0:00What's going on, man? Welcome back to the basement. I'm Ron and after every weekend of football, I hop on here to
0:07give you my fantasy football lessons learned and takeaways from the week that just happened. This time, we're going to talk about week eight as we look forward
0:14to week nine. We're going to break down all of the usage, data, stats, trends, injury news, the rookie running back carousel, the world famous rookie
0:22receiver report, everything you need to know to stay ahead of your league mates this week. As always, if you enjoy, leave a like, subscribe if you're new,
0:29and we are going to start off here actually with the rookie running back carousel because why not? We have a big
0:38Jonah Coleman breakout. He is the man of the hour. Jonah Coleman, welcome to the show is my top headline here. Now, I do
0:46have in parenthesis, welcome to the show if we can avoid a Jonathan Taylor trade.
0:51So for Jonah Coleman and what the rookie running back carousel is, we have this a little bit different. Now for the
0:56running backs, we have every rookie running back that I think is notable, their points per game so far, their snap share the last three weeks, that's just
1:03their playing time. And then only in their last game played, their rush share and their route share because we just want to see what is their usage, how are
1:10things trending up in terms of snaps.
1:12Rush share, anything over honestly anything over 50% is pretty strong. Mike Washington obviously boosts things and we'll talk about him in a little bit.
1:18And then route share. Anything over 50% here is strong as well. You can see Jonah Coleman hits 50% plus in both.
1:25That is awesome usage. He is ramping up.
1:27He has fully taken over this backfield.
1:30We can see here from Jacob Gibbs, Denver Broncos rookie running back Jonah Coleman in the second half of a week eight win. 90% of them the snaps and the
1:38only running back to touch the ball.
1:40Takeover complete. He was awesome in this game. They were using him a ton, especially in the red zone inside the 10
1:47yardd line. If you held on to him, you should feel really good. Now, of course, you just got to survive Jonathan Taylor
1:56here. He gets 11 carries, 41 yards, a touchdown. The big thing for Jonah Coleman, a 5'8, 220 lb back in an
2:03offense that usually this would be going to RJ Harvey. So, just a little bit of a ding that when RJ Harvey comes back, you
2:09do get R.J. Harvey on IR. That's a huge break for Jonah Coleman. Whenever RJ Harvey comes back, maybe that's in the
2:14fantasy playoffs. is some downside that he could take away some of this receiving role, make things a three-way split. That would be annoying. But four
2:21catches, 63 yards for Jonah Coleman is absolutely huge. He looked great. He was explosive. He was creating big plays for an offense that would JK Dobbins needed
2:30it extremely bad. Now, of course, we have some bad news. We are parading around with Jeremiah Love, not or with Jonah Coleman. Not so much for Jeremiah
2:42Love here. This I literally the note I have is Jeremiah Love Conan ball torture. It has been a brutal brutal year to have Jeremiah Love
2:49in fantasy football. He was one of my biggest targets and I think he's also one of my biggest lessons learned that
2:54when we come into the season a guy like Jeremiah Love high ankle sprain in the preseason even though okay it was early
2:58in the preseason he's going to have many weeks to get through it and he's going to need a early ramp up anyways and
3:04everything is trending fine still we gota really ding that guy in a big way.
3:11Same lesson with Bruce Hall. Picked up a lower body injury. Now, of course, his quad injury isn't super related to the
3:17injury he picked up uh in the preseason, but it's still, you know, lower body. It all flows through. Ashton Genty is
3:24another one of these guys as well uh who picked up an injury in the offseason.
3:29Just something to think about. I do want to double check on the Bruce Hall injury because I know that Bree Hall picked up
3:34an injury in the preseason, but it wasn't I believe it was ankle. Uh, oh no, he had a groin injury, now a quad
3:44injury. If you want to say that they're related, you can. If you want to say they're not related, you can. Uh, all
3:47comes down to a matter of opinion when it comes to compensation injuries. But with Jeremiah Love, this was brutal.
3:54Another brutal one for Jeremiah Love.
3:56Every time that things look like they're going to go right, they go wrong for Jeremiah Love. Week three against the 49ers, he is awesome. Then the next
4:03game, he tweaks his ankle. The next game, bad. tweaks his ankle, shut down for multiple weeks, comes back against the Cowboys where he should have been.
4:09Wheels all the way up. 13 snaps to Alier's four snaps in the first quarter.
4:14That is beautiful. That is beautiful. 13 snaps to four snaps. Alier ends up with 36 PPR points against the Dallas Cowboys
4:22defense. That is essentially Swiss cheese. But instead, Jeremiah Love picks up another injury. It could be the same ankle again that could then eventually I
4:31think that the base case that he's going to be out at least next week. and there's a chance that he's had so many
4:36of these ankle issues that they put him on IR through the week 14 bye-week and he doesn't play again until week 15. I'm
4:42saying that's worst case scenario, but that's on the table. Uh and it's really really disappointing. Really, really disappointing because I think it was
4:49very clear that if he doesn't get hurt in this game, he plays the entire thing and scores 20 PPR points versus the
4:55Cowboys. Just the way that the the role was leaning, the way that the touches were going, the way that Algier ripped
5:00his defense apart, really really unfortunate. Now, we did have some other positives for rookies here. Uh, we had Emtt Johnson at the top. Emtt Johnson,
5:08you can't start him, but he's probably the best handcuff in football. Not named like Blake Cororm, you know what I mean?
5:13Like, outside of Blake Corm, Emtt Johnson's right there. He had five catches for 128 yards and a touchdown in this game. Awesome player. Mist tackles
5:21forced all over the place. Only a 19% target share. So, I wouldn't worry about Kenneth Walker. Even though it's been two straight down weeks for Kenneth
5:28Walker, he'll have better days ahead.
5:29These last two match ups has have been against the Seahawks and the Broncos.
5:33Kenneth Walker will be just fine, but EMTT Johnson has a lot of juice in his own right. Very much taking things
5:39through the air more than things on the ground with only a 4% rush share.
5:42Opposite of this, we have Mike Washington Jr. here taking an 81% rusher. That's even higher than Jonah Coleman this week, which is nuts. 33%
5:50snapshot, 27% to 63%.
5:53Mike Washington had 25 carries in this game. 83 rushing yards. Terrible. Now, you can say maybe Ashen Genty was benched for his weird comments about the
6:02Jets, saying that the Jets can't really tackle or whatever. Or this is just how Kubak wants to operate. We've seen Kubak
6:09operate with the Kenneth Walker, Zack Charban split and going into the year, maybe they thought that Ashton Genty was a talented enough player that he kind of
6:18superseded his priors of wanting more of a running back by committee system. But when you look at the game logs of Ashton
6:25Genty here, prior to the Jets, 1.8 8 yards per carry, 2.2 yards per carry, 2.7, 3.9, 2.9, 2.3.
6:33It's not good enough on the ground to be the unquestioned Bellcow. Now, do I think we're going to see, you know, two
6:42carries for nine yards for Ashton Genty in most matchups? No. But it's not good.
6:47I mean, he's still getting the receiving workload, right? He still has three catches or more in every single game, but he had literally just five touches
6:56in this game in a game that they won against the Jets. So, it's not even like a negative reinforcement thing where
7:01it's like, oh, you get Q with Ashen Genty, you lose this game. No, they won the game essentially without needing Ashen Genty. He still is really
7:07efficient through the air. Three catches for 64 yards is still awesome, but he gets a pretty big downgrade into your like RB2 area. probably
7:18I'm trying to think of like where I would have him like probably somewhere around like RB16 RB1 17ish rest of season for Ashen Genty. I would say a
7:24pretty big downgrade but it's a volatile ranking. If we come out next week and Ashen Genti is the featured back and
7:29this really was a oneweek punishment then okay backto backend RB1 status but if not and this sticks moving forward that is a big issue. Now, Mike
7:38Washington, because he doesn't get any work in the passing game, 25 carries, 83 yards, doesn't even get you 10 PPR points. He is not really startable. I
7:46guess you could call him like a low-end RB3, a desperation start when you need it. But even him, I think that it's also
7:52a I'm trying to think of the word for it, but a uh overarching theme just with like the offensive line. The offensive
8:00line just isn't really good if neither Ashton Genty or Mike Washington can average more than four yards per carry behind it. Mike Washington's a valuable
8:08handcuff. Even gets elevated over that if he's going to get volume like this, but he's still a shaky start week to
8:13week. And then we have just kind of like the rest like the hodge podge here. You of course have Jarian Price coming back
8:19tonight on Monday Night Football. Jaylen Black's on by Seth McGawan. Nothing to see here. The Colts suck. It just comes down to if Jonathan Taylor is traded,
8:26Seth McGawan will be like a high-end RB3 you can start on a weekly weekly basis.
8:30CJ Donaldson on buy. All right. Now, moving on from that, we have the world famous Rookie Receiver Report. Of course, sponsored by
8:40the Ron Stewart channel. If I'm being honest with you guys, it is late into the season. It is week nine.
8:47This is where views start to tail off.
8:48If you're here, if you're returning every single week, leave a like, subscribe if you're new, do all that stuff, comment down below, all of that.
8:55Now, let's kind of break down what we're looking at here. We have player info such as player name, team position, playing time, your route percentage over
9:01the last 3 weeks. Anything over 90% means you are a starting caliber receiver. Route percentage is just the percentage of routes you are running on
9:09pass plays for your team. So Omar Cooper ran 74% of the pass like it ran a route on 74% of the pass plays for the Jets.
9:17Uh your points per game over the entire season. So what is your production to this point? Targets per out run. What
9:22are you earning volumewise on a per out basis? Yards per out run. How efficient are you on a per out basis? First downs
9:27per out run. You're not only efficient in earning volume, are you moving the chains and being an engine for your offense? And then PFF grade, we added it
9:33back. Anything over 80 plus has kind of been a set and forget. This guy is a star in the National Football League.
9:40Let's actually kind of start uh up here.
9:43Why not? Let's actually maybe even make this bigger, too. I want to make sure you guys can like see everything. Okay.
9:47Yeah, there we go. Now we have Antonio Williams up here. We can see uh that this is huge. This is huge. It wasn't a
9:54great box score night, right? He gives you uh a nice little five catches for 54 yards game. He's not going to crush in
10:01the flex here, but this was promising nonetheless, right? We look at Antonio Williams and we can see he goes from 74%
10:08of the routes by week 88%. That is pretty much a starting caliber caliber receiver and that was despite Stfan Diggs running a season high 79% route
10:17rate. So that is absolutely huge. Stfan Diggs had a 79% route rate, highest of the season and a 20% plus target share.
10:24He's hit 20 plus in every single game besides week two. I bring that up because Antonio Williams got elevated not at the expense of Stfan Diggs, but
10:31at the expense of the ancillary characters like Trayon Burks and Dame Brown and Luke McAffrey and all of those guys. Big news. 25% target share for
10:40Antonio Williams. He not only led the Washington Commanders in routes, but he also led them in target share. 1.86 yards per run in this game. Nothing
10:48crazy, but three first downs, solid day, six targets, firmly in the mix to kind of work his way up to that Casey
10:54Conpsion, Jeremy Bernard, Denzel Boston weekly wide receiver three type area. I would feel really good about him and if he's on waiverss, I would want to be
11:03scooping him up. Then we can talk about in that same game on Sunday Night Football, Mai Lemon. We like this full-time player starting to trend up
11:12here. Oh, and I will add on Antonio Williams, a 76.3 PFF grade. if you still believe in it. It is the highest among
11:18all rookie receivers right now, but still not at the 80 plus mark that we are looking for. Now, with Mai Lemon,
11:24per out number still taking a hit, but he is trending up. Like, all of these numbers were so bad because earlier in
11:29the year, he was typ casted into a weird role. This game, he had a pretty healthy 10yard AOT. It was his third time all
11:35year with a 10 or higher AOT. 44% of his routes came out wide. So, they're moving him all around the formation. They're
11:41letting him uh run routes deep here. and he had eight targets, six catches, 57 yards. He led all rookies in all
11:47categories receiving wise, which goes to show it was a pretty uh quiet week for rookie receivers, but Mai Lemon doing real wide receiver stuff. It's just that
11:56he's in the context of a Tanner McKe offense, but he is somebody who can start in a given week just given by
12:02injuries this season. Now, we can talk about some of these Miami wide receivers. Caleb Douglas ramping up a little bit from 81% to 86% of the
12:09routes. targets per run isn't there, but his 2.11 yards per out run among like the top dogs, right? Like it's it's Omar
12:16Cooper at three, Caleb Douglas 211, Carninal Tate two, and then everything else we're talking like small sample guys like Eli Stowers down here. That's
12:23a big deal, man. Clearing a two plus yards per run, 8.4% first downs per run.
12:27This is all strong. PF grade's a little bit low, but Caleb Douglas I feel good about. We'll talk about a little bit
12:32later, but this Miami Dolphins offense isn't as bad as we once thought. He picks up six targets, four catches, 43 yards. He is a startable like wide
12:41receiver three/flexplay moving forward.
12:43The other Dolphins receivers in this one. Uh Chris Bell still rough. I mean he's ramping up coming off the ACL tear,
12:49but these are just like unplayable per route stats. He gets four catches, 31 yards in this game. I'm not running to
12:53put him in a lineup. And then shout out Kevin Coleman. I've been very critical of him, but 25% route share in this one.
12:59Three catches, 46 yards, and a touchdown on the day. Good for you. I mean, he's not interesting for fantasy football, but good for you for getting out there
13:06scoring a touchdown, being an NFL player. Uh, that is awesome. Then we have our Cleveland Browns receivers I wanted to talk about. Uh, and they're
13:12actually next to each other right here.
13:13So, Denzel Boston has been outproducing Conpsion. And the biggest issue for Denzel Boston this year has been a lack of targets, right? He's been getting a
13:21lot of downfield big shots. His targets per run has been a lot lower. Well, now his targets per run is actually starting
13:26to climb here at 18% plus. Over the last two weeks, I want to double check here.
13:31I believe he's been at 20 targets over the last two weeks. No, he has eight targets in week seven, 11 targets week
13:37eight. So 19 targets in his last two weeks. His previous right week seven, eight targets was his highest of his career. 11 targets this week, highest of
13:46his career. Now it sucks that all you got in the box score was 5.7 PPR points and 9.7 PPR points. But more volume is a
13:55big deal for Denzel Boston. I think better days are ahead. We did have Deshun Watson throw for 300 plus, but it
13:59all went to Harold Fannon. Some of it went to Dylan Samson. None of it really went to the two rookie receivers for big
14:05fantasy football days. Conpsion. Same deal. I did hear that Conpsion left this game early with an injury at some point or was like in and out of the tent. Just
14:13something to monitor there. But quiet days for both. The Steelers defense is good this season. The defensive line was just absolutely bullying the Browns O
14:21line. And again, all of the good receiving stuff went to Harold Fannon.
14:25Then we have the Omar Cooper no-show.
14:27This is what I thought was going to happen last week. Of course, it happens this week when we're all confident enough to put Omar Cooper in our lineup.
14:35He comes out here and does nothing.
14:37Here's the thing with Omar Cooper and honestly all of these Jets weapons is for the first time in my life, for the
14:43first time since Brandon Marshall, uh, this team has good weapons. They're not winning games. are not amazing, but Garrett Wilson, Omar Cooper, Adani
14:51Mitchell, Kenyan Sadi, uh Mason Taylor, Brilan Allen, Bree Hall coming back is like by far the best skill position group I've seen for the Jets in a while,
15:01which is why they can put up 30 plus points and still lose a game. But what that's going to create, especially Omar
15:07Cooper only having a 74% route share, there's a lot of guys who need routes, right? You got to get AD Mitchell out
15:11there for routes. Garrett Wilson, of course, you want Mason Taylor to run routes, Kenyon Sadi to run routes. Even the one guy who shouldn't be running
15:16routes is Isaiah Williams. He should never be running routes, but they love Isaiah Williams. He does score a touchdown in this one. So, you can call
15:20me an idiot for talking down on Isaiah Williams. But when your route share 74% and not 90% plus, you're much more boom
15:28bust. Now, I think booms are going to be on the way. I mean, they just were the last two games. His parametrics are
15:34still awesome across the board. It's just the floor is going to be zero in this offense with this target competition. And maybe we got a little
15:40bit over our skis early. I would call him a boom bust wide receiver three/flex play moving forward. He's still playable. It's just unfortunate. Uh if
15:48you want to look at the film guys, a lot of them said he was running uh wide open all day long. So, I'm not too too
15:53concerned there. Same thing with Kenya Sadi, he's just unplayable at this route share. 36%, 36%, 43%. Until Mason Taylor gets hurt or this jumps up to 70% plus.
16:04Kenyan Sadik is a deep league stash or somebody you can just drop to waiverss.
16:09Then you have Jeremy Bernard here.
16:12Interesting one. Rure goes down to 85% plus or down to 85%. We're going to get Michael Pitman back here uh after the
16:19buy is what the reports have been saying. So week nine buy for the Steelers. Week 10 we could see Michael Pitman back. During Bernard gets five
16:25targets on a8 yard a dot here. Tough roll, tough usage. The per out stuff isn't spectacular. Uh and the more weeks
16:33that go by, the more I'm not sure that Jeremy Bernard is as good as we thought he was in that game against the
16:38Buccaneers. I think he's still a flex play, but you definitely feel much worse about Jeremy Bernard than you did like 3
16:44weeks ago. Uh, then a big one that I'm actually excited about, we have Eli Raren up here at the top. Now, this game
16:50came at the expense of Hunter Henry.
16:51Hunter Henry gets hurt in this game. AJ Brown of course gets hurt before this game happens. So, Eli Rarin, perfect ramp up for him, but we like to see this
17:00route share goes from 31% 42% to 78%. We have this tweet from Davis Madak as well showing that once Hunter Henry left, we
17:07had a 92% snap share for Eli Raridan.
17:10That is absolutely huge. Now, he didn't come through in this game. Only three targets, one catch for five yards, but 78% route share. And over the entire
17:18season, having light green across the board for every perout metric is a really strong indicator for Eli Raren.
17:24So, in deeper leagues, we are going to be grabbing him everywhere pending how long Hunter Henry will be out for. just
17:30being attached to Drake May, having some rookie upside. Eli Raridan, I am very excited about a prospect that I really like. Speaking of tight ends that I am
17:38excited about, we have Eli Stoers now.
17:41Excited in the sense that it's really more dynasty. I'm not that excited when it comes to reddraft or anything. You still have Dallas Gddard ahead. I will
17:47say though, Eli Stoers has been eating at Dallas GD's route share. Dallas GDR only got to a 65% route share in this
17:54Sunday Night Football game. Eli Sto hovering around 23% route shares. He needs to get to 70% plus to be startable. So again, he's purely a stash
18:02in deep leagues. But he gets three catches, 53 yards in this game against the Washington Commanders. That is the third most receiving yards among all
18:09rookie receivers this week. That's a big deal for Eli Sto across the board per route stuff. All green on a really,
18:15really small sample. We're talking 19 routes. PF grade is not good. He is still very much a boom bust prospect. I
18:21have no clue if he's good or not. We just want to keep tracking if he's going to play in these games. Uh and then we
18:26have Cyrus Allen. Don't look now. Don't look now. He hasn't really done much. He has, you know, light green across the
18:32board for the per out stuff. 13%, 28%, 50% even with Rashi Rice back. So, just keep an eye if this ever gets to 85%
18:41plus and these get any greener, we're going to have a breakout on our hands.
18:45He is a really good deep deep league stash outside of that. Just something to keep tabs on moving forward. I'll sort
18:50by this in case if there's anything that I feel like I missed, but not really.
18:54Ted Hurst just doing cardio in a really weird game script. Uh and then nothing else. Jacobe Lane without Lamar. Nothing to be said. Reggie Virgil is running
19:02routes on Kendrick Bourne's hurt, but you can see like nothing for fantasy football. Uh J. Michael Sturdivan, same thing with Christian Watson, but not a
19:09fantasy guy. Uh and that's kind of it.
19:11Everything else, nothing else to see. I will say if Josh Downs gets moved and all of this happens, Dion Burks could be
19:17kind of fun. He has light green per route metrics and his route share is slowly slowly climbing. So just look out
19:23for Dion Burks here moving forward. Now our third takeaway is let's do some Jaguars roundup. We have some good, we have some bad. We have Basil 2 in first
19:32who looks unreal. Who is now the RB13 in points per game. Shout out to Datarama here in the RB7 since week two. He has
19:42been awesome essentially since the bye-week I No, no. This was the first game on the bye-week. The game before the by-week, the final game in London.
19:48He scores what like two or three touchdowns. Then in this game, he goes absolutely nuts. Two's looking like a league winner. His bye-week is behind
19:55him. He is amazing. He is top five among running backs in yards after contact per attempt, missless force per attempt while being top 12 in explosive rush
20:03rate per fantasy points data. He is a backwind backend RB1 rest of season. And if he was on my team, I would feel
20:10awesome about him. Now, on the flip side, Parker Washington has been extremely frustrating. He has all the talent in the world. He is clearly an
20:19awesome player, but the Jaguars are just too good for their own good. They just continue to be in these games where they don't have to
20:28throw the football. Trevor Lawrence in this game that they won 42 to7 had 14 pass attempts. Parker Washington didn't play into the fourth quarter and he ends
20:37up with two targets, one catch, 16 yards, and I think he had a 10 yard rush or something. Just brutal. And the issue
20:44is the schedule doesn't get that much tougher. He gets Baltimore, who's going to be without Lamar Jackson. I just saw on my phone, by the way, that they're
20:51saying that Lamar is likely to miss the rest of the season. Brutal, brutal news for everybody on the Ravens. That's actually our next lesson learned we'll
20:57get into here. Uh then Tennessee, but I mean Tennessee did just make it a fun game versus the Bengals, but then we're
21:02talking I mean the Giants aren't bad.
21:04Tennessee again, Chicago, Pittsburgh, Houston, Dallas, Washington. Maybe those down the stretch are a little bit more challenging, but this is an awesome
21:12team. It's really frustrating because if this was a team that had to throw the ball that played in more competitive game scripts, he would be a back-end
21:20wide receiver one. Instead, he's really more of a boom bust wide receiver, too.
21:24He's the wide receiver, 22 in points per game right now. I would guess he finishes higher than that, but it's frustrating and we probably have to
21:31recalibrate our expectations to have Parker Washington as more of a like mid-tier wide receiver, too. Earlier in the year, I would have had him pushing
21:41for back-end wide receiver one with a guy like Christian Watson. I think now he is firmly a tier behind a guy like
21:46Christian Watson. Even a guy like T.
21:48Higgins probably it's more like him.
21:50Tedo McMillan, Jaylen Coker, Garrett Wilson as like your mid-tier wide receiver, too. a strong player to have, but until things change, that's kind of
21:59where you have to recalibrate your expectations because the booms are going to be great. But these games where they're just uncompetitive in terms of
22:07their opponent, it's going to be this rough. I will say though, their Colts, their their second Colts game is in week
22:1218, so you don't have to deal with that one. The Colts being probably the worst team in the NFL. On the bright side,
22:18through the first four weeks, you had 19, 16, 13, then a 30 bomb versus Philly. uh 11 targets versus Houston, but didn't come through. There should be
22:26better days ahead, but it has been extremely frustrating with Parker Washington cuz it's so clear that he should be a smash. It just hasn't fully
22:36clicked just yet. He's the wide receiver 22 and it feels like he really should be more of like the wide receiver 10 right
22:41now. Uh we'll see if Brian Thomas gets traded. Who knows? He scores a touchdown in this game. Uh and then something else
22:47I was definitely watching for was the Travis Hunter routes out of the buy.
22:51Now, I would have to look at what happened just because of the game script, right? Like I wonder in the fourth quarter, did Travis Hunter just
22:57sit out? Uh 17% route share was his highest of the season in this game, but we're talking, you know, we're we're
23:03splitting hairs here. His role didn't grow at all. I think he had a rush in this game. I think he had a touch and
23:09then also they used him as a decoy on the Basil Tutin uh screen touchdown.
23:13That was a really cool design. Liam Cohen is awesome. Uh Travis Hunter, I think he's still worth stashing for a little bit here. I want to see a
23:20competitive game, how high those routes can climb because the thesis with Travis Hunter is just like when you're thinking about like him or you're really down bad
23:27and let's say like him versus like Kendrick Bourne this past week. I know Kendrick Bourne got hurt but somebody in that range, you know, the wide receiver
23:33were 55 in a given week, whether that's Jacobe Lane, Kendrick Bourne, Jan Dodson, whoever. Travis Hunter, I'll take on a quarter of the routes of those
23:42guys. And because when he's out there and he's gets lined up at running back and they want to use him in the red zone
23:46and all of that, it's just a more meaningful snapshare and a more talented player than a lot of those guys. But 17%
23:53router is not going to do it. It's got to get to like 35% plus for that to start to get uh interesting. Now, our
23:59fourth takeaway is the Ravens without Lamar Jackson. Sadly, like I said, as I look down at my phone here, uh the report is that Lamar is likely to
24:09miss the season. That is brutal, brutal news. If you haven't been fantasy football, I am sorry about that. Uh, and it's just it's it's been so brutal. You
24:17guys know Zay Flowers has been essentially one of, if not my biggest flag plants this year. And I called him in last week's video this year's JSN. It
24:26was so clear to anybody watching that Z Flowers are going to crush this year.
24:30Again, as I've described it of this something that shouldn't be a solar eclipse, right? Simply a wide receiver one and a quarterback one being healthy
24:38over a given stretch of the season. But that's what it felt like early on. Zay Flowers pulls his hamstring, has a foot
24:44injury, he comes back, and then Lamar Jackson gets banged up and now Lamar Jackson comes back and Zay Flowers is fully healthy and we get one quarter
24:51before this thumb injury and now he's potentially out for the season. And then not only that, but Snoop Puntley gets hurt, who even with Snoop Puntley, Zay
24:58Flowers had 25 PPR points last week versus the Bengals. And now we're talking about this guy out of Yukon, Joey Fagnano. I don't even know if
25:06that's how you say his name. I feel like I'm going to get cancelceled for saying his name, but Yukon quarterback, that's
25:11unplayable. Now, I do have some hope that they maybe trade for a Jacobe Brassette or they trade for a Joe Flacco
25:18or an Andy Dalton or whatever, but that's still only so good. You know, the best outcome, the the the season where Z
25:26Flowers is the guy you needed to have came with a healthy Lamar and a healthy Z Flowers. And it is really
25:32disappointing that that didn't happen.
25:33And that's kind of just how these things go in fantasy football sometimes. But it's really tough to stomach. Now, I will say it's not only Z Flowers, it's
25:41also Derk Henry getting affected by this. This is from Ryan Heath looking at the splits with Tyler Huntley, Lamar Jackson, and then Cooper Rush. His yards
25:48per carry falls down without Lamar. All of his efficiency stats fall down without Lamar. He's never exceeded 14 fantasy points in a loss without Lamar
25:56Jackson, and all of his efficiency metrics clearly suffer. So, with a backup quarterback, if they win and they're in that game script, he'll be
26:01all right. But this is clearly a big downgrade for Derrick Henry where he was looking like a top six running back rest
26:06of season for a stretch there. Now with Lamar Jackson hurt, he's probably more of a high-end RB2 that is game script
26:11dependent. Really, really frustrating.
26:13Now, when we talk about Zay Flowers and the receivers here, we can look at uh the target shares with Joey Fagnano
26:20here. Justice Hill 28.6% target share. We called him in the sneaky starts video. He didn't really do much, but you'll take seven plus PPR
26:29points if you put Justice Hill in there.
26:30Mark Andrews, Zay Flowers down from a 29.8% target share. That's going to come up, but the efficiency, all of that's going to come down. You of course have
26:39this, which is an upsetting stat to see from Jacob Gibbs. Uh route run metrics without Lamar on the field, wide receiver 38 in fantasy points per route,
26:47wide receiver 40 yards per route run.
26:49It's just a huge downgrade and it sucks because if you drafted Derrick Henry, if you drafted Ze Flowers, you should have
26:55been rewarded. Both of those were home run picks where you got them. And sometimes this is just how she goes in
27:01fantasy football. It sadly feels a lot like last year where you draft Jonathan Taylor clearly the best pick on the board in the first two rounds. Uh like
27:10not named Christian McCaffrey. Even then he was he was actually outscoring Christian McCaffrey through the first like 13 weeks. Daniel Jones out with an
27:17Achilles tear. Boom. Your season's over.
27:19Jonathan Taylor goes from a 23 point per game guy to like a 14 point per game guy. Uh just really sucks. Now moving on
27:26from that we have a benching here. here.
27:28Jacobe Brassette gets benched. Our fifth takeaway is Mchu Mania. We have with Gardenner Mchu in this game. I was really surprised that they didn't go to
27:36Carson Beck. I know that Carson Beck has been dealing with his own injuries. Of course, uh he had like a back injury or
27:42something, but still they go with Gardenner Mchu, which makes me think that if they go to Carson Beck, it'll be after they bench Gardenner Mchu whenever
27:49that comes. Target shares with Gardenner Mchu. Really small sample, but 30% for Michael Wilson, 26% for McBride. This is from Ryan Heath again. Uh, and like he
27:57kind of says here, as long as Mchu is in, I wouldn't worry about Trey McBride.
28:00Mchu directed 33.7% of his targets to tight ends playing with a rookie Brock Bowers, there's going to be plenty to go
28:06around for Trey McBride and Michael Wilson. Michael Wilson does have some cracked ribs. That's something to monitor, but this often is going to be
28:12what it is. It's going to be garbage time. Uh, you know, Michael Wilson, a guy who I played against in your League
28:17mates, had a really quiet day and then had three catches, including a touchdown on the last drive, some catches in overtime, and then all of a sudden he's
28:25at 25. have similar deal with Trey McBride. That's how these games are going to go. Now, Carson Beck is a wild
28:30card. We don't know what it looks like with Carson Beck. We don't know who he's going to be targeting. We don't know if
28:34he can even sustain an NFL offense. So, that is all tricky, but for the short term with Garner Mchu, I am not that
28:41worried here. Uh we talked about the backfield earlier. Now, number six, we have the Vikings. It's time to just kind of recalibrate expectations on Justin
28:49Jefferson. It's upsetting. It's similar to Parker Washington. I know that a lot of the stuff that people say is like, "Oh, panic meter. There's a time to
28:55panic. I suppose a time to panic. I'm never panicking in fantasy football. I think it's really just more recalibrating expectations. I think you
29:01only panic for like injury stuff, right?
29:03Like, yeah, I guess you panic on Lamar Jackson, right? Or you you could also panic on Bree Hall, right? Because we
29:10don't know if he's coming back or uh what's going on there. But for panicking stuff, for me, it's really more recalibrating expectations. It's
29:17looking at Justin Jefferson. You see the name value, but he's no longer the Justin Jefferson we all know and love in
29:23this offense, with this defense, with this quarterback. This year, through six games, his career ranks second worst in targets, worst by catches, worst by
29:31yards, worst by first downs. His first season of his career with fewer than 500 receiving yards through six games.
29:37Really, really brutal. Uh it really just comes down to Kyler Murray not being good enough. And then this defense is so
29:42good that even in what should have been a big offensive performance game, right?
29:47We get a dome game against Detroit.
29:50Detroit's offense is always going to want to run up the score. And I think that the final score here was like 17 to
29:5512. So even in a game script that was supposed to be good where the Lions can keep up with anybody uh and and kind of
30:01almost uh bait you into a shootout, 19 to 15 was the score, like bait you into a shootout.
30:08It didn't happen. So, if a game versus the Lions can't get the Vikings to want to score points, there's not going to be
30:14touchdowns. Justin Jefferson was lucky.
30:15He got that touchdown. Aaron Jones was tackled at the one yard line and then they ran a goal line fade to Jefferson.
30:20It's tough. He He is now a like mid-range high-end wide receiver, too.
30:25That is going to have spike weeks here and there, but that's kind of it. I It's really unfortunate. The Kyler stuff has
30:31been an issue. The defense is also just as big of a deal as the Kyler stuff. Uh, and then of course this backfield was
30:38interesting. Jordan Mason was in there.
30:40Aaron Jones of course gets hurt last week, but then he's off the injury report and it's just this nasty three-way split where DJ Dallas picks up
30:45a lot of the passing down reps. Aaron Jones still leads this backfield with 21 snaps. And then Jordan Mason down there
30:51with 15 snaps. We have some JJ Zachares 63% snap share and 56% rush share. Both came down in week eight. He had 3.9
30:59yards per carry on the year. Jordan Mason has been inefficient. He has not been good. He does not catch passes. Uh
31:04he has seen three of the four carries inside the 10 yard line, but he is essentially a touchdown or bust like RB3
31:10at this point in time. Him and Aaron Jones are both guys that are really difficult to start on a week- toeek
31:15basis. We'll see if they trade for Jonathan Taylor. On the other side of this game, I want to talk about post
31:20bye-week Jameson Williams. Shout out to him. Uh just going absolutely nuts here.
31:24Uh he is the ultimate boom bust player.
31:26He was the wide receiver 58 through three weeks. It was looking really spooky and now he's the wide receiver eight since then. Now, of course,
31:33Leaporta is not just going to fade into obscurity. We're not going to get these games where Alman Rash Brown puts up 12
31:38PPR points like he did in this one. But this is the Jameson Williams experience.
31:42I don't think he's going to finish as a top 12 wide receiver in points per game.
31:45He's going to finish as a top 24 wide receiver in points per game. He's going to have stretches where he's unbelievable. He's going to have three
31:49games in a row where he is killing your lineup. It is just all the experience, but he also has contingent upside.
31:55That's also part of his upside that if Leaporta goes down, if Aman Ross and Brown goes down, all of a sudden Jameson
32:01Williams is a top six receiver in all of fantasy. I will say I think that Leaporta better days are ahead. He gets
32:06a 20% target share in this game after having a super low one in the game previous because he hops on part of my
32:12take and he starts yapping about his contract. That kind of came down to earth here. He just didn't produce on his targets against the best defense in
32:19football. I'm not panicking on Sam Leaporta, but definitely if you drafted Leaporta and through like four weeks you were convinced that oh my god, I drafted
32:26like the tight end three in points per game. That's sadly not happening. But he's going to be a strong tight end one
32:31rest of season. Jameson Williams I also wouldn't get too high or too low on either. He's going to be a strong wide
32:36receiver two rest of season. We've also seen two times now this year and last year. Of course last year Leaporta got
32:42hurt for this to happen, but post byee Jameson Williams has always performed better down the stretch of a season.
32:48Then a takeaway of mine is that the Dolphins are upping their pace. And this is a big deal because the way that they
32:55were running their offense before their by-week or really the early part of the season was in an uncompetitive manner is the best way I could describe it. They
33:02were content on losing a game by double digits and never going up tempo and trying to chase points. They were just
33:08like, "All right, we're down double digits. Let's throw Madden on shoe clock and get out of here." That is no longer
33:15their mo. We have this tweet from me here. Shout out Sigman Bloom showing that they have games against Detroit, Indie, Buffalo, and Jets the next four
33:22weeks, which should all be matchups and game scripts that benefit the Miami Dolphins. Miami is currently on the entire season 31st in plays per game at
33:3056.9. So that's like it's not a pure neutral pace metric, right? In terms of like no huddle and all of that, but just
33:36essentially given their defense, their offense, they usually run about 56.9 plays per game. Over their last three games though, that has gone up to 62.7
33:43plays per game would be 13th over the entire season. And so going from a bottom two pace of play offense to a
33:51mid-range one is huge. You get more plays, more receptions, more volume, more trips to the end zone. That's all really good stuff. And it has shown with
33:58Malik Willis hitting 20.5 points per game over his last three games. He has gone from dumpster fire to usable. Same deal with Oi Gordon being strong. Even
34:07though this game he didn't do well against the Patriots, Caleb Douglas being a reasonable starter, Greg Dol in deeper leagues. I can't believe I'm
34:14saying it, but the Miami Dolphins offense is coming around. They've gone from like complete no-go to more uptempo and more palatable in
34:25certain games. Crips is the nicest I can be, but that's a big jump for them. Now, let's go around the league and talk
34:30about some messy back fields here. We are going to go over to the fantasylife.com utilization report. Shout out to them.
34:38Make sure you check out their tool. Uh they have some great data over here. You can see fantasy life up top. Uh, and we
34:45can look at all of the metrics for these running backs. I want to start with the Browns backfield.
34:51So, I'll go here. We'll click on the Browns. And this is their stats from this week. I just want to make sure that
34:58we have everything on camera the way I want it to be. Bang. I think that this looks good. We have it sorted by
35:04utilization score. A really nice thing that just kind of takes into account all of this stuff. snap share, rush share, route share, all of this, and puts it
35:10all together. Uh Samson, of course, plays more snaps in a game script where they were just trailing all day against the Steelers. It's up to you if you
35:16think that that is going to happen moving forward. Yes, the Browns will be uh underdogs in a lot of games, but I
35:21don't think they're going to be flatout uncompetitive like they were against the Brown or against the Steelers. Of course, Samson 16% target share, 56% of
35:28the routes, got all the passing down stuff, 12.9 PPR points, not bad at all.
35:32Judkins, tough day. He dominated rush attempts, but when you're down as much as they were, you just can't run the football much. Samson's going to
35:39dominate in this game script. Sadly, Judkins did have a chance at redemption.
35:42He had uh a rush inside the 5 yardd line. He gets stuffed there. Could have saved his day with a touchdown and
35:48things would look a lot better. This is concerning for Judkins moving forward, but I think he is just kind of what you
35:54drafted him as. He probably drafts him around RB22. He's going to finish around there. And there are some better days ahead in terms of matchups for Judkins
36:01where I don't think every week uh the Steelers defensive line isn't going to just absolutely crush these guys. They get New Orleans next week. That's going
36:08to be a lighter matchup. Houston will be tough, but then off a by-week you get Vegas, Cincinnati, Atlanta, Giants, Baltimore, Indie into the fantasy
36:15playoffs. That is not a bad stretch whatsoever for Quinn Sean Judkins. In better game scripts, he'll get 15 plus touches, a catch or two uh and have much
36:24better days than this. Then we'll talk about uh the Rams backfield. This one has been interesting. We have had uh quite a few games now where Cororum has
36:32forced a very evenish split, right? 13.3 PPR points for Cororum, 12.9 for Kirn.
36:39Rough day for Kairen. Corm, if you can get 13.3 and you had the balls to start, that's awesome. But that's just kind of
36:45what this is when they have game scripts like this where they're big heavy favorites. This is just what it's going to be, right? They play against the
36:51Chargers here and then they get Washington and then they get Arizona.
36:53come off a buy though, then you get Green Bay, KC, Sam Fran. That's going to be more of a Kairen Williams game
36:58essentially. If the game's close, it's going to be Kiren Williams. If it's not close, it's going to be a more even
37:03split, right? So, they've played in their last three Chargers, Vegas, Cardinals. I'm sure if I, you know, did that 76 here, we would have a pretty
37:11even split. 63 7148 with actually Cororm outscoring him. But the first five weeks, I would guess Kairen is crushing him in much more competitive game
37:20scripts. 21.9 to 7.7. So, I think things are going to bounce back Kirn's way in more competitive game scripts, but I
37:27guess Corm is probably going to stick around for a little bit as well. So, I don't think he's going to be the same
37:3021.9 point per game score, but he's probably going to be up there in like the 16 to 17 range in most games. But, I
37:37mean, I am looking at Corm's game uh game logs here. We are now four straight games of 13 plus PPR points, backto-back
37:44games of 10 plus carries. We'll see. I think that he's kind of on a hot stretch and K's on a cold stretch, but I also
37:49don't think that Corm's going to go away completely. Uh then we have the Steelers backfield. This one is always fun. I
37:55mean, Warren gets home anyways, so there's not really much to complain about. It's really just more what we're observing here, uh that it was almost a
38:04clear 50/50 split, but Warren does score a touchdown here. Huge. Uh he makes the most of his touches. I mean, he rushes
38:10for 143 yards. He's just been genuinely one of the best running backs in the NFL, but D gets so much work in his own
38:16right. And there's so much work that goes to these running backs in this offense with the high pass rate over expectation and everything that DA is
38:21startable in his own right. They get a by-week here uh and then rest of the way you can call Jaylen Warren a high-end
38:26RB2 and D and RB3 rest of season. Then we can talk about the Eagles here. Who really knows what's going on with Saquon
38:33at this point? Like we know that Saquon's banged up. Who knows if like now they lose this game. Does Saquon go
38:38uh away completely? Does he like somehow magically get much healthier this week?
38:43Who really knows? Uh, but 33% snap share in like this usage isn't going to cut it, but he does score a touchdown in
38:49this game to kind of save his game.
38:51Elijah Mitchell purely a handcuff stash for now. And shout out to Jaden Blue getting some snaps, man. That that is a
38:56rare sight. Uh, then we have the Commanders. Actually curious to see how this played out myself. Uh, it felt like it was a lot of Rashad White, but yeah,
39:04we did get a lot of Eckler, a lot of McNichols. They are never trying to uh submit to one running back. back. I know
39:10Rashad White gets home with 14 here, but man, he can't even go over 50% of the snaps. I do know that of course they uh
39:17go up big late in this game, so Rashad White's not here between the tackles grab, but like neither is Eckler or
39:22Jeremy McNichols. So, I don't really know what the thought process is. He gets all the inside the five stuff, all the two-minute drill stuff. Rashad White
39:28fine high-end RB3 until Bill Crosky Merrick gets back, but it is a little bit frustrating how much they like to split things. And then the last
39:37backfield is the Chargers. I just wanted to see off the bye-week were they going to come to their senses and actually use
39:42Amarian Hampton. Uh look, if I was anyone who's calling shots for the Chargers, whether I am Harbaugh or I am the GM or the owner, I am grabbing
39:53somebody by the collar and this is like, you know, I have some Omarian Hampton here and there, but at this point, it's
39:57a lost season. I'm grabbing someone by the collar and saying, "Hey, we drafted this dude in the first round. We got to
40:02use him because this is unreal. This is unreal."
40:06At at this point, you got nothing to lose, dude. Make Amarian Hampton a 65% snapshare guy. Run him between the tackles. I don't care if he gets two
40:13yards per carry. Use him. You drafted him to use him. He has too much guaranteed money on that rookie deal uh
40:19to be having him out snapped by Kamani Vidal. It's outrageous. The entire thing is a sham. Throw the entire franchise in
40:27the toilet. Now, let's talk about some injuries. We have some injury thoughts here. Shout out to Deepak Jonah. He is one of the best follows on Twitter. Make
40:36sure you follow him. Rest in peace to Jesse Morse. Uh we have of course, let's talk about Bree Hall first of all. Uh
40:44Bree Hall is somewhere in this thread.
40:45Yeah, he always does these threads. Bree Hall atypical pro progression so far off to the quad, but the data does favor a
40:50week nine return. We'll see what happens when he comes back. My reading of the uh situation is that he's not going to get
40:56traded. It's really tough to trade a player who is hurt currently. Uh and then on top of that, I think we're going
41:01to see a pretty nasty split between him and Brilen Allen. It's bad news. I have Bray Allen in my home league. He's been
41:05crushing. Uh, but I think Bree Hall is going to come back and take all the passing down stuff. Uh, and almost in
41:12almost a like I was actually going to say almost a Dylan Samson Judkins like split, but I think Bree Hall is going to
41:17take more of the between the tackle stuff than you'd want. So I I think it's going to be a spot where when Bree Hall
41:22returns, we're probably ranking both guys in the late 20s, right? Like RB25 versus RB28 until we get some clarity on how that role uh manifests itself. But
41:32the only positive is that the Jets just scored 30 points and this offense is better than usual. Uh we have AJ Brown
41:38as well. I've gotten a lot of questions on AJ Brown. This is his take on it.
41:41Degenerative knee flare up. Bad news.
41:42This most often will linger. Uh typically means incoming decline in career production and rise in miss games per season. Week nine return is
41:49possible. So this all sucks, but he could be back next week is the read here. Uh I'd probably have him rest of
41:54season somewhere in the wide receiver like 26 27 28 range as like a boom bust option moving forward. We can talk about
42:01uh Devonte Smith is listed on here. Week nine to be determined, but vast majority would miss. Average 3 to 5 weeks.
42:07Suspect week 11 target after their week 10 buy. Still, that could be Joe Milton football. Even if it's Tanner McKe football, it's rough. Devonte Smith is a
42:14wide receiver three at best moving forward. Another guy, you know, like Z Flowers where there's just nothing you could have done, especially Dvonte
42:21Smith, dude. Dvonte Smith would have crushed this year if Herz doesn't get hurt. if Devonte Smith doesn't get hurt.
42:26Uh, you know, his like three games healthy with Jaylen Herz. He was absolutely amazing. Uh, and then the last injury I wanted to talk about
42:32because we already talked about uh Lamar Jackson earlier, we have this for DJ Moore. Just something to monitor with DJ Moore. Uh, we'll see what his practices
42:40look like during the week, but Jeff Mueller, the other best fantasy doctor account in my opinion, uh, said, "Don't love this for DJ Moore. Hopefully, no
42:49ligament damage." So, just something to think about, right? The the concern is ACL. We'll see. Nothing has come out on DJ Moore since I started recording. Uh,
42:56and then I wanted to celebrate some studs. Let's just celebrate some studs here. Let's give some flowers. We're getting to the part of the year where I
43:02don't know. I don't feel like I have to break down every little thing. And I feel like it's dumb for me to hop on
43:05here and be like, oh, like one of the takeaways is, oh, T. Higgins absolutely crushes. So, I kind of want to do a like
43:10a a winner circle of just guys who crushed. Uh, we can talk about Burrow, T. Higgins, Jamar Chase. T. Higgins is
43:16on a crazy pace. He has been on our trade targets video twice this year. 104 for 1710. Of course, that's not going to
43:25be what his final stat line is, but for right now, he has been one of the best wide receiver picks in the third or
43:30fourth round. And probably a good lesson that why while the flashy upside plays like your Ibukas and Lad Mcconis and Luther Burton's and even even though
43:40Luther Burton looks like he's going to be solid, sometimes you can just take your medicine and take a proven stud in
43:45T. Higgins who kind of like the rule of thumb for T. Higgins is whenever he's at the 2-3 turn, you can probably fade him
43:52there. But whenever he disappoints at that draft price and then all of a sudden he is at the 34 turn, he's almost
43:56always a value. Kind of like him and George Pickkins are kind of like a yo-yo of each other where George Pickins was
44:01the two three turn guy. This year, he's been fine but not amazing. Whereas J Teiggins was like a round or so later
44:07than that and he has been awesome. And then I'm sure that's going to switch next off seasonason. We'll see how that
44:12goes. Uh, but even on top of that, uh, Burrow goes crazy as well. Burrow throws for five touchdowns in this game. Joe
44:19Burrow looking like the clear, I'd say.
44:21I mean, it's between him and Drake May for like the clear QB2 here. After two kind of down games, week one and two,
44:27Joe Burrows ripped off 22, 25, 24, 28, and then a 40 bomb against Tennessee.
44:32And then Jamar Chase even gets in on the fun in this game and gets himself a touchdown. 11 catches, 16 targets, 141
44:41yards. all went absolutely nuts.
44:43Bowowers gets two touchdowns against my Jets. Bucky Irving, shout out him. I think we're going to see better days ahead for Bucky Irving now that Baker
44:49Mayfield is back in the mix and healthy.
44:51And like sure, I guess some of these weird game scripts have helped him, right? The last two weeks he's rushed for 100 plus yards. He's rushed for over
44:57100 yards. Three of his last four games.
45:00This week he's going to go on the road versus the Bears and then get a bye-week. I think Bucky Irving is one of
45:06the honestly one of the best picks of the year so far that I think has kind of flown under the radar. Tony Pard has
45:11just decided that he is awesome at football. We'll see what happens when Spears comes back. We'll see if he ever gets traded, but for now, 20 carries,
45:19100 plus yards, two plus touchdowns in each of his last two games. He has been crazy. He gets a bye-week here. We'll
45:25see how things kind of go after that.
45:27But even if you couldn't sell him high, having those points in your lineup is great. That's awesome. And then the last
45:34thing we'll talk about is Rashi Rice returning this week. Big deal. 18.3 PPR points, eight targets, seven catches, 53 yards, and a touchdown against Denver.
45:44And he wasn't even fully ramped up just yet. He ran only I want to say he only ran 61% of the routes. Uh he only ran a
45:53damn I pulled up the Broncos. He only ran 61% of the routes. He actually ran less routes than Xavier Worthy. I will say we
46:01brought up Cyrus Allen earlier. There's a decent chance that Cyrus Allen goes back down to like 20% and that 30% kicks
46:07over to Rashi Rice to get Rash Rice up to 90% plus, but we'll see. We'll see.
46:11Cyrus Allen could be making waves. He has already passed Andrew Armstrong and Jaylen Royals for route share. So, that could be something that sticks moving
46:20forward. That's going to do it for us today. That is all of my takeaways, the rookie stuff, everything that I felt
46:24like was worth talking about. And we will be back tomorrow for my Waverwire review. As always, if you enjoy, leave a
46:32like, subscribe if you're new, and I'll see you all in the next one.
46:46Leave me stones like this. From
