The Ringer NFL Show - Week 2 Waivers, Free-Agent Adds, and Who Won the Week

Episode Date: September 21, 2020

Surprise! Everyone is injured! We take a look at the fallout from a brutal injury-marred Week 2 slate and then review the waiver wire along with who won this week. Injuries Saquon Barkley (05:31) Christian McCaffrey (09:06) Raheem Mostert (12:50) Jimmy Garoppolo (16:44) Davante Adams (17:59) Waiver Rankings Running Backs (37:47) Receivers (46:39) Tight Ends (52:09) Quarterbacks (53:47) Who Won the Week (54:06) Hosts: Danny Heifetz, Danny Kelly Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Today's episode of the Ringer Fantasy Football Show is brought to you by Heineken. Heineken original logger is made with pure mole and their famous A-Yeast, which makes Heineken and all season, all the time kind of beer. You know it's Heineken season because it's football season. We love Heineken because it tastes great. I'm a frosted beer guy, Frost and mug guy. D.K. likes the green bottles. But we both like Heineken because it's the best beer out there.

It's always refreshing. It's dependable. It's reliable. Unlike a lot of football players, it is always there for you. So pick up a pack or have it delivered today and please drink responsibly. The Ringer Fantasy Football Show. I am Danny Hifitz here with Danny Kelly and actually that's it. Craig Holbeck is on injured reserve.

He will be out for one to three episodes pending an MRI. We will see. But Adam Schaefter supported, I don't know, is it a broken heart? We don't know. But Craig is in here. Extremely tough week. Yeah, D.K. We'll have to go through it.

Yeah. But a lot of people are trying to get through without players because this was a crazy. crazy week. It is really easy to fall into hyperbole in 2020, but this was the cascade of injuries, particularly in the first half of the early slate of games, was

just something I can't remember ever. I mean, we're talking about Christian McCaffrey out for at least a few weeks. Sequin torn ACL out for the year. Michael Thomas, we're recording this on Monday. He's already has a high ankle sprain. He isn't playing Monday night. Devante Adams had a hamstring injury. That's the top two running backs.

Top two receivers are hurt. George Kittle is already out for the game. And then there were like a dozen other people. The athletic reported that 40 players had a game ending injury yesterday. What the hell is going on, DK? Well, I mean, first of all, there's just a lot of variance in football,

a lot of randomness and, you know, it's a high-impact sport. It's a very, very, you know, you're just out of risk, you're injured in any given play. So it's just probably one of those things. It was just a bad coincidence. But it's probably also due to the fact

that they didn't have time to, you know, get their bodies acclimated to playing full speed. That's why we're seeing so many soft tissue injuries, hamstrings and things like that over the first few weeks. It's just one of those things where we probably should have expected this after basically no preseason and a very, very truncated training camp. You know, it's one of those things that it's just an effect of that. And we're going to see how heavily that kind of just like changes everything in this whole season. So, you know, it seems like the 49ers are, I mean, it's just. It's just incredible how many injuries they've had.

They're starting quarterback, starting, you know, running back. Nick Bose is out for the year with an ACL. Richard Sherman is out with whatever he's got going on for a couple of weeks. And it's just, man, they have had so many injuries. And it changes the whole, like power hierarchy in the NFL. Obviously for this show, you know, it changes a lot for fantasy too. Like he said, there's just like, you know, a bunch of top 10 guys that are going to be missing major time here. Yeah, this is upending.

To the 49ers point, I feel like Jets fans, knew the Jets were bad for your health, but the 49ers learned that the hard way. And it is also wild. Like, it reminded me of lost because the Niners have this horrible experience. And then they have to go back and play at MetLife Stadium again next week against the Giants. Because West Coast teams like to do that thing where they schedule two games back to back in the East Coast or East Coast teams scheduled two back to back in the West Coast. I'm like, oh, we'll stay here, get acclimated. We won't have to do the cross-country flights.

So the Niners pushed for that. Got it. The pandemic happens. and then they have to do two flights, and now they have to do two back-to-back things and be the guinea pigs on this stadium. So, I mean, it's derailed a Super Bowl season. It's ridiculous.

Yeah, and several of the players on it after the game were talking about how the MetLife Stadium turf has to go. What did they call it? It was sticky. They said it was sticky. Have you ever heard a field described as sticky before? It's like Charlie the Chonkla Factory.

I mean, it is fascinating that, you know, not all fields are created equal. NFL and not all turf is created equal. Like, everything is a little bit different. So San Francisco players have already come out and talked about how the NFL needs to take action because, you know, obviously it was just terrible what we saw on Sunday. So, yeah, major, major week of injuries, obviously that has huge repercussions in the fantasy world.

We're going to talk about, you know, obviously the guys that went down, but then how teams can kind of, how fantasy managers can react to that and how they can adjust and evolve. going out going throughout the season because, you know, it's affecting a lot of teams going forward. Yeah, and I think a theme is going to end up being, there are going to be Band-Aid solutions and then more like surgical ones. And that's just going to be a theme throughout this is just like the Giants don't actually have a replacement for Sequan Barkley.

I have bad news that like there isn't one sitting on your waiver wire, but we will do our best. So we're going to comb through all these. We'll start with the injury news, which that'll take, what, three hours? Steve's on the edit here. Steve, hopefully you can get this down to sub two and a half or something. but all right, let's just run to these injuries. We'll start with,

yeah, Craig picked a hell of a one to take off for this. This is going to be like a, this will be like the Lord of the Rings style podcast going through all these. It's going to be a fun one. Yeah, we'll do it in trilogies. All right, Sequin Barclay for the Giants. He's torn ACL he's out for the year. So this is awful.

So they have Dionne Lewis, who actually turns 30 years old on Sunday. So the day that he will presumably start for the Giants, he'll be his 30. 30th birthday. Behind him is Wayne Galman, who replaced Sequin last year for a stretch, but he was a healthy scratch

for this game. So obviously the Giants don't seem to like his chances of contributing to the team. And they might sign Devante Freeman. D.K., what do you make of this? And do you want Dionne Lewis and how badly do you want? I think it's one of those things where

if you need, if you're really hurting from some of these injuries. He's he's an acceptable guy to have on your bench. He's like a flex guy. I'm not excited about him, you know, as a really high upside guy. You know, we saw how much trouble as Sequin Barclay was having getting going on the ground in this offense. Yeah. And, you know, a guy like Lewis is more of a, he's a smaller, past catching, versatile, it's like a Patriots back. You know, he was, you know, and is still good at, at what he does in terms of the passing game. I think he's an elusive runner, but, you know, he's not Sequin Barclay, and he's not, and it's not fair to

expect anything similar to what, you know, Barclay was going to be able to produce. So, you know, he's, he's a guy that I think if you had Barclay, definitely go try and get this guy. If you had CMC, you know, he's a guy that could fill in for a few weeks, but, you know, expecting anything huge from, from Dionne Lewis, I think, is a mistake, especially in this offense, this giant's offense, which has had very massive troubles getting anything going on the ground. So, Peter King had an unreal stat in his column this morning, which was that Sequin Barclay has 19 carries this season, and 10 of them went for positive yards, and nine of them went for negative yards. So if that was Seekwon, what the hell do we think D.L. Louis is going to do this season.

Like, Sequin's season is over. He ended up having, what, he had 50 rushing yards, 60 rushing yards, and then he had 70 and there was a minute. I mean, he had 130 or so total, or less than that. So expecting a lot from Deon Lewis, and admittedly, look, they've, played good defenses. But I'm really skeptical about, as you said, how much DeLewis is going to contribute beyond a flex role. And I do think they really might sign Devante Freeman. I don't think that's the end of DeLewis's value because I think the Giants are going to have

to be passing a lot this year and that DeLewis is going to be the past catching back. So if you're in like a PPR league, Lewis has more value. But this isn't a good team and they haven't really been good blocking. I mean, even their past blocking, the Giants have allowed the second most pressures this year. And apparently, Seek-1 had nine negative runs. So, you know, this just isn't good. It doesn't seem like a team that's going to be able to punch it in from the one very often. So it's intriguing that Dion played 100% of snaps in the second half, but this just seems like a terrible situation.

He had 10 carries for 20 yards, if that tells you anything. He did punch it into the end zone, you know, which is kind of, I think, what you have to hope for, and if you're hoping for like a big day or that he gets very involved in the passing game. I mean, he did have four catches for 36 yards. But again, it's just it's a low seal. proposition most likely that you're dealing with. And so I think, you know, this is one of those Band-Aid ones that you have to kind of deal with going forward.

Yeah, Sequin's like a power drill. And sometimes it's like a power drill works depending on the job. But sometimes a screwdriver isn't always what you want to replace a drill. You know what I mean? Right, right. I mean, and this is me talking as someone who likes Lewis. I just think in that offense, it's not promising. All right.

A little more promising. Well, not this is promising, but Christian, McCaffrey, he's out with an ankle injury. He's set to miss four to six weeks with an ankle injury. He has already said that he is going to try to attack this like I attack everything else with the timeline. So maybe it'll be sooner than a month, but he's out, going to be out for at least two or three weeks for sure.

That alone is interesting because Saquan Barkley also had a high ankle sprain last year, also beat the recovery timeline. And then really kind of had two good games. And then the rest was like pretty ineffective and like was clearly limited by the ankle. So McAfee promising that he'll come back early is not necessarily encouraging to me. But in the meantime, it seems that he'll be replaced by Mike Davis.

D.K., please tell us about Mike Davis. This is kind of funny, by the way. We talked about this prior to the season, how no one ever talks about Christian McCaffrey or Sequin Barclay's handcuffed players. Like, for some reason, it makes no sense. We were never talking about Mike Davis. No one was talking about...

We didn't rank him, but also no one else really ranked Mike Davis on like any site in a place where you'd actually draft them. And in retrospect, it's like, what the hell were we all doing? Yeah. And no, hindsight's 2020, but man, we really should have been more on top of that. I think Mike Davis is a quality running back. You know, he's nothing special.

But he did, you know, he played for the Seahawks a couple years ago. He played for the Bears last year. I think he's a, you know, a good serviceable backup type running back. And I think he'll be, you know, someone that you can, same deal with the on loose. You can lean on him as a flex type player. he actually had eight catches for 74 yards in this game, which I think is probably going to be a pretty typical type game script for

the Panthers who are just bad. I mean, they're going to be playing from behind a lot, which translates to much more passing, far less running early down. So I wouldn't expect Mike Davis to put up many, like, rushing yards, but he could be involved in the passing game.

And he's been good at that in his career. So, you know, to me again, it's the same deal. He is a flex type option for you. if you have injuries that you have to deal with. I'm probably honestly looking at Mike Davis a little bit higher than Dionne Lewis at this point. So when you're going about this kind of weird waiver situation where this is like an all hands-on-deck thing, and then you've got a Dionne Lewis who is going to presumably be in the role longer than Mike Davis will, but then you've got Mike Davis who will have a bigger role for a shorter amount of time.

What are you prioritizing? That's a very good question. I think it's impossible to answer because it just depends on your team. No, answer for everyone's team. answer for all the teams in America right now. If you have, if you're in dire straits in the running back position, I think that is that that's a good tiebreaker, Danny.

That's a good point to bring up. Sequin's out for the year. So if you need someone for the rest of the year, Dionne Lewis probably would be higher on a, you know, rest of season type ranking list. In the short term, I'd rather start Mike Davis. I'll put it that way. So it just depends on your roster

and how big of dire straits you're in right now, but that's kind of how I would make the distinction. Yeah, and it's also like, what do you need? Because the Giants play the 49ers this week. And I know the 49ers have banged up, but my God, it's not like the Jets did anything. And then the Giants play the Rams, the Cowboys, and the Washington football team, which that's three of the better defensive lines in the league.

And it's not like the Niners like Joey Bosa. The Giants still aren't going to run on anyone. So I don't even know if Dionne Lewis is really going to be a dependable person, get double-digit fantasy points for more than one of their next four or five games. but down the stretch when their schedule gets a lot easier, that's where he's really interesting to me. Whereas Mike Davis could be pretty good immediately. So you've got to understand what you need.

So I think that's a really good point. But we've got to keep rolling here because, I mean, my God, this is like there's still a long list. There's like a scripture. This is like a scroll. Rihim Moster among the Niners walking wounded here. I mean, we're not going to get to Jimmy Garoppel, but Rahim Moster sprained his MCL.

We don't have a timeline there yet. Kevin Coleman also left the game, but it seemed more like they just didn't want. they just wanted to cut their losses because they had lost so many people. So Coleman's injury is not as serious. We don't really know this true severity of either of these, but it does seem like Maastricht might go on the injured reserve,

which, again, even that's misleading because that's a three-game thing now, not like a season ending. So this is a pretty big role because Rahim Mastricht led to 49ers from rushing yards and receiving yards through two games. Right. This is a backfield that you want to have a piece of because it's, number one, very run-heavy. Number two, very, very good.

like Shanahan designs awesome run schemes. The first freaking play against the Jets. Moster took it like, whatever it was, 70-something yards for a touchdown. I mean, this is an awesome offense. Is that the Niners being good or the Jets sucking? Both. Both.

I mean, the Jets just were, the Jets are just terrible, like from, you know, on both sides of the ball. So that's obviously a factor. But again, the 49ers do a great job of mixing, like, motion, you know, play action, all that stuff. The run game's really good. Most of it's really good.

I think the guy to get in this offense, like Tevin Coleman might be the nominal backup in this situation, but I'd rather go for Jericho McKinnon, honestly, because he's going to be, you know, involved in the passing game. He's just looked better. He actually, speaking of how terrible the Jets are, he converted like a third and 20-something run play later in the game. You know, like the 49ers are backed up in their own end

and we're just basically saying, okay, we'll run this ball. Didn't the Niners get a third and 29 against the Giants, like a year or two ago? another getting third and 20s against the Jets. But yeah, so they're disinterested. But also McKinnon had, what, three carries for 77 yards and a touchdown, which, again, the Jets suck. But the Niners ran, I mean, if you take out Lamar Jackson's carries

as quarterback for the Ravens, the Niners had the most carries in the NFL last year among running backs. And now Mastard's out and Coleman's limited. McKinnon, he came off two years of missing one ACL. Yeah. But you don't need a ton of carries to be really effective for the Niners. So how much of a priority is McKinon to you? compared to Mike Davis and

DeLewan Lewis. Same story. He's a short-term. He's higher priority short-term for me than both of those guys. If you need a long-term guy, like if you have to fill a roster spot for the whole season,

that's a different story because I think Moster's going to come back in a couple weeks and take back his starting job. But McKinnon, again, you said he had three carries for 77 yards in a touchdown. Kevin Coleman had 14 carries for 12 yards

in the 49ers' offense. In the 49ers' offense. which is awesome. But that's not an aberration. That's like the last 10, I apologize, it might have been Pat Dardy of Rota World. I don't remember who put this out there,

but basically Tevin Coleman in his last 10 or 11 games has basically the same stats as Mostert McKinnon do in like this season. It's just Kevin Coleman has been ineffective for essentially his entire 49ers career under Shanahan. For some reason, they love them too. Like they keep going back to them.

So that's a slight concern when it comes. McKinnon. But McKinnon to me is just more explosive, more dynamic, and is just frankly, better at this point. So that's the reason I was so high on Moster all-off season is he's just their best back. And so I think, hopefully, naturally, like McKinnon will kind of emerge now. And in the meantime, I'm guessing Moster will be out two or three games at least. And so in that meantime, I think he's an excellent option for streaming and plug it into your flex spot too. All right. So those are the headline guys to pick up this week, especially when you're running back. That's Mike Davis or Carolina.

Deanne Lewis for the Giants. Maybe Devonthe Freeman if he signs with the Giants. And then Jerich McKinnon for the 49ers. And then there were also so many other injuries we're going to get to. Stick him to the 49ers for a second. Jimmy Garoppel is out for a couple games. I don't think Jimmy's in a bunch of teams except for two quarterback leagues. But I'm curious.

George Kittle was out for this game. Jordan Reed had two touchdowns. Look, if Kittles playing, you're like, if Kittles playing, you're playing Kittle. But are you at all intrigued by Jordan Reed having two touchdowns? or no. Yeah, I am. And this kind of follows what we heard all throughout training camp since he's signed with the 49ers.

I've been kind of tracking it because I've been very intrigued. And, you know, Matt Mayoko from the athletic, I think, has been talking him up a little bit. Basically, Jordan Reed has been really impressive for the 49ers in training camp and practices. And now he got his chance with Kittle out. So he's definitely worth a look if you need tight end to help. I would not expect it to continue once past the point where Kittle comes back. I think he becomes like an ancillary option at that point. And, you know, as the 49ers get more healthy at receiver and everything like that,

he could kind of fade into the background. But for now, in the next week or two, I think Jordan Reed is definitely one of those guys to stream at Tide End because he looks healthy. He looks fast. He looks like dynamic. He was running a lot of routes. So again, Tideon's a good position to target in this 49ers offense. They make that a priority. So let's keep rolling here.

Devante Adams, this is one of the ones we know the least about. He had a hamstring injury. Not really an update. He left. He came back, he left. He only had three catches for 36 yards. Obviously, again, this is another guy that if he's playing, he's playing. But if he's not playing,

would you rather have Marquez Valdez Scantling or Alan Lazard, if you're picking someone up? I feel like I lean MBS, but, you know, both of them are a little bit iffy for me to be starting. You know, it's one of those things where both of these guys, I think, have really high variance. You know, it's going to be a situation where you could see them go out and have four catches for 60 yards and a touchdown or one target. There's a rough theory, I think, to fantasy football where bad quarterbacks can only support a certain number of receivers and great quarterbacks can support many because to grossly, disgustingly oversimplify the quarterback position. you're supposed to see all the receivers on the field

and understand where everyone's supposed to be and get everyone in the ball. And a thousand million things go into that. But the reason Aaron Rogers and Drew Breeze have famously thrown a lot of touchdown passes to a lot of different players is because they can actually cycle through one through five options on a given play.

And I think Rogers, one of the problems when Adams goes out, we're thinking, oh my God, there's so many targets available because Devante Adams is going to lead the league in targets when he's healthy this year. But I don't think the Packers look at it as anyone stepping into DeVante's

role. I think Aaron Rogers is just, it's going to be so unpredictable, even to the people on that offense who play there, who's going to get the ball that us trying to, we can't step in Aaron Rogers's head. It's not like other teams. It's the same way that the Saints with Michael Thomas, it's Monday night. I have no idea what they're going to do tonight. I wish I had a crystal ball, but in reality, Sean Payton's had some stuff rattling around in his head for like 10 years, and we're going to see it come out. I will say, though, I think of all the receivers that you could potentially stream or pick up on waivers this week, I'd say that. MVS and Lazzard are probably in my top tier in terms of like guys we're targeting because frankly

the Packers' offense has just been a buzzsaw back-to-back 40 burgers to start the season, which I saw this. Only eight teams have ever done that. They lead the league in points. They lead the league in points in two weeks and yards. But here's the thing. This is the highest scoring season ever through two weeks. So the points per game is the all time and the Packers lead the league in points.

So it's so facto. They're not calling holding on offensive lines, which is just incredible. I kind of like it. Here's the thing. Has anyone noticed? No, no one noticed. Last year, like this time, we were like, why there's so many holding calls every game? This sucks.

And now we're like, yeah, whatever. You know, it grabbed the jerseys. It's fine. NFL football purists would be wanting to, like, ring your neck for saying that. But, yeah, I mean, I love watching high-scoring fun back-and-forth games. Like, that's way more fun for fantasy, obviously. the Seahawks Patriots game last night was just like no defense, all beautiful downfield shots.

You know, it's like... Everyone loved it. I mean, it probably took a year or two off my life, that ending. But yeah, I mean, it's more fun to watch. How shocked for you? It was like being on the other side of that one-yard or against the Patriots again. Oh, my God. I literally could not believe they made that stop.

I was like, this is, and I tweeted this because, like, people were talking about, how it was a bad call to give Cam Newton. It was like too obvious. Everyone knew that was coming, blah, blah, blah. Like, you should have designed something else. This is what a lot of people were saying after the Seahawks stuffed it. But I'm like, if you go by the rule that you should all,

like teams should always do what opposing fans don't want them to do. In other words, like go for it on fourth down, like go for it on fourth and short. No fans want teams to go for it on fourth and short, yet all coaches like punt in that situation for whatever. reason. So anyways, like, the thing that I feared the most as the Seahawks fan was absolutely Cam carrying that ball. It's like, there's no way in hell they're going to stop this. Like, they haven't stopped at all game. And they've, they've run it several times. Cam Newton is the

greatest red zone football player in NFL history, literally, like the greatest goal line player in NFL history. And up there for college football history. Honestly, just football history in generally might actually be the best person for that situation ever. So I was like, there was no way in hell. I was like resigned to the fact they were going to lose on this last second play. And I was like, man, going to suck like now they're going to stop letting rest cook all these these scenarios ran through my head we're getting really off track but this is a fun game anyways i couldn't believe they stopped it it was amazing i thought it was the right call by the patriots too like i side with bill bellichick on this one i think he knows what he's

doing that's a hot take there at the end i side with bill bellichick no my only thing was just why didn't they spread the once you run the same play just spread people out i thought the whole point of like having a quarterback who can sneak it it's just like you know spread everywhere I think that's something that people were definitely, you know, arguing for. So what it could have shoulda. It's one of those things. But, you know, I couldn't believe the CX made the stop. But we can go back to injuries.

Yeah, but that's a good bright spot because yesterday was so bad with injuries. Cam Newton back to full health. There was a bright spot for all these players who are hurt. They'll get back there. Okay. There was so much. Rams rookie Cam Acres, the Florida State third rounder. He hurt his ribs.

and then Malcolm Brown hurt his finger, which I have to be honest, after a day of just like knees and ribs, seeing the finger next to Malcolm Brown, it was like, really? I mean, you've got to carry the ball. He's got to carry the ball. I'm just saying it was my gut reaction.

I'm not saying my gut reaction is like a good person. I'm just saying that that was my thought. So, but anyway, the point is that Daryl Henderson, after being up and down and up and down of Is he Alvin Camara, is he Lance Dunbar, whatever. He leads them in rushing yesterday.

He ends up with, what, it was like 120 total yards in the score. so everyone who picked up Malcolm Brown was really burnt even though they had like the same amount of carries. Sometimes we get caught up on like backfield committees and hot hands. Sometimes there's no hot hand. They give everyone the same amount of carries and someone gets the plays where there was good blocking

and sometimes they don't. So was this Henderson out playing him and taking the job or is this just like he got lucky or what happened here? Oh man. I don't think he like quote stole the job to put it that way. I think he did look good, which is obviously what the Rams wanted. I mean, they traded up.

up into the third round last year to get him. They were clearly very high on him. And so I always did think it was a bit strange that we'd all kind of given up on them collectively. Well, because they drafted Cam Acres with their first pick this year. Yeah, and that's definitely like one of those things. We're like, okay, the team is telling us what they think about Anderson. But I will say he looked really good.

Like in terms of he was pretty much what we saw at Memphis. He had a couple of chunk plays where he looked like that slashing type running back. You know, not to compare it to Aaron Jones. But if you give him a little bit of a runway, he can slash and get vertical really quickly. He was effective in the passing game. They targeted him on a couple of vertical routes. So again, whether he's Lance Dunbar or more like in the Camara thing,

that's definitely something we'll have to find out later. But I would lean he's still like a complimentary piece in this offense. But in the meantime, with Acres potentially out, Malcolm Brown, his situation is unclear. I think Henderson is definitely worth a pickup at this point. Because to continue harping on what I called before the season, the Rams' offense is back, baby. Like, they look good. They look so good.

They look so good. It's really important to elaborate that. So the Rams, I think that if the Rams stay on this track, I think the way we will look at them of basically the Sean McVeigh era where they got really good, went to the Super Bowl, the Patriots, knocked them it back into the 20th century, and then they were basically off course for like an entire year. And really what happens, their offensive line fell apart.

like it collapsed onto itself with crazy injuries. And what they did was really stockpile talent, and they got all these young dudes who had never played and were rookies, a lot of reps. And the process of them having injuries and cycling linemen out, actually now they have a lot of linemen who have had experience

and actually now how to know how to play each other. And I really think that is the huge difference. They couldn't block last year, and they could this year, and they could the first few years of Sean McVeigh. And it's all the difference in the world. and the difference here is with Daryl Henderson who had the hamstring injury in week one.

I wonder if a lot of the Malcolm Brown stuff from week one would have been Henderson just because he's the more explosive player. And Malcolm Brown's thing has always been, he can't really make people miss, which isn't great for a fantasy running back. So I like Henderson. I think that's a good one.

Let's keep rolling here. To Rod Taylor, this is a weird story. I think a lot of people around football were just like, I've never heard of this before. Anthony Lynn, the charges said coach, was informed, like was it either right before or right after the coin toss that literally right right before the game right before he said the coin toss was the term used i was shocked yeah and that's when he found out therad taylor was hurting and apparently had to go to the hospital he's we we don't have

a ton of details in this still adam schifter tweeted three hours ago so this is we're recording monday md taylor is considered week to week with chest injury that prevented him from playing sunday so chargers are going into next sunday um unsure of their stills starting quarterback, which, yeah, again, it's a very unclear situation what happened with him exactly. And Anthony Lynn was quick to point out after the game that if Taylor is healthy, then he's still their starter. However, I think Justin Herbert made a very strong case to continue to be the starter for that team. At this point, I'm not sure what the Chargers have to lose. Do you think Herbert's greater that every quarterback from now on should be debut, when they're

debut, they're just like, hey, by the way, you're in. Like, just to give him no one to think about, they don't invite their family to the game. They're not telling people, they're not envisioning how it's going to go. And, like, this is the realization of my childhood dream. It's like, you're going. And it's like, oh, shit, where's my helmet? And it's just, boom, see, don't think about it, kid.

And he does great. I feel like there is a real big drop-off for him coming if he plays next week. He was really impressive. Yeah, I was, you have to consider, like, yes, they, I guess you could say that the chief's prepared for Tara Taylor and then maybe the fact that they put Herbert in was like a difference in style

and maybe that was a part of the reason that he was so good or at least he was impressive to me but I mean honestly dude he didn't have hardly any reps during the week he didn't go into the game knowing he was going to start he literally thought Anthony Lynn was kidding when he told him he was going to be starting the game this is what Herbert said after the game he thought he was like

messing with him and that's how it was Steve in this podcast we told him was producing like 30 seconds before we started. We're like, come on, guy. Yeah. So I don't know. I was very impressed. I thought it was very, like, promising start for him, a suspicious start for him.

I think every rookie quarterback is going to have ups and downs and it's going to be, like, opponent dependent and all that. But I will say they're going up against Carolina next week, which hasn't been able to stop anything so far. So to me, this is an encouraging thing. Like, this is all assuming that Tyro Taylor's all okay. Obviously, that's like the first thing that we're thinking about. But from a fantasy point of view, to me, if Herbert is the starter going forward,

he helps unlock, number one, Austin Neckler, who everyone was very worded out after week one. He had like nothing in the passing game. And then Herbert did a much better job of getting involved in the passing game. And then Keenan Allen, who was a bigger part of the offense too in week two with Herbert under. I think if Herbert is a quarterback, this makes me so much more excited about the Chiefs' offense. from a fantasy point of view. Herbert is weird because he looks, he looked as comfortable as I can remember a rookie looking,

and he also looked younger than any rookie I can remember looking at the same time. He just, he just looks like a child. Anyway, speaking of him unlocking the offense, Drew Locke, quarterback for the Broncos, sprained his AC joint, and he's going to be out somewhere between two and six weeks and be re-evaluated.

It doesn't sound great. They're replacing him with Jeff Driscoll, who I have to admit before I make fun of him, actually played pretty well against the Steelers, considering he came in against what it might be the best defense in the league. Not the end of their bad news. The Broncos also, Cortland Sutton, their top receiver,

tore his ACL and he's out for the year. So, D.K., now it's like this joint thing of Jerry Judy, who's in my mind the best receiver in this draft class. I believe you had him ranked as the second best receiver in this draft class. Everyone believed he was a top two in terms of pro-readiness for being immediately. This is the most pro-ready prospect. available to contribute immediately.

Now, Corlton Sutton's out, and the Broncos, on one hand, Jeff Driscoll's the quarterback, but I think that Jerry Judy is pretty good right now? And then is there anyone in this offense after Judy and Noah fan that you are interested in picking up, whether it's KJ Hamler,

the Penn State rookie? Do you like anyone else here, or there's a limit on Jeff Driscoll? I think the Sutton injury definitely opens up an opportunity for Hamler, and he got seven targets in that game yesterday. So, you know, he was a part of that offense. He's very, very fast, very quick.

He got three catch. for 48 yards, but yeah, if Sutton is out for the season, which it sounds like he is with the ACL, yeah, I think that definitely opens, opens things up. This is such a young group. It's crazy. It might be one of the younger receiving courses in NFL history, because Noah Fant is a second year player, but he's pretty young for his age. The Jerry Judy's a rookie, Hamler's a rookie. I mean, I don't think any of these dudes are over 24, which is pretty nuts. Yeah. So they're going to be playing likely from behind quite a bit. You know, they're really banged up. Driscoll, like you said, was fine. He did the same thing for Detroit

last year. I think he like kept things going from a fantasy point of view. 18 to 34, 256 yards, two touchdowns, one pick. So yeah, I mean, I definitely would target Hamler. I think that's very interesting. And if Sutton had been playing all year, I don't know how involved Hamler

was going to be, but this definitely gives him the chance to have a real role as a rookie. A few others. Your guy, Paris Campbell, who you predicted would have a big week. Instead, he got, it's really tough. He had a PCL injuries out indefinitely, I mean, it doesn't sound good, especially because he's a speed guy.

Does this open up any opportunity in the Colts offense? Is there actually a Colts receiver? You're like, yeah, I'm going to add Zach Pascall who, or no, you're looking else. You're not looking at the Colts for an option here. Maybe Michael Pittman, but to me, Pittman is more of like a dynasty type player. You know, I don't know.

You can take a chance on Michael Pittman. He had four catches for 37 yards. He actually tied for the team lead in targets in the game, six targets. So that is notable. Man, the Colts are really banged up, too. Obviously, they lost Marlon Mac. They lost Jack Doyle.

My guy, Moe Alley Cox, five catches 111 yards. Well, the Colts offensive line played every game last year. Every game played together last year, and they're already hurt going into week one. So the Colts have just, I mean, look, every team's banged up, but the Colts offense is already having a tough time. But it's just not, look, them wrecking the Vikings is not something I think is replicable. I wouldn't be looking at any Colts. receivers to replace Paris Campbell. And then other than that speaking, which Giants and Jets had injury issues too, which other than

in Sequin, Sterling Shepard has turf toe, and Prashad Perriman for the Jets had an ankle injury. So, I mean, are you trying to add Golden Tate for the Giants or my God, the guys, the Jets were trotting out there. Braxton Barrios left the few catches and like Josh Malone. I mean, at this point, is this a stay away? I mean, we're in the doldrums now. I'm a Golden Tate guy. So I think in PPR particularly, he's worth, he's worth an ad.

I would not probably be banking too much on Braxton Barrios being a every week type guy. But the Jets offense is just a wasteland, man. Like even our guy, Chris Herndon, who is like their best receiver left easily, was like, like, Gase was just leaving him into block like so many times like throughout the game. So it's just, Herndon's like Wilson. We're going to let him float away. And we're going to be screaming while we do it. Yeah, I don't want anything to do with Adam Gase ever again. I'm never falling for it again.

Screw that. Look, we have a longstanding theory. The longer, the further a player gets from Adam Gase, the better he performs. Ryan Tannihill turned into one of the five best quarterbacks in the NFL when he got away from Adam Gase. Kenyon Drake became scored eight touchdowns and eight games the second they traded him away. The Jarvis Landry had his best, he said career numbers when he left Adam Gase. And there's a fourth one. Oh, oh, Mink of Fitzpatrick became almost the defensive player of the year.

Adam Gaze benched him. No, he got benched last year, but still. Oh, you know who else? Robbie Anderson. Robbie Andy. Yes. But yeah. It's just like the freaking like list just keeps growing.

The people free from the Yoke of Gays. He just hates his best players, period. The amount of people who succeed. Oh, and don't forget Devante Parker once Gase got fired. The amount of people who succeeded when Gase has gone actually is the best case that Sam Donald will be a great quarterback in my mind. But anyway, let's keep rolling here. we're going to rank all these pickups we just mentioned

because it's really hard to keep track. But before we do that, we want to remind you that the Ringer Fantasy Football Show is proud to be presented by Fandall Fantasy. Week 3 of the NFL season is here and we are entering our fantasy lineups on Fandall. Have you never played Fandall Fantasy before? Great!

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fantasy or download the Fandil Fantasy app to play no play now that is fandle.com slash ringer fantasy Fandle more ways to win and today's episode is also brought to you by Heineken Heineken would like to remind you that it's time for seasonal beers again that's right if you thought it cold crisp summer Heineken with something just waiting to you taste the Heineken fall lineup is it a new product no just the same great tasting lager that is perfect for any season doesn't need to be any pumpkin spice whatever Heineken is great all the time. Again, frosted mug guy.

Really, if you haven't tried the frosted mug thing, it's not a bit. They didn't ask me to say it. This is an honest to God recommendation. You don't have to take who I'm going to say to pick up in waivers this week. You should put a frosted mug in your freezer. And then when you have a Heineken, you pour that in. You'll thank me later. It'll be almost as important as adding Mike Davis this year.

Heineken original lager is made with pure malt 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 going to add from waivers responsibly, although if you're really doing it responsibly, you should be having a salary cap league where you can add people with, you know, for a free agent budget, it's way better. But if you're waivers, whatever you're doing, we have to escape this apocalyptic fantasy

hellscape. And so we, this is probably the most consequential waivers that will be done all season. Like, that doesn't seem like hyperbole. It's like McAfree's sake one or out. Multiple top running backs are out. So yes. This seems like the week to spend a lot of your budget or just use your waiver claims, whatever it takes.

So, D.K. We already talked about Mike Davis, Daryl Henderson, Jerich McKinnon, Dionne Lewis. I want you now to rank the running backs that you would add this week in your leagues, not like hypothetically for, in your leagues, who are you at,

like, you have to fill out the thing with like the priorities. Who are your actual priorities? Who's the number one guy for you? Take me through. Okay. So actually, and this just came up on Twitter, Tevin Coleman is going to be out for a few weeks. Like the 49ers are worried about his knee.

So he kind of is out of the picture for a few weeks officially now. So that makes things a little bit more clear in the 49ers backfill. I think Tevin or Jerich McKinnon is probably going to get a good amount of volume going for it. He might not be like the lead guy. He's not going to be like a three-down guy. They haven't been using them in that way. But I do think he's going to get passing game work. He's been more explosive.

Um, you know, he's been, he's been a very explosive in that offense coming off of like multiple injuries for two, two straight seasons. So to me, it's McKinnon number one. And then I think I would have, I think I would go with Mike Davis. Um, just his upside feels higher to me in the short term than Dionne Lewis, even though, you know, Lewis is potentially going to have a longer like window of opportunity. I just kind of like what Mike Davis can do in the passing game. I think he's a good back. Um, the Giants might end up doing like a committee type thing with Lewis and Gall, uh, Gawlman who,

you know, he's had experience from last year doing this exact same thing when, when Barclay went out with eye ankle sprain. I think he looked all right. We all remember Wayne Galman's legendary run after Sequin got hurt last year. Who could forget? That's, no,

it's obviously joke. Did he have one? I'm racking my brain, but yeah. He's a healthy scratch on Sunday. Like, Wayne Galman's not going to do something and I'm not going to be Deon Lewis is going to do much either.

So I think that makes sense. Okay. So my, my top two guys, I would have it, McKinnon, Mike Davis. And then the second sort of tier of guys is a little bit more muddled. But I would have, I would put Dionne Lewis on there because I do think he's a good player. I just don't know how big his role is going to be.

I would add Miles Gaskin of the Dolphins, who quietly is like their new starter. You know, they signed Jordan Howard in the offseason. They signed Matt Brayden in the offseason. Turns out those guys are not getting the majority of the workload there. So Gaskin. Gaskin, you know, he's from my backyard, went to Udub. He's a guy that I always, he's a former Husky. He's a guy that I always been impressed with.

You know, I was surprised to see that he ended up being like their start or whatever, but he's gotten the majority of the snaps and 16 carries 86 yards, 10 catches for 62 yards in the first two games. And keep in mind, that was against two very good defenses in the Patriots and the Bill. So I think Gaskin is definitely an interesting guy to grab off waivers. and if he keeps that role, he could really do, you know, do some good things for you in the flex spot going down the rest of the season. Joshua Kelly, I probably would put next. You know, he had 23 carries.

So he's a guy that they're definitely leaning on the charge of run game. And they're very, they're going to be run heavy. Like they are trying to take as much pressure off of either Herbert or Tyrod Taylor, whoever they have at quarterback going forward. And then Darrell Henderson, who. Go ahead. I said, and then I probably put Darrell Henderson right in that group as well. just a guy who he's not going to have a three-down workload, most likely.

Acres and or Malcolm Brown will be back eventually. So he's not necessarily like a guy that's going to have a huge workload going forward. But I think he did enough to show that he has a role in this offense. He could be a past catching back for them. So I think I would put him in that little second tier. But yeah, I think that's like Deon Lewis Gaskin, Josh Kelly, and Darrell Henderson are kind of like that second tier of waiver wire ads at running back. Okay.

So to be clear, what I'm hearing from you, there's two tiers. One is Mike Davis and Jerich McKinnon because even if they won't necessarily have longer season roles beyond, you know, Columbus Day, when they do play for you, they might really be top 20, if not like top 10 running backs on a given day. Like, it wouldn't be shocking if Jerich McKinnon had a huge day for the Niners because

they run so much, or Mike Davis is a huge day because they use the running back spot so much. And that you're valuing the short-term upside as opposed to like a longer, or steady or lower upside season-long roll. Yeah, absolutely. It's just kind of the deal is like you can actually, you can feel good about taking these guys on waivers and putting them into your lineup.

The other guys, the tier two guys are more like- Mike Davis and- Jack McKinney. And you can plug them into your lineup, I think, going forward next week. On the contrary, these other guys are, I think, good ads, but like sort of more situational plays in your flex spot.

So, again, they might have a longer shelf life in terms of on your roster, but I don't know if, I don't know if you can really hope that they'll have a higher seal. Well, some things have a long shelf life. Craft cheese has like, craft singles have like a long shelf life, but technically they're not cheese. It's like, Dionne Lewis will have a long shelf life for the Giants, but you don't want him. Like, it's not the best for you and you're probably like long term. Is it like healthy? No, you're probably, you know, it's convenient. And on, on that exact note, like, I would put Devante Freeman in like tier three. I, you know, number one, he's not even on a team yet.

he's working out for teams potentially. You know, I don't have many rules, but when I have fantasy football players, I almost always want them to be employed. I think that's fair. So, yeah, that would be how I tier up the running back position. Can you shine a little more light though on these three

other guys because I think that there's so much focus this week on the guys who are replacing the injured people like Dionne Lewis and Seekwon, Mike Davis, and McCaffrey, and even Daryl Henderson a little bit with Cam Acres? But can you explain a little more why you'll, I mean, Josh Kelly, the UCLA back is him out of nowhere. I think it's funny that he stayed in the same city and really kept the same colors.

That's like an underrated, amazing come up for him. So Josh Kelly got 23 carries with the Chargers, Miles Gaskin, the Dolphins. I knew he just, exactly, sorry, not exaggerated. I hope he didn't. Elaborated on Miles Gaskin, but which would you rather have between Gaskin and Josh Kelly and why?

And which do you have more confidence in their season long role? That's tough. I would say I would say I lean Gaskin because it seems like he's the clear leadback in that offense. And he's getting passing game work. Joshua Kelly is more like an early

down grinder and he's always good. He's, yeah, he's 220 pounds. I think he ran like a 4-4. He was actually a big standout at the senior bowl. Kind of came on late. I actually have a weird emotional, not emotional, but I have a weird fondness for Joshua Kelly

because he was the last or one of the last players I interviewed in the before times. Like at the combine, it was like late February and then like the world ends. And so I just, he's one of the, he's perhaps maybe the last player actually interviewed before coronavirus.

Yeah. Anyway, that's neither here or there. Yeah, so I think I would go with Gascon, just slightly a higher just because I think he's going to get maybe, he has a higher potential to have the more valuable touches, like a passing game and,

and all that. Echler is going to have, Echler is going to dominate that stuff. And so I guess, you know, particularly in PBR leagues, that's how I would lean. But we don't really even know if Gaskin can hold on to that.

job going forward. Like, it's, it's all very, like, up in the air. But, yeah, that's, that's probably why I give him the slight edge. Okay. So one more time. You got Jerich McKinnon number one, because the Niners run all the time. Mike Davis, because they use that position. That's the tier one, especially if you need high upside stuff, players to plug in

immediately. Like, you're 0-2 in your league. You got Sequin. You're like, I need to win. Second tier, you're rolling with Gaskin-Henderson Kelly. And Lewis. And Lewis. No.

In that order? I think I would put Lewis, Gaskin, Kelly Henderson. And the reason I put Henderson is because it's like a three-headed monster at this point. The other ones are more like two back situations. Dionne Lewis and Galman, Miles Gaskin, and I guess Jordan Howard. I don't even know. Like he's the lead guy right now. So that's why Gasson gets the edge.

And then Kelly and Eccler and Henderson is in like three-man backfield. So slightly lower on the list. All right. Devante Freeman, you can add a. when you sign a contract. All right. Beautiful. Let's move on to wide receivers. So again, just to recap some guys either played well or we just mentioned.

Marquez Valdez, Scantling and Alan Lazard and the Packers. Preston Williams for the Dolphins, who I think he has not had a couple good games, but he went against the two best cornerbacks in the league. The Patriots put Stefan Gilmore on Preston Williams, not Devante Parker. And then he mostly dealt with Tradavius White against the bills. He didn't play great, but those are the two best players in the NFL of a cornerback position. almost like no doubt. So I think that he could have a much bigger role going forward.

And then Russell Gage for the Falcons, Keel and Cole for the Jaguars, Braxton Barrios for the Jets, which my God, no. Kendrick Warren for the Niners, and then KJ Hamler for the Broncos. You need to add a receiver this week. Who of those guys are like the top tier of people you want?

So I've got MVS and Alan Lazard, NVS, Allen Lazzard, and Preston Williams on my tier one in terms of targets. I think Presta Williams is a better target for, if you're looking to stash a guy for the rest of the season compared to like, I need a guy this week that I absolutely need to start. Because number one, yeah, like you said,

he's faced two very good past defenses. Number two, he's still coming off of an ACL tear from last year. You know, he's still not quite, I think, there physically. And he could get stronger as the year goes on. We saw that. We saw how good he could be when he was healthy last year. And so, yeah, I think Preston Williams is a classic bi-lokeye guy,

you know, after facing those. If he goes off for like 140 yards and two touchdowns, he's the guy you wanted to be on your bench because you'll look back and be like, oh yeah, he didn't do very well against the top two cornerbacks in the NFL. Yeah. In his second year coming off on ACL,

but then when he goes off, you're like, oh yeah, he forgot all the cool stuff about him preseason. Yeah, and then in my tier two, I think Keel and Cole is interesting. Danny, do you remember like two years ago

when we were talking about Keel and Cole? We love Keel and Cole. He's squirley. And now he's back, he's gotten him and shoot. He found him in the end of two weeks in a row, right? Right?

I was worried that Keel and Cole's NFL career. And now he's back and I'm thrilled. Yeah, he's playing in front of D.D. Westbrook, you know, he's, he's one of Minchew's favorite targets. I had been hearing this from the, from the Jaguars B reporters, basically during the preseason, during the short preseason, that Keel and Cole was one of the best receivers in, you know, camp. And so it's not necessarily a blindside to me that he's had two strong games. Yeah, he's not going to score a touchdown every game, probably. so I wouldn't necessarily say he's like a super strong option. But again, if you need a flex, if you need a flex guy or like a wide receiver, if you're in a three receiver league, he's an interesting wide receiver three to me.

And the important note is the Jaguars offense has been really good. And yeah, I mean, we were obviously surprised. I mean, the Jaguars, I mean, I obviously really was down on them. But I was clearly wrong because they had that best odds for the number one pick coming into the year. Two games in. I mean, they almost won the time. They almost beat the Titans and took, like, the control of the AFC South. Like, that almost happened.

And Gardner Manchu just looks so much better than he did last year. He's improved in all the right ways. And Jay Gruden's offense has been really good for him. So I do think it's not necessarily just early season randomness. Like, this could just be a good team. Yeah, the Jaggs offense, too, is probably going to be playing in a lot of shootout type games. Because their defense is still, you know, work in progress. Obviously, they got rid of so many guys.

But it's very intriguing to me, this nucleus that they're building on. offense. Like DJ Shark solid, four catches, 84 yards. Keel and Coles come on really strong. Had two touchdowns in the first two games. Leviska-Schnell, they're using him kind of in multiple different ways. It's super interesting. He had three catches. He had five carries. So they're like using him really like a wildcat type guy and getting in creative with how to use him. Min shoes looked awesome. The Jaguars are not the fantasy wasteland that we thought they'd be at all. And so Keel and Cole is just one of those guys that people are sleeping. on him still because I think it, you know, he's just not a big name.

Okay, so wide receiver, top tier is MVS, Allen Lazard, Preston Williams, and then second tier, Keel and Cole. I think KJ Hamler for the Broncos? Yeah, I was, I was going to say KJ Hamler and Russell Gage. And Russell Gage, Russell Gage almost threw a freaking touchdown at Julio Jones and he dropped it. And then last, it's Raxon Berries for the Jets, which is more like, you know what, I need to see him do it at least one more time. I just don't want the Jets on my team. The other one's vaguely interested in me is Kendrick Bourne for the Niners, but I also don't think he's huge upside. So I think that if you can grab the If MVS Luzard or Preston Williams are there, I love it.

But probably not. And I think Hamler is the guy I really like out of this group, even more than Cole. Yeah, I mean, and like just getting like bigger picture. Like if a guy like Robbie Anderson's still out there, I think he's definitely worth picking up. Just, you know, he's proven it twice in a row now. Corey Davis, if he's still out there, is definitely worth picking up now because A.J. Brown could be out multiple weeks with the injuries that he's dealing with right now, Darnel Mooney for Chicago.

I think is a stash guy. He's playing ahead of Miller, Anthony Miller now, and especially in their two two tight-in sets where they only have two receivers on the field. So Mooney is kind of like a sleeper. I wouldn't necessarily plug him into your starting line. But yeah.

When you're looking for tiebreakers, Cori Davis was the number five pick. So that's pretty solid. You know what I mean? And then Robbie Anderson was signed in free agency for not nothing. So when those two dudes start doing really good stuff in the beginning of the season,

you're like, oh, like, this is their plan. It's not just, oh, he was open on that one play they designed. Like, no, like, this is what they were training for. So I think Anderson and Davis, if they're open, are definitely their tier above one. Tight end real quick. I mean, look, there obviously weren't as many tight end injuries this week, so it's not as big of a deal. But Mike is sicky from Miami. He's just played really well.

I mean, no one saw because the CBS truck went out. Did you see his catch? I feel like I saw very little from this game because the CBS truck went out. It was like, if the bills have a great game and no one can see. see it on direct TV. Like, did it really happen? But if he's on your waivers, you definitely want Mike Gisicki. Yeah.

He had a Beckham. He had a literal Beckham catch. It was like behind him. He reached out with one hand, grabbed it. It was amazing. So, yeah. The hurdler in chief, Mike Gisickey. And then, yeah, Logan Thomas for Washington,

Jordan Reed for the Niners. We talked about Jordan Reed. Aikens. These are all pretty low upside guys, but Thomas might have a role Washington. Gisickey, if he's out there, you definitely got to get him. And really, we should just, you can cut Chris Herndon. We're sorry. Craig's not here. This is actually why. It's a broken heart he's out with.

Like, in our defense, he's still their best player. He's like their best receiver, healthy right now, but freaking Gase is inexplicable. The second Adam Gase is gone, Chris Herndon will deliver on all the promises we may. guarantee you. I think Logan Thomas is an interesting one, too, actually. He had nine targets on Sunday. You know, obviously in this Washington offense, it's not a very explosive offense. It's not going to produce a ton of points. But that type of target share is really intriguing. if you need a second tight end, he fits the profile

of a later career breakout at tight end kind of in the Darren Waller mode. He's very athletic former quarterback who's just still learning the position. No, no, athletic tight end. It's what you're looking for. So anyways, his target share

has been very, very strong in the first two games, so keep him in mind as well. And then quarterback, if you need one, I mean, Gardner, Minshu, and Burrow have all been really good. I think all of those are really good ads

if you need a quarterback. Burrow had 61. attempts. He leads the league in the past attempts. I love that. They're really letting him cut it loose. I mean, they had to. They were playing behind, but yeah. Okay. Let's roll. Who won the week? This one's pretty easy. Everyone who didn't get hurt won the week. Congratulations. That was easy. Scores, again, points per game's at an all-time high. So in theory,

we would be the winners of the week because we'd be watching a lot of scoring, but everyone got hurt. So kind of really took the enthusiasm out of the whole thing. I felt sick. I legitimately felt sick for a part of the day. It was just like, God, one after another, it's just, I felt so bad for these guys. A disproportionate amount of time watching people writhe in agony. It's just a lot of my day was spent watching

people limping. It was really absurd. It's not entertaining. I thank God for that Sunday night game. I think that's why we were so excited about it. I think so. Top scores at each position. Dak, Prescott was the KB1. Cam Newton was KB2. Josh Allen's KB3. Shout out to Russell, we threw five touchdowns and was somehow

not in the top three. What the hell? passing touchdown should be worth six and the fantasy rules are kind of outdated. But never mind. Josh Allen leads to the league in passing yards. Again, if Josh Allen is a great game and no one's able to stream the game on TV, like, did it really happen?

I think we just got a shout out real quick to the potential massive jump that Josh Allen has made from year two to year three. Is he in year three? He has touch. Is it year three? Believe it or not. I lost track, but yes. Yeah, he followed up his first 300-yard game with a 400-yard game the next week.

is the first Bill's player to throw for 400 yards and four touchdowns in a single game with no interceptions. First Bill's player to throw for 300 yards, at least two scores and zero picks in consecutive games. I mean, he's just bawling out. It seems like he's made a real jump. They're letting him, like, let loose,

which is kind of surprising, considering they were more of a conservative do things to mitigate his wild streak a little bit last year. Now they're just, like, embracing who he is, letting him loose. and crucially, he's been very accurate on deep passing, which is a huge change from last year.

So we've seen a whole new Josh Allen this year. I think he's on track to have potential overall QB1 finish in the NFL if he can kind of keep this up and if they let him keep doing this. So yeah, I think he's worth noting here. It's just like he's looking awesome. When he came into the league, the ceiling on him was so high and I just never thought he would fulfill it. And the ceiling now looks in reach of like,

oh, what if he's like a multiple-time MVP Canada? No idea, but it suddenly looks fun. Running back, the top scores are Aaron Jones, who was the top dog among all players. He had 240 yards three touchdowns. He had 10.6 yards per touch. So he averaged a first down, which is pretty good. Lenny Fornes, Leonard Fornett was the RB2,

which is unreal. And then Nick Chubb was RB3. Holy cow. I can't believe Lenny Ford's resurgence happened with Craig isn't here. And Aaron Jones. who he loved in the offseason. He made sure to pop into Slack on Sunday and tell us to eat some crow on Aaron Jones.

I'll go ahead and do that. Is Aaron Jones, is he recession or regression? He's recession and regression proof. I'm not an economist. So anyways, obviously, the big question with him was, is he going to be able to keep up this touchdown rate that he had last year? He scored 19 touchdowns last year on 285 touches.

If you divide his touches by touchdowns, that was 6.7% of the time he touched the ball. He scored a touchdown. For context, Leonard Fournett scored three touchdowns on 341 touches last year, less than 1% touchdown rate. So fast forward to this year, we thought that just historically speaking, like, all regression models. Aaron Jones scored as many touchdowns today as Leonard Forenett scored last year. He did, yeah.

Not today, yesterday. So, like, all historical models would point to Aaron Jones just naturally having touchdown regression. It's a very like the high variant stat. It's a random thing. Touchdowns are random in the NFL. And throughout history, like all these touchdown spike seasons, almost all of them, the guy comes back to Earth the next season. So that was like why I was a little bit low on Aaron Jones coming into the season to Jones's credit. He's doing like this Alvin Kumar thing where regression is just not a thing.

And he has four touchdowns this year on 42 touches. he's already like that's higher than last year's rate already. So I will see if he can keep it up. But like the dude is just amazing. Well, I think like Camara, he's the number two receiver in the team. It's not an accident yet you brought him up. It's like Thomas is the number one for New Orleans and Camara's been the number two. And Aaron Jones is the real number two.

We're like, who's going to be the number two receiver for the backers? It's Aaron Jones. And not just by catches. Like they're sending him downfield. Like they're throwing jump balls to him. Like they really believe he can do anything. So especially with Devante misses time. Honestly, Aaron Jones is the guy who gets the biggest bump.

But, I mean, that's one of the, ironically, it's, remember when Mark Burley had, like, the web gem on the opening day? And he had the best defensive play of the season. It was the number one web gem all year. There's a chance that this is the best fantasy game of the year. We, like, we're just not going to surpass it. It's in play. Yeah. And I want to say, like, we're asking the question, is Aaron Jones regression proof? A lot of things go into regression. No, he'll score 40 points every week. A lot of things go into this. It's touch distribution, like, the quality of your team, the quality of your team,

the quality of your offense, just pure randomness, like literally just pure luck, how the ball bounces, injuries. So he's got a long way to go to beat regression, quote unquote, beat regression, but like to start the season, like, I'm just going to let Craig take his victory because he absolutely looks awesome.

And he looks like that Al-a-Kamara type that can just be so goddamn efficient, that regression just doesn't apply to him. So, yeah, if you took Aaron Jones in the third round or wherever, like, congrats on the first two weeks. All right, Y receiver, top receivers this week where Calvin Ridley, Stefan Diggs,

Julian Edelman. That was the top three. Edelman just looked like he was in pain the whole time. Ridley has just been really great this year. He's been amazing. Ridley is benefiting a lot from, you know, he's an awesome route runner. They've had to pass the ball tons that the Falcons have.

I think, you know, even though Julio, you make fun of Julio for, like, not having a good game yesterday, but he is still highly respected by defenses. He played through something. He had a little bit of an injury. I think he had like a hamstring thing or something. Yeah, he left like one play and came back. He forgot the touchdown.

Yeah, that was brutal. He was out of the game immediately before that happened. I was shocked that it happened. The drop was surprised, but he had just left the game. So I think that kind of get left out. Yeah, so that's like a perfect storm situation though in Atlanta for Ridley to just go off in fantasy. So obviously he's having a huge, huge start to the year. It was cool to see Stefan Diggs, you know, do what he did.

And this is like the perfect marriage. We talked about it in the offseason, like, Stefan Diggs, the best deep ball receiver in the NFL. Or it has potential to be a perfect marriage because Josh Allen has such a can in arm. We didn't think it would be a perfect marriage because Josh Allen was the least, like a least accurate deep ball passer in the NFL last year is atrocious. And this series has been amazing.

So, like, you have to tip your cat. to the bills for seeing this massive, massive vulnerability or, like, weakness in their offense, going on and getting the best player at what they needed to do. And obviously, Josh Allen has made a big jump in terms of his accuracy. So, you know, all three things,

kind of, like, it just like all goes together, and it's encouraging to see from that team. All right, the top three tight ends this week. Tyler Higby, who had a monster game, Mike Gisicki and Jono Smith. I think Higbee's kind of taking a lot of Cooper Cups role in that offense, which is also thing we discussed. Gisickey, again, Adam, if he's,

somehow on your bench. And Jono Smith, who not quite the same role as Gussicki in that offense, John Smith had one wide open play, but he's really, really talented as well. Yeah. And then defense, Colts, defense is the top defense of the week. How about that? Although they did lose Malik Hooker to an injury, probably for the whole season. How about that? Another injury. All right. Well, that was a lot of injured people. So that was a tough week. We could use a fun fact. That's not going to be a normal thing we do in all our shows, but it was like just such a weird week. I think we had to spend time to kind to digest all the different injuries.

Talk about that. To lighten it, lighten it up a little bit. A couple of fun facts from our listeners. Thank you for sending them in. Fun fact from Toby. And this one's like, this makes you kind of like go, whoa. The brain is the only organ to name itself.

I love that. Steve, what do you think of that one? I think that's a bit too deep for my blood right there. Deep or shout? I love it, though. It's dumb, but I love it. much. Here's something on the other end of the spectrum in terms of like metadness and deepness. Hamster, this is from Peter Wong. Hamsters can't blink. They can only wink one eye at

time, which, I mean, just charming. No wonder people like hamsters as pets. Did you have hamsters growing up? No. I had a dog and had a fish. And you know, I have to be honest, though, this might get me fired because Mallory Ribbon is my boss, but I have never really spent time around cats until like the last month. So like, I'm allergic to. I'm allergic to, you know, I'm allergic to cats. But cats, I have never really spent time on cats until very recently. And cats are crazy, dude. Like, cats are nuts.

Dogs are like, wow, I have a pet. There's like a weird furry member of my family and he needs to go out. I have to open the door every now and then. And he loves me. And cats, like, there is a wild animal in my house. Like, cats are crazy. They hunt. It's like there's so much less domesticated.

It is nuts. Anyway, I feel like I've just discovered cats. So, but on that note, they don't always. have to be fun. Fun facts don't all have to be animal related. Send us anything. I mean, yeah, we love animals. So ringer fantasy football. Ringer Fantasy Football at Gmail.com. Send us fun facts. I mean, I guess fantasy football stuff too. I guess we can handle that. We will do our best to get back to you. Read some of them on the show. Thank you to D.K. Thank you, Steve, for filling in 30 seconds before the podcast, coin toss. We really appreciate it. Craig, we hope you get off the

IRA soon. And thank you to everyone for listening so much. We will be back on Wednesday.