The Ringer NFL Show - The Fantasy Stock Exchange | The Dantasy Football Podcast (Ep. 338)

Episode Date: November 6, 2018

Adam Humphries, Duke Johnson Jr., and more lead this week's Initial Advice (1:00). Theo Riddick and Cordarrelle Patterson are among the list of players to add off of waivers heading into Week 10 (15:30), and James Conner and Eric Ebron join the group of players to buy low and sell high as the fantasy trade deadline approaches (25:30). Hosts: Danny Heifetz and Danny Kelly Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Today's show is brought to you by our friends over at Belvedere, the world's finest all-natural vodka. Belvedere is made with 100% non-GMO Pulse Garay, pristine water from their own natural well, and no additives. Zero, zip, zilch. In an exciting development, The Ringer will be partnering with Belvedere

to host their first ever crossover podcast featuring Ryan Rusillo from Dual Threat and Kevin Clark and Robert Maze from the NFL show. All live from Caesar's Palace in Las Vegas on November 12th at 9 p.m. Pacific time post Monday night football. Join Rosillo, Clark, and Mays is to discuss all things NFL from the greatness of Pat Mahomes to Eli Manning's future in New York, plus a number of valuable gambling and fantasy tips.

I'm sure Mays will be talking about the offensive line stuff as well. Come hang with the ringer NFL crew in Vegas on November 12th and just visit bit.ly slash belvedere live to purchase your tickets. That is, bit.l.l.combeer live to purchase your tickets. This is very special live podcast. He's all made possible by the world's finest all natural vodka, Belvedere. And please remember to always drink responsibly. See you at Seizers. Welcome, welcome, welcome to the Danny C. Football Podcast. My name is Danny Hyfitz. I am joined, as always, by my co-host and co-danny. Danny Kelly, how you doing, D.K.? I'm doing well, man. How are

you doing? I'm good, man. We have full-time Craig here. No gym. Thank God. Jim's stressed and ran Anyway, so I don't know what he's great. I guess he was tired. But you know, it's not a mystery, D.K. What's that? The trade deadline is approaching. For those in Yahoo, I believe most people in Yahoo have trade deadline November 10th. Fast coming.

So we're going to run through some trade deadline stuff and just go through buy, sales. A little stock market action, right? And just basically, yeah, and just look at who we like for the second half of the season. But before that, we're going to go through some waiver wire lightning round and some initial advice. D.K., should we dive in? Yeah, let's do this. No, wait, first. Craig, since Jim's gone, Batman music for the Dark Nights?

Yes. All right. Okay, who's your first Dark Night for this week? All right. So Adam Humphrey is the Buccaneers. Obviously, we've been talking about Chris Godwin a little bit over the last few months, but Humphreys emerged in the last three weeks as kind of the number two guy behind Mike Evans in that offense, just in terms of targets and work-lo and all that.

He's at eight-plus targets last three. games 9, 10, and 8. Last week he had eight catches on eight targets, 82 yards, and two touchdowns. His touchdown thing is rare. I mean, he's not going to be a touchdown guy, but in PPR, he could be worth a flex going forward. The bucks pass a ton.

And it seems like Ryan Fitzpatrick is kind of trusting him in the middle, in the intermediate range. Last three weeks per PFF, Humphrey leads the team in targets, 31, second in catches with 14, second in yards, 195. He's actually first in touchdowns with two.

And the pass rating when targeted for him is 103.8, which is first on the team. So he runs 85% of his routes out of the slot. And what do we always say about slot receivers on this podcast? It's like anti-aging cream that makes your teeth whiter and skin, you know. There's just no, there's nothing bad about being a slot receiver when it comes to fantasy world, especially PPR. So going forward, Humphreys looks like an ad because, I mean, I don't know, he's not going to, like you said, he's not going to be a big red zone guy, but just the volume he gets of targets and things like, that. I think he's a valuable ad going forward. Yeah. No, that's true. I mean,

we've talked about how the slot is basically like those late on infomercial stuff. Yeah. No, but it's interesting to see how James and Fitzpatrick highlight different receivers and you watch them and obviously the same offense, but it's interesting how they really do have chemistry with very different guys in that offense and how those things change.

Like Deshawn has been obviously much better with Fitz probably than James, and then Cameron Brate was like James's favorite thing and the toss and turning has been probably exhausting for people. bucks, so sorry. But O.J. Howard is back, too. So that's nice to know. Absolutely. That was fun, actually, to see him kind of. He's emerging. He's turning into one of the top. He's emerged. Tight ends in the NFL, but that's neither here nor there. What's, so, who's your first guy?

I'm just on the Browns. Dude, Duke Johnson! Well, I actually said to sit last week, but I said, so I'm like, right-ish, because I said that he would be great for the rest of the year. Yeah. He was great now. So I think that's a, that's a win. You know, even though I said, Bench him 25 points, whatever. But no, it was nice to see actually some of that come to fruition. We talked about how Todd Haley got fired in large part because he just wasn't using Duke Johnson because how the front office envisioned, they gave him the contract extension. Freddie Kitchens, our boy, Freddie Kitchens, new offensive coordinator,

how to I'm out there for 35 snaps at a 75. The week before that, he had a season low 23. And they really targeted him. So Freddie Kitch said that they wanted Baker to be throwing more quick passes, getting the ball out of his hands, shorter routes, all those things. That happened, that is, like, music to the ears for, like, Duke Johnson. And you really saw that, like, a third, a lot of crucial third downs and goal line stuff. They were really throwing the ball short of the sticks and having him run.

I don't love that, honestly, as a general thing, but great for Duke Johnson. Because, really, it was, like, a lot of their third and two plays. And, you know, first and goal from the two-yard line was like, I was going to give it to Duke Johnson behind the yard and hoping you get it. Yeah, that was exactly what I wanted them to do with Johnson. I mean, because they've had such a shortage of healthy and quality receivers. Obviously, Antonio Calloway has just, he's had his struggles all year. It just seems like they were really forcing it to the receivers a lot under Haley.

And obviously, like you said, Haley was really reticent to use Johnson. Freddie Kitchens apparently knows where his bread is buttered because he is almost like he thumbed his nose. Like Hugh and Haley and really just went with Johnson hard and made him kind of like a focal point of the offense. I'm guessing that's going to be what's happening going forward. He's a good security blanket for Mayfield going forward. His skill sets similar to James White, who's obviously of an amazing season. Lombardi says all the time,

you know, James White's just kind of a catcher, not a runner, and it's like Duke Johnson is a similar skill set, and now he's actually going to be used that way. Obviously, he probably won't be as good as white, but he was good as white this week. Yeah, Duke Johnson was the RB15 last year. Yeah, exactly.

So if you were able to snag him, if you didn't, like, go get him. But I think he's going to be a pretty super reliable flex going forward. And going up against Falcons this week. Oh, yeah. Sorry, that was the whole point of me talking about this, wasn't it?

I was plugging him. So I believe in him the rest of the season. This week is a particularly good matchup. Obviously, the Chiefs is a really good matchup last week. This is almost just as good. The Falcons offense is only a couple notches below the Chief, so it'll be a shootout. And then their defense is just as bad, if not worse,

at covering running backs. They lost a bunch of key defenders, and they can't defend any running backs. So I think he has just a good a shot. of getting 25 this week as he did last week. Yeah, absolutely. My next guy, Mike Davis of the Seahawks, Chris Carson obviously hurt his size slash hip in this last game.

He's been nursing hip injury going back into last week. Rashad Penny didn't make the most of his touches necessarily when he came in. What was that? Well, sorry full-time, Craig. Subjective, sorry? I still don't see, this is kind of an aside. I just don't see first-round skill trait. I just don't see his first round traits from Penny.

Yeah. No, no one has. Hopefully we will. He looks okay. I'm sure he's a great guy. Hopefully we will. Davis, I mean,

he's been pretty good when he's gotten his opportunities. He's got 4.3 yards per carry. He's 12th in the NFL right now in yards after contact per rush, just behind Melvin Gordon and just ahead of carry-on Johnson. Chris Carson's fourth for reference. But volume is the biggest factor here. I mean,

since week three, the CX lead the NFL in rush attempts, 216. Second in yards rushing 959. They scored five touchdowns. Last week against the Chargers, he had 15 rushes, 62 yards, got seven passes for 45 yards. It was a big part of the offense. This week they're going up against the Rams who have over the last five, six weeks, giving up a lot of yards on the ground. Last time the Seahawks played them, they ran for 190 yards. So I just think however you feel about Mike Davis

and or Rashad Penny, the Seahawks backfield is going to have a ton of volume running the ball. And so right now, Mike Davis is in front. Craig, if you think Penny's a bi-low guy, I'm not necessarily going to argue with you because I just ultimately think volume is the most important thing. But if Chris Carson can't stay healthy,

Davis is an ex-man up right now. And so I think he's worth an ad. I'd be lying if I said I'm not losing steam on Rashad Bernie. Much like Rashad Penny. But I'm living in denial. Pete Carroll said today they need to get him more tries or something like that, which is, and I guess Schneider said it, John Schneider, the GM.

He said it before the game two, they want to get him more involved. We keep hearing that they want to get him more involved. I'll believe it when I see it, but... Let's move on from people who don't matter. I'm just going to break the rules a little bit. I'm just going to run three in a row, right? He'll try to be a little quick. The four teams on buy this week are four.

Four of the most own defenses in the whole league. It's the Ravens. It's the Texans. It's the Broncos. I'm forgetting the fourth. Vikings. There we go. Those are, I think,

four of the top 12, three of the top six or whatever on ESPN and Yahoo. So I just wanted to run through a few defenses that are totally worth streaming. The Chargers are going against the Raiders. This one isn't super complicated. The Raiders suck. The Niners who are talented but really young and raw and have been horrible at times this year on defense. Hel them to almost shut them out.

which it's hard to describe how actually hard it is to shut an NFL team out. Like, it really doesn't happen. It's like, it's really hard to shut a football team out. Almost shut out the Raiders. Chargers are way better than 49ers. It's fantastic. If you can't get one of them, the bills are playing the Jets, which is hysterical. That's going to be, what a game.

Yeah, exactly, right? So this is going to be disgusting. Riley McAtee of the ringer, Sacktown North Cal Homer. who was my editor North Cal? North Cal? I don't know. I'm from New York, dude.

It would it be NorCal? It's NorCal, yeah. Oh, yeah, because everyone knows that. I think you're looking for NorCal. It's all right. It's like when New Yorkers say like, the city, you can be like, what's... Get out of here.

This is stupid. Sorry, Riley, North Cal. He's going to be mad. Anyway, he is doing a great piece for the ringer.com that will go up Tuesday morning. You should check it out about how the bills, as an opposing fantasy defense opponent

is like the best matchup of all time. the bills on average leagues right now like for ESPN for example their defense is averaging 16 points per week more than 16 points per week here are the players averaging more than 16 points per week in standard leagues this is Riley compiled this

Todd Gurley Melvin Gordon James Connor Alvin Camara Cream Hunt Seekwon Barkley and then that's it defense is facing the bills those are your top eight fantasy players on a weekly basis check out that piece from Riley on the ringer.com

Bill's absolutely incredible. Jets are owned in just over a third of leagues. So you got Sequin Barclay, just sitting on waivers. The flip side to that is that the bill's defense is playing the Jets. And Sam Donald leads the league in interceptions with 14. Nobody else is more than 10. Sammy D had 334 yards in week two. He's been under 230 every game since the next step one.

Buffalo's defense is like shockingly competent. They're like fourth in DVOA and efficiency per play. And you don't really see that. the box score because they by far have like the worst starting field position because the offense sucks and turns the ball over all the time. But the defense only gives up like 30 yards per drive like the, sorry, it's 30th

in yards allowed per drive. They're really good. And this game's going to be ugly and disgusting. And if you get a part of it, it'll be probably really great for your defense. So there. And ran. Oh my God. That is the worst game imaginable. But I do like that from a fantasy point of view. Last guy for me is Marquez Valdez Scantling and the Packers receiver. Going up against Miami this week, he's

kind of separated himself among the team's young receiver core. Geronimo Allison is hurt. It looks like he might actually go to the IR. At least he's going to potentially have surgery. Ranel Cobb isn't getting any younger. And Scantling, or Valdez, Scantling, looks like he's kind of on the uptick right now. Last week he had three catches, 101 yards. The week before that, two catches 45 yards a touchdown, and then, you know, so on and so forth.

He's kind of just emerged in this offense. He played 81% of snaps. And that was second only Devante Adams last week. He's recorded 100 yards or a touchdown. He should last four games. And he is the second highest graded receiver on the Packers this season for Pro Football Focus. So going forward, it looks like Aaron Rogers kind of starting to trust this guy. He's a big play guy.

Obviously, that passing offense has a lot upside just because of what Rogers can do. So as it's starting to become more clear kind of how that pecking order goes. I think now is the time you go and pick that guy up. I apologize to the Packers Beat writer who tweeted this because I can't remember who it was but they had a great joke and they were just said Geronimo Allison's getting Wally pipped

which I forgot who that was for a moment guy who got replaced by Babe Ruth yeah I think I love Geronimo Allison coming to the season for so many reasons and it's just it's unfortunate I think the timing with the concussion and the other entries I think MBS has supplanted Geronimo which is heartbreaking for me

yeah may we just point out we said that we would do this last week Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Danny Haifitz claimed that any receiver starting their first game in the middle of the season with a new team, you should not start them, and I said I'd keep track. Please do.

Dumas had three catches on three targets for 61 yards, 7.6 fantasy points, half ppr. Respectable, perhaps. How many points? Low end flex. Single digits. Seven point six. Did DeAndre Hopkins not have...

Three targets? Fifty plus percent of Deshawn Watson's throws went to DeAndre Hopkins? Well, he had all of that in the first quarter, so it's pretty impressive, technically. Nobody, so he threw to him and then decided, I'm not throwing back to this guy again. All I know is if Amari Cooper goes nuts tonight.

Let's move on. But before we move on, let's take a quick break. Football season is underway, and DK already has major regrets about his season-long fantasy teams. I'm sure most of you feel the same way if you listen to him. You spend all-offseason researching and getting excited for the draft, and then comes the pain, which is why we're so excited to be playing on Fandul all season. Over at Fandul, you get the excitement of researching and building your team. team each week regardless of the outcome.

Plus, Fanduel has never been more fun or easy to play. We've been playing in their Gridiron Pickham contest every week. It's a free contest where all you need to do is pick winners, no spreads, and then $10,000 to split amongst the top pickers. Trust me, if you're not a fantasy expert, then Fandul is clearly the place to play. Plus, new users get a $5 bonus when they make their first deposit. So come play with us at Fandul.com. The Ringer. That is fanduil.com

slash the ringer. All right, TK, let's run through some players that are probably going to be active on the waiver wire this round, or, well, the players that would be picked up on the waiver wire by active owners, and whether we're in or out on them and who we like, don't like so much. All right, let's start. Who's your first guy?

Theo Riddick of the Lions going forward, it kind of looks like he might be taken a little bit up of Golden Tate's role as sort of the slot receiver. per Ian Hartett's on Twitter Riddick snap counts out of the slough out wide from weeks 1 through 5 was only 4.4 a game on Sunday was 13 times so he's kind of splitting out a little bit more

he caught 7 out of 8 targets for 36 yards again it's really really I mean obviously it's not high yardage but in a PPR league he could be an option I'm kind of staying away from him again it's just the same thing it's just he's not picking up enough yards I don't know if he's going to be a red zone threat but it is something to monitor going forward If he takes up a big part of that Tate role,

he could be interesting going forward. For me, I'm out right now. Yeah, I don't like the Lions. I actually drop Matthew Stafford in a league the other day. He's owned it still more than three quarters of leagues. I think you can drop him. I think that the emergence of Carion Johnson has really just taken. It's made me realize how much of the Lions value is just at a volume.

That volume isn't there anymore. The offense isn't as good. I don't know what happened or a boy Jim Bob Cooter. I'm out on Detroit. Mine is Carry on. Fair enough. Next for me So Cordero Patterson

I'm speaking of names I can't say Cordial I think yeah That's how you say So he's Low Kig Patriots goal on Running back right now It was weird to watch

Because at one point they gave James White To score over you DK James White got like four straight Goll on carries But otherwise it was mostly Corderole Patterson I think it's kind of easy

to dismiss this Because Sony-Michel might come back soon But Sony-Mischel Last we saw him on a field everyone thought he was out for the season. Now we've switched back to like, ah, he'll be fine, he's got him back. Like, you don't know.

And again, it's a weekly league. It's hard to go with Belichick trusting running backs, but I would grab him because, again, so much of Sony Michelle's values goal lineback, and I would pick up Cordero. Yeah, I mean, to me, he's a desperation pick-up at this point. Obviously, Sony's going to come back at some point. But, yeah, until we find out,

it's going to be the most annoying, he's going to be the most annoying guy to have on your roster, too, because you know that the Patriots are going to go to like Saturday night before they declare anyone in or out or even Sunday morning. I think you always have like a running back on the edge of your bench who like is not a great play

and Cordill Patterson is one of the few people you can find on waivers that might be like an elite play in a given thing or just like a super solid one. That's really rare. Next guy, Jeff Hauerman from the Broncos. Is that how you say his name? How are you? H-E-U-R. This is one of those games.

When I throw his name in, actually just copy and pasted it straight from Howard and NFL. Hireman. Let's just go with Big Jeff. Big Jeff. He's like 6.5, right? He's a kind of similar deal with

Riddick in the sense that we're kind of seeing the fallout from trades with Tammarius Thomas leaving. He became a bigger part of the Broncos offense. We'll see if that's a fluke. Last week he got 10 and 11 targets for 83 yards and a touchdown. I don't know if that's going to be

kind of what happens going forward in their offense or it's just kind of a game-specific thing. or whatever. But with so few tight ends that are actually viable as starters, it might be worth the pick up this week. He's on a buy. If you have, if you've been streaming tight ends or if you're worried about your tight end situation,

I think he could be just worth of speculative at at this point because, I mean, if you're getting 10 or 11 targets in any offense, it's going to be good, especially for the tight end position. So I'm taking a flyer on him in that case, but he is on a buy this week. More importantly, I'm wondering if he's Big Jeff or medium-sized Jeff. So 6'5-250, which is big. But among tight ends, it's not that big. And I'm looking it up.

And he is almost exactly in the middle. 46th out of like 100. Medium-sized Jeff. Medium-sized Jeff. MSJ. So you enter out on MSJ, DK. I'm in on him as a speculative ad. Okay, all right.

In on MSJ. I have, next to me, I have Alfred Blue. This is, I think, the new T.J. Eldon, for me, which is T. T.J. Eldon's useful this year, but he's in the spirit of the T.J. Eldon mindset for me. The guy who's like a backup who's in line to see touches and like on paper makes sense because

he's probably better than the guy ahead of him. He seems, the eye test, I think he's probably better than Lamar Miller, but like neither of them are explosive, neither them are fun to watch. They're not big play guys. They don't seem to have great vision in the field. It's hard to judge because their line is so bad. I don't really want to be judgmental and be like I have no idea what they

could do behind even an average line. I don't think the Texans are blocking very well. I think he could both usurp Lamar Miller for the job and be getting two-thirds of their carries and also

not that great of a play weekly. It's a really horrible no man's land because you're kind of speculating and then you can get it

and it still sucks. So you can try to pick them up but I actually don't have a huge vision for his I don't have grand visions for his future but I also think

he'll be a starter for the final stretch of the season. So it's weird. I'm not excited about it. I'm not excited about it. Alfred Blue's been there for so long.

It's been like five years and now finally somehow he's just going to be good now? Like, Jerich McKinnon was like that kind of wasn't it? Jerich McKinn was always a spark freak. It was always like, oh, somebody's got to give him the ball. No one ever said that about Alfred Blue. And now year five, suddenly he's just kind of relevant. He's just there.

But I'll be honest, I thought that about TJ Eldon. I thought that about TJ Eldon. He was always just there, averaging three yards of carry and a terrible offense that never, I mean, was worse for the Jaguros because they were never running the ball because they were his behind. So you're out on Blue. Yeah, no.

Well, you can pick him up. He's probably better than whoever's wasting away on your bench, but he's also like not, not exciting. Going forward, Curtis Samuel, the Panthers.

Last week it was the DJ Moore show. They kind of made him a focal point of their offense and got him, they manufactured him touches. This week, it was more about Samuel. Although, to be honest,

still not very many touches. He had one run on an end around for 33 yards in touchdown. He actually went like 100 and some yards on that run in total. And then two catches, 25 yards and a touchdown. I am not super, you know, I'm not really convinced that it's going to be sustainable. I actually, this, and watching that game last week,

maybe quite a bit lower on DJ more too, just because I thought they were going to keep manufacturing touches for him, getting them like six, seven, eight touches, and it just didn't happen. Instead, they went to Samuel. It's good for the Panthers office going forward, but I'm not really sure if it really, it makes me a little bit less confident in their really sort of viability right now going forward.

So I'm kind of just wait and see mode with Samuel. I don't necessarily think he's worth a roster spot at this point but unless he starts getting really consistent touches. Yeah, and I mean, shouts to you because you did identify DJ Moore

and you had a whole thing about the Panthers last week on the site. That was pretty dead on. So I trust you on the Panthers. Well, I mean, yeah, it's good for their offense. Like I said, it's good for their offense. They're getting those guys more involved.

But it's kind of like they're eating into each other, snaps a little bit. And so it's really, it's tough to know who to trust at this point. I was going to say more was way, way ahead of him of Samuel last week. And then Samuel kind of took the spotlight this week. So just a little bit confusing still. Yeah. And last one for me, this is, I mean, I have no idea if people care. But I just went through this personal journey in the Ringer League.

And I'll just say this quickly. but I had Royce Freeman on my bench and I decided that you know what I wasn't really willing me and Palo who is also the president of football operations for a team we were not willing to go to war with Royce Freeman this year and we cut him for Josh Adams at the Eagles

speculative as hell but basically he's a rookie he fumbled he has been unimpressive at various times but I think there's actually a solid chance that by week 13 he's the starting running back on the defending Super Bowl champions high flying offense goal lineback Corey Clement and Smallwood have both been

outperforming and deeply underperforming expectations at various moments and there's been injuries and I think that Adams actually is a weird shot. So I'm curious to see coming out of the buy what the target and the snap count distribution is. If not, you just got them. But I had this spot to spare because I don't like Royce.

So goodbye, Royce. Yeah, he's a good flyer. I like it. But all right, let's go a little deeper into that about who you're willing to go to Warwick and non-trade deadline stuff. But before that, let's take a quick break. We're also brought to you by ZipRecruiter. Hiring used to be hard. Multiple job sites, stacks of resumes, a confusing review process.

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R-I-N-G-R-N-FL. ZipRecruiter.com slash ringer NFL. ZipRecruiter, the smartest way to hire. All right, T-K. Final segment, I love it. Trade deadlines, this is what it's all about because what is fantasy of football, if not staring at your roster

and someone else's roster. thinking of trades that will literally never happen but then just sitting there thinking about how good your team could be. It's really the whole point of it. It's the fantasy American dream, I think. So let's go through. We're going to start with basically guys that we think should sell and you probably could just get rid of them

while they're high and then we're going to go through some bylaws for a second. But who are some cells you're looking at right now? So the first guy on my list, I think, is Eric Ebron from the Lions. or sorry, Eric Kiebron from the Colts. He's been a big part of that offense in the first half of the season, got a shitload of targets, a shitload of red zone targets, and basically it was just benefiting from everyone else on that offense being hurt. Going forward, he is now going to be kind of replaced, I think,

in a big way by Jack Doyle, who is back on the field. I think Jack Doyle is kind of the number one title. in that offense. And actually last week, not this last week, but the way before, Eron actually was fourth among tight ends on the team in snaps. He played behind

Mo Ali Cox and Ryan Hewitt. He only played 17 snaps. Jack Doyle played 52 in that game. Now, he got saved by a touchdown. So on the stat sheet, he's still looking pretty solid. So if you can get rid of him at this point and get anything of value from him, I think it's definitely worth

doing just because I think his role is going to be severely diminished going forward. I think it's hard because, like, tight end's so thin this year, like, what are you going to get? Who are you going to play a tight end behind him? And it's like maybe, because the difference between him and, like, C.J. Uzoma, I know you love your C.J. Usoma is so big that even the thought of him, just getting Red Zone looks and or if Dwell gets hurt again,

because Dwell has not been healthy this year. Yeah. I can see wanting to hang on to him solely because I have, I see that it would be hard to get a trade return for him that would make up for how shittier tight-end position might be. even if he gets worse. Yeah, I mean, it obviously depends on your roster, but for instance, like, I've got him and Kittle in one league,

and I'm just, I'm dumping Eron as much as I can just because I think his role, like, he carried me for, you know, six, seven weeks. I don't know. It was a big part of my offense, but I don't know if that, I just don't see that kind of, like, continuing to the second half. I've never carried two tight ends. I just sheerly out of principle, because I always felt there was,

I rarely do. This is, this year is testing me. Yeah. I didn't suck. Another one, I was surprised to see this, but I see where you're going with this. You also have Agent Peterson as a cell. Yeah. So he, first of all, he's very inconsistent.

Like, he'll put up a goose egg one game or like a relative goose egg, and then he'll have like 25 carries for 150 yards in a touchdown or whatever in the next game. Very kind of frustrating guy to have in your starting line up. What's that? It's called the best running back of a generation inconsistent. Well, he is at this point. 32. 33, I'll have you know.

33. There we go. Shameless plug. I wrote about his old man's season on the ringer.com. There you go. Because Donny Kwok bullied me.

I mean, I've always been kind of a Peterson fan in terms of I think he's better than the narrative would say he is at this point in his career.

But at the same time, he's very, I think, game script dependent. You know, if they're close or winning, he's going to get a lot of carries. If they're not,

he kind of just disappears. Number two, the Riskinsins off. offensive line is just decimated at this point. There's several guys on that line that are hurt. I don't know how effective they're going to be able to run the ball going forward. I could see them leaning more on Chris Thompson when he gets back and he's more when he's more healthy. So overall, like Peterson's numbers look pretty solid right now.

People could look at that and say, I want to get like a Belkow-E type back for my second half of the season. I think you could take advantage of that. Yeah, I actually, so I did a piece in this and basically Adrian Peterson is having perhaps the best old guy running back season ever for anyone over 33. And I actually think because he's a physical freak could keep that up. But today they announced Brandon Shurf, who is a very good guard for them, Taurus pictorial. Their other guard, Sean Neval Tour is ACL.

That is brutal. They got good news about right tackle Morgan Moses, but brutal lose your two guards in the season he's having. So that's probably, if you could just sell someone who even thinks he will maintain, it's probably a good call. who you got on your list this is one interesting Craig suggested Ty Why Hilton as a buy as a sell

I was going to suggest Y Y Hilton as a buy so I actually wanted to hear from Craig real quick because that's interesting to me well so as a TY Hilton owner I feel like you need to bank on he's had a lot of short touchdowns this year

he's not doing TY Hilton things even if he's putting up somewhat TY Hilton numbers he's 41st this year in Target share and his area are super low. They used to be super high back in 2016 when him and luck were firing. And he's basically cashed in on like three, two-yard touchdowns that have salvaged all of his fantasy days.

But his targets, his area yards, everything is low right now. And with Jack Doyle back, I think his red zone opportunities are going to go down. Mack has been great. I think now is the time. Yeah, they're running a lot more. Yeah, to sell Hilton. So that all makes sense. And I think a big piece of what the Colts have done this year is they basically decided we need to protect

Andrew Luck because I think he led the league in Saxes. it's very close to it multiple times early. Obviously he's getting hurt. Frank Wright comes in and basically says, let's stop this downfield things where you need developing routes where luck has to be in the pocket for a long time. And obviously he's fearless and takes the hits.

And instead of leading the league in average depth of target, we're going to be at like the bottom of it. It's by far the lowest of his career. He went from like being top 10 every year of his career. He's like almost basically last now. And like from 10 to 6,

which is a massive range. And now he's getting the ball out way quicker. And obviously for a deep threat like Ty Hilton, when the whole goal is to throw the ball sooner, that's really hurting him. But at the same time, what you said about he's not doing T.Y. Hilton things, I think that's why you should look for him

because I don't know what you're getting for him right now because he's averaging nine points a game. And, like, if you have him, I'm sure you expected big things, but I think he's one of those divisive dudes where if you didn't draft him, like you kind of don't like him, he was hurt. I don't think you could get a great return for him. I don't know, maybe you could, maybe you couldn't.

But I actually think it would be worth targeting him because I don't know. Maybe owners are fed up. But this goes to a larger point about like something we're going to discuss, which is relevant to everything we're discussing, which is like it's hard to look at specifics of players because you really have to apply principles about trading at the deadline because sometimes you're going to have owners in your league who's your friend

who just like loves T.Y. Hilton thinks T.Y. Hilton is really good. And like it's going to hold on to T.Y. Hilton. And it's going to be irrational about it. And it's like it's annoying, but like trading has nothing to do with being rational. It's like it's a skill and identifying how owners feel about certain players just like half the battle. And you know what's a huge part in trading and fantasy

is so, you wouldn't think a lot of people do this, but a lot of people click the evaluate trade button on Yahoo or on ESPN, and they basically just look at the projections for the rest of the season, and if it's green and it says they're going to earn points, they accept the trade,

and if it's red, they don't. TY is one of those guys where he's pretty like nicely projected. He's always kind of around the 12 range, and then people also go in and click the little profile and just look at what he's done, and he's got a bunch of ones in the little touchdown margin. Mind you, those projections also the rest of the season, Projecting any NFL anything more than two weeks out is absolutely laughable.

Totally. I agree. No, I'm agree. Because it's like there's no one has any. You don't know how many of the 22 players will be playing. It could be 10 of them. So like Adam Humphreys may outscore T.Y. Houghton for the rest of the year, right? Let's just say some random thing like that could happen. But from the projection standpoint, no one would ever do that because he's going to be projected like seven points a game.

Ty W.I. looks good in the future. So I think the most important part of that is this is a pillar of me. You have to like be cold. about your own players, which is hard because you know you got your team, you got your chemistry, you got your locker room and everyone's getting together and everyone's getting along and you're winning and it's doing good, but you got to be a cold jam. That's the role.

That's the job. Can't get too attached to your own players. Are you guys going to be buyers then? Oh, oh. Are you saying the ringer league? Like just in general, are you guys looking to trade a lot? Yeah. My God. Always tinkering. Always tinkering until you get the perfect There's not enough trading. That's like the one lot thing that no one does. You got to always be willing to tinker because like you just have random

players in your roster, and you can always improve somehow, and it's just a matter to figure out who, and honestly, what other owner is willing to spend like an hour texting with you or whatever. But at the end of, the rough metric I use, a rough litmus test is, are you willing to play this person given what you're now in a fantasy

matchup and, like, lose because they sucked? Like, are you willing to go to war with them? And if not, like, all right, put them on, like, be willing to trade them away or cut them. Like, it's, you know, you got to make hard decisions. But on that note, the most divisive thing of this all, of everything right now. Levi-on-Bell seems to be returning.

Seems to be. James Connor might be going to the bench. And so I actually reverse this. I think Levi-on-Bel might be a sell right now. And James Connor might be a buy. Right now he is, yeah. Because, again, it's all contextual. If there's someone in your league who is like loves Bell

and just think he's automatically going to become a top five, even a top seven running back immediately, I would trade him away. And it's hard to gauge what you would get for that because it's all contextual and like, but I could get

Christian McCaffrey from I'd do it in a heartbeat. And like James Connor, it's the exact opposite. He's a top five back. And if you have an owner who's like freaking out that he's going to lose,

Connor for any extended time, I would see if you could get him for something, I would toss out something of middling value because I think Connor is going to have fantasy value. Even when Bell comes back, anytime Bell misses for any reason, even he pulls a hammy,

And he's out for the game. Connor's a top five running back. And just having that even for one week in the fantasy playoffs is worth losing Demarius, freaking Thomas. How petty do you think that the Steelers are going to be with Bell? Is he even going to play when he comes back? Oh, I think he absolutely. I think they get over it so quickly.

Yeah. Yeah, I think he absolutely plays. But again, it's like even a third of the carries in Steelers' offense is very valuable. All right. Another buy a few, D.K., who else you got? Carry on Johnson and the Lions, I think, going forward, I mean, this last week, the last two weeks really have not been super indicative of, you know, I think what the Lions want to be, but they do want to be that sort of smash-mouth game,

smash-mouth offense where Caron is a big part of it. I think he's got the talent to be that bell cow back. And with trading away Golden Tate, I think that makes them potentially even lean on him a lot more, you know, and partially in the passing game too. So I like Johnson a lot going forward. Now, their schedule is pretty tough, but he's still a guy. guy that I think even if the script kind of changed up and they have to start passing, he could be used in the passing game. So I just like him a lot as sort of like

a foundational piece of the lines offense. I'm looking to trade for Johnson. I disagree with you because I think the window for that's over. Like I'm down to get him. I feel like if you have Karen Johnson, you're probably already in love with him. Lo-key. Yeah, but that's the problem. The last two weeks, he's been kind of quiet. 12 carries for 37 yards against Minnesota And like three catches for seven yards Like now is the time to get him If it's gonna happen

All right, that's fair That's fair Well I think the interesting thing is like When you are looking to trade someone away You only look at their high performances And when you're looking to trade for someone You only look at when they fucked up And it's like that's like the most fundamental thing

Is it's like you have to kind of remember Like the Tyoy Hilton thing It's the ultimate like That story of like you know You're saved in the snow And you're like oh like I'm not I'm not going to get into this. It's the point is that we have different perspectives.

You see things differently based on your experiences. You can look at the two things. It's like scouting the NFL drafts. You can look at the exact same things that come to different conclusions. We can both look at T.Y. Hilton's performance week by week and be like see completely different outcomes. Because we're selfish beings

and it's human nature is a fickle enterprise where we're concerned with risk. You got another brown player on your list now, don't you? I do. You love the browns more than anyone. I do love the Browns. Jarvis Landry, basically, this is a guy I think their owners are frustrated with

because I think he's had one double-digit performance since October or since September. So I think he's someone that you're probably frustrated with if you're an owner. You probably wanted more by now. I think the Brown's offense is about to pick up a lot because Freddie Kitchens has got it going. And it's just going to come around. I have similar thoughts to him and Keenan Allen to a lesser degree, both drafted high and have not performed how high they've been performing. Keenan has been far more consistent than Landry,

but I think they're both two guys that their owners might be frustrated about why they're not doing as well, and that it might be willing to sell for less than they were drafted for, and I think they're going to start performing way closer to what they were drafted for, if not outperform it. Yeah, absolutely. Same deal with Dalvin Cook, I think, actually. You know, obviously he had that big run, 70-yard run last week,

which kind of, I guess maybe makes him less of a sleeper. But going forward is he gets healthier. I think they're going to lean on him more. And we saw Latavius Murray really produced in that offense. I think Cook, given the same opportunities, could really go off in the second half. He's a more dynamic player. Obviously, health is a big factor. But if you're looking to kind of buy low on a guy, I think he'd be a great option because people,

I'm guessing a lot of fantasy managers probably kind of giving up hope at this point with him kind of emerging just based on the health. But that 70-yard run, he looked pretty good. And so I'm buying low on Cook, hopefully, for the second half run, because I just think he's a really dynamic running back, and there's room for production that offense. If you've made it this far with Cook, I understand wanting to hold on because you got that run, but at the same time, I also understand wanting to cut bait the moment he does anything on the field, predictable.

Because unless you have Latavis Murray, it's so brutal that he doesn't come. So I'm afraid he has a roll of the dice, but I think it's worth it. The flip side, see, I think that you probably, he had that big run, and I feel like people were probably going to want to hold on to him. A guy I actually think his value is cratered a little bit. Aaron Jones, who I still think is going to get the job in Green Bay. He fumbled last night and Sunday night football. Low-key, high-key, kind of lost the game.

I still think he's going to get the job. I still think Rogers wants him to get the job. You're at the mercy of Mike McCarthy, though. I'm at the mercy of Mike McCarthy and Jamal Williams' mediocrity, and I'm still think he's going to be a top 20 back. If he gets the job, he's top 15 going forward. I would definitely snatch him from someone who's been holding on him for two months and then is willing to give up because he just fumbled

on Sunday at football and probably lost the job, he's someone I would give away. That's fair. One guy I want to trade for going forward, Josh Gordon, the Patriots. I think that they're going to start using him a lot more. It feels like they're really trying to feed him the ball. He's getting more comfortable in that scheme.

We saw it last on Sunday night football, 10 targets, 5 catches, 130 yards, one touchdown. I mean, the talent is still there. I think Brady wants to make him a bigger part of it. And I just think he's trending in the right direction. Right now, he's a little bit inconsistent. you have to worry about kind of him getting suspended or something like that going forward based on

there was reports that he missed or he was late for some team practices and things like that. We don't really know for sure if that was actually true or not. But yeah, going forward, he's a little bit, I guess, concerning, but I just think the talent he has, the upside he has in that offense

makes him a really interesting trade target. DK, can I give you a few players to ask if you'd rather have them or Josh Gordon? Yeah, let's do that. Jarvis Landry. I think I would rather have Gordon. Give me Jarvis. Kenny Galladay.

I'd probably take Galladay. That's tough. They're both like super high upside guys. Tyler Boyd. Boyd just because he's volume. And Greens hurt. Also in Gallaudet, I didn't put him on because Golden Tate got traded, but Goladay is going to be an absolute stud.

And he's had two slow weeks, but if somebody thinks he's not going to be great, go get him now. I would overpay for him. Like, I straight up would give up too much because he's going to be awesome. Who else you got on your list? Sony Michelle, I mean, this is weird because you could convince me either way. I think that if you have Sony Michelle

or if someone in your league has Sony Michelle and they're like on the bubble of the playoffs and like they're three and four or four and four or whatever and like it's five and five. I don't know what week it is. But they're like, don't know if they're going to make the playoffs and they need to start win the next three weeks. I think he's obviously coming back this season.

I think there's suddenly an assumption that he'll be fine when he comes back and just take these. I don't think he's going to be himself for a few weeks. I'd be interested to see if you could do a short-term kind of deal.

James Connett would actually be nice, neat. But trade them something that like I will help you for the rest of November if you are in a position where you have enough wins that you're worried about December.

And that's a great fantasy playoff trade. If you have the luxury of being able to part with people short-term that I think that would be pretty, it's a pretty easy way to upgrade. Like if you have Lamar Miller

right now, maybe trade him for Sony-Michel. Yeah, anyone that they can plug into their lineup. I would just look and just be like, what do you have that you don't want the playoffs and Sonny Michelle's an improvement over

and that's actually like a symbiotic deal because it's a cliche but it's true that like the best deals are like the ones that make the sense especially if you're in a league where like you're dealing with the same people over and over like you might want to try to crush a trade but if you like just get the reputation of like the guy you send shitty trade offers

that's like the worst because then nobody ever wants to deal with you so it is good to if you can't be genuine at least pretend to be genuine I think it's actually if you're in a league with people for like or 10 years, it actually works to like actually, you know, your reputation matters, Craig. This is related to the Sony Michelle thing.

Where do you guys stand on Leonard Fernette? Like, if you have Fournett, are you just waiting it out and being like, he's going to help carry me down the stretch? Are you just trying to get rid of him while he still has any value? So there's... I don't think you can get rid of him. Yeah. I think he just has to have him. Well, actually, that's an interesting.

Would you trade for Fournet? Well, it's weird because there's the Dalvin Cook-Lutavis Murray thing, where hopefully you grab Murray. and hopefully you grabbed Yeldon. The Carlos Hyde thing is such a wrench because suddenly you're screwed because you almost definitely don't have Carlos Hyde. Which is brutal. Yeah.

I just don't... To me, the fantasy playoffs are like about mitigating risk or at least calculating it. Hamstring injuries that have cost you this much time, it's like... It's still so risky. And I don't know if, like, even if you wait him and you time it

and you can buy low and you send something bad and you get four net and you stash him on your bench, are you playing him in the fantasy playoffs? And he could just pull up in the second quarter and you're like, oh my God, you have four points.

And it's like, that's kind of terrifying because you probably have a good team if you've made it this far. And it's hard to disrupt it because, you know, it's a big name, but at the same time, it's like, I don't know. I was super in on him. I thought he was going to be huge

and have a huge part of the offense this year. We'll never know. I think you probably got to hold on to him if you've made it this far. I mean, I am, but I don't feel great about it. Just like,

I don't know what you could. You could probably convince someone to be like, oh yeah, he's going to take over when he gets back and he's going to be that 135-yard two-touchdown guy again. Would you trade Sony-Michel for him? I would, what?

No. No. No way? I was trying, like Jarvis Landry. I don't think you could get Jarvis Landry. Actually, that's a good one. I would probably trade him for Jarvis Landry. Do you want to play him with your life on the line?

Do you trust Fordett more than Alex Collins? Alex Collins gets benched because he gets fumbles but not because he gets hurt. Yeah, no, I'd rather have Alex Collins.

Oof, yeah, brutal. All right, full time, Craig, because we're going off the rails here. Do you have any buyer-sell candidates? I do have one buy, and it's Evan Ingram. Tight end on the Giants. Tight end is extremely sparse, as people know, but if somebody drafted Evan Ingram

and he got hurt and they've been playing somebody like O.J. Howard, who's now like a top six tight end, I would go after Evan Ingram. He's been really slow this year, but he's still kind of getting back in the swing of things from injury. And last year he was the tight end five.

I think he's really underrated. He's basically a wide receiver. So if you can get Evan Ingram for a decent price, I would say do it while you can. That makes me feel better because they have him in the Ringer League, and he's been really not helpful. Hold on to him. Okay, I'm going to do that.

Thank you full-time, Craig. Hopefully, Ivan Angram will not disappoint you like he has the New York Football Giants. Thank you, D.K., who I have Coralton Sutton for you, man. Just let me know. Yeah, we'll see. We'll see. Yeah, we'll see you guys on Friday. And once again, thank you to Fandul.

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