The Ringer NFL Show - The Stars Are Now Scrubs, Plus: Is Borrowing Fantasy Players Fair? | The Dantasy Football Podcast

Episode Date: November 12, 2019

Most of the highest-paid running backs in the league had terrible weeks. Who can we trust? (2:20) Plus, we break down the Rams’ 2019 plummet into a ravine before picking our streamers in a bye-filled Week 11 (26:30). Then we adjudicate the case of borrowing fantasy players on another edition of Fantasy Court (46:45) Hosts: Danny Kelly, Danny Heifetz, and Craig Horlbeck Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Today's episode of the Tennessee Football podcast is brought to you by State Farm. When you need a game plan for protection, State Farm agents are here to help. With personalized service, agents are available to talk in person, over text, or through the State Farm app. So go at the one with coverage and agents you can count on. Find an agent in your neighborhood today. State Farm. Talk to an agent today. Zorro.com is where you'll find everything you need for businesses of any size. in almost any industry.

They have tools, equipment, and supplies for everything you need, whether you need stuff for industries like electrical, plumbing, manufacturing, or more. Zoro's got it from brands you know and trust. And Zorro.com offers amazing customer service from real people based in the U.S. Visit ZOR.com slash NFL in all lowercase letters to sign up for Z-mail and get 15% off your first order. football podcast on the Ringer NFL show on the Ringer podcast network. My name is Danny Hyphitz and I am joined as always

by my co-host and my co-danny, the hero we need and the analyst we deserve. The Dark Knight himself. Danny Kelly. How are you doing, D.K.? I'm doing really well. I have Shakira Hips Don't Lie stuck in my head all day because of that Dak Prescott Hips Don't Live video,

which is awesome and hilarious. That's how I walked into the studio today. Yeah, Craig just like Chachaw. in like the cha-cha real smooth. Just hip thrusting through. It's definitely what I do while you're introducing me to like get myself hyped up. I do the hip, the whatever. I don't even know what you want to call that.

Hip thrusts. It's pretty impressive, I'm going to be honest. Danny, your hips note lie. Your analysis never lies. So it makes sense. How are you doing, Craig? hip thrusting on your way in here? I'm doing good.

I got another win this week on the streamer of the week thing, but we'll get to that later. I wish you know, I'm going to stop asking them. Coming from behind. Feeling really good. Damn it. Well, I don't want to talk about that. I do kind of want to talk about something that made me go what this week. Yeah.

All the good running backs were bad, except Christian McCavory. So the highest paid running backs by average annual salary are Ezekiel Elliott, Todd Gurley, Levy on Bell, David Johnson, Devante Freeman, and Sequin Barkley in order. This week, they ranked among running backs, and this is going into Monday Night Football, because we're recording this Monday afternoon. those guys ranked 24th, 30th, 9th, like last, like literally last, 29th and 27th on Sunday. And we're all going to go down, assuming Chris Carson and some Ninersbacks beat them.

So not great, D.K. Yeah, it was rough. It was insane. Sequin had one yard on 13 carries. Lowest rushing total for a non-quarterback with at least 10 carries since Reggie Bush in 2006. Levy on Bell had 34 yards and 18 carries. and at the end of the third quarter, Sam Darnold Scramble for 24 yards,

and he was the Jets leading rush around the day at that point because of the run. Alvin Kumar had four carries for 24 yards, and the Saints had their first game without an offensive touchdown since Drew Brees and Sean Payton showed up in 2006. Wow. Saints only ran it 11 times, I think I saw. Yeah, Latavis Murray had five carries for 12 yards.

So that was just, that was a team-wide collapse. David Johnson had two yards on five carries, one catch for eight yards, So zero in PPR and negative in less than PPR because he had a fumble on the catch. David Johnson, dust, as the kids would say. Is that what the kids would say? I'm going to be honest. I didn't know that.

Yeah. That's news to me. And we are the de facto kids of this podcast. But his hips don't lie, so I'm going to trust you on that one. And then Todd Gurley, 12 carries for 73 yards. Actually, his best game by yard just since week one, did not touch the ball in the fourth quarter. Jeez. Zeke Elliott, 20.

carries for 47 yards stuffed on second and two and then lost yardage and third and two to lose the game. And that doesn't even count with Shaw McCoy. He was a healthy scratch. So, what a world? What a world. That all made me go what? At least Aaron Jones is still out there carrying teams. And McCaffrey's great. But what do you make of all these guys? I mean, again, those are the highest paid guys at the running back position and they were all booty. I think it was an outlier week. And I wrote about this in my column last night. I think Sequin and Levyon Bell are good positive regression candidates down the stretch. I mean, obviously, Barkley's not having like a bad season by any stretch,

but he's clearly not having the season he had last year. Part of that is due to the ankle injury. Part of that is just due to, you know, the Giants have a few more mouths to feed in the offense now. They're passing a little bit more. So there's multiple variables, but Barclay still has, you know, elite usage. and I think he's going to come back to, like he's going to positively regress back to where he should be, I think closer to where he should be.

Now, this is all assuming he's actually healthy because he was apparently banged up in the game, and they were very sort of vague about it after the game, so we have to kind of monitor his health going forward. But for Barclay especially, I think he's a good positive regression candidate. It should be getting back going down stretch. Yeah, and Sinklin, he's getting an MRI on Monday, but the Giants are on by this week,

so probably not a huge candidate to be out for week 12. Pat Sherman told coaches Sequin was fine. So Wayne Galman could potentially be an ad for Sequin, but that's if he missed his time. But he already only missed a few games with that ankle injury. Yeah, he's Wolverine. I think Bell has a chance to do pretty well down the stretch also

just because the Jets schedule down the stretch is incredibly easy. You know, they've got trying to find it. They've got like Washington, Oakland, a bunch of really bad teams, Miami on their schedule. That gives them, it gives him a chance to really kind of break out. Oh, Cincinnati, too. So he's got Washington, Oakland, Cincinnati, and Miami the next four weeks. So I think he has a chance to kind of get back to where people want him to be too.

And yeah, Leveon Bell, 46 qualifying rushers. He is dead last in yards per attempt at 3.1 yards per carry. So out of all these guys, who do you like the most going forward? Like, who are the top two you would want? It's Zeke and Kamar still, right? I might put Sequin above both of those guys. I'm not really sure. It's really, really tough because Sequon's so dangerous in the passing game, but...

I guess I'm just betting on the offense, which is the same... I think David Johnson's last for me. Yeah, that's the easy one to put there. Don't even know that he's going to get playing time anymore, whether that's because of health or whatever. They took him off the injury report on Friday, which is the really concerning part, because in some ways that's all we have is those Friday injury reports as a gauge. I mean, you get taken off, and then he just looked so slow.

Like, he just didn't look himself in a way that you just feel. feel like maybe you should have been in the injury report Friday. He got benched. He actually got benched. And they came out and said that kind of, you know, this morning, Cliff Kingsbury admitted they sat him down because they wanted to get Drake going. They thought Drake had given them a little bit of juice in the offense in the running game. Johnson looked like he was running in sand.

He said it was performance related. I honestly, I don't think he has a choice if David Johnson's not listed on the injury report Friday. I don't think they have a choice to say anything but it's performance-related because they took them off. Yeah, that makes sense. I think Johnson's last of that group. I mean, Devante Freedman's different because he's injured. Levion Bell, I would say, is above Johnson solely because at least you know he's going to get touches,

even if he is profoundly inefficient with them. Todd Gurley above Levion, but still really disheartening. And then, I mean, there's probably two or four tiers of running backs between him and then Saquan, Camar, and Elliot. What do you make of the Saints offense being so just awful? You got to chalk that up. Everybody gets one. Yeah.

That's a mulligan. Yeah, everyone gets one. I think you're right, because they got sacked six times in that game. Exactly. The Falcons had a total of seven sacks coming into the game. It was just the weirdest game of the entire season, probably. Yeah, the Saints were among, I think, the second hardest team to sack, counting Bridgewater and Breeze, and then the Falcons had the least sacks,

and then they sacked them a bunch. So everybody gets one. It's fine. They'll probably be fine. But in that game, Devante Freeman sustained a foot injury versus the Saints. he did not return. Ian Rappaport reporters of footspray, he's getting an MRI on Monday.

We do not know the extent of that MRI as of Monday afternoon. But Brian Hill had 20 carries for 61 yards in relief. So, Dika, do you like Brian Hill as a relief for Devante Freeman this week? Yeah, I mean, I think he's one of the top guys on the waiver wire that you've got to go grab this week.

If Freeman misses time, he's their starter because Ido Smith was put on injured reserve late last week. And so, yeah, he kind of like, slides into a starting role going forward. He might not have, you know, it's not going to be an ideal situation clearly, but he's going to get a lot of volume. And so he's definitely, I think, if not

the top guy, one of the top guys on the waiver wire this week. Another Falcon's injury from that game. Austin Hooper, the number one tight end in fantasy. I know, it's tough. It's tough for a tough position. Tight end, yeah, just getting more and more bleak. Battered. He had a knee injury in the fourth quarter, did not return. We do not know the exact injury at this time.

They, Luke Stocker next up, next man up in Atlanta. I mean, Titan's so bad. I was really earnestly looking for people that you could fill in. And I was like, Luke's, because I was like, you're not going to pick a Luke Stocker, are you? And then I saw that Chicago's Ben Brownecker who caught a touchdown this week and then Trey Burton's injured for a little bit. So maybe the Bears get there. Also, Adam Shaheen is like in the doghouse there.

Yeah, healthy scratch. Yeah, so that's not great. Second round pick. Yikes. Tight end. Not great. One last running back news, especially with all those guys underperforming. One last news with waiver wires.

Ty Johnson of the Lions, obviously they already lost Carry on Johnson. He's an injured reserve. Ty Johnson left this game with a concussion in the first half. J.D. McKissick had 10 rushes for 36 yards and then added six catches for 19 yards. He played 58 of 83 snaps. Paul Perkins, former giant love Paul Perkins. Seven rushes for nine yards, which is also kind of like when he was on the Jets. And one catch for nine yards and 15 snaps.

Hard to judge this game because Matt Stafford missed his first game since 2010. Like the last time he missed the game, the Democrats were controlling Congress, like, the first time. Like nine years ago. Is he been playing on a broken back? Yeah. No, he's had, well, he's had back injury. He actually and Derek Carr both had played through injuries all of last year and just didn't really tell people. And Stafford wanted to play through this as he often does.

The difference. His car was terrible when he was hurt. Stafford's been good. Stafford's had an awesome year. That's a bummer. I hope he comes back. Do we hear anything yet, in terms of how long term this is supposed to be

tried to play this week, so it can't be that bad, right? In terms of how much time you miss it? I'm just never going to say, can't be that bad for like broken bones in your back. Never going to be like, yeah, it's fine. That's probably fair. Who knows? Yeah.

J.D. McKissick, probably not the worst option if you think the lines are going to be passing a catch up with who they're playing, but it's also not great. Yeah, I mean, he's a... McKissick is a desperation guy for a rough, lots of buys this week, based purely on the fact that he's

going to get targets in the passing game. It's not like a good running back necessarily, but he's kind of their passing down back and he could have some value in PPR-only leagues. I think he's serviceable. You're being really hard on JD. Former Seahawk? I actually like him. I think he's a good player.

He's not a run through the, you know, between the tackles type of player. he's really small. He's actually, I think he was a receiver in college. So, yeah, he's definitely going to just be more in the passing game oriented. All right. Well, you might have to go to that because, as you mentioned, the buys this week are not quite as bad as this week where there are six, but there are four good teams on buy this week.

Pack. Yeah. I don't know good, but Packers, Titans, Giant Seahawks, so three of them are good. So that's Aaron Rogers, Russell, Wilson, Danny Dimes, and Tannahill at quarterback. The last two surprisingly decent fantasy options. Yeah, Tanahill? Where did that come from? Miami.

Are we back on the Tannahill I saw him Robert Bays? He's going to be really, really good on the Bears next year. There's a revisionist. I saw Maze

trying to like talk himself into not believing in Tannahill, which is like the best turn of events I can imagine. I can't wait for Maze to have like a 30-minute diatribe about how all of Tannahill's career

was wasted under Adam Gason who's actually excellent and that Matt Nagy can fix him. But he'll get there. Just give him a few months. But yeah, so let's get into some by, Craig, you want to sing the in sync

for this format? Because we're going to call this segment, bye, bye, you do this thing? I'm aware of the segment title. No, I'm not going to say it. I know, I was just saying it to induce you to, will you sing the bye-bye-bye?

No, thank you. D.K., will you sing the bye-bye-bye? Give us a little, you brought up Shakira. Sing the bye-bye-bye-bye. No, I will not. In solidarity with Craig. You can do it if you aren't. Yes.

Go ahead. Three, two, one. Bats, bye, bye. Oh, no. All right. We're moving on. A streamer for the buys this week. I like Derek Carr this week.

Raiders, playing the Bengals. If you really are in a spot. Back in on car, man. If you've got Aaron Rogers or Russell Wilson or Betty Dimes and you're like, I don't know who to play this week, you do better than the Raiders against the Bengals. Raiders are good. Bengals suck. Not that complicated.

Another one to look out for. Nick Foles has been named the starter in Jacksonville took over for Minchu Mania, which is a big bummer for me because I really liked Minchew. Maybe Minchu will end up earning the starting job again eventually. But for now it's Foles's offense again. And obviously there's a lot of uncertainty kind of how that will go going forward. We only saw him for, what, like a quarter in week one. He did throw a touchdown pass to DJ Chark.

So Chark, his value isn't necessarily going to change completely with Foles under center. But yeah, going up against Indianapolis, which may or may not have Brissette under center this week, that is a potential streamer for you as well. You know whose value is going to completely change with Foles under center? Our guy, Lenny Fornes. I know. I was going to say, can this only help him, right? He's got one touchdown. He's got one touchdown with Mention.

It's like he's going to get all the touchdowns now. They're all going to rubber band back. He's going to get 12 on the year and like 11 of them going to come with Nick Foles. I'd love that. I want to throw out one number for Fournett. Fournett has 214 touches, which coming to the week, that was the NFL high. It's not anymore after a week 10. But Aaron Jones after week 10 has 14 touchdowns on 170 touches.

214 touches one touchdown. You said one number that was like six, but I get your point. That's, so do you think that for... So is Fournet the number one running back after McCaffrey rest of the season? He has a chance to be the number one positive regression running back. Like he could start scoring touchdowns in like bunches going forward. Like if you were to redraft right now starting for the second half of the season, how high is Fournet going? He's a top five pick?

Man, he'd be up there. He definitely would be up there. He's probably like five or something. Unquestioned Belkow. He's getting all the volume in that offense. So yeah. Love to hear it. I mean, Craig and I have a lot.

Lenny forms. Craig and I have like series A Leonard Fornett stuff. Like we have like, we have that thing you can get in early. Like we have a hedge fund. It's like we can just get series A fund. Oh my God. It literally could not have worked out better. It's just beautiful.

Well, no, it could have. He could have had 14 touchdowns this year. Okay, I suppose you're right. All right. Let's move out. Let's keep this train rolling. It's slowing down. We've got burned some more call.

Darius Geis is back this week, maybe. Washington's playing the Jets, who are bad. Yet. Yet, they did hold Parkley to 30, no, wait, one yard on 13 carries. Have we made a determination about whether a yardage counts as yardage, or is yardage inherently plural? You know what? I think you're the only one asking that question.

Yeah. So do you like Darius guys as a flex this week? Are you worried about the Jets or you just think the giant suck? He's a dart throw He's a dart throw for me If you're desperate Throw him in your flex It could pay off

We still don't know how they're gonna How they're gonna split up reps Between him and Adrian Peterson I think they're still gonna run the ball a lot And they're gonna try and run the ball a lot That's Callahan's M.O You know, Dwayne Haskins has been named The Starter for the rest of the season

So I'm guessing they're gonna keep the training wheels on him And just try and run the hell out of the ball So there is some I guess potential value for Geis And I love Geis as a running back. But I just don't, no one really knows how it's going to kind of like shake out,

how they're going to use him, if they're going to slowly ease him in or what. So it's a dart throw for sure. All right, tight end here. We've got Jack Doyle against the Jaguars. I mean, the Colts, this is if Jacoby Brissette comes back

because obviously Brian Hoyer can't be trusted. But there will probably be without T.Y. Hilton and Paris Campbell in this game. And if Jacobi Bressett's back, Jack Dwell seems like maybe the number two option of that offense after Zach Pascal. So Doyle is pretty good, but he's owned in more than half a league, so maybe not. And then Craig, you want to take a couple of victory laps right here, these next two tight ends?

Thank you very much. Darren Fells, I'll just skip right past. He has touched down our bus, but every time I've been on him, I've been hitting. So love Darren Fells. But really, I wanted to move on to O.J. Howard. Who, I titled the episode, the O.J. Howard Redemption Podcast last week. You shot, your shot. I 1,000% shot my shot, half quarter.

Well played. And the man had 47 yards and a touchdown on Sunday. He almost had a second touchdown, too, I think. He did. He played like 99% of snaps. Looked really good. How's it feel? Pretty good.

I feel like, you know what? It's like the tide raises all boats. Like, this is good for the dynasty pie. You know what I mean? I'm trying to distribute the wealth. Now, do you think it's going to, do you think this carries over going forward, though? Because this was against, like you, like you pointed out, so astutely, the Cardinals who just give

like hemorrh jars to tight ends. Are you optimistic going forward? His usage was really good. You know, Bruce Ariens is like never really faltered on saying that they want to have him be involved. I mean, he's so talented. I don't know why you would. Chris Godwin's taking a dip like the past three weeks.

I would not be surprised if O.J. Howard's next five games are a lot better than his previous five games, which is not saying much. But I think he'll probably be, again, like with Austin Hooper going down now, like, I hate to say it, but O.J. Howard's probably like startable. You probably should start O.J. Howard, right?

If you have him or Darren Fells, I think I'm starting OJ. Howard. He's just more talented. I'm betting on the talent over everything else. Guys like Evan Ingram are out. Kittle might be out. Also, you're betting on volume because that passing game is just, they pass the hell out of the ball. Like we were talking about last week, they're like one of the most fun teams. They always seem to create fun games. That Cardinals game was really fun. And, you know, we looked heading into this week.

He was averaging around like 40 yards per game. what 38 yards per game, which doesn't sound great, but looking at the rest of the pool, he'd 47 on Sunday, I don't really know why you would, unless you got one of the big names, but I think he could be like

the number nine tight end for the rest of the season. It wouldn't surprise me. Dick, one last one for you, Kyle Rudolph? Kyle Rudolph is kind of flashed last couple games and with Thielen out, potentially another week. We'll have to kind of wait and see how that all goes,

but, you know, considering he re-agorated his hamstring, in a game. I'm guessing they're going to kind of play it safe with him. Rudolph has been a bigger part of the passing game. He had five targets, four catches, 14 yards, and two touchdowns. Obviously, he is another touchdown or bus type player,

but he has had touchdowns in three out of the last four games. So Kirk Cousins is looking for him in the red zone. He's an athletic, tight end. He can move around. They also have Irv Smith. You know, they can do some things in two tight endsets, but especially with feeling out, you know, he just kind of moves up the,

he moves up a rung or two. you know, in the target distribution. So he's another guy that have potentially streamed this week. With the holidays right around the corner, I mean, it's like you got to mention Kyle Rudolph's nickname, considering. Is it a nickname or is just his last name? Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer?

Rudolph the Red Zone reindeer. Oh, is that a thing? Yeah. That's his whole thing. No one knew that? I've never heard that. I just know him for the Grey Duck thing, and that's how I learned Minnesota instead of a different.

Oh, yeah. I don't want to get into that because they're very upset when you bring it up. All right, tie a bow on all that. All four of those guys are available, D.K. Jack Doyle, Fells, Howard and Rudolph, I want your pick for this week and then your pick for the rest of the season.

Going for it, like, who do I like this week? You mean? Yeah, of Jack Doyle, Darren Fells, O.J. Howard and Cowardtoldold. That's a good question. I'm going with Doyle. I concur. Going with Doyle for this week,

and then I'm with Craig. I would not be surprised if Howard starts to trend up rest of the season. All right. I like those. And then running back, so let's say, let's go for this week. if you got flex in someone off waivers.

Darius Geis is available, as is J.D. McKissick on the Lions. Wayne, well, Wayne Goldman's on by. But Brian Hill on the Falcons, Jady McKissick on the Lions, and Darius, guys. Who are you picking up? Hill would be my number one choice

if he's out there. And then this is just kind of how I operate. I'd rather take a gamble on Geist just because I think the upside is higher than with McKissick. But sometimes that definitely backfires. McKissick has a higher floor, Geiss has iron ceiling.

So I would tend to just my personality, I would go with Geis. Beautiful. All right, let's get in some categories. But first, let's take a quick break. This episode is brought to you by Ray Donovan. Returning to Showtime this Sunday, as Ray navigates the mean streets of New York,

we find everyone's favorite fixer determined to become a better man, but past threats resurface that require the ray of old. Once again, cleaning up after his father of Mickey's mess, Ray is forced to confront a dangerous enemy from their family's past while avoiding authorities hell-bent on putting the Donovan's behind bars. Will Ray do what's needed to fix the family's dilemma,

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Also, you got a great shout out on this season of Big Mouth. What are you talking about? Lee Schreiber got a shout out. Yeah, it was fun. It's good. All right. Weekly categories, D-Steving Yars, who is fools gold, who is not, who is for real? D.K.

Who at a big day this week that you are buying? Not buying? What are you doing? I'm going to ask you guys that. What do you think of Christian Kirk of the Cardinals? Pending Monday Night Football, he has a week high of all NFL players. 37.8 pvr points. He had 10 targets, 6 catches, 138 yards, 3 touchdowns.

He absolutely went off. He was a positive regression candidate coming into the week, one of several players. I think he had like 45 targets without a touchdown, which was second only to Mike Williams and Devante Adams. This is off the top of my head. So anyways, he was coming into the week due for a touchdown or two, and then he got three.

So on one hand, I'm definitely sort of bull. bullish on Christian Kerr going forward. I think that Kyler Murray is awesome. He's just continuing to improve that passing games, continuing to get better. But at the same time, you know, coming off a game where I think he scored 3.6 fantasy points last week, he has made a transition,

and this is an interesting usage note for him. He's actually running on the outside, almost exclusively now, after running in the slot 80% of his routes through week eight. In the last two weeks, he's only running in the slot 16% of the time. So he's playing on the outside now, and it's hard to take anything away from that because he had 37 points this week and 3.6 points last week against San Francisco. So obviously there's a huge difference in the quality of defenses there.

So I guess I'll ask you guys, how are we feeling about Christian Kirk? Do you think this was like a breakout or do you think it's more of an outlier? I mean, I believe in Niccolo's offense has gotten better. So in their first four games, Kyler had four touchdowns, had four picks, and took 20sacs. and their last six games he has eight touchdowns, one pick, and 11 sacks. So they just kept getting better and better. And I think it's been, I mean, he just, in this game he got picked, but he had the rookie record for consecutive passes without an interception.

So 211 attempts. And the previous record was like Dak Prescott, like 176. So Kyler's just getting better. And as he protects the football and he protects himself, like the whole lot, like, the Cliff Kingsbury thing has quietly like been working pretty well, the NFL level. And I think it's quiet because it's the card. and they're out of the playoff race, but they're getting better every week. And Kirk's target totals, like, throughout the season, he's had games of 12, 12, 11, and 10 targets this year.

And you just look at the talent on the Cardinals, I don't know if there's a lot of other guys who are going to take the ball away from him. I mean, you have Larry Fitzgerald and have banged up David Johnson. But besides that, I don't know why he wouldn't continue to be featured. Yeah, I think in this case, the volume makes him definitely. I mean, he's definitely startable every week. And I think, if anything, he's turning in the right direction. He's going to continue to be the number one guy in the offense. And as the offense improves, you know, he's going to be, I think he's going to score more touchdowns.

Now, that said, he's going up against San Francisco again. Again, this is Monday before the Seahawks 49ers game, so we don't know how that's going to go. But up until this point, San Francisco's defense has been really good. And they shut him down. Even though the Cardinals did move the ball against San Francisco last week, Kirk was not a big factor. So I wouldn't necessarily expect him to go off next week against the 49ers, but the rest of the season, I think he's definitely startable player. And then on the flip side, Cardinals are trending up, Kirk's trending up,

but then there's the Rams. What the hell happened to the Rams? Cooper Cup had zero catches on the day. And that, to me, like if there was one trustworthy guy in the Rams offense coming into this week, it was Cooper Cup. He was the wide receiver five coming into the week. And he was, you know, the highest. floor, highest ceiling guy in the offense, and he goes out and puts up a donut.

So what do we think of this whole thing? I guess I just ask you guys, is there anyone in this offense that you can trust? I mean, Craig hates Jared Goff in cold weather, for starters. Well, those tiny hands can't grip the ball. No, it's tough because it's real tough. No, but I mean, I mentioned this on the Friday show. It's the Rams, I mean, Jared Goff's not good under pressure. He needs to see receivers open and he's not good.

with people in his face. He gets pressured a lot. The Rams have probably the worst bottom, at best, bottom three guard combo in the league and they actually had some injuries this weekend. But that going against the Steelers, who this, after the Rams are one of the worst past blocking teams, the Steelers have the

highest pressure rate in the league for any team other than the 49ers. San Francisco and Pittsburgh are the only two teams that pressure opposing passers, more than 30% of dropbacks. And this, I mean, what's new is, it's not the Steelers. pass rush because the Steelers have the most sacks

since the beginning of 2017. So they've been doing it. But now they're blossoming because they got T.J. Watt leads to the league and quarterback hits. He's on pace to break his single season sack record, for his personal record. Bud Dupree has already tied his single sack record. He's got six. But now what's changed is with Minka Fitzpatrick,

they have the players in the secondary and the back end to really like start taking advantage of ball hawking. Pretty similar actually to the Steelers, but instead of adding pass rushers like the Niners did, they already had Richard Sherman and some other players. Now the Steelers have Minka Fitzpatrick that really brings out the best of like Joe Hayden and everyone. So you mix that, it's like oil and water.

You mix that kind of defense into the Rams leaky ass offensive line and then suddenly like the whole thing starts sputtering. So I mean, I wasn't surprised by this at all. The Rams have just a terrible offensive line. So do you think that's truly the only culprit? Not the only culprit, but I would say that, I mean, I was going to say like metaphorically an offensive lines, the center of an offense. It's quite literally the center of, quite literally what everything was. revolves around, like the center of the thing. And the center of the offensive line is the center. John Sullivan retired because the Patriots roughed him up in the Super Bowl. They were placed in

Brian Allen. I believe Brian Allen got hurt in this game. And I think they had to move, I could be, I think Austin Blythe to center. And then they were playing Austin Corbett at left guard, who was the, I mean, the Brown's 30 third so the first pick of the second round a couple years ago and was so bad that they couldn't even hand him a starting job, even though they tried everything. and they cut bait. Do you know how bad you have to be to be the 33rd pick in the draft and have your GM cut bait on you

after like 18 months? Like, abominable. And he's playing. It's out of position in this game. Like, you're going to get wrecked. But that's where the Rams are. And they can't fix it because they have no first round picks

for like four more years. Gurley's locked in. Gough is locked in. Gough is locked in. Gough looks like a deer in the headlights. Like this team isn't, there's no path to get better in the interior in the next year.

It's disaster. Yeah. It's bleak, man. So I, I feel like we've been talking about the Rams injury luck the last two years. After the last two years, I think they were like one of the most injury-free teams in the NFL the last couple of seasons. And the injury plague is definitely kind of catching up with them.

And it's made the wheels fall off on their offense. Do you trust Cooper Cup going forward? I think Cup is the only guy in this offense that I would actually feel really good about plugging into a lineup. And I still, and I don't feel really good about it anymore. I feel like Robert Woods has been pretty consistent every single week he dropped him, especially with Cooks out now.

I think the weirdest part of this offense is still what's going on with Todd Gurley, who like we said earlier, had zero touches in the fourth quarter, but he played 11 of the 17 snaps. They just didn't run any plays for him. There was reports in the offseason that they would start to ramp up Todd Gurley's,

like, touch rate as we got closer to the playoffs because that's kind of the whole point of resting him was to like kickstart him into the playoffs. But it hasn't really happened yet, and I don't know. I wanted to see if you guys had any opinions on why they were handling Gurley the way they are right now still.

I think it's two things. One, I mean, I hate this phrase. I'm getting tired of it already. Load management, not because preventative, but because they already screwed up his knee last year by giving him the ball way too much for how much they knew about his knee for last three years.

So they're now making up for it. Combined with he's not as effective because of it. Combined with, again, the line sucks, and I pulled this up. So PFF, there are 64 guards, which is a really neat number, that's obviously two per team, that have played 50% of snaps this season. And if you rank them by Pro Football Focus as past blocking grades, the Rams have,

Austin Blythe is 56 of 64, and Joseph Nobun is 53rd of 64. So it's just, it's just, it's not tenable. And then if you go by run blocking of the 64 guards, Joseph's no boom is 64th, so dead last, and Austin Blithe is 62nd of 64. Those are the two guards. And you wonder why they can't run anymore. The interior has literally collapsed,

and then Andrew Whitworth and Rob Havenstein on the tackles that have to make up for, like any other, like you're making up for the guy next to you, you're screwing up. And it just throws everything out of whack from this. The very center of their offense is collapsed. And McVeigh hasn't adjusted as well. I think the Rams are really like,

fascinating case study and just how little things that go wrong start to completely screw up the entire system. And you know what I'm? It's just like, it's not one thing. It's just several little things that have like completely snowballed and now they just can't do anything. They were the most dominant offense for the last two years and now they are like bad, like legitimately bad.

But it's funny because I feel like neither side of those are fraudulent. Like they were truly really, really good last year. and they're actually really bad this year. And both are correct. Yeah, I just think it's fascinating. I mean, that's, you know, neither here nor there. But it's definitely really interesting to see how the tables have turned. And McVeigh hasn't been able to figure it out.

And we all, you know, I mean, I am as big of them a McVey believer as anyone. And it's just been really shocking to see him not be able to kind of like get the Rams out of this. Yeah, the lack of adjustments been tough. Another interesting thing that happened on Sunday Not quite as interested in the Rams But it's interesting nonetheless LaShawn McCoy, healthy scratch Speaking of load management

They claimed it was related to load management Like a predetermined rest week Sounds like a really polite way To spin your healthy scratching your veteran When you want to get Darwin Thompson more reps Is my little two cents on that But anyway, Damien Williams Yeah, yeah 19 carries and five catches

Which is by far the most of Like this is what people drafted him to do in the third round this year. And so before this game where he had 24 touches, in the prior six weeks, he had 14, 7, 12, 2, 13, and 14. But his snap rates have been getting higher and higher the last two weeks. He's played 72% of snaps compared to like 42, 27, 38 and three weeks before that. Yeah, so they said they were arresting McCoy because they wanted to keep him fresh for the playoffs? I don't know. Yeah, probably not. I think he's been fumbling a lot. But I mean, Damien Williams just fumbled too.

So I'm not really sure it's going to happen. But I think I'm buying this. And I think Daniel Williams is actually going to be a guy for the rest of the season, barring some fumbling catastrophe. This is significant to me because you didn't like Damien Williams before the season because he just basically never made it through a whole season. He didn't. But if you just take touches for half a season and drag that out to a whole season,

that's still only around 10 touches a game. So they're just jamming all of the touches he would have had to whole season and half a season. And he can do it. what he did last year down the stretch. Yeah, he'd never had more than like 13 touches in the season. And look, they gave him 24 and he fumbled. So we'll see. I'm still hoping.

I'm still holding out hope for Darwin Thompson. It's not going to happen, though. I think you're right. Damon Williams is going to be the guy for the Chiefs down the stretch. Yeah, hope is a good thing, but not for Darwin Thompson the rest of the season. Well, speaking of hope, though, I will say one hope, Craig and I frantically needed someone to play. We had one of those weeks, like we have six players on by this week,

needed someone at flex. Picked up old Darius Slatein off waivers. Ten catches, 121 yards, two touchdowns. Talk about deceiving yards. Number two wide receiver of the week entering Monday night football. Starting just 5% of Yahoo leagues, but bang. Is this real?

We mentioned Slate a couple weeks ago when we had Rando Day for all the guys that scored touchdowns that no one had ever heard of, like Marvin Hall. And Slate was one of the people I think we all identified as like he could do it again. I wouldn't bank on him doing this for like the rest of November because they're on by at Chicago,

Danny Dimes will not fare well at Soldier Field, I promise. And then they're playing the Packers. But then they've got the Eagles who are way better than the Giants, but have a pretty bad cornerback depth. And then the Dolphins in Week 15 and Washington in Week 16, that's pretty good matchups for the fantasy playoffs. I don't know if I would carry them through that unless you're in a deeper league,

but really interesting is a flex option in the fantasy playoffs, or even if you're not making the playoffs, we just don't want to come in the last. You could do a lot worse since there is. Slayton. He looks really good, man. I think he's legit. I don't know, like, I'm with you that he's probably not a trustworthy weekly play, but non-fancy football related. I think he's the real deal, and I think he's going to be a good player in the league. He already is a good player, like Danny Times, obviously. I wanted to ask you about Danny Dimes, actually. What's,

what's the feeling right now? Because obviously, four touchdowns, that's awesome. He looked great at times. Also, the fumbling thing is a major issue. And his lack of pocket awareness, I guess, is a major, major hiccup. I'm just curious what the vibe is for Giants fans. Well, I don't think I speak for Giants fans. I had a massive argument with no one fellow Giants fan here this morning about Danny Dimes. I mean, look, you're our draft expert here at the Ringer.

And I think one of the best things you've instilled in me is that all these things we talk about arm strength or, like, vision. or speed, speed's a big one. We talk so much about the high ends of it, and in reality it's about the low and it's about the threshold. Arm strength, you can have a cannon like Mahomes. The reality is, do you have enough arm strength to make NFL throws, and then anything above the thresholds gravy?

And that's the case for speed and agility and all these things strength for offensive alignment. What I've been concerned about the last six weeks is that Daniel Jones does not seem to have past the threshold of like awareness. Like general awareness of who is standing around him and where the 22 people are on the field that like Deshawn Watson or Russell Wilson are like unbelievable just knowing where everyone is even if they're not like Deshawn Watson

has kicked in the eye and still can throw a touchdown pass because he just is keeping track subconsciously of where everyone is Daniel Jones is the opposite end of that spectrum that is handed the ball to Jamal Jamal Adams it's just concerning but having said that yeah the car don't judge anyone after a rookie year like who would have thought Jared Goff would have made the Super Bowl you know what I'm still on the boat, baby, but I would like him to know who is standing around him. I think Danny Dimes has been much, much better than I think I expected and a lot of people expected. But that said, I'm definitely still worried about that turnover there.

I think he's had 10, is it 10 fumbles in last three or four games? Three games, maybe. So he has 10 fumbles. He had his last four games, which is astonishing. He has 13 fumbles in the season. To put that in perspective, the most fumbles last year was 12. like four players died. And he's missed.

He didn't play the first three games or two games? Yeah. Would you rather have a fumbling problem or an interceptions problem? That's an excellent question. Fumbling. Fumbling, in my opinion, do you? Well, I think the more important is why do you have the problem? So if you're throwing a lot of picks as a rookie

because you're being coached to take chances and you're losing sometimes, eventually the rate goes down. But if you're throwing picks like James Winston where it's just like, you're doing dumb shit to just swing it because you're out of ideas. That's different. I'm not a fan of the fumbles because they're not like heroic efforts

in diving to win games, it's more like he just doesn't know what's happening. So that's upsetting. To tie a bow on this, though, overall, he does seem to have a very strong trust and chemistry with Slayton. And fantasy football-wise, I think that's important. He could be a good,

I think he could be a good flex option down the stretch. I like Slatein a lot. Love it. I think Tua, Tago Vilo is still the guy you're not supposed to worry about for Daniel Jones. But until then, let's get into our guy. you're not supposed to worry about. I'm going to start off with Jarvis Landry of the Browns,

who is at this point basically lapping Beckham in fantasy production, especially over the last six games. Quietly, Landry is the wide receiver of 14 since week four, 16 points per game, average. In that same stretch, Beckham is the wide receiver of 45. So quietly, he's kind of been, he's been the number one guy in that offense.

Obviously, no one's been super, effective or efficient in that offense, but Landry has been pretty darn good last couple weeks. He had 10 targets, nine catches, 97 yards, and a touchdown on Sunday, 24.7 ppr points. And interestingly, another usage note per ESPN's Mike Clay, he ran 27 of his 40 routes on the outside yesterday. With Higgins, Richard Higgins kind of came back into the lineup, Antonio Callaway was inactive for, I guess, disciplinary reasons or unknown reasons. but that moved Landry to the outside on more of his routes, and he was very good. He was very effective.

So I don't know if that's a sign of things to come, or if Callaway returns, they kind of switch it back up and he goes back inside. But Landry is a lot more valuable in fantasy than I thought he would be before the year. Yeah. And Beckham's a lot less. Yeah, that's rough.

It's rough. Although I will say Beckham has been, like his peripheral foundational numbers are still strong, like in terms of his target share, his air yard share. You know, he had a team high 12 targets on Sunday. He was blanketed by Tradevius White, so it didn't really work out. But I think, you know, Beckham, I'm not very confident that he's going to be the kind of positive regression candidate down the stretch.

But his numbers, his target and air yard's numbers are still really strong. So he has the opportunity, at least, to really improve down the stretch. We'll see how that goes. But I'm not super confident just because nothing in that Brown's offense seems to be clicking. than Landry at this point. Yeah, Freddy Kitchens, Freddie Soup's not inspiring a lot of confidence. I should say passing game. The running game is pretty strong, but yeah.

Craig, you got a guy you're not supposed to worry about? Yeah, I feel like it's Demarius Thomas for Robbie Anderson owners. Yeah. Demarius Thomas has quietly been kind of good the last four weeks. He's had yard totals of 84, 19, 63, and 42. So he's played less snaps and received more targets than Robbie Anderson, which I don't know if that tells you that Donald likes him better, or if that means that Robbie Anderson is due to positively regress.

But last week, Robbie Anderson had three targets, one catch, 11 yards a week before that, two catches on four targets. And Demarius has been pretty consistent. So, Demaris is 8% owned. Robbie Anderson is 64. I think both of those should probably meet each other in the middle. Yeah. But I think Demarius is a great streaming option for next week if you need one. Do you think Anderson has drop a ball at this point?

No. Just because he's playing like 90% of snaps every single week for the past four weeks, like consistently. that I think he's worth that like deep stash, buy a week, catch a 70-yard touchdown, like McCull-Hardman type role. But he's still, I mean, he's playing more snaps than guys like McCle Hardman. So you think it's going to come back soon.

But Demerius Thomas seems to be more like the safety blanket like Crowder is for Donald. Yeah. It's also annoying because if you drop, Robbie Anderson is such an annoying person because if you drop him, then they've got Washington, Oakland, Cincinnati, and Miami.

And like, if he went off in two of those four weeks, like you would just be pissed. Yeah. So that sucks. All right, sleeper stream of the week. We're each going to pick a player every week, a flex, a running back receiver, a tight end, owned less than 40% of the teams on Yahoo or USBN.

And whichever one of us has the most points wins, and whoever has the most wins, I don't remember. Someone doesn't have to grow a beard. The Minchew mustache. I always forget, yeah, the Minchew mustache. With Minchumania being over, you should probably change the bet at this point. Minshu Mania is going to be like discount,

like store brand Jeremy Lin insanity. It's just going to be remembered as like a much weaker version of like a cool thing. Don't you say that. I love Minchu. Trust me. All right. We'll see.

Craig, yeah, yeah. Congrats. Craig won. All right. So Craig has just, I'll run down the results here. So Craig took the, took the belt this week.

He had Ronald Jones as his streamer of the week. Jones had 11 carries 29 yards. It was over 40% but we let him slide. It was 38. You wrote 38 in the dock. So. Okay. Regardless,

Ronald Jones, 22.6 PPR points. Easily the top number this week. Devante Parker for Danny had 11.9, not bad. Pretty good. And then Zach Pascal had 4.6 fantasy points, two catches, 26 yards. I hate Hoyer. So that's about that. So you came in last, and as I always say, if you're not last year and first.

Brian Hoyer is a rough, rough start against Miami. Who you got for this week, D.K.? I'm going with a very favorite. favorite of the Dynasty pod, Cole Beasley, of the Bills. At the Dolphins this week, he's still only 32% owned in leagues, despite scoring in double-digit points in PPR in six of his last eight games. I see him as a definite high-floored, low-ceiling option. He's not necessarily going to go off, but plug him into your flex,

you can bank, not bank, but you can hope for, like, you know, 10 solid points. It's not bad for a buy week. Interestingly, he has scored exactly 2.2 fewer PPR points than one Juju Smith-Schuster this season. Would you have guessed that? I would not have guessed that. Yeah.

I mean, obviously, Smith-Schuster's had a down year, but that shocked me. Cole Beasley is Craig's second favorite NFL receiver and number one favorite rapper. Who's his first favorite receiver? Devante Parker. I do. Oh, yeah. Devonte Parker. You just melted.

Craig, who are you wrong with this week? So I feel like this week, you know, last week you looked at the three guys we picked, and it was like a pretty strong, talented class. I feel like these weeks kind of ebb and flow, and it feels like a down week. It was pretty hard to pick who you wanted. So I wanted to grab a guy with a high floor, which I feel like is J.D. McKissick this week, especially if Ty Johnson doesn't play.

Just because of his receiving kind of floor, he feels like he played 57 snaps last week with Ty Johnson out. If he can settle into that Theo Riddick role if Stafford comes back, which is what I'm betting on, I think I'm pretty safe here. They're playing the Cowboys who are a bottom five defense against running back catches and yards. So I like Jady a lot.

I am rolling with Brian Hill for basically similar reasoning, but on the Falcons. So, yeah, Devante Freeman, probably going to miss this game with the foot sprain. Aaron Jones just went for 93 yards and 13 carries against Carolina. I am not saying that Brian Hill is Aaron Jones. It's not ideal because, look, the way you want, you know, to be running is if you're winning and Atlanta winning against Carolina, I'm not sure of.

But it is a divisional game like last week against the Saints. And I think Hill's going to get touches. I think he's actually pretty talented, fifth rounder out of Wyoming. And I like him to get a score in this game. And I think if he just is a starting running back, like he will be pretty serviceable. Love service. I like it. Can we recap who?

So Craig's got two wins. I've got two wins. And Dana, you have one win, right? That's correct. Well, I think that, I mean, I don't like that characterization. It is time for fantasy court. Yeah, I agree. Yeah, Craig's right.

Fantasy court. All right. Do you have a fantasy football dispute that needs litigation? Is there a question that only outside counsel can solve? Take it to Fantasy court on the Ringer NFL show Facebook page. Calling the case of Gasper Coak versus the people. Okay, this is Gasper's case. I love it.

This is the idea of borrow trades, a trade where both managers are able to fill out their starting lineup with the others bench players. It can be during the same week or consecutive weeks, and upon conclusion of the duration, the trade is done again, restoring both teams to their original rosters. Any objections?

Deacon. How is this not collusion? So I am fine with this. I'm fine with this too. I think this is fine. Like, here's like, I don't, I don't, I've never done this. I've been in leagues where people do this. I don't understand it.

Maybe I'm just not as trusting of the human species. But I think that this is fundamentally a handshake deal and it's kind of a way to like bypass waivers. Maybe it's not technically allowed, but it's not. Collusion? Frown upon it. No, frowned upon at worst, but it's a trade. So here's a thing. I agree, it's just a trade.

All it is is it's a trade that's made. You're bypassing waivers and a handshake deal. It's a trow. And then a week later they send the guys back. And here's how I look at it. There's nothing wrong with this. However, if you do it and then have any issues with the person that's on you. Like there's no, you can't.

So I would recommend if you're going to do one of these. What I recommend is you have to like bring it to your league office and like put it in the group chat and make it known that it's happening if you think the other person might screw you. So that way they can be publicly shamed if it doesn't happen. So you need to let people know that this is going to be a bar. If you're worried, but if not, like, if you're worried about the other person, like, if you can trust them. But fundamentally, it's just if you trust the other person. I'm going to say that I disagree. I think this should be illegal.

There is one, I guess, compromise that you could do. I have this actually in one of my leagues where I'm the commissioner of this league. And our rule is, I believe, you can't trade a guy back after trading him for at least four games. So, in other words, if you're going to give up a guy. to like help another player fill out his roster, you guys have to keep those players for at least a month. But like why? I agree.

Can you do this in real sports? Yeah, why? It's helpful. Because I just think it's collusion. But why? No, but collusion is about bad faith. This is both people really trying to earnestly like make their teams better. This is just someone's like, wow, my tight ends up by and they've got Kital

and Ertz and then I've got, you know what I mean? It's like you're both operating and make their team as competitive as possible and you're not offering like outside shit. It's good faith. DK. It's just savvy. Savvy management. That's what I'm good.

Every single time we do it, I'm just like, what a savvy manager. I'm shocked that you guys like this rule. This is fine, yeah. I mean, you're essentially just renting players. Scrappy management. I mean, baseball teams do this. They like rent Aralda's Chapman. The Cubs do for like four months.

Then the season ends, and he goes back to the Yankees. Yeah, what shit? This shit happens. Okay, let me ask you. Let me ask the question. Are all bets off once the playoffs start, though? Well, what trade deadlines still exist while the playoffs are going on? Well, I guess that's true.

I mean, for instance, in dynasty leagues, there's sometimes no trade deadline. Well, that's insane. If you're in a dynasty league where you can make a trade during the playoffs, then you have not put enough thought. Especially with a team that's not in the playoffs. Is that what you're saying? That's not fair. That's not fair.

Well, in dynasty leagues, if you make a trade in the playoffs, it screws you over the next year. It's like, it's like sports. It's the same. It's like sports. It's like you can't make a trade with someone. No one can send, like, a team out of contention can't trade the Astros someone during the World Series. You're arguing against yourself. I'm not saying that people should be able to do this.

I'm against the rule in general. I think that they should, I think this should be outlawed. You know what? You're all about the restrictive. Unless you're trading. Wait, we've got a quorum here. Wait. Unless you're trading for a car.

In that case, I like it. All right. You know, D.K., that was a thoughtful, clear, lucid objection. and you are overruled. Fantasy court, it is decided. Fair enough. Fair enough. time this Sunday, everyone's favorite fixer is back knocking heads as he navigates New York's

corrupt mayor and a looming threat to the Donovan family they never saw coming. Starring Lee Schreiber and John Voight, Ray Donovan is back this Sunday at an all-new time of 8 p.m. Eastern only on Showtime.