The Ringer NFL Show - Week 5 Matchups, Must-Starts, and Must-Benches

Episode Date: October 7, 2022

We preview the Week 5 fantasy slate with categories including the Sunday Scaries, the Disney Channel Original Movie 'Motocrossed' award, Debutante Ball Coming Out Party, the Shooter McGavin award, the Mario Kart Rainbow Strip, and more, before answering some listener emails. Check out our Week 5 Fantasy Football Rankings for this week's positional rankings and more! Email us! [e-mail]. Hosts: Danny Heifetz, Danny Kelly, and Craig Horlbeck Producers: Craig Horlbeck and Jessie Lopez Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What's up, everybody. I'm Brian Barrett, former Boston Sports Radio Guy, and now host of the new Ringer show Off the Pipe that'll cover your favorite Boston teams and stories. From Fenway to Foxborough to The Garden and Beyond, we're reacting to all the biggest games and moments with episodes at least three times a week featuring myself and some of your favorite guests at the ringer and in the city. Plus, if the Celtics or the Pats make a surprise trade, if the Red Sox's going to run, or if any news breaks, we'll drop bonus instant reaction episode. too, so you're always up to date with the latest chatter. Get in on the action and follow off the fight with me, Brian Barrett, now on Spotify. Your Fannister Football Show, my name is Danny Heifitz. I am joined by Danny Kelly Craig Worldback. If you're wondering who to start, who to sit at week five for fantasy football,

we have our rankings are out at fantasyfutball.com. The default to super flex or two quarterback rankings, the quarterbacks at the top. If you want to just see any position, you click on running back or receiver, whatever, if you can combine positions to create a flex rankings, whatever you want, got it at a fantasy football dot the ringer.com. Check it out. We're recording this on Thursday,

so practice injury reports are kind of trickling in. But we're checking in week five for the weekend. Just what's the vibes? What's the vibe check? Kind of going into the weekend for week five. We're going to do with categories. Not Scatogories. Good game, though.

We're starting, as always, with the Sunday Scaries because that's just the weekend feeling. It's like, you have a good Friday, Saturday, you get to Sunday. Sunday Scaries. D.K. The pit in your stomach. Yeah, what is the pit in your stomach?

What's kind of giving you that anxiety, that ajina on Sunday this week? Well, first of all, I love your opening monologues on the Friday show. Do you? I put that out there. And then, yeah, so one of the things, I wrote about this this week, and I think it's very fascinating because right now there just aren't any elite elite running backs in football, in fantasy football. What about Sequin? Sequin Barkley is like, I guess, the outlier this year because he's gotten just incredible,

incredible, incredible amounts of volume. It's everything you dream about and more. He's getting like 80% of snaps. Like down the line, he's getting the most carries in the NFL. He's the most scrimmage yards in the NFL. He's running a route on like the most routes per team dropback of any running back. So he's doing everything you want from a running back. Here's the problem.

He's the RB1 in PPR, but he is the lowest scoring RB1. I saw this from Ryan McDowell, he pointed this out. Lowest scoring RB1 in 25 years through four weeks of the season. So basically like at this point in the season, He's the lowest scoring RB1 in 25 years. Isn't Nick Chubb the Rb1? In half PPR, he is. But in PPR, which, I mean, regardless, like, both of these guys,

Chubb and Barclay, like, whether they're the highest scoring running back in whatever format. Like, both are historically, like, low score. It's, like, been an underwhelming year for running backs in general. So basically, since fantasy football has been played on the internet, this is, like, the lowest ceiling running back performance. of a year through four weeks. That's surprising

considering Chubbs at 82 points. I mean, he's still put up 20 a game. That's still not what it used to be. Yeah,

but if you look back and I'm, I went off of PPR, but like I think half PBR and PBR are pretty similar. I mean, if you look back to a couple years ago, like Todd Gurley was averaging 25 plus points a game. Chris McAfrey,

his legendary season, was like 29 points a game in PPR. And Sequin here is averaging 21. And he's the RB1. Like, this is just not as big of a difference maker as we've seen. seen in the past.

Like basically, in the past, if you had those guys, you were going to win your league, whether you had dog shit other players, basically. You just had that big of an advantage.

So this year, it's just different. And I did a big deep dive into why that is. Basically, it's a huge confluence of factors that are just holding running backs down this year. If you guys want me,

I can just run through them. Run through them. Start running. Yeah, jog, I feel like in your 40s now, you got a stretch before you run, though.

They'll just do that. You don't see lions stretching. You don't see cheetahs stretching on the Serengetty. I'm not going to do that. That's the thing Tyree Kill would say. Actually, walking is great for you. I do a lot of walking. That's my exercise regimen.

Everybody says that, but like... Yeah, don't even get me stone. I know. All right, you guys are young pups. Like, don't worry about it yet. I just feel like everybody who says, like, I walk over run is not in shape. But...

Well, I further recognize, not like I'm bragging, but I did lose like 30 pounds walking. I'm with Craig, but then I like Stieke's rise smile of just wait for the burden of time to hit these. Dude, just wait for 15 years. Talk to me at 15 years

when sitting for too long a period of time will make your whole body sore. Anyway, maybe I'm just not trusting the science. Anyway, let's go back we're criticizing all the running backs in really good shape. All right. All right.

I'm going to just run through the reasons pretty quickly. Number one, and this one's obvious, teams are using running back committees way more than they used do, and it's a logical thing that teams do. Like, they're trying not to wear out all their running backs. They're walking for exercise instead of just sprinting through everything.

Jogging back. Through life. Number two, teams are running less often. In fact, this year, they're averaging 26.4 rush attempts for game, which is lower than last year and well off the number from 2020. So rushing attempts are going down. Obviously, that's not good for running back. Teams are rushing for fewer touchdowns.

Again, that's probably related to the number of rushes that they're having, but Generally speaking, just like passing touchdowns are up, running touchdowns are down. And not only are overall rushing totals down, but quarterbacks and receivers are vulturing those rushing, that rushing production at a higher rate than we've seen in the past. So basically you see quarterbacks stealing goal line carries. You see receivers like Debo Samuel is like, he's like half of a running back now. So he's taking, they're doing end arounds and stealing some of that. Yeah, or like Claypool Cup, Justin Jefferson, like these jet sweeps and stuff like that,

more creative uses of receivers. But yeah, there's three of those a game now. Like, quarterbacks have 168 designed runs. I'm not even counting scrambles. They have 168 designed runs this year for true media. Last year, it was 165. Going back three years, 2019, 115 through four weeks. So obviously the rate of quarterback runs is going up exponentially.

Well, not exponentially, but at a pretty good clip. I was going to say, it's definitely not what exponentially means. You meant like 50%. I corrected myself, all right? Exponentially is what people say now when they were like, a lot. Yeah, this is like That's high magnitude. Orders of magnitude.

How's that? That doesn't actually make sense either. Everybody does use that word though. It just mean like it's going up a little bit. Exponentially is when like you get a penny and double it every day for month and then you have like a billion dollars. A million dollars. All right. Continue.

Wait, can I have one more word to that pot? Everyone uses the word peruse incorrectly. The word peruse sounds like you just glance over something like, oh, let me just peruse the menu. Peruse means to like thoroughly read something. something, like carefully read something. Yes. But everyone thinks it's the word. Peruse literally sounds like I'm just going to casually glance at it.

Craig, have we ever looked at any of the ringers draft guides or like, are we, all of our guides have the word peruse in them. Are you serious? Like, Peruse means the opposite. The definition of Peruse, examine carefully or at length. That's so funny. Everyone uses that word wrong. That's literally the opposite of how it's used.

That's so weird. That's crazy. I did not know that. My mind is a little bit blown. All right, back to the running back thing. Some of the, some more of the reasons that running back production has gradually gone down and it's down a lot this year. Teams are not passing to running backs as much anymore. Lower target rate this year than last year.

Much, much lower than like 2018, 2019 seasons. It's gone down several percent, which is obviously huge over a full season. And importantly, passes to running backs this year, thus far, at least, have been far less efficient than they were last year the year before. six point eight yards for catch this year compared to 7.9 last year. Basically, and anecdotally, it just feels like there's no explosive plays

in the passing game anymore for running backs. Like, I don't know. What do you guys think? Well, is this all boiled down to the, like, how much is the defensive scheme playing into this, like the two high shells,

keeping everything in front of you, and allowing teams to pass in the intermediate to short distance range, which has sort of replaced running, you know? Like, now you can just chunk your way four yards on first down,

rather than have to run the ball for four yards on first down? Is that, is like, is the defensive scheme also playing a factor here? Possibly. And I think also the numbers for zone are up, I believe. Like, teams are playing man less, which means when you're playing zone, your eyes are in towards the quarterback usually. And so you can see that running back maybe coming out,

versus like if you're playing man, the running back could get behind the defense and not, you know, yards per attempt are like lower than they've been in an extremely long time. So this sounds like, like a joke, but actually serious. You know how like with the pandemic, it didn't change a bunch as much as accelerated existing trends? It kind of did that for this too, because offenses were accelerating so much that defenses had to adjust. And then the 2020 season where there was like less preseason and that gave offenses an advantage. And then no crowd noise actually gave

offenses a huge advantage. And that was like the biggest offensive season, really like an outlier one that was so good because in some ways because of those factors that that that, that kind of germinated the too high thing. And so in a way, this whole trend, I think that you're right, Craig, but it was accelerated of the last two seasons. So big picture, though, we're saying running backs are running less, but the teams are rotating their running backs more. And then within the existing runs,

quarterbacks and receivers are taking a bigger share of the pie. Yep. And even checkdowns are probably more often becoming scrambles. and all that's happening within an offensive pie that also has shrunk. I like what you said in the story. There's a recession and offense. So if this is the case going forward,

what is, okay, give me the nut. What's happening here? Like, are we taking eight receivers in the first round next year? Or is this just a blip? Like, what's going on? I mean, honestly, that's how it feels right now. You know, you look at how the top X number,

like top 10 running backs in ADP prior to the season have done so far. And it's like three or four of them are pretty good. You know, like you got Derek Ken. Henry Echler and McCaffrey have done really well. Remind me if I'm missing anybody. But Jonathan Taylor, huge disappointment. A couple other guys who just point.

Derek Henry's been fine. Yeah. Everybody except Austin Echler in the first round. Yeah, everyone except Austin Echler in the first round had a maybe had a two-week period where you wondered if you made a huge mistake. Right. I think, and I was trying to think of like ways

that running backs can kind of get around these trends and like get back to being 25 plus. point contributors. One way is we see a pendulum swing back towards the run, which I think could happen, you know, because teams are playing these two high looks. And, you know,

as coaches, I could see coaches being like, all right, we're going to run them out of this. We're going to make them bring another guy down and into the box. They get so progressive. They're actually conservative. Well,

this is, it's always a pendulum swing. The NFL is cyclical. When defenses start having smaller personnel, you start having guys come in there. They're like 220-pound linebackers. You know, and then the pendulum swings because then you got teams like the Patriots or whoever, decide to use like 250 pound fullbacks and whatever and like get big offensive linemen,

run the shit out of the ball. And then it starts to cycle back again. And then you have linebackers get bigger and defensive linemen get bigger and blah, blah, blah. And it like goes, it's just all in cycles. It's basically that the NFL is a is a copycat league and you see these things happen. So if that does happen, if teams decide to run more, because right now, again, rushing is down. rushing touchdowns are down. if teams go back to the run a little bit more,

we could see, you know, obviously running backs get more volume, more touchdowns. That's going to help a ton in fantasy. The other thing I think that we have to see happen, which has not really happened and may never happen, is running backs that are running more vertical routes,

like more explosive plays through the air. Checkdowns are useful, clearly, but like they're just not as efficient as even like a dump-off, even like a quick slant to a receiver is much more efficient than a dump-off to a running back. Does that make sense? Like, teams are more likely,

and would be more willing to get six or seven yards doing quick pass to receiver versus like four yards, so I'm a dump off. And there's also like five good NFL offenses now, so maybe they can just put something up. Well, that's the other thing is like, I didn't say this, but Hyphen sort of alluded to it.

Offense in general is down really, really far this year. Like offenses are averaging 21.9 points per game. For some people, it was almost 25. That's a huge, huge drop. Massive drop. So, yeah. Okay. That is indeed a Sunday scary. That's like one of those like that that's how I feel after I read a story about like like the economy. I'm like, oh, okay. So everyone's fucking stuff. Going into a running back recession. Yeah, yeah, cool, cool, cool. Okay. I have a much less comprehensive Sunday scary. I feel like I don't know how to follow that up, but I don't have some general league wide trend. I just think that I'm just genuinely concerned for like the safety of Baker Mayfield against the Niners defense and also can you pick it against the bills. I, I don't know. I try to cycling through a bunch of movies. to try to find a comp,

but I just kept coming back to, isn't there some biblical story about a guy getting fed to lions? That's kind of all I can think about. Daniel in the lion's tent? Yeah, exactly. Your name is Daniel, and you didn't know that? Well, I'm Jewish.

I think we skipped that part. I don't know. You don't know every biblical story about a guy named Danny? I don't know. All right, all right. Dude, I can't, maybe I should have led with this.

The Panthers are playing in the 49ers. Like, did you see what the 49ers did to the Rams. Like the Panthers, the 49ers defense, I don't have to explain. If you watch one in football, 400th defense just wreck the Rams. They're the number one defense by EPA. The Panthers are so fucking bad. Like at least the Bears, Justin Field doesn't throw that we, you know, we've said over

and over, Craig has an incredible bit comparing the bears every week to the Navy midshipment because they don't throw up. But at least the bears like can run. Panthers can't do anything. Like the Panthers, Baker, to give you an idea of how Ben Baker Mayfield's been There's these great, the athletic, Ben Baldwin has these great little charts that are all the cool stats. That's not cool one. Sorry, they're really extremely nerdy, but successful stats.

The completion percentage over expectation and EPA per play and like PFF grade. And it's all the quarterbacks charted and there's little quadrants. And you want to be up and to the right. That's good. Up and to the right. That's where Patrick Mahomes is. It's where Josh Allen is. Baker Mayfield is as down and to the left on this graph as you can possibly be.

He's basically off the graph. It's like he's basically at zero and both. I've actually never seen a chart that looks like it. Baker, like, and it just matches the eye test. He's getting all his passes batted down. He can't complete anything beyond the easiest things. And now, and he's like, he hasn't even gone against teams that are that good. Now he's taking the Niners, like, I just feel like he's going to get freaking hurt.

I don't even know he's going to make it through this game. I feel really bad about saying in the offseason that Baker Mayfield can't be any worse than Darnold. Like, it's worse. It's worse than Darno. No one has been more. indicated than O'Dell Beckham's father. At least when we thought O'Dell, like Baker Mayfield was just hurt his shoulder. Actually, he just sucks.

He's horrible. This is why it's like, it's becoming very clear why almost no teams. Obviously, the Panthers did end up. They traded for him, right? It was like a future fifth rounder or something ridiculous. No teams wanted him. No, this is why. Maybe there was something to that.

So I think the 49ers defense might be a top 10 player this week period. But the only, the other one, this is such a. This is like a feeding frenzy for fantasy defenses this week. I can't remember two matchups like this back to back. The bills are playing the Steelers and Kenny Pickett. Kenny Pickett had three picks last week and 13 passes. And now his first start, he's got to go against the Buffalo Bills. And I'm like, the bills are also ferocious.

I think the bills and the Niners defenses this week could like both be top-ton fantasy defenses. And then if you're on, I mean, if you're on the Panthers, if you have fantasy players, you have to Sir Christian McCaffrey, kind of don't know you start DJ Moore. And Craig, I'm curious you think he's a Steelers fan. It's like, oh my God, like, who are you? I kind of don't know how Kenny Pickett's going to be able to function against Buffalo. I actually think Pickett's going to be able to put up a decent stat line. I mean, I think the bills are favored by 14.

This is, it's like the largest spread that the Steelers have been underdogs in like decades, 14. Wow. But the thing about the bills is they don't blitz a lot and they just kind of sit back in zone and just like eat you alive and make you just dink and dunk your way down the field. So while I don't think Kenny Pickett's going to, like, compete to beat the bills. I don't think this game's going to be closed. I think the bills are going to destroy them,

especially the bills on offense. Like, Steelers have no pass rush without T.J. White. I think Josh Allen's going to go insane. But I could see a world in which they designed this dink and dunk offense for Pickett in this game that the bills already want teams to play anyway. So, like, I could see Pickett being like 25 for 38, but for like, you know, 200 yards, a touchdown and two picks. So it's like, is there a world with like the Deontay Johnson types

where they have like six, seven catches? Yes, but I don't think they're going to win the game. I want to give you a stat from Rich Rebar at Sharp Football, who's fantastic. This is, I couldn't believe this when he wrote this. Opponents have scored against the bills in the second half on one of 20 possessions this year. Yikes. One of 20, which I'm not a statistics expert, but in statistics, I think the general baseline for like the definition of a statistical anomaly,

is 5%. And that's what it is. So basically like a 95% of opponent tries against the bills in the second half have not scored. The ones that have are anomalies.

The bills are, this is a great, I mean, the 49ers and bills are by far the best defenses when it comes to real life football, but also fancy opponents.

Like fantasy quarterbacks, the bills are giving up 10 points per game. That's like Justin Fields. That's, Like, they're turning everybody into Trabesky or Justin Fields. The 49ers, 9.6 points a game. And honestly, if leagues, if fantasy leagues did what they should,

which is like pick sixes should not be the same as an interception, then it would be even lower because Stafford got fixed sixth on what in football. That's crazy. Speaking of Stafford, I mean, oh my God. Talk about Sunday scaries. So these are the three offenses that I'm really worried about, the Panthers, the Steelers, and the Rams. I mean, look, Stafford, I think, could turn things around here,

but the offensive line for the Rams is such a mess right now. I saw this from Austin Gale. Our guy, Austin Gale. Joseph Noboom, who is Andrew Whitworth's replacement at left tackle this year. He's giving up 20 pressures this year in four games. Whitworth gave up 20 pressures all year last year. 18. Holy shit.

Like, it's tough. Stafford's numbers have been far worse than I even, like, realized. I was looking at his numbers today. Did you know that he has four touchdowns and six picks? Well, but that tracks. He's just been awful. He's like a bottom five quarterback in fantasy right now. Well,

Howard Robinson's dropped three touchdowns, so that doesn't help. They're also relying. I think there's two problems. Well, there's a bunch of problems that runs offense, but there's really, I think mainly two.

Sean McVey's offense in LA, they've always ebbed and float with the quality of the offensive line. Like always, always, always. When the O-Lyam was really good, you know, the early years, it was going great. And then whenever they've had injuries

toward the end of the year, the offense has cratered. and this year is no different where they never really had a plan for injury worth retiring and like they have a bunch of guys who've been there and know the system but then those guys get hurt

and all hell breaks loose and they're all injured as hell I mean I it's just a bad situation they're also approaching more relying on Cooper Cup than any team I've ever watched like they are already on the short list

I feel like if Cooper Cup pulled his hamstring and was out for like three weeks what they do I genuinely have no clue what this offense would be. It's like, I don't know. I also, I know that teams don't actually really double team players very much because you'd actually like have an open player on somewhere else in the field.

But I'd love to see a defense just say, fuck it, and kind of test the Rams and be like, we're actually literally going to double Cooper Cup and make you throw to Alan Robinson and Ben Scaronic. I'd love to see what they do. I mean, for context, Cooper Cup has 54 targets. on the season, that's, I mean, the Titan Tyler Higby is 38. Those two guys,

let's see if I can do math on the fly. That's 90 targets for the two of them. And that everyone else on the team combined is like under like 50. You know what I mean? It's like if Cooper Cup was out, this offense doesn't exist. Cooper Cup had 145 catches last year.

He's on pace for 179 this year. That's not good. It's crazy to think that Cup could have like an even more historic season than he did last year. during a season when Stafford has looked like absolute dog shit he's averaging 10.9 fantasy points for games

so far this year that's 33rd among quarterbacks at this time so through four games last year he was averaging 22.6 fantasy points per game he's averaging 10 points. It's remarkable that Cup has is the only thing that has remained steady. It's like it's like you know there's functioning alcoholics it's like the Rams are just like a functioning

bad defense with Cooper Cup still. I don't know how they keep Cooper Cup alive. To round this out, to round this out, To round this out, I forgot to mention they're playing the Cowboys who, by the way, lead the NFL in pressures, quarterback hits, they're tied for second in sacks and second in quarterback knockdowns. They're going to, I'm a little worried about Matt Stafford in this game. And yet,

after all that, the Rams are favored by five and a half. And I'm taking the Rams. This line is so bizarre. They're favored? Yes, the Rams are favored by almost six points. But Cooper Rush is still playing. He's four and Donald. The Cowboys are three in one. I think Cooper Rush is going to outscore Matt Stafford fantasy. See, this line doesn't make any sense to me because I feel like everyone is all on the Cowboys, the line. We just watched the Rams on national television

get demolished by the Niners line. And yet, this line's five and a half. Vegas knows something we don't. This was like when the Chiefs were only favored by like six against Indianapolis, and we were all on Casey. I think the Rams are going to win by like 20. That would be great. This is a gestanza.

Yes. This is a Gestanza if there ever was one. You're right. It feels wrong. Something smells fishy. All right. Cool. Next one here.

All right. We're finally out of the Sunday. scaries. This next award or whatever I want to call it, pre-a-award, I'm calling it the Disney Channel original movie Motocross Award, and I'm giving it to Teddy Bridgewater. I don't know if anybody is this a rewatchable? I have not seen Motocrossed. Hi, Vince, were you a big decomm guy growing up? Disney? No, the only Disney original movie I remember, I had a brother, just a Nickelodeon house. I think you're probably more Disney if you had a sister. I, the only Disney, you don't think so? I don't know.

You're just assigning gender norms to... Yeah, it was 2000. Those are all their age. I think, no, I think the girls are just too smart for fucking cat dog. That's a show for dumb little boys. And you think Disney Channel original movies are highbrow? You ever seen cat dog? Relatively, absolutely.

SpongeBob is incredibly intelligent. How dare you? My mom thought it was making me stupider. Can I stop you guys there real quick? Yeah. That's all. I just wanted to stop you. That was such a dad joke.

Anyway, this movie Motocross, by the way, the whole world of Disney Channel original movies and like the mid-auts are just, really, there's a deep dive. Motocross. I like the first baseman who was a chef. That was my favorite. Eddie's Million Dollar Cookoff. Great one. There's also Brink, Johnny Sunami, there's a million. Anyway, Motocross, the plot of Motocross, and these are horrible movies that are like 80 minutes.

And it's like a girl secretly poses as her twin brother to win like the big motocross race when he breaks his leg. and nobody knows. She just like, shaves her head and, like, puts a helmet on nobody. I don't think anyone's going to be able to tell

the difference between Teddy Bridgewater and Tua in the Dolphins offense. I think it's going to be exactly the same. Longest explanation. Well,

we think we've progressed on that movie channel of the movies. Well, what was the Amanda Bynes movie where she plays soccer? She's the man. I was thinking of the same thing.

Same thing. She's the man. Motocross walks so she's the man could run. I actually don't know which movie came first. Don't fact check me on that. But yeah, I think two and Teddy Bridgewater are just going to be pretty much indistinguishable from one another,

other than the left-handed thing. Right. Just flip the, like mirror the video. Just invert the camera. It'll be the same thing. I never thought, too, it was that special, and I think Mike McDaniel's play calling is what's special. And, you know, Teddy came in after two a left, and he was good. He put up 200 yards a touchdown.

Like, Mike McDaniel's ability to create big plays in yard after the catch is why this offense works and you just need quarterbacks who could be competent in the pocket and make the throw, which Teddy, I think, has always been. The dolphins are second in receiving yards this year. They're fourth in yards per reception. Like, they are getting down the field, a lot of yards after the catch, and they're playing the Jets. And the Jets are getting torched through the air this year. They've actually a really good run defense. They've given up, you know, I don't even need to get into all the stats. They're very bad against the pass this year. And I just think if you're nervous, if you have Tyree Kill or you have Jalen Waddle, or you're, you have Tua and you had

to add Teddy Bridgewater and you're debating starting him as like your superflex. I think it's going to be pretty much the same thing. This is such a good take. I wish he'd gone farther instead Teddy Bridgerwter would be better than Tua. Honestly, maybe he will be. Maybe he'll throw up for six touchdowns. This is excellent thing. I don't know if I can get on board with this.

Tu is not good. Tua under throws every deep ball. Yeah, but Tua is really, he's really fast processors. I think that's why it works really well with what they got going on. I don't know. It's going to be very fascinating to watch. But I think Tua is a good fit for the offense that Stan wants to run because of his processing and accuracy in the short and intermediate area. So I just want to see if Teddy's going to get the ball out.

Hit the back foot, get the ball out. If he does, then all bets are off. Like, he'll, maybe he is better than Tua. All right. I didn't know what to call this. All I could think was the bringing the knife to the gunfight award for the New York Giants. We're playing the backers. Except it's really more like they're bringing a running back to a quarterback fight.

It's like that scene in Raiders of the Lost Ark with Harrison. Oh, yes. When he's facing the guy. The guy's like, the sword band. The judge's like, fake one, wildcat. And then Aaron Rogers is like, pulls up pistol. Craig, didn't you tell me that was ad-lived?

Yeah. They all had dysentery because they ate some bad food wherever they were filming overseas. And Harrison Ford was like literally ill and was like, I'm not doing this. Yes. They did it in a cart to take it. And it's an iconic scene now. Oh, it's amazing.

Yeah. I can make this tangent even longer. We got a great email about taking METCath, but we'll read that later. Oh, yeah. We can only have one five-minute prologue between analysis. Disagree. But again, the Giants are playing the Packers this week,

and this is the week everyone will realize that the Packers look great. Aaron Rogers, I think this will be his best game at the year, and the Packers' receivers for at least one week will get a reprieve from people asking if they suck. Because, look, obviously the Giants, this just, it's the London game, first of all. Didn't you say the Giants were going to get exposed last week?

You did? I did. It feels like we're having this repeating history again. I think you're just trying to reverse jinx your giants.

Well, they did almost lose to the bears. Like they beat them by like eight points and the bears are like, I mean, but here's why though. I don't have to do

much analysis on the offense here. It's like either Daniel Jones, you know, obviously he has an ankle injury and Tyra Taylor has a concussion and then they might have to bring a practice squad Davis Webb, Sequin of the Wildcat.

I mean, even if Daniel Jones does play, it's Daniel Jones hobbling, like a non-mobile Daniel Jones. He's like this thought experiment that I'd always had in my head that I always hoped was like a hypothetical and I'd never see it in real life. I don't really have any interest in watching Daniel Jones without being able to run. I kind of think he's just going to be horrible. Like all the receivers are hurt too. All the receivers are hurt.

Like Daniel Jones, not being able to run with nobody to throw to. It's just this recipe for absolute catastrophe. I mean, the recipe for catastrophe is that the Giants are. they're playing the Packers. You could have stopped there. I don't need a full explanation as to why this game is going to be a disaster. But that's the obvious part. The part that no one's talking about, but I think that will make the Packers look good,

is the Giants also have horrible cornerbacks. Like the Giants have four healthy cornerbacks, and one of them is actually banged up. So they really have three. They have Dorie Jackson, who's actually a very good cornerback. After him, it's the worst cornerback group in the NFL, in my opinion. The Darnay Holdensley, they have a slot. Their third starter, they just

picked up Fabian Moreau like from their practice squad. He's a journey. He's a journeyman. He's just been all over already. And he's also got added to the practice, the injury report, like today. It's Thursday. When you get hurt in the middle of the week, they're like, he's fine. That's their starting. They have one starting quarterback after one, sorry, one healthy cornerback after those three dudes. And like, he hasn't played a defense to snap this season. His name's Justin Lane. Hasn't played a snap. And so Aaron Rogers, I think, has his best games when the defense has to play a cornerback that just shouldn't be

on the field. Like Aaron Rogers and Tom Brady are the two best guys that when there's a cornerback that you shouldn't be out there, they just find 20 different ways to target him on everything. I don't know who it's going to be. I don't know if it's going to be Lazard. I don't if it's going to be Romeo Dobbs. But I think that you're going to see Christian Watson maybe, but the big throws that the

Packers have kind of been missing this year are going to get hit. I think Rogers left 300 yards. I think the Packers receivers are going to look good. And you're going to see Fabian Moreau trailing. Romeo Dobbs by 20 yards on the highlight on Red Zone, or I guess not a Red Zone because it's London. What about Romeo Dobbs is the debut time award? Yeah, he could be the Deb.

Has he not already kind of mature? Yeah, he kind of. I mean, he had a really good game last week. He did drop a touchdown. Maybe this is the week he actually holds on to that sucker. Rogers is giving him the Devante looks. You know, like he's getting those like one-on-one back shoulders, like the end zone targets, like the Rogers, like, calls a hot route

and just hits Dobbs on like a random third and four when he likes what he sees. Dobbs is really getting a lot of respect, I feel like recently from Rogers. Yeah. Yeah. That's a good call because, again, the Giants defense, they played the Titans in the first game without A.J. Brown for the team. They played Baker Mayfield in week two.

Week three, they had Cooper Rush. Cooper Rush kind of carved them up. And then week four, they played Justin Fields. He's throwing less than anyone in DK's 40-year-old lifetime. Now they get Aaron Rod. I'm telling you, man, Packers this week, the offense. So there. Good one.

Romeo Dobbs to mature. Packers to Rickham. He said it. I love that this is like. commonplace now in our podcast. This is, by the way, creepiest fucking thing we've ever, I hate. Just acknowledge it? That's fine. No, it's, ugh. I can't believe you get that. You said it like, almost like muscle memory right there. You're like, I know, I hear it so much. It's the theme of modern times. You just flood the zone with shit. Tackle millions and prizes all football

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All right, next up, the Mario Kart Rainbow Strip Award, which I have come to love this award. And again, if you ever play Mario Kart, there's like a little rainbow section that's like a turbo boost. And when you hit it, and it's like some NFL teams are kind of like that too. When you play that NFL team,

it's like, just like a little speed boost for your whole offense. The Lions defense has been that. Like the Lions have literally given up the most points in the NFL. They're scoring the most, like the Lions have the most points through four games,

combined points in their games in NFL history. But you know that's saying, of like, you know, what happens when an unstoppable force meets an immovable object, the Lions are playing the Patriots this week, and I feel like it's like, what happens when the stoppable force hits the movable object? Because the Lions can't guard anyone, but like the Patriots might have Bailey Zappi at quarterback, and what is going to happen? Well, Mac Jones did practice in a limited fashion today.

He looked pretty hobbled when you're, he was just like limping around on the field. I bet he won't play. So, yeah. That's the thing. So it's like, that's like, even if Mac Jones does play, last week so I'm going to be screaming and agony. And so I'm, if he's coming back and like, I'll play if humanly possible, being healthy enough to be two notches above humanly possible doesn't mean like you're going to be good.

And so I'm genuinely curious to see what happens. I don't know if the Patriots defense is going to slow down the lion's offense, but like, the lions, I don't know. I'm, I can't even against the lions, I guess this is my point, even on the rainbow strip, the rainbow speed boost, I kind of can't fathom playing some of these Patriots receivers beyond, I mean,

I guess if Jacoby Myers comes back, but this is how bad this offense is to me. The idea of playing Hunter Henry or all these guys, again, like the Lions have made basically everybody who's gone against them like a top five, top ten fantasy option.

And I kind of can't fathom playing some of these Patriots players other than the running backs. I would play the running backs. I would play Jacobi Myers. I think if you're in a pinch, you could maybe play Devante Parker but he just hasn't really gotten many targets.

If Myers plays, I feel like you can't play Devonte Parker. It's tough. With Bailey Zappy maybe or hobbled Mac Jones? Maybe the Patriots just kind of take a page out of the Pat's Bills game from last year and they just run it like 45 times and just try and completely slog the game and turn it into a mudbass. I kind of think they have to. Yeah.

So yeah, maybe you can play Damien Harris and Ramandran. It's totally fun. That's a good point. Yeah, you definitely can play those too. Also, Loke, no one's discussing this. Matt Patricia revenge game. Matt Patricia versus the Lions. Yeah, the Lions are trying to get revenge on him, right?

How many players are left, though, from Patricia's team? I don't know. That's the thing. It's never that fun. It's an institutional hatred, though. Yeah, yeah. But does the institution hate him back? No, that's what I'm saying. Is Dan Campbell out there? So I'm saying the Lions just as an institution hate Patricia. If anyone was actually going to get their kneecap bit in the, in the Dan Campbell tenure,

it would be Matt Patricia in this game. Yeah. Someone just, just take a hunk out of it. it. All right. Who else? Craig, Mario Kart Rambo Strip Award for you this week? Yeah, I'm giving it to the Raiders Chiefs. It's the highest total of the week. And the Raiders are one and three, but they've lost those three games by a combined

13 points. They're actually top 10 in offensive points per game, the Raiders. And they're not playing the Chiefs. Who teams are throwing the ball more against the Chiefs than any other team. So this game's going to be a shootout. And the Chiefs have been really good against the run. We saw that Bucks game last week. The Bucks were held to three yards. Leonard Fournet had three-Cats and negative three yards.

Can't run the ball on the Chiefs. And Derek Carr, who's been bad, he's actually been worse than Daniel Jones this year in fantasy football, which I had to take a double take at to confirm that was correct. It's incredible. But, yeah, the Chiefs are actually giving up a lot of points to quarterbacks, a lot of points to the air. And aside from all the obvious starts,

your Devante Adams, you're Darren Wallers, Clyde, who's now the best running back in the league, I guess. You're Travis Kelsey. I think everybody else is going to work as well. Like, your Juju Smith-Schuster, who's been relatively disappointing this year. The Raiders are a bottom three team against slot-wide receivers, and that's where Juju's

primarily playing. Half his snaps, half his routes are coming from the slot. Guys like Marquez Valdez Scantling, like the Raiders are allowing the fourth most receptions of 20 plus yards down the field. That's obviously MBS is bread and butter. And like Hunter Renfro, who's kind of also been up and down this year, he's been hurt. But the Chiefs are a bottom five team against slot bar receivers just like the Raiders are. I just think there's going to be a lot of passing in this game. I think both quarterback to throw about 40 times plus. Even Mack Hollins, man. Like the Raiders play a lot of 11 personnel. Matt Collins is out there.

And when Renfro and Hollins were playing together, Hollins was still running routes on 90% of the passes. I just think it's going to be like Thanksgiving dinner for these offenses. Wow. I'm all in. Do we think it's finally going to be a Darren Waller game? I actually think Chiefs are better against tight ends than they are against wide receivers. But, I mean, the tight end is such a bleak landscape.

What are you going to do? Sit Darren. DK, you got a rainbow strip? Yeah, just add one real. quick here. The other game I'm excited about from a fantasy point of view. The Eagles at Cardinals, mainly because the Cardinals have been pretty terrible. This is the second

highest overrunner of the week, 49 and a half. The Cardinals have given up the fifth most points this year, six most yards per play, 10th most past yards, and they're tied for fifth in most passing touchdowns give it up. So I think that Jalen Hertz could have a big week. I think Goddard, especially,

could be in line for a big night, or big afternoon. Third most fantasy points to tight ends, the Cardinals have given up. their middle of the field coverage has been not very good. So I'm excited to see this one. I think the Eagles are just like appointment viewing at this point. You know, they're just fun to watch. And so, and the Cardinals kind of are too,

but for opposite reasons, they're just kind of a cluster fuck. And so, yeah, I'm excited about this game. I still think Kyler-Murie's a buy low with DeAndre Haughts coming back in two weeks. And Kyle Murray's still a top 10 quarterback. I think he's seventh right now. He started running a little bit more of this last game too,

which is nice. It's hard to trade for good quarterbacks, though. It is. You get excited about having a quarterback and then writing off the idea of having because you're not going to get Jalen Hertz back, right? You're basically saying, I'm going to just roll with like, like Derek Carr.

Someone's like, I'll give you Aaron Rod. And you're like, oh, but like, it's like an identity. It's like my, but I was like this cool team. And I'm just not that anymore. You can only really trade quarterbacks in a two-quarterback fantasy league. It's difficult to trade for a good quarterback in one quarterback league. Like it can be done, but...

Because you usually have to swap quarterbacks, and then most people just don't want to do that. It's, what's that movie? It's like, you're not that guy, pal. It's like, you're not that, like, it's tough. You know, it's a tough thing to do. All right. Well, speaking of which, we talked a lot about the Falcons and Cow Pits

and Happy Gilmore, and I kind of was thinking about the Falcons this week. It's like, I wonder if Happy's going to have to put because the Falcons don't like the throw. Like, the Falcons. Oh, yeah. There's only two teams with less than 100 pass steps. The Falcons and the Barrier. and you don't want to be in a list of bass with the bears.

I want Arthur Smith to lean into this stuff. I want them to throw a lot of this game and then in the post game interview. He goes, uh-oh, Arthur learned how to pass. Yeah. So the Falk, well, you ran 14 times in a row last week. So to play in the Bucks and the Bucs ostensely of one of the best run defenses in football, they haven't been as good this year. And I think one of two things are going to happen.

I think if Kyle Pitz is a hamstring injury. Yeah. And this is how I think it's going to go down. You might not play. Yeah. If Kyle Pitts plays, I bet the Falcons, because they're going to run. on the bucks anyway. They're going to just run all over the bucks. However, part of me wonders, Kyle Pitts misses the game and the Falcons just are right, you know what, screw it, and they pass,

and then frickin Parker Hess, whatever his name is, the backup tight end has a better game than Kyle Pitts has a whole season. If it makes you feel any better, if you're a Kyle Pitts fantasy manager, if he doesn't play, you could still start him because it's not going to be that different than the kids. The dad jokes are contagious. I like to picture Arthur Smith and, like, Kyle Pitts and Marcus Mariotta going to a mini golf thing. and learning how to put. Just like destroying the clown. You're going to die, cloud.

It's Mariotto trying to like spin a pass through like a little window and he can't do it. Keeps closing. I hate that clown. If you can't beat the clown, how are you going to be shooter? You're going to die, Cloud. If you can't beat the clown, how are you going to beat Todd Bulls? I bet that is what Falcons practice is like.

Speaking of this game, a dumb narrative, I actually believe. Speaking of revenge games, I kind of think Julio Jones, even though he can barely walk, is going to have like 200 yards in this game. I also think Brady buys into this shit and likes to stoke that.

100%. Brady's admitted that he would get gronk the contract incentives, touchdowns or whatever, like week 18 or whatever. Like Brady... Same by Kevin's. Remember when he had targeted Antonio Brown

like five times in one game just to get him the incentive of like, Antonio Brand made like $200,000 or whatever if he just caught this many passes and Brady just got him in at the end of the game. Brady cares. Anyone tells him Leo Jones doesn't give a shit

about wrecking the Falcons is fucking wrong. Like, he Gleu Jones gives a tremendous shit about wrecking Atlanta. He's always just rocked the divisional opponents. Like, he's very competitive. And he just, remember, like, randomly he'll just have 300 yards against the Panthers. I think that it's going to be kind of like that

against the Falcons. Like, I don't know if he's healthy enough to play more than 30 stats. I kind of feel like he's going to have 150 yards and two touchdowns on those 30 snaps though. I don't know if I don't have the goal to play them. I really don't have the Hutzma to play him.

But I kind of just won't be. I think that he's going to be like straight up a top five receiver on the day. What am I forgetting from the breakup between the Falcons and Julio to see? Is there bad blood there? He wanted to go. He wanted out.

Right. He wanted to, you remember he was on the phone. It's Shannon Sharp. Shannon Sharp called him. Oh yeah He was like, you want out Julio's like, yeah Oh shit

I don't want to go About that Yeah, he's like They gotta get rid of me Yeah, yeah That was actually insane Yeah, shit and Sharp just called him like,

Did he know that you're live on fucking TV I'm sure he knew And then every head coach Hopped on a plane to Atlanta To try and court to Julio Anyway,

I think shout on Julio Jones Okay, Craig You want to Costanza A little bit You got any Costanzas Other than our openings Costanza with the Cowboys line

Yeah, so the Kostanza award or prediction is that if every instinct you have is wrong, then the opposite must be right. Guys. I know I've been saying a lot about the Chicago midshipman. But I think

Darno Mooney and Colquemette will be serviceable this week. The Bears have literally been worse than the Navy midshipmen. Not only Mooney but Komet too? Yes. You're really going out on a limb here. Okay.

So games that the Bears have played have averaged a league-wide low, 117 combined offensive plays. However, I think the bears are going to throw up for 200 plus yards this weekend, which is saying something. Because if you look at it, okay, for the playing the Vikings.

The Bears barely had 200 total yards in their first game. Playing the Vikings, I think they're going to have to throw the ball. Minnesota's terrible versus the past. Third worst completion percentage, fourth worst in yards per attempt, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, all the way down it. Receivers tight ends are not good. Vikings are a strong offensive team. They're going to score a lot.

This game's at home for the Vikings. They're in a dome. The Vikings are third and in seconds per play. So they're going to keep the pace moving. They're going to get Chicago to ball more. More plays, more points is usually how it goes. I think the Bears are going to have no choice but to throw in this game. The last three weeks, Fields has thrown for 11 attempts, 17 attempts, and 22 attempts, respectively.

He's increasing exponentially. I was thinking. He'll have a million attempts. by the end of the season. Yeah, he's going to have 11 to the 10th power attempts. I can tell you peruse the stats. That's right.

We have so many vocabulary inside jokes today. But the Bears kind of, if you look at their schedule, they've been playing teams that either have good D's or terrible offenses, which is like kept the totals low and kept the games ugly.

They played the Niners in a monsoon. They played the Packers defense in Lambo. And then they played the Texans and the Giants. Like, they haven't really played a team yet that has a bad defense and will have a lot of points, which is the Vikings. So I think they're going to have no choice,

but to throw against a defense that is vulnerable against the past. I hear what you're saying. You know what the other common thread in all those games is? They just keep running? No, the bears, but the games. I feel like you left that part out. Fields is just terrible. Remember Michael Scott when he was like,

I declare bankruptcy? And they're like, you can declare it, but it doesn't actually mean anything. This is a great castanza because you're certainly right. Every instinct in my bones is just like, well, this is the worst idea I've ever heard. I was just looking at my fantasy team and I'm trying to like make some trades and I'm trying to toss a receiver in to sweeten the deal. And I have Darnell Mooney sitting there on my bench and I'm like, I can't believe how quickly his reputation in the Bears fantasy players has changed

in four weeks. Like, how are we all so off about this? Darno Mooney was expected. We hyped him up three weeks before the season started as like sleepers 2.0. We were like, oh, Mooney, someone's got gets passes, he could be the brain and cook this year. It's exactly the same as the Panthers where we were like, well, it couldn't be worse than last year. And then actually, yeah, it's the worst.

It's like far worse. They're not even trying. They took a defensive head coach and the defensive head coach's mentality is more or less, if you just don't fuck up, my defense will win the game. Yeah.

They absolutely believe that. And so they're like, you know, the best way to have Justin Fields not fuck up is what if he threw the ball less than anybody in 40 years? It's going to be 24 to 3. in the third quarter.

So I think they're going to have to throw. Get a run to come back. I will give you that if this is the call, then this is your most impressive call of the year. It's the first time they've played a team that's going to score a lot of points and has a bad defense. They haven't played that team yet.

Craig, I want to ask you a question because I got to ask this on Twitter and I responded, you might not like this. Someone asked me, should I drop Mooney for George Pickens? Yes. And I said yes. Yeah.

Okay. Yeah, it's more upside for sure. Just got checked there. All right. So those are the categories. We have some funny-ass emails, but Dika, you want to round up the injuries to the Hot Tub Club before we get to some email? Yeah, Hot Tub Club. This is the injuries to track going into the weekend.

Obviously, we don't know exactly who's playing who's not because it's not late enough in the week. But here we go. John J. Swift and Amon-Ros St. Brown, both are tracking towards not playing again. Both have not. Neither guy has practiced this week yet. So that's not looking good. Kyle Pitts of the Falcons did not practice with a hamstring injury on Wednesday or Thursday. It seems like he's tracking towards not playing as well.

David Montgomery of the Bears actually back at practice surprisingly on Thursday. I thought we kind of went into the week thinking he was probably like a multi-week absence based on the severity of what it looked like he had in terms of his ankle injury, but he might play.

He's back at practice limited on Thursday. Watch on Friday and Saturday how it kind of goes, but we'll see. C.D. Lamb popped up on the injury report on Thursday, which is a bit of a surprise. G groin injury did not participate in practice, but he said he told reporters he's planning on playing.

I would say players are not necessarily the most reliable when it comes to that kind of stuff, but it does feel like he's still going to play. But you got to track what this is happening here. If he doesn't practice again on Friday, you know, be on the lookout on Saturday and Sunday and maybe you have to swap him out. Michael Thomas and James Winston both did not practice Wednesday or Thursday. Both guys look like they're turning towards not playing. That means Andy Dalton.

Another game of Andy Dalton. Lovely. And then one more, actually two more things to kind of track here. Curtis Samuel and Jahan Dodson for the commanders both did not practice Wednesday or Thursday. Samuel has an illness. Don't know what it is yet at this point. Jehan Dodson, I believe, has a hamstring or groin injury. And so he's trending towards not playing.

But Curtis Samuel is the one to monitor here because he's been really, really good. And then I think that's about it. Cadair's Tony was a limited participant in practice on Wednesday, then did not practice on Thursday. This fucking guy. He's just, he's resting. What's going on with this? Hyphins gave up on this before the season started, Craig and I think still have some hope. I got to tell you, look, I have a lot of misses on my resume.

I haven't missed on a giant issue of substance of literally years. I'm just, I'm doubling down, I'm tripling down, I'm pumping money into all the bitcoins right now. I know, Tony could totally be something if he gets 50, 60 snaps a game. I just, I mean, we're not close to close. We're like, oh, all these guys are hurt. It's like, he's not even active. Well, he practiced on Wednesday, and then he did not practice today. That's why I was like to see.

See, so they saw what they needed to see on Wednesday. Here's the thing. And then now they don't need to see anything. Now he'll just rest until Sunday. We're talking about the game, not practice. J.J. Watt is out here tweeting, by the way, I have like a fib. What did that mean, by the way? What did that mean?

I think it means that his heart was beating irregularly. Yes, you have like occasional heart palpitations and like your heart beats out of rhythm. You know who's not missing practices back to back? Fucking JJ Watt. Kadaris Tony is out of almost a decade younger. It's like, okay, what does that have to do with Cadarist Tony? Just saying, Deidorest Tony has had nine different injuries. He's played in like four football games.

Yeah, it's tough. Tony has been in the hot tub so long. I meant it's pruned up. Yeah, he's pruned. It's pruned. the persona once again the personification of the hot tub club I had to mention him because he's literally

like the mascot of the hot tub club so yeah you know the Will Ferrell sketch an S&L of him and Rachel Dratch in the hot tub and he just lives in there that's Cadarious Tony just inviting other people in welcome in young man

no you know what you guys are Tony it's the arrest of the development thing where it's like oh you know people that never works for anybody people just elude themselves into thinking it works but it could work for us you two are like Every week, he's like,

Darius Tony, he's always hurt. He never plays. But he could play this week. You think he's never, ever going to play again? He'll never play. It's like the Todd Gurley fan. It's like he'll just never play football.

He's done. He's never going to get into a game ever again. He's never catching another pass. Okay. We got a couple incredible emails. So this first one is from Utah. I'm sorry if I'm not pronouncing that correctly. It's a Japanese name.

Y-U-T-A. But a little prology. for this. When Alvin Camara was ruled out surprisingly for the Saints game when they were in London, a lot of people, a lot of people emailed us basically, people wanted their commission, people were benched him by actors, started him,

and he didn't get any points. People wanted commissioners to like reverse it. And then we got an excellent email from someone in Australia saying, everyone who's complaining about waking up for the London game can fuck off because we get up three in the morning to set our lineups in Australia. I don't want to hear shit. We thought that was really funny.

I've got a follow-up email from Utah who writes, I'm a rare Japanese fantasy footballer. I currently live in the United States, but I was playing from Japan last year, which is a similar time zone as Australia. And when I was hearing about setting lineups at three in the morning start times for the games, one of you three guys said, I wouldn't be able to sleep on Saturday night.

Oh, F off, all of you. DK., you and I both jokes like, oh, the Australians, like they're so badass. They're big up at three in them. Well, no. What you write at all, all caps is, it's not Saturday. It's Sunday night.

It's one thing to stay on Saturday night. It's a whole different thing. It's staying up late into Sunday night. In Japan, the early slate kicks off at three in the morning on Monday fucking morning. That's so weird. It's three in the morning of Monday. And then the late games are 6 a.m. On Monday, all caps.

Then they have to get up. and go to work for the whole week. And so, you know, yes, I would set my alarm to make sure I wake up before both kickoff time to set my line up. And because America is a broken country, country practicing daylight savings time, it gets bumped back to 4 a.m. and 7 a.m. in November. So for the 3 in the morning slate, I could go to bed at 1.30 after the inactives are announced and sleep till 5.45, but then the 4 a.m. start time is ridiculous.

It's the game we play, so I push through, and to be honest, my wire just now, my body is now just wired to wake up at three or four in the morning without an alarm clop, which, oh my God. Oh, wow, because of all that. And then Eudis says, oh, and did I mention that I have kids? And yes, the bathroom is my sanctuary. So, I thought that was humbling. It's just weird to me to think that people in that time zone, so like Australia, Japan, whatever, all that Southeast Asia, like, they're just living in the future. future compared to us. They're living in fucking Monday when we're in Sunday. That's so

bizarre to me. How does that work? Yeah, it's like we're you're getting the Sunday scary because it's 4 o'clock on Sunday and people in Japan are at work. That's so weird. It's also like, it's weird enough when I go to the East Coast and we're like trying to do some work and it's like,

you know, it's noon, we're eating lunch and then people at the LA office are starting to get up. You know what I mean? Like, oh, they're getting into work. That is just, I mean, that's like a very microscale. Oh, that's like me, every fucking time we record a show and I just resched you guys. Literally right now. Yeah. Yeah. It's like every time I get a slack at like 11 o'clock at night.

And I'm like, hey, I just don't want to answer these questions. This is a peek behind the curtain. I got really mad at Hyfitts because he was holding up a fantasy draft. Oh my God. During the summer. Oh, I've never been so mad at you in my life. And I didn't realize that it was literally like 11.30 his time. On Saturday night. I was like, dude, you're holding it up. And he was like, if it's, I think, almost, if he was in my presence, he would have murdered me. Oh my God.

Okay. All right. All right. We also got another pretty incredible email from Jonathan. Jonathan. Jonathan. Yeah, you guys, you're down mentally or elsewhere right now, I can tell. It's too early here.

Yeah, I'm trying to figure out what time it is in right now. So the other, again, so D.K. Metcalf last week got carded off the field, but he just had to take a shit. And so then we got an email from someone saying that the Patriots used to have a special teamer named Larry Izzo, who actually, actually like took a shit on the sideline to not have to leave the game and then actually got the game ball from Bill Belichick and Larry Issa is very proud of this.

So we got an email. D.K. You know what Larry Iszo's doing right now? No. Special teams coordinator for the Seahawks. He's a, Larry Iso is one of the coaches. Jonathan pointed this out. And his point is...

That is remarkable. Did Larry Isso bring in the cart for D.K. Metcalfe. That's... Passing the torch. I knew this name sounded familiar. I mean, obviously, he was a player, so heard of him. So do you think Larry Issa was trying to convince St.

Kemeck off to shit on the sideline? And he was like, no. And the argument took so long that he had to card him off? Oh, man. Bathroom coordinator, Larry Isso? Basket team slash bathroom coordinator? It's like the holdback guy that holds the coach back on the sidelines. Like, you need to lose it.

Yeah, there's just like, set and you go. They're like, come on. Wow. I did not know that. No, I didn't. All right. I think that's, once we do that, There's not much.

Fantasyfobble. Theringer.com. Check out our rankings for week five. Again, click on the little position buttons. You can see all the positions. Fantasyfobal. Dot the ringer.com.

Our ranking starts it. We'll update those again Sunday morning once we get like inactive and who's out one last time. Thank you, D.K., thank you, Craig. Thank you, Jesse for production help. Thank you, Lauren. Lauren. Thank you, bad company.

Ooh, nice. What's the biggest bad company song? Feel like Making Love, I think? Oh, yeah. Can't get enough. That's a great song. Do you like making love? Dude, I've been getting really into like all these.

When was, when were they? Is this 70s, 80s? Do you like the late 70s? I think? I don't know. 70s, yeah, dad rock. Yeah. Oh, I love that.

Bad company. So their album with, no, you're right. Mid-70s, straight shooter was in 1975. My girlfriend's father has convinced me to listen to a lot more like electric light orchestra in Kansas. It's just fantastic. Dude, like, Sister Christian by Night Ranger,

those songs just absolutely bang. You know what I mean? Oh, yeah. Anyone know that one? Is this? The Christian. Yeah. Craig, did you know the song

Final Countdown by Europe? Of course. The rest of the development. Oh, yeah, of course. My college friends and I, when we were playing beer pong in college and afterwards, we sang that tune

before every game. And then, like, Cheers. Oh, really? Yeah. Our flip cup, not beer pong flip cup. Oh, okay. Yeah, I just love all that, like, I don't know, like concert rock, late 70s, like, foreigner. You know, it feels like the first time by foreigner. I'm just like really vibing with that stuff right now. It's great. I got to say there was, you know how like our, like, Craig, our parents generation's always like, I don't know if Dick, you can be our father. And it's like, they're like, we had the best music ever. And I'm like, you could not be our father.

He'd be 12 when he had it. 12. Is that it? Is that the math? Hey, that's what you get bar mitzvah at 13. You remember? Well, in the old days, Craig, you never know. True.

Anyway, what were you saying, Hyphitz? About fathers? Oh, no. Our parents' generation, though, is like, we had the best music. Yeah, but it's like, because you know, the whole thing of like old music's eating new music, right? Like, with streaming and everything. Spotify, shout out. But it's like, people just are choosing to listen to old music more so, like our generation.

I feel like our music is merging. with old music. Like, our new music isn't new. It's just recreated to sound like old music. Dude, I went to see Elton John. I saw this Elton John concert, and he comes out of the encore. And the first song he has is the song he did

with Dua Lipa. And all these people, everyone over 40 was like, what the fuck is this song? Yeah, that would have been me. I would have not known that. But I loved it. But yeah, it's like there's so many more, at first I thought it was more like,

you know, old musicians, trying to drag with younger ones, but honestly, no, it's like a whole, I feel like it's a renewed effort now for, like, younger ones to tag up

with older people, too. Well, and think about it. Like, like, there was no bands in the 80s. Like, the biggest bands in the 80s, like, journey were not, they were not making music to sound like, they were like, we're going to come out with a 50s album,

you know? But like, Doola Lita Vest, I'm going to come out of an 80s album. Greta Van Fleet is like, we're just going to sound like Led Zeppelin. I think that there's overall, to oversimplify it, there's a tremendous fomo

among people who grew up with phones for the pre-phone era. I think nostalgia culture is just really pervasive right now, and I think it's cool to go back in time and modernize old music. Yeah. Someone told me this, too, when I was growing up, like, quote-unquote oldies,

so, like, there was oldies radio stations, you know, in my hometown, and they were playing, like, stuff from the 60s and everything. And now, like, relative to, like, the distance between when I was listening to those and like they were at their quote unquote oldies. Now oldies would be like Dr. Dre like the 2001 out or something. They're 60s. They're playing the Super 1stown show.

That's because you're old. It's not like they didn't just start having cool music at the halftam show. It's like they're also still playing old people. There's a reason Snoop like Snoop Dog low key. Yeah. Can you guys guess how old Snoop Dog is? I would say 50s or something. He's young.

Sorry, Dre is older. He's only 50 actually. But Dr. Dre is like 60. That's weird. Yeah, Dr. that's old. But like, you know, like you said, I have its parents are like, oh, back in our day,

like music was so good back in our day. It's not as good as the music today. They're right. And I think when we are older, when I'm 60, I'm not going to be saying music in my day was the best because it wasn't. I think, like, I'm not going to look back on dynamite by Teo Cruz and be like, man, those are the times.

I was thinking the same thing of like, because you end up your most nostalgic. Oh, Bruno Mars? Well, it's like Chris Ryan said this before. It's like you're most nostalgic for the music that you were listening to around the time you started having sex, and I think the technology is probably the same way.

But like, I agree. I do not feel that way. You don't? Well, then blame Chris Ryan. I stole that from him. When I'm 50, I'm not going to be like, turn this crap off and put on Nikki Minaj, son. I'm just not how I'm going to go.

No, I agree. It's like that's what I'm like nostalgic for, but it's not the best. It's like it's my favorite, but it's not the best. Yeah, firework, yeah. Like, who's our Fleetwood Mac? Like, you know what I mean?

Well, the other. crazy thing. Weezer. Harry Styles? Weezer's not our, by the way. Well, mine. Yeah, yours. The other crazy thing is

those artists have gotten paid sevenfold because those artists like obviously they've been touring for like 40, 50 years, but they got,

they sold physical records. Right. Then they sold CDs. Then they were selling like tapes. Then they sold it on iTunes. Now they're getting streaming money.

And now they're I think it went tapes first then CDs. I don't know. I wasn't fucking alive. I don't know. All I know is Springsteen had the first CD. I actually was so unsure when an A-Trek came in on that.

I didn't say it. But now Springsteen and Neil, you know, they're all selling off the catalogs. So it's like they've cashed in on like all the different technologies. It's so easy now on like TikTok to find old music and remix it and put it out there for people. Like Abba is arguably bigger than it's been since the 70s right now. Like 18-year-olds are discovering Abba because it's so.

Oh, Mamma Mia. Well, I guess. But, like, Abba is, like, the last year of Abbott, they have seen sales higher than they've seen in, like, 20 years. It's, this is unprecedented in how people are discovering old music. Well, you know what's fun. I guess here's the key thing I think is interesting, is we were just on the NFL show with Solek and Reeves.

And obviously, Solac is, like, not seen that many older movies. And I haven't seen a ton of movies that are around before. And I think that if you are not directly introduced to music, or movies that are older than, you by your parents or something, it's kind of hard to be catch up. Right. Music's not like that at all. Like, I feel like the music, older music from the 60s, 70s, 80s has been passed down

so much more seamlessly through culture than really anything else. Yeah, because you don't have to, well, you don't have to watch a song for an hour and a half or whatever. Like, you can listen to a couple of good songs in like a few minutes. You're like, whoa, this is really good. Yeah. Also just like much easier to access music than it is movies. Like if I was like, how can I watch a movie right now?

It's like, well, there's 20 different platforms that you could potentially find the movie on or you'll have to pay for it. And a song, you can just hop on to Spotify and find any song you want that's ever been made. Shout out Spotify. Listen to us on Spotify, please. All right. Goodbye, everyone.