PodcastFrom Yahoo Fantasy Forecast
MNF REAX + Post-Week 2 People's Panic Meter: Bears down bad?!
STACKED extracted the fantasy-relevant player signal from this podcast and kept the full transcript here for context.
1 hr 52 min
Duration
Estimated from transcript
Sep 22, 2026
Published
Tue, September 22, 2026
29
Player insights
27
Players mentioned
Topics
Colston LovelandDe'Von AchaneBlake CorumBryce YoungCaleb WilliamsDavante AdamsDrake LondonGeorge PickensIsaiah LikelyJameis WinstonJayden DanielsKalif RaymondKyler MurrayKyren Williams
Player analysis
Player insights
Blake Corum
PositiveUsage14:15
Blake Corum matched Kyren Williams in production, recording 79 rushing yards and showing high efficiency in the Rams' run-heavy game script.
Insight pageBryce Young
NegativeValue32:43
Bryce Young is a viable waiver wire option for the next two weeks against the Browns and Lions, though there is skepticism about his long-term production once he faces tougher NFL defenses.
Insight pageCaleb Williams
NegativeInjury29:26
Caleb Williams is week-to-week with a hamstring pull and is expected to miss the Week 3 game against the Eagles. While the injury is less severe than initially feared, his absence forces a downgrade in expectations for the Bears' offense.
Insight pageColston Loveland
NegativeProjection36:02
Colson Loveland is causing panic for fantasy managers due to low involvement and the injury to Caleb Williams. While he would still be drafted as a starter, managers should look for backup options as his floor has lowered.
Insight pagePositiveValue38:00
Despite a slow start with only one catch, Harmon views Loveland as an uncomfortable buy-low candidate. While the dream of him becoming a target-hog similar to Trey McBride is likely over, he remains a high-talent player in a Ben Johnson offense that should eventually prioritize him more in the game plan.
Insight pageDavante Adams
PositiveProjection2:32
Davante Adams delivered a massive performance with 10 targets, 8 catches, 195 yards, and 2 touchdowns. Matt Harmon highlights Adams' elite route-running and technique, noting he remains a WR1 in fantasy, especially when Puka Nacua is sidelined.
Insight pageDe'Von Achane
PositiveUsage54:30
Despite the Dolphins' struggles, Scott is not panicking on Achan. He notes that Achan has maintained solid volume with 31 carries and seven catches through two weeks, and while he lacks touchdown luck so far, his usage in the passing game is encouraging.
Insight pageNegativeUsage57:36
Despite concerns about the Dolphins' poor defense and negative game scripts, Achane has maintained a high workload with 31 carries through two weeks, leading the backfield significantly over teammates. While touchdown production is currently lacking, he remains a top-12 running back for week three rankings.
Insight pageDrake London
PositiveProjection50:00
Harmon believes the switch to Michael Penix at quarterback will help London, as the two have shown good chemistry previously. Despite the overall mess of the Falcons' offense, London is expected to dominate targets and could still finish as a top-15 to top-20 receiver.
Insight pageGeorge Pickens
NegativeValue72:08
Pickens is considered a 'no panic' hold despite a slow start. While he is clearly the number two receiver behind CeeDee Lamb in the Dallas offense, he remains a dynamic player who will have productive games. The comparison is likened to a Chase-Higgins situation where Pickens is a valuable secondary option.
Insight pageIsaiah Likely
NegativeUsage27:26
Isaiah Likely saw a 44% target-per-route rate and 10 targets, remaining a significant part of the offense despite a less productive fantasy day than in Week 1.
Insight pageJameis Winston
NegativeProjection20:27
Jameis Winston struggled significantly after replacing Jackson Dart, looking unsettled and missing open targets. Despite upcoming favorable matchups, his performance was concerning.
Insight pageJayden Daniels
NegativeInjury27:06
Jaden Daniels is expected to miss time due to a dislocated left elbow, with Matt Harmon anticipating a long absence. This injury is a significant blow to the Commanders' offense, which was already showing signs of being more spread out than expected.
Insight pageKalif Raymond
PositiveUsage39:25
Raymond has emerged as a significant factor in the Bears' offense, recording four catches on four targets in Week 2 and maintaining a 78% route participation rate. His involvement in the short-area passing game is shaving off the ceiling for other Bears pass-catchers.
Insight pageKyler Murray
PositiveProjection25:45
Kyler Murray has cleared concussion protocol and is set to start in Week 3 against the Buccaneers. Despite being an unknown after limited Week 1 action and a rain-affected Week 2, the offense has shown promise with Aaron Jones, and Murray is expected to be a top-12 QB option for Week 3.
Insight pageKyren Williams
PositiveUsage14:03
Kyren Williams and Blake Corum both looked electric in the Rams' backfield, maintaining high success rates and contributing to a dominant offensive performance.
Insight pageLuther Burden
NegativeUsage43:28
Burden is a cause for concern due to his lack of an improved role from Week 1 to Week 2. He played only 73% of snaps in Week 2 and saw limited usage in heavy personnel packages (29% route participation), with Khalif Raymond absorbing the underneath targets Burden was expected to command.
Insight pageMalik Nabers
NegativeInjury25:12
Malik Nabers suffered a shoulder injury during the game. This is a recurring issue from college, and while he has played through it before, it is moderately concerning for his fantasy outlook.
Insight pageMarcus Mariota
NegativeRole27:06
Marcus Mariota is expected to start for the Commanders in Week 3 against the Seahawks. While he is not the worst backup, there are concerns about the Washington ecosystem and the passing game's distribution under his leadership.
Insight pageMarvin Harrison Jr.
NegativeUsage69:07
Harrison is a 'total panic' and cuttable player in fantasy formats. Through two weeks, he has only one catch and is failing to create separation, serving primarily as a 'sacrificial X' receiver. While he may have better days ahead, he is currently not startable and is being outperformed by teammates like Trey McBride and Michael Wilson.
Insight pageNajee Harris
NegativeUsage30:22
Najee Harris received 100% of the touches inside the five-yard line, indicating he is the preferred goal-line option over Cam Scadaboo.
Insight pagePuka Nacua
NegativeInjury10:03
Puka Nacua missed the Monday night game but was not placed on injured reserve, suggesting a near-term return. Matt Harmon expects him to potentially return next week.
Insight pageRashee Rice
PositiveUsage66:02
Rice is a 'total panic' candidate as his target share has plummeted, with only 11% of his routes resulting in targets—a career low. He is being bypassed for 'gimme' touches by Xavier Worthy and Kenneth Walker, and he is no longer the focal point for short-area targets he was in previous seasons.
Insight pageRome Odunze
NegativeUsage36:30
Rome Odunze had a modest Week 2 performance with four catches for 43 yards. Despite the underwhelming fantasy output, film review suggests he played well.
Insight pageSaquon Barkley
NegativeValue61:26
Barkley is a disappointment relative to his second-round ADP, compounded by an injury and a struggling Eagles offensive line that has seen significant personnel shuffling. He is viewed as more of a third-round value player, and there is growing concern that the Eagles may shift to a more pass-focused offense.
Insight pageTerrance Ferguson
PositiveSleeper10:20
Terrence Ferguson is a strong pickup while Puka Nacua is out. He is playing enough snaps to be a top-10 fantasy tight end and could have had an even bigger night if not for a dropped pass.
Insight pageTerry McLaurin
NegativeProjection28:46
Terry McLaurin is likely facing three straight down games to start the season. With Jaden Daniels out, there is significant concern regarding his fantasy outlook in the Washington offense.
Insight pageTravis Etienne
NegativeUsage59:06
Etienne is currently a 'total panic' candidate due to inefficient usage and a clear shift in the Saints' backfield hierarchy. With Alvin Kamara commanding 15 opportunities compared to Etienne's 10, and CJ Donaldson also seeing snaps and routes, Etienne is not delivering on his ADP expectations.
Insight pageTyson Bagent
NegativeRole29:35
Tyson Bagent is expected to start for the Bears in place of the injured Caleb Williams. While he is a backup, there is some confidence in him within the building, and he could be a viable streaming option in Superflex formats.
Insight pageFull transcript
Episode Transcript
0:00Big Show for you here today. Oh man, Monday Night Football.
0:03We got a recap with Hayden Winks to start this one off.
0:07Devontae Adams, what a superstar. Hall of Famer, elite route runner.
0:10You absolutely love to see him cutting it up on Monday Night Football.
0:14We gush about Adams both from a this game perspective, but Hayden and I also talk about early in his career how
0:20he remade himself into the player that he is now.
0:23Love to go down the memory lane anytime I can with Devontae Adams.
0:27What an unbelievable player. He was awesome. The Rams were awesome.
0:30Total bounce back from week one on the other side of it.
0:33Giants not so much Jackson Dart and a bunch of other players are injured on the Giants.
0:38We tell you what that means as we recap that game.
0:41Then Scott Pianowski joins me for the people's panic meter waiver wire targets and players that you can consider dropping.
0:47There's a ton of panic in the street. There's bears.
0:50There's quarterback situations. I mean, the Falcons Michael panics is back in our lives.
0:54All that and more come up on today's show.
0:57Let's get into it. What's going on, everyone? I'm Matt Harmon.
1:00Welcome to the Yahoo fantasy forecast nightcap. And it is a hell of a night to talk ball and joining me to
1:06do just that to recap a little Monday night football Rams 28 Giants six.
1:10It is our guy Hayden Winks Hayden. What's going on, man?
1:14Enjoyed that game. At halftime of week one. I'll be like, oh, great.
1:17You did a lot for me and my round participation fantasy leagues.
1:21Obviously, Puka Nakua missing this game is a factor in that.
1:24But, you know, that's why you chase the playing time, folks.
1:27If you're on the field and you're running routes, you might get some targets from one of the best quarterbacks in the NFL.
1:34And Terrence Ferguson did just that tonight. But the Rams basically, Hayden, did whatever they want.
1:39We'll talk about the Rams here first and we'll get into the New York Giants and in what was just an awful
1:45night from an injury standpoint, from an on-field standpoint for the New York Giants.
1:49But let's talk with the L.A. Rams here to start.
1:52I mean, this was the Devontae Adams show tonight.
1:54I mean, Adams was un-frickin'-believable in this game. 10 targets, 8 catches, 195 yards, and 2 touchdowns after largely being invisible in week one.
2:01As a route-running dork myself, this was a treat to watch, as it always is with Devontae Adams.
2:07What did you think of Adams' big night? Yeah, it's kind of like watching the end of a basketball player's career where they still got it.
2:14Kind of like what Steph Curry's doing when they're still putting up these numbers because they're just so wicked with just the spacing.
2:21And yeah, exactly. But it's the route-running, it's the ball-tracking, it's the feel with Matthew Stafford.
2:25It's like that one touchdown. I thought that Matthew Stafford, it was kind of like not a no-look.
2:31It seemed like Matthew Stafford, with his eyes, was telling Devontae Adams, like, keep going to that next window.
2:36And then obviously, I was able to snag that ball in.
2:39But the back shoulder fade in the end zone, or not back shoulder, like, over the top of him diving ball there.
2:46The one underneath by his shin, that was an amazing grab.
2:49It's just, it was like teach-tape stuff. Because, like, any wide receiver, if you're in high school, you can watch that and actually get away with it.
2:57It's hard to do the teach-tape stuff with, like, Jamar Chase, because, like, if you can't run like that, it's kind of over.
3:03Or, like, most wide receivers could, like, actually move their body, like, this stage, Devontae Adams.
3:08But the fifth-highest fantasy game of his career, the most since he was a Ram, pretty awesome stuff without Pukinokua.
3:14Oh, we're showing on the screen right now, if you're with us on YouTube, that Adams was benched in 33% of Yahoo Leagues this week.
3:21Which, you know, I kind of could get it, right?
3:24Because it was a really rough week one. But I feel like we were talking about this on Sunday morning, Hayden, that
3:30when there was any speculation that Pukinokua was unlikely to play, I mean, you had to throw Adams in your lineup.
3:36Because, I mean, we saw it even last year.
3:39It was a very different type of game. But in the one game that Pukinokua missed when they went over to Europe
3:45to play Jacksonville, he had three touchdowns. Like, whenever Pukinokua misses time, and I think he'll probably be back next week, but we'll see.
3:52I mean, Adams absolutely has to be in your lineup.
3:55Because you said this perfectly, where it's the teach tape with him.
3:59And Adams is one of my favorite receivers to talk about from this era.
4:03Because most people probably don't know this. The first year I started charting receivers for reception, perception, full season data was 2014.
4:09Adams was one of the worst receivers that I charted that year.
4:13He actually still owns the ninth lowest success rate versus man coverage in RP history from that rookie season.
4:18Then he breaks through with the sixth, eighth, and ninth best success rate versus press coverage seasons of the almost 600 guys I've charted since then.
4:26Third best success rate versus press. And it's not as if Adams suddenly became bigger, faster, stronger, whatever.
4:31He just became an elite technician. One of the best route runners we've ever seen play.
4:36And I thought it was really emblematic of the big, long reception that he had as the right outside receiver.
4:41And this is also a credit to Matthew Stafford, who did some pre-snap work, and they blocked it up.
4:47And obviously Stafford has the stones, the guts, and the arm talent to still push it there.
4:52But that's usually a look where the safety is theoretically over the top, that you're not throwing that route.
4:57But Adams gives just the right amount of hesitation on outside leverage and brings it back inside, which is great.
5:03And also he's running that route with a lot of urgency.
5:06Like never take yourself out of a play, man.
5:09And Adams, I mean, you can go through any receiver's tape and be like, ah, you should have run this route better.
5:15You should have run that route better. That's going to happen to anybody.
5:19But there's just not a lot of receivers who, when that safety is over the top, sell that route and then also
5:25have the quarterback that can hit them. It's just these two guys who are deep into their career and still deep into their bag at the same time.
5:34It was awesome to watch. Yeah, he's just one of the smartest wide receivers of the decade.
5:38One of my favorite videos ever. It must have been like a Baldi's breakdown or something.
5:43But he was in a room and he had an iPad in front of him.
5:47He was breaking down exactly what he's seeing on the football field.
5:51And his, I mean, obviously every NFL player has that level of degree.
5:55But his just seemed to be so, so, so high level in terms of just fuel for the game.
6:00So I think that was like my biggest takeaway.
6:03On the Puka Nakua stuff, he might return next week.
6:06But he also like did not practice. And they didn't put him on injured reserve.
6:10So he's going to come back in the near term.
6:13We'll see if that happens next week. But I think in the meantime, Devontae Adams would obviously be a wide receiver one in fantasy.
6:20If Puka misses. And I do think that Terrence Ferguson is somebody that he really should have just been rostered like this entire time.
6:27Like the second we started getting the DNPs from Puka Nakua, Terrence Ferguson and Colby Parkinson become interesting.
6:32And Terrence Ferguson, not a full-time player like you said.
6:35But Terrence Ferguson is definitely playing enough snaps here to be a top 10 fantasy tight end as long as Puka Nakua is out.
6:42But Ferguson right now rostered 19% of Yahoo leagues.
6:45That went down in 4% of leagues from week 1 to week 2.
6:48I will admit that I was one of the people that, you know, I had him on the end of my bench and had to make a move.
6:56And I dropped him there. You know, and of course, that was way before the Puka Nakua injury.
7:02I'd love to get him back in a couple spots.
7:05Still have him on a bunch of dynasty rosters because the talent is real.
7:09Look at JJ there tweeting out the route share.
7:11That's great stuff. We love to see JJ punching back at the anti-route share truthers.
7:16So, yeah, look, I mean, I definitely think he's somebody to pick up at this stage of the proceedings.
7:21I agree with you. Like if there's no Puka Nakua, he's someone to chase.
7:25He could have even had a bigger night. He had one in-breaking route that, you know, it might have gotten tipped at
7:31the line or, you know, there's a little bit of interference.
7:35You know, the defender's got his hands up. But that thing clanked right through his hands.
7:39So Terrence Ferguson could have had an even bigger evening than he did here.
7:43And there's just no question, like you look across the rest of the Rams roster.
7:48These guys like Kanata Mumpfield, Xavier Smith, you know, even the other tight ends there, like Tutu Atwell had one cool 19-yard out-breaking route.
7:55But, like, that's it. Okay? Like those guys are just little bit role players.
7:59Ferguson's the only other one with any juice here.
8:01So he makes a lot of sense to me if you're chasing someone in this offense.
8:06My last notes on the Rams was just the offensive line dominated the Giants.
8:10And the Giants have multiple, like, pro bowl to all pro level edge rushers.
8:14And Matthew Stafford on the early pass protection grades, we're talking about a 9% pressure rate.
8:19I mean, that's Brian Burns who goes down late.
8:21But Abdul Carter, to me, like the last, like, you know, handful of games he's played dating back to last year, he
8:28looks like one of the best edge rushers in the NFL.
8:31Didn't hear a whole lot from him in this one.
8:34So this is the big difference between, you know, in week one there's some pressure.
8:38This week, back in the United States of America, the Rams felt more at home in this one.
8:43No pass protection issues. And then both running backs were electric.
8:47And it wasn't like, you know, like, these guys aren't going to be ripping off 50-yard runs here.
8:52But this is, like, the high success rate. Rams won two punch.
8:55Kyron Williams, then Blake Corum. Kyron Williams has a receiving touchdown, but Blake Corum matches him and carries for 79 yards.
9:01Both those guys almost seven yards per carry between the two of them.
9:05You didn't see anything from Arvel Reese or any of the Giants defensive linemen in this one.
9:10I think it's pretty encouraging for the Rams. Yeah, it's funny.
9:13We're talking about two teams that were pretty, like, diametrically opposed into what they were in week one versus what they were in week two.
9:20I mean, the vibes were so great on the Giants.
9:23And things obviously fell apart really quickly, as we'll talk about when we get to that side of the ball.
9:29And you wonder just, like, how engaged some of those defenders were late in it when Blake Corum is, like, truly ramming
9:35it down their throat late in the game in the run situation.
9:39He's dribbling it. Yeah, I mean, yeah, right. I mean, it was insane to watch.
9:43The Rams were mauling people at the end of that game.
9:47And, yeah, I just, like, the Australia stuff was just pretty easy to just throw away for the L.A.
9:52Rams. They treated it pretty flippantly. I think we should all treat the result of that game flippantly.
9:57I mean, frankly, the Niners took it really seriously.
10:00They didn't really get any negative results in week two.
10:03They dominated the Miami Dolphins, albeit the Miami Dolphins.
10:05So I think everybody comes out clean from the Australia situation.
10:09The Rams certainly are coming out pretty clean here.
10:11I'll just one last thing on the Rams and the Devontae Adams thing.
10:15I know it's easy to say it right now as one guy's on IR and one guy just dominated Monday Night Football.
10:21But, man, the Rams have to feel pretty good that they did not actually make that A.J.
10:26Brown trade. And they did not, like, push Devontae Adams off the roster here.
10:30Because, I mean, again, it's easy to say right now.
10:33But I saw a lot more decline in A.J.
10:36Brown's game in 2025 than I did in Devontae Adams' game.
10:39And this is, again, why people will just, you know, accuse me of talking about my priors here and everything like that.
10:45But, like, this is why route running matters. This is why technique matters.
10:49And I will continue to emphasize this is the most important part of wide receiver play.
10:54Like, learning how to get yourself open and running good routes and being a capital E elite technician.
10:59You can be an excellent player in your prime and you can extend your prime.
11:03Like, we're still talking about Devontae Adams and Stefan Diggs being really productive receivers when their teams need it.
11:09So I feel like the Rams have to be kind of thankful that they ended up backing out of that sweepstakes.
11:15Yeah. Cooler heads prevail. That's another credit to everyone involved there.
11:18This thing could have gone sideways and it didn't.
11:21I like that you talked about prior. Something that always bothers me is they're like, oh, this is your bias.
11:26Like, you were drafting this guy or this was this is your priors.
11:30Like, sometimes it's just like our evaluation. Like, if we're actually watching all these guys and every single week we have to
11:37talk about these guys and we're studying and ranking them.
11:40Like, sometimes it's not our biases. Sometimes it's just the evaluation.
11:43Right. And sometimes I can hang on to that evaluation for way too long.
11:47You know, I've definitely done that before. But I think in this case, there's obviously some reasons behind it for for this particular situation here.
11:54We're talking about. OK, speaking of unraveling really quickly, it unraveled really quickly for the New York Giants after Jackson Dart was hurt.
12:01After just five pass attempts, he goes up into the air to throw a pass down the field, kind of gets banged around.
12:07Ultimately, it looks like the initial diagnosis for the Giants, as Mike Garofalo is telling us here, Jackson Dart sustains a sprained MCL.
12:14So could have been worse, but there were some lip readers talking about the trainer saying to Harbaugh it could be four to six weeks.
12:21So that was going on on social media. Nothing really went right for the Giants after Jackson Dart went down.
12:27We could talk about what was a horrendous game from Jameis Winston, but brutal blow for a Giants team that was really
12:33feeling itself after dominating the Cowboys in week one.
12:36Yeah, if it's grade one tear, then Jackson Dart will be back very shortly if it's more of the grade two variety.
12:42And I mean, we all saw what his knee looked like for a secondary.
12:46I mean, even if it's a grade two MCL sprain and he's out for about a month here, like all things considered, that's that's a win.
12:54That was a really ugly hit there. So hopefully he's back sooner than that.
12:58But it kind of goes back to like what I was saying with Caleb Williams.
13:02Like even if he does come back, like he's so successful buying time, obviously, as a designed rusher on top of that, if he's like not fully himself.
13:11Like that's that really was the magic of the rookie season.
13:14I do think Jackson Dart's going to be playing a different styled quarterback in the second season.
13:19But maybe he's going to have to like force to be that pocket passer.
13:23And obviously there's gonna be some more growing pains with that, with with just his style.
13:27So we'll see if he goes to injured reserve there.
13:30Hopefully he's not out too long. And then hopefully Jameis Winston feels a lot more settled in that one.
13:36I will say the Rams defense does throw a bunch of kind of funky looks out there.
13:41They were sending some pressure as well, especially deep into the end zone.
13:44There's a couple of panic plays from Jameis Winston there.
13:47And the ball was like not going to Malik Nabors, who obviously was dealing with his own injury.
13:53But I found that pretty interesting, too. Yeah, I mean, Jameis looked like a guy who spent all offseason being a content creator and not focusing on football.
14:01You know, so that was troubling for me to see here.
14:04Also, I mean, again, it's tough to say because they fell behind pretty quickly in this game.
14:09But very different personnel groupings than what we got from the Giants.
14:12Like this was a pretty strictly 11 personnel offense, 64 percent, 11 personnel, according to Sumer Sports.
14:17Like their 12 percentage was way down. Their fullback usage, you know, still decent, like 22 personnel.
14:22They were out there for 20 percent, but a little bit more of just the three wide receiver stuff, which, again, they fell behind.
14:29So it's hard to take any of that too seriously.
14:32But, man, I don't really know how to calibrate to what I saw to Jameis Winston tonight because you're right.
14:38Like the Rams defense is tough to play against.
14:40Aaron Donald's back and looking like, OK, we're just it's 2022 or whatever all over again.
14:45No time has passed for him. So and they throw a lot of other players at you.
14:50But at the same time, I felt like I saw the ball die in the air for Jameis Winston a decent bit.
14:56Like the one where neighbors maybe got his hands on it in a contested catch situation against Trent McDuffie.
15:02He probably hits he hits Malik neighbors in the stride like we might be talking about a touchdown there.
15:07So I didn't love I'd certainly not like what I saw from from Jameis tonight.
15:12Yeah, neither did I. Then on the Malik neighbors situation, like this might just end up being a throwaway game because he
15:18had the middle of the game injury. Didn't want to hit on it, though, because it was a shoulder injury.
15:24And it's like watching that play like football is a violent sport.
15:27That rep wasn't a violent rep like that. You know, that's that's us getting a rebound at the park there.
15:33And his his shoulder kind of pops out. And then I must have just forgot about this because, you know, the tape has been so good.
15:41And you're you're obviously concerned about the knee injury.
15:43This shoulder injury has like been like kind of lingering since college.
15:47And it's like to the point where like you can you can get surgery and kind of sure it up or you can play through it.
15:54And he's he's chosen to always play through this injury.
15:57But man, you just never like to see your star player go down like just a couple plays after your starting quarterback goes down.
16:04And then later in the game, Andrew Thomas, who might be like the most valuable player on the dang team at left tackle.
16:11He's now got a groin injury. And then Brian Burns in the last plays of the game gets rolled up.
16:17There's kind of everything going wrong there. But for fantasy purposes, the Malik neighbor shoulder injury.
16:21Like I do think that's like moderately concerning here, especially when you have a backup quarterback.
16:26Yeah. Ankle sprain for Brian Burns is what they announced there.
16:29Did not look good for him. So, yeah, I mean, God, these are like some of their best football players here.
16:35The New York Giants coming out of this one banged up.
16:38So feeling pretty not liking that at all. Yeah.
16:41Neighbor is only targeted on 18 percent of his routes in this game, which is pretty surprising.
16:46Like Isaiah Likely, your boy, 44 percent targets per route.
16:49He gets 10 looks in this one. Certainly not as good of a fantasy day as he had in week number one.
16:55But he remains a pretty big part of the offense.
16:58So if you if you're using him at tight end, that's that's fine there.
17:02I will say Jameis decent bounce back spot these next like three weeks here.
17:06They get the Titans, the Cardinals and the Commanders to home games here for the Giants as well coming up the next couple of weeks.
17:13So if you have to ultimately end up playing any of these Giants options, you know, of course, you're playing neighbors.
17:19Likely is probably still a tight end one. I think you can probably get back in and chase the Jameis Winston scam,
17:26considering these matchups are on the other end of it in terms of what they're throwing at you defensively.
17:31Running back rotation, I found pretty interesting as well.
17:34It did feel like a totally different type of game plan to your point.
17:38And it felt like it was Greg Roman calling plays in week one and then more Matt Nagy calling plays in week two.
17:45You mentioned the 11 personnel stuff. Cam Scadaboo is at least somewhat.
17:48Yeah. Neither option, you know, is exactly the greatest.
17:51But Cam Scadaboo is at least out in the route the last game.
17:54It was like all of Devin Singletary out in the route.
17:58He at least catches four passes. I think Scadaboo is like just so good.
18:02And he's like such a pivotal part of this offense.
18:05Like he's like bringing the energy out there. I appreciated his hurdle attempt at the sideline where all of his teammates and coaches were just like laughing.
18:12Not with him, at him. I don't think Cam Scadaboo was laughing about that.
18:17They were definitely laughing at him on that one.
18:19But Cam Scadaboo gets bulk of the carries, four targets there.
18:22What was interesting here, Nagy Harris gets in there at the goal line.
18:26Does it score a touchdown? It doesn't. That wasn't necessarily his fault.
18:30That was, you know, Aaron Donald coming in there out of nowhere.
18:33So I think not super promising stuff from Cam Scadaboo.
18:36But at one point last week, I was like, is he not going to catch like 50 passes this year?
18:42And I think after tonight's game and more of a negative game script, he did kind of return to that part of his game.
18:4970% of the running back touches for Cam Scadaboo.
18:51Yeah, 100% of the touches inside the five yard line go to Nagy Harris.
18:55I don't know. I don't know. Why? Yeah. Why?
18:58I mean, listen, I get we don't want Scadaboo to run himself into the ground because the guy absolutely will run himself into the ground.
19:05Well, as we're showing on the screen here, good, good, good stuff.
19:09He'll run himself into the ground if you let him.
19:12I don't know that we need Nagy Harris to score the goal line touchdowns here.
19:16But, you know, that's a Nagy Harris off a torn ACL to be torn Achilles last time we saw him.
19:22So, yeah, we'll see if that holds up. It was certainly encouraging to see Scadaboo get some of the dump offs here,
19:28but just a really discouraging night for the Giants.
19:31And I think you got to come away with this one, you know, from the neighbor's standpoint, from the likely standpoint, from Cam Scadaboo.
19:38Like, these are guys we want to play in fantasy, but come away feeling pretty rough about the ecosystem, especially just the
19:44play caller situation that you mentioned there. I kind of was worried that they might be a weird unit just caught between
19:50two identities in terms of Nagy versus Greg Roman.
19:53It was very Greg Roman coded in week one, and that felt pretty good in a positive game script where the Cowboys
19:59didn't realize that running backs were eligible receivers that you had to defend the flat.
20:04For week two, it did feel a little bit, you know, and then James things hard to grapple with here, but felt a little bit naggy there.
20:12I don't know if we're going to be ping pong between that all year, but that certainly doesn't make me feel great.
20:18No, it doesn't. And them being right next to each other in the booth and the broadcast just keep going back to
20:24that shot of them will like never not be funny to me.
20:28I don't even know why it's funny to me, but it just is.
20:32I think it's I think it's really objectively funny that those two guys are just sitting up there and Harbaugh definitely looked upset the whole night.
20:39But I don't know if that's just how John Harbaugh is at this point.
20:43So two units, two teams that just kind of yo-yoed between what they were in week one and week two.
20:49But hey, at least we got to watch a vintage Devontae Adams night.
20:53And for that, I am very grateful. Also single handedly, like one Mia fantasy matchup tonight.
20:57So I'm feeling very happy about Devontae Adams and everything that we got to witness tonight.
21:02Not so much for the Giants, but we will talk about that consistently throughout the course of the week here.
21:08All right. That's going to do it for our Monday Night Football recap.
21:12Shout out to Hayden Winks. Now let's throw to the rest of the show with the people's panic meter waiver wire targets with Scott Pianowski.
21:19Let's get into it. What's going on, everyone? I'm Matt Harmon.
21:22Welcome to the Yahoo Fantasy Forecast. And it is a hell of a day to talk ball and joining me to do just that.
21:29A man who probably had all of his week one expectations completely gone up in flames because that is how week two works.
21:36It is my guy, Scott Pianowski. Scott, what's going on, man?
21:39Yeah, it was a week, man. I was joking on Twitter, X, whatever they call it today.
21:44Week one was pinball scoring. Week two was Tottenham EPL scoring.
21:47It's a soccer joke. Basically, it's a soccer team that never scores any goals.
21:51Week two didn't score a lot of goals, man.
21:54I mean, at least Drew Locke and JSN bailed us out.
21:57But we're not talking happy stuff today. We're talking tricky stuff.
22:00We're trying to maneuver you in and out of situations.
22:03Because look, one week you can write it off.
22:05It's a week. First game of the season. No, they're trying out new stuff.
22:09After two weeks, you really start to feel the stress and the anxiety.
22:13And hopefully we can help you feel a little bit better at the end of these 90 minutes.
22:18The funny thing is, Scott, yes, it's like two weeks worth of data is better than one week worth of data.
22:25But two weeks is still not very much. I guarantee you right now there are going to be things that we say
22:31on this show that we regret two weeks from now, much less four weeks from now.
22:36Because as you say all the time, it's a snow globe league.
22:39So there are some things that we are going to react to through two weeks that can certainly just, because stuff happens,
22:45just get themselves right here in short order. Sure.
22:48Sure. It's a snow globe league. We're chasing a butterfly and the butterfly is always bobbing and weaving.
22:53And I try to say the idea here is to make good percentage calls.
22:57Like when I do the start sit 2 and A for the final hour on Twitter every Sunday, I'm not trying to
23:04be a fortune teller and get everything right. I'm trying to give you, if you're at the blackjack table and you have
23:1014 against the king, you should take a card.
23:13You're probably going to lose. You're in a bad situation.
23:16Your fantasy team may be in a bad situation because Josh Allen just poured a bunch of points on against you.
23:22Something like that. But you want to give yourself the best percentage chance to win or to score points or to hit your objective.
23:29And you just have to be realistic with that.
23:31But at the end of every Sunday and really at the end of every Monday too, I just take stock.
23:37And if more went right than wrong, if I had more wins than losses in a week, that's a positive for me.
23:43I'm never going to get it all right. And I'm sure for all the good advice we dispensed today, as you said,
23:50a lot of it will look silly in a week or two because the NFL is just like that.
23:55And there's just going to be chaos and there's going to be stars who want to perform and unheralded guys who play
24:02great and obviously a bunch of injuries. Oddly, running backs don't get hurt anymore, Matt.
24:06But every other position seems to be teeming with injuries right now.
24:09So we try to make some sense of it and give the people a playbook they can use.
24:15It's such a good point. Yeah. Remember, what, five years ago, six years ago, seven years ago, it's like, oh, we got
24:21to go zero running back because it's the most fragile position.
24:24And those running backs are staying pretty healthy right now.
24:27Well, we will talk about one position that is suffering through some serious injuries here in short order.
24:32But yeah, I mean, look, the reality is we're all going to get things wrong.
24:37You guys are going to get things wrong. We are certainly going to get things wrong.
24:41We don't hide from our misses on this podcast.
24:44We talk through it and try to learn and get better.
24:47Because when you have a take about basically every single player in the National Football League, you're going to miss some things along the way.
24:54Even if you're – and as Sigmund Blum says, I always talk about this quote, you can be right and wrong about
25:01a player in the course of one individual season.
25:03Because that is how quick things move. And that is how these sample sizes work.
25:08But enough preambling from us. Here's how the show is going to go, as it always does here on Monday.
25:14We start out with Oregon's People's Panic Meter. We take your submissions both via the email, fantasymailbag at yahooosports.com.
25:19Remember, you can file a panic email anytime during the week, but especially on Sundays after the games.
25:24You can file it there. Plus, we take your submissions from social media as well.
25:29Duke's Cannons, Waver Wire Targets. That's how we're going to finish the show as well.
25:33But as mentioned, before we do any of that, we do have a little bit of fantasy fallout here.
25:38A little recap of some quarterback injury news. The good news to start off with, Kyler Murray has cleared concussion protocol.
25:45He is going to start in week three for the Minnesota Vikings against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
25:49Scott, we don't have to spend too much time on this because I think we all expected.
25:54It sounded like Murray was actually pretty close to maybe clearing the protocol for week two.
25:59He does not. Carson Wentz gets another start. The Vikings eke out a win against the Chicago Bears.
26:04But Murray coming back in week three to a 2-0 Vikings team with a defense that is kicking butt right now.
26:10And against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers defense that just let Deshaun Watson have his best game since the damn pandemic, Scott.
26:16Pretty good matchup here for the Minnesota Vikings and Kyler Murray coming back.
26:20Right, but Murray's still largely an unknown. And we hardly played in week one against Green Bay and didn't play especially well.
26:27That game was bailed out by the defense and by Carson Wentz.
26:30I was disappointed what Wentz did in week two.
26:33But it's a rain game. It's just hard to take that game that seriously.
26:37At least Justin Jefferson has put something on the sheet for two straight weeks.
26:41A little bit underwhelming in week two. But there were conditions that attributed to that.
26:45I still feel like Kyler Murray is largely an unknown moving forward.
26:49I do think so as well. But the offense has run pretty well like how Aaron Jones played last week.
26:54So I do want to remain open to Kyler Murray being a nice QB1 solution.
26:59He will probably be in my top 12 rankings for week number three.
27:02Okay, next one up here. Jaden Daniels. Less fun news there.
27:06He is certainly going to miss this upcoming week as Marcus Mariota is expected to start Sunday versus the Seahawks.
27:11Dan Quinn announced that today. Jaden Daniels underwent imaging on his dislocated left elbow.
27:15We'll consult with multiple experts over the next few days.
27:18Bottom line here, Scott. I'm expecting a long absence for Jaden Daniels after another elbow injury.
27:23At least Marcus Mariota isn't the worst backup quarterback in the world.
27:27Actually did play pretty well once he got into the mix on Sunday against the Dallas defense that has its issues.
27:33But Mariota coming in here, you know, again, it just stinks for Commanders fans.
27:37It stinks for Jaden Daniels. I think he can keep the ship afloat on Washington's offense.
27:41But we do have some general ecosystem concerns as well as a passing game that's a little more spread out than maybe people bargained for.
27:49You know, Mariota did some good things, some bad things.
27:51YPA, I think, was 7.5 last year and eight starts.
27:54Obviously, Washington only won two of those games. But another star-crossed year for Washington already.
27:59I feel like they're almost like a cross-off team at this point.
28:02Tunsil injury in the summer. Daniels goes down and he was just active and fun and really productive.
28:07Before he left, he was running proactively. And Diggs has acclimated himself really quickly.
28:11And McLaurin left a bunch of points on the board.
28:14Not all of them were his fault, but he easily could have had a two-touchdown game.
28:19And now I feel like we have to throw it all in the shredder and somebody is going to go 4-13.
28:25Yeah, 4-13. 4-13, 5-12 in that division. I feel like it's Washington.
28:29But there are teams that are absolutely forget it, you know, unplug the season, don't even watch them when the backup comes in.
28:35And there's teams that can at least be quasi-competitive.
28:38I mean, can Mariota basically do the Jacoby-Bresset where they're going to lose the games, but at least we can play the
28:44ancillary and the primary fantasy pieces in this Washington offense?
28:47I'm still going to leave the light on for that being a realistic possibility.
28:51The problem for that is, again, of course, they play Seattle here in Week 3.
28:55A tough defensive matchup. Yeah, good luck with that.
28:58We even saw the aforementioned Jacoby-Bresset had a really nice Week 1.
29:02I said he was one of the best quarterbacks I watched in Week 1.
29:06I'm not going to say that for Jacoby-Bresset in Week 2 after going against that Seahawks defense.
29:11So that does make things problematic. Terry McLaurin probably looking at three straight down games to start the season.
29:16Terry McLaurin, certainly someone that I'm not feeling great about at this point.
29:20We will talk about Terry McLaurin a little later on in more of an in-depth conversation about the commanders in general.
29:26Last quarterback news here, Caleb Williams. Ben Johnson said today on the radio that Caleb Williams is week to week with a
29:32hamstring pull, indication that he's going to miss some time.
29:35Tyson Bajan likely to start, I would say, at least this week, maybe next week for Caleb Williams.
29:40Again, Bajan is more of a theory, Scott, than Marcus Mariota is.
29:44But I think Bajan has played – I think Bajan is a decent backup.
29:48There's some confidence with him in the building at least.
29:51And if Ben Johnson believes in you, even if Ben Johnson is definitely coming off one of his worst games as the
29:57head coach for the Chicago Bears, I do – that means something to me if they feel pretty good about Bajan.
30:03So somewhat encouraging news reportedly on the Caleb Williams injury situation.
30:06But I would guess he's not going to play in week three against the Eagles.
30:11And that's also not a great spot for Bajan making a start against the Philadelphia Eagles defense.
30:16It's very good. I just feel a lot better now than I did 24 hours ago where a non-contact injury.
30:22And you see Caleb's body language when he's being carted off.
30:25You're thinking, oh, man, his season is over. He just tore an ACL or just ruptured his Achilles or butchered his ankle, whatever.
30:31The fact that it's what it is and he may be back relatively shortly.
30:35And I'm with you on Bajan, trying to stay optimistic.
30:38I know there's a lot to unpack with Chicago, and we'll get to that in a little bit.
30:44But there are pieces here. This is a team.
30:46You know what? They're averaging 31 points a game, Matt.
30:49I don't know if you knew that. It's a pretty good average.
30:53Maybe not the distribution that we wanted, 59 and 3.
30:55But we still like Ben Johnson. We still like pieces here.
30:59And Bajan has shown flashes. His overall stat package doesn't look that great.
31:02But there's been times where I've watched him. I'm like, okay, this guy has a chance.
31:07I mean, maybe Bajan is just one of those Gardner Minshew guys.
31:11These are backup tires in the trunk of your car.
31:13They're meant to go 50 miles or 100 miles.
31:16You're not supposed to go cross-country with them. And thankfully, the Bears do not have to go cross-country with Tyson Bajan.
31:22It's going to be hopefully a one or two-week stopgap.
31:25But I'm trying to stay optimistic, mostly because the infrastructure here I believe in and really the play caller.
31:31The game, I know they only scored three points.
31:33At rain, Brian Flores. I mean, there's a lot of reasons you can attribute to that.
31:38Obviously, Williams left the game late with injury, and we will get more into the Bears in a second.
31:43I guess the point is this. Tyson Bajan. Is it like, oh my God, unplug from the Bears.
31:48Forget it. Don't even watch the game. Or, you know, oh, they're fine.
31:52They're still going to the Super Bowl, blah, blah, blah.
31:55I think this could be a decent offense with Tyson Bajan.
31:58And they'll have a whole week to prepare for him and get him acclimated.
32:02He'll have to offset whatever Chicago gives up on the defensive end.
32:06I would even be open-minded to streaming him in a Superflex format.
32:09I think I like him more than maybe the average fantasy player analyst does.
32:13I think that's totally fair. And we will talk more about the Bears here and some of those ancillary pieces in just a second.
32:20Well, some of the primary pieces who have been producing like ancillary pieces.
32:24We're going to talk about those guys in just a second.
32:27But real quick, because I know this is a big topic with all of these quarterback injuries, if you're missing Caleb Williams,
32:34if you're missing Jaden Daniels, Blunt Smokas in the YouTube chat, what a name, wants to know, would you want to replace
32:40Caleb Williams with either Tyler Shuck or Bryce Young?
32:43We're talking about Bryce Young. Spoiler alert in the waiver wire section.
32:46Shuck is 49% rostered in Yahoo Leagues right now.
32:49Bryce Young, 33%. Both of these young quarterbacks, I think, have played and produced well through two weeks, Scott.
32:54So if you were to give a nod to one of these guys that are sub 50% rostered in Yahoo Leagues as
33:01a replacement for a Jaden Daniels or a Caleb Williams, which one would you prefer?
33:05Yeah, I'll follow the roster ship and say Shuck for sure, because his production goes back to the end of last year.
33:11He was a fantasy difference maker in December. I think he's got maybe a little bit more help there, too.
33:17You know, Young, I don't really know. And we're going to talk more about Young later.
33:22I mean, these great games are awesome, but the Bears defense is terrible and the Falcons.
33:26Yeah. Three straight primetime games with the Atlanta Falcons.
33:29So congratulations. Good luck trying to unsubscribe from Atlanta over the next three weeks.
33:33But Bryce Young has had the schedule run out that we want.
33:37I don't know how real it's going to be when he actually plays legitimate NFL teams.
33:41I'm fully in on the New Orleans. It's a carnival setup.
33:44It's a tight usage tree. Alave is going to the moon.
33:48And Juwan Johnson's a good player. Vele is totally in the circle of trust now.
33:52Not really sure what to do with their running backs.
33:55I'm sure we'll probably get to that later in the show.
33:58But yeah, I'm in on Shuck for sure. And Kellen Moore plays at a fast pace.
34:03He's a play caller that we like. I think the Saints offense is going to be good all season.
34:08I will say, if you're making the argument for Bryce Young, yes, he has not played two real NFL teams so far.
34:15Doesn't necessarily play two real NFL defenses over the next couple weeks.
34:18Gets Cleveland this week and then the Lions in week four.
34:21That game is absolutely going to be a carnival for sure.
34:24But then they go on by in week five.
34:27Next two games for Tyler Shuck, Raiders, Falcons. Then they get the Vikings in week five.
34:32Maybe not feeling as great about that matchup for Tyler Shuck.
34:35So I think either way, I would probably prioritize Shuck over Bryce Young.
34:39But if you can't get Shuck, if you're snagged off the waiver wire for him, I think Bryce Young is a totally
34:45viable option against both the Browns and the Detroit Lions over the next two weeks.
34:49But let's get back to the Chicago Bears and let's cleanly transition us right into the post week two people's panic meter.
34:56Would you say it's time for everyone to panic?
34:58Yes, I would get. Oh, my God. OK, it's happening.
35:01No, no, no, no, no. Wait, wait, wait, wait.
35:04Everybody stay calm. Stay calm. Stay calm. What's the proceed?
35:07Stay calm. All right. Welcome to the panic meter presented by Oregon Creatine.
35:10Whether you're training like it's game day or pushing through the pressure of fantasy season, Oregon Creatine helps give you the muscle
35:17strength to fuel harder and push farther. Upgrade your performance today with Oregon.
35:21And we're going to need a lot of people to upgrade their performances out there because, Scott, the people were the panic was flowing after week two.
35:28We've got a lot to get into here. Reminder, there are four levels to the panic meter here.
35:34There's no panic, some panic, total panic and coping corner.
35:37And I think we might even have to have at least one coping corner conversation on today's show.
35:42But we will certainly get into that. Let's first start with the Chicago Bears, where, again, there was a ton of people
35:48just submitting for us to walk down Bears Broken Dreams Boulevard here.
35:52OK, number one email comes in from Sean M.
35:54One week of getting outscored by Khalif Raymond is one thing, but two weeks of being less involved has me very worried for Luther Burden and Colson Loveland.
36:02What are realistic expectations going forward? A second email comes in from a second time caller.
36:07Tyler E says, yo, it's me again. Colson Loveland just pulled off his best week one Waddle impression.
36:12Now, can he turn it around next week like Jalen Waddle did?
36:16It's not looking good. I was so stoked to get a Caleb Williams, Colson Loveland stack in one of my leagues.
36:22But now it's looking like I'm going to be streaming quarterback and tight end for week three.
36:27Thanks, fellas. OK, let's talk Luther Burden. Let's talk Colson Loveland.
36:30We can loop in Roma Dunze here, too, because he had a nice game.
36:34Four catches for 43 yards. Not great for fantasy.
36:37But on film review, I thought he was pretty good.
36:39We could talk about that, too. I literally just watched this tape back before we got into this one here, Scott.
36:45So I've got a lot to say. But let's start out with Colson Loveland here.
36:50What is your level of panic on Colson Loveland?
36:52And of course, we have the Caleb Williams injury kind of hanging over all of this.
36:57Yeah, I'm with some panic. The Williams injury, the fact that it's two weeks now and the fact that this offense is
37:03more wide in distribution than I expected with Raymond being a factor for two straight weeks with Colman on guy getting it's
37:10one thing to laugh off the double digit carries in the first game because it was a runaway game.
37:15And that's what you should do when you're comfortably ahead.
37:18You should give your primary back a rest. But Monongai was actively you at 12, I think, touches in the game against
37:25Minnesota where they're obviously trying to win the game and they're chasing the game and trying to find anything that can work.
37:31So Ben Johnson utilizing more people than I expected.
37:34They're going to be playing with a backup quarterback.
37:36Whatever I said positively about Tyson Bajan, he's not Caleb Williams.
37:39We have to lower the floor and expectation. We all know that's realistic.
37:43So if I were redrafting now, I still think you would draft Colson Loveland as a starter.
37:48But I would want to be one of the first people to take a backup.
37:52I think he'd be maybe tight end five, tight end six, tight end seven, tight end eight, something in that range.
37:59And I really want to be quick to somebody who I felt comfortable playing if two or three weeks down the road, the Loveland situation hasn't flipped.
38:06Okay. I think you're a little more freaked out than me, which, you know, by the way, not unfair given how things have gone.
38:13I said a very unconfident no panic to this answer.
38:16And like I said, a very unconfident no panic on this because how can you not at least be a little bit worried?
38:23So week one, I think that was bad luck, right?
38:26Where it's not bad. Not getting that many targets is not great, but he was a full-time player.
38:31He ran all the routes. He was out there for basically every single snap.
38:35That was great. He just got a little unlucky in the fact that he was wide open in the end zone and
38:41maybe Caleb Williams most inaccurate throw of the day went to went to Colson Loveland.
38:46You know, nine times out of 10, that probably doesn't happen that way.
38:50He breaks a touchdown and we're not having this conversation.
38:52Week two was a little bit different and I do think it was a little bit more explainable.
38:58So week number two, we actually saw Colson Loveland's overall route percentage go down to 71%.
39:02Specifically in 11 personnel. He really didn't run a ton of routes in 11 personnel because his snap share was high, over
39:0980%, but the route participation was sub-70% in 11 personnel.
39:12Basically because he was left into block against a Vikings team that blitzed Caleb Williams on over 80% of his dropbacks according to NextGenStats, which is absolutely outrageous.
39:20They put a ton of pressure on him. Center Garrett Bradbury did not have a very good game.
39:25That was certainly problematic. Khalif Raymond actually had four catches, four targets.
39:28He was targeted on 29% of his routes when, excuse me, 29% of his routes when Caleb Williams was under pressure in week two.
39:35His average depth of target was 0.25 air yards down the football field.
39:39So I think a lot of what happened in week two was mostly explainable because of the pressure and the specific matchup.
39:45I actually think Colson Loveland is still a very uncomfortable buy low right now, Scott.
39:50And if we were redrafting today, would you take Dalton Kincaid ahead of Colson Loveland?
39:54I mean, I think Dalton Kincaid would be one of the biggest risers in draft rankings right now.
39:59Great pick if you got him. I'd still take, obviously, still take Trey McBride.
40:03Are you on Brock Bowers over Colson Loveland? I guess, although, you know, injuries make me a little nervous there.
40:09Tyler Warren, I would say, is a maybe. Tucker Craft is probably a no.
40:13There's just not that many tight ends that I'd rather have right now than Colson Loveland, even with the one catch so far on the season.
40:21But here's a big problem for me. A huge prong of my willingness to be proactive for Loveland and to even go
40:27into one of my final drafts with Colson Loveland no matter what, even though I didn't get Loveland in that league.
40:33Which, you know, you're not truly a fantasy player until you invalidate your own opinions, ranking strategies, and you basically contradict yourself.
40:40So that's just part of the game. But a big part of that was the final four games of last season, the
40:46final two regular season games, the final of the two playoff games where he had, I believe, was 48 targets and double-digit targets in every game.
40:54And I told myself a story that as much as I love Burden, as much as I, you know, Dunzey, hopefully the
41:00foot would be healthy, but he's a talented player.
41:03As much as I respected Swift, I was telling myself a story that Colson Loveland could dominate targets here.
41:08He could be a target hog. And I just don't see that as being that realistic anymore.
41:13And I look at the other guys, obviously nobody's ranking him over McBride.
41:17Nobody was really doing that before the season. But McBride just has 10-plus targets off the bus.
41:22And when Bowers comes back, he's going to be a target hog.
41:25And you can tell yourself a very plausible story that Ty Warren, especially with Pierce, dinged up now.
41:30Ty Warren could be the most important person downfield for the Colts, or at worst a second option.
41:36Maybe I feel that way about Kincaid and Buffalo.
41:38Maybe I feel that way about Isaiah Likely with the Giants.
41:41I just don't know where Loveland, any game, even if the Bears throw 40, 45, 50 passes in a game, it could be seven passes to Khalif Raymond.
41:49Dunzey could lead the team in targets. Obviously, Burden's going to have games where he leads the team in targets.
41:55I saw a possibility where Loveland was just going to shove everything out of his way.
42:00And I just feel like whatever dream I had three or four weeks ago of that has to be crumpled up and
42:06thrown in the trash can right now. That, I think, is true.
42:10I think you're right about that, where he becomes this Trey McBride-level target hog.
42:14I don't think that is going to happen this year.
42:17I think he's a fantastic talent. But the reality is, Luther Burden's a fantastic talent.
42:21Roba Dunzey is a fantastic talent. Khalif Raymond is a useful player who's not going anywhere.
42:26I do think Ben Johnson, as I said, got a little outcoached in Week 2, designing plays for Sam Rausch.
42:31That, to me, we've got to maybe nix that and design some more of that stuff for Colson Loveland.
42:37I think that will continue. Ben Johnson is one of my two or three favorite play callers in the NFL.
42:43And this is a really bad matchup where Brian Flores, who's one of the two or three best defensive play callers in
42:49the NFL, just won, like he held the pen last, he won that matchup.
42:53So ultimately, I think, yes, that dream of Colson Loveland being a target hog tight end, a Trey McBride-level player, that's done.
43:00But I still think he would be a guy that I'd be trying to trade for, because people are outright panicked about him.
43:06And I'm more high, no, low, some level of panic on Colson Loveland.
43:10And certainly adjusting my expectations. Like, I would not have him ranked as high as I did from an overall standpoint going
43:16into the season if I knew what we knew so far through two weeks, if that makes sense.
43:22But let's talk about Luther Burden here really quick, because Burden was somebody that I actually would throw, like, some panic on
43:28Burden, simply because he actually did not have an improved role from Week 1 to Week 2.
43:33So in Week 2, this is the Bears' route participation rate overall among the pass catchers.
43:38Roma Dunze, who was limited in Week 1 after he came in with an injury that week of practice, he ran around
43:4493% of the dropbacks, Cleef Raymond 78%, Luther Burden 73%, Colson Loveland 71%.
43:48Nobody else is higher than 32% at the wide receiver tight end position.
43:51When you look at plays where there are just two or fewer wide receivers on the field, the route percentage goes Colson
43:58Loveland 82%, Roma Dunze 77%, Cole Komet 53%, Khalif Raymond 53%, Sam Roush 35%, Luther Burden 29%.
44:03If Luther Burden's going to be a part-time player who doesn't play in the heavy personnel packages, there's a stone 0% chance
44:09that he's going to meet expectations relative to really high hype in the offseason.
44:13I'm not writing that in pen that that's going to happen the rest of the season.
44:18I think you could actually argue that neither one of these Bears wide receivers is fully, fully healthy right now after dealing
44:24with some injuries in training camp and things of that nature.
44:27But I think you have to be a little concerned with that usage for Burden because Khalif Raymond's the guy that's getting
44:34these layups and underneath targets, which is what you were hoping is going to go to Luther Burden.
44:39And then if that's the case, it's basically Burden and Dunze will be kind of eating into each other from a downfield target perspective.
44:46Burden didn't have a great game on those in week number two.
44:49Rome made a couple plays down the football field.
44:52So that is certainly, again, a little bit concerning for Luther Burden, who was getting a lot of steam in the offseason.
44:58Scott, where are you on Luther Burden? Yeah, I share that concern with you.
45:02Some panic here. You know, with Burden to draft Burden, and I did some of it.
45:07I took him in the Yahoo Expert League that we did fourth round.
45:11It was to price an improvement to buy him pretty close to his ceiling.
45:15I ask you, dear listener, I ask you, Matt Harmon, production crew, Luther Burden's played 17 NFL football games.
45:20How many touchdowns he has? Two. Two. Yeah. We're still, this is still a speculation play.
45:25In the summer, we were hoping that maybe he'd be their version of Amon Ross St.
45:30Brown. You mentioned the layoff targets aren't there. They're going to Raymond.
45:33This is not Amon Ross St. Brown 2.0. Obviously, he's a 23-year-old player.
45:37He's talented, handpicked by Ben Johnson. There's an injured quarterback right now.
45:40We just had a rain game against a defense that we worry about.
45:44That's a matchup problem. So there's a lot of caveats here.
45:47Nobody's dropping Burden. I still think he could probably start him in week three, even with Bajan.
45:52But he would never go in the third or fourth round or fifth round.
45:56The draft slots that he saw in the middle and late summer, those are gone for good.
46:01Now you're just hoping that Luther, right now, if you told me that Luther Burden would settle in as a playable wide
46:08receiver three, or even maybe a high-end wide receiver four, I think I would take that right now.
46:13Yeah, man. Wide receiver four would be tough. I think maybe wide receiver three, flex-type option.
46:18I mean, you mentioned just the games that he's had, like touchdowns.
46:21I mean, he has two games, 138 yards, 101 yards.
46:24Kind of tough with the 101 yard because that was the flea flicker did a lot of that damage.
46:29But then he had an 84-yard game against the Cleveland Browns.
46:33Other than that, got two games in the 60s, two games in the 50s.
46:37Everything else outside of that is sub-50 yards for Luther Burden in his NFL career.
46:41You're totally right. The Burden is a – and it was a good bet.
46:45It may be still a bet, by the way, that's going to work out.
46:49But it was a bet on the efficiency carrying over into an expanded and different role.
46:54That's the thing here is that – like we showed the sound on the screen here from Dwayne McFarlane, if we can
47:00pull that back up, about how his average depth of target is now over 11 yards, which is fundamentally different from where
47:06it was than as a rookie when he did have these really juiced-up yards per route run numbers.
47:12I mean, I know this is super reactionary and this is my guy, but I said yesterday in passing on social media,
47:18I mean, Jalen Coker is like a better receiver than Luther Burden right now.
47:22And that's not just in fantasy. Like I think that's in real football too.
47:26People like blanched at that. Coker's had now like an extended stretch dating into last season of not just being like an
47:33efficient player, but sustaining and managing high volume. And we haven't seen that really from Luther Burden yet.
47:38So, again, still a player that I don't think is a bad buy low either.
47:42In fact, I would explore trade offers for both of these Bears receivers and Colson Loveland as well.
47:47Like this is still an offense I think you should be invested in.
47:51But certainly we need to see Luther Burden get that route percentage up in the heavy personnel grouping.
47:56Scott, I think he can do it. I also think Ben Johnson thinks he can do it, but we just haven't seen it through two weeks.
48:04And that is without question a concern right now.
48:06And we talked about in passing, but we just can't overlook the idea that Khalif Raymond is probably going to catch 70 passes.
48:13Yeah, and that's going to be tough for Roma Dunze too, who is a good player.
48:18I think all these guys are good players. I think they're all good players.
48:22But Raymond being more involved in the offense shaves off the ceiling outcomes for all three of these players.
48:27We'll see if Khalif Raymond can one sustain this level of volume and can be on the field for 17 games.
48:33You know, he's an older veteran. And this might be like a hot September start for him and he fades away for the younger guys.
48:41Like let's not let's not forget to we're all very excited about these players.
48:45They are still all young players, especially Burden and Loveland, who are still kind of growing into their paws.
48:50Same thing for Caleb Williams as well. So I still remain really optimistic about this offense.
48:55You're right to make the joke that I made in the editorial call today.
48:59Like the Bears are averaging over 30 points a game.
49:02Congratulations, Ben Johnson. You did it. But it's just obviously let's settle somewhere in the middle between 59 and three.
49:08So good conversation on the Bears. A lot to break down about the Bears because, I mean, again, this is one of
49:14the teams that people are most panicked about. But Scott, let's get to our next submission here, which is another team that
49:20people are very freaked out about for justifiable reasons.
49:23This one comes in from at ballin underscore Colin 11.
49:26Not producer Colin, by the way. Colin's producing. He's not ballin.
49:29The Atlanta Falcons. Can Michael Penix at least save Bijan Robinson and Drake London?
49:33Scott, I don't know how the answer for, you know, what's the panic meter for the Falcons being anything other than total panic?
49:40Because, yes, I think that Michael Penix can help the situation here.
49:43And he's been good. Like Drake London has been good with Michael Penix in fantasy football.
49:48But it's still like Michael Penix coming off of a torn ACL.
49:51And I'm not even sure how much his coaching staff and decision making group likes Michael Penix.
49:56What's your level of panic on the Atlanta Falcons situation right now?
50:00Yeah, I'm in the full panic. Total panic. Panic in the streets.
50:03You know, panic at the disco. I'm so glad I didn't draft Drake London this year.
50:08I know that's not a sustainable answer for anybody who has London shares right now.
50:12Bijan's going to be fine. Kyle Pitts may be somebody who's just not only not startable, but I wouldn't be surprised if
50:19he winds up being cut in some leagues because you just can't count on him right now.
50:24This is one of the five worst teams in football.
50:26And the fact that they're hoping Penix can bail them out.
50:30And is he going to be healthy? Is he going to need time to get comfortable in a new offense, new coaching scheme, all that stuff?
50:37It's I can't believe we have to watch these guys in island games for three straight weeks.
50:42I think the Falcons are in a big, fat, you know, unsustainable mess right now.
50:46Other than Bijan, I wouldn't want any piece of this offense.
50:50I would be looking. The problem with London is if you trade him now, you're selling low.
50:55You would like him to have one good game and then use that as your onboard to get out of the London business.
51:01But I mean, would you rather have London or Coker right now?
51:05I think that's a fair question. I think it's a fair question.
51:08I would still side with Drake London just because he has been good with Penix before their games overlap pretty well.
51:14That doesn't mean, though, that I can't be totally panicked about this situation, Scott.
51:18And maybe I'm wrong, by the way, about I mean, listen, you're not going to talk any anti-Coker.
51:24You're not going to get any anti-Coker takes out of me.
51:27That's for sure. So maybe I'm adjusting too slow here.
51:30You can certainly tell me that. But man, I think it can at least get a little bit.
51:35It can get better with Penix. It can't. It's going to be hard to get worse than what we've seen so far.
51:41I didn't love this report that we're showing here from Mike Silver of The Athletic, where he has the quote from his piece.
51:48They're not yet questioning Penix toughness inside the Falcons organization.
51:51But if he delays his turn much longer, they likely will be.
51:54This is just kind of my point of I have yet to really seen a lot of evidence that this coaching staff
52:01and current brain trust is all that high on Penix, which.
52:04Oh, by the way, we just literally got breaking news right now, actually.
52:08Well, perfect timing. Tom Pellicero just retweeted a post that says Michael Penix is going to start on Thursday Night Football.
52:14Look at that. What a great timing from the universe.
52:17So we are going to get Penix. Yeah, that's a quick turnaround.
52:20So let's hope Penix is better and is confident in his knee coming off this whole situation.
52:25I certainly think this helps Drake London and the entire Falcons offense, but still just a little bit panicked about how the unit has looked overall.
52:32Of course, this season. Let me give you a creative way out of the Penix business.
52:37I'm sorry, out of the Drake London business. Would you rather have Drake London?
52:41And I realize this is all questions like this are incredibly league specific, team specific, context specific.
52:46But in a vacuum, Drake London or AJ Brown?
52:49We know he's not going to be playing for a while for the rest of the season.
52:54Oh, Drake London. I don't know if I want much to do with it.
52:58I'm a little bit worried. We're going to talk Patriots here later.
53:01I'm worried with how that offense has looked. I'm not 100% sure when AJ Brown is going to be back.
53:07I'm not 100% sure what he's going to look like when he's going to get back.
53:12I still think Drake London can be a top 20, maybe even top 15 receiver with Michael Penix because I think he'll dominate targets.
53:19And a guy like this gets into the mix.
53:21He's just going to pepper the guy that he knows with targets like and that is definitely going to be Drake London.
53:28But I would be if I didn't. OK, give me another one.
53:31Let me give you one more. OK, this is a totally different type of player because when you go with London, you're going volume.
53:38This guy is a home run hitter. You have to we know that Eben flow comes with Jameson Williams.
53:43But going forward, would you rather have Drake London or Jameson Williams?
53:47That's tough. I think I'd still rather have Drake London.
53:50OK, stay in the course with London. Penix is going to save it Thursday night.
53:54Drake London 11 for 172 and to bad harm and said that right.
53:58I implied that anyway. I think you implied he did.
54:01Yeah, totally. I totally implied it. The one thing I'll just note to 21 percent slot rate for Drake London is also a little bit of a concern.
54:09I would like to see that go up. But that's something I am a little concerned about with just this whole Falcons offense right now.
54:16See, I don't feel good about the way the Falcons offense is designed called any of that stuff right now.
54:22It's been a mess. And the quarterback position has obviously been a complete disaster.
54:26So there we go. Packers defense on Wednesday and Thursday.
54:29That's a favorable draw. Yeah, we'll see how it goes.
54:32Man, brutal. OK, let's get into some running backs here.
54:35Elijah sends in this email. Hey, guys, let me start by saying you are definitely the best and most handsome football analysts out there.
54:42As Scott said last week, that's how you get on the show.
54:45OK, now my issue is with Devon Achan. I wouldn't say I'm panicked, but I'm close to it.
54:50And I'm wondering if I should be getting off the Achan train.
54:54I mean, he touched the ball 23 times versus the 49ers, and it only resulted in 12.3 points.
54:59For comparison, Basel Tootin, who's on my bench, has outscored Achan and Tootin is kind of in a backfield split right now.
55:05What do I do with Achan? Thanks, you guys.
55:08I appreciate all your knowledge and content you've been putting out.
55:11Great note here from producer JB. Devon Achan is the only player with 35 plus touches and zero touchdowns so far this season.
55:18So, woof. OK, where are you at with Devon Achan?
55:21What's your level of panic, Scott? I'm actually going to go no panic, and this is maybe a little bit surprising because
55:27I didn't want to draft Achan before the season because I just didn't want to be top-touched, tied into that Miami infrastructure.
55:34And I was worried that Malik Willis wouldn't dump off the ball to Achan.
55:38Seven catches for two weeks isn't that bad. The volume is there.
55:41Achan is not – look, he's not a plunge in from the one kind of guy.
55:46He's going to eventually hit home runs and score from distance.
55:49Miami has looked like a bad team, but not like the lookout below, oh, my God, they're going to go 0-17 bad to me.
55:56I realize the Niners didn't kick the tar out of them, but I think Achan is going to be OK.
56:02I'm not – if I were going to be talked to some panic, it would be like a 1 on a 10 scale.
56:08I think he's going to be fine. I think he still makes sense as a late second round, early third round pick,
56:15even knowing that I always talk about when you take a running back on a bad team, you're choosing to run uphill, and that's no fun.
56:22We want to run downhill. We want leverage. We want game script.
56:26He doesn't have any of those things. But I'm encouraged that he's gotten this much usage and really encouraged that he hasn't
56:32been forgotten about in the passing game because I was concerned that might have been an issue.
56:37I'm pretty shocked by this. I would at least have this at some panic for Achan, and I am shocked to hear
56:43you express any optimism about the way the Miami Dolphins have looked through two weeks.
56:48I mean, Scott, they got walked off the field by the Niners.
56:51I mean, it was – that game was over before it started.
56:55I think the defense is the biggest – I mean, the offense actually is relatively OK, functional.
57:00I agree with that. Willis has had his moments.
57:02They got some young receivers. I'm at least going to keep my eye on.
57:06And Achan is obviously a superstar. But, man, I'm really nervous about how bad the defense is and them consistently getting out
57:13of game scripts where Achan is going to get the ball and the touches in terms of that might not be there.
57:19Now, he's run the ball 31 times through two weeks, which is definitely a high number across the running of that position.
57:25So maybe we can come somewhere in the middle here on the no panic, total panic mark for the two of us.
57:32But I am certainly a little more nervous than you on Devon Achan so far.
57:36To be fair, they still haven't gotten a 300 yards total offense, which is worrisome.
57:41But at least he's getting all the carries. I mean, look, Willis has eight carries.
57:45Nobody else in the backfield has more than three 31 rush attempts with Achan.
57:49I'm just going to follow the volume here. And, again, I'm encouraged that – I was worried that the receiving work –
57:55Look, at least Willis is making some downfield connections, averaging 8.3 yards per attempt.
57:59The problem is he's taken nine sacks. A sack is like a mini turnover.
58:03It basically ruins the drive. I don't like Miami, but I thought before the year they were going to win two games.
58:10I guess I've squinted. I've seen a reason. And people are going to say, wait a minute.
58:15They just get blown up by the Raiders. Nobody even thinks they're any good.
58:19And they – obviously that game with San Francisco was not competitive.
58:22So people may be like, what are you squinting at and seeing?
58:26Maybe you need to go get an eye exam.
58:28And I actually am due for a new eye exam, not to mention a new heart field.
58:33Oh, there we go. But there we go. But Achan, I'm going to hold on him.
58:38I still think he's somebody who would be, I don't know, top 12 running back for my week three rankings.
58:44Chiefs, Vikings, the next two weeks. I am a little worried that we're going to be getting the stat from producer JB
58:50where it's this many touches without a touchdown for a few more weeks here with Devon Achan.
58:55But we'll see. I'm glad that Johnson is a little bit more optimistic.
58:59Oh, man. Yeah, not a name you want to be associated with here.
59:03Okay, next one comes in from Hoya Husky. One Achan to another.
59:06They're sending in Travis Achan. He is about as efficient as an old gas-powered Hummer at the moment.
59:11Yeah, not in a very efficient fuel vehicle, the gas-powered Hummer at this particular moment.
59:16Neither has Travis Achan with the New Orleans Saints.
59:18Scott, what is your level of concern on Travis Achan?
59:21I think this is a really high one for me.
59:24Frankly, I think if I drafted him, and I really don't have any Travis Achan teams, I'd be at total panic.
59:30And I would listen to him being our first Coping Corner submission.
59:34But I'll let you kind of decide on that one.
59:36Yeah, total panic for me on... It feels so weird to say Achan.
59:40Yeah, I was saying earlier in the week that what Devin Achan should do is change his name to Devin Etienne.
59:46That would be the baller move. But even though I love the Saints passing game, week one, they're looking for reasons to play Kendrick Miller.
59:54Miller's scratching week two, but Alvin Kamara is still around.
59:56An inconvenient truth. There's better options in this passing game.
59:59Usually following the money is the way to go.
60:02Following the money would have gotten you to Jawan Johnson last year, who got a big contract.
60:07And Jalen Coker got the big deal, and he's popped early this year.
60:11Following the money has led you to a dead end with Achan.
60:14And I don't think... Teams change... When teams aren't successful, they change what they're doing.
60:18The Saints were successful in the Detroit game. They didn't win it, but they made a heroic comeback.
60:24They come within one two-point conversion of stealing that game.
60:27And then they go to a Baltimore team that we all respect, albeit without, say, flowers, and they steal that game.
60:33The Saints are legitimate. They have no reason to do anything different.
60:36I'd be really worried if I drafted Achan that I somehow stumbled to a situation where the guy can't even play.
60:42But it's a great point about the results from week two, maybe dictating more of this.
60:47And just to put a finer point on that, 15 opportunities for Alvin Kamara, 10 for Travis Achan, one for CJ Donaldson,
60:53who ran five routes in the game, played a decent bit of snaps as well.
60:58This is not what you bargained for, okay? It is absolutely not what you bargained for if you took Travis Achan at his ADP.
61:05Again, total panic. And maybe we don't want to put him in the coping corner just yet.
61:09Maybe we'll let Justin Boone decide that when he gets back into the mix here on the Monday show.
61:15But he is certainly somebody I would consider to be one of our first coping corner submissions of the 2026 football season.
61:21One more before we get to break here, and this is at the running back position.
61:26JD sends in Saquon Barkley. Not only has he been ineffective, but now he also may be injured.
61:31I would also note here that the offensive line is a big problem, Scott, and the reason that I'm going to go total panic on this one.
61:39What they did in week two was obviously Landon Dickerson benched himself, put him on IR, put Cam Juergens over to guard.
61:45And that did not go well because not only is Cam Juergens their center, you know, mostly like that's the position he should be playing.
61:53This position he's practiced at all summer. He's played there.
61:56But then the communication between him and Jordan Mailata was off.
61:59It's a real mess right now for the Philadelphia Eagles on the offensive line, which is not something we are used to saying.
62:05This is a unit that we're supposed to be able to set our watch to, right?
62:10The Eagles offensive line has been great, but this was a risk coming into the season where like, hey, you know, it's
62:16a new system, new coach, you know, Jeff Stoutland's out the door, Hall of Fame offensive line coach, a great run game coordinator, the whole deal.
62:24Now it's Drew Kendall at center, Cam Juergens at left guard.
62:27The whole thing has not been great. The interior of the offensive line, I think, is a problem.
62:32So even like regardless of what you think about Barkley, who is also now dealing with a little bit of an injury,
62:39I think that line, it's almost like there's no question.
62:42I feel like Barkley will come in as a little disappointment based on his ADP.
62:46But am I wrong to be totally panicked about this?
62:49Scott, where are you on Saquon Barkley? Yeah, I was leaning towards some panic, but I certainly see levels of concern.
62:55Age 29 season. He's been kind of a mediocre receiver for a few years.
62:59People don't really talk about that. The one monster season he had a couple of years ago was 29.4 yards for average touchdown.
63:06That's just an unsustainable mark. And it did regress last year, although he still had a good season.
63:11Eagles still kind of figuring out what they are on offense.
63:14A lot in moving parts with some injuries with new players.
63:17Barkley, to me, feels like somebody who was drafted in the second round, who's more of a third round player.
63:23So more of a disappointment to me as some panic guy.
63:26But if that offensive line, we've just been treated to the Eagles always have a top five offensive line.
63:32This is the first year I can remember where that's just not an advantage of taking somebody in this offense.
63:38Can I ask you a question, Scott? Do you think there's a chance that the Eagles become a pass first team this year?
63:44Obviously, Jeffrey Simmons had that quote where he said, hey, we just got to make Jalen Hurts a quarterback.
63:50And well, Jalen Hurts and the Eagles won that game.
63:53So there's that. And I thought Jalen Hurts, I don't want to yada yada two interceptions.
63:57Obviously, that's not great, but they actually I mean, I thought Jalen Hurts played that game pretty well.
64:02They were still a sub, you know, way below average pass rate over expected team in week two.
64:08But you just wonder if they can't really run the football.
64:11They have these offensive line injuries. Are we going to see them actually have to put the football in the air?
64:17Like put the ball in Jalen Hurts's hands. I thought Hurts played pretty well.
64:21Some nice outbreakers to Devontae Smith. Dontavian Wicks has played well, like Makai Lemon should only get better and better.
64:27They're going to use three receiver sets a lot because there are injuries at the tight end position.
64:32Scott, I do think there's a chance that this offense becomes more pass focus than we have seen previously.
64:38Do you buy any of what I'm selling here?
64:40Yeah, I'll quasi buy it. Remember, they have the Bears on Monday night this week.
64:44Now, if they can either get the rain to go away or maybe build a dome stadium and move to Indiana before
64:51Monday night, I don't know how realistic that is.
64:53You would think the Eagles are getting 30 plus here.
64:56So maybe we'll have different shapes of different takes on the Eagles offense after that third game.
65:01But I always felt like it was going to take a month before Hurts was really comfortable in this offense.
65:07And that's a theme a lot of different places.
65:10Every year, Hurts has a new coordinator for different reasons.
65:13Sometimes the guy did so well, he had to move on.
65:16Sometimes the guy did so poorly, he had to be ushered out.
65:19It was the latter case this year. But I want to give this team some time to gel.
65:24I do eventually think they'll have an average pass rate over expected, which would be very unusual for them.
65:30They've always been a run heavy team in this Hurts era.
65:33I like it. OK, it's a team to monitor something to monitor there with the entire Eagles operation.
65:38Definitely some concern about Barkley. And just for the folks, we will be talking about his backup tank, Bigsby, when we get
65:45to the waiver wire much later in the show.
65:47But first, we're going to talk more panic submissions.
65:50But before we do that, we are going to take a quick break.
65:54We will get to all that on the other side in just a minute.
65:58All right, we're back. Let's talk through some wide receiver submissions to the panic meter.
66:02This first one comes in from Simple underscore Burner.
66:05Rasheed Rice, man, none of these gimme touches are going his way anymore.
66:08Last few years, it felt like he had such a good floor because of those touches.
66:13Now they're going to Xavier Werby and Kenneth Walker in a game.
66:17Mahomes throws 47 passes. Rasheed Rice is targeted on six of them.
66:20Six out of 47. Yes, Scott. So far this season, Rasheed Rice is being targeted on 11 percent of his routes, which is a obvious career low.
66:28So what are your like, what's your level of concern on Rasheed Rice at this point?
66:33At least he got 83 games out of that Sunday nighter, but still eight targets for the season.
66:38This is an offense about Walker. It's an offense still about Kelsey.
66:41Worthy has been good. Taequann Thornton, who I've always liked as a player, I realize he's a deep threat.
66:47He's not somebody who's ever going to command heavy volume, but he was involved in this game.
66:52Mahomes is still running proactively. Probably I would be looking for the one big game and get out of the Rasheed Rice business.
66:58I'm certainly heavy panic on rice. Yeah, I'm total panic on rice, too, because and to be fair, this could just be
67:05confirmation bias because this is exactly how I thought this was going to play out.
67:09So, you know, keep that in mind. But rice has just two targets on screens over the last two weeks.
67:15He is behind worthy and Walker in terms of screens.
67:18I think more instructive, if you look on throws of five or fewer air yards so far this year, these are the targets.
67:2411 for Walker, eight for Kelsey, six for Worthy, four for Emmitt Johnson, two for Rasheed Rice.
67:29If you look from 2024 to 2025, the same targets, five or fewer air yards per game.
67:34Rice averaged 5.8. Kelsey, four. Worthy, 2.4. Isaiah Pacheco, two.
67:37So, like Walker has been exactly what we talked about on the show all offseason, a fundamental transformative change force.
67:43What we did not talk about was Travis Kelsey just looking like he's turned back the clock.
67:48I think they're kind of forcing it with Worthy, and I don't think Worthy played well on Sunday night.
67:53Rice also, by the way, is still coming back from rehabbing an injury in jail, so he could just be better, which
68:00is still a crazy statement, but he could just be better over the course of the season, but it's not gone great
68:06for Rice, and I just don't see any scenario where they look back at the offense of last year and 2020 and
68:13be like, we got to get back to that.
68:15We got to get back to feeding these scammy touches to Rice.
68:19They're better running the football. Kelsey's been good. I think Rice won't be a total dud, and frankly, he hasn't been a total dud through two weeks.
68:26Like, if you started Rasheed Rice, you've actually been okay, but I think he will just come in as a disappointing player
68:33relative to his, what I thought was an overinflated ADP, Scott.
68:36They just had 523 yards of offense. They're 2-0.
68:39The defense has been pretty good. 176 yards given up to the Broncos.
68:42I mean, it just embarrassed them in week one, and the Colts did get to 329.
68:47They needed overtime to do that. This is a defensive team.
68:50This is a Kenneth Walker team, and this is an offense that's a little bit more, the usage is a little bit more spread around.
68:57Yeah, Rasheed Rice is going to come in under expectation for sure.
69:01Okay, next one. We got a submission in the chat about this, and we have the chat, by the way, Adeno Y7.
69:07Okay, shout out to them. Plus, we also have an email on this, or a panic meter submission on this.
69:13What do we do with Marvin Harrison Jr.? Our submission that we had was, I picked up Marvin Harrison Jr.
69:19for free last week, and I still think I overpaid.
69:22Scott, I honestly want to spend about five seconds on this, because the answer is clearly total panic for Marvin Harrison Jr.
69:28I don't see how you could say anything else.
69:31One catch over two weeks. However, nobody expected him to have a good game against the Seahawks.
69:36Would you expect him to maybe have a catch?
69:38That would be nice. It's not great that he's not involved in the gameplay over the first two weeks.
69:44You're definitely not starting him in fantasy football. I say total panic on Marvin Harrison, but I'm also relatively confident that he will have better days ahead.
69:52I would just hold him on the end of my bench and see what happens in a 12-team format, but not somebody
69:58you're starting right now, and definitely somebody you're panicking about where this is going.
70:02You have my permission to cut Marvin Harrison. Why is it that we always make excuses for Marvin Harrison, but Trey McBride's doing just fine.
70:09Michael Wilson had a breakout season last year. Kendrick Bourne, who feels like he's 45 years old, had a really nice week one.
70:16I wish the Patriots still had him. All the things I used to say about Nikhil Harry.
70:21Now I'm saying about the A.J. Brown injury. Why they give up booty?
70:25Why they give up guys, good players, even guys they haven't had for several seasons that went back on the team.
70:31That's just the irrational way I handle that wide receiver room.
70:34But Marvin Harrison, and I feel a little bit bad about this, but he's become the social media.
70:39Everybody picks on him. Everybody clips all of his routes and be like, oh, this is the fourth overall pick in the draft.
70:46Look at him. Is he even running out there?
70:48Is he creating any separation? No wonder they don't target him.
70:52Here's his one target. Watch it over and over again on coaching tape.
70:55But I just want to know why is everybody else seemingly afloat here and he's the one guy who's sinking?
71:01Something doesn't make sense. Now, what I would do if I was a contender that lost the receiver is I would try
71:08to get maybe Harrison just needs to be somewhere else and then he can blame everything on Arizona and turn a new
71:14leaf and maybe get something going with a new organization.
71:17Maybe this is Steve Young needs to leave the Buccaneers and find his 49ers.
71:21Maybe there's something to be said for that. But again, I want to make it very clear.
71:26You don't have to do it, but you have my permission to cut Marvin Harrison Jr.
71:30Because at this point now, you're never going to start him until the Prover game.
71:35When's that going to come? And what's he going to be?
71:38Even if he turns into something, he's never going to be McBride in this offense.
71:42I think Wilson just might be a better player anyway.
71:45Jeremiah loves them all to feed. It's still a team that's going to win four or five games, something like that.
71:51I realize they beat up on the Chargers in week one, but maybe that doesn't mean that much.
71:57Yeah. Marvin Harrison Jr. does not. Just because he's a name, just because he's got draft capital, just because he's still a
72:03young player does not mean he's not cuttable. I'm totally on board with letting go and letting somebody else feel the pain.
72:09The sabotage drop, as Paul Charchin likes to call these guys.
72:12I will say next three weeks for the Cardinals, Niners, Giants, Lions.
72:16You know, I mean, there's definitely some matchups there where Harrison can do something and this offense can just be like, again,
72:22they were never going to be good in week two.
72:25Even Mr. Cardinals curious here. I was not advising any optimism on the card on the Cardinals in week two against the Seahawks.
72:32I think Harrison will have moments, but it will be tough to pick them.
72:36That's why he was a boom bust wide receiver three in fantasy item in the same tier as Michael Wilson, because I
72:42thought like usage wise, it could just go to Wilson.
72:45And there's no question 14 targets to four. You know, like why is it that Marvin Harrison Jr.
72:50is not producing and all these other guys are?
72:53It's because he's basically just been the sacrificial X through two weeks.
72:56And the reality is, as I always say, like if you're using your, you know, theoretical number one receiver as a sacrificial
73:03X or like an 80% outside on ball player, you're telling us something about you as a play caller or the player.
73:09And I feel like they're telling us something about the player.
73:12And I'm not, again, I'm going to keep the candle lit for Marvin Harrison Jr.
73:17as a player. But it's not somebody I was super drafting in fantasy this year.
73:21And I think, you know, this is part of the risk with it.
73:25It's a very crowded offense. And, you know, Jacoby Reset is going to have games where it's 95 yards, like we said.
73:31So I feel like we went over the five seconds that we originally allowed to this.
73:36But look, they can't scheme anything easy. There are no, as Matt Harmon would say, no layup targets for Marvin Harrison.
73:42Everything they get for him is strained and he's not creating any separation.
73:46I, you know, it's not that he didn't produce against Seattle because again, well, they have 150 yards or something like that.
73:52Nobody produced here, but he had one target. He wasn't open the entire game.
73:56That's damning. The tape is damning on Marvin Harrison.
73:59The stats are damning on Marvin Harrison. Don't this game is about numbers.
74:03It's not about names. We have to accept that Marvin Harrison right now is all name.
74:07No number. All, all hat. No cattle. I'll disagree with you a little bit on like the tape is damning, but the
74:14tape isn't like, oh my God, it's so good.
74:16What are they doing here? And that's just part of the problem when you're the fourth overall pick.
74:21And yes, we definitely went over the five allotted seconds on Marvin Harrison.
74:25Okay. Next one comes in from Palm Mets something or another.
74:28I traded away Jalen Waddle and Marshawn Lloyd for George, George Pickens thinking it's an upgrade having shares of the Dallas offense.
74:35The Dallas offense is clicking as expected, but everyone except George Pickens is getting red zone looks how worried should I be?
74:41Thanks in advance from a loyal fan in Germany.
74:44Shout out Germany on this one. I'm going to say no panic on George Pickens here.
74:48Scott Pickens had a weird game in week one.
74:51Guess what? George Pickens is going to have weird games every now and again.
74:55The idea that and listen, when Jory Epstein was on the show, tell us about this, that, oh yeah, George Pickens is the one.
75:02That's what the Cowboys are saying. Are people watching Cowboys camp.
75:05I didn't agree with that then because CD lamb is an awesome player.
75:09CD lamb was ranked ahead of George Pickens of fantasy for me.
75:12But yeah, listen, Pickens is going to be fine.
75:15I think he's gonna be totally fine. Any reason to be concerned on Pickens?
75:19I'm just going to go mild panic only because my friend and colleague, Michael Salfino was pointing this out when lamb and
75:25Pickens have played together since Pickens joined the Cowboys.
75:28It's definitely been lamb, big brother Pickens, little brother.
75:31And yeah, apologize to Eric Proton, who I gave some guff to when he drafted CD lamb and our expert draft.
75:37I was like, oh, anytime you can use a first round pick on Dallas's number two receiver, you're going to do it.
75:43That's the comment was probably silly. The moment I said it, we were having fun in that room, letting it fly.
75:49But it's especially bad now because lamb lamb is who he is.
75:53He's the alpha Pickens is a dynamic number two, but this is a Chase Higgins situation.
75:57Nothing wrong with T Higgins. There's nothing wrong with George Pickens and he'd be a dynamite on a different team.
76:03But the idea that, and I subscribe to some of it too.
76:07And Jory's terrific. She's one of my favorite NFL analysts.
76:09And so glad that she's one of our insiders and doing all that great NFL coverage for Yahoo.
76:15But I subscribe to the idea that maybe these two were closer than is in reality going to be the case.
76:21It's lamb is, is basically exerting his will on this offense.
76:24And week one was a weird game. The giants control the ball.
76:27They had the ball the whole time. Dallas had the two possessions in the second half.
76:32We saw more of the Cowboys offense. We expected against Washington.
76:35I still think Pickens is going to be a top 15 receiver, but he's more of a low end wide receiver.
76:41One high end wide receiver to my expectations were a little bit more lofty in the summer.
76:46Yeah. Just real quick on the draft show we did.
76:49Remember, it wasn't a show. It was a draft.
76:52It was people. Everybody said some things that they may be regretted because we're guys riffing on each other.
76:57We're having fun. We're picking on each other. That's what guys do when we're friends.
77:02Okay. Do you just like a hold, you just hug all the time and just say nothing but great things about each other.
77:08I would say great things about all those gentlemen in the draft show.
77:12All right. But yeah, you know, you pick on each other a little bit when you're, when you're friends and you're drafting,
77:18I'm sure there's a lot of junk talking going on in your drafts out there.
77:23So not worried about the Cowboys, not worried about our friendships here at Yahoo because we're all real friends.
77:28We're not just like coworkers or whatever. No panic on the Scott Pienowski friendship meter.
77:33That is for sure. Okay. Next one comes in from Farkin Griffo.
77:36Good day, mate. To be honest, Jameson Williams. By the way, this is this person's from Australia.
77:41That's why we got the good day mate here.
77:44So shout out. We shout out Germany, Australia and back-to-back submissions of the panic meter.
77:48We're going international on this one. Back-to-back single digit games.
77:51He's on what is meant to be a high power Detroit Lions offense.
77:55And yet just a touch concerning right now. Fingers crossed.
77:58He can get up a get right game at home versus the Jets next week.
78:02I mean, definitely some panic on Jameson Williams, Scott, because the splits with and without Sam Laporta are certainly looking like a
78:08real thing over the last two years. But this is part of the Jameson Williams experience.
78:13Is it not like roller coaster up and down moments?
78:16If you drafted Jameson Williams and you can't live with up and down games, I don't know what to tell you.
78:22Like, this is just who Jameson Williams is. Am I wrong on this one, Scott?
78:26Well, first of all, I apologize to Farkin Griffo.
78:29I just got a note from Sean McVay who said we can't take this question.
78:33We can't take any fantasy questions from Australia. So that's just we have to listen to the coach.
78:38No, we can obviously take it. Jameson Williams receiver is a boom or bust position anyway.
78:43But Jameson Williams is the heaviest of the boom, the heaviest of the bust.
78:47A lot of his production is going to be on deep routes.
78:51And I realize they tried to manufacture some touches for him in the New Orleans game.
78:55They tried to hand him the ball. He bobbled it.
78:58Hit a couple of drops in that game. He loses his focus sometimes every once in a while.
79:03He throws the ball to the opponent or he spins it and gets a delay of game penalty.
79:09It's just part of the JMO experience. At the end of the year, it's one of those things where he's going to
79:15be like wide receiver 19, wide receiver 23 at the end of the year.
79:19But it's going to be a crazy stock chart of, oh, wide receiver 3 and, oh, wide receiver 52.
79:25And you just have to live with it with Jameson Williams.
79:28The idea when you draft a team with Williams is you hope to have people in front of him who are the
79:34steady drumbeat guys, who are the double-digit target games every week guys, who smooth out the variance.
79:39And that makes it easier to stomach. But I haven't changed my opinion of Jameson Williams because this is what you sign
79:45up for when you draft Jameson Williams. Absolutely. And again, if you drafted him and you didn't, I don't know what to tell you.
79:52This is part of the Jameson Williams experience. It always will be.
79:56And the only thing you need to stop doing is listening to the coaching staff when they say like, oh, my God, he's taking another step forward.
80:04It's the same experience every year. They do that every summer.
80:07Just like Jameson Williams is what he is. St.
80:09Brown's always going to be, as you say, 10 targets off the bus.
80:13He can have zero targets in the first quarter and still end the week as one of the best receivers in fantasy
80:20football because that's who Amon Ross St. Brown is.
80:22So that just is what Jameson Williams is. Hayden and I said on the Thursday Night Recap, and of course people hated
80:29this take, it's like he's a guy that you could buy low right now because he's had these two down games.
80:35People are furious about him. And if you can go ahead and throw him in as a trade piece and grab him,
80:41like if you can live with ups and downs, if you have a good roster right now, why not try to chase those high weeks for Jameson Williams?
80:49Because they absolutely will come. It's like, again, this is a little bit with the Harrison thing where it's not like we've
80:55never seen Harrison have a good game. It's not like we've never seen Jameson Williams have a good game.
81:01And it's not like they will never have good games again.
81:04Like you said, Scott, receiver is a boom or bust position, which also transitioned us into our last name here in the wide receiver panic meter.
81:12Josh sent in Terry McLaurin. Nine targets still put up Dudu while conceding two touchdowns to Stefan Diggs.
81:17Again, there's going to be definitely some up and down with Terry McLaurin.
81:21That's the type of player he is as well.
81:23I have some panic, though, about McLaurin, Scott, because one, the Jaden Daniels injury, of course, but also Stefan Diggs looks good.
81:30Antonio Williams looks good. I expect those guys to continue to be involved in this offense.
81:34Yeah, though, man, you know, a couple of near touchdowns, those plays that Ian Hartzett would call the sheesh plays, right?
81:40For McLaurin. I do think they have a better backup than most teams with Mariota.
81:45It's still a pretty tight tree. Chig didn't play in Chico Conco.
81:48Their tight end didn't play in week two. I think they're going to struggle to run the ball with Tunsell out all season.
81:55They lost the rushing production that Daniels will bring for the next few weeks.
81:59I may be moving McLaurin down a half tier in my rankings, and I was a little bit scared.
82:04You know, he's at age 31 season, Diggs age 33 season.
82:08Some year the Washington team is going to get it right and actually go young with their skill talent.
82:13I hate to say anything negative about players like Diggs and McLaurin because they've been favorites of ours.
82:18They've been really good for us in the case of McLaurin, for the most part, he's done it with poor quarterback play.
82:25And Daniels really worried that he's following this RG path, right?
82:28RG three path. Heisman Trophy, unbelievable work a year and then star cross with injuries after that.
82:33That was the entire Griffin career. And so far, it's been the Daniel story into year three.
82:38As long as you have reasonable expectations for McLaurin, he should have been a wide receiver three all along.
82:43I think he'll probably meet that. All right. With that, let's get into some more two more emails here.
82:49A few more emails here, actually, mostly about like offensive ecosystems and quarterbacks as a whole.
82:53Dom V sent in. Hey, guys, does Zach Robinson not know how to call anything other than screens or does he just
83:00not trust Baker Mayfield to be accurate at all?
83:02Well, not going well so far. Who in this offense is trustworthy for fantasy of Deshaun Watson is making, quote, the bake
83:09show look like Jamarcus Russell and Nathan Peterman had a baby.
83:12Okay. Okay. Dom V very upset about the Baker Mayfield experience.
83:15I mean, how can you not have some panic about how Baker Mayfield has looked, Scott?
83:20It has not been great for Mayfield through two games coming off the contract extension.
83:24The one caveat I would note is he is a notoriously streaky player.
83:28So there's probably a big Baker Mayfield game around the corner.
83:31But, I mean, he has not played well through two weeks.
83:34No. But he said success has a lot of parents.
83:37Failure is supposed to be an orphan, but failure really has a lot of parents, too.
83:42A lot of people in this passing game have not played well.
83:45Godwin looks old. I realize Abuka got that one easy touchdown, but he hasn't played well.
83:50Again, a Sal Fino call out. He thinks Ted Hurst could eventually be the best receiver on this team by the end of the year.
83:57He's following the Steve Smith signal, who's been a big Hurst proponent.
84:01Bucky Irving, the only offensive player we can really say anything good about for Tampa Bay through two weeks.
84:06I had no idea the Buccaneers could blow this game against the Cleveland team.
84:10I have no respect for it. I will admit Watson played better than I expected, although my expectations were absolute zero.
84:16And what happens in week three, Brian Flores, those split schemes.
84:20Granted, Green Bay did get points against Minnesota in week one, and there were weather concerns and injury concerns in Chicago.
84:26But I think it's going to take a while for this Tampa Bay offense to figure it out.
84:31And maybe it's their year to finally go 5-12 or 6-11 in that always crazy NFC South.
84:36All right. Next one comes in from Pramit Patel, 23.
84:39Drake May. Crazy to say, last year he was almost the MVP darling of the league, and now I can't even get 10 points from him.
84:46I've definitely got some panic about the way Drake May has been playing so far, Scott.
84:51An offensive line injury. Michael Nwenu has a serious injury.
84:54The receiver room is not ideal to be kind.
84:56How can you not have some panic about Drake May?
84:59I don't think I will be ranking him as a top 10 quarterback again this week, and I didn't have him ranked
85:06that way coming into this week either. There's another problem.
85:08Maybe the Patriots defense is pretty darn good. 285 yards allowed the loss to Seattle.
85:13I realized that Drew Locke played most of that game, and they hold Pittsburgh and 78-year-old Aaron Rodgers to 235 yards.
85:19So again, maybe the schedule has been friendly. We'll get a much better sense of this Patriots defense when they play Jacksonville and Buffalo the next two weeks.
85:27But maybe a lot of these Patriot wins are going to be 23-16, or maybe they'll lose 23-16.
85:32I don't see shootout games coming. I don't see pinball here.
85:35Obviously, Brownout extended period of time. We did see Dobbs make a couple of plays.
85:40That was encouraging. They really needed Trevion Henderson back.
85:42I know most of it was on that one long run, but the heavy usage he got.
85:47I'm surprised people aren't panicking about Stevenson, who got a little bit mothballed after the fumble.
85:52But I don't think the Patriots are set up to play pinball football, 30-27 football.
85:56I think their wins are going to be the more grinded-out, balanced offense, where May throws 31 passes, 29 passes, 34 passes.
86:03I don't think he's going to have a lot of games where he challenges for 300 yards.
86:08He'll get a little bit of it back on the rushing.
86:11But you just can't tell yourself a story. There's no ceiling player in his passing game when Brown is hurt.
86:17Dobbs is nice. Henry is nice. He can throw to either of his backs.
86:21They're good players, but there isn't somebody who's going to drag him to fantasy relevance.
86:25Drake May right now is not a top 10 fantasy quarterback.
86:28Next two weeks are tough, too. Jags, Bills. Bills' defense, I'm not 100% sure how to calibrate, too.
86:33But then there's a really good stretch of the schedule from week five all the way to the bye week, where they
86:40get the Raiders, the Jets, the Bears, the Dolphins, the Packers, and then the Lions before that week 11 bye coming back from Munich.
86:47So there's definitely a moment where it's going to lighten up here for the Patriots, but they will need A.J.
86:53Brown back, and I don't know what A.J. Brown is going to look like when he comes back.
86:58That certainly gives me some pause when it looks to the optimism there.
87:01All right. Last one we're going to take here.
87:04Hate their playoff schedule, too. Hate their playoff schedule.
87:07It's terrible. Yeah, it's not great. Chiefs, there's Vikings in there.
87:10Bronco, not ideal. That is for sure. Okay. Jeff B sends in.
87:13I asked about Justin Herbert last week, passed up on Brock Purdy for Jalen Coker on priority type waivers.
87:19I may be coping with that decision. No, you're not.
87:22You'd rather have Jalen Coker, I think. Brett Whitefield over the summer hypothesized that McDaniel was more product of Tyreek than an offensive guru.
87:29He could be spot on. Feels strange to even think about picking up and playing Bryce Young or Kirk Cousins for the foreseeable future, but desperate times.
87:37It's a time to put Justin Herbert in the coping corner.
87:40I'm not going to put him in the coping corner.
87:43I would hear an argument for total panic, and I probably won't rank him as a top 10 quarterback coming into this week.
87:49I listed this at some panic, Scott, because in a weird way, when everything is going wrong, as it is for the
87:56Chargers, they actually have a really good team when Ladd McConkie's on the field.
88:00They're like the seventh best offense in the NFL from an EPA per play standpoint, according to late-round quarterback, our guy J.J.
88:06Zacharisen, but the second worst offense by EPA when Ladd McConkie's not on the field.
88:10So, obviously, Ladd's hurt. That's not a deal. Everything is going wrong for the Chargers right now.
88:15It makes me think that things can stabilize a little bit, but I have Justin Herbert in a lot of leagues, and
88:22I am selling the idea that, oh, yeah, he's going to be a top five quarterback.
88:26So, he might end up more in that backhand, like top 10 type of quarterback, if that makes sense.
88:32But I've certainly got some panic about the situation.
88:35I don't know how you couldn't based on how it's looked the last two weeks.
88:39Total panic for me. And I spent the whole summer pumping the tires on the Chargers, putting air in their tires and putting this team to the moon.
88:47Now, I just like to get out of state with this team.
88:50It's so bad. They don't look good. This is supposed to be the easy games.
88:55They lose to the Cardinals. They lose to the Raiders.
88:58And now look what the NFL schedule maker has done for them.
89:01Bills at Bills at Seahawks. Broncos, Chiefs, bye week.
89:04I think bye week is favored by a touchdown in that.
89:07Week seven, Rams, Texans, Ravens. Understanding the snow globe of football, and some of those teams won't be as good as we
89:13think by the time the Chargers play them. Where's the easy game?
89:17Where's the get right game? This McDaniel offense can take time for people to feel comfortable in it.
89:22Of course, their offensive line can never stay healthy for 10 seconds.
89:26And we talked about this a little bit last week.
89:28I was just worried that maybe McConkie is a Jenga piece, that you take him out and everything collapses.
89:34He did play in week two with compromise, with extra equipment on.
89:37He didn't look like the same guy at all.
89:40I want to burn everything I wrote about the Chargers a month ago.
89:44And there's reasons, but I don't want to play Justin Herbert in the teeth of the schedule.
89:49I'd be looking for a different quarterback. David Njoku and Charlie Kolar are going on IR.
89:53They're going to miss at least four games, too.
89:56So all those heavy personnel groupings that they were going to roll out there, that's not going to happen.
90:01And Aranda Gadsden, do they trust him to be like a full-time inline tight end?
90:06I'm not sure about that. They're having to make a lot of changes on the fly here.
90:11A lot of issues. Like, Joe Alt having a bad game in week two?
90:15Like, how is Joe Alt having bad games in this offense?
90:18It's absolutely crazy. So I will say, I think that there's a chance that that Bill's Chargers game actually could turn into
90:24a little bit of a fantasy-friendly, high-scoring affair. Because neither of those defenses have been great so far this year.
90:30But the Chargers got to get it together really quickly.
90:33And I have Herbert on a lot of teams.
90:36I will certainly at least be looking at the waiver wire and like, do I want to play a Bryce Young over Justin Herbert?
90:43And when I'm talking about, do I want to play a Bryce Young over a Justin Herbert?
90:48I certainly think that's either some panic or total panic on the Chargers operation right now.
90:52Okay, we are going to go to another quick break.
90:55We come back. We're talking waiver wire and players you can drop.
90:59We'll get into that right after this. All right, we're back.
91:02And welcome to waiver wire targets presented by Duke Cannon.
91:05The soap is virtually bench proof. Each week, we provide top 10 lists from Justin Boone's waiver wire targets and also a
91:11list of players you can consider dropping as well.
91:14Number 10 on the list this week is Kenyon Sadiq.
91:16What do we think about Kenyon Sadiq as a waiver wire target?
91:20Scott Pianowski. Just too many people in front of him.
91:23Other tight ends I think could be, I like Sadiq as a player.
91:27I like him as a prospect. He's a smart kid.
91:30I think he's an athletic kid. And I like that he's come back from the injury so quickly.
91:35But this is still an offense. It's a bottom 10 offense.
91:38And they have a target hog in Wilson. And they have a deep guy in Mitchell.
91:43They have a couple of backs that they like.
91:45Hall will catch passes. I just think they're cutting up a pie that's already really, really small.
91:50Other than by week season, Sadiq's not going to be in my radar.
91:54Fair enough. A decent tight end flyer, I suppose, if you really need it.
91:58But, you know, yeah, I'm with you. At least the Jets offense has looked better than expected so far through the first couple of weeks.
92:05Although it was definitely a little step back in week two than week one.
92:09Number nine on the list here is Rashad Bateman.
92:12Bateman had a game. He actually got involved in the offense in week number two.
92:16Scott Pianowski. So far, he has run around on 86% of the dropbacks.
92:20That ranks 18th most among all pass catchers in the NFL right now.
92:24So he's out there, Scott. He didn't do anything in week one.
92:27He did do something in week two. Of course, the difference between those two football games is Zay Flowers participated in one.
92:34He did not participate in the other. Now, the good news is for Sunday in Brazil, the Ravens are playing the Dallas Cowboys.
92:40And then in week four, they're playing the Tennessee Titans.
92:43Week five, Atlanta Falcons. Week six, Cleveland Browns. Week seven, Cincinnati Bengals.
92:47Like, there actually is a decent stretch of games here coming up for the Ravens offense.
92:51Any interest in Rashad Bateman as a deep wide receiver add?
92:54Yeah, I'm not opposed to it. The key here for me is that Lane is hurt also.
92:59So, you know, Bateman wasn't a part of the week one game plan.
93:03But, you know, at that point, you know, Flowers, who was going to the moon.
93:07I mean, he was going to have 200 plus yards easy.
93:11Maybe even 300, depending on how the game would have gone.
93:14He's just an uncomfortable freak downfield. But, you know, Lane has a touchdown wiped out in that game.
93:19He was the primary package player for them because Lane is now out for several weeks.
93:24And Bateman is coming off a productive week, too.
93:26You know, Declan Doyle seems like the breath of fresh air that this offense needed.
93:31Yeah, I'm in on Bateman as one of those DFS paydowns.
93:34You know, you have an injured receiver room. It's amazing how many receivers are hurt right now.
93:39I think Bateman's in play for week three. Yeah.
93:41By the way, I think Declan Doyle, I agree with you, is the guy.
93:45Like, really good offensive coordinator. The offense is super well designed.
93:49Love to see that. Bateman even got some work from the slot.
93:52I mentioned this in preseason. He's basically, like, never played in the slot.
93:5625% so far in the slot. That's good for Bateman.
93:59He got almost all 88 yards and a touchdown.
94:01If you played him last week, you know, Hayden and I talked about him on Sunday morning on the live show.
94:07Which, by the way, if you're not watching our Sunday morning live show, FFL and the Q&A stream, you definitely should be doing it.
94:14In addition to getting your answers from Scott. Like, you could get answers anywhere from us here on Yahoo at this point on Sunday morning.
94:22How can you not access us? We are very accessible.
94:25That is for sure. We talked about Bateman as a top 50 receiver play and somebody that you could get in as
94:31a wide receiver three type of option. Certainly, again, somebody that you can consider.
94:35He's going to be boom bust totally. But the offense looks really good under Declan Doyle.
94:40He did just have some issues calling plays in the second half.
94:43But that's a young guy learning the position. And it was nice to see Bateman get involved.
94:48After Lamar Jackson basically said, like, yeah, that's my guy.
94:51I'm going to get him involved. So good to see for Bateman on that one.
94:55Also a guy that Hayden and I talked about on Sunday morning as one of those high ceiling boom bust type wide receiver.
95:02Three options in a long list of them was Trey Tucker of the Las Vegas Raiders who comes in eighth on the list.
95:09Tucker looks exactly like how I thought he was going to look in this offense.
95:13Week two, he's just catching deep post routes in breakers all over the place.
95:17Like, Scott, Trey Tucker can play a little bit.
95:20And this Raiders offense looks excellent under Clint Kubiak right now.
95:23Can we squint and pretend that Trey Tucker is Alec Pierce?
95:26Could he lead the league in yards per catch?
95:29I see it. I think Kubiak like it. It's not that wide of a target tree.
95:33There's some gettable games on the schedule. The Saints in week three.
95:37Yeah, I'm in on to, you know, I think Kirk Cousins looks a lot better than I expected.
95:42I thought Kirk Cousins was going to play so poorly that Mendoza might be playing by October.
95:47That's probably on ice for a while. Yeah, I'm in on to you have to accept him for what he is.
95:53I mean, he's a poor man's Jamison Williams. It's going to be games where he does absolutely nothing.
95:58The air yards turn into prayer yards. But I like the coach.
96:02I think the offense is on the upswing and I don't think there's that much competition for targets here.
96:07So Trey Tucker, whether the air yards or prayer yards, I think is in play against New Orleans in week three and certainly a proactive pickup.
96:15And he's run around on 81% of the dropbacks.
96:17Like that's just behind Tee Higgins. It's just behind it's just behind Parker Washington.
96:21It's more than Colson Loveland, more than Harold Fannin.
96:24It's more than CeeDee Lamb. Like he's out there.
96:27You got to give him credit. Like Trey Tucker is out there.
96:30He's got one role. He's going to do that role.
96:33And I agree with you. Maybe like a poor man's version of what we got out of Alec Pierce last year where
96:39he like, again, I think Trey Tucker can play.
96:42Like he's not some goofball bad player. Like he's actually a real deal wide receiver who has like a narrow skill set, but a skill set that works.
96:50He beats zone coverage. He wins on the inbreakers.
96:53And guess what this offense wants to do, Scott?
96:55They want to push the ball on inbreaking routes and they want to beat zone coverage.
97:00So congratulations, Trey Tucker. You are absolutely on the menu.
97:03Number seven in the top 10 here from Justin Boone.
97:06It is Emmitt Johnson of the Kansas City Chiefs.
97:08Emmitt Johnson looks good whenever he touches the ball, Scott.
97:11And we all hope nothing happens to Kenneth Walker, but if it did, Emmitt Johnson would be an instant running back one in fantasy.
97:18Emmitt Johnson is expected to get more snaps, according to Andy Reid.
97:22We'll see about that. But listen, he's definitely a guy that can play, I think.
97:26Really simple. He's shown talent. Offensive line has been upgraded.
97:29He's to clear backup. No other back is getting carries in this offense.
97:33He's not, I don't think, going to have standalone value.
97:36What the heck? Flex value Sigmund Blum TM. But a one injury away.
97:39Oh my God, Emmitt Johnson's running back 11 this week.
97:42That's in play. He should be. I think I don't like to ensure handcuff my running backs.
97:47But if you have Walker, I would think on a lot of teams, Johnson would make a lot of sense.
97:53Usually I'm trying to get the backups of other people starters.
97:56But there are four or five priority one injury away running backs who don't have value right now.
98:01Johnson's on that list. Absolutely agree with that for sure.
98:04Or he's definitely somebody who should be just rostered across leagues.
98:07Okay, number six on the top 10 is Arande Gadsden, the Chargers tight end.
98:11We talked about this in the previous segment that Charlie Kolar and David Njoku are going on injured reserve.
98:17I am interested to see what's going to happen with Arande Gadsden's usage.
98:21Because, I mean, we saw Gadsden be really good as a pass catcher.
98:24We just know that he's not necessarily that true inline threat that this offense probably wants.
98:29Well, guess what? There are no other tight ends on this roster.
98:33The only other tight end who's on the practice – actually, there's two tight ends on the practice squad.
98:38One of them is Justin Herbert's brother, Patrick Herbert.
98:41So maybe we'll see him get a bump up to play with his brother.
98:45Evan Savab. I'm sorry. I don't know this rookie out of Wyoming, Evan S., he's on the practice squad.
98:50I mean, it sounds like Arande Gadsden is going to have to get back involved here, Scott.
98:55And look, they might need him because Ladd McConkie has been awesome when he's been out there.
99:00Nobody else in the pass catching group has been awesome.
99:03Nobody else has even really been acceptable at this point.
99:06And Gadsden at least made a play on Sunday.
99:09The fact that it's opportunity-based, right? When is McConkie going to be healthy?
99:12Other tight ends hurt, which cleans up that room.
99:15And do you like Trey Harris? Do you like Quinton Johnson?
99:18I mean, they have things they offer, things they don't offer.
99:21Gadsden just shows how things turn around because a couple weeks ago he wasn't draftable or he was somebody maybe he should have cut.
99:28And now everything has fallen into him having opportunity and really becoming a needed part of this Chargers offense.
99:34So he'll be in the top 15 of my tight end ranks this week and somebody who should be on rostered in any kind of medium league.
99:42Same here. And there's definitely an argument that if you played like Mark Andrews last week, I would rather play Gadsden.
99:48Again, there's definitely some guys that he would start over that were started last week in Yahoo Leagues.
99:53And also, again, in the summer when we're sitting here saying, well, Ronda Gadsden doesn't really fit Mike McDaniel's offense.
99:59Mike McDaniel, you better make these guys fit your offense, okay?
100:02Because not been impressed with the offense through two weeks.
100:05So Gadsden can play. He can help you as a pass catcher.
100:08Figure out the blocking stuff and let's get this guy involved and get the ball out of Herbert's hands because he needs some quick answers.
100:15And Gadsden gave them that last week. A guy who's got a lot of answers right now is number five on our
100:22list here, Bryce Young, quarterback of the Carolina Panthers, who leads all quarterbacks in yards off play action, Scott.
100:27I mean, he has had a cupcake schedule here in the first two weeks.
100:31It's the Bears defense, which is bad, and a Cooper Rush Falcons team that they just completely obliterated in week two.
100:37But again, there's some upcoming games here. Browns, Lions for the Carolina Panthers.
100:41Can Bryce Young continue to ride this momentum as a QB1?
100:44You sure can. I mean, we like Dave Canales.
100:47We like Ted McMillan. All we've done all show is, even though it's a show about panic, is talk about how great Jalen Coker is.
100:54Backs are capable. And even if you don't think it's long-term sustainable, the Browns' defense is nothing special.
101:00And the Lions' defense is obviously a defense to attack.
101:02So yeah, Bryce Young over Justin Herbert for the meantime.
101:05Or if you lost Caleb Williams, you look into Bryce Young.
101:09Yeah, I'll certainly give a green light on this one.
101:11So we had a comment way back from Mojol, way back in the Colson-Loveland discussion, said, I'd take Darren Waller over Colson-Loveland.
101:18I don't know if I'm quite there yet, but you know what?
101:21Darren Waller has been a useful player for this team.
101:24Xavier Leggett is a part-time player. He had a couple of moments for this team.
101:28So yes, they have the main guys. Tedrow McMillan, Jalen Coker are dominating targets.
101:33They're almost like 50% of the targets combined with each other.
101:36But Chuba Hubbard's been useful as a pass catcher.
101:38Waller has been a little bit of a mismatch, especially when they get into the scoring area.
101:43Leggett's had his moments. Great. And Brad Idzik, it's been a huge success changing over from Dave Canales to Brad Idzik as the play caller for this team.
101:51Keeping some of the things that have been stable there, but also adding like him and Bryce have a really good relationship, really good chemistry.
101:59We've talked about that show consistently in we've talked about that on this show consistently throughout the offseason.
102:04So yeah, Bryce Young, I definitely think he's playing really well.
102:07I would continue to ride this. And if you got him as a QB2 and Superflex, congratulations.
102:12Great, great selection there. Number four off the waiver wire is Emmanuel Wilson running back Seattle Seahawks.
102:17Pretty simple here, Scott. Just a lot of injuries in that backfield, and he could end up being the starter this week.
102:23Right, yeah, after Price got hurt, you saw Wilson getting some goal line opportunity.
102:27It's all tied to Price's injury status. And I realize most leagues' waivers run Tuesday night, Wednesday morning.
102:33So you're going to have to make a guess with incomplete information.
102:36But anytime you see somebody who has a path to 15 touches in the next week, you have to consider a bid.
102:42That's why Wilson belongs on this list and in the middle of this list where Justin slotted him.
102:48Number three is Tank Bigsby, who again, pretty simple case here.
102:51Bigsby was always one of the best running back insurance policies, one of the best handcuffs out there.
102:56If Barkley misses any time, if he misses this week with a little bit of an injury, they're playing the Bears.
103:02Bigsby would be a really nice start, even if we have concerns about the run game.
103:07The fact that the run game has not looked great through two weeks, it dampens some of the shine on Tank Bigsby.
103:13But I still think he's someone that should be rostered across leagues.
103:17Agree, although we have to temper the expectations with the Philadelphia O-line being a problem.
103:21And if I rostered Bigsby, I might just take the temperature of the Barkley manager and see if he wants to maybe overpay for the insurance.
103:28You can always have the discussion. You can always say no.
103:32Because I think Barkley, I think Bigsby's ceiling for me is a little bit less exciting than it might be seen in some other people's minds.
103:39But for sure, we know this, if Barkley can't go, if Barkley's compromised, it's certainly the Bigsby show.
103:44So we're talking about 15 or 20 touches. And even if I want to tamp down expectations here, the line, the new
103:51coordinator, all the new faces in the passing game, the Eagles are at least going to be an average offense and probably an above average one.
103:58Number two on the list is Denzel Boston, who leads all rookies with 95% route participation for the Cleveland Browns.
104:04Scott, he has been really impressive. I just charted him this morning for RP.
104:08He was on the ball on 98% of his snaps.
104:11Like he is playing X receiver like a real deal.
104:14I mean, he's been a real deal receiver like true X vertical routes.
104:18But him and Watson connected on some quick outs as well.
104:21Some shorter stuff. He even could have had a bigger day if he had just held on to one pass in the
104:27end zone that Watson did kind of throw right into that small sliver of separation that Boston found for himself there.
104:33It's crazy that this guy wasn't a first round pick in the NFL draft.
104:37Like he should have been a first round receiver in this class.
104:41The Browns got to steal with him. And he has been putting up some production and some nice tape as well.
104:47I really liked what I saw from Boston. So, Scott, I think Boston should definitely be rostered at this point and is
104:53in that like wide receiver 3-4 mix. Yeah, 6'4 frame.
104:56Good catch radius. He's made deep plays. I realized we wrote off week one because it happened in garbage time.
105:02But man, Cleveland controlled that game at Tampa Bay.
105:05And as hard as it is to say, Deshaun Watson looked like a competent NFL quarterback for the first time in a long time.
105:12So, we wondered, would Boston or Concepcion be the rookie who got off to the faster start?
105:17Where does Fannin fit into this? They can't seem to get Judkins going.
105:20Right now, this feels like Denzel Boston's offense. And this is the final week.
105:24This is the last alarm because he'll go over the roster tag when we stop talking about these guys.
105:30He's going to be rostered mostly justifiably so after a couple of days.
105:34Yeah. All three of those young players, Fannin, Concepcion, Boston have been good.
105:37Boston's the one putting up the production. I think all of them have been good.
105:42Let's get Jerry Judy off this roster and see what happens here.
105:45Okay. Number one waiver ad, according to Justin Boone, is running back Jonah Coleman, who did not play at all in week one.
105:52Then had a really nice showing in week number two.
105:55Touches after J.K. Dobbins went down with R.J. Harvey inactive.
105:58Nine for Jonah Coleman. One for Tyler Bidet, who's a really good pass protector.
106:02I think Bidet actually might continue to play. Harvey was a mess and pass prone week one.
106:07Dobbins hasn't been that great. We'll see. Maybe Dobbins.
106:09It kind of sounds like it might be a little bit more optimistic on Dobbins than maybe we thought yesterday.
106:15But regardless, Coleman should be rostered. And I think there's a chance that if you give him some touches, he could just
106:21actually end up being the starting back for this team.
106:24Because Dobbins has not looked great, unfortunately, through two weeks.
106:27Yeah, that's the big part of this. It isn't just the opportunity that he might get if people are hurt.
106:33It's the idea that the genie could be out of the bottle.
106:37And it might be the Jonah Coleman show for the majority.
106:40I don't know how quickly that reveal may come.
106:42But it's very possible that by the middle of the season, Jonah Coleman is like a set and forget, like running back
106:4914, running back 15, something like that. Maybe even a little bit more of an upside.
106:53And nice to see the Broncos get their offense off the restricted list because they look so bad in that Kansas City game.
107:00But then they were much more what we expected against a good Jacksonville defense.
107:04So we can feel good about Denver again, obviously a new play caller there.
107:08But Jonah Coleman deserves to be number one here and you should go after him aggressively.
107:13All right. Five players you can consider dropping here.
107:15This I picked these five from Boone's list. Number five, Baker Mayfield.
107:19Number four, Rico Dowdle. Aggressive drop maybe on Rico Dowdle.
107:22But that Steelers offense is brutal to watch. Stinks out loud.
107:25And I think there's nothing good coming from that backfield.
107:28Chris Rodriguez is someone I think you consider dropping.
107:30He doesn't even have the goal line role. That's spatial tunes right now.
107:34Said it last week. Definitely think you can drop Kenny Gainwell as well.
107:38Just doesn't have a clear role like Bucky Irving is the guy there.
107:42He's been more involved as a pass catcher. The number one drop from the list does unfortunately have to be Jaden Reed
107:48who had a serious injury on Sunday. We'll see when we see him again.
107:52He definitely won't play on Thursday. So probably this offense is going to just run through Watson, Golden, Kraft until if when Reed can come back.
108:00Boone also listed Cortland Sutton as a player you could potentially drop, which I think is an aggressive drop.
108:05Sutton has been on the field for 87.7% of the routes.
108:08He just hasn't really been consistently involved. He only has nine targets, five catches, 36 yards.
108:13It would be an aggressive drop, but I could kind of see it.
108:17You know, like he's basically had Marvin Harrison Jr.'s production so far.
108:20And they have the same like route participation and they kind of have the same role.
108:25So is that like a similar situation, Scott, where it's like the name of Cortland Sutton is bigger than the game?
108:31And where are we at with that one? At least he's been productive the last couple of years.
108:36He was targeted for an end zone fade where Nick's made a really poor read.
108:41The play was well covered. That was bad. He threw it up anyway and ended up being an interception totally on Nick's.
108:47But I still think Harrison, I still think Sutton will have seven or eight touchdowns by the end of the year.
108:53My top five drops would have been Marvin Harrison Jr., Marvin Harrison, Mazda Marv, M.
108:57Harrison, and number 18 for Arizona. I would cut all five of those guys.
109:01You're just like the social media agitators out there.
109:04You're just dumping on Marvin Harrison Jr., Scott. Brutal stuff from you.
109:08Interesting. The name that you mentioned that interested me the most was Rico Doddle.
109:12I still think he can play, but is it possible that Aaron Rodgers is so cooked that there's no ceiling for anybody in this?
109:19I had a lot of hope for Jalen Warren.
109:21I'm worried that maybe they're going to score 10 points a week.
109:25Oh, my God. Scott, I mean, I'm sure you watched the game on Sunday.
109:29Patriots involved. That was horrible to watch. I think that offense is cooked with Rodgers as the quarterback.
109:34And, of course, he's afterwards kind of deflecting the blame.
109:37I just think they got to do something. They can't run what they've done the first two weeks where they're one of
109:43the highest pass rate over expected teams. And, you know, DK Metcalf is your number one receiver.
109:48It's not going to work. But that's what the roster is, and that's probably what it will be.
109:53So there we go. How far is DK Metcalf from being a drop?
109:57Not far. I mean, that was always going to be a bad game for him because Christian Gonzalez was going to track him around the field.
110:05But he is not somebody I would be considering starting right now.
110:08Nor is he one of these guys. Like, I know he's going to pop in some air yard models and things of
110:14that nature because of his targets and everything. I just wouldn't be wanting a piece of that offense at this point.
110:21They have to really, really change the way they're going about things.
110:24And I don't know that that's happening because that's just not how Rodgers operates.
110:28I don't really know where they go from here.
110:31I feel pretty bad about what we're seeing with the Steelers on the football field right now.
110:36I feel great, though, Scott, whenever you and I get a chance to podcast together.
110:40I love this show. This was super fun. Appreciate you doing it, man.
110:44And we'll be talking to you soon. How does that sound?
110:47Sounds great. And just a hat tip to Justin Boone, our colleague, who's had some things he's going through right now.
110:53But he'll be back in the cell soon enough.
110:56And we love you. Can't wait to have you back.
110:58We love Justin Boone. And, yeah, always thinking about our colleague, Justin Boone, our friend, Justin Boone.
111:03You know, you've seen him on the Sunday morning show.
111:06You will be seeing him back on this show here very, very soon.
111:10I can promise you that. So we love Boone, of course, and definitely make sure to wish him well.
111:16All right. That's going to do it for this show.
111:18We will be back tomorrow with the weekly data dump with Ray Garvin and an update on the Yahoo Fantasy Analyst League.
111:25And, you know, another big win for somebody who talks into the microphone on this podcast.
111:29I wonder who it could be. I guess you guys will find out tomorrow.
111:34Until then, we are out.
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