 200 underdog, by the way, does give you the option to do what they call a flex where say, if you're picking four picks, like I did,

you win less money. If three hit or even maybe get your money back, if it's only two, but Matthew over here in the deep end, we don't, we're not about that. Okay. Well, since you gave your very serious pick-ems for this, I will give my very unserious pick-em, which is,

I think with the way Buffalo is going to have to play defense this year, Sean McDermott will have to memorize these words. Bend, don't break will be something you start to hear as the season goes along which means that the field goal kickers are going to thrive here and i have jason sanders the great kicker of the miami dolphins booting higher than 1.5 field goals so i will be keeping close track of whether jason sanders kicks two field goals in this game unserious is in the lead for week one of the nfl season unserious is one and oh and serious is only one we definitely we definitely have to keep track of unserious versus serious this is my unserious pick and what but you do have to come up with at least three

picks by the way if we're going to really do this. I mean, the game is at least three. All right. Well, if I have to go three unserious picks, then it becomes much more difficult. What I should do is build mine and then tack on yours. So if you're right, like last week, I just got beat on the Xavier Worthy thing. But that's a much better payout. Okay.

If I, but if I were to go, yeah, that's that we should do this together rather than compete. But maybe I should go both kickers and assume this is going to be a kicker battle and both kickers end up with more than 1.5 field goals just to be unserious completely. And how about Mac Collins? Just because for a touchdown and how about mac hollins just because for a touchdown how about that mac hollins for a touchdown and the kickers both need to make two he got his touchdown last week you know elite run blocker that's why he's on the team he's on the field constantly it's again another sign what the bills want to be to be and also maybe league trends. I don't like him for a touchdown.

Those touchdown picks, you do get a nice return, though. I mean, Tyreek Hill is closer to even money, but some of the guys like that, there's even first-half touchdowns on guys. Also, keep track of the injury stuff because as a Mostert gets ruled out, then you can get to Jalen right or jeff wilson it's not just going to be hn and who knows if hn even plays in this game so that's something where i did this on wednesday morning before i knew the dolphins latest with injuries and you can't touch

any of it really with confidence on a wednesday morning because who knows who's going to play. Right. No, for sure. Well, we'll, we'll still keep track of my unserious picks. Oh yeah. I know you will. The deep end fantasy football podcast, Mike Shope, WGR 550 in Buffalo. It's great to have, I mean, it's great to have games. We've got so much to talk about and we're going to be doing this every week all season and a reminder use that promo code purple over at underdog fantasy it's good for you it's also good for me so make sure you check that out thank you again mike and uh we'll see you next week