The Late-Round Fantasy Football Podcast artwork

The Show: Dalton Kincaid's Hot Start, Injury News, and More

STACKED extracted the fantasy-relevant player signal from this podcast and kept the full transcript here for context.

1 hr 5 min
Duration
Estimated from transcript
Sep 19, 2026
Published
Sat, September 19, 2026
40
Player insights
39
Players mentioned
Topics
Brock BowersAaron JonesAdonai MitchellAntonio WilliamsBaker MayfieldBijan RobinsonBryce YoungChris BellColston LovelandD.J. MooreDalton KincaidDalton SchultzDemarcus RobinsonDemond Claiborne
Player analysis

Player insights

40

Aaron Jones

PositiveProjection45:43

Zachariason is optimistic about Aaron Jones for Week 2 against a beatable Bears defense. Despite a one-week sample, Jones and Jordan Mason combined for 21 expected PPR points in Week 1, and Jones faces little competition for touches in the Vikings' backfield.

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Adonai Mitchell

PositiveUsage59:13

Adonai Mitchell is noted as an interesting player to watch with Amari Cooper currently dealing with an injury.

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Antonio Williams

PositiveSleeper22:12

Williams is a high-intrigue stash candidate who could see increased slot usage with Chig Okonkwo sidelined. Despite a low route share in week one, his 14% target share is statistically rare and promising for a rookie. He may not produce until weeks 6-7, similar to the trajectory of Jalen Coker.

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Baker Mayfield

PositiveProjection53:27

Zachariason expects Baker Mayfield to outscore Joe Burrow in Week 2. The Buccaneers face a Browns defense that allowed the highest EPA per dropback in Week 1, and Tampa Bay's offense was top-10 in EPA per play on early downs when adjusting for turnovers.

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Bijan Robinson

PositiveUsage32:04

JJ Zachariason highlights Bijan Robinson's massive 57% target share from Week 1 and suggests he could have a smash performance this week against a defense that struggled against the run.

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Brock Bowers

NegativeInjury29:01

JJ Zachariason notes that Brock Bowers was seen practicing, but he remains cautious about his availability and fantasy outlook for the upcoming week.

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PositiveRole40:47

Bowers benefits from the Raiders' shift toward heavier personnel (12/13), which reduces competition from wide receivers and increases his target potential.

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Bryce Young

NegativeValue57:16

Zachariason is open-minded about Bryce Young having another good game in Week 2, though he cautions that the team may not pass as aggressively as they did in Week 1. He is a potential look-ahead waiver target for Week 3.

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Chris Bell

PositiveUsage58:47

Zachariason suggests Chris Bell could see increased route share in the offense, noting that Malik Washington's performance in Week 1 was underwhelming.

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Colston Loveland

NegativeProjection61:22

JJ Zachariason questions whether Colston Loveland will bounce back in the upcoming game against the Vikings.

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D.J. Moore

NegativeUsage5:31

JJ Zachariason notes that DJ Moore is on the chopping block in shallower leagues after a negative point performance in Week 1, though he is currently day-to-day with an injury and expected to play next week.

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Dalton Kincaid

PositiveBreakout18:39

JJ Zachariason is highly optimistic about Dalton Kincaid, citing a 25% target share and a 69% route share through two games. He believes Kincaid is a top-five tight end rest-of-season due to his increased route participation and elite efficiency.

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Dalton Schultz

PositiveMatchup25:42

JJ Zachariason identifies Dalton Schultz as an interesting streaming option for the week, noting that Cincinnati has historically been a favorable matchup for tight ends.

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Demarcus Robinson

PositiveValue62:40

JJ Zachariason acknowledges that Demarcus Robinson should have been highlighted as a look-ahead waiver wire target, noting he was already added in 15 transactions.

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Demond Claiborne

NegativeSleeper33:39

Claiborne is a fun, fast, speculative add, but expectations should be tempered. He is an undersized rookie and it is unlikely he will see a massive workload immediately, as target share for rookie running backs is difficult to bank on.

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Devin Singletary

PositiveUsage58:26

Zachariason highlights Devin Singletary as an interesting waiver target, specifically monitoring his route and snap share, which could increase if the team faces a negative game script.

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DK Metcalf

PositiveProjection28:45

Metcalf had strong peripherals in week one despite underperforming in expected points. He saw a high aDOT and is being utilized heavily by Aaron Rodgers, suggesting better production ahead.

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Drake London

NegativeProjection30:56

JJ Zachariason advises that it is difficult to trust Drake London with Cooper Rush at quarterback, suggesting owners might consider benching him until the situation stabilizes, though he remains a high-end WR3 in his rankings.

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Jameson Williams

PositiveUsage16:57

JJ Zachariason admits he was lower on Jameson Williams entering the season due to historical target share concerns, but notes that his Week 1 usage was encouraging enough to make him a buy candidate, despite the likelihood of continued volatility.

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Jared Goff

PositiveValue15:01

JJ Zachariason cites Jared Goff as a prime example of a late-round quarterback who can deliver high-end production in a given week, evidenced by his 30-point performance against Buffalo.

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Josh Allen

PositiveProjection13:45

JJ Zachariason highlights Josh Allen as a fantasy superstar through two weeks, noting a 1.09 fantasy points per dropback rate. While he warns of regression from this unsustainable peak, he expects a monster season overall.

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Kendrick Bourne

PositiveValue62:59

JJ Zachariason gives a shout-out to Kendrick Bourne, expressing a desire for him to succeed and noting his high energy.

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Kenyon Sadiq

PositiveSleeper47:43

Zachariason remains high on Kenyon Sadiq despite low Week 1 route share (47%), arguing that his cost is low, he is a first-round pick in a tight-end-friendly offense, and he benefits from manufactured touches. He is a recommended stash for those with low-ceiling TE1s.

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Kyle Pitts

NegativeProjection30:56

JJ Zachariason views Kyle Pitts as a streaming-only option given the current uncertainty surrounding the Falcons' quarterback situation.

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Kyler Murray

NegativeInjury32:30

Murray is working through concussion protocol, which raises concerns about his performance upon return due to the cerebral nature of the quarterback position and potential brain fog.

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Ladd McConkey

NegativeInjury24:48

McConkey is dealing with a rib injury that has kept him out of practice. His availability depends on contact tolerance, though players can often play through such injuries with pain management. If he plays, he remains a key part of the Chargers' offense, similar to JSN's role last year.

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Malik Willis

PositiveValue44:18

Zachariason is three spots higher than the market on Malik Willis this week, noting his high pressure rate faced in Week 1 (4th highest) led to top-three scramble production. If San Francisco generates pressure, Willis should see significant rushing upside and potential catch-up volume, making him a fringe QB1 candidate.

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Marvin Harrison Jr.

NegativeUsage62:56

JJ Zachariason notes that Kendrick Bourne's performance took away from his Marvin Harrison shares.

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Matthew Golden

PositiveValue47:05

Zachariason is 10 spots above the market on Matthew Golden, citing his second-place finish in expected fantasy points in Week 1, high route share (30% target share), and a favorable matchup against the Jets.

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Michael Mayer

PositiveUsage30:04

JJ Zachariason views Michael Mayer as a solid streaming option, noting his strong peripherals from Week 1, including a 24% target share and high efficiency metrics per route run.

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Michael Pittman

NegativeInjury28:12

Pittman is trending toward missing the upcoming game after failing to practice for consecutive days. His absence would be significant for the offense's underneath passing game.

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Nico Collins

NegativeInjury23:52

JJ Zachariason reports that Nico Collins is expected to miss time due to a grade one hamstring injury, noting that players typically miss at least one game with this diagnosis.

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Quentin Johnston

PositiveRole26:48

Johnston becomes a more appealing option in the Chargers' offense if Ladd McConkey is unable to play.

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Rashee Rice

NegativeBust50:52

Zachariason predicts Rashee Rice will finish outside the top 30 wide receivers in Week 2, noting that Rice struggles against man coverage compared to zone. With the Colts running man coverage at a high rate, Rice's efficiency is expected to dip.

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Rhamondre Stevenson

NegativeProjection31:46

Stevenson receives a bump down in value due to the presence of Travion Henderson in the backfield, placing him in the low-end RB2 to high-end RB3 range.

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Terry McLaurin

PositiveMatchup21:00

McLaurin is in a good bounce-back spot against a Cowboys defense that has struggled against perimeter wide receivers dating back to last year and looked vulnerable in week one.

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Travis Etienne

NegativeUsage37:16

Etienne's backfield share remains consistent with last year, and he maintained a 17% target share in week one. Owners should not overreact to Kendra Miller's goal-line touchdown.

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Tre Harris

PositiveUsage26:01

Harris is a viable dart throw if Ladd McConkey is out, as he ran a route on every Chargers dropback after McConkey exited the game in week one.

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Trey McBride

NegativeProjection23:24

JJ Zachariason acknowledges a disappointing Week 1 for Trey McBride and suggests that if Dalton Kincaid continues to outperform him, it may indicate he was not high enough on McBride initially.

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Zay Flowers

NegativeInjury30:26

Flowers is unlikely to play this week after limited participation in practice, with reports suggesting he may need another week to recover.

Insight page
Full transcript

Episode Transcript

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1:01Tax, gratuity, beverage, and dessert not included. You're about to listen to the Late Round Fantasy Football Show, which originally aired on YouTube.
1:08If you'd like to catch the show live this season, you can head to the Late Round Fantasy Football YouTube channel at youtube.com slash at late round ff.
1:16We'll be live every Friday at 1 p.m. Eastern.
1:19Without further ado, here's this week's episode. Welcome in.
1:22Welcome in. It's the Late Round Fantasy Football Show.
1:25David Kitchen here alongside the golden boy, JJ Zacharyarysen.
1:27What's the golden boy for? It's a teaser. You've talked about golden a few times this week.
1:33Oh, yeah. Feeling golden. Okay. I didn't know if it was something related to last night.
1:37I didn't know if it was something related to what I said in discord or something I said on social media.
1:44I never know this time of year, so I'm glad I have some context there.
1:48Things are a bit crazy this time of year.
1:51Like you say, JJ, I just want to say we had to come up with another like event to look forward to 69 days until Thanksgiving.
1:59Which is actually kind of crazy. I know that it makes sense, obviously, logically, because it's two months a little bit more than two months.
2:06But 69 days is not that much time until we're just like like Thanksgiving is like the turning point towards the end of the fantasy season.
2:14Yeah, we're already we're basically what I'm saying is we're very close to finishing the season already.
2:19I know, JJ. I don't want to be like, you know, my mom was a teacher.
2:24My wife was a teacher for a period of time.
2:27Sometimes like it gets to be around July and they're already like not looking forward to going back to school, like dreading the end of like summer vacation.
2:36Let's not do that. Let's just appreciate week one.
2:38One week at a time. One week at a time.
2:41That's all this season is. You know, my my daughter was sick this week.
2:46She missed two days of school. She had a fever and she got, you know, whenever you miss school, you miss some time.
2:53You get that anxious feeling when you're about to go back, especially when you're in third grade.
2:58I mean, that's a really, really tough thing to like comprehend and deal with as a kid.
3:03And my mantra with her was just look one step at a time.
3:07She was having trouble going to sleep the other night before that next day.
3:11And I'm like, look, baby girl, one step at a time.
3:14Yeah, so I just get to sleep. You'll deal with that tomorrow.
3:18And then she's like, well, what about this one?
3:21Just you'll deal with it tomorrow. Your goal right now is just to go to sleep.
3:26That's all you got to worry about. Absolutely. I was panicking last night in the late round chopped league or guilt guillotine league and they had DJ more.
3:34They had negative points, you know, a game that has 80 million points in it.
3:39Yeah. In my player has negative points. Yeah. And I'm now like anyone that DJ more is on the, you know, the chopping block in their league.
3:47Very much so. Yes. One step at a time, especially if it's a shallower league.
3:51Like I'm in a, I joined a charity league with CBS and I scored the third most points in the league in week one.
3:59And I lost because I played the team that scored the second most points.
4:03Right. And then, and that team had Caleb Williams.
4:05And then this week I have DJ more on that team.
4:09I also have Dalton Kincaid. So I have this bill stack.
4:12I'm facing Josh Allen. So I'm going to be facing the QB one in back-to-back weeks in that league.
4:18But guess what guys? One step at a time, one step at a time.
4:22It's fine. If I start Owen too, it's not my fault.
4:25My team's actually really good. It's not my fault.
4:28That's just the way that fantasy football goes. One step at a time.
4:32I'm playing my arch nemesis in my home league.
4:35The guy who I talk so much crap to the guy who I've been friends with for 35 years.
4:41He had Dalton Kincaid last night. You know what?
4:43It's okay. Makes two of us. Yeah. Yeah. So that's it.
4:47It is. It is what it is. But last night was fun.
4:50We'll talk about that in a second. Really quick though.
4:53Rest of season rankings. They're out. They are out at late round.com become a member on the website on the website late round.com.
5:00You get the insider tier and the all access tier.
5:03You get access to the rest of season ranks.
5:06You get access to the weekly ranks. We've got the discord, the chat pop in lots of stuff, lots of good stuff going on with the community.
5:14I'm going to mention it in today's newsletter, which you can subscribe to at late round.com.
5:19But I want to give a shout out to the guys that joined me in the first ever late round, late league.
5:26We drafted halftime of Monday night football. And let me tell you, that was fun.
5:30We had no default rankings. Everything was alphabetical. And we had some guys drafting a Mecca, Agbuca, Jalen Waddle in the fifth
5:37round and others drafting Jalen Coker and Pat Bryant in the sixth round.
5:41It was it was fantastic. Pat Bryant went that early.
5:44He went late end of the sixth round to the one.
5:47Not one. So, yeah, it was just it was fun to see like how much overreaction there are other people just scooping up all the value.
5:55Just whoever is left. They were just like, all right, I'm believing that cooler heads will prevail.
6:00There, you know, stuff will work out. So I was a fun experiment.
6:04If you remember, look at next. We're going to roll up more of these leagues.
6:08It was so fun. Everyone really loved. I feel like there should be like I feel like you could do those leagues up until like week five.
6:17Yeah, probably. Yeah. And it would actually be kind of else.
6:20It's like, let's do a league in week two.
6:23I can only do so many leagues. But yeah, you can add another league.
6:27Come on, kitchen. There is a league finder thread in the late round discord where you can find different leagues with like minded members.
6:34So anyways, you know, appreciate everyone for just a great week one.
6:38And now we're looking ahead, JJ to week two.
6:41And let's start with today's news. Today's fantasy news.
6:43All right. Let's react for a second to last night's game.
6:47I don't know if sports books will be around because they had to have gotten cleaned out.
6:52I had like some of my normie friends send me screenshots this morning of humongous paydays.
6:57I'm like $5 and $10 tickets because all the touchdowns hit except for DJ Moore Jameson Williams.
7:02Yeah. Well, the other thing too. So I'm in a text thread.
7:05I mean, we've chatted about this before with my main event partners.
7:09We did a main event team. We do every year.
7:12It's me, Evan Silva, Rich Rebar, Pat Thorman and Davis Maddock.
7:15And the we were all chatting at the end of last week at the end of the games and Rich Rebar brought up.
7:22The point that this was like a class and I'm not a sports betting person.
7:27Like that's just not my angle. It's not what I analyze.
7:30You guys are not going to hear me talk about that kind of stuff very frequently on this show unless there's like some conviction or something like that.
7:39But Reeves does a lot more sports betting stuff with sharp football as we know because Warren being a person who is
7:45very much so in the sports betting space and Reeves made the point last week that it was a one of the,
7:52you know, there's obviously like trends general trends. That we see, you know, in football each year that carry over year over year.
7:59And the one with with Detroit this week was essentially the fact that they played a long game.
8:04You know, they went into overtime. They're traveling the next week, short week, and it's a non-conference game.
8:10And Rich, we kept joking that Rich was betting his house on the bills in that game.
8:15And you know, it hit right like bills dominated.
8:18He's feeling real good, especially at the start of that game.
8:21So I do think that that game was relatively predictable from a bills perspective.
8:25It was good to see, you know, like Josh Allen's getting the love that he deserves for being a fantasy superstar through two weeks.
8:32I do want to say right now he has a fantasy points per drop back rate of 1.09 when his previous best
8:39was in 2024 when he was at 0.7. So there's going to be some regression there.
8:44Don't don't expect this kind of production week in and week out.
8:48Although I do think that we're going to probably see, you know, one of those like monster Josh Allen seasons, which is
8:54a set, you know, like there were reasons to go with Josh Allen.
8:58There were reasons to not go with Josh Allen.
9:01And I think, you know, on the opposite side of the field, Jared Goff is a good example of just a late
9:07round quarterback who can hit in a given week, right?
9:10Like he had 30 points about about 30 standard points in that game against Buffalo.
9:15You know, you can say it was garbage time, but he still got it done.
9:20He still did that. And I think the Lions defense is atrocious really makes me think about what the Saints were doing
9:26in the first half of week one, because I mean, I think I think Tyler's upset.
9:31We have the first half because you had Tyler Shuck last week as your as the guy that I was higher than the market on.
9:39Yeah, no. Yeah. Yeah. And I was I was a little nervous, sweating bullets there.
9:43And then he came through, you know, as a as a strong fantasy play last week.
9:48But yeah, the first half, he had like four completions.
9:51And so I do wonder how that's going to look and translate in a game against Baltimore this week.
9:57But regardless of all of that, I, you know, I think that, you know, obviously, DJ Moore getting hurt is it sounds like he could play next week.
10:05So it's not as serious as what it could have been.
10:09You know, people were saying maybe it was a broken collarbone, but it's not that.
10:13So that's good that he can come back. The Jamison Williams stuff.
10:17You know, I think if you guys read the draft guide, you know, I was a little bit lower on Jamo.
10:23I wasn't like full fading, but I was lower on Jamo this year because just the fact that we've seen multiple seasons
10:30sample size of Jamo in this offense. And I didn't think the offense is going to change that dramatically with the shifting
10:36coordinator because Dan Campbell is still going to have his finger on this thing.
10:41And Jamo has just never been like a 20% target share type player very consistently.
10:45His week one usage was really encouraging, which is why I talked about him being that by candidate.
10:51You know, it's just a role. Like, I don't think Jamo is ever going to not be a roller coaster.
10:57Right. So like, do I think my process was wrong and calling him a buy?
11:01Probably not. Do I think that, you know, because I even mentioned the roller coaster of production that you get with Jamo when talking about him.
11:09But with that being said, I do expect better production from Jamo moving forward.
11:13It was just a bad game for him. The thing that I'm most excited about by far is Dalton Kincaid.
11:19And it's, it's not even close. I put myself out there kitchen when I on the mailbag a couple weeks ago before
11:26the season started when I talked about the player that I had more than any other league or in all my leagues, the player I had most of.
11:34And my answer was Dalton Kincaid, which I didn't.
11:37It's not like I set out to necessarily do that in my managed season long leagues.
11:42It's just kind of the way that boards fell.
11:45And I was getting them in the double digit rounds so frequently.
11:48I had them at tight end eight when it was all said and done.
11:53And that was a few spots for about four spots higher than where consensus had them, where ADP had them.
11:59You know, I was ranking them higher than like Harold Fannin and stuff like that.
12:03But saying that to pat myself on the back, I'm just stating facts right with with Kincaid right now.
12:09It's crazy, though, like if you look at how they've deployed him, right, I'm looking at the that's why I'm looking over
12:15to the left because I have a monitor over here.
12:19He has almost an identical slot share as last year.
12:22So obviously almost identical wide share. Right. And if you look at his the biggest difference, like he's seeing a 25 percent target share so far this season.
12:30And that's obviously a jump from what he's been seeing.
12:33You know, if you look at his targets per outrun, it is up front.
12:37It's 29 percent right now versus 24 percent last year.
12:40And that's on way more routes. That's the big thing.
12:43That was always the big thing with Dalton Kincaid.
12:46Right. It was the fact that he's actually been a top 10 player in fantasy points per route run since he entered the league.
12:53And he just hasn't been able to run enough routes.
12:56And last year he was outside the top 30 in route share this year.
13:01That's not happening. He has a 69 percent route share through two games, which last year was closer to like 50 percent.
13:07So you're getting that uptick. It's just a math equation.
13:10That's what I was talking about over the summer.
13:13It's really just a math equation for Kincaid is that if he does see an uptick in routes and he continues this efficiency.
13:20Now he's seeing better efficiency right now is fantasy points per route runs point eight four compared to point six three last year.
13:27So I think that that's going to fall. So don't like no one listening.
13:31This is probably expecting Dalton Kincaid to maintain this.
13:34That would be pretty crazy. But I do think that right now after this game and if we don't see like some
13:40of these other tight ends like blow up this week, I think we're looking at Kincaid as like a top five tight end rest of season.
13:48I think it's it's that's just where we're at with this offense and how they're deploying him.
13:53Yeah, I've seen a tight end one thrown out and maybe it's not even so reckless.
13:58I mean, I would be look look for for for how bad week one went with Trey McBride for me.
14:04You know, if Dalton Kincaid outperforms Trey McBride, all will be forgiven, hopefully from people.
14:09But yeah, maybe not high enough on Trey McBride after that first week of the season.
14:14Yeah. All right. As you mentioned, DJ DJ Moore is day to day.
14:18They said that he could like I honestly I think he'll play next week.
14:22Yeah, I think it's I mean, it's an extra extra rest to you know, it's a it's a long period.
14:28Someone who's not going to be playing this week, though, JJ Nico Collins.
14:32Yeah, sounds like he's expected to be out. I didn't have all the information on Collins when I did the sleepers episode this week.
14:39All we knew was that he was getting evaluated.
14:42And then the next morning we kind of heard what that evaluation said, which says it was a grade one hamstring.
14:48But usually, you know, players will miss it, miss it, at least a game for this kind of injury.
14:54And so my take on what we well, we got to start set of start Kincaid or Fannin.
14:59I'm going to I'm going to start Dalton Kincaid over Harold Fannin this week, guys.
15:04You know, I'm going out on a limb there.
15:07But anyway, Nico Collins. So with this Houston wide receiver room, number one, it's not the easiest matchup against, you know, like
15:13DJ Turner could lock down Kayshaun Booty in this game.
15:16If Booty ends up playing the primary exposition for Houston, which is probably what we should expect.
15:21Maybe, you know, if I'm Houston, I probably just make Xavier Hutchinson like a sacrificial on the outside and then kind of
15:28do things and move Kayshaun Booty and Jalen Nola around a little bit.
15:32But with that being said, I, you know, Houston did see a little bit of an uptick in heavy personnel usage in week one.
15:39I think we're going to see a lot of that.
15:42Dalton Schultz should see, you know, have a good game.
15:45You know, last year, there's a really good matchup against Cincinnati generally with tight ends.
15:50So I think I think Dalton Schultz is kind of interesting this week.
15:54And then, you know, if you're on the waiver wire looking strictly for upside, right?
15:58My upside play continues to be more Jalen Nola as opposed to Kayshaun Booty.
16:03And it's not that I think Booty is like I think Booty has the better median outcome.
16:08It's just one of those things where I don't think that Booty's median outcome is going to be high enough.
16:14I'm not saying just this week, but I just mean like if I'm if I'm really looking forward to what could go down rest of season.
16:22Right. Jalen Nola is a big play waiting to happen.
16:25Now, he mostly has played slot. He played slot in college, but he's got some tackle breaking ability and he's got a lot of verticality to his game.
16:33There's a little bit of that. Like he's not I think I mentioned I might have mentioned this last week with like
16:40or at least at some point on this show.
16:42It's kind of like what we've seen how the Jags have deployed Parker Washington.
16:47You have to wonder if Houston would consider deploying Jalen Nola in a similar way to let him get more vertical out of the slot.
16:54He did that in college all the time when he was playing with Jaden Higgins at Iowa State.
17:00And so I am curious to see how that all goes down.
17:03I think Nola is a good player. I remember him getting comp to Randall Cobb and the zap model coming out.
17:10There's a lot of versatility to his game. I think he can play on the outside more than he did last year.
17:16So if I'm throwing a dart and looking strictly at upside, I'm going to go with the more ambiguous player and more
17:23of the unknown player and uncertain player and Jalen Nola.
17:26But I would say probably from like a projection standpoint, Kayshawn Booty probably still has the better projection simply because he's probably
17:33going to play more snaps, run more routes and be out there more.
17:37But I do think Jalen Nola is really interesting.
17:39All right, we got some breaking news. JJ, Brock Bowers seen practicing today in practice.
17:44I mean, that would be great for me. I would love to.
17:47I would, you know, my my squads. I'm sure everyone's squads would be ready for that.
17:52I'm not I'm not going to be too, too optimistic about him playing, but it does.
17:57It does make me feel better about next week.
18:00Yeah. As a Brock Bowers owner, I almost prefer him not play this.
18:04Yeah. Like Michael Mayer had really good peripherals last week.
18:07You know, I don't think that we're going to see massive, massive production from him necessarily.
18:12But I, you know, I think the process was OK with Mayer last week because he ended up seeing like a 24
18:18percent target share, really good route share. You know, he's top 10 in those metrics that we care about per route run.
18:25I still think Mayer is a good play this week for from like a streaming perspective.
18:30But yeah, I mean, I'm not going to hold my breath with the Brock Bowers stuff.
18:35All right. It is rush hour in Atlanta with Cooper Rush being the starting quarterback for the Falcons.
18:40Was that officially has that been officially named? I think it's all it's expected to start week two.
18:45OK, I just didn't know because there's like eight quarterbacks that they're that they're considering right now in Atlanta.
18:51Yeah. I mean, at this point, it's just really hard to trust Drake London and Kyle Pitts.
18:56And so if I don't think it's crazy to say I'm going to put them on my bench until I see it, until we feel more confident.
19:04I think it's a better matchup for them this week.
19:08And so, you know, I think that London I have ranked in like with with Rush and like a high end wide
19:14receiver three area or something like that. Pitts is just tough because there's there's some decent type.
19:19Like I think that he's a streamer essentially. So, yeah, I mean, it's it's bad for everyone.
19:24Obviously, B. John Robinson had the highest target share that I've ever seen.
19:28Literally, like in the spreadsheets and stuff. I don't look past 2011 dating back 2011.
19:33Right. Yeah. I don't look past that. I'm assuming there's a target share game that was higher.
19:38But targets started being recorded in 1992. I could probably go back and look and find what what target share from a
19:45running back was higher in a single game. But 57 percent target share last week.
19:49I mean, and then this matchup where we just saw the Bears run all over Carolina.
19:54I mean, B. John Robinson could could really smash this week this week.
19:58Yeah. I mean, some people are debating sitting Drake London this week, you know, and I can understand it.
20:04Yeah. Look, I can get it. I can understand it.
20:07I don't want to go through, you know, I'd start London over that.
20:11Whatever. You guys can check out my rankings if you want on the website, if you remember.
20:16But regardless, like I think that if it's going through your mind, go with what you feel is reasonable and rational because
20:22it was a really, really bad offense in week one.
20:26It was ridiculous. And another really weird thing. I mentioned this on the on the sleeper show.
20:31The the Steelers ran zone on 100 percent of their plays in week one on defense, which is just something that you'd never really see.
20:38And so I do. And obviously, like they played relatively well against the Falcons offense.
20:43You know, B. John obviously had had made some big plays and did his thing.
20:47But I do wonder if that's sort of going to be a blueprint for how Carolina might attack things.
20:53Okay. We've got the Chig Okonkwo. He is also ruled out for this week.
20:57Should we see a maybe comeback game from Mr.
21:00Terry McLaurin? I think you're going to say Ben Sinnott or something.
21:04Oh, no. Here's a name. I do think that this is a good bounce back spot for Terry McLaurin, a team and
21:10the Cowboys that have not been good against perimeter wide receivers dating back to last year.
21:15You know, week one, they were not good. I thought they were going to be better defensively than they were in week one.
21:22And so, you know, I think that honestly, I know I joke about Ben Sinnott, but I think we're going to see
21:29like John Bates just as much, if not more in that game.
21:32What I'm really interested in is the Antonio Williams stuff, a guy that we talked about a lot on this show back
21:39and during draft season and best ball season and such.
21:42I actually have a pretty big best ball bag that I was kind of ashamed of, you know, I was just like,
21:49I'm not telling anybody how much Antonio Williams I have because no one talked about him in the preseason.
21:54I know. I know. But we but we were drafting them back in like May and stuff like that, like a lot.
22:01So I'm intrigued by Antonio Williams as, you know, maybe they run a little bit more 11 with Chigakonquo sideline because they need more of that slot presence.
22:10And maybe we get a little bit more digs on the outside than what we saw.
22:14The problem is that they use the army Brown over Antonio Williams in week one.
22:19But to me, I think digs and Williams can rotate in between Z and in that slot role and then have Terry McLaurin play his traditional X.
22:27So I think they're all like like, of course, digs and McLaurin.
22:31They can be played in certain leagues, whatever. If you have them, you know, there's going to be certain formats where you might not want to play them.
22:39But I don't think they're terrible plays just given the matchup.
22:42And then Antonio Williams is someone to watch out for and keep an eye on because it doesn't happen frequently.
22:48I talked about this on the on the I guess was the mailbag.
22:52I'm trying to think which one I think was the mailbag was one that dropped today, but about how he had a
22:59sub 30% route share and about a 14% target share.
23:02It's only happened like 26 times since 2020. And that's out of like thousands and thousands of games.
23:08So it's not very common for that kind of target share to happen.
23:11And I don't think there was any real predictive nature of those games happening.
23:16But that being said, it was a first his first game of his career.
23:20He got a Lad McConkie comp in the zap model.
23:23Like there's a lot of intrigue with Antonio Williams, in my opinion.
23:27So he was just wasn't someone that could call out on the on the 15 transaction show because the route share.
23:33I might start. I don't want to introduce this to the world, but I might.
23:37I might just start posting some like stash candidates at the end of 15 transactions just to have, you know, in the
23:44back of your mind, because he's one of those players that would absolutely stash.
23:48But we might not see production from him until like week six or week seven.
23:53You know what I mean? And by that point, people are going to be like, hey, you told me to add Antonio
24:00Williams, but I'm just going to drop him now because he's not doing anything.
24:04But it's sort of like the Jonah Coleman thing where you didn't know people who are asking about dropping Jonah Coleman.
24:10That kind of defeats the purpose of why you drafted him in the first.
24:14Like your expectation should not have been that he was going to do something in week one.
24:19You know, right. And I feel that way about Antonio Williams.
24:23He could be more of a second half of the of the season kind of player.
24:28But if you want to stash him and if you want to see what they do without Shigekonkwo, I think that there's
24:34at least some storyline and some narrative we can tell ourselves that they use Antonio Williams a little bit more because they
24:41don't have that presence in the slot. OK, let's get to the lad rib rundown rubdown as I might say is a rib lover alive.
24:49I love a dry rub on some ribs. The ribs ribs, ribs, though, give me the ick after I have like six.
24:55I get that. You know, like it's just the same thing over and over again.
25:00Salmon does the same thing for me, too. When I eat, I can't eat a ton of salmon because it just starts to give me the ick.
25:08It's got to be got to be smoked for me.
25:11But anyways, we hope that lad plays. He does have this rib injury was looking.
25:15Our friend of the show, Jeff Mueller, says it all comes down to like contact tolerance.
25:20So he hasn't been playing or practicing the past two days.
25:24A reminder for those that are listening to this on Saturday, we record this show Fridays, noon Eastern time.
25:29Please join us. It's a fun time. But JJ, where are you at on just this Chargers offense now after that week one?
25:36I'm seeing someone. Oh, someone said rare L take.
25:39I'm assuming that's because of the ribs. Yeah. Also, I think the rub down phrasing is kind of getting people here with the with the.
25:47Yeah, it was rundown. But then I was going to do like rub down like dry rub.
25:52All right. Let's just talk about this Chargers offense.
25:54How about that? Uh, so I if you look at what happened after Lad McConkie went down last week in the fourth
26:01quarter, Trey Harris ran a route on every single one of the Chargers dropouts.
26:05I also think there's a chance that we see more around a Gadsden this week who had a 14% route share last week.
26:12And so, yeah, I mean, if Lad doesn't go, which I don't know, where do you think things are at with Lad?
26:19I think it's anytime like they have contact tolerance, it's not going to feel good.
26:23But let's just be real. There's pain painkillers for that.
26:26Yeah. I mean, like players can play through something like this.
26:30I just don't know. I mean, they were nice.
26:32They were night and day when Lad went out.
26:35I mean, it was a completely different offense. It couldn't do anything offensively at all.
26:40If Lad is out, Trey Harris becomes a dart throw, right?
26:43He did run, like I said, run a route on every single one of their dropbacks.
26:48QJ becomes a more appealing type option if Lad is out.
26:51And then, like I said, I wouldn't be surprised if and there was already some coach speak about this, that Ronda Gadsden
26:58might play a little bit more than that 14% route share that he saw in week one.
27:03Look, if you're concerned about any sort of usage in the Chargers offense in week one, I think that you can take
27:10solace in the fact that they're going to probably change some things up because that offense looked absolutely atrocious in week one.
27:16So keep that in mind as well. Lad, though, if healthy, I think could be, you know, like we had our could
27:23be this year's JSN kind of grouping, right? You know, Zay was someone that we threw out there a lot because if
27:30you looked at market score, the top market score comp for him, as we talked about, was JSN's 2025 season.
27:36Lad was another one because you're going to see a lot more of those two wide receiver sets for the Chargers versus what Lad has seen traditionally.
27:44And that's sort of what helped JSN get to where he got to last year because he was just funneled all of those looks.
27:51We started seeing that with Lad McConkie in week one.
27:54We just need that interior offensive line to play a lot better to give Justin Herbert a little bit more time back
28:01there to be able to deliver the football. But Lad McConkie was looking great before that injury really, you know, derailed that offense and derailed obviously his game.
28:09So we'll see what happens. All right. Pittman foot man.
28:12Michael Pittman. He was a limited practice participant earlier this week and then did not practice yesterday.
28:17Wasn't out there stretching today. So I don't think he's practicing today either.
28:21Never good when you go backwards. I'm just assuming he's not going to play.
28:26And if he does, it's not going to be full strength.
28:29Yeah, we'll see what happens and what what, you know, they end up ruling here with Pittman.
28:34I think that it actually matters a lot because this matchup probably favors him a little bit more.
28:39I would assume that Christian Gonzalez is going to see a lot more DK Metcalf in the matchup.
28:45And that's not great, even though Metcalf had really good peripherals in week one.
28:49Part of the reason why I didn't want to call him out as a clear, I talked about him on the 10 trends episode, but not 15 transactions.
28:58Was that, you know, 10 trends is kind of like the I said this on Twitter this week, but it's kind of like my playground.
29:05Right. I love doing it every week because I can get takes out there, but they're not supposed to be as actionable as 15 transactions is right.
29:13It's kind of like a, hey, keep an eye on this because if this continues, we might be able to be a
29:20week or two ahead with some of these players.
29:23And with DK Metcalf, he underperformed similarly to like how Jamison Williams did in week one from an expected point scored standpoint.
29:29Saw a lot of air yards. Aaron Rodgers aired it out a lot more.
29:34He had the highest a dot of his Steelers career last week.
29:37And so realistically, I do think that Pittman would be in a really interesting spot this week if we do see Christian Gonzalez all over DK Metcalf.
29:45And now it's just kind of scary. I mean, what kind of weapons the Steelers have that were really afraid that the
29:52Patriots would be really, really afraid of other than Wilson finally returns.
29:56Yeah. Roman Wilson and yeah. Okay. Yeah. Roman Wilson.
29:58But then, you know, I think Pat Fryermuth has an interesting matchup as well.
30:03He's not a bad dart throw streamer, but yeah, it's a, I do think a Pittman's kind of important to this offense
30:09to be sort of an underneath type look for Aaron Rodgers.
30:13Okay. Okay. Joe Burrow is playing at a back issue.
30:16He's fine. Let's move on to that because we don't have a ton of time to talk about all these injuries.
30:22I put Zay Flowers blooms back because he was back at practice today.
30:26However, seeing rap rap a poor on the McAfee show saying Zay Flowers is back at practice, but he didn't do very much.
30:33That might take another week. Yeah. I have a feeling he's not going to play this week.
30:38Yeah. So I would, I would assume he's going to be out.
30:42If you want to throw a, a route shared dart, if you will, Rashad Bateman would be that guy more than likely.
30:48And I'm very interested to see what happens with, with, if, if Elijah Surratt is dressed and if they want to use
30:55him because he had a pretty interesting production profile.
30:58He doesn't get that much separation, but I think he can work underneath and in the slot if they want to use him as a big slot.
31:06So I'm just curious to see how they deploy their wide receivers with Jacoby Lane also out.
31:11Okay. What about Travion Henderson? JJ, we loved us some Ramondre and just having that backfield all to himself.
31:17I mean, he had one of the best expected point totals in week one.
31:21His usage was actually insane. Last week. I obviously played a really tough opponent in the Patriots offense.
31:26Just couldn't get that much going. I would have a hard time confidently starting Travion one week off of that injury.
31:33Right. It's not like an amazing matchup either necessarily.
31:35So I'm probably, you know, more on the bench side.
31:38If you have Travion and just kind of see how this is divvied up and then Ramondre gets a little bit of a bump down.
31:46Not a little bit, but a decent bump down based on Travion being there more in that, like, I don't know, low
31:53end RB to high end RB three land. I don't know exactly where my rankings have Ramondre this week, but yeah, I
31:59mean, like it's it's it'd be tough for me to trust Travion.
32:03He can break big plays. We never you know, we know that he can do something on one run and one target,
32:10but I would have a hard time starting him coming off the injury.
32:13Let's get to. The Minnesota Vikings, JJ, because here we go.
32:17Mason has been jarred. So. We have like that one.
32:20I know. I know you do. But we also we also have Jordan Mason out.
32:24We also have Kyler Murray making his way through the concussion protocol could wind up clearing in time.
32:30That's going from Jeff Mueller. So let's talk about Kyler.
32:33I'm I'm still of the belief that Carson Wentz is going to play this week, so we'll see if he doesn't.
32:39Kyler is a pretty good play because it's Chicago.
32:42There has been some data. I remember Edwin Poros sharing this at one point over the last couple of years.
32:48Yes, I roll the R because he's told me that's how his last name is pronounced.
32:53But Edwin has talked about how concussions actually the positions that are impacted when they return to play with concussions are quarterback
32:59and wide receiver more than running back. And the reason probably is because quarterback is a more cerebral position.
33:05And if something's going on upstairs, it might be a little bit more difficult to kind of, you know, there's probably a
33:12little bit of brain fog or whatever. Or you didn't prepare enough during the week.
33:16And it's a little it's just more difficult to just step in and perform at a high level.
33:22So even though it's a really good matchup on paper, so a little bit concerned about Kyler just from that perspective.
33:28And then with the backfield, I think, you know, I'm going to be talking about Aaron Jones later.
33:34I think he's a good play this week. And I've seen a lot of chatter about DeMond Claiborne.
33:39And I'm very much a yes. Add him. That's fine.
33:42Speculative ad. I added him in places. I'm just trying to set expectations here because there's been a lot of beat reporters
33:49that are saying, like, he's not ready. Like, he's not there yet.
33:52And Claiborne, number one, he's a rookie. Number two, he's an undersized rookie.
33:56He's very, very fast. He's one of these players where I'm not going to be shocked if he's dressed and if he
34:03gets like a touch or two, whatever it is.
34:06I have no idea what his workload is going to be.
34:09I don't think we can pretend to know what his workload is going to be.
34:14But he's one of those players. And I'm telling you guys this right now, when he touches the ball, you're going to
34:20get excited because he's very fun to watch. Yeah, he's like a joystick.
34:24Okay. So understand that that can happen and probably will happen with DeMond Claiborne.
34:28But there's more to the position than just that.
34:31So I think he's intriguing because the other guys they have there don't have the kind of skill set that he has.
34:38But I don't expect him to have like a massive, massive workload right away.
34:42And also, I'm just throwing it out there. I am still very, very, very bitter that the Minnesota Vikings did not draft
34:49Emmitt Johnson when I was screaming from the rooftops during that draft.
34:52I think on social media, but definitely in the discord for the freaking Minnesota Vikings to draft Emmitt Johnson because he is
34:59one of his comps was Aaron Jones in the prospect model.
35:02He just he fits. He's a good player. And I know that it doesn't matter, but I'm still very frustrated over.
35:09Yeah, he looked good on Monday night and someone that you should want to look at.
35:13But yeah, DeMond Claiborne, 100. I think he's 185 pounds as a running back.
35:18Yeah. And like his his production profile wasn't out of control.
35:21Like he can be a pass catcher. I think that that's sort of the role that he would eventually play.
35:27But target share is really hard. And I learned this the hard way with Travion Henderson last year.
35:32It's a really hard thing to bank on with with rookie running backs is target share.
35:37Like it's not something that is guaranteed. And it usually we don't see many double digit percentage target share players in general as rookies.
35:44So I'm not I'm just not going to go nuts over Claiborne.
35:48Of course, Adam and just throw him into onto your bench.
35:51But I wouldn't go crazy because I just I doubt we see a massive workload.
35:56I could be wrong. I've been wrong plenty of times before.
35:59It does happen occasionally. Let's round up with the running backs.
36:03Alvin Kamara is going to return this week. Bears backfield.
36:06Both were on the injury report yesterday. We're watching today on Friday to see.
36:10I think Dr. Mueller said that he's expecting him to be expecting them to be like full participants.
36:15But then Kalen Black. This was you know, you don't want to see your running back added later on in the week.
36:22And he was added yesterday as a limited participant in the 49ers practice.
36:26Yeah. If Kalen Black is out, I would replace him as on the sleeper show with Jordan James, because I do think
36:33that we can see a positive game script for their 13 and a half point favorites, the 49ers.
36:38So we could see multiple running backs produced this week for sure.
36:42So keep an eye on the Kalen Black stuff.
36:44I have a feeling he'll be OK, but we'll see.
36:47You know, we you never know. We like it's especially with San Francisco.
36:51We have no freaking idea with what's going to go on there.
36:55You know, with Alvin Kamara, we saw the Saints rotate their backs in week one.
36:59I do think, as I said on the mailbag episode, it was probably a little bit overstated by the mark because what
37:06happens is we see Kendra Miller come in and get a touchdown and it's in the green zone when that happens.
37:12Right. Yeah. Travis Etienne technically had 100 percent goal line snap share.
37:16So that's good. A-chan. Sorry. A-chan. Travis A-chan. I was really good about it on the mailbag episode.
37:22I know you. Yeah, you didn't really good about it.
37:25Really. Yeah. But Travis A-chan, you know, had had a goal line snap.
37:28He was he was at least on the field there.
37:32But his back, you know, his backfield share wasn't that different than what we saw last year necessarily.
37:37It's just that the environment's different. You know, and he still saw 17 percent target share.
37:42I wasn't someone that was like really into that tier of running backs in general, but definitely Travis A-chan.
37:48Like I wasn't I was lower than the market.
37:50I'm just trying to be, you know, reactionary and reasonable about where I'm at now.
37:55And I don't think that people should be, you know, going nuts about trading for him or going nuts about trading him
38:01away just because of that Kendra Miller touchdown. Today's data.
38:04All right, JJ. What are we looking at right here?
38:07Before we started the show, I don't even know what this is.
38:11I don't know. Like what? What are we doing here?
38:14Yeah. With this chart. Yeah. This is just an extension of what I talked about on the 10 trends episode where I'm
38:21looking at because look, there's been a lot more talk about heavy personnel, even on my show, all of that, because number
38:27one, there's actually a couple of reasons for it.
38:30Number one is because the NFL is trending how the NFL is trended.
38:34You know, I talked about it a couple of years ago, just not nearly as much because last year was a really
38:41big turning point with how heavy teams ran their offense.
38:44It's a lot of 12 more 13 personnel. And so what that means is that there's, there's fewer than, than three wide receivers on the field at once.
38:52Uh, so this technically should be less than or equal to two wide receiver rates, uh, in the title there, but regardless, and that's my fault.
39:00It's not, it's not kitchen's fault, but regardless, um, it's, it's allowed me and others to dig more into how important this
39:07is from a fantasy football perspective, right? Ryan Heath from fantasy points did a lot of great work on this over the off season.
39:14I know rich rebar has done a lot of work on heavy personnel use in the past as well.
39:20And so what I'm tracking here is just a very quick look of where we were in 2025 from a, uh, a
39:26percent of plays run with two or fewer wide receivers on the field versus the Delta to 2026.
39:32And it's funny because a lot of the teams that saw a big increase were, cause this can be dictated, especially in a one game sample.
39:40This can be dictated by game script. If a team is trailing, we're probably going to see a little bit more, 11
39:46personnel like Tennessee or, you know, Arizona or Arizona didn't.
39:49That's a, that's a bad example. Uh, Cleveland right is on this list of a, of a, of a decline there, but also there's a coaching impact here.
39:58Coaches are dictating the kind of personnel their offenses are going to run.
40:02And the very number one team here is Vegas who last year ran 40, about 43% of their plays with two or fewer wide receivers in the field.
40:10And week one, that was 70%. That's the biggest increase of any team in the league.
40:15But then Jacksonville really interesting. I know they were leading in that game, but if you look at what they did during
40:22the off season in the draft, they were very tight end heavy, right?
40:26And they talked about using more personnel in that way and their personnel in that way.
40:30It's really big for the wide receivers in those offenses because now they're competing against other tight ends instead of other wide receivers.
40:37And there's a higher likelihood that they get targeted on their route run.
40:41So it's good news for, I mean, sure, Trey Tucker or whatever, I guess, but probably more like Brock Bowers.
40:47And then it's good news for Parker Washington. And then Minnesota is next on that list.
40:52It's good news for those guys, uh, the jets, the chargers and the giants.
40:56But on the flip side, this is what I didn't share in the 10 trends episode.
41:01Miami saw the biggest decline. Obviously that could play into there.
41:05There's a coaching change, but obviously the game script Cleveland saw a big decline.
41:09Pittsburgh saw a big decline, which is not a surprise because again, coaching, right?
41:13You go from Arthur Smith, who has been a heavy say, which one about Arthur Smith.
41:18He was kind of ahead of the game when it came to these tight end heavy sets.
41:23Yeah. But Arthur Smith leaves, Mike McCarthy comes in.
41:26Mike McCarthy has been more of that 11 personnel spread kind of offensive coordinator in the past and offensive mind in the past.
41:33So it's not that surprising, even in a good game script for Pittsburgh that they saw almost a 20% decline in the
41:39percentage of plays run with two or fewer wide receivers on the field from, from last year to week one, Arizona saw
41:46a pretty big decline, which I think is kind of interesting.
41:49Uh, but that also, you know, the, the personnel is kind of dictating that, but they too have a brand new, you
41:56know, coaching staff, Tennessee, brand new coaching staff that changed last week.
42:00And then Washington, same deal. Right. And so a lot of this is just, I, you know, there's going to be noise
42:06to this, but I think there's at least some narratives that we can attach to this as well.
42:12And again, the teams on the top, I'm a little bit more interested in their wide receivers, seeing a slight bump up
42:18in efficiency versus the guys, the bottom seeing a slight decline in efficiency.
42:22Yeah. Don't get me started JJ on the Titans play calling on Sunday.
42:26They had gotten this rated this week and they deserve it.
42:30So I have a take, you guys want to, you guys want to, uh, an off the cuff take that I, I
42:36probably would have to think about more if I was doing a, Oh yeah.
42:40A discouraging Titans off the cuff take. Yeah. Lay it on me.
42:44What if man, no, it's not really taking me.
42:47I'm going to preface it with what if guys, so it's not really a take.
42:51I'm just, I'm just making people think a little bit more.
42:55Okay. What if Brian Dable is actually egregiously bad and Jackson dart, Jackson darts actually better than what we saw last year.
43:01And so instead of us thinking, Oh man, Matt Nagy and Greg Roman, this is going to be rough or it could be rough.
43:09Right. We, you know, it's not like we were really high or low on, on dart this year, but Oh, it could be rough.
43:16There's this, there's this range here where, where things could, what if it's actually the opposite?
43:21It because, because Brian Dable is that bad of a coordinator.
43:24Like what if, you know, it's only one game.
43:27We'll see what happens. But what if guys, what if these, these film bros, Dan Arlovsky, they're breaking down these Titans, like these Titans spacing for wide receivers.
43:35And it is, I saw there was a couple of plays I saw.
43:39Cause I go back and I watch every game on Monday while I'm doing 15 transactions.
43:44There was a couple of games where the wide receivers literally ran into each other.
43:48And they're like three receivers and they're all within three yards of each other.
43:53And we can't talk anything more about that. Let's get onto some better stuff.
43:57The main events, the late round main event. All right.
44:00These are players that you like more than where the average rank for these players are in the industry right now.
44:06And we'll start with quarterback. There's not a lot of quarterback.
44:10I mean, quarterback is kind of quarterback, you know, there's not a lot of hot takes with quarterbacks, but your quarterback for this week is Malik Willis.
44:18Yeah. There's not a lot. Like it's usually like, I think I'm a little bit lower on like Justin Herbert this week than the market.
44:25And so, you know, that means that like I was a one spot higher with Jared Goff last night or I'm one spot higher.
44:33So it's just, it's just a small, like, cause there's not as many players to really talk through with the position.
44:39But that being said, I am three spots higher than the market with Malik Willis this week.
44:44Expert Consensus. He's faced, he faced the fourth highest pressure rate in week one.
44:48That's according to next gen stats data. Uh, he saw five scrambles as a result, which was top three in the NFL.
44:55We know that he can bring some of that production via rushing Matthew Stafford against the same San Francisco team that he's that Willis is about to face.
45:03He was sixth in pressure rate faced. Uh, and so you, you bring that together.
45:08If San Francisco can get pressure on Malik Willis, I'm expecting a lot of potential scrambles and runs.
45:13And if that's the case, then we'll see a decent amount of fantasy points scored more than likely in catch-up mode as well.
45:20So look, we're in QB two range, like deep QB two range with Malik Willis.
45:25I would just go for upside and just say, say to myself, Hey, maybe we get 63 yards and maybe a rushing touchdown from Malik Willis.
45:33And that's going to be enough for him to be a fringe QB one this week.
45:38All right. Uh, let's go to running back. We talked a little bit about Mason being jarred.
45:43Aaron Jones stepping up into that starter role where he's not, he doesn't have to worry about time sharing more.
45:49Yeah. It's also a one week sample here with Aaron Jones that we're like, I'm only looking at this one week, right?
45:55Like I'm not worried about week seven, week eight with Aaron Jones and ranking him rest of season.
46:01I'm just saying this week, the Vikings get the bears.
46:04The bears did not look good defensively in week one.
46:07And Aaron Jones is playing in a backfield that has a lot of inexperience.
46:11You have like DJ Dallas and you have DeMond Clay.
46:14Right? Like I'm not massively worried about what his workload is probably going to look like if you're just being logical about it.
46:21Uh, the Vikings did not see a ton of routes from their running backs in week one, which was a little bit
46:28interesting, but even still they had 21, him and Jordan, Aaron Jones and Jordan Mason combined for 21 expected PPR points in week one.
46:35And so if that translates in any way to this game against Chicago, you know, a beatable defense, I think Aaron Jones
46:42could come through with a pretty strong fantasy day.
46:44Uh, yeah. Speaking of DJ Dallas, JJ, did you see?
46:47Yeah, the, the, the, yeah, there, there it is.
46:50There it is. Him and him and a DK Metcalf, both, both.
46:54Yeah. This is a wide eyed, scary, uh, headshots classic.
46:57I appreciate people who, uh, don't take the, the headshots too seriously.
47:00Yeah, it is. All right. Um, wide receiver. I told you, you were feeling golden.
47:05You're a golden boy. Matthew golden is this week.
47:08I'm 10 spots above the market with Matthew Golden this week.
47:11So it's pretty aggressive. All things considered second and expected fantasy points last week, only behind Amin Ross St.
47:17Brown. He had a high route share, a 30% target share, multiple end zone targets.
47:21And there's a favorable matchup against the jets on paper.
47:24So, and the, the Packers have a good implied team total in this game.
47:29So I think process wise, I like Christian Watson more still, but I would not be surprised if Matthew golden comes through with a decent performance again.
47:37Okay. And then give me your best change. Actually, I guess you already kind of fueled, uh, rant about this next one.
47:43It's Mr. Kenyon Sadiq. We talked about it in the, uh, the late round chat yesterday.
47:48Cause you're like, what am I missing on Sadiq?
47:51And I was like, wait till you hear today's mailbag.
47:54Yeah. Yeah. People like about him all year, all off season.
47:57Well, I did. I talked about him a lot this off.
48:01It's just really strange to me. It's really strange that we live in a fantasy football world where people are looking for the young up and coming.
48:09They want to be the person who finds the random gem that no one is really on.
48:14And usually those gems come from younger, unproven, uncertain players.
48:17And there's a tight end who's in a tight end friendly offense.
48:21And that offense doesn't have a number two wide receiver locked in.
48:24And it's an offense that looks better than last year, year over year.
48:28And Kenyon Sadiq is a first round pick. He's 21 years old.
48:32He had a good production profile, at least good.
48:34It was at least above average, no matter the way you slice it.
48:38If you layer on age, which you should, it was a, a way above average production profile in college with good competition in college.
48:46I don't think that he's Colston Loveland. I don't think that he's Brock Bowers.
48:50Like I said on the show, but it's shocking to me that people are not higher on Kenyon Sadiq.
48:56Just like, I also said this in the mailbag show 75, 80% of the time, this is not going to work out, you know?
49:03So like me saying all this, I know I'm, I'm more than likely going to be wrong.
49:08Right. But that's not how I look at fantasy football.
49:11When cost is this low, you're not having to spend up or you're not having to rank him at tight end six and hoping that he comes through.
49:19I think his route share is going to get better than what he saw in week one, which was like 47 or so percent.
49:27So if that increases, it's not a bad matchup.
49:29It looks like a good matchup on paper against the Packers.
49:33I'm, I'm in a Kenyon Sadiq. I have him rostered in so many leagues, so many, I draft him in a lot,
49:39but also you could pick them up still after this past week.
49:43And a lot of those, you know, regular leagues.
49:46So if Sadiq is out there, I still think he's a good stash, especially if you have more of like a low ceiling tight end one.
49:54Yeah. Like he, he was not a bad prospect.
49:56He's a, he's a good prospect in fact. So I'm, I'm still leaning into that, that Sadiq play.
50:02I have met tight end 23 consensus tight end 27.
50:05You mentioned it. Anytime you give a manufacturer touch on the first drive to your guy, you, I'm just expecting big things.
50:11Yeah. Yeah. And, and Omar and Chad is saying, what's the lowest route share you would, you would like to see from
50:18Sadiq for him to be consistently startable. You usually want, you know, into the 60% range, 60 to 70% range at tight
50:25end would be ideal, but it depends. Like there are other, you know, he's one of those players like we saw in
50:31week one where the offense might give him and force him some manufactured looks and that his like touches per route run
50:38are going to be higher than what we see with other tight ends just naturally.
50:43But let's just give it time. You know, like this, the, the, you and I, and, and Gadula were talking about this
50:49this morning in our meeting because we get derailed very frequently during our, our staff meetings.
50:54But, uh, we were talking about this where Brandon was like, cause Brandon is, is in Sadiq as well.
51:00And Brandon was saying how on best ball, he just kept taking him over and over again in like the 19th or
51:0618th round or whatever, where he was going towards the end of the summer.
51:11And to me, I was like, it was so crazy to not do that because even if he missed like the first
51:17half of the season, that could still pay off, you know, that kind of, that kind of capital.
51:23So I'm just in a Sadiq because I think the cost benefit here, uh, is certainly there.
51:28I also recognize that the odds are not in my favor.
51:31That's the whole point though. I mean, for, for any of these dart throw players, they're not in your favor.
51:37Yeah. We are watching his, uh, his snaps and routes like crazy for week two.
51:42Just want to see a little bit of an uptick.
51:45Like someone mentioned, uh, Rashi rice in the, or Rashi rice in the chat earlier.
51:49And you've actually got a bold prediction for week two.
51:52My bold prediction is that Rashi rice finishes outside the top 30 wide receivers.
51:57This is bold because consensus has Rashi rice ranked as the wide receiver 15.
52:01So, you know, someone might say, Oh, you know, feels like variance is going to be on his side and he might bounce back from last week.
52:09He did find the end zone last week. So it wasn't like all horrible.
52:13But, uh, if you look at his splits against man, like man zone splits are not everything at all.
52:19You know, it's just something that can, can lean you in one direction a little bit more.
52:24Maybe obviously target share route share. Those are going to be more important, but there are some players where the discrepancy between
52:31man and zone is so great that you can't ignore it.
52:34And look, the NFL runs a lot more zone than they do, man.
52:38Uh, you're just generally speaking, you know, like I said, the Steelers ran all of their defensive plays last week out of
52:45zone, according to next gen stats, but even still.
52:47And so obviously a player like Rashi rice, who does a lot better against zone is going to just naturally be a
52:54lot better in more of his matchups and not right.
52:57Right. Well, the Colts last week ran man at by far the highest rate in league is like 58%.
53:03And then last year they were top 10 in man rate and Rashi rice over his, uh, over the last three years
53:10since Xavier worthy entered the NFL, uh, Rashi rice has seen about a two yards per hour run rate difference when he's
53:16played against zone versus when he's played against man.
53:19And so if they play a lot more man, that's bad news for Rashi rice.
53:23He can't beat man the same way that he can beat zone.
53:27And so that's why I think he might finish outside the top 30 wide receivers this week.
53:32I don't have him ranked that low, quite that low, but I am lower than the market on Rashi rice.
53:38The touchdown he scored looked so weird. Like he bounced off that guy.
53:42Like, yeah, I mean, he's good at, look, he's good after the catch Rashi rice.
53:47That's the one thing he can do really well.
53:49Right. And he's, he's finding in zone, like I said, but he's, you know, he's more of that, like big, big yak slot type of player.
53:57And this offense is, is clearly going in a different direction than funneling their targets through that slot guy and Rashi rice.
54:04All right. Next we have a quarterback bold prediction.
54:07JJ Baker Mayfield outscores Joe burrow. You know, I had a similar one last week.
54:11I said Malik Wilson can outscore Jane Daniels. And I was off by like 0.6.
54:16Yeah. Just a little bit. But I was also, I missed the Amari and Hampton one by, by, that was a really bad pick last week.
54:24Really bad. I think anyone that invested in any amount of chargers, like they were just surprised how that game went.
54:30Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But this one's bold because Baker's QB 17 via consensus and burrow is QB nine burrow though.
54:36Gets Houston. We know that's not an easy matchup, even though last week said otherwise.
54:41And then I want to read something from Brandon Gadula did his first matchup newsletter this week.
54:46Now we have some data and he can send this out.
54:49So if you guys are not subscribed to the newsletter, definitely subscribe because this matchup column that he's sending out is freaking awesome.
54:56It's really, really good. And obviously data is limited right now.
54:59And he talks about that caveat and stuff throughout the newsletter.
55:03But I thought this was really interesting. I'm just going to read straight from the newsletter with this is, this is a
55:09lot of the best passing matchups that Brandon wrote up.
55:12One of them was the Buccaneers against the Browns.
55:15It says, despite being featured as a game with a low total, the Bucs get a great draw in terms of passing matchup.
55:22No team let up a higher EPA per dropback rate than the Browns did in week one.
55:27So this could help Baker Mayfield in the Bucs 27th in EPA per dropback in week one.
55:32Get right. Of note, the Browns saw a bottom six rate of targets, the slot in week one, but were torched eighth
55:39worst by yards per target on them. So, you know, they were not seeing a ton of looks against them because obviously
55:46game script, but or even just the rate of targets, Brandon notes, but they were also torched against them.
55:51And there's good matchups for Tampa Bay from that perspective.
55:54But here's the thing that was really interesting. Tampa Bay was ninth in EPA per play on early downs and fourth in success rate.
56:02And then on late downs after adjusting for turnovers, that's and then on late downs adjusting for turnovers in week one.
56:08So they were actually when you adjust for turnovers and you look at EPA because EPA can be influenced a lot by,
56:15you know, a fumble or an interception. And that's why, you know, it's not necessarily as indicative of how good or bad
56:21a player is going to perform in fantasy because turnovers don't matter as much in fantasy.
56:26But they weren't that bad in EPA per play.
56:29When you remove those turnovers, they were top 10 offense after week one, despite a slow start and some costly turnovers.
56:35And so the Bucs are enticing in week two, says Brandon.
56:38So I think Baker, it's like I said on the show, on the sleeper show, create, uh, you know, a, a, uh,
56:45garbage time is created by a garbage performance. If the Buccaneers are, or, or conversely, you know, being ahead from a game
56:52script perspective, usually will happen because the quarterback allowed that to happen.
56:55So you look at their team total, I mean, their team total is higher than Cincinnati's.
57:00I don't think this is a hot take whatsoever.
57:03It's just, there's a big discrepancy in their rankings.
57:06Okay. Um, you have talked a lot, JJ. I'll go quick lot.
57:09So let's do a little bit of rapid fire for the look ahead waiver wire, starting with Malik Willis, Malik Willis.
57:16He's it's not an easy upcoming schedule, but for obvious reasons, I do think that he could be usable in fantasy football.
57:22Bryce Young is another one. And I'm not like, I I'm open-minded to him having another good game this week, but I
57:29don't think they're going to be pushing the ball quite as much as they did last week.
57:34But the question is, what if he does do really well this week?
57:38And all of a sudden they get the Browns in week three and you're like, Oh, I can play Bryce young.
57:44Right. So I can understand him as a look ahead.
57:47And then Tyler shuck as the other one, they get the Raiders and Falcons after this week to match up against the Ravens.
57:54I'm a little bit lower on shuck than others are this week after being higher on him last week, running back Woody
58:01marks, he had a better snapshot than people realize in week one he's, he's still under 50% rostered.
58:06Uh, Keaton Mitchell. What if the chargers turn things around and just go nuts on the Raiders this week?
58:12Uh, Alvin Kamara. We already talked about that a little bit.
58:15Emmett Johnson, Devin Singletary, I think is kind of interesting because what if we do see consistent route share and snap share
58:22from him, uh, stemming from week one, especially if they see a negative game script this week.
58:27And then DeMond Claiborne, we talked about him too.
58:30Wide receiver. The Emmett Johnson pick, especially because Kenneth Walker is being used so much.
58:35Yeah. Like if something happens to him, Emmett John, I mean, it's going to, people are going to be just emptying their fab clips.
58:42Yeah. He'll be an 80% plus type player. Yeah.
58:44Yes. Um, Caleb Douglas, a wide receiver, Chris bell.
58:47I think bell could Malik Washington was not very good in week one.
58:51So I think there's a chance we, we just keep seeing more and more Chris bell usage in that offense from a route share perspective.
58:59Dontavian Wicks. I've talked a lot about him. Kayshawn Booty and Jalen Knoll with no Nico Collins.
59:04We talked about that already earlier in the show.
59:07Adonai Mitchell doesn't have Omar Cooper. I didn't even mention that with Ken and Sadiq, but Omar Cooper is hurt.
59:13So, and look, he was out for most of last game too, but Adonai Mitchell kind of interesting with no Omar Cooper.
59:19Antonio Williams, like I said, increased usage. Uh, maybe we do with no Chica Conquil.
59:24Pat Bryant, Rashad Bateman because of the Zay flower stuff.
59:27And then Matt Collins and Demario Douglas. I probably prefer Mac a little bit more this week, but it's not by, you
59:33know, I think it's more of a crap shoot.
59:36And then at tight end, we have Terrence Ferguson.
59:39Let's see what this route share looks like in week two, after a really back and forth weird week one, uh, from a route share and usage perspective.
59:47Kenyan Sadiq just talked about him. Aranda Gadsden. I think we might see an uptick based on the lad McConkie injury and some coach speak stuff.
59:55And then at defense, dude, the chiefs are still out there in so many leagues right now.
60:00There's six and a half point favorites against a team that gave up the highest pressure rate in week one in Indianapolis.
60:07So I don't know why, I mean, maybe I'm the one missing something, but I think that I think the chiefs are
60:14a good streaming play this week and then they get the dolphins next week.
60:18Uh, the Panthers get the Browns next week. The giants get the Titans next week.
60:22And then the saints get the Raiders next week.
60:25Giants Titans revenge game too for that. All right, JJ, let's wrap this up.
60:29All right. Last week we had the quad box, New Orleans and Detroit winner right there.
60:34Uh, bucks and Cincy, Buffalo, Houston, Green Bay, Minnesota.
60:37I felt like was, that was a good, that was aside from the bucks and Cincy.
60:42That was a really good thought that that was a game that would have let us down.
60:47Let's look at this week's game. You're going first this week, kitchen.
60:51Okay. Yeah. Yeah. I don't mind to go first.
60:53Um, I'm going to go with the, uh, the Monday night hammer and go giants at Rams.
60:58Okay. Rams, you know, on a really, really long week.
61:01Let's see what this offense looks like this week.
61:04All right. I'm going to go here. I'll put it.
61:07I'll put it in the quad box here. Um, I'm going to go for strictly a, uh, uh, fantasy game and I'm
61:14going to go Washington and Dallas as the, as the next one.
61:17Okay. Um, I think, I think there could be fireworks and fantasy in that game.
61:22This game. I'm just, I'm going to be watching this team and whoever this team plays until they disappoint me.
61:28And that is the Vikings at bears. Yeah, it's a great one.
61:32Um, I probably should have gotten the Vikings bears, Justin Jefferson for the Vikings.
61:36We already talked about, um, you know, Jones and then on the flip side, we got lovely.
61:41It is Loveland going to bounce back, you know?
61:44Yeah. I, I, I think that this one is the most intriguing to me.
61:48This, this last one, Jacksonville and Denver. Yeah. That's the one I was looking at as well.
61:53Yeah. Jacksonville, Denver. I, you could consider maybe Cincinnati Houston, but I went, I went Jacksonville, Denver for the fourth one there.
62:00Okay. It's a good, that's a good quad box for, for a good mix of like real intrigue and fantasy intrigue.
62:06I like it. Absolutely. All right. Uh, we've had a lot of people subscribe to our newsletter.
62:11JJ, you mentioned it as far as the good work that brain, the doula is doing.
62:16We have the Monday morning email that goes out based on your, uh, data dump news nuggets, whatever you want to call it.
62:23Then I send a recap. I'll, I'll be sending one right after the show ends.
62:28So make sure you're subscribed to the newsletter. It's free late round.com.
62:31And if you want to become a member, uh, hang out with us, insider members or all access members, you get to go and come into the discord.
62:40It's a fun time. We have news and rumors channels for breaking news.
62:44We have rankings. Um, Jay, you get JJ's notes in there.
62:47So it's just a really solid time. Final thoughts, JJ.
62:50Um, I realized someone mentioned in chat, uh, Demarcus Robinson probably should have been a look ahead waiver wire as well.
62:56So I'll throw that out. That's, that's my parting thought.
62:59All of all the stuff we've talked about and you're just, you're focused on the guy that's you, you didn't mention with Demarcus Robinson.
63:07Yeah. I just said for, I mean, he was on 15 transactions, so hopefully people already knew, but yeah, I mean, I
63:13should throw in the spirit of D Rob. Let me give a shout out to our guy, friend of the show, Kendrick Bourne, Kendrick Bourne, baby.
63:21It was great to see Kendrick Bourne. He took away from all my Marvin Harrison shares.
63:26Whatever. Bourne blessed, baby. Bourne blessed. I want that guy to succeed.
63:30He had, he had the most energy. I think of any human being I've ever met in my life.
63:35Yeah, that was fun. Uh, this show was fun.
63:38We appreciate everyone, everyone for tuning in. Hope you have an awesome weekend and an awesome week too.
63:43And we'll see you here next time on the late round fantasy football show.
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