The Ringer NFL Show - Initial Advice for Week 4, Players You Should Drop, and Hidden Gems on Unexpected Teams | The Dantasy Football Podcast (Ep. 309)

Episode Date: September 26, 2018

The Ringer’s Danny Heifetz and Danny Kelly offer up their locks heading into Week 4 (1:30) and list their “Thank Me Laters” for the week and players you should drop (17:00) before diving into the fantasy impact of Baker Mayfield and Josh Rosen starting next week (28:30). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, it's Liz Kelly. I want to tell you about our great football coverage on the Ringer podcast network. Every Monday, Bill Simmons and Cousin Salle recap the weekend and guest next week's NFL lines on the BS podcast. On Wednesday mornings, Ryan Rucillo hits the hardest angles in college and pro football on our new podcast, dual threat. And on Wednesday nights, Cousin Salle and the degenerate trifecta figure out the best gambling angles on against all odds. And five times per week, the ringer NFL show reacts to the latest news with Kevin Clark, Robert Mays, Tate Mr. Rayser, Mike Lombardi and the Danesie Football Crew. Subscribe to the BS podcast, Dual Threat Against All Odds, and the Ringer NFL show on Apple, Spotify,

or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome, welcome, welcome. Come one, come all to the Danesie Football Podcast, brought to you by the Ringer Podcast Network. My name is Danny Heifitz. I am joined today, as always, by my co-host and co-danny, Danny Kelly. How are you doing today, D.K.?

Your intro just constantly makes me, like, Crank out. Is it because I added come one come all? I wasn't sure I felt about it. Yeah, I'm into it I mean, maybe not every week, but I like a circus vibe? Craig's getting in the face. We've entered Craig today without Jim, Jim is gone, so we're free from Jim's tyranny. Yes. I consider changing my name to Danny, but I didn't. Does that mean if we say washed about any players that won't get bleeped out because Jim's gone? Yes. I think so. He might be editing it. Yeah, oh yeah, he's still going to bleep it out if we say washed. All right, well, we can dive into our first segment. Initial advice, these are our low-key locks of the week.

Craig, what is that noise? Low-key. It's a low-key because it's a lock. Jim is going to cut that. You just don't get it because it's a low-key lock. Look, the listeners love it. Anyway, these are my designated hitters, and Danny's Dark Nights get it because there are initials, initial advice.

Great jokes we have, great comedy. So can we get the Dark Night Sound Drop? Maybe. Only Jim can give us the SaaS. Danny, we're not getting any respect from the internal. What's what's going on here? Wow, we've lost all control. We're off the rails.

Okay, DK, who's your first dark night of the week? Calvin Ridley of the Falcons. This one's a little bit obvious, obviously, since he scored three touchdowns last week. But he has clearly made his way into that passing offense. He's become a focal point of it. I think Matt Ryan completely trusts him. He kind of changes the dynamic of that offense, too, because you got Julio Jones, who just gets completely blanketed by every defense.

And then you got Mohammed Sunnis. He was more of like a big kind of possession guy. He's the do-it-all route runner, really kind of sneaky fast kind of guy. And I think he's going to be just, he's just going to grow in that offense right now. He's seen 20.6% of Atlanta's targets over the last two games, three red zone targets compared to zero for Julio Jones. I mean, it's kind of the same old thing with Julio Jones. Just the lack of touchdown is really kind of depressing his value.

Oh, on that note, actually, Calvin has four touchdowns this season from Matt Ryan in three games. Julio has four touchdowns for Matt Ryan in, like, his last 25 games. Great. That's a beautiful. That's awesome. But on this, no, obviously Ridley should be added. It's a great call. In terms of playing him, how much do you think this week was Marshall and Latimore shattering

Julio? And then I think at one point, he actually switched over to Calvin and then Julio caused some passes. Versus, would you be worried about blindly playing Ridley going forward? No, I don't think so because, number one, you know, I think Julio Jones is probably still going to be, like, the main focus for a lot of defenses. I mean, it's not like Julio suddenly became slow and bad. I mean, he's still an elite physical receiver. So I think that's still going to be a factor.

Number two, Falcons right now are just like a shootout team. We talked about, I think, a couple weeks ago, like their defense is just decimated with injuries right now. I think they're going to need to be passing a bunch. And, yeah, it's like this every week, you can almost expect that they're going to get into a shootout. So I think there's just enough, you know, the pie is. big enough for Ridley to make a big factor in fantasy

and I think he's kind of slowly become their number two right now. Yeah, I really agree on the defense part where they're going to just be behind in a lot of games. They went from a team with great defense and now they have Shadow All pro linebacker Dion Jones is out. They have both their safeties out now. Really, really tough

for them. But yeah, they actually are almost in the mode of the bucks and the Steelers where they're just going to be constantly throwing in like the chiefs are in that category too. And they've been better in the red zone, which is huge. I mean, I think that's kind of like the biggest difference from them this year versus last years, they've finally figured it out in the red zone. I think it really's been a big part of that.

You couldn't really get worse in the red zone, so that's wonderful. My guy for this week is someone I love dearly. Geronimo Allison, on the Packers. They're playing the bills this week, which now bills aren't quite who we thought they were. Who are the bills? Who are the bills? But they're on in about a third of leagues. Green Bay is actually 14th in passing yards this season, so maybe you would think that'd be higher.

he's a little bit risky because you kind of depending on him to get some touchdowns this week. But at the end of the day, he has Aaron Rogers' trust. We've talked about taking shots in high-act-ane offenses. He is getting a ton of targets, a lot of looks in the red zone. He had a long touchdown this week that was kind of Mike McCarthy spotted some match-up thing, and they were able to identify it. And afterward, it was kind of clear that they just saw a break in the coverage if he changed his route. But I love him against the bills this week because Tredavius White, who's the bill's number one quarterback,

has been fantastic this year after a great rookie year last year. He just held Stefan Diggs to like four catches on 10 targets for like 17 yards. I imagine he's going to shadow Devante Adams. So I kind of love Allison this week. If you need someone in your flex, I love the guy. I think there's only a few teams in the NFL where like the shadow coverage actually matters. And it's kind of becoming apparent that the bills are one of them because Tradevi's White is sort of developing into the shutdown corner. You get it with the Lions too.

your number one against the Lions is typically not going to do very well against Darius Slay. So I think this is a kind of similar situation. I like this play. Randall Kov had a tough game last week, so maybe Allison earns a little bit more, you know, targets this week. So we'll see. But I like that because, you know, all the reasons you stated. So I'm with you on that one. Beautiful.

Love Geronimo. Great name, too. Maybe the best name in football. First name, for sure. Who's less of a good first name, but who's your next guy? Yeah, Tyler Boy to the Bengals. I've kind of had him in my mind a little bit over the last two weeks just as a guy to add. Then last week he showed up and had seven targets, six catches, 132 yards for a touchdown.

It kind of just has really emerged as the Bengals number two guy. And we'll get into this a little bit later. But the Bengals' offense is a lot better than I think people expected it to be because Andy Dalton has been solid. Their protection's been a little bit better. you know, they've just been more efficient as an offense overall. AJ Green status kind of going into week four is a little bit uncertain. They play the Falcons who, like we talked about, have, you know, that shootout type potential because their defense has just not been as, you know, as good because of so many injuries.

But my John Ross hope for the year is starting to fade quickly because he's, again, making kind of these crazy mistakes down the field and giving up on routes and things like that. It's just kind of like not looking so good for Ross at this moment. And so I think Boyd has really emerged, kind of taken hold of that number two spot. And there's just a ton of volume available in that spot. So I think Boyd is a must add if he's not, you know, if he's still in your league right now, he's a must add. He could be even a starter this week. Yeah, obviously, AJ Green's dealing with, I think it's a hip injury.

We're not 100% sure he might be able to play this week. So are you not worried at all, Boyd's a little bit of a flavor the week and maybe even if the offense overall is better that, which you did talk about in the preseason, but that Boyd may be just as the beneficiary this week, but schematically it just might end up elsewhere in the next few years. I mean, there's always that worry, but, I mean, we talked about this with John Ross early on. Like, the reason I identified Ross as a sleeper was because with LaFelle gone, there's like 90-something targets to fill up, and just the volume alone, I think makes Boyd an interesting choice. He was pretty good as rookie year.

He wasn't as good last year. I think that he's still got that talent. And it just really looks like Dalton trust him. I saw one stat. I don't have it in front of me, but. It was basically a table of who the quarterbacks go to when they're under the pressure most. And Dalton, under pressure, looked to Boyd the most of all his receiver. So I think that kind of security blanket thing that Boyd has going for him, it makes him a good fantasy relevant guy.

And I think he's going to, I think he's going to, we're just kind of seeing the tip of the iceberg right now. I'm with you on the Bengals offense overall. That's actually, I have Dalton as my next, my next DH. Yeah. If you have, whether you have Cam Newton or Alex Smith on by or RIP, Jimmy Garoppolo, and you're looking for a quarterback as a plug and play. I like Dalton, he's zoned in roughly a third of leagues. And like you said, we just discussed, the Bengals' offense has been okay.

Fun fact for you. So obviously, the leader in touchdown passes this year is obviously Mahomes and Fitzpatrick. Three dudes are tied for third. Drew Brees, Philip Rivers, and Andy Dalton. That's crazy. Which is crazy. So, yeah, they're going against the Falcons. We just talked about how the Falcons defense is really hamstrung, really not of 100%.

And you can do a lot worse than streaming Andy Dalton if you have quarterback woes. I have Dalton in a two quarterback league, and he's been huge for me. So, yeah, I'm all aboard this one. Obviously, the AJ Green thing is something to monitor this week because I think, you know, just having no AJ Green hurts. But even if he's not in there, I still think he's startable guy. So I like him. My next guy is along the same vein.

He kind of came into this season, not like a big name in the fantasy world. Jared Gough of the Rams, over the first three games, we've kind of seen, I think he's taking a big step forward since last year. You know, obviously from year one to two, he took a huge jump. I think he's taken a little bit more nuanced, subtle jump this year, but he does look really, really good. He's owned in 85% of leagues in Yahoo! Yeah, you kind of cheated. This is not necessarily a must add in Yahoo leagues. He is only owned in 62% of ESPN leagues, though.

So he's still out there in some leagues. I think if he's out there, now's the time to go get him. Because to me, the Rams just look like they're on the up-and-up offensively, even more than last year. He's the current QB-9 in scoring. Bill Barnwell had a great tweet the other day. The lowest three-and-out percentages in the NFL so far through three games, you've got the Chiefs, Raiders, and Bengals,

tied at three at number three with 25%. The Buccaneers at 20%. This is a three-and-out percentage. The Rams right now, number one, at 6.9%. So, like, their offense is just a well-oiled machine, and it's early in the season. I think they're only going to get better. Now that Talib and Peters are kind of hurt, that could create a little bit, you know, because early on in the season, their defense was unstoppable.

It kind of created these, like, run-heavy game scripts for the Rams. Now, if they get into more shootout-type situations, you could see Goff go off for big numbers last year or last week against the Chargers. For instance, he had three touchdowns, 354 yards. His 16-game pace right now is 5,018 yards. You could be a 5,000 yard faster. Are you serious? Yeah.

So, I mean, it's like, obviously. Did not know that one. This season is insane in terms of the numbers offensively. So far, like, you know, you got several guys who are on pace to, like, shatter the catch's record. And, you know, obviously there's quarterbacks like Mahomes and just a couple other guys are just blowing up the statistics. But, you know, it's a long season.

But right now, yeah, he's on pace for over 5,000 yards, which is kind of crazy. I don't know if Jared Dough is. quote unquote, this vague idea of like a good quarterback air quotes, but he can do absolutely everything. Sean McVeigh is asking of him in this offense. It's amazingly designed. And like we talk about RIP, buying into what Shanhan's doing in San Francisco.

It's the San Medea with the Rams that I've never loved golf, but like, yeah, I guess I can't do with that pace. This week he's against the Vikings, so that is a tough-ish matchup. I mean, I imagine the Vikings haven't completely fallen off though they didn't look great against the bills last week. So it's kind of a tough matchup. He's a must add if he's still out there for you.

I'm hesitant against the Vikings on a Thursday game, although I will say I always defer on Thursdays to the coaching staff. I feel stronger, which is going to be McVeigh. Their offense is just a buzzsaw right now. So, yeah. My last guy, my last little Dietra here, Mike Williams, who on the Chargers, obviously had a massive game this week, had two touchdowns, more than half of Yahoo Leagues,

but he's still only owned in a third of ESPN. We're going to have to graduate him from this list. He is incredible. He looks legit. He's a physical marvel. He has the route running. He's making really, really high difficult catches. His catch radius is what you would have thought with his measurables.

But then he's also making these diving ball. He's made really huge strides with his ball handling and actually being able to make these really high degree of difficulty catches and the route running. And it's like watching someone with the capability for the full package, put it all together and we're watching it live and just get in while you can. he's one of those guys that I remember scouting him in the draft a couple years ago and just thinking he'd be perfect for the chargers and I actually think I put him in a few mock drafts to the chargers

because Philip Rivers is just the biggest don't give a fuck kind of passer he just throws it up into tight coverage regardless of like where the corner is and just expects his guys to come down with it like that's his MO and Williams is a perfect fit for that and we've seen that happen already in the red zone a bunch now so yeah I think it's just a it's a really good marriage between quarterback and receiver. I think that's just a great fit. And kind of, you know, like,

I just think we're just seeing that tip of the iceberg with him, too. I think he's kind of started to grab hold of that number two job and that. And there's just a ton of volume there because, like, you know, like so many other teams this year, the Chargers defense has just been garbage. So it's kind of surprising. There's going to be a lot of shootouts this year. I'm still sticking with the Chargers.

I love the Chargers. I still believe in their defense. I will go down on their ship. I love the Chargers. I have less. faith in them than you do this year. I'll go down on their ship. Well, while I'm sinking, let's take a quick break. This episode of the Dan and Cee Football podcast is brought to you by Full Sail University's Dan Patrick's School of Sportscasting. Legendary sportscaster Dan Patrick,

the one you know from the Dan Patrick Show, Sunday Night Football, the Olympics and Sports Center has teamed up with Full Sail University to offer an accelerated bachelor's degree in sportscasting as two people deeply committed to audio-centric sportscast personalities named Dan. Danny and I have looked up to Dan Patrick as a constant source of inspiration for quite some time. You know, I think Dan Rather was first, but Dan Patrick was second, and he'll always be in our hearts as a successful man. He should change to Danny Patrick. Yeah, Danny Patrick would be better, but, you know, he's got, otherwise he's great. Full Sail University combines hands-on learning, immersive projects, and faculty with real-world experience to prepare students for life in the media industry.

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and you can choose to earn your degree online or on FullSales campus in Orlando, Florida. To learn more about FullSale University's Dan Patrick School's sportscasting, go to fullsale.edu slash NFL show. You know, DK, people are always asking us for advice, right? Mm-hmm. All the time? Yeah. Usually, it's what team to bet on this week or who to start and sit.

We don't know, because we don't know who's going to win or who's on your bench. But if we did know, we'd be very rich. But if you guys think you know, you got to check out My Booky. We always tell people to bet with My Booky because they are your best bet this season. They've been in business for years, have great reviews online, and their mobile site is easy to use. Not to mention, they have in-game live betting and the most rewarding player perks in the business. Plus, for you fantasy guys out there, which is us fantasy guys out here, you can bet the over or under on how many fantasy points a player will score each game. Always go the under on Rashad Penny.

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O-O-K-I-E, and don't forget to use the promo code, ringer NFL when creating your account to claim the bonus. You play, you win, you get paid. All right, D-K, we're going to get into our thank me later, guys. You know, for those listening, we don't know your leagues as well as you do. We don't know your bench or your scoring or the people on your free agency as well as you do. But we can run through a bunch of people that are owned in a half or fewer leagues, less, fewer. I don't know.

But they're not owned in as many leagues as they should be. And we're going to go through whether we are in. on them or out on them going forward. Aaron Jones on the Packers, running back just returned from suspension. How you feel? Yeah. The Packers' backfield remains completely muddled.

In week three, Jones came back. He played 16 snaps. He had six rushes, 42 yards, wouldn't catch for five yards. Look pretty good. Look pretty explosive. He actually led the team in rushing. That wasn't saying a lot.

They didn't get a whole lot on the ground going. Jamal Williams actually led the team in snaps, 30 snaps. He had five rushes, 29 yards, two catches, 16 yards. Time Montgomery, 20 snaps. So actually, Jones had the fewest amount of snaps. He had the less amount of snaps.

But he did look pretty darn good. So I think he's still worth a speculative ad at at this point. Just to make sure you grab him off waivers, I could definitely see the backfield kind of changing the dynamic he could take over. And so for the Packers, who might be looking for a little bit of a spark in the run game, he's definitely a guy to keep in mind. I'm not quite sure I'm ready to start him right now, though. But you're keeping him on your bench?

Yeah, for now. Sounds like a ringing, ringing endorsement. Full of confidence. He's got an enticing matchup this week against the bills, who, again, we don't really know who they are at this point. But yeah, he's one of those guys that's like, he's stuck in that muddled backfield, so it's kind of concerning. Yeah, I don't know who we thought the bills were.

But my next guy is Chris Godwin of the Bucks. He's probably too good. He needs to graduate from this list. He has the deep speed. He has the Red Zone skills. He's a route running. He can really do everything. The Bucks have given 30 targets to Mike Evans.

20 to Godwin, 14 to Deshawn, 14 OJ Howard, 12 to Humphreys, everyone else on the team's under 10 in targets. He's getting targets, deep threats in the red zone, everything you could want is the full package. It's hard to trust guys who are on teams that have so many weapons, which, as we talked about, the Packers and Steelers, but it doesn't matter. He's so good. He's shown that he's 100% worth trusting, and he should absolutely be owned in every league, and he's a really great flex option. He's good, man, and that offense doesn't look like it's slowing down at all. The thing is, dude, I actually saw this stat, which is kind of crazy, Fitzpatrick, and we got to credit you again for your preseason call on Fitzpatrick.

He's the first quarterback in NFL history with three games of 400 passing yards. How does that actually, that doesn't seem possible. You know what that's called? What's that? A Fitzhattrick. Oh, that's bad. Let's cut that out. How dare you?

That's the best joke I've made in the entire history of this podcast. I'll leave it in. Anyway, I'm really offended by that. Although, full transparency, I feel like someone at football outside has made that joke first, TBH. Anyway, next dude, how do you feel about

Wendell Smallwood of the Eagles? Obviously, the question last week was Corey Clement versus Smallwood versus whoever. Smallwood came in, had 10 rushes for 56 yards, and a touchdown, caught four passes for 35 yards, looked pretty solid. And that was on fewer snaps

than Clement, kind of outplayed him. But going forward, I don't think he's necessarily worth an ad at this point. Now, Jai is coming back. Sproles is going to be back. You know, the backfield mix just right now, I don't think it really makes him worth picking up at this point. Speaking of great first names, Wendell, I mean, Wendell Small, it's just a great name. The whole name, yeah.

Almost sounds like it's like a Hobbit name or something. It's like something Tolkien would come up with. It's beautiful. Different type of player. Chris Ivory on the Bills, had a good week last week, playing in place of LaShawn McCoy. McCoy is a rib injury. He has many uncertain things about his season.

Ivory, in short, is probably really ugly kind of play. You don't want to watch the bills if you play them, but it might be a legitimate three-down back every week that McCoy is out. He can catch, he can pass. I don't know if he can. Maybe he can. He can catch and he can run. 156 total yards in week three.

And it's a weekly game. And if you're really in a pinch, like you could actually do worse than a guy who might be, you know, a 20-touch dude whenever he gets to start. Yeah, I mean, it's all about volume, right? Yeah. So, yeah, it's scary to start anybody in the bill's office. We talked about, you know, Calvin Benjamin or whatever,

but they did seem to make a little bit of a jump last week. So, you know, there's, you know, just the volume aspect of it makes it worth potential add, I think. So, yeah. All right, JK, who do you have up next? All right, Dolphins, Dynamic Duo from week three, Jakeem Grant, Albert Wilson. both are owned in less than 3% of all leagues right now. Grant had two catches,

and I put catches in quotations because one of them was essentially like a fly sweep handoff, those count of passes these days. Grant had two catches for 70 yards, two touchdowns. Wilson, two catches for 70 yards, a touchdown, any through a pass, touchdown pass, 52 yards to Grant. Obviously, these guys are super explosive. I'm actually really intrigued by the Dolphins' offense, the way that's kind of set up so much speed right now.

You got Grant Wilson, you know, just the, they're running back. There's deep threat whose name is escaping me at the moment. Stills, Kenny Stills. And you've got your boy, Kenny Stills. Yeah, so their offense has. You put some respect on his name. You're the only one I've heard of respect to his name. And now you've forgotten.

Kenyon Drake is the other name I was looking for. My God. My brain's not working. What is going on? But anyways, yeah, they got so much speed in that offense. It's actually kind of intriguing to me going forward at the same time. I don't think these guys are necessarily worth adding at the moment. Grant,

he only played nine snaps. And Wilson only 10. Talk about, talk about, you know, efficiency. Those guys did what they did last week, 10 snaps and nine snaps.

I think that the rotation in their receiver group is not really set still. Devonte Parker came back. You know, we're going to kind of see how it all shakes out. But to me, those guys are still, you know, just see how it develops.

If they get more snaps and get more targets, down the line, then they're definitely worth picking out. But right now, no. Albert Wilson had almost $15 million guaranteed in a contract you signed this year. Do you think that he makes the most money compared to the least fantasy-owned percentage in the entire NFL right now?

I can't think of anyone who's a bigger ratio. We'll come back to that next week. I kind of want to look at that. I bet that's number one. Apart from injured players, I guess, yeah. Yeah, well, that doesn't count. But Jimmy G. would win that one. That's not funny.

It's too bad. How dare you? Look, man. My last one, this is really boring, but just sometimes waiver ads are boring. Handcuff Central, I now look at C.J. Anderson on the Panthers and Malcolm Brown on the Rams very, very similarly. I don't think I'd add them unless I had McCaffrey or Todd Gurley respectively. But as everyone who has Levy on Bell knows, if you lose the guy you drafted top three or four, or is top five running back, it just is like an empty pit in your stomach. And Anderson and Malcolm Brown both look like they would be three downbacks if McAfrey,

or girly, God forbid, got hurt, they would have enough volume to make them blind RB2s with very easily top 10 running back upside every single week. And at this point, I think it's certain enough

that they would get so much volume that there's no reason not to add them if you have either of those dudes. It's not like sexy advice and it's literally an insurance policy that costs nothing. I like it. I mean, McCaffrey's got so much volume.

It's insane. Obviously, Gurley too. So, yeah, makes a lot sense to me. My next guy, Dallas Goddert, tight end for the Eagles. Going up against the Titans this week. Right now, he's only owned a 2% of Yahoo Leagues and ESPN leagues. This is probably, it might end up being like a short-term kind of Band-Aid type option, but with Mike Wallace, Alshan Jeffrey Bulls still up in the air, you know, health-wise.

He was a big, big part of their offense last week with Wentz finally coming back. Per Graham Barfield, the Eagles used tight ends on 67% of their offensive plays last week. And the NFL average right now is like 25%. So they obviously leaned on a two-todontent set really heavily. Goddard had seven targets, seven catches, 73 yards, a touchdown. He's really athletic. You know, there was tons of reasons people liked him a lot before the draft, and he kind of showed up and did exactly what I think a lot of people thought he would.

So he's kind of one of those guys that at worst, he's kind of a speculative ad to see if he'll be, you know, a big part of that offense going forward. And I think if you're desperate, you could definitely even start him this week. Yeah, someone who just traded for Zacharts. I was thrilled to see Dallas doing so well. All right, well, while we're giving so much advice on players to add, we figured we should start giving some advice on players to cut because it is hard to move on from dudes who are owned in a lot of leagues,

but we wanted to highlight some dudes that we think are very over-owned, and you can cut bait from if you have a waiver ad you really want to make. First one's a repeat. Yeah, we talked about him last week. Shad Penny of the Seahawks. We ended last week on the fence and now we are firmly on one side of the fence. At this point I think you can drop him and feel fine about it.

I mean, number one, the Seahawks offense still doesn't look very smooth. The run game is still pretty, you know, average at best. Probably not even average. It's actually pretty bad. They ran the ball 32 times last week, picked up like 113 yards or something like that.

So, I mean, they're like slamming Chris Carson headfirst first into like a wall and just hoping that something good happens. they gave him 32 carries Penny is just you know he's just like a very very very secondary option I think the best you can hope for is a Carson injury

if you're a penny owner at this point and I don't even know if there's as much upside in the Seahawks offense where that's actually worth like hoping for so at this point I think he's fine to drop yeah if he literally won the same job and got all their carries I still not sure he'd be worth playing

next one a great suggestion from intern Craig who threw this one out there. Robbie Anderson of the Jets owned in like 70 plus percent of ESPN. He has 10 targets this season and six catches. Meanwhile, he basically, I mean, Quincy and Nunwa has almost become the focal point of the Jets' offense.

I think that's fair to say. I don't know if that's like a word that gets thrown around too much, but he has more than twice as many targets as anyone else in the team, which is probably what people thought Anderson's been getting. He doesn't seem happy with this happening either. There's questions about chemistry,

quote-unquote, Sam Donald. So, I mean, I'd be, there's probably 10 receivers in 10 team leagues that I'd rather have over Anderson right now on waivers. So I'm done with them.

Yeah, I mean, you're talking about an offense that's still trying to find its footing. Donald hasn't looked great the last two weeks. He's really, really leaned on a noon one, you know? So, yeah, I think at this point,

he's at best, like a touchdown dependent start. And, you know, he has one touchdown in three games. So, I don't know. Yeah. Yeah. Well, while we're talking about

rookie quarterbacks. We can move on to our final segment, intrigued or deterred, where we're going to look at the rookie quarterback takeover that happened in week three. Crazy. The missile like Baker Mayfield

descended upon First Energy Stadium and lifted the entire city of Cleveland into the celestial clouds. But before we get there, we're going to look at the Cardinals, which had maybe the exact opposite kind of game, Rosen just kind of threw them in there. And they're like, yeah, you can't do any freaking

worse, can you? And then he just threw picks twice. So really exact opposite things, but the Cardinals have been obviously incredibly disappointing so far. They went from Bruce Ariens, who was the coach and coordinator and retired. Now they have Steve Wilkes and Mike McCoy, and the whole offense seems to have come apart. David Johnson, who obviously was amazing in 2016, he is 59.7 yards from scrimmage per game. Larry Fitz, with 109 catches this year, is on pace for 64. He has 12 catches on 17 targets this year, 113 yards, 113 yards.

DK, what is going on in Arizona? Well, I mean, like the big picture thing that is most apparent so far is that the Cardinals have picked scheme over players, if that makes any sense. They just basically, it just feels like McCoy came in and decided he's going to run his scheme regardless of who is on his team.

And it's kind of weird because he's normally actually been a pretty, adaptable and versatile kind of play caller, but the way that they use David Johnson so far has been by far the most concerning and annoying, basically, is because they've used him as a very, very traditional running back. When he is the prototype of a future running back,

his ability to split out on the wing and run routes, vertical routes, like a receiver, was like one of the best things about the 2016 Cardinals' offense, that no-riskit-no-biscuit thing. And they just had him, him, you know, being able to move around the formation, create mismatches with basically anyone. And, you know, that was just such a huge part of their offense.

It hasn't been at all this year. The one time I've seen them run a vertical route last week against the Bears, they got a touchdown out of it. And so I don't know why they're not using him like that more. Like, it just doesn't make any sense. What are they doing with him instead? Well, I mean, basically, it's like the super traditional stuff. They're, if you look at his, on NFL NextGen stats,

you can see his running charts and his route charts. charts as a receiver, almost all of his runs are like between the tackles, between the hashes, like just basically slam him up between the tackles and see what happens. And then most of his routes, I think almost all of his routes other than that one touchdown I talked about are essentially either swing passes or dump offs over the middle where he's running like a little angle route over the middle. And it's like he's not being used in the way that he was used in 2016. It doesn't make any sense to me. Um, you know, obviously that the, the, the, The team has a ton of problems right now with protection.

I looked up the stat this morning. Sam Bradford was under pressure like 42% of his dropbacks over the first three weeks, which is third worst in the NFL. So they have major problems with protection. But I think that right now it's just been such a vanilla, boring, predictable scheme that, you know, McCoy has essentially done nothing to sort of mitigate the issues that they have with that. And I think that Johnson would be the kind of perfect guy,

like run more screens with him. do like what the Rams do, you know, like get him in space, let him do his thing. It just doesn't make any sense. Yeah. So you're talking about a prototypical, one of the most versatile and best players in space being put into one of the most crowded areas of the entire field. So do you, they have talked about wanting to change how they're going to use David Johnson a couple weeks ago.

Now Rosen's in. Would you be interested in trading for Johnson with an owner who's like frustrated with them or you'd not have the confidence McCoy is going to be able to change that? I mean, he is, like, if you can afford it, he's a good by-low candidate, I think, because just his talent, like, he's just amazingly good player. And if they could figure out how to use him, you know, he has that upside to turn into, maybe not, like, what he was in 2016, where he scored, like, 22 all-purpose touchdowns or whatever. But I think he does have a lot of upside just because he's so talented. And Rosen could change that offense, you know? And then looking, well, on that note, so one of the most interesting things in terms of who the Cardinals are now, because they're weren't.

the same jerseys and have a lot of the same players. But with the switchover, obviously Palmer retired last year, and part of losing Ariens meant it's a different offense. And just to put that in some illustration, Ariens' offenses have always been characterized by being aggressive, always near the top of the leaderboard and average depth of target, which is basically how far down the field are you throwing? How aggressive are you?

In 2015, Carson Palmer led the league in yards per attempt. To start the year so far, San Bradford is dead last. 32nd out of 32 in yards per attempt so far. So this is in many ways almost the exact opposite kind of offense. And how hopeful are you for Larry Fitzgerald to be able turn around? Or do you think that him going forward, is he even a starter for you? And how does he compare to Christian Kirk and the role? Yeah.

I think that, you know, in theory, going to Rosen is going to help Fitz because, number one, Fitzgerald and at this point in his career is a slot receiver. He's basically been used in the slot majority of his snap. He's good over the middle field, really, really reliable, great catcher, you know, big catch radius. I think that Rosen is going to lean on him a lot. And I think the offense is going to have, I don't think they're ever going to be super downfield offense this year. It just doesn't really seem like they're able to protect. I think that Fitzgerald is going to get a lot of play because of his ability to be like that security blanket for Rosen going forward.

Now that said, I think Christian Kirk is going to factor in here too. I think they should get him involved in the same kind of Rouse that fits runs, get him involved in screens. Like he's really, really elusive in space. He kind of got, I don't know if he's not the same kind of player as Golden Tate, but he's got that open field elusiveness. You know, he's a great, great punt returner, things like that. So I think they can get him involved in space.

He might be a worth of speculative Nevada at this point. But I think that, you know, the Cardinals just need to change what they're doing. You know, they need to get, they need to use more play action. It's another thing that just really, bothers me is when teams don't utilize play action. They don't utilize deception. I looked it up. Sam Bradford through the first three games had thrown on play action 11% of his

throws, 11% of dropbacks, which is like 30th or 31st out of 32 quarterbacks. So it's like you need to do something to manipulate the defense. They need to get more deception involved, you know, whether that's play action, you know, jet sweep type stuff with their with their faster players, whatever it is. They need to do that more. They need to get the ball out of Rosen's hands quickly because he's just much, much better when he plays on schedule. He's not going to run around like Aaron Rogers

and make plays with his feet. You need to get the ball out of his hands when he hits the back foot. And so, yeah, there's just a lot of issues right now with the Cardinals' offense. I think that they can figure it out if they change up some stuff. And I think Rosen gives them more upside,

but it's still pretty questionable. Right now they're by far the worst offense in the NFL. Yeah, I agree that. David Johnson's a real by-low, as are other people in the Cardinals in the hopes that they change things. But if they don't, it might just be a lost season. Switching into a team that did change things up this week and seems to actually be entering a legitimate new era with a plan of some sorts, maybe. The Brown switched to Baker-Mayfield. I've never seen such a stark contrast between, like night and day, between two halves.

And Baker came in, they changed everything they were doing, and it just looked like a completely different team. So what did you see when Baker came out? I mean, I don't think it's actually, it's not hyperbole at all to say he completely changed the offense. It was like actually, it was stark. It was crazy. It was immediately recognizable. I think the biggest difference right off the bat was he was attacking the seams, attacking the middle of the field. If you look at, again, for NFL Next Gen stats, they have these great charts that show the where where quarterbacks are throwing the football, where they're completing their passes early in that game, Tyra Taylor, you know, everything was to the side.

Everything was basically horizontal or to the side. side, like, you know, not downfield. And then Mayfield came in, and he just started attacking the middle of the field, you know, threading the needle, really, on a few plays. It just changes the geometry of how a defense has to play. You know, I think it makes several of their skill position players much more relevant fantasy and we'll get into that. But, yeah, I mean, just his accuracy, his velocity.

Actually, his velocity was, I think, the thing that stood out to me the most. Like him throwing on the run, just the zip that he put on the ball, actually, a couple of his guys, Jarvis Landry, I can't remember who else had a drop. There was like three or four drops. His throws come with so much velocity, and I think Troy Aikman, or someone was talking about how

his passes just have like a higher velocity of rotation. Like the, they just fly differently. Literally, it's kind of crazy. So like guys were mistiming his throws. Getting him in with a full, you know, week of first team reps, getting him on the same page as all his

receivers. Like the sky, to me, is the limit. He looked exactly like everyone thought he would in terms of, you know, he just kind of seamlessly hit the ground running and it was just great. So I think he changes that offense like 100%. I love that term used changing geometry of the defense. That's like a really actually great way to put it, especially in terms of kind of if you draw triangles between defenders. So when that actually goes into practice and they have to change up where they physically are standing, who are the beneficiaries of that? Obviously, we saw Landja going downfield. There's David Injoku who's had a bad first three weeks. Who do you see as the main?

beneficiaries of this? I think Joku is going to be probably a pretty big part of that offense. Again, it's because he works in the middle field, and I think that's kind of Joku's domain. Like, he's going to be the guy who runs up the scene. He's so athletic. He's got a big catch radius. And we saw that Mayfield is not

afraid to attack, you know, like, tight coverage players. I think Calloway is the other guy. Antonio Calloway is the other guy that might be worth, you know, at this point, adding and potentially even starting this week against the Raiders. Collaway was really close to having 140 yards on four catches for two touchdowns, but Tarot over, Mr. Taylor, overthrew him twice, or underthrew him twice.

He also had one drop over the shoulder throw from Mayfield that he probably should have reeled in. But, I mean, I still think, again, it's kind of like, you know, the sky is sort of the limit with this guy in terms of what he can do in that offense. If Mayfield comes in and it looks anything like what we saw last week. So, Bilo and Landry, if you can, but you probably can't. Bilo and Joku, if you can. which is probably very possible. And how do you feel about Baker?

I mean, I think, yeah, I literally, you know, during the game, I was going in and being like, okay, who can I drop for this guy? Because he looked that good. Like, I think he completely changes their offense. Their offense has talent. You know, they've spent years, you know, building up the talent base. Their offensive line is pretty solid. You know, they've got like three talented running backs, Carlos Hyde, Duke Johnson,

Chubb. There's just a lot of talent on that offense. even without Gordon now. And I think just his ability to, you know, thread the needle, pass with so much accuracy. That was the book coming out of college. He was just an accurate passer. You know, I think it just, you know,

they're going to run more plays. They're going to make more first downs. You're going to score more points. It opens up sort of Pandora's box for what that team can do in fantasy. All right. So you're planting your flag on Baker, if you will. I mean, I was very, very impressed.

No, you missed what I did there. I said you're planting your flag. See? Yeah, that was a good one. Good one. Well, on that note, because Craig is literally, could not be eye-rolling me any harder if he could possibly try. That was crazy. It's like a full-body motion thing.

I think that means that we're done. Thank you guys for listening. When Jim's back, we'll give an update on our three-team fantasy league, which I have still just destroyed as the commissioner. Jim is winning, which is I don't even want to talk about it when he comes back. But we'll give that an update next week. We'll be back on Friday along with the team. GM Street and thank you guys for listening.