The Ringer NFL Show - Week 1 Standouts and Waiver Wire Adds
Episode Date: September 14, 2020Football is finally back, and we break down the headlines from the weekend, including Cam Newton’s promising fantasy start, the Bucs' disappointment, and how the lack of preseason affected fantasy s...cores. Then, we get into the top scorers of the week, discuss rookie running backs, and recommend our top waiver wire adds heading into Week 2. Headlines (6:43) Top Scorers (20:00) Waiver Wire Adds (49:30) Hosts: Danny Heifetz, Danny Kelly, and Craig Horlbeck Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
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This is the Ringer Fantasy Football Show.
I'm Danny Heif.
It's here with Danny Kelly and Craig Whirlbeck.
And football is back.
It's back.
Holy crap.
There's so much happen.
what did you guys think?
It just feels good to have stuff to actually,
like real games to actually talk about,
real stats. Instead of talking about
all the things that we think is going to happen,
we can finally unpack what actually has happened.
So that was really fun. So many things have changed
and so many things haven't changed. Ms. Chubisky is still Mitch Trubisky.
Josh Allen is still Josh Allen. It's great.
This was the most Josh Allen game of all time.
Brady being on the Bucks was so weird.
It kind of hid how much of what you're saying
or the other stuff. It's like the more stuff changes.
and we're in a global pandemic
and everything in the world's upside down,
but Trubisky is still throwing interceptions,
and Josh Allen is still having perfect passing games,
but still fumbling upside down.
And nothing's changed at all.
The NFL's amazing.
It's like,
it's completely inoculated from like the rest of the universe.
I don't know how to do it.
I mean, like, I guess obviously the biggest changes
was there's no fans in the stadium.
There was no preseason.
Like, did you guys notice differences in the gameplay?
I thought the crowd noise was weird.
Did you guys like the fake crowd noise?
Sunday night game was,
was low energy.
Well, you're literally an audio engineer.
What did you make of the fake audio?
I think it's, I don't really like it.
I don't think they do that good of a job.
I think they need to figure out,
I'm okay with them piping in something
that sounds ridiculous.
Like, play music even,
like they do an NBA games.
I'm down with that.
Yeah, the music works.
They tried that before, you know.
At football games?
Like Fox, this was a few years ago.
They tried having like,
sort of like background music.
It was very, like, dramatic.
and felt like a movie
based in medieval times or something.
It was really bizarre
and people fucking hated it.
I think they should just do what the NBA did
where it's just kind of like general
beats, general hip-hop background sound.
I think that works.
That would be fine.
That would be fine.
D.K., you're a Seahawks fan
and the Seahawks have been pumping
in fake crowd noise for like years.
So what did you think?
Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha.
Good one.
D-K., that's true.
To be honest with you, I honestly didn't,
I did not.
They have not piped in crowd noise.
Okay, it's not a fact. It's actually the Falcons.
Yeah.
Don't you think the Rams Cowboys game was like weirdly quiet and boring?
It's weird enough when all the announcers feel they need to comment on it.
And that's so you know it's awkward.
I just found myself not noticing it at all.
Like honestly, throughout the whole day, I got through the whole day without really thinking about the crowd noise.
I agree.
It was only Sunday night.
I think it's when you really focus in on one game and you kind of expect like a 30-yard catch to have like a huge upswing.
Yeah.
Like there's just none of that.
When you're doing like Red Zone or you're watching like three things flipping back and forth,
I don't think you notice it as much.
Yeah.
The real tangible impact is definitely on the players for two reasons.
One,
there was like a tactical element of the hard counts yesterday were absolutely more effective than I'd ever seen them on a Sunday.
Oh, yeah.
For two reasons.
One is just without the preseason, it's just going from training camp and practices to like,
oh, like I'm trying to not jump on a Drew Brees hard count.
And that happened in the Bucks game when Vita Valle kind of jumped all sides.
And like the fourth and one where they were going to call the time out.
and they weren't going to go for it
and they got them.
That happened in so many games
and then also just hearing
player, like,
like being,
for teams being able to hear
their own teammates,
like Tom Brady in the Superdome
being able to actually use
verbiage at the goal line
is usually something that would not be in play.
I thought Trey Kman made a really good point about that.
But honestly,
the tactical stuff isn't the interesting part to me.
The interesting part is that the football player
is all kind of admitted this week.
Like, we're gladiators.
We do this for the crowd.
Like,
you score a touchdown.
The sick part is looking at 70,000 people staring at you.
And actually, OJ Howard brought it great.
He was like, this is B.Y.O.J.
You got to bring your own juice.
Because especially the younger players, like, we get jazzed up for a crowd.
Like, we've never played football for not in front of people.
You have to manufacture the energy.
So maybe the teams with guys with really big personalities,
you're going to have a little bit of an edge this year.
That's kind of interesting.
I don't think that's the case, honestly,
because I think some of the big personality guys are guys that hype themselves up
and, like, aren't really shy about it.
I think Michael Thomas is actually going to.
example of like, I don't think Michael Thomas is shy about doing stuff for a crowd.
I had no problem getting hyped up in PE without a crowd. So I can do it.
We do this podcast. I mean, we actually have fake fans in the audience when we do all these
podcasts. We have like thousands of fake people and like people. It's wild. But no, I actually
do think that like the Julio Joneses and people are more interesting to me in a year where it's like,
okay, I'll take like quiet veteran guys instead of the young. But I don't know. Anyway,
a weird start to an extraordinary season. But at the same time, like you said, I didn't, I honestly
didn't notice the fact that there weren't fans.
Yeah, it was normal. It was pretty for us.
I thought it was a normal day of sports and it was the first normal day.
Because even basketball and baseball, it's like the pandemic quarantinedness of it is
dripping over everything because baseball has different rules and basketball.
It's like, why am I watching basketball in September?
And football is like, this was normal week one.
So honestly, corny, that was cool.
It was nice to have normal sports for like four or five hours.
Other stuff, though, I did want to just touch on before we get to some specifics
Obviously, there's Brady on the Bucks and Cam Newton on the Patriots and there's a thousand things to get to.
But I did think the quality of the play was just bad.
Yeah.
Like, I think that this was the preseason.
And I think that something that is clear is that this is going to be preseason.
Sean Payton said before the season that we're calling this training camp.
It's not a training camp atmosphere.
They had, what was it, 11 or 14 padded practices?
You know, sometimes it's double that.
Yeah.
Just 10, 12 years ago, it was triple that.
So I think there's a couple things worth going through,
but the effect of having limited practice time is rotations.
I think that we saw more substitutions this week,
and that will probably go like probably change as the season.
But guys just weren't in shape to play 70 or 80 play football game.
So we saw more rotations.
And also I thought we just saw simpler offenses.
Deacon,
I'm curious what you think about that because we saw the chiefs and the Buccaneers
be running a lot instead of passing.
What did you make of the actual football being played?
and do you think things might change
as the season goes on
and they get more practice time?
I mean, I think the Chiefs
was the most interesting one
because they went from what had been
over the last few years with Mahomes
the literally like the pass heaviest team,
the most aggressive passing team in the NFL
and then they went, I charted it.
I didn't chart it, but I looked at the box score.
Half of their early...
Well, I charted the box score
so I went through and counted all...
I went through and counted all the actual like plays
in the play-by-play.
I think it was literally
exactly half of their early down
plays in the first three-quarters.
So like, you know,
you don't count the fourth quarter
because that sort of changes
with game script and everything.
But early downs in the first three-quarters,
they ran the ball
on 50% of their plays,
which would have been
the second highest rate
in the NFL last year
behind only the Ravens
who are like the most,
yeah, the most run-heavy team.
So that goes from them last year.
They were easily the past heaviest team in those situations,
first and second down in the first three quarters.
So that was weird.
And I think it, and I guess the question now is, you know,
is that something that we're going to see all year?
Or is that more just like it's week one?
You know, the Texans were playing a specific type of defense
where they wanted to keep everything in front.
So they just kind of like, you know, death by a thousand like paper cuts or whatever.
Yeah.
So, yeah, I don't know.
That's really interesting to me because Mahomes, number one,
he didn't go deep.
I think he only went deep one time.
20 plus yards, which only happened one other time in his career.
I saw that from sharp football.
And then, yeah, I think, you know, just their style of play not being super pass heavy,
that's something to watch going forward.
The Chiefs ran the ball more than they passed, and they never did that one time last year.
Yeah.
And the Buccaneers did a very similar thing, and the first half of this game, they ran more
than they passed.
And again, they were, I think, the second or third pass heaviest team on early downs last season.
And again, they're going, now they're running more than they pass.
in the first half. And I think, so like, why is that? And I think really a lot or most of it's related
to the pandemic and just the reduced practice time for a few reasons. The complex downfield pass
plays are harder to install. Installs like sounds like it's some like computer world,
computer word. It's, they're just, you have to practice it until they get the timing perfect and
not in a way they get it right, but in a way they can't get it wrong. That's really hard to do
when you only have so many padded practices. So I think the deeper passer plays when you don't
have the timing down are the riskiest ones. But then if you do short dump-offs and runs,
you're hoping that the defense has not been practicing tackling very well because the defense
doesn't have very much time to practice either. And you saw in the Chiefs game, they're like,
well, we don't need a deep passing when the Texans can't tackle, especially those cornerbacks.
So I think they're like, let's just do the safer options with these running plays, short screens
that are essentially running plays through the air and hope that, you know what, they can't tackle
and we'll get a big play anyway. I think that'll change as the season goes on.
But big plays don't have to be deep plays in September.
I think that's one thing I learned yesterday.
And also just substitutions are going to be something to watch.
Yeah, you know, if you watched Red Zone, like there wasn't a lot of like,
now let's go to Minnesota where Adam Feeleon just ripped off a 50 yard catch.
Like there was not a lot of chunk plays.
And without even reading any data, like seeing any tweets,
I feel like my general takeaways were like a little bit more running.
Plays were just for less yards.
Like it was dumpoffs.
Like the frickin' Rams Cowboys game, it was like,
Eight-yard pass after eight-yard pass.
It was kind of a boring week one.
Like, thank God it was week one because we were excited.
The excitement of the games wasn't really there for me.
Really, it was almost like college football in a way where it's like college football.
They start with these cupcake cream pie schedules early on and they sub people and rotate people in.
It was like that, but it wasn't cupcake games because they had no preseason.
So it was like a mix of preseason college football to me early with just people being thrown into fire.
So I think that to me that's the caveat for this whole conversation is I think that an
part of with trades or player acquisitions, whatever you're doing in your league, just
keeping in mind that what we're seeing now is not necessarily going to be keeping going
and just keeping these themes.
So with that said, Tom Brady's on the Bucks, that was weird.
That was like the most surreal moment.
It was when that game started in the afternoon and seeing Brady.
And he had a couple like really nice passes early on.
And like when they did their scripted stuff, I think they looked really good.
The first drive looks great.
Dude, the first drive, I was like, holy cow.
what if they're just twice as good as last year?
What if the offense is just as good
and they don't turn the ball over?
Because also he spiked that ball.
When Brady ran the ball in,
I was like, what an amazing way for him to begin.
And he gronk spiked it in a way that even gronk has never done.
It went straight back up into the air.
I think that one thing went 100 feet.
And my first thought was, wow, he's deflating the footballs.
I've always had secondhand anxiety for people spiking the ball
because I don't want it to come back up and hit him in the face.
Or the nuts.
Yeah.
That never happened to you?
All right, I'm not going to tell that story.
But you can imagine.
But yeah, no, and then they came back
because he was also ripping the ball
in the first drive.
And then he just lost the accuracy.
The bucks were sloppy.
I thought the bucks looked like preseason.
I mean, they looked like a team
who led the league in Pounties
and then added a 43-year-old quarterback.
Yeah, they just seemed like
they had a lot of miscommunications.
They just, like, weren't on the same page.
It was just like breaking off a lot of rust.
That was the thing is like, I actually didn't,
I didn't think Brady looked as bad
as people are sort of making it out to sound.
You know, he did have a pick six,
which is not a great.
you know, not a great thing, and that's kind of like brings up the James jokes.
But it just to me, they just look like a team that has had 14 pad to practices together, you know?
There was a couple of instances where Brady was like on a different page with his receivers.
I think they'll clean that up eventually.
It's a very good defense that they were playing.
And so to be honest with you, I'm not panicking too much about Brady.
And honestly, like, the fact of the matter is he had 24 and a half points.
He was a QB8.
And we are now, we are recording Monday afternoon.
So we haven't had the Monday night football games.
There's two this year or this week.
So I can just one more time just reiterate that the Giants, Joe Judge,
will have an ESPN custom graphics tonight.
Just put all your money on that.
Yeah.
And the other thing about Brady that I thought was, you know,
interesting and that could have made his day from a fantasy point of view even better
is he had probably like 100, at least 100 yards wiped out on DPI.
You know, I had one big play down the sideline that I think Mike Evans
got DPI and then another one to
Scotty Miller who got
held or whatever one hand held
that would have been a big play so
I mean at the end of the day
yeah he had two turnovers and in fact
Bruce Ariens is kind of like publicly
calling him out on that so that's an interesting
like variable but from a fantasy point of view
his day wasn't that bad QB8 through Sunday night
football could have been leaving better
so that's against a really good defense
I don't know what do you make of Mike Evans
because Mike Evans was almost not going to play
in this game and then ended up playing
like the whole game. He had a hamstring injury, did nothing. So, and on one hand, healthy Mike Evans has also been shut up by Marcus Latimore, who's the sixth otherworldly cornerback. He had basically did nothing. He caught a garbage time touchdown that otherwise he wouldn't have had a catch. Are you worried about him or is he just one of the thousand people of hamstring polls this year? I don't think I'm worried about Mike Evans as like a player or his hamstring or anything like that. The only thing I'm worried about is that Tom Brady hates him. I think on that pick, you know, the pick he threw over the middle of the field.
I'm pretty sure when he threw it.
I heard him go, Brady yelled something like,
oh, Mike, get vertical or something.
You know, he yelled something at him because initially Arian said that the pass was on.
It was just a bad pass up Brady.
But then I think this morning, Ariens came out and said,
actually he looked at the tape and it was Mike Evans fault.
I was going to say, I thought Arian was lying when he said that.
Whoever was announcing the game was like, oh, Mike Evans kind of hesitated,
and it looked like it was like an option or like he,
was supposed to go deep,
but he actually kind of pulled up a little bit
and then Brady threw it
as if he was going to go deep.
It actually reminded me of Reggie Wayne
in the Super Bowl when Peyton Manning
through that ball
that the Saints picked sixth
and took it to the house
and it was just Reggie Wayne
just stopped running the route.
You add that with Mike Evans
getting chippy with Latimore
and just like screwing up a couple times.
I think he dropped a pass.
I don't know, man.
The Brady Dog House,
you get quick.
You're in there quick.
Scotty Miller.
That is good for Scottie Villa.
I will say, just from a football point of view
really quick, because I think that's a perfect
illustration of what you were talking about Danny before, where passing games are so intricate.
It's a perfect example of what's called a site adjustment by receivers, which is receiver's
routes are, receiver will alter his route based on what coverage the defense is playing.
And you have to be on the exact same page and be on the exact same timing with your quarterback.
It's like it all happens extraordinarily fast against a defense that's all moving around.
And that's like a perfect example why NFL passing games is so fun.
fucking difficult, so intricate.
So anyways, that's just a good example from a football nerdery point of view.
No, it's true.
It's like you see in week one that 60 yard touchdown pass to like deep receiver X and you're
like, oh, how'd they do that?
It's like, well, they worked on that for seven months is how they did that.
And they waited for a specific moment to try it.
So it's hard.
And on that note, again, the number one thing lost from this is I think the saints
are the best team in football.
I think it's, well, at least the top tier.
Chiefs, Saints, Ravens put them in however you want.
Yeah.
I think they're just as good as the chiefs put them in.
whatever tier you want,
but the point being,
next week they're playing the Panthers
who have maybe the league's worst defense,
definitely the league's youngest defense.
So the bounce back doesn't have to be a month from now.
Could that literally happen in six days.
So keep that in mind.
Other one I want to talk about just the Patriots,
Cam Newton running Reed option plays
on third and five or third and six
on like the first or second drive.
It was,
I remember,
like I grew up rooting for the Giants
and I remember the first Daniel Jones,
start, just seeing a quarterback that looks like Eli Manning, but fast, blew my mind. And I'm sure for
Patriots fans who've been watching Tom Brady, who is as close to a statue as there's been since
Joe Montana himself, that seeing Cam Newton run a design play on third and six must have been
mind-blowing. I saw, I saw, and I don't have in front of me, I'm trying to find it, but I'm not
going to find it. It was like the most rushing yards by a Patriots quarterback since like the 70s,
what Cam did today, or what Cam did on Sunday is.
pretty great. I think it's going to be a really fun
offense to watch just because
it's going to be unique in the way that they
they're going to be really run heavy.
I think they're going to use Cam. I mean, clearly
they're going to use Cam as a rusher a lot.
It makes him very, very
fantasy relevant, which is exactly what we kind of thought
would happen just because he has that upside as a
rusher. Yeah, it makes the Patriots infinitely
more interesting to me, especially from a fantasy point of view.
Maybe not so much the receivers,
but certainly Cam Newton. Well, the annoying thing
though, is he clearly had a hamstring injury.
And he's denied this and I rarely do this, but I don't care.
Like he clearly left this, like walking off the field was grabbing his hamstring and limping.
And then after the game was like, no, I'm good.
And then they asked him again, I think this is Monday morning.
They asked him.
And he's like, basically like, well, we won so I'm not hurt anymore.
Which I believe what he said.
And so the Patriots beat reporters are basically like, I mean, please ignore what he said.
Like he clearly has a hamstring strain.
I feel like everyone has a hamstring strain in this limited run up.
So are you worried about this?
Because I hate falling into cliches,
but the cliche of like they're going to use him as more of a running,
not a running quarterback,
but they're not afraid to let him be design runs.
And he's already banged up in a week one.
He's like the most classic conversation about using your quarterback as a rush.
So like,
are you trying to trade away Cam Newton because the week one buzz?
Were you trying to trade for him because you think he could be like a top three guy?
Yeah, that's a good question.
I probably wouldn't, I wouldn't trade him away guy quite yet.
I think you get such good.
you've gotten such good value.
If you have him, you probably got him late.
And I think he has a chance to be like a mid-range QB-1, potentially.
But the hamstring entry is a concern.
You know, it's something to kind of watch.
You might have to stream next week.
They're going against Seattle next week who has, you know, number one,
they've got a lot of experience against re-option quarterbacks.
They have a really good linebacker core and a really good safety core.
So that's going to be kind of a fun little matchup between those two teams.
I don't know if Cam will run quite as much next week.
All right.
Want to get into top scores?
Yeah, let's do it.
All right.
So these are,
these are players we're just gonna,
we're just gonna call them the Remarkables.
I feel like remarkable has become like this weird word
where Remarkable's a comment.
I feel like Remarkable literally just means
it's worthy of remarking.
Yeah.
And we work at the ringer and,
you know,
Remarkables or watchables.
Anything that sounds like that,
we're into,
the Remarkables.
Players we'd like to remark on.
The top scores,
we're just run through the top scores.
We're just run through the Remarkable's.
Quarterback,
the top score this week,
was Chagai, D.K., Russell Wilson.
Number two is Aaron Rogers.
Number three is Joshie Allen.
I mean, do you want to take a victory lap in Russell a quick?
I don't want to take a victory lap.
I just hope they keep this up, man.
Like, they let him cook.
Legitimately, unabashedly let him cook.
They ran.
I want to ask you, was this just like he was extra efficient today?
Or was it and got lucky on a couple deep balls or a couple touchdowns?
Or was it a difference in offensive play calling?
No, it was a sea change.
in their schematic philosophy,
like legitimately.
They ran the, sorry,
they passed the ball on early downs.
Like 68, I think I did,
I did the math because I'm writing about this in my column,
68% of the time on first and second down
in the first three quarters,
which again, would have been first the NFL last year,
and it would have been more than the Chiefs.
Russell Wilson spent the entire offseason
kind of like lobbying to the fans
and lobbying to Pete Carroll
to kind of like take the restrictor plate off,
let him go, you know, let him play loose earlier in games.
Because like the Seahawks thing is they play really slow and keep everything close to the vest the first three quarters.
And then it's like close the whole game and then they like make Russell Wilson win the game for him in the fourth quarter.
This year, this game they let him loose in the first quarter, the first half, the first three quarters.
And he did exactly what we all thought he would do, which he just went scorched earth.
He was like 31 of 35.
unbelievable. He had as many incompletions as touchdowns.
Yeah, he had 89% of his passes completed.
Like, he just went off.
And anyways, the bottom line is hopefully this keeps up.
If it does keep up, if they let him keep doing this,
he has overall QB1 potential.
So I actually have a hot take about this in Aaron Rogers,
and I actually believe it.
I think that the Russ and the Rogers game,
obviously they're both really good.
I'm not talking about their talent level,
but in terms of whether Rogers and Russ will keep doing this,
and specifically whether the teams want them
to keep airing it out, I think it says less about them than it does their opponents.
Both the Vikings and the cornerbacks are basically the same defense in that, for this week,
neither of them had a pass rush and both were using their top two or three cornerbacks are both like
22 or 23.
The Vikings had like their top three cornerbacks had a combined nine career starts.
They're both 22 or 23.
And then the Vikings didn't have their top two defensive event.
Well, they had Daniel Hunter was out.
And then Yonnik and Gokwe just showed up like six days ago.
So he wasn't really playing all the snap.
So I think that when you don't have a pass rush to get Aaron Rogers,
who was the number two quarterback this week,
and then he's going against 22-year-old cornerbacks
making their first start, like a third rounder,
who's playing at Mississippi Strait,
you're going to get shredded by Aaron Rogers.
He did the same thing to the Raiders last year,
five touchdowns, no picks.
He didn't go over, he had 450 yards or something.
He didn't go over 350 the rest of the season.
He went over 250 twice the rest of the year.
I think Russell Wilson is the same thing.
The Falcons have, I believe, all their quarterbacks,
or the ones that are playing are all, like, 23 or younger.
what were you guys doing when you were 23
not guarding you know what I mean you weren't guarding
DK. McCaff so I think that
the Falcons corner
like I'm not convinced the Seahks
are going to keep doing this I'm not convinced the Packers going to keep
doing this I don't I'm actually in
the same boat as you that's why I said I really hope
they do I'm not convinced like I'm not
fully convinced yet I think it'll be
you know obviously next week is going to be a stark
contrast or going up against the Patriots secondary
which is really really good so
could see a very different game plan
next week. The other the other
people just want to note here, Josh Allen, the third quarterback, this was a modern art masterpiece.
This was this game, the first half of this Bill's game was like a shit sandwich.
But he fumbled on the first drive the bills had in the first half and he fumbled on the last
drive the bills had in the first half. And in between were like three 20, like three touchdown drives.
Like just prime roast beef sandwich. And the two fumbles he had, I swear to God, I've never seen
before. He was upside down on one. And the other one.
he was like lateral in the,
Josh Allen fumbles in a way
that's like innovative.
He's like the Steve Jobs of fumbling.
I've never seen it before.
And the fact that he's the biggest reason by far
they won by 10.
And also the biggest reason by far
they didn't win by 24
is like they're the most mesmerizing team.
He's the perfect red zone quarterback
to watch the channel
because when it's like,
let's see what Josh Allen did.
You never know what he did.
And now that we have Trubisky,
I feel the same way about Trubisky
except Trubisky's just worse.
What do you mean now that we have Trubisky?
Well, he's back.
Well, he's not back, but he's back.
Well, the Trubisky thing,
here's the thing with Trubisky.
I have two thoughts.
This means nothing that Trubisky had one good deep throw to save a game.
This means literally nothing.
This just sucks because now they have to start him for another week.
The next two games are the Giants and the Falcons.
So I actually think Trubisky, who is like the seventh best quarterback fantasy-wise
because don't watch him play.
Like, don't watch him.
Just check the numbers after.
Because here's why.
Trubisky had 240 yards, three touchdowns, no picks.
I propose a rule.
It's called the Mitchell-Tribisky rule.
If you throw a pass that hits a defender in the chest
and they don't catch it,
you still get credited with an interception
because the fact that Mitchell Tribisky
had technically no interceptions
is literally true but spiritually false.
The amount of balls that just hit defenders in the hands,
the chest, the face,
the fact that you can like,
oh wow, he didn't throw a pick is mind-numbing.
He's like so accurate that corners
would never even expect that the ball could possibly be where the ball is.
They drop it out of shock.
Uncatchable passes.
Wait a minute.
Going back to Josh Allen,
I feel like it's notable
that this was his best game
as a passer probably ever.
33 or 46,
312 yards,
two touchdowns.
It's kind of a positive.
He was unreal through the air
and he had a career high
and carries.
So he's like the ultimate
fantasy quarterback.
Also, he literally had the worst throw
of the day.
John Brown was,
all three of us
could have made that throw
to John Brown
in the corner of the end zone
and he sailed it
into the fanless stands.
The amazing part is, you're right, D.K.,
it was definitely his best day as a passer in the NFL.
And yet at the end of the game,
Sean McDermott was like,
we can't turn the ball over like that
in win football games.
It's unacceptable.
Like, that's the thing.
But it's true.
It's kind of hung around.
I mean, they weren't ever really, like,
in the game, but they hung around.
They had that one crowd or long touchdown
that made it seem like that.
Anyway, I just wanted to throw all that out there.
I just...
That's fair.
You know what?
They're good for content.
They're good for fantasy, believe it or not.
Yeah.
If we look at the top three scoring running backs, it went pretty chalky.
Josh Jacobs, RB1 against the Panthers who suck on defense, McCaffrey number two, and Zeeke number three.
Pretty chock for the top three.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Jake, do you have any thoughts on any of those three dudes?
Jacobs was the most interesting one easily because, you know, obviously, we talked about it all offseason.
Is he going to be a part of the passing game?
He ended up getting six targets, which was second on the team.
I think that's really, really encouraging for, you know, his viability as like a top-tier running back the rest of the season.
season. He had 25 carries, 93 yards, three touchdowns. We know that he's going to get sort of the early down and the goal line work in this offense, but the question was, is he going to be involved in the passing game? And it was a very promising early indicator. So going forward, though, you know, I think you have to temper your expectations a little bit. He's going to face three really tough defenses, the Saints, Patriots, and Bills the next three weeks. So we're not going to see Josh Jacobs likely at the top of the standings every week, the next three weeks, particularly.
But again, the good sign was that he had six targets, four catches, 46 yards,
and that's a huge part of whether he's going to be a top tier guy.
If he can stay in games when they have negative game script,
when they're playing from behind, that's going to be huge for his fantasy value.
All right, D.K., so is Josh Jacobs a cell high?
Would you shop him for Miles Sanders or Kenyon Drake?
I don't know if I would, you know, I don't know.
Like, honestly...
Not shopping for Kenyon Drake.
My God.
Not, especially not Drake, but like, you know, Miles Sanders is hurt.
Like, it's one of those things that's like, you know.
Week one is insane, man.
Week one is poison to all of our brains.
Like, grass is always greener.
We now completely have thrown out everything we did all offseason, literally everything
because he got six targets against the Panthers.
And now we're like, well, I don't know.
He might be a top six option.
That's the, that is like the eternal battle you have to go through, like, in every season.
It's like, man, I got this guy now.
But like, it's, you know, two in hand versus one in the,
Bush or whatever. It's like you're going to get, you're going to trade him for Miles Sanders who might
sit out the next couple of weeks with a hamstring injury. Might get hurt again with his hamstring.
Like, you know what I mean? It's like, God, it's tough. A great rule of thumb is don't have injured
players and I know that sounds ridiculous. Like you can't do anything about the ones who are hurt,
but don't add injured players. Like the ones who have picked up injuries to me, honest, I'm very
concerned about a lot of them like Sanders, Michael Thomas, just sprained his ankle. We'll get to that
in a second, but not thrilled with all these injuries. So I will speak in any of the injuries,
one of the big ones is Marlon Mack Torres Achilles.
He's out for the season.
And Nahim Hines, our guy.
Yeah.
Danny Woodhead 2.0.
As we all expected.
And we predicted, not really, I'm kidding.
But he was the first person to score a touchdown of the season,
which I wish we had put money on.
We could have been doing this podcast from a yacht.
But yeah, he had 15 touches for like 70 yards, a couple touchdowns.
He's Danny Woodhead.
Yep.
And this is absolutely...
He's like potentially Echler, man.
Well, Dan, well, they should.
showed him tape of Danny Woodhead before the season.
And Woodhead, believe it or not, in 2015.
This is crazy.
If it weren't written down, I wouldn't believe it.
Danny Woodhead was the third running back in PPR in 2015.
I love that.
Which I've double-checked four times because I just don't think that's true.
But it's true.
And he's Danny Woodhead.
So he doesn't have to be the top three running back to be, I think he's clearly the number one
waiver pick you want this week.
He's, yeah.
And he's benefiting from not just the Mac injury, obviously, but this is what you
had talked about before the season.
Danny is, you know, Philip Rivers is just notorious for targeting
his running backs in the passing game.
And that absolutely carried over, you know, obviously from the Chargers to the Colts this week.
As a contrast, this is crazy.
I saw this from Perrera-Levaton.
Tara Taylor targeted his running backs on 3% of his throws on Sunday.
Philip Rivers on 37% of his throws.
So, like, it's just, this should be like a quarterback's dad that we all track because it's so, so important, especially in PPR leagues, half-PPR leagues.
Naheem Hines and Jonathan Taylor, rookie Jonathan Taylor,
both were a huge part of this passing game for the Colts,
and that's like fantasy goal potentially.
And you know who would have caught a touchdown
if Philip Rivers had actually thrown the ball on target?
Who's that?
Jack Doyle.
Damn it.
Oh, yeah, I remember him.
Look, man, hey, he's a solid game.
He got red zone targets.
It was great.
But sticking with running backs, though,
not tight ends for it now.
The running back situation just seemed to,
a lot just seemed to change.
and Jonathan Taylor is obviously now a much bigger presence
in the cults with Marlon Mack out,
but Cam Acres was considered to be the starting running back
for the Rams or at least would earn it quickly.
Malcolm Brown had two touchdowns on Sunday night football.
He was like a top five running back this week.
DeAndre Swift was, I mean, poor DeAndre Swamp.
If you didn't see to drop the game winning touchdown,
that was right in his hands uncovered,
that was the saddest.
That was some middle school football stuff.
That was brutal.
And then Clyde Obrids-Layer was,
was he the only running back this week to go over 100 yards?
He was.
Not a single rusher yesterday.
So shout out to Craig for your prediction last week about the rookie running backs except Clyde
Edwes-Aler.
So, D-K., what do we make of these rookie things?
Is this like the limited practice time?
They're going to be eased into the roles?
Or are you concerned about Malcolm Brown outplaying Cam Acres and everything that happened?
I mean, the Acres one, I think was the most concerning.
And I actually would sort of like push back on Craig.
I don't think that the rookie running back's disappointed.
and like Clyde deers layer went over 100 yards.
He had a really good game.
No, yeah, but we excluded him.
He wasn't a part of the game.
Okay, but Jonathan Taylor,
he had nine carriers or 22 yards.
That's very nondescript.
Six catches for 67 yards in the passing game.
That is impressive.
He currently leads all rookies in receiving,
including receivers.
The question about Taylor was the receiving, was it?
Yeah, it was a big question.
Like, he had a bunch of drops.
You know, he wasn't a huge part of the passing game in college.
And so there was a lot of questions about it,
but he looked great in the passing game.
You know, he looked good.
in the open field. I think he registered like 21 plus miles an hour on one screenplay. So I think
Taylor, especially now with Mac out, like Taylor is going to be a legit fantasy factor. I was
not disappointed at all in what he did. The O line for the Colts was really banged up this week. So
that's probably a big reason why he didn't get much going on the ground. But yeah, getting back
to Cammakers, he definitely did not look ready. And you know, the lack of preseason, lack of reps
certainly looked like, it just looked like he was pressing too much as a runner. And so
They ended up going.
He did get 14 carries, only turned it into 39 yards.
Malcolm Brown looked far more effective in that running game.
So Malcolm Brown looked better than he had in years past.
Yeah, yeah, he looked good.
He looked legitimately good.
So the Acres thing is definitely concerning.
I still think he's going to get a big role in that offense.
He had 14 carries, so that was only a few fewer than Malcolm Brown got.
So he's still going to be a big part of it, but he's definitely got a ways to go before he's going to kind of take hold of offense.
I think Swift obviously would have had a much more impressive day
if he would have caught that game-winning touchdown.
It would be a completely different narrative if you had caught that.
It would have been a second touchdown.
He would have caught the game-winning play.
It would have been on a vertical route.
Like there's so many things we'd be talking about how stoked we were on DeAndre Swift
had he caught that ball.
Obviously, he missed it.
But to me, his hands are not a problem.
He didn't drop any passes last year at Georgia.
That was just a fake play.
I don't know what we were doing here.
I think the hands were the problem.
It wasn't the feat.
This is the opposite of saying,
well, Aaron Jones isn't going to be good this year
because he was too good last year.
So DeAndre Swift fucked up
and we're like, well, if he didn't fuck up,
he would have been good.
I'm saying the narrative's changed
because he had one mistake.
It doesn't make me less confident
in him as a player in the NFL.
I think he's going to be fine.
I don't think he's going to drop every pass
that goes to him at this point.
So anyways, my point is the narrative.
What a nuanced reasoned analysis.
You're not going to call him mentally weak
and terrible now?
How do we feel about Adrian Peterson
almost getting 100 yards?
on the lions.
Dude is just ageless, man.
He's never going to go away.
So if you had to pick up someone,
if you have Marlon Mack or you see you never running back,
would you rather have Naheem Hines,
who's going to be Danny Woodhead,
or would you rather have Malcolm Brown?
Who are you adding first?
They were like third and fourth,
or fourth and fifth this week in fantasy points.
That's really tight.
It's a close call.
I'd say, Heinz, I guess.
I think it's hides too.
Yeah.
And obviously in a PPR,
he's a lot more valuable than if you go to PPR.
I'm always partial to the receiving guys
because it's like the zero RB strategy.
you know, they're anti-fragile.
No, what?
Naim Hines is always going to be there.
Malcolm Brown, I don't know.
Get a good floor.
Yeah.
The other guy that I want to mention,
Jacob Davins had two touchdowns.
All the,
like everyone except for Acres
essentially had a pretty solid week one.
So I would push back on that.
He had seven carries.
Two touchdowns.
He's fine.
If you started him,
you did fine.
All right.
I'm going to point to D.K.,
because Craig,
if Craig was arguing for someone
that had two touchdowns,
he would not be washing away,
two touchdowns.
There's zero chance.
He would just be like,
oh, yeah, yeah.
I can't see who you're
pointing to on Zoom.
No, I'm giving a point.
I'm awarding D.K.
a point for winning the argument.
Like DK.K.1.
I think you're right, D.K.
Well, D.K. also pointed out that Kermakers is going to
outscore Aaron Jones this year.
We still feel good about that?
No, I don't feel good about that anymore.
You know, it's early.
It's early.
Hey, I will say, I will say, I thought the Rams' offense
looked pretty good, though.
Like, Bobby Trees.
Overall, I thought they did, like,
a pretty good job of moving the football.
Jared Gough was fine.
The running game was good with Malcolm Brown.
I'm definitely worried about Acres.
That was my bold prediction.
It doesn't seem like he's going to get there, but it's pretty early.
We'll see how it goes.
It's all right.
He's a bold prediction.
Get to top scorers for receivers.
Devante Adams is number one.
He was great.
Calvin Ridley was the second.
And then Adam Thielen was the third high-scoring receiver the week.
Yeah.
Any remarkable from receiving this week?
You want to talk about?
I think we got to bring up quickly Sammy Watkins once again.
Do we?
Yes, we do.
I don't want to.
Let's quickly digest this because he had seven catches for 82 yards and touchdown.
He gives me indigestion.
I don't want to talk about Sammy Watkins.
I know, but we got to, man.
He's the week one king.
Going back to last year, the 2019 opener, he had 11 targets, nine catches,
198 yards and three touchdowns.
Everyone was like, this guy's going to shred the entire season.
The rest of the year, he only had 43 catches for 475 yards and zero touchdowns.
Wait, he had 200 in week one and 475, the next 16 game?
Yeah.
The next 15 games, yes.
I want to couch that, though, by saying he actually had a pretty damn good playoff run.
In their three games, he had 18 targets, 14 catches, 288 yards, and a touchdown.
So I guess my question to you guys is, what the fuck do we do with this guy?
Like, we have to pick him up off waivers, right?
Yep, you do.
That's what sucks, as you do.
Yeah, you got to be.
Like, the best offense in the NFL.
You have to add him, and he's on the Chiefs, and McCull Hardman had, like, one target.
And you know what?
You might have to start Sammy Watkins.
That's the thing is like neither Hardman.
ride and throw up until you're like, I don't want to ride the ride anymore.
Yeah.
Is this why people didn't want Will Fuller?
No, Will Fuller is good.
Will Fuller is great.
Sammy Watkins is, Sammy Watkins, the amount of Pete, is there ever been a fantasy football
who has been started and gave a sub five-point performance in the history of fantasy football
and Sammy Watkins?
Back in the day, it was Miles Austin.
That was like two years.
Sammy Watkins is going on six years in the NFL.
good for like one and a half.
We should have like a segment
where we do like ridiculous week one
overthinking like comparisons where it's like
week two, who would you start?
DJ Moore or Sammy Watkins?
I'd like to underthink.
I'd like to underthink.
My thinking is he's broken.
I just, I can't.
I'm scarred.
I'm triggered.
Sammy Watkins.
You're going to let someone else deal with it,
I think is the deal.
Okay.
Would you rather Sammy Watkins
or would you rather have Nehem Hines?
Would you rather have Sammy Watkins
or Odell Beckham?
Oh my God.
Let's get in.
into that. All right. Yeah, let's unpack that. The Browns suck. And O'Dell sucks too, man. I'm sick of O'Dell.
He's not a fun fantasy player to have on your team. I don't like his body language. He always seems
unhappy no matter what. He got 10 times he caught. Yeah, him and Baker are going to fight at some point.
They don't like each other. Baker's, by the way, for Baker, there's a level of skill at which you can no
longer be in commercials and Baker's reached it. Yank this dude from Hulu. You know what's bad when
that deep fake Hulu commercial,
which by the way,
that is the end of reality,
as we know it.
But literally in the Hulu commercial,
they're like,
oh yeah,
you said I was doing too many commercials.
It's like, yeah, you are.
Odell had three catches.
He had a couple, like, you know,
pass interference calls.
He's got like,
drop.
Yeah, he had a bad drop.
He's got no connection
with Baker, it seems like,
bad body language.
The Browns are terrible.
You're going to have to keep starting him
because he's Odell,
and he'll make,
every time he catches the ball,
it's flashy and looks cool.
Like, every time he catches it,
you're like, wow.
this guy is talented.
But I don't know.
It seems more and more unlikely for him to put together a really good game.
Like,
it used to be Julio and Odell.
Like,
there was a time two years ago when it was like,
Julio and Odell are the two best receivers in the league.
And in my head,
what it would take for O'Dell to have what Julio did yesterday,
like nine catches 157.
Feels impossible.
This is the same thing to me as the Bucks.
It's like,
the Ravens are one of the three best teams in football.
And they also probably have the best secondary in football.
Marlon Humphrey is one of the best five cornerbacks in football.
like their secondary is absurdly deep.
Like this was a really hard game for the Browns to play.
And Odell probably won't have a worse matchup,
especially going into week one with all the stuff.
The Ravens barely swapped out any players except they made massive upgrades.
This was a really tough game for them.
I'm not willing to just write off the Brown's offense yet.
I don't think they're going to be as exciting as people thought.
But at the same time,
their schedule gets way easier from here on out.
So, yeah, this is like the perfect litmus test for whether we should panic after week one.
Because like Danny said, that was a really tough matchup.
It's not ideal to have a new head coach and two new starting tackles going into a game with a new system.
The next games are against the Bengals, Washington, the Cowboys Colts.
Like the Steelers is a really hard matchup.
You watch the Bengals, that game's going to come down to the wire.
They're going to lose the Bengals.
Are you just locking it in right now?
Joe Burroughs already better than Baker.
I love it.
All right.
Well, I wouldn't panic on Baker on O'Dell yet.
So any of the receivers you guys want to remark?
any of the Remarkables?
No, let's move to Tide-in.
All right, tight-end.
Mark Andrews is the number one
tight-in-the-week.
Dallas-Gottet was number two.
T.J. Hawkinson was three.
What do you make at that, D.K.?
What do you remarks?
One of the things that just looking at that top three
that I think is very interesting
is like this reads like a preview
for the next generation of great fantasy tight ends.
Andrews, Goddard and Hawkinson.
Goddard was awesome.
He looked great.
And Hawkinson, I mean, you know,
he's still developing,
but that was obviously a very promising start
to his season.
He was very quiet
after his week one
outbursts last year.
And Andrews
legitimately could catch
20 touchdowns this year.
Like he is absurd.
I will say,
Craig was like the worst throw
of the day
was the Josh Allen
missing John Brown.
You're going to say
Lamar's throw.
Lamar Jackson's
touchdown fest
to Mark Andrews.
Mark Andrews was
perhaps the most
open I've ever seen
someone under the goalposts
and Lamar almost missed him
for no reason.
Like he threw a laser at him
and it was like really high.
Really off target.
Andrews went up and got it with one hand.
So looking at last year,
Andrews was the tight end for you,
10 touchdowns,
and he only played 41% of their snaps last year
with a foolish snap load.
And he did play a good amount of snaps.
I don't know the exact number in front of me,
but he got pulled out.
Like they pulled starters in the fourth quarter.
I'll forgive you for not knowing the exact number.
Well, the point is he played a full load of snaps.
This guy is legit.
The whole offense works towards like funneling targets
to the tight ends.
He's a really good player.
He's like the new gronk in terms of,
he's not the same player as gronk because he's not the blocker that gronk is,
but he's the same kind of guy in terms of his red zone prowess, I think.
Like he could potentially have, to me, he's like a lock almost for like 10 plus touchdowns,
but, I mean, he could just go off.
So I'm really excited about Andrews.
I wish I had him on more of my teams.
It's kind of sad.
No, I don't because I don't mind it because I think that even though he might join the
Kittle Kelsey tier this year,
I just think it's more valuable.
The Goddard and Hawkinson getting those guys
who might be nearly as good after like the 100th pick
or spending like a dollar on them.
And that's ultimately going to be the play this year.
And I think that the best teams are going to be the ones
that got one or two of those tight ends for nothing.
But Hawkinson looks great.
But yeah, no, the tight...
Also, we do have to point out that Hawkinsons
did play in a game without Kenny Gallaudet.
But yeah, that's true.
You know what, man?
You just play the people in front of you.
You know what?
You just, you know, we just, we just, we don't worry about,
them, you know,
Hawkinson had a great week one last year, remember.
Yep, that's true.
The most underrated part of fantasy is the woulda, could have shoulda, in my humble
opinion, just like...
The things that you're thinking about at the end of the day are like, God damn it.
I wish so much, like, Swift would have caught that pass.
That would have been so awesome.
Yeah, the things that don't make the box score that you're just...
So just a couple notes is, AJ Green, Dickey, you want to run through the AJ Green debacle
where he should have had, what, one or two touchdowns?
Like four?
I've got OPI.
I should have won the game and he got
call for OPI, which was, I tickey-tack the call.
That's not a situation refs usually call OPI.
Same with the Gallup thing at the end of the Rams game.
Yeah, like, talk about narrative changing.
Like, you know, talking about the swift thing changing the narrative.
Like, think about the narratives we have right now, if they would have allowed that AJ Green
touchdown, like, Burroughs legend grows.
Like, you know what I mean?
So it's like, oh, God, those plays just stick with you.
Anyways, AJ Green had a good game.
He should have had a much better game.
And, you know, there was one play late in the game.
I can't remember exactly when it was when Burrow just like straight up over through him by about like three feet
He was wide open all by himself
Streaking into the end zone burrow overthrew him actually I love it at Burrow after the game was like
That's a play a high school quarterback has to like can make I gave himself a D
Yeah, great and then obviously the the game ending sequence where
AJ Green got called for OPI was really tickey tack in my opinion. It probably should have counted
Yeah, so I think AJ Green is a lot of
more interesting to me. And this is a guy that's coming off, you know, preseason basically didn't
have any practices in the preseason. I had like one practice. And he's coming off a hamstring
injury. He looks pretty good. Talk about practice. But he only had like, he legitimately had no
time to prepare and he still looked pretty solid against a good secondary. So I think green is,
green is definitely growing on me as like a guy who could outplay expectations a lot this year.
The other woulda could have should it was, I mean, we talked about DeAndre Swift's dropping
the touchdown. That's a career defining thing.
Like, that is, Lions fans will now
always think of him as either. That is his starting point.
The rest of his career is where he goes from there.
That's like so, I feel bad for the man.
There are other ones, but we want you to email us your bad beats
because, you know, people say no one cares about your team.
People love to care about your team when you lose in a funny way.
So if you have a bad beat, like you ended up losing because of DeAndre Swift or
whatever, after these Monday night games lock in,
shoot us an email with your bad beats.
Please include a screenshot.
Not that we don't trust you, but include a screenshot.
And yeah, we'll go through the bad beats on Wednesday show.
What it could have should us.
Let us know.
All right.
We're going to get into waivers and who everyone should pick up this week.
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I do.
I do, but I also just, I like the Heineken bottles.
The green bottles is kind of like, just kind of cool.
Maybe Heineken can start making green frosted mugs.
Let's get on that.
We should contact them.
Heineken original lager is made with pure moll and their famous A yeast,
which makes Heineken in all season all the time kind of beer.
So pick up a pack or get it delivered, whatever your style, and please drink responsibly.
We're also brought to you by Subway.
Footlong season is at Subway.
they make it easy to make your good call and food.
So here's a little segment called Bad Call Good Call,
where we'll look at some of the good and bad plays from last week.
D.K., what's a bad call from this week?
The offensive pass interference on Michael Gallup
that could have changed that Sunday night game.
What was a good call from this week?
D.K.'s prediction on Scotty Miller on the bucks.
Hell yeah. There you go, D.K.
Another bad call from last week.
Shouldn't they eat three cheeseburgers in the middle of the lines game?
You know what? I was stressed that DeAndre Swift dropped that ball.
All right?
I was eating in solidarity with him.
Not my greatest decision.
So this week, why not make a good call instead?
Like sweet onion chicken terriaki footlong from Subway or Black Forest Ham,
veggie to light, whatever float your boat.
And you can also get a free footlong when you buy two at participating Subway restaurants.
That's also a good call.
So make some good calls this week, everyone.
Order and pay contact free in the Subway app for quick and easy pickup or delivery on game day or any day.
It's footlong season at Subway.
Eat fresh, freshly prepared in front of you.
all right let's run through some injuries and some waiver wire people to add for this week
so there was a pretty good amount of injuries none of them are season inning but all of them
are in weird places mike evans has a hamstring injury michael thomas had a high ankle
sprain which again he suffered in garbage time when the saints were just trying to run up the score
marlin mack towards achilles livin bell is a hamstring injury i guess when he said my hamstrings
are fine well they weren't so that's a weird situation henry rugs had a knee injury that looked
really bad and then he came back in the game cowboys tied in blake jarwin towards acel devante
Parker as a hamstring pole.
I feel like half the league is a hamstring pole.
So let's just run through some of these replacements.
And we're going to divide them into two camps for each position.
We're going to go with streams who basically people who have value now.
And then we're also going to go with stashes for people who might have value later.
So let's just start running back.
We already talked about these guys of specifically why we like them.
But Nahim Hines, who is going to be the Danny Woodhead, it seems, for this Chargers team.
And then Malcolm Brown for the Rams.
Those are my two biggest pickups of the week.
Are there any other running backs you guys would even consider above those two dudes?
No one above them, no.
But mine, if they're gone.
I think Jamal Williams on the Packers is a solid ad for next week.
I mean, he played a lot.
He had 11 touches and split a lot of time with Aaron Jones in the first half
until the game kind of got out of hand and then it just kind of pounded the rock with Aaron Jones.
But the rookie AJ Dillon that everybody kind of hyped,
he played 7% of the snaps
and clearly that like no preseason
hurts him so Jamal Williams is like involved
and is like you could use him as a
flex this week if you had Marlon Mack as your flex
this week. Did they not see his quads?
What the hell? I know.
AJ Dylan, man.
I just again want to point out the Packers
took a quarterback in the first round and then a running back
in the second round that he's not been third second string
running back. It's just that's amazing.
As a rule, the running back you draft
should be at least the string
on your team. That's a rule.
Of the round you drafted them?
Yes, that's a good little short-hand roll at the minimum.
So, okay, so I guess we agree.
Heinz is the first priority you want at running back this week.
Malcolm Brown seems to be two, or Deke is there someone else you would take over Malcolm
Brown this week?
You know, I think I would throw James Robinson of the Jaguars in there.
He looked pretty solid.
You know, he didn't get a ton of points.
He rushed 16 times 62 yards out of a 20-yard catch.
But he looked pretty spry.
I mean, he was explosive.
He had a couple really intriguing-looking runs.
and he got 100% of their running back touches, carries.
So he is their guy in the backfield.
Well, this is bizarre, because Zygbo is an injured reserve, which is only three weeks.
And then Reichwaldwald Arnestead is on the COVID list.
So we've been trying to guess this backfield, which ironically might be one of the worst in the league.
But Robinson's the guy.
And he was like the fourth choice.
And now he's the starter, getting all the touches.
He's the guy.
They were very high on him in the preseason.
It was a big part of the reason that they cut Leonard Fortnight, apparently.
And he looked pretty solid.
you know, Chris Thompson was also like threatening to potentially cut into his workload,
but he was not really involved.
So Thompson had two targets, two catches, six yards.
So, I mean, you don't really want the lead back in a team that's likely going to be playing
for behind a lot, but the Jaguar has definitely showed more offensively than I think anyone
expected.
They're a little bit better than anyone expected.
So he's one of those guys that if you need a flex option, you know, he's definitely,
he's going to get a lot of volume.
Also, the last running back, I'd be remiss if we just.
just did mention him really quickly.
Peyton Barber had 17 carries and two touchdowns.
Oh, look at that.
On Washington.
He had 17 carries for 29 yards.
Just want to point that out.
I just want to point out that Antonio Gibson had, I think, more carries than all but one of
his college games and still was not very good, which...
I mean, if you watch him, he looked pretty intriguing.
They gave more of the carries in the second half to the veteran, though.
That was for sure.
and that was more in line with your call, Danny.
So go ahead and take your victory lap on that 17-carry 29-yard line.
Now I feel like a dick.
I was not touting Peyton Barber.
I was saying that everyone's going to be really disappointed
when Peyton Barber is getting the carries.
I'll say this.
I think if you can add Antonio Gibson,
do it above all these guys.
Hell yeah.
No one's at,
Antonio Gibson's not available in any of these links.
My point with Washington Jacksonville
was people are trying to parse these backfields.
Both are going to suck.
You don't want any of them.
It's just like, you know what I mean?
It's like you're looking for the best sand,
which at a gas station.
Get something else.
Anyway, speaking of that,
let's go to receiver.
Again, streams,
people have value now.
We don't have any stashes
for running backs yet,
right?
Because I feel like all the running backs
around like have value now.
So we don't have to go through stashes.
A receiver,
people who have value now,
I got a shout to just receiver.
Scotty Miller, D.K.
You were on Scotty Miller back when I thought he was Scott.
The hype was real.
The hype was real, man.
Like we got,
we saw a lot of preseason hype,
like the connection with Tom Brady.
And it paid off
in the game.
And, you know, if we see this Buccaneers offense
kind of like transition from more of the deep stuff,
which we saw week one, to, you know,
like the Tom Brady style stuff
where they're just peppering short stuff
over the middle of the field,
maybe Scotty Miller even, like, his role grows.
And we have to nip one thing in the bud
because he's a white slot receiver,
everyone wants to compare him to West Walker and Julian Edelman.
But it's important to note,
you were the one who told me, Chris Godwin
called Scottie Miller the fastest player in the team.
Yeah, he's super athletic.
He also plays on the outside, too.
So he's not like pure.
a slot receiver, but he's very quick, and he's like four three speed. So, he's not,
exactly the Julian Edelman mode of like, oh, yeah, he grit and grinded his way. No, he's, yeah.
So Scotty Miller to me is the number one guy I want. Who else are you guys adding if you need
a receiver from waivers this week to what you saw? I think, I think throwing a dart at
Al-Lazard or Marquez Valdez Scantling on the Packers is worth it. I know Devonte Adams had
100 targets and 90 catches last week, but there's really no one else to throw to. And
Scantling and Lazzard both had touchdowns.
And if Rogers keeps us up,
which I actually think he will this year,
one of those guys is going to be worth it.
Yeah, I mean, I think
Lazzard has been like Rogers' guy
kind of like all offseason.
Like he's talked about how much he trusts him.
He had four catches, 63 yards and touchdown.
Then MVS kind of came out of nowhere late in the preseason
and Rogers was talking to him up.
So absolutely.
Like, Valdives Scantling is the absolute post.
type sleeper this year because everyone was talking about him last year.
I was talking about him last year.
Yeah.
So I think that's a great call.
The other guy that I think is definitely worth an ad right now.
And I think you could even start him as a flex is Paris Campbell for the Colts.
Second round pick for the Colts last year, you know, one of these Ohio State receivers
that like didn't really get a lot of love, like they didn't use them in a lot of different
ways and then came into the NFL.
People had high expectations.
He was injured for most of his rookie year.
But in week one, nine targets, team high.
had six catches for 71 yards plus a nine-yard rush.
They were using him on these deep crossing routes, deep outs.
Philip Rivers had really good connection with him already.
I think he's potential to be one of the breakout receivers this year.
And so he's definitely a guy to grab now.
And you could probably play him in a flex and at least hold on to him
and see how it all kind of pans out.
I think that's a great call.
And when it comes to the kind of receiver,
the second year of speedy breakout,
it's easy to be like, add these people.
I'll tell you to cut, I would have him over almost all the rookie receivers.
Like, I want him over.
Like, I, I, I'm probably on an island on this.
I would rather have Paris Campbell than, like, C.D. Lamb.
I'd rather have Paris Campbell than Justin Jefferson.
Because in this all short and off season, I want the guys who've had, what is it?
I'm trying to math in my head.
18 months with their team instead of five.
Like, just as a whole.
Yeah, Campbell is the legit number two option.
It's offense.
You're talking about C.D. who's, like, three at the best.
Three or four.
you know, if you include Zique.
So, yeah.
I like that one a lot.
You have any stash, like for someone in a deeper league who needs a receiver?
Yeah, I think Leviska-Schanalt for the Jaguars is worth adding now to kind of see how they grow his role.
He had a very promising week one, three catches, three-seven yards, and a touchdown.
Even though he's a rookie and I just shit-talked rook-dik rookies.
Yeah.
I mean, honestly, like, the Jags seem very intent on playing their young guys and kind of like building that core.
They got nothing else to do.
Yeah, I mean, might as well.
And so, you know, I think Minchu showed some confidence in him.
They used him in Wildcat runs a couple times.
If he gets a few Wildcat runs in the Red Zone every game,
like that's potentially really interesting for fantasy.
So he was, he was, you know, he didn't get a ton of volume,
but I think he's worth kind of keeping an eye on.
All right, tight ends.
Who's a tight end you guys are adding this week?
Dallas Gotter.
He looked awesome.
It looks like he's, you know, who knows how it goes, you know, going forward.
But he looked like, to me, like one of the,
of their best players, honestly, one of the Eagles best players.
So this could be the beginning of his breakout season.
Finally, you know, we've talked about it a few years now, but.
Well, I mean, big picture, Travis Kelsey got a huge contract extension.
George Kettle got a huge contract extension, like three hours apart,
which is funny because they also broke a receiving record three hours apart.
And then Zach Hertz just is like, what about me?
What about mine?
And this is why, like Dallas Goddard clearly is the successor to Zacherts,
and we kind of saw it already.
So I like that a lot.
So again, to go through that.
Well, quarterback, we don't, none of the quarterbacks got hurt.
I would keep, like, if you really need a streamer,
like, Mitchell Trubisky and like, don't watch.
But like, probably don't need to add to quarterback.
Yeah.
Or Minchie.
Gartner Minchu.
Minchu's the new Ryan Fitzpatrick.
That's going to be his career.
Yeah.
Minchu only missed like one pass.
I'm just saying.
Jake Rood and he's going to be the guy who bounces around
and like his like on like four teams has some good seasons,
a couple good fantasy performances.
And he's in the league for 12 years.
Jake Rood is underrated offensive coordinator.
Sorry.
Yeah, their offense was fun.
Quarterback, if you need someone that's,
Min Schuert Chubisky, if he's short term.
If you need a stream, I think we're ranked
Naheem Hines for the Colts, he's Danny Woodhead.
Malcolm Brown on the Rams, he is the starter,
at least for now, on a running heavy team.
James Robinson on the Jaguars,
he's starting running back on a terrible team,
but he's starting running back.
Jamal Williams on the Packers,
he's the backup, not A.J. Dylan.
And then receiver, Scotty Miller,
Alan Lazard, and or MVS.
Do we have a preference there?
Lazzard?
Sounded confident.
Paris Campbell, that receiver for the Colts.
And then if you want to stash him on Liviscus,
Chanel for the Jaguars,
and then Dallas got it,
grab him before he's just gone.
And potentially,
I know if you listen to this pod
before the Monday night game,
Eric Ebron,
we'll see.
Yeah.
Yeah, look for that.
That's a good one.
And if he gets two catches for 12 yards,
then can we retroactively delete things
from this pot or now?
You can.
I can cut it and then re-upload it,
but some people might still have heard it,
so we'll see.
Okay.
Well, I'll leave that to you.
But, yeah.
The internet never forgets.
We've done that all the time.
I mean, I remember D.K. was saying that
Aunt Russell Wilson was going to have a terrible week this week.
And then he went off and we just retroactively just removed like this 20-minute segment from last week.
Yeah, that sounds like that.
Fun facts?
Yeah, real quick, want to get to some fun facts that you guys all sent into us because we appreciate them and they're fun.
From Walter Knight, bonus pyramids fact.
The last woolly mammoth on earth died in Siberia hundreds of years after the construction of the Great Pyramid of Geh.
Giza. This is another one of those mind-blowing thing. The woolly mammoths were alive for like
500 years after they built the pyramid of Giza. Are you serious? Yeah, the mammoths died.
You know? Maybe. The mammoths died around 2000 BC. The Great Pyramid was built circa 2560 BC. So
pretty crazy. What? Yeah. Have we figured out how they figured these things out? Like carbon,
like they carbon data recount the, that's wild. Okay, that's a really good one.
Yeah. And then more dinosaur facts from our dinosaur expert Samuel Guthritz.
He says, regarding T-Rex, because we were making fun of T-Rex for being short, yes, T-Rex was, quote, only 12 to 20 feet tall, but that is a misleading stat like Sam Bradford's record-breaking completion percentage.
T-Rex was still 40 feet long, a.k.a. a size of a cargo container, a tiger, stands only two to four feet tall, by the way.
but I'd still be terrified.
I'm reading this verbatim, by the way.
But I'd still be terrified
of coming face to face with one.
Also, depending on which you used,
or which estimate you used,
an adult T-Rex would have weighed
10 to 15,000 pounds,
roughly the size of a bull elephant.
Or Ben Rothesburg in the off season.
Oh, imagine a cargo container,
the weight of an elephant
charging at you with five-foot jaws
that could crush a car.
No one was saying we're not afraid of T-Rexes.
I just want to point that out.
We were just like,
oh, a little bit shorter than we thought.
Yeah, they're like Kyler Murray.
But you're saying they're thick.
Yeah, they're d'alline.
So they're not Austin Eklou.
They're like, they're a bowl of oatmeal.
Yeah.
So.
No, they're M.
Of oatmeal.
What are you bowl of oatmeal?
They're Clyde Edwards-Halear.
What the hell is bowl of oatmeal mean?
Thick is a bowl of oatmeal.
You don't know that meme?
Oh, thick as a bowl of oatmeal.
I thought you were just saying bulls.
You've never seen that meme of that guy?
I thought you were.
The guy in court and they're like, you quote said she was thick as a bowl of oatmeal.
And he like, points his finger.
And he's like, yeah.
I was about to be like, let's never explain a meme on a podcast.
But you actually explain that well.
That was fun.
Yeah.
All right.
So yeah,
those are some more
dinosaur facts.
Thank you again for those.
All right,
let's get out of here.
Thank you,
D.K.,
thank you to everyone
for listening.
Thank you to everyone
who emailed us.
That's ringer fantasy football
at gmail.com.
Send us your bad beats
and do our fun facts.
We'll get to as many as we can.
And thank you to the asteroid
for killing off the D.rexes.
That sounds really scary.
Thanks to Subway.
We made some bad calls
and good calls this week.
But remember,
it's foot long season at Subway,
so let's try to keep them
mainly good.
You can start by grabbing
it delicious,
freshly prepared footlong with all your favorite toppings and order ahead in the Subway app for
contact free ordering and payment to make pickup or delivery quick and easy.
So forget about that fried greasy food and grab a tasty footlong on game day or on any day
because it's footlong season at Subway.
