The Ringer NFL Show - Week 2 Awards

Episode Date: September 20, 2021

We recap Week 2 by giving out awards, including Winner of the Week, The Panic Button, Weird Flex but OK, The Player You Won’t Acknowledge Is Good, and more. Later we induct the next player into the 2021 Fantasy Burn Book. Email us at [e-mail]. Hosts: Danny Heifetz, Danny Kelly, and Craig Horlbeck Producer: Craig Horlbeck Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What's good, everybody? I'm John G. Stremski, host the New York, New York with JJ, the first podcast on the Ringer and Spotify, dedicated to you, the New York Sports fan. We've got episode three nights a week, plus bonus episodes whenever news breaks. So make sure you follow the show on Spotify. Welcome to the Ringer Fantasy Football Show. My name is Danny Heifitz. I am here with Danny Kelly and Craig Whirlbeck. We are giving out awards on Sundays. We're just going to get right into it. The, oh, right, that's why the NFL is worth $18 billion. a year award. They haven't missed with a prime time game yet. Chiefs Ravens. That was incredible. Yeah. This has been the best start to the NFL in terms of entertainment that I can remember. The Dallas Bucks game was amazing. The Raiders, Ravens game was fantastic. Tonight's game was great. Giants Washington was really fun. Giant's Washington was really good. I guess Rams Bears was whatever, but it was cool. Bucks Cowboys. Stafford. Yeah, it's been amazing. This game was crazy. This Chiefs Ravens game, I don't really have an explanation. for how the Chiefs lost,

because if you had asked me in the first, second, third, or fourth quarter, the Chiefs fucking steamrolled the Ravens. Right. I know he eventually turned it over, but, like, the Ravens had much more prominent,

costly turnovers. The Ravens had much worse refereeing things go against them. I don't really know how that happened. The Ravens hung in there, though. You have to, you have to admit, like, throughout the game,

it did feel like the Chiefs were dominating, but the Ravens were always just right there, right behind. They always had the ball. The Ravens had the ball. The whole game, it felt like.

Craig, I literally read my mom. Pulling up the box score because I have to know the time of position. 35 to 24 time of possession in Baltimore's favorite. Yeah. No, that's pretty, that's pretty solid differential there. Well, that's because they run the ball constantly and they just hold on in the football. Lamar definitely, you know, he shrugged off the two early turnovers and then looked really good down the stretch.

Like, I was really happy for him. Like, that was a very good turnover. It was a very good comeback against Patrick Mahomes and the freaking chiefs. You know, and a couple days ago, I think Sammy Watkins called him out in the press, which was like, what are you doing, man? He was like, yeah, I think Lamar, you know, he's gone head-to-head with Mahomes a couple of times.

He needs to, like, he needs to win this one. He needs to come out on top. He's like, dude, don't say that. But he did it. He came back and he won. So, yeah, credit to the Ravens. I think there's five plays that, like, swung the game. But can we just talk about Harbaugh actually going for it

on the fourth and two? It is the most accurate. theory in the world. Like when you think about play calling, just do what the opposite fan base would not want you to do. And in that scenario, if I were a Chiefs fan,

I would have been like, punt the ball. Give Mahomes the ball a minute. Under no circumstances, do we want him to go for it? Yeah. Because when you think like, oh, fourth down, you should probably punt it,

be safe. What if you don't get it? No. Go to the Chiefs fan sitting in the crowd and be like, what do you want us to do and do the opposite of that? I think the entire practice,

the entire science of analytics is founded upon that principle Craig. It's like coaches coaches are conservative. They don't want to get yelled at or blamed for making this big mistake in this big crucial situation. But like every single opposing fan base

when a team lines up on fourth down, it's like fuck. Yeah, like shit. I don't want them to go for it because they're clearly going to get it. Oh so the Chiefs couldn't stop them the entire game. Yeah. Defensively here the Chiefs are a little bit vulnerable. I feel like I don't know. A little bit vulnerable.

That's the worst running. defense I've ever seen. I know. The Browns tore them up and then the Ravens tore them up. We certainly kind of know the formula to beat the Chiefs this year. They don't, they really look pretty porous up front. Is it kind of ironic that that's their like Achilles

heel is stopping the run? Like this team that is the most incredible high octane passing game in the NFL and it's just like, oh yeah, just run on them. Well, I think the Chiefs, so the Ravens average six yards a run and then they averaged nine yards at pass

but what's crazy is that the whole game was kind of like the Marvel What If series where it's like what if Iron Man had like what if Tony Stark had never been like become Iron Man it's like the first play

is Lamar Jackson overthrows I don't remember who is Hollywood Brown should have been a touchdown on like the first or second play of the game next play throws a pick six and then basically the it was kind of like a tennis match where each offense just held serve

for the entire game but that started with the chiefs broke them on the first drive of the game and the Ravens were just playing catch up to that touchdown the entire game and then the chiefs put more pressure on it when they flipped it at halftime and then from really the only things that mattered

from then on was the Tyron Matthew illegal contact that undid what should have been like a second and 16 for Baltimore they got a first down and then the Ravens score anyway they lose the two points from the on the the two point illegal man downfield

yeah that was like And the guy's like, no, he pulled me into the, and I fell, which was ridiculous. And then really it just was the fourth down. I feel like that was the entire game. And otherwise it was just Rams Chiefs from like two years ago. Well, the Clyde Edwards L' lair fumble was clearly a big effect. Yeah, the Chiefs win that game if he doesn't fumble, probably. The reaction, the first reaction I have from this game is I was happy for Lamar.

It looked like, you know, he stuck with it. He stayed in the game. He played really well and then, you know, it turned out to be kind of like the hero. But I also thought, Mark, he's brown, looked pretty good. D-K, are you back? I was texting you guys during the game. I'm like, I'm gonna have to be back on the Marquis Brown train. Like, this is pissing off because he, I was just simply two years early on it.

Like, there was some ups and downs, but he's been really, honestly, he's been consistent, which is surprising because early on in his career was just like, you know, the peaks and valleys. And now it's like, I think, eight straight games with a touchdown, 10 straight games with either a touchdown or 80 yards. And he's just been really, really solid. he's been exactly what I'd hoped he had wanted was going to be early in his career and you know there's still a long season and and obviously this all could like evaporate but I'm starting to actually finally feel confident starting Marquise Brown I have not started in the first two weeks and I'm kind of disappointed in myself for not doing it well he's kind of a weird player because he's like

his success is dependent on the the run game it seems like the sweet spot for Marquis Brown now is he just runs slants and then Lamarra Jackson runs these read options and if he holds onto the ball and reads the defender, right? Marquise Brown's open for like a 10, could be 30 yards slant. And that's pretty much what they did the entire game. Like, it's like different versions of that is how he got open.

And it works. It's really simple. He's fast. And that's how Marquis Brown is going to survive, I think. Yeah. Or just beat Travis Kelsey and don't get tackled. True. You ever thought of that?

I mean, the Ravens do make it give the defense a very difficult decision because they're like, hey, do you want to stop the run or do you want to stop us from hitting these explosive pass plays? And like, I don't, like, honestly, it's harder to, it's hard to answer that question because obviously, I think for most teams would be like, well, we want to clearly stop explosive pass plays. But with the Ravens, they can just run on you so hard and like all game long that you have to sort of sell out to stop the

run. And that definitely will open things up with Marquis Brown, which is the exact reason why I liked him earlier on his career. Now he's starting to become a pro, it feels like, and become a very consistent player, at least somewhat consistent. So is he back to Hollywood Brown or is he still Bakersfield Brown or whatever we I think he's approaching Hollywood Bray he's West Hollywood Brown or at least No, he's from Florida Little Armenia

West Hollywood's also nicer than Hollywood What's like what's right to the east of Hollywood it's Little Armenia Uh yes That doesn't quite roll off the tongue Los Feliz Brown Los Feliz He's almost back at Hollywood

Oh he's almost there Yeah he's on Highland He's heading north There we go Right by the Chick-Flynn All right you want to get this biggest loser the week? Yeah, I feel like you know,

you typically start with biggest winner and stay positive, but this week there is a lot of losers going down. Well, the NFL's lucky because the games, the Sunday night game was incredible. The early slate of games, the 1 p.m. Eastern games were awful. Like depressing.

Like, legit depressing. Like, like, all right, loser of the week is all the freaking injuries and the quarterback injury specifically from the 1 o'clock Eastern Slate. So I can't remember so many quarterbacks getting hurt in a game. game in a doubt. So Andy Dalton got

hurt. I don't remember what that injury was. Carson was an ankle. No, it's a knee. They're worried it was an ACL and now after the game for Dalton, yeah, and it's come out that they don't think it's an ACL. Oh, damn it? I know. That's like the one thing where it's like you never want to rip for

injuries. Everyone's quietly like, hmm, that would be cool. I saw one tweet where it was like just bears fans let out an exasperated sigh that Andy Dalton's coming back into the game kind of deal. But, um, So Dalton had the knee injury. When sprained his ankle, two hurt his ribs, and it looked worse than that immediately.

Tyra Taylor hurt his hamstring, which was like the most upsetting thing. The Texans were so keeping pace with the Browns. And Tyra Taylor is playing amazing. He got hurt. Baker got hurt and then returned, but that was a crazy sequence. That looked bad. His left arm was hanging like a ragdoll. Well, also so was Matt Stafford who like came back in.

I thought Matt Stafford had the Drew Breeze injury from like 15 years ago. when Drew Brees was walking off. Like Stafford's cooked. I could not believe he came back in the game. Derek Carr got hurt. He came back in. I also thought he like... Like it broken his ankle or something?

Yeah, like all these guys were leaving at the same time. Never mind the fact that Jarvis Landry got hurt. Elijah Mitchell, Jim Michael Hasty. And Trey Sermon got hurt. All three freaking Niders running backs got hurt. Deontze Johnson got hurt for the Steelers. I'm like with five seconds left. Have we heard anything else about that, Craig?

Because you were saying it looked bad. It looked bad. I think he tore his ACL. I don't know if it's come out yet, but I haven't seen anything, but I think he tore a ligament in his knee. Yeah, we'll update tomorrow's episode with what happened to Deonti Johnson.

It was a meaningless. It was the end of the game. They were down nine, and there was three seconds left, and they were like, fuck it. Let's run a play to Deonté Johnson. He got tackled and hurt his knee. Not to mention,

Austin Echler got evaluated for a concussion. I don't know exactly what happened there. And then also, Dalvin Cook went in and out of the game twice, I think, with injuries. He's always doing that. He's like the Mike Williams of running back. He's always just kind of banged up, but's playing through it. The Echlor thing was a little concerning.

He had that awesome one-handed catch and got drilled and was kind of hazy sitting there. His mouthpiece fell out of his mouth. And I was surprised he came back, to be honest. So we'll have more updates on the actual injuries and stuff when we have actual information. I want to hear talk more about Justin Fields and stuff and pick him up for this week and stuff.

But we can get to that tomorrow's show. But mostly those games were the losers. All the injuries were the losers. The one o'clock didn't even have a hundred-yard rusher. It was just like it was awful. Craig was. Craig was just despondent during the first place. So many people

were getting hurt. Every time the red zone would change Andrew Siciliano would be like, and we have another Raider down. And I was like, this is terrible. You can only look at dudes like in agony for so long until you're like, what are we doing with my son? What are we doing? Like, these guys are in pain. And like, they can't cut away anymore because all the different games also guys were hurt. It was awful. Okay.

Let's get to something nice. Winner of the week. Craig was your winner of the week. Pivot. Pivot to the winners. Pivot. We have to cut away from all the dudes if we were in pain. My winner is Rob Grankowski, man. Frickin Gronk. He's back.

He's back. The number of touchdowns this year is like national commercial campaigns. That's honestly the Brady Gronk commercial campaigns that they've been blasting out. I think they're all pretty good. They are. I think they've done a good job. But Gronk, two touchdowns today.

He had two touchdowns in week one. He was the number one scoring tied in week one. He was the number two this week behind Travis Kelsey. The dude's unbelievable. He has six touchdowns in his last three games if you go back to the Super Bowl. Super Bowl, yeah. See, I mean, he's firmly a tight-in one,

the top 10 guy now, and probably even higher considering probably only four really good tight ends, and then it might be gronk. Like, if you were to redraft, it's probably Kelsey Waller, Hawkinson, Pitts, and then it might be Gron at five. I mean, he seems to be a guarantee

for like two to three red zone looks every single game. Brady goes to him. Whenever they're within the five, you can almost guarantee a target's going to Gronk, and he looks like spry and good. And I just, If you got him on your team this year, it was a huge deal.

I mean, to be clear, Gronk is the number one scoring tight-ed-in fantasy this year. It's crazy. Or maybe Kelsey just surpassed him tonight. And here's the real number, though. If you cut Gronk's numbers in half, he's still the tight-end six. That's per Michael Clay, and he's been.

So, like, I mean, I feel like a moron for not having Gronk of more of my teams. He was a Glansberg. He was a Glansburg. He was a Glansburg. I don't think we talked about him one time. I picked him up on waivers,

before week one. I was like, whatever, I'll start them. We fell for what Bill always says about Gronk, which is that they keep him in the garage and they pull them out for the playoffs. And in reality, what Gronk is that him and, is the Brady and Gronk have the most touchdowns of any two players in NFL history other than Peyton Manning and Marvin Harrison.

All you're doing every week with Tide End, if you don't have one of the top seven guys, he's just praying for a touchdown in 30 yards, which Gronk is going to do nine times this year. Yeah, they keep him in the garage, but then they just pull them out every game when they get to the red zone. It's, it's, I, I, I, I just feel like an idiot for not having more gronk on my team.

It's the most obvious. Like the calculus behind the decision and the fact that we didn't have him ranked higher. I don't think we had him ranked like really low, but, you know, he wasn't. It's reasonable. Yeah, he wasn't clearly one of our favorites this offseason. And I think just the reasoning behind that was you've got Mike Evans. You've got Antonio Brown. You've got Godwin.

And then even like O.J. Howard is still there. It was like, is he going to be like the fifth option in his offense? Cameron Bray. Would you trade gronk? Would you trade gronk to someone who? who's like he's going to keep doing this all year? Probably. He's a sound high for sure. I think you should.

Well, yeah, that's the thing is like, is Brady going to throw five touchdowns game every single game all year? That maybe. Maybe. Can't rule that out. So, I don't know. That's the question.

But yeah, that was, I think that was the reasoning. Speaking of two touchdown guys, my winning this week is Cooper Cup. Man, he looks amazing. I mean, he's, he's going to be a number one receiver.

He's going to be a top 10, top 12 guy at receiver. He's 160 yards. touchdowns. He is one of two players in the NFL who got a third of their team's targets each of the first two weeks. Like it's just Cooper Cup. The other is Deontay Johnson. Yes. So I mean the chemistry is legit. Like the whole narrative that Stafford and Cooper Cup had like great chemistry. It is so clear he is the focal point of this offense in a way that like McVeys Rams haven't quite had like one guy. Like he's so surpassed Robert Woods of that

duo like Cooper Cup is legit. Why do you think that is? It's not just because they eat breakfast together, right? That's the thing. It's like you hear that stuff in the preseason. And if it never pans out, you never think about it ever again. And now you're like, now it's week two. And you're like, I could have Cooper Cup at the turn in round four.

And I took DJ more. And now I'm like, damn, I wish I'd really taken breakfast with Matt Stafford seriously. Right. It's like unbelievable how life goes. Do you think this can hold up? Not necessarily, obviously, like, 160 yards and two touchdowns every game. But like, you said, do you think he's in a wide receiver one? Do you think he's going to continue to,

you know, finish off as one of the top receivers in all of football. I'm also concerned with Stafford being healthy. I don't know what you think, Craig. Oh, well, I was just going to say, I mean, it's pretty hard. How can you say no? Like, what evidence do you have to be like,

I don't think so? If you watch the games, it's not like those plays or like, I mean, one of them was a fluke, like in week one where he just had a blown coverage, but like, they're just funneling so much of the offense through him. Somebody compared him to Heinz Award. And I kind of thought that was interesting. Yeah, the announcer did.

And I was like, yeah, I don't know what I think. Yeah. I don't know. Because he can block. Is it because he can block? He's like physical? Yeah, he's like, he's kind of like a, he's one of those like gamer guys where he seems like a possession receiver, but he's quite big and loves to block and actually gets down field more than you think he does. And he kind of just like always has, he's there in the clutch moments type of player.

I get that. All right, D.K., who's your winner of the week? So my winner of the week is kind of, he's a guy that I think is going to break out soon if he hasn't already. And that's Rondale Moore for the Cardinals. I think the breakout is coming. So you have to go pick him up now. if he's still available in your league. So he only played in 46% of the snaps I saw this year,

or sorry, this week. But that was after running around on 38% of plays last week, so that's a big improvement. And we talked about this coming into the week. Part of the reason he didn't play as much last week is the Cardinals were winning by so much at halftime, they kind of shut things down and slowed down and went to a different offense and weren't like all-out,

you know, air attack, air raid, everything. And so this was much more the case this week. Obviously, he did have a... 77-yard touchdown. So that's a big part of the reason his stat line was so good. And it was like a play where Kyler ran around the pocket, escaped, and no one decided like to like match up with Roddell down the field. And he was just wide open.

He scored a touchdown. So that was a little bit fluky. So this is not something necessarily to expect every week. But I will say just the eye test, the way that they were using him, the way that Kyler trusts him, I think he's going to continue to work his way into this offense more and more. He's going to there basically he's going to force. this coaching staff to be like, hey, this guy needs to be a focal point over offense every week. Because he's so explosive.

He's so elusive with the ball in his hands. And he can get deep. I don't know. I just think, like, of all the rookie receivers, I'm actually maybe the most excited about him, even over a guy like Jamar Chase just because I think this offense can score more points than the Bengals. Like, we talked about the Bengals offense. The Bengals suck. Pretty hitter, man.

It's like the offensive line is rough. So I'm super excited about Rondale more rest of season. So he's my winner for this week. Yeah, and you know, I don't know if the like analytics back this up or whatever, but there's something about little speedy guys at wide receiver who seem to get open more when a play breaks down than like the bigger guys. You know, Tyree kills another guy like this. Oh, yeah. Whenever Mahomes takes 10 seconds to run around in the backfield, a lot like Kyler Murray does, the guys who always like get open are always like the little speedy guys. They're always like, you know, 40 yards down the field in the corner. And that's what it seems like Rondell Moore is going to be with Kyler Murray this year because this gets thrown around too much.

But Carla Murray is legit like a video game. Like more than any player we've ever seen. Kyler Murray is like, I don't want to just like throw around Mahomes because he's not, he's like the opposite of Mahomes where Mahomes does crazy stuff, but he's lumbering while he's do it.

Like you're not like amazed with how Mahomes escapes. You're amazed at how Mahomes throws. Kyler has like 70, 80% of like Lamar or Russell's scrambling, but also can kind of throw like 80% of the way Mahomes does. It's, he's like holding, you know, like you only get a certain amount of juice on a Madden player

like if you hold turbo too long it like runs out he doesn't have that. You're just holding turbo the entire time as he plays. It's not even like a video game. It actually really is like pickup football. Like the way Kyler moves around the pocket, it's like I used to be amazed that Russell Wilson did that. Kyler's just so much faster

and more agile than Russon doing it. And also just has a better arm. Everything you guys are saying about Kyler minus the arm thing is what Rondell Moore is as a receiver. He's just turbocharged. He's so fast, so explosive. obviously extremely tiny. So it's like they're a matchmate in heaven.

That is an interesting question about like the small guys finding openings in the downfield. Maybe it's literally just because they're small. No, no. They're just fast. They're hard. They're hard to cover. And quarterbacks are moving more because all the quarterbacks can run now. So like as you escape time in the pocket and you create time, you can't, it's hard enough to guard Rondale more for three seconds.

But once it's five and a half, like you can't guard him anymore. Like that's why. So we're burying the lead here. Kyler's the number one quarterback scoring again in week one and week two. So he's been a good fantasy pick. I saw this actually during the post game to wrap up the more thing. Kyler Murray said he told reporters that he sent a video of Rondale Moore winning in one-on-one situations to GM Steve Kime during the draft. Like during the run-up to the draft, it was like basically saying, dude, go draft this guy.

I'm hoping we can get Kyler on the A's if they make the wild card. You think? Yeah. You could do that down soon. Yeah. All right, let's go to the panic button. But before we get to this week's panic button, Craig, can we do like a check-in on last week's panic button?

Absolutely. The week went over reaction check-in. So we have Derek Henry, L-O-L. Wow. He's fine. Turns out. He's still good. He's still good.

He's still good. I hope that guy didn't. I forget his name. I hope not. But so Derek Henry had 48 p.m. He ran for 182 yards. He ran for 182 yards. He had 35 carries and they were losing the whole game,

which is an interesting strategy cotton, but it worked. he had a career high, six catches, so my prop flopped. A bed the under and one-half-half-hack career high. Hey, we did say, did we not say

every game with the Seahawks is weird and if he's going to go over, it's going to be because it's against the Seahs. We said if Derek Henry had a career high and catches would be this game. I will say that. And then promptly like said, go the under, but yeah.

I will, till I die, I will continue to fade Derek Henry at the start of every year because I think he'll drop off. And he never will, but I'm going to do it next year, too. To be clear, Derek Henry, I just have to shout this out. Derek Henry, like, the Titans, their first, the Titans were down 14 in the fourth quarter and won for the first time since 2006.

And they did it by just forfeiting Derek Henry the ball the same way they would do if they were up by 14. I cannot really get over that. I tweeted about it. I was like, I've never seen a team come back by running, but it worked. Derek Henry defies, like, the basic laws of, like, what we know about, like, sports and everything. His yards per attempt is higher in the fourth quarter than the first.

His yards per attempt is higher in December than in January. And he's just getting better later in his career than he was earlier in his career. It's just runaway beer truck, man. Can you imagine trying to tackle that guy? I actually cannot. So I think you're fine with Eric Henry. The next overreaction guy, Naji Harris, he pretty much had the same game. He did week one.

He just scored a touchdown, so everybody feels better. But, you know, he had 40 rushing yards, 40 receiving yards, in a touchdown. He looks good. He had a great stiff arm. The Steelers' offense looks terrible, but he's played 94% of snaps today, so that's here to stay. The RV 7 so far in PPR. Yeah, he'll be fine. He's kind of Joe Mixony, where he's just going to get all the snaps. The reality is, if you're like the running back I drafted is not making me happy, and it's not McCaffrey or Derek Henry, it's because none of the running backs have been very good. Right. Speaking of which, well, I should say, Kyle Pitts, overreaction check-in,

Cal Pitts is going to be fine. 73 yards looks good. Yeah, he looked good. Yeah, it's solid. He made an incredible catch, too. Yeah. The last one here is Ezekiel Elliott, who paid off. I mean, I have Zeke in my big league.

I was happy with it. He had 71 yards on the ground, a touchdown, like 20 yards receiving. I still think he looks good. I think Tony Pollard looks really good. Yeah. And it's alarming. They pretty much split time now. It's almost like a Jamal Williams, Aaron Jones thing,

maybe even closer to 50-50. This week, The rushing share was essentially 50-50. Week one, it was more like 80-20. So that's not great. But I think this is going to be one of those things where Zika is going to be a low-end RB1 this season. He's going to be touched-independent.

And Pollard's like a flex guy that you could just play on his own. Yeah. I think the overreaction thing, we did overreact a little bit last week, but I also think the fact that he's going to be a low-end RB-1 is certainly disappointing. So, like, you can be very disheartedly.

disappointed, but don't, you're not like benching Zeke going forward. Oh my God, no. No, but I actually disagree though. It's not an overreaction. Like, this is now a Nick Chubb cream hunt situation in Dallas. Yeah, but like Nick Chubb's still a running back one. That's my point. Yeah, but week one, Zeke had three quarters of the of the carries and this week it was like barely half and he had more than half, but I think Tony Pollard actually does have standalone value now. Like I think you can, if you're in dire straits, you can flex Tony Pollard now. They also use him well. Like, like, From a football perspective. Yeah, when you watch it, you're like, oh, that was a good call.

Like, every time they actually give it to Tony Pollard, even though I'm upset because it's not going to Zique, I'm like, oh, that was a good play. Well, it's like for a few years now, it's been like, is Tony Pollard just better than Zake? Right. Like, there's just been like all these things. But now we're actually seeing enough of them in the same game consistently. We're like, yeah, he kind of is just better. And Jerry Jones is also just saying how much he loves Tony Pollard. I don't know if he's better.

I think he's just faster. He's a different style of player. Like, Zeeke is one of those running backs where he, I've never seen a guy fall forward more than Zique. Like, every run that's like four yards, he jumps forward to make it six. He's really good at that. He's a really good pass blocker. Like, he's still probably

better than Tony Pollard. Tony Pollard can just like get around the edge and he's quicker and everyone's like, he's better. But he's like getting jet sweeps and running like 10 yards and everyone's like fuck Zique. You know what I'm very curious about with this? So going forward, this was it was a very interesting game plan especially relative to week one

because week one it was 50-something pass attempts or whatever it was against the Buccaneers, which I think was the right plan. And this week, it was very balanced. You know, I think they actually have more rush attempts than past attempts this week. Dak Press got 27 past attempts, and they had, I want to say, 30 rush attempts.

So, I mean, this is not going to be like a, quote, normal game plan for them. So going forward, if they end up going more pass-heavy against other teams, I don't know how that's, I don't know what it's going to be like. will they just use Elliot in those situations? Or maybe they had Pollard rotating in more in this game because they knew they were just going to run the hell out of the ball

all game long and they wanted to keep Zeke fresh. So I don't know if we necessarily get a ton of answers from this, but I do think Pollard has, he's kind of just earned his way onto the field more, and I think they're going to continue to get him involved. So bottom line, I do agree with you, Hyvitz. He's going to have standalone value, but I don't know for sure if they're going to use him quite this much every week.

Tony Pollard's like me three years ago when I was just like interning and like helping you guys out with this pod. Part time, Craig. What was it? What did we call you? It was interned Craig and then full time. It was interned Craig full time. And I was like, is Craig just better than the Danny's?

And now they're like, oh wow, that's like a 50% split and touches. Oh my God. All right. Well, speaking to which, Camara. Here, here you go, Craig. That was just finished with the panic button. Yeah, so now week two panic button. Is it panic button for this podcast, though?

She's like, D-K and I'd be panic buttoning about it. you. No, you guys don't have to worry about. Don't you worry about that thing. So Tony Poller would say. That's what he would say. Yeah, Alvin Kamara, week two panic button for sure. The man had seven PPR points. He had eight rushes for five yards, 25 yards receiving. This was my fear. This is what I was talking about the off season. James played like shit. The offense

looked completely discombobulated. And Taysam Hill was incorporated a lot in the red zone. It just like didn't work. They didn't look good. And the floor is very low for Camara. And that was my fear. It's lower than guys like Zeke in my opinion. this was brutal. It was against the Panthers, too, who... I think the Panthers defense might actually be more legit than we thought it was coming to the year.

Because I remember saying in the offseason, I think the Panthers defense has a lot of exciting young guys, but they might be a year away. They might not be a year away. Like, they might be here. They're just fast, physical. I don't know. The Saints, I do think we need to remember.

They had seven coaches that were out because of COVID. They were missing several guys on defense. I don't know if that necessarily explains everything, all the issues they had on offense, and James Winston definitely did not look good, reverted to his Yolo ball style, which is exactly what I was afraid of during the offseason. Even though it was much more common sense to think he would be the named starter,

as I said all off season, he's got to continue to be what we saw in week one, or else it's just going to be same old James, and he's going to get benched. So I don't know. I don't think this is going to mean he's going to get benched yet. But are you guys, are we on a hot seat watch with James? No, as you said, seven, seven.

Offensive coaches eight total were out of this I don't even know how to quantify that It's you kind of just have to chalk that up and see if this is repeats. I think before you draw a conclusion Yeah, I would say so too, but man I Sean Payton's gonna be like ugh, I need to use Tason Hillmore I do think that is a true actually all right DK panic button Who's your panic button award? So generally just the tight end position overall It's not like this is less panic button and more just like resignation to a

year of just fucking frustrating trying to stream crappy tight ends and getting like one catch cole commit one of my favorite streamers for this year for this week one catch one yard so that's great you don't want you want plural at the bare minimum you want plural you do otherwise just a stat yeah i mean i don't know look it was it was really tough at the title position even tougher than i think i was hoping and hoping and expecting. Travis Kelsey had a good game, but like the typical, like, even a lot of the very good typical names

that we liked as like potential sleepers this week, just rattle it down the line. I mean, Kittle, four catches, 17 yards. But like, Henry, Henter Henry, Dallas Goddard, Mike Kisicki, Tyler Hague, be one of our favorite sleepers, Zachert, it's another sleeper that we loved, Adam Troutman and Juan Johnson.

None of those guys had more than four catches or 42 yards or eight PBR points. So basically it was like seven. You're like hoping for six or seven. Well, and toss in Jared Cook. That was Hyford's his ad of the week. But if you know, with Komet, like those are two. Like he had 28 yards on three catches.

The touchdown overturned, which was, ugh. Here's a list of the top 13, or here's a list of guys in the top 12 or 13. I'm going to add 13 because there's one guy that's kind of funny. Max Williams from Arizona. Did you know he was a player? He was the tight end three. Only because he has two X's in his name. Yeah, yeah.

He's the tight end three this week. Jack Doyle, the tight end. For Foster Moreau, Peter Schrager. Shouts out Peter Schrager. Nailed that one. He was the tight end eight, Dawson Knox, tied in nine. Harrison Bryant, who is like the third string

tight end for the Browns, was the tight end 11. Ricky Seals Jones, tight end 12. So those are the tight end. When you say Titan 11, like Harrison Brown had four catches for 49 yards. Yeah.

Like, it's completely indistinguishable from the five guys above them and the five guys below them. My point basically is if you didn't shell out for Kelsey or Waller this year, it's going to suck. Hawkinson's going tomorrow or not.

I think Hawkinson is... My mistake, Hawkinson, too. But yeah, I mean, it's just brutal out there. And Kittle, especially was, you know... I don't know why it's just especially disappointing to me this week just because it's like, man, we have like four guys that could do well at tight end.

Come on. D.K., if you had to pick one of the non-top four, so not Kelsey Waller, Kittle, or Hawkinson, it's tossing pits too. Which guy do you want? Which guy do you feel good about? And let's remove Gronk as well. Yeah, I guess, yeah, man, I'm mistakenly left off pits and gronk.

So I guess it's like six guys, right? Yeah, I mean, Gronks probably fringe because who knows, but yeah. I still am sticking with Higby. He had one catch for eight yards, but I still think Higby's the guy. But I mean, I think this is a really strong reminder. He plays like nearly all the snaps. He's, you know, in a good offense, good quarterback, all that stuff. And he can still have this just, like the floor is almost nothing.

You had 1.8 points in PPR today. So there's, yeah, I would say after Gronk, there's just like no one I really even want. Like Goddard and Hertz are cannibalizing here. I would say Logan Thomas is in that mid-group still. Yeah, he's definitely, I would say. Noah Fant, I think I like a little bit. Yeah, but do you think any of these guys are going to be consistent? The Logan Thomas one, I guess, is an interesting one.

He has been a little bit disappointing to me overall, just because I thought he had the potential to be jumping into that next tier. And we saw late last year, he was that guy. But it's just kind of, you know what I mean? It's just like, oh, he gets eight points. Welcome to streaming tight ends. All right, fantasy jealousy. Craig, who is the guy who made you jealous

that you don't have him on your team this week? Nick Chubb. The man has had a rushing touchdown in 10 straight games, eight straight games? Oh, eight straight games. He had two last week, one this week. It's a lock. man, he's another guy. He's like Derek Henry. I just have some bias against guys who don't catch passes. I never draft them. And it's depressing every week that I watch them. It's pretty hard these days, I feel like to get a rushing touchdown, honestly, because of how pass heavy the league is. You're you essentially root for like a PI in the end zone that leads to a one-yard punch in. But other than that, there's like very few guys where when you're like inside the 20, they're like, oh yeah, Nick Chell will probably have like an 11-yard touchdown run. It seems like he has that every week. He's so good. He's ridiculously good.

I'm still definitely not bitter that the Seahawks chose Rashad Penny over Nick Chubb. That was the best part about that is that it was stupid at the time. Like sometimes these draft things are recent C bias. And sometimes they're like, that was immediately weird. Yeah. I'm definitely not bitter about it. So, yeah, I love Nick Chub so much. Dekha, who's your fantasy jealousy guy you wish I had more of?

Speaking of the Seahawks, actually, Tyler Lockett was a guy that, I felt like I gave a good amount of hype for this guy in the off season, and yet I didn't end up with him on, I have him on one team. And I'm like, why do I not have him on more? 22 teams. 22 teams. So 22. I'm like, why don't I have more of this guy? I'm a Cog fan. That's a statistical anomaly that you basically, one of the 22 is like basically an accident. Seriously. Yeah, if you have three receivers in every league, I mean, 22, that's, you have 66 receivers and you only tie lock at once. Actively tried to avoid him, but I did not. because I was really big on him coming into the year.

I thought he was a great value, and I thought he was going to end up being, like a high-end wide-receiver 2 slash maybe a wide-receiver 1. It's looking more like the latter, wide receiver 1. And, of course, look, we've been here before. First half of last season, he was awesome. And then he completely fell off. Part of that was because he had an injury.

Part of it was because the Seahawks sort of, like, changed their philosophy halfway through the year. But so far, man, he looks really good. I think he was the wide receiver 2 this week. I didn't check after Sunday, night, but, you know, he's right up there. He is the wide receiver two behind cup. This week, I want to say he was wide receiver seven last week.

He's just good for a big play, like once a quarter. Like, he's just incredible. He has a mind-mouthed connection with Russell Wilson. He's a big play threat from anywhere on the field. And like I said, before the season, like, they throw him balls in the end zone all the time. Like, he's just going to score touchdowns. But he's always open. Like, there's a couple guys that get deep targets.

It's like Tyler Lockett is always open. Or at least if he's covered, he still catches the touchdown. He's always the guy when, like, the game starts and you go pee and you come back, and he just has one catch for 48 yards within, like, the first two minutes of the game. You're like, Jesus. He was one of my long shot to win, to score the most touchdowns, right? Yeah. And I'm still feeling like 40 to 1 or whatever.

Kind of feeling good about that. He has three already. If only we had taken Gronk instead, maybe that would have been better. Also, real quick, the Seahawks game, the Russell's safe should have been a walk-off safety. Good. changing the way that it's like they're giving forward momentum and blowing quarterback plays dead now

earlier. What the hell was with that? Russell Wilson's fighting off the defensive lineman and trying to throw the ball away and they're like, nope, you're sacked. Dude, he hucked a pass out of bounds from like four yards deep in the end zone. What are we doing here? Well, they called forward momentum,

but it didn't really make sense. I think it's an overcompensation for safety, but it happened to Justin Herbert today too. We're like, Herbert was like actively fighting a guy off, made a throw, and they were like, no, it's like some forward progress style thing where they're like, you know, no, we call it dead. And I think it's BS. I don't know. It's strange. But anyway, the Seahawks, what a way to lose to the Titans.

First time in 15 years that the Titans overcame 14 points. All right. Fantasy jealousies go. All right, I have to go, Mayacolpa. Brandon Cook's award for the player you don't want to acknowledge is good at fantasy. I'm going to give this Court of Roll Patterson. Hello, all my Mike Davis radicals. address all of you directly.

Shit. This is awful. Coral Patterson, 24 PPR points for the Falcons. I believe he's the third running back entering Sunday of football. And I'm guessing that hasn't changed. So just Cordell Patterson is the third best

running back of the week, or fourth best, I guess. He's RB3 and PPR right now. That's unbelievable. So to be clear, Mike Davis outtouched him. So Corlowe Patterson had 12 touches for 69 yards. Not nice. Not nice at all. Mike Davis had four more touches, so we had 16 touches for 63 yards. So basically very similar, except Corderole Patterson kind of had two touchdowns. Mike Davis kind of didn't. Really upsetting. I will admit that he just looks more explosive and dynamic. And like the Falcons

offense does look better with Patterson in. Having said that, Mike Davis still outtouched him. I don't think it's, it's not curtains for Davis, but here's the deal, Hyfitz. We weren't expecting the Corderole Patterson effect to be a thing. We were basically saying the big of the reason that you like him so much coming to the season. It's like, it's Corterill Patterson and nobody else. It's like Quadrioles. He's a functioning running back. I will admit. I did not see Cordero Patterson 30-year-old receiver being a functioning running back. He's got to be the first like age 30 breakout running back in the NFL, right? Like, kind of sense Mike Davis. I know Mike Davis is in 30, but like Corderole is kind of doing what Mike Davis did last year. You know how, D.K., you said you were

two years early on Marquis Brown? Or were we to sell seven years early on Corderole Patterson? They've turned. Cordero Patterson, he's not even a wide receiver turned running back. He's a returner turned running back. He's a returner. I'm not even going to seed Mike Davis Hill. Like, I want to be very clear about something. Oh, so you're dying on this hill.

Good. Double down. Let's be clear about something. Okay, we're going to be clear. We're going to be clear about it. I will admit, Mike Davis has not lived up to expectations from my Mike Davis radicals. Having said that, I saw that Craig wanted to put Mike Davis in the burn book this week. Let me tell you something, Craig.

I wanted to, listen, I wanted to bring him up for discussion. That's all. Let me tell you. All right to tell you. Are we going right to it? I'm going to tell you right now, but you want to talk about Mike Davis and the Burnburn. Let me give you a list of guys that Mike Day, running backs, Mike Davis outscored today. Chase Edmonds, David Montgomery, Jonathan Taylor, James Robinson, Antonio Gibson, that was Thursday,

whatever, Miles Gaskin, Joe Mixin, Alvin Cabrera, Miles Sanders, Kareem Hunt. My games outscored all those guys on it they were ever in front of Cordero Patterson. That's all I'm saying. What about it on the season compared to all those guys? I believe he outscored four of them. Yes, some of those guys outscored him in week one, but he also had three double-digit points.

Are you saying, he out scored like nine guys who are ahead of, let's not freak out. We can't have anyone freaking out. Cordill Patterson is like, he's the Tony Pollard for Mike Davis. 30-year-old huge Tony Pollard. anyway. So there. There's my Mike Davis thoughts. What about you, Craig?

Who's your Brandon Cooks? Who do you not want to admit it's good? It's once again Brandon Cooks. I mean, this, every, every week. For real. The man had a 50% target share today. That means he saw half. Every time the team through, 50% of the time it went to Brandon Cook. Brandon Cooks had 14 targets.

No one else on the team had more than two. He is, Jesus. He is like, Devante Adams peak right now in terms of target load, more so than that. The only thing competing with 50% target show is the Patriots had 50% of Zach Wilson's targets. Tough day for Zach. But yeah, Brandon Cooks, it sucks now that Davis Mills is coming in, although we all saw what happened to Justin Herbert when Tyrone Taylor went down. One to one.

This is the exact same scenario. Could Davis Mills be the next Herbert? Dude, I feel so bad for Tyrod. I'm talking about like, he got the concussion, and Baker overtook him in Cleveland, and then he got stabbed last year, and Herbert took over, and now this happened.

They were tied. It was 14, 14, 14, Browns, Texans. He had to leave. He was looking legit. He looks really, he has looked really good so far this year. Sucks. Yeah.

So, I don't know how long he's going to be out of it. They said he's not playing Thursday night, so it's a hammy. It's dicey with Brandon Cooks, whether you should start him. Like, you probably will have to, but I don't know, playing Carolina.

Thursday night with Davis Mills it's tough. All right. Brendan Cook's is the guy we don't want to admit as good. I will also make

Corolla Patterson's good. All right, let's get to the Burn Book. I'm not letting us burn Mike Davis on a day that he has scored. I just wanted to nominate him. 10 guys who he was drafted ahead of.

But Burnbook is not really statistical. It's emotional. It's not always logical. I'll give you one that I think we should burn is Marquez Callaway. That's a good one.

Because Marcus Calloway was kind of pitched as like high upside guy. Marcus Calloway has three catches for 22 yards on the season And if you've played him You need to bench him And if you've even had him on your bench You're like, do I cut this guy?

I played him today Like I think that Depressing People with Marcus Calloware like Do I even keep this dude on my team? First of all that James Winston The best game of his career two weeks ago Marcus Calloway like didn't even have a ton

Didn't even what did he have like 15 yards Well they threw it like 20 times or something So yeah I'm just saying I think Calloway's the burden I don't know if anyone's been quite as disappointing to each of the two weeks. I think so, yeah, the spirit of the burn book, at least in my mind, is to save ourselves

from starting these guys, from talking ourselves into starting them in the future, right? And I think that Marquez Calloway really fits this thing because we're going to go into next week and be like, well, you know, he's the top guy in this receiving group still, blah, blah, blah. It's like, no, just put him on your bench. Try and trade him if you must, whatever. He's not going to get much in return. just don't start him. This is what the burn book is all about.

It's saving you from yourself. He led all Saints wide receivers and targets in week two, so that's a good sign. That's true. Four targets. There you go. So yeah, I think this fits the spirit of the burnbook,

which is to me, again, save us from ourselves. Don't start this guy. I think burn book's just more like, I hate this guy. Yeah. He may be upset today.

I think this is a really good one. This one feels even. better. Like, it's very cathartic because it's like this completely shit's on the face of like preseason hype, you know? Which always kind of feels good. So I'm happy to do that. I'm happy to put him in the burden book. Marquez, you're in the book.

Marquez in the book, huge hell for preseason hype. Okay, let's get to weird flex, but okay. It's my favorite category. Guys just didn't expect to play well. The bill's running backs. Oh my God. They both had double digits. So Devin Singletary at 80 yards at a touchdown. Zach wants to two touchdowns. Some context of that.

This is the first game. They didn't do that. The entire last season, Zach Moss and Devin Singletary were not relevant on the same day together. It has not happened. Just the first time. And Zach Moss had two touchdowns today. He had five touchdowns the entire season last year.

So that's, you know, it's just, it's weird. And all it takes is for the bills to crush the dolphins like 35 to nothing and have the Dolphins other quarterback get hurt and have the other team be completely toothless. The bill is like, yes, let's just run and get this game over with. Yeah, I didn't see this coming. In fact, on the green room before the game, we talked about how the bill's backfield is basically like the most barren fantasy backfield in the NFL. And then they go and do this just to spite us.

But this is what it takes. It's not like they blew the world up. It's just like they had like, you know, Devin Sincol had like, what, 18 points and Moss had like 15 or something. I forget. It's like they, Bill's won like 35 nothing, 38 nothing. I forget the exact score. That's what it takes for these two to guys, like to both be relevant on the same day. Yes, so you're not.

So are you starting Zach Moss next week, is the question. I would trade them. Trade high. Truly a weird flex, but okay. Yeah. All right. TQ is your weird flex, but okay. So have you guys, have you seen the Willy Wonka movie?

I can't remember what the actual title is. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory? Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Yeah. So the new one's called, I think the new one's called Willie Wonka. It's also a book. Yeah, that's why I can never remember. Like, the book is different than the movie, whatever.

in the original movie Willie Wonka comes out he hasn't been seen in like 20 years he like limping he's like limping you know like barely able to walk and then all of a sudden he just does like the somersault and like everyone's like what the fuck

and this was Cortland Sutton this week for me that's fucking amazing D.K. By the way it is called Willie Wonka in the chocolate fact I'm actually crying because you're right like I literally have my notes the first like two drives Cortland Sutton was limping and I'm like uh oh

that DK tweet that out now that's so good find that GIF and tweet it out yeah so we spent the entire week well we the collective we like Twitter just like debating whether he was limping in this video that someone posted of him doing like warm up videos there was half the internet was saying no no this is the this is the way that they run this this like drill it's like meant to look like you're cutting or whatever so it's like the dress but for limping yeah so like and i actually like an idiot. I did that one of those last minute switches were like literally at 9.59 a.m.

Pacific time, I switched Cortland Sutton. I took him out and I put in MVS and I am kicking myself because Sutton, after going for one catch and 14 yards last week, had nine catches, 159 yards for the Broncos this week. It looked awesome doing it. I think he had like a 55-yard play down the field at one point. He looked like the Sutton of old. And so pulling the Willy Wonka and just kind of like coming out of nowhere,

everyone thinks he's just limping around and then he's just amazing and incredible, amazing flex. Sorry, weird flex. Is that, is that unbelievable? It's just an unbelievable. Fun fact, Raul Dahl, who wrote Charlie and Truck Factory, was driving one day and had the idea for the book. And then he didn't have any paper or anything. So he pulled off his car off the highway, got in the back, wrote like three words in dust on the back of his truck. So he'd remember it and then, like, got home an hour later and then, like, wrote the book.

Do you remember the words? Seems like an integral part of the story. It was just, like, crazy guy. It was like crazy guy chocolate factory. Crazy chocolate baron. Okay. Chocolate baron. Chocolate tycoon.

Okay. Craig, you get a weird flex, but okay? Yeah. Max Williams, aka Dos Ekes, 94 yards, seven catches. Is that actually a thing, Dosecis? That's pretty good. No, I just gave that too. You should DM.

on Instagram and be like, yo, this is your name now. Doseki. Doseki, sponsor that man. The most interesting tight end in the world. Quite literally. Max Williams, 27 years old,

he's got 86 passes in his entire career. He had fucking 7 today, 94 yards. He's a blocking tight end. What the hell? He's quite literally the opposite of Rondale Moore on the Cardinals. He's on the Cardinals,

by the way. Third scoring, end. Unbelievable. Truly the weirdest flex, but okay. Oh, my God. I almost think weird flex, but okay, is like you're like a little offended by it. You know what I mean?

You're like, Jesus. Oh, man. Great category. I don't think I lived up to the category, but that's all right. We'll get there. I'm feeling it out. That's all we got. All right. Thank you, Craig. Thank you, D.K. Thank you, Dosekes.

Thank you, Lorne. Lord. Oh, man. Thank you, the boss. I've already done that one, I'm sure. Bruce Stacey? Let's see here. Who else?

Stop scrolling. I'm not. I don't know. I can see you looking at your screen. No, I'm not. Look at us in the eyes. I swear to God. Damn it, Craig.

Just think of someone who plays music. There's like hundreds of thousands of people through the course of history. Who in the postal service? Sure. Just say. I mean, also thank you to the real postal service. I mean, that is unequivocally a band that plays music. Also just thank you to like the postal service.

They do great work. Totally. Big shots out mail. Mail is like people don't appreciate mail. Like you just send stuff and it shows up. Shows up. It's so weird. That is true.

Go paperless though. Paperless is important. Save the trees. Yeah. Recycling is tough though. You get rid of your aluminum can. It's 8% of the earth. So good luck with that.

All right. One time. Wait. I have a quick story. Okay. Please. Since you mentioned recycling. I worked as a PA on a TV show in New York

right out of college and at night on Fridays we had to like put all the we had like separate the whole week we would separate the recyclables from like whatever the other categories called and was this before after you dented the van

on your first day of work that's after I dented it okay wow I'm surprised you remember that that didn't happen by the way hurts but anyway so we would separate you know recyclables and everything else

and then at the end of the weekend like the janitor guy would come and like take all the trash away. And I found one weekend I was staying there late as a Friday night, I just saw him grab the recycling and the other thing and just put it all together and then put it in the car. And I was like, oh, this is all fake. Let me tell you something. No one knows how recycling works.

Like it's not. I learned last week that my recycling where I live, they don't take it if it's in a bag. You have to empty all of it out of the bag into the can or they don't even bother. Sure. Okay. So the moral of the story is continue to recycle anyway. Yeah, yeah. Just give up. It's okay. Just embrace nihilism. Yeah. No, keep recycling. All right. Thank you. Thank you. Recycling.