Speaker 1oh yes you know what time it is week three stats versus film our flagship show where we watch every single game yes 16 from the weekend compare that with the stats the metrics these spreadsheets in the hope of helping you bully your fancy football rival in week four and we have a big episode today as we talk through every single team and boys look things have been negative as of late right we have a lot of injuries we have some disappointing players on top of it maybe some draft picks that did not work out so matt horman i want to turn to you first give me something positive that you have learned that you have taken away from the first two weeks just so we can start off on the
Speaker 2right foot i mean we we are able to speak positively about the carolina panthers josh norris i mean you and i know in particular that this is why this is why i want to do this that's that that's not something that we've been able to do very often and you know a lot of times you come up with these theories you talk about things in the off season and it gets completely just obliterated within the first two weeks of the season i certainly feel like that about several of my takes but we talked about this i know you guys talked about on your show we talked about on the forecast as well brad edzik becoming the play caller was going to be a big change and the fact that they had two in my opinion like if i was to sit down and rank real life nfl receivers two top 24 top 25 wide receivers in the nfl and tedro mcmillan and jalen coker like all the things are happening darren waller being a red zone force is is there i mean i mean yeah we're able to say positive things about the carolina panthers and that feels pretty good right now looking
Speaker 3at yards for play it goes bills ravens panthers 49ers rams chiefs bears seahawks the special team there is definitely the carolina panthers are we pounding are we pounding guys i
Speaker 1wouldn't say we have kept it going for years but maybe we can begin once again here with with this panthers era okay hey i knew that wouldn't have been your answer so that's why uh all right as you all know we start with the 10 headline teams and unfortunately a lot of these are going to be massive sweeping changes that maybe destroy you know the positivity from a lot of the fan bases we begin with the new york giants that is number one hayden this is worst case scenario last night's optimism of a two to four week knee injury for jackson dart now seems to likely be a season ender jamis winston entered that contest jamis winston was horrible jamis winston has been really a bad quarterback outside of a seven game sample for about the last eight years so what does this do not just for the giants in totality but even more importantly our fantasy assets of malik neighbors isaiah likely and kim scadabill getting the evaluation
Speaker 3on jackson dart was the most critical piece of the entire giants season and now we're not going to be able to get it like way more so than the coaching staff way more so than malik neighbors coming back from injury way more than abdul carter's second season like they got to figure out the game and they're not going to be able to get it like way more so than the coaching staff the quarterback position and in a new offense and like more like the traditional stuff and we're just not going to get that at this point so i think that's like a huge bummer for the giants obviously for jackson dart himself and then hopefully uh when he does come back from this injury hopefully he's the same level athlete because that's really what made him special as a rookie and obviously he was going to be doing that plenty uh in his second season so hopefully this is not like a super long-term injury like one that like changes like the the next couple seasons for him uh because like that was like really the special part of him uh through uh one and a half years
Speaker 2josh i uh found an old tweet of mine that i had from the 2024 season when malik neighbors went crazy on the indianapolis colts at the end of that year and basically put them out of position to get a top draft pick that year i made the joke at the time that oh he was actually playing himself out of a rookie quarterback malik neighbor so that the team could sign jamis winston in free agency who was in the middle of a complete offensive scam uh it would be cleveland browns at the end of that season and i think that's what made him special as a rookie and i think that's and you know they did sign jamis winston actually that offseason but they also signed russell wilson drafted jackson dart and now we're back here with jamis winston but a lot has changed man i think winston looked like a guy i said this to hayden on the recap show yesterday he looked like a guy who spent all offseason as a content creator not a backup quarterback neighbors also like the shoulder injury i still think he doesn't look a hundred percent as to be expected it just i don't have a lot of optimism about where things are going for the giants right now totally
Speaker 1and look so many of us have been playing fancy football since the at least 2019 season when jamis winston you know through 33 touchdown passes and 30 interceptions and for some reason hayden i think a lot of people still have that season in their brain when what mike evans and chris godwin were the wide receiver one and two in points per game overall and so they think that in this environment perhaps he can just sling the rock throw it all over the yard uh i have bad news in that mr harbaugh is not going to want to live in that high variance department he is not going to want to live in a turnover worthy machine environment so i am nervous for obviously malik neighbors and hayden speak on the injury that he had that was a recurring one that he only had one catch in that game and i mean there's so many different layers to go through here and much different feeling than week one to week two to now to week three jamis just throwing
Speaker 3the ball down the football field to like actually like to nobody in that opener so he's just got to play way better than that i think that there's gonna be some opportunity for him because the giant secondary is just like total work in progress i think there's gonna be some garbage time available for like the top pass catchers here in terms of just watching neighbors he's clearly not himself like there was like the first play coming back after he pops his shoulder out he falls down the football field we've seen him kind of slip a couple times uh in week one as well i thought he was open underneath on a lot of those passes in the second half but jamis winston was just throwing the ball way over the top of him and i've been paying attention to him so i think neighbors is not himself and i do think that shoulder injury is a little bit concerning here because this is something that's been following him since college and he's opted to kind of play through it he said it completely popped out they're gonna get some imaging done um i hope that this is not something that just like lingers throughout the entire year and then the giants are eliminated in week 12 and then he finally off to the surgery like that type of outcome makes me a little bit nervous but i think the reality is for the next month malik neighbors is not 90 he's probably closer to 80 and maybe after a while he's gonna be able to play better and he's gonna be able to play better and watching the first two weeks maybe he's like a half step slower and less like himself than i was even expecting decent spots
Speaker 2in the next three weeks though titans cardinals commanders like the schedule's pretty good here but i'm with you hayden like i'm watching malik neighbors right now i've been charting his games and it's just it's not all the way there so that's obviously really difficult also i do feel like and again hayden you and i talked about this on the recap show that they feel like an offense sort of caught between two worlds where there's like in week one they're the heaviest personnel teams out there and obviously they fall behind in last night's game so who's really to say there but then their rate of 11 personnel and spread concepts really shot up it does feel like a half the time we're in greg roman's world half the time we're in matt nagy's world and i just wonder if like these the giants are going to be one of those teams that you know camp scataboo remains in our lives but it's just a cross-off team from a fantasy standpoint by the end of the year i can certainly see that being an outcome
Speaker 1hayden we'll talk about this in rankings
Speaker 3he's still a must start he's pretty much right there to me we're talking about a 30 target chair that's a tight end too he's the tight end three and expected points in this one he ran around 86 percent of the drop backs uh and then theo johnson keeps dropping passes on top of it uh titans have really struggled obviously when we uh talk about that game in the future i think that he's probably a fringe top 10 maybe like a big picture thing the depth that tight end is like low key pretty good right now like there's like 16 17 guys once we get into like uh kelsey's back break out like now terrence ferguson's interesting jawan johnson's officially interesting like there's all there's a lot of good tight ends right now so i think he's like firmly in that mix he's not a must play but the numbers have been pretty sensational for him
Speaker 1okay matt let's go to your opponents on monday night football that is the la rams who put a hurt on this giants defense for as bad as the passing attack looked in week one it rebounded in a big way in week two uh davante adams was the man a top two wide receiver performance on the week uh so i guess my question to you is we know what davante adams can do as the isolated number one wide receiver on this team when there's literally no depth behind him so matt the big fancy question is obviously you're going to start adams as a wide receiver two or a wide receiver three but just what are the expectations once puka nakua does return to this lineup yeah i
Speaker 2mean at that point it goes back to being sort of a up and down volatile play but i wonder like when is puka nakua going to be a hundred percent this football season i think it's going to be a season like is it going to be soon is it going to be later in the year and i mean adams still looks awesome and it's just like route running keeps you young forever he is certainly still all the tabs has all the tricks uh in the bag there and he's running as like a pure outside receiver despite the fact that he's 33 going to be 34 in december his moves off the line of scrimmage were excellent and staffers just like straight drop back out of center uh not as much like the play action stuff at this point really excellent uh game from davante adams who can still win who i mean some of those routes like the one of the touchdowns was the corner route was you know against colton hood rookie receiver going against or rookie cornerbacks used to be going against davante adams that's a tough assignment but yeah i feel like there's more to get out of adams than just what we saw last year where he is definitely a more limited player than he was in his prime there's no doubt about that but you know some of the dig routes and the post routes and the go routes he could still run those at a pretty high rate in 2025 and we saw on monday night as well like he can definitely run those at a pretty high rate in 2025 and we saw on monday night as well still get that done. So I don't know that it's going to ever be. anything other than just like when puka nuku is on the field we get the ball to him every way possible but i think it's i think it's open to the rams if they want to take
Speaker 1that yeah because hayden we talked about this in the wide receiver ranking show ahead of week two that in week one and again we're talking tiny samples here but it kind of goes back to last year splits when adams was in and out that davante only ran one route in the red zone and played only one of six snaps inside the 10 yard line when puka nuku was healthy back in week one and we know that inside the 10 yard line stuff is so vital for davante adams i mean we saw it last night where a called run is bailed by matthew stafford and so it's just a one-on-one fade and that is a layup it's been that way with stafford it's been that way with aaron rogers been with every quarterback that davante adams has had so i guess my question is we have the ceiling play of when adams is the isolated wide receiver then we have recently seen the ceiling play of when adams has been passed by in that role by puka nuku and then we get the red zone targets with him and if kind of both are exchanging them and sharing them i'm not seeing it caps each other's ceilings but it kind of changes the pushing the chips all in for either one of them does that make sense
Speaker 3yeah i totally get about i think just the big thing here is like figuring out exactly this puka nuku injury because i didn't love the way that mcbay talked about that on the mic and like this does seem pretty close to the injury that he was dealing with in training camps like i think we just need like first like start there about the exact health status of puka nuku and i think with davante adams what's been so interesting from last year and then obviously in this last game here between the 20s he's a downfield though there's only a couple players uh last year with a higher a dot between the 20s like alec pierce and uh there's somebody else way down the football field and then it was davante adams like that was like a concern is that if he's not getting the easy button targets and then he's not going to play at the goal line that's where he becomes a little bit more volatile but if he's the only guy out there and he's just going to get fed 200 air yards in a game and he still looks like this early in the season like we absolutely should be uh ranking him very aggressive i think he was all the way up to like my wide receiver seven last week uh once puka nuku was ruled out and uh they also like to kind of change what they were doing a lot more like 11 personnel than maybe i was expecting there and they're just like using terrence ferguson uh like as like a slot receiver in some capacities and then when they did go heavy it's only terrence ferguson and davante adams out in the route and if that's going to be the they're going to be doing on about a third of their drop backs that's really easy for davante adams to pay off yeah matt
Speaker 1the davante stuff was amazing but with how much this show and many other fancy analysts talked about terrence ferguson this summer we do need to bring him up sure because the the slant route that he had in this game to me accentuated everything that the rams discussed this summer in that as you know last year literally half of his routes were 20 plus yards on the field he was in the 2-2 at-well role and so i think that's going to be a big part of the game and i so all summer this rams coaching staff said we need to get more gimmies more underneath stuff more yards at the catch and while you know his hands weren't perfect here in week two he he was a big part of the passing game and he had that yards at the catch and then he had the red zone target and while titan might be deep this year this is also an offense that we want pieces of at every single turn and terrence ferguson was quite cheap compared to the other past catchers
Speaker 2here yeah he was dropped a lot in yahoo leagues last week as well yes which makes a lot of sense one of the people like that that had to drop him to pick up like a kicker or a defense in a league you know it does happen but um he dropped the one pass could have had an even bigger night i think there's going to be moments with terrence ferguson because he's still a very raw player where he has a little bit of like the bambi syndrome running on ice i think there's going to be moments with that with him but yeah he ran 40 from the slot uh in the game on monday night that's basically what he is he's a movement player for them he's going to play multiple alignments um they they need a man like these other guys cannot a month he's going to be a movement player for them he's going to xavier smith you know they're they're nice yeah two two hey two two had that one little outcut yeah that was something he did he didn't want a little play uh but i mean for the most part these are all role players and they need terrence ferguson to be the guy that we kind of hypothesized in the summer and i mean i think you see enough proof of concept of it i i really think like there's enough to get by for this team and it'll be interesting when we talk about tight end streamers this week with terrence ferguson the 72 percent route percentage going against the broncos this week i mean you would imagine that davante adams who's actually done plenty of battle with patrick certan because they were in the same division and you know that they would draw pretty even on some of those matchups but yeah ferguson might be the guy that has the better looks uh here in week three i think
Speaker 3terrence ferguson is the best pickup of of week uh going into week three i think he's better than the running backs that are available i'm you know if there's let's say there's like a 10 20 chance of this puka injury like lingers for longer than they're talking about like this is like sports hernia type of stuff like always makes me nervous to be one of the best pickups of the entire year and i think just the fact that he did this in week two and like they showed their hand that they want to get him so involved like he's somebody that you can't drop like the rest of the way like there's just there's just way too many outs for terrence ferguson to like win tight end like not finish like the tight end eight like he can be a top three top four tight end so i think he's the number one guy in waivers uh going into tonight and even if you
Speaker 1have one of the big producers like i mean anywhere from trey mcbride to sam laporta to juwan johnson i even think you can pick up someone like terrence ferguson and maybe play him in the slot as we get excuse me the flex as we get deeper and deeper throughout the season because we know a lot of these wide receivers when we're running heavier personnel that limits the number again of wide receivers that are kind of options for us and his role did change it's not just like the depth of the target as nathan yonke pointed out terrence ferguson played just as many snaps out of 11 personnel on first and second downs in this game on monday night as he played all of last season so last year was all the 13 personnel stuff and so if we're adding the 11 personnel stuff on top of it that's fantastic just a quick word on kyron williams guys the formula worked once again if the ram scored 28 points he likely scored a touchdown if they're trailing he plays 75 of snaps i thought it was great harman that he wasn't punished for the fumble mcveigh talked about afterwards that he learns from that immediately versus other coaches that you know try to punish them and try to you know say oh you're gonna do it again if if if the odds aren't in your favor um he had a touch immediately on the first snap the next drive yeah and
Speaker 2all the blake quorum bros got just enough at the end of the game to see like see this this guy should be getting the football more it doesn't matter like sean mcveigh loves kyron williams he always will and i'm with you josh i i can't stand the all right the guy fumbled let's take him out like really let's make sure he definitely isn't overthinking it you know this is just like general psychology you hammer this to home you're you're gonna be thinking about that fumble and the fumbles keep coming so you know it doesn't really matter kyron williams is a good back i'm with you like just keep it rolling
Speaker 1yeah with that said blake quorum looks awesome oh yeah so it's really nice to have two two running backs out there and the rams as you guys said are facing the broncos they're only projected for 23 and a half points this week but there's plenty of time to talk about that all right we'll go back to sunday night football kansas city chiefs are up first hayden simple question so is the passing offense just travis kelsey all over again i mean
Speaker 3you're not wrong with that and there's like some real evidence that it's actually working uh i mean you're not wrong with that and there's like some uh nate tice had the miles per hour for travis kelsey and in 2026 way faster than he was in the previous two or three years uh since he started dating and then marrying taylor swift and then i looked at it yards after catch wise through two weeks he's number one in the nfl the number one in the nfl so he's always just going to have uh the the feel with patrick mahomes and obviously they they did that once again out of structure a couple times there they're going to give him a couple cheapo touchdowns here uh and then i just think he looks in better shape right now and then looking ahead in the next week they're projected for 28 and a half points like how is he not a top five tight end uh when they're projected for that many points he's tied in eight usage and everything looks amazing i mean we the
Speaker 2three of us all got married here within the last uh four or five years right i mean you know this true you yeah congratulations to all three of us what a miracle um you know this you get in good shape for your wedding you know you get in good shape for that wedding and and i'm gonna go ahead and guess that there was uh more people more eyeballs on the swift kelsey wedding than the norris winks harman weddings and you know you you get in good shape and he's just letting it ride into the regular season okay he's into football season now he's in shape the whole deal and i mean he does really look good he doesn't look as fast as he did in his youth of course that's impossible but the like fluidity and flexibility for him and like the initial burst i think is there and it's showing up in terms of them getting him the quick targets like targets fewer than five air yards so far this year and i think it's going to be a lot of fun and i think it's going to be a lot of fun for the kansas city cheese it's 11 for kenneth walker eight for travis kelsey six for xavier worthy four for emmet johnson two for rishi rice four other guys have won i mean they're trying to get that ball to him and let him run after the catch and he's winning after the catch uh as well so it makes sense and yeah he's i think he's one of the best bargains at tight end it looks like right now hayden we
Speaker 1have rankings episodes later this week but this does leave a bit of a conundrum obviously you're starting ken walker the third put a pin in that one you're starting travis kelsey but in a game where they're projected for nearly 29 points is that one where you can take the leap on rashi rice in your flex is that one you can take the leap on someone like taekwon thornton or xavier worthy or is this truly as we move forward the only confident plays are mahomes canine and kelsey i think once you get
Speaker 3to like the wide receiver three range you kind of sort by projected points and that's what i did look with like rashad bateman for example and i think that rashi rice is gonna be at the very like top of that so like in my early rankings it's like wide receiver 22 but this is it's very clearly a different role for him that he's not going to be like the sit and zone uh and we're going to spread him out type of player that he was in the last three three seasons when he he was targeted on 26 of his routes since 2023 and then this year it's 10 uh percent targets per route only a couple screens in there when that was a really big part of his game as well i don't think that he looks all the way right either like you can see like when he really like opens up and that last play uh of of regulation when he didn't try to pitch the ball out he's kind of just running in the field he didn't look that explosive to me that said like this team's gonna be projected for a lot of points he's gonna get better and probably smoother as the season progresses um but for like a third round pick like this looks like one of the worst picks that you could have made in that range i think that he's still startable but we're talking about the wide receiver 66 and usage through two weeks and
Speaker 2this was easy to see coming to for like everything we just have been talking about where rice is also playing outside more 62 versus 48 percent uh in from 2024 to 2025 because they're playing with more of these heavy personnel groupings that's a big part of it for sure so he's naturally going to be forced more outside also the guy rehabbed his knee injury from freaking jail of course he doesn't look all the way right and like i've i mean i've never been a fan of his work against man press coverage but he has always been a really good zone beater and you know he's not been a good zone beater so far even to the point that like you see a couple times like this is why it's again it's tough to talk about rashid rice versus the production on the whole deal but like when he's having his big games previously he would just literally sit there and zone like put his hands up like we're like we're just playing catch you know with him and patrick homes and my homes is throwing it to him but now the homes because the looks are a little bit better down the field because the way the run games operating he's actually looking further downfield and the passes are hitting i mean this chief's offense is fun to watch again guys and uh it's a much more enjoyable product than what we've got recently
Speaker 1yeah it looks a little different i will say matt the thing that is predictable is that kenneth walker the third should have been the first round pick in all your fancy leagues i know a lot of you out there watching this show and you're going to be like oh my god i'm going to have drafted canine at the one two turn this year and in any other situation hayden i might have you know expressed some frustration when andy reed was asked about emmett johnson and if his workload could grow moving forward uh and him saying yes basically we need to get him more touches which by the way i'm like 14 touches we already know emmett johnson is a dude in the nfl but hayden when you just take a step back i don't want people to get frustrated by this revelation because when you look at what you're doing you're not going to be able to get him more touches what canine is doing he's getting 31 and a half opportunities right now averaging 23 and a half carries and eight targets like that is basically unsustainable so if we send five or six of those in a different direction i am perfectly happy hayden if we drafted kenneth walker third in a chief's offense behind this offensive line the figurehead the franchise altering player and he averages a cool 25 touches per game yeah
Speaker 3through two weeks this is prime christian mccaffrey usage so like we don't need prime christian mccaffrey usage to pay off there's there's a lot of people out there who are like i don't know what to do with this but i don't think there's room for this to go uh go down a little bit 25.7 expected points and he's been a model breaker for for quite a while i think i would take him at the 102 um maybe you can convince me on some some of the wide receivers but like bijon's can be projected for 10 fewer points per game than the chiefs will uh and then you know obviously you have jonathan taylor that's kind of like a separate discussion there but i think that he's in the mix to be drafted uh that high and my last note uh maybe matt you can help me out here the xavier worthy stuff it's not working like with like the real stuff but they are throwing him a ton of screens and rashi rice is the one blocking for xavier worthy on those screens so like worthy is one of these kind of like in my model he's a buy low candidate wide receiver 20 and usage he's a very frustrating player obviously um but if he's going to be like kind of winning either down the football field and then getting a couple screens per game like i think like he should be rostered every single league and he's he's somebody that like if you and buy weeks when they're projected for a bunch of points he's he's becoming maybe a little bit more interesting yeah
Speaker 2that's like about as nice as you could possibly say for worthy but i mean if you're just talking about physics who do you want blocking for the other the maybe allegedly 165 pound player or the guy who weighs you know 200 plus pounds i mean i think that that kind of makes sense and yeah rice only has two screen targets throughout the course of the season so far through two weeks and that's not what we're used to like this this is the problem of this is the issue with is that rice is always eaten on the mickey mouse stuff but you also have to roll cater to xavier worthy too to make it work i again it's like selfish but god i really wish they just had one real deal like i can funnel the ball to this guy wide receiver could they make a move for someone could they make a move well i'm jerry judy he's available he's got to be available right i know everybody wants everyone's like marv btj i'm like god the guy that's probably going to get moved is is is uh is is jerry judy okay let's talk
Speaker 1to indianapolis colts because matt i want to send it right back to you uh one of your favorite wide receivers to talk about and every single fantasy analyst favorite wide receiver to talk about josh downs had arguably the best game of his career in terms of two wide receiver set route running and production on the week he finished as wide receiver 23 in half ppr and matt i think that this will only be leaned into more because of absence that will likely mean laquan treadwell will play as the x downfield player and then maybe darius slayton if he can catch up so what do you see from josh downs what are you expecting on a weekly basis now with josh
Speaker 2downs yeah darius slayton one of the og actual sacrificial x receivers uh when i started thinking about that as a term so i'm not worried about that when it comes to josh downs he ran around on 71 of the dropbacks with two or fewer wide receivers on the field he previously averaged eight percent in the first uh three seasons of his nfl career ran around on 92 93 of the dropbacks overall he had never been higher than 76 in any season previously i mean he's like a 60 40 slot player i think this is totally right um he's winning on some quick slants some routes out of motion as well which again gets him to free releases but he also critically got three targets on kind of these bigger outbreaking routes at least farther than 10 yards down the field that's the part that they're going to have to continue to keep pushing up in uh laquan treadwell probably not going to be a high volume player they're like tyler warren is basically living in the flats in the underneath areas so they need to continue to hit the josh downs button on these outbreaking routes and i think he can win i've always been a fan of downs in that way so i just think it's only going to go up from here and like this colts team they're gonna i mean using a ton of play action getting the ball out of daniel jones's hands i think that's going to lead them into their best separator which is pretty clearly by a long shot josh downs at this point totally agree on that i think
Speaker 3that's going to lead them into their best yeah lots of stuff off of motion like you said i think the slot work is really important too they're kind of like sacrificing keenan allen in some some of the more difficult situations there and those aren't going to work like you said the two x receivers uh in a rotation that's not going to work either he's had five games with alec pierce either out or only seeing one target like he did in this past game uh he has a 24 target share in those games i think the other note for the colts and this just goes for everybody that defense is just terrible like their linebacker in general they're just trying to figure out what they even want to do schematically uh they just don't have enough good players in the back half there um so there's going to be moments where josh downs is going to be like really relied on like in a ppr scammy type of way but he's just a much better football player uh than a lot of those guys that have eaten so i think he's firmly a wide receiver three moving forward i think there is a chance that he could be a wide receiver two in full ppr
Speaker 1theoretically hayden if the josh downs led indianapolis colts play the houston texans in week three would you still view him as the wide receiver two slash three
Speaker 3i think you have to view him still as a wide receiver three even the best defense we've seen this with the the texans even the best defenses still allow points uh through the air and i think that he's josh downs is pretty easy to kind of cater towards um and shane syken so smart uh and the tyler warren stuff has been it's it's still just the same like four plays to tyler warren they really have not expanded that beyond that and i think that they're probably realizing that josh they need nine yards the ball is going to go to josh downs a lot more than it will anybody else in the offense i still
Speaker 1trust shane syken you know he's been i think dealt some difficult cards as of late like the just movement of i understand and i met you probably wouldn't have maybe blossomed or spread his wings on the colts as he is doing to the degree he is doing with the new york jets and then they move michael pitman and then the alec pierce non-surgery then surgery then now this is an aggravation and now he's not having surgery again that like i know mitchell matt would have been like a perfect replacement i know what do you have not so i i understand why they made that move kind of i mean sauce garner with two first round picks is absolutely ludicrous when we look back on it in the state of this defense but it's it's it's just there's not enough going on right now for this team to hit the highs obviously is the number one scoring offense of of last year and i still believe in him as a coach and i think daniel jones is playing above average football at this moment and obviously once they get to the red zone you have jonathan taylor you have tyler warren but uh i'm a bit nervous for this team when they face like the biggest defenses whereas last season when they were at their best they were putting it on some of the best defenses
Speaker 2yeah i do think this offense is going to feel really tight like they're going to have to get explosive places like explosive plays from the run game because it's probably not going to happen consistently through the air i will note josh downs has two games over 100 yards in his career one of them was against the houston texans in 2024 uh because like again they do so much to motion him around and get him away from some of the perimeter corners there and like normally i don't love the player verse defense stat but because the texans have been pretty static in terms of like same coaches a lot of the same players i think it does make a little bit of sense there you also had 60 yards in the week 18 game uh at the end of last season i do think though josh like you bring it up the ad mitchell trade and just i mean the sauce garner trade in and of itself was an emotional trade by chris ballard um ad mitchell also was an emotional trade away there they were like basically rage traded him i do think this is a team that definitely could make yet another like emotional move at the deadline uh like again i'll say could they could totally be the team that trades for marv is like reggie wayne is his coach bringing him home uh chris ballard is absolutely completely desperate i mean this team is this team hired jeff saturday off the espn booth for the good vibes you think they you think they wouldn't make the marv trade just for like a good couple months of press i think it could happen
Speaker 1you know matt i was thinking about this if jim ursay was still around he did make a you know move for a former bus top five pick in trent richardson and maybe he would have done the same thing here with marvin harrison jr but you know i think his daughter maybe has uh a bit more zoom out perspective on on some of this stuff all right let's talk about draft kings all right every sunday has a moment you see coming before everyone else a breakout performance a matchup changing play or the call you were all ready to make all week thanks draft kings for sponsoring this draft kings sports puts the sports matchups and picks you can't care about in one seamless app now available in all 50 states from the early slate through prime time you can follow every moment see what's live and make your calls wherever you are new draft kings customers sign up using promo code jh fantasy spend just five bucks and get 150 dollars in total bonus rewards paid within 14 days that's promo code jh fantasy download the draft kings sports app today and get keep football at your fingertips all season long the crown is yours all right let's talk about the la chargers hey and i posted a highlight reel or let's say a low light reel it's a comedy of errors and you know everyone wants to point the finger at one person the finger should be pointed at about seven or eleven different players and then maybe a coach on top of it in mike mcdaniel there's a few news items they hit on here david joku and charlie kohler are going to injury reserve they buried a ronda gadsden on the depth chart this offseason because of the his poor blocking i would say rightfully so but now hayden they have no one to turn to and also no one to turn to other than latimer conkey to actually catch passes so how are you handling this chargers team that we overdrafted and now are looking to potentially bench well i think when
Speaker 3you lose david and joku and charlie kohler like that's only going to make their problems worse like they're struggling in pass protection and running the football i mean we watched what ronda gadsden did as a blocker as a rookie like that's why he was behind those guys all in camp and then i was looking at all right who else do they have on the practice squad they have an undrafted uh free agent rookie from wyoming and then the next guy it's patrick herbert that's justin's younger brother that is currently who they might have to bring up is justin's younger brother uh so things aren't going well it's predictably the interior i think that their center is just like too weak to start right now cole strange has been a problem uh joe all like pre-snap has been a total mess and max crosby got him a couple times a a defense a tackle got him a couple times as well i think slater's been a little bit more up and down and then justin herbert himself has just been missing throws uh and then also just like chucking the ball into coverage when you shouldn't be doing that on top of that so like there's not a positive takeaway nate tice like went up and down their coaching staff and was just ripping them on football 301 if you guys want to go listen to that like going coach by coach it was like i know this guy this guy stinks up and down the list uh so i don't feel very good about this right now paraphrasing
Speaker 1oh man it's it's
Speaker 2so bad um the only thing that's good about this team is like glad mcconkey uh you look at the epa i know jj's totally had this stat that like they're the second worst offense in the nfl when he's off the field uh behind only i believe the the the cooper rush atlanta falcons are a top seven unit when he's on the field from an epa standpoint that obviously isn't everything but i mean yeah like the combination of offensive efficiency metrics i like to look at they are the third best offensive efficiency metrics i like to look at they are the third best offensive efficiency in the nfl right now be ahead of only the steelers which i'm so glad i'm not on i mean good luck to you guys when you get to that section there's like that's just a mess to clean up uh and the falcons like those are the two offenses worse than them that's where the charters are not despite the fact that they're basically you know theoretically schematically pushing all the buttons that you know people want to see their second in motion uh their first enduring snap motion ninth in play action too much it's like almost too much right and i mean just like do we need all of this stuff at this point because the operational part of it just looks like a complete disaster so like does this get does this get better with time is that is that the question here for for this team i mean it it
Speaker 1has to because hopefully they practice from you know monday to saturday every single week and right now the order of operations of everything again it's too much window dressing it's it's doing too much but then adding on to this though when things do go correctly it's it's what we've pointed to where it's a david and joku drop that leads to an interception it's a quentin johnson drop and a hole shot on a good throw it's a brennan thompson drop on a crossing route it's hey a second phase play because justin herbert escapes i'm going to try to go to brennan thompson and here comes a ron day gatson playing like a revis island cornerback and swatting it away before it gets to him and then oh we have the running game on top of this which has been mike mcdaniel special over the last couple years and omar and hampton has a fumble in back-to-back weeks and to be honest keep mitchell's game on top of this and i think it's going to be a great but keaton mitchell just falls over in first contact if he's breathed on he's too small and he gets taken straight down so matt i think my point is they don't have anything to lean on completely like to fall on and say hey this is what we can focus in and this is our identity for this week because trevor penning coming in and starting at one of the interior spots at guard like that's going to be rough ben solak pointed this out on one of his pieces that last year the dolphins 13.5 explosive run rate uh led the nfl the chargers are down to 9.1 and 0.2 yards before contact which is third worst among offenses across the nfl so i mean the simple question is what is mike mcdaniel doing well right now and the answer is nothing the
Speaker 3answer is nothing and i just think that the blocking up front like just it's just not going to get fixed and i think that the timing like a good example of they have a fullback that knows the system and is just not getting it done like everything just feels like it's a beat off and then i think some of the issue just uh uh circling on omari and hampton is his just like ability to find the cutback it's kind of two-dimensional and like one like you have to have the vision for it and then also you also have to like to have the patient the ability to turn and he just doesn't have that it's like watching devon hm in that role than hampton do it's like two totally different backs you want hampton working downhill but they don't have the interior alignment like you can't do cole strains and jake slater uh slaughter uh doing duo runs like that's just not going to work so i don't know what they're going to do here this team's going to be like you know throwing the ball to lad mcconkey a bunch hampton will have some like big perimeter runs that actually do hit from time to time but i think like the consistency like this would not be it would not be surprising to me if this is a a team that's like bottom five bottom ten and like three and outs because i just think they're going to be able to have any form of of consistency at all yeah and
Speaker 1what we've talked about is their schedule this should have been a lot of work but i think it's going to be a lot of work and i think it's the easiest part of the season and just you know the next four games it's the broncos chiefs rams and texans defenses so yeah i mean lad wasn't playing third downs in the first half and then was playing third downs in the second half and was the only dependable player to find zones and sit in them and catch the football consistently and so we really need lad to be like a 85 snap player from here on out for this team to have any chance of like chaining plays together in order to i mean massive changes for them too we have caleb williams nearly running in a touchdown to win the game going down with a hamstring injury then we assume because he goes into the game and finishes it out that tyson bajant is going to be the starting quarterback yet we wake up on tuesday morning and tyson bajant is in concussion protocol and matt harman the bears quarterback three is case keenum and now he has to support the wide receiver 49 in roma dunzey wide receiver 50 and luther burton the wide receiver 29 in clee freeman and colson loveland has one catch for three yards so are you thrilled that case keenum is the person and has the responsibility of turning around all of our fancy seasons
Speaker 2the last time case came through a pass was christmas eve of 2023 in a game against the cleveland browns when he played with the texans and he averaged 3.6 yards per attempt so i'm not feeling great josh i'm not feeling great i'm actually feeling pretty bad about like a case keenum start in the year 2026 that's definitely not what i bargained for for sure and there's a lot going on with this bears offense i think they got i think ben johnson got outcoached in week two and i i love ben johnson he's one of my two or three favorite play callers in the nfl but like watching that game live a little bit and then certainly watching it back i just think kind of outsmarted himself with some of the colson loveland using him as an inline blocker a ton you know when you look at the at the rate overall he ran around on 71%. of the drop back so they got an 11 personnel um he was still you know out there or heavy personnel groupings he was out there a decent bit and 11 personnel he's just it was a lot of blocking for colson level which you know he's a good blocker but i think you want him out there in the route and being more of a safety blanket like khalif raymond has been their safety blanket so far he had four catches when caleb williams was under pressure in week two and he was under pressure a ton with all the blitz looks um luther burden i don't think number one doesn't look all that great to me he's probably still coming back from missing a ton of time uh roman dunes is also coming back from missing a little bit of time too but he at least got back to being a full-time player uh i know again we joked about this on sunday the mob was going to be coming for hayden uh because he called luther burden a part-time player he was even more right in in week two uh luther burden ran a route on just 29 of the plays when there were fewer than three receivers on the field it's it's just like is he a hundred percent right now i i don't know because you would imagine you would imagine he would be a hundred percent right now i i don't know because you would imagine he would be getting some of those layup looks not khalif raymond but that's not like his role has changed a decent bit from last year to this year i see
Speaker 3just one screen to luther burden this year he's not playing nearly as much slot as what i think a lot of people were expecting but it does make sense like they want khalif raymond on the football field like that's the only way he can be on the football field so yeah his eight outs almost 10 yards down the football field for luther burden so obviously
Speaker 2like when you got replacing dj moore basically like he's he's more but playing less yeah
Speaker 3really really fascinating i think for this week when you got a 38 year old quarterback let's be honest like there's no way case keaton actually wants to play football right now like he as quarterback three you want to be a coach uh and they're facing the eagles so you can't start anybody aside from i would say deandre swift like you can't start any of these guys but i do think we should just keep looking at the numbers for roma dunzey is he going to be a hundred percent snap player he's pretty much that in week two and then luther burden versus khalif raymond and i think that like what you said uh matt on the colson level and stuff just like too much blocking like they still do like some isolated stuff to colson loveland but i i could use even more than that because that's what they were doing during that playoff stretch when they looked unstoppable for a little bit and i have not seen that quite as much uh this year
Speaker 1yeah 18 and a half points that the bears are projected for here in week three that's the same as the tennessee titans and it's yeah i mean i i was going to ask you guys hey how can we fix this you know like how can we fix the colson loveland stuff you kind of outlined that how can we fix the luther burden stuff maybe just not healthy and then roma dunzey in this offense has kind of always been a bit volatile um since the second half of last season into now it's just a lot of downfield things and i also believe that the khalif raymond production is somewhat tied to uh the two defenses that they played in the corners so he works over the middle of the field he's also the quick access player versus you know the extended plays all that type of stuff and then we talked about it with you know brian flores and his defense where you muddy everything up and he plays zone in the back half and so there's still that area over the middle of the field so um i'm hoping at least truly one of these pass catchers makes good on the value because where we're at now matt it feels like it would be wish casting despite what week one looked like uh and the amount of points that they scored that all three of them are going to return value
Speaker 2yeah i mean he's just it's not going to happen with case keenum so we i mean i think bajan would be okay uh you know i think bajan's a solid backup quarterback and he had a couple of moments when he was in the game uh did get the ball to luther burden got the ball downfield on a deep corner route to roma dunzey which was a nice throw and a nice catch uh from him i i think that the quarterback injury is really throwing a wrench in all of this obviously that's not like a very insightful take because i think otherwise i'd be pretty close to no panic on a lot of these players and like it would just naturally come around but the fact that we again we're going to get probably one case keenum start maybe a bajan start or two that certainly uh does throw a wrench in things but you know once caleb williams looks like he's going to be coming back i'll be trying to buy on probably all of these guys as long as again uh burden starts to play more that's the one i at least i'm the most concerned about so
Speaker 1that's the one that i'm the most
Speaker 3concerned about so that's the one that i'm the most concerned about actually buying low like don't buy low this week wait for the numbers to come in and then buy low maybe going into week four
Speaker 1matt who would your pick be uh
Speaker 2yeah probably loveland or rome but it just depends on what your receiver looks like
Speaker 1let's talk about the minister of vikings they're up next and kyler murray is back to the starting lineup we only got a handful a little more snaps of that of kyler murray uh in week one it included an interception uh and kind of a bit of chaos i mean he was kind of running around with his head cut off hayden so so what are you expecting with color murray immediately returning to this lineup uh we have still seen that justin jefferson is the primary piece that everything is revolving around is that how it's going to be or can kyler potentially open up a little bit more
Speaker 3yeah i think kyler's going to play much better than carson wentz will um and i'm not really looking into the 10 snaps that he had as a viking i just i'm looking at the whole history of kevin o'connell and the numbers that they put up and i think that kyler murray uh has played good ball for for for too long to to not have success in this offense so uh i didn't really have a whole lot of notes here i think like my primary note was just on aaron jones because uh he played 90 of the snaps going into halftime he picked up an injury to his knee like just for a quick second he was like slamming his helmet to the ground but then he came back in they just don't trust anybody else out there um and i don't think that's going to change i think they're going to ride him for as long as he can uh he had 10 and a half expected half ppr points in this one 90 of the snaps from uh 2024 onward without jordan mason he's the rb20 on rb13 usage like this is exactly what an rb2 looks like he's not the same level player i also don't think that he's completely washed either and then they're going to face the tampa bay buccaneers defense which has been getting shredded by everyone including deshaun watson so i think i feel very comfortable with aaron jones obviously on top of uh justin jefferson
Speaker 1anything to add matt yeah i really
Speaker 2just want to see what um it looks like one obviously with kyler murray of course um juan jennings also missed week two sounds like he's going to be back for week three that did change a lot of the offense where they got into a ton of two tight end sets because they you know they're not really trying to play like ty felton or anything like that on offense um so jordan addison is the guy maybe is the most interesting to talk about like is there anything from jordan addison that we can get i'd naturally think that jordan addison he's a very boom bust player um and i also think kevin o'connell is a very boom bust offense and i think kyler murray is a very boom bust quarterback so my sense on addison was always it was going to be very a ton of variance and i'm not like i think the way that the bucks have been picked apart so far this year has been just picking on linebackers kind of in the underneath area i mean obviously the long catch and run from boston is the play that got the highlights for me too but it was a lot of like quick outs to to boston as well and i'm not sure that yeah that's i mean that's definitely not jordan addison's game it's probably going to be a big justin jefferson outing i would guess yeah
Speaker 1that's a big thing here that kyler gets to return against that bucks defense and try to invest so much in the pass rush and they have very little of it so far and yet the markets aren't really a big believer of this offense at the moment just 22 points uh compared to you know what the bucks have allowed recently so we'll see if kyler can you know shove that projection you know where all right let's talk about the new orleans saints banks left tackle out for 10 weeks per nick underhill that's a big injury for this team because uh this offensive line was supposed to be a strength for them but so far it's been the passing attack hayden crystal lave the wide receiver five and points per game devon valley the wide receiver 15 juwan johnson for the tight end 17 uh and i won't mention where the running backs rank uh for your sanity yeah
Speaker 3i mean this offense feels pretty clean to me and that crystal lave is no doubt about a top 10 doesn't matter who they're facing because they draw a lot of drop back they're still first and neutral pace there i think maybe the uh the two uh players i want to talk about were juwan johnson and then obviously the the running back rotation but stick with the past game the juwan johnson stuff like this guy rules after the catch and he can dunk on uh some players as well this game he had a couple moments where he's like beating defenders to the sideline for chunk games he was hurtling guys there was a moment where there's four baltimore ravens like circled around him he somehow got out of that hit the gas and like nearly scored a touch like there was no reason for juwan johnson to have that much uh yards after the catch he's just like a he's a very good player and i think that he's the second best player in the past game i think that is like an interesting uh compliment but juwan johnson's like i think hashtag good uh and he's been uh kind of like a pretty relevant in every single tyler shuck game so there's a lot of tight ends that we need to be talking about in fantasy but juwan johnson absolutely should be the tight end 10 on tight end six usage yeah
Speaker 2Yeah, Jawan Johnson is good. Do you guys know that Bryce Lance has run seven? 177 routes this year had no clue i mean well he's got no he's got five targets on those routes uh so good for a cool 6.5 percent targets per route um yeah he which is i do actually think is important because vele is kind of a power slot who you can play on the ball obviously uh you want juwan johnson detached from the formation um this is definitely a sacrificial x and bryce lance because you also want to get chris olave in motion as the z receiver to olave so he's been awesome he's playing like a he's playing like an easy top eight receiver in the nfl i don't know that there's that i mean look at mike thomas even though michael thomas he knows the saints is nice i agree the saints the saints is nice uh so far this year uh shuck is really good i'm with hayden on my notes on juwan johnson powerful after the catch and like you know just a difficult cover in general vele really it wasn't great from a fantasy standpoint in week one but he got you just enough if you had to go back there um and he's a good player and this just really revolves around olave and the way they use olave is really cool because you get a lot of the like quick stuff like quick out routes little quick hitches and things but you can basically write it in pen at this point that you're going to get two awesome catches on in breakers from shuck and olave those guys have a great chemistry on those patterns in particular so i'm i'm buying this saints offense uh in the passing of the run game you know that's that's another question uh but i do think in the passing game like everything that we're getting so far we can continue to ride
Speaker 1yeah i mentioned that olave is the wide receiver five and points per game right now and i think you might be able to rank him as a top five wide receiver rest of season if not six or seven and that's the lowest we can go here um hayden so often when we get to week 12 we think about the overreactions and conclusions that we made after the first two weeks of the season and we laugh at them right that feels like a lot of work but it's a lot of work and it's a lot of work and it's a lot of work and it's a lot of work and it's a lot of work and it's a lot of work and it's a lot of work and it's a lot of work and it feels so long ago with that said should we already be making the conclusions and the sweeping declarations about this running back room and just saying hey you can't start travis achan now and into the
Speaker 3future we're getting very close to that i would call him a flex play but i hope he's not your flex and like that's not what we signed up for in the fourth round here at all it's been cj donaldson and that remained true in week two and then alvin camara was in the kendray miller role which means like early down like every other play uh next to travis achan there so he had 5.8 expected half ppr points last week i do think that the calvin banks injury is gonna matter he's one of the more promising left tackles in the league the saints also tush push with tyler shuck at the goal line and then there was a couple pitch plays where uh travis achan dropped one of them and then the next one they got him to to the other side he kind of bobbles that one because the motion player was lagging a bit but both pitch plays to travis achan went absolutely nowhere uh it's like they're trying to get him to the perimeter but they're not trying to get him up the middle and i just don't see how this one's gonna go away because they clearly don't think he can pass protect and if they want cj donaldson to play more then that means that alvin camara has no choice but to play on early down so this is a three-back committee on a team that just wants to pass the ball
Speaker 2number one alvin camara in the kendray miller role is a hell of a sentence it's true i know it's true it's just this is so this is such a weird uh team do you guys what are your what's your theory on this do you think they just got travis into camp and we're like well this is not this is not what we thought we were getting out of this or or like is it a money wire fraud as i know you guys have both theorized yeah i mean i i
Speaker 1have thought that travis achan has been mostly a volume sponge in his most successful seasons and it's been a lot of fun and it's been a lot of fun and it's been a lot of fun in his nfo career and actually last year reeves pointed this out he benefited most of any running back in the nfl of any fantasy football player in terms of short field touchdowns and that's how he got his fantasy points it was like 40 more than jonathan taylor who was number two so yeah i mean he's never been a good pass protector so to me it's not surprising that they are putting someone else in in that regard what is shocking is that they don't even want him to be out there for like the between the 20s stuff yeah um so that's the scary part here we are here we are yes all right denver broncos speaking of running back rotations let's talk about jonah coleman here he is a popular pickup when it comes to the waiver wire jk dobbins left with a hamstring tweak we're not exactly sure what the details are with that jk dobbins also got stuffed three times at the goal line jonah coleman ran in his goal line touchdown and then also had to play at the end to slide versus you know pick up an extra 15 16 yards on top of it matt here's my issue okay with this backfield we can each like pick our favorites some people are dobbins types some people are rj harvey types a lot of you are jonah coleman types i don't think it's going to matter unless there is only one of these running backs in the backfield and is left over just like rj harvey was last year like for example okay if it's jk dobbins and jonah coleman well dobbins has most of the between the 20s stuff and maybe some goal line work and then coleman has the receiving work and then maybe some goal line stuff versus if it's coleman and rj harvey then you have coleman getting between the 20s and then the cool last plays inside the 20 yard line go to rj harvey along with the passing down work like the only reason why rj harvey was so successful for those six seven eight weeks in phasing football last season is because he had everything and i don't know if one of these backfielders is going to be able to do that because he's got a lot of backs is going to have everything at any point this season i would
Speaker 2be i would be pretty surprised by that too i do think there is a non-zero chance that if coleman is able to get a start that he essentially forces jk dobbins aside and becomes the lead early down back because i don't think dobbins has looked great this year and i i am a fan of jonah coleman's game because he's just like the type of running back i like where he's a little bit of a coach's catnip where he does all the little things well he's a good grinder back i i like jonah coleman i i probably the i would like to see more of him but i am also with you that it might be a little bit difficult for fantasy because like tyler bidet plays in week two and he matters as a pass protector like he's going to just eat snaps from some of these guys because their pass protection with the backs and the tight ends but especially the backs in week one was a nightmare and they're like okay well we're not doing that again we're just going to go ahead and put our best pass protection back out there a decent bit even in the second half of last week's game he still played on 19 percent and he's going to be a good guy and he's going to be a good guy of the offensive snaps did tyler bidet so he's just going to eat a little bit there from the passing down stuff and that certainly is the thing that like coleman was a good pass protecting back in college and he had a couple of nice reps i think in week two he would have to really like push bidet completely aside i think to become a fantasy factor even if the other two guys are absent from the game i love
Speaker 3backfields like this because this is just wasting three roster spots for your league mates i never get involved in this type of thing just looking at this like chart right here perfect example the bronco are 24th and running back usage collectively and they're chopping that up three different ways they're just not going to use these and my film evaluation so i watched all these uh touches uh the jk dobbins goal line stuff the blocking got wrecked on the first two plays and then there's a botch snap and pitch from bo nicks that that play was completely derailed either i thought that jk dobbins like looked pretty good and then i agree on the jonah coleman stuff that like he's like a coach's pet does everything well i think we are really flirting with just like too small not explosive enough to matter i think we're like we're really getting close to that so i think that jonah coleman is like waiver wire bait and you do not want to uh pick him up and there was also a report that jk dobbins was dealing with cramping not a soft tissue like injury uh and i just think that jk dobbins are going to keep riding him so uh this is this is for hopefully uh everyone else uh in your league and not us
Speaker 1yeah look i just heard a lot this off jk dobbins can just stay healthy then he can be a good value well i mean last year and by the way no running back has achieved 250 touches attached to a sean payton offense ever in his entire career jk dobbins was on pace to do that last year and was on pace to have a career season and yet because of his lack of receiving role and everything else and just the running back usage entirely that would have equaled like the running back 23 in points per game so jonah coleman where he was drafted in like the running back 40 ish territory is a win for you hey and i just don't know if it's one of these wins that goes from you know running back 40 and one of these one like one of these guys finishes as like the running back 18 16 14 is like a huge fantasy changer for you to me like
Speaker 3terrence ferguson i'll say like emmet johnson like those guys to me like that's how you have a path to winning your league jonah coleman and rg harley these guys aren't going to win your league it's it's it's too it's too complex matt i buried
Speaker 1the lead maybe the number one thing that saved our ass yeah baby jaylen waddle having a big a big big week that's what we care about most here right um what worked what worked for jaylen waddle in week two uh that we didn't get to see in week one well first of all
Speaker 2early like right away they did get him some like easy button touches we did actually see a little bit of that for jaylen waddle um right off the bat they threw him like a screen pass and but for the most part like it's a lot of and a couple quick like outs the whole deal so that that's good to see but tons of like just big breaking routes, trying to crack open zone coverage, which is exactly what they wanted. jaylen waddle to be yeah the route chart is is perfect here it shows you like some of the the quick hitters but also again some of the bigger downfield routes so the huge crossers huge crossers posts i mean this is what they brought him double moves yeah i mean he's he was awesome uh in this game i thought he was awesome in isolation in week one and we got the exact role that we wanted they just got spags and got a little bit like they jumped on them i think they were surprised by that that what denver got in week one uh but yeah i mean all was right in the world uh it does feel you know i know josh you said this that it does feel very similar to like george pickens from 2025 where the first game is a not great uh and then we're just kind of flying from there i'm hoping that that's the case because usage effectiveness and bonix wasn't even perfect in this game but otherwise like checked all the boxes that we were looking to see
Speaker 1yeah and the jaguars defense is not an easy one to do that against this group i think is a real positive too like i love the switch release crosser 20 yards um he was missed on a double move early as you said he got two screens the second double move only went for 29 yards but it could have been a maybe 73 yard touchdown because he put the cornerback in the ground with his route and only had to beat the safety if the ball was thrown accurately but the ball was underneath because he was so wide open that that was enough gain that they needed there uh hayden anything you want to add here with the wattle usage i like the the
Speaker 3bonix rollout which they did not do against the chiefs and then that was they had two in breakers clinton and pat bryant and then they had jalen wattle over the top of that uh sean payton after the game said that they went into this saying like no excuses jalen wattle has to get the ball every single week i think that week two is the baseline we're going to throw away week one for the rest of the season uh 10 targets 14.3 expected half ppr points i was wide receiver 12 on the week i think that he's going to hover around there he's probably not going to have the full george pickens because i don't think he's going to have quite the the red zone looks uh they do too much you know manufactured touches uh in in that area in this offense but i do think that he looks like an upside wide receiver two in the making uh and i think that week two was the real stuff week one was the outlier and matt i guess
Speaker 1the next question on this is okay what type of wide receiver two is it from jalen wattle is it some weeks that he finishes as you know a top eight player at the position and then other weeks he's you know wide receiver 36 or is it hey we're going to focus so much on him that the very worst you know it's not going to be this roller coaster ness and we're still going to have the spike weeks that are up there as like a top seven top five score yeah i
Speaker 2think the down weeks because like as hayden said and as sean payton told his wife like you know draft him on your fantasy team like there's clearly an intention to get him the football a ton i think the down weeks will look something like four for 40 as opposed to what we got in week one but the big booms will be there um they're when you're running these deep vertical breaking routes and you've got a quarterback who you know is a good player in bonix but obviously has some volatility and some chaos to his game there's going to be ups and downs to it um like i think mecca abuka is kind of suffering through this right now he's very different player but like suffering this a little bit with like baker mayfield like there's just going to be natural ups and downs when you're running these big breaking routes even if you're doing it in advantageous looks off the ball and in motion as jaylen wattle and abuka are um so yeah i do think just all together there's going to be these high highs i would say as long as we quick outs screens stuff like that the bottom will completely fall out on a given basis yep love all
Speaker 1of that all right let's close this top 10 with the washington commanders uh one of the highlights so far of the season is that stefan diggs is the wide receiver 11 in points per game hayden there's some consistency there so far over 13 points at least in each contest through two weeks but now as we know and we don't even know for how long jane daniels is going to be out marcus mariotta is in there were a couple narrow and i mean narrow terry mclaurin plays on like three separate occasions that would have totally transformed i think people's opinions of what terry mclaurin could be as a fancy asset for the rest of the season if he nailed them i think
Speaker 3marcus mariotta might be the best backup in the nfl he's kind of changed his ways over the last couple years and that he's like willing to attack deep down the field and there was some elements there like you mentioned all those terry mclaurin plays were so close to hitting there was a couple flea flickers uh from david blau david blau is also using steph diggs in interesting ways out of the backfield some option routes getting out in the flats that type of stuff and then uh there was some moments from marcus mariotta like that big corner route for the touchdown to steph diggs that was a great ball from them so he's played a lot of football he he's not like quite as athletic as he was he's going to scramble around just a little bit but i think among backup quarterbacks i do think that marcus mariotta can kind of keep this thing afloat big caveat being no larry connerly the right tackle he left with an injury and now we have the seattle seahawks like let's take a second like let's let's recalibrate in a week from now but i do think moving forward there's enough interesting elements from steph diggs and then marcus mariotta's like attempted to throw the ball down the football field where terry mclaurin like might be able to hold on to fantasy relevance as we get into bi-weeks but this next week will look horrific because we're talking about a first time play caller with potentially backup tackles and a backup quarterback uh but i think we should like go into this week like forgiving and like you know like we're going to be able to like the commanders for what we're about to watch
Speaker 2yeah i mean i came away from watching the cardinals against the seahawks being like i mean what do you want them to do the seahawks are the seahawks man i think that's what the i think that's what the commanders are going to feel this week i think everybody that goes against the seahawks is going to feel that way uh so not really thinking about these guys this week but i i think at this point like digs should be the odds-on favorite to be the leading target catches yards getter in this offense i think he looks better than terry mclaurin right now these guys are also like almost the same age at this current moment terry is 31 digs is 32 despite that digs has been in the in the nfl longer i also think like they need more antonio williams too williams looks good to me i need less diami brown in my life i'm not really sure like what the point of the brown stuff is i can't believe brown is like hanging on to a job uh it's matt
Speaker 1truthfully i i was watching this tape and i was like who is six i don't even know who number six is on this team he's back i had to go into the depth chart and see it was freaking out i was like oh my god i'm gonna be like oh my god diami brown running route after route wind sprint after wind sprint and i was like why is this guy playing as much as stefan digs i understand different areas of the field and then for antonio williams as you said he ran 27 of 46 routes but then scored as the wide receiver 70 despite you know yeah in week one being the wide receiver 14 on on 12 routes so it's one of those like hey he scored more when he played less but at the same time we want him to play more as we go along because that just means more opportunities for him yeah
Speaker 2i mean you can't play something like that somebody who's running 43 percent of the routes like you do need diami brown to get shelved i think that would be bad news for terry mclaurin uh though because then he's going to be that guy that's purely on ball running the running down the field i don't know if digs like just can't play a full snap share at this point but uh if if he did i mean we would really be talking about a big win for stefan digs who i mean he just like i said this a lot 2024 to 2025 his reception perception charting was basically the same and there was a torn acl in the middle there and uh based on what i'm seeing so far i think there's not going to be any drop off to the 2026 results uh he looks great i know yeah it just is what
Speaker 1it is yeah hit his first touchdown in the low red was under center from jayden daniels off of full speed motion across the formation and it was just a quick throw where the defense might have expected like a five-step drop or some play action on top of it and instead they just hit the design quick hitter to stefan digs and i love that like we want these design targets to players like that in in the low area hayden before we move on anything you want to say about the commander's backfield
Speaker 3yeah it's making me nervous it's a big time rotation um rashad why i was playing a lot in the first half of this game quick notes on jacori kroski merit there was a pitch where he and jayden daniels weren't on the same page and that ball was actually fumbled a couple plays later jayden daniels was yelling at him in the two minute drill because bill was not leaking out like he got kind of caught up with the defensive end and he wanted to to be an eligible receiver uh and then there was also a play where jayden daniels was yelling at him and he was like where bill kroski merit was uh a little bit late on a blitzer and that forced jayden daniels to have to scramble so i thought there was like some negatives on the jacori kroski merit tape there and then rashad white mixes in at the goal line five yard line attempt there so yeah he's the rb32 in usage through the first two weeks and like i'm just struggling to see how he's going to like climb out of that obviously gets a seahawk it's like a non-negotiable like he cannot be in your fantasy lineup no go but like even beyond that like i'm i'm really kind of finding uh and it's a little bit difficult for me to find the reasons like how he's going to kind of break out of this tier matt do you want to
Speaker 1stay for the arizona cardinals or do you have better things to
Speaker 2do with your life i mean i definitely have better things to do with my life but if you want me to stay i i can stay no it's
Speaker 1okay it's okay we'll we'll relieve you for this one from uh the conversation we're about to have matt thanks so much man for joining us each and every week here on stats for his phone for the top 10 and uh i guess i'll see you on your show what a couple days
Speaker 2no i'm gonna be off um one of my wife's best oh that's right my wife's best friends is daring to get married during the fall so i have to i have to travel for it so you know unbelievable stuff
Speaker 1wow that'll be me and justin boone filling in and uh we'll try to pump that for the best numbers of the season on your channel for you just in case i'm gonna take an insult matt thanks so much man fine
Speaker 2appreciate it guys thank you so much
Speaker 1appreciate it all right let's go in alphabetical order the rest of the way and hayden that lands us with the arizona cardinals first of all we need to boilerplate this by saying that they face the Seattle Seahawks. And I'm at the point already, as Matt just said, that we shouldn't really have any sweeping necessarily takeaways of offensive performance in totality. When a team does play the Seattle Seahawks, they are that degree. They're at that level right now. With that said, only 47 snaps on offense for this team. And the place that we have to start is with Marvin Harrison Jr. Mike LaFleur was asked about Marv after the game, his effort and his route running. He said, quote, I don't see it that way. I think his running style is different than some other people's. When you went back and watched Marv, what did you see?
Speaker 3Marv has an effort problem. I don't know what he's talking about. I think he's just trying to, like, you know, maybe motivate his young player. I can sense frustration from Marv because he's not a big part of the offense. But I would also just challenge, like, why should he be a bigger part of the offense? And in that LaFleur comment, he said, I mean, I got this guy named Trey McBride, who, by the way, Trey McBride also had a great game. against the Seahawks in this one on top of that. So he's the guy, doesn't matter the matchup, he's going to get home. And it does feel like Michael Wilson is more involved. But if you watch the two, Marvin Harrison and Michael Wilson, sometimes you get the same exact route at the same exact depth. Michael Wilson looks faster. Michael Wilson is willing to come out of his breaks no matter if he's the first read or not. Marvin Harrison is not doing that. You brought up the blocking clips from him as well. He does kind of have this kind of like slow methodical kind of like gliding nature to his routes. And I understand what he's saying. But beyond that, like he's not putting in that much effort there. And there was a couple of times where the ball was even thrown to him and he was not expecting the ball to be thrown his way. Like you can't have that. And I think it's correct. It's I noticed this last year. I noticed this in week one. And then I noticed it definitely in week two. I think that the conversation is only going to get louder because I don't think the Cardinals should be giving him the ball. And I think that's what he's upset about.
Speaker 1But yeah, when I post these clips, you know, I get some responses of, well, why wouldn't he act like this when he's, you know, not getting the opportunity and he doesn't get the ball thrown his direction? Well, you got to earn those. Yeah. You know, like you got to do it through effort, urgency, all this type of stuff. And he basically got replaced in running downs after that awful effort that he had against Devin Witherspoon. Then when at the second level, Tyler Algier gets held up by two tacklers and Devin Witherspoon gets held up by two tacklers. And Devin Witherspoon basically gets a kill shot on Tyler Algier because Marv just slips it and doesn't care. So if we see it, his teammates see it, and his coaches see it. And I wouldn't be surprised if one of two things happens. Either Marv looks motivated in week three and is zero to 60 every single snap, or they've just simply reduced what he's doing again on top of this. And as you pointed out with the targets and even more so just the route running 50% of the time, he's just a clear out guy. Like he is the sacrificial X. He's running for the love of the game routes, which means things open up for Michael Wilson and especially Trey McBride. And that's his role here. Like I put him on the drop list this week, even though he's rostered in 98% of Yahoo leagues out there. And I have zero hesitation doing that.
Speaker 3Yeah, I think the question just becomes like, is he going to get motivated? But even if that's the case, there's just too many guys to feed in this offense, especially as they ramp up Jeremiah Love. Or is he going to get motivated? Or is he just going to get traded? And like, we just don't see, you know, top 10 picks get traded in like the middle of the third year, but they just paid Michael Wilson. And I just think Michael Wilson is a better football player than Marvin Harrison. And it's kind of like a little bit redundant in what they're offering there. And like, they don't have to have a high quality third target because Trey McBride is soaking up 37% of the targets as a tight end. And then Kendrick Bourne, he's just like kind of slides in as the other side of the zone, kind of beaters. And they're going to get traded. Jeremiah Love, a lot more targets moving forward as well. So I hear you. I would drop Marvin Harrison if I had him. I was going to be ranking Michael Wilson ahead. And I'm very curious to see if he's actually going to get traded. This is, it's not a full Josh Rosen, but like we've seen this with Arizona.
Speaker 1Right. I mean, again, it's kind of like a Trent Richardson thing that could potentially happen. Albeit, I doubt another team would pay a first round pick in order to get Marvin Harrison junior on the team. He just also moves differently than he did last year. You know, I think this added, bulk has, he is too big at this point. He is no longer fluid. He's again, there's no urgency to his game anymore. It's like a minivan versus a Maserati. If you want to put it in those terms, should we read into at all Tyler Algier running 18 routes compared or 14 routes compared to Jeremiah loves eight? Or is that just, Hey, let's, you know, we're playing the Seahawks let's get out of here.
Speaker 3No, all three of his receptions work more like check down variety, only 11% target share. None of them have been like, like design screens necessarily for Jeremiah loves. That's been like moderately disappointing. He's the RB 26 and RB 25 usage. So he's a flex play as we kind of wait for his kind of breakout. It is just like, obviously. So it's so clear that Jeremiah loves is moving at a different level than Tyler Algier. So I still remain confident that, you know, by, by October and November, Jeremiah love will break out, but we have to like, wait for the signs that the breakout is actually coming. And in the meantime, like he can be on your bench. Like, I don't think that's that crazy. I think. He's more of a flex guy, but he's parked on my benches in a couple of
Speaker 1leagues. Yeah. They're facing the San Francisco 49ers this week, 19 and a half team total at this point. Next they're Atlanta Falcons. Maybe we should have included them in the top 10 because they play on Thursday, Hayden, and they have a new starting quarterback. Michael Penix is going to be there as the quarterback one, you know, Drake London, the wide receiver 52, a total of 11.4 fancy points through two games. Kyle Pitts has two fancy points to his name. What are your expectations?
Speaker 3I mean, I don't fully know what version of Michael Penix we're going to get. He's been a full participant for a little bit. So hopefully he's kind of back to where he was. It's not like he was moving around a whole lot. So it was more just like that. He has like the, the attitude that he just wants to throw the ball around and he's got a big arm. It's not all always accurate, but there's some clear splits. There's been 12 games between Drake London, Michael Penix. Drake London is wide receiver three on wide receiver one overall usage at 16. 16.6 expected half PPR points, 34% target share, which is elite stuff. Defensively, the Falcons are really going through it. We know that their two top edge rushers are out. Like Dorlis is banged up right now. Ebucom is banged up. Like they're losing everybody. Jesse Bates hasn't been playing quite as well this season. AJ Terrell just went to injured reserve. His younger brother who we mentioned is like slow and small is going to be playing a whole lot more. They're nickel is coming off a torn Achilles. This Falcons defense is really bad right now. And that's going to force Drake London B John and Kyle pits and do a whole lot more usage. So completely unwatchable play from Cooper rush. I'm not expecting, I never really liked Michael Penix all that much, but it'll be night and day difference. And I think that Drake London kind of goes back into like the top 12 ish mix kind of where we were drafting mass.
Speaker 1I also believe that Kevin Stefanski is a different play caller than when he got with Zach Robinson last year. And I'm not exactly sure what the Michael Penix, Kevin Stefanski agreement is going to be like Stefanski very much in the past. And this is why he's worked with veterans has been, Hey, hit your back foot based on the leverage. This is where you need to throw the football to. A lot of that stuff is also over the middle of the field where Michael Penix has been terrified to throw the football to again, go back to his days at Washington with Ryan grub. This is why, you know, you had the, the Jalen McMillan's and the Roma doomsday is all outside the numbers, all outside the hashes, just big time, routes down the field. And I do think Stefanski stuff is a bit more like time oriented in that. Yeah. But the number one point is it's going to get better, right? It is going to get better than what we've had these last two weeks, which has been absolutely abysmal. Some of these players like cow pits have gotten open down the field and the past just hasn't been on them. Drake London, the passive and behind him, just wayward on top of that. It's your point with London, like almost three yards per route run with Penix compared to 1.9 with cousins, 2.22 with Ritter, and 1.72. So I almost want to take, despite, you know, you all spending high picks on almost all three of these players, and especially the top two in London and Bijan. I want to take week three, even if they're not projected for that many points as the start of the new season. And then Hayden, we jump back on next week and sats versus film. And then we get to see, okay, is London utilized in this slot is cow pits getting motion. Is it all down the field stuff with him? Is it just the gimme's? Because this is a full on reset for what hopefully is the rest of the season. Yeah, completely agree.
Speaker 3I think it's going to be a shootout team, not because the Falcons are really good on offense. They're going to have to throw the ball around because that the defense is in a really bad spot. Drake London played a little bit more in the slot in week two than you did in week one. So that's a little bit encouraging there, but yeah, throughout the first two weeks and just reset.
Speaker 1Baltimore Ravens are up next. Rashad Bateman, one of your massive calls in the wide receiver rankings episode, by the way, subscribe, leave a thumbs up and go watch those rankings videos every Wednesday and Friday here on the channel. Some goodness there that you don't, don't get anywhere else. So he had a big week Hayden, but that was, I think obviously because they flowers missed that contest, but Wednesday does return. Does Bateman having a performance like this, maybe eat into or absorb some opportunities headed in his direction, or is this team just so one wide receiver focus that, Hey, thank you for your service for shot Bateman. And now we move on.
Speaker 3It's possible, but Rashad Bateman's played a million games to say flowers is the, you know, the second or third target on the offense and has been like, even rosterable. So I wouldn't straight up drop them because you want to want to see if save powers is fully going to play and like maybe there's something different with the declan doyle offense there was some real like creativity in in that game uh in the opener and then last week uh because they have just so little skill talent out there uh i did think that the defenses were like really kind of like uh like putting a lot of attention on derrick henry late in that game and they kind of like ran out of options like they shouldn't have enough like players around the mar jackson they still had a 99th percentile success rate on offense and they lost wow 99th percentile if they just like come up with ways to lose that game i do think that zay flowers like so important to this offense that uh i'm really kind of just like not paying attention to what happened in week two assuming zay flowers is going to be back for week three we talked
Speaker 1about these tight ends is mark andrews in that conversation i'll be at only about seven point four fantasy points he's around the tight end 16 or is he kind of in that next tier of tight ends that we talked about of hey this is deep yeah i would say he's
Speaker 3in that conversation if zay flowers is not out there i think he's a top 10 guy with zay flowers he's probably the tight end 16 he has back-to-back weeks with 8.3 expected points um he just he doesn't offer that much after the catch um but when they're projected for 28 points and you got dallas who got shredded by isaiah likely they had coverage bust last week they're kind of going through it they got backup safeties and backup linebackers out there like you can see that they're pitching on the matchup being too good for baltimore and a very clear potential shootout that mark andrews kind of could kind of sneak into the line of still and just a closing
Speaker 1thought on derrick henry he has the running back three in points per game at this moment there were a ton of those running backs in the one-two turn you know we were talking about ken walker the third i know matt was talking a lot about derrick henry but derrick henry and canine were avoiding the landmines of maybe some other not just running backs but especially wide receivers and pass catchers that were going to the line of the game so i think that's a good point i think we're going in round two so congratulations if you drafted derrick henry let's talk buffalo bills next uh if the bills played on sunday and that's when dj moore got his injury hayden i i kind of feel like this conversation might be slightly different but it does seem as if dj moore might be playing here in week three it's an ac joint we haven't had that many updates on it um regardless don kincade is balling out with dj moore on the field and without dj moore in the field
Speaker 3the tight end one on tight end seven you see it's a tight end one on tight end seven you see it's a tight end one on tight end seven you a lot of like zone beaters in this one but his average depth of target is just way down the field versus most tight ends and he looks really good on on tape he's playing slightly more he's not a full-time player but they're they're getting him more involved and they're doing like the the t-ferg stuff from last year where they do three tight ends and then he's pretty much like a wide receiver yes working down the field there's only like pretty much like two eligibles out there like that's a really easy for him to like really like scam up his his yards probably i think he looks really awesome um and this is i would say an offense where if i'm going to pull a rashad baitman if dj moore is not going to play the bills are putting up so many points that i do think someone like keon coleman or kalil shakir can get home and i just want to shout out keon coleman a couple of nice man coverage wins uh without dj moore and then also a couple zone wins where he like stopped in the right spot and josh allen found him so uh if dj moore is out i do think that someone like keon coleman could be my rashad baitman of week three i could also see it in
Speaker 1the right spot and josh allen found him so being kalil shakir gets an explosive to get them to the 50 then keon coleman gets a nice you know 25 yard gain and then josh palmer is the one that gets like the 25 yard touchdown like they almost sliced it three different ways versus it going to one guy and and dj moore what's interesting we talked about this many years ago when dalton kincaid was drafted brandon being on the microphone and said hey this is gonna be great we can run and operate our offense out of 11 and a half personnel we know that failed miserably but hayden they're basically going to 12 and a half personnel now with dalton kincaid out there along with the two other tight ends and that turns him into a wide receiver along with the blocking of dawson knox and of um jackson haws and so if he can block like a wide receiver in his two wide receiver set version of that which is 13 personnel then they've almost like changed the math on top of throwing more often dropping back often having more plays and that's also a change versus the previous you know quote unquote 11 and a half personnel failure that dalton kincaid was a part of
Speaker 3yeah it's just a fascinating team i don't know how you stop the bills right now they're one of those teams where if you don't got an alien quarterback right now it's it's looking pretty difficult and they obviously do kincaid that is 225 yards in two games like this this is this is wild he is the tight
Speaker 1end one and the bills and chiefs are projected for the most points with 28 and three quarters in in week three uh hayden you said if you don't have an alien quarterback right now you might not be among the best offenses well next up is the carolina panthers who have the running back eight and points per game with chuba hubbard there are wide receiver seven in jaylen coker the wide receiver 23 and tedaro mcmillan the tight end nine and darren waller and the quarterback two and bryce young i've said enough about the carolina panthers offense what do you
Speaker 3want to say i'm not going to call him an alien i'll call him a minion he's playing really well right now with bryce young uh throwing the ball down the football field totally different style often it's like obviously one of your best calls of the offseason is they're pushing the ball down the football field bryce young like that i love that little like shoulder move to uh the flat to hit that oh yeah pulling the coverage yep that was beautiful stuff and like what we've been saying with jaylen coker and t-mac both of these guys are really good players they complement each other well they can go inside outside so they can play matchups um so everything is getting home like this is the team that you needed to draft in fantasy to win and that's you know putting aside the jonathan brooks stuff who's now week to week with that groin injury but right now chuba hubbard after we got through like the top 60 picks on yahoo he's like the only running back that matters beyond that and chuba hubbard i think right now is going to be inside my top 15 or so he is he was the rb12 on rb7 usage in 2024 he's the rb8 on rb14 usage he's running the ball effectively i think that we're a while away from now jonathan brooks even competing for this so to me i think that chuba hubbard is one of like the best picks you could have made in fantasy and i think this is a situation where this isn't like a sell high i think this is just like ride this thing for as long as they can and the offense being competent this year and maybe even better than that uh i think that this is he's probably going to be like the sleeper of 2026.
Speaker 1it's such an excellent point and it's why i kind of talked the way i did about the broncos backfield where you know you can draft the running back 30 and he finishes as the running back 22 and you do that two or three times and you think you're a genius and you pat yourself on the back but the big wins are when you draft chuba hubbard is like the running back 31 yeah and right now he's scoring as a running back eight yeah like that is the big difference here that is what turns people into league winners um and i would say the panthers running game can even improve like right now he's going to be the running back eight and he's going to be the running back nine and he's going to be the running back and he's going to be the running back and he's going to be the running back and he's going to be the running back and he's going to be the running back it's some success rate stuff and actually he's what gotten two of his touchdowns as a receiver and not even as a runner the right side if you just look at you know some of the success rate stuff uh that is not doing as well as the left side is but just overall hayden if they have to push the coverage further and further back because the passing game is so much more explosive then that's when the pass can set up the run and i think right now the run is kind of setting up the pass with all this type of stuff so i i think that's a good thing i think that's a good thing i think the panthers definitely still have some levers that they can pull and i just love it and look it's the two defenses that they've played so far in the bears and the falcons but guess what the next two weeks are the browns and the lions and so in this environment of bad to average defenses that they face and they're putting up anywhere from 34 and 37 points heck i'll take 27 points on a given week then we should start all these guys every single time and then we reset and you know in the fifth game of the season when they face the eagles or the ninth game of the season when they face the broncos and the saints and the ravens and all that type of stuff but enjoy it now because how it is operating right now hayden it is it is not a fluke at all it just seems like everyone is on the same page and brad edzik is throwing some new wrinkles in there every single time in terms of getting to the line quicker and fast snaps and all this type of stuff and they're changing it and it just looks beautiful on a weekly basis jube hovered's number
Speaker 3one in success rate among running backs with 10 carries per game uh jube hovered's number one in and you talk about the right side like that's a first round elite moving right tackle that will get better every single game that he plays a super inexperienced player switching sides and monroe freeling so that's really encouraging i think just everything's kind of feeding off of each other in a way that seems like fairly sustainable they're not going to average 30 points per game this year but bryce young is not doing things that he doesn't like doing like this is the exact bryce young offense at alabama and like you said now that they can threaten players to the sideline and deep down the field i think we're gonna get some light boxes for chuba hubbard and both of their guards are like people movers on top of that so they got like a good thing going right now and uh i think chuba um coker mcmillan are must starts in fantasy and then i'm gonna ask you a question how much longer before bryce young is like a a top 10 ish play he's their 15th and projected points he doesn't have to run around nearly as much now because like the offense is functional but he has that in his back pocket like we're getting close
Speaker 1yeah i asked this with joel in the waiver show hopefully you'll tune into that with and this was before Jackson Dart went down, but you also have, you know, the Jaden Daniels situation. We don't know about Kyler and what he's going to bring. Obviously, you have the Drake May disappointment so far, like Tyler Shuck versus Bryce Young. They're kind of doing it in somewhat different situations, albeit they are both just throwing the rock down the field constantly. I am in a league that I have Drake May. I am contemplating Bryce Young and then throwing him in there and seeing what happens.
Speaker 3I have Drake May and Bryce Young in my early rankings back to back. And it's one of those where like objectively, like they're projected for like the same amount of points. Bryce Young has been playing better than Drake May. His weapons are night and day better. And on top of that, someone like Drake May is losing a key offensive lineman for the year. So we're in that conversation like where like we're going to have some interesting conversations. And I think it's been like one of the biggest fantasy storylines. The Carolina Panthers just being a very good offense to start.
Speaker 1Yeah. And, you know, when T. Matt. Coker and Bryce are on the field at the same time, good things have happened. That's dated back to about week 11 of last season. And then Darren Waller is this red zone monster for them that they isolate him to one side and then T. Matt and Coker on the other. And it's like, that's a bunch of big bodies that you have to line up in man coverage or beat you in zone. Yep. And that's tough to defend at this point. Okay. Cincinnati Bengals are up next. They rebounded in a big way in week two. I feel bad for Bengals fans, Hayden, because I feel like on a weekly basis, there's really, there's really not much to say about them. I will add maybe the one disappointment so far is Chase Brown being the running back 18 in fancy points per game at this moment, but he just needs to find the end zone.
Speaker 3Yeah. He's the RB five and expected points. There's been games where he's targeted a bunch. He's not like finished off his opportunities there. That stuff will even out. There was a really difficult opponent this last week, kind of going into that, which is why I had him fairly buried in my rankings. It's the Steelers and they have a bunch of defensive linemen. So I wouldn't call them. I wouldn't call this one an easy matchup either. I think over the entire course of the season, Chase Brown's going to be totally fine. Is he looking pretty questionable next to Kenneth Walker and Derek Henry right now? Absolutely. But he's looking probably better than Devon HN and some of the others in that range.
Speaker 1So like. Oh, Martin Hampton. Maybe. Yeah. Yes.
Speaker 3Oh yeah, for sure. Like Chase Brown and Omar Hampton, like to me, like the, the environment's totally different. So I, I'm not panicking with him. Not going to say that he's going to be like an awesome pick, especially like even like this week, the team totals kind of mediocre. Um, my note on the Bengals is we're back to the predictability part of Cincinnati where they're doing more under center this year, but like 90% of their under center plays, they've ran the ball last week. And then about 90% of their shotgun plays, they pass the ball. If I know that they know that, and certainly the Steelers do as well. So that's just something like kind of get all this stuff that we're trying to do, like kind of, you know, sprinkle it in a little bit more creative ways than they're doing it. Um, but I, I do think that. The under center stuff long-term will end up helping out the Bengals play better in
Speaker 1fourth quarters. All right, let's move on. Let's go to the Cleveland Browns. Denzel Boston is scored as the wide receiver 19 and 10 to open the season. Um, now that first week was a bit fluky, 46 yard touchdown, two minutes left in the fourth quarter down 34 to three, but Hayden this week, it was all real. It's 17. Targets five receptions, 95 yards and one touchdown. We really appreciated Denzel Boston's game heading into the NFL draft. And what I love is that he's winning in the exact same way in the league in terms of sliver of separation, uh, tight window targets. And then after the catch, people are just bouncing off of him. So I don't expect to Sean Watson to play to the caliber that he did last week. That was the best game. He's probably played in years and I mean years, but this Panthers defense has been picked apart by some. So it's Denzel Boston where people see all that scoring on their bench. Is he a flex option in week three?
Speaker 3Um, he's more of a wide receiver three. We need running backs in our flex, but I think that he's playing himself into, into that position, wide receiver 29 in usage. He's been dominant. I will say that that first game, that catch was very real. Like it came in like garbage time, but that was an awesome grab. And then this one bouncing off defenders on that dig route, uh, back shoulder balls. Um, so through the first two weeks, 21% target share, that's wide receiver 30 stuff. I just mentioned that. I just mentioned wide receiver 29 and expected points. Uh, there's going to be rug pulls on the Browns. Like you can't like feel like too optimistic here, but he, he should be, he should be rostered in, in every serious fantasy football league. And he probably should have been like even last week. Uh, and then I do think that Casey Concepcion, he's been like this close to having more big plays in the offense and they're manufacturing a bunch of touches to him. Uh, less so with Fannin, almost nothing to Judy. So like the offense is kind of centering around Denzel Boston and Casey Concepcion. You know, not to the point where I think they are, they're must plays, but they're definitely, uh, worth tracking.
Speaker 1Yeah. The total for this game this week has already risen by two and a half points since it opened. So maybe the markets are projecting even more points beyond that as, as we go along. Yeah. I mean, Boston by a clear margin has scored the most points of any rookie out there so far. Uh, and that's notable. I didn't want to bring up Quinn Sean Judkins. He played a career high 69% of snaps in a win and still was just the running back 32 on the week. That's not fun.
Speaker 3It's not fun. Um, I think that he still looks decent, but the success rate and all that type of stuff is abysmal this year. He's just not going to be helped out by his offensive line. I think that Spencer Fano's looked like, all right, they're, they're left tackle, but it's a work in progress. I don't think we should expect that to change there. So I think that he's like kind of right there in the flex category. Um, but he's, he's certainly not an, an RB too.
Speaker 1Okay. Next up is the. The Dallas Cowboys. Again, an offense that we know the pieces of Dak Prescott to CD lamb to George Pickens and Javante Williams, CD lamb got there in a big way. Hey, and are we still waiting for George Pickens to get back to last season stuff? Or are we a bit nervous about like the on off splits in that department?
Speaker 3There were on off splits, but last year, George Pickens was still like a top 12 fantasy score, um, with CD lamb and, and the offense, uh, the defense, like there was like maybe a path where the defense was going to be able to get back up and get back up and get back up and get back up and get back up and get back up. So I think that's going to be like so good that they're not going to have to pass the ball. I, I think that we're learning. That's not going to be the case with Dallas this year. Um, so I think that, you know, I'm not panicking about George Pickens. He's going to be a volatile football player that there will be a game where he has three touchdowns and a hundred yards, and that could happen at any point. And they're facing the Ravens. So if you get Z flowers in Lamar over on that side of the ball, like they're going to have to pass the football, but, uh, not the craziest, um, start for George Pickens, but seven targets a game. That's wide receiver, 19 stuff. He's wide receiver, 20 yards. Yeah. 23 and expected points. Hasn't done a whole lot on them, but there's been like defensive pass, interferences called against him. Uh, and I think that he looks like the same player, so no panic.
Speaker 1Yeah. This is one of those that you see in your matchup. Oh, they're against the Ravens. Maybe I should have some conversations, but by far and away, this, this game has the highest total of the weekend at, uh, 52 and a half. It's already climbed by two points in the market. So they're expecting the Cowboys to still be able to score on, on the Ravens. All right. We'll move on. Unless you want to say anything about Javante Williams.
Speaker 3There's just no one coming for his job. So if he looks bad or good, doesn't matter. Like he's going to be a totally fine player. RB 14 on RB 10 usage. Keep it moving.
Speaker 1Detroit lions. Jameer Gibbs smash. I'm on Ross. St. Brown smash. Sam Laporta top seven tight end in scoring right now. Eyes are on Jamison Williams. Uh, it's just not hitting in this true pet. Sing. Offense in the opening two weeks. And so while I think many could have projected in a reset, maybe on the track that Jamison Williams was on, that he would kind of go back to the Jalen waddle conversation that we had of, Hey, it's no longer ups and downs rollercoaster, that there's some level of consistency to him for the first two weeks. There is zero consistency to Jamison Williams right now.
Speaker 3Yeah. I had this note from last week, nine games since 2025 with Laporta available. Jamison Williams, the wires of your 54 and usage. Uh, more of a wide receiver, three, four than a wide receiver too. Um, and that's how I'm going to be ranking him moving forward. I will not be surprised at all. If he has a hundred yards and a touchdown, uh, this next game. So it's like one of those players where I think he's going to have a thousand yards. He's probably going to have seven touchdowns across the season. Trying to predict when those are going to come. I just, I think that's going to be a little bit harder. Uh, but just looking at how bad the, the lions defenses and the secondary, and they're, they're still really banged up over there. And I think that Jared golf still playing. Well, I would not be surprised if Jared golf leads the NFL and passing yards this year. And like, that's how all these guys, uh, can get home, but definitely agree. Like the floor is way lower than all of the other wide receivers. He was being drafted around. You just have to kind of live with that and just hope that he has enough, you know, top five, top 10 fantasy outings to, to make it worthwhile.
Speaker 1Yeah. As production just put up there that the lions are in the top right of your eruption spot, uh, against the New York jets. This weekend. And to the point on the lions defense, they just lost Davante Maddox, who has played safety and corner for them. Like that's again, on top of the Brian branch and Kirby Joseph being on injured reserve. So like these next two weeks, it's the jets defense and the Panthers defense. So again, he's wide receiver 56 with their opening two weeks, Jameson Williams is, and, uh, maybe that's when it rebounds and we get like two top 24 performances over these next two contests. All right, moving on. Green Bay Packers. Christian Watson is the wide receiver for this week. We'll be right back. We'll be right back. We'll be right back. All right. five right now matthew golden is the wide receiver 24 right now the running game is freaking horrible non-existent and right tackle zach bacco buele formerly known as tom is now out for the season with a completely torn patellar tendon which he partially tore last year and hayden jane reed also left this game with a major injury so how is this team going to change are we going to get even more movement and focus on christian watson moving
Speaker 3forward yeah after jayden reed went down early in that game and it sounds like reed's going to miss a big part of the season and hopefully it's like not like a career altering injury it's like neck but plus back just like hate to see those types of injuries with christian uh watson they're putting him in the slot a whole lot more um 47 percent of his three wide receiver sets uh snaps last week were in the slot they're going to elevate sky more as like the new like third starter and he's a slot player but they're going to sacrifice sky more to the perimeter and get christian watson inside that's how they've gotten christian watson uh for a couple like goal line touchdowns in this offense uh the offense is like completely consolidated around these two so he's the wide receiver six in usage he's been a model breaker for years and years like he looks like a wide receiver one to me and good matchups like this one against atlanta aj terrell uh is going to be out all their top edge rushers are out um so i think this is a good spot where like even with the packers offensive line it's gonna be a bottom five unit like this is the matchup where christian watson can go crazy and i think that's uh largely the same for matthew golden as well
Speaker 1yes both are must starts i i think moving forward especially in a matchup like this now unfortunately the pressure rate for the greenway packers is the highest among the nfl yep at this point uh they're just gonna have to live with it and live with no running game for at least the next few weeks maybe even longer and have everything flow through jordan love as he gets hit throwing to christian watson matthew golden and that's it like we know this team is is going to be but uh if you watch the show you left your draft with one of if not both of christian watson and matthew golden this summer real quick on matthew
Speaker 3golden he completely spun a corner around on a slant route he's like doing all the romeo dobbs like safety blanket stuff he also drew a couple defensive passes uh down the football field uh he dropped the pass over the middle he was very close to having a monster game last week and then those those packers numbers they're they're number one in quick pressures they're number one in pressure rate that does include that crazy game uh against brian flores so i think you know against simpler defenses this team has a chance to erupt uh final note i think that marshawn lloyd's pretty much droppable i would not be surprised if caleb johnson finishes with the most carries going into this next week and chris brooks is going to be playing all the passing situations but they did not go back to marshawn lloyd after his fourth quarter fumble and he's looked terrible uh caleb johnson's made mistakes but he has also ran with maybe a little bit more juice than marshawn lloyd to my
Speaker 1eyes houston texans are next when someone like nico collins exits the lineup hayden this is the latest example of there being no such thing as a wide receiver handcuff like none of these guys worked you know and aaron wilson reporting that it is likely that nico collins will not play in week three against the indianapolis colts uh what we also have is dave montgomery despite that massive spike in fancy points in week one is still bottom five in rushing success rate uh we saw that on tape with the offensive line in week one and it really came to a head in week two so that's something i need to see if that gels at all it's again almost totally new five blockers up front if that can get going or this is still going to be the thorn in the side of
Speaker 3this team there's five teams with a running back success rate at or under 33 which is just terrible browns are at 20 eagles broncos texans and then the packers uh and that's one of those stats that like becomes predictive like really quick because there's a bigger sample size there you can either block or you can't well they can't block uh their second and third worst in yards per carry both the running backs there and they're splitting and then uh david montgomery didn't have a single carry in the second half because they were negative game script this last week they got absolutely lit up by dexter lawrence and the boys in cincinnati uh the the colts have a really strong defensive line as well so you know i i feel like those week one victory laps for david montgomery uh i hope you guys got him in quickly because i just don't think that they're going to have many opportunities because this offensive line looks really bad again
Speaker 1they do play the colts in week three and they're projected for 23 points so maybe that's an environment where they can have some success here and hey i don't want to put you in a tricky corner that you don't want to be in but with david montgomery just overall being the running back 10 and points per game at this point is he a sell high
Speaker 3yeah that's just sell high after the week one um but i think he'll be like the rb22 this year somewhere in that range i mean woody marks are just going like every other drive is is all woody marks and i think that woody marks look just as good as david montgomery the the real winner here is dalton schultz when he went crazy last last week uh yes and that's on 16.6 expected points did even better than that you just don't see 16.6 expected points based off the usage so what happens when you get 14 targets in a game and what's been the problem with the colts they're linebackers they're like trying to figure out who to start they might give us a phone call here any minute to see if we can go play and drop into coverage it's it's been that bad and that's exactly what dalton schultz is made a hell of a grab working over the middle he's not an explosive player but he is like just doesn't make any mistakes and cj shroud can't trust the rest of this wide receiver group at this point so i think it's going to be a good game experience on enough time to gel uh he's just going to pepper dalton schultz like this is the perfect matchup to do so i'm not sure if i'm gonna give him my top five at tight end there's a lot of like potential top five tight ends but he's up
Speaker 1there i mean previous years i never would have thought on the show i would say that tight end is the deepest position in fancy football but tight end is the deepest position in fancy football right now it's undeniable jacksonville jaguars are up next and we have to lead with our guy parker washington everyone's guy parker washington hopefully all of you drafted him when watching videos this summer but even this usage exceeds my expectation i mean hayden he has a 35 target share he's top four in yards per route run he's fifth in air yard share like these are all underlying metrics at least the targets per route run and yards per outrun and all that type of stuff that you would see for a guy that's a part-time player who's overextending based on how many snaps he's actually getting on the field no this guy is he's getting the crossers he's getting the choice routes the passing game is built around parker washington why isn't he
Speaker 3a full-time player at this point like do you have like a real answer for that like like let's just make him a fantasy wide receiver one jacksonville should just like not take him off the field i i really just don't understand like why isn't he playing 100 of the snaps he is easily their second most valuable player on offense behind trevor lawrence of course uh the numbers are sensational i mean he's the wider super 13 and usage in that part-time role watching that game for parker washington that was not easy stuff that he had to do like the broncos past defense is going to be really good this year as they always are there was not a bunch of like easy targets and parker washington was just like once again making difficult plays um and they try to get him going like inside the slot some motion stuff uh he's just really good at football so like i would just challenge jacksonville but just play him every single snap i don't know what they're waiting for yeah uh speaking
Speaker 1of snaps i understand that some jaguars creators hate when we talk about this but we do need to bring up the travis hunter stuff because he is a part-time player on both sides of the ball in week two travis hunter played 37 of 62 snaps on defense and 7 of 60 on offense hey in his best case scenario here that he's just working back from injury
Speaker 3yeah i don't know i can't explain it um he was he was pretty much a full-time player at corner in week one and then like didn't do that this this week i can't explain it um yeah and then like their other like high draft pick brian thomas he's also in a rotation he's not playing in any of the three wide receiver snaps like it's a rotation across the board for jacksonville um and hopefully that kind of consolidates as the season progresses but yeah the hunter stuff like with how much they invested into that pick like i hope that he's like working back from injury um and that's the excuse i guess
Speaker 1one more rotation for the jaguars is that the running back spot to me my eyeballs facial tootin just looks like the best running back on the team there's a whole bunch of stuff you can see here i mean the wildcat touchdown run on first and goal was important he was shot out of a cannon up the middle there was another red zone drive he was in at the 19 yard line gets a speed option pitch on third and four he stayed in for an inside the 10 yard line snap christopher gets didn't check in for one i-5 carry he loses three yards and tootin gets right back in there and right now tootin has the most 15 plus mile per hour runs in the nfl i think three more or two more than the next closest running back out there um if you look at his and hate and uh ian posted this chart of tackles avoided per play and yards at the contact per carry he's only behind like kenneth walker the third and saquon barkley on that uh basial tootin is continuing to stack performances yeah this
Speaker 3last week was even better than the first week i thought i didn't see any like critical mistakes as a rusher um he had that wildcat play they got chris rodriguez on a third and one wildcat earlier in the game but the more important one the goal line did go his direction so i don't think he's gonna get all the goal line carries but he's gonna get some of them and he's clearly gonna be the leader uh between the 20s they can throw the ball to him a little bit more than they have uh as well so rb22 on rb28 usage if i if i had to pick is that gonna go up or down the rest of the season i think definitely looking like this is gonna go up so um i think that he's gonna be like a low end uh rb2 and there will be moments talk about that miles per hour like we have not seen the like 40 yard touchdown like it's it has
Speaker 1to come eventually correct i think that's my concern though is you know he's gonna get squeezed a little bit by chris rodriguez and i think that role is diminishing as the weeks have already gone on and then you have laquint allen doing his thing and there was what even a series that amir abdullah got in this game too correct so i'm not saying it's gonna be like a four-person rotation here but it's much different than what we talked about with like chuba hubbard going from the running back 32 up to the running back eight for example or ken walker the third being the running back 11 or nine depending on your platform out there and him finishing as a running back one like if you drafted basial tootin as a running back 23 right now he's the running back 21 despite looking good and i'm wondering if like the highest we can get here is the running back 15 just based on how they're splitting this whole thing up and how much they're passing
Speaker 3the football too yeah he's probably around four or five turn player i think you get like a slight bump versus where you drafted them but we're not you know we're not throwing pizza parties yet with basial tootin but he just seemed like one of the guys like they could get there jacksonville did get crumbled by the broncos defensive line i thought uh so i thought basial tootin looks good but there's a reason why jacksonville's weakness is the offensive line and we have to bring that up on the shows i was like because yes that's just like the truth like the truth of the matter is their offensive line is not good it wasn't good last year it's never been good uh with trevor lawrence and i think that's a limiting factor with basial toot on top of some where like there was an outcome where like basial tootin is just like not going to be able to hold on to this much usage and like i'm not expecting that to change uh anytime
Speaker 1soon now no and they are three-point favorites against the patriots this weekend las vegas raiders are next brock bowers will practice this week that's awesome yep we also need to talk about trey tucker here clint kubiak has been an aggressive downfield play caller at every stop even if those teams in the new orleans saints and the seattle seahawks were not viewed as downfield aggressive passing offenses and they didn't do it in week one you know kirk just didn't throw the ball you know 20 plus yards then because of your wide receiver ranking show that's right trey tucker 37 of 63 snaps but also 25 or 33 drop packs more importantly he had gains of 42 40 on a touchdown 15 and 13 so he goes from the wide receiver 73 to the wide receiver six so is this just one of those weeks and one of those players that it's going to be a roller coaster better and best ball type but uh in a way it's going to be a roller coaster better and best ball type but uh in a way it's going to be a in a pinch trey tucker has this role and he's the only one that can occupy it for the raiders
Speaker 3i loved what you and joel said in the waiver wire show that trey tucker is like rashid shaheed and i think that's that's a pretty good comp and i think with the saints rashid shaheed was like averaging out as like the wide receiver like 36 it was like you know wide receiver 10 then wide receiver 56 wide receiver 48 and then back to wide receiver 22 like complete roller coaster last week i was on him because the matchup i think the chargers defense looked very good and nobody was going to be able to win the game so i'm going to be able to win the game so i'm going to brock bowers like once you've kind of eliminated uh the the brock bowers um like volume uh abyss uh he's going to be harder to trust i think that he's absolutely rosterable he's like clearly their top wide receiver on film um to me uh predicting when he's going to get these long touchdowns is like above my pay grade uh except
Speaker 1for last week yes brock bowers
Speaker 3instant start yes yeah i got
Speaker 1okay yes please well great miami
Speaker 3dolphins real quick on ashton jenny what happens i mean three drops as a receiver after like lighting it up against the dolphins yes and then like i don't want to say it but the rushing numbers right now are not looking good for ashton jenny he's not making that many guys miss the yards before contacts at point four like i i want to see more um and you know the saints have been a pretty decent uh defense with with chase young recently but um that was that was a very bad game from ashton
Speaker 1jenny yes week one was their easiest game on the schedule for the opening seven of the season against the miami dolphins so i just wanted to keep that in mind with a bunch of these raiders that that we were talking about and kind of the declarations in ashton jenny after week one so i was a bit more hesitant than you know i saw some other people in the fantasy community saying if you redrafted he would be like the 103 or the 106 and that was that was too rich for my blood right ankles
Speaker 3being looked at the last uh plays of the game as well like maybe like so late into the game where they didn't even have to save he did go back in okay yeah it just it was the same right ankle you just like don't like to see that but i'm guessing he will be fine but you know keep mike washington around miami
Speaker 1dolphins uh speaking of devon achan is bottom five in success rate right now but hayden he is playing 80 of snaps and is the running back 24 so one of those two things have to change because the math doesn't math if a running back plays 80 of snaps and stays at the running back 24 unless the miami dolphins is are just awful offensively which is a potential here but i guess i want to set you up by this is is a chain just based on that volume is he a potential buy low um
Speaker 3go read what i wrote about devon achan on yahoo's uh sports um that's gonna be coming up in my running back rankings that comes out on um wednesdays look targets per game five and a half uh from 2024 to 2025 uh that was at 5.2 so nothing changed there uh receptions per day per game are down just a little bit but screens per game the exact scheme uh this year versus where it was previously carries per game 15 and a half this year over the last two seasons it was at 13.4 there is nothing that has changed about his usage whatsoever like the types of plays that they're doing with devon achan it's a bunch of uh uh pitches to the perimeter i thought his cutback decisions have looked good they've just not blocked it up quite as well and then malik neighbors has not hit him in stride on a couple of the targets and then he has not ripped off his signature 50 yard touchdown yet i think that aaron brewer hasn't played quite as well same thing with patrick paul like that type of stuff has not gelled but like it's the same exact playbook as last year um now like if malik willis is like so bad that makes this irrelevant like that's totally possible but um i will take the much higher than rb25 rest of the season i think he'll be i think he'll be around rb12 it's not gonna be the prettiest thing but i think that there's a buy buying window here yeah and maybe
Speaker 1it could see even better uh after this week because they faced against city chiefs all right new england patriots are up next we have to hit on a whole bunch of stuff here maybe first i guess let's start with the running backs um you know mike fable punished and i mean punish or monday stevenson for his early fumble in this game the next drive driven hinderson and he's going to be the first to be the first to be the first to be the Henderson stayed in and came in. And even for a third and one, which the very next snap, he hit that 39 yarder up the middle. After the remandre Stevenson fumble, trivia and Henderson out snapped remandre 32 to 15. He also had huge pass pro wins, including one versus a blitzing linebacker. He was tested multiple times in other scenarios and, and had some W's. So look, I was skeptical of how much of a jump trivia on could make from year one to year two, even if I'm a trivia on optimist, he missed week one, but in week two off an injury, I would say he took some steps in the right direction of, of showing positives here.
Speaker 3Yeah, definitely. It's a major win for him. The remandre fumble is like always just been a narrative out there. And then trivia on hit that right. The, the B the, the, the a gap, it was Elijah Vera Tucker, which is a new player for him. He was been, he's been lighting, lighting it up as a blocker at left guard. And then Jared Wilson, now he's getting past protection, but he's switching to center and he's been moving some guys as well. So that's where he hit. That one for a big play, 16 carries to remandre six. I think in my rankings, it will be trivia on ahead of remandre in this week. The one issue that I'm going to have with this one is I think that Trayvon is going to play a lot more than he did last year at the goal line. Like it's still most likely going to be remandre. Like the, the size difference, like maybe too hard to overcome here. And they lost one of their most important players on offense for the year on top of that upfront. So I think it's gonna be a very tricky one, the entire, entire season. And remandre Stevenson or Trayvon, he just like reminds me of Raheem Mostert in a lot of ways. And like those type of players, like hard to get right on a weekly basis. So I don't think I'll have either one of them as top 24 running backs because I'm just like waiting for more answers here.
Speaker 1Also need to talk about this passing game without AJ Brown. I felt like Hayden, that there were too many dropbacks where everyone was locked up in tight coverage. I'm not in the room. It also kind of felt like Romeo Dobbs wasn't necessarily, wasn't necessarily in the right place at the right time. And all those end of the dropbacks for Drake may on top of it. And then what we saw last year was when no one was open, Drake may would take off and scramble. He had a couple of those here, but early in this game, a linebacker was spying him and tackled him right at the line of scrimmage. So like may second phase movements then opened up some big plays to Romeo Dobbs. But I am extremely concerned that the end structure stuff for the Patriots isn't going to hit nearly as it did last year.
Speaker 3Yeah. Drake may miss him on that. Third and nine slant where I thought that Romeo Dobbs, like had a chance to like go there, had a screen, found some space in a scramble. drill um left open for a deep corner route uh in zone coverage but man like i see the same thing there's like too many players like running in the same spots in routes and then i always thought the josh mcdaniels i think that the one thing you absolutely could pick apart is his pass protection rules are like so old school and like the modern defenses like we saw this with the seahawks obviously in the super bowl and also in week one they give them a lot of problems like i think like the best schemed up defenses like they will give the patriots issues one because they don't have like isolated ball winners at wide receiver right now and then two i do think that's a josh mcdaniels like offensive scheme problem um and i think that jacksonville's defense is like kind of one of those defenses that i think can give a team like the patriots trouble so i wouldn't start hunter henry or romeo dobbs in fantasy and like i don't think that you have to start remandre or trevion either and i don't you think you have to start drake may like this is one of those teams where all those guys are like somewhat playable but like they do not have a must start player uh in fantasy right now yeah no notes
Speaker 1with any of that uh let's go to the new york jets next breeze hall is a good pick i mean he is very solid in his fancy scoring so far this season hayden as the running back 11 is it is that the potential for braylon allen to keep him from being an outstanding pick like if the jets completely exceed expectations somewhat like they're doing early on this season drafted as the running back 13 or whatever uh and a range of outcomes could have been as like a top six running back is that still possible
Speaker 3here yeah i mean braylon allen got the five yard line carry in this one um it wasn't like a true after a timeout seven minute goal line stuff and i do think breeze hall will still have goal line touchdowns this year um but that that has been annoying i will say breeze hall is touching the ball plenty enough to be a top 12 fantasy yes it's not about that it's like to your point it's is he going to get every goal line carry and like that's how you can become a top eight fantasy running back i'm skeptical of that but you know he's averaging 19 carries three and a half receptions per game like that is that's what a fantasy rb1 looks like it's great uh and this is one of like the more underrated offensive lines with both their tackles obviously
Speaker 1totally there were a bunch of again land mines in round two and round three uh and breeze hall looks like an extremely solid pick and especially drafting him uh maybe even as your flex in a league instead of the wide receivers in that territory has has has really paid off uh speaking of wide receivers i did want to bring up adonai mitchell here because he's opened as the wide receiver 38 and wide receiver 28. uh this past week 12 targets 12 targets six receptions for 63 yards so that means at least 60 yards in both games to open the season so there's like some consistency there and i wanted to bring up those 12 targets and i wanted to bring up those 12 targets because you know he still had some hands issues here like he didn't come down with every pass i was thrown in his direction there's still the high variance nest to his to his game but yet hayden they i think are in love with adonai mitchell in that they're just going to play him through all of the ups and downs he is so clearly a top two wide receiver for this team that with the volume that he's getting with the number of routes that he's getting he is extremely fantasy
Speaker 3relevant for me yeah it's kind of like i'm in love with the stripper going on though like adonai but there's there's some issues still behind the scenes or uh we're alive i'm uh i know i stand by it um the two drops were bad i thought that he had a pretty bad play on the ball down the football field i still think there's like very like up and down route running um against man coverage there um but when he gets off coverage or if he's in the scramble drill or sometimes i'll get him in motion like when he's moving like he could really move and uh he had a defensive pass interference called on him uh on the other side of the field and he's like oh my god he's like oh my god he's like oh on top of that so i think very volatile i do not trust this whatsoever he's getting used enough where he should be on fantasy benches and you can pick him up but i'm not thrusting him into a fantasy lineup all that said in detroit against the lions secondary like all bets are off like adonai mitchell can go crazy here so like of all the matchups like this would be the week to play him um and i think that mason taylor even like they're one of their tight ends uh he's now down with an injury on top of it
Speaker 1i just mean that no one is coming for adonai mitchell's job which wasn't the case in indianapolis they had alec pierce there right and so in this regard to me he's a wide receiver four slash five once we get injuries once we get by weeks i think he can be a fill-in wide receiver three for your team when you need it and it's that simple yep
Speaker 3during by weeks and yeah i i agree with that
Speaker 1that's it yeah that's a huge jump from where we used to be with with adonai mitchell like they are giving him the opportunity to succeed and fail and that's cool that's cool for me philadelphia eagles what is not cool is this running game i mean the eagles running game in the early season is a complete disaster i understand that the nerds have gone deep and that run yards before contact per attempt is not a perfect metric but hayden i think it's directionally pretty accurate and saquon barkley of 54 running backs ranks 53rd in yards before contact per attempt and tank bigsby 44th uh they have had some tough opponents to start and dorante jones's commander's rush defense and then jeffrey simmons as soon as you're flipping your center and left guard on top of it but this is one of those situations that the offensive line and the run blocking needs to learn on the fly and it's very questionable if it's going to gel on the fly
Speaker 3yeah cam jurgens had miscommunication issues changing positions and cam jurgens might be one of those positions where he's going to be able to run on the fly and he's going to be able to like we all know his name but like is he actually really good like i think we're um getting reaching that conclusion there uh there's been like too many like you know blitzers like in the condensed splits just like picking apart saquon barkley the second he touches the ball like uh untouched um so yeah they're working through things hopefully the stinger doesn't linger he's had stinger issues uh previously which makes me like a little bit more spooked but the problem with saying bigsby you guys nailed this on the waiver wire column is like he's not playing all of the snaps and he's not playing all of the snaps and he's not playing all of the snaps and if the rushing offense isn't that great and we have the jail and hurt stuff like how good is tank bigsby even as like an insurance play just because like the offense like i think they just pass the ball like crazy because this is the same issue that they've had and they're going to change up the scheme a little bit um but they don't have tight ends like it's there's there's issues that i think are going to be difficult to overcome in the middle of the season so there's a lot
Speaker 1of layers here um the first one as you said bigsby was in for 14 runs and seven touchdown snaps when saquon left with the stinger shipley 24 drop backs versus seven runs so they kind of did the you know the yang of that backfield i also think the saquon barkley pick would have felt a little bit better in week two if he just played in this game like he left for at least half of it and more than that and he would have gotten the goal line touchdown that tank bigsby had and it would have been a little deodorant on the extreme frustration that i am feeling about investing so much in the saquon barkley and i think that's going to be a little bit better i have reached out to a whole bunch of eagles reporters over the last couple of days and i've gotten some messages in terms of they are going to continue to run the football and they're just going to try to fix it moving forward so this isn't to me going to just abandon the run because it's not working and just lean all the way into jalen hurts passing the football that is not what the identity wants to be so then the question is how are they going to fix it um it's not like dallas goddard has been the best blocking tight end in his time in the league but he's not going to be a blocker he is now out and zack earth is coming in and that's not much of a blocker so there's two theories out there that i have been sent one is darius cooper who caught a touchdown pass in this past game is their best run blocker my buddy friend duffy has pointed this out does he steal snaps from one of these wide receivers and that's not davante smith and that's not done taving wicks and maybe it's makai lemon is going to be ripped out of some of these sets and darius cooper plays in that and then the other opportunity here is that he's going to be if you don't have tight ends you play more six offensive line sets and that's how they also run the ball so i would look for those two things in week three if cooper plays more and if he does for who and if they lean more into six offensive line sets rather than multiple tight end sets i
Speaker 3will say like who is the sixth offensive lineman because like their third fourth and fifth offensive johnson yeah okay he's been around but like you know they don't have like the cleanest third fourth and fifth offensive lineman right now so yeah it'd be fascinating to watch they're not going to really for that i will say credit where it's due jaylen hurts like in pure passing situations has been lights out this year and a couple passes not too many but a couple of them over the middle in the ways that jaylen hurts historically has not got it done a couple of those to don't even wicks obviously davante smith's going to be the focal point there i would also challenge them to like use makai lemon like a first round wide receiver and not like you know zachariah branch in the third round like let's let's try to throw in the football field over the middle i promise you he's he's capable of doing that but he's unplayable i'd don tavian wicks versus adonai mitchell like i'm leaning on tv and wicks and fantasy over over adonai mitchell uh i think they're pretty similar players i kind of off of the waiver wire um but i've i've enjoyed the eagles past game a lot more than i i have in previous seasons yeah
Speaker 1wicks wide receiver 15 and 26 open the season six targets five receptions 74 yards so that means over 70 in both games and that's remember they face the chicago bears here in week two albeit on the road but in prime time so they're wide receivers and they're not going to be able to do that in the first round so and their running backs should have opportunities and hopefully Saquon plays. We don't know. He's had a history of like what stingers in the past. So hopefully he does play here. Next, the Pittsburgh Steelers. I mean, buddy, according to my buddy, Ben Fennell, Aaron Rodgers and this passing game is last in EPA across the league. That means the Pittsburgh Steelers, when throwing the football, have dropped fewer points than Cooper Rush and the Atlanta Falcons. Yeah, that's tough to do.
Speaker 3It's I mean, this could be a two hour show by itself. I will say this. I don't think that Aaron Rodgers is playing. Well, absolutely not. I do think that this scheme is really, really reminding me of like Chip Kelly from last year. Like this. This feels like the Raiders situation where you had a veteran quarterback. You know, this thing could could marinate and then immediate returns are. It's just pathetic. There was a play early on this game. DK Metcalf is going to be working behind. The line, the lineman and the center gets beat so badly that the defensive tackle is smoking deep. DK Metcalf in the backfield before he's able to get out in the route. There's other issues where there's like, what, five or six guys at the line of scrimmage. Who's coming where they're sliding it one way, kind of like in a traditional pass protection slide. And then one of the players drops out into coverage. Here comes a free rusher. Aaron Rodgers could not throw the ball out in time. There's been other issues where Rico Dattles missed blocks and pass protection. There's way too many free rushers. There's times where Aaron Rodgers getting hit from the front side and the backside at the same exact time. Nothing is working. They're throwing up prayers to DK Metcalf. DK Metcalf has been horrific in isolated like man coverage opportunities. He's dropping the balls on top of that. Jeremy Bernard drops a ball that goes for an interception where Aaron Rodgers has to make a play like. I'm not defending Aaron Rodgers at all. He has not played well. I understand him going to the media and saying like the Mike McCarthy stuff. I need to tell Mike McCarthy. What's not going to work and Mike McCarthy offense feels like disengaged from like modern NFL offenses right now. Like that has me very, very spooked because he's been a passport pass first coordinator and they're not doing like any of like the modern things in the past game right now.
Speaker 1Defenses just do not fear these wide receivers. They'll press on the outside. Then they'll blitz or show funky looks up front. They'll play single high behind it and say, hey, our guys. We'll beat your guys and then your quarterback can't buy time. And so we'll just hit him or sack him or he'll dump it off for a loss. And that's it. And now they face the much improved Cincinnati Bengals defense. I mean, the Steelers are only projected for 19 and a half points in this game. That is at home. That is at home. So you have DJ Hill on the opposition's best wide receiver and then Dexter Lawrence is going to rip it up on the interior. Plus some edge rusher depth, too. So, yeah, this Steelers team really has to turn around like DK. And the air yards model probably looks really good. He's also a wide receiver, 58 in points per game on the season right now. So, sure, maybe he's higher in the models. But so often we say that, like, good players break the models. Well, guys like DK Metcalf are not even meeting expectation at this point. And maybe that'll change. Maybe have some broken plays and all that type of stuff. And that's not even getting into the backfield where, you know, Rico goes down. So the backfield is Jalen Warren's. But they can't get anything going in that department either.
Speaker 3No, I still stand by Jalen Warren looks way better than Rico. I thought that was once again true here. When Dowdle was not out there and he's got a toe injury and we don't know the extent of it. Warren is out there for 50 of 52 snaps. There's a couple plays to it was I think Travis Homer, who's been a special teamer. So he would be like one of the rare bell cows, like enough. So like where I would trust him as a fantasy RB to if Rico Dowdle can't go too many past protection issues for Rico Dowdle. And then rush yards over expected. It's one stat out there. Jalen Warren, negative one percent rush yards over expected. Dowdle. Negative 47%. So slight differences there. But yeah, this isn't an offense. I just don't see the light at the end of the tunnel.
Speaker 1All right. Let's talk about the San Francisco 49ers. They are up next. I mean, there's not much to say. We've already talked about the running back room quite a bit on the recap show and waivers and everything in between. I think the big change here. Once again, we have another wide receiver injury. Demarcus Robinson has a high ankle sprain. We still know that. Christian Kirk is on injured reserve. So this is a huge boost for Debo Samuel. And this is a huge boost for George Kittle, who had an awesome week, too. And here we are once again with Brock Purdy playing like an elite level with Chris McCaffrey looking spryer. This offensive line looking quite good. And the targets are quite consolidated to Mike Evans to Debo and George Kittle. It's all back.
Speaker 3Brock Purdy looks phenomenal. I mean, I totally get the Dolphins. There was tons of coverage bust. They have no good players. I totally get it. Brock Purdy did not miss that entire game on throws past the line of scrimmage. He has a 90 percent catchable ball rate this year. Ninety percent. Like that is that's unreal stuff. So all these guys are going to get home. George Kittle was moving a little bit better this last week. A couple of those were like wide open coverage bust like that. That was awesome to get there. I think that Debo Samuel is the real fantasy storyline here. He's a wide receiver. Thirty three and usage more screens, more backfield usage, more carries, more quick outs off of play action. A couple. Intermediate passes. This is the same exact usage as it was the week prior. They're projected for twenty eight points. I think that Debo Samuel is a starter in fantasy. And obviously Mike Evans and the rest of those guys are as well. But I do think I'm treating Debo Samuel as a serious fantasy player. Twenty two percent target share in this offense.
Speaker 1Yeah. I mean, the other wide receivers on this team now that D-Row is gone. It's Jacob Cowing, Kaderil Hodge and Jordan Watkins. And that's it. Like CMC is going to catch a bunch of passes. I wouldn't be surprised if we see some like pony personnel stuff with Kaelin Black out there, too. And, you know, while CMC is playing fewer snaps and Kaelin Black is, you know, legitimately playing some stuff. This is so consolidated. And if they're going to be projected for twenty eight points per week, everyone's getting home. Everyone should be in your starting lineup. It's that simple.
Speaker 3Yeah. Pretty has been excellent.
Speaker 1Yes, I agree. Seattle Seahawks. Let's talk about them. So. Jadarian Price did not start this one or excuse me. He did start this one. He also got an inside the 20 yard carry inside the 10 yard carry. So I wanted to note that because then there's a lot of weirdness that happened in this game. All right. Emmanuel Wilson also then got stuffed three times inside the five yard line on three straight carries. Jadrian Price got a carry inside the five yard line. Also got an end zone target on a double move and up at wide receiver. However, when Jadrian Price. Leaves with like a chest slash shoulder injury. Pops back in for one snap. With two minutes left in the third quarter and beyond in the entire fourth quarter. Emmanuel Wilson gets 14 touches, 14 carries and looks very good in them. Very good. So I have no idea what to do with Jadrian Price. Also looking good on a few runs that he bounced early on. But this doesn't lead me to him being 100% healthy. And then adding more and more onto his plate in week three.
Speaker 3Yeah. The usage is very Kenneth Walker esque from from last year, except we don't know if he's actually Kenneth Walker as a player. The the fumble was definitely concerning. Did not lose all the snaps early on. But this was not like a fourth quarter chest injury issue. Like Emmanuel Wilson was getting more carries like in the first half of this ball game. Then you can then like he was in week one. So I do think that is concerning. And George Holani, he doesn't touch the ball, but he's out there in every obvious passing situation. And I don't think that that's going to change until Zach Charbonnet comes back. And I'll just be Zach Charbonnet instead of Holani. So he's the RB 27 and you said that's pretty much exactly what Kenneth Walker was in the regular season. And at the very end of the game, they also use AJ Barner on a tush push. So I'm not convinced that Jadrian Price is going to get enough goal line carries to really matter here. So I think he's a flex play. He's an exciting player, but they don't like trust him in every capacity right now is like probably the easiest way I could explain it.
Speaker 1You know, I think I might have had a different conclusion if he was able to play in that fourth quarter and get eight or so carries that Emmanuel Wilson got, you know, we could have a different perspective on it just because that's the second game he's ever played. And he had some I just again want to say some positive moments in this game, too. But but we didn't we didn't get that. You know, he exited with a shoulder and then Emmanuel Wilson just grinded out six, seven, 12 yard gains. And that's what we have here. So, yeah, if this team just continues want to live in a split backfield, they are favorites in this game by six and a half on the road against the commander. So we'll see what happens. We'll see what happens. If you want to add here on a true lock, JSN, it sounds like Sam Donald might be practicing this week.
Speaker 3I mean, the JSN stuff's unreal. I mean, like off coverage moments. With him, it's just like it's as good as it gets.
Speaker 1Yeah, I was about to tweet out like, hey, some running back scoring that there are, you know, four players averaging over 25 fancy points. And then you look at the wide receivers and JSN right now is averaging 30 points per game through two weeks. 30 by 30.
Speaker 3My I guess my film note is there is a lot of plays where he's lined up against safeties. And I think that's a promising sign for Brian Fleury, the new offensive coordinator there. It's he's not getting like always matched up with corners like there's there's a reason why flory was hand chosen by uh mcdonald who went to war with uh sean payton in that interview and won that don't fight mike mcdonald by the way that's a big guy
Speaker 1tampa bay buccaneers oh where do we want to go from here i mean with tampa bay the two things that we all talked about this summer with them is one they're bringing back all five offensive linemen and two that they had a huge investment in the pass rush i'll say after two games neither of those are really working out like the offensive line is allowing a bit more pressure than i was expecting i'll be at baker mayfield invites pressure and then the pass rush is kind of non-existent on top of this so that's the first part offensive line and baker is impacting the passing game however bucky is extremely relevant he's running back 15 and points per game you at least in each contest right now and that's despite the bucks kind of living in their own world in terms of light personnel they run more 11 than anyone else in the league at this moment
Speaker 3yeah it's kind of like a 2022 styled offense um it does feel pretty rams coated from like that you know cooper cup era of football like no one else is kind of like playing this style baker may feels like dropping his eyes way too quickly there is a lot more interior pressure than i would have guessed uh and then he wants to scramble around like there's there's not enough times where he's stepping into the pocket and then he's like oh my god i'm gonna go to the ball like it's he's bailing really quickly and then um i isolated a plays that aren't behind the line of scrimmage uh like little target like quick targets and his average depth of target is by far the highest in the league this last game he was throwing the ball down the football field he was missing guys by like 15 yards like that that's not even an exaggeration he had one ball right on the money but there was a lot of like ted hearst prairie arts in this offense and like that's concerning to me um and even more concerning we'll obviously get to this later in the week you got the vikings if you're feeling heated up pressure wise and for the first two weeks and then you have to go deal with what brian floor is and like what dallas turner is doing individually jaylen redmond individually like i i don't think that this is going to be the week that they're going to sort this thing
Speaker 1out yep totally agree with all that tennessee titans in our last talking point of the day uh cam ward has the second lowest a dot in the nfl at 5.1 yards only cooper rush is lower so what we loved about cam ward in college was that at his best buy some time throw darts down the field uh and i think that after week one this team kind of realized in week two let's not you know put this on him let's lean into the running game as much as possible and unfortunately that kind of came into fruition that once again when they got to the end of the game they got to the end of the game they got into the red zone there was like this double action in the backfield and he had carnell tate on a crossing route open a step on his man and he threw it behind him that he could barely get a hand on the football it should have been a touchdown for the rookie and yet cam ward couldn't
Speaker 3complete it and i thought that was one of the best games he's played um and there's still some some negatives there wasn't like the critical error like obviously misthrows is a misthrow but there wasn't anything like too like like backwards with with the cam ward stuff uh but still like there's not enough explosives here um um shilka patia had an interesting stat uh first two weeks the titans just can't figure out kickoffs they've kicked touchbacks 50 57 of the time the league average is 16 he just says they're giving away field possession yeah and on that the the game winning drive uh the eagles started at their own 35 and immediately scored a touchdown with nine seconds left so like does this matter for fantasy like it directly doesn't but when you have like obvious signs like this like this is not the only thing that they're doing incorrectly like this is not the only thing that they're doing like if this is happening to the point where it's so obvious for podcasters to figure things out right then there's little details that are way above above us that they're also getting wrong so like that's just uh just like fundamentally wrong for for tennessee
Speaker 1yeah these kickoff rules are not new for anyone right so after what two plus years of doing this uh team should realize hey kicking it to about the three yard line or the seven yard line and it bouncing in front of you and you're like oh my god i'm not gonna be able to do this and going the end zone is much better or forcing them to return it and it's unlikely to get to the 35 it's much better than just kicking it out of the end zone or kicking it deep into the end zone and just giving them the 35 versus the 23 or the 27 again you're just handing over yards and that's just top down that's robert sala who then has hired brian dayball and this is just kind of what the operation is at this moment so we'll see if like the titans can get it going but again uh they are only portrayed for 18 and a half points against the new york giants this week
Speaker 3nasty single player i would start some are calling
Speaker 1it the day ball what do you think about that i agree the day ball i agree all right okay time to get out of here thanks so much everyone for tuning in again tomorrow on wednesday we have the running back rankings episode then friday the wide receiver episode is back if you need hayden's rankings at all during this week including tnf they'll be in the link in descriptions down below thank you all for watching thank you all for subscribing and i'll see you next time subscribing leaving a thumbs up liking this video talk to you guys next time see ya
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