The Athletic Football Show: A show about the NFL - Two fantasy QB surprises & two QB debuts of significance before week 5

Episode Date: October 6, 2022

Michael Beller and Brandon Funston return for the week 5 fantasy football conversation as they bring you two QBs who have surprised so far, including one in Seattle, plus two QBs taking over for teams that might have fantasy significance soon. All that and more, presented by KFC!0:00 Jared Goff5:30 Geno Smith11:40 Zach Wilson17:10 Kenny Pickett Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is the Athletic Football Show. Hey, everybody, what's up? Welcome in to the Athletic Football Show, fantasy football edition presented by KFC. Michael Beller and Brandon Funston here with you. Week 5 of the NFL season just about to get underway. We've got Broncos and Colts kicking off tonight, at least if you are listening to this, on the day that it publishes Thursday. So a big week five slate ahead of us, Brandon Funston.

And we're going to talk about quarterbacks on this episode of the Athletic Football Show. How you doing, my friend? I'm doing all right. How about yourself? I'm doing good, man. This has been a lot of fun getting to do this with you on the Athletic Football Show and bring our brand of fantasy to a new audience. So it's been a lot of fun.

Hopefully we can keep this rolling. Hopefully we can keep some of the good calls rolling on this episode here. And what we're going to do on this one is focus on a quartet of quarterbacks. Two guys who have surprised us and played as top 10 fantasy. quarterbacks so far this season. Two guys who made their 22 debut last week and are going to be the starters for their team for the foreseeable future. We're going to talk about their prospects, what they do for their offense is really all

of that and how that affects the fantasy football world. Let's start with those two guys who are surprising us thus far, Brandon Funston. Jared Goff and Gino Smith, top 10 fantasy quarterbacks thus far this year. Jared Goff, the number five fantasy quarterback in standard scoring leagues. By standard, I mean standard for the quarterback, four points for a passing touchdown. 1.4, 25 yards passing. And then your boy, Gino, I know you saw this one coming, Mr. Pacific Northwest over there. Gino Smith, the number nine fantasy quarterback right now.

Let's start with Jared Gough. And let's look at these two guys from the lens of, can they do this? Can they be set it and forget it, fantasy starters? I think we all had some high hopes for what this lion's offense could be coming into the year. Obviously, they were building towards something that was going to be fun offensively. I don't think too many people saw it being this good this season, but it's not a huge shock to see the lions among the best fantasy offenses. So can Goff, who we've seen a year like this from before, be this sort of guy who you're not talking about as a streamer function, you're talking about as a guy you can rely on most weeks for just being your starter? Yeah, I think these guys have two similar setups in that the defenses are terrible, their team defenses are terrible, it's going to force chasing most weekends.

and they have great skill position players around them. You know, we'll get into Gino in a second, but if I'm kind of like deciding between these two, I'm going to go Jared Goff. And the reason why is, you've mentioned it before, we have seen a, you know, him being talked in the MVP discussion before with the Rams amazingly. But look at his last nine games.

He's settled into this team. His last nine games, he has 22 touchdown passes to five interceptions. that's a 41 touchdown full season pace. I mean, that's over half of a season. You're talking about him going out and doing what he did last week without a Monrae St. Brown, without D'Andre Swift. Yeah. He made a star out of Josh Reynolds, made a star out of T.J. Hawkinson,

Jamal Williams. And guess what? They're going to get Jameson Williams here in a few weeks, you know? So to me, I feel like he's safer. He's a guy that, like, when I look at a Matthew Stafford maybe or Aaron Rogers, these guys that are kind of were in the back end of the QB1 class. Like I could easily make a case that especially against Matt Stafford. It's funny that, you know, it's his former team, the guy that we replaced him.

But I would take Jared Goff over Matt Stafford right now. I just absolutely would. The Rams look, the Rams look a little bit busted right now in terms of that passing game other than Cooper Cup. So, yeah. So Jared Goff, I think you can make that easy, you know, argument that he is a potential every week starter. I think he's there. I really do. And I'm not saying he's going to be a top five guy, but I just think he's there. It's the dream fantasy setup. You've got, as you said, a terrible defense, very good skill position, players, a great offensive line. I mean, that's something else that

we're talking about here, Funston, right? You talk about he did it last week without DeAndre Swift and without Amon Ross St. Brown. He also did it missing two starting linemen. And that's not going to be the case all year. And this is a team that has invested a ton of resources over the last few years in its offensive line. They have one of the three best lines in the league. You've got a ton of skill position, talent. This is going to be there. The foundation is there for Jared Gough.

And Gough has shown us previously in his career that when a foundation is there and when all he has to do is sort of be like a Madden quarterback and just hit the right button, he can do that. And he's doing that so far this season. I really do think that Jared Gough is going to be a quarterback for fantasy managers who you're going to want to start more often than not.

Now, if you're in a traditional one quarterback league, and one that happens to, tends to draft backup quarterbacks, and you ended up with Justin Herbert, and then you circled back around. It took Jared Gough as your backup. You're maybe not going to want to start golf over Herbert every single week the rest of the season, but you've got a legitimate trade chip. You've got someone who should be viewed as a top 10,

top 12 quarterback, someone who can be relied on as a starter for the rest of the season. Love what they're doing with that offense in Detroit. Maybe this team sneaks into the playoffs also as a wildcard, based on the strength of that offense because we know the defense really isn't going to be doing it for them this year. As for Gino, it's been fun, right? I mean, these first four weeks of the season have been fun. It's been fun to do the, oh, Broncos traded for the wrong Seattle quarterback. Ha, ha, ha, ha, and do all that stuff.

It's harder for me to buy in on him as someone who we're talking about as a locked in starter. I think he's definitely placed himself on the stream radar for the remainder of the season, on the my quarterback's injured for a couple of weeks, my quarterback's on buy. in that group, which he wasn't necessarily in at the start of this year, I can't quite go the full, oh, yeah, I'm starting him with confidence the way I can with golf. Yeah, I can't either. We have to remember that there was, after week two, there was, this, this offense has gone six quarters without a touchdown.

You had a great first half against Denver. A lot of that is just, you know, you come in and you game plan and you have almost a script for that first game, and it's Russell Wilson. And, you know, like, I'm sure they were as detailed as they're ever. going to be for a first half. But they didn't score the second half. They didn't score against the 49ers. Those are two good defenses.

Then the last two weeks you get Atlanta and you get Detroit. Those are two not good defenses. I think Gino Smith is a streamer. And if he's more than that, this week to me is a litmus test. You have the New Orleans Saints who are a great defense that went on to, you know, went to London and did not play well. And they're going to come back home. And they're in a get right situation.

Seattle's flying high after, you know, this 40s. point effort against Detroit, thinking that they're all that. Like, if Gino Smith goes out and has a good game in New Orleans this week, I might be ready to say, you know what? I think maybe there's something here that's more than just a straight streamer. Because you do have, you know, like Detroit, you have Rashad Penny who just continues to churn yards. You have Tyler Lockett and D.K. Metcalf.

And here's the other thing. The tight-end position for Seattle is the second highest in fantasy in terms of fantasy points behind only to Travis Kelsey led tight-led tight-end position. in Kansas City. So he's utilizing three tied ends on a regular basis. So that's all working. If it works in New Orleans, then we might have to have, you know, another discussion about this. But for right now, I just think he's like, oh, the matchup looks good. Well, then Gino looks good. Yeah, it's funny, right? Because you look at last year with the Seattle team. And when you have Russell Wilson as your quarterback, it doesn't really matter who your play caller is, you're running

the Russell Wilson offense. That's just the sort of player he is, the sort of quarterback he is. and the sort of status that he earned with how great those offenses were in Seattle all those years. But now with Rusk in Denver and with Gina as the quarterback, we're sort of seeing the Shane Waldron offense, really, for the first time. And there's some interesting things happening with this team. And just that foundation that's around him. You really call out those three big names, D.K., Tyler Lockett, and Rashad Penny. I mean, that is a really nice wide receiver one, wide receiver two running back. And, like, there's a lot of, like, there's a reason why you could come into this season.

be excited about the 2023 Seahawks and what they might be. And it sort of is a knock against the guy who we're talking about here because that presumes that he can't be the quarterback who gets them to that level. And I think that's probably still true. But we had that discussion because of everything that was already here in Seattle. This was a team that, you know, we sort of just immediately rode off. Right. They trade Russell Wilson to Denver. That's it. This is a season that we don't even really need to care about Seattle for. And that, you know, it's understandable, as a knee-jerk reaction to the Russell trade, but it also ignores everything that was still good that was in Seattle,

and there was a lot of good that was still on this team. And it's still here. And now Gino has shown that he can be someone who takes advantage of all those great things that are around him. And I agree with you. This New Orleans, to me it's like if he has a good game against New Orleans, if he goes like 250, let's just say 250 and 2, not carrying his fantasy teams, but performs well.

Like that's it. I don't think we really need to have any more questions about Gino. He's on the stream radar for sure. If you're in dire straits at the quarterback position, maybe you're starting him for a few weeks in a row. If he has a bad game, you know, this is a good St. Stevens, but not a great St. Stevens. It's not the group that it was as recently as a couple of years ago.

Marshawn Lattimore is a sort of guy who can ex out a receiver, and so that'll be interesting to see him against D.K. Metcalfe in this one. But if he doesn't show up in this game, then maybe we are talking about him as a guy who can take advantage of the worst defenses, Atlanta, Detroit, as you mentioned. But we stay away from him. What I'm interested in this game is that this is one of those, you know, good but not great defense. He's always seen this so far this year is great defense and bad defense.

He really hasn't seen anything in the middle, and that's what he gets in New Orleans. Yeah, you're absolutely right. And, you know, and the interesting thing is, is there are some tough defenses the rest of the way, but there are some soft spots as well. So if you, you know, we'll see how he does, as you say, a more mid kind of level defense. I mean, I think I was looking at the DVOA. They're ranked ninth. The Saints are in overall. DVOA, 13th in the run, 13th against a pass. So they're kind of sort of just kind of

slightly above average in both. So yeah, I mean, you do well here. You're going to feel good about playing him and all those soft spots going forward. I just, you know, if he has kind of a meh game, then yeah, we're just kind of proven the point that he is absolutely just a streamer and you're going to avoid him going forward for those tough response. Another thing we should mention before we move on to our next two quarterbacks is that, D.K. Metcalf was, I mean, you were beating this drum, Funtz. He was going his wide receiver, what, 24, 25. It was based entirely on us not liking the quarterback situation. D.K. is going to be a big, maybe not quite a league winner, but something perhaps approaching that because of the foundation, because of the competence of the Seattle offense that was assumed to not be there when we were back in draft season. So D.K. Metcalf drafters certainly feeling good about themselves. All right, fun. So a pair of quarterbacks who made 22 debuts last week. They did it against

one another. One guy making his season debut, that is Zach Wilson after missing the first few games because of injury. One guy, it was his season debut because it was also his career debut that was Kenny Pickett in relief of Mitch Trubisky. Let's start with Zach Wilson, someone who we know a little bit more about here. Now, obviously, Zach Wilson, not in the discussion we were just talking about with Gino Smith and Jared Gough. Maybe he can start for you as a QB2 in Super Flex Leaks, but we're not talking about him as a traditional league one

quarterback starter. But what does he do for the other guys on this team? Is he an improvement? Is he a neutral compared with Joe Flacco for Brise Hall, Garrett Wilson, Corey Davis, Elijah Moore. Do you feel better about those guys with Zach Wilson in? Do you feel worse about them with Zach Wilson in? Or is it sort of just, eh, Zach, Flacco, whatever? Yeah, it depends on what your flavor, you know, of what fantasy is. All the spices, that's the flavor fun. spices right here, man. There you go. Well, Wilson is, Wilson is spicy, but he's volatile. And he brings a boom or bust aspect. I think with Joe Flacco, you're, you're getting a lower ceiling, but you're getting a safer floor. And you're getting probably a more even distribution week to week.

With Zach Wilson, I feel like there will be weeks when Elijah Moore goes off and Garrett Wilson does nothing. And there will be big plays that are mixed in there that you're not going to get from Joe Flacco. So like, like I said, there's just a. level of volatility. I mean, here's a guy who has, I think, 13 interceptions and 10 touchdown passes. He's not completing, I mean, he's completing 50% in his first game this year. He was below 60% last year. Like, he's not, there's a lot, a lot of issues with him still to, to, you know, get to a competency level that you want him to be, but he's got a big arm and he can move around and he can, he can extend the plays at Joe Flacco-Kont, so you're going to get a little bit more

playground stuff out of it. And, you know, it's going to be fun to watch sometimes, but it's going to be agonizing if you're a Jets fan sometimes. Or if you're playing a, you know, a Garrett Wilson or chasing a Corey Davis after a big game and then you get, you know, almost goose egg. So, I mean, in a way, it makes me, like, leery of the, the Jets receivers I do roster in that. I think there's a level of inconsistency about to be, you know, back in play here. A few really nice throws from Zach Wilson in that game against the Steelers last week.

A few, you know, Zach Wilson-y type of throws as well. But the way I think about it with these guys, and especially with the receivers, Breece Hall, I think, is a different animal and it doesn't really matter who the quarterback is. It looked like he was, he took over the clear number one role in the Jets backfield last week over Michael Carter. Michael Carter is going to be involved. But everything you look for out of the backfield, we were getting it from Priest Hall last week, whether it's Zach Wilson, whether it's Joe Flacco, I don't really think it has an effect on him.

But I look at these Jets receivers, and especially Garrett Wilson, Elijah Moore, even Elijah Moore, who had an ADP around wide receiver 30 or so right in that range. Like either of these guys, when you were drafting him, certainly Garrett Wilson, you weren't really thinking like,

all right, this guy's a locked-in starter for me. If I can get an average of 12-half-PPR points on him every week, this is awesome. If I get 10-5 p-pr points out of him every week, this is awesome. We didn't really think about these guys like that. We thought about them as maybe being sealing guys. Maybe guys who can, I draft as in Elijah Moore's case, wide receiver 30, he's wide receiver 15.

In Garrett Wilson's case, I draft him as wide receiver 45. He's his top 30 wide receiver. That's what you were building your team as when you were picking these guys. And so I like Zach Wilson for them because of that ceiling. I don't really need floor out of Garrett Wilson. That's not really what I'm looking for out of Garrett Wilson. I want those big blowup games out of him when I'm going to be starting game because most likely I don't need to start him every week if he's on my team.

Elijah Moore, a little bit different where maybe you want that floor from him more, but still someone who you were drafting for the ceiling, you weren't drafting him to be wide receiver 30. And so Zach Wilson, for all the faults that he still has, I think we would all agree that for the full range of the season, he's going to have more ceiling for those players. So we haven't seen it yet, obviously. It's just been one game, but there was some good from Zach Wilson in that game.

And I do think that he's going to give more ceiling to the, receivers. So slight uptick. If I have Garrett Wilson, if I have Elijah Moore, I feel better about them achieving the upside that came into the season with, with Zach Wilson as their quarterback versus Joe Flacko. Yeah, I don't disagree with that at all. I mean, I would like for Corey Davis to kind of fade, you know, fade away. Still sort of got it. And just haven't, still sort of got it. You still sort of got it. Yeah. And, you know, and yeah. So it is a little bit concerning about, you know, the distribution. And Tyler Conklin didn't go away either.

And Breece Hall is in the mix and the passing game. So there's a lot of mouths to feed there. You assume that the talent generally will bubble up and it would end up with Elijah Moore and Garrett Wilson getting the majority of it. I had to do a rest of season rankings exercise this week for one of our riders who does a trade value chart. And I had a hard time ranking these guys for the rest of the season.

I kind of ended up putting them in the low 30s back to back. I don't know that I feel better about Elijah Moore or Garrett Wilson. Like, I mean, do you have a, do you have a strong lean one way or the other on those two? No. No, not at all. And I, you know, I would like, I would actually sort of lean Wilson, but it would be based on four games that I don't really want to plant a flag on. Right. Exactly.

So I think we're talking two wide receiver three, where they land is a little bit, but that's kind of the general range. And you're going to get, like you said, you're going to get top 15 weeks out of both of these guys, you know, scattered throughout the way on the rest of the way of this season. All right. Let's look at Kenny Pickett here. This was a change that had to be made. I think it was made in kind of a strange way. If you were so ready to turn away from Mitch after one whatever half against the Jets, why didn't Kenny Pickett just start that game?

I don't know what we saw in the first half of the game against the Jets that we didn't see previously this season. But whatever, Kenny Pickett came in that game. He is now the starter for the Steelers going forward. He has a brutal start to his career as an NFL start. he's going to see the bills, the Eagles, the Dolphins, all in, I don't know if it's quite in succession, but they're all, they're among his first four games. So just a brutal, brutal start to his career. But he's here. He's the starter. And he looked all right, Funston. Through the three receptions, only one of those could maybe be credited to him. We had one go through hands. One was a Hail Mary at the

end of the game. So whatever on those two, otherwise completed all 10 of his other passes. Four targets to George Pickens among those 13 pass attempts, George Pickens. Got some life breathed into him here. And he's the one who I'm most excited about. But I think Funston, for everyone on this offense, arrows up with Kenny Pickett. George Pickens can be unlocked. Deontay Johnson, I think they can maybe find a little bit more from him. As for Najee Harris, he's still going to be dealing with that terrible offensive line all season.

But at least this offense feels like it might have a little bit more juice to it. And that's always good for the running back. I feel a little bit better about all my Steelers with Kenny Pickett as the starter than I did with Mitch Trubiskey as the starter. Yeah, through 13 passes. He has yet to see one of his passes hit the ground. They all landed in somebody's arms. Yeah, and as you mentioned, yeah, it's arguable whether the second, definitely one of the interceptors was a Hail Mary. And one of them was off of receiver's hands.

And so you can't. So, yeah, I mean, I thought he looked pretty good. First game and, you know, a couple rushing touchdowns. A little moxie, took a shot in the mouth and popped right back up talking trash to the defender, right? Right. I like the way. You know what? I kind of gave him a hard time for the small hands,

but he had to throw that Hailberry from beyond 50 yards. And he threw a pretty tight, pretty tight little laser down there, you know, over half the football field. So really, what more do he need? So I guess he can make all the throws and showed a definite magnetism towards George Pickens, which is often the case with rookies when they work out together early in the summer and develop a little rapport.

So I'm definitely peaked for George Pickens. his value. But I think if you're like, I talked about him earlier, Matt Stafford, maybe that's where you planted your quarterback flag this year and it's just been a struggle. Like, Kenny Pickett's not a bad stash if Matt Stafford doesn't get it turned around these next few weeks. You don't really, as you mentioned, the schedule coming up, you don't really want to lean on Kenny Pickett in the near term. But you could pick him up and see if Stafford still struggles for the next couple weeks and then maybe make a move because I mentioned you're going to get some numbers with the legs. And you got, you know, like we've talked about with all these guys that we've talked about today,

they all have legit weapons to work with. So reasons to feel optimistic about all these guys. Hey, man, Kenny Pickett these next few weeks, I mean, tough defenses, but they're probably going to be chasing. It's probably going to be a lot of volume for Kenny Pickett in those games. And it's this Steelers defense down T.J. Watt, Mike McAfee-Fitts-Patrick has a knee injury that they said they're going to have to manage all season here. So this could, and this was a defense that was, I mean,

the ultimate Stars and Scrubs defense in the NFL, right? It's T.J. Watt, it's Minkupitz Patrick. It's Cam Hayward. And Alex Highsmith, I guess, has shown himself to be a pretty useful player this year. And then they're just filling in blanks. And so if we're already down T.J. Watt, we have a compromised Mika Fitzpatrick. Cam Hayward had a little bit of a nothing of an injury, but still something. He's a guy who's in his mid-30s. Like, he's another guy who, like Jared Gough, like Gino-Smith, could have that tailwind of a bad defense,

fantasy tailwind of a bad defense for him the rest of the season. But very interesting, always fun to get new blood at the quarterback position of these four guys, certainly providing it in this 2022 year. That will do it for this episode of The Athletic Football Show, Fantasy Football Edition, presented by KFC. For Brandon Bunsen, I am Michael Beller. Thanks so much for being with us. Good luck.

We'll talk to you soon. This was The Athletic Football Show.