The Ringer NFL Show - Week 4 Winners, Losers, and Awards (And DK Turns 40)

Episode Date: October 3, 2022

We recap Week 4 by giving out awards for the biggest winners of the weekend, Kenny Pickett’s debut in Pittsburgh, Kyle Pitts’s disappointing year, the wave of terrible offenses this year, and more, before we induct the next player into our 2022 Fantasy Burn Book. We finish the show by celebrating Danny Kelly’s 40th birthday. Check out our Weekly Fantasy Football Rankings for positional rankings and more! Email us! [e-mail]. Hosts: Danny Heifetz, Danny Kelly, and Craig Horlbeck Producer: Craig Horlbeck Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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

You get one take. You got a defendant to the death. Sports takes, pop culture takes, food takes. Airplane takes? Oh, yeah. It's coming back. First episode drops. August 29th.

Welcome to the Ringer Fantasy Football Show. My name is Danny Hyphitz. I am joined by Danny Kelly and Craig Corlbeck. Sunday of week four is over. We're going to go through categories. Talk about vibes after Sunday's games. Crazy week of football. We're quarter of the way through the season almost.

Jumping right into it. Craig, give us our first category of the day, first winner of the day? Yeah, so the first category of the day is called, if you're in the NFL, 45 is the new 35 of Tom Brady. And if you're not in the NFL, 40 is the new 30. We have Mr. Danny Kelly here. It is his birthday, his 40th, big day. In honor of it, Tom Brady came out into the football field and let everybody know he's not washed.

He had 385 yards, three touchdowns. He was great. 25 fantasy points. He's back. DK's as strong as ever at 40. In my prime. In my prime. You got five years left still.

This was not on the dock, but thank you. I appreciate that. Yeah. Happy birthday. Thank you. Thank you. I was just telling High Fitz, it's a weird feeling to be 40 because that number is sort of a scary number when you're growing up like over the hill, literally.

people call that over the hill on the down slope of life now. But I don't feel that way. I feel pretty young still. So it's good. No midlife crisis yet? Nah. Okay. All right,

we get it. Play them off. Play them off, correct. Like, enough. But I will say Tom Brady, uh,

not washed. Right? He's back. We will, we will circle back. We'll talk more about D.K.'s birthday at the end of the podcast. Yeah. We will,

um, let him actually go on about life. But for right now, we have actual things. Clather on. Drone on about it. Joe on. Blather.

Let you yell at a cloud. That'll be like a new segment. Just D.K. yells at the cloud. Okay, Greg. Do the actual first segment for the show. All right, yeah. So the Brady thing aside, so we were on a phone call as we are every Sunday, preparing for this show.

And I just started to ask the question, like, are any of these offenses fun to watch anymore? How many offenses right now are actually fun to watch? What year is it? It seems like every game has one team that can't move the ball to the, 50-yard line and have 11 completions in the entire game. You know, how many offenses actually right now are like fun to watch? I could come up with four.

The bills, the Eagles, the Chiefs, and the Dolphins. There are so many teams. And I guess the Lions, actually. I should say the Lions are the most entertaining team. But it just feels like teams nowadays are really struggling to like simply move the ball down the field. Do you guys feel that way? Football's gotten harder this year.

This is the story to me, I think. through the first month of the season. I mean, I'm not counting something like, you know, like an actual individual story, like, you know, to his concussion probably is the individual story. But like league-wide, coming into the season,

we were in a place where, wow, so many teams are set at quarterback. And then a month into this year, it's like, dude, none of these teams quarterbacks look good. I mean, just today, the Patriots are out there with a third string

or Bailey Zappy and the announcers are like, I mean, you know, this guy has no chance. What do you expect? The Giants don't even have a third string quarterback. they're fucking playing Sequin Wildcat for like the final eight minutes of the game. They're just doing, Daniel Jones is there, I guess just greened out to call plays as a receiver. The Bears are the first team with less than 70 pass attempts in their first four games since the Patriots in 1982.

Oh my God, yeah. The Falcons, again, won today. 1982, Heifetz, guess what? That's the year I was born. There you go. So you know it's fucking old. Your entire life has come and gone. and the Bears are the first

Dude, I've been alive it feels like for a very long time and that's kind of crazy to think about they're passing like a 1988 two team yeah grief

no about that's but even but you're Craig you're so right like the falcons Marcus Moran had seven completions today for the Falcons

and they wanted I know like you mentioned the Patriots and the Giants and like even like those today's shitty performances out of them

were because like Daniel Jones got hurt and Mac Jones got hurt but like even with Mac Jones healthy and Daniel Jones healthy like the offenses are so just anemic. I don't know what's

happening. The list goes on here, like the Cardinals. I mean, the Denver Broncos, like, all these teams that we expected to be, I mean, the Jets, the Steelers, the Chargers can't even move the ball. You got the Texans and it's Indianapolis. It can't do anything.

You know, what do they call it in school? Like, you know the one with a kid? But you know where kids go through the school year and then the summer comes and they don't do any of their work? And then they come back and they all regress and all the, the cat, I almost called in categories, like it's a podcast,

subject. Yeah. But they, like, there's a, the summer, not a summer dip. Everyone's yelling the answer right now. The doldrums? I don't know, I don't know. No, not the dulge.

I'm sorry to all the parents who are just screaming the answer right now. But there's a word for when the kids regress and reading, but like that's offense. Oh, really? We've been in this era of football for like, depending on account, five, 10, 20 years of offense,

offense. And I feel like all these teams have come back. And none of them look right. Like, this level of offense we've been accustomed to, it's not as simple as the two-deep safeties. But Collinsworth did say that at the end of the Sunday football tonight. Yeah, I know. That was interesting.

The end of that I think he's totally right that one of the league-wide trends is just teams being like no explosive plays. I think maybe the simplest answer for this is the two-fold answer of less preseason. And not only taking a game away, but the starters actually playing the preseason less, combined with when defenses have shifted their mentality to, no explosive plays, if you can like execute 13 plays

dink and dunk down the field, you'll score. But like you have to not screw up. And then it just seems like all these offenses, I don't know. They're just, I don't know if these kids are coming from college where it's all about explosive plays

and they're not used to dinking dunk. I don't know. But it seems like it feels impossible for Baker Mayfield and the Panthers. Yeah, they don't. Yeah, no, that's really it. They can't be paying attention 13 plays in a row. Come on.

So our buddy, our ringer buddy, Stephen Ruiz, tweeted this out today. The NFL QBs are averaging 6.09 yards per dropback the season. That's the lowest mark since 2006. Yeah, yeah. That's the defense making a choice. This is what I said on Friday. This man is ruining golf. The too high is ruining football.

Everyone's coming around and too high. Well, I'm not. Okay. Too high is ruining football. Because you know who can operate like a 13-played dink and duck drive? Like Tom Brady. Right. Tom Brady can do that.

But you know who can't? Most of the other quarterbacks in the NFL, and we're really seeing it right now. The Bears I really want to single in on. I want to have a little subcategory here. So what I'm going to do every week now, I have this weird, bizarre, sick fascination with watching the Bears. I watch it.

I make sure that they're on my quad box on direct TV every Sunday. I do. I don't know why. Because they're so pathetic. I just actually can't believe how bad they are and how bad Justin Fields is. So I like to watch it every week. So, Mays, I went on the athletic football show,

with Mays last week because he literally did a QB therapy thing and I was the first guest. And we just sat there and we're like, man, this is, I mean, we were just like, this is going to be so bad with these games. And then I watched it. I was like, man, this is even worse than we thought. How is that even possible? Justin Fields, man, has like negative presence in the pocket. There's just nothing going on there. It's a huge bummer. But so I was, I was thinking about like, you know, how there's some college offenses right now in college football that run like the triple option. the navies, the Air Force is, the old Georgia Tech used to do it, I don't know if they still do. So I wanted to check Navy's passing stats this week and compare it to the Bears.

I'm going to do that every single week and we're going to see. The midshipman. Who had more passes? The midshipman or Justin Fields? Yeah. So this week, Navy lost to Air Force 13 to 10. And Navy was 11 for 20 with 129 scoreless yards. The Bears this week.

were 11 for 22 for 174 scoreless yards. Pretty decent. But I went back and looked at the last three weeks since the start of the NFL season. Week three last week, Navy had 152 yards at a touchdown. The Bears had 102 picks. No. In week two, Navy had three completions for 99 yards in a touchdown.

Three. That still outscored the Bears who had 70 yards in a pick. Oh, God. In total, on the season, Navy has 515 yards in four games, and the bears have 471. Oh, my word.

This is the best bit we've had in this such a lot. Dude, Navy and week two had three completions and still had more yards through the air. Yes. Oh, my God. So, Navy is currently actively outperforming the bears. Passing the ball. This man is ruining golf.

I, I, Craig, I want you, you should deserve a standing O because a lot of people have tried a very long, time to come up with new ways to explain how much the bears don't have a good quarterback. And this is the best one I've ever heard. That's incredible. Wait, are we going to talk about the fact that speaking of Navy, the Giants were running a triple option offense with the freaking Sacon Barclay for half of this game?

Dude, yeah. So the Giants, so if you don't, I don't know why, but if you weren't watching the Giants Bears game, I mean, I don't know why you missed that. But so, Joe Jones. Join me down in the bottom of the pit. in the muck. You know what it's like? No, you know what that is?

It's roughernecking. It's like when you pass a car accident on the road and you're like, I got to get a load of this. I like it. But so Daniel Jones hurts his ankle, limps off. Tyra Taylor comes in. I've kind of been secretly wondering to myself if Tyra Taylor would just be better than Daniel Jones

straight up if he came in. Poor Tyra Taylor, who this has happened to four times now, gets like five plays and gets concussed. It's unbelievable. And like, again, that happened to him in Cleveland. Limith Baker Mayfield, obviously the Chargers and Justin Herbert, he got stabbed. Like his whole life, it's like every time he's got an

opportunity, so I feel bad for him. But like the Giants don't have a third quarterback. So Daniel Jones limson, the dude can't, forget run, he can't jog. He looks like in pain. He was just hobbling around. Yeah. I didn't even realize why he was on the field. I think you're right, Dika. You said to me, it's because he had the green dot.

It's because they couldn't radio into Sequin. Yeah, somebody had to relay the play into like the field, and then he would do the play call. and then everyone will know it and he'd just go and stand on the side where they like on the wing and then they would run the play without him essentially

and I was telling these guys like this is so college football because next week obviously they're gonna have a quarterback whatever but like it'd just be so funny if they like have the cards like in college fall where everybody just looks at the sideline and like knows the play so they don't even have to have Daniel Jones out there

they'll have someone like Davis Webb or whatever's on their practice squad I'm sure they'll have somebody come up but I bet you Daniel Jones is going to play is my guess. He had two touchdowns on bootlegs before he went out. Like they were still running a ton anyway.

The offense looked pretty good. They were just bootlegging left and right. That like unlocked the whole offense. That's like Daniel Jones. No one caught passes though. Like Daniel Jones had almost as many rushes. He basically had the same amount of rushing yards as passing yards. Tyrault Taylor had more rushing yards than passing yards.

Sequent did like this. They can't throw the ball to anyone. Tony was out. This is an, it's an insane team with the Giants have. Daniel Bellinger led the team in receiving. with 23 yards. And they won.

Like, what is going on in football right now? What? Oh, yeah. Speaking of three and one, first of all, Craig, can you look up who the leading receiver was for Navy this week? And then while you do that, do you guys among the many other tidbits through four weeks, you know the NFC East has the best record of any division of football? The Eagles are four and all.

The Cowboys and Giants are three and one. The Cowboys without DAC, the Giants without, I don't know, five of their top seven. preferred receiving options. They have no quarterbacks or receivers, and they're three and one. Three and one. The leading wide receiver for Navy was Jaden Umbarger,

and he had four catches for 71 yards. Get this man on the bears. Umbarger. Umbarger. Embarger. That's what, you know, it sounds like the pink panther. Oh my God.

Okay, but you're right. Big picture, though, this is a really good point. And like, I'm sure we'll hear about this whole season. But I think this really is an old series of this. I mean, it's crazy to say all seriousness. after the whole Navy bit, but it's true. The lack of competency, I do think is the story of the year thus far.

It's really strange. The NFL doesn't want this, though, to be clear. The pendulum is going to swing next year because they're going to make up new rules to make it easier on the offense because they do this every year. Five downs to get a first down. You get five now.

Speaking of... Stop calling holding for fuck's sake. Well, we did have someone get kind of put down for a little bit, Mitchell-Tribisky career. I kind of think we might never see him ever again, barring injury. I mean, there's no other way to say it. It was just like-

Trade him to the Giants right now. Get him out of here. Craig, where was your emotional, uh, roller coaster like today? Kenny Pickett makes his first appearance in the NFL. One, I owe you 10 bucks.

I said it wouldn't happen. But I mean, man, it shouldn't happen weeks ago. All year. It's week four. It shouldn't have happened weeks ago, too. I can't believe they made it this one. It's like three weeks too late.

It's incredible. I was overjoyed, to be honest. I just didn't, want them to wait. Again, the Steelers schedule gets so difficult over the next. I wanted them to play against the Jets so he could like at least, I wish he would have started the game and like prepared for the entire week rather than they just threw him in in the middle of the game and he didn't take any reps. So I didn't love that. But I saw this funny tweet that exactly five years ago today, Mitch Trubisky came in for Mike Glennon and took over his role as a starting quarterback

on the Bears. Five years ago to this day, October 2nd, that Mitch Trubisky then got bench for Kenny Pickett. It's like, you know, True Detective when he flattens the can, it's like flat circle. But I got to say, you know, if you just check the box score, you're like, oh, Pickett through three picks, like, yikes. But I thought Pickett looked more than competent. He brought a charisma to the game. Not only did he, like, completely reignite a Creasier Stadium, but he was laughing and

smiling. He took a big hit. He was, like, laughing with the D-Ly. Gamer. He was patting George Pickens on the head. and coaching him up after a great catch. Like, Chubisky was a substitute teacher, and he knew it. And he just had no energy.

You know, like, he brought nothing. You could tell. He was like, I'm just... The receivers hated him. That too. George Pickens was like, Alan Robinson on the Bears. Like, every time a ball would get sent to him, he was throwing his hands up. He literally had one play today where Pickens was open on a deep ball and Trubisky, like,

completely underthrew him. And Pickens was pointing, his hand, like, was pointing up in the air. Like, get it higher. Like, I will catch you. Throw it higher. No, I actually think he was pointing up because he was like, God, please bench Mitchell Chibisky.

This is on you. This is on you. Do something. But, yeah, pick it. I mean, like, yeah, he had a couple picks that didn't really, that weren't really his fault. One was the Hill Mary at the end of the game.

Two of them were like, it bounced off of receivers hands into it. Yeah, they weren't like great throws and good decisions, but like they weren't like these like misreads or terrible throws. It really wasn't his fault. And other than that,

he was 10 for 10. And it's crazy, man. It's remarkable how a new quarterback can make an offense look different. It's the same plays. It's the same coordinator. But Pickett just being back there under center look completely different. Pickens caught like a 30-yard.

He had 100 yards today. Like everything already started to look like it was moving. Obviously, Pickens or Pickett ran for two touchdowns, which is cool. But it's going to be a rough next seven weeks against this brutal schedule. But I'm happy we're doing it now because we're going to now know. We're going to know if Pickett is good. The Steelers lost, by the way. They lost to the Jets.

Steelers lost. No, they lost to the Jets. But that's kind of the point. is like it was such a bad spot. But losing to the Jets, they were going to lose with Trubisky. And losing with Trubisky would have been depressing.

Losing with Pickett, it's like, okay, like let's just, let's just get this going. I think that Trubisky, I, I, this is maybe a little mean, presumptuous, rude,

whatever to say. Trubisky kind of has played with the energy, the aura, the vibe of a guy who's just been beat. Like, he doesn't have fun. Like there's no, he,

Trubisky seems terrified of making a mistake, not only in how he plays and the checkdowns on the throws, but like his actual demeanor just seems entirely based around. If you don't fuck up and you don't turn over the ball, you'll keep the job. Kenny Pickett came in and his first throw, I mean, he ran it off like four times. Then his first throw was like a 50-yard bomb to chase Claypool.

Honestly, Claypool played small. Claypool should have gone up and got it. I thought that was a pick. It was underthrown. It was, but still, I thought Claypool did a pretty terrible job. But underthrowing to Claypool's an offense, in and of itself. That's what the Herbert does

with Mike Williams. I'm just saying, like, I completely agree. Pickett. The energy thing can be like a little much, but it's true. I don't think it's that much. Like,

quarterback is the field general. Like, he's got to be the leader. Like, if you're not that guy, like people are going to start to have doubts. People are going to,

it affects the confidence of everybody around you. Like, I think it's important. I saw Pickett yelling to his teammates, like, like hyping them up more than I have Daniel Jones since Daniel Jones

been on the field. Like, I've never seen Daniel Jones, like, hitting his guys on the helmet, like, yelling, that's what Pickett was doing. He was, like, clapping his hands, and it was like, this is what a quarterback should be. He was a leader. Exactly. It's like all the things he was doing that Russell Wilson is trying to do kind of somewhat performatively for the cameras.

Getting Biggut is just doing it when no one's looking. Whatever man is operating the robot that is Russell Wilson from his basement. Yeah. Just catching strays out here. Geez. Sorry. Well, saying. Okay. So, that's enough about really bad teams. Let's talk about incredible offense or just offense.

I don't know if it's incredible. It is hard to believe that's kind of incredible. On Friday we gave the Mario Kart rainbow strip award just to the Lions Seahawks game. What a call. Amazing call, High Fitz. Do you want to say what the Rainbow Strip Award means? Oh, yeah, sorry.

When you play Mario Kart, you hit the little rainbow and you just go fast. It's like a speed boost. And then basically every time you, Turbo boost. Every time the Lions play, it's like, the offense, it's like, man, this just accelerates. Even by that standard, holy cow. Yeah, both teams, this was like the perfect storm for fantasy production because both teams have pretty like okay competent offenses and terrible defenses.

And it was a shootout, like just exactly who we're expecting. So Gino Smith and Jared Gough for the QB1 and QB2. Love it this week. Yeah. Yeah, look, Gough and Gino are the top two quarterbacks. T.J. Hawkinson's the top tight end of the week. He actually had one of the best eight performances ever for fantasy title. Rashad Penny is the top three running back.

Josh, Reynolds, Josh Reynolds for Detroit and D.K. Metcalf were both top seven wide receivers. And then the big picture point here, the amount of points just in Lions games. So the amount that they scored and their opponents scored through four games, most in the first four games in the season and NFL history. That's crazy. That's why I expected that from the Lions. It's so funny.

281 points have been scored in Lions games this season. And I think I can say without exaggeration. Lions are the most important fantasy team, though, so far. Like, it's not even close, too. I have a, I have a fantasy league with some friends. It's just casuals, like my closer friends. And I convinced the friend who never placed fantasy to join. And he was like, I don't want to.

And he just, he's a Cowboys fan. He just took all Cowboys. He literally just has Dallas Cowboys on his team. And I'm like, all right, you know what, whatever, like, let him dip his toes. And I realized if he was a Lions fan, he'd be 4 and O. Like, if you just started a team of Jared Goff, DeAndre Swift, Jamal Williams, Amon Ross St. Brown, Josh Reynolds, T.J. Hawkinson, and you flexed freaking DJ Chark, and their kicker and just didn't have a defense, you would be four and oh in

like every league. You wouldn't have less than 100 points in a given week. The Rams should trade for golf. He looks good. God damn it. It took a second. On the other side, I just wanted before we move on from this game, Schill Capadia, our co-worker colleague and friend just tweeted this. Today's offensive performance by the Seahawks was the best in any. team, the best by any team in a single game this season, according to True Media. And that's EPA for EPA per drive.

Through four weeks, the Seahawks offense, right second in the NFL in EPA per drive. This is a very fucking efficient offense. I like, this is just shocking to be. Stephen Reeves in the NFL show has been batting, like shouting from the rooftops that Gino Smith is one, really good and two, way better suited to run the Seahawks offense than Russ was. And that sounds like a hot take till you watch the games. Dude, we said this kind of frequently during the offseason,

and I was always a little bit afraid that it felt like sour grapes and like blah, blah, blah. Russell Wilson left me, you know, whatever. Like, I'm just mad. But we did say this several times during the off season. Like, Wilson's inability to pass over the middle of the field kind of limited their offense, especially considering this is an offense that came from like the McVeigh tree of offenses where a lot of the passing is down the middle of field, backside digs and things like that. Like, that was not Russell Wilson's strong suit.

It's still not Russell Wilson's strong suit. there was this theory that, oh, my God, the Seahawks offense might actually be better with Cheetos Smith. I think it's still way too early. I think it's way too early to actually come to this conclusion. But it's kind of crazy, like how they're actually moving the football. You know, they're spreading the ball around.

Like their tight ends are super heavily involved. You know, obviously, D.K. Metcalf and Tyler Lockett are still having pretty solid seasons so far. Gino Smith looks like he could honestly be the answer. I know this is how like I'm just sort of buying in. I'm drinking the Kool-Aid on the Seahks. But it does give them a lot of options going forward. If Gino Smith is actually like a legit starter, it's kind of crazy.

Bill might have to amend the Ewing theory because the Ewing theory is just the idea that a team's best player on a team that hasn't won a championship yet. And the team's secretly better without them. Like, could the team just be better? But the key is never won a championship. Russ being the starting quarterback on a team that, what was the score of that Super Bowl? 48 to 7? Yeah. Something like that.

48 to 10. 15 or something. I can't remember. Yeah, it's, I don't know. But it's like Ewing theory for the newer era of Russ, not like Legion of, not that Russ. Yeah, well, it's the Russell Wilson theory. Right.

Yeah. Yeah. TK., are these Seahawks more fun to watch than the Russ Seahawks? That's tough to answer that realistically because I have like no expectations now. And so it's more fun to watch not having expectations. You're playing with house money right now. Yeah. Like, you know, like I don't really have a strong emotional attachment to them winning or losing

because I just have expected all off season. They're going to be terrible. As soon as I start to have hope, though, that's where it's going to be harder when they start losing again. I mean, to be clear, like, this is such a small sample size. They were really bad, like,

just a couple weeks ago, like we were like, what is wrong with this offense. So, like, let's just be careful. Let's pump the brakes. But this game was pretty crazy. You're right about hope. It's kind of like golf.

It's like it's really fun until you have expectations and then you just feel like an idiot as soon as you have. And the Lions did this today without a Monaro St. Brown or Dandre Swift. They put up 45. I have another award here, which is the Amon Rest St. Brown is just the system wide receiver award, which is kind of tongue and cheek.

But I was wondering, I had a friend text me, why are the Lions the best offensive football? And I was like, wow, what a great question. I wish I knew the answer to that. But in all serious is what the fuck is going on with the Lions? Like how does, as Craig just said, how does their top running back and receiver be out? And then they just have 45 points casually. Like, is this just how much credence can we say, well, you know, Jared, off once he has time.

Like, I don't know how to explain this thing. Will we have bad defenses? I don't know. They played the Eagles in week one. This Ben Johnson guy is going to get a head, head coaching job next year. Their offensive coordinator, who I know very little about,

to be totally honest. Like, he's going to get a head coaching job. Yeah, who is, God, he's only 36. Yeah, he is, uh, let's see here. He comes from, I mean, he's been with the lions for a couple of years. Now, he used to be with the dolphins as a wide receivers coach. He was with the dolphins for like, almost for a long time.

I think one of the keys is he really understands how to utilize the middle of the field. This is sort of the same thing we're just talking about with the Ciac. He's made Amon Rae St. Brown like a superstar especially in our world because he just feeds that area of the field. It feels like Jared Goff is pretty comfortable throwing

to that area of the field as well. So that matches with him. And then we saw this today, like getting Hawkinson so involved. Like, Hockinson to me, I think I said this to you guys literally like a few, like two weeks ago. I was like, Hawkinson is worthless. I think I texted that to you guys. And now all of a sudden he has one of the greatest tight-end games of all time.

I'm like hilarious. So I was taking notes. Hawkinson had seven catches for 155 yards and two touchdowns. As I was typing that, he just almost scored another touchdown. He got like a 40-yard catch. He was tackled at the one. So he finished for the 100, just under 180 yards. Again, basically 40 fantasy points in PPR.

And just so you know, that is more than Kyle Pitts has in his last six games. God damn it the Kyle Pitts thing he's like the biggest bust in fantasy so far like pretty easily right Alvin Camara we can get to Camara later but non-injury related yeah

a guy that you're just starting and not replacing like oh my God especially at a position where if you have Kyle Pitts you probably don't even have a back upside end God it's so brutal you can make a case for him being like an all time bust so far

yeah through four weeks I mean he's like a third rounder yeah that's insane and this doesn't have anything to do with injury. He's just not getting any fucking catches. And so my award for this one is the I Was Too Busy Winning Award, which is, of course, a Happy Gilmore quote. After Shooter McGavin wins the tournament,

the reporters are like, hey, how about that Happy Gilmore, 400 plus yard drive? How about that? He's like, yeah, I didn't see that. I was too busy winning. Oh, yeah, I didn't see it. I think of Happy Gilmore. I didn't get a chance to see him.

I was too busy winning. You got to admit, that's a hell of a drive. This is Arthur Smith and fucking Kyle Pitts. Like, he's just too busy winning to give a fuck what we think about fantasy and what he should be doing. Kyle Pitts played 60% of the freaking snaps today, which is like extremely, extremely terrible for what we'd expect a super illy, high and tight end to be. Moriota, seven completion. Seven. And this is like Justin Fields territory.

This is Navy shit. What are we doing? Do you want to know why? You want to know why? We talk about all the time, like sometimes you got to look at coaches do not what they say. Marcus Marrida threw a pick. And then Arthur Smith called 14 consecutive runs. 14.

Part of me is like Arthur Smith. Arthur Smith like hates everybody is maybe a possibility. But I think he especially just like hates the media and hates fantasy people. So he's like doing this to spite us. In his defense, he's a billionaire. Why should he like... He doesn't have to like anybody. He doesn't give a shit.

Drake London was the only Falcons wide receiver today to run more than 10 routes. It's so absolutely... He only threw 19 passes. Here's the deal. Here's the top scoring players from the Falcons today.

Caleb Huntley. Did you guys know that he was on the active roster for the Falcons? No. Tyler Algier. Cordero Patterson came into the game. He played 10 of the first 16 snaps and then he played six snaps the rest of the way.

I mean, that was almost surely injury related like they were just resting him or whatever. But like still, trolling us. Alamede Zakias was the highest scoring receiver of the group. He had two catches for 55 yards.

Drake London, two catches 17 yards. This is criminal. Again, Cowpitz played 62% of this offensive snaps. You picked him fourth in the draft. Didn't they have another backup tight end basically matches day? Parker Hesse, who I've literally never heard of, played 87% of the snaps in this game and outscored Cow Pitts.

No, sorry, he had almost the exact same of points as at Cow Pitts. This is, he's literally, he's trolling us. Dude, I'm so concerned. When D.K. says he hasn't heard of someone. Like, the truth is, DK just knows more players that. DK scouts hundreds of players every year. I'm digging in crates in Dynasty. I have like 33-man rostered dynasties.

DK's party trick is he actually knows where every player, like how much they weigh their height and their school. It's like how some people just know that from like playing a video game from 2004. It's like, DK just knows that. And when you're like, I don't know who Parker Hessey is, I get really concerned that he had the same day that Cowl Pitts at. He played more snaps than Kyle Pitts, who you picked fourth in the draft overall one year ago. He's an athletic freak of nature. He's one of the most talented physical specimens in the league. It just drives me insane.

I was so busy winning. Hey, Arthur, how about that Kyle Pitts? He's like the 28th best tight end in fantasy right now. Oh, no, I actually didn't see a stat line. I was too busy winning. Yeah, he had a good day, though. Yeah, yeah. What did he finish?

Dead last? Yeah, he had a good day, though. I just literally Kyle Pitts. What did he finish? Dead last? Yeah, yeah, had a good day, though. Points per game, Kyle Pitts is behind Tason Hill. Jesus, H.

Dude, Will Disley has more points than him. Will did Kyle Pitts The hardest part to me Is like It's not because Kyle Pitts is bad It's just because they refuse to use him I forgot the part

He was like you're right He's like finished dead last How do you finish dead last? No yeah yeah He had a good day though Shooter McGavin is one of the greatest Villains of all time Hall of Fame movie character

Okay Where is Kyle Pitts on the list right now? You can't find him I'm trying to see like where he ran on the season right now. He is the among tight ends. Among tight ends. He's the 21st best tight end in fantasy. He has 20 points in four games. Anybody over like

the 13th is a completely irrelevant fantasy. A man named Colby Parkinson that's the second Seahawks titan is outscoring Kyle Pitts on the season. Multiple tight ends on the Seahawks are outscoring him. Jesus. Oh, all right. It's so grim. All right. So that's, we're just mad. But now this is my favorite award.

I'm not mad. I'm just disappointed. I'm giving this to Jonathan Taylor and the Colts, man. Oh my God. With the obvious caveat that he got hurt. He got hurt. He got hurt. We're not mad at Jonathan Taylor.

He can, you know, get four points. We're not mad. He got hurt. Now, did he get hurt late in the fourth quarter and only missed like one drive? Did he already have 20 carries? Yeah. Yeah. They have 42 yards.

20 characters? Yeah, we're not mad. It's just, you know, he had fewer points than like, I don't know, Jamichael Hastie. What team is he on? I was about to ask you, do you even know what team Jamichael Hastie's on? Hold on. I know this. I know this. The Jags. Yes. It's the Jaguars. Yeah. Craig's, Craig had no clue. I didn't either. So, or he might have had like a yard less than Jamichael hasty. Jonathan Taylor had fewer points than Jonathan Williams who's like the third string

running back for Washington and will probably be cut in two weeks Trevon Wesco who which sounds like a brand of Tupperware Okay Wesco Is not a brand

That's really funny It's not a person A brand of Tupperware Dude Patrick Ricard Who's like the 300 pound fullback Who looks like the mountain From Game of Thrones had like as many points

is Trump. Is Chavrego sell on the Jets? Wesco is a company. Oh yeah, it is. Okay. A multinational

electrical distribution company. Jesus. So anyway, the Jonathan Taylor thing, it's weird because he was the safe pick. Like Jonathan Taylor, it was like,

you know, the whole off season, we were like, Christian McCaffrey is the guy that if he's really good and you don't pick him and you'll feel that'll make you feel dumb,

take McCaffrey. But if, you're just, you know, want to be safe, take Taylor. And he had a great week one. Since week one, Jonathan Taylor has been outscored by J.D. McKissick on, I'm talking like the three weeks span. I know he's hurt.

And he might have a high ankle sprain. So like that might affect the rest of the season. We'll see how bad it is. High ankle sprains are totally different than regular ankle sprains. But like, even just since then, again, he's been, healthy for 90% of this game. He's been outscored by J.D. McKissick and Washington. Jonathan Teller's been outscored by Alex

Madison on Minnesota. Jonathan Taylor's been outscored by Ramandry Stevenson on New England. He's been outscored by Tony Pollard on Dallas. You know what those guys have in common? Those are number two running backs on their own teams. He's been outscored by like four or five different number two guys. And this kind of, I mean, it's crazy to think about. Every year you can kind of point to like, you know, half the guys in the first round,

you kind of end up regretting. But like, very rarely do you look at the number one pick? it's not like injuries have derailed the Colts on the offensive line. Like this is more or less the person, like, you know, Michael Pittman missed game here or there, but like Matt Ryan, this offensive line, more or less what we thought would be happening this cult's offense.

And they're just a freaking disaster. Every level of it. Taylor looks worse. The offensive line has lost the ability to communicate, which is bizarre when the head coach and offense coordinator has been retained. And Matt Ryan, it looks like, it's like if Space Jam, they stole his talents,

but that doesn't make sense. sense because he was never good enough to get his talent stolen anyway. So the whole thing's just freaking weird. Taylor might be hurt. He has 81 carries this year, which is third behind Barclay and Mixett. Like, the volume is there. They just aren't doing anything with it. It's so disappointing.

Well, I think they're losing these, they're losing. Like, they're not, they're not, they're not in positions where Jonathan Taylor, I mean, even though, I guess he's getting the carries. But he's third in carries, though. Like, how much more can he get the ball? I know. he has one touchdown. And now he has,

but now he has a high ankle sprain, maybe, or he has some kind of injury. Yeah, I mean, they haven't even played anybody. I mean, they've played the rest of the AFC South already.

They played the Jags, the Texans, and the Titans. Also, oh, speaking of the Titans who this happened to today, ostensibly the worst run defensive football. In theory. Wow.

And not really, but statistically, thus far. So anyway, I think that Taylor, it's, it's, uh,

woof. So we'll say, This is why the team that I have with Alvin Camara and Jonathan Taylor is 0 and 3. Might be related. That makes some sense. So we'll get into the waiver show on Monday in replacing. Naheem Hinds, obviously, if he's available in your league, you want him. But we'll get to that tomorrow.

We're not mad. We're just disappointed. Craig, who are you just, you know, a little disappointed in? I'm not mad at Terry McLaren. Let me get that out there. I'm not mad at Terry McClure. I'm disappointed. I'm a little disappointed.

I'm just I'm done I'm never drafting a receiver with a shitty quarterback ever again I'm never doing it's definitely not true every year I like I have amnesia and I'm like oh a lot of talent like someone's got a kid's bad I'm just not doing it I'm only gonna draft guys who have

competent quarterbacks because every time Terry McLaurin catches a pass it feels like a miracle and I can't you I can't I need to string like six miracles together for him to have like a normal day They're not throwing him the ball Now it's a three-headed beast He has ten less targets than Curtis Samuel this year

He has only five more than Jehan Dodson He had two fantasy points today The commanders stink It's I don't know if he's getting market corrected Or if Carson Wentz and the offense is that bad Because Jayon Dotson every week I'm like well he caught like a random touchdown

There's no way he's going to keep this up He's like Clyde Edwards hilarious Jion Dotson just keeps scoring touchdowns and keeps outscoring Terry McClearn every single week. The commanders feel to me like this year's version of the Panthers from last year. Do you remember last year when after four games, Darnold was like the quarterback five or whatever, and then after that the wheels just completely fell off and they were so terrible.

It only took Wentz like two weeks to completely like reverse track and sort of turned back into what we all thought he was going to be. But like obviously for two weeks, he looked like incredible. And then, you know, of course, he's regressed. Can I, so first of all, we need to remember this for next year's draft guide. We need a badge or some, we did a factor in a ranking. We just need something to indicate a player is fun. Like literally, this guy's fun and this guy will be stressful.

And like, Tyre McLaren's stressful. Can I give you guys a little pop quiz here? Shout out to Sam 40A, who's a great reporter at the Washington Post. And he wrote a great story in Terry McLaurin that about a bizarre thing, which is Terry McLaurin's lack of usage in the first half of games. He's now played four first halves. That's the equivalent of obviously two full games.

Do you guys know how many receiving yards Terry McLaurin has in the first half this season? 37. Yeah, 17. He has three catches for 24 yards in the first half this season. Oh, God. And you know why this is?

It's because the commanders are a disaster and all he does is rack up garbage time yards when they're down 20 in the fourth. Dude, Terry McLaurin has, fewer yards than Parker Hesse that backup tight end on the Falcons who plays flying Calvert in the first half this season. He is fewer

yards to season than Eric Saobert. Do you remember that random fullback tight end who just caught all the passes from Russell Wilson in the first one end of football year in that first half? That one game he has more yards in the first half than McLarenessels. By the way, Eric Salbert is completely market corrected at Albert Zero

unfortunately. Albert Zero played one snap today. Eric Salbert played like the whole game, basically. Anyway, it's tough. But yeah, so,

Terry, I think that the, and Sam's story also was interesting because he mentioned that, I think I have a theory now after reading Sam's story, which is,

the problem is Terry McLorne's too nice. He's from the Midwest. And like he doesn't, it's going to, Sam, Sam literally has a note where it's like other receivers might complain,

but Terry's just focused on winning. I'm like, one, they're not winning. Two, I actually think he's too nice to be mean. be like, I want the ball. That's like a real thing, dude.

You have to ask, you have to demand the football. You can't ask for it. George Pickens wasted no time. He's immediately bitching. I like that. Great example. George Pickens doesn't suffer. No.

Tribiskees. He's like, you're wasting my talent. You're wasting my breath. Yep. All right, D.K., who are you disappointed in? This is, what I pictured when I was thinking about this was the, the famous Tyra Banks thing where she was like, I was rooting for you.

We were all rooting for you. How dare you? Do you guys know this? Like this video, I don't even know what it was. How dare you? I love that. This was Trevor Lawrence for the Jags. Just what it looked like he was the prince.

Just what it looked like the prince that was promised that had actually been, he'd actually arrived. He was here. Finally, he looks amazing. The Jags are great. Like, they're finally going in the right direction. Trevor Lawrence was 11 to 23. for 174 yards, two touchdowns, big,

and four fumbles lost. He had five turnovers against the Eagles today. Is that a record four fumbles lost? That feels hard to beat. In the 21st century, it's a record. I don't know if it can go further and back, but no one in the 21st century has done that. I was rooting for you.

It was raining and like, I don't know. I'm going to, here's what I'm going to do with this performance from Trevor Lawrence. I'm going to take it, and I'm going to crumple it up, and I'm going to throw it in the little, trash can in my mind and I'm going to burn it. And I'm just never going to think about it again. I'm not like, I'm not out on Lawrence.

They were up 14-0 in the Eagles. And I was like, are the Jags? I was going to win the Super Bowl? There were two games like that. Dude, I literally looked and I'm like, it was the same thing, both things. The Jags, if you count the turnover on downs, the Jags just got two turnovers and 14 points of the Eagles. And the Ravens got two turnovers and 14 points on the bills.

And then you look back, you're like, wow, they both lost. It's incredible. Anyway, I'm not out on Turner Lawrence. I'm not mad. I'm just, I was a little disappointed you know, how dare you? Yeah. Yeah. It's rained. I don't know. It was sloppy game.

He had one, he had one bad grade on a test. He brought up one bad grade. Dude, the Jags receivers dropped like, I don't even know, I don't have in front of me. It felt like 10 passes. Also, Jamal Agnew, just like market correcting ETN today. What was that? What's going on with that?

No, he played the slot. No, I know, but I'm saying like, in the way, he was just like getting these little dump off yard after the catch designs. And I was like, What the fuck's he Dian doing? Jamal Agnew, top eight fantasy player.

We don't understand the stat line. And we won't respond to it. All right. We have one here. You know that line in Forrest Gump where he's just like, I just felt like running? Yeah.

I just felt like running. This is Gabe Dave, our guy. Unfortunately, not looking so good for Gabe Dave so far. He played 98% of the snaps for the bills. Yet again, he was like, on the field every single league play, just running wind sprints,

just sprinting down the sideline, not even looking back. Why bother even look for the football? One catch for 13 yards. Davis, this is terrible. Davis has an 8.8% target rate this year. That's 118th among wide receivers and tight ends

with 50% of snap or 50 snaps total. So like for basically people that play, he's 118th among NFL players. Um, he's run 148 routes, which is top 20. And he has eight catches this year. Wow. He's, he's actually just running sprints. His cardio has got to be through the roof, though.

Just felt like running. I think that this is brutal because Gabe Dave more that literally, I mean, especially because he had the four touchdowns of the playoff game, more than any player in the NFL. He's almost taking the Mike Williams role of like, you could bench him or he could literally have 50 points. And you don't know what to do. This is the hard part about him is like I'm not even necessarily out on him because he has, there's like this built-in excuse he's been a little bit hurt. So maybe they're just not making

him a big part of the game plan or whatever. But like at the end of the day, dude, all the receivers on the bills right now are hurt. Like Isaiah McKenzie got hurt. He left the game. James and Crowder got hurt. He left the game. Coomero was hurt. He didn't even play. They were down to basically Steph Diggs and nobody. And Davis still couldn't earn. earn a target in this game. It's super concerning. Let me make an excuse for him and then let me give you a concern. My excuse is that playing the Ravens,

like the Ravens more man coverage focused. And I think Diggs is, it's just going to be a more Diggs-oriented thing. Diggs dropped the touchdown. He should have had one. Gabe Dave will probably have better ones. Obviously, a better one's going forward than a catch for 13 yards.

The concern is like he just isn't always great at catching the ball. Like, I don't know if you saw Travis Kelsey tonight. Travis, because he got the yellow gloves, easy to see. Travis Kelsey just like puts his hands out and just waits for it to stick like he's Spider-Man. He plucks it. Gabe Davis, ironically also Travis C-TN does this, Gator Chomp, like you go to the University of Florida. He's just trying to clap it.

That's not how that works. That's not how catching works in the NFL. It's kind of amazing. It's called hands technique. Look it up. Yeah. So that's my concern. I hope he stops doing that.

He dropped a touchdown last week. I mean, he caught it and then he just didn't finish it through the play or whatever. You should see if the bills have an opening at wide receiver coach. Get in there. You guys should teach him. Ray Barry over here. Yeah. All right, wait.

This is, I'm going to, another word here is this is why people who auto draft always win a word. I love this. Which is for Nick Chubb for the Browns. Yep. Nick Chub, you know, the guy who, well, he doesn't catch enough passes

to be worried of the over first round play. Blah, blah, blah. He's the number one player in all fantasy football, right? He's the number one running back. Cool. Number one, number one guy. Literally every year Nick Chubb is a top 10 running back

and we talk ourselves into why he won't be this year. Everyone does it. He splits carries with Cream on. He's not the third down guy. The offense isn't going to be every, and then he's just like every game he has 100 yards and two touchdowns. D.K., remember in the league when Taco would just win every year? Yeah.

It's because of Nick Chub. It's because Taco just gets Nick Chub and the Nick Chub just as the number one guy. And you know who drafts Nick Chub is a guy who's already had Nick Chub because he's the only anybody who gets it. You know? Everybody else is like, I don't want Nick Chubb.

I feel like in my league, the same dude has had Nick Chub for four years, and he just knows about the best kept secret in fantasy football. That's so true. Normal people. You either have Nick Chub every year

or you'd never have. There's no middle ground. Remember, like, was it two weeks ago when we're like, look, there are some guys that are great, but they're terrible fantasy. Nick Chub, we love Nick Chub, but you don't want him on your team.

That was us. We're idiots. We made fun of Bill. Bill was like, I'm getting Nick Chubb and we were like, all right, he doesn't catch passes. Too many runs for three touchdowns every fucking game. Unbelievable. Apparently you want good players.

Okay. Thank God we took the bad guys like James Conner. I know. Who gets the last laugh. Okay. Next up. The famous Dead Dove. I don't know what I was expecting award from rest of development.

I don't know what I was expecting. This is Zach Wilson out here ruining fantasy dreams. I guess it's actually what we're exactly what we were expecting. This doesn't maybe work that well. But when Joe Flacco was the starter for the Jets over the first three weeks, the Jets led the NFL in dropbacks per game. They were throwing at an incredible, incredible rate. This week, not so much, much more balanced approach.

It really just takes the wind out of the sales for all the receivers in this group. Elijah Moore, four targets, three catches, 53 yards. Tyler Conklin, or guy, three catches, 52 yards. Garrett Wilson, who was just absolutely going bonkers the last couple weeks, three catches, 41 yards. The running backs are, they were pretty solid, actually. And we'll get to that a little bit here. But just Zach Wilson, he looked like a disaster for three quarters.

He actually was pretty good in the fourth quarter. So maybe that's like, maybe that was him turning a quarter. We'll see. But, man, it was just, the Jets offense just looks completely different with Zach Wilson. It's tough. It was so rare to get the full gamut of what a play. player brings to a team. But man, Zach Wilson was in the same game, horrific, like genuinely just awful. Like, just the one knots above Trubisky, but in the opposite way. And then also just,

I think, went five of five and then won the game. I mean, yeah, he looked pretty good in the fourth quarter. So that does give me a little bit of hope. Gives me hope. But I don't know. Well, you know what I think happens is I think a lot of these quarterbacks nowadays are much more athletic and kind of dual threat quarterbacks. And I think that gives them a longer shelf life. In the eyes of fans or in the eyes of organizations, front offices, because they can bail themselves out

of being a shitty quarterback with their legs. And so you kind of sometimes can trick yourself into like maybe he misses three wide open reads and he leaves the pocket too early. But because he can make a guy miss and get a first down on a third and 11, you're kind of like, oh, Zach Wilson might not

be that bad, but you're actually just prolonging this process of realizing he sucks. you know what I mean? Well, yeah, it's like the off, like the sidearm stuff, the off platform throws. Like that's what people are so excited about pre-draft. That's why he was getting comparisons to Patrick Mahomes, which always felt ridiculous. No, Mahomes is, well, I always said, I asked you a lot when Wilson was drafted. Where would he be drafted if Mahomes never existed?

But the person who's nailed this is, again, Stephen Ruiz, who has said, Zach Wilson is just Sam Darnold again. And the Jets somehow have made the same mistake because all of Zach Wilson's problems were Sam Donald's problems. It's just trying to play hero ball, not taking, not reading, seeing ghosts, like just kind of scrant, just, it's, he's the, do too much. Oh, now you're not doing enough, do less, now you're not doing anything at all. That was Sam Darnold, that's Zach Wilson.

It's unbelievable. It's, ugh. Jets won the game. Won the game. The Jets did win. You know who's actually been pretty good on the Jets that no one has really been talking about? Is rookie Breece Hall, the running back? Oh, yeah.

He's looked good. He's starting to take over, too, I think. He is. Every week he's been seeing a higher percentage of the snaps. He catches a ton of passes. He's second in the NFL and running back targets. And I know that's because our boy, Joe Flacco, was just jumping off like a machine. But he still, today with Zach Wilson, he had six targets.

He's been almost, you know, around 12 points, every 12 fantasy points, every single week. Like, is, is this the time to kind of buy in on Breece Hall while we still can? Like, is he going to have that rookie running back second half of the year, Jonathan Taylor, like, which is who, didn't we compare him to Jonathan Taylor when talking about him on the draft show? Yes, like stylistically, they're kind of similar. I think Taylor was overall a better prospect, but, I mean, Brees Hall was super, super

productive in college. And I think, just based on memory, there's just so many facts in my brain. I don't know if this is true. I think he ran like a 4-3 at the car. It was just like, this guy's just an insane athlete with incredible production. Like his profile is really, really good. He was a second round pick just like Jonathan Taylor. So there's a lot of similarities to it.

And I think I don't, I wouldn't say I'd be as excited about, you know, what he could do in the second half of the year just based on the fact that he's on a jet's team, which. I don't know, though. He might be the only, maybe, I don't know. Might be the only jet that's immune to Zach Wilson's foibles. I think, I think Reese Hall is, is, got, it's tough because the checkdowns, you know. But I think, I agree, though, overall. I think Bruce Hall is going to have this.

job as the season goes. I do think that he's a buy, not a by low, it's a by medium. He just had a good game. But okay. D.K., next award. All right. So this is definitely a quote from more from my generation. But if you guys have seen not another teen movies. Yes. Not another teen movie, which of course lampoons all the like teen movies of that era. Chris Evans actually who would go on to become a ginormous movie star. He is the jock. And of course, in all the these movies, you know, the beautiful, or like the love interest is like a dork, but you can tell immediately that she's like absolutely gorgeous, but all they do is just like have, she has ponytail

and glasses and therefore she's like not popular. And so anyway, there's a scene where he's like, no, no, no, no, anyone but her, not Jady Briggs, she's got glasses and a ponytail. This made me think of some of the boring dorky running backs that we were completely ignoring in drafts this year, namely Miles Sanders. Josh Jacobs, sorry, high fits, guy like Damien Harris, even Devin Singletary. None of us were paying attention to these guys. They had glasses and a ponytail. But they're also doing really well.

They're kind of having a glow up this year. Should we have a standstill ourselves on all these guys? If every instinct you have is wrong. It's the RB Dead Zone resurrection. They're all back, wreaking havoc. I want to start with Miles Sanders because I think he's been really solid. he was the RB 30 in preseason ADP average draft position. Right now, he is the RB8 pending Sunday night football.

He's averaging 15 and a half, half PBR points per game. He has 250 yards after contact, so he's like running hard, breaking a ton of tackles. That's fifth in the NFL. He's on pace to sell this from Ian Hart. It's last year, famously had zero touchdowns. He's on pace to score 13 this year. That's variance for you and that's regression to the mean for you. So he's been looking really good.

see he plays behind a really good offensive line, and they've been a good offense, so he's been having some good scripts. But Miles Sanders looks like one of the best values in fantasy football so far. Josh Jacobs, meanwhile, we were very, very worried about the fact that this was a Josh McDaniel slash Patriots-style backfield,

or they're going to just rotate between three or four guys. That has not happened whatsoever. He's played 73% of the snaps for the Raiders this year, which is the sixth most among running backs. This is not a rotation. He's the guy. he's the RB 9 in fantasy points this year he was the RB 22 in ADP and so we definitely kind of I think the pendulum just swung too far on him I think like we just got to say we I swung the pendulum

I grabbed the pendulum I threw it because I didn't like where it was even swinging I think what I was the extremist and you guys kind of hopped off well Craig Craig yeah Craig and the take purge was like you know what just Jacobs he's gonna be fine and top 20 running back yeah so And then David Harris, I don't think this is quite as big of a difference, but he's been really solid too. He was RB 27 in ADP, and he is the RB 15 now. Do for it. Yeah, I was, I think Josh Jacobs looked really good in this game. I think that, again, I never was like I think Josh Jacobs is bad.

I kind of my whole thing was like he's gotten so many touches in the past by the regime that drafted him. And the coach was the GM and the coach was using him. And I'm like, how could he be better with a team that has no allegiance to him and brought in three running backs into the team and well shit well he looked well they just don't play those guys ever it looks it looks it looks fantastic and um honestly to tell you the truth i think that it would be convenient if i could just be like yeah it's an aberration it was like literally a top two running back today uh i think the reality is the raiders kind of had that oh and three start with not fluky but the raiders very easily could have won those first three games i'm not saying the raiders are good but there

are probably plenty of situations where the Raiders might just actually have a lead late and be protecting him. So Josh Jacobs might be really good going for, especially with guys like Jonathan Taylor and I mean, you know, I mean, you know, Dalman Kirk banged up. Yeah, Camara being, you know, there's certainly a way that he could be like way outperformed. So my B. I just think we built that narrative up too much that like they were going to use a committee and there's rookie Zemir white and oh, Amir Abdul is there. And it's just like, none of these people are going to play. Josh Jacobs is good. This is the hard part of the out the off season is trying to predict how coaches are going to make decisions.

Like I would have thought, you know, for instance, a guy like Arthur Smith would use the guy that he picked overall in the draft for... He's too busy winning. The broader point with the Josh Jacobs thing again was, with all these guys, was it had nothing to do with Josh Jacobs from Nelson Sanders. It was in the same range of the draft, there are other guys that are going at other positions that are like much more likely

to actually win you or deliver you your league title. Yeah, I slept through the London game in Arndon. with my commissioner or whether I could swap out Alvin Camaro award. A lot of you emailed us about this. A lot of people are a West Coast problem. Certainly. It happened to me. The game started at 6.30 in the morning. I started Camar in my Dynasty League. I woke up at 9 and I was like, well. Dude, real talk? I think there's probably a line of demarcation

of people who started Camara or didn't start Camara. If you have kids, you were up early enough, especially young kids. You were up early enough to have found to have found out that he was not starting. My kid woke me up this morning at about 5.30. So I checked my phone and I was like, oh, shit, he's not playing. So I took him out of all my lightups. Or at least I think I saw a couple tweets that say he wasn't warming up for whatever. It looks like he's going to be enacted. So I was just like, nah, I'm not playing him. Took him out of all my lineups. Saved me. I don't want to be up at that early. But in this case, it was actually an advantage. Camaro's just been absolutely brutal. What do you guys?

Generally speaking, what do you think of? So I saw a couple of people talking about. I saw a couple of people talking about this on on Twitter. High Fitz, I'm sure we got a couple of emails. I didn't check her email today, but basically, like, if you're the commissioner of a league and you know this is a weird London game, you're on the West Coast, wherever, like, is there, would it be appropriate for the commissioner to be like, hey, I'm just going to swap this guy out.

Like, or is really, I think this is super simple. It's whatever you decide you're going to have to live with this forever, and you're going to have to set a precedent. What you cannot do is be like, well, Jeff can sub-out Camara today because like we had that party and like it makes sense

but like in three weeks if someone else is the same problem for a different London game like you're gonna have to do this forever now and like the reality is sometimes you don't want that bird like do you really want people trying to nickel and dime you and like well it was for a one o'clock game

but like my sister was getting married and like I was at the brunt it's like do you really want everyone trying to freaking encroach upon reasons you have to sub. Just say no. Just say no and never deal with it ever again. It's also this is just something that happens sometimes.

Set your alarm. Simple as that. It didn't seem like he was going to play though. Like he was on track to play and then he just didn't. But that happens sometimes. We also got, I like it. We had one email. I'm sorry, I forget who someone said.

And I quote, but yeah, you forgot to play off a comment. No one cares. Shut up. No one. Which I actually thought. No offense to everyone. well they said

blah blah like baby sounds but I don't know I mean it is fantasy football if we're gonna get nihilistic up in here none of this shit matters yeah yeah well we're gonna get to the 40 year old advice soon hold on all the life is being new and stuff Craig can you give us some stat lines that

we don't want to actually acknowledge we should call this cognitive dissonance stat lines we don't understand and we won't respond to it was a short list this week, but this is what I have. Latavius Murray outscored Delvin Cook in the London game today. He looked kind of

spry. Maybe it's because he's not been on a team or whatever. Unbelievable. Yeah, he only has to play one game a year, so he kind of just uses up 17 games worth of energy. Is he just living in London already? Probably. Next one here. D.K. mentioned this earlier. Caleb Huntley

out rushed Cordarell Patterson today for the Falcons. Didn't know who that man was. And I apologize in advance for this botched pronunciation, but somebody named Chig Aconquo led the Titans in receiving today. Yeah. Maryland.

Stephen Ruiz probably knows who that is. I can't believe you left out that Mike Boone out did Melvin Gordon and Javante Williams combined. Well, Javante got hurt, which... Javante got hurt. Melvin Gord had negative points. We'll talk about injuries tomorrow. Let's not go there right now.

It's too sad. All right. If someone else want to read this, I can't even read this. Yeah. Well, no, Craig, you do it because you're the Al Roker defender. Go ahead. Well, it pains me to read this because I just feel bad for my boy Al taking strays. But this is the Al Roker who shit themselves award of the week, and it's D.K. Metcalfe, who got carted off.

Everyone thought he was hurt. Turns out he just had to take a mean shit. Yeah. I love it. He tweeted after the game. He's like, I don't know what he said, the waddle, like the tight, tight butt waddle or something like that. I'm paraphrasing.

What do you call it when you have to poop and you walk like that? Yeah, like, hold on, I'm going to look at it. Clenched. Yeah, I don't mean. Like a clenched, yeah. Yeah, everyone knows. And walk. So this is the new thing.

Didn't Lilana's X just do the same thing where he, he just tweeted out, yeah, I had to take a poop at a concert. And it's like when you, like, Al Roker was head of his time. Now if you tweet that you did it, you're, it's cool. It's like, oh, that's funny because he said it. But if you read it in like a different place that Al Roker said it, you're like, Al Roker said it. Al Roker shit his pants. He defecated in his pants.

D.K. Metcalf used the facilities. It is different. You're right. Tweeting, oh, I had to leave to go to the bathroom is a lot less embarrassing. He called it the clinch walk, the clinch walk. You mean clench? Clinch. It probably should have been clench, but I don't know.

Oh, he just spoke. Okay, yeah, but like this should happen more. Like, if a player has to go to the bathroom, why should they walk? Like, he's important. Cardham. We get the guards for. How about this? I'll go a step further.

Bring the bathrooms to the sidelines. Why aren't there like fancy porta-potty type bathrooms just sitting there on the sidelines? It's so real. Dude, people don't understand how far the bathroom can be. You got to remember, like, first of all, you can't just walk across the field,

right? You've got to walk 50 yards, like, to the tunnel. But like the bathroom, based on where the locker room could be, it could be on the other side of, um,

almost where the sideline is. It's in the bowels of the building, if you will. So to speak. But you have to, you might have to walk like 200. Oh God, he has 40-year-old dad jokes now. I know. It's awful.

Oh, those jokes are 40 now. He was just waiting to say that. I agree. We should get them bathrooms, though. Imagine how brutal it must smell to sit down and take a shit in the middle of a football game. You've got to pull down all your pads and you're sitting there and you got to wipe your sweaty ass. And they're rushing, so they might not wipe it, you know, they might rush the white. I mean, badees, right? like every NFL bathroom

should just have bidetes. You think the away locker room's gonna have bidet's no fun. Okay, you're right. Just home locker rooms. Bidays in the home locker rooms and the thinnest toilet paper you can ever imagine.

No toilet paper. I would put so much money. In the visitor's bathroom. Dude, the Patriots probably have the thinest toilet paper you can find in mankind. I bet they're always out of toilet paper. It's probably literally like translucent. It's so thin.

Oh, my God. And then Miami, you're just like in the direct sunlight. when you're pooping. Just like, just giant windows. The architects. They were way ahead on that one. Imagine pulling your,

like, D.K. Metcalfe pulling his pads down and just sit. He's all sweaty. He's got to like, get his massive arm under his ass to white. How do you do it with freaking, like shoulder pads?

He can't speak installed. It's probably really hard to take his shit. If you think of Lamar regrets lying about last year when he's like, I had cramps, he's like, no, you were pooping. Like, he should have got in the cart and tweeted about it.

Like, Nick Kaston. Get Seattle. Get a bidet in there ASAP. It'll change everything. Oh my God. Incredible. Burn book time. It's Kyle. I didn't think about this. It's Kyle Pitts. It's Kyle Pitts. It's Kyle Pitts. It has to be Cal Pitts. Well, it's not, is it not Arthur Smith? Does it make a difference?

No, no. It's Kyle. Yeah, but he's trolling us with everyone on that. You can't, you can't just do that. You can't just do the coach every single time. Like for the fantasy football purposes, it's fucking Kyle Pitts. He's the flop. You don't draft Arthur Smith. Yeah, I mean, to be like totally serious for a second, like, do you play him next week? Or do you have to sit him? Like, literally. I would start him every week of the entire season.

I'm so stubborn, to be honest. You have to clear. Yeah, and you have to burn off base. What the fuck you're going to do? Go add Robert Tunyon? Stop me, Tudgeon. Who I think had a touchdown today. He did.

I mean, you could and get more points, but we're not going to do that. You could add any number of the Seahawks tight ends and still score more points. Just keep adding back at Ed Colby Parkinson or whatever his name is. No, Hessey, the backup tight end who plays more

literally Parker Hessey. Close your eyes on waivers and just pick up a titan. We gotta have someone do this. Oh my God. No, don't. Randomizer. Actually, yes.

Well, you know what's funny is we'll be like, don't do it. But then it's like, well, actually it'll help. You'll be better. It's like don't do it. On Netflix,

the surprise me option? Or like on Google, isn't like Google is there's a surprise me option too? like I never ever use that in my life I'm feeling lucky I'm feeling lucky I'm feeling lucky at tight end this week

and email us and we'll shout you out and you would have ended up with a conchew for the Titans dude I would if somebody had the balls to be like I started Will Disley this week over Kyle Pitts and it fucking works

you should get double the points for that I mean I'm laughing but like inside I'm crying because you know what would be a good I really wanted him to be good and I thought he would be you know what? what would be a good bit is if you do that, but you could do it.

So it's like a bet within your league where it's like the difference in the projected points. You like get that added on. Oh, that's great. Handicap or whatever. Yeah. And you take like Parker Hessey who's projected like one. But then if he outscores him, you get the 12. How many how many tight ends with zero percent roster ship will outscore Kyle Pitts next week?

Let's track that. Too many. Zero. This guy's owned in zero leagues and he outscored Kyle Pitts. Oh, my God. Because Arthur fucking Smith. We laugh. We laugh so we don't cry.

Right. So I was too busy winning. Sorry. Yeah, what he finished? Dead last? Dead last? Yeah. Had a good day though.

Yeah. Oh my God. All right. Had a good day. That was. God damn it. Really fun. Okay.

We're, I think that's what we got for the football. D.K., you are 40. Yeah. I didn't know what this was coming. How many times did you watch this is 40? weekend. I have not seen that movie ever, actually. Oh my God, you should do it. Actually,

that'd be funny. Give us your review. He's living it. You're living it. I'll be honest with you, Craig. I saw the preview for This is 40. Probably, I don't know. How old is this movie? I was like, 30. Well, Judd is currently working on this is 50, so I believe it's 10 years old. Okay. Yeah, it was 30. And I thought, that movie looks depressing. I don't want to watch it. Like, it just, it was just like making, to me, it was like, oh, this is just making fun of like how shitty it is to be 40 years old. And married. I think that was right as well. And I was like, I don't want to watch. that so I never did. But I bet it's funny. I mean, I know it's funny. But yeah. Do you sit in the bathroom for an extended period of time just on the iPad just to get away? That was in the preview and

that is the truest thing you will ever see. I've mentioned this on the pot a couple of times. I have a three-year-old, a five-month-old puppy. And the only place you can get any modicum of peace and quiet is in the bathroom. You can lock the door. It's like a sensibly okay that I'm in there. I'm not like abandoning my family. all my responsibilities. It's one of the, the bathroom is one of the last true sanctuaries. Yeah, it is.

Especially like if, if you're at an office too, if you're at an office and like, you just stay in there and you're like, oh my God, I don't want to go back out there. Yeah. I mean, it's like probably the place in my life where I feel the most relaxed. It's such a calming place because you,

I think, you know, they say that the reason why people like living near water is there's like an inherent feeling of, of safety. Because water is the source of all life. And so you just know, that's why people like sitting near water. They're like looking at water. Because deep down, like, you know, in our DNA, it makes us feel safe.

I feel the same way to batheum because you know if anything goes wrong, you're already on the shitter. It's like you don't really need much else when you're in a bathroom. I also think there's something very profound about like modern solitude. And like, have you guys just not looked at your phone while you're in the bathroom? It's amazing. Not for years. Crazy. Dude, it's crazy.

Try, like, just not being on the phone into bathroom, and it's, like, also just, wow. They just talked about this. I believe the Scott Galloway, Derek Thompson's show, they talked about how many times I think it was on that episode. It was like 90% of kids

under 20 don't go to the bathroom without their phone. Oh, my God. I'm not a psycho. I don't not bring my phone. I literally, if I had, I would walk a very far distance. if I have to poop, I would walk pretty far to get my phone to bring it with it.

Oh, you need it. I can't imagine doing it without anymore. I agree. I do that, though, sometimes hype. It's like, if I'm working and I've been staring at a screen for like three straight hours and I have to go pee, I will make a point and be like, I'm leaving my phone in here and I'm going to go pee and I'm going to stare at the wall for like 30 seconds.

That's what I do when I take my dog for a walk. I try not to like look at my phone and I just actually look at the world. It's like the, it's like the version of touching grass. You have to really set, like, technology timeouts. Yeah. I am so paranoid about that I will drop my phone into a toilet because I so compulsively check it that I have a whole system of how to put it back in my pocket. Anyway, we were talking about, we were talking about Tiki's birthday. Went on this little tangent.

Dickie, we got you some things for your birthday. Oh, wow. None of them have arrived yet. In transit. Obviously. Yeah, they're in transit. Sweet. Craig, do you want to do some of the honors here, Craig?

Sure. So, you know, as the Lorne Michaels guy, as our resident band expert, we figured that we'd get you some music, you know. Oh, wow. Yeah. And we texted Skippy, your lovely partner, and asked her if you guys had a record player. She said yes. Oh, wow. So we figured we would do an album for you and an album for us.

So we got you a Stan gets vinyl. That's awesome. That's for you. Nice. And then we got you a. A vinyl of Drake's Take Care. I'm finally going to have to learn a name of a Drake song. Yes, you will.

That is amazing. Thank you guys. Appreciate that. How did you get her number? Don't worry about it. That's awesome. Thank you. Appreciate it.

Cannot wait until Stan gets. Get his numbers up. I'm going to put it on play on Spotify too because I want his numbers to get up. You know. It's a vinyl. Glad you'll play. company man uh i'll be nice for two seconds we appreciate you back uh fine i'll be nice all right for everyone this thing if you don't know like dk is i always feel like i am i am like afraid of the

day that i no longer get to work with dk because i know in my bones like as a fact i'll never actually work with anyone easier in my whole life than dk dk is just like aside from personally just the nicest person anyone's ever met which basically everyone has said about him the only writer at the ringer that's filed 100% of his stories on time. Like, he's on time. He's always prepared. He's really nice. He has no ego.

It's like the eight boxes you want checked in like a general coworker. He has 14 of them. Also just the best person. And like slowly but surely has just dropped enough nuggets of wisdom for Craig and I to one day eventually be actual adults who like, dare I say, have families. And just, I don't know. I hate being nice. You're a role model.

in like real life. Do you feel a little itchy right now? I hate saying all this. I'm just, I don't know, to use the confrontation. I appreciate it, Hyphids. If you look at all of my texts with coworkers, you would be able to tell that they're my coworker by looking at the text messages.

D.K is the only person that if you looked at them, you would guess, oh, that just must be Craig's friend. This is like the George Washington, Justin Jefferson, or not George Washington, Dwayne Washington, Justin Jefferson text thread that we had the other day. By the way, which I feel incredibly just like an idiot for not even mentioning Alexander Madison was in that group. Alexander Madison.

God, one of the fucking founding fathers. Anyway, I really appreciate it, guys. Thank you. I'm like getting emotional here. I think it's funny that Highfitz's like love language is confrontation. I think people think we're fighting, but really it's like we're brothers. Like we love each other, but this is how we express it kind of. Yeah.

We don't stuff it under the rub. We just get it out. Eric, yeah, it's healthy. Anyway, thank you. Thank you. Hyvins doesn't get a lot of the text because Hyvins is on the East Coast, so he's in bed. So I get the midnight text from D.K. saying, like, no, I still want them.

I'm three, but he needs, D.K. needs immediate responses when he's like, I'm three whiskeys deep. And I'm thinking about, like, British sounding NFL names. It's really true. No, I echo all that. So, yeah, happy birthday, D.K. Thank you. It's sad because, like, you know, you.

getting up there and Craig and I will have to figure out how to do the pod when you die. Fuck off. Hopefully we can set up a recording studio in the home they're putting you in. Oh my God. Who's the oldest person to have a podcast? You're probably getting close. It must have been Joan Rivers, right? You're probably getting close.

You look so sincere there. You're probably getting close. Like racking your brain. I can't think of anybody above 40 for the podcast. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. All right. Craig, how long is this episode going to be? It's going to be fucking long.

Well, have you made it this far? Thank you very much. Email us about, if anyone actually has anything you want to say to DeCannon's birthday, email us to ring and fantasy football at gmail.com or mildly equally is important. If you have thoughts on the whole, like, would you bring your phone to the bathroom, that conversation? Email that, ringer fantasy football at gmail.com. I imagine literally everyone has, like, into it.

It's probably one of the few things, I think 100% of people with a phone have an opinion. Start the no bathroom, no phone bathroom time. It's the only thing we all have in common anymore is we all have to go to the bathroom when we all phones. Dude, it's why I love golf, because golf is one of the last few things where I don't look at my phone for like four plus hours. Yes, I agree. You know what I don't do very much?

I don't very often ask myself, which direction is the wind blowing? That's why I like golf. I'm like, oh, I have to pay attention to this. You literally have to touch grass, yeah. So, Diki, wait, do you have any advice on 40 before we go or just like? I mean, I just turn 40, so I just turn 40, so I. I don't know. Oh, all right.

I don't know what the hell this is all about. No, I got nothing. Did you enjoy your 20s or your 30s more? 30s. Everybody says that pretty easily. Why? I think in your 20s is like definitely fun and you can like rebound from getting drunk and all that stuff like faster and getting hurt. You can play sports at a higher level, which is good.

But like I would say the uncertainty of life is, well, at least for me. I mean, it's different for everyone. like the uncertainty of not knowing what you're doing in your career and not knowing what you're doing in school and what you're doing with relationships and all that shit like that was more stressful to me um that's just like my personality i just like having like direction and a family and stuff like that's i've heard a lot of people say they like their 30s more than their 20s because you have a little bit more money you know who you are a little bit more um i'd say you learn a lot more about yourself in in your 30s i was a fucking idiot in my 20s like i don't i don't even know who that guy was to be honest like you know, obviously, you're not completely completely different as you grow older, but like, I don't know. I just felt like I was so immature and didn't really know anything about the world when I was in my 20s and your 30s is definitely like, you just start to like have some context of how the world works a little bit more. I think you're just kind of stuck in a bubble in your 20s. Yeah, that's the tracks. I'm in my 20s. I totally checked. Dude, it's crazy. When I think back

to how old, like when I think about to me being 30, that was so long ago, you guys are still you guys got so much to look forward to it. It's going to be fun. And I'm engaged. I'm washed. Craig, you're like emotionally in your late 30s. You're a mature person. I can't say the same about you. Plot silence. Craig specifically is an emotionally aged person.

Craig, you're just so mature. Are Benita Fish Big? I mean, what's this guy's deal? Oh my God. All right. Seriously, thank you to everyone who stayed this long. I appreciate it. Email some rear fantasy football at Gmail.com for anything serious or extremely not serious.

Thank you, D.K. Thank you, Craig. Extra super thank you to DK. This podcast for many reasons, but not exist without DK. Thank you. Thank you, Lauren. Lauren. Thank you, George Clinton.

Nice. Big week for Lauren. just premiered last night. Season 48. Oh, wow. Season 48? Yeah. Wow. Has Lauren, I don't know this. Has he been there the whole time? No, he left for five years. He kind of like got pseudo fired, quit, and then came back. It's like Steve Jobs. Yeah. Wow. Yeah. It's like, yeah, it's exactly. What, so what do they do for 50, Craig?

Because obviously it's in like, SNL's in an odd spot, but like 50's got to be like insane, right? It's got to rebirth the franchise in a way. Well, what's funny is they did it for 40, right? They did that huge 40th year. And I think because a lot of people were like, we don't know if Lauren's going to be there at 50. Like everyone's still alive. All of the greats are like Steve Martin's. Like they're all still there. But it seems like 50 obviously only being two years away. Lauren has said they're going to do it huge. It's going to be another like massive. Everyone's going to come back the whole thing. All right. Well, there you go. See, SNL made it. We'll do the same thing for when TK's 50. If you make sure. We'll see.

That's great. TBD. All right. Goodbye, everyone.