The Ringer NFL Show - Tua Talk and 10 Stats That Define the Fantasy Season

Episode Date: October 21, 2020

Tua Tagovailoa is starting for the Dolphins, but should he be rostered for your team? Plus, how will Le’Veon Bell affect Clyde Edwards-Helaire’s fantasy value? Then we offer up 10 stats that define the fantasy season, including how players on new teams have fared so far, the waiver-wire explosion, and surprising top-12 players after six weeks. DK surprises us with a fantasy quiz and then we finish the show with a legendary bad beat. Tua Tagovailoa (5:50) Le’Veon Bell vs. Clyde Edwards-Helaire (10:51) 10 Stats That Define the Season (14:11) Bad Beats (47:23) Hosts: Danny Heifetz, Danny Kelly, and Craig Horlbeck Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On today's episode, Tua is starting for the Dolphins, but should he be starting for your team? Probably not. But should you add him? We talk about that and the stats that define the season. Plus, DK surprises us with a mid-season fantasy quiz. Stick around. Welcome to the Ringer Fantasy Football Show. I'm Danny Hyfitz here at Danny Kelly and Craig Krollbeck.

I want to do a new thing here. I want to do a headline of the week. Okay. Because I saw this and I just wanted to talk to you guys about it. This is from CNN, CNN business. NASA's putting a 4G network on the moon. What about 5G? I'm reading from CNN now.

If you're unable to get a cell phone signal when you walk your dog around the block, this will really make your blood boil. NASA is putting a 4G network on the moon. Basically, they're doing a bunch of experiments up there and they want astronauts to be able to live on the moon, and apparently they need 4G. But then this note was hilarious. 4G will probably work better on the moon than it does here.

It won't have any trees, buildings, or TV signals to interview with the signal. Yeah, for several hundred thousand miles. We're setting up a lot of lazy astronauts. There's going to be a lot of Netflix up there. A lot of Hulu. I feel like you guys didn't find that as funny as I did. I thought that was the funniest thing I read all day. You know who this would have helped and it would have made this movie debunked?

Is the movie The Martian. If he had 4G, he could have just called Jeff Daniels and been like, hey, I'm alone here on Mars. Can you set someone? Yeah, a lot of movies would be ruined by things. Okay. All right. Well, speaking of stars. Eh.

All right, the fun fact is from James. First off, great show. my favorite podcast. Oh, thanks, James. That's so kind. You're my favorite podcast, even if it hasn't helped me with my fantasy football success. Okay, a little less kind, James. Tough. Wow. But then he says it's on him. That's on me at a general lack of hamstrings and ankles this year. All right, well, there's always next year. Sorry. Yeah. But he said, here's a fun fact that always gets me thinking, everything we see has already happened. It's in the past. Oh, I've heard this. Light is very fast, but it is not instantaneous

and everything we see comes from light passing through our eyes. For most daily activities, it really is almost instant, but when you look into the stars, you're looking back millions and even billions of years. If you were to see a star explode today,

it actually happened a very long time ago, possibly before the Earth was formed. Personally, I think it explains why we all know the Jets have already lost while we're watching the game because it already happened. I have heard that thing before where it's like,

if the star exploded, the time it takes, for the light to get to our eyes is so long that it could have been 5, 10, 1,500 million years ago. I heard that the sun exploded, we wouldn't know for 8 minutes. What would you guys do for those 8 minutes, though? Since the astronauts with the 4G

on the moon would tell us. Well, what's the ramifications if the sun explodes? Do we die? We don't live. That's the kind of question is that. We could either get real serious with this, Danny, or just like trying to make it funny. The first thought that I had was like,

got to hurry up and set my lineups before we all die. So your team can win possibly amusingly. I dig a hole as deep as I can to the ground and lay in it. Oh, because the earth is hollow? That's a good way. Yeah. Or the earth's flat so you can just hide on the other side.

It's a good idea. Right. Hey, Danny, speaking of the Jets, I have a question for you. Oh, God. Did you know that the Jets are not actually 32nd, a.k.a, last place in offensive DVOA this year. The Giants through six weeks last in DVOA. how are they worse than the Jets?

How is that possible? Hi, Fitz. I got to tell you, man, this is a tough look for you. No, it's a tough look for analytics. Let me tell you something. You know what, math? Never been a fan. This is, no, I'm just mad.

The only thing the Giants have had going this year, because they're not the best team in the NFC East. They're not the third best team in the NFC East. The only thing they've had going is, you know what? At least they're better than the Jets. The Jets are clearly the worst team in football. And then the freaking DVOA comes out. It's like, no, the Giants offense is worse.

How? How is this even a little possible? Bill Barnwell pointed out this week that the Jets have seven touchdowns in six games, but once a pick six, three were like complete flukes. They basically have two touchdown drives this year in six games. How could they pop? That's not bad. One in three?

This is rough. And I will admit, during the off season, I think a couple of times on either the ring or NFL show or this show, I was kind of, I expressed optimism and excitement about watching Giants' offense to play football. I was thinking, like, oh, they're going to have Danny Dimes take his second year jump.

You got a new left tackle coming in. Like the fourth pick of the draft, he's already benched or a, aka, like, doing a rotation,

which is the weirdest shit ever, by the way. You got Slaten, you know, you got Golden Tate coming back from injury. You've got Ingram,

all this, like, stuff, Shepard. You got all these guys and it's like potentially a really interesting, exciting offense,

and they just fucking suck. And it's been a total bust when it comes to a fantasy. other than Slayton in two games, two and a half games or whatever. Basically, it's just been so disappointing. Danny Dimes. Are you getting worried about Danny Dimes yet?

Yeah. No, because my initial hopes were so low that he's actually increasing. He's going up in my mind. Every week I get a little more confident that he'll be just good enough to keep us from the next quarterback, but not good enough to take us all the way. Quarterback purgatory. So, yeah, it's basically I'm just waiting. I feel like we're in the gap of like the sun has.

exploded on the New York Giants, but I haven't, the light hasn't hit my eyes yet, and I'm just kind of waiting. You have eight minutes. That's where we're at. Yeah, we have eight minutes. Okay. Speaking of stars rising. Nice, nice. Tua, Tungo Viloa has been promoted to the starter in Miami. This is exciting. What do we think about, so Fitz is benched, Tua's coming in. It's their bye week, so that's why. What do we make of this? Craig? I've kind of oscillated back and forth on what I think about this. One, I think this is kind of BS and I feel bad for Fitz because he's been good and they could actually maybe make the playoffs the way they're playing with him right now. On the other hand, you know, Fitz isn't your quarterback of the future. If two is healthy and ready to go,

he's got a buy week to prepare now. Like it makes sense long term. Like, why wait? Like, you know, bring him in now. It's like, what are we waiting for? Why let Fitz finish the year? What's that going to do? They're not going to win the Super Bowl. DK, let's say that I have forgotten everything about college football. The FSB has microwaves my brain, and I've forgotten everything about Tua, Tongovai Lowe. Can you explain who he is? So imagine what Russell Wilson has been doing this year with the Seahawks. That's what Tua did in his two-year career at Alabama.

Literally, the best touchdown percentage in Division I history by more than two percentage points. he threw a touchdown on 12% of his passes in college. Russell Wilson's at like 11.5 this year or something like that. So what Russell Wilson's doing with the Seahawks this year, that's what Tua did in his entire college career. He's got a beautiful deep ball. He's incredibly fast processor. He's very accurate.

He's approximately Wilson's size. He's like a little bit bigger, taller. He doesn't have, I don't think, as strong of an arm as Wilson, but he is very accurate deep down the field. I mean, he like legitimately maybe the best college passer of all time, like in terms of what he did over his career. Burrow had the greatest season of all time last year, but I think Tua's career is more impressive overall. And he came in in a lot of big moments.

He was very clutch. And so I don't know. There's just to me, I was like thinking to myself like, am I excited about this? Number one, I'm a little bit nervous still about like his injury being fully healed because he broke his hip. it would be 351 days from the hip injury he had last season to the start. It will be November 1st. I have to say, though, about Tua, the numbers with Tua are really cool. I think shout out Roger Sherman, our colleague who wrote,

basically because Tua, he was 30% more likely to throw a touchdown on any throw than any other player in the history of the sport, college football. So that's pretty good. But also just watching Tua throw, Tua has the most beautiful spiral I've ever seen. Yeah. I don't know if it's just the fact he's a lefty, but watching Tua's a lot of passes, they just look different. Like the white on the football, the way it spins,

it's just, it's crazy. So I just love that. He had me at the spiral. But for fantasy purposes, how deep does a league have to be for you to want him on your team? Like if it's a 10-teen league with like one quarterback spot, are you picking him up? Or like, it has to be a two-quarterback league or 12 or like, how deep do you have to go? What do you have to see from until he's a man?

Definitely picking him up in two quarterback leagues just to see how it all goes. It's not like I'd start him right away in a 12-team, one-quarterback. starting league or whatever, but I do think it is going to be very interesting to see. And, you know, we've seen what Herbert did. I don't think anyone expected Herbert to do what he's doing. He's absolutely a fantasy factor this year. Burrow has been up and down. You know, he started a little bit hotter than he has been over the last few weeks, but

they're passing a ton. I don't know, man. I think Tua was my second, like he was my third overall ranked player coming into this, to this draft, second at quarterback only to Borough, and it was two and three. I'm very, very high on him. I think he's a really good quarterback, and I think he's going to be good. But I think, you know, there's probably going to be a little bit of some growing pains. And yeah, I wouldn't plug him into a lineup here.

Like, looking at the situation, though, I think there's either one of two things happening here. It's either one, he's just been tearing it up in practice to the point where they're like, we got to get him on the field. Now, this feels orchestrated to me. It was the plan the whole time where we go in, play the first six weeks. We got to buy in week seven. we install him, you know, after week six, and then we go with it from there. The other thing that's a factor here is Texans, they have the Texans first pick, the first round pick,

and that's going to be potentially like a top five, top three picks. So they need to find out if what they have with Tua. Interesting. Well, that's a good point. I didn't think of that. Yeah, I mean, they could potentially be going into next draft with like a top five pick. It does behoove them to kind of figure out if Tua is going to be the guy. I mean, obviously they took him so early.

he's the guy, but it's just one of those things where I'm really, really excited to see how it goes. I'm not super duper optimistic. It's going to be like really clean and awesome and he's going to look like Russell Wilson right away. But I do think he is a very talented, talented passer and has the potential to make this offense have a higher ceiling. No, I think he'll look like Russell Wilson right away. Speaking of people fitting in good immediately, we haven't talked about this yet. Levyon Bell signed with Kansas City. So kind of an amazing situation because he signs this one-year deal. And then he couldn't play a Monday into football, but then they, well, the whatever weird Monday into football appetizer it was against the bills. And in that game, the Chiefs run 46 times

for 245 yards. The most rushing attempts for any Andy Reid team ever, which is what, this is seven years in the, in the Chiefs 13, I think, for the Eagles. So two decades of Andy Reed being a head coach, the most rushing attempts ever right before Leveon Bell shows up. Obviously, you're not cutting anyone. Levyon Bell's not available. No one's trading away. Clyde Edwards or Levy on Bell right now. But what do you anticipate this situation being? Would you play Leveon Bell this week? How do you want to handle this? What do you think the workload happens here? I don't think I would play him now. I think I want to figure out kind of how they're planning on using him, how much he's going to play. Because, I mean, honestly, he could still come in and just be like a, you know, play like 10 snaps or something.

The Chiefs had so much leverage in this situation that... Because they play the Jets in a couple weeks and he wanted to go to the best. team that played the Jets. That helps. But like when you look at it from this point of view, number one, they're a clear Super Bowl contender. Number two, they didn't have to really pay that much. There was never going to be a big fight over Lavey on Bell because he was, he's already going to get six million from the Jets regardless. So what he has is offsetting language in his contract. So basically whatever this other, this new team is going to pay him offsets. So basically, Leves making six million regardless. So there was never going to be like a big money situation. It's two Bugatti's.

Yeah. So, I don't know. I think... Yeah. Well, actually, didn't hear what you said. Obviously. What'd you say? Hyatton said that's two Bugatti's. Six million. And you were like, yeah. Did you pretend to hear me? Well, you were getting me off. You're getting me off my trade of thoughts. I didn't, I didn't want to like interrupt it. But now I totally lost it. Anyways, I don't, I don't think it's going to affect it a lot, to be honest. I do. I think Lovion's going to be good. And I think he's going to get a decent amount of work. Whether, I don't know if it'll be going to cut into, cut into like his past. cut into Clyde Edward Aller's passing game work, basically.

Yeah, also, let's not forget. Clyde Edwards-Helair has, like, weirdly been the worst running back inside the 10-yard line this year. And maybe they just start giving Levion Bell all the freaking goal line carries. I mean... Craig, you tweeted something the other night that was hilarious. It's like the chiefs are coming up with the most creative ways

to, like, keep him out of the end zone. Every time he's gotten in there, it's been some sort of weird penalty. Yeah, calls back, and then Darrell Williams is in, and then he gets it. But I think Levion's not washed. I think, what is he, what is he, 28, but he hasn't really played in two years. And he's literally the, maybe the best running back at the past six years. I think that there's a chance that they split and he's really good.

This is a really interesting situation in a nerdy way because there has been a seven-year-long debate about the value of running backs. And there could not be a more perfect case study than a guy like Levyon Bell at his age going from the worst offense in football. I'll give a shit what the DVOA says. The Jets are the worst offense at football to the Chiefs. which are the best offense in football. And if he just immediately turns it around,

it'll be pretty fascinating because everyone looks good in that offense. But anyway, I would, I think he might be the goal line back like Craig. But we'll see. Okay. Let's get into the episode. Yeah.

Yeah. All right. So we're going to go with some stats that define this season. I just think it's like an interesting time of just kind of zooming out and being like, what's going on? So.

Yeah, we're approximately halfway through the fantasy season. If you guys wrap up in like week 13 or week 14 going to the playoffs. the regular season. Yeah. We're almost halfway through or halfway through, depending on kind of how your league does it. But yeah,

just look back on things we thought before the season and how those have played out and like some things that define the season. It's interesting stuff. All right. So we hit the books. We punched the books. We hit the books very hard with our hands.

Kick the books too. Craig is just laughing at my pitch there. I love that. Like it wasn't really any addition. He was just like, yeah, you know, we're just doing some fun facts.

It's going to be good. Not the best color man in the league for nothing, folks. DK, do you have a stat that you would like to share? What stat defines this season? How are we looking at the 2020 fantasy season? Wow. Trying to look at all my different stats now. I'm going to actually, I'm going to start with this one.

I'm going to give you guys a quiz. You know, because we talk about it all off season. Ooh, a quiz. A quiz? A quiz? Pop quiz assholes. Too bad. So we said this is like a saying that we always use.

volume is king in fantasy football. And approximately halfway through the fantasy season, I want to take a step back and actually talk about which players are getting the most volume. I don't know if you guys are going to get this one, to be honest with you, but I'm going to give you one guess each on which player has the most touches this season. Which skill player has the most touches this season? The most touches. I think it's Joe Mixen or Derek Henry.

And I think it's, I think. I think it's, I think, because Burroughs most past attempts. I'm going to go Joe Mixing. Craig? But the fact that he said, I don't think you guys are going to get this.

I feel like Derek Kennery and Joe Mixon is not the craziest. Nicole Hardman. I wouldn't guess that. Don't fucking bring him up, man. I'm pissed. I'm going to say, Dalvin Cook. Oh, no, he got hurt.

Never mind. Josh Jacobs. Okay, that was close, but Danny was correct. It's Joe Mixon. I guess I made me over. I overssold how much it was, how surprising it was. I was a little surprised at me, Cole Hardman.

Who'd you think it would have been? It is not Mikkel Hardman. I was thinking it was either going to be like Derek Henry or Zeke, and they are two and three respectively. Zeke's second, Henry is first. Joe Mixon has 140 touches this year, 119 rushes and 21 receptions. So I don't know. I was just a little bit surprised by that.

I didn't, like, just off the top of my head, I wouldn't have said him, I don't think. I probably, I mean, I probably would have said Zeke or I probably would have said Derek Henry. until you said you wouldn't think of this person. Maybe the reason I was a little surprised is because right now Mixon is only the RV 9. So do you think that he's, do you think that's going to continue or no? Do you think he's like a top five guy going forward or now?

Yeah, I think he's going to continue to get a ton of touches. And like we saw last year, I think he's going to do better in the second half of the year. He's going to be like one of those guys that it starts to really pay off for you in the second half of the year. Okay. I like to see more. Oh, you have more quiz.

Good. I got four questions for you. Great. Which player has the most yards from scrimmage this year? Yards from scrimmage. So rushing plus receiving yards. Oh, that's Camara. Yeah, I'm going to say Camara too.

It's got to be Camara. Incorrect. What? Incorrect. It is Clyde Edwards Allaire. No, it's not. That's ridiculous. Oh, because Camara had the buy.

No, but wait, per game, it has to be Camara. Because Camara had the buy. That is correct. Per game, it's Camara. and Derek Henry second. But those two players have both played five games. So that was a little bit of a tricky question. Still impressive.

Clyde is the most yards from scrimmage? He has 682 yards from scrimmage. He has 505 yards rushing plus 177 yards to the air. Okay. Next question. Which player has the most end zone targets? Ooh. I'm going to go with Alan Robinson.

End zone targets. This is a stat I got from. Pro football focus. The three people in my head are Travis Kelsey, Jimmy Graham, and Mike Evans. Uh, no. Well, you... None of them?

Jimmy... None of those. Jimmy Graham is fourth. He's tied for fourth with six. I would have said Kelsey. Uh, the number one player in the NFL in terms of end zone targets right now, Adam Thielen with nine. Oh, yeah.

Calvin Ridley second with eight. Mark Andrews third with seven. Jimmy Graham Hawkinson, T.J. Hawkinson. D.K. Metcalfe. and AJ Green. Who resides in the burn book. Are we taking out Adam Fielden's garbage time? His trash.

No, we're not taking out of garbage time. Because then you're getting rid of all the Falcons too. If we only count things that count in games that could be one or lost, then. All right. And then my final one, this is pretty much related to the last question, but which four players? So there's four players tied for the most touchdowns this season. Name those four players. Total touchdown.

So receiving plus rushing. Kamara. Phelan. Camara. Yes. Delaan, yes. Dalvin. Come on, Craig. Aaron Jones.

Yes. Dalvin Cook. Dalvin Cook. Yep, you guys got it. So that last one, last one you were right on. Let's go out. We just snipe. Can we get prompts there?

We just snipe them. That was good. Those are the kings of volume so far this year, at least of the skill positions. I just thought that was interesting. Who's up now? Who's got a defining fact? I got a defining fact. I mean, I feel like D.K.

give us a quiz. I didn't feel so pretty defined. But I'll give you a defining fact. 49% as in holding penalties are down 49% from last year. This is massive. This is massive.

So, basically, I mean, it's two numbers back to back, but it's holding down, well, three numbers. Holding penalties are down by half through six weeks from last season. That's crazy. It's cheating a little bit because holding penalties were a little up last year, but it's still, I mean, it's a crazy number.

50%. And so that leads to another spike, which basically, the worst, ESPN did a study that the worst, the least efficient plays in football are the plays immediately after an offensive penalty. Really? So the worst plays in football.

When you get a big gain on first down and it gets called back, then you're at first and 20. And then you run some shitty draw that gets negative two yards. Exactly. You did the screen that the defense knows is coming and you lose five yards and it's second at 25. AKA the Dallas Cowboys on Monday night. Yeah, then you're sacked.

Yeah, that's how you get third and 30. Yeah. So those plays cut in half this season. And so then the odds of getting a first down also cut in half, or this year will be doubled, because that's what's happening. So then related to this is that offense is at an all-time high. The average team is scoring 25 and a half points this year, which is crazy. The previous high was 23.5.

Which doesn't sound like that much of a change, like two points. It is two full points from the record, which to put that in perspective, when you talk about an average, to put that in perspective, the gap between the highest ever, which is number one this year, and number two ever, which is 2013, is two full points.

The gap between number two, and if you want to go two full points down from number two, you go to 32, which was 1998, which was 21 and a half points. So the gap between one and two is the same as the gap between two and 32. Yeah,

give me that in standard deviations, hyphids. I'm not a freaking scientist. No, it's a lot. It's a lot of standard deviations. I don't know, but it would probably be approaching like three standard deviations. So, I mean, I don't know if that's true, but it sounds right in my head.

So, but the point is that there's so many more points. There's so many more touchdowns. Streaming is a little easier. They're just more, I mean, you just said four guys of seven touchdowns this season. That's crazy. So I just wanted to throw that out there. So these holding penalties are down so much, right? And I know it was like a little bit.

That was something that the refs were told about, right? Yes. They were like, hey, like, ease up, right? Yeah, the league made it. It was like an emphasis coming into the season. I think it's clearly because of COVID and there's no offseason. There's no preseason.

Teams are going to be sloppy. The NFL wanted the product to be good. And their vision and our vision as fantasy football players is offense is good. Offense makes the NFL more fun. Do you imagine that they were like, hey, for the first four weeks, ease up? And then as the season goes on, go back to normal?

You remember the ref Walt Anderson? He did a lot of games for a long time. He was added as an advisor to the referees this year, and I don't think they're going to ever assign anyone's specific credit for any idea. But apparently Walt Anderson came in and then what had happened was they're like, hey, let's just focus on the extremely egregious pounties and always get those. And if you have to think about it, don't throw the flag. And so the exception is DPI.

So they made that not reviewable anymore. But DPI is up, which is more flags, but people don't care because their offenses are getting. So there's more pounty, more past interference calls. this year on defense. That's actually up 15, maybe 20%. It's actually right around where it was in 2016, but it's even more yards. But that's good for offense too.

I mean, it's annoying when your receiver gets a DPI flag and then you don't get the yards. But offenses are just moving, man. No holding more DPI. Those are the two biggest bountains in football. So that's the number behind the number of why is there so much offense. That is the main number this year in addition to bad defense and just poor tackling. In addition to, I don't know how much this matters,

but like no home crowds, the noise and things like that. I don't know if that matters, but... That one's really interesting, too. I think that there have been a specific number of times where it's fascinating. Really against the Saints, I think the biggest one was that Monday Night Football game

at the Chargers Saints, Lewis Riddick pointed it out in the broadcast. The fact that Justin Herbert can talk to his teammates at the five-yard line in Superdome, that is just not how it's been for the last 10 years in New Orleans. And like Aaron Rogers, like hard-counting people on the road. Yeah, it's secretly huge. huge deal to be able to communicate in the red zone.

It's kind of one of those basic parts that kind of makes football fun. What you forget, it's kind of like, it's just so different than what you think about. But that one's been huge, too. But I think the holding things is definitely the biggest deal. So you guys got another one? What are the numbers to you? Yeah. So speaking of offensive taking off, I kind of just wanted to look at the top 12 guys that were in ADP at their position, the top 12 ADP of running.

Average draft position. Correct. Of quarterbacks through tight end. I just wanted to see how they were doing. This is something that like every year, I feel like no one ever goes back and looks at what you started at and where you finish. They just look at where you finish

and then use that for the year after. So this is pretty interesting. 10 of the top 12 quarterbacks by ADP at the start of this year are in the top 12 right now. 10 out of 12, pretty good. The only two who didn't make it right now are Drew Brees and Aaron Rogers. Everybody else in the top 12 in ADP are still in it.

But Aaron Rogers, if you did it by, is it because they had a buy, if you did it by per game, would that change? I just kept this as. as total points because I didn't want to take away from like people like Dak Prescott like I think he oh that's true you know what I mean yeah but um that's pretty surprising honestly that is surprising well we talked a lot in the the off season about how in that historically of the last 10 years I believe it was

half of the top 10 quarterbacks every season didn't make it back yeah top 10 so we were kind of talking up draft you know guy a QB2 that usually pretty good odds one of them ends up as a top 10 so it's really interesting that's been stagnant yeah I don't have it in front of me, but I've seen people do studies on like the correlation between, you know, certain things and fantasy points like, oh, like how many touches and how strongly is that

correlated to fantasy points, all that? ADP is not a strong correlation to fantasy points, which is kind of crazy just think about. But I mean, if you look at a lot of the, you know, top 12 lists, like Mike Davis, like he was 250th on ADP or whatever. So,

anyways, that is very interesting with so many quarterbacks are kind of living up to their 80p so far. Yeah, and I feel like this whole list, and I'll get into them, actually contradicts the way we think. So running backs, eight of the top 12 are in it. The only four that are not are McCaffrey, Sequan, Nick Chubb, and Kenyon Drake,

and all those first three got hurt. So every single one of the top 12 minus injuries would likely be in it. Are working except for freaking Kenyon Drake. Yes. And I think he... So Kenyon Drake sucks and everyone else is good, is the lesson. Well, and what's crazy is Kenyon Drake is only 16th.

I just think that's wild. Everyone talks about zero RB, right? As like you're anti-fragile. Yeah, but it's not like receivers have been more fragile than running back this year. I mean, the top Michael Thomas, Devante, Cortland, Sett, like... So let's get right into that. Only three of the top 12 drafted wide receivers are still in the top 12. And those three are Tyree killed, DeAndre Hopkins, and Adam Feelein.

And Hill's been disappointing anyway. Wait, so you're telling me that after all this stuff of receivers are safe and running backs are injury prone and quarterbacks aren't consistent. Quarterbacks are consistent. Running backs are fine, and the receivers either suck or hurt. Except for three people. Now, the whole thing was like draft wide receivers up top because running backs get hurt. Well, three of the top 12 are in it for wide receivers.

And then for tight ends, it's not great either. It's only five. But this accurately reflects how people talk about tight ends saying that it's really top heavy. Yeah. So the only ones that are in, the five that are in the top 12 are Travis Kelsey, Kittle, Mark Andrews, Darren, and Tyler Higbee. And what's interesting is they are exactly where they were drafted. Kelsey is first.

Kittle is second in ADP and in scoring. Mark Andrews is third in ADP and in scoring. Waller is exactly fifth and Higbee is exactly seventh. Weird. Wow. That is really weird. Yeah. So like pretty much the top five tight ends are just chalk.

And then after that it's chaos. To go back really quickly to the receiver, though, I just want to read off the top 12 and half PBR right now through six weeks, just to kind of give you an idea. Calvin Ridley, who I, he was not in the top 12 as a drafted, right? No. Adam Thielen was. DeAndre Hopkins was.

Diggs was not, right? Stefan Diggs. Nope. D.K. Metcalfe, Justin Jefferson, Amari Keele, Will Fuller, Y-Receiver 9. Robbie Anderson, C.D. Lamb, and Claypool. Chase Claypool is number 12 right now.

I'm telling you, this is backwards. This is what the running back should look like. This is crazy that, like, Robbie Anderson, Chase Claypool, and like, it's not even happening because people got hurt. Robbie Anderson's just playing well. Justin Jefferson's just playing well. That's wild.

Yeah, it's wild. I like that. very good one. On that note, I actually have an interesting one that follows up on that, which is very similar. Well, it's not very similar, but I think it's related, and I'm kind of curious how these two relate to you guys' minds, but mine's just, I actually

don't have a staff for this, so I'm breaking the role, but I just have something I notice, which is the waiver wires worked this year. Yeah. Like every year, you're like, oh, like, you work the wire and you hope that your team gets better. And this year is just so many hits. And I'm counting, because the most deceptive thing in fantasy is to say, like,

oh, this person's doing this. just counted these guys from when they would be on your team forward. Like if you had added them and then plugged them in, how would they be doing it? James Robinson, so he was clearly to start in week one. And if you had him since week two forward, he's the eighth best running back since week two. Mike Davis, McCaffir got hurt in week two. If you've had Mike Davis in your line up since week through, week three, he's the second best running back in fantasy football since week three. Darrell Henderson, if you plugged him in in week three, 15th best running back in football. That is a Top, that is a starter.

Miles Gaskin, if you plugged him in in week four, top 12 running back. Even Jerich McKinnon for the 49ers, if you plugged him in in weeks three and four, which is when he was a very obvious go, was the eighth best running back over those two weeks. Like, then you go throwing guys like, I mean, Chase Claypool seems really good. Justin Jefferson or Rodman Anderson, if they were available in your leagues are crushing it. I mean, Robbie Anderson, does he leave the league in receiving yards? I mean, those are guys that some people drafted, some picked up. But there's just been an astonishing amount of talent early on for the way.

that have produced immediately. And Mike Davis is the leader to me because he's better than McAfrey was. Yeah, and you know what's crazy about this? I think this year in fantasy, teams can be really effing good and really effing bad because think about it, with what we just talked about with running backs

where basically like the first round of running backs actually panned out and the first round of receivers didn't. If you actually drafted a running back that worked and then waited on a wide receiver, which also hit like crazy, and then picked up one of these guys in waivers, your team is incredible. Yeah, and it's amazing.

I don't have a stat for this either, but you can just pull up the ADP list and kind of pick the teams of... Because, I mean, wait, we were on this. We can give ourselves a pat in the back. We were very heavy. Go two running backs. Yeah.

And basically draft receivers with your picks third, four, fifth, six, seven, and then figure out the rest of your team. And it's amazing to kind of just go with basically the huge whiffs were Juju who was sucked, Cortland Sutton, who tore his ACL. And there's been a couple other guys

that were like hit or miss so far, but if you hit Thielen, if you hit Stefan Diggs, if you hit certain people in the middle rounds, you did amazing. And it's like the Nick Chubbs and Sequins. And it's kind of like that every year, but it's amazing how you could have the same strategy of RBRB, and you could either be the first or the worst team in the league,

depending on the specifics of the way everything unfolded. Yeah, so maybe, I don't know, maybe this is an aberration, or maybe this will change how we think about drafts going forward. I'm sure it all changed next year. Probably. I'll read some report. Yeah. There's always so much variance.

Injuries are such a big factor, but I do think it is very fascinating. DK, what stat you got for us about this year so far? I want to talk about fantasy football from like a week to week point of view because, I mean, honestly, as you go through the season, you want to win weeks. Like, that's the goal. You know, if you're playing DFS, obviously, it's different. But from that point of view, like you want guys that are going to finish top 12. You want like a QB one. You want wide receiver ones.

You want running back ones. And hat tip to Ryan McDowell, who does an awesome podcast, Locked on Dynasty Football podcast. he was publishing these on Twitter and I just found it very interesting when you're looking at guys that have like quote one new the week these guys have won you weeks consistently this year

Kyler Murray has been a QB1 a KKA a top 12 QB every week so far he's the only quarterback in the NFL too I've done that I think that that just kind of tells you like his rushing floor is insane because he hasn't even he's been pretty hit and miss

as a passer you know he's been Russell Wilson hasn't done that no he's been he's done that He's done it four times, Russell Wilson has. Josh Allen, Patrick Mahomes, Russell Wilson, and Ryan Fitzpatrick, who just got benched, are the four quarterbacks that have done it four times. So anyways, those are the kind of the names.

These are the guys that have won you weeks. At running back, Alvin Camara has done it four times. He's been an RB1 four times, Dalman Cook four times. And this is in half PPR. At receiver, Calvin Ridley three times. He also had the zero, so that didn't help you. whatever was that week three i think and then adam thielin has done it three times those those guys

are the highest in terms of the receiver position and then Travis kelsey has been a tight end one every week wow and he's the only one that's done that so i just thought that was interesting and then on the other side of the coin there's a few like big names that haven't really helped anyone win weeks ever Kenny golliday who is who was by ADP the wide receiver seven has not had a wide receiver one game yet neither has chris godwin two guys guys that were big stars last year very heavily drafted. You know, they've both been injured.

They've only played three games each, so that's obviously disadvantaged. But those guys haven't been like the weak winners that we expected them to be. Yeah, that's interesting. You know, the whole idea of like, you want guys who have big spike weeks

to actually help you win games is something that is really nice because when you have somebody like Jonathan Taylor this year who's gotten you 13 points every single game, sometimes that doesn't cut it. Sometimes you need... It's a 40-degree day.

Like that wire scene where it's a 40-degree day. It's like, whatever. I mean, think about like literally Alvin Camara won people weeks one and two. Yeah. He's like 80 points in weeks one and two combined. Yeah. So.

Yeah, it's a buzz saw. It's like, you have a good week and you're like, what happened? It's like Camara. Like Derek Henry this week. Right. Justin Jefferson this week. So now Kenny Gallaudet is going to be a wide receiver one. Hopefully Chris Godwin will be a wide receiver one and we can not worry about that anymore.

Okay. Who's up? Me or you, Hyphitz? You. Okay. So I wanted to talk about the first episode we did this year was players on new teams. The first episode we did on this feed was players on new teams and how are they doing. We did a lot of research on does it usually work out. Do receivers changing teams work? Tide

ends, quarterbacks, running backs. So I wanted just to give a little update on how it's going so far of all the new guys that have changed teams this year. Overall, hasn't really worked. Not good. So this is their overall performances so far through six weeks. Tom Brady, he changed teams from the Patriots of the Bucks. I heard. Yeah. Quarterback 14. Cam Newton, QB7. Todd Gurley, running back 19.

Kenyon Drake, running back 23. David Johnson, running back 27. Melvin Gordon. Running back 12, not bad. Here's where it gets good. Stefan Diggs, wide receiver 9, DeAndre Hopkins, wide receiver 8. And then it gets really rough with tight ends.

Gronk, tied end 27, Hayden Hurst, tied in 17, and Austin Hooper, tied in 26. So I'd say the biggest winners here are Cam, Diggs, and Hopkins, and the biggest losers is just every single tight end. Yeah, Diggs and Hopkins, I think, are the big things that stand out here. And I would say those two were the ones that we were the most nervous about.

I was, I absolutely was like, I'm not drafting Diggs. Yeah. And that was like so stupid. I feel like such an idiot. The one person I broke my rule for was Hayden Hurst because I didn't like any players to switch teams this year, except Hayden Hurst. Right. And he sucked too. And we're only counting Kenyon Drake because he played half the season with the Cardinals last year.

And he hasn't been good. But, I mean, really, Cam's been good. he's had great rushing upside and, you know, if he can stay healthy, I feel like he'll stick with it, but it hasn't been pretty for most of these people. So is the rule here that it's still smart to not really draft people who change teams? I think so. I still change teams in a pandemic, except the rookies, which again, how the hell are the rookies doing this, but the veterans can't? That's what I don't get. Right. I feel like Diggs, Diggs and Hopkins are still going to end up being outliers. I mean, it's a, I think if anything, it's like, it's a warning to not be so rigid

that you will refuse to draft these guys. Like, I did that with Diggs. I'm such an idiot. I should have just drafted him if he was there sitting at that right spot, you know? What it does mean is, like, maybe if they fall little and you feel like they're good value at that spot

because I did take some Hopkins. I think I got Hopkins in the third round in one draft. And I'm like, hell yeah. Well, the Diggs thing is not really about Diggs. The Diggs thing was about Josh Allen being an enigma. And turns out, yeah, he's an enigma. It's hard to figure out that dude.

So that one's, it's hard to be like, like it's, no one saw the Josh. Honestly, Evan Silva saw the Josh Allen thing coming up. That's the only person who said he's an MVP person through five weeks. Yeah, but this whole thing, if it's like, you're like, it wasn't about Stefan Diggs. None of these are about the player. We weren't like DeAndre Hopkins isn't good anymore. It was about the system. Yeah, but I'm saying Josh Allen through a month, other than Russell Wilson, I would say

Josh Allen was the biggest surprise of the NFL through month. Other than like them playing the games and not having too much of a hiccup, which that went away. The biggest surprise was Josh Allen betting touch on his passes. I think it's Josh Allen and the rookie wide receivers. The rookie wide receivers is stunning. It's,

I mean, it makes a little more sense when you realize how much it's garbage time. We can't just gloss over Austin Hooper, you guys. Yeah, he's been shitty. What a shame. He's like a tight end three, which is,

Craig, do you feel vindicated? You're freaking invisible. Could you do better? I mean, if I could strike him out, I could probably catch a touchdown the Super Bowl. Some little leakout bootleg? There's still time.

He has been getting more opportunities of late, but he was the tight end won for like a spell last year. This is, this is disappointing. For the Falcons, so I thought Hayden Hearst would do it. Everyone always asks if LeBron James could play tight end for the Browns. No one ever asked if Craig could play tight end for the

Browns. I already played quarterback for the Chargers, so. There's still time. Who's up? Hyfitz? Honestly, my last one kind of got done because we already talked about it. I was just going to say half of the top six got put on injured reserve by week two. Like the six people drafted. I mean, Sequin, CMC, and

Michael Thomas just injured reserved by week two. Like life is random. Everything's terrible. Like, I hope he got Mike Davis and not Dionne Lewis. That's my main. I just think that's interesting. Can we quickly talk about like how you feel about these guys going into next year? Like, do you feel at all different about Sequin Barclay? Like, is he going to be a top three option?

No. I don't know, man. Let's see who's quarterback. Like, we'll see if Daniel Jones suck. I don't know. That's crazy. Michael Thomas is coming back this week. I don't think he will be.

Well, how much is a torn ACL effect year? your guys is thinking. Like, nowadays, it seems like it's fine, it doesn't matter. Not in week two. I mean, not in a week two. I mean, Adrian Peterson Tories,

they see on like Christmas Eve and was playing in week one. Like, Sequin did it like the first, the second week of September. Like, I think he'll be all right. It's more just the Giants offense sucks. And you don't want players

and offenses that are truly freaking horrible. So I think it depends what you see from the Giants the second half of the season more than anything. Well, I think we've learned that you don't want running backs on teams that are terrible. You want kind of ride receivers and you only want running backs on teams

that are good. We want receivers and teams that have awful defenses. With good quarterbacks. With good quarterbacks. Well, that's a sweet. Cousins is not good. Maybe like...

Competent. Yeah. I have one more thing, speaking of quarterbacks. I just want to offer some quarterback context for this year. And I want to do that

by looking at the last two MVPs of the NFL. So obviously, and these players were also both by far the highest drafted quarterbacks by ADP this season.

Lamar Jackson and Patrick my homes. So looking at the first six weeks of last year, 2019, compared to this year, through six weeks in 2019, Lamar Jackson had scored 157 points, 157.3, a 26.2 per game average. He was the quarterback one in that stretch. He was either QB2 or QB1, depending on your league, this year. And people were really, like, drafted him way too high, probably in a lot of leagues. This year, through six games. He has 128 points or a 21.3 point average, which is a drop off of five points, which is pretty damn significant. He is the QB 11 in per game average this year. So drafting Lamar Jackson, you know, I love Lamar, but it's been kind of disastrous for some people. Yeah, this is the

this year is the perfect reason why you should not spend too much on the number one quarterback. It does not make any sense. Yeah. I think, and the takeaway for me is not that Lamar is bad. or that even the Ravens offense is worse, because the Ravens' offense is actually still, like, putting up really solid numbers. It's just that this is exactly what people are afraid of when you talk about regression. Touchdown rate drops.

You know, things like that, it's like not, it's just so many variables come together in one season, like we saw last year for Lamar Jackson. He had like a 9% touchdown rate. And all these variables coming together, you have like a Hall of Fame left guard, and all of a sudden he's not in the equation. And things just change.

And he can't keep that up. He's not running as often, all these different things. So anyways, he's obviously been hit hard by regression. And I think that was a good example of why we should fear regression, you know, because Aaron Jones, meanwhile, is just making me look like a chump because I thought he was going to regress too in the touchdown, in the touchdown area. But he's just, that's just what he does.

He scores touchdowns, as Craig says. That's all he knows. How do you drive the quarterback thing with what Craig says? about 10 of the 12 quarterbacks have made it. And then you would think, oh, wait on quarterbacks. But then there's the middle round guys. Russell Wilson's been amazing. Kyler's been amazing.

That was like 5, 6. And then Josh Allen, his quarterback 8 has been really great. And Dak was really good too. Yeah. What do you make of, so what would you do? What is, if you could go back in time, I mean, obviously, you know who would be doing what. But like, what, does it change at all what you think about waiting on quarterbacks? Or no.

Maybe don't wait quite as long, but definitely wait. I think the idea is still the same. Like, don't reach on a quarterbacks. Don't make a quarterback a second round pick or a third round pick. Wait until the fourth to six, seventh. Don't reach, but don't T-Rex it. Yeah. The other piece of context I thought was interesting, and this doesn't, I mean, this doesn't

have any overarching, I guess, major points, but Patrick Mahomes through six weeks in his MVP season in 2018 had scored 158.1 points, 26.3 average. He was a QB1 in that stretch. Through six weeks in 2020. By the way, people were talking about how, like, Mahomes. is like a little bit off this year. He has outscored himself from 2018 through six weeks this year. He has 159 points, 26.6.6 average.

Yet he's the QB4, which I think tells you exactly what's happening with like the quarterbacks this year and passing and scoring and everything. Wait, so he's doing better than the 2018 year, but he's the fourth best fantasy quarterback. Yeah, yeah. In fantasy points. We're not necessarily just talking about like how he's played. But like in fantasy points, yeah, he's actually outscored himself through six

weeks. I think that's that perfectly defines this season. I think that's like the perfect explanation. He's playing better, but he's not the top quarterback because scoring is nuts. Just, yeah, like the passing is insane. Scoring is insane. Teams are scoring way more points. So, well, if there's one thing to define the year, it's insane. So that works. There's one more one I want to get to before we get to our bad beat and then we get out of here. So I want to talk about the bounce backs and if they have bounced back. Oh, that was one of our preseason episodes was that's a big. thing every year in drafting, right? It's the guy who has the shitty year and what's going to happen,

whether it's because of injury or he just played bad and you take the risk. Here's the payoff of all the bounce back candidates this year. I'm just going to give it a yes or no if they've bounced back or not. Adam Thielen, fuck yeah. James Connor. I would say yes. He's tied for the RB12 and points per game. And then after that, this is the bounce back candidates. Juju, no. Odell, I say no. Baker, big fat, no. Jared Gaw. Not really. Matt Ryan, not really. David Johnson, not really. Phil Rivers, no. And T. Y. Y. Hilton, no. Those were the top bounce back candidates for this year. And pretty much all of them didn't pan out. So is the rule here don't... You're right. Is the rule here just don't draft guys who sucked last year?

There's no rule. I would say there's no rule to be taken from this. It's just... Draft guys who played good the year before that? Beware of guys that have played terribly. Yes. I think that's good. I feel like I'm sure I made the argument if you go back and listen like, well, you can make the argument. Like with Connor, you can, right? Because the Steelers were a complete dumpster fire, that's different. And Thielen was hurt. But a lot of these guys just didn't work out.

I think the trend that'll be a thing here is, you don't want quarterbacks that suck because looking at this, well, we don't know about T. Way Hill. Rivers is awful. I think Matt Ryan will be better. Like, he's quarterback 12 right now. I think it'll be much better going forward. I think that Cooley, as you said,

like, Julio changes the offense. and I think that if you were to just look at the games at the end of the season if you just looked at the game to who you'll play it I bet he'll be much better but O'Dell I really

maybe I'm just making excuses for the guy but I feel like Baker has just not been good we've talked about that that's the problem and well I don't know I guess not because Juju just getting outplayed man

Juju's just the fourth best guy in his team I'm ignoring you Craig has Craig's got like a visceral anger at Baker Mayfield for some of it. Craig thinks he could be better than Baker.

I feel like someone else like Baker also bullied him in school. Because he's got a beef. I have no personal vendetta against Baker. I just think he's truly fucking terrible. Like I think he's a bottom three quarterback. Did you hate him in college? Do you also hate the persona?

No, I don't know. He was fine. Whatever. Okay. Bad beats. This one's from Zach. By the way, there were a lot of bad beats. There was so many good ones. Last night, specifically, we got a ton of emails. And by the way, ringer fantasy football. Ringer Fantasy Football. Gmail.com. Send us your bad beats. We love them. Also send Fantasy Court too. I miss Fantasy Court. Why aren't we doing fantasy court this year,

guys? Hi Fitz. Explain fantasy court for people that haven't heard that. Oh yeah. Fantasy court is we will settle your league issues. We'll issue like a deciding verdict. We'll hear your case. Please email us your disputes, trade disputes, questions. I mean, Craig had a good example earlier this year of like rules. disputes. Yeah, someone accidentally dropped to Leo Jones. Should they get them back? like anything that makes your group chat blow up. I just drop something. Anything that makes your group chat blow up,

we want to hear from you. Ring your Fantasy Football at Gmail.com. And make the title, make the subject of the email fantasy court because then we'll know to read it quickly and it'll be on the next episode because those are timely matters. True. Bad beats.

Zach writes, Zach with one just the scene. Okay. I feel like I wanted to note that. Thank you. Now I see him differently. I bet you do. For starters, in my 12-team league, the lowest score each week gets their team renamed by the highest score of that week.

Oh, that's a role. It's a great role. This is a league full of longtime childhood friends and high school buddies, so the names are liable to get that, that, that, graphic and embarrassing. In there. I like it already. Anyway, heading into the Monday football game, I was done with 79 points thanks to Duds from Rogers, Devante, Mostert, and Andrews, not to mention Justin Jefferson on my bench. my opponent had 82 points with the Cowboys defense left to play

why he was playing the Cowboys D is beyond me thanks to that final run from Kenyon Drake his defense scored negative 5 I not only won the matchup 78.6 to 78.2 but I also escaped

being the lowest score of the week and having some cringe-worthy memory dug up from my past we got a lot of great bad beats from last night This is a good beat I know but the Kenyan Drake run and then Michael Gallup drops.

But someone being down and then the Cowboys' defense dropped them below was by far my favorite of all the ones we got. That is absurd. I don't think I've seen a defense go lower than negative five. Negative five is fucking terrible.

It is so hard to go negative five. Holy cow. My home league, it's a dynasty league with a bunch of my friends from high school. We were sweating the last drive by the Falcons, sorry, by the Cardinals, because one guy had Edmonds, the other guy had Drake in his starting lineup,

and they were literally 0.4 points apart when that last run happened. And the other thing that makes it interesting is we do a top six, so it's like split standing. So if you're in the top six every week, you get a win also in addition to your head-to-head. So one guy went from winning both the head-to-head

and the top six. to losing both. He went 0 and 2 instead of 2 and 0 based on that run. So it was brutal. We were all sweating it. It was hilarious. I also have to shout out.

Someone got a tie off of that run. So someone was down exactly whatever 69 yards in a touchdown is and they were, what is that, 12.9. And they tied off of that to the second decimal, which is amazing.

The Kenyon Drake thing, we got like 10 immediate emails after Kenyon Drake ran that touchdown. Have you guys ever colluded in a trade? No. Like actively cheated? No, I told you the cheating I did when we first started our league back when I was in high school, right? The rankings.

No, what did you did? Everybody used to come over to my house. You changed the rankings? Yeah, we'd sit around a ping pong table. That's amazing. In the garage. And I would say, bring your own rankings if you want. You know, do your own work.

But, like, I'll print out some if you guys want. Well, the ones I would print, I would lower guys that I wanted. I don't even know if that's cheating as much as it's like psychological warfare. Like, cheating doesn't really describe that. It's like my, it's just putting your thumb on the scale a little bit. Do you own research. It's more dishonest than cheating. I don't know if cheating.

It's like, there's no rule against that. It was like, I was like 16. It's really creative. I'll say that. Thank you. You almost want to like credit you for that.

I once started some shit in the ringer fantasy baseball league. I, we had one editor who was extremely inactive and had it really checked his roster since opening day. And I wanted to make a trade with him because I basically needed to make the playoffs

and he needed to scrape in a couple years ago. And I was trying to figure out to make a deal with him. And I'm not going to lie in the back of my head. I was like, no one's going to let a trade go through if this person is at their lineup. So I'm like, well, I have to do something to make it fair. So I traded him Mike Trout, who was healthy and great. And in change, I got like, all of his good players back. And Mallory Rubin, who is my boss, immediately, I know, I know this happened. It must have happened this way. She immediately DMed all the other playoff teams was like, this is bullshit. And then said in Slack, we're vetoing

this. And then I know it happened because every other playoff team immediately, Act was like, no, we're veto. She had organized, I was impressed with her organizational skill because she had organized the veto in about seven minutes after the trade. And then she's my boss. What am I going to do? I walk around the corner. She's like, nope, no way.

Getting all the votes before you go to a vote. Yeah. I was like, oh, wow. That's how you do things. So you essentially like traded Alvin Kamara for like five second and third rounders? I traded Trout for like Verlander, Boegert. It's just all the good players. So anyway, she called me on.

on it. She was like, you gave anyway. I don't know if anyone's interested in this. Okay. That's more cheating than mine. It was kind of cheating. It was, it was, I gave away Mike Trout. I don't know. I feel like it's fine. How did you word it to the editor you traded with? I said I gave away Mike Trout. How could this possibly vetoed? No, no, no. What did you say to the guy you traded with? You were like, hey, wink, wink, do this for me? I said, do you want Mike Trout? And he, I think he, the problem was he was like, I don't care, which is probably how you, I think that's how you have to know it's a veto. But it wasn't my problem. All right, let's get out of here. Thank you to Craig. Thank you, D.K.

Thank you everyone for listening. Thank you to Anonymous, editor for accepting that trade. I'm still mad at you now. And we'll see you guys on Friday.