0:00This is Fantasy Football Today from CBS Sports. What a play!
0:03Can you believe this? He had no idea. It's time to dominate your fantasy league.
0:07Off to the races, and he stays on his feet.
0:10He's just gonna go the distance. Now here's some combination of Adam, Dave, Jamie, and Heath.
0:15Coming up on Beyond the Boxscore, Drake Maye, big game.
0:17Is he back? How good is Tedrow McMillan? Can we trust Bryce Young?
0:21Rest of season. Is Emmanuel Wilson going to be a staple of this offense going forward?
0:26Ali Gordon, is he going to be a staple of this offense going forward?
0:30Keon Coleman, is he going to be a staple if DJ Moore is out in Week 5?
0:34We'll talk about those guys. We'll recap last night's game.
0:37Players we regret not drafting. I'm going to tell you that there were nine wide receivers who ran 45 or more routes in Week 4 alone.
0:44Okay? Just think about that. That's like a lot of routes for a game, but it happens.
0:49Zay Flowers has run 45 routes with Lamar Jackson this year, and he has scored 65.3 PPR fantasy points on those 45 routes.
0:56Like, could you imagine if someone scored that in Week 4?
0:59It's insane. Essentially what you're saying is that you will have to grow your beard out post-wedding for a long, long time.
1:05Yes, it's going to be a, if I was a rich man, I'm going to be like Tevye or whatever it is.
1:11I honestly think you look better with the beard, so I'm excited to see it.
1:15Not a three-month beard. You don't know that. You don't know that because you never tried it.
1:20You ever seen the movie The Heartbreak Kid? No.
1:23Ben Stiller? Can we pull up him with a beard?
1:26Jacob, no, you've never seen that? No idea. Let's find the image of him with the beard in Heartbreak Kid.
1:31Anyway, what's up, guys? How we doing? Good. Good.
1:34That Flower stat is crazy. I'm putting together a Beyond the Box score episode looking at the biggest busts in fantasy.
1:40Ooh. And he has, like, as many points as Lad McConkie and Emeka Ibuka combined in, like, one game.
1:45And it's like, those guys were drafted in the same range.
1:48You know what I mean? There's still many pivotal hits or misses where he could have, I mean, a lot of people
1:54liked both or all three of those receivers and just landed on the wrong one.
1:59It's so brutal. Yeah. I was thinking about that because one of the questions we have for today is, who do you regret not drafting?
2:06And that's where, for me, Zay Flowers, I only have Zay Flowers in one league.
2:10And truth be told, it was a league that I share with a co-manager.
2:14I don't even know if I would have drafted him.
2:17Because, yeah, I liked McConkie. And I didn't really draft Tedrow McMillan either.
2:20I just made the wrong choices at that part in the draft.
2:24And some of it not, you know, really within, like, it's not all Ladin McConkie's fault.
2:28It's obviously not all Emekai Buka's fault. I also think about Bejal Tootin, you know.
2:32Bejal Tootin versus Jadarian Price is one that I just sweated.
2:35I was like, oh, I can't figure out who I like here.
2:39And then ultimately, I was Tootin originally. And then I was like, I think I like Price better.
2:44I think Tootin has more to overcome. And that's just, like, a horrific mistake.
2:48And, oh, man, the logic can be there. It's not always your fault.
2:51Well, sometimes sports happens, you know. But these decisions, they could be, they could really change your fantasy outcomes in such big ways.
2:58Yeah. Dan, yeah, it's 3-1, first place. I was going to say, we're combined, what, 7-1 here as a podcasting trio here with the Chiefs and the Giants.
3:06I don't, I mean, look, I was in the dumps after the Jackson Dart injury.
3:10I couldn't really come back from it. And this season will always be bittersweet for me because I'll always be thinking, what if?
3:17But it's fun to watch a team that actually can compete in the fourth quarter, that actually has good coaching and good
3:23special teams and all the little things that help you win football games.
3:26They may be beating bad teams. Every team's a bad team.
3:29They're like, who's good in the NFL? So, like, beat who you play.
3:33Keep it going. And to be quite frank, outside of the Cowboys, I'm not that worried about the Giants division.
3:39I think the Eagles are trash football team. The Eagles are missing, like, 10 starters yesterday.
3:43Oh, my God. They get to finally complain about injuries.
3:46What about every other fan base that said that over the years?
3:49And the Eagles fans have bashed them for that.
3:52Oh, all the crap I heard about Eli Manning when he played with those offensive lines.
3:56All right. All right. All right. We're getting off the rails.
4:00I got to reel me back in. This is what I'm going to look like in three months after the season.
4:06Not good. I honestly don't mind that. But the hair, you can still get haircuts, by the way.
4:11It's just the beard. That, I think, was the bet with Heath.
4:14It was. It was. So, before we get into last night's game, I have a great team name.
4:19Okay. Inspired by our email exchanges about Ali Gordon.
4:22The Ali G Show. Yeah. Is that not original?
4:24No clue. I mean, no. It's not original at all.
4:27You thought this was great? You emailed us two hours before the show.
4:31Like, I can't wait to tell you guys this team name I thought of.
4:35I mean, it's better than Oil of Olave, of course.
4:37I mean, that's your worst of all time. But you're pinning, you know, at least you're going for a reference that people will understand.
4:44But, I mean, it's not great. It's great. It's not bad.
4:47It's not great. I feel like I stole it unintentionally from people.
4:51So, I'm sorry if you already had that one.
4:53There's no originality. Carolina 32, Detroit 26. Fun game here.
4:56Bryce Young with three good games out of four.
4:58Struggled against Cleveland. But he comes back with 25.5 fantasy points.
5:02Season high, 44% of his passes were in under 2.5 seconds.
5:05Said he still, you know, made plays downfield. And this team passes.
5:08They are, I think, like fifth in pass rate.
5:11They're fifth in pass rate. And they've only had one bad game defensively.
5:14You know, they gave up 59 points week one.
5:17Then three. Then 21. Then 26. They were playing with a lead in this game.
5:21They just, they like to pass. Jacob, what are you seeing from the Panthers?
5:25The Panthers are super fun to watch right now.
5:27Um, this game in particular was funny because they had this massive height advantage.
5:31Um, I, I heard this from, uh, Derek class and on the athletic, he said that on average, their wide receivers and
5:38tight ends were like five and a half inches taller than the DBs Detroit in this game.
5:42Um, and it's just this funny team that they've, they've put around Bryce, obviously with the high disparity here.
5:48Um, they do a lot of really cool stuff.
5:50Uh, they kind of remind me of the chiefs where they're, uh, like mitigating the, the tackle concerns that they have.
5:56Right. With a lot of, um, like pocket manipulation, um, different ways of like setting up rollouts and stuff like that for
6:02Bryce young, getting the ball out quick. Um, because they're, I mean, in week three, they really, really struggled to protect.
6:08Um, they gave up really a bunch of pressure, a bunch of quick pressure.
6:12And in this game, even against Aiden Hutchinson, like they did a pretty dang good job of just, um, setting him up to get the ball out quick.
6:20A few times you see like Jack Campbell just get directly downhill on that right away.
6:25You know what I mean? Um, but generally speaking, I think these plays have worked really well for them in this game.
6:31It was pretty much like hyper concentrated on Ted or McMillan, of course.
6:34Um, and so they're, they're just like one of the most fun teams to watch right now, the super high pass rate over expectation and everything.
6:42And then if they do get the lead, then we can see a big, um, big Chuba Hubbard game.
6:47Like we saw here where he's getting like all of the work and it actually amounted to like a bunch of fantasy points.
6:54So it feels really good. And then the volume is like pretty much all concentrated on like two or three guys too, especially with Coker out.
7:01Yeah. I anticipate Coker coming back after their week five by, so, you know, what would you tell the Ted or McMillan manager?
7:07Try to try to sell them for something massive or just hold on?
7:11I would just hold, I mean, we have a decent stretch even dating back to last year where it's been, I guess, concerning.
7:18He hasn't been produced. McMillan hasn't produced quite to the way that we've seen or that we think that he can when Coker has been healthy.
7:25Coker's really, really good, but his actual target shares haven't dropped off in a super significant way within that split.
7:30Um, I think more than likely we'll see good days ahead for him.
7:34He's just so good. And him and Bryce Young are on the same page.
7:38Um, I think him and Coker and Bryce are all, and Hubbard are all positioned really well for fantasy.
7:43I would just hold if I had them. I think to me, what's most interesting about watching this team is last year,
7:50Jacob and I spent a lot of time on beyond the box score, evaluating the film of this offense.
7:55And there got to a point in season where they pass protected so poorly, specifically had a right guard that we kept talking about.
8:02I think it was Anthony Bradford or that might've been the Seahawks.
8:05This was another, their version of that, that they had to completely change their game plan and become this run first team with Rico Dowdle.
8:12This year, it seems like that's not the case.
8:15They can do what they want to do, at least outside of the Cleveland game.
8:19And I believe a big reason for that is Bryce Young.
8:22He's seeing the field so much better. He's getting the ball quicker.
8:25And it's not just like quick game, quick throws around the line of scrimmage.
8:29He's getting the ball out into the intermediate range of the field.
8:33And I think he has, I saw the stat earlier, something like some of the most 20 yard plus pass, 20 plus
8:39yard passes in the NFL right now. And with him seeing the field, the way he's seeing and his ability to diagnose
8:45things fast, you saw it on the touchdown early in the game.
8:48It in some ways mitigates their offensive line because that is somewhat of a concern for me.
8:53They lost their first round pick Monroe Freeling last night.
8:56I don't know the extent of that injury. They had to go to stone Forsyth at right tackle.
9:01That could be a major issue. If he has to play a lot in my personal opinion, they're going to get healthier tackle.
9:08Cause there's, they started potentially with Moat with a Moten coming back eventually.
9:11Yeah. I think one other tackle, um, but yeah, I don't know the timeline on those, but regardless if Bryce Young is
9:17seeing the field, the way he's seeing it right now, it's not going to matter as much because he's getting the ball
9:24out fast and he's attacking intermediate and vertical areas of the field by diagnosing it pre-snap.
9:28And he's always thrown with, in my opinion, with good touch.
9:31And when he's throwing with anticipation, he's a deadly quarterback because in my opinion, he has the ability to throw the football
9:37with touch and accuracy in these moments. And that are all McMillan, we'll talk about him a little bit more later in our regrets section.
9:44My God, is he a good football player? And it's just like Drake London with him.
9:49It's, it's so hard to defend him. All right.
9:52What do we think about the lions? You know, Jamison Williams with a really good game, six catches, 102 yards on eight
9:58targets, but this is a 15.7% target share for Jamison Williams.
10:01That's his highest since week one, 10 per week.
10:03One of the things that was 20. Where are you?
10:06Jamison Williams. It was target share was 23%. Then 10.5 and 12.9 and 15.7%.
10:10So, you know, um, good game, but I don't know if it was an encouraging game for him.
10:15He also dropped a perfectly thrown deep ball up the sideline.
10:18That would have been a huge play. Uh, anyway, that's maybe the most interesting guy on the team, because I think we
10:24kind of know what we're doing with the others.
10:27For sure. 136 catchable air yards for Jamison Williams in this game.
10:30So that's his second game with over, over a hundred.
10:33There's only a handful of players who have two of those games this year.
10:37Um, he's seventh in the league and catchable air yards on the year.
10:41So I would think it would get better. Right.
10:43I mean, I, it comes down to him basically.
10:46I feel like, um, I've been, I've been pretty stubborn about him and my life.
10:50I do a rest of season rankings update every week and every week people want me to push players above Jamo because he's not producing right now.
10:58And it's like, I think you see why in this game, like why he's worth holding onto even with the current setup, I think he could produce.
11:05And then obviously we know the upside is massive.
11:08If he goes down to me, the biggest winner Detroit this year continues to be Sam Laporta.
11:13And I just think that we, we finally saw it like come to fruition here in this game.
11:18But like the setup is so nice for Laporta to run a ton of routes and get a ton of volume.
11:24Obviously we know with like Sun God and Jumir Gibbs, like who they are.
11:28Um, so they're the most valuable players in fantasy basically.
11:30But like Laporta is not seen that way really.
11:33Um, and there's a bunch of tight ends who are out producing him really on the year or before this week there were at least.
11:40And I feel like he's somebody you could get in trades, maybe still can get in trades.
11:45Um, just running this many routes at tight end is going to lead to a ton of fantasy points.
11:50All right. Yeah. Jacob's right on that. Yep. Go ahead.
11:53Panthers 32, Detroit 26. That'll, that'll wrap it up.
11:55What's coming up on beyond the box score this week.
11:58Uh, who wants to do it? Raise your hand if you want to do the promo.
12:03Jacob's the promo guy. All right. Jacob's the promo king.
12:06Yeah. So, um, Dan and I do our, our signature show every Tuesday where we get to dig into film.
12:11Um, and there's a lot to dig into for sure.
12:14Like we just have so many new coaches and everything this year.
12:17Um, so the first four weeks, like we're just trying to sink our teeth into as much of that as possible.
12:23So that's on Tuesday. Um, we do start sit on Thursday.
12:26Um, and then the other thing is the rest of season rankings updates that I do every Wednesday, I think are really good.
12:33If you have time to really dig into what's happening around the league.
12:37Um, so that's for like, I mean, mostly for deeper dynasty players and stuff like that, but anybody who's interested in that will have timestamps on there.
12:44So you can go to this specific team or player that you're interested in or whatever I cover every play in the league.
12:51Let's go through the news and notes. Lamar Jackson has an ankle injury.
12:54Marcus Mariota, uh, re-injured his MCL. So he almost certainly didn't see a timeline, but I wouldn't expect him to play quarterback this week.
13:01It could be Jaden Daniels though, against the New York giants.
13:04Tyson Bajan is going to start for the bears.
13:07The one game that I haven't watched any tape of that I really want to is bears jets.
13:12I do not understand how the jets ran. I think 32 plays, um, just had the ball for 17 minutes and 15 seconds, horrific offensive performance for them.
13:20And also, yeah, I think Kalief Raymond ran about half the routes.
13:23Luther burden ran about half the routes. It was a weird game.
13:26And I didn't think Bajan said this with Heath yesterday.
13:29I think Bajan played as well as his numbers, but I don't know if you've guys have had a chance to watch any of that bears game.
13:37Um, but now, no, not yet. Yeah. That'd be a good one for this week.
13:41It's just too much to watch. It's like 90 plays on the bear.
13:45So I was like, I'll clearly just watch that tonight or something.
13:48Yeah. Yeah. They'd be, yeah. They had the ball.
13:51That's going to take two hours forever. Um, Kyle Mononga guy.
13:54I didn't see any update on his thumb, but we're keeping an eye on that.
13:58Saquon Barkley. Haven't got an update on the hamstring yet.
14:01And Chris Brooks ankle injury for the Packers. Kyle use check.
14:04Has a knee injury. Looks like you shake. At least this is a very important fullback for the Niners.
14:09He avoided a serious injury, but he's going to miss a little bit of time.
14:13And they are at Seattle this week. Huge game.
14:16Niners at Seahawks. Uh, wide receiver. We got Rasheed Rice leaving in the first quarter.
14:20We got DJ Moore with the shoulder injury. Tyreek Hill.
14:23Looks like he's going to sign in the next few days.
14:26Where do you guys want Tyreek Hill to go?
14:29Chiefs. Yeah. It seems like chiefs, I guess is where he's gone.
14:32Yeah. He was pretty good last year. He really, he was good.
14:35He just had a gruesome injury. So I don't know what to expect, but, uh, definitely.
14:40I mean, he's a gotta be the number one waiver wire guy this week.
14:44Right. I think Emmanuel Wilson could be, uh, could be that.
14:47Yeah. But who didn't scoop him up? He's only like 64% roster, believe it or not.
14:51Really? Yeah. Um, get him in any leagues this, this weekend when I tried to.
14:56Yeah. I don't know who else it would be.
14:58It's not a great waiver week. So yeah, Tyreek Hill is going to be up there.
15:03Um, other news, Jamar Chase and T Higgins are both hurt.
15:06Jamar Chase has a concussion. T Higgins and a doctor injury.
15:09They're at Miami this week. Then they have a buy.
15:12So we'll see who's, who's available. Um, Pat Bryant, ankle injury.
15:15Vlad McConkie left with a foot injury. Matt Collins, calf injury.
15:18And Malik neighbors does have this shoulder issue that popped up again in this game.
15:22He came, he left the game, came back, but I guess we'll consider him healthy, but playing through something.
15:27Okay. We'll take a break. When we come back, we'll look at some of the numbers, the snap counts, the trends that
15:34you need to know who the, the running back rotation for the chargers.
15:37What you need to know about that. Oops. And a holding call that I looked at like seven times and still haven't
15:43been able to find that negated a long touchdown.
15:46We'll be right back on fantasy football today. All right.
15:49Welcome back. Let's go through some of the numbers that we noticed over the weekend or in Sunday's games.
15:54This is where I throw it to Jacob to start things off.
15:58What do you got for us, Jacob? Number man.
16:00Yeah. Yeah. The Jets play in total has to be pointed out.
16:03Um, it's the second fewest of any team in any game dating back to 2000.
16:08Um, so last year we actually did have that Raiders game against the chiefs where they only had 30 plays.
16:13Um, but the jets with 32 is the second lowest.
16:16So that's relevant, um, for all of the baseline counting stats, like Kenyan Sadiq actually had a 40% first three target rate
16:22in this game, but like it, you didn't really notice that much, right?
16:26Cause they barely ran any plays. Um, so yeah, Sadiq was one of four tight ends who had a first three target
16:32rate of 40% or higher in week four, which is really an unusually high number.
16:36Um, for reference, Trey McBride generally leads in that, uh, stat by a wide margin with like a 33% rate.
16:42And then it drops off to like 20, 25%.
16:45It's like the next highest guys. Um, and we for McBride, Sadiq, Isaiah likely and TJ Hawkinson all had a first read rate of 40% or higher.
16:52Likely's lowest first read rate on the year in any game is 25%.
16:56Um, it's been at least 32% every other game.
16:58So that's very, very high. For a tight end neighbors had a 32% rate in week four as well.
17:04Um, so it was lower than likelies. Um, and neighbors seem to be back.
17:08Like you mentioned, like he did get banged up visibly and came off for a little bit, but, um, something I've been
17:14tracking is his route depth and the way that they're using Malik neighbors in this game.
17:18It was more like what we had seen in the past from him.
17:22So it seemed like he was healthy. I'm curious what your read on it is, Dan or Adam giants fans.
17:28Go ahead. He looked fully healthy to me. Obviously he came out of the game with the injury.
17:33It's just something he's going to manage all year, that shoulder injury.
17:36But I thought he looked phenomenal on his touchdown up the seam, had a great release on the Theo Johnson touchdown and
17:42should have could have caught another touchdown, but he, he went to Theo and that was fine.
17:47Jameis, he's going to take those chances. Um, still haven't seen like the true, like underneath drag route that he like houses
17:53or like turns into a post catch. Still haven't seen that burst yet, but the releases off the line of scrimmage have been phenomenal.
18:00And he made the play of the game. I thought the catch of the game where Jameis Winston kind of just threw
18:06an effort ball up to him and he just adjusted midair behind him to catch a ball and high pointed.
18:12So to me, he looks pretty good. And I think some of the panicking we had on him was probably a little
18:18overdone based on the weather the giants played with last week.
18:21And based on the fact, which was fair at the time, which was a concern, like will Nagy and Harbaugh try to
18:27manage him and make Jameis become a quarterback? He's not.
18:30And we saw from week two and three, like you really can't do that with Jameis.
18:35If you're going to start him, you have to let him be Jameis.
18:38And if he is going to be Jameis, that means two 50 and 300, or I'm sorry, in three TDs type games with a lot of shot plays.
18:46And that's really good for neighbors as well. From a fantasy standpoint.
18:50I know a tight end who almost got to that 40% range was Colson.
18:54Loveland had a 35 first three target rate in week four.
18:57So his highest rate before this was 14% in any game.
19:00It's been 11, 14 and 10%. And then it was 35% this week.
19:03The rates have really been all over the place for the bears.
19:07If you're watching on YouTube, you can see on the screen here, like Roman dudes had a 22% rate in this one.
19:13Luther Burden's rate was only 17%. And so this is the percentage of the team's first three targets.
19:18His lowest rate before that burden was 28%. It was all the way down to 17%.
19:23So it's, it's fluctuated game to game pretty wildly.
19:25Khalif Freeman's rate has been as high as 33%, but was down to 9%.
19:29In this game. So maybe this signals, um, a desire to get Loveland more involved.
19:33Um, I think honestly though, the more troubling data point here and the more important one is that his route rate Loveland's route rate continues to be low.
19:41His route participation rate hasn't been above 70% in any of the past three games.
19:45So he was night tight in 19 and the percentage of the team's dropbacks where he ran around in week four, they're
19:52struggling, um, with their left tackle spot. And he's been asked to block more as a result.
19:56Um, and just running routes is the most important signal for tight ends in terms of scoring fantasy points.
20:02So I don't know if we're out of the woods with Loveland yet based off of this one data point in terms of the first three targets.
20:09Um, I'm going to talk about him more on beyond the box score.
20:13And when I dig into the, the busts, I do think he's run pretty cold in terms of like the expected fantasy
20:19points that the targets that he's gotten, obviously everybody who was watching red zone saw him come very close to scoring a touchdown, but not get it.
20:27Um, yeah, it's, it's been pretty rough. Two in a row, two weeks in a row.
20:31He's almost had a touchdown Loveland. And I think with another thing, it's tough to, you know, trying to pick up on patterns with the bears.
20:39They've had three quarterbacks in four games. Right. So, um, you don't, you don't really know what the, what the tendencies are, I guess.
20:45And I think it could just be frustrating for this team.
20:48This hope that they score enough points. I mean, look, obviously if you'd listen to the show, you know, I have a lot of Khalif Raymond now.
20:56I went pretty big on him on waivers this past week, but I hope for everyone else's sake that Khalif Raymond kind
21:02of fades away because if Khalif Raymond stays a big deal, it's going to be really annoying.
21:07If he doesn't, then we'll have more consistent production from the guys that we actually drafted to have production from.
21:13I'm an unselfish guy like that. I will tell you.
21:15Yeah. Thanks. Thank you, Adam. Um, a few other things I wanted to point out.
21:20One was Kyron Williams is getting tons of targets.
21:22He has 20 targets over the past two games.
21:25He has back-to-back games with 40 or more air yards.
21:28So he's actually getting targeted down the field, which is unusual for running back.
21:31It's unusual for him. He's never had a game above 40 air yards before the season.
21:36Now he's done in back-to-back games. So they've obviously been down, um, a few pass catchers and they're leaning more on him, which is interesting to me.
21:44He was running back one in expected fantasy points in week four, um, which is the fantasy points data is modeled that
21:50like accounts for where all the touches are coming from.
21:53Um, it's, I mean, if he's going to play this type of a role, I think the game scripts have favored him a little bit.
22:00Um, and it boosted these numbers a little bit, obviously injuries and stuff too, but like this is, this seems like it
22:06might be an evolution where he's not just out there for passing downs, but actually getting targeted.
22:11Whereas in the past, he's just not really, he's past protecting a lot.
22:14Um, and he's running routes sometimes, but not getting very many targets.
22:18Um, yeah, the rant, well, the Rams, you know, I think Stafford's back-to-back games with 50 or more passes right around there anyway.
22:24And we just didn't expect that from them. You know, they're supposed to have Aaron Donald and miles Garrett and they're supposed
22:30to be this dominant team, but they're two and two, they're almost one in three.
22:35So I, I guess things, I guess I could say things could look very different in like a month, but I think that's fair.
22:41But, but the fact is like Corum's really not getting a lot of carries.
22:45Kyron is being treated like, like the number one guy and you know, he scores.
22:49I mean, that's, he just has a propensity to score.
22:52He's going to be freaking awesome. I wish I had more Kyron.
22:56Another regret. Another player at a really high first three target rate this week.
23:00Um, unusually high was Taequann Thornton. Um, so Rashi Rice missed most of the game and Thornton had a 35% first three
23:06target rate, which was by far his highest rate of the season.
23:09He has the highest passer rating when targeted as the first read in the NFL this year.
23:14Nearly perfect. 156.3. Um, he's averaged 17.4 yards per first three target.
23:17Compare that to 5.8 for Xavier worthy. Um, I don't really know where these targets are going to go with the chiefs.
23:24Like he was a really important part of their offense.
23:26And I don't know if they have anyone else who can really do what he does.
23:31Um, worthy. You would like to think can fill that role, but it just hasn't ever really looked like that.
23:36Um, so I'm very curious, like maybe this is Tyreek where Tyreek Hill lands and he just steps in and does it.
23:43I mean, I think of George Kittle right away when I think of like Tyreek and like, could he just be the
23:49outlier that is able to look like himself even after a massive injury?
23:53Like maybe, um, but if he's not, I don't, I don't know what that's going to mean for this offense.
23:58I think having an actual field stretching presence is really important, right?
24:02Like there's a lot of players who benefit from space in this offense.
24:05Um, and it could, it could get kind of congested if we get back to like what we've seen in the past
24:11from the chiefs and not being able to tag down the field.
24:15Um, I know y'all know that I've been very high on like Cyrus Allen.
24:19I don't know if he's going to get that opportunity.
24:22Like Jalen Roy was clearly played ahead of him this week when, um, rushy rice went down and that's been the case all year.
24:28He's clearly been ahead of Cyrus Allen. Um, Allen barely play, but I do think he's like their one hope of like somebody who can beat man coverage.
24:36Now that Taequann's gone is this rookie receiver, but we just haven't seen him get those opportunities yet.
24:41So are you worried about my homes? Yeah, a little bit.
24:44I mean, are you saying like for fantasy purposes?
24:47Yeah, sure. I mean, I think out of his mind, right?
24:50Nice. It looks right. But I think he's playing so well, he's going to run and everything, but like between lack of
24:56a deep threat and then also the tackle situation scares me.
24:59They've been able to do a pretty good job with these rollouts and everything of avoiding that being a problem.
25:05Um, they've been really, really efficient on these rollout plays.
25:08Um, and they lead the league in terms of the number of plays that they're doing this where they're like resetting the pocket.
25:14Um, but I do think defenses might catch onto that with more and more film.
25:18Um, and it's just, I don't know, it's, it's almost kind of a gimmicky offense again now.
25:23So we'll see their next three games after the bye week chargers at the Seahawks at the Broncos.
25:28That could be tough, but who knows? I mean, it doesn't seem like there's any defense that really stops people right now.
25:34Maybe Minnesota, unless you're Dolly G show, of course.
25:37Yeah. The last that I had was on Cardinal Tate.
25:40Um, try to end it on the high note, but I don't know how much we really believe in the Titans being able to sustain this.
25:47Uh, but seventh highest first read target rate in the NFL on the year belongs to Cardinal Tate, which is honestly pretty
25:53shocking for a rookie's first four games. Um, I mean, it's higher than like, I mean, well, everybody except for six players, it's extremely high.
26:00Um, three players had a first read target rate above 50% this week.
26:04It was CD lamb, Tedrow, McMillan, and Cardinal Tate at a 44% target share.
26:0876% of the air yards. It's like, he's, it's not like the Wanda Robinson scam thing that we thought it might be with Brian day ball.
26:15It's like, this is our actual wide receiver one, which I do think is really relevant because that's, we never, we didn't
26:21have any proof of that coming into the league.
26:24Right. We didn't see him do that at all in college.
26:27And I mean, to be fair, it's the Titans and I guess they're just, they don't really have a lot else, but
26:33it's still meaningful to be able to do that, to be able to run an offense through a rookie receiver.
26:39Who's, you know, getting a lot of downfield targets too.
26:42I've been really encouraged by that. Yeah. I, it just, can we get cam word to just throw some touchdowns?
26:47Cam word in his career has a 2.7% touchdown rate.
26:50That is just awful. Gosh, I did see touchdowns.
26:53It's crazy. I want to see that game though.
26:55That's one of the games I want to talk about for tomorrow, Jacob, because I felt from watching the tape a week,
27:01three giants Titans, that that Tate looked unbelievable. And we talked about that on last week's show.
27:06Really? He was creating separation. Yeah. Tate. Tate. I'm sorry.
27:09I was Tate. Yes. Not ward, obviously. Um, and then clearly the Titans watched that tape and were like, all right, cam look at these plays.
27:16He's wide open, figure out how to get this ball and just like lock into all this.
27:21And that's how it felt on those plays. They were like first read.
27:25Like you said, Jacob, that might just be a thing moving forward to like make things easier for cam ward.
27:30You can just have him rely more on these first read targets to Carnell Tate, a guy who's winning the routes very easily.
27:37So I kind of love tape moving forward. We'll see.
27:40I don't expect the Titans offense to look as bad as it did the first three weeks.
27:45Um, I think it'll get better and better in the able scheme, but it does rely on ward.
27:50Like you said, creating a little bit more and he's really struggled, but their old line hasn't been as bad as people thought they would be.
27:57That's another thing. That's plus. So who's your favorite.
27:59Let's go to the Cleveland game from Thursday, right?
28:02Who's your favorite rookie wide receiver right now or rest of season, or at least for the immediate future.
28:07Oh, I would go with conception. Wait, what are you asking?
28:10Tate versus the Browns or versus any of the, I mean, is there anyone I'm forgetting?
28:15Any other rookie receivers? I mean, we're still weeks away.
28:18A quote, according to report today from Tyson and he could be a big, big one, but that's still more speculation than anything.
28:24It's basically Boston conception lemon, I guess. Um, and Tate, Cyrus Allen, and Cyrus Allen, um, or Malachi Fields.
28:30Just kidding. But it looks pretty good. Boston's got some real, real encouraging stuff.
28:33I mean, Boston is like Boston. I like it's really good.
28:37Deshaun Watson's favorite target. Right. So, uh, it's close between you can make a case for any of the three of them.
28:43I think the hardest case to make just based on production would be conception, but the arrow seems to be pointing up for conception.
28:50Uh, I think I'm going to go with, uh, I'm going to go with the, I'm going to go with the Tate.
28:56Tate, Tate. I think you have to really like Boston.
28:59Yeah. Okay. All right. I'll give you a few numbers here.
29:02Nico Collins only ran 40% of the routes and he still had a huge game.
29:06So good. Let's go. Antonio Williams ran less than half the routes.
29:09He had a big touchdown call back, but if McLaurin's out again, you want to count on Antonio Williams, maybe Antonio Williams
29:15for rookie to keep an eye on too. Yeah.
29:18Keep an eye on. Yeah. Dalton Kincaid, Dave talked about this yesterday.
29:21Uh, Dalton Kincaid only ran 54.1% of the routes.
29:24That's what's going on there. That's not good. Yep.
29:26Um, Kalief Raymond, I already mentioned 55% of the routes.
29:29That's two games around 75% for him. Two games around 57% route rate for Kalief Raymond.
29:34Luther burden was in the fifties as well. And route rate yesterday.
29:37The jets ran 32 plays, but Braylon Allen played 94% of the snaps.
29:41Uh, the chargers, this was from ESPN, the chargers 13% pass block win rate was their lowest in the 10 seasons that
29:47ESPN has been tracking pass block win rate. At one point, the chargers had four rookie offensive linemen.
29:52They had three guys leave with injuries yesterday, including both of their tackles.
29:56And how did their rotation at running back play out?
29:59Basically all three of them, Hampton Vidal and Mitchell played the same amount of snaps.
30:03They all played about 35% of the snaps. They all ran 11 to 13 routes.
30:07Keaton Mitchell played the most on third down Hampton and Mitchell had nine and 10 carries respectively.
30:12Kamani Vidal had five carries. He had a touchdown catch.
30:15The fact that both of them, that two of them scored a touchdown is, is wonderful, but this is obviously a fantasy nightmare.
30:21We cannot have a three headed monster where none of them get more than what, well, actually it was 15 touches for
30:27Keaton Mitchell, which is great, but you can't really expect that.
30:30They ran a lot of plays. Whole thing's a nightmare.
30:33Yeah, it sucks. Uh, and now like all of these offensive line injuries.
30:37Wow. Uh, and then I, I don't know, maybe the broadcast.
30:40It was better than the all 22 version, but I didn't see a hold on basial tootin's 44 yard touchdown run.
30:46And I didn't see a replay. Like sometimes they show a guy like grabbing a Jersey, but I was like, where was the penalty?
30:53Um, so that was disappointing. And I was looking at that because I want to see what the Bengals run defense is all about.
30:59First two weeks looked like they had a really good run defense.
31:03Then they got destroyed by Jalen Warren. And then they really got eaten up by Bejal Tootin, even though the numbers aren't
31:09as good as they could have been because of that holding penalty.
31:12Cause next week, who do they got? Dan respect.
31:15They got the Ali G show. Oh, okay. Okay.
31:17So I want to see what, you know, what kind of, what kind of, I don't know.
31:22I don't, I watched the Ali G show, but I don't have any quotes from her to remember anything.
31:27It's probably something you probably shouldn't be saying on air anyway.
31:31That's what you could quote from. It's very, it was very funny.
31:34It was, it was my least favorite of the three characters from the original Ali G show.
31:39You thought he was the least funny? Well, I liked Borat.
31:42There was the, there was the other guy, the gay guy.
31:45I don't remember. Bruno. Bruno. Borat and Bruno and Ali G.
31:48Uh, and I, oh no, I think Ali G was my favorite because he was so stupid and they took him seriously.
31:54Like they had the debate once about like there was a panel and he was talking about, math and he's like, what is three plus three plus three?
32:02I just remember that clip. Like that was a great one, but times 25.
32:06He's like, no, you can easily do this with a calculator.
32:09I don't remember that. Uh, anyway. Um, okay. So we're going to take a break and talk about our big topics before we go to break.
32:16Question from the chat from Wisco Disco. Dan, not a single badger decoration in your background anymore.
32:21Fake fan. He's not wrong. I need to get my badgers decorations back up.
32:25It's more of a case of me being too lazy.
32:28Um, but look, the badgers baby, we're back. That's all I can really say.
32:32Um, Colton Joseph still a little spectacle skeptical, but he does make great running plays and has occasional good throws.
32:38We just blew out a team. We beat Penn state the week before, which unfortunately now looks like a less important and
32:44interesting win, but just feels good to have a team.
32:47That's not horrible again from Wisconsin. Would you say Dan, as a fan that you are fickle?
32:51What? Isn't Luke fickle their coach? Yeah. What did you say?
32:54Fickle? As a fan that you're fickle. Nah, this is a bad dad joke.
32:58Let's move on. Okay. Jacob is like looking up stats right now.
33:02Not even paying attention. We'll be right back on fantasy football today.
33:05Big topics today. John Keene says, uh, players in week four gold or fool's gold.
33:09Drake may Tedderall McMillan. Okay. We think gold there.
33:12Emmanuel Wilson, Ollie Gordon. We're going to get to him in a different topic and Keon Coleman.
33:17So the three really that to focus on here are Drake may 32.2 fantasy points at Buffalo.
33:22Emmanuel Wilson, 27 fantasy points against the chargers and Keon Coleman with a huge game, six catches, 116 yards and a touchdown on seven targets against the Patriots.
33:29And he ran 94% of the routes in the second half with DJ more on the sideline here.
33:34So, all right, well, how do we go just one, two, three, and then we'll get into it more in depth gold or fool's gold.
33:42Drake may, you know how we feel about Drake may.
33:44Wow. So I'm gaining more fool's gold. I want to see it.
33:48I'm gaining more gold. Okay. Uh, he's running. I mean, only Lamar Jackson has more rushing yards than Drake may this year.
33:54I think he's basically there. He's basically doing what you want, except that he keeps turning the ball over.
33:59I never felt from watching the tape, specifically even the Jaguars game.
34:03Like he was just, Oh no, his arm shot.
34:05He's gone. I just felt like he was still making insanely good throws, but also just so many mistakes and he wasn't trusting his line.
34:12And like this week, the Chisholm touchdown was the exact same throw he made on the move rolling right to Holland's last
34:18week and Holland's just bobbled it and dropped it.
34:21So like he needs some plays from his guys.
34:23He's going to get AJ Brown back soon. The rapport is continuing to improve with Romeo Dobbs.
34:28He's still running, which is so important to his fantasy value in the first place.
34:32I'll say gold in the sense of, I think he'll be a startable quarterback for you.
34:37I don't think he's getting back to last year's pace of like QB one, QB two, QB three, but I still think
34:43he'll be a startable QB one, um, within weeks.
34:46And for sure, once AJ Brown is back. Okay.
34:48Yeah. This upcoming week against the Raiders, I'm not sure the Raiders have a really good pass rush and I think they
34:54just have a good defense in general. Um, so yeah.
34:57Okay. That, so we can get into Drake may a little bit more, uh, but Emmanuel Wilson, gold or fool's gold.
35:03He's good. Oh, I mean, neither, but if I have to lean toward one gold until Charbonnet is back.
35:09Yeah. Okay. Which could be as much as easy.
35:11Once Charbonnet is back, that gold is turning into bronze or whatever is next.
35:15Silver. Silver. No, it's probably worse. Like, you know, silver is next.
35:18It can't be as good as silver. It has to be like worse than bronze.
35:23I don't think he plays once Charbonnet is back.
35:25That's what I mean. Like once, no, he'll play as little, but like he's, he's done once Charbonnet is back.
35:31So Charbonnet is going to be back. If Charbonnet is healthy, what's the point of Emmanuel Wilson?
35:36None really, but they'll still give him some random touches.
35:38Like Charbonnet is not going to come back with a full workload.
35:42I don't think, I mean, I think the plan would be him and price.
35:46Charbonnet is going to be back before price. Yeah.
35:48Charbonnet has to be back before price. The way I understand it.
35:52They opened up his three week practice window. Right.
35:54So I, and if you look at Charbonnet and Wilson and you just did like a blind, you know, look at these
36:00guys, take away their names, look at their advanced metrics, look at their yards per carry, their big pay rate.
36:06Who would be better? I think maybe Wilson or, or at least no one would really.
36:10No Charbonnet. Charbonnet has some great advanced stats to him as far as like not limiting negative runs.
36:16He's one of the best in the NFL since he entered the NFL.
36:19I don't think he's better than Emmanuel Wilson. At limiting negative runs?
36:23I looked at it this morning. It was over a much bigger sample size.
36:26I mean, Wilson is a successor machine. Like he does have really good advanced stats for what it's worth.
36:32Charbonnet has been better for fantasy. Over a much bigger sample size.
36:35Like I don't trust it as much from somebody like Wilson who's doing it over a small sample size.
36:41Definitely a smaller sample size, but you know, Charbonnet, he's been really good whenever he's had the lead role when they're, you
36:47know, when Kenneth Walker has been out, but he's not in the red zone.
36:51He's not an explosive runner. Neither is Wilson. Um, they're both, I mean, Wilson was used as Wilson was used as Charbonnet when price was healthy.
36:58So, right. So Jacob, you seem to think when Charbonnet comes back and price comes back, Wilson will be on the sideline.
37:04Yeah. I mean, that's my guess, right? I mean, they, they love Charbonnet.
37:08They absolutely love him. Like he's my, my McDonald talks about that all the time.
37:12They drafted him around to all they've done is make him really relevant when he's healthy.
37:17Um, and then, yeah, he's running back eight out of 33 qualifiers and fantasy points per touch since entering the NFL ahead
37:23of guys like Brie's hall, Derek Henry, Jonathan Taylor, Saquon Barkley, Kenneth Walker on the same team has averaged more.
37:28But when you are the goal linebacker, that's going to help, right?
37:32Yeah, sure. Yeah, for sure. I mean, all those guys are the goal linebacker except for Kenneth Walker and Brie's hall.
37:38And he is good at avoiding negative play, but he has a 21% rate.
37:42Zach Charbonnet, 21% of his carries have gone for zero or negative yards.
37:45And for Emmanuel Wilson, that is, oh, I'm looking at his receiving numbers.
37:49Sorry about that. 21% for Charbonnet and for Wilson, 20.8%.
37:52So basically the same, um, higher avoid rate is Emmanuel Wilson by 3%, but it is all much smaller sample sizes.
37:58You're right about that. Explosive play rate, 5.7% for Wilson, 7.5% for Charbonnet.
38:01All right. Um, and then the last one was Keon Coleman.
38:04And I think it's easy to say fool's gold for Coleman if DJ Moore plays, but this is another injury for DJ Moore.
38:11I'm thinking, let's just assume he, let's just assume he misses week five.
38:15I'm not saying he will, but in that scenario at the Rams, uh, gold or fool's gold for Keon Coleman.
38:20I think he's a great pickup. I mean, I feel like he's looked a lot better this year.
38:25Yeah. It's interesting. I wrote about this last night for the site and it was like last year, Dave was, this was his guy.
38:32This was his breakout pick. He went to camp, saw the joint practice talk to at the time it was their OC Joe Brady.
38:39And it felt like it was all there for Coleman.
38:42And I think his confidence got shaken a little bit at the beginning of last season.
38:46And ultimately the offense just didn't really emerge the way we expected it to from a forward passing game.
38:51I thought last year, at least everything was kind of designed off the play action in the boot this year.
38:57They're definitely a more forward thinking offense passing wise.
39:00And he looks way more confident to me. Always had the talent.
39:03I was a big fan of his coming out the way he ran the gauntlet drill at just the GPS tested time versus the 40 yard dash time.
39:11And I think if he's playing confident, he can be a really good player for the bills.
39:16So I with Josh Allen, I think it's probably more so a fantasy asset when Moore is out.
39:21If Moore's back in the lineup, that's tough to, but with more out.
39:24Yeah, I believe in it. I'm not as much of a fan of Coleman.
39:28I just think he's too slow. I mean, I didn't see him get a lot of separation except on his last target,
39:35which was at the time looked like it was going to be the game winning touchdown.
39:39He made a great move, burn the defender. Allen threw a frozen rope.
39:43I won't say what Tom Brady would call it.
39:45Frozen rope into the end zone for a touchdown.
39:48But other than that, I mean, he really like just, I just don't think he gets any separation.
39:53He's like, honestly, it's like Marvin Harrison out there.
39:55He had a 34% slot rate in this game, which I like.
39:59I think it's possible they're starting to figure out like how to use him and that they don't necessarily have to have
40:05him on the outside because of, gosh dang, I'm blanking on the guy's name from the Chargers.
40:10Palmer. Josh Palmer. Yeah. Yeah. Peace missile. I love that.
40:13Yeah. All right. Anything else you guys want to say about Drake May?
40:16I kind of hurried that along. Um, guess where Drake may ranks in highly accurate throw rate on throws of 10 or
40:22more air yards with no pressure out of 29 qualifiers.
40:25Oh, good question. What is it? 10 or more air yards, no pressure, highly accurate throws.
40:30I'm going to say he rates third. Um, last year, maybe he ranks 25th out of 29.
40:35He's missing those. I thought he played great yesterday.
40:37I mean, he did great football. Dropping it in the bucket.
40:40I thought he was awesome. And it with his legs, but I am nervous about him against the Raiders.
40:46I really believe in the Raiders defense. I mean, they, they got after Patrick Mahomes and they don't blitz.
40:51They get pressure with four and this is a Patriots offensive line with some questions.
40:55So we'll see how he does. And it's fair to wonder based on the numbers, if this Bill's defense is going to be bad.
41:02I think they're around 27th in EPA or something of that nature.
41:05I saw a stat for this earlier. I don't have the exact number in the twenties.
41:10I have a lot of faith in Jim Leonard and what he can do defensively from a schematic standpoint, from watching it at Wisconsin.
41:16I don't know if it's translating yet to the NFL game.
41:20Um, so I wonder if that we'll see that this week, if Drake may kind of comes back to earth.
41:25I saw the Drake may had a passer rating of 56, uh, within this split throws of 10 or more yards with no pressure.
41:32I'm like, that's gotta be the worst. Justin Herbert's is 23.1.
41:35Oh man. Uh, so also with, with may Christian Benford, the number one cornerback for the bills was out at all.
41:41Yeah. Only played 32% of the snaps he left with an injury.
41:44That's a important defensive lineman for the bills. So not a great bills defense and banged up to boot.
41:50He did play great though. Okay. Here's Matt's question.
41:52Who are some players that you regret not drafting?
41:55I already said for me, Zay flowers, Ted, roll McMillan.
41:58I just, I think I kind of botched the three, four turn with too much, uh, too much McConkie and DJ more,
42:04you know, like it just, it just has, it's just so annoying.
42:07It's like, listen, if you're on my freaking fantasy team and you want to get hurt, get hurt.
42:12Stop doing it in the first quarter or the second quarter, like stop doing it in the middle of the game.
42:18I'm getting really frustrated. Like just, we're all getting killed by these.
42:22Oh, it's killing me. It's killing me. And so many of it's killing everybody though.
42:26It's not just us too, Adam. It's been a problem for fantasy.
42:29It's only me. Adam, would you say that's an eye for an eye?
42:33Is that a joke about my wonky eye? Yes.
42:35I still have a bad eye. Uh, yeah. Still have this eye.
42:39All your problems tend to linger longer than they should.
42:42You know, I haven't been sick. I haven't been sick in a while and you have been so.
42:47Yeah, I know, but it got to get over it faster than you do.
42:51Okay. Well, I have trouble getting over things like not drafting, say flowers.
42:54What are some of your regrets, Dan? Um, I would say you named a few of them.
42:59My biggest regret is I love CD land preseason.
43:01Didn't come away with him in a single auction, except for the one we did with the, with your friends at the end.
43:08Cause I was just like, I have to do it.
43:11And I think the reality was I was hoping and wanting to buy him at the price of where he was ranked ADP.
43:17And the reality is I should have scrapped that and been like, this guy can clearly be a top five, top six
43:23fantasy player, which he now obviously is. And it seems so obvious now.
43:27And I think Jacob, you made a great case for him at the end of draft season when we did our ADP value tiers.
43:34And I just wasn't able to, at that point, get him.
43:37So that's a big regret of mine. Um, lamb, I think is just an obvious league winner this year and should have known that should have been obvious.
43:45Uh, the other regret of mine that I ended up fixing a little bit at the end was Chuba Hubbard.
43:50I kind of had the feeling that we were overrating Jonathan Brooks, the entire process talked about that throughout, but didn't do anything about it.
43:58And what is there to do about it? There was something obvious to do about it.
44:02It was by Chuba Hubbard at an insanely decreased and depressed cost.
44:05I kind of avoided the whole thing in Carolina.
44:08This is similar to Tedrow McMillan and other big draft forget of mine, but those are the two that stand out the
44:14most to me specifically because I felt like there was a way for me to fix how I was feeling.
44:20And I just didn't lean into it enough. Um, I think one other one would probably be not fully buying into the
44:26Zay Flowers hype and thinking he was overpriced. Similar thing with Parker Washington, just too much hype from fantasy analysts.
44:32And I was like, I don't want to pay this price.
44:35But the reality is the price was worth paying on both of those players.
44:39Adam, Dan and I did an auction draft together and it was complete chaos.
44:43I was doing all sorts of stuff that was like stressing Dan out.
44:46Um, including just buying Zay Flowers without really asking.
44:49Um, our team, our team's like perfect. Yeah. It's like, we've had on like every single thing.
44:54And of course it was just like some young was super lucky of a pick, but we hit it.
44:59Some really random league for like no money or anything.
45:02It's going to be for now. And it doesn't matter.
45:05I love that though. That's awesome. Yeah. I don't know if Jacob, you want to go through your regrets.
45:10I do have one thing. A lot of the same stuff.
45:13Sorry. I didn't mean to cut you off. No, no.
45:16I was going to tease. Like I'm going to disagree with Dan on one thing that he said, but go ahead.
45:22Well, who do you not drafting? A lot of the same stuff.
45:25I don't have any Hubbard either. Hubbard. Um, I guess you could have gotten there.
45:29I was worried about the offensive line. So I don't really have any Panthers outside of like dynasty.
45:34I already have a ton of them in dynasty.
45:37So I didn't really draft many of them this year.
45:40Um, but also Hubbard, it's been kind of a lucky run out.
45:43I think where it's like both backup running backs got hurt.
45:46I actually think Trevor HN is pretty good. Travis HN's little brother.
45:50Um, but they've both been out. So it's been like 90% Hubbard.
45:53Um, I mean, AJ Dillon is the backup. Like that's just where we're at here with this situation.
45:58Um, so that looks really bad, but I don't know.
46:01I think that that one's kind of lucky. Um, the bad one that I'm shocked you didn't mention Dan is Amari and Hampton.
46:07Like, oh, I thought we were doing the regrets of the ones we want.
46:11Regrets of the other side of it. That's what I was going to say.
46:15I have plenty of other side of the regrets.
46:18We didn't draft like CD land because of Hampton or he didn't draft in my case, Kenneth Walker because of Hampton.
46:24Like I was high on Kenneth Walker. Um, but I was drafting Hampton and Derek Henry ahead of him.
46:29And so Henry looks good, but Hampton looks like a, that team's dead because of this pick.
46:34And if you had Kenneth Walker, you might legitimately be like three and one or four and oh, oh, and four, one and three.
46:41Yeah. I was talking to Jamie about that. He's like, he loves Kenneth Walker, right?
46:45Love him. And he said, damn, my FFT team.
46:47I decided I just want to be different and diversify a little bit.
46:51And he took Barkley over Kenneth Walker and he's, oh, he's about to be able to just stuck with his rank.
46:57Yeah. That's the thing. Everybody likes to diversify. I've learned through the years.
47:01You don't diversify. I think you should diversify. You absolutely should diversify based on the injuries you should, but yes, exactly.
47:06I mean, you're look, you might have more bad teams, but you probably have more good teams if you diversify to probably have more.
47:13I think the opposite. If you don't diversify, you have a better chance to win a league.
47:18If you lean into like the Ken Walker thing.
47:21So part of the reason I ranked him lower was his injury history.
47:24And we started doing our analysis, Jacob and I, I had him above Hampton and I had him as my RB five.
47:30He was going to be my flag plan. And then he had that foot injury that meant nothing that ended up meaning nothing.
47:37And I'm just reminded in my head of like, can this guy do this and stay healthy?
47:42Um, we don't know yet. It's only been four weeks.
47:44I know. I know. Yeah. Yeah. Both Walker and a lava are that way where it's like either one of them, they
47:51have a pretty long injury history and we're only four weeks in, but right now they look like some of the best picks you could have made.
47:58Um, a lava to me feels kind of like JSN last year where I was very high on him for all these reasons.
48:05Had him ranked as like a borderline round two guy, but didn't end up drafting any lava this year.
48:10I drafted neighbors ahead of him. I drafted pickens ahead of him.
48:13I drafted say flowers ahead of him right now.
48:16It feels like the only one from that group barring an injury or something is flowers that could outproduce him.
48:22Maybe. Um, I also occasionally drafted Colson Loveland ahead of him in round three.
48:26Um, which is absolutely brutal. Um, and then T Mac is the other one I drafted, Ladd McConkie ahead of McMillan.
48:31I drafted Jalen Waddle. I drafted Luther Burden ahead of McMillan.
48:35So those have been brutal. And then the last one is George Kittle, but I don't think I was ever going to get there.
48:41Um, honestly, just drafting somebody that old off of an Achilles.
48:44I was, it just wasn't, didn't make sense to me.
48:47There were lots of late round tight ends the like, and some of them have been big hits, but not to the extent of Kittle.
48:54Kittle has been a, he looks like a complete league winner.
48:57And especially if Mike Evans can't make it through the season, which it seems like there's like a 2% chance of him making it through the season.
49:05Um, Kittle is going to go nuts. Like it's like all focused on him.
49:09There's no, they don't even throw to the receivers when Mike Evans isn't out there.
49:13Right. I wanted to disagree with you just on CD lamb.
49:16And this is so obvious. This should have been obvious.
49:19And, and I don't agree because if you just look at when lamb came back from the injury, he missed a couple of weeks, uh, last year.
49:27When he came back from injury, he had like half a target more per game than George Pickens or something like that.
49:33It was the last 10 games, excluding week eight.
49:35And Pickens was on pace for 146 targets and lamb was on pace for 156 targets and Pickens was better than him.
49:42And if you look at CD lamb's target per out run rate last season, it was 20, it was 25.8%, which is
49:48way below what it was the previous two or three years.
49:51I mean, the two years before that, it was 29%.
49:54And I think you could see an obvious, obvious, uh, issue, not that he was bad or anything, but that he wasn't
50:00the player that we thought that used to be with, with George Pickens on the team because the targets just were not there.
50:06Like this was the first time he was playing with a legit guy, uh, opposite him.
50:11And even going into last week, he was on pace for 141 targets.
50:15And then he gets a career high in targets and catches in week four.
50:18And now things look different, but I don't think it was obvious at all.
50:22I didn't draft CD lamb. I didn't draft Pickens.
50:25I just traded for him in one league. So of all my leagues, I have one Cowboys receiver.
50:30We'll talk about Pickens in a little bit, but I am a little surprised.
50:34And I think the numbers are a lot more lopsided now than they were a week ago or two days ago.
50:40Um, but I'm a little surprised at what we're seeing from some right now.
50:44He has a 32.2% target per out run rate, which is by far a career high.
50:48So, um, I don't think it was so obvious with CD lamb.
50:52But all right, let's go to our next one.
50:54Let's talk about Ali Gordon. Brandon from on Twitter wants to know about Ali Gordon.
50:58And I think a lot of people do. He's still rostered in only 78% of leagues.
51:03So he might be available in some leagues, nine carries a hundred yards and a touchdown at the Vikings, two catches for no yards.
51:10And not just that, Dan, he played a ton.
51:12He ran the most routes. I mean, he was like, basically there's their true lead running back, even though he only had nine carries.
51:19So, uh, how much are you buying into the Ali G show?
51:22I think what's most interesting is that the plan was not for him to be their true lead running back.
51:28As I went back and watched the tape of this game, the second, the first play of the game was a run for him.
51:35The second play of the game was a design screen that didn't work for him.
51:39And then Jalen Wright just came into the game during the first possession after their first first down.
51:44Jalen Wright eventually came back into the game. And for the, through the first five possessions, I believe it was nearly split between him and Wright.
51:51And then in the second half, we saw Ali G take over more.
51:55And I'll, I'll use that as well. Cause I think it's fun to use the Ali G show and big up yourself says Ben Seth.
52:02Yeah. I forget all of this stuff, but like that was one of them.
52:06Um, boom, yakasha, boom, yakasha, I think is another one that I see in there.
52:10I don't know if I pronounced that right. But, um, and then the plan kind of changed.
52:15I did feel like out of the a hundred yards, 53, I believe for 51 came on the one run.
52:21It was a good run. Do I feel like the dolphins kind of caught the Vikings in a really weird pre-snap formation
52:27that sometimes you can catch Brian Flores in. And then they ran like an outside run to the left where there was
52:33just one linebacker that needed to be pinned down.
52:36And then it opened up like a massive spot, a massive hole for Gordon to run through.
52:40Yes. Is that going to happen every week? I don't know, but his touchdown run was phenomenal.
52:45That was the second big run he had where he, it was again, a pretty well-blocked play.
52:50But he did have to hurdle over a defender who was flat on his feet and then keep his balance after hurtling
52:56and lost no momentum, shook off one more ankle tackle, uh, with pretty much ease again and went to the end zone.
53:02He's a big back. Like this is how it worked for him at Oklahoma state.
53:07When he was in the Heisman running his second to last season at Oklahoma state, it was because he used his size to basically bully players.
53:14And he's got a lot more lateral agility than you would expect for someone his size.
53:18I comped him coming out cause the giants really interested in him.
53:22They brought him in for a pre-draft. So I watched his tape.
53:25I comped him to like DeMarco Murray. He still reminds me of a DeMarco Murray type player, not as good in my
53:31mind, but has that ability like strong high cut runner.
53:34I feel like he makes more sense for what the dolphins are under Bobby Slovic than Jalen Wright does.
53:39And I think what, what they saw on film, they'll probably be like, all right, the plan that we went in with,
53:46which was basically a split with these two is probably going to have to lean more toward Ollie moving forward.
53:51I still don't get too excited though, Adam, because again, those two runs were what defined his game.
53:56And they were my mind just kind of taking advantage of Flores is aggressive nature.
54:01I don't have excitement about this offense. I don't have excitement about him getting a lot of scoring opportunities.
54:06So I'm not very excited about him moving forward personally.
54:09Okay. Good to know. And what do you think about the team name?
54:12Oil of Ollie. No, no. You don't, don't ever run back the oil of in your life again, please.
54:18Nobody's laughing at that, but your soundtrack can't just soundtrack your way to a laugh.
54:22All right. That's not how this works. Anything to add, Jacob, or shall we move on?
54:27That's crazy. Okay. We'll move on. Carlos Duran wants to know about George Pickens, David Montgomery, and all of the Bucs wide receivers.
54:33Jacob, who do you have, of any of these people, who do you have hope for?
54:37Pickens, Montgomery, Bucs wide receivers. Pickens. Yeah. So I do think that the lamb stuff was something we could have predicted.
54:43I think just playing through a high ankle sprain is a, is a very real reason to believe that his numbers came down last year.
54:50And it wasn't just that Pickens was like alpha in him or whatever.
54:54Um, I think both these guys are insanely good.
54:57Like truly two of the best, like, I don't know, eight receivers in the whole league or something like that on the same team.
55:03Lamb is the more consistent, reliable winner and has the rapport with Dak.
55:07Like him and Dak have been together forever. He's the guy in the red zone.
55:11That's the way it was last year, even when he was playing with a high ankle sprain.
55:16So he was my preferred pick for fantasy, but we're gonna see big games for Pickens.
55:21Um, he has so many yards called back on, or not called back, but like negated by pass interference already.
55:26Um, he's had drops too, which are, I think kind of random.
55:30Um, I, I just feel fine with Pickens. Um, the other guys here, like I'm a little bit worried about the Texans
55:36offensive line continues to really, really struggle in the box.
55:39I mean, I watched their whole game and it was, it's just, it's not happening for Ibuka.
55:43I don't think it's happening anytime soon, maybe in the second half or something.
55:47Um, how many catchable area yards do you think Ibuka had this week?
55:51Oh man. Oh, 30. Nope. No, he hasn't had more than 43 in a game all year.
55:56Um, and I'm pretty sure he had four this week.
55:59Wow. Did you see him get wide open and Daniels didn't see him?
56:02Could have been a touchdown. Yeah. Didn't see him.
56:05And he had the drop in the, in the end zone as well.
56:08Um, I said, um, beyond the box for this past week, he's not a top 36 receiver and he should be dropped in the rankings.
56:15I stand by that. And I don't really view him as a startable player at all at this point, outside of just
56:22his name being what it was and what he was at the beginning of last season.
56:26Um, so. No, I, I didn't think Daniels played that poorly though.
56:30Did you? I thought he played better than I expected.
56:32He played better in the second half. Sure. Yeah.
56:35It looked really bad at first, I thought. And then he kind of settled in and played better.
56:40So that's maybe some sign that it could get better.
56:43But as far as what a book is role within this offense is with the quarterback, he has no rapport with and the timing is way off.
56:50Like you just see so many moments and Jacob, you put a couple on Twitter where a book is open, but it's
56:57not going to get to him because in order for it to get there, the anticipation and the timing has to be good.
57:03And that's just not happening with Jalen Daniels. He made plays in that second half, but most of them I thought were
57:09off schedule to me at least, um, outside of like a few here and there.
57:13So I don't, it's just tough for me to get excited about anyone in this passing game right now at all.
57:1939% pressure rate for the bucks with 2.24 seconds as the average time to pressure.
57:24That's very, very fast. So Gannon, um, Packers defensive coach here was constantly crowding the line and showing different looks and the bucks really struggled against it.
57:31And it's like, if the offensive line is a problem, if the pass protection plan is a problem, then you have nothing
57:37like that's supposed to be the strength of this team.
57:40I just think that's the move too. Like all the good OCs do that.
57:44Sorry. DCs do the bad ones. Just stupid are stupid.
57:47I'll play my scheme. No, when you play a rookie quarterback who has no experience in the NFL, this should be the game plan every single time.
57:55And I think until proven until further notice, DCs are going to watch this tape and know this is how you play this box team.
58:02They don't really have a deep threat anyway to worry about it.
58:05And this, can we even get the ball there?
58:08So to me, I think this offense is going to look pretty bad until Baker's back.
58:12Personally, two screens to Buka in the game, um, two screens to Chris Godwin, one to gain well, one to on their run.
58:18They're throwing a ton of screens, but it just hasn't been effective at all among offices that are averaging three or more screens per game.
58:26Only the chargers, dolphins, Patriots, Bengals, and Vikings are averaging fewer yards per screen target.
58:30They have zero explosives on 15 screen targets this year.
58:33Um, so that's just generating nothing. And that's, that's been a huge theoretical strength of what this team should be, right?
58:38That's what it was when Liam Cole was there and Zach Robinson is supposed to implement all that stuff.
58:44He's kind of tried. It just hasn't worked. Um, I think that this, the stuff that like should be working is not working.
58:50They're also running a weird amount of the offense through Kate on and he's killing them.
58:55He's playing terrible and he has like the highest first three target rate again in this game.
59:00He has only one fewer first three target rates, first three targets than a Mecca Buka on the year.
59:05Um, I don't know. Wow. Yeah. I don't know what that is.
59:08Um, I know like my top pits got used this way kind of for Zach Robinson.
59:13So I don't know if that's going to continue or not, but it's not working.
59:17Yeah. Um, the only thing that really worked and it didn't work that well is just running with Bucky Irving or Sean
59:23Tucker occasionally, but just like they went to a lot, they simplified things in the round game.
59:28Just like man gap zone, a lot less outside zone, just man gap up the middle.
59:33Yeah. And those worked all right. Um, but again, just no explosive plays.
59:36That's just like, as long as this doesn't get blown up in the backfield, then we can get four or five, six yards.
59:43Um, but that run game isn't good enough for them to not eventually run into these like third long situations.
59:48And it just feels hopeless on those. Yeah. You only had two explosives all day.
59:53Yeah. I'm not sure there's a single startable player.
59:55I think the only one that's in question is Bucky.
59:58And if Sean Tucker's the goal linebacking, I freaked out about this yesterday and I'm still really upset about it.
60:04It's just, it's so annoying. You could still play.
60:06I think Bucky at least has potential to become startable because that's clear.
60:10Like from what Jacob said, and I think that the obvious thing, obvious solution here to me, at least is run this
60:16and operate this offense through Bucky Irving until Baker Mayfield is back.
60:19Does that mean I think they can successfully do that?
60:22It's going to require things like what Jacob said to get better.
60:25The timing in the screen game and things of that nature, using him as an outlet.
60:30They're not at least in this game. They didn't really use him that way though.
60:34And you need to use him as an extension of your run game as well in the passing game, or if you want to just generate any yards.
60:42Daniels is going to be more likely to take off and run with it.
60:46He had eight carries for 55 yards. For sure.
60:49I'm talking about design stuff more, but yeah, less than like the check down.
60:53Just like design space to get him the ball in space.
60:56But again, this is just hopeful thinking at this point.
60:58It's wishful thinking. And it's certainly more wishful for me on his front than it is for Godwin or Icbuka.
61:04Icbuka to me is somebody I'd be devastated to have on any team right now.
61:08I would kind of buy it with Bucky that maybe that would happen if it was like after week one or week
61:14two where the usage felt like it was centered around him.
61:18And it wasn't that way. You're right. It's not.
61:20Yeah. They're all sell. They compartmentalized the backfield a lot more this week.
61:24Kind of felt like they went away from him.
61:26And it's just like, I don't know. He's the best player.
61:29Yeah, sure. But he's also made some mistakes this year.
61:32Pass protection, fumbles, drops, stuff like that. But I just don't know.
61:36It doesn't. Yeah, it feels like a bad team that has no identity.
61:39I would not want to play in these guys.
61:42Can I tell you a crazy cowboys, by the way, this week and that, you know, Pickens is in this discussion.
61:48Pickens is facing a team that has been awesome against wide receivers.
61:51It's really weird. You know, only Jordan Addison has done well.
61:54Look at Jamar Chase and T Higgins. They struggled against Tampa Bay.
61:58Actually, Denzel Boston did well, but he had that fluky long touchdown.
62:01Addison did well. Matthew Golden, 21 yards on seven targets.
62:04Christian Watson, three targets, 47 yards. So that's what Pickens is going up against.
62:08Fourth best against wide receivers so far. Pickens with a good target share in each of his first three games are good enough.
62:14And then 7% last week, yesterday. But the thing I would worry about with Pickens is, man, the go routes, 30%, a little bit more than that.
62:22He looked like he's running clear outs for Lamb, essentially.
62:25But worse yesterday than in previous games. Than before, yeah.
62:27But yeah, he looks like the sacrificial ex, which is crazy because he isn't.
62:31But it's kind of, it's been a little scary.
62:34All right, what were you going to say, Dan?
62:36You can finish the show with your brilliant thought.
62:39Oh, there was nothing brilliant about it. It's Verne Burns in the chat has multiple times told us, Adam, that you and
62:45I are mispronouncing the school that Sean Tucker played at.
62:48But I think he's actually wrong. And he's giving some kind of weird Finger Lakes living, you know, growing up in the Finger Lakes type of accent.
62:56It's not Syracuse. No one has ever called it Syracuse.
62:58Agreed. Okay? It's Syracuse. Everyone who has ever pronounced it has pronounced it Syracuse.
63:02You know what? I asked my cousin who went there because I've had this debate before and I had her pronounce it for me and she said Syracuse.
63:10And I will never bend on this. John Syracuse, who the town was named after, if that's where it was, if that
63:16exists, could tell me that it's pronounced Syracuse. And I'll say, you are wrong, guy.
63:21It is clearly Syracuse. I will never say Syracuse.
63:23No one's pronouncing it Syracuse. It's insane to even consider that.
63:26Don't ever put that in our chat again because we'll never move off this, Adam and I.
63:31Is Dan, bad guy said, is Dan the laziest person on the pod?
63:35Wow, you put that on? I'm not the laziest person on this pod.
63:38When it comes to things like my background, maybe.
63:41I'm not great when it comes to decorating. Or his hair or hoodies.
63:45I'm not the hair and the hoodies. Whoa, whoa, whoa.
63:47You've just crossed the line. You just said before the show that you won't get a haircut because you want to golf.
63:54True. That's pretty lazy. That's just priorities. I'm not going to waste a Saturday getting a haircut when I can be on the course.
64:00Get a haircut on a weekday. You should never get a haircut on a Saturday.
64:05It's a great call. You got more important things to do.
64:08Get a haircut on a weekday. All right. We'll talk to you all tomorrow with the waiver wire on Fantasy Football Today.
64:14Make sure you check out Beyond the Box score.
64:16It's got its own feed, own YouTube channel. Thanks to Dan and Jacob.
64:20Talk to you tomorrow, everybody. See ya. Podcasts. Podcasts.
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