The Ringer NFL Show - Power Ranking the Players You Should Cut

Episode Date: October 12, 2022

We power rank the top 12 players you should consider cutting from your team through the lens of the five stages of grief. We finish the show by holding Fantasy Court. (3:45) - Allen Robinson, Rams (6:42) - Matt Stafford, Rams (9:07) - Cam Akers and Darrell Henderson, Rams (12:57) - Hunter Renfrow, Raiders (15:04) - Elijah Moore, Jets (17:47) - Russell Wilson, Broncos (22:09) - Chase Claypool, Steelers (24:16) - JuJu Smith-Schuster, Chiefs (28:00) - AJ Dillon, Packers (30:26) - Chase Edmonds, Dolphins (33:11) - D.J. Moore, Panthers (33:37) - Kyle Pitts, Falcons (46:23) - Heifetz v. Jackie Fantasy Court Check out our Weekly Fantasy Football Rankings for positional rankings and more! Email us! [e-mail]. Hosts: Danny Heifetz, Danny Kelly, and Craig Horlbeck Producer: Craig Horlbeck Additional Production: Kai Grady Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, it's Bill Simmons. I have some good news for you. The hottest take. It's back. Oh, yeah. Monday through Thursday, four times a week. You hear from me, Chris Ryan, Sean Fantasy, Mallor Rubin, Wazdine Lambray, Van Lathen, Julian Lipman. Many other Ringer staffers.

You get one take. You got a defendant to the death. Sports takes. Pop culture takes. Food takes. Airplane takes? Oh, yeah. It's coming back.

First episode drops. August 29th. The Ringer Fantasy Football Show. My name is Danny Hyfitz. I am joined by Danny Kelly and Craig Whirlbeck. Today it is power hour every week. We were power ranking something. Every Wednesday during the season.

This week, we are power ranking the players. We are thinking about dropping. We're not dropping them necessarily, but we're thinking about dropping them because it's been five weeks. And I think that if your team isn't doing great, you're probably having the five stages of grief. At least if you have drafted a player that isn't doing well, you have the five stages grief for a player.

It's like week one, denial. You're like, yeah, it's week one. Who cares? Week two, you're angry. You're like, what the fuck, Kyle Pitts? Week three, you're bargaining. You're like, maybe I can just trade Alan Robinson away to someone who still thinks he's good. Literally bargaining with someone.

Week four is depression. You're just like, oh my God. You couldn't trade him and you're like, this is my life now. This is so good. It's true. And then now it's been five weeks. It's week five. It's acceptance.

You're like, okay, it's over. I maybe I should just cut this person. So if we're now, going to go through all the guys that you're like, am I at this acceptance stage? And we're going to be like, ah, should I drop this person?

And we're going to try to figure out if you should. To be clear, giant caveat, because it's mildly terrifying to suggest to people that you should cut a talented player because then you'll get mad at us. It's all different. It depends on your league.

I don't know how many bench spots are in your league. I don't know who's on waivers. I don't know you're cutting it for. I don't know your record. I don't know who's injured in your team. Like, it's all contextual. And when we give you good advice, you're welcome.

But when we give you bad advice, everyone makes their own decisions. So take it all with a great assault. Personal responsibility. I just like the idea of people just blindly listening to us, no matter what we say. Like they just have an entire team of injured running backs and they just drop KMakers because we said we don't like KMakers. So, yeah, so obviously take everything with the grain of salt. With that said, I already have cut some of the people in a couple weeks. So I know, right. I'm going to go through, I power rank this list and I'm going to power rank them. I'm going through the order. I rank them, it's completely subjective, in the order of

How much I think that I have thought about dropping these people. Or at least if you have them, how much I'm like, have you thought about dropping these people? And then we're going to go through and see if you actually should cut them. So with all that said, Kai, who is on. Kai's doing Tom Tom now. The ones and twos. If you haven't done Power Hour with us before, it's really simple. We talk on each topic.

And then after two minutes, you will hear this music, which we may or may not have inspired ESPN to use on Monday Night Football, who is to say? I'm ready to sue, so I'm ready to get litigious on ESPN. I'm ready for misdemeanor assault charges in Kansas City. That was a Devante Adams joke. Dude, your references are sick, bro. Everyone knows.

So topical. Yeah. Okay. We're going to go. All right. Kai, start the timer. Players, power ranking the players that we are most thinking about dropping. My number one player, this is very easy.

It's Alan Robinson for the Rams. there's just no one else. I mean, there's so many ways I can explain this, but I think the simplest is Alan Robinson has 12 catches for like 107 yards on the entire season. Cooper Cup has like four games where he's just been better than that in a single game, four different times. If you have Alan Robinson right now and you're just nodding,

I'm sorry, because if you have him, it might be my fault. Like, we love them in the offseason part because the Rams loved them. They gave him $30 million. Like they're at, they could have had Vaughn Millen, on the team and they chose Alan Robinson. So obviously a lot of stuff went wrong here. And I have accepted I'm wrong. I'm willing to cut Alan Robinson because I kind of went through this and I was like,

okay, brass tax, like, what are the odds you actually end up regretting this? I think it's very low. Do you guys have any thoughts? Yeah, I mean, I don't really feel, I don't think it's a hot tank at all that you can cut him at this point. I mean, he has the same amount of catches as Alameda Zakias right now. Michael Hardman has more catches. I mean, these are guys that are on the waiver wires.

for sure. Sterling Shepherd hasn't played in a couple weeks. He has more catches than him. DeAndre Carter of the Chargers has more catches than him. So the only happens, it's a chemistry thing and that the Rams have their, they play the Panthers this week, then they go on their buy,

and what if Robinson gets chemistry of Stafford over the buy? But I'm kind of like, okay, the worst case scenario is you cut him, he's great against the Panthers, then he's on by. You're not playing him after one game. So then you'd have to be great after the buy. Then you'd consider playing him after that.

That's November. Are you going to wait till November to play him? Like probably not. That's the bad. And realistically, if he's bad this week, you wouldn't be playing him to almost Thanksgiving because you're not going to play him until he's two good games in a row.

So I feel like the odds of him coming back and burning you are low. What do you think, Greg? Let me throw this at you. Is the idea of Cooper Cup twisting an ankle, does that make you want to keep him at all? Does that tickle your fancy at all? Because there's really no other options on this team.

Van Jefferson's banged up, like Spence Scoron. There's not a lot going on. Do you think that is worth holding a lot? on to him as almost like one of the premier wide receiver handcuffs in the league. No, I think Van Jefferson's going to come back after the buy. So even then, it's like, I don't play the same role, but I don't think Robinson can do 70. Plus, they're going to get Odell at some point. I don't know. They haven't cleaned out Odell's locker. They're begging Odell to come back. Van

Jefferson's going to return. I think if Cooper Cup got hurt, they would make a trade before they relied on Robinson to do anything. Aren't there? The way that I would respond to that, Craig, is like, aren't there a lot of really good receiver handcuffs out there? I mean, are there? Yeah, like plenty. I mean, I'm not saying that they, all those receiver handcuffs have the same track record as Alan Robinson. But I'm saying like, if some elite guy gets hurt, someone else is going to step up, you could do this for every team. Like could Alan Robinson do what Marquise Brown is doing right now with DeAzer Hopkins out?

No. Okay. I don't think so. We're just treading on Tom Tom right now, but I don't think so. But we could just honestly say one long conversation here because my second one is Matt Stafford for the Ramps. Yeah. I think this is just a discussion about the Rams' offense overall. It is.

The Rams, we don't think about the Rams as horrible, but they've been awful. Have they not been DK? They're disgusting. Yeah, I mean, their offense, didn't you say the Bears have scored more points than them? So the Rams have been outscored by the Bears. They've been outscored by the Panthers who, again, fired their head coach. Like, the Rams have the fewest first downs.

The Rams have the fewest first downs in the NFL. They're tied with Pittsburgh for dead last in yards per play. with Pittsburgh, who had Trubisky. Like, they have fewer yards than the Falcons, who we bitch about every week. We aren't talking to them, but they're a bottom three off. If you take away the names of the uniforms

and the Super Bowl championship, like the sexy faces of all these people, they're a bottom three offense. Yeah. So Matt Stafford, I mean, just to say it right now, I think he's cutable. Like, you can cut him, go for it. There's so many other options,

especially in one quarterback leagues. I mean, in two quarterback leagues, even, like, he's barely startable. There's, like, so many other guys that'd rather start at this point. He has six touch. touchdowns to 10 picks this year. He's getting a 35% pressure rate.

The offensive line stinks. The run game stinks. Neither of those things are likely to get better. I mean, do you guys think that the run game or the offensive line is going to improve substantially throughout this year? There's nothing to think that it will. Honestly, I feel like the Rams lines get better. Sorry, the Rams offensive line gets worse as the season goes on, John.

And they're getting, there's injuries now. And so, I don't know, man. It just feels like there's so many things working against the offense right now, in particular the offensive line, the run game, just the lack of chemistry with Stafford and Robinson. Basically, it's Cooper Cup or bust in this offense. And so through five games, this is crazy, he's averaging 10.8 points per game. That's less on average than Matt Ryan, Justin Fields, Baker Mayfield, and Andy Dalton.

I mean, basically everyone. I can do better than that. Matt Stafford's been outscored by Daniel Carlson, who is the kicker. for the Raiders. He's been outscored by the Bill's defense. Dude, and the crazy thing is, at this point last year, Stafford was the quarterback 8.

He was averaging 21.4 points per game. The other thing is, like, the elbow thing that we talked about all offseason. Like, is this a result partially, at least, of his elbow just being kind of fucked up right now? I don't think so because, and also, we're disrespecting Tom, Tom, but spoiler alert.

The next team, the next guys that got here, are freaking KMakers and Darrell Henderson. All Rams. conversation. But that's, but it's important because this is the point is there's no team that's been more disappointing in their performance through five weeks than the Rams because again, they literally just won the Super Bowl. And yet they're an incredibly flawed team because ever since losing Odell, their offensive line not able to block, they can't run the ball. And then extending this like Cam Acres, there's 48 qualified running backs, like a certain carry threshold.

Of the 48, Cam Acres is dead last in the yards per attempt. And of the same 48, Darrell Henderson's dead last and missed tackles forced per attempt. So like one guy's getting the fewest yardage, the other's making the fewest people miss. And the blocking obviously has been bad. They can't do anything. They're playing a receiver at fullback to try to get stuff going. This offense looks sunk. And I kind of don't think they're going to fix it, to be totally honest.

This is the biggest gap between expectation and reality that I can remember it a long time in terms of an offense performing based on last year's results. If we move on to Cam Makers and Darryl Henderson now I've never flipped on a player like I flipped on Cam Makers in such a short amount of time. I was so into him. I thought he was going to be the next Todd Gurley for Sean McVeigh. Everything was working.

Cool name. Great draft capital. He wears number three. That's cool. And he actually just sucks. Camerakers has 22 fantasy points on 53 touches. Oh, God. He has two catches.

The Rams are dead last in league rushes, rush yards. They're second to last in yards per carry. The only reason why I don't think Cammakers is cuttable is because Sean McVey is either related to Cam Makers or Camer's dad helped get Sean a great deal on his new house or a discount at the wedding venue. Something happened because Sean McVeigh will not quit on Camerakers. He's like John Cusack and say anything.

He's got like the boom box up for him. I love that you can tell that Craig's planning a wedding because he's talking about wedding venues. But he likes him more than Daryl Henderson. And Daryl Henderson, I think, is dropped bull KMakers, I think is not. I'm still at stage one with KMakers where I'm like, who cares? It's only week five. They're just committing to him more. They're doubling down.

And I'm stubborn as a fantasy. It sounds like you're at stage two, anger. Perhaps. Yeah, you're right. Yeah, you sound angry. I agree. Like, just reading the room here. You sound angry.

I'm doubling down just because he's still the number one running back in an offense. And that is still kind of hard to come by. and if you drop him, there's not a fantastic replacement. I guess you could add like J.D. McKissick. But I would drop Daryl Henderson because he is kind of just a glorified J.D. McKissick in this offense. He got no carries last week. That's all going to Cam Acres.

And he looks bad. I would keep Cam, I would drop Daryl Henderson. Look, there's obviously a world where McVeigh turns this around and we look dumb. But honestly, none of this seems like it's going to get fixed soon. So we all agree. Stafford is supercuttable for Gino's, for anybody. Honestly, anybody you want to pick up and add Stafford. for the quarterback is fine by me.

Like, he's been awful. Alan Robinson, I cut Alan Robinson in one league for like, I think I added Alec Pierce for Alan Robinson. Yeah. And I think that's a good move. Like the spot, you want a second defense? I don't care. But I agree with Craig.

Running back so bad that you can't cut game makers unless you're in, I mean, you can. If you're like an 18 league, okay. But also there's a lot of leagues that have like five people on their bench. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it definitely depends. I cut, here's a specific example. I cut Darrell Henderson this week for Jalen Warren.

I'm like, I'd just rather have that upside. Yeah. Yeah, I think that's totally fine. Again, we're not saying just blindly do this, but it's hard to imagine a world where you're like truly upset that you did all this. Okay. Not a ram, the next one. The next one I've got here,

I'm doing Hunter Renfro for the Raiders. I think that, so obviously I was pretty against Josh Jacobs entering the year. Ironically, he's decided to be a top five running back. But my thinking was that Josh Jacobs was a John Gruden guy through and through and that his role in the offense wouldn't really translate with Josh McDaniels. I was super wrong about that. But I do think the same. Actually, that happened to Hunter Renfro instead because Hunter Renfro, even with Darren Waller going out of Monday football, just isn't really a part of this offense in a fantasy way. Like, he has 14 catches for 105 yards this year.

That's basically he's Alan Robinson. and Hunter Renfro has ever gotten a lot of yards. It's always like you had a lot of catches and he got a lot of touchdowns. And now Devante Adams is there. And so now it's just the office space like what is it you would say you do here? Maybe Waller having this hamstring injury. But like I mean, I don't know. It's like you look at all the receivers, the high level replacement, the Zay Joneses of the world that are just out there on waivers.

Like are you ever going to be upset that Hunter Renfro like you let him go? How often are you, what are the odds Hunter Renfro even scores 20 points at any point this season in a game? this is the same deal what Craig was saying earlier. The only hope right now it feels like is if someone gets hurt. Like he's essentially a handcuff. And last year,

obviously, you know, Derek Carr leaned on him heavily, but this is a different offense now. This is Devante Adams show. And so, I mean, I'm looking at like his ADA,

his air yards, he's just like a dump-off option. It's air yards per target's five, you know? First of all, he tackled Devante Adams basically to end that Raiders game. Ironically,

part of me wonders that Devonte Adams did the shoving because he should, should have just shoved Hunter Renfro out of his way and maybe the Raiders would have won that game. But I feel like because Raiders are on by this week, holding on a Renfro through the buy

just to see if he has a good game out of the buy. Again, it's like Alan Robinson-esque where it's like, are you going to wait three weeks for them to have two games in a row to trust them put in your lineup? Better real-life player than fantasy player right now. Yeah, I agree. All right, you can actually respect Tom, Tom here and move on.

D.K. I'm very interested in what you say for this one. My next one, is Elijah Moore, the receiver for the Jets, who I, I'm not sure that there's like a bigger gap between how talented people think a player is versus how little they've actually done this season that Elijah Moore for the Jets. Do you think he's droppable? I'm trying to, I think I'm still in like week for depression, like stage four. I'm just kind of depressed about this. I do think, so I don't think it would be crazy if you do drop him, put it that way. I don't think I'm going to go as far as to recommend dropping him at this point. I still think maybe try and, you know, wait a week or two more and see if he pops off and then trade him. But right now, I mean, it's just not happening.

He's 71st among wide receivers and PPR right now in points per game. He leads his team in routes, but he's only fourth in targets. So it's just very strange. Like he's basically out there running in a bunch of wind sprints. not getting the football. You know, both Zach Wilson and Joe Flacco

apparently seem to prefer Corey Davis. Breast Hall, the running backs are getting the passes more than Elijah Morris. Breast Hall has the same amount of targets as Elijah Moore right now. So it's,

I don't know. Like, I just don't know what to do with this because I do believe in his talent 100%, but he's not getting the targets in this offense. And it's just like going back

last year too, Zach Wilson didn't heavily target him either. So like, I think actually I did see that, Zach Wilson's target rate to Elijah Moore is slightly higher than it was last year, but slightly. It's like not a big enough difference to, like, have hope that it's going to change dramatically. You got a guy like Garrett Wilson, who's an elite talent.

You have a guy like Corey Davis, who's a solid veteran that apparently has good chemistry with Zach Wilson. And I'm like, he might have a couple of spike games here, but like, again, going back to the injury thing. Like, the only way I can see him having like elite elite usage is if someone else gets hurt in this offense. So I'm starting to get, I guess that's where I am. with depression. Like I'm starting to lose hope that this is going to happen. But I don't think I would drop it personally.

I don't think I would drop him personally. I think Elijah Moore is cuttable, but he's 20 times more talented than Hunter Renfro and more likely to burn you. Yeah. Craig, what do you think? I'm so stubborn.

I would hold on to him. He's more talented than the other players. He's more talented than Renfro. It's hard to let him go. But if you do, if you look at your team and you want a cool ad, I have no problem with you.

Trust you, you've got letting him go. I don't have a problem with it. It's, whatever side of the fence you think you fall on, I'm fine with that decision. All right,

next one here. Dude, it's Russell Wilson's the Broncos man. Like, this is a guy that people were drafting, like, when you took Russell Wilson, you were probably wondering, did I just like crush my draft

with my league and Russell Wilson go through 45 touchdowns and I'll win? Craig, do you think at this point, Russ is just dropable? He's lost his mojo.

He's like Austin Powers. Fat bastard came in, took his mojo. You know, he's 18th in points per game, which Stafford, I think, was like 26th. But if you're in a one-quarterback league, I would say there are some really compelling players that are probably still on the waiver wire that you could add instead of starting Russell Wilson.

Ironically, those guys are like, Gino Smith, who is on the Seahawks. Like, he's getting out... My girlfriend's... trying to trade me right now, Russell Wilson for Gino Smith. And I'm like, no, why would I do that? I think that's honestly reasonable.

Russ is just not the same player as he used to be. He's rushing for 14 yards a game. That's less than Gino Smith, Carson Wentz, and Jacoby Brissette. He's a pocket passer who can't throw over the middle in an offense that can't move the ball. He has the worst passer rating of his career. He's not

throwing the ball deep. He has the lowest air yards per attempt outside of the year 2014. I'm in stage two right now still. I think I'm just like, why does this guy suck? This is Russell Wilson. What are we doing? Like, he's got good weapons on offense. But like, man, if you're in a one quarterback league, I think I'm comfortable with you dropping him if there are these like overachieving like Jared Goff, Gino Smith types. Like if either those guys are still on waivers, I'm fine with you going to pick one of them up.

I just, dude, the thing that's so crazy to me about this whole. Russell Wilson thing is I think in four out of five games and granted one of them was in Seattle so the Seattle fans were booing him but he's been booed in four out of five games this year like it's this is the most atrocious start I could have imagined for him obviously it's not like they're getting their asses kicked or whatever I think they're a better team than you know maybe that their record shows right now they're they're two and three but yeah like the fans are very much not happy with him. It's crazy, like, how bad the fans are giving it to him. I mean, they're

playing on prime time. Like, I feel like every week they're on prime time, just shitting the bed. They were past, the fans were passively aggressively counting down the play clock in I think week one or two. Or in week two. Two weeks into the new regime with Russell Wilson. They've had the worst

quarterbacks in the last five years of the Broncos. I mean, his own receivers are like going to the media and talking about how he was wide open. KJ. Hamler's, like, after that, that failed final play. Was it that? Was it this week or against the Vegas?

I can't remember. That was this week. Yeah. Sorry. Last week. Yeah, this week. Whatever that means. Yes.

It was a Thursday game. So it was like my schedule is all off. But yeah, like, I mean, I don't know. It's just really bad vibes. Really, really bad vibes right now for Wilson. They're scoring on a fifth of the red zone trips. So the argument against it is that as long as they are, they're literally the worst team in the red zone.

Yeah. And even if they're just bad, that will increase. And so when you'll have three red zone touchdowns in five weeks, that they're very quickly going to start scoring more. having said that this is a roller coaster and if you want to have no problem with it you have to live with the fact that someone else will pick Russ up

and he will have like two more games this season at least that are going to be like fantasy wise really good and if you can live with that knowing that maybe even someone picks up Russ and beat you with him but if you're just like anything I would literally take anything else

then yeah fucking cut him who cares yeah also Hackett doesn't Hackett seem like he's in over his head at this point like I think Solac is right Hacket was hired to bring Aaron Rogers to Denver. Right. Hackett was the offense

of coordinator in Green Bay. Rogers like Hackett. There's nothing discernible about Hackett's resume that suggests that coaching job. They brought him there. They couldn't get Rogers. Now it's this thing.

And it's just, Russ is bringing the same offense. He always had in Seattle. So what does Hackett do? Nothing. Just botches every game decision. So the whole thing is that. Here's like, everyone knows it.

The players know. The whole, the talk about the, Craig said the mojo's gone. The mojo has possibly been deleted. Good stuff. Next person here. Also, sorry for disrespecting Tom Tom. I apologize Tom Tom.

But the next person here is Chase Claypool, Steelers' receiver. This one is near and dear to me and it hurts me deeply, pains me because I was very bullish on him this year. I still think he's an elite talent, but man, the Steelers' offense, you want to talk about bad vibes all around. Claypool is, I mean, they just had a historic beat down against Buffalo. I mean, that was like their worst loss since like 1989. Claypool's the third fiddle.

You could even argue the fourth fiddle and a bad offense. The Steelers don't put up points. They're second to last in points per game. They're 12 points a game. The only team worse than that is the fucking Colts.

Dude, that 14 points a game is like they're playing the Legion of Boom at the peak of the Legion of Boom every week. Right. That's a great way to play. That is...

Christ. I think the Legion of Boom, they were giving up on average like 13 or 14 points a game. Yeah. So, that. The players are just like not, like players are arguing in the huddle about calls and who should be targeted on certain plays. The argument that you can make is like, oh, maybe Pickett will turn this around.

But again, the schedule's brutal. Claypool technically had his best game last week with Pickett, but it's not, it's kind of a fool's goal because he really was just the garbage time guy. He only had three targets in the first three quarters that Bill's game. And then he cleaned it up. And meanwhile, Pickens had eight targets and Deontay had 13 in those first three quarters. So it is clearly the list, the priority for Pickens and for the Steelers' offices, Deontay, then Pickens, and then Claypool.

He's just, he's the third option. He's like the side of toast that you get with your breakfast at a diner. It's just not important. So if you want to drop Chase Claypool, no problems with it at all. Go get Alec Pierce. Yeah.

I think you're right. The Claypool thing is tough because, man, he looked so freaking good as a rookie. Like, he looked like he was ascending. He was on the Ascension Pass. to be in like an elite receiver. And I'm with you, Craig. I think he's like a good player, but he's kind of, he has some bonehead tendencies.

You know what I mean? And like that, I think has not endeared him to the coaching staff. Well, on that same note, dude, Juju Smith-Schister for the talk about like Steelers receivers that looked like they were sending and then just like very quickly fell off. I know. That's weird. Yeah. I am not cutting juju yet.

I am in denial. I am all the way back at stage one. I'm denying that the. Because here's like, Juju has been awful. Like, straight up fantasy points, he's 54th. He's, like, behind Greg Dorch for the cart. Like, like, Juju's gotten dorched. Like, he's by Noah Brown for Dallas.

Juju is behind three different Jaguars receivers. Juju's behind three different Washington receivers. Like, this is infuriating. It's crazy to think about. Yeah. Who's the third Jags receiver he's behind? Marvin Jones? Marvin Jones, Zay Jones, and Christian Kirk.

Wow. Like, and also, forget the numbers. You watch Monday at football. Juju looked like a space cadet in the first half and just completely not on the same page as Patrick Moehmus in the second half. But having said that, I would say I'm transitioning from denial to anger. But I feel like this actually could turn around somewhat quickly because watching Monday night football was like everything tantalizing and also anger because Patrick Mooms is throwing a fifth of his passes to Juju. Like he's getting basically 20% of the passing game. That's not amazing.

That's pretty good, though, for the Chiefs getting 20% of the Chiefs passing game. So he just hasn't scored a touchdown yet, right? But he almost has a bunch. Like, he had two targets near the end zone right before Travis Kelsey's second touchdown. And then he got horse collared to the ground right at the goal line. And then that pout, set up Travis Kelsey's third touchdown. And then he also got two, like, looks near the end zone right before Kelsey's fourth touchdown.

And yes, Kelsey's always going to be ahead of him. But eventually Travis Kelsey is going to stop scoring four touchdowns in one game. And like the chiefs have 19 touchdowns this year. 12 of them are of 12 of the 19 are just Kelsey and Clyde. And like when that distributes, it only takes like a couple touchdowns for Juju to like actually connect on these passes for I think you to feel stupid for having dropped him. So I would continue to hold Juju for a couple weeks. Just trade him.

Trade him to someone like Hyphitz who actually still believes in Juju. But you got to wait. Like they're playing the bills this week. Like you have to wait for him to like have a big play. something in prime time of the bills, and then you can think about it. But I would hold. I would not got enough. So this is exactly what I was afraid was going to happen with Juju.

Like, he's just not who we thought he was. I kind of agree with Highfitz here. I think the Chief's offense has been a little bit imbalanced so far. I mean, the whole Clyde thing, Travis Kelsey, four touchdowns. We hit like 25 yards and four touchdowns. Juju's had eight targets in every game but one this year. I mean, that's the thing. It's pretty good.

And it's eight targets in the Chief's offense. And again, Travis, like, you guys watch the Raiders. Travis Kelsey had the four touchdowns. He was bizarrely open on those. Like he just, he had one where he was like doubled. The rest were just like, why is he that? Why there's no one within eight yards of Travis Kelsey? That's going to change.

And I kind of think, Juju, I'm curious. He's not going to be as great as he had hoped, but I don't think he'll continue to be this bad. It would be bizarre if not a single receiver on the Chiefs pop this year. It would be bizarre if like not a single guy in the Patrick Mahomes' offense had more than 600 yards this season. Remember that Pat Mahomes tried to. to tell us this is what was going to happen.

Before the season, he was like, yeah, from a fantasy point of view, it's going to be one guy. He doesn't play fantasy. He probably doesn't even know they get a point per catch. I don't trust a single thing any player says about fantasy football. What he said is literally come true. Okay. But your evidence contradicts what I believe.

So I filter it out. That's why I'm angry. I mean, okay. It's called denial, okay. It's what I said. as long as you can admit that. Why they call it denial. Admitting it's the first step.

All right. Speaking of wits, D.K., the next one here, AJ Dillon, running back for the Packers. I think people are generally speaking furious. This is tough, man, because... So last year, he was one of the highest-graded running backs for PFF. Like, he looked really good. He was really, really effective.

And his, like, volume for most of the season has gone up. And so, like, theoretically, and we saw this in, week one. Like, theoretically, he should have more points than he has right now because, you know, he's getting 50% of snaps. He has actually more rushes this year than Aaron Jones. But it's kind of like the juju thing. Like he just, I think there was three or four times last week where they were like on the

goal light or inside the five yard line and Aaron Rogers threw the ball instead of handing it to AJ Dillon. And so like, I, there's a world in which this turns around. He starts scoring touchdowns. But, and this is like the main thing, it was alarming to see last week he had a third 31% Snapchat. Like they basically phased him out of this game. Um,

and it was like all Aaron Jones. And by the way, Aaron Jones has been infinitely more effective than, than AJ Dylan this year. Like he's just looked so much better. And so I don't know, man. He's like one of those guys where I don't really think you have to drop him

because he gives you like the Amendoza line like floor. You're not going to get a zero if you plug him into your flags or whatever, but like, or your RB2 spot. If you're, if you're hurting at RB2, like he's not going to give you a zero. But he's also,

it doesn't seem like going to give you an. big games either, you know, unless he gets into the end zone. Well, it's so hard to cut a running back that is getting playing time and if Aaron Jones got hurt would be like a top six player. AJ Dylan probably would be. So realistically, you probably should not cut AJ Dylan. No. But I also understand why people are like, why do I have this guy that just I can't, like,

I feel like I cannot play. He feels like a roster clogger right now. But in reality, he's just like a really good handcuff. Yes. You know, and it's not. at the moment. We wanted him to be like an RB2, and in reality,

he's just a handcuff at this point. Like, he has nine catches this year. Like, we had talked about maybe they're going to get him more involved in the passing game because there's no good receivers on this team. And most of that action has gone to Aaron Jones,

which probably makes sense, honestly. Like, Aaron Jones is more explosive. He's more dynamic with the ball in his hands. AJ Dylan is kind of the hammer in this offense, and he plays his role. But like, from a fantasy point of view,

it's not paying off. And he's just not getting the touchdowns we were hoping because Aaron Rogers keeps throwing. from the one yard line. Okay, next one here. I got Chase Edmonds for the Miami Dolphins with the running back. I feel like Edmonds is probably the least,

if you just click on his little player profile, probably the least intuitive player to cut of all these people, but also probably like the easiest player to cut because on the surface, he only had one bad game. Like he had one carry last week. Otherwise he had like, you know,

you had double digit PPR points in like three of his first four games. You can't cut a guy for like one bad game, right? It's like, oh, maybe you can. because he's gone from like first string to third string in like a month. Like he went from playing 6D percent of snaps to 16 percent of the snaps in a month. He's basically behind Rahim Moster and Miles Gaskin on the depth chart. So I think there's a world where you just, I mean, he might not play 10 snaps a game.

You can't play Chase Simmons. But I also, I don't think you have to cut him. He's kind of like, anytime you see like a real life NFL player traded for a future seventh, it's because they were going to cut them and they just called a bunch of teams and they're like, we're like, would you trade for this guy? And they're like,

we'll give you like literally the worst pick we have so we don't have deal with waivers. Someone might feel the same way. Someone who needs a running back. You just go to look at all the winless teams or the one win team in your leagues. Find the one that needs a running back

because obviously the bad teams probably have running back injuries or they're more likely to. And you find the guy that has Derek Henry on Bai and Elijah Mitchell and I are. And you see, hey, do you want to do Chase Edmonds for literally anybody? Like literally like, who's a waiver,

wire receiver you didn't get? Like, I would trade Chase Edmonds for anyone's, like, most intriguing, maybe someone wants to cut George Pickens, right? Because he's been bad. Like, any high upside player

in a bench, I would just see if I could flip Chase Edmonds for, but if you want to cut him, you can also do that. But I kind of feel like you might still have value. I'm not,

I'm not dropping any running back that is on the team of a Kyle Shanahan disciple. I'm not doing it. That's the thing is if Rheumoster gets hurt, right? Maybe Chase Edmonds

just as a starter. There's no telling what could happen in the backfield of a Kyle Shanahan's Disciples office. I'm just can't... This is what I was going to say to... This is exactly what I was going to say. These backfields are so fucking unpredictable every single year. He

was by far the most highly paid member of this backfield coming into the year, which is why everyone was like, look, we're going to follow the money on this one. Obviously, they like Moster. He has experience in the system. You know, they've already got a couple of running backs there that have produced in the past, but like Chase Edmund's got the most money, so let's follow that.

And he's been so bad, they basically have been forced to bench him. I think his rushing yards over expectation is like the worst in the NFL. So like his rushing yards under expectation, he's like literally been the worst in the NFL through five weeks. So he's been bad. And he also has a few drops in passing game, I believe. And so they're just like, look, we're going to play somebody who's going to produce for us. All right.

Next guy I got here. It's D.J. Moore. Receiver for the Panthers. I don't think you should drop D.J. No, let's not go that far. You shouldn't do it. But he's been awful. Yeah.

And Panthers Father coach, you can't trade them, you can't do anything, you should probably hold on to DJ more. There's no other option. No, I just wanted to acknowledge, but you have probably thought about it. What if I just fucking cut this guy?

But you can't, you gotta hold on it, unfortunately. Same boat. Kyle Pitts. I knew this is coming. I know people have asked, people have asked me in real life, should I just cut him?

No, but I get it. I mostly want everyone to feel heard if you've thought about just cutting Kyle Pitts. Because he's the hamstring injury now. If he doesn't play this week, you're like, wait, I'm carrying a bat. Let's say he's out. I don't know his status. Let's say he's moved out for this game.

You're now carrying a backup tight end that when he was fully healthy was 25th in fantasy points at tight end. He did practice today, so that's a good sign. Here's the deal. Here's what I'm afraid of. If too many people cut him, well, actually, maybe this would be the good way. Maybe we should do this. If too many people cut him, then Arthur Smith's going to start using it more. Because his main goal in life is to just fucking troll everyone.

You think Arthur Smith is kind of tapped into like roster percentages on Yahoo? Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, definitely. Yeah. He was looking at the projections for Drake London this last week and he was like, this is not going to fly. Like, we got to play him. Alameda Zakias is going to get most of the snaps today.

He's like, Drake London's projected 14 points? I don't think so. Well, it's like, you know when players are kind of like, I don't listen to the noise? and it's a tell that I listen to the noise all the time. Maybe when players are like, or coaches are like, I don't care about fantasy. Maybe that's the tell that actually they play a shitload of fantasy

and that's why they're upset about it. Maybe he's like DK. Maybe he's in like 25 leagues. Well, I saw this thing. I cannot exactly confirm this. I'm pretty sure it's true that someone, they were trying to figure out when Walt Disney was buying the land in Florida for, that became Disney World.

And it's because he already had Disneyland. And someone asked him, are you buying this land in Florida? and he was like, no, no, no, no. And then he had like way too technical of an answer of why he wouldn't want this random swamp land in Florida. And they were like, that was, that ended up. Yeah, they're like, oh, he's doing it.

Maybe we should ask Arthur Smith like a weird technical answer about fantasy. And he'll just be like, no, no, no, no. And just be like, I personally prefer half PPR because, you know, the full point's a little much. But you can't do it. I'm like, oh, okay, maybe he does. Got to read between the lines here. Out of every player on this list,

who do you think is the player that you are most likely to hold on to for the entire season even if they continue to bust every week. It's Kyle Pitts, right? You would never drop Kyle Pitts no matter what. No, if Kyle Pitts missed a hamstring, missed a week for hamstring, came back

and then had like four more weeks of like three catches a game for 50 yards, which I don't think he will. But if he didn't score, I think I could see cutting him at some point. So who, which player on this person would you not cut? Is it AJ Dillon that you would hold on to no matter what? If you had to pick one player that you would refuse to cut, don't matter their performance. It's the scariest. I think it's AJ. A.J. Dillon's up there because

anything that happens to Aaron Jones, A.J. Dylan is in position to immediately have 25 points at win you a fantasy championship. Right. Which everyone else that would kind of expire. Like, there's not really hope left, but AJ Dillon's the guy that you might look back and like, oh, I would have won and it was predictable. Like it wasn't, sometimes shit happens. He's one of the only players who can inherit a larger role. Like Kyle Pitts and D.J. Moore are just who they are. Yeah, that's a good point. That's a good point. And to be clear, we did not recommend dropping AJ Jill. No. Is there anyone here that you actually, most viscerally, think should be released? Most, you're confident won't make anyone regret. Oh, man. I mean, Alan Robinson.

Yeah, that was my first thought. But of course, then you just are like, oh, crap, what if he just starts going off? Because, like, everyone was hyping him up in training camp and stuff. Maybe he just sneeze a few weeks, but no, I mean, like, based on what we know, like, there's no reason to believe he's kind of, like, storm back and be awesome. Going back to last year, he was bad. Like, it's been now, like, a full calendar year

of him playing terrible. It might be Hunter Renfro. I just think his ceiling is so incredibly low. Yeah, I think those are two good ones. It's all we got for Power Hour. In lieu of a email fantasy court, I'm bringing my own fantasy court in. Okay.

Special guest. You're looking inward for this. fantasy court. I have a personal legal case to bring forward. All right. We'll take a quick break and we'll be back with it. So we have an extra special edition of the fantasy court here. Do you want to give us the lowdown?

Well, so I'm here with my girlfriend Jackie. Hi. Flex. Flex indeed. We are coming to the court. I'm actually suing her in fantasy court. I am

recluxing myself from this case. and I am I am suing her for a gross injustice that's occurred in our fantasy league. Okay, set the stage. It's really simple. We had a trade. What was the trade? So the trade was I sent her Brian Robinson and she sent me Terry McLaurin. And to be clear, she said, should we do this trade?

And she was like, would you do this? And I was like, yeah, she's like, do you think this is a bad, trade for me. And I'm like, yes, it's terrible. A dispute. What do you dispute? Objections. Sustained. Thank you. I said, is this a bad call? And what he actually

said was, uh, could be, could go either way. Which is what I usually get when I ask for fantasy advice. Except when he told me to drop Damien Pierce before he had a 25 plus point. Oh, you recommended to drop Damien Pierce? And I told him. that if I lost him and someone else picked him up on waivers that I would break up with him. And I would have. Oh my God.

It's because her team stacked and was cut Pierce or Gabe Davis. Anyway, no, I said this is probably a bad trade and she hates Terry McLaurin. He's like dead to her. And I also love Brian Robinson because the man was shot in the leg. Yeah. Like a month ago and he's awesome. He's got grit, which Terry McLaurin perhaps lacks. So here's the problem.

So she accepted the trade. Okay. And then it wouldn't process till after the games. And I see yesterday morning that the trade was just rejected, which didn't make any sense because she had accepted it. And once you accept the trade, like, it's accepted. It just processes and goes through. And then I realized she used her commissioner.

She's the commissioner league. She just canceled the trade as commissioner. She just undid the trade as the commissioner because she changed her mind. Would the defense like to make her case? Yes, I would like to make my case. Because what happened was it's my first league that I'm the commissioner. And I actually thought that I was just canceling the trade on my end. Ah, feigning ignorance. I see.

Okay. Okay. Yeah. No, no, no. It was legit. It was legit. I was like cancel this trade because I thought about it. I looked at my team and I was like, I really need some wide receivers, some decent wide receivers. So actually, I think that the legal advice that I received at the beginning of this trade, which is my main claim. She wants a mistrial. Hyvitz was acting in bad faith.

Is this what's happening with like Trump right now going after the lawyers? Is this what's happening? Try to get off on a technicality here. So let me just say to that if I, so this is a league with my friends. And if someone came to me and said, hey, I made this trade. It hasn't processed yet. And I'd like to back out. I would say, well, it hasn't processed yet.

Stamp it, you know, the ink is not dry. So, yeah, I would cancel that for them if they, as commissioner, if they requested that of me. This is like Ellen, Elon Musk and Twitter right now, basically. Yeah, you're Elon Musk. How does that make you feel? Okay. Well, that's not very nice. But I get the analogy. I understand. Jackie's like, but the bots are something. I have a question because this is about precedent. And I feel like we've answered this question before. And of course, we never go by our actual precedent. We're a terrible, this is a kangaroo court. Nothing actually matters. I feel like we have answered this question before, though,

like explicitly like, oh, the trade didn't actually go through, but then they canceled it or whatever. Do you remember this, Craig? We should have to, we'd have to check the docket. The problem here is that Jackie is the commissioner. I think that is the issue here. If there was a third party was the commissioner, I think this would be a bigger problem,

and they probably would not have agreed to rescind this trade offer because selecting accept trade is the final step of the process. Not the processing. Selecting accept is the last stage. That is when you go to your commission and you say, hey, the two of us have agreed on a trade. Please accept it and let the trade go through. That's the last step, unfortunately. So you abusing your powers commissioner, unwittingly or not. What if I set up an independent commission of a randomly selected third party that's in the league? Oh, you would like you wouldn't rig that process. I wouldn't rig the process. I go by the law. I wouldn't rig it. I mean, if you guys want to go to arbitration, you would put like a Lewis DeJoy ass person in charge of this process. The only thing I'll say is that they're all my friends.

So, you know. I will say this. In the realm of fantasy football, to me, this is an illegal transgression by Jackie. However, High Fitz, you're dating her. Don't screw this up. You know what I mean? Let it go through. I was getting, yeah, light the fuck up, man.

I was actually going to say, do you know how right I have to be for Craig to not take my side? of this right here. All Craig wanted with you showing up was to just rule against me. And I think he's kind of stunned that he's ruling with me. Well, at the end of the day, I have all the power. So, I mean, you willingly entered a contract in which you knew that I would be commissioner. You're a tyrant. I'd also like to point out just for being hard on Danny that I'm second in this league and he's ninth.

He's nine. He's so bad. Jackie is like, she has this in the bag and now she's gloat. before it's over. I like this. This is like in this is the end when James Franco is just like flipping everybody off when he's going up on the beam, you know?

This is what Jackie's doing right now. She's like on the stand and there's no longer has anything to do with the trow. She's just like, this dude like, this dude's not even good at fantasy football. Yeah, well, he also told me to drop Damien Pierce. It was that or Gabe Davis? Okay.

That's not true. That's a lie. Objection again. I think this needs to be kick, we're going to kick the can down the road to arbitration. This is like a family issue. Is that the same sort of fantasy court? Yeah.

Set it down the line. This is the wrong court for this. And yeah, that's my edict or whatever. Craig, what do you think? My edict is high fits should allow Jackie to rescind this trade. Play the long game here. For the sake of my life personally. That's some Steelers fan solidarity there.

Damn straight. That's right. Thank you. Bring in the Dancing Lobsters. Amazing. Cool. Thanks, guys. Thanks.

I appreciate the rolling. Jackie, do you want to host this podcast with the three of us after High Fitz finishes and dead last in the league? I think that's a fair rule. Yeah, I think that sounds amazing. Do you want to do the outro then? You could just say thank you to D.K. and Craig, and then you can just go. Thank you, D.K., thank you, Craig.

And thank you, Lorne. Lorne. Thank you, Wiz Khalifa. Oh, Pittsburgh, baby. Yellow. Black and yellow. Good for you, D.K. Thank you.

That was nice. I couldn't tell you were 40. That was impressive. Who is that young man there picking Wiz Khalif on the pod? Bye, everybody.