PodcastFrom The Long View Podcast
What Week 1 Told us About the Rest of the Season
STACKED extracted the fantasy-relevant player signal from this podcast and kept the full transcript here for context.
1 min
Duration
Estimated from transcript
Sep 17, 2026
Published
Thu, September 17, 2026
21
Player insights
17
Players mentioned
Topics
Daniel JonesJonathan TaylorJosh DownsAaron JonesAlec PierceAnthony RichardsonBo NixBryce YoungCourtland SuttonJameson WilliamsJaylen WaddleJordan MasonJuwan JohnsonKeenan Allen
Player analysis
Player insights
Aaron Jones
PositiveUsage1:00
With Jordan Mason on IR, Aaron Jones is expected to serve as the primary workhorse for the Minnesota backfield, potentially handling 80% of the touches in the short term.
Insight pageAlec Pierce
NegativeUsage2:00
Alec Pierce saw six targets in Week 1, including intermediate routes. While the source notes he was prioritized, they question his effectiveness and health, noting he struggled to separate on key third-down plays.
Insight pageAnthony Richardson
NegativeBust5:00
Richardson is described as a highly inaccurate passer who consistently misses throws from clean pockets. Despite his elite athleticism, the source expresses skepticism regarding his long-term viability as a starting NFL quarterback, noting that he struggled significantly with basic passing mechanics.
Insight pageBo Nix
NegativeProjection11:20
Bo Nix is described as a 'super hot and cold' quarterback who historically starts seasons slowly. While his Week 1 performance was poor, the source suggests he is capable of improvement and that his inconsistency is part of the expected experience.
Insight pageBryce Young
NegativeProjection0:00
Ben Gretch notes that he received questions about Bryce Young because he did not include him in his Week 1 Stealing Signals analysis, acknowledging that he often skips the quarterback position in his writing more than he should.
Insight pageCourtland Sutton
NegativeUsage12:40
Courtland Sutton remains a focal point in the Sean Payton offense, recording a 79% route participation rate in Week 1, consistent with Payton's historical preference for a big-bodied X-receiver.
Insight pageDaniel Jones
NegativeProjection2:00
The source is concerned about Daniel Jones' performance, specifically his inability to drive the ball downfield with velocity, which negatively impacts the effectiveness of the Colts' passing game.
Insight pageNegativeInjury3:00
Jones is dealing with a right Achilles injury in his drive leg, which is a significant concern for his ability to drive the ball downfield. Historical context from Kirk Cousins and Aaron Rodgers suggests that quarterbacks coming off Achilles injuries often struggle with deep-ball velocity and mechanics in the immediate aftermath.
Insight pageNegativeProjection6:15
The source expresses skepticism regarding Daniel Jones's ability, noting he is 'frankly not that good' and prone to throwing interceptions, as seen in his first game back from an Achilles injury.
Insight pageJameson Williams
NegativeUsage2:00
Despite struggles with drops in Week 1, Jamison Williams saw nine targets, indicating a significant role in the Lions' hyper-concentrated offense alongside Amon-Ra St. Brown, Jahmyr Gibbs, and Sam LaPorta.
Insight pageJaylen Waddle
PositiveUsage10:30
The source is bullish on Jalen Waddle's usage, noting an 82% route participation rate in Week 1, which exceeded expectations and surpassed Courtland Sutton. While Waddle had drop issues and struggled with Bo Nix's accuracy, the team's commitment to featuring him in the slot and various formations suggests long-term upside.
Insight pageJonathan Taylor
NegativeUsage6:00
Taylor had a long touchdown run negated by a holding penalty in a game against the Rams last season, highlighting his potential for explosive plays when not hampered by team-wide execution errors.
Insight pageNegativeUsage8:00
Despite a fumble, Jonathan Taylor remains the Colts' best player. The source dismisses the fumble as a random occurrence rather than a reflection of poor play or coaching failure.
Insight pageJordan Mason
NegativeInjury1:00
Jordan Mason was placed on short-term IR due to a thumb injury sustained in Week 1.
Insight pageJosh Downs
NegativeUsage2:00
Downs was a focal point of the Colts' opening drive with three targets and two catches for 37 yards, serving as a clear first-read target. Despite the game script shifting negatively, he demonstrated high-end potential on a slot fade route where he beat his defender by 10 yards; had the pocket held, it would have been an easy 39-yard touchdown.
Insight pageNegativeProjection2:00
The source expresses concern (7/10 on the panic meter) regarding Josh Downs' target volume after he recorded only four targets in Week 1, tied with Jonathan Taylor, while Alec Pierce and Keenan Allen were prioritized.
Insight pageJuwan Johnson
NegativeValue0:00
Jacob Sanderson identifies Jawan Johnson as a player he finds legitimately interesting to discuss, even though he likely won't make the cut for his top 30 most interesting players in his Dynasty column.
Insight pageKeenan Allen
NegativeUsage2:00
Keenan Allen's six-catch performance in Week 1 is viewed as noise by the source, noting that several receptions occurred in garbage time on underneath drag routes.
Insight pageMakai Lemon
NegativeUsage0:00
Ben Gretch highlights Makai Lemon's Week 1 performance of four targets and negative five receiving yards as an interesting situation that warrants further analysis and a blurb in his column.
Insight pageNico Collins
NegativeInjury1:00
Nico Collins sustained a grade one hamstring strain in practice. He is considered doubtful for Week 2 but is not expected to miss more than one to two weeks.
Insight pageZay Flowers
NegativeInjury1:00
Zay Flowers suffered a minor hamstring injury in Week 1 after a strong first half. He missed practice Wednesday and Thursday but is considered questionable for Week 2 and is not expected to miss significant time.
Insight pageFull transcript
Episode Transcript
0:00What Week 1 Told us About the Rest of the 2026 Fantasy Season, that's what we're talking about today on The Long View.
0:00I'm Ben Gretch. You can find the Stealing Signals newsletter at bengretch.substack.com.
0:00You can find the great Thinking About Thinking newsletter at jacobsanderson.substack.com.
0:00I didn't even say it with me as always is Jacob Sanderson.
0:00He writes the great Thinking About Thinking newsletter. You've got your great stuff out there.
0:00I was deep in the lab writing Stealing Signals Week 1.
0:00It's always from it's a 10th year doing it for me.
0:00It's always such a relief. I don't know. Like it's always a blast to do Week 1, but like there's always some data things in Week 1.
0:00There's always some different things that need to be set up.
0:00It's more repeatable every other week. And then obviously going through every game, it's the first look at all these teams are so much to cover.
0:00So by the time I finish Week 1, I'm always just like, whew, that was a lot.
0:00But like now I feel good. Now we're in season like Week 1 Stealing Signals is out.
0:00I'm sure you feel similar with the Hitchhiker's Guide and all the things that you are doing.
0:00How was the Week 1 process? How are you feeling right now?
0:00Like a mix of fun and exhausting, right? I mean, that's kind of how it always is.
0:00Like Week 1 is by far the most fun week to write about because we're so starved for information.
0:00We have like eight months of just, you know, hypothesizing about the season with very tiny little pieces of information from beat writers and speculation and preseason.
0:00And then all of a sudden you get this just absolute deluge of information.
0:00And it's a fascinating time. It feels like someone is like just brought oxygen into your lungs all of a sudden.
0:00And it's also tiring because you're trying to write so much and you there's so much more that I even like, I
0:00mean, I wrote over 20,000 words this week. I bet you doubled that.
0:00And and like there's there's like so much that I didn't even have the chance to like get down on paper that
0:00are still percolating over there in my in my mind.
0:00So it's a fascinating, fascinating time. It feels so nice to have actual real football that counts for something back in our
0:00lives and super excited to continue the Week 1 journey with you here.
0:00I love the way that you broke that down, because like especially when you go like game by game and you go
0:00team by team and the Hitchhiker's Guide. There's so many.
0:00Things that we could I always get the response.
0:00It's like, is there ways you can make this shorter or you can be more concise or whatever?
0:00And, you know, I write selling signals. It's it's incredibly long.
0:00And then I do the biggest signal and noise.
0:00And the reality is like, yeah, I mean, there are ways that I could cut corners, but I want to write for every team.
0:00I want to write about the team context, what I actually saw from the team, sort of their play volume, their pass
0:00rate, like the PROE stuff, anything interesting on that level.
0:00So I'm always hitting on the team stuff. I don't want to cut that corner.
0:00And there's always, you know, a degree of, you know, what Week 1 was.
0:00But what does it mean? Like, is it a certainty to lock?
0:00Anything is going to be true for the quarter.
0:00I often skip the quarterback position like more than I should.
0:00I got asked about Bryce Young because I basically didn't write about the, you know, Bryce Young.
0:00Some of the other quarterbacks I made a point to write about.
0:00But I focus on the skill positions a lot, the usage for the running back position and like the overall context within the context of that individual game.
0:00And we know you and I both know that there's so much that comes into the way that a one football game
0:00is played and how it progresses that impacts the results.
0:00And we're going to talk about that in the long view today.
0:00Some of the team stuff. What did Week 1 mean for the rest of the season?
0:00You know, you have like the Chiefs and the Chargers as ones that we want to talk about.
0:00Very interesting individual games for what that season could look like.
0:00Because there's clear outlier type stuff for both of those.
0:00But also maybe it's not as, like maybe there is some signal there.
0:00Maybe it is predictive in some ways, right? And so anyway, you go through the running back position.
0:00Then you go through the pass catchers, the wide receivers, the tight ends.
0:00And like even in some cases, the pass catchers that weren't even that involved, you got to talk about the ones who were involved.
0:00But then it's like, you know, talking about the Eagles.
0:00I want to talk about Makai Lemon having four targets and negative five receiving yards because I actually think there's something interesting there.
0:00And I'll end up writing a log blurb about it.
0:00Because like if I, you know, if I wanted to just do a piece breaking down the rookies, the rookie stuff was super, super interesting for Week 1.
0:00Super interesting. Yeah. So there was so many layers here.
0:00That was actually one of the most interesting things.
0:00I'm going to be writing the article at The Athletic every week and trying to spin forward some of what I wrote.
0:00And the way I framed it for this week was some team level stuff and some rookie stuff.
0:00And, you know, I have to limit my framing because it's everything.
0:00The stealing signals is basically just trying to be everything.
0:00And I can't talk about everything in like 1,500 words at The Athletic.
0:00But those are the like sub topics that I wanted to fixate on from Week 1.
0:00But yeah, I mean, anyway, the way that you said it was perfect.
0:00I'm just reiterating it with a little bit more specifics.
0:00But there are so many things. Like when I go through the game by game thing, it's like how do I make this shorter?
0:00How do I not talk about what Makai Lemon's whole season means just from this Week 1?
0:00Even though there's basically nothing here, I want to recalibrate that whole thing.
0:00And I want to recalibrate that whole thing for all the other players on that team and their team situation and the context of that individual matchup.
0:00And then you go and try to do that for every single team.
0:00And it's like you said, I mean, you know, writing however many words that we both wrote and you get done and
0:00you're like, there's still so much more that I always end up like adding to it.
0:00I wrote the two opening games last Friday and then when I opened this week, I was like, hey, I have some
0:00more notes about the Rams that I want to add from last week.
0:00And then I wrote this week and then I wrote another piece on Wednesday that was like, hey, I just want to
0:00throw in some more thoughts about some things that I – it was – the Wednesday piece was also about some other kind of unrelated things.
0:00I called it the value add of Stealing Signals.
0:00It was talking about what the article aims to be.
0:00But I was talking – at the end, I did a little bit of Q&A and I was talking in – within
0:00there, like layering in some stuff about some takes that I kind of like felt like I cut corners too much on
0:00and didn't really get the full take out there.
0:00Got asked about Dontavian Wicks and I didn't really talk about him.
0:00And it was like, yeah, I mean, that's fair.
0:00I probably should have – the way that I approached this article – I got asked about Wicks too.
0:00Yeah, people are excited about Dontavian Wicks. I got – yeah, I got – because there was like – you know, I write the running back column first.
0:00I promise. I said, hey, like I'm writing non-running back stuff too.
0:00Just wait a day or whatever. And there was a few people that asked about different guys.
0:00And usually my answer was, no, I'm getting to this.
0:00Don't worry. I have Dynasty quarter coming out soon.
0:00And then I got questions on like Wicks. I got questions on Jawan Johnson.
0:00I was like, I'll just answer these questions here because like these are guys that I think are legitimately interesting to talk
0:00about that probably won't even make the cut of like my top 30 most interesting players that I wrote up in like Dynasty quarter call.
0:00I'm like – but I still think they're super interesting.
0:00I'm still going to give you a paragraph answer if you reply that in the comment section.
0:00Probably more of a three-paragraph answer. So, yeah, I mean I wish that I had infinite time and I could write like
0:00a thousand words on literally every player who got 10 plus snaps this week.
0:00Because I think it's super interesting. It's so interesting.
0:00So, yeah. And I love your – you've set up the show sheet.
0:00I love your approach for the long view. You said there was some stuff that maybe you and I – you had
0:00a chance to look through Stealing Signals a little bit and that maybe you and I didn't agree entirely on from a conclusion standpoint.
0:00So we'll get into some of the stuff that we see differently.
0:00That's a really important emphasis here is one of the things that drives me nuts, and I've written about this more and more the last couple of years.
0:00I didn't realize how much it did drive me nuts.
0:00Like I said, this is my 10th year writing Stealing Signals.
0:00And when I started it, there weren't a ton of those columns that existed.
0:00Dwayne McFarlane's Great Utilization Report started about the same time.
0:00I think it was maybe the year after if I remember correctly or maybe it was the same year.
0:00I can't remember exactly. But he's been doing it for a decade too and does incredible work.
0:00And then – and his work is so well known that a lot of people reference a ton of the stuff that
0:00he does, and he shares it on social in incredible ways.
0:00And especially in those early years, he would share the blurbs on social a ton.
0:00And so it would get out there and I would get questions that were like, doesn't the usage say this?
0:00And I'm like, me and Dwayne are allowed to interpret the usage differently.
0:01Right. So that's the thing that I'm saying that drives me nuts is that people think that all usage stuff is the same.
0:01And then they say the usage says this. The usage said that because they read one usage article that said that.
0:01And there's – the way that you're going to interpret it, the way that I'm going to interpret it, the way that Dwayne might interpret it.
0:01And there's so many more of these columns that exist now.
0:01I mean I wrote about this a little bit this week.
0:01But like my column – I'm not trying to say it was some novel topic because it wasn't.
0:01And I basically just took the Evan Silva like matchups column or Rich Rebar's worksheet and then spun it back to, oh,
0:01I'm going to do it as a descriptive rather than a predictive.
0:01Rather than looking at the matchups going forward, I'm going to look at it going back.
0:01And there's always been descriptive backward-looking early week fantasy columns.
0:01But I don't – and probably there were some that existed long before Stealing Signals as well that did the team-by-team stuff.
0:01I didn't know of a lot. And that's the only point is like when I started it, there weren't a ton of those.
0:01Now there's a lot where everyone does – not everyone, but I see a lot of people do the game-by-game or team-by-team,
0:01very involved takeaways with the usage notes and everything to the point that I don't even emphasize the usage notes as much
0:01anymore because I think the – I don't even put them – like I mean I used to spend like more time
0:01doing like the summary of the key statistics. I've like literally stopped because I would just be so stunned if someone reads
0:01my column and doesn't read at least one of your column or Dwayne's column or like the Yankee PFF stuff or whatever else exists.
0:01But I'm just like this is so clearly not my value hat to just report the data to you that I like literally stopped.
0:01It's the interpretation. That's the value hat. You're an analyst.
0:01I'm an analyst. And that's where I'm at too.
0:01Like I still do have the stats in there.
0:01But to your point, yeah, I mean I write about the stats way less.
0:01My signal and noise stuff used to be like here's a stat that's going to regress.
0:01Like this was clearly an outlier stat. This catch rate or this yards per target was an outlier.
0:01And now it's like no, I think like the way that I'm analyzing the production or like it's more – what is
0:01the – what is the word I'm trying to think of?
0:01I don't know. It's less like numerical. Qualitative? That's exactly what I'm trying to think of.
0:01Qualitative versus quantitative. Exactly the words that I'm struggling to find.
0:01Well done. Yeah, like I feel like my column started off as like a little bit of like a running back stats column.
0:01And now it's like I would say the majority of my column is a explaining instances where running back stats may mislead you column if anything else.
0:01Like I think it's like mostly a like here's what I saw that doesn't match what I assume you already know kind
0:01of is like probably the – what I'm saying the most in a lot of my blurbs.
0:01And that's got to be unique to the analyst and how they're perceiving what they watched in the game and what they're
0:01seeing in the stats and what they believe to be going forward.
0:01The thing – so again, to finish this long point that is before even the short view, this is going to be a long show today.
0:01We got so much to talk about. No one ever thought it wouldn't be after week one.
0:01We named the show The Long View for a reason.
0:01But in draft season, we all have different – 100% different like menu of opinions.
0:01You and I may agree on some players. We disagree on other players.
0:01And we're going to talk about some of that stuff today obviously like what happened in week one on players that we agreed or disagreed on.
0:01But everyone knows that like you and I have very different menu like the overall thing.
0:01Even though we completely agree on certain guys and we are largely going to be similar in the ways that we analyze
0:01things, the overall scope of our portfolio of takes is not identical.
0:01Yours is unique to you. Mine is unique to me.
0:01I can tell when I'm in drafts and people are using my ranks, especially in like some of my home leagues because
0:01it's like by the fourth or fifth time, they take one of the guys that I'm higher than market on.
0:01I'm like there's no one else that has that specific concoction of takes.
0:01And I'll call my buddies out on it and then they'll admit it and it's fun because you know that like that's my unique signature.
0:01It's like a password of getting into your computer.
0:01It's like I have a very unique fingerprint of takes across all across the whole landscape and then how you interpret each
0:01game and each player and each team. And what happens just in one week and happens throughout the season is actually we're
0:01updating priors, you know, if we're being Bayesian, as long as we're not like a lot of people do just massively overreact
0:01and they don't have enough of a foundation, enough confidence in their priors.
0:01And that's, you know, that's unfortunate for them. They're going to just continue to be skiing over, you know, outside of every
0:01bracket and missing their marks and everything, right? They're overcorrecting in every case.
0:01You're going to just miss the other way if you don't have some kind of foundation, some kind of prior that you're updating in a Bayesian way.
0:01Having said that, the thing that frustrates me is after one week, you were talking about so much information and every player's case got updated.
0:01And we need to recalibrate everything, literally every week.
0:01I mean, some of it is like, yeah, it's small recalibrations, but we got information on all of these theses that we've been making all off season.
0:01And all of us who interpret it the way that we do as deep as you go, as deep as I go,
0:01as deep as Dwayne or Nathan or so many other people are going to have unique interpretations of all of that.
0:01It is absurd to me that people talk about it and fantasy analysts are among the worst.
0:01And like, I'm like hopefully preaching to people that will change their vernacular as they talk about this stuff.
0:01Cause they talk about it like it's fact, like it's known, like this interpretation is what the data said, is what the usage said.
0:01And I'm like, it's not how I interpreted it.
0:01And it doesn't mean that my analysis is any more certain thing.
0:01Agency to numbers. Yeah. It's like the data doesn't say things.
0:01We say, right. We're humans. Yeah. That's one interpretation.
0:01That is one analyst's opinion. And you're saying that it's fact and it's not, I mean, it's in a lot of cases, it drives me nuts.
0:01Cause I'm like, that's wrong. That's bad analysis. I want to argue the point.
0:01And you're telling people that like, that is exactly how it is, or that's what the data says, or that's what it means.
0:01No, it's not specifically. I mean, that's your interpretation.
0:01And in some cases, I mean, I understand the need to, to, to speak with conviction and talk about that and stuff,
0:01but it's more like when somebody refers to like somebody else's interpretation as fact that I get a little bit, or it
0:01refers to any of my interpretations as fact. And hopefully people that read my, Oh, there's, there's nothing that bothers me more
0:01than when I say, cause I mean, like usually the way I structure my column is like, I throw out a million
0:01caveats in the intro about how much I don't know and how much you should be uncertain.
0:01And then like when I actually get into the team by team stuff, like it's kind of hard to keep reiterating that over and over again.
0:01And so I understand how, if someone only reads a couple sentences that I wrote in the middle of the column, they
0:01may come away with the impression that I'm speaking more confidently than I actually am.
0:01Right. Like I've got to just giving what my read is.
0:01And then sometimes I hear like my own takes parroted out into the world where someone's like, well, he said this, so that's going to happen.
0:01I'm like, well, I wouldn't go that far. Yeah.
0:01So it's a good, I mean, I understand like, you know, not everyone has unlimited budget for all the different things and
0:01all that stuff, but it's a good reason that if you can afford it to subscribe to both mine and Jacob's newsletters, read them both.
0:01There's going to be areas where we agree. There's going to be areas where we don't agree.
0:01Read other people's content as well. It's helping, giving you a bigger picture, a bigger, I always say with stealing signals.
0:01And again, I know, you know, money is a, is a, is a concern here for, for some people, but I always
0:01say to people to use my stealing signals along with other stuff to the extent that you can, along with rankings or
0:01projections or other things that I'm not doing. Um, I'm trying to give you a way to interpret other stuff.
0:01That was kind of the value add thing that I was talking about was it's very in depth.
0:01And I'm hoping that you then take that. And when you see all these great stats thrown out on, on social media
0:01and you see all these other takes and you see the projections out there, you have context for where maybe some of
0:01that stuff is not perfectly aligned with what I would think.
0:01If you care about my opinion, what I would think would be accurate, but also why in some cases it eyebrow raises for you.
0:01There will be some context about how the production came to be and, and, and whether it will be, um, sustainable and
0:01what was signal and what was noise and all these things that allows you to interpret all that other information and have
0:01the, the, the strong priors and the, and the foundational stuff.
0:01And that's exactly what you do as well. Um, so anyway, I just, I, that's what I'm so excited to talk to
0:01you about all this stuff because we should have differing opinions on the interpretation.
0:01And I, I'm just trying to tell the audience who sometimes respond, like I thought the usage said this, or I thought they get confused.
0:01It's like, no, man, we just have different interpretations.
0:01It's a very small sample. If you go watch all these games, we're talking about 60 offensive plays.
0:01I mean, cut that up into like four blocks of 15, like 50, 60 sounds like a bigger number than it is.
0:01Like you're talking about like 15 plays a quarter or whatever, but like, let's say 60 is, is happens to be split immediately down the middle.
0:01You have 30 runs, you have 30 passes. Usually it's more passes than runs, 35, 25, whatever.
0:01The reason I was saying to cut it in a blocks of 15 is like, you just think about like when a
0:01guy has like 10 targets, 12 targets, 15 targets, it's a huge chunk of their offense for the week.
0:01If a running back has 20, 25, 30 touches, that's a huge chunk.
0:01That might be half their touch their, their offensive snaps in a week.
0:01If they get to 30 plus, you're taking so much from the rest of the offense and the, and the overall, and
0:01then how does that manifest over multiple weeks? And what do these things mean?
0:01And we're going to talk about as much as we absolutely can.
0:01We're going to get into it. We should get into the short view as soon as we possibly can here.
0:01We're still not going to cover it. We're going to barely scratch the surface.
0:01We're going to try to get to as much as we can.
0:01There's still so much more that you can read in Jacob's great column.
0:01So much more that you can read in stealing signals.
0:01So definitely if you want more, you can definitely find that there.
0:01We're doing a ton of work before I kick it to you for the short view.
0:01We do want to talk about a little thing that we're going to be talking about throughout the season.
0:01Hopefully, hopefully it may end this week. The splash play, splash sports, whatever it is.
0:01Survivor pool was going to overlay on Sunday. I messaged you, I don't know, an hour before the games and was like,
0:01hey, you want to do a survivor team together?
0:01And then you were like, yeah, actually, I've been interested in that because it's one of those things that a lot of people have interested in.
0:01I've played in low dollar ones with my friends for years, messaged you about it.
0:01You were excited. And then I was like, you want to do a couple of them?
0:01And you're like, sure. And so we ended up doing two entries into that.
0:01It's a thousand dollar buy in. There's about 20,000 people in.
0:01There were about 25% of the pool lost in week one, largely due to the Chargers upset.
0:01We did the Steelers in both of our picks for week one.
0:01We're going to talk probably usually at the end of the show about the survivor pool, where we landed on, whether we're
0:01still alive and kind of some of the stuff that we're thinking about for the next week.
0:01So that'll be a fun part of the show.
0:01That was part of the reason we decided to enter was like, hey, it'll be a fun thing to add to the long view.
0:01Talk about the upcoming matchups and the survivor stuff, but we'll probably do that at the end of the show most weeks.
0:01But excited for that. Any thoughts you have on that?
0:01And then what do we have for the short view this week?
0:01No, super excited for that. We will definitely get into it because we decided that what we needed was to add length to our shows.
0:01And yeah, let's start with the short view. I'm going to just quickly run down some injury news.
0:01And then I will throw it over to you for what I'm calling the week one panic meter.
0:01So injury stuff first, the Baltimore wide receivers, Jacoby Lane, had a wrist.
0:01I believe it was confirmed to be a wrist fracture.
0:01Correct me if I'm wrong, but regardless, it'll be a wrist injury.
0:01It's going to put them on short term IR for at least four weeks.
0:01Zay Flowers suffered a hamstring injury in the first half while he was in the middle of looking like basically football God
0:01for the majority of the first half until that point.
0:01He has not practiced on Wednesday or on Thursday.
0:01However, they've mentioned that he potentially could have returned to the game.
0:01It's considered very minor, so questionable for this week.
0:01Shouldn't be out long term. The Strib Club closed very early this year.
0:01The ship chasing curse. You may no longer be on the program, but our curse has only grown stronger because Dejan Stribbling,
0:01unfortunately, in the first half suffered a deltoid ligament rupture.
0:01It was determined it was a rupture, not just a sprain.
0:01And so he required surgery on that. He's going to miss at least 10 weeks, it sounds like.
0:01Nico Collins suffered a hamstring injury in practice yesterday.
0:01We're recording this on Thursday, so in practice Wednesday.
0:01That has now been determined to be a grade one hamstring strain.
0:01He is not practicing today. I would consider him probably a little bit doubtful for this week, but sounds like he won't
0:01miss more than one to two weeks with a minor strain.
0:01Lad McConkie, rib injury in week one, much like Zay Flowers, was absolutely crushing until leaving early with the injury.
0:01He sounds legitimately questionable for this week. Shouldn't probably miss more than a week or two as well.
0:01And then Jordan Mason was placed on short-term IR with a thumb injury.
0:01I'll ask you on the last one. Feel free if you have anything you want to say about the other ones.
0:01But what would your expectation be for the Minnesota backfield this week?
0:01We drafted a share of Aaron Jones that we were kind of sad about at the time.
0:01Are we expecting Workhorse Jones or Claiborne, Ford, DJ Dallas?
0:01What are you feeling on that one? Yeah, we took Jones about a round and a half after ADP on a team
0:01that hadn't been super running back heavy. It was the one that we got the 101 on the last day, and we
0:01took Gibbs, and then we went receiver-receiver at the 2-3.
0:01I can't even remember who else we had taken at running back by that point.
0:01I think we had taken Chuba as a... We have Hendo, and we have Chuba, and we have Seabrod, and we have Jones.
0:01I mean, we're probably starting Jones ahead of Drake London this week.
0:01So Seabrod was actually the... It was after Jones was the RB5, but our three running backs at that point were Gibbs, Henderson, and Chuba.
0:01No, we took Jones first. Yeah. Or we took Jones after.
0:01We took Seabrod first. No. Seabrod was going super late.
0:01No, no. We took Jones like two rounds after Seabrod.
0:01Oh. At a later turn. Why did we take Jones?
0:01So the reason... The point I was going to say about that was that immediately after the draft, I was like, I
0:01think our one mistake was taking Aaron Jones. Even though he fell, he doesn't really fit the build.
0:01We did. We took him after Seabrod. And yeah, my point was like, we already have Chuba and Seabrod as floor plays to help cover the RB2 spot.
0:01Like, what are we doing with Aaron Jones? Anyway, we have a share of Aaron Jones.
0:01We're going to start with this week, as you said, because he's like the workhorse.
0:01In terms of my expectations for him or the backfield, I mean, Daman Claiborne is the obviously really exciting one.
0:01I'm super into him and I've drafted him a bunch.
0:01He was a target for the Stealing Signal subs.
0:01He's somebody that I had as a late round option for sure.
0:01I saw him as in the mold. I mean, stylistically, he's in the mold of Aaron Jones and in that role.
0:01And I see it as kind of two different roles in this backfield.
0:01And I thought that he would take over when Jones at age 32 or turning 32, you know, this season inevitably faltered.
0:01It's a little bit of a different conversation when it's Mason who immediately goes to IR and you're saying, what are they going to do?
0:01Well, I mean, Jones can do all the stuff that Claiborne does and more.
0:01He's been a workhorse before in his career. He can do everything if you need him to.
0:01And my expectation is probably that that's what they'll do.
0:01And then behind that, they had DJ Dallas up.
0:01They didn't even have Claiborne active week one. Not that surprising for a day three rookie.
0:01And Dallas is going to play special teams. He's a big time special teams player for the different teams that he's been a part of.
0:01And so he got signed from the practice squad to the active roster as a corresponding move when they put Mason on IR.
0:01And so to make sure that, you know, he was locked in.
0:01I feel like they may not even activate Claiborne.
0:01They may elevate Jerome Ford as the third guy this week.
0:01Basically do what they did last week because I don't know.
0:01Well, I mean, I don't know that they need to.
0:01But in terms of, you know, where the running back touch is going to go, it's tough to go into a game
0:01with Aaron Jones at this point in his career.
0:01And then just DJ Dallas and Jerome Ford behind that.
0:01Those guys are sort of passing down specialists, special teams plays.
0:01They're not going to be huge between the tackles, grinders necessarily.
0:01They can do it, though. Like they've been around.
0:01They're veterans who can take touches. They're not going to be good at it.
0:01But it'll be interesting to see how they play that from an active roster standpoint.
0:01Because I think the Claiborne thing will be really interesting.
0:01If he's active and he gets some touches, Claiborne is a really exciting play.
0:01In terms of my expectations, it's probably that Jones plays as much as he can handle.
0:01And then the veterans are mostly the other guys.
0:01Like that DJ Dallas plays 30% of the snaps or something like that.
0:0125, whatever, alongside Jones playing, you know, 70 or something.
0:01Whatever he can take. 65, 60 maybe. But Jones should probably be the primary ball handler.
0:01And that's my guess as well. Probably get 80% of the touches.
0:01That's your guess as well. That's my guess as well.
0:01I think with it happening so early in the season, they're just going to try and get everything they can at Aaron Jones is my guess.
0:01And if anything, it's possible this works out. This might like rebound to Mason's benefit six weeks from now when he comes back.
0:02And Aaron Jones has like been drained for every last drop.
0:02Kind of getting them through this early portion of the season.
0:02But yeah, that's my guess. Jones is going to be the one guy that they use with any intent.
0:02I still think that there's issues with the Minnesota backfield and just kind of like how little they design things around the running back in interesting ways.
0:02But I think he's going to be the guy that they get the ball in the hands of.
0:02And then they'll probably use, yeah, just like Ford or Dallas for a bunch of like empty Cal snaps.
0:02But like he played like 25 snaps this week.
0:02And he got three touches. Did nothing. Yeah. Yeah.
0:02The Lions are so fascinating. They had 70-something plays in an overtime game.
0:02And I was talking about all offseason about how concentrated they were going to be.
0:02They had 70-something plays and three targets and two carries outside of their big four that we've talked about.
0:02So like people are still kind of out on Jamison Williams.
0:02He struggled. He had so many drops. It was so frustrating.
0:02But the nine targets not far off his career high of 11.
0:02The air yards were substantial. And people are like, well, I mean, is that going to go away?
0:02Well, where would it go? Amonra had 14 targets.
0:02It's Jameer Gibbs had 34 touches. And Laporta had eight targets.
0:02This was my point. People are like the Laporta splits.
0:02You don't understand Laporta. Jamison are both getting eight targets every game this year.
0:02I mean, there's no way that Gibbs and Amonra can combine for 48.
0:02And I know that they're not going to run 70-plus plays every game.
0:02But 34 touches for Gibbs and 14 targets for Amonra.
0:02They can't concentrate that much. I'm a little bit nervous about that for Gibbs as much as I love him.
0:02And as much as that was exactly what we said was going to happen.
0:02And it's Jameison and it's Laporta. They're talking about they want to get more out of Tesla and the other dudes.
0:02And, you know, maybe they will. But that was as concentrated as we expected.
0:02It was as concentrated as it possibly could have been for a game that went through overtime and had a touchdown drive
0:02in overtime and had 72 plays, I think it was, to have it all go for four guys.
0:02I mean, you have five eligibles on every play.
0:02They're only using four. Like, this is a hyper-concentrated team.
0:02So, anyway, that's a fun one. The stripling thing, I didn't realize that.
0:02I didn't realize it was – I heard it was worse than – so it was my daughter's 11th birthday yesterday.
0:02You were telling me before the show about the Collins thing a little bit more too.
0:02I missed that late in the day yesterday. It always – her birthday always hits right away in the beginning of the football season.
0:02And I have one day where I just have to miss a lot of relevant information.
0:02You know, obviously she's going to take precedent over all this stuff that we do.
0:02So, you know, I was doing a lot during the day while she was at school.
0:02But late in the day, spending the day with my 11-year-old daughter, we went to the arcade.
0:02We went to the mall. We got dinner. We had some fun stuff.
0:02I always do a scavenger hunt for the kids and wrote her up some clues.
0:02She really enjoyed – made her a little puzzle where her presents were and stuff after school.
0:02So, anyway, great day for our family. I missed some of these notes.
0:02Stripling had a ruptured ligament and he's out for 10 weeks, you said?
0:02So, it was the deltoid ligament. So, it was that medial ankle sprain, the really rare one.
0:02It's the one that's between the low and the high.
0:02And it's the least common because it's the thickest ligament.
0:02But, yeah, it was originally reported as a sprain.
0:02They did further testing. They determined it was a rupture and that surgery was required.
0:02So, he's out 10 weeks. I mean, that's basically his season, really.
0:02He's done. Yeah. He's going to have a hard time getting – it's hard to board a week train.
0:02I mean, he's going to be back optimistically by like week 11 or week 12 coming off of major ankle surgery as a rookie.
0:02Tough. I mean, he's got a lot of old – for people who have him in Dynasty and stuff and in best
0:02ball and stuff, he's got a lot of old guys in front of him.
0:02And that – similar to what you just said about the Aaron Jones-Jordan Mason thing, that's a long period for Mike Evans
0:02and Debo Samuel and George Kittle and Christian McCaffrey to all stay healthy.
0:02We don't know what the roster is going to look like in week 10 or 11 or 12.
0:02By that point, they may be really excited to get Stribbling back.
0:02And maybe you – if you're able to advance some best ball mania team to the underdog postseason, maybe you do get
0:02some Stribbling spike weeks in the playoffs. But, yeah, I mean, you're cutting him everywhere in redraft and it's a tough one for him there.
0:02And then the Collins thing, bummer. But I'm glad that it sounds like a grade one.
0:02Yeah, yeah. It sounds like both Flowers and Collins we've dodged a bullet on.
0:02Like, they might miss this week, but it sounds like we're not looking at long-term injuries at least.
0:02And then McConkie's fine too, right? Yeah, McConkie might miss this week as well.
0:02They're a West Coast team, so we don't have practice reports on them yet as of the time of recording.
0:02He did not practice yesterday, but it sounds like it's like zero to two weeks.
0:02Nice. Nice. Yeah. What do you – oh, so I was going to ask you about Claiborne.
0:02And we were being pessimistic about him, but I still think he's a great ad and stash right now.
0:02Yeah, I'm pessimistic. I'm pessimistic for week two, but I'm not – but, like, Jones is going to miss at least four weeks.
0:02It might be longer than that. I don't know if that's been, like, reported specifically.
0:02So, yeah, I think – Mason. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
0:02So, I think this week, like, you're just kind of hoping he's active and sees maybe a series.
0:02And I don't even know if that happens, but it's at least possible.
0:02And then, you know, maybe – I'm optimistic that by the end of Mason's absence, if it's like four to six weeks
0:02or something, that maybe towards the end of that, Claiborne's mixing into a real role.
0:02And, you know, who knows? Aaron Jones, old dude, could get hurt.
0:02And then at that point, he's really the only place you can look to for playmaking.
0:02So, I definitely think he's worth adding. He's just not someone you'd expect to play much week two.
0:02Aaron – like, it concerns me when I say Aaron Jones might be 60% of the snaps and 80% of the running
0:02back touches this week for his health. Yeah, it's a bad plan.
0:02That might be why DeMond Claiborne is active this week is they're like, we don't know if Jones can make it through a game.
0:02Right? Like, they may be concerned. Like, so, I'm really fascinated by the activity.
0:02But, yeah, I think you laid that out really well.
0:02Week two, not optimistic, but very optimistic for, you know, what could come in – like, he could be the starting running
0:02back by, like, week three or four. Obviously, DJ Dallas, Jerome Ford are trusted veterans.
0:02It would play some two. But you pretty much have to use Claiborne as the explosive, exciting player to some degree at that point if Jones was out.
0:02Like, let's say Jones is out by week four.
0:02In week four, yeah, I mean, DJ Dallas may actually play more snaps, but you're giving Claiborne, like, 12 to 15 touches.
0:02Right. It would be a little bit like the Chris Brooks-Marshawn-Lloyd split where, like, Brooks played a lot of snaps, but Lloyd
0:02still played – you know, had double the touches.
0:02Because, yeah, DJ Dallas is not – I was thinking Ramondre Henderson for the middle part of last year.
0:02Same concept. Right. Right. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Cool.
0:02All right. So, I want to do the panic meter here.
0:02So, I've listed five pretty notable week one disappointments.
0:02And I'll just – feel free to provide additional context as you like.
0:02But before you do – I want your context on a few of these, so I'm thrilled.
0:02I'll add some. This is fun. But before either of us are allowed to add any context, I just want a number.
0:02However, I want you to give me the number out of 10 to which week one increased your level of concern for the rest of the season.
0:02So, do you want me to give you all five or do you want to go one at a time?
0:02Let's go one at a time. This is a great short view.
0:02A-plus is your grade for this week. All right.
0:02Sweet. Thank you. All right. Number one, even though he now wears number two, Josh Downs.
0:02I'm going to say five. Okay. I'm not – he's – that's obviously splitting hairs.
0:02I'm not going to do a five for all these guys.
0:02But he's one that's tricky for me. And this is one of the ones that I want to know your take on as well.
0:02Yeah. The concern with Downs was whether there was enough ceiling in like roll and usage and stuff.
0:02I thought it was nice that he got some vertical routes.
0:02I called Keenan Allen's usage noise. He had six catches.
0:02A lot of them were in garbage time running like drag routes at the end.
0:02I didn't get an exact split. I didn't go to the game log for this one.
0:02But it was like at least two or three of the six catches were with the game kind of out of hand
0:02in the fourth quarter running underneath drag routes. He basically had no yards on those six catches, whatever it was, 32 yards or something.
0:02But earlier in the game, Downs had two catches on the first drive.
0:02But like earlier in the game, Downs did not get enough – like dominant of enough target share for me.
0:02I was very uncomfortable with Downs' – that's where it's at least a five.
0:02Maybe, you know, as I talked through this, maybe the level of concern meter should be more like a six or a
0:02seven is actually what I would probably say. Because I'm – the thesis for Downs for me was in PPR leagues especially,
0:02this guy could be a dominant target earner. And the fact that he only had two catches in week one is concerning.
0:02Even though I'm not that concerned about the Keenan Allen six catches and like the actual target share element, it's like I
0:02needed Downs to have more than four targets. I needed him to have six, seven, eight targets.
0:02Alec Pierce's pretty meaningfully decent game was a real big surprise to me.
0:02The six targets, four catches, 61 yards because he wasn't super healthy throughout.
0:02And he was catching some stuff in the intermediate.
0:02I knew he'd be – his ADOT would come down a little bit, but they were able to get him in like
0:02some deep crossers, kind of into that splash zone.
0:02A little bit like the Indianapolis Lad McConkie usage for Pierce.
0:02He was getting some 15-yard catches over the middle.
0:02And if he's going to be doing that and you have Tyler Warren and Keenan Allen's going to at least chip in,
0:02I mean this is what people were worried about with Downs.
0:02You and I called him one of the big most mispriced guys in the entire – in all fantasy football before Keenan signed.
0:02We did that show. But I thought even after Keenan signed that Downs was very likely to still lead this team or be near the leaders and targets.
0:02It's concerning for me that Pierce has six, Allen has six, Warren has five, and Downs has four tied with Taylor in week one for target volume.
0:02I needed to see more. So yeah, I'm going to give him actually – I'm going to say a seven on one to ten scale.
0:02I'm concerned. I'm going to go with a four.
0:02I'm less concerned. And maybe this is just Cope, but there's plenty of takes, which we'll get to over the course of
0:02the show, that I had that I'm immediately kind of jumping off of.
0:02So it's not like I'm just universally doubling down on all my takes.
0:02But this is one – this is one I'm not that concerned about.
0:02The reason I'm in a four versus like a one or two would be twofold.
0:02One is that Daniel Jones, I thought, just did not look very good in this game, which was a reasonable concern to
0:02have coming off of the Achilles and the fact that he's Daniel Jones.
0:02And that's probably the biggest concern for me. It's just how Daniel Jones played the inability to drive on some of the throws.
0:02It was like one target that Downs did have was on a corner route where he wasn't even really that open necessarily.
0:02But Jones airmailed him by like 25 feet, it seemed like, because he just was not able to consistently drive the ball
0:02like with the requisite – I don't know what I'm trying to say.
0:02But like basically just pace, like to keep it on a low trajectory on those driving throws that is just hanging up in the air.
0:02And that happened a few times in the game where he really struggled to get the velocity downfield.
0:02I mean, in some ways that could end up rebounding to Downs' benefit if he has to play more in the shorter and intermediate areas.
0:02But I do think it's a concern for the effectiveness of the offense.
0:02The other concern was like you mentioned the Pierce stuff, how much he was prioritized.
0:02It felt like on some first read stuff ahead of Downs.
0:02I will note, like I saw Hayden Winks did a cutoff of Alec Pierce.
0:02He thought that he looked good. I didn't personally.
0:02I thought there was two plays early in the game that like really hurt the Colts where they went to Pierce on
0:02a third down as a clear first read on in-breaking routes where Pierce did not cut well and he could not get separation.
0:02And I thought that he looked clearly unhealthy on those routes and he had a corner draped all over him.
0:02And it was like first read targets that Pierce was being trusted on that killed drives.
0:02And I thought like really hurt them in the game.
0:02I have concerns about how Pierce looked in that game personally.
0:02And then the Keenan stuff I agree with you is mostly noise.
0:02So the positive spin I put on for Downs is the first drive was great.
0:02I mean, gosh, like I wish I could go back to when that first drive happened.
0:02I thought we were just going to look like the 2025 Colts.
0:02Like we went up and down the field immediately.
0:02It looked clinical. Downs got three targets on that opening drive, had two catches for 37 yards.
0:02Both of his catches were like clear first read targets.
0:02He had another first read target that and when I say first read target, I'm using this based on just like my eyeballs.
0:02And if I think that the play was designed to go to him, I don't give a shit about what the score is a first read target personally.
0:02But like I'm just using it based on what I could perceive about the play.
0:02And that was really encouraging. And then what I would say is they ran 15 total plays between the end of that drive and then being down 28-6.
0:02And they had drives after that where they had like instant first down sacks to put them behind the sticks.
0:02They had a Jones pick. They had a Taylor fumble.
0:02They had penalties. They had TFLs. Like they just were kind of forced to get off script a lot where they're constantly behind the sticks.
0:02And then all of a sudden, because their defense couldn't do anything, like they did that for a few drives and boom, they're down 22 points.
0:02And the game really changed. And I felt like they had very few opportunities to kind of play how they had planned coming into the week.
0:02And a lot of that meant Baltimore playing a little bit more back and Keenan Allen getting a lot of those basically
0:02running back dump offs for the rest of the game.
0:02I'll also note, I mean, this is one play, but like Downs, it was 31-13.
0:02There was a third and five. And Downs ran a slot fade that was clearly the primary design of the play.
0:02Absolutely won. Jones was ready to throw it. And then Trey Hendrickson just blitzed Ryman off of the edge, interrupted his pocket.
0:02And so he had to pull it down and check it down.
0:02That would have been a 39-yard touchdown. Downs beat his guy by like 10 yards off the line of scrimmage.
0:02If Jones had like one second more, that's an easy 39-yard touchdown.
0:02On a great play design that was for him as the primary.
0:02Anyways, it's one play, but I think that would have changed a lot of the narrative about the game.
0:02My hope is that the Colts have more opportunities to run the offense how they want.
0:02And I'm believing that how they want to run the offense looks more like the first drive than all these drives where they were chasing two, three touchdowns.
0:02I don't know if it's going to turn around this week though.
0:02Like Jones has been so pressure sensitive his whole career.
0:02Speggs is going to blitz the shit out of him on Sunday Night Football.
0:02And I think they're probably going to get steamrolled.
0:02But we'll see. Yeah, so before we continue on the panic meter thing, I had told you maybe for the long view
0:02that I wanted to talk to you about the Colts because you are a noted Colts fan and watch them closely.
0:02That's great context on downs. I wanted to ask you about...
0:02So I got asked in my signals gold Q&A thing a question this week.
0:02Or maybe it was in the comments or something.
0:02I can't remember where. I think maybe I put it in one of my posts actually.
0:02But somebody said something. Yeah, no, that's right. It wasn't signals gold.
0:02Whatever. Who cares? I got asked from one of my subscribers about...
0:02So the way that they framed it... I'm going to actually go find their question.
0:02But it was like that Steichen got sort of blasted in the media this week for having fast starts but not being able to back that up.
0:02And... I guess it wasn't there. I thought that's where I had the question.
0:02I don't know where the question was. So I can't tell you guys the question.
0:02But anyway, it was that... Yeah, he basically got blasted in the media for having fast starts.
0:02But the team's losing. And they're on an eight-game losing streak was the point.
0:02And I was basically like... I don't... It must have been in the signals goal Q&A, I guess.
0:02But I... So when I talked through that, I was like...
0:02I reject the premise of any of this. The way that I talked through it was like...
0:02There are any number of splits. We hear about coaching splits all the time.
0:02Or like they come out of the second half looking sluggish.
0:02And like I do think there's like signal in some of these things.
0:02But when you can cut up games a million different ways, you can say they're bad in the first quarters.
0:02They're bad in the second quarters. They're bad in the third quarters.
0:02They're bad in the fourth quarters. They come out of the second half bad.
0:02They come out of the first half bad. They're bad in the first 15.
0:02They're bad the rest of the game. That's maybe true.
0:02But I also don't think it's like... People hear that and then they just immediately want to take the first 15 and
0:02put that aside and then say they're bad. Because he's not able to adjust or something.
0:02What you're saying there is that the first 15 is schemed up so well by a really good coach and there's a lot of success there, number one.
0:02And that's the coach that I would actually want to figure out.
0:02And it's not like he doesn't know that they're not adjusting later in the game well.
0:02I'd want him to be a problem solver if he's really good at scheming up early game stuff.
0:02The other number two here is the arbitrary endpoint thing, which is they've lost eight games in a row.
0:02Factors in all of the Phillip Rivers games. We talked about it a lot this offseason.
0:02The first 10 games of the year last year, this team was the number one offense in the NFL in point scoring, number one in yards gained.
0:02Among every team's first 10 games last year, they were incredible.
0:03They came out of their week 11 bye with two bad games against, I believe, the Chiefs and then I know against the Texans.
0:03Aster Jones fractured his fibula, which is another key point that I think gets missed because a lot of people point to the Achilles injury.
0:03They forget that in the last game before the bye, he fractured his leg.
0:03And so he could barely move for two games before the Achilles injury.
0:03And I think that's a big reason why their offense is a lot worse.
0:03Yeah, it's another great point. And then he tore his Achilles two games later in the first quarter against the Jaguars.
0:03So the first 10 games, this, you want to go say, oh, eight games, he's been horrible.
0:03Among those eight games, he had Daniel Jones with a fraction fibula for two.
0:03Daniel Jones tearing an Achilles in the first quarter.
0:03And then what's his face? Riley Leonard playing the rest of that game.
0:03And then 45 year old Phillip Rivers for the final whatever games.
0:03And then week one this year, Daniel Jones coming off an Achilles in his drive leg.
0:03I think it's a great point that you made about driving.
0:03I was concerned about that with Cousins last year because it was in his right leg.
0:03I was concerned about it with Rogers. And I was concerned about it for Daniel Jones coming off a right Achilles issue.
0:03That's the drive leg for a right-handed quarterback. The ability to drive the ball.
0:03Cousins was okay towards the end of last season, but mostly on low ADOT stuff and was really still struggling to drive the ball down the field.
0:03And I think Rogers had some issues with that too.
0:03Those guys maybe are further back now, a second year removed.
0:03That's a concern for Daniel Jones this year that we have to keep an eye on for sure is being able to drive off that injured Achilles.
0:03That very well could have affected week one. The other thing I would say about week one is they played the Baltimore Ravens who just look awesome.
0:03Now, maybe that's because they're playing the Colts, but I thought the Ravens looked like the best.
0:03They were the most impressive team to me in week one, even more impressive than the Bears.
0:03They were awesome. So anyway, I say all that because then I also saw a Colts film room account on Twitter got tweeted.
0:03Oh yeah. And then they were like, Shane Steichen's not a leader of men and just totally attacking him.
0:03They did some weird split about his win-loss with Anthony Richardson and then his win-loss without him.
0:03Oh my God. He's now 8-9 without Richardson and it was like, Steichen's doing it his way and he's even worse.
0:03There's a lot of A-Rich truthers, odd Colts Twitter, who like beat Shane Steichen two years after the fact because A-Rich didn't pan out.
0:03It's tough. I mean, you know how fandom is.
0:03Yeah, I know. And I think Steichen's a really good coach, but it sounds like in Indy, he's getting hammered, which I think is crazy.
0:03Again, the eight-week thing is an arbitrary endpoint that I'm like, what happened beyond the eight weeks?
0:03It's like, you know, the meme of like, what's the...
0:03The duck meme, yeah. Yeah, because the next 10 games beyond that, they were the best offense in football with Daniel Jones at quarterback.
0:03He looked like a freaking wizard by week 11 last year.
0:03And then Daniel Jones gets hurt and then gets hurt again.
0:03And then you play Phillip Rivers. And now people are talking about Shane Steichen can't figure it out because he's in an eight-game losing streak.
0:03And I'm like, those eight games literally don't matter to me like at all compared to the 10 games before where he had a healthy team.
0:03And he showed he's a great coach. So anyway, you're a Colts fan.
0:03Tell me I'm crazy. Yeah. I'm not, right? Oh, I'm a big fan of Steichen.
0:03I mean, I think that the... I think unfortunately he is like probably heading down a very Mike McDaniel Dolphins tenure with
0:03the Colts in that like I think he vastly overachieved very mediocre rosters put together by a GM that I cannot stand.
0:03And I think unfortunately like I just don't think that this roster is going to be good enough to like win a playoff game.
0:03And I think that they're probably going to win.
0:03I don't think they're going to be awful. I think they'll win seven or eight maybe even nine games.
0:03If they don't win if they don't make the playoffs this year then Ballard's definitely getting fired.
0:03And if Ballard's getting fired then Steichen's probably getting fired.
0:03And I would love to invest in like Shane Steichen stock wherever he goes as an OC or head coach on his next team.
0:03See, even that shocks me. You're more plugged into the Colts than me.
0:03I didn't realize it was here where we're like if they only win seven or eight or nine games he's getting fired.
0:03They had the best offense in football last year.
0:03Through 10 games. I get it. I just think the I mean the issue is so Chris Ballard has been GM for nine seasons.
0:03And we have won one playoff game and zero division titles in those seasons.
0:03Like the idea that he has survived as long as he has with this unimpressive of a track record is mind-blowing to me.
0:03Especially when you consider that the most consequential decision Chris Ballard made was drafting Anthony Richardson which was an absolute disaster.
0:03We also traded a one for Carson Wentz in this period.
0:03Like his draft record in recent years he's found some late round gems.
0:03He's always been good at that. We've been horrible in recent years in the first and the second round.
0:03I mean, the first draft pick we made because we just traded our first for Sauce Gardner and then we took a
0:03linebacker CJ Allen in the 40s in round two.
0:03Chris Ballard went to the podium. He said he's going to be the green dot from day one at the podium.
0:03Coaches said, no, he's actually going to play zero snaps in week one and we're going to put the green dot on
0:03a safety and then we're going to change who's wearing the green dot next week.
0:03So it's more of a Ballard issue and I guess I just am not sure that the like it's very rare that
0:03a coach who is coached for four years without making the playoffs then gets to keep his job if the GM gets
0:03fired and I don't understand how Ballard can survive another year without making the playoffs and so are they going to fire Ballard and keep the coach?
0:03I would be stunned. I'm not saying that's what I would do.
0:03Like if it were up to me and there was a way to fire Ballard while keeping Steichen I would do that
0:03but I feel like their fates are tied together and we have a GM that deserves to get fired three years ago
0:03and we have a coach that I think is a top 10 coach in the league but I feel like might be doomed.
0:03So the issue that I have with that is like yes it is very rare for that to happen.
0:03The reason it's very rare for that to happen is very usually when one or the other is fired it's because there
0:03have been failed results that are probably both like it's bad enough and that's both people's responsibility and all of that stuff.
0:03It's one of those things where like you see these stats that are like 80% of the time if a player does
0:03this then he's a really important fantasy player and I'm like well that means one out of five times like people hear
0:0380% they think 100% it's like well like of that 80% all of the elites at that position are already going to
0:03check these boxes like it'll be like a wide receiver thing they run enough routes and they do this and it's like
0:03yeah well Justin Jefferson Jamar Chase and all those guys are in that category and like all the dudes that are like
0:03backups are in the other category of not running enough routes so we're already like skewing the data and then that's like
0:0360 percentage points of the 80% and then so then the other 40 percentage points it's 50-50 there's like 20 percentage points
0:03to get you to 80 and then 20 that are not like I want to know about that 20 percentage points of
0:03guys that aren't hitting your benchmark but are still good at fantasy there's something interesting there and that's how I always think
0:03about it when I hear like 80% and so you're right like it's very rare for somebody to and it's like maybe
0:03it's 80% but 60% of the time they both suck and they clean house and like it's clear a reset as needed
0:03the other 20% of the time maybe there's a mistake made or something and then like 20 percentage points and then the
0:03other 20 percentage points maybe only one of them is fired my point is there's always context and there's always outliers and
0:03this one to me is such a clear outlier because to your point Ballard has made these very public mistakes he's made
0:03these comments like the green dot thing was a great one the Richardson thing Steichen comes in as a first year coach
0:03and it basically inherits Anthony Richardson and I was critical of Steichen In fairness to Ballard he was told explicitly by Jim
0:03Ursa you have to pick a quarterback at four take the best one he had no choice so I'll give him credit
0:03for that it's not like there was no option where we could have just said no we'll take JSN or whatever like
0:03we had an owner that told him you're taking a quarterback at four no other options are on the table you can
0:03pick which one so it was Richardson or Will Levis those were the only two options sweet that didn't work out very
0:03well no it didn't it didn't but like so anyway I just wanted to say that because I struggle to blame Ballard
0:03for that decision specifically because like what else was he going to do quit like it was like take Richardson to quit
0:03so but so my point is so Steichen we're talking about four years Steichen inherits that he has to make Anthony Richardson
0:03work Richardson gets hurt that first year and he goes nine and eight with Gardner Minshew starting all the games and then
0:03the next year he has to make Richardson work and I was critical of Steichen at times for like ways that he
0:03felt like he was trying to like the whole like tapping himself out of the game thing that became a massive thing
0:03and veterans in the locker room did like Richardson and whatever I was like Steichen but it seemed clear to me that
0:03Steichen in hindsight like a few weeks on and later was like I gotta take I gotta get out from under Richardson
0:03any way I can because my career is on the line too and I'm evaluating that this player is not good enough
0:03and I understand there's a lot of people that are still fans of Richardson I think that was actually probably a correct
0:03evaluation Richardson's a pretty inaccurate quarterback he's a great athlete I don't think he's he may pop up somewhere and work for
0:03stretches of time later in his career I would guess that he's never gonna be a long-term startable quarterback at the NFL
0:03level even though yes he was very young yes he didn't have many reps yes we probably should have thought coming in
0:03that we should see more than we saw he was that bad as far as a passer he was that inaccurate he
0:03missed that many throws by that much from clean pockets that it's like you can't you can't play at the NFL level
0:03until you improve to this degree I always thought like Tim Tebow got too short of a leash that guy was winning
0:03games he won a playoff game and it's like yeah I know he can't throw and everyone evaluates that he can't throw
0:03but like he's a he's a pretty athletic player and he runs and whatever like I didn't go bat for the guy
0:03but they made him change positions and they decided he couldn't play quarterback I was like I bet there's teams that could
0:03win with this guy not that he's a good passer but it's the point is there's not a lot that we see
0:03in practices and all that stuff and I think it was very clear that Richardson's not the gets out from under that
0:03I think quicker than he could have and he gets he gets to flacco late in that year but that's the only
0:03option that he really had they go eight and nine and then last year they go eight and nine but they go
0:03eight and nine when they were eight and two at the bye and their quarterback fractured his fibula like this is relevant
0:03so he was they were on their path to the one seed and then people are like well and by the way
0:03they could have played Richardson theoretically down the stretch except he like knocked his eye out with a rubber band so like
0:03that would have been a better plan than Riley Leonard and Phillip Rivers but like he's never available I don't hate the
0:03guy but he's never available yeah the ability to play Richardson down the stretch last year would have been great both from
0:03the perspective that it would have clarified the first two years a little bit better if Richardson struggled if Richardson did great
0:03fine then they would have made the they wouldn't have finished eight and nine right they lost seven straight games after the
0:03bye like it either would have been that they maybe made the playoffs maybe they went instead of going oh and seven
0:03down the stretch maybe they would have went two or three you know two and five or three and four and were
0:03able to win 10 or 11 games we were a 58 yard Jason Myers field goal from beating Seattle on the road
0:03with Phillip Rivers at quarterback last year that's all yeah also an amazing we were leading that game with 21 seconds left
0:03I was at that game in person and we almost won in Seattle against the Super Bowl champion with Phillip Rivers like
0:03I know that was a crazy game yeah yeah Steichen's a good coach they they um everyone always says that they had
0:03a really easy schedule first half of last year and then like I when I was doing projections I went back through
0:03it like they beat the Broncos in week two they lost to the Rams but played the Rams to a 27 to 20 loss on the road A.D.
0:03Mitchell held onto the dang football that's right A.D.
0:03Mitchell and then he had a holding penalty on a long Jonathan Taylor touchdown run in the same game A.D.
0:03Mitchell cost him that game they go 27 20 on the road at the Rams who a lot of people thought were
0:03the best team in football last year the Broncos were the one seed in the other division that's our other conference that's
0:03two of the final four teams they also played the Chargers they also I thought they played the Texans but they played
0:03both the Texans no we played the Texans twice late yeah yeah but the Chargers are another playoff team that they beat
0:03at LA they did they beat the crap out of them they didn't play only bad teams in the first half of
0:03last year they had some bad matchups or like bad teams on their schedule easy matchups for sure anyway enough about the
0:03Colts we're still in the short few when we played bad teams we beat the crap out of them which is I
0:03think also something that's undersold like a lot of these soft schedule teams that are like frauds it's like oh you racked
0:03up one of the things that upsets me about fandom generally it's always you gotta fire somebody in their responses and stuff
0:03I went into a rant about my Seattle Mariners when I got asked about this on my signals gold but like the
0:03Mariners and I'll try to do this as quick as I can they went 20 years without making the playoffs they brought
0:03in Jerry like we went through multiple different GMs and people running the team they brought in Jerry to Poto to run
0:03the team he builds up a team that just last year got one game away from the World Series for the first
0:03time in franchise history they lost they had a lead in game seven they lost in game seven I would argue because
0:03of managerial decisions now there's a lot said that Jerry to Poto is involved in those managerial decisions and the pitching decisions
0:03they lost in a come from behind fashion in game seven of the ALCS the very next year they've massively underperformed across
0:03the board and now people are talking about the coach is probably going to get fired but there's writers in Seattle that
0:03are writing that it's not good enough from Jerry to Poto and I'm like what's the alternative as a fan I get
0:03so frustrated by it we have had so many general managers make horrible decisions Jerry to Poto has built this roster up
0:03such that not only did we have a team good enough to make the ALCS we also had the number one farm
0:03system in baseball at the same time just as of last year by I think Keith Law ranked it that way and
0:03this is a team that can't spend money their ownership won't let them sign free agents and spend real money so the
0:03only way he's been able to acquire talent is by trading prospects but his draft and development pipeline has been so strong
0:03that even while trading prospects to get a bunch of high profile players in the last several years they traded for Josh
0:03Naylor and Eugenio Suarez last year Randy Orozarena is the team's best player they traded prospects for him not long ago they
0:03traded for a reliever named Jose Ferrer this offseason with one of our top catching prospects they traded for Luis Castillo years
0:03ago they retraded him this year and then they ended up extending him and paying him but they traded for him via
0:03prospects they've traded for a number of contributors at the NFL level through their farm system and still had the number one
0:03farm system in football he's built an organization that from a scouting and development standpoint has young talent coming up and is
0:03good at the major league level at the same time while not being able to sign free agents and having to trade
0:03from the developmental players to address major league level talent it's as good of a GM job and there's so many people
0:03in the Mariners blogosphere and writing for the Seattle Times that hate Jerry DiPoto because of some comments he's made that are
0:03analytics focused about what percentage of games you need to win to make the playoffs everyone mocked him for that he said
0:03something like if you win 58% of your games they're like I want to win 100% of our games I want to
0:03win the World Series it's just like dude use your freaking brain I wish writers were smarter about the way they communicate
0:03to fans and I wish fans were smarter about how they actually understood this stuff that there is variance year over year
0:03the stuff that has happened with the Mariners this year missing the playoffs is because like Cal Raleigh was an MVP candidate
0:03last year and is not even just not what he was last year but not even what he was for his whole
0:03career prior to that he's over regressed to like a massive floor season and that's happened actually for number of players on
0:03the roster and I'll stop talking about baseball now but this same sort of concept applies directly to Shane Steichen and drives
0:03me insane that like just as a an impartial observer that you clearly have the coach in place what's the alternative you're
0:03gonna hire someone stupid and put your franchise back five years oh oh I agree have a good coach you have he
0:03he proved last year he could make the best offense in football with Daniel Jones there is no argument that the first
0:03two years the stuff with Richardson and everything are a wash year three was a success despite the fact that there's apparently
0:03Colts fans that think it was a failure and now in year four you're saying he hasn't done enough and like you're
0:03you're just articulating what fans are saying but he hasn't won a playoff game yet of course he hasn't won a playoff
0:03game yet look at his quarterbacks look at the teams that he's been dealing with look at his GM's decisions the rosters
0:03that he's been given and yet he's still been able to build it off build a team that was eight and two
0:03and looking like a real threat to win the AFC last year when they lost their quarterback and then yeah I mean
0:04I understand this first game they got absolutely boat raced by the Ravens but the Ravens look incredible and regardless Steichen is
0:04not the problem and don't replace the guy that's not the problem you're gonna make a bigger problem you know like this
0:04is my Mariners fandom that's oh yeah like aggravated like don't give me a GM that's gonna go make terrible trades keep
0:04the GM in place please like it's driving me nuts oh I look I mean I couldn't be more with you I
0:04mean I've just experienced this with the with the Leafs where like we had basically been the stupidest team in the NHL
0:04for like decades and then we were like finally I thought like acting in a coherent fashion with a GM and then
0:04we didn't win some playoff series so we fired that GM and then we replaced them with like an even stupider GM
0:04and we replaced our decent coach with an even stupider coach and then we like just got the first overall pick because
0:04like everyone that was like oh once we get some hockey men in here like then we'll we'll toughen up and we'll
0:04win in the playoffs we didn't make the playoffs actually anymore so it seems like that was a downgrade but anyways I
0:04I will stop talking about hockey and baseball but I yeah I agree with you I agree with you a hundred percent
0:04I I'm team Shane's like an innocent I would be thrilled if we can keep him but I am I am I
0:04am just concerned that he is going to get like swamped in the inertia of what I expect to be a failed
0:04season based entirely on things that aren't his fault like yeah I mean this I think that this season will probably fail
0:04because our quarterback is frankly not that good in the first place and tore his Achilles and then our defense is a
0:04total disaster because Chris Ballard has whiffed on like 17 consecutive edge rusher picks and we're not like our top picks on
0:04defense from each of the last year literally don't play and like it's just it's so I don't know really what we
0:04can do about that but and they're at KC this week and then they have Houston at home and there's a very
0:04real path to oh and three and it's like man yeah it's tough it's gonna be tough but yeah I I agree
0:04with you I mean a lot of people basically will just say like Steichen got found out and it's like to some
0:04extent I think that that is a little bit true to the same extent that I think was a little bit true
0:04for McDaniel but I guess what I would always emphasize is when people are getting found out it's like because coaches are
0:04capable of coming up with a form of offense that elevates very mediocre quarterbacks they kind of do get a short window
0:04of opportunity to over perform because of their own ability to innovate and then it's like yeah that probably can't go on
0:04forever right defenses are eventually going to figure out ways to counter creative things that you're doing that were previously unexpected like
0:04the most sustainable win way to not get found out is to have Peyton Manning back in our lives and I feel
0:04like that's what a lot of Colts fans think it's like well like Peyton you know let's go let's be back to
0:04the glorious but we had one of the greatest quarterbacks of all time so yeah we didn't get found out for 15
0:04years because we had Peyton Manning but like now we have Daniel Jones so your options are either to just suck or
0:04to get found out because you have Daniel Jones yeah it's also in my opinion absurd to say that what happened in
0:04week one was Steichen being found out we talked about it they came out and looked incredible the first drive I like
0:04my notes and stealing signals I was like oh my god the Colts are back like nine plays 65 yards four minutes
0:04and 27 seconds touchdown and were awesome they looked really really good throughout the drive converted a couple third downs like seamlessly
0:04the next drive Daniel Jones throws a pick I can't remember the exact play I think he just threw a bad pass
0:04right well he took a stack first and then he threw a pick where it was Jones was running a little or
0:04downs running a loop in return and Keenan was running across or no Treadwell was running across over top of that and
0:04then basically the line but Roquan was covering down so he just dropped right back and just caught it because Jones like
0:04right yeah he just missed a linebacker yeah yeah just missed a linebacker like what are you gonna do you got Daniel
0:04Jones he's in his first game back from Achilles he's gonna throw picks like and then they they did go punt punt
0:04the next two series and then Jonathan first play of the next series yeah which is I mean what are you gonna
0:04do on a successful play too it's like a 20-yard hit and then he lost a fumble at the end of it
0:04yeah but like he's your best player like it's not the coach's fault that Jonathan Taylor fumbles and it's not Jonathan Taylor's
0:04fault either like things happen in football games I always say it's a game of possessions they did punt again after that
0:04but then they had a touchdown punt field goal punt touchdown downs that's their drive summary in the second half of the
0:04of the game or the late part of the game they still scored three touchdowns in a field goal in this game
0:04it's not like they were like horrible offensively now one of those touchdowns was only a 15-yard touchdown drive I'm sure people
0:04that are anti you know my point here would would emphasize that they got really good field position one time but regardless
0:04like you mentioned there was another series I think it was was it the very last series where downs is open for
0:04a potential 39-yard touchdown that was skied no it was on that it was when it was when it was 31-13 we
0:04ended up settling for a field goal in that drive to make a 31-16 and he had a great play call on
0:04it's covered two man brought the safety down yeah it was open just like our our left tackle who is paid very
0:04handsomely and is one of the best left tackles in the league just like got his ass beat by Trey Hendrickson on
0:04that play and it like that happens it's gonna happen yeah but like it's it's it's like if you're the pff guy
0:04it's a plus two for steichen it's a minus two for the tackle right like yeah I can did his job perfectly
0:04well he designed something up he called it he he hit it at the right moment and again I think we're gonna
0:04find out weeks from now that the Ravens defense is actually a very difficult defense to score three touchdowns in a field
0:04goal on they have Trey Hendrickson now Jesse Minter is a very good defensive mind and I mean their offense was the
0:04Colts defense is a problem but steichen's an offensive coach and I'm not look it's right the head coach it's his job
0:04to also develop the defense but to your point he's got no help from the GM and his offenses have been good
0:04enough and it just it drives me nuts when like the narrative is like this coach should be on the hot seat
0:04and like the the the tweet that I saw the guy was going off on him saying he's not a leader of
0:04men and all these things and it's just I mean that's I can get that a lot because like he's just not
0:04like there's a set there's a certain segment of the fan base that is just gonna never appreciate like I don't know
0:04a good coach like like second is not like a he's not a raw raw type of personality I guess like he's
0:04not like a a big burly man who screams and like he goes for a lot of fourth downs and that pisses
0:04people off and he like talks about you know passing to score and running to win and that pisses people off because
0:04they think that we have Jonathan Taylor so the answer to all of our problems would be running the ball 80 consecutive
0:04times and like this is my yeah this is this is why I'm so worked up about it it's very similar to
0:04the Jerry DePoto Mariners GM point where I was talking about so he's made some analytics comments and then there's the the
0:04loudest dumbest part of the fan base wants to go bang their head on a wall and be like I'm tough and
0:04like I don't like anything vaguely analytics related yeah it's like it's analytics is like whatever I mean we don't I don't
0:04need to relitigate analytics but it's it's it's triggering to me as a fan who grew up with Chuck Pagano who every
0:04year in the offseason had Andrew Luckett quarterback and like Trent Richardson at running back at a non-viable offensive line and would
0:04talk about how the the success of this year was going to be determined by how they could establish a power run
0:04game and it's like I don't want to go back to that like that sucked but like insane it's just insane to
0:04to like the yeah anyway the whole analytics thing like people are using data and information correctly and then that that like
0:04bothers you when you have to be angry about the fact that like there's whatever I'm not gonna I'm not gonna do
0:04the whole analytics thing right now we are over an hour in and haven't even gotten to the second panic meter guy
0:04so let's go back to our game all right uh we'll try and go a little faster all right it was gonna
0:04be part of the long view section I yeah I think we've covered the Colts yeah hey look I could do I
0:04mean I could just do like a seven hour Colts podcast if anyone wants to support that endeavor um I don't even
0:04need anyone I don't even need a co-host I'll just I'll just monologue for like 17 hours anyway um all right uh
0:04Jalen Waddle Jalen Waddle panic meter uh I mean this obviously was a my guy that went terribly wrong in week one
0:04um you were open-minded to him we have him on a team now uh where are you at out of 10 on
0:04him well I also took him on my longest running home league because I'm playing against all the people that use my
0:04rankings and they took Jameson Williams went early fourth and they took all these other guys and then I'm mid four and
0:04I was like I guess I'm taking Jalen Waddle and trust in Jacob so I lost it week one because I also
0:04took Colson team and I was cussing you out so I'm gonna I'm gonna defer to you on this one where are
0:04you at on the panic meter you're the Waddle guy yeah I'll I'll remain I'll I'll remain lower here too um they're
0:04not all gonna be low for me but um I'll I'll be what was I on downs I was a four on
0:04this one I will be a I'll be a five um and I'll be try to be quick here so reason why
0:04I'm not panicking that hard is I thought that the first half despite him having literally one catch in two yards was
0:04like more bullish than it seemed based on what I was hoping to see from the offensive scheme as it pertained to
0:04Waddle like they were moving them all around he got a ton of chances in the slot he got um that route
0:04in the backfield where he like everyone paid attention to him and then it opened Evan Ingram wide up for the touchdown
0:04um he got a ton of switch releases and like routes out a bunch formations like all of the stuff where I
0:04wanted to see him prioritized in a way that he wasn't consistently in Miami happened and then I felt like it was
0:04a mix of the Chiefs paying a ton of attention to him and Spagnuolo like typically number one wide receivers have not
0:04done a great um in the box score against Steve Spagnuolo defenses in Kansas City in the past and then you also
0:04get just Bo Nix like I thought playing um pretty terribly for for a large portion of the game and he's like
0:04a super hot and cold guy so I'm not you know I'm not like gonna say Bo Nix is now a total
0:04fraud or whatever I just think like this is this has been the Bo Nix experience at times is that he'll have
0:04games where he looks like one of the worst quarterbacks in the league and a lot of people clown him on social
0:04media and then he looks totally fine the next week he's also been historically a slow starter like he had like a
0:04sub five yards per attempt game last year week one against the Titans I think you remember his rookie year where they
0:04came out of the breaks or they came out of the gates terrible in uh the first month of the season and
0:04they eventually made the playoffs that year so I'm trying to keep that perspective um I saw you wrote in signals about
0:04like your thoughts on the web Peyton stuff that I concur with so I'll leave that to you um but uh all
0:04that stuff is the good stuff I guess the bad stuff to me is just it was like there were definitely some
0:04times where I thought Waddle did successfully get open and Nix just didn't pull the trigger but there were other moments where
0:04I was frustrated that Waddle was being prioritized by his offense but also the defense and just like wasn't able to break
0:04through and then it like really was frustrating to see okay he finally got the wide open target on that slant he
0:04just drops the ball it's like I get that's one play but I'm like dude like you're the guy you have your
0:04chance like you're they're driving the ball down the field finally first time see the opening script and like this drive ended
0:04and it was entirely your fault and it's like I felt like Bo Nix didn't even look at him after that and
0:04I don't think that's gonna carry over for an entire season but it was frustrating for the rest of the game that
0:04I felt like Walla got open multiple times and Nix was not prioritizing him in the progression because he dropped a wide
0:04open third downplay so um I would say that the thesis on his talent I'm like maybe like a five and and
0:04the offense I'm probably on about a three so I'm gonna average that out to a four that's what I was gonna
0:04do was four for him I did seven for downs I think they're both like five ish but I'm shading up downs
0:04and shading Waddle down um I thought the 82% routes was like super bullish he actually ran more routes than Sutton like
0:04Sutton's always been this you know like uh Payton's always had an ex-receiver that has run the bulk of the routes and
0:04then everything else is kind of revolved off that guy it's been Sutton in this era you go back to the Saints
0:04eras it was you know Michael Thomas toward the end it was uh Jimmy Graham actually for a stretch and and you
0:04know playing like uh in X and obviously not solely because he was a tight end but I mean there was a
0:04whole debate about Jimmy Graham getting franchise tagged and wanting to be franchise tagged at the wide receiver number because he was
0:04playing so much wide receiver um and then uh Marcus Colston prior to that so they've always had this big body like
0:04Colston uh Cortland Sutton type and it was like yeah it's not Waddle it's not how they're gonna use Waddle so what
0:04does it mean for his routes he's always been somewhat um you know on and off the field and stuff at times
0:04with Miami and routes limited and we talked about this like this was part of it for him to come out and
0:04run 82% routes by the numbers that I have by I think this NFL pros numbers and Sutton be at 79% um
0:04very very bullish for Waddle for me there was a lot of like veteran receivers in week one that weren't even at
0:0482% in a Peyton offense that's a lot like Pat Bryant and Evan Ingram were next on the team tied at 58%
0:04so to have these two guys right around 80% together you knew Sutton would be there but I thought there was a
0:04chance Waddle would be like 70% or like you know 68 or something and that would have been kind of a bummer
0:04for him to be at 82 is a meaningful a meaningful number for me you mentioned the coaching thing um I had
0:04just written about that from the perspective of Peyton being asked at halftime uh how's Ben not calling plays here and he
0:04goes um um ask me again in another half which I said I very much did not take as a vote but
0:04it's not a concern because the second half went great um and I saw some commentary about how the Broncos are gonna
0:04struggle because they don't have Sean Peyton's direct influence on the play calling and I just wrote that that seems completely divorced
0:04from reality I wrote either Webb will get better faster Peyton will take back over a couple things that make some of
0:04the better coaches good is an attention to detail and a degree of being a control freak and that's Peyton as I
0:04understand him if Webb struggles because he misses on the details Peyton himself would leverage in the play sequencing or approach I
0:04just quite literally can't imagine a world where Peyton would stand idly by as the head coach ultimately most in charge of
0:04the success of the team and not take back over the thing that he's always done he's gonna be too much of
0:04a control freak to not take that over if the detail aspect which is another thing he's always been very good at
0:04is not being hit on and that's the implication is that Davis Webb is not going to because he's Peyton's still a
0:04part of the game planning and and all of that it's it's the it's the the the detail of play sequencing and
0:04and when to call in what plays and things and if Peyton has an issue with that stuff he will take it
0:04back over I 100% believe that I mean the second drive of the game which was really their scripted drive because the
0:04first drive is a three and out that ended an interception the second drive of the game was awesome like I came
0:04away from that drive being like oh Davis Webb's got the juice he's gonna be head coach next year and then obviously
0:04it was a disaster from there but like clearly the game plan stuff that you're talking about I think actually kind of
0:04worked it's just that then as they got off of that script and they got into the rest of the game it
0:04felt like things fall apart and they got overwhelmed and and that's maybe where that attention to detail and in-game sequencing needs
0:04these work yeah so I think we're in a lot of agreement the only other thing I was gonna say about waddle
0:04was you know I talked about it in the article that he was still just a high-profile ad this offseason and then
0:04there's sort of an anti-fragility element or anti-fragile element to that where regardless of how he plays himself like when I did
0:04still banana seagull was like talking about how bad waddle is he's he's pretty out on waddle as a talent at this
0:04point in his career but the I don't totally understand that but I don't understand it either I know a lot of
0:04people feel that way too so I yeah maybe like I'm he's had some I'm probably the one but yeah yeah he
0:04does have drop issues that's fair but the the anti-fragile point was just that even if he fails they're going to continue
0:04to try to feature him almost regardless it's very similar to the RJ Harvey thing last year everyone thought he sucked RJ
0:04Harvey ended up being the top-scoring rookie in the you know fantasy playoffs by the end of the year obviously Dobbins was
0:04hurt but like they just kept going back to Harvey and kept going back to Harvey I was doing a little research
0:04on that this week about how there really wasn't a lot of rookie hammers last year like everybody's situation kind of went
0:04one way or another some of the good guys were on you know offenses that held it back like Fannin and Tedrow
0:04McMillan and Ashton Gentty to a degree depending on how you feel about like how Gentty actually played in year one and
0:05then there were some injuries and there were some different things that you know cost people time and like Scadaboo was hitting
0:05and then he got hurt and so there's like and I think people don't realize that there's going to be some rookie
0:05hammers this year because week one was really optimistic for the rookies but anyway there's that anti-fragile element for for Waddle where
0:05I think he's going to continue to get used the way that RJ Harvey kept getting used over and over and over
0:05even though everyone kept saying he sucked down the stretch last year I thought it was really bullish week one for Harvey
0:05that Jonah Coleman didn't play at all now he's already got a hamstring thing as well but hopefully he's okay oh yeah
0:05I forgot to mention that one that that one I'm yeah I'm glad you mentioned that I I was really conflicted when
0:05I wrote up the hitchhiker's guide piece on Harvey because like early in the game my view was oh my god this
0:05is amazing like he's letting snaps even Lee with Dobbins in neutral script Coleman's not playing at all Harvey was getting a
0:05third down so he was getting the two minute drill I I've written before that like normally that doesn't actually equate to
0:05a ton of running back fantasy points but I've written specifically about Harvey this summer saying I think it would matter a
0:05lot for him because he already has such a high rate of points per snap in his base role that if you
0:05can just add a floor of an extra couple of dump offs every single game like that would be nice for for
0:05kind of making him a weekly start versus a guy that you're terrified is gonna get you know two or three I
0:05my fear though is like they a big part of I thought that the what the media narrative at least will be
0:05about the Denver offensive issues and perhaps Sean Payton's conclusion is we sucked because we were way too pass heavy in the
0:05first half they went 22 passes six runs in the first half I still felt like when they actually wanted to run
0:05the ball Dobbins was still a clear preferred back for that like they came out of the second half they kind of
0:05were like having an established drive and Dobbins was the lead back there and then also like I mean the third down
0:05two minute drill stuff is great if Harvey can keep it like he was terrible in pass pro in that game so
0:05I I guess I'm I'm not that convinced he'll keep it and I could see Coleman getting a shot like soon because
0:05I I thought that Harvey was a a part of why the passing game was quite bad based on him missing a
0:05lot of blocks and Dobbins missed a lot of blocks too fair enough fair enough what about the next panic meter guy
0:05yeah oh sorry I just I really quick on Harvey I said a lot of negative things about him I wanted to
0:05say with the ball in his hand I thought he looked amazing you look great so like I have I have concerned
0:05about the pass pro stuff but they have to find a way to integrate him into the offense with touches because he's
0:05really good but the ball is that's the thing is like even though he has those limitations they found ways last year
0:05and they're that's where I'm bullish is like I don't think he's gonna play every down I think he's gonna be an
0:0580% snapshot guy but they're clearly gonna throw to him he's gonna run their routes and I think because he's gonna be
0:05on the field as like a chess piece sometimes he's gonna get carries as well and he totally even more than Dobbins
0:05and it's just yeah the fact that Jonah Coleman was not really playing he gets the high value touches he got a
0:05touch in the green zone but it got called back by a hold but he got like a toss play that yeah
0:05you know didn't work but was gonna was he got a lot of usage down in the green zone last year too
0:05they like his versatility near the goal line as well and so yeah I mean it's a pretty bullish thing that he's
0:05getting receiving plus you know green zone work and getting those high value touches and then you know potentially playing more snaps
0:05than we even thought because I probably didn't have him playing whatever it was 62% snaps or whatever because I know he's
0:05not gonna be an 80% snap guy but I had Coleman playing 20% and and yeah Harvey at 40% instead of 60
0:05and like if Harvey's at 60 because Coleman's not even like playing it's pretty exciting but yeah like you said the past
0:05past blocking stuff might might shift that maybe Coleman will end up taking that over because he's actually really good at that
0:05stuff yeah all right let's hit on we got two down I'll go to you for Colson Loveland your your panic meter the mr.
0:05zero in a 59 point explosion game from one to ten I'm a negative two I'm with you I'm not I'm not
0:05at all concerned about Colson Loveland even a little bit I know they had a 59 point explosion and that that that
0:05is the headline you scored zero points when you're often scored 59 points they scored 59 points largely because of the rushing
0:05game DeAndre Swift had whatever 124 and three I think and Mononga also went over 100 because of that 60 yard TD
0:05run so he had just over 100 they combined for like 250 yards and four touchdowns and Caitlin Williams had 60 rushing
0:05yards and two TDs it's six rushing touchdowns and over 300 rushing yards between those three guys that's why they were so
0:05good Khalif Raymond having nine targets and eight catches is like yeah I'm notable I was putting in like small bids on
0:05Khalif Raymond because I said this was going to be a very concentrated offense but between him and then Colson and Colt
0:05Komet and it wasn't surprising those guys would have roles if you're paying attention Khalif Raymond was going to have a role
0:05as a as the wide receiver three at some level he's played with Ben Johnson before I mean I picked him up
0:05on a deep dynasty league as a a league that locks and is a best ball league because I'm like he's gonna
0:05probably spike a few weeks this year because he's gonna run enough routes it's gonna be a pretty good offense and then
0:05Colt Komet was obviously gonna play in two tight end sets and he ends up scoring on a long touchdown great throw
0:05from Caleb on that one on a leak play that was actually well defended as far as that play goes a lot
0:05of times that tight end gets left completely and they had a guy trailing and they had a guy coming over the
0:05top but Caleb was able to hole shot it and Komet made a great catch and Komet's a talented player but like
0:05you're not gonna get that from Komet every week you're not gonna get nine targets for Raymond every week obviously burden in
0:05a dunes a not doing anything was also notable but I still thought it was concentrated it's funny because I got a
0:05question about how they weren't as concentrated as I thought I was like I still think this is concentrated it's just the
0:05two guys that we knew were in ancillary roles ended up getting like meaningful production which was Raymond and Komet and no
0:05one else got anything Jaday Walker actually ends up catching a touchdown on his one target was the other like random thing
0:05where it's like some of the passing production goes another he had one target he barely ran any routes and like no
0:05one else is involved most of the targets still went to the main core guys I would expect him to go to
0:05they were just shuffled it was just concentrated differently if it's if Khalif Raymond stays in this role he's a league winner
0:05like if he gets nine targets a game or anything close to it in this offense but the reality is it was
0:05mostly rushing production and then as far as Loveland is concerned they tried to get the ball to him they did an
0:05early like a drag route where he was running to the flat and the Panthers had a zone defender down in the
0:05flat and and Caleb was rolling right and it was clearly gonna be a short pass to Loveland Caleb ends up having
0:05to throw the ball out of bounds then a little while later they tried to throw to him in the end zone
0:05I believe one of his two targets was an end zone target the other one he was wide open and three end
0:05zone targets overall maybe at least two yeah I was gonna get to yeah so there was another one he's wide open
0:05in the intermediate one of his official targets and Caleb threw it like 10 yards behind him I was one of the
0:05biggest misses of anyone of the yeah of the week and everyone says he's inaccurate I thought Caleb generally played well but
0:05he he does miss throws and he missed Loveland by a mile behind him where like he couldn't even stop and make
0:05a play on the ball and it should have been an easy catch and then to your point he got another end
0:05zone target on a slant that he won but the Panthers dropped a defensive tackle underneath it was like inside the five
0:05it was condensed field they dropped the defensive tackle and he intercepted the pass in the shallow part of the end zone
0:05Loveland would have caught a TD in the back of the end zone had he not that was the reason you know
0:05that play wasn't on the stat sheets was that was negated by a defensive offside so we don't even get an official
0:05target there but it actually was another end zone target to your point and I think there was another one where he
0:05was at least the first read or something and they came off of it I can't remember I have it written up
0:05in stealing signals but they were trying to get him involved involved it was like that the interception I'm talking about was
0:05late in the game it was like they were getting aware of the fact that he right didn't have any catches and
0:05they wanted to get him something I and then he had 84% routes he led the team in routes and got a
0:05lot of different opportunities yeah the other target was was was the leak play I talked about was in the red zone
0:05I just pulled up my writing so that was a red zone target and then he got the end zone target I
0:05think he got end zone targets back-to-back he had the interception he had two official targets for the game I think which
0:05was the crosser that he got missed on and then the there was an end zone like kind of skinny post or
0:05slant that he got missed on and then there was the third target that didn't count to the defensive offside that you
0:05mentioned the one that got intercepted but then he also had like I thought several plays where he was clearly the design
0:05first read but then either Carolina like bracketed him or Caleb was under pressure and had to scramble out of pressure or
0:05whatever else and so they weren't like targets but they were plays where clearly that was where the ball was supposed to
0:05go yeah yeah I wrote I wrote about that here like I there was one where I was watching him exclusively on
0:05a third down and he was bracketed by literally three defenders not two but three there was two underneath him and one
0:05kind of over him and he was like the only receiver in that area of the field and Caleb came off him
0:05really quickly but there was the other ends I'm talking about he won on the red zone on a slant it wasn't
0:05a ton of separation Caleb led him too far he he needed to lead him he couldn't just like put it on
0:05his frame the defender was like on the back hip but that was the one I was forgetting a good throw would
0:05have been a touchdown if he had been able to put a ball you know in a good spot for Loveland so
0:05there's multiple opportunities there your boy Max Toscano I saw wrote a piece I haven't like had a chance to really look
0:05through it but wrote a piece about how Loveland was like the most impressive tight end in week one because like without
0:05catching a pass because of the ways that they used him in the offense I'm sure it's very involved in and very
0:05useful tight end you know specific notes that you love and will be reading the entire every word of you know how
0:05I feel about the the nuances of tight end route stuff I get a little bit glossy eyed with it but I
0:05thought the Loveland stuff was such that especially the intent with which they were trying to get him the ball late that
0:05next week I expect Loveland to have a good game like not just like rebound but like I think they'll get him
0:05multiple first quarter targets next week I I agree with the slight caveat of terrible tight end matchup against Minnesota where tight
0:05ends always have to stay in the block and their route participation completely plummets because of all the Flores shit so I
0:05could see I could I could see it actually being I could see it being a less impactful bounce back week simply
0:05because of the scheduling than otherwise because like I'll note that the the Packers use Tucker craft at a much higher a
0:05dot than he's ever had in his career last well I wonder if they use them at about a dot they use
0:05them at that a dot but then he also only had 48% rubber dissipation because there was other time like so sure
0:05you get another tight ends yeah you you get the um it's like some some of the the Flores stuff can be
0:05a blessing or curse I mean there's multiple he presents such a unique challenge to offenses and there's multiple different ways you
0:05can respond to that and I think that like an obvious response is you keep tight ends and running backs into block
0:05more like for instance the Packers had 37% total running back route share because they were just constantly kept into block the
0:05whole game um but I I also thought some of the stuff that happened with craft was interesting where like they were
0:05just kind of running him into wide open space because there's so much up the seam where like yeah vacated linebackers right
0:05up the seam that's what I was thinking yeah so maybe talk about that I'm envisioning 12 personnel and commit get stuck
0:05there and loving up the seam yeah that'd be great that's that's all that's also a possibility I hope that that happens
0:05um yeah I mean I think that the Flores thing is like the Flores thing is fascinating and I wish that like
0:05we could we could predict with more certainty what would happen going in because it's such a he's so unbelievably unique in
0:05how he in like the challenges he presents but I also think that to to your point is like the what answers
0:05the offense comes up with are not necessarily that predictable like there's different ways to there's different ways to answer this question
0:05if you're 12 personnel and you keep the running back in and you keep commit in you still you still need at
0:05least three guys out there running routes and Loveland is gonna for sure it wouldn't be every snap sometimes you would leave
0:05Loveland and you let leak uh you let uh commit leak out because you're trying to be unpredictable too when you say
0:05that about Flores the obvious counter is what about Ben Johnson like he presents real challenges to Flores right like he's gonna
0:05be yeah they just scored 59 points like they're gonna be worried about the running game they're gonna be worried about it's
0:05gonna be a really fun I I think Flores is gonna have to be a little bit concerned about the ground game
0:05and then you know does that create real opportunity for Loveland so Loveland's the one that gets overlooked probably in the game
0:05planning as you're like how do we stop them from running for 300 yards you know I mean right and I mean
0:05that that plays a big effect too and I mean if you run the ball well I mean part of Green Bay's
0:05issue is they were in second and 10 basically every single series because they weren't running the ball well so they were
0:05constantly in second and eight and then then you're getting Flores with like the eight guys up on the line and you
0:05never know who's I mean they can't really do that shit on second and three so if you're run if you run
0:05the ball effectively you're you're helped out and you can run the ball on those looks a lot because there's kind of
0:05weird stuff where like guys are leaving gaps out of control and anyway it's gonna be a super fun game but overall
0:05we're both not worried about Loveland all right two more guys first one Omerian Hampton who did score a touchdown but certainly
0:05not the game that we were dreaming of for for Hampton where are you at on him on your panic meter he's
0:05low for me too he's probably I mean I'm a little bit concerned he's probably a three for me okay I'm a
0:05little bit concerned about the offense as a whole I expected them to come out and look a lot better I mean
0:05Mike McDaniel like so like I got some feedback from some people that was like the bear stuff was obvious and it's
0:05like I mean like obviously it was it's obvious in hindsight like it was it was an upside case that I saw
0:05for sure Ben Johnson's an incredible coach and there's a lot of things that could go right that Mike McDaniel is the
0:05opposite side of that conversation where it's like there's a lot of ways that this stuff doesn't always pan out the way
0:05that we think it does right like I was more confident in the Chargers I was more confident in the firepower they
0:05have how good their offensive line is and how good of a coach McDaniel is maybe that was a mistake on my
0:05part but I felt like they were gonna come out with so many answers because McDaniel had so many more weapons than
0:05he ever had in Miami he was able to create really functional offenses with like two or three playmakers now maybe I'm
0:05questioning now it's like maybe like Tyreek Hill and Waddle and HN and like the speed of those guys was just way
0:05more dynamic than what the Chargers actually have because all they were able to do was get Ladd McConkie into that splash
0:05zone in the deep middle for half the game and then McConkie got hurt they were not able to get anything going
0:05with Quentin Johnson they didn't throw to the backs at all I was really confident that they were gonna throw to the
0:05backs a ton they talked about the short passing and footwork and all this stuff all offseason where was the pass attempts
0:05and all that stuff I will say that Kamani Vidal barely playing was a huge underrated note here because they're talking about
0:05all three backs and like people got really concerned about Hampton and about Keith Mitchell from a snapshot perspective we talked about
0:05that in the offseason in August and my perspective was Vidal's gonna play early but they're gonna not be able to find
0:05work for him when they see like how good Hampton and Mitchell are they were just like from week one this is
0:05all we're doing is Hampton and Mitchell I'm actually pretty low on the panic meter on Mitchell too who four carries for
0:05nine yards basically did nothing I'm concerned about the lack of receiving but until I see a functional version of this offense
0:05I'm not cutting Keith Mitchell I want to know like what their answers are because they didn't have them in week one
0:05clearly I do think they're going to be better from an offensive perspective and then the thing on Hampton I would just
0:05say is I saw some people say that he didn't look good I can't remember where I where I saw that in
0:05multiple places but his touchdown run was strong through contact there was some concerns from there he wasn't super efficient but overall
0:05I thought he looked smooth I thought he looked good I thought he looked quick I actually left the game like what
0:05in my notes when I got through stealing signals I had seen some stuff by the time I wrote that game up
0:06on on Tuesday I'd seen some stuff that was like well my own Hampton looked bad and or buddy Ron Stewart did
0:06like a tier of like concern level for the different like high-end backs and he had him in the very bottom tier
0:06and I was like I guess that's not where I would have Omari and Hampton like even some of the other guys
0:06that I was a little bit more concerned about in week one he had a tier up from that which is like
0:06you know this is concerning I can't remember who but it was like this is concerning but you know not going crazy
0:06and then you know Marion Hampton at the very bottom with like a Chan or something I think at Barkley up a
0:06tier and I was like yeah I mean Barkley looked good and ran well but like I was actually pretty concerned about
0:06the Eagles I would I had Hampton ahead of Barkley I would still rank Hampton ahead of Barkley right now is what
0:06I'm saying I would meaningfully so I think I feel I feel like the charges are still going to be good and
0:06I don't know that the Eagles are offensively frankly but anyway that's and then Barkley didn't run routes like he ran very
0:06few it was weird under the new coaching staff they used Will Shipley in a pass-down role Barkley at 21% routes he
0:06had never been that low all last year his average route rate was like 55% it was a significant shift for Barkley
0:06on the receiving side it's not like he adds a lot as a receiver anyway but not ideal they anyway I'll let
0:06you go but I'm not that concerned about him I thought he looked I just wanted to jump in on Barkley but
0:06you I want you to finish up on Hampton I want to jump in on Barkley uh the new Washington DC is
0:06like a former Flores assistant and so they were doing a lot of that stuff and really to me the only meaningful
0:06difference was that Shipley saw the two-minute drill and that was kind of the only period of the game where they got
0:06running back routes otherwise you're being held in the block lot I I'm I'm willing to bet we will see Barkley over
0:0640% routes next week because the running back will get in a route more often on early downs because 40% was like
0:06the low last year he was like 57% oh I I mean I rode up I rode up Shipley in the two-minute
0:06drill as a legit thing in it so I think that that is a that's a serious thing I just thought that
0:06the like um but if he's how low it got yeah like because like if you add them I don't I don't
0:06know what tank bigs we ran routes wise I'm guessing like four percent I don't know if he ran a route so
0:06like if you add Routes and Shipley's routes together it's like 40 and it's like that's not gonna happen most that's right
0:06where they were both 21% it's the same point you made about the Packers those are great um great notes about the
0:06the Flores thing and the Flores defense thing and how the running backs don't run a lot of combined routes something that
0:06I missed but I'll make sure to get into signals in the future it's a great great point um the Barkley was
0:06at 21 and Shipley was also at 21 if I remember correctly and Bigsby basically didn't run any which is very low
0:06total routes for the Eagles so yeah great call there but the the last the last take on um Hampton would just
0:06be um that I thought he looked good that I thought he looked and I had already kind of said that I
0:06was kind of just circling back to that point but well I'm curious what you saw and what you wrote up in
0:06the I haven't yeah checkers right up yet this will be a disagreement point um so I I actually literally wrote it's
0:06the only guy that I said I would put my panic level at a six out of ten I wrote that in
0:06the column so I'll stick with six um now and my my six out of ten is pretty Hampton specific um like
0:06Mitchell you mentioned your panic meter would be low I'd be whatever the opposite of a panic meter is on Mitchell I'd
0:06be actively trading for Keaton Mitchell um in fact so um yeah the Chargers offense was all Chargers offense was a mess
0:06uh in week one basically the only thing that worked was Lab and Konki um so if you're looking for like the
0:06optimistic perspective I think on the backs it would be they tried to run the offense of the receivers the only one
0:06who did anything positive got hurt that all the stuff that they were doing to QJ and Trey Harris was not very
0:06successful they were having massive pass pro issues and so they should probably be focused on ways to get the ball out
0:06more quickly and that's going to probably rebound to the backs benefit I think that that would be a major upgrade for
0:06Mitchell or Hampton is if they kind of get back around to running the passing game more through the running backs like
0:06we expected and and less like what it was in week one the concern stuff for Hampton would be to me um
0:06the book on him like the scouting report on him coming out of college has always been if you get this guy
0:06downhill running in a straight line he's an absolute force and like you saw that on the touchdown run where he gets
0:06a gap straight down the a gap guys are getting in his way he's trucking them out of the gap he broke
0:06like three tackles gets into the end zone when you get him moving laterally it's tough because he just doesn't really have
0:06that fluidity and that's been this concern about the scheme fit with him for a lot of the offseason is can this
0:06guy effectively on these wide zone plays does he have the fluidity to be able to make the right cuts to get
0:06up the field efficiently like it's one thing if he's running you know toss or counter you're basically rounding first base on
0:06some of these but can does he have the twitch where he's able to see the hole and immediately move laterally I
0:06mean that fumble wrap I know it's one play but that was like that's the worst trap I saw of any running
0:06back all week I mean he's running outside and then sees that okay now's my opportunity to get caught and he kind
0:06of had to get past the defender so he was getting pushed a little bit and then he tries to cut in
0:06and like to me he ran a little bit like he was wearing rubber boots on a skating rink where like he
0:06just keeps drifting drifting drifting and then he bumps into his own blocker and he fumbles and like the fumble I don't
0:06care about whatever but it's like he couldn't get to the hole because it is turn his turning ability is pretty poor
0:06and that's like kind of a to me that's just like a key thing you have to do over and over again
0:06if you're gonna have success in this offense is you have to be able to string out those wide zone plays and
0:06then cut laterally up the field like I thought Jadarian Price did an incredible job of that in the Seattle game and
0:06so that was just an issue to me with Hampton where I don't know that he's a scheme fit in the run
0:06game and it was a concern I had it was like the one concern I had coming into the year and then
0:06I saw that kind of rear its ugly head and I'm trying not to go over not even confirmation bias because I
0:06wasn't out on Hampton but like that was the one concern that I had and then I felt like I saw that
0:06pretty visibly and then the other concern I had was you mentioned the lack of pass game work I did see some
0:06of the Mike McDaniel like design pass game stuff that didn't result in targets but all of it was Mitchell like I
0:06thought Mitchell was the one who was getting some of those fun routes where he's out in bunch formations aligned or he's
0:06getting those like interesting kind of H-back alignments and they're working him out in angles and stuff like they were doing some
0:06of that they didn't result in targets but Mitchell was the one getting that usage and I didn't see that level of
0:06creative usage with Hampton I thought he was just being used as like a normal running back so I my level of
0:06concern on Hampton from a talent perspective and from a fit perspective is quite high like I would even go as far
0:06as to say an eight and then the reason why I have it lower to six is just I still really believe
0:06in Herbert I still really believe in McDaniel I believe there's gonna be better days ahead for this offense I think that
0:06they ran into some limitations with some of the personnel they chose to emphasize in week one with QJ and with Harris
0:06and they're gonna need answers that aren't just loud McConkie that has to be the run game to some extent Hampton still
0:06the only guy on this team that has the pedigree that has the workhorse ability he's gonna find a way to get
0:06fed and like I think that even if even if all of my concerns about some of like the scheme fit talent
0:06stuff turn out to be correct he still has to be an answer to the offense and I still think like worst
0:06case he can Joe Mixon his way into production in a really effective offense and I still think it's gonna be a
0:06really effective offense so I would say the absolute ceiling case of like him being a guy that can lift up the
0:06offense like as much as I can be concerned about one game I'm pretty concerned I don't want to over draw conclusions
0:06from one game but I was legitimately concerned in terms of like do I think it's just over for him no I
0:06think he's gonna have opportunities to succeed but I'm gonna be watching him really closely this week and and I want to
0:06see how much he is used on some of those core play concepts in the McDaniel offense and whether he's able to
0:06have success on them or not like I want to I want to hope that I'm coming back here next week I'm
0:06like oh week one was just a blip and he had a couple bad reps and not this is indicative of a
0:06of like a fatal flaw in his rushing style I don't mean to like make it seem like this will be the
0:06second time I've said this where it's like oh I need to like validate your take because that was objectively great analysis
0:06without it but that I guess I think there's value to the listener to know that I hear that and I meaningfully
0:06moves the needle for me too so I guess I don't know whatever like that I I think that's a really interesting
0:06stuff you obviously have a much stronger feel on the Hampton stuff than than I do or did but it concerns me
0:06as well to hear you talk through that and talk to the outside zone stuff I felt the same about Jadarian Price
0:06for example I don't go into the running concepts you know when I watch the games in as nuances of a fashion
0:06as you do which you've always done so well at the in the hitchhiker's guide and I think that's incredibly useful stuff
0:06it's funny we did some drafts together and there's you know there's some teams where we got some different stuff like we
0:06got that waddle share or whatever and you always like you see week one you're like you think back to some of
0:06the decisions that you made and stuff I don't like the waddle share was what it was I was glad we got
0:06a waddle share together we got it at a good price like I'm not worried about that I'm not worried about a
0:06lot of the different decisions that we made if there's if there was one decision and I'd be curious if you had
0:06one there's one decision that happened for us in our draft season that I thought of on Sunday and was like man
0:06I'm kind of bummed about that I'm sure it was the same one is it okay because but so my question is
0:06everything you just said about the outside zone and about the talent level of Hampton wasn't just from week one and I'm
0:06wondering if I was misunderstanding at the moment because I felt like I was kind of trying to push you towards gente
0:06and you were like we kind of have to take Hampton on that no I'm kicking myself I'm not kicking you I
0:06I'm like I mean part of it is that I felt that way about Hampton I know you love gente and I'm
0:06like why didn't we wind up with gente on that team yeah no I'm kicking myself hard over that call because you're
0:06you're right I I was totally on board with the Hampton pick and even maybe more driving it I'm I'm kicking myself
0:06because like I spent a lot of May and June very bearish on Hampton for all of these reasons and then I
0:06like talked to myself into him over time where I was like I think I'm getting too lost in these micro concerns
0:06let's try to focus a little bit more on the bigger picture concerns like good prospect good receiving profile what I think
0:06is gonna be an elite offense like and and so I like he was a guy that I really went from like
0:06low on to high on over the course of an offseason and then like in week one I felt like I saw
0:06like my nightmare scenario play out and I and so my initial reaction was like like kicking myself for talking myself into
0:06him but I also am not like now it's dead like I'm not you know I didn't say it was at a
0:0610 I'm in a six I mean I obviously wish we had to have the pick back not even just for Hampton
0:06reasons but like gente reasons I mean at the time we did that I didn't even think he was gonna play in
0:06week one um right not only did gente play in week one but then he looked like god and so like I
0:06don't know if I'm ranking rest of season like I picked gente like fifth overall like so it's like yeah like I'm
0:06kicking myself we don't have a gente share like you mentioned Hampton versus Barkley for instance like that's one where like I
0:06would have a hard time picking between them but I might still lean Hampton I'm not 100% sure like it's not like
0:06I'm moving Hampton down to if we were drafted I'd take him in the fourth or anything like that like I'd still
0:06take him probably as a top certainly as a top 30 player maybe even as a top 24 player so I it's
0:06I'm kicking myself a ton because mostly of the gente half of that equation right but so that for the listeners we
0:06we um that was a patreon draft because the one that we did as a normal show was the one we picked
0:06by Sean at the end of the round we picked at whatever it was four five and we took it we took
0:06JSN at five that was a JSN team and then on the way back I had told you part of the reason
0:06we took JSN instead of Bowers was the debate was that I really wanted to get gente at a depressed cost because
0:06we so you're you said you were thinking he was going to miss week one but we had already gotten positive notes
0:06on the ankle because the take I gave on the show was I thought by Labor Day weekend he would be going
0:06at the one-two turn again because like it seemed like everything had been positive and I was already saying it was pre
0:06Labor Day weekend it was early on but I was already saying this is the way it's gonna go for gente he's
0:06already walking without a boot he's gonna like I actually thought he was gonna play week one we were kind of discussing
0:06that but I was like he's gonna play week one I I get a lot wrong but I was very early on
0:06that and I think correct on that I was saying that we don't T was should be going one to turn again
0:06quickly and it's a great value now that he's fallen to the late second everywhere that he has and in the main
0:06event I actually looked this up in the main event he only went outside the fourth round I think in one draft
0:06or maybe it was a couple drafts but I don't think there's a ton in the main in the big gorilla he
0:06went late on a ton but there was not a lot of mains going on during that one little strike one person
0:06got him as like a seventh round pick or eighth round pick and then he went in the late fourth and another
0:06and I think everything else is like top three rounds in the main so it's not like the element of like well
0:06you're out like you're so glad I got him at 410 and a big gorilla to pair with Jamar Chase and Colston
0:06Loveland that team's gonna be sick yeah you should yeah yeah lost by 40 week one oh because of Jamar Chase and
0:06Loveland yeah I didn't pick up that half of it that was that was uh it was a little uh it was
0:06a real woo oh no situation but uh but no that team's gonna be fine that team's gonna be sick it's it
0:06sucked in in week one but Jamar Chase is the other one that your panic meter has to be negative on no
0:06no he's he's a great player because I get to use him in this intro I'd write the same sorry I'm gonna
0:06go on a tangent for two minutes but I basically write the same portion of the intro every year uh after week
0:06one where I'm like you know part of the heart we all know that every player through 17 weeks is just gonna
0:06have random inexplicable bad games right and then it's like if this happens in week eight nobody even cares about it because
0:06it's it's just one piece of data amongst many and our hard part in week one is figuring out which are the
0:06ones that are indicative and which are just the random bad games that happen to sequence that way and because Jamar Chase
0:06has a terrible game in week one literally every year he's always the person that I get to point to and saying
0:06like well obviously no one's worried about Jamar Chase because like he's Jamar Chase and it's like I never even have to
0:06mix up that line because it's just always Jamar Chase every freaking year it's not ideal but it is it's ideal that
0:06he comes back and he's still you know 1600 yard receiver or whatever but uh the anyway the the the decision point
0:06we had was Hampton fell to us he had been going ahead of there we didn't expect him to fall there I
0:06still had Hampton ranked ahead of Gentry but when we got on the clock I remember you being like it seems like
0:06you still want to take Gentry and I was like I kind of do I had I had moved Gentry back into
0:06that tier and had him as a target and I'd already gotten Hampton I think on two mains by that point and
0:06didn't have a share of Gentry was really looking forward to a late second share and and just broadly in the future
0:06because we're gonna do a lot more drafting together I'm never out on giving up the guy who's falling like if somebody
0:06else behind us gets the even better Hampton value I'm I'm always down to just like pull someone up or pull or
0:06pick somebody outside of ranks or like within a tier especially if it's like a portfolio based thing which I thought because
0:06I knew you were super into Gentry I thought we'd be stoked to get Gentry in the second and that one I
0:06don't think I said it this way on the actual recording but I was like we ended up on Hampton obviously and
0:06I was just like in my head I was like I would if you would have been like do you want to
0:06take Gentry I would have been like yeah I do like I would have been totally fine taking Gentry but you know
0:06I had Hampton ranked higher and I felt like you were very much like we got to take Hampton and we so
0:07we ended up both doing that but like for future reference if you're ever like I wonder if Ben would be down
0:07with this crazy thing it's almost always yes like I would have yeah no fair I am not putting that call on
0:07you like I to me it was like in the moment I just felt like yeah like my heart was probably on
0:07the Gentry side like I love Gentry like I said I made him the cover boy of my draft guide this year
0:07but it felt like it felt at the time irresponsible to be like you know we're gonna take this one guy who
0:07is like vaguely in the same tier anyway who's hurt ahead of this other guy who's healthy and then I had to
0:07head that's my point is like the head to head thing doesn't matter if you think Gentry's a good pick I know
0:07Hampton's also a good pick but especially if like there's like a portfolio element and stuff too it's okay to be like
0:07yeah Gentry's a good pick here in his own right like I do I do the head to head thing all the
0:07time too where it's like it feels irresponsible to take Gentry over Hampton but that's probably not the way to think about
0:07it the way to think about it is like there's two good picks here and on this team we want to take
0:07Gentry and that's we're gonna it doesn't mean Hampton's a bad should have just done it if there's yeah like every every
0:07pick there's a few picks that I'm kicking myself on right now and and maybe this looks silly maybe maybe it'll it'll
0:07flip completely the opposite direction eight weeks from now but like another one I'm kicking myself on is I took um I
0:07took a falling Brian Thomas on one team where I really wanted to just take Matthew Golden and and then I didn't
0:07and I hoped that Golden would come back around and he didn't and like that team started Jonathan Taylor Ken Walker Zay
0:07Flowers and so I'm like this team is like one of my best teams like I'm feeling amazing on it but I'm
0:07like I wish I just had freaking Matthew Golden and not Brian Thomas you know and it's like I wanted to do
0:07that and I decided to like be the adult in the room and it's like I'm kicking the adult out of the
0:07room I will say before Thomas got hurt I thought he looked good because I've been out on Thomas and and Segal
0:07was in on him and I had to give Segal credit on that one I'm stealing bananas right because I felt like
0:07Thomas you made a couple catches in track he did look good yeah so maybe he did look good and I'm he
0:07did look good and it's like yeah same thing that I said like you know I think Hampton again like if I
0:07if people are listening to this like I really don't want them like if Hampton has a great game this week I
0:07don't want the takeaway to be like like Jake was already like you know sticking the shovel in the ground and just
0:07buried him like that's not that's not my view um but and it would be the same thing for Thomas like it
0:07would not surprise me if Thomas proves to be a better pick than Matthew Golden like that's totally plausible it's totally still
0:07plausible but um it's like immediately after week one just because it was a decision I remember thinking through at the time
0:07and like agonizing over for 46 seconds or whatever that then when week one goes the way it did I'm like dang
0:07it yeah yeah that's that's what it is it's not like it's not like oh mad or anything but the Hampton genti
0:07one was of all the ones I I'm I'm pretty good about being like look it's all probability based and it's all
0:07you know we we make the decisions we make we got to live with them that was the one where and it's
0:07not even like it was just it was one I wanted to talk to you about eventually from the perspective of I
0:07know we're gonna do a lot more drafting together and like building our our kind of our flow and the way that
0:07we're gonna do things where because I know I was very in on Hampton too neither of us like really said it
0:07like we should go genti but like right I remember you saying something like you were so excited to take genti like
0:07you knew that I like I kind of wanted to go genti and I was like hoping you'd be like do you
0:07want to do that are you in because I'm kind of in I know like let's do genti like it would have
0:07been awesome yeah like I remember my feeling my exact feeling at the time was I was mad that Hampton came back
0:07to us because I felt like he prevented us from doing the thing that we wanted to do exactly that's exactly the
0:07feeling and it's like just do the thing you want to do that's the last right right just right always do the
0:07thing you want to do and dress just always draft the guys that you want to draft don't ever let yourself do
0:07that like I that's something Sean and I talked about on bananas before draft guys that you like make the picks that
0:07make you happy draft guys that you enjoy it's it's it's for your mental health as well as the fact that a
0:07lot of times they're the right pick there's a reason that you're feeling that sentimentality if it doesn't work like yeah sometimes
0:07you sound you feel stupid you look back you're like oh I got a little ahead of myself then you live you
0:07learn like you'll have a different perspective on it the next time but in the moment draft the guy you actually want
0:07to draft there's no worse feeling than looking back on a pick at me and like I took a guy didn't want
0:07to pick now having said that I still really liked the Hampton pick we both like yeah really did I I already
0:07had it yeah it's not like we were taking like Barkley who was like yeah exactly it's very different yeah yes so
0:07it's not like we took somebody that we didn't have a a good feel on and and but to that to that
0:07um point and to circle all the way back on the Hampton analysis you gave that I thought was really strong I'm
0:07probably giving a little bit of copium with my little uh with my low rank because I do have him in like
0:07I think it's three mains I may may have got him in a fourth by the end of it I have a
0:07lot of Omari and Hampton yeah I have him too and this one also ticked me off is then we did that
0:07draft you just mentioned together I drafted with someone else who has no responsibility to manage my portfolio for the record but
0:07like I'd draft with someone else and we had the exact same thing happen where Gentie and Hampton were both available and
0:07that time having just done the Hampton team with you I was a little bit more like we should just do Gentie
0:07this time and that person was like no we should take Hampton and then I'm like god damn it it happened to
0:07me twice you were in my position that time yeah because you had gotten Hampton I had already gotten Hampton with Sean
0:07because I talked about how I had so many draft picks in the back third and and Siegel was really into Hampton
0:07too so we took some you know earlier second round Hampton so obviously taking a late second round Hampton share is great
0:07and having him with JSN is great and all that stuff but I ended up doing a draft with Sean I think
0:07after that is um is what it was that was a J it was a pick five we took JSN and then
0:07Hampton fell I have two JSN Hampton builds because I ended up doing one with Sean too so anyway whatever it doesn't
0:07matter like that's the way that stuff works out with the main event stuff where you're not doing a million teams I
0:07mean there's some high stakes grinders that are I think I have like 13 mains this year or something like that which
0:07is I mean it's obviously a lot um they're all you know co-managed and stuff but um it's also a small amount
0:07in terms of like the way that your your actual uh draft slots can can can um vary and all of these
0:07types of things and so your different builds are gonna sometimes overlap I also have multiple Ken Walkers I believe I have
0:07multiple right Browns as well or at least one Chase Brown I have uh multiple uh Trey McBride's I have multiple uh
0:07Seedy Lambs I have like like all the guys at the at the one two turn I have like shares of so
0:07I'm I'm glad you brought up Walker too because this is probably like um this is maybe why I sound more negative
0:07than um than even my six out of ten is it's like I'm just really tilted about a Marion Hampton because you
0:07mentioned Walker too and this was another one where like I've always had Walker ranked above Hampton the entire offseason but for
0:07most of the summer Walker was going behind Hampton in best ball and so I was like doing exposure management a lot
0:07where I was like usually taking Walker but mixing in Hamptons repeatedly and then fast forward to August and it was like
0:07in late August now Walker's going ahead of Hampton and I'm like well shoot now I'm ending up with as much Hampton
0:07as I have Walker I'm like I should have just I should have been clicking Walker the whole dang time and then
0:07I could get my Hampton into the end and I actually have so it's like I'm I was never out on Hampton
0:07and I'm not trying to pretend that I was I was in on Hampton but I do feel as though I actually
0:07have more Hampton in my portfolio than I wanted and I was hoping that like I kind of wanted Hampton to be
0:07a guy I was like very slightly ahead of market on an exposure and I'm actually like a good bit more than
0:07that and then that's how I'm like I wish that that was a pleasant surprise but it doesn't feel that pleasant right
0:07now so I was the same way I wound up with more Hampton than I wanted to be on and that's why
0:07I went that direction with the conversation because I was like the other person the person I draft with the most is
0:07Sean and Sean was very into Hampton and it's a big part of why I have a lot of Hampton and then
0:07I heard your analysis of it and I was like well if you weren't into Hampton why did I get a Hampton
0:07team with you like why did we get to take your cover boy right on that team right like yeah yeah the
0:07way that it's gonna fit into my head but anyway Hampton exposure discussion aside we got one more in the one more
0:07short view which is still I'll go I'll go first on this one but then I'll throw it to you Marvin Harrison
0:07jr 10 I was gonna do 10 so uh you're a you're a Marvin Harrison fan picture a white flag in my
0:07hand here just a white flag the Harrison thing was was tricky man he had a bad drop but all he had
0:07he made a great catch on his one cat oh that that that actually that that I will take issue with it
0:07has no actionable value for the rest of the season but I saw that in signals and that felt rude I do
0:07not blame that on him at all I thought that throw was way behind him oh the the drop yeah I put
0:07him I put zero percent of that responsibility on Harris I was I guess I misremember the play I thought he throttled
0:07down and was like open in space and it like hit off his chair over the middle I thought he was like
0:07reaching back you just unplugged your mic Jacob for for the audience who uh is not watching on YouTube Jacob just went
0:07for the catch uh and unplugged his mic oh he's still on Harrison he's still talking there he is now he's back
0:07that that went worse for me than it did for for Marv um but I don't maybe I'm misremembering the play I
0:07in my in my recollection he was like running across her that was kind of behind him and then he reached behind
0:07him and it hit his hands but but he didn't catch it and I put that more on Persept but I also
0:07could be misremembering it also doesn't matter this like it's like it's whether he got that or not I would feel the
0:07exact same way or whether it was a fault or not um zero percent yeah I'm I'm trying to find oh here
0:07we go I'm I'm finding the play right now here yeah this is not on private chat so I can so I
0:07can watch it it's the first this is we gotta do forensic uh it's a big cut up uh I'm dropping in
0:07the private chat it's a big cut up but it's the first play of the cut up okay perfect I'm gonna go
0:07yeah I'm gonna retract zero but I'm gonna give him 20 at most I'm putting this way more over set oh man
0:07that's that ball's gotta be caught I'm not I mean really there's a linebacker coming over underneath the play the throw's gotta
0:07be behind he's he can't leave that's a tough catch no no it's not an easy okay but then it but then
0:07it can't but then the ball just shouldn't be thrown then I mean maybe like it's just like I get that that's
0:07where so I I'm not I'm not I'm not um disagreeing with you that it's a tough catch on Harrison I'm taking
0:07issue with you saying that it was like all on Brissette I think right that that I will that that part I
0:07will actually completely concede I sure like in my mind when I watched it originally I was watching it more just in
0:07terms of like the ball placement relative to Harrison's momentum and like how difficult of a catch it was but I'm watching
0:07it with the linebacker there you're you're right that it's not a bad play from Brissette um throttle down thing I knew
0:07there was something about it I thought he did throttle down what it was was that I thought he should have throttled
0:07down he's like oh I see he looks back and he's running there's a defender that he can see there and he's
0:07running to where he's taking away it's like he's trying to sprint through the the the throwing window and I think good
0:07receivers have more feel and slow that down and make that a more catchable ball so it comes to right you're saying
0:07he made it a hard catch on himself that's right that's that's exactly what I'm saying that's fair it was behind him
0:07behind his momentum because of him not necessarily because of the ball like Brissette's got to throw that two seconds earlier or
0:07whatever the ball's gonna fly there not two seconds a second whatever but like Brissette makes his decision and he throws it
0:07and he's got to trust that his year three receiver is smart enough to throttle down at least a little bit so
0:07that ball doesn't come in so behind him like I think AJ Brown makes that play 10 times out of 10 because
0:07I think he slows down I think that's exactly what AJ Brown does so well that people don't they're like oh AJ
0:07Brown slow he's running with a piano on his back like Siegel famously said that one time like that's that's the little
0:07nuances that really good receivers do they make the easy stuff they make the hard stuff look easy some young guys make
0:07that mistake I think yeah you're right there's a lot of good receivers over the middle there that understand where the throw
0:07window is where that linebacker is what his quarterback is seeing and make themselves available to make that catch in space like
0:07an easy catch and he made it a hard catch which was like a bummer for him anyway you said a 10
0:07as well I guess I want to hear your thoughts on that I mean obviously Trey McBride and Kendrick Bourne being involved
0:07and all this stuff was not ideal yeah I mean the Kendrick Bourne stuff is like whatever and I certainly don't expect
0:07that part to continue but I actually wrote like I did my Dynasty Corner column that came out last night and I
0:07wrote up like top trade targets and I had Michael Wilson as one of my top trade targets so there's there's one
0:07for you specifically because Wilson like didn't actually have that great of a game I think he had five for 57 or
0:07something so I don't imagine that the natural take from people experiencing that game will be like Michael Wilson season you know
0:07but my read is that the Bourne stuff is noise very similarly to the Raymond stuff right it's like a it's like
0:07a veteran player who we know who he is and I don't think he's going to see eight targets every week but
0:07okay if we assume that those targets go away how do they reallocate themselves well you can only give so many more
0:07targets to Trey McBride I think he already saw like 13 and so I think that based on kind of how the
0:07offense flowed I think the obvious answers are more for love more for Wilson because to me Harrison was kind of just
0:07doing his own thing for most of the game you know that that one target that we just diagnosed was kind of
0:07the only target he got that I would categorize as being in the flow of the offense uh the other two targets
0:07he got one was like not even really anything it was like Jacoby Brissette was in the pocket and was about to
0:07get sacked that he saw Harrison down there and he just like flung it out of bounds it was like a complete
0:07nothing burger um and then the other target he got was a great play that he made where he made the downfield
0:07reception um it seemed like Brissette clearly recognized they're going to send pressure I have a one-on-one um with Harrison and I'm
0:07going to throw it and he threw it decisively and Harrison made a good play but like how many of those could
0:07you get a game you know like two or three is probably the most and so if that's the kind of play
0:07that he's reliant on like he'll have weeks where maybe they play like more pressure focused defenses and so he gets more
0:07of those one-on-one opportunities and in those weeks he might have like a usable spike but it's going to be really hard
0:07to predict when that's going to happen and like the core of the offense what that seemed like they were trying to
0:07do was a lot of you know high lowing defenders in the intermediate area of the field taking what was there and
0:07that stuff was being run through not him um you know it was being run through Michael Wilson the ball didn't find
0:07Michael Wilson quite as much in this game he also had I think um a DPI and I think he had a
0:07catch negated by penalty um so that hurt him in the box score and then there was just a lot of plays
0:07where I thought like he's running a high low concept with Bourne and the ball's finding Bourne because he was the one
0:07left open but like Wilson was part of the concept whereas like there were I felt like at least 10 plays where
0:07there was a concept on one side that involved some combination of Wilson and Bourne and McBride and Harrison was just like
0:07chilling on the other side like the ball was never going to get to him he was he could have ran whatever
0:07route he wanted but him and whoever was guarding him were not part of the the concept whatsoever basically um and otherwise
0:07it was like a lot of go routes there's a lot of backside digs and it's just a tough way to live
0:07so I mean that's that's also like the people who thought Harrison was going to have a bad season this year or
0:07or I should say at least an unproductive season this year that's kind of exactly how they described what they thought was
0:07going to happen and like I would just say like congrats you're right because that's what happened yeah that's uh that's that
0:08was my concern for sure I the only thing I disagree with even mildly is that I guess probably as because I
0:08was coming from from higher expectations I came out a little bit more concerned than you about Wilson I guess I the
0:08way that I see this going forward is so McBride and love heavy because I you were talking about some of the
0:08high low concepts and stuff and I think that's that was very good but I thought the wills I thought Wilson would
0:08get like two or three like gimme catches the way that like cup used to and Nkui used to in this offense
0:08and I talked about that a little bit how they did that with him a little bit in very limited preseason usage
0:08and the other stuff that he did was nice the fact that he got five for 50 was nice but it's it's
0:08a it's a less extreme version of what you described with Harrison but it's still a similar thing where it's like if
0:08you know those are those are the tougher catches to do a lot of them were downfield like you were saying with
0:08Harrison like if he's only getting that type of usage how many of those can you get during a game and Wilson
0:08did get five but like I'm envisioning Wilson being able to have like seven eight catches in that kind of a spot
0:08where they do throw as much as they did and they had a lot of targets and all that stuff because they're
0:08not going to have get every game isn't going to be that good offensively either they had a really strong offensive game
0:08overall McBride has this great game and then McBride just looked like the the league winner and and love looked like league
0:08winners those two guys look like they're both going to be league winners like full-on and so then yeah I do think
0:08Harrison's going to get more than three targets some weeks and most weeks probably and for me with with Wilson it was
0:08like I one of the like when I talked about Wilson with like Sean for example like one of his concerns was
0:08like don't you think it's going to be a lot of McBride and love and um like Wilson would make like I
0:08think this is the way he would describe it I can't remember exactly but um that was like mostly McBride and love
0:08as the main course of the offense and then Wilson and Harrison sort of splitting the next tier of volume right and
0:08if that's the case then that's probably not great for either Wilson or Harrison um that's the way I saw week one
0:08and just the fact that Bourne did anything and maybe a part of that other equation of what like Wilson and and
0:08Harrison are doing is not ideal and so anyway that that would be my concern on Wilson very slightly but I mean
0:08he's still playable obviously he had a decent game he had five for 50 or whatever in the cases where I have
0:08him and I was already starting to set some week two lineups and I have him against like golden and stuff his
0:08projection similar well I'm just playing golden every time I'm playing gold I'm playing golden against a lot of dudes but yeah
0:08I think I mean I guess my take would be is I thought Wilson had a a like okay result but based
0:08on at least how I felt the game went I thought this would be one of his lower performances of the season
0:08that's I'm glad to hear that that's great to hear like that that game to me unfolded in a way that suggests
0:08that this will be a this will be one of Wilson's down games like I felt like there was just a lot
0:08more meat on the bone because I felt like he was like there were just so many like half field reads and
0:08stuff that he was a part of and Harrison just wasn't and I don't know a lot of it comes down to
0:08just like Bourne's not going to see eight targets every week I mean I think Mo if I had to guess like
0:08how many weeks does Kendrick Bourne see five targets I would say it's like under 50 percent yeah that just seems sure
0:08so and it's like where do those go it's like it's not going to go I thought Bourne was more it's not
0:08going to see 17 targets a week right I thought I thought Bourne was even more noise than than Raymond mostly because
0:08I think the Bears top guys I mean none of them were involved it wasn't just Loveland it was Burden right it
0:08was a Dunze and Burden and Dunze both had some some injury issues already this August and into September and it's like
0:08yeah I guess I can see scenarios where this is still a concentrated offense but Khalif Raymond is part of the concentration
0:08and this is like a career year at age 32 because he's coming I know that'd be super unprecedented but he's coming
0:08over he knows Ben Johnson's system he's always been in bit roles as he's developed and he was a late bloomer he
0:08was only a special teams guy for the first half of his career and then efficient and bit roles for the lines
0:08in the second half and so this is really the first time he's ever been in a situation where it could actually
0:08pan out for him where you know Ben Johnson brought him in he knows his system and he was like yeah I'm
0:08so anyway I don't think Clay Frayman's going to be a clear hit but I did some bidding on him I didn't
0:08put a single bid on Kendrick Bourne this week so I agree with you on that like he's I think clearly fifth
0:08on the team and the offense isn't as good either like the Bears offense if if Khalif Raymond does wind up factoring
0:08in like burden as a groin tweak or you know Dunsay's foot becomes an issue again and Bert and Raymond's like factoring
0:08in you're like this is a really good offense to be factoring into right like that would be interesting I think the
0:08Cardinals offense is going to be good it's good and I've like yeah and like I've always kind of felt like the
0:08Cardinals offense is going to be good and it's been really I've like taken the market seriously with some of like the
0:08really like they were like 31st in projected points and it's been like I've been like well that's something to note but
0:08it also always felt wrong they were dead last they were 32nd in projected points yeah and it's like that just that
0:08just felt really weird like they have a really great skill group I mean they haven't I mean one thing I would
0:08emphasize with Marvin Harrison is like I will maintain that I don't actually think this guy sucks and in large part I
0:08think that they have like the luxury of deprioritizing him in this offense because they have an abundance of skill players and
0:08they have I think a really great play caller and like I get percent I think he'll be percent but like I
0:08think they're probably going to be an average offense the so and I talked a lot about the implied points a lot
0:08I talked about it through my projection process I know I talked about it on the ETE pod that I did with
0:08with uh Jack Miller and Mark Dankenbring I know I talked about in my offseason stealing signals and I had the same
0:08thing as you it's like I it never made any sense with how talented the skill position group was and I've talked
0:08about on stealing bananas a lot when you bring that up I I do think it's actually a really interesting macro discussion
0:08about using implied points generally because I think this is like a clear systemic uh mistake for like from a fantasy perspective
0:08of using implied points that I wish I would have more clearly been like this is a mistake it's it was the
0:08market implied point total which is based on a lot of different factors the biggest thing for the Cardinals was it was
0:08based on they had a really really hard schedule so they're underdogs significant underdogs right double digit underdogs in a lot of
0:08games but that's also because they have a new coach they did an uncertain quarterback position and these other teams are all
0:08well-known good teams and so you can understand why they were double digit underdogs at the same time it's a systemic thing
0:08where like if this is wrong if the coaching is good they're going to immediately all those forward-looking look-ahead lines they're great
0:08bets for anyone who went through and took them took the points with them every single week if somebody decided that's what
0:08they wanted to do right you can't even get all those lines right now because I think they pull a lot of
0:08the look-ahead lines as soon as the season starts um at least they do at DraftKings I know they have like next
0:08week they have week three up but they you know for the whole offseason they have the whole the whole menu of
0:08every single game and then they they pull a lot of those but if you could if they put them up right
0:08now they wouldn't be the same the Cardinals would look a lot better because obviously they went out and beat the Chargers
0:08but this is a big reason we'll get to our Survivor stuff that we didn't want to take the Chargers and Survivor
0:08is there was uncertainty with the Cardinals and that's that's the thing there was far more certainty with the Browns far more
0:08certainty with a lot of the other teams that were valued slightly higher by like look-ahead lines because they had better matchups
0:08where they they weren't going to just be eight and ten point underdogs every single week because significant look-ahead lines are going
0:08to like move back towards zero but so it became more of a uh a schedule uh strength point rather than right
0:08um the point with the Cardinals is one where it's like if you're wrong once that's why I'm saying systemic if you're
0:08wrong once then all of the numbers were wrong they were all off by and so yeah they have a tough schedule
0:08and yeah they're still going to probably be uh like a slightly less high scoring team because they're probably going to lose
0:08more games they're still probably going to be last in their division but like their division is really good I said to
0:08Sean on on bananas like if they were in the NFC South I'd probably be saying they're going to win the division
0:08like after week one yeah sure it's like it's more a point of like they have to play these NFC West teams
0:08multiple times and that's tricky like yeah they do have a tough schedule and the other divisions that division has to play
0:08are tough and so the whole thing is it's still kind of tough in front of them they got to play a
0:08lot of tough teams and and those teams are going to keep the ball and it's going to make it harder on
0:08their offense to have like massive volume and but yeah they have a ton of talent their coaching staff actually looks very
0:08competent at this point I when I was writing preseason stealing signals one of my biggest early notes after week one it
0:08was actually you know from the hall of fame game was how well coached they were in that hall of fame game
0:08with Carson Beck under center they looked really good they looked clean and I was like this is a very big positive
0:08for LeFleur getting his guys organized getting his rookie quarterback understanding the offense and the uh operation in week one I mean
0:08like look at Deshaun Watson not understanding the operation and then somebody asked him you know what did he think he did
0:08well in in week one and he was like you know just the operation and all this stuff and everyone was laughing
0:08about it was like like you thought you did the operation well because you guys were not doing particularly well but um
0:08that's a veteran right that's a veteran that's been around and should be able to you know handle the uh the pre-snap
0:08stuff and everything that wasn't an issue for the Cardinals at all they were a well-coached well-organized offense through the preseason but
0:08certainly in week one um and it was a systemic miss from the look-ahead lines that probably wasn't there for the Browns
0:08it probably wasn't possible for us to be that wrong on the Browns in a way that would change all of their
0:08future game um spreads to the degree that I just argued that the Cardinals spreads would be changed if they were all
0:08in existence out there and maybe they are in existence somewhere and maybe somebody can can correct me on that if that's
0:08not even a correct point but it feels like that's correct um from a totally vibes based thing that the Cardinals would
0:08have meaningful shifts in their future lines quickly in a systemic way that probably couldn't happen for the Browns and stuff because
0:08in a lot of those cases it was about them you know playing against weaker opponents and things anyway and even if
0:08the Browns had looked good is what I'm saying but like the Titans even if the Titans had looked good like there
0:08wasn't as much room for the Titans like whole rest of their future stuff to shift and there was for the Cardinals
0:08there was a wide band probably somebody made this point in the offseason too like I'm just getting to it late I'm
0:08not saying it's novel but um anyway a lot of Cardinals discussion a lot of Colts discussion a lot of Bears and
0:08Chargers discussion that was a short view we're two hours and six minutes in I mean we got to a lot of
0:08the teams that I wanted to talk about in the long view anyways so I think that that is fine um but
0:08one team we have not yet talked about that I really wanted to talk with you about is the Chiefs and I'll
0:08kind of set up why I was so excited to talk to you about it is because you talked about at the
0:08very beginning of the show um like two two or three years ago that uh you know part of the fun is
0:08that like we're watching all the same stuff we're going through a somewhat similar process but the conclusions that we draw from
0:08week one will naturally not all be the same one of the reasons why I think they will not all be the
0:08same is like your I mean and feel free to put it in your own words but to set it up like
0:08a conclusion or a prediction that you had for the Chiefs season is that they would start pretty run heavy and then
0:08they would eventually start passing more over the course of the season and my prediction for the Chiefs season is they would
0:08start pretty run heavy and stay pretty run heavy and so week one fits with both of those predictions but like naturally
0:08the projections of what comes next are probably going to be different because we kind of each had a different prediction for
0:08the season but kind of a similar expectation for week one and so I think it becomes fascinating um what did you
0:08see from the Kansas City Chiefs in week one well the other really fascinating thing is how well they ran the ball
0:08immediately yeah um and so there they get up way ahead and then their expected pass rate is actually incredibly low and
0:08we talked a lot about their proe pass rate over expected being first or second every year of my home's career and
0:08then where we thought they would land we were you know meaningfully discussing that and you talked about how you thought they
0:08would land maybe close to neutral as we kind of boiled it down which then we talked about how only eight teams
0:08were above neutral last year and 24 were below and kind of talked about how that would be like eighth in the
0:08league and I think we kind of agreed like that makes sense I was kind of where I landed was like I
0:08think there'll be like eighth to tenth in proe this year potentially from that perspective week one's pretty interesting because they were
0:0816th in the league in the game that I thought they'd be extremely run heavy and they and they were extremely run
0:08heavy but like 16th is not actually that low it seems like they were lower because their expected pass rate was so
0:08low this is a game this is why expected pass rate exists this is why pass rate over expected exists this was
0:08a game where they took the lead and then they were in position to run the ball a lot and they did
0:08what the what teams do in these spots they ran the ball a lot that's what that's that's why we have an
0:08expected pass rate and and why we talk about pass rate over expectation um and particularly what I wrote about in stealing
0:08signals is when a team comes out with a run heavy game plan and they're this successful and then they control the
0:08game and their opponent is not pushing them and not scoring like 19 times out of 20 this is the way that
0:08the sport works this is the way it used to always work before the passing revolution you just keep running it until
0:08they stop you and you're winning you're I mean you're getting the stops on defense and you're established you've established the run
0:08they established the run in this game when you establish the run it's established you win you get to just keep running
0:08the ball like that's that's the way that football has always worked you you used to have it in your uh twitter
0:08handle the rtdb or whatever run the damn ball right establish the run run the damn ball you just keep running we
0:08we talked about this earlier when we were talking about like the colts fans that want to just run jonathan taylor nine
0:08million times it it's great if you're against the run defense that can't stop it then yeah you do that you give
0:08them 35 carries who cares that's how you win in football that's how it was played for decades before you know passing
0:08started to become a more strategic thing like i don't know around bill walsh's time like in the in the 80s and
0:08into the 90s and then obviously it's evolved since since then there was obviously passing prior to that but it was a
0:08different type of passing and anyway i've talked about the evolution of the sport a million times but that is you know
0:08what um we saw from the chiefs was a very throwback game plan of hey we're gonna come out run heavy and
0:08we're doing it so well kenneth walker had uh one of my one of my sources had 16 missed tackles forced my
0:08my other one which i think some of my other spreadsheets were in was from pff has it at 14 i think
0:08it was fancy points data that maybe had it at 16 missed tackles forced i think about 180 to me about 180
0:08had it at 14 the reason i'm saying that is in stealing signals i wrote 16 and then i wrote no one
0:08had had more than 12 in the past two years of my spreadsheet in 2020 um 2025 and 2024 and no player
0:08in any individual game had had more than 12 last year bjohn robinson did that in you know in his season high
0:08right um i think if i'm if i'm keeping the data sources the same because i think those were pff before and
0:08i think i'm using famous cards now um i think i'm using even keeping the day source the same it was 14
0:08for walker um and it was nobody had had more than 12 i don't think i have the number of what the
0:08high was under fantasy points is charting is my point regardless so maybe somebody had more than 16 by fancy points is
0:08charting which seems to be a little bit more missed i i love that they i i've talked before about not liking
0:08how they disclude some routes um at fancy points i love that they are more inclusive of missed tackles force i want
0:08to i want higher evasion rates for our running backs i want to know if something's borderline that it was it was
0:08good right still by by their by their mindset um anyway uh you know another little random nuance point about charting but
0:08uh kenneth walker had more missed tackles force than any player in any game since uh two seasons uh since the beginning
0:08of the 2024 season and arguably you know much longer than that i don't have game by game miss tackles for stuff
0:08uh near at hand prior to that so anyway he was incredibly good the running game was incredibly good and when you
0:09have a running back that's you know playing that well and your offensive line is blocking that well it's it's a morale
0:09booster with the offensive line that they get a block downhill they don't like to drop back into pass blocking where they
0:09have to work on their back heels and get attacked by defensive linemen they like to run block this is an offensive
0:09line point they like to then they off the ball get to go forward and impact the defenders um a lot of
0:09offensive linemen have talked about that over the years and so that's another reason that when you're running the ball well you
0:09just keep doing it because you want to reward your big guys up front and let them go hit some people instead
0:09of having to drop back and get hit like why would you do that to them when they're doing a great job
0:09of opening space like you just keep running the ball so anyway to your point week one was um um exactly in
0:09line with both of our theses so it doesn't tell us anything in terms of what i think going forward my perception
0:09of it is they were so good running the ball so early so much quicker than i thought that it was bullish
0:09for the passing stuff that my argument was chiefs backs have had one of the most advantageous running situations in the league
0:09yeah for for years that's why like people ask you like cream hunts actually good look at his success rate it's like
0:09his success rate's that good because they got like 19 defensive backs on the field they're only allowed 11 i don't know
0:09how they've managed this but they're all dropping back into patrick mahomes stuff because they don't think kareem hunt can beat them
0:09in any kind of a meaningful way and so he's running against the lightest boxes that have ever been like we talk
0:09about the low ankle sprains and it's the lowest ankle sprain ever he's running against the lightest boxes that have ever been
0:09they're playing like the dollar package that's a base defense right nickel dime and now are the dollar pack it's just absurd
0:09because teams i mean the whole reason this whole cover two shell and umbrella over deep passing really started was patrick mahomes
0:09to tyreek hill like started this stuff and then and josh allen to a degree as well was used to be in
0:09such a high a dot passer and then had to develop an underneath passing game and he's developed that incredibly well over
0:09the years but you go look at josh allen's early career he was a scramble or chuck it deep quarterback i mean
0:09that's like well that's what he did and it was like he can't even throw underneath and then he he is in
0:09insanely talented and has become you know such a well-rounded quarterback but um mahomes was the guy that you know early career
0:09was beating everyone over the top and then it was like i mean we can't we can't keep letting long touchdowns happen
0:09it changed the sport like he if you want to blame one person for breaking the sport it was it was patrick
0:09mahomes like he ruined football for all time rekill and tyree kill for being that fast exactly they ruined football for all
0:09of us thank you guys um at any rate that's led to you know patrick mahomes is always seeing these uh extra
0:09safeties over the top and he's having a tough time getting the deep throws and all these things and uh and i
0:09think it's impacted his deep accuracy as well it's kind of a hilarious like argument to make but like he's throwing those
0:09deep balls less frequently so that when they did have guys open for a stretcher like xavier worthy's rookie year he missed
0:09him like so many times deep when he was like wide open it was like how did you forget how to throw
0:09the deep ball but it's like because no one's letting him throw the deep ball anyway that that this is why it
0:09was so absurd to me for years the chiefs never addressed running back i thought it was absurd that they didn't trade
0:09for breeze hall when they you know were sticklers over a fourth round pick or a third round pick they should have
0:09just gave up the third round pick and got breeze hall um you know you talk to seagull who's a chiefs fan
0:09he goes all the way back to the clyde or zelaire pick and how absurd it was that they didn't take jonathan
0:09taylor at that time and how good that team would have been through that whole era if they had drafted jonathan taylor
0:09years ago god i mean because then you never would have been able to do this stuff that they've done with you
0:09know but the whole point of bringing kenneth walker was now you have an explosive play runner that can make especially db's
0:09miss part of the reason his missed tackles force was so high is he's he's getting to beat guys in space now
0:09like that long touchdown run he shrugged off the guy on the sideline people don't realize how big ken walker was i
0:09got that as a right a comment um on on my newsletter this year it's like the way that he shrugged off
0:09that tackle on the sideline it was like i didn't realize he was that dude he's like yeah he was that dude
0:09he won the doke walker and people thought he couldn't catch passes because he did so little receiving in college but he
0:09won the doke walker as the best college running back because of how good of a rushing running back he is he's
0:09so dynamic he's big and um agile he's got all of it right and then breakaway speed when he needs it and
0:09that's what you know people always said in seattle he's bouncing runs too much and everything but he is the whole package
0:09as a rusher in terms of home run hitting ability and all of that stuff that you need the idea of bouncing
0:09runs is a little bit of a concern he didn't do that in this game he got in behind the tacklers a
0:09bunch i loved seeing the success rate running up the middle that was fun but in terms of what this all means
0:09is like this is the first running back that now forces defenses to reconsider whether they might need to get some guys
0:09down in the box because you can't just let a team beat you the way the chiefs just beat the broncos i
0:09mean that broncos have a great defense and obviously their game plan didn't work because they just got beat the easiest way
0:09to beat somebody and the chiefs offense has been not hyper efficient over the last couple of years because there's been so
0:09one-dimensional and defenses have been able to play them one way and not be beat by explosives on the ground even when
0:09they play them that way because you have kareem hunt and isaiah pacheco at back as soon as you get ken walker
0:09in there and he starts creating that stuff it changes all the math it changes everything the defense is going to do
0:09my argument has been either teams are going to let that happen all year to them and this is my argument in
0:09the offseason why like i was into ken walker but i was also into the passing game if they allow this to
0:09happen to them all season walker's going to be great like he i think i said that in offseason stealing signals for
0:09example like anytime i wrote up the chiefs i was like either they will start to commit some more resources to stopping
0:09the run game or walker's just gonna make them pay all year which i i i guess i don't think that teams
0:09are going to allow it's it's very hard to to take away both to be like you have to pick your poison
0:09to a certain degree and this isn't john like it's hard enough to take away jonathan taylor when all you have is
0:09like daniel jones throwing the ball but if daniel jones is at least able to attack some areas they were the best
0:09offense in the league through 10 weeks last year because that created enough space for jonathan taylor to hit on big runs
0:09and those things you go back to 2024 jalen hurts isn't like an elite passing quarterback but he was able to do
0:09enough stuff and sayquan barkley's hitting on all the explosives they're moving people in the run game and and like they still
0:09had to account for aj brown and devonta smith and all that stuff now the chiefs don't have dynamic receiving weapons but
0:09like the fact that you still have patrick mahomes and i know he's got an acl and i know people think he's
0:09not the top quarterback in the league anymore or whatever he's still very clearly one of the very best quarterbacks in the
0:09nfl and if you start to give him like more advantageous defensive looks to throw into i'm just curious to see what
0:09that looks like in terms of all these people that have been saying that he hasn't been as good because every time
0:09he drops back and he's had these really high pass rates he's throwing into obvious pass defenses or like you know on
0:09obvious pass downs he's not getting the benefit of non-obvious past situations or all these great coaches ben johnson and all these
0:09guys who are marrying the run to the pass and going back under center and how advantageous play action is and all
0:09that stuff you get none of that when you throw every single time and kareem hunts your back right like the the
0:09and you can blame andy reed's offensive design part of it is there's no threat to run you're not going to be
0:09able to marry the run to the pass they're not going to care they don't they no one has cared about the
0:09chiefs running game four years now they have to care now you went under center a little bit now you can marry
0:09the run to the pass now they have to make decisions about what are they going to do to stop ken walker
0:09now you can get the play action at like advantages and you get to give those to patrick mahomes where he drops
0:09back and he gets one-on-ones and he gets and so the the the ways that plays out for me as efficient as
0:09the ground game was in in week one i just think it means like it's very positive for the efficiency of the
0:09passing game going forward is the way that i see that and the way that that like because it'll create the better
0:09passing situations i am concerned about the fact that like mahomes threw a pick into the middle of the field where uh
0:09xavier worthy just ran he wasn't even on the screen a denver bronco catches the ball there's no one on the screen
0:09and i'm like okay patrick mahomes isn't so bad that he just threw that to nobody so who the hell was he
0:09throwing to and as they start going to the replay i'm like please don't be xavier worthy but i'm pretty sure that
0:09was a few worthy like it seems like a xavier worthy thing to do it's an extremely xavier worthy thing to do
0:09they show the replay and they're like xavier worthy ran way out here and patrick wanted him to break in front of
0:09the safety cut across his face and you're like yep that was i knew in my heart of hearts that was on
0:09xavier worthy even though he was never even on the screen during the play i just it had to be there's no
0:09one else that would have been that far away from the throw and patrick mahomes would be like what just happened and
0:09and make patrick mahomes look that bad basically and hang him out to dry to that degree anyway um yeah there's issues
0:09there there's maybe issues with rashie rice and travis kelsey in the whole passing game it's not a surprise to me that
0:09we just heard a rumor this week that um tyree kill might be back with them at some point mid-season like yeah
0:09i would be talking about that too if i was a chiefs like beat writer it's like they need somebody in the
0:09passing game i i can see your perspective they're gonna run and run and run and run because the receivers are not
0:09good i do think andy reed like you know zebra never loses their stripes or whatever like he has always been a
0:09pass first type of schematic designer or like mix the pass in at least i just i don't think we're ever going
0:09to get to a point where we don't get meaningful passing out of them and i think week one again go back
0:09to that pr repoint i made at the top i think week one was a um a telling uh use of of
0:09pass rate over expected that they were only you know 16th in the league they were basically middle of the pack uh
0:09as run heavy as they were if they're not dominating teams though the way that they did in that game we're going
0:09to be in situations where uh they're going to have to throw more and i think they will throw in throwing situations
0:09at times it'll be more of a balance for sure but anyway that was a whole ton of thoughts but what what
0:09like what did you see and and like makes you optimistic about like just running a ton or did that evolve for
0:09you at all i mean i i loved what i saw out of them uh i hated everything i saw out of
0:09the broncos um but i love what i saw out of the chiefs um i mean i thought that like you know
0:09you can get into some of the p-row stop the the intention to me was like very clear right they came out
0:09drive one four consecutive carries to ken walker you got seven carries on the first drive it was like clear that they
0:09came out as you said with an intention to quote unquote establish the run with a capital e and a capital i
0:09or a capital etr right established right and they did and then you know it it only paid off more and more
0:09throughout the game as walker got more and more space and was bludgeoning dudes that's like about as good as i've ever
0:09seen a running back look i mean that was unbelievable what he did uh and obviously like you know um it's kind
0:09of like what we had talked about with jsn where it's like you can play to a level that is so transcendent
0:09that it is definitionally unsustainable like and like obviously ken walker's not going to break 14 or 16 tackles every single week
0:09um you know at some point he's just going to look like a good running back and not like a deity um
0:09but extremely pumped about ken walker once i kind of get to the end of my tangent i'm fascinated to hear like
0:09where you would rank him rest of season vaguely among running backs um i totally agree with your analysis in a vacuum
0:09like yes teams should respect the run more with ken walker that's going to give theoretical opportunities to the passing game i'm
0:09just so down on these receivers like i i just don't know what you do with a group of rashi rice travis
0:09culsey at 37 years old and xavier worthy like i don't like i i don't know that even if a team does
0:09allocate resources the running game that those guys will consistently make it happen for you in particular if teams like find a
0:09way to just play more man coverage against them i don't really know what the counters are because i think their personnel
0:09is that bad i mean you mentioned some of the p row stuff and i think that that is um valuable you
0:09know they were still average i guess what i would break that down to some extent is i'm pretty sure that that
0:09is accounting for like i want to say they had 33 uh or no i think there's a couple quarterback neils in
0:09that so it was probably 31 drop backs i think was four scrambles and three neils among patrick mahomes seven rush attempts
0:09um plus he might have gotten sacked once or twice i he got sacked twice okay so 33 true drop backs of
0:09those 33 true drop backs you know six turn into scrambles or sacks and eight more targets for running backs so it's
0:09like we still only got 19 where we're targeting receivers or tight ends and a lot of those great point really successful
0:09we got the uh great point and one of them was we got the eric b enemy classic oh yeah uh running
0:09back shovel pass in the green zone for the receiving tv the classic patrick mahomes fraudulent passing touchdown that's right i love
0:09those i mean so part of it is like it's like there's a bit of a good heart's law elements to this
0:09um which is you know if uh if a measure becomes the target it ceases to become a good measure it's like
0:09the end of the day you don't get fantasy points for pass rate over expectation um and so if the way that
0:09the pass rate over expectation sustains is that they do keep trying to pass but a lot of them are like running
0:09back screens instead of running back carries or it's nobody's open so patrick mahomes is scrambling it's like that still doesn't get
0:09fantasy points for rashi rice um and so i i think that the the main point that i would try to drive
0:09home is less about like the specific point and pass rate over expectation and more about i don't think that rashi rice
0:09is a good football player and i don't think that they need to design the offense around spamming him a bunch of
0:09targets and so i would say the the pessimism on rice still stands i was spending most of this game loving watching
0:09kenny kenneth walker and then like noting to myself like i think this xavier worthy thing is going to hit because it
0:09kind of has to hit because seeing the way that rice was de-emphasized throughout a lot of the night like and taking
0:09seriously everything that you said about okay if once you've established a running game that's a threat teams have to defend you
0:09differently you know can they take the next step from we're a good running team now to not only are we a
0:09good running team now but we're going to take advantage of some like play action deep opportunities um to xavier worthy and
0:09cannot step up you know can the absence of rice being like quite as central of a focus in the game plan
0:09he only had two targets in this game one of them was a nice touchdown um on a yak play like can
0:09that open up chance for worthy and then it's like xavier worthy just kind of kept doing the kind of things that
0:09make me nervous about his ability to take advantage of the opportunity available you mentioned the miscommunication he had like that he
0:09had a leak route where it's like you run a 4-2 you're one-on-one with a db and he got like tackled the
0:09guy like basically grabbed him down by his ankle with one hand it's like come on dude like be a football player
0:09like get the first down um and so it's like i just it's just tough i think that there's gonna be degrees
0:09to which there's opportunities for all these guys i'm just very concerned about their ability to take advantage of it and so
0:09like it's like what do i think that will work it's like ken walker and i think that i think that it'll
0:09work not just in the run game but i think he's gonna have huge spikes as a receiver over the course of
0:09time too where in the screen game is a check down um and then i think what also could be is like
0:09yeah how do you how do you find ways not to completely overwork ken walker use emma johnson more because he looked
0:09awesome too and so maybe they can form more of a two-headed rushing attack and and using those guys creatively in the
0:09passing game i i'm my take on the passing game as a whole would probably be the same as what it was
0:09entering the week which is that i think it's going to be de-emphasized as plan a i think that if they get
0:09a chance to use the passing game as a counter punch with one of the best quarterbacks of all time that's going
0:09to create clear and obvious opportunities i'm skeptical of each member of the passing game patrick mahomes excluded but their receivers kelsey
0:09worthy and rice skeptical of their abilities to take advantage of the opportunities afforded to them but acknowledging that the chance can
0:10happen that they do i would still rather bet on like worthy at a really low price versus rice at a fairly
0:10high price that's just kind of like my continued conclusion yeah the worthy thing is i think really bullish as you were
0:10talking about like the the ways that you can throw off the run game i mean they're going to be able to
0:10run him look i understand that like he doesn't know where to run and all that stuff and if he's not going
0:10to be back anytime soon from a health perspective at least as far as i understand um and there's not even necessarily
0:10any clarity that that would be what kansas city would want to do although it it does feel like that if you
0:10want to speculate the lack of movement in their receiving room all off season and the fact that cyrus allen barely didn't
0:10play it you know barely played in this game at all it the routes were just there for the guys that you
0:10thought they'd be there for rice and worthy and kelsey and then taekwon thornton who's a rotational deep threat he's going to
0:10get deep targets um and you'll get those plays and and so taekwon thornton will have some big air yards at times
0:10but i think with worthy on the play action stuff as they start to build off the run game into the pass
0:10game like first snap of the game this week i would go under center i would do a play action drop back
0:10and i'd have worthy running a deep over route into that deep middle of the field where lad mcconkey and all these
0:10guys are attacking and if worthy can catch it moving like right to left maybe he can use his speed up you
0:10know the opposite sideline that's how question christian watson had like an adr touchdown this last week that's how uh the lions
0:10like to use jameson williams speed horizontally right they got to get ways to to use um worthy in some catch and
0:10run situations like that i think that would be an awesome first play you know from scrimmage the the stuff with rice
0:10was concerning to me big time in in week one the early passing stuff that they were doing felt like it was
0:10all built around worthy to your point he wasn't very productive even on they were doing some of the short targets though
0:10like last year none of that was there his a dot got way higher after the shoulder and then this year they're
0:10doing they're going back to it the end of the rookie year the reason people are into worthy like myself going into
0:10last year the end of the rookie year he didn't have five targets in a game until like week 14 and then
0:10each of the final four regular season games and or maybe it was 15 15 16 17 18 probably um no i
0:10think it was 14 15 16 17 he didn't play in 18 or something but each of the final four regular season
0:10games each of the four playoff games because that they went to the super bowl that year and lost to the eagles
0:10he didn't have five catches until that first game and then he did for eight consecutive games so it was like even
0:10though he wasn't hitting on some of the deep stuff he was catching at least five balls in every single game because
0:10they were getting him some manufactured to catches and things like that we saw a little bit of that in week one
0:10if he gets a little bit of that as a baseline not necessarily guaranteed five plus catches every week but three would
0:10be great and then um is able to hit on some splash plays like it into the deep middle off the play
0:10action off of that stuff find some ways to get his speed into space i think the chiefs could be uh you
0:10know that's that's the part of the past game that i think i feel most confident about actually even though i don't
0:10feel good about worthy as a talent but i feel like what you can do off this run game is you can
0:10take those shots you can take the shots to take on thornton as well and then you know if you can get
0:10worthy they don't really like to use worthy as like a pure go route guy either necessarily like they're usually doing that
0:10with thornton lately at least when i say lately i mean like most of last year and then you know i didn't
0:10see a lot of that in week one but if they can use worthy's uh speed like i said moving across the
0:10field in the intermediate ranges in the deep intermediate ranges and he catches you know the ball in the deep middle like
0:10lad mcconkey was doing for the chargers you know three times on that one drive or what you know first couple of
0:10drives um that would be obviously naturally very good for for the chiefs and for savior worthy and and a positive development
0:10from the way that they've established the run so anyway i thought you said it really well um that's probably enough chiefs
0:10talk but it'll be fascinating to see where it goes it'll be totally fascinating yeah i mean basically it's just i i
0:10have i guess i just think both these guys have major issues but at least worthy who i do think kind of
0:10sucks like always remains priced like he kind of sucks and so i do feel like i'm getting a lot of upside
0:10for free like even even if i agree he does kind of suck this is where i'm at on him yep so
0:10you have um a few more notes in the long view stuff how about i rapid fire you this time yeah because
0:10these are things that kind of stood out to you that might be interesting i want to go down to well this
0:10isn't going to be a rapid fire because i i saw you had some positive stuff about gentier you tweeted that it
0:10was one of your favorite takeaways and you wrote genti slash raiders competence i want to i want to hear your take
0:10on on genti i mean i don't know that it's like gonna be that interesting to talk about but it's like he
0:10just he just looked like amazing i mean he looked fantastic in this game there was a lot of uh debate in
0:10the off season about has the case from his draft from his uh draft capital and his the way he was talking
0:10about pre-draft has that meaningfully changed like should we downgrade him as a talent based on his rookie year and i had
0:10argued no my my view was like i thought a lot of people were retrofitting oh he actually wasn't that good of
0:10a prospect after all it was all boise state like i i'll maintain he was a fantastic prospect i thought last year
0:10most of his issues came from trying to force the issue too much partly just because he's a rookie and rookies have
0:10a tendency to do that sometimes and also because he i felt like he was cognizant of the fact that this situation
0:10just stinks and like if i just kind of take the play as it's designed and i turn second and ten into
0:10third and seven it's like well what's that going to accomplish gito's just going to get sacked we're going to punt in
0:10two plays so i felt like he was taking a lot of risks hunting big plays and it wasn't always working out
0:10for him i still thought he looked physically impressive and you you saw that in some of like the yards after contact
0:10data and a lot of the the negatives on him were from a yards before contact perspective which we talked about last
0:10week and we were both making the case that no running backs are more responsible for the yards before contact my case
0:10has been and i'm now talking in complete circles was that genti was responsible for his bad yards before contact but that
0:10to me indicated like very solvable problems that would resolve themselves in a more functional environment rather than like an actual lack
0:10of ability on his part and with clint kubiak um in each of his previous two stops he had instantly hit uh
0:10where he called plays there was like an average of 0.5 yards before contact increase from one year to the next as
0:10soon as clint kubiak showed up i think some of this gets to like run scheme it gets to o-line coaching we
0:10no longer have pete carroll running a nepotism factory coaching the offensive line uh both the tackles dj clays and colton miller
0:10were um like top five in win rate this week great to have the left tackle colton miller back after he played
0:10four games last year just the whole offense looked really competent genti himself showed way more patience he showed way more trust
0:10in the scheme i thought and then what has always been his trump card trait which is the contact balance the after
0:10contact ability was stupendous and just a true joy to watch like the it looked like he was taking down or stopped
0:10put in the backfield and all of a sudden he'd like find a way to spin out of it or teleport out
0:10of it and he's eight yards further downfield and then the most encouraging part for genti and in my opinion encouraging for
0:10bowers when he gets back on the field was the way that genti was schemed up creatively in the passing game i
0:10mean there were two angle routes that he ran on the first drive he didn't get targeted on then on the third
0:10drive eventually scored on an angle route um it was basically the same play but this time they got to him in
0:10the progression he scored on that scored again on a play action leak out route he had a slot screen and then
0:10at one point he had a uh uh he ran like a eight yard choice route basically like a keenan allen route
0:10out of a bunch formation all of these were targets at or beyond the line of scrimmage they were clear first read
0:10opportunities they weren't just like dump offs they were how do we get this guy into space creatively utilize him as a
0:10weapon i mean it made me feel great about the genti usage but it just made me feel great about this whole
0:10team like it just made it was just a team that looked like we know who our players are we know how
0:10to scheme up cool stuff to get from the ball and i feel like we're gonna get a lot of that for
0:10bowers too if he comes back and that's so that was gonna be my question because the the thought that i had
0:10was like they gave bowers work instead of giving it to mayor they gave it to genti right like like there was
0:10the place where he's out like as a slot receiver and they got lauby in the backfield you know pass protecting and
0:10i don't know i just when bowers is back isn't bowers running that route and genti's on the field in the backfield
0:10i mean the the slot choice route for sure but i think i think bash played really what bowers role will be
0:10and then it's just the the difference is the degree of emphasis like i think bash was running like i think mayor
0:10was mostly in the mayor role i think bash was in the bowers role genti was in the genti role but then
0:10when bowers is in the best role instead of bash the bowers role will get called a lot that's what i'm that's
0:10what i'm saying yeah yeah genti won't be asked to run as many vertical routes but the fact that he could do
0:10it i thought you broke it down well for sure the fact that he could do it and the fact that it's
0:10what it says about kubiak um because that's that's what you would want the coach to do in that situation is emphasize
0:10ash and genti more because bowers is not in the game but like that isn't like that's just a positive all around
0:10like you understand your talent you understand how to utilize talent like this is all very good like i wish mike mcdaniel
0:10could take some notes because uh no i'm kidding he's always been really good at utilizing talent but like this is this
0:10is exactly the way i would have described mike mcdaniel you know most other times in my life and was not the
0:10way that uh most other times in my life geez but that was not the way that uh mcdaniel has done things
0:10but no i loved i love that um genti breakdown you have um packers aggression golden watson great starts on here i
0:10want to ask you really quick before i hit you on that who would you rather have rest of season ken walker
0:10ashton genti if you had to pick one it's a good question i don't do a lot of rest of season ranking
0:10and yeah for people who are like why did it get so quiet i was like i'm actually like i'm laboring because
0:10of that question um you said earlier genti around pick five and i think that was fair i i you know i
0:10for a for a stretch this off season i had genti ranked as the rb5 um yeah the next one after mcafree
0:10actually had jt over mcafree um although at that point i maybe still had mcafree over taylor just to be perfectly accurate
0:10i moved taylor ahead of mcafree when we started hearing about the tightness and some of the concerns with mcafree in august
0:10i got a little spooked and i was always high on taylor and the role and anyway taylor great in week one
0:10um i had genti at five and then he got hurt and then i had him right up until the injury and
0:10then i moved him back and then you know i ended it i ended with him in that same tier we talked
0:10about at one point how i didn't have walker i had had walker there next and then i had moved walker back
0:10because of the foot injury that ended up being an ankle thing and not related to last year and it was just
0:10a little bit of a swollen ankle and i moved walker back to rb5 so those are the two guys that i
0:10had at basically at rb5 more or less throughout you know for a little stretch i had chase brown there and for
0:10a little stretch i had omarion hampton there too but i think if you looked at you know the way my rankings
0:10evolved it was mostly genti or ken walker i think that's a fair representation i hope people would agree that we're watching
0:10my rankings um so it's challenging for me because they both looked awesome in week one as well right and so like
0:10i would i i mean like i would have both those guys as clear first round picks in a rest of season
0:10draft and i'd probably have them back to back you know what i mean like i would have them yeah there i'd
0:10probably have them right there with taylor um because i i i don't think i'd be moving taylor down the fascinating thing
0:10is like where would you put bijon who looked insanely good in week one but also in a way that's like i'm
0:10struggling with because the offense looked so bad and there's we don't even know when panics is going to be back and
0:10you're like man he can't do that every week in this offense like arguably he should be behind taylor genti and ken
0:10walker and then the mcafree thing is the other one where it's like i i thought that was like overblown he still
0:10ran a lot of routes he still got eight targets the receiving wasn't great in this game but i think it's still
0:10going to be great then there's a question of the health with him i i mean you kind of have to rank
0:10him as a unique type of player but i would probably put all of those guys i just named in one tier
0:10and i would probably have everyone else out of that tier including chase brown who i was really high on and had
0:10a good week one really good usage but like that was the reason i never had chase brown as a target for
0:10me was like i didn't think there was like clear breakout potential it was like right usage-based play it was a high
0:10floor play he's gonna look great he's gonna get all the high value touches but he's not he was a day three
0:10back originally like the long view stuff he's not a talent like ken walker or ashen genti it's just the reality of
0:10the situation and when those guys get usage that highlights their talent they're gonna look like they did in week one and
0:10it's better than chase brown and so that's why chase brown for me would be a little bit further behind genti got
0:10to play the dolphins and is gonna probably have some team level concerns as well that are somewhat similar to what i
0:10said about bijon i think i would take walker because of that i agree with you i would i would take walker
0:10as my rb i would take i would take walker at the 102 i muted myself but holy shit that's i mean
0:10that's maybe right i love it it's aggressive but i mean i think i would i think that i would um because
0:10i think him and taylor and genti are all unbelievable talents but like i would rather and and bijon sorry i didn't
0:10mean to leave him out i think all four of them are are actually kind of comparable talents but i would so
0:10much rather bet on the chiefs and i mean i just pointed out a lot of issues that i have with the
0:10chiefs but i i still would rather bet on patrick mahomes plus like a bunch of clowns that wide receiver than bet
0:10on you know the colts or the falcons or the raiders like yeah i mean for the same reason you just said
0:10about walker versus genti like i i think that this there were elements of this genti performance that were sticky which to
0:10me is the intent in usage and the talent and that stuff but there's elements that aren't that sticky which is they've
0:10got to beat up on the shitty dolphins right so there will be the counter sorry i i kind of cut you
0:10off because i'm wrapping my head around the 102 and i'm like if i was drafting a rest of season profile right
0:10now i think the one like walker at the 102 it's funny like when sometimes you see adp you're like i don't
0:10really agree with that but i'm not gonna i'll draft it that way and that was sort of like the thought in
0:10my head was like if walker was going 102 and i had a draftable portfolio when i drew the 102 i would
0:10take him i would want obviously want exposure to what we just saw in week one it wouldn't be weird for me
0:10and i can't really make an individual case i think i think i would probably still take chase higher and i don't
0:10know about the other running backs i think it's fair to have him as the rb too but i think i would
0:10still take taylor higher the the question i would have for you he's not gonna have a 60 yard td run every
0:10week doesn't it feel like a lot of the other production was hard work like he was like it's like a derrick
0:10henry point where like if you're not getting a lot of the receiving and you're just like he got six targets and
0:10he got the shovel pass td and close but three catches for 18 yards and a td and he runs for 173
0:10and a touchdown i mean if he's running for like yardage like that every week is a 2000 yard rusher and maybe
0:10he will be but it's like is he gonna force 14 miss tackles a game is he gonna run for 2000 yards
0:10it feels more like the barkley 2000 yard season from two years ago and that type of a bet that's more rushing
0:10efficiency i do think he's gonna see like 80 targets this year though okay i don't think that's wrong i like i
0:10yeah i mean that's probably fair he got six and we made you're right like i mean because him versus taylor would
0:10be top maybe maybe i should keep taylor out of him i should probably keep taylor ahead of him but it'd seem
0:10more fun to do the bold take yeah i guess like because the because the difference in him versus taylor is like
0:10taylor has no emmett johnson so taylor will play 97 of the snaps and so he'll he'll get like i think more
0:10he'll he'll get so many games like he had in week one where it didn't even feel like a special game but
0:11he just kind of like sleep walked his way to 25 points or 30 or whatever he had and didn't even feel
0:11like it was hard work um that's the thing because ken walker was only in like 60 something percent of the i
0:11mean they used a good amount of emmett johnson played 30 yeah i mean i guess i the one thing i would
0:11say on that is like i felt like a lot of the emmett johnson snap share was like i felt like i
0:11was laughing at it because i saw someone tweet like when emmett came in they're like uh-oh it's a drive-by-drive rotation with
0:11emmett johnson i'm like are you watching football because like because ken walker had 26 touches how much more can you yeah
0:11i'm like well i'm just like walker just had seven carries on the first drive like i'm pretty sure if they went
0:11three and out ken walker would be starting drive two like i i'm like what he's gonna take a breather yeah i'm
0:11like he just had seven carries like can't you just enjoy anything in life that's that's how i wrote it up too
0:11i was like a big part of the snap share being what it was was that ken walker was getting as much
0:11work as he could possibly handle and needed a breather but like it is different than 97 snaps like you said right
0:11it is it's totally different so maybe the answer is taylor but i don't know that taylor will have i i still
0:11don't like taylor will get targets because he runs so many routes but i i would bet that walker like doubles him
0:11in design targets like screens and angle routes and all that stuff i think that that's partially just because walker i think
0:11is a better pass catcher than taylor and partially because the colts have warren and downs and pierce and allen and the
0:11chiefs have like guys so like i think that walk i mean walker had two drops in this game he actually could
0:11have had an even better game anyway um but maybe so i don't know maybe i'll keep taylor ahead of him but
0:11i think i'd be walker ahead of genti i'd be super pumped on both um and you'd put them all ahead of
0:11bijon maybe yeah i mean i think maybe two for me too i think i think i'd be in the same spot
0:11they'd be in the same tier and we're not drafting today so i don't have to actually answer this but they don't
0:11it would be gibbs far and away and then to me it'd be those four running backs in some order and then
0:11it would be chase um and then it would be and it's not because chasing anything wrong it's more just like i
0:11feel like now we kind of know that there's going to be a group of running backs that are going to average
0:11over 20 points per game this year and i get to draft wide receiver like i don't i don't have to pick
0:11which wide receivers are going to break out in rounds three and four as much i can strap the ones that look
0:11like they're going to break out sure if you're building a team now you would want the anchor running back i agree
0:11with that um who would be your wide receiver to after chase it's gotta be jsn right i think it'd still be
0:11puka so we puka i got i think we both got tagged on we talked about jsn being the best receiver in
0:11the league and looking better than jefferson and then somebody tagged us on sunday and was like you still believe that about
0:11like jefferson and like i don't i mean i thought we were really clear that like neither of us thought justin jefferson
0:11was anything other than super good that's why it was a bold take yeah jefferson looked awesome too they're both awesome like
0:11it doesn't mean they're just like yeah that's the that's the point they're both incredibly awesome but yeah i would take jsn
0:11over jefferson if i was drafting for us this season right now part of that's because kyler looked bad before getting concussed
0:11and like the quarterback situation there is going to be a bigger concern i'm kind of hoping i'm kind of hoping when
0:11starts and wins and we can just keep playing with wince interesting so the issue with wince is he i mean well
0:11there's many issues with wince one of them is that every time he gets blitzed he bends over and he like takes
0:11shots that like it's like you're gonna break your back stop doing that stop trying to flip dbs over your used to
0:11work it used to work at like 2018. stop bending over at the waist and taking shots that are like like jamming
0:11your vertebrae into it like it's insane but i've heard you make this exact point on wince and it's so funny because
0:11i'd never heard anyone articulate it before and i hadn't even articulated it before but as soon as he started describing it
0:11like i instantly just flashback to the amount of times that he did this on the colts and that i was like
0:11frustrated by it and i wasn't even conscious of like it being a thing he was doing but the way you articulated
0:11it was so funny to me and then i saw a cut up of his like would have won mvp season in
0:112017 a while ago and i noticed that like for whatever reason it actually worked a lot back then where like he
0:11was doing it and guys would just fly off of him and then he would run for 20 yards and i'm like
0:11man like it used to work and stop working and now it doesn't work and he's hurting himself he had a back
0:11issue because of it like i was sitting there but the other issue is like because he ducks down like that i
0:11was the it was more of a statistical point that i brought it up it drives me not stylistically and like from
0:11a health perspective but he only got 19 pass attempts off in this game because he takes sacks as soon as he
0:11gets pressured he drops his head in like the most like weirdest way possible and then he you know you're it's really
0:11hard to shrug the guy off get your head back up and get a pass attempt down fair downfield so he takes
0:11a lot of sacks and if you get pressure at him you know the pass volume becomes a concern but yeah he
0:11throws accurate passes the law i just like that he throws it he'll just throw it to jefferson like he'll take chances
0:11like that the the td the long td jefferson was a free play he got a got a jump and he threw
0:11it up to his guy and you loved him doing that it was an insanely good play by jefferson i thought it
0:11was overthrown he was in a dead sprint to run that down i'm like how did he get there it was like
0:11an ultimate frisbee highlight or something where the you know the you see the frisbee just fluttering and so he's sprinting and
0:11yet as he's in a dead sprint he still has the ability to drag feet like so many guys catch that and
0:11their their steps come down and the step is on the back line right and it's out of bounds right he somehow
0:11drug the foot in bounds and was able to make that that oh god he's so good jesson jefferson's insanely good for
0:11the person it was such a classic wentz play because it's like as a person who endured a lot of carson wentz
0:11or at least one season of carson wentz that felt like seven um it's like you know like some quarterbacks throw a
0:11really catchable ball no one's ever thrown a less catchable ball than carson wentz um and like he just it's like every
0:11issue with carson wentz there it's like it ends up being a dot but like if he had seen it sooner and
0:11he threw it earlier and it had arc and it's like then it could have been a comfortable dot but instead it's
0:11like you wait so long to throw it that he throws this absolute streaming intercontinental ballistic missile line drive that still is
0:11like at the very back of the end zone so it had to get there that fast otherwise i would have just
0:11carried him right into the front row and then it's like this and jefferson makes an incredible play on and i i
0:11think it's an i think it's an overthrow for a lot of receivers is my point i think jefferson recognizes immediately he's
0:11got to get on his horse i think he has the acceleration and the raw talent to do that and then for
0:11a lot of guys like i'm saying they're catching that on such a sprint if they even do get there if they've
0:11done that part of it that they're not able to stay in balance the fact that jefferson was able to get his
0:11feet down after that he like that's another one of those where he made a really really hard play look easy that
0:11again elite receivers do and i don't know that enough people appreciate it that looks like a relatively reasonable catch in the
0:11back of the end zone it looks like it was a throw in rhythm no dude it was a it was an
0:11overthrow that justin jefferson made right and i don't know how he made it right it was such a good play and
0:11it looks like simple but it wasn't simple it was so hard anyway i love justin jefferson too love him too i
0:11have derailed your ability to go rapid fire yeah i've got anything else you want to hit on we're three hours and
0:11your headphones are dying so we could we could call this if you want to call this we can we i'm trying
0:11to like i'm trying to charge one at a time yeah playing games that's a move you have the rookie breakouts who
0:11are i'm just getting the do-do-do-do over and over again right now you have the rookie breakouts who were uh also top
0:11ffpc waiver options antonio williams caleb douglas um i really liked what i saw from williams i told you i really liked
0:11what i saw from douglas too and i wrote him up favorably but um we're just gonna go with the computer audio
0:11for a minute maybe i'll there'll be a little echo and i'm sorry if there is but the um douglas concern for
0:11me is just that like malik wals like he was very aggressive in this game but you're playing the raiders i don't
0:11know that he's gonna like be able to sustain enough passing to get everyone involved and like link washington did a little
0:11bit chris bell is gonna get healthier i guess my concern is just like as the season goes along and manage you'd
0:11never know when to play douglas at the same time if you have douglas in dynasty i think you're thrilled by week
0:11one he looked awesome like he was finding space it was also like it seemed like again going back to the raiders
0:11point like too easy to find space for caleb douglas in this game like they're like maybe they're secondary it's kind of
0:11bad um so anyway i i wasn't as thrilled about like bidding on douglas and on our teams together because i was
0:11a little bit concerned about the ability to play him but um williams super exciting i just wanted to hear your thoughts
0:11on both those guys yeah so i mean i share your concerns that being said the team i shared with you is
0:11the only team that caleb douglas was available that i didn't get him on now to be clear i had already intentionally
0:11bid low on our team because we had some other lineup issues and i think we were strong at wide receiver so
0:11it would have been my lowest bid regardless and then hilariously enough of all the teams douglas was available um there were
0:11actually plenty of teams where like a hundred dollar bid or whatever would have done it and i bid way over that
0:11and then our team was the one that he went for the highest number and it was the one that i bid
0:11lowest anyway that's just um kind of how it'd be sometimes but um i've been on a lot of teams i i'm
0:11i take your points like there's gonna be volume issues it's gonna be hard to trust just like as a waiver ad
0:11guy like i thought he was deployed to me as the as the as the number one and i thought he looked
0:11really great like even a guy out of profile i didn't particularly love there was some routes where he was just kind
0:11of running wide open my favorite rep by far was the kind of skinny post he got from the slot where he
0:11was running around against inside leverage i thought he did a really good job of selling like he was running a corner
0:11and he kind of kept outside leverage the whole route and then at the last second flipped and he got the corner
0:11drifting towards the sideline created a ton of separation against the opposite leverage that you'd want for running that route and got
0:11it easy conversion like that's about a 20 yard splash play on that um i thought he did like a nice job
0:11there was a comeback route that he got where i thought he sold the deeper out well had a lot of twitch
0:11to come back create space for himself against someone like i just thought he looked really good um and there's no one
0:11else on the you know past catcher depth chart that's like particularly imposing and so do i think there's a massive ceiling
0:11in this offense probably not uh am i sure that he is like some stud no but if he is like what
0:11i tried to think of it is like let's assume that he was like truly good and we knew he was good
0:11um i'm trying to think of like a receiver that is like a semi-reasonable comp um i don't know let's let's say
0:11he's like let's say he's prime courtland sutton not current washed courtland son he's he's 27 year old courtland son he's on
0:11this miami offense like what what would he be rest of season like i think he'd at least be a wide receiver
0:11three yeah probably i guess it's more of a functional thing in terms of like you know how how we manage the
0:11team and we have receivers we like on most of these teams and receiver depth and you always want to add players
0:11that are going to score points regardless and potentially have some real ceiling and there are scenarios like if malik willis got
0:11hurt that they have to go to a backup although i will say that in the preseason um miami like literally couldn't
0:11get complete passes when they went to their backup quarterbacks then they they cut all their their backups and traded for kyle
0:11mccord so their back their current backup wasn't even on the team in the preseason but they were unable to do anything
0:11functionally um with the other guys they had on the roster at the time um quinn ewers and whoever else was there
0:11zach wilson was zach wilson uh no he's on long gone i think he's in denver it was quinn ewers and i
0:11don't know some scrub i can't even keep track of these terrible was it mike white it might have been mike white
0:11yeah he's been there i don't know in recent seasons for sure someone was there yeah um but yeah i guess it's
0:11just a matter of like even even if everything you described and that's what i saw too i thought caleb douglas's profile
0:11was like better than i was saying like i had him ranked higher than chris bell throughout and a lot of people
0:11started getting excited about chris bell and drafting him in draft season and i was like i made that point a couple
0:11times in stealing signals but i also was like but i'm not drafting any of the miami players but i thought caleb
0:11douglas both because he was healthier and and because he got drafted higher and like everyone immediately we talked about this on
0:11on the long view said chris bell was a you know had first round buzz but went in the third round and
0:11and i talked to you about it and you put it in a way that helped me understand it as well where
0:11if he would have went in the first because i was like what am i missing i'm looking at his profile it's
0:11not great and you're like oh no like if he would have went the first he would have been someone i would
0:11have been saying was overdrafted in the first like the fact that he was getting first round buzz was a little bit
0:11odd so then it's just a matter of like we didn't have the right expectations but then people are overreacting to the
0:11miscalibrated expectations he was a third round pick and he's he's a day two profile anyway and caleb douglas went higher and
0:11caleb douglas was another like maybe like well i asked you about him as well and you were like he was overdrafted
0:11he was expected to be a lot later around pick but i i liked the profile a little bit when we talked
0:11about it i was telling you like he got a lot of air yards in college he was like mildly efficient he
0:11looked pretty good to me um both on paper and watching a few of the clips i was just like he's a
0:11healthy a healthy player and they like they liked him they overdrafted him like just because the expectations on him were lower
0:11for draft status and the expectations on bell were higher they took douglas ahead of bell they were willing to let bell
0:11potentially fall through and then when bell was available to her next pick they're like yeah we probably want bell too anyway
0:11yeah like douglas douglas was like a guy who was perceived to be a late day three level pick who got quote
0:11unquote overdrafted as in drafted higher than expected but probably had i mean i'm not gonna i'm not gonna say he had
0:11like some great profile but had a a profile that once you now know he went on day two is like not
0:11like completely non-viable versus bell like you had said you know was a guy that the the entire the his his acl
0:11injury i think protected him from skepticism and so i i agree that like actually when you look at both of these
0:11guys it's like their profiles are not that different bells is like marginally better and he's hurt so they're two day two
0:11picks uh anyway i that was dumb i i basically just said the same thing you said but i i agree with
0:11you no no i mean i i i think he said it well that they were he was marginally better but then
0:11yeah bell was hurt and then also douglas had more draft capital like the team told us that they preferred him um
0:11as an early season guy these headphones i think my case is still dead even though i i only charged for like
0:1110 minutes before we started anyway um so i yeah i thought douglas was a really fun uh play for like dynasty
0:11and stuff but like there's also the element in dynasty where it's like if the guy's not super productive in year one
0:11then his value is not great like he would be like i don't know i just i see the miami passing game
0:11as being so non-functional for fantasy that you know douglas ends up having 90 yards or whatever in this game it's against
0:11the raiders and i just i think it's going to be one of his season highs and it's going to be really
0:11challenging for him to um consistently hit the volume and the productivity that uh would make you want to actually put him
0:11in your lineup and like for fantasy and like they're like even this game was like 14 ppr points it's like that's
0:11that felt like a ceiling game to me like and that's a that's an issue like yeah he'll score some touchdowns probably
0:11as well if he has a really strong season but i don't think he's going to go for it's just it's more
0:11of a range of outcomes and like probability based thing where it's like yeah i mean i feel we feel very similar
0:11but it's it becomes a thing of like how do i play this and it's like well if i'm right and if
0:11everything that showed in week one actually shows like what do i get when i'm right i don't even think we get
0:11that good of productivity and we still get the the the the concern of like the week that we put him in
0:12he does nothing because that's going to be a part of the profile for all the miami receivers all year that they
0:12have a potential to do nothing like have a zero catch game because i think there's going to be games where they
0:12don't really complete that many passes i thought like wals looked fine like he looked fine he was throwing the ball downfield
0:12which he's done before um but yeah like he took sacks and he scrambled and they called a you know a very
0:12h and centric first he didn't complete a pass to a receiver tight end until the second quarter the whole first quarter
0:12was h and runs and h and throws um and then they started to push it in the second quarter and he
0:12got into a little bit of a rhythm again against the raiders and they were able to kind of push that but
0:12it was like their first couple drives they literally didn't complete a pass to a to anyone other than a champ like
0:12it was yeah this is what we thought the offense was going to be it's malik willis like dropping back and he
0:12was running he got a design run in there he got a scramble and then a channel was running and then h
0:12and catching passes and you're like the whole offense is willson a chance that's all it is and then the second quarter
0:12third quarter they start throwing down field more which is great hopefully open some things up for a ch and for you
0:12know for his sake not for my teams because a ch and was a clear fade for me and i think you
0:12saw why there even though he was build the whole offense around a ch and it was hard for him to do
0:12much because like it's just a challenge even in a good matchup it's just a challenge in this type of an offense
0:12so many of the play that drop back conversion right so many of the plays are going to go you know the
0:12wrong direction but anyway yeah we ran 39 total plays in this game that weren't malik willis runs or sacks because they
0:12had 50 total plays in offense and 11 of them were malik willis scrambles designed runs or sacks so that's tough way
0:12to live running 39 plays for eligible skill position players right per game totally and so we're in agreement it's just a
0:12question of like how you know how do you play that exact profile and what does it mean for like you know
0:12when you do add them to your roster does it become kind of a roster clogger do you feel good plugging him
0:12in and i i don't think there's an issue with plugging in boom boss players either like i'm very into that you
0:12don't need like floor consistency but i guess i think he's going to be too boom boss to really even matter even
0:12though i think he's going to be good because i thought he did look great in all the ways you talked about
0:12the route uh running and the things that he did was was very strong but did you you didn't really comment on
0:12on williams i didn't miss that with my uh headphone issues did i oh your mic is uh unplugged too we were
0:12having some technical i screwed up my mic but i just got to fix um here maybe mute yourself while i'm talking
0:12so yeah i don't hear my headphone echo i'm trying yeah sorry uh no worries um anyways antonio williams uh i definitely
0:12yeah i didn't get the chance to comment on him i mean incredibly encouraging surprising because he had had such a quiet
0:12summer so like i was just not expecting him to play a major role in the offense and then when i like
0:12saw the stats after the game i was pretty stunned to learn that he only ran 11 routes because he felt like
0:12he was such a big presence um and that made me even more excited because i'm like well you know johnny brown
0:12stinks so we're gonna find a way to get him more routes real fast if the coaches have you know any idea
0:12what they're doing there they're gonna find a way to figure out okay well maybe we wanted stefan digs to play in
0:12the slot and williams plays in the slot or whatever else but johnny brown is not one of our best three pass
0:12catchers and williams digs and bicorn very obviously are they're gonna find a way to play them together i think and i
0:12thought williams looked phenomenal and he was a prospect that i did like i mean more than i liked caleb douglas by
0:12a good good by a good amount and so yeah i'm really excited i think the there are limitations for him too
0:12which is like i know terry mccorn didn't do much in this game i don't know that a lot of vertical x
0:12receivers are going to do a whole lot against quinion mitchell and vic fangio this year i'm guessing that's going to be
0:12a trend um he's still going to play all the time he's still going to have games stefan digs still target earner
0:12in front of him and so how many routes and targets are available for antonio williams i think is a fair question
0:12in terms of like the actual ceiling with him too and i think ultimately like him versus douglas it's like what are
0:12the what are the upside factors and what are the ceiling limiting factors that you value more like to me it's higher
0:12prospect pedigree in better offense versus easier path to routes and target share um in in miami and like i think it's
0:12it's a it's an interesting conversation i i valued them pretty similarly in both seasonal leagues and dynasty leagues off of that
0:12but i'm i'm really curious for for your take williams was cheaper to get i thought in like um or actually i
0:12don't even know if he was i thought he would be cheaper to get and so i bid lower but i got
0:12a ton of him uh i got a ton of both of them so i got a ton of williams too and
0:12was willing to go to like 200 300 20 30 maybe that's was too aggressive but especially on a lot of the
0:12teams that had like stripling or like jacoby lane you kind of had to think about moving on from some of those
0:12guys and you maybe in your build wanted to replace that with some real rookie upside to me williams was very clearly
0:12ahead of douglas from the perspective that i i had him in the same tier so we're talking about the ffpc waiver
0:12options a lot of people play in shallower leagues so it's important to emphasize like the kinds of players that actually weren't
0:12available so that's why they weren't talked about a lot ted hurst was a guy you talked to about us considering in
0:12the late rounds in one of our last drafts that i wish i would have listened to you on we went a
0:12different direction um he's a he's a stud he looks i mean well anyway he's a he's an interesting profile he didn't
0:12have like some massive game but he was gone in most of these ffpcs for me williams was sort of i took
0:12it as optimistic um for hurst in the same way that i took it as optimistic for williams in week one um
0:12different route participation first was out there for 81 of the routes which was really really promising having said that he only
0:12got three targets and caught three balls so people that are looking at the per route stuff will say he got a
0:12very low amount of uh targets per route and those things and that would be obviously true inaccurate um the the reality
0:12is he's a rookie running routes alongside guys that they're going to feature a lot more throughout that game and mecca buka
0:12chris godwin they even obviously are doing stuff for kate otten in that game and then but like otten had a pretty
0:12bad drop at one point abuka to me looked concerningly unexplosive i'd be curious your thoughts on that too um but i
0:12don't know if that was how he's looked to me for five years what'd you say that's how he's looked for five
0:12years yeah yeah i don't think he's that explosive right um and then godwin looks like old that was a concern we
0:12took him on one team i'm like ready to cut him no i'm kidding but like i'm not i'm not thrilled about
0:12having godwin on that roster it's it was a wasted pick in my mind like he's gonna probably get volume and be
0:12playable at times but like he just looks like like debo samuel did last year where it's just like okay yeah i
0:12mean he's big and he's physical and because like godwin is kind of a big dude they feel like a wide receiver
0:12screen to him and he basically just ran forward and like bulldozed his way to like a five or six yard gain
0:12and it's like okay like if that's what you're gonna do that's you're gonna do but like do something like athletic or
0:12like anyway so i was i was actually shocked a little bit about the bucks lack of explosiveness in their past game
0:12and like it's not that mike evans has never been like super like he doesn't separate he's like a big physical dude
0:12but it felt like without evans it's like what do you have to go to because like you can always go to
0:12mike evans because he'll go win right like a jump ball and so anyway ted hurst is this guy out of a
0:12small school that's a really interesting prospect didn't do anything throughout that whole game in a in a heavy routes role but
0:12late in the fourth quarter they're down two scores and baker goes to him on first down and he wins in easy
0:12you know um an easy catch and then baker goes right back to him two plays in a row he got all
0:12three of his targets and all three of his catches three consecutive plays 36 yards sets them up across the 50 and
0:12driving and they were able to score there and then would have potentially been able to um you know if they got
0:12the ball back they would have potentially been able to uh tie the game and force ot with one more possession but
0:12the bangles were able to uh no sorry they would have potentially been able to win that they they lost by six
0:12if i'm thinking of a different game but i'm thinking of uh the cowboys where they they scored late and we're down
0:12two scores and javante did the taunting that made how did that happen twice in one week because digs did the same
0:12thing in another spot where washington would have gone for two because he did the taunting on the 17 15 touchdown how
0:12did two teams have a chance that they would have gone for two wiped away by a taunting penalty in the same
0:12week it was crazy yeah that is crazy and that is um obviously stupid like very very bad uh football but um
0:12the the bangles one was that uh they when they were up 10 um zach taylor brought on joe flacco at fourth
0:12and two from the nine and like faked that he was gonna do a qb sneak from two yards away and then
0:12took a delay a game and kicked a field goal with about five minutes left in a situation where you're at the
0:12nine and if you if you go for it and you don't convert you've got them backed up inside the 10 there's
0:12a benefit there and you're up 10 you're up two scores what he does instead is he kicks a field goal now
0:12you're up 13 you're still up two scores but you have to kick off they get way better field position they do
0:12the three passes to hurst they score quick they're gonna need two scores anyway you made it easier for them to score
0:12the first one and you kept it to where you're only up two scores you're like if you would have gone for
0:12it you could have theoretically scored a touchdown if you converted the fourth down but like why did you bring joe flacco
0:12on the field in that situation anyway just line up and go for it with joe burrow it was crazy crazy crazy
0:12one of the worst coaching like moves of week one was this like fake deke joe flacco and like whatever if that's
0:12your play then call the play snap the ball like don't take the delay a game kick a field goal making a
0:1213 point game with five minutes left when the bucks are only gonna have time for two possessions anyway it was absolutely
0:12bonkers and and then again if you don't get it when you try to go for it you're backing them up at
0:12the nine and you're at least making their first drive really difficult when they need two scores because you're up 10 again
0:12this is not a seven point to ten point situation or something this is a ten point to 13 point field goal
0:12that they took crazy crazy decision but anyway the bucks were able to score cut it to six the uh bangles then
0:12needed to convert not just like one first down to run the clock out four first downs they went out and converted
0:12kudos to them for taking a pass forward um aggressive like approach to that drive part of the reason they converted four
0:12first downs is they threw on first down i think the first two plays and converted first downs on the first two
0:12plays but they were like look we're only up six and we can't just try to run out the clock we need
0:12to go be aggressive and so they were aggressive and they were able to run it out and not get the bucks
0:12the ball back my point is as it gets back to ted hurst three consecutive catches on what ended up being the
0:12bucks final drive of the game and it felt like baker's confidence in going to him was growing sort of in real
0:12time and i'm not saying that a book is going anywhere and i'm not saying that like all the guys in front
0:12of him are terrible but i do think the bucks need a little bit of playmaking in the past game and so
0:12i think holding ted hurst right now is really exciting and for like you guys in shallower leagues and home leagues he's
0:12an interesting stash that i would have probably even ahead of antonio williams but i'd have williams in that tier for the
0:12same reason williams didn't run 80 routes and so you'd be a little bit concerned of the number of empty routes that
0:12hurst ran but he's in that like sacrificial x role so you kind of understand it to a degree and then you
0:12know this is the kind of thing that could propel him to more clear x like work as we go forward which
0:12like would be thrilling if he got into like an evans type role like hell yeah let's go i think the broadcast
0:12even said something like you can tell baker's gaining trust in this rookie or something to that effect just like you said
0:12totally yeah um and then antonio williams is sort of the vice versa where like you said he didn't run a lot
0:12of routes but sorry it's not that it's not a full vice versa it's like it's just a different outcome where you
0:12can take it differently you can say the fact that he didn't run around a lot of routes is sort of bearish
0:12in the way that hurst ran a lot of empty routes is sort of bearish that ultimately we just want guys to
0:12catch passes right like we want production um but for williams when he finally did get out there he ran a 40
0:12targets per out on the on those routes he goes and he said 10 routes he got four targets three of those
0:12and all he caught all four of the targets he had four catches for whatever it was 72 yards or 62 yards
0:12or something and a touchdown three of them for the chunk of the yardage because one of them was a 33 yard
0:12catch came in the fourth with the touchdown the td was the one that cut it to two points at the very
0:12end of the game you mentioned the 17 15 one this was the now whatever 24 22 one or whatever it was
0:12um and he they were unable to get the two point conversion but they had a shot to um all right that
0:12they cut it to two they went for two point conversion well it was seven it was 17 it was 17 15
0:12but then they kicked for one because digs was a moron so then they had to go 17 16 instead of tying
0:12it so it was 24 16 and then they went for two at the very end of the game um so 24
0:1222 yeah right that's right i was i was confusing myself because i wasn't counting 17 15 i was like the mass
0:12not adding up for how they got to 22 but i wasn't adding the extra point to make it 17 16 so
0:12anyway that's that's how i remembered it i was like they went for two and they failed um but he caught the
0:12td that set up the uh potential game tying two-point conversion point is they weren't getting a lot out of mcclorn throughout
0:12the game digs got a ton of um targets especially for his route rate his routes were still pretty low like similar
0:12to new england it was like 60 something percent high 60s maybe that will grow but i think is a little bit
0:12concerning he's probably not going to get a 40 targets per out every week because i do think what corn's going to
0:12do more and then digs is also just not very efficient 55 yards on nine targets is not great uh return for
0:12that that work he did you know create separation and get open and all that but williams gets involved late and is
0:12suddenly very explosive and making plays for them that's the kind of stuff that you want to see from a rookie in
0:12week one where you're like how does his season develop well like both of those guys the example is like they were
0:12in comeback mode they needed playmakers and what they got was like explosive play that helped them potentially put together a comeback
0:12win i mean in both cases like the commanders are then going for two to tie the bucks like i said if
0:12they go and get a stop from the bangles they're maybe in position to go ahead and win um and and the
0:12the example i gave when i was getting asked about this on my signals gold q a was the well there's a
0:12ton of examples of guys who didn't do a lot in week one as rookies but they did like because it was
0:12their first game but they did enough the other guy i'll throw in this bucket is makai lemon makai lemon ran a
0:12lot more routes than i expected and got four targets and they were all like short manufactured targets and then they talked
0:12sean manny and talked in the in the post game about wanting to get him more involved i think there was clear
0:12signal to put it in my signal and noise sense from all of that stuff from hearst williams for hearst and williams
0:12they're not makai lemon they're not first round picks but they were both guys that i want to be stashing even in
0:12home leagues for week two because this is the moment where like what they did at the end of that game might
0:12carry over to the next game and we see like a real breakout and the example i would give uh the one
0:12that came to mind when i was doing the well one of them was justin jefferson who like in week three had
0:12the monster game but like the first two games of his rookie season a little bit lower the routes are a little
0:12bit lower he was still like a little bit behind bc johnson whatever and then week three eruption um calvin ridley first
0:12game of his rookie year two targets zero catches second game four for 64 and one third game seven for 146 and
0:12three third game four for 54 and two he had six touchdowns over the next three weeks after no catches in week
0:12one that that was his rookie year not everyone's gonna do that but my point is like that first game it's there
0:12it's the player's first game of his career a lot of teams are not like we're gonna build the offense around them
0:12they're kind of when the guy's even just on the field playing and they're seeing what they can get out of him
0:12that's promising and then you my point is that can scale up really quickly it scaled up for the bucks last year
0:13with a buka really quickly i wouldn't shock me if it scaled up similarly for hearst fairly quickly the williams one's a
0:13little trickier because like the slot stuff and like digs is playing in the slot they probably have to bump digs outside
0:13you mentioned the diami brown there they're down a con quo though because he's he's hurt so they're gonna be able to
0:13play more three person three wide receiver sets with like baits and they're gonna need receiving so that helps a little bit
0:13too yeah that's interesting for sure um but yeah i mean if they ultimately if they determine that antonio williams is one
0:13of their better receiving weapons then they're gonna play him and that's the reason to make the bet right now and see
0:13what they what they decide because the three catches and whatever it was 60 ish yards in a td in the fourth
0:13quarter alone is promising the fact that he only ran 10 routes but a lot of that was in the fourth quarter
0:13alone is promising they took this guy on day two they want to use this guy they're they're ready to see what
0:13they have in him or they were in the fourth quarter of a game that they were trying to win against a
0:13division rival and they went to him multiple times and he delivered he caught all four of the passes with the touchdown
0:13that's the bet that you want to stash on the back of your roster and see what happens next week maybe it's
0:13a calvin ridley type i mean calvin ridley had no catches in week one these guys actually had some production him and
0:13hurst both had strong some catches together in the fourth quarters of these games but the point is again is like it's
0:13more the makai lemon point i guess with the ridley thing but it's these guys getting any kind of work in their
0:13first game especially the ones that there wasn't a lot expected from it gives you a little bit of signal that like
0:13the team actually thinks higher of them than than maybe we were thinking the other one that was looking like it might
0:13be that would have been omar cooper he only ends up playing five snaps but like he catches as a catch and
0:13run down inside the five yard line on the first drive and you're like man the jets have been kind of slow
0:13playing him but they want to use him obviously they're they got him out here on the first drive they get him
0:13into space and he looks good and like i think he would have went on to have probably a pretty decent game
0:13yeah totally agree with the rookies i'm i'm so annoyed about that cooper thing because i thought i thought the market was
0:13being so silly just just everyone everyone collectively decided that that a round one pick is not playable in like 20 round
0:13drafts like it just that's what we decided for the last two weeks of august because he was behind isaiah williams at
0:13a preseason game and i i and i think that that that take was incorrect and i felt like the market deserved
0:13to be punished for that um silliness and i'm very annoyed that he injured his ankle but hopefully sounds like it's only
0:13gonna be a couple weeks so he should be back at least at some point in the early season and hopefully picks
0:13up being part of the plans um i i loved all those points the the one last note that i would i
0:13would add on everything you said about tampa and kind of their lack of dynamism is zach robinson is at the podium
0:13today he said we need to find ways to get bucky irving more involved and i like looked again at the box
0:13i'm like he already got seven targets like he was pretty involved so like if they're if they're coming away with a
0:13similar conclusion to what we came away with which is they're a bit starved for dynamism you know they they're gonna need
0:13to find ways to get it so um that's all i got that's three hours and 31 minutes yeah i'm gonna talk
0:13about survivor dude we we said that oh my god i know we'll be quick we we did pittsburgh on both of
0:13our teams in week one felt good about it didn't do the charges the conversation was pittsburgh or jacksonville we decided to
0:13double down on the pittsburgh play we both felt like atlanta was just going to be that bad and like rogers is
0:13decent enough at like managing a game that like he doesn't like to turn the ball over um that it was a
0:13spot that you know at home that they were like and they played poorly frankly the stealers relative to that expectation they
0:13were they let the falcons be two in that game there was a lot of missed chances there too and some kind
0:13of bad breaks i think a little bit for the stealers in that game i say they played poorly because like there
0:13were some bad breaks but tj watt finally um kind of took the took to the took the the survivor picks on
0:13his back and then with that pick six and and saved us a little bit and put that game a little more
0:13out of reach for atlanta um but yeah we were talking about um whether we would discuss our our week two strategy
0:13and stuff and we don't necessarily need to go deep into it but i know you've done a little bit of looking
0:13at it i haven't done any yet um the other thing we didn't really get to we could we could literally go
0:13like six plus hours and we're not going to but we talked about the rookies and we're just starting to scratch that
0:13surface i would just say there's a lot more about the rookie stuff that's really exciting about the stuff that i was
0:13talking about i'm writing the article every week at the athletic that was a big part of what i hit on at
0:13the athletic and i went through several of the rookies i thought were interesting so if you have an athletic subscription check
0:13out my article there for more i'll also have a little bit about that in my input volatility article at the um
0:13stealing signals newsletter i've started to write that intro that's also going to kind of hit on some of the rookie stuff
0:13so some of my writing will and i know you've you'll have a bunch as well but some of my writing will
0:13hit on that if you want more of the like break like we talked about hearst and williams and some of there's
0:13more like there's we can talk about kenyan oh yeah talk about so many guys i'll note quick while you're on that
0:13topic that i have a weekly podcast uh with todd tipple ryan heath called the rookie report where we only talk about
0:13rookies so you can enjoy that for 60 to 90 minutes every week on wednesdays hell yeah that's a great idea i
0:13love that i didn't know you were doing that that's a really fun um idea yeah uh survivor break down what our
0:13big thoughts are for week two uh yes it's a fun survivor slate this week uh where there's frankly a lot of
0:13good or plausibly good teams that are playing against a lot of terrible teams it seems to me that the most common
0:13picks um or what i would guess are the most common picks will be philadelphia who is playing against the absolutely hapless
0:13tennessee titans and the tampa bay buccaneers who we just spent a lot of time talking about they're playing against the browns
0:13both those competent we assume teams against the two teams that i thought looked clearly the worst in week one and both
0:13are also teams with i mean with limited kind of future value like uh cody main has this incredible future value chart
0:13um where he came up with some way to quantify it and he posted that if anyone wants to go and see
0:13i mean tampa's future value is limited on the basis of i think most people don't see them as like that good
0:13of a team they're probably more of a 500 team um and phillies is limited just based on they don't have a
0:13particularly easy schedule like if you look through philly's schedule the only week where you probably be really excited to play them
0:13for the rest of the week for the rest of the year it's like i don't uh like i i had thought
0:13cardinals week 13 but i don't even know if you're that excited about that anymore actually after how arizona looked this week
0:13so this is this is by far the easiest spot for them um so i think that's probably the two key ones
0:13but there's also several of other kind of more interesting options you have the packers playing against the jets you have the
0:13ravens at home to the saints um there's a lot of different directions you can go i expect the chalk to be
0:13probably on tampa and philly oh and then the 49ers against the dolphins that's the biggest favorite of the week um they
0:13i expect will also get a ton um of ownership although they do have home games against the cardinals they have a
0:13home game against the raiders off of a bye week probably more chances to use them they also put a falcons so
0:13this is a spot to use the eagles even as a road team i guess like my elimination might be always been
0:13like i want to default to home teams you know i agree yeah i think tampa is like the best play my
0:13only like to me the only reason to not just jam tampa is that i suspect most people will come around to
0:13the conclusion that tampa is the best play but i i think that they are pretty clearly the best play like the
0:13browns look beyond hopeless i mean i mean downright uncompetitive tampa is like a team that is like not great but a
0:13team that's probably good enough that if you're making it the whole season you're going to have to use them at some
0:13point like they're going to be one of the best 18 or 19 teams in the league and then i don't really
0:13know when else you use them like it's they get the vikings the packers the cowboys the steelers at panthers home to
0:13falcons so maybe then week eight otherwise it's bears lions panthers chargers ravens saints falcons ram saints so you probably have two
0:13chances with them it's now or it's it's home to the falcons and you probably do have to use them at some
0:13point if you're getting through this season i like that we'll think through it um we're obviously not going to like announce
0:13our picks on on thursday shows because we're going to need to you know look at injury reports and stuff my other
0:13thought on the eagles i mean the eagles are interesting to me but my other thought on them is a um i
0:13think they were a little bit i was concerned about them in week one agree and i think they're like fairly likely
0:13to be better at other points in the season like especially after if they get mokai lemon going and some of those
0:13things their offense could take shape and be a lot better at a later point and then b the thing that you
0:13were saying to me the other day about some of the other teams is like we don't know what the teams are
0:13going to be like later so like they're right future value thing i'm somewhat skeptical of because like yeah i mean that's
0:13what we think after week one but some of these teams are going to lose their quarterback and their offensive line exactly
0:13things and then they're going to be they're going to look like they're tough they're going to wind up being really not
0:13tough and if the eagles are a team that we actually expect they have a lot of talent we expect to come
0:13together and be a good team at some point and potentially get to be a home favorite against some team that's got
0:13backups later that right now we don't know looks as bad as they look then um they're a team to keep in
0:13your back pocket because you're like i mean the future value is just the fact that they're they got a lot of
0:13talent on their roster and all that even if the schedule is not amazing so anyway i yeah you made exactly the
0:13point that i was going to make totally which is like the bucks the bucks have limited future value because of the
0:13box and the eagles have limited future value because their schedule but one of these games is going to be better than
0:13it looks right now almost certainly that's right that's a great way of putting it the bucks to have the limited future
0:13value because of the box and the eagles because of their schedule and you want to i think do the schedule thing
0:13but we're gonna we're gonna like think through this as we do it uh throughout the year both you and i have
0:13some um history doing the like survivor pools and eliminator pools with friends on a lower level but had never done the
0:13um like higher stakes type stuff that yeah are becoming more popular and are super fun and i've seen a lot people
0:13do the there's been the circa uh like super contest for years and then um the splash one was the other big
0:13one so there's these two big ones a lot of a lot of the sites are doing um tools i know four
0:13for four has done like a cool tool that i was looking at you mentioned some of the etr stuff cody main
0:13i know that they have like um ownership projections for it as well etr is awesome like i mean i'm definitely going
0:13to be using their tools for this um and yeah we decided last minute to do it like we got we got
0:13the itch and so here we are and we'll talk about it but it'll it's not like we have uh years and
0:13years and years of thinking through the game theory of it so we'll uh it's week two hopefully you know hopefully we
0:13think through the game theory well again for one more week and we keep surviving it may be a thing as we
0:13as we joked earlier that we're not going to be alive long enough to make it a regular segment that's certainly very
0:13possible uh but hopefully not hopefully we'll be back planning our survivor pick in week three and hopefully we'll be back with
0:13a lot well for sure we'll be back with a lot of fun stuff to talk about um in week two of
0:13the nfl season it's been a pleasure yeah see you guys
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