The Ringer NFL Show - Week 7 Awards

Episode Date: October 25, 2021

We recap the Week 7 slate by giving out awards, including Winner of the Week, Weird Flex but OK, I'm Not Mad Just Disappointed, and more. Later we induct the next player into the 2021 Fantasy Burn Book and recap our day of prop bets.Email us at [e-mail] .Hosts: Danny Heifetz and Danny Kelly Producers: Craig Horlbeck and Mike Wargon Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Let's help everybody. I'm JJ John G. And I'm Jason Gough, and if you haven't heard, the ringer has gone local. I'm bringing the fire. I'm bringing the rain from the Big Apple with my show, New York, New York. And I'm reping Shy Town with my new show The Full Go on All Things Chicago. We've got episodes three nights a week with all the reaction to the local teams and guests. Plus bonus episodes around all the big games and storylines.

So whether you're uptown, downtown, downtown, in the burbs, or a transplant. Make sure you follow New York, New York, and the full go on Spotify or wherever you get your podcast. Welcome to the Ringer Fantasy Football Show. My name is Danny Huyves. I am here with Danny Kelly. I am not here with Craig Krollbeck because Craig doesn't have his priorities straight. He chose family over football. It's like ridiculous.

D.K., we're going to do this without him. Frankly, we never needed him. I mean, I'm going to miss Craig a little bit, but he got to have fun today. Go to the Rams game. The Rams won. He's Sean McVeigh's get-back guy. So you know what? Really upset that we lost Craig on this podcast, but he's doing really important work.

over there. This is Craig's calling. So that's fine. He's the get-back guy. It's so, you know what? We're really proud of you, Craig. Congrats and moving on to a new opportunity. But yeah, otherwise, all right, week seven's in the books.

Well, Monday and Football. It's always the thing on this episode. Still to come. Whatever. The Sunday games are over. Without further ado, biopocalypse in the River Mirror, if I can say rearview. It's late at night. We got through it.

D.K., who's your biggest winner of week seven? Oh, man. We got through the biopocalypse. My biggest winner is AJ Brown. Back from the dead for the Titans. Basically, well, back from what's close to death. Back from the Chipotle and food poisoning situation. Yeah.

Food poisoning is such a polite term for what really is. He had the shits for the last two weeks. He actually said in a press conference earlier this week that he couldn't keep anything down. We don't need to dwell on that for too much because he looked great out there. No, but I do want to see that on the injury report. Just like, oh, like, yeah, it's like Julio Jones hamstring, A.J. Brown, the shit. Yeah. Anyway, nine targets, eight catches, 133 yards, one touchdown for the Titans this week. By the way, the Titans dominated the Chiefs, which was, I mean, I was expecting it to be a good high-scoring game, the Titans to stay in it.

But I did not expect them to hold the Chiefs to three points. That's neither here nor there. Dude, Mo Salah had three points for Liverpool today. I just think it's bizarre. But really, to the point, AJ Brown, this is exactly what we thought he was going to be at the beginning of the season. This is how he looked in the second half of last year. And actually, going back to last year, I kind of had forgotten about this, but after a slow start, AJ Brown kind of turned it on from week eight on.

And from week eight on, so basically the second half of the season, he finished as the wide receiver seven in PBR. And I feel like that's kind of like the range that's back on the board for this guy. He's so good. He's clearly the number one. It doesn't look,

at least not the way that it's constructed now or not the way that Julio Jones is playing now that it's going to be like Julio, Julio is taking a lot of targets away from AJ Brown. He's clearly the alpha in this offense on those crossing routes, like play action, crossing route, they get him open, they get him in space. He gets to pick up lots of yards after the catch. It feels like the Titans are sort of starting to find themselves, like figure out their

identity. Their passing game has certainly been more explosive lately. And yeah, the post-Shoplete bump for AJ Brown going into the second half of the season. It's just like finally this has arrived. I feel like AJ Brown. Did I tell you that I had Chipotle the same to AJ? Brown announced that Chipotle gave to him. I'm not exaggerating. I was like eating Chipotle while I found out that the thing that gave

to him was Chipotle. And I put the half, I was like, okay, I'm done with this. And I actually worked up the courage to go back to Chipotle today because of his performances. It's like no safer time to eat at Chipotle than right now, probably. You're right. Yeah, they probably deal with it. Anyway, that was quite the moment to realize that I was eating it. So anyway, that was, didn't finish that ball. Anyway, yeah, AJ Brown. We were kind of. off on AJ Brown for a while. Are you back in that on the AJ Brown train now? High Fitz. I am on back in on AJ Brown and on Chipotle and the biolum. Okay.

Sweet. My winner for this week. Hold on before we move on real quick, his target rates, I saw this from JJ's Decor recent target rates the last three weeks, 28% in week five, 36% in week six, 33% in week seven. Those are elite, elite numbers, really, really promising going forward for AJ Brown. Okay, continue. Well, that's kind of what we thought we would happen for. for A.J. Brown before they traded for Julio Jones.

Yes. Yeah, because there was a moment there, or at least like a week or so, or how many ever days it was, where we thought A.J. Brown has a real chance to be, like, the wide receiver won this season, you know? And so far, it just doesn't really look like Julio is going to be that big of a hindrance. I don't think he's, AJ Brown's can be like the wide receiver one the second half of the season or anything like that. But I think top 10 is certainly within the realm of possibility. I like that in like real life at football. It's like really cool that Julio to Agent Brown play together and in fantasy.

It's like, you know, Julio, that like guy is like a hindrance. He's just such a hindrance that Julio Jones. Right. Okay. My winner this week is the generational rookie talents. Yes. Jumar Chaisa Al-Betz.

Unbelievable week for these two. Jammar Chase had eight catches for 201 yards in a touchdown. Two hundred one yards. He's the second best receiver in fantasy this week. He's the third best receiver in fantasy this season. He's his wide receiver three right now? I believe so. It's just Devante Adams and Cooper Cup are ahead of him.

That's incredible. The stat that you're going to hear everywhere, but like it's worth saying everywhere is that Jamar Chase is the most receiving yards through seven games for any player ever. By like a lot. It's like not even close. It's not even close. Anquam Bolden, I think, is second.

Yeah, I mean, this is great to see. Starting with Chase, you know, we had so many discussions. We had so many arguments around the time of the draft, like, oh, they should take Penae Soule because it helps their offensive line. They can have whoever they want. down there, catch and passes, as long as Joe Burrow has the time to throw, blah, blah, blah, like that was the argument. And then conversely, it was like, people were like, oh, if Joe Burrow doesn't have any time to

throw, it doesn't matter how good Chase is, you know, down there. I think we're kind of starting to see, like, Chase changed this offense. He transformed this offense. The comparison you kept making was that, it's funny, the two comparisons that were made to Jamar Chase were Larry Fitzgerald. You said he was like little Larry Fitzgerald. Yeah. And the other one was that Daniel Jeremiah kept saying that Jamar Chase was like Anquam Bolden, a bit faster,

which is interesting because Fitzgerald and Bolden played together for a long time or incredible. But I think the Larry Fitzgerald obviously was like this great, big contested catch guy. And Chase can do that. But I think it's forgotten that like when Larry Fitzger was younger, he was like, he was a yak guy. Like Larry Fitzgerald was a yards after the catch. He could take slants far. He did that in the Super Bowl and Steelers. That's what I see from Chase right now.

Like he is that he's like the mix between Bolden and Fitzgerald. And he just makes something happen every single week. It is unbelievable. Yeah, absolutely. He is, I think the yak thing is important. Like, that was a big part of this game, in fact. Like, I think the biggest play in this game was he caught, like, it was like a third and short.

He caught a slant, ran across the middle field. It was like, almost like a-frey-five-offield. And he was almost like a basketball move. He like, he like basically jump-stopped and reverse pivoted and then ran up the field. You know what it looked like? You know what it's the opening scene of baseball? baby driver when he goes through the alley. That was Jamar Chase, like,

breaking for the end zone. I was like, I don't really know how you got it, but now you're on the highway. So, yeah, yeah. I completely agree with Chase. So the elite athlete athleticism is showing up. The ball skills, he's really good at the catch point, like you mentioned.

He's good down the sideline. Like, I don't have this time in front of me, but Joe Burrow has like X amount of 20 plus yard touchdowns this season when you had like zero last year. So I think it's like four or five this year. or three or four, and they're all to Jamar Chase. So, yeah, the bottom line, like, to round it all out, Jamar Chase has transformed this offense.

He is looking to me like Stefan Diggs looked last year for Josh Allen in the sense that he has, he's the go-to guy, he's the crunch time playmaker. He is the, like, unstoppable force that really helped Josh Allen take this massive leap in year three or whatever it was last year. Joe Burrow, we're starting to see that already with his number one target from college in, and Jemar Chase. Can you imagine,

going back, and I just keep coming back to this, Jamar Chase and Justin Jefferson on the same team. No wonder they went on. That is just insane. I mean,

look what happened to Ed Orgeron now that they don't play together. Ed O's like literally fired like 20 months later because they didn't have Burrow and Jamar Chase and Justin. The last thing on the Justin Jefferson, well,

the Jamar Chase thing is, remember two months ago when we were all freaking out about, um, Jamar Chase couldn't catch anything in training camp, which was not like one overblown day or one overblown day or one over a game. Like there was a three week period where he really was dropping like five balls at every practice.

Yes. Like it wasn't made up. It was happening. And we were all like, we had no concerns about it's a long term thing, but I was concerned about it's current season. And then the other receiver in the first round, Cadair is Tony, who I was very upset with because the coach basically pissed off the coaches in four different ways, literally practiced without a shoe for his first practice with the Giants because he had a marketing deal gone wrong.

And I'm, and now there's a pretty easily the most, I mean, I guess, Ronnell Moore, too. But, like, Cadar's Tony and Jamar Chase are the most electric rookie receivers immediately making impacts. And it's like the new Peyton Manning Interception record where you're just going to point to it be like, don't worry about August. Like, it doesn't matter. Yeah.

They're talented enough. Trust the, as DK's, they trust the tape. Don't worry about September. Don't even worry about September. If you go back to last year, if you remember, B.C. Johnson was starting ahead of Justin Jefferson last year for like two or three weeks. When we talk about the memento tattoos, the things we get tattooed on us for next season, it's going to be the don't worry about the.

rookie receivers headlines in August. Like, just forget them. 100%. But I don't want to short Kyle Pitts because when I say the winner's generational rookies, Jamar Chase is just one of them. The other guy is Kyle Pitts who had merely seven catches for 163 yards today. Jesus. So the stat that's getting buried because Jamar Chase has the most receiving yards

ever for any player through his first seven games, the stat that gets buried is that Kyle Pitts has the most receiving yards ever for a tight end through six games. he's literally like ahead of Mike Ditka was the last person who had more than him or I think there's a whole list where Mike Dicka has the whole season is the last receiver Mike Dick is the last tight end

he was the last tight end he's the last tight end through six games he actually Kyle Pitts already has the most receiving yards for a tight end through seven games even though he's only played six which is so incredible to me

because again the tightrope that we had to walk here with Cal Pitts he was touted as the best tight end prospect ever, or at least in like four or five decades. He was drafted in the top 50, top 60 in fantasy this season, which basically meant if Kyle Pitts was going to return his draft day value, he had to be the best rookie tight end of all time full stop. And he's doing it.

Yeah. That is an incredible level of hype to immediately live up to. It's kind of crazy. So like you said, what you said, most yards by a rookie tight end through six games, it's Kyle Pitts. And second is Mike Dicca. And can we reiterate? I have that wrong.

It's not through six. Mike Dicca has the record for rookie. yards. I'm sorry, I think Jordan Reed actually might be second. So I don't have that list in front me. But the list, the only thousand yard rookie tight end season is Mike Dicker. So he's, he was like 60 years ago. Yeah. Ridiculous. All those, all those records are like not from a long time ago. You never hear about passing records or receiving records from 50 years ago. That's how hard it is for tight end stage. I just think, yes. The point is, he is doing generational things so far. He looks like the generational talent we thought he would be. He was

He was running out, like, routes against, like, really good corner. I think he beat Xavier and Howard on a one-on-one route down the field. Like, he is doing incredible, incredible things. It's really, really good, by the way, to see that Matt Ryan has looked better over the last few weeks. Like, this offense just in general looks much more competent. I don't know what, you know, maybe it was just the fact that they have a new play caller coming in, trying to figure things out, iron things out, you know, get on the same page. It took Matt Ryan a full season working with Shanahan before he,

turned in his MVP season the second year he was with Shanney. And so like maybe just this Arthur Smith, it just took him a minute to get going. But it's really promising that over the last few games, Pitts is like the number one guy in this often or one B to Calvin Ridley. And yeah, I mean, it's just like,

I think his pace right now for Kyle Pitts is 75 catches, 1,143 yards, two touchdowns because he's only scored one touchdown in the season. So that'll come in punches or not. Who knows? But I mean, he's on pace for over 1,000 yards. This is crazy thing.

Incredible. So, yeah. And again, like, the term generational prospect is really overused. But again, he actually is the best tight end prospect of the generation. I think it's, I think it's very safe to say that Jamar Chase and Cowpits have both lived up to the hype. Yeah. Unbelievable. Okay.

Any other winners? I want to throw a couple extra guys in this bonus section since Craig isn't here. Damian Harris for the Patriots has come on really strong over the last couple weeks. Has two straight 100-yard games. He is the RB2 this week pending Monday night football. ball. And like, crucially, he looks really good. Like, he, he just looks like he's shot out of a canon when he's running downhill. I don't know if there's anybody in the NFL right now who looks faster running downhill in the first, like, two or three steps. Like, when he gets the ball,

he's just, like, gone. Well, as Bill would say, the thinking man's Nick Chubb. Exactly. But, man, I got to say, you know, because I was sort of like on our hot take episode from before the season, I was a bit of a hater. But Damien Harris looks really great. He's incredible. So far. Yeah. So he's definitely one to one. watch the rest of the season. It's, it's his backfield. You know what I mean? Like, Ramadj Stevenson was inactive again. J.J. Taylor's basically his, um, his backup. No, they check the Memento tattoos. No Patriots running back ever has the backfield. Check that tattoos, D.K. Sure. That's why we get him to add. I'll be careful. Um,

and then the second guy I wanted to mention who looked really, really good is Khalil Herbert for the Bears who somehow put up a hundred yards against the Buccaneers in a 38 to three loss or whatever it was. Like, it just doesn't make any sense. Like the, the stat line that he had, guess it does because there's a lot of garbage time, but still, the whole game was, this is the first game I've ever watched where I felt like the second quarter was garbage time. Dude,

it was like the first quarter was garbage time. Did you see? Okay, the funniest win probability graph I've ever seen, other than like that didn't involve the Atlanta Falcons was today. Because you know the win probability graphs. It's like there's a center line and it shoots up to the top for one team or you know,

in whichever team's going to win, like the line ends up back to them. The win probability graph for this Bears Bucks game was just the bucks and the entire bottom. It was just red. Like literally they took the 99% win in probability. Five minutes into the game and the entire game it just stayed. Yeah. We'll talk about

Justin Fields a little later in the show, but just an ass kicking on all levels by the Buccaneers. But I thought Cleo Herbert was like a silver lining. I thought he looked pretty solid. It's going to be very interesting. The reason I bring it up is I do think it'll be interesting once David Montgomery

is healthy enough to come back and play. I'm not saying I don't I don't think that Khalil Herbert is going to be the starter. However, I do think there is a solid argument that he deserves to be like a bigger part of the rotation once Montgomery is back. And part of the reason Montgomery is so valuable in fantasy is because he just gets like all the workload. So that kind of worries me a little bit for Montgomery. So we'll have to see how that all shakes out going forward. Do you want to dip in a losers real quick?

Where's how am I with Justin Fields and the Bears here? Sure. Why not? I mean, let's just, I mean, it's Sunday night. I mean, it's 1150 Eastern time I'm doing this. Do you think Matt Nagy is the Bears coach? in two days? Yeah,

ooh, that's a good question. I think, I mean, this is, this is one of the least competitive games from a team that's trying to be competitive. Like,

the Houston Texans probably played worse against the bills a couple weeks ago, but like, from the Bears are three and three. Like, they should not be giving up on the division. This is one of the least competitive games I've seen in a while,

and it's not like, like, the bucks got crushed by the Saints last year, almost the same score and won the Super Bowl. But this isn't that. this is a team that just showed up unprepared for what looks like the fourth week in a row with this quarterback. It's like they bought a Ferrari.

It's like they bought a stick shift Ferrari and they haven't tried to learn stick shift yet. Yeah, it's tough. I mean, I don't want to like oversell what Justin Fields is capable of because he just really didn't look very good in this game either. Like everything is too slow for him. But it's a real problem that he has a terrible offensive line that can't protect him on the edges. He had, I believe he had two fumbles in the pocket, or three, I can't remember, a couple of picks. He had five turnovers total, no touchdown. Well, the Bucks defense just seemed like they were like, let me get the straight.

They have a quarterback who holds onto the ball for a while to try to look for deep shots, and we're just going to get to blitz this despicable offensive line. And it's like, Jason Pierre-Paul and Shaq Barrett saw this as the money-making days. We're getting three sacks apiece. And like, they were just batting for the ball. They even tried his sack fields. They were just hitting his arm. Yeah.

The sacks came fast, too. It wasn't like, I didn't feel like Justin Fields in most cases. I mean, there's certainly a few snaps where he was holding the ball too long, but a lot of the times it was just like, he dropped back and the pressure arrived as he was going to like throw or whatever. And so, yeah, it was a nightmare game, really, for Justin Fields. If it were like a movie, if it were like a mob movie and things were disrupted that quick, you'd be like, someone tipped us off. You know what I mean?

Seriously. There was like, there's a rat. Man, but yeah. So I don't know, like, if Nagy is going to get fired, but. the offensive line is not good enough. I don't think the skill players at the receiver positions are good enough. Like Alan Robinson, who's normally extremely good,

hasn't even really looked that good this season. And I don't know if Darno Mooney is not like a number one type player. He's a good player, but he's not a number one. We're just stepping on a bunch of categories. Look what happens when Craig leaves. We just like just step all of the categories. But Alan Robinson's like for the third week in a row,

like I'm not mad. I'm just disappointed. Like Alan Robinson, like I mean, he had two catches for 16 yards. So actually, what he had? High Fitz. Let's just skip ahead.

we're not doing losers. We're doing the Dad Award, which is we're not mad, we're disappointed. Justin Fields. I'm not mad, but I am disappointed with your performance. That was actually what I had written down.

You're going to talk about Alan Robinson, but just to wrap up Justin Fields. Like, the reason I'm not mad, Justin and the Bears, is basically I still think he has a bright future. I think, like,

generally speaking, he's flashed some very exciting things in his rookie season so far. However, I envisioned prior to the year, like a Jalen Hertz style player in fantasy who is going to run a lot. You're going to have probably pretty crappy

passing here and there. You're going to have some turnovers. But you're always good for solid fantasy production because you're running. You have that speed. You have that ability to kind of change the defense with your legs. That's just not happening. Like Justin Fields eight rushes for 38 yards today, and I don't know if any of them were designed runs.

I think most of them were scrambles. I mean, is it fair to say that basically Matt Nagy designed a more mobile offense from Mitchell Tribiskey than he has for Justin Field? Yeah, it's bizarre. And I think maybe some of it is due to field. just waiting too long to take off, which is weird.

It's like an ass-backwards thing to say. But that's what people criticize for quarterbacks for. I know, that's what I'm saying. Take off quickly, it's like, oh, they can process. I know, and that's what I'm saying is, it's an ass-backwards thing to say, typically. But, I mean, with this offense, with the way that it's going,

with the lack of talent it has in the passing game, and by the way, like, his receivers were dropping passes all over the field today. Like several key third downs, they drop passes. Just nothing is working in this offense. So I think at the end of the day, like Justin Fields, I'm still confident he will have a good career in the NFL. I do not know if it's going to happen at all this year,

and specifically with this coaching staff and with this skill group. So I'm not mad. I'm just disappointed how it all has worked out for the Bears. The last note I have to make on Fields is Adam, Adam Haji, who's the Bears insider for NBC Chicago, tweeted earlier today that I feel like I'm being in double. by aliens. Can you hear that crazy sound outside my house? No, I can't. Did you hear that? Oh my, I literally thought I was being like transported to the universe. Okay, whatever. Justin Fields.

Maybe I shouldn't say this. Maybe that's a sign from the universe. Adam Hodgey said that Justin Fields quick-snap the ball on his first interception because in his headset, the bucks had 12, he was told the bucks had 12 players on the field and they did not. I thought it was a free play. And that's happened two weeks in a row. Which I guess this happened several times this season. Yeah, like multiple times Justin Fields has been told, like this is a free play, 12 players in the field, and then it was not. It's just keystone cops, dude. The Bears' offense is broken. And I still think that they're not getting, they're leaving too much meat on the bones with what they could be doing with Fields.

I acknowledge 100% that Fields has not been good. Like, I get that. I understand that. And, you know, you can't put all the blame on the coaching staff. however, I just think he's being, he's continuing to be put in a bad situation, but put in a situation to fail. So, yeah, this is just really disappointing this season. And I don't know if it's going to get any better.

At this point, I think you can drop Justin Fields. And I think you can actually drop the person that you're going to talk about right now. You think you can drop Alan Robinson? Yeah, I do. I'll say this about Alan Robinson. I'm not mad. I'm just disappointed. I will say that if any, for the third week in a row, it feels like if anyone else was

doing Alan Robinson were doing, it would not be like, should you cut them? it'd be like, why would you pick them up? Right. Are you going to start him going forward? No, you're not starting. There's no in hell anyone's going to trade for him. Probably not. He's just a raster clogger at this point.

He's just clagging up a spot on a roster. Are you willing to put him in the sunk cost category? Like, are you willing to be like, yep, just with there? I think so. I think so. Yeah. Let's confirm on the waiver show. Let's give people, let's not be prisoners.

Sleep on it. Let's sleep on it. Let's get a more positive note here. Sure. usually this week usually on Sundays we do weird flex but okay we're blowing it out this week it's the weird flex but okay it's the biopocalypse edition streaming superheroes this was the next man up week it was like you know what we all did what we had to do to get through the week you know what it's like the last year and a half in a nutshell everyone just you did what you had to do to get through it all and there were

some fringe guys that had to step in and there some fringe guys stepped up dk who was your fringe guy that stepped up this week so i'm calling him the new robert tanya CJ Uzoma for the Bengals. He's been very hit or miss. And this is the exact type of guy. And the reason I call him the Robert Tonian is last year, it took us about eight weeks to figure out that he needed to be in our starting lineup every week because for the first however many weeks,

we were just like, this production can't keep coming. He's just touched like a touchdown every year. One out of every six catches can't be a touchdown. And eventually it's like, I think it just will be that way. Actually, maybe it can. With ROT or sorry, with Uzoma this year, he has five touchdowns.

last four games. He's not getting the type of target rate that you want that that would feel repeatable or like like reliable. However, he's like proving to be a pretty good playmaker. Like he's not just like catching these easy passes and waltzing into the end zone. He's like making guys miss running after the catch, getting touchdowns, like beast moating people, things like that. I think he buried the lead. He was the number one tight end this week ahead of Kyle Pitts. Oh, wow. I didn't I don't even know if I realized that. Yeah. He was the number one tight end this week. The title number one going into Monday.

He had three catches for 91 yards and two touchdowns. The thing I do like about him, and that makes him an interesting, like, flex type guy going forward if you're like in these types of situations where your buys are really screwing you over, is this offense, I think I'm having more confidence in.

And Joe Burrow, I have more confidence in me. Clearly have a connection. So he would not be like an every week starter to me, kind of like I looked at Robert Tonian last year. and I don't know if he's going to be like a reliable guy, but like the dude just keeps making plays. Yeah, C.J. His own is up there.

My big winner, this fits in with what you're saying, my big winner for like the weird flex, but okay, it's just national tight end day. They decided to shut up about it. They're like, you know, today's just week seven, just national tight end day. And no one knows. And then they just float this hashtag out.

And I'm like, okay, whatever. And it just so happens that national tight end day was when Darren Waller comes, turns out he just like hurt his ankle on Friday at practice and it's just questionable in the middle of day. And everyone's freaking out because Dawson Knox already out, Dalton Schultz is on by and they need, and now Darren Waller's hurt. Now everyone needs a streamer. It turns out most of the streaming options for National Tideend day were good. Right. C.J. Usoma, as you mentioned, number one tight end. Foster Moreau. Shout out Peter Schrager. In the backup titan for the Raiders, in relief of Waller.

has 60 yards in a touchdown. Foster Monroe of all people was the tight-in four this week. Robert Tonyon, as you mentioned, had 60 yards in a score. Zach Ertz had 70 yards in a score. Mo Ali Cox, even. Moe-A-Cox for the Colts. Love it.

25 yards in a touchdown. Like all the tight-end options that people were kind of dancing around as a Darren Waller replacement, all of them mostly worked. So there you go. Congrats the National Tidend Day. Way to step up.

It did, it did like really help fill out some rosters, you know, and like just so many terrible rosters. like setting your line of us this week. And so some of these guys that I had no confidence in, like, scoring points, actually did score points. Also want to give a shout out to Dearnis Johnson from Thursday Night Football, who just looked amazing and came through for a lot of people, you know, who were missing Chubb and Cream Hunt this week.

So, yeah, I don't know. Did you feel like Bipocalypse was as bad as we thought it was going to be, or do you think it was worse? Or did you think it was better? Well, let's just get the biggest loser. The biggest loser is all of us. for having to deal with the bypocalypse and having to start the people who did not go off like the CG's

is almost like just dealing with this week was awful and then two watching these games was awful there's some ugly ones Bill Simmons used to say that there are apple picking weeks like there are just some games that are some Sunday is going to be so bad like it's the take your family apple picking this was the

apple picking week and the people who sat on their couch all day like I also watched all these games we are the losers because the Sunday I think actually Sunday football includes there were 11 games today one of them was decided was decided by one possession one possession game out of 11

and it was dolphins it was freaking dolphins falcons which was like the least interesting game of the day. Yeah it was crazy the Bengals dominated the Ravens Chiefs got dominated by the Titans Giants dominated the Panthers there was just so many ugly games Cardinals

dominated Texans I guess the most interesting game was that the Lions' Rams game was even competitive, which in itself is some sort of Craig Whirlback curse. The fact that Craig was at the Rams game and the Rams almost lost is itself kind of like a curse. And Lions pulled out all the stops in that game too. I love that. I had a parlay. So at the last second, my friend and I, like 1255 before the game start, I put down like 10 bucks on a parlay for the Texans, the lions, and the bears to all win. All right? And the parlay, it was like 10 bucks

would win like $6,000. I mentioned it on Friday. But like the odds actually went up from the time that I mentioned. It was like, 10 bucks win 6,000. I was like, you can't get 600 to 1 odds

that often on three outcomes. So when the Lions started and took that lead, you had a glimmer of hope. And then the Texans were up to nothing. I was like kind of like, wow. And then of course,

obviously the base was literally never close and all three teams lost. But neither here nor there. I had a really fun 25 minutes. Anyway, I think all of us lost. Yeah. I think so.

And you mentioned the, the Falcons. Falcons Dolphins game, which is my loser of the week this week. I'm taking this one for you, Hyphitz, because I know you didn't want to bring it up, probably. We already burned him, so it's not really that big of a deal. But Mike Davis for the Falcons. Mike Davis is, is what's happening there? I wouldn't take, I would take the L, but I'm not strong enough.

It's too big. Funk Davis. Smooth jazz Davis. Okay, so he had four. He had four. carries for 10 yards. One fantasy point. And he played 60% of snaps, but he didn't...

That's the most frustrating part. It's weird. Is that the screwed up part of the whole Mike Davis thing is... He's playing just as much as I thought. He's just a thousand times worse than I anticipated. Yeah. I don't know. It's just bizarre.

It's very bizarre. It feels like Cordarelle Patterson has kind of just taken over his job. And I think he may have. Like, maybe this is just what they're going to do after the buy. Patterson's looked really good. They clearly used their bi-week to make Patterson the everyday player. Yeah, so I saw this from CBS as Jason Gibbs. He tracks the snap rates and stuff.

So comparing Patterson's usage to season long before that. So basically what happened, what was different this week? So his snap rate jumped from a 40% average in the first six weeks or whatever. Quarterill Patterson. Quarterill Patterson. So snap rate was 40% coming into the game. It was 74 in this game. His route run, routes run, as a percentage.

or the dropbacks, prior to this game, they were 37%. In this game, it was 67%. And then his rushing share prior to this game, 37%. And in this game, was 77%. So basically he went from one third. You're breaking my brain the numbers, but he snaps his routes and his rushing all almost doubled. Yeah, it's basically he went from one third to two thirds of the usage of all the important metrics in this offense.

And so basically the idea is he's now the starter. He's the guy that they're designing all these plays for. in their offense, and he's still producing clearly. So obviously, you know, we talked about Patterson as, like, a potential sell high guy. You have to get someone really good for him. But I think with this usage bump, like, he's not a sell anymore. Like, you want to ride this wave. You want to continue to.

He's the focal point of their offense along with Pitts and Ridley. And then again, I just, you know what, the Mike Davis radicals, I apologize. It's, yeah, false profit. And then the other one I wanted to mention for the losers category here, the entire Panthers offense. The Sam Darnold thing is just going, it's spiraling. It's in a death spiral at this point. Unbelievable. Sam Darnold was benched today for PJ Walker. I don't think it doesn't sound like he was benched permanently. It was just like basically they need to try and get like something going. They're just fed up with him, which is almost worse. He's finished 16 to 25 for 111 yards with

a pick. DJ Moore was the only Panthers offensive skill player to hit double digit points in PPR. They talked about, so Matt Ruel talked this week about how he wanted to like re um, focus their offense and be a smash mouth run team, blah, blah, blah. The only problem is they don't have a good run team. They don't have a run game with, uh, Christian McCaffrey out. Hubbard, Chuba Hubbard finished with 12 rushes for 28 yards. So this offense can't pass.

It can't run. Sam Darnold is going in reverse. Uh, I don't know what to do with this offense. I mean, you still have to start DJ more, but other than that until, um, until McAfri gets back, I'm not excited about what this offense can do, frankly. I mean, you're still going to start Chuba Hubbard just because he's getting the volume, but I'm not excited about a lot of, basically, I'm not excited about this offense at all anymore.

I'm barely excited about DJ Moore. And he was looking so amazing at the beginning of the year. I mean, it's unbelievable. Like, I mean, three weeks in, and I thought the Panthers were going to be better this season. And three weeks in, I was like, oh, sick, cool. They're way better. And now, Darnell, yeah, Darnels just fallen off a cliff. Yeah.

While I'm flogging myself over Mike Davis, I'll just lumped Robbie Anderson, who, again, we were excited about his role. And in a weird way, almost similarly to the way, that we kind of anticipated Brandon I.U. And Debo Samuel just took, like, just took the role we thought Brandon Iuk had won. And actually no, Debo Samuel took it back. Robbie Anderson won this role from D.G. Moore took it back. But even then, Robbie Anderson, who I liked going to the season a lot,

Robbie Anderson has 20 targets in the last two games. 20 targets in the last two games. He's turned that into 26 yards. That is insane. That's like impossible. he has a lot, like, part of it is clearly Darnold struggling. Oh, yeah. But part of it too is, I've seen him, I've seen Robbie Anderson

with like several drops in the last couple of games. Like, he just looked like he's in his own head. Like he's just like, pressing or something. Um, so, I mean, yeah, it's tough. At this point, I don't know if you can even start him going forward like at all, right? I don't think so anymore. This was a great. I mean, if he turned 20 targets to 26 yards, eventually he's going to have a blowup game. Like eventually he's going to have 140 yards and touchdowns, but it's not, it's just not predictable at this point. Yeah. Awful. Okay.

More positive. That's why I drafted you a word because sometimes your great players have games where you're like, that's why I drafted you. For me, it's like Mike Evans this week. Yes. I got 76 yards, three touchdowns. Just a classic Mike Evans game. He was a wide receiver three. And he gave Tom Brady's ball away. I can't remember. Did we talk, we talked about Mike Evans when we did the podcast a couple weeks ago about, like, the scariest people to face on Monday night football, whatever. He just missed the cuff from me. He's so up there.

He is absolutely up there for me. Like, he just constantly puts these games together. Like, there's certainly going to be, like, some lulls in there, like, where he has one catch for eight yards and they go in different direction or whatever. But, like, Evans is one of the best at just putting these massive, massive, like 40-point games together for whatever reason. Was he the wide receiver one this week so far? Why receiver three?

Cooper Cup was wide receiver 1. I'll get to Cooper Cups soon. Of course. Wait, while we're on the Evans, though, I'm sorry. We're all over the place. This is what happens when Craig is out. We're all over the place. No, no organization.

There's one more loser that Mike Evans just reminded me of. The guy who gave the ball away to Mike Evans. So Mike Evans catches Tom Brady's 600th career touchdown today. puts the ball down, picks the ball back up, hands it to some random guy in the crowd who's wearing a Mike Evans jersey. And then, you know, it's kind of like baseball. If there's an important home run, they, like someone trots over and negotiates and it's like, like please give us the football back like right now and they negotiate apparently the guy gets like

a signed jersey and something else and then like an auction house executive is like that ball was probably worth $500,000. Oh my God. And it's like holy. Can you imagine that one suck. He uh he did I did see they they gave him like a thousand dollar voucher too which is still a voucher. It's still like oh my god. So here's like, Tom Brady set up to the game like, I'm going to take care of him. Tom Brady's not going to give him $500,000.

He's going to give him vouchers to TB12 method. Give him like the FTX. Tom Brady's got the FTCs commercials. But like, would you give the ball back? In that situation? It's like, oh, here, it's like very easy like, oh, you keep the money. But it's like in the moment, like there's a lot of pressure.

Like, hey, Tom wants that ball. It's very hard, pragatically to be like, You got to have like the eye of the tiger if you're going to be like, no, I'm not giving you fucking. I'm not giving you fuck all. Everyone in your section is going to be booing you. Like, are you going to hold? And not to mean you're going to hold on to it. Like I remember Brandon Jacobs threw his helmet into the crowd once and a guy wouldn't give the helmet back.

And security just ripped it from him. And it's like if you got, you know what I mean? Do you want to be the guy who like hoarded the ball and then it was taken from you? I'd be, I'd have a hard time sleeping this one off, you know, like imagining that 500K. Oh God. You just got the $1,000. or a voucher and you're like, oh my God. Wow.

Tough. Tough. Tough stuff. Back to that's why I drafted you. So yeah, Mike Evans. That's why you drafted him award. Mine this week goes to DeAndre Swift for the Lions. This is exactly why I draft this guy.

This is exactly why I was super high on DeAndre Swift coming to the season. He was the RB7 coming into the week. And he is currently the RB1 through Sunday night football. For this week, right? Not the season. Correct. Sorry. Through this week.

this week's RB one. It's like Derek Henry didn't like disappear. No. Okay. Although I think I did see someone say, someone mentioned this on Twitter. This was like back of the napkin math or whatever, but like through two weeks or sorry,

through seven weeks, Swift is actually the RB2. However, there's like a bunch of, uh, caveats there because some guys have only played, you know, six games or whatever.

Yeah, that's completely and utterly cheating, but sure. Just, just crushing your DeAndge's agenda, but it's fine. Just say it, man.

That's how politicians make taxes about like, that's a politician's big, commercials about cutting taxes. They're like, well, actually, you just voted on a shorter tax cut than I did, but it's fine. Whatever. I feel like we're losing the thread here a little bit because all DeAndre Swift does and score fantasy points. He's basically like Alvin Camara light in the fact that he's so, so good in the

passing game. It doesn't even really matter that he's like not really doing much as a runner. He has, and I saw this from JJ Zacharison, he has almost 100, 100 more receiving yards than any other running back this season. By the way, Cortero Patterson is second in that. So go Cortero. And then I also saw this from David Gattieri. DeAndre Swift currently leads the Lions in both rushing fantasy points and receiving fantasy points.

In other words, he's quite literally the RB1 and wide receiver one on this team. Wait, so does that mean that Alan Robinson, when I said that last week, Donald Robinson would be the third best receiver fantasy-wise on the Lions? He's actually the fourth best receiver fantasy in the Lions. What do you mean? Alan Robinson would be. Oh, so actually fifth. So, because we were trying to explain how bad Alan Robinson's been this season.

He was on the Lions. He'd be behind T.J. Hawkinson, I guess now you're saying, DeAnda Swift, Quintes, Cephas and Amon Ross St. Brown all have more fantasy points in the Robbins. I completely forgot. I forgot about that. Yeah, that's rough. That's rough.

But yeah, I mean, basically, I think Swift is, to kind of bring it back, he is a great example of why fantasy analysts and people like us are so obsessive over receiving work. Like obviously it's people I think in general know that receiving work is important in fantasy, especially in PPR and half PBR. But I think he's like the case study because he's just so good in the passing game. It's the perfect storm too because the lines are terrible. They're always playing from behind. And so they're always in like a past script or whatever where they're having to drop it off to him a lot and all that stuff. So if they were winning a lot of these games, it might be a different story. But Swift is really just paying off. He's really good. He's also looked

really like what I'm saying is like he looks really dynamic with the ball on his hands he's doing some incredible things he had like a 70 yard screen pass early in the game where he like I had to do like this giant like jumping pirouette to grab the ball and then he ran like 70 yards for a touchdown well to the point but to punctuate what you're saying only nine people today had more receiving yards than de Androndos swift not like running backs like total people junez just have to 96 receiving yards the only people with more receiving yards than deandre swift today were jimar chase cow pits cooper cup a j brown tary mickr Lauren Khalif Raymond

someone. Chris Godwin, Michael Pittman, Debo, Samuel. Like, that's the whole list. DeAndre Swift had more than every other receiver.

Yeah. Not to mention the rushing. So anyways, DeAndre Swift, dominating. And it's nice because it doesn't feel like a flash of the pan. Like,

it does feel like he's here to stay in that sense just because I don't see the lions changing their strategy drastically. So it's looking like he is going to be one of the most valuable picks

this year in terms of the running backs. Beautiful. Okay. The Derek Henry Award for the player you wish you had in fantasy? So I got one for you. And this isn't necessarily like he's dominating everything or whatever, but he was so cheap in drafts this offseason that I'm just bummed.

I didn't take him more. And that's Mike Issiki from the Dolphins, who by the way, I believe he had zero points in week one. And so everyone was like, God, this guy sucks. Like they're phasing him out of their offense. And I will admit, like, there's probably something to do with the fact that the dolphins have been so injured at the receiver position.

That's like why he's been able to thrive so much. disappeared. Will Fuller's on IR. Devonte Parker's been hurt. Preston Williams has been hurt. However, going forward, even if these guys get back, I don't know if they were going to necessarily change Gisicki's role all that much because he has a clear, very clear chemistry with Tua, and he's been very dynamic.

Like, he's good in the red zone. He went up in Mastigai in the end zone today. He was, he caught seven passes for 85 yards on a touchdown this week. He had eight catches for 115 yards last week. He is, and this is what we talk about all the time. He's basically a receiver who is designated a tight end because I think he's lined up like six total snaps or something like that in line as a true tight end this season. So I don't know. He's just a guy that I think has been underrated throughout this whole process, the preseason and then the early part of this season.

But he is just going off. He's going to be, I think he's like a clear tier two guy. He's not necessarily going to be like a Waller, Kelsey, you know, Andrew's Pitts type player. But I think right there in the second tier, he's right there with those guys. I mean, if you could redo your dream draft, if you look back in August, you're like, what's the perfect draft? You probably end up with Mike Kosicki, don't you? Yeah, because if, well, that's a good question. But yeah, I mean, he's definitely like a great, great value at the tight end position.

If you want to punt on tight end until the very end, whatever round he went in, it was. was later. It was like, you could definitely. He was going like 110, basically. Yeah, you could get some, you could just hammer, like receivers earlier on because like,

yeah, like, I think at this point, you know, it was either get one of the top tier studs or wait. And some of the guys you waited on are certainly not working about working out, but Gassiki is paying off like really,

really well. Yucci is the guy every year you try to land. If you got Gisickey, congratulations. But while we're talking about good dolphins, I have to shout out, um, the most infuriating one.

Just freaking my, It's like, where is this going? I feel like I'm in a toxic relationship. It's like, I think it's going to be good. It's awful. I think it's going to be awful. And then it's like, whoa, you're pulling me back in. How am I back?

And then it's awful again. I'm like, what was I thinking? And then it's amazing. I'm like, you know what? What are we, Miles? And just put that in like numbers. Week four, Miles Gaskin was the RB 77, which is like impossible. There's 32 teams.

I read the RB 77 in a week. And then week five, he was the RB3. And then in week six, he was the RB 48. 48. And then this week, he was the RB4. How is that possible? Does this mean we sit up next week and then play him the week after? Yeah, he's like the San Francisco Giants.

He wins the championship like every other year for like four years and a row. Like I don't understand how this is happening. I, uh, we're going to put science. We're going to put our best like scientists on the matter. But I don't know. Part of the reason, part of the reason this did happen. I don't know if this was the only reason. And I, and who knows, maybe Gaskin would have gone off regard.

but Malcolm Brown left partway, like early on in the game with an injury. So that kind of paved the way for Gaskin to be, to have a bigger role in the game. So going forward, like I'm not sure his role is going to maintain necessarily. I had the under and Miles Gaskin rushing yards because he had 12 carries in the previous three games

and at 15 today. Yeah. So, you know, sure, whatever. Good stuff. Something better than Miles Gaskin. I'm going to give the literally making history award. To Cooper Cup.

Yeah, Cooper Cup. Because I was going to give him with Derek Henry player you wish you had. Cooper Cup has surpassed the player you wish you had. Cooper Cup, I couldn't believe the stat. Are you ready, D.K. I'm ready. Cooper Cup has the most fantasy points through seven games for any wide receiver ever. Is that good? Jesus.

Like under the radar, right? That's an under the radar stat. You heard about Jermar Chase all day. PPR, half PPR, whatever scoring you want. Cooper Cup has the best start to a receiver to a season for any receiver through seven games. Man. Literally more than Randy Moss in 2007. It doesn't matter.

It blew my mind. And the NFL stats, the other one they have is Cup is the first player in the Super Bowl era to have 800 yards and nine touchdowns in his first seven games. It doesn't even feel like it's tough because like half a part of me is like, okay, clearly he's going to regress and things are not going to continue at this rate and he's not going to keep catching. The rate of the literally best season ever for receiver? That right? Yeah, that one.

Exactly. That's what I'm talking about. But also, it doesn't feel like, this is something we talked about, it doesn't feel like anything he's doing is all that hard. Like, you know what I mean? He's not like fighting through three tackles to get his yardage or whatever. He's like wide open every play. It looks easy.

Yeah. It's a really good point. It's like Stafford's just hitting him wide open down the field six times a game. They're drawn up these plays where they get these walk-in touchdowns every week. Um, so it's like, part of me is also like, yeah, this is clearly repeatable. It is going to continue and he's going to score whatever it is 20 something touchdowns this year. I think the craziest thing about Cooper Cup is that he's six foot two, but he moves like he's five foot 10. Oh, he's so quick.

He's so quick. It's crazy. Um, yeah, he made some guy. He like juke the crap out of some defensive back today to pick up a first down. Uh, he's got that short area quickness that really pays off in terms of like picking up extra yards of the catch. Obviously as a route runner. Um, and then they use, it's. It's honestly kind of like Devante Adams, the way that they use him in the Red Zone 2.

They ran them on like, I forget what I forget what it's called, but like they streaked him across the formation right before the play. And, you know, obviously that, and Stafford just hit him. And it was like the easiest touchdown ever. It's like this is the kind of thing you see Devante Adams doing like every week. So. Devante Adams is the number two receiver. There you go.

And Cup is won. And Jamar freaking Chase, I believe is number three. Unbelievable. Holy crap. Okay. well, that's a really appropriate note because since Craig is not here to end at a Cooper Cup, so it's Craig's unofficial fan runs the fan club. I don't know.

It's really late. My brain's petering out of me. It's been a long day. Prop update real quick. We did awful on the props this week. Just absolutely deplorable performance. Three out of eight. Wasn't our best showing.

We didn't do nine because with the Sterling Shepherd one was a push. He was injured. He was injured after we made the, after we talked about him and he did not play. So that was push. But three out of eight, not great. We'll try and bounce back next week.

Did you hit your long shot? No. Stafford did not throw a pick. Oh, well. Well, whoops. Okay.

Burnbook just to, I think it's Robbie Anderson for the burn book. I'm in favor of that. I don't know. The 26 targets for 20 yards thing. No, it's 20 targets for 26 yards. 20.

20 targets for 20. That's incredible. That's unbelievable. I think that alone is just worth throwing him in there. Are you, I mean, at this point, like, doesn't matter because you're not going to start him going forward, right? No, but he's burned. Like, that's it.

Yeah. This way they keeps you from talking yourself into it again. Yeah. Okay. All right. Robbie Anderson, you're in the burn book. That's fair enough. All right.

That's all we got. Thank you, D.K. Thank you, Mike for producing this episode. Thank you, Lorne. Thank you, cake. Love cake. Okay. I will be doing also, I'll be doing Green Room after Monday and a football.

all DK and I will be doing it. Seahawks are playing the Saints. So after the game, you can listen to us live on Green Room. You can actually hop up on the stage and talk to us, not just comment in the chat, but you can actually talk to us

about the game. It's fun. It's on the Green Room map. You can download it. We'll be tweeting it. Right after the game goes live, right after the game ends on Monday and football. We'll be live.

Check that out. And then, yeah, we'll get waivers to you guys later this week. And we'll see if Craig comes back or good luck to Craig in that new Get Back Guy opportunity. So, yeah. Great.

All right. Thank you, everyone.