Giants Trade For J.J. McCarthy, Texans FINISHED & Chiefs Super Bowl Bound: NFL Week 3 REACTIONS (Ep. 2228)

This is an iHeart podcast, Guaranteed Human. Hello everybody, welcome to the tailgate. I'm Ryan Warmley, joyed for a week three reactions show by Andrew Erickson and Derek Brown. Guys, it was a very fun week. A lot of really close games, really fun red zone stretch, really fun, prime time game to end the night, very close one at the end of Broncos Rams. Some of us are having more fun than others. This time last week, Debra Hopped on in his Saints jersey to rub it in my face about the Ravens. This week I decided I get to wear the Ravens Chubby's shirt, shouts to Chubby's for sending us these a couple of years ago. I get to rock the Ravens because what an ending in Rio, less fun times for Erickson with the Patriots. We'll be talking about that on the show. Not really going to talk about the Ravens much and less fun times for Debra as well in the Raider Saints games. I am classy though, so we're not going to dive too deep into that. Well, you don't have to talk about anything because the Cowboys gifted that game to you too, so you know, let's go ahead and jump in here. We're going to start off. As I think we probably will be doing most weeks on the show with sort of an injury roundup that seems to be what most of the news and notes are going to be this season just another week of some of the our favorite fantasy players getting absolutely hammered by injury. I'm just going to read through the whole list of them right here and then we can kind of pick and choose which ones we want to talk about. So the ones I have written down and feel free to add to this list, guys, if I missed anything. Terrence Ferguson heard his ankle in the Sunday night game. That was a bummer. Looks like he was going to have a big game Travis H and pulls up with the hamstring. That was a bummer. The other H and Devon H and obviously the biggest injury of the week in terms of fantasy, his knee and I written in the sheet last night. Looks bad. They're pretty pessimistic. We got that news this morning. It is a torn ACL. He is out for the season. That is just brutal for what is already a very bad Miami team. Justin Jefferson heard his ankle. K.O.C. said he got close to returning in the game a couple of times, but he also was ruled out during the game. So I'm not sure what to make of that Baker may feel dislocated the thumb on his throwing hand. He's going to miss some time. Mike Evans dealing with a rib slash oblique injury according to the team. Mark Andrews had a hand injury. He did return to the game. But that late touchdown did go to Matthew Hibbner shots to deep, bro. Not to mark Andrews. So I'm not sure if the hand injury was still limiting him, even though he did return to the game. Jaylen Coker quad injury, quote, does not think it is too serious. And Breeze Hall also a quad injury. Debro, where do you want to start with these? I also add, we don't know what it is at the time of recording of this, but Bucky Irving also did have an injury. He had like an ice pack on his back or a wrap on him or someone who knows, but he missed most of the fourth quarter of last week's game. But I'll start with the top of this one Terrence Ferguson seeing him go out and try to gimp through the rest of that game was tough, but also watching Tyler Hibb, get all that production and knowing that Terrence Ferguson would have crushed if he would have been healthy was very painful to watch. But for Ram's team that, dude, when are they going to get pooped back? We it feels like optimism shrouded in who the heck knows, like, is it hip, is it groin, is it a sports hernia, who knows. But this is all we kind of like, we're all talking about when the Rams decided to draft a quarter back in the draft and we're like, well, this team is very top heavy. Probably use another skill player and it's like, well, Pukas hurt, Terrence Ferguson's hurt. Probably not great. That's not good. I also go, I'll go down the Saints well here real fast. One of the reasons why they couldn't close out that game is they don't have an ability to run the freaking ball right now. New Orleans doesn't have it and Travis H Ann pulling up with a hammy. That was not fun to see in real time like breaking off a run, getting to the outside, turning on the accelerator and then just grabs the back of his leg and has to go out of bounds. Camera can't be that guy. Very Miller is definitely not that guy. I mean, they're going to have to live and die by Tyler Schuch's arm until some point in the future. They do not have the ability to run the ball right now. So many hamstring injuries this season too. Is that just me or are there actually more this year? It feels like Nico, Zay, Travis H Ann, it just feels like a very prolific injury right now. Kind of like maybe it's a better idea to get players to actually ramp up and play in the preseason that the NFL, the pendulum is swung too far about like, we don't want anybody to get hurt. Everybody can't get hurt. And yet everybody's getting hurt, but instead of more injuries in training camp and preseason, they're just waiting until the actual regular season to win all the games. Freaking matter because players are not fully ramped up and they're not ready to take hits and play it 100 miles an hour for an entire game like I don't want to go like old school, boomer, grandpa, walk 15 miles in the snow and stuff. But like they're, I think there's something to be said for the NFL needs to reverse course. And we need to get back to having actual starters play in the preseason and the preseason being what it's supposed to be about, getting guys ready for the NFL season because I don't care if you're walking through your kitchen at 2 a.m. and just slip on the freaking floor, or you're playing in a practice. If injuries are going to happen, they're going to find you regardless. So I mean, am I crazy guys think that the teams just aren't stretching enough, they're skipping, skipping stretching, we need more yoga, we need more Pilates in the in the weight rooms. They're going right into the boardroom, offensive meeting, defensive meetings, they're not stretching enough clearly because that's the number one way to prevent hamstring injuries coming from an expert. I don't know if you recall this, Erickson, we taped a show the day you turned 30 and I told you, my advice to you as someone older than you is start stretching every day. There's the first thing I said to you when you turn 30, so yeah. I warm nose. He's ripped and torn a few things in recent memories, so yeah, that is something we don't need to get into. No, but Erickson, all these injuries here that I just listed, obviously Ferguson is a bummer, just because with Puka out there was pretty high expectations and you see how that game could have gone differently if he was healthy, both in terms of fantasy output and also just for the Rams. Any of these other standouts, you have some big names on here, Justin Jefferson, Mike Evans, Baker Mayfield, another quarterback, Andrew, had a few of those this season already. Obviously, A-chan, there's not really divine A-chan, there's not much take away other than that's brutal and it sucks, but what do you take away from this latest round of injuries? I mean, how many more guys can go down this point every single week? Don't we have to fix this? A CVS receipt list of injuries across all of the positions and it's not even offensive side. It's also defensive side. You're seeing guys go down, offensive tackles, offensive linemen. It is just absolutely brutal and it just goes back to the point. I think I mentioned one of the tailgate shows last week where two healthiest teams last year were the Seattle Siocs and the New England Patriots. And it wasn't a coincidence that those teams both have to be in the Super Bowl last year. So we'll talk about my Patriots a little bit later, but I think the two biggest injuries for me, just looking a wide scope, Baker Mayfield going down with his thumb injury. I think the Buccaneers are like, I mean, they were already screwed. They were already like, this ship is, the ship is overflowing with water here. And we're going down and now the ship is underwater fully. I don't think they were coming from this. I think Todd Bulls is dead man walking and I don't know if like not having Baker is like supposed to help him in terms of how they view him, but the fact that they're now I think oh and 12 against the spread and their last 12 games. They've had expectations to win and be in above average team based on their personnel. And now they're going to be starting Jalen Daniels, undrafted, rookie free agent like, look, he earned the job as the back quarterback beat out Jake Browning. Is that saying much? I don't know because Jake Browning is really bad. But this is just, this is a really bad spot, especially when Todd Bulls as a defensive minded head coach. Now it's almost like, there's going to be more responsibility on his plate because well, now you know, you don't have a good offense potentially with a backup quarterback in a rookie backup quarterback. The defense has to win out and it's a defense continues to struggle and not play well for Tampa Bay. Todd Bulls is screwed. So that's something that I'm looking at with the buck side and then with H and it's people are going to be throwing themselves over to get all the Gordon. We'll see how healthy Jalen right is because up until last week, Jalen right was actually the backup in Miami, but then he got hurt and all the Gordon stepped in and obviously had the big massive workload because Jalen right was inactive. Just be careful because throwing yourself all your fab for a running back on a team that is actively tanking that how are they going to score points against the Brian Flores defense in week four. Just just be careful even if it looks like he's going to get volume obviously coming off a good game against Kansas any chiefs. That does concern me with being too aggressive on a player like allie Gordon, where to want H and was the best player on the dolphins. And now he's not even there anymore. So that to me is a major shift in injury and it really sucks for a par like H and because you could see how he would project in this team in 2027, 2028 as a integral part of a young quarterback taking over under center for Miami in these future years, it looks like Miami's going to have a top traffic. And now Malik Welles basically has like no shot, like he's going to be a bridge quarterback next year with the dolphins draft somebody really, really high. So yeah, Malik Welles by the way, look pretty good considering he's throwing into a cast of characters and no name guys, he looked pretty decent last week. I'll just throw that out there. But one last point, who outside of Christian McCaffrey and George Kittle, are they throwing the ball to and 49ers land who it's going to be brand new, who I mean, dude, the stop stations just gobbling up layers, bro, it's insane. It is. it is remarkable to watch. Honestly, if we didn't really hit on it, Braille and Alan, if he's available, like definitely worth a pick up, obviously with Breeze Hall quad stuff, I would say, not sure how many leaks he's available in, but just to mention that one as well, 'cause it's not for the full season like A-chan, but that like I'd rather pick up Braille and Alan than Oli Gordon, even though A-chan's out for the full season. I had a good friend of mine text me during the games yesterday, and he was like, tell me why I shouldn't spend all $190 of my remaining fat budget on Oli Gordon. I was like, 'cause he's not thinking. This team is not gonna score a touchdown. - 'Cause that's gonna be a committee. - I absolutely. - I've been making some more questions to that too, so I think that that's good that we're talking about that, because I don't think that this is a locked and loaded, again, this team is not gonna be the clear cut number one, I think it's gonna be a committee, and this team is bad, they're not gonna score a lot of points, and like Gordon's fine, that's a great player. - How good is A-chan been throughout the first two weeks of the season when he has been the full-blown workers, and he is so much better than Oli Gordon is in as a Russia, as they receive, like across the board, and we've seen Oli Gordon before getting the dog house for Jeff Hathley, and they had to go to him last week, because they didn't have Jalen Wright in his option. Now, I get, I don't know the extent of Jalen Wright's injury, it's, I think it's a foot and stinger, so we'll see, it's TBD, but they're probably gonna add another running back to the fold, and yeah, just don't, he's not 100% empty the clip type one. - No, and they said my opinion. It seems like you guys agree. - I fully agree, 'cause I don't think Oli Gordon's any good. Like, if you go back to all the way to last year, 1.78 yards up to contact per attempt, an 8% missed tackle rate, these are bottom of the barrel metrics. Now, Jalen Wright's better than him, hands down. - One more just quick injury-related thing I wanted to mention. Zayflower's played in this game. All three of us on shows throughout the week talked about how we did not think this was going to happen, and we thought it was a huge mistake with the field conditions. We thought it was a huge mistake, just to rush him back in general. He wasn't practicing for most of the week up until Friday. He played and he looks really good in limited snaps. He made the penultimate catch to set up the Tyler Woodfield goal with seven seconds left in the game. And D-Bro, I saw this stat this morning. I wanted to sort of test both of you. I don't know why it's the D-Bro there. Most yards per route run this season. And obviously, it's a smaller sample size for him than the other guys, because he has missed about half the season in terms of the game's played and times played. But this is still minimum 25 routes run. This isn't just everybody, so at least 25 routes run. Most yards per route run this season, what do you think Zae Flowers is at number wise? And where do you think he's ranked? - I used top five. - Is he, I know he's behind Jagspot the Jiglic, 'cause that guy's averaging like seven yards per route run. - I'll tell you, JSN's number is 4.6. - Yeah. - This is so crazy. He's, - Oh yeah, actually might be hard to happen. 'Cause he runs so much faster. - Oh, that's true. - He's only played one and a half games. - Really, really less than one and a half, 'cause he wasn't a full-time player yesterday. - Oh yeah, no. I was just pulling up a step. - But that helps his, like, per route. - Yeah, I mean, like, so. - This is minimum 25 routes run. - He ran 14 to 22 routes yesterday. He played only less than 33% of the snaps. So he was literally out there for 67% of their passing plays. - And when he was out there, they used him. - He's got over 200 yards, probably on, like. - I mean, he's probably got like seven, of like 6.0 yards per route run, if I were to just like, then he's probably first. - So this is, this is per NFL researcher. So the top two through eights are in the range of 3.4 to 4.6. So JSN is number two at 4.6 routes per route run. Safe hours is over nine. - Yeah. - He is unbelievably efficient right now. And this is with being limited and not practicing, coming back from the hamstring and all that stuff. It is unbelievable how good he has been this season when it's on the field. And it is unbelievable how wrong I was about him in fantasy dress. I was fading him for sure. And you guys, I want to throw that sad out there. Not really to celebrate the Ravens, but to celebrate YouTube for being all over flowers this summer. - We were like an orchestra of warming up here, Ericsson. (laughing) That's my tone. (laughing) - Mark Andrews bet that we ever set the terms. - Seriously. - Oh no, so I was talking about this with the worm yesterday on the bedding pro show. And every time I saw an explosive play by a tight end with an eight on the jersey, I'm first in his reactions like, is that Mark Andrews? And then I'm like, wait, no, that guy's way too much. That has to be there. - That's hipner, huh, Davey? - No, actually, no, you mean Matthew Himner. - Yes, he is. - Wow, Himner. - Hang on guys, we're gonna change up what we're talking about on the show live 'cause we have some breaking news. The Vikings are trading J.J. McCarthy to the Giants. - Giants? - Oh, let's go. - I'm here. - We're a 2027 fifth round pit. - Oh, I'm so here for this. - Wow, so here for this. - Yeah, this literally just drops one minute ago. - So here for this. - Dude, Arba gave him the bonus silence. - To give credit for that. - The first tweet I see is from Ian Rappaport, but obviously like, Peloceros, after they're all tweeting it too. Yeah, so, Arba obviously is some familiarity with McCarthy through his brother at Michigan, taking a swing with no Jackson Dart for the rest of the season and a fresh start here for McCarthy. This is pretty big. You know, Debra, you were the J.J. McCarthy guy. - I am. - Obviously you were in the draft and so you still are. I was gonna ask. Okay. - Yeah, dude. The thing about all of the narrative street stuff with J.J. McCarthy is I'm not telling anybody that he has been fantastic, but the per drop back metrics, if you were to compare J.J. McCarthy, Caleb Williams, and Bonix, they are not very different at all, but the narratives around all those players and I'll even throw in the Drake May of all of this for this season, to where it's like, we are so quick to crown and cannibalize quarterbacks when they are so young in their NFL careers as they are good, they're horrible, they're amazing, they're terrible, and everything in between, I just do not think the J.J. McCarthy's been given a fair shake in Minnesota, and I don't think he was given one this year. I thought the whole like him versus Kyler training camp battle was a bunch of BS, it was never a battle. J.J. was out playing him in training camp, and then the one, they were coming off their best practice where J.J. was still playing better than him, and then they just rush and they named Kyler the starting quarterback, and I was like, oh Kyler. Oh yeah, 'cause y'all are really happy about how Kyler plays in Minnesota, huh? Still happy about that after last week, hmm? Not so much, huh? Okay, it's not gonna happen for us. It's not gonna happen. He gets the dolphins this week, so he's gonna look good. Like that's 100% guaranteed. Erickson, what's your reaction to seeing this trade? I mean, we talked about this D-Bro and I and fits about the relationship between Kevin O'Connell and J.J. McCarthy and how there was just like this disconnect between that head coach and player and that this was never going to end well with those two, and how things unraveled last year, and the fact that they won a lot of games with J.J. McCarthy down the stretch, I think the Vikings right now will forget. They're on, I believe like an eight or nine game win streak dating back to last season. The Vikings are three and a half, right? And like, again, it's really weird because of the way that they've been able to do it. Obviously, the defense has played a really big role with Brian Flores just like being an absolute madman with how he's blitzing the crap out of every offense that he is facing, but to the McCarthy standpoint, I agree with D-Bro, where, hey man, this guy just needs a new setting, right? It wasn't gonna work in Minnesota. Just wasn't seeing eye to eye with the head coach and a fresh start for him makes a lot of sense. We will see how things gel with him when it comes to this offense with Greg Roman with Matt Nagy calling plays so far. We, this James Winston version of this offense really has not been what the Jackson Dart offense was in week one, and D-Bro, correct the way if I'm wrong. I think at least having McCarthy allows them to do what they did with Jackson. I agree, to start the year with James Winston, it seems like, no, we just kind of have him as our game manager, they're not unleashing James Winston. And maybe we would've gotten a different result if there wasn't a game being played in the rain, but still pretty conservative approach in both games where you're just feeding Camp Scott. I mean, Nagy Harris had nine carries in the game. When Nagy Harris has more opportunities than guys like Malik neighbors and Isaiah likely, I think that's pretty telling of how you believe in your quarterback at that time. So Winston is there to kind of just hold the clipboard, be the backup, and once McCarthy is good to go, and I feel confident that he understands the offense to an extent, we're going to see him starting these games and give the Giants a potential, look at a young quarterback that, hey, if he plays well, they could trade him, they could have a long-term backup. I think Worm, you may have mentioned this where, just given the fact that Dart has been banged up two years into his NFL career, having a comparable backup like JJ McCarthy, who is younger, I think makes a lot of sense, especially if there's more an overlapping skill set between McCarthy and Dart versus James Winston, who I think to this point, we're not going to see the fun James Winston. I don't know if that guy's going to walk through the room anymore, especially with the way that it seems like they've kind of nuked that out of him, and he's not going to be this wild man. So from a fantasy perspective, I think that McCarthy's going to be an upgrade for the receivers, but it definitely does come with a scary floor because we get a bad version of McCarthy, like we saw last year with Jefferson, like that's really concerning for players, like Malik neighbors, and Isaiah likely. So only time we'll tell, obviously he's got to get the offense, he's got to understand it, but I think a good move from the Giants to acquire someone like McCarthy, especially for like fifth round pick, like anytime you can buy quarterbacks, but the first round draft capital for this cheap, I think it's just just to put numbers to narrative here, just comparing this, and this isn't like, I'm just going to throw the numbers out there, compare the narrative to the numbers. JJ McCarthy versus Caleb, Williams last year, 68.7% catchable throw rate, 69.4% off target rate, 21.4%, 18.1% turnover where they throw rate, 3.7%, 3% although you look at the chasm, one was the madden cover boy and one is being discarded. I think I think to having the belief by your head coach, which was not the case with Kennell Connell and Gigi McCarthy, because Jim Harbaugh obviously talked to Don Harbaugh about this and about like, hey, dude, why do you need to go get this guy? And I think they're going to put Gigi McCarthy in a much better situation to succeed. So as I'm kind of talking about thinking about this, like I'm kind of excited, maybe that's not the right one. But I'm looking forward to seeing what this guy's office could look like because it looks so good in week one. And obviously Dart and McCarthy, Dart was ahead of where McCarthy was. I think that we should be optimistic here about, I was going to ask you guys, if you had to set a line for overrunner on starts this season, where would you set that number for him? Like do you think this is going to be his job as soon as he gets a couple weeks to get up to speed or do you think it's, yes, I think he starts week five, I mean, he doesn't start this week. I think he starts week five, given one week with the offense and just, I mean, what other giants have to lose, right? It's like, like playing James is just, you're not, you're not playing James, right? Yeah. Yeah. We are playing this bit there, I have it up here, they're facing Arizona and then at Washington are the next two games, the New Orleans, then at Houston and then a by-week and week eight. Those are the next five weeks. Hopefully they don't start him against Houston as his first. No, no, no. I mean, he gets Arizona, the commanders and the Saints, I mean, the next three, I'm seeing the Cardinals. I'm like, ah, let's get my condense, play a buck and let's go this week. I mean, it would be pretty crazy. No, I'm being, I'm being physicians. Like, no, like, seriously, like, I think he'll be starting. But I mean, a ramp up period versus the commanders and the Saints defense. I mean, yes, please, ah, because then he gets the, the Texans and the Eagles. He destroyed the commanders last year. Yeah. I think he's starting. Oh, yeah. I think that's my guess. Now that I'm looking at the schedule, I would bet he starts in week five would be. Is that a home game? No, it's in Washington. It's commanders are on the road. Okay. And then it's home for the Saints the week after. So, yeah. Yeah. No, I think that he's up. So, yeah, I would think it's a week. Yeah. Sometimes a huge game in week four. I think I think McCarthy's starting week five. Yeah. Oh, yeah. I think that just put like the guardrails on James and it maybe that's because he just doesn't have that, that it thing anymore where it's like he's just back up and like he's happy being a backup quarterback and he just, he hasn't looked at the same guy that was fun for fantasy. I think James has has one foot in like the broadcast booth, you know, I mean, I would, I also agree with that. I think that's what, I think I think it's a large part of it is he's, he's doing all of like the press conferences and the off season. Oh, yeah. He's awesome. So, it's like, he's like, yep, I'm just holding a clip for you. Yeah. I'm just collecting the page. I'm going. Oh, no. I have to play. All right. Let's move on to what we learned this week before we do. If you want to win a Todd Gurley signed Rams jersey, then this is your shot. All you have to do is subscribe to the tailgate YouTube channel right now. Drop a comment below in any video and that is it. We'll be announcing a winner right here on the channel. So make sure to turn on those notifications so you can know what new videos are up. And to claim your prize. Erickson, let's start off with you. What was your big conclusion? Take away what you learned this week. The Troy lines are going to win the NFC North engineer Gibbs is going to score 30 touchdowns this year. He right now has six touchdowns through three games. So he's already pacing for over 30 touchdowns and he is seeing career highs across the board in terms of how much he's being used in this offense historically based on what we've seen before in the past. So cordon next chance that Gibbs played over 7% of the offensive snaps in every game this year. Average in career high 75% snap share 55% touch rate. So on more than half the plays that he's in, he's touching the football. So lines are not holding back whatsoever. They know that their entire offense runs first and foremost through gym air gives. And then you have all the other pieces. The defense is so clearly a work in progress. However, the thing that I'm optimistic about is there will be getting some guys back. Like the fact that their safety's got hurt last year and are still hurt. Obviously, it's why we've been talking about targeting the lines defense in fantasy embedding because they don't have those guys right now. But Kirby Joseph and Brian Branch will eventually will come back now, but what they look like when they come back from these injuries, only time will tell. But it can't be any worse than what the line secondary is right now or either in absolute viscer rate. And there's also a chance that they trade for Joey Potter Jr. So there's still outs for this line's defense to improve down the stretch. And something that we talked about all of the bedding shows, they have the easiest schedule in the NFL. Like every single match you look at junior gifts. Oh, yeah, he's probably going to court three touchdowns here, three touchdowns here, three touchdowns. Like every week, it's just an absolute layup. And I really look at them in the NFC North Green Bay. They can't win without Michael Parsons, essentially. And their offensive line isn't shambles. We already saw the bears lose their starting quarterback. We'll see when Caleb Williams comes back, but their defense is buns slash cheeks. And then you have the Minnesota Vikings who have the best defense by far in that division with Brian Flores, but the offense is still very much a work in progress. Tyler can't play the key play against Tampa Bay in future weeks. If this team wants to be a legitimate contender. And right now, I just have so much confidence in how good this Detroit lines offense is. And that the fact that their defense, I think, will improve as the season progresses. Right now, they're odds to win the division are similar to what they were in the offseason, where you're still getting plus money for them to win the division. And I know that we always talk about who's going from worst to first. I mean, the Saints, I still like is that pick, but falling in one and two does not make me feel great. They need to win this week against the Atlanta Falcons to kind of reassert themselves atop that division. Obviously Tampa Bay is not going to win that division. That's not happening. But the lines are that other team where they came in last, and they should be favorites to win. They are favorites. And I think that's ultimately going to happen just based on the optics of their schedule. The fact that their offense is really, really good. I think their defense can improve. So that's one of my big takeaways. They can win shootouts, especially at home. So yeah, I like the lines calling the packers defense both buns and cheeks. You couldn't stop at buns. You had to also throw cheeks out there. That's devastating. They're devastated. He's not wrong. Yeah, it's funny. I kind of had the feeling that time we got to August, like every once in a while in fantasy, you have those seasons where it really only matters if you had the one correct player, like O6, Lidadian, Tom Linson, you know, some of these Christian McHaffer years. All that really mattered for winning your championship was did you have that guy in that year? And by the time I got to August, I kind of started to feel like this might be Gibbs even that just everything you laid out, Eric's an easy schedule going to get so much workload with no day of a month. I mean, he's also just very talented. He's averaging like a touchdown per game in his career, even before this season. And now that's even more so like I fully on board with this. It's kind of crazy though to think about him as like the most important, you know, running back the most important player you can have in fantasy because Kenneth Walker has also been incredible. Eric Henry has six touchdowns also. Christian Caffer is healthy. Bejade has been amazing, especially now that they have the quarterback upgrade. So it's like there are five different running backs that in any given week, it would not shock me if they had 35 fantasy points in their game. Let alone like Jonathan Taylor, who's obviously still very good and even though he's coming off a bad game and some of these other names. So yeah, it is, it is really interesting to look at the position and Gibbs does stand alone. And he obviously he was a consensus 101 and drafts for a reason. Yet these other names like at least a handful of them are still really excellent as well. Debra, what do you think about this prediction of 30 touchdowns for Gibbs this season? Obviously it's it's bold from Ericsson, but is that on the table in your opinion? If you're making a I haven't pulled this up right now, but I'm very curious what his odds are. I'm going to go look at this in real time. What are his odds for offensive player the year because I think he definitely could take that down. And I think the 30 touchdowns can definitely happen because offense him running through the offense, it looks like he's the favorite. So I was going to say I would guess he's the favorite because I have I have the MVP odds up for a later discussion we're going to have. And he is the highest ranked non quarterback in the list. Obviously he's way lower than much of an MVP, but I say that to say the highest rated non quarterback usually is a pretty good favorite to them in their respective side of the ball award. Yeah. And he is right. And then JSN, who's the closest competition in terms of that. So yeah, I'm not surprised to hear that he's a favorite for offensive player of the year. He's awesome. The record is 31 touchdowns. I think Ladani Tomlinson, he had 20, I believe it's 28 rushing and three receiving. So if he gets 30, I mean, he is potentially going to be setting a record here if he gets a little bit more there and I it feels on the table. I mean, again, that he is their entire offense and he's so good and they have an easy schedule. It's just I think it's all heading up Ericsson. So I think it's a good conclusion here. Yeah. Let's go to D bro. You, you know, speaking of really good running backs also want to talk about an elite guy. One of the names I just mentioned at the top of the running back rankings right now. Kenneth Walker, baby, Kenneth Walker has transformed the Kansas City offense. All of the yesterday's stuff about Andy Reed running backs and we want to invest in this offense and that being the engine of the offense, like we're back. Like the homes is over the last two weeks, Patrick, my homes has played the best football. I have seen him play in the last three to four years, basically in the post Tyree Carol era. This is the best Patrick, my homes has looked since Tyree kill left town. And I think we need to firmly point the spotlight on Kenneth Walker. What he's been able to do to give this offense, both the ability to run the ball, create explosives on the ground and as a pass catcher and what he's offering on that side of the ball for a player that again, guys, I'm old enough to remember when and Kenneth Walker, we did know if he could catch a football. I mean, in a prospect land, I mean, we weren't even sure if he actually had hands. And now he's one of the best receiving running backs in football. He's transformed the Kansas City Chief's offense. I would venture to say are the Chiefs back because they definitely went somewhere over the last few years and it wasn't a good place. And then I think a lot of that are all of that can be laid at the feet of Kenneth Walker. I don't think you need to ask are they back? I think they clearly are. And it's both that Walker has transformed the offense and also that the home looks really good. But Walker being there is certainly a factor in the home's looking so good and taking attention away and giving explosives back to this offense and all that stuff. I think they look super back, Erickson. And to Deepur's point, Walker is reason 1A for that. - Do you guys know how many missed tackles he has? The season? - Some absurd. I mean, it was an absurd number. He had 16 in one game and with that, two or week one, it's 16 in one game. - He has 38 missed. - Yeah, three games. That's actually insane how good he has been and how no defense can stop this guy. So it's just a matter of how long does he hold up. I'm in the camp that the fact that he does force somebody missed tackles, I think it's actually good for his longevity because he's not taking it as many hits. Because he's avoiding hits. He's avoiding tackles. And I think cheese will be smart with him as the season progresses when they could put a little bit more on the home's plate in terms of just more dropbacks, more of a passing game and the receivers are kind of getting into a bigger groove and the fact that I have Emma Johnson too. So, and that's not to say that it's going to hurt Walker because if anything, he's showing you that, yeah, he can handle a massive workload because he hasn't done it throughout his entire NFL career because he just hasn't been available for it. But like Gibbs, I think Walker is just having that special season where you see a running back leave one team be the perfect fit in a new team and that year is just his special year. Now, we can talk about Faden Kenner Walker in 2027 when he has five billion touches this year. Sure, that's a conversation we can have next year. But for this year, it's a special Ken Walker season and it's very reminiscent of when Saquem Barkley went to the Eagles and it's perfect fit away from the Giants. It went in Christian McCaffrey went to the 49ers. Oh my god, it's a perfect fit in the Shanahan offense and it was always concerns because it's a guy's been hurt in the past. But the planets are just aligned for Ken Walker and it's why I'm really happy that I moved him up my rankings in fantasy. I think I finished him in the bar before because I was like, no, man, like this is just, and hindsight, we're going to look back at this mid like, dude, it was so obvious this guy was going to freaking smash and through three weeks, that's literally all he's done. So yeah, man, it's the Chiefs or so. I mean, I was wrong about the Chiefs because I thought this was going to be kind of like a, a rebuild year, which was obviously wrong. I know we talked about that last week too and how we still like Super Bowl odds on the Kansas Chiefs because they're clearly going to be in it. Ben and Buffalo right now at the top of the AFC along with Baltimore to your point to Erickson. They've already like, I mean, he only got just so everybody realizes in week three, he only got 20 touches. So it wasn't a 30 touch workload and all that kind of stuff. Like, I know it's only 20, but to your point, I do think they're smart with him as we move to the season. Like, my home's gets healthier. They could, they turn it back into more of a passing team. Like Kenneth Walker is getting like 15 carries and like four or five catches on a weekly basis. So he's getting to that 20 touch mark, but we're splitting up how we're doing this and part of this is in space and stuff. Yeah, like I think he holds up, man. - They also have an early biweek tip. - Yep, yep. - So it's like they can like load him up with us to start the year knowing that, hey, like we're off in the good call week five. - So we can kind of readjust things. And that's probably when you'll start to see the bigger bomb for amateur Johnson. Coming out of the, that we always see that from a lot of rookies is that post by rookie bomb in terms of usage. - Oh, but to, to Walker's Walker is so efficient that yeah, he can still be really productive because he's ripping off big plays and he has all the red zone opportunities in this offense, which was obviously the biggest thing holding him back. And I know I talked about this with the warm on the bedding show, but this week he's facing his old office coordinator, Clint Cubiak, who never gave him the ball in the red zone. - Cool. - There will be, tell me there will not be petty. Like Kenneth Walker doesn't score three touchdowns just like Andy Reed, just to rub it in the, dude. This is the revenge game week, by the way. We talked about this last night. - Alt liners on Kenneth Walker touchdowns. What's three plus? - Give those liners. - Give those liners Clint Cubiak, Brian Flores against the Dolphins, Derek Henry against the Titans for the first time. There's a lot of those going on, man. - Yeah, Erickson, I love that comp too. Like it was so obvious this was going to work like say, quite a lot behind the Eagles of Lied CFC and Jim. Derek Henry going to the Ravens and being the same as Lamar. We said, it's like, man, it's like, obviously going to work. - Yeah, it was so obvious. - Oh my god, by the way, just a quick note to really highlight some of your Gibbs again. Kenneth Walker has his average of 24.6 half PPR points per game. So far through three weeks. He is closer to Jonathan Taylor. And that's second, by the way. He's closer to Jonathan Taylor at number five in the league than he is to Gibbs at number one. Walker's been unreal and he's still not even that close to number one compared to what Gibbs is. - Well, it's a game. - Gibbs is over 30. I think he's like at 30. 29.8, so he's just. - PPR, I was looking at PPR. - PPR, he is over 30. - That's half PPR, yes. That's almost 30. For PPR, he's at 32.8 right now. (laughing) - Louis Chris. (laughing) - That's absolutely insane, dude. This is insane. - Okay, well, my conclusion from this week, the Raiders are legitimate playoff contender. They're not a real contender, but they are legitimate playoff contender. And then I have sort of a secondary one in here. Like Erickson had the division title as secondary to Gibbs getting the 30 touchdowns. Brock Bowers is gonna be a consensus first-round pick in 2027 drafts. He looked so good coming back right away, first game in this offense under Clint Kubiak, first time playing with this quarterback, and coming off of the meniscus trim and he just looked like the stud we were expecting. I think that is going to continue for most of this season. You know, we did a lot of shows with Fitz, D-Bro this summer where he talked about like, Brock Bowers are gonna be the defining fantasy player of the season that was before the injury. I think that's what we're getting now that he's selfie and back. And I think it's really gonna work. We know Clint Kubiak is willing to spam the ball to his best player, if they clear the best player. Allah, JSN last year. And the Raiders are good, man. Like they've really improved the offensive line from where they were a year ago. Obviously there's a coaching upgrade here with Clint Kubiak just schematically. The defense is better than I thought it was going to be certainly. I was saying this last night Eric's in there, what third in EPA, it was the tweet that I saw. Now, maybe a little bit of an easier stretch of opponents here to start the season, but we just sat here a week ago guys and talked about it, the Saints are winning the NFC South and that we think the Saints are a legit good team. And you know, yes, they blew that game in some ways at the end of the-- - Turnovers there. - But like, but the Raiders took advantage. And they won, they have the six most points scored in the NFL this season. They're run differential, they're thinking baseball. Their point differential is, I believe fourth best in the NFL this season. Like they've had an easy run out to the season, but they have taken advantage of it and done what a good team should do against an easier schedule. Again, I'm not saying they're going to, I'm not even saying they're locked to make the playoffs, but they are legitimate playoff contenders, which is quite a turnaround coming off over the first overall pick a year ago. And this is not even seeing Mendoza yet, Deepra. - Max Crosby looks pretty good, warm. Who knew? - Which is not a surprise. - Kind of bearing lead. Max Crosby. - And is playing good, so. - Pretty good, pretty good. - Pretty good, it's up every time Max Crosby has a gig. - I'm going to keep bringing it up. 'Cause I think you heard the cost is full of it, dude. - The Ravens thought he was going to be good this year. They were worried a lot in terms of him being good this year is irrelevant to that conversation. - Trust me versus a conversation in 2020. - Yes, yes, exactly. - But how good is Max Crosby now? - But without the gas sliding warm here, the thing that I thought was very interesting. First of all, I'll take a absolute L on Brock powers. I did not think that he was going to be a full-time player. I didn't think he was going to come back and I thought we were going to see him eased in like Tucker Kraft and George Kittle. I thought he was going to have like a 60% route share because he was coming off of a week where it was limited practice, limited practice, and then he didn't practice on Friday. And I'm like, okay, well, if he's active, they're not going to ramp him up and run their freaking offense through him in the first freaking game. And yet that's what we saw, the biggest insane takeaway for me with the Brock power stuff. 78% of his routes, he ran in the slot or out wide. He's not a tight end. He's a wide receiver. - By the way, I thought the guy actually said, 116 receiving arts, 10 receptions, 13 targets and a touchdown. - And he looked at the skin. - Freaking unstoppable. - You could tell how excited to be equitable. - Unstoppable. - To have him back. - Yeah, he looked for sure. - Amazing. - Yeah, the only thing I'll add with your take were him about him being a first-round pick in fantasy drafts, Brock powers to me, not stylistically, but gives off similar fantasy vibes as Gronkowski, where he misses a lot of time with injuries, but when he's on field, he's unstoppable. So it's a matter of kind of weighing that when it comes to, 'cause I don't know if all these injuries are, that's the thing. I don't know if all these injuries are gonna be behind, 'cause this happened last year too. Like he missed time. He came back immediately smashed and then got hurt again and then didn't play the rest of the season. - Totally fair. - So that's something that is something that's in the back of my mind when it comes to Brock powers. Obviously a healthy Brock powers is more than worthy of being a first-round pick as we've talked about. And I think we talked about in shows leading up to the season where it's like, dude, yeah, this guy when he's healthy, he fricking smashes. So I was a little bit more aggressive on my rank with him because we'd saw this last year, where it's like, they just threw him back out there and know it's a different coaching staff. So obviously there could have been a different approach here, but he is just such a monster when he's on the field. So yeah, the talent is so amazing. I would say too. with Kurt Cousins currently on pace for 51 passing touchdowns tied for second in the NFL in total touchdowns with nine passing touchdowns play the short games with three passing touchdowns. The odds for the Raiders just to make the playoffs plus 165, I kind of like that. I'm not again, I'm not saying it's a lock, but at that those odds, I'm I'm interested in that. So just throwing out there. Those are consensus odds. I'm betting pros. Com before we get to our reality check segment, I need to tell you about this new prediction market called polymarket, it's a stock exchange for sports, buying in and selling out on your terms. When your team goes down to 20%, you can buy in and sell it off at 40%. When they come back to double your money, they are so confident. You'll never go back to the other guys. They're giving you a free $50 on your first trade when you deposit just $10 and now they've launched a new feature squads, a group chat where you can see what everyone is trading on. So download the polymarket app today and use FPP OD when you sign up. It's FPP OD to get $50 free after you trade just $10. All right. Let's get to reality check here, trying to figure out if these are legitimate conclusions or an overreaction, Ericson, start us off. Drake Mayn. I think we need to talk about the lack of a good quarterback play anywhere in New England. It's been really, really bad to kind of capture it in statistics. So yesterday, Drake Mayn said a new career alone fantasy scoring for the third straight week. So it's continually getting worse and worse as the season progresses. Super next chance that's among quarterbacks, we've started every game so far this year. He ranks dead last and passer rating, dead last and total passing EPA while leading the league with seven turnovers, six airceptions and a fumble. He has scored a total of 21.6 fantasy points. He cleared that number seven of his 17 games in 2025. So that's what the stats are saying. The eye test, honestly, might be worse because he looks like he's either playing drunk or hung over or both because it's just a player to me that is not seeing the field whatsoever. Not seeing it clearly, not trusting his reads and just bone headed decision making, especially when it comes to the red zone because the pitchers are moving the ball in between the 20s, okay, but when they get into goal to go opportunities in the red zone, this is where Drake Mayn's making his biggest mistakes. And the fact that yesterday in Jacksonville, he takes a snap and drops back the throw and it just slips out of his hand and then in the post game interview, he's talking about how his center's blood was on the ball. And that's why it's and that was a contributing factor to why it slipped out of his hands. So again, he wasn't saying that was solely the reason why he fumbled the ball. But clearly he needs to play significantly better. This is also concerning from the fact that he had struggled last year in the playoffs when he's facing tougher opponents. He's obviously facing tougher opponents this year because the schedule is not nearly as easy as it was to start the year. So to me, now it's becoming is he just a matchup quarterback? I think that's actually very apparent that he is a matchup based quarterback and that they can hopefully build momentum. I do wonder what the offense would be doing if they had AJ Brown on the field. And if this is one of the scenarios where they built so much of what this offensive is going to look like with AJ Brown as the focal point. And then when they lost him, Josh McGinnells did not have the right backup plan, a plan B strategy of, okay, well, AJ Brown goes down, which I mean, when you build your plane out of a 29 year old wide receiver without a backup plan, that is concerning. And you should be building off it's around Drake Mayn. Not around AJ Brown. Like as much as I love AJ Brown, I think he's a super talented player and still has plenty left in the tank. That's not smart. Like you should be building around your franchise quarterback. And I was, and I also got to know him because listen to some sports stock radio for, I don't listen. Don't do that. Don't do that. It's just so I was driving back. I'm somewhere to turn it on. And so many came on. And it was like, they got a bed straight. I really turned it off. I think yes. Yeah. Don't listen to that. But to that point, it has been really bad. I know you guys agree. Obviously, I'm on the Homerism side, so I'm always trying to look at it from a glass half full type of angle. But it has been really bad. And you can't have really any confidence starting Drake Mayn. And fantasy lines until he faces like the Miami Dolphins facing the bills this week. The Patriots have played well in Buffalo last two years with Drake Mayn as a massive underdog. But just what we've seen on tape the last couple of games has just been absolutely brutal for him. Offensive lines not playing well. So that's all I have to say about. I mean, I read some of the names that are outscoring him in fantasy right now amongst quarterbacks. Marcus Mariotta, who has only played a game in a half, Sam Darnold, who has played a game basically one game, Drew Locke, who has not played the full season and point to points just behind Drake Mayn. So he is outscoring this person, but just barely is Jackson Dart, who obviously has missed basically two full games. So it has been really, really bad statistically you laid out, you know, stats there, Erickson of why it's been bad. And it has looked just as bad as funny. I had very little Drake Mayn fantasy this season until the last week of drafts. And I was like getting kind of nervous that I didn't have this like quarterback that thought was like ascending and really talented and got AJ Brown. So I took him in my final two drafts of the season. And I'm like, well, clearly I was right to not be taking him all that much here. So I've been watching him pretty closely, having him on a few different teams and it's been tough. But I don't know. Like, if you, particularly the leagues that have Drake May are all super flex leagues. If you have him in a super flex league, it's one of those, you have to keep starting him. Right? Yeah, sure. He cannot sit him. And he just, it is the worst type of player to have. It's similar to like, like Justin Jefferson last year when he was healthy and like, you just have to keep so you cannot sit some of these players. You almost just wish they would get hurt. And then, okay, well, that's easy. I'm just not going to play them and it may, in terms of super flex leagues, he's in that category. And he should not be starting super flex leagues. He's QB 31. That's not inside the top 24 yet. You cannot help but do it. So yeah, it's, it's been really painful, Debra. Oh, man, the whole Drake May of all of this, the exact same reasons why you draft a Drake May at the end of draft season were why it took Justin Herbert and a few of my final drafts. At the entire of the off season, I was like, I don't know about this charges offense, man. I don't know about this charges offense. All right, I guess I'm going to hedge my bets here a little bit because I mean, look, we're all wrong about certain things. Maybe I'm wrong here and through three weeks, I have not been wrong. I was big time wrong about Drake May. I mean, walking into the season, I am as my QB two and fantasy circles and stuff. But dude, like this, this Patriots offense has looked broken, like it's, what the hell do they do? And they're not throwing the ball well. They can't run the ball like this last week against the Jaguars, 2.9 yards per carry from Travion Henderson, Ramondre has 3.1 yards per carry. They don't have a go to option. Like, dude, I love Mac Holland's as a story as a real NFL player. But when you're telling me you're running, you're passing attack through him and he gets nine targets and he leads your team with 87 receiving yards, something is wrong. Like something is big time wrong. And yes, I think there's a very, like, a very pointed AJ Brown conversation and McDaniel's building the offense through him. The other thing that also counterpoint to this is they felt good enough about bringing Romeo Dobbs in to get rid of Stefan Diggs. They felt good enough to trade away K. Sean Booty because they felt good about Kyle Williams and how he was walking out of the preseason. Kyle Williams has been a non factor. So Dobbs has not taken to this offense and it's just it's bad all the way around. Like their offensive line is battered to a certain extent. They're not opening up a crap dumb in a holes like May is playing like a quarterback. He's pressing. He's these legit pressing like on a per drop back basis and the thing that like I think it's just you can envelope all professional athletes in this that they play with this Uber. Like nonsensical type of confidence that I am Superman doesn't matter if I'm not Superman. I am Superman. I can make everything happen. I can wheel this. I can do it. I got it. You can look at Drake May for two seconds and see that he ain't got that like this year. I don't know if it's a culmination of how he got battered down that down the stretch and throughout the playoffs and the Super Bowl. And then opening this season immediately with the Super Bowl rematch and him getting tossed back into all of those 2025 how they ended things vibes and it's continued to just go snowball for him. Like I hope he can turn this around, but he's playing like a guy that like has kind of lost his mojo. Do you think Nebrow, he mentioned the chargers more likely to turn it around Patriots offense charge it off. Patriots. Patriots. That make to I give me Daniel I give Josh McDaniel more chances and and and faith to turn that around than anything might make Daniel is going to do on the other side of this, the country. And I know we've talked about the charger schedule being actually brutal. It doesn't get easier. Patriots schedule does. Yeah. So I know that the cupcakes from last year, that's no longer existing. Obviously going to Buffalo is a tough spot. Buffalo's defense though does leave a lot to be desired. But after that, I mean, they still get to play the dolphins, they still get to play the jets. There's going to be soft spots where Drake, if anything, it's just build confidence, right? Like finish a game without turnovers. Like I don't care if it's against the dolphins where he looks good. Like that's fine. Like just to do something positive and the fact that they will get AJ Brown back at some point. What guy will they get? Cuff the hat. ankle. No idea. But I think that does matter. So I do think at least there is a light at the end of the tunnel here for Drake May in year three. So, but obviously right now it's here's your Drake May confidence building stretch. You got about a month from October 22nd to November 15th or no way we could stretch this out to November 29th after they're by week. They get the bears, the dolphins, the packers, the lions and the chargers. That's your confidence building stretch before they can play the bills, the Vikings and the chiefs. So, yeah, I mean like and hopefully at that point, AJ Brown is close to returning or any has returned. And so maybe we see a different version of Drake May like down the back half of the season. I hope so. Super Bowl losers, man, we are every year it feels like that's I think too. Like I knew that I was down on the Patriots in terms of like their win total in terms of like how their team success would be because of the schedule. However, I did not foresee it necessarily being accompanied by such a poor performance by your know, I don't think I thought it was going to be like his stats were going to be more like padded like they're going to be negative game script. He still got up yards and touchdowns and and that that's kind of was my angle on it. I knew the Patriots were going to lose a lot more games just because the schedule was a significantly hardener. But to this extent that May would struggle this much we can't keep me making excuses. We got to move on to the next one, but I would just sort of wrap it to say because this is reality check like conclusion versus overreaction. I feel like this is like illegitimate conclusion from what we've seen. The question is is it in a reaction for moving forward? And that is what is still there. I think there will be like if sports talk radio in Boston area is calling for him to get benched. I think we're already at a reaction. It's a good because that's that's nonsensical. Like whoever's saying that on the radio. I turned out to get the radio. Yeah. Well, someone who ever saying that on the radio needs to get taken off the radio because that's just nonsense. We got to move on. Diva, what's your reality check? Houston Texans will miss the playoffs. They've started o and three. This defense looks like it has lost its secret sauce. Like outside of Willie Anderson, what do you feel good about? Like stingly, laster getting their butts handed to him. Like the rest of this defense doesn't look like they got a clue right now. They have zero offense. Like between David Montgomery, Woody Marks. They do not have a run game. Their offensive line is still bottom five. Nico Collins comes back. Okay, fine. You got a pulse. Whatever. The Nick Kayley of all of this. I will continue to pound the table that he is one of the most idiotic and horrible play callers and all of the freaking NFL. And yet he still has a job, guys. Like how much he's shane Waldron in different clothes. It's horrible. Like, but I think the Houston Texans miss the playoffs. But where am I know we both collectively brought up a very interesting stat. I'll let you spit that here to say that maybe I'm wrong. Since 2000, there have been two teams to start o and three to then go on to make the playoffs. The 2018 Houston Texans and the 2025 Houston Texans. So if a great guy knows how to do this, it's this one. And these players did it a year ago. I think that's more of like a team around type of thing where in the locker room, I guarantee it's like guys going through last year. We found a way to do the division. So I get that from a, yeah, we can be optimistic like we've done this before. But to me, it's more reads like lightning doesn't strike twice in the same spot. Yeah, where you were able to run as hot as you did last year because your their defense was borderline historic last year. And if they're not historic again, then they're not going to come out as o and three and they can still be really good like Debra talked about, but clearly they're not as good as they were last year on defense. And when they don't have Nico Collins, this team is one one game against their real quarterback without Nico Collins. And that's why you can't bet on to win games if they don't have Nico because it's offense, just craters. And I can't get those explosive plays down the field when Xavier Hutchinson is your leading receiver. You're going to lose. And the fact that they couldn't win a game against the Colts when the Colts turned them all over three times. And the Jackson still lost that just goes to show the offense is capped and they don't have a guy like Nico. So I I agree. I mean, it's kind of interesting because we could be sitting here with them having a win over the bills if Lassiter holds onto that interception and that he didn't happen, right? But and I'm not saying we had to go back and change it. But like this could be a team that's one and two with the win over this, you know, incredible offense that we've seen so far. And yet one thing doesn't go your way and it gets it gets late fast in in the NFL gets late early. They have there are only four teams, the NFL with the worst point differential through three weeks. Then Houston right now it's the Titans, the chargers, the packers, and the dolphins, like the worst teams in the league. And that's that's who they're with. Let's go. Yeah, Erickson is just happy that that that the Patriots are not in that list that you just rattled off. And real quickly, because it's because the Patriots face Drew Locker, now real fast on the Nick Kaylee of all this. Yes, I am willing to call your offensive coordinator an absolute imbecile and a buffoon. Whenever this is a reality, Jared Wayne and Xavier Hutchinson played more snaps than freaking Jalen all this last week. Foster Barrow played more snaps than Dalton Schultz. Make it make sense. Yeah. I was very surprised that Schultz wasn't like the focal point when you know that this cold dude can't stop time. Nick Kelly says hi. Like Nick Kaylee says hi. So, you know, dude, just rip it over the middle. We get all those Xavier Hutchinson targets and Jared Wayne can get four targets. You got to, right? You got to. Huh? Let's let's get to the final reality check here. This one's from me. And I'm actually going to loop this into our final segment. Last week we talked about just sort of updated Super Bowl odds and who belongs, who does and who's too high and consensus, all that fun stuff. We're going to do the same thing this week, but for the MVP odds instead of Super Bowl. And my reality check is that Brock Perty is going to win MVP this season. I think we have seen a narrative shift. It is, it has been gradual over the last couple of years, but it feels more pronounced this year. Maybe you guys disagree, but it feels more pronounced to me of people actually giving Brock Perty credit in a way that previously has always exclusively gone to Kyle Shanahan. It's exclusively gone to playing with the Avengers and, you know, Christian McCaffrey and George Kiddell and everybody surrounding him. And for the first time, it really feels like no, people are noticing that Brock Perty has really been the straw that's stirring the drink so far for the Niners this season. The offense has been great. A stat that I saw on Twitter earlier today. The 49ers have scored a touchdown on 48.1% of their drives through three games so far. It is the highest touchdown rate since 2000 for any team through three games of scoring a touchdown on that percentage of drives. And five of the next seven teams in that all-time list had that year's MVP quarterback. So when you have an offense that is this good at scoring touchdowns. A, it's end to win a lot of games and that really matters to winning MVP. It usually goes to a quarterback on a top two seed in one of the conferences. And B, we have seen it pan out that that quarterback has won MVP when the team is this level of efficient. The other, the other names, you know, the teams on that list are teams like the 2018 Chiefs, the 2007 Patriots, the 2019 Ravens, 2020 Packers, like 2024 bills. Those were the sorts of names whose MVP's were scoring touchdowns at a worse rate than what the Niners had done this season. So they've been awesome. I think they're going to win a lot of games and maybe even win that division, which was not projected before the season. And Perty just looks great. You know, he's having cool plays that are not counting because somebody was just out of bounds that he was out of bounds. That was a catch by the way. That was a catch they didn't review it. I agree in the game. Yes. He just looks different. He looks like I'm watching him in three years ago. I was like, oh, yeah, this is he's a shenanhan merchant. And now I'm watching him like Perty is an awesome quarterback. He's playing like a top 10 guy on a team that's going to win a lot of games and score a lot of points. I think he's going to win MVP. And before I talk to you guys, I'll pull up the actual odds here because that's sort of the larger segment we're going to loop into. He is currently, and this has been updated since the games yesterday, has the second shortest odds. So obviously this has gotten less favorable to bet on. Then it was previously Josh Allen is plus 220 Brock Perty. So he's plus 500. It's not bad. If you think he's actually going to win, then you get into Lamar plus 600, my home's plus 900. So you know, it gets further and further down. But what do you, what do you make of this one, Erickson? I think that Perty is deserving to be up here. You look at a passer rating, number one league, EPA per dropback, number one league nine touchdowns. Third, the league 10 total touchdowns trail only Josh Allen, who is the aforementioned favorite to win MVP after the bills, three and no start in terms of fantasy points, only Allen is scored more fantasy points than Brock Perty, according to next chance. That's since week 15 of last year. So I think that Brock Perty is deserving to be up here in terms of what his passer rating has been. And the fact that we've already kind of done the conversation with him as the Shanahan merchant, this was a couple of years ago, when he was, it was him in Lamar, we're neck and neck and MVP. And then the 49ers got boat raced on, I think it was either Christmas or Thanksgiving. And that basically just nuked his entire MVP run because they got destroyed by the Ravens and Lamar Jackson kind of took the MVP award and ran away with it. So I think he deserves to be up here. Is he my favorite bet? If I had to one, probably not. That's the thing I would layer on. I still like the long shots like a Trevor Lawrence where I mean, Trevor Lawrence, I don't even talk about some of the Patriots game, but the dude kneeled the ball with eight minutes left in the game. Like I have no, and then he's like after he's like, yeah, I probably shouldn't. He was like trying to help out the facial toot and fantasy managers. He said somebody in that locker room was bet an abacial toot and anytime touchdown. That's all I gotta say. I'm like dude, like, so Trevor Lawrence, I mean, he's had two monster games and the one down gave me that was at Denver. So when you look at strength, the schedule brought pretty, I mean, if we're not as I'm playing, I mean, they played the hungover Rams. who were sleep deprived in week one played the dolphins joke and then the Cardinal's defense is not very good. So again, like, but he's taken advantage and he's ripping up these bad defenses. So I think that he deserves to be up there. I think he's going to be in the conversation. I won't say definitively that he's going to win the award because the 49ers might just fall apart if they're too old around him. That's like the more guys fall and the offense continues to perform. That's just a credit to Purdy. Yeah, I'm not even saying on here saying this is the best bet. It's just the prediction I want to make. And I do think if it's like him versus Josh Allen, for example, or Lamar, because those are the next, you know, the two that are kind of sandwiching him and the rankings of MVP odds. Like those guys have won a combined three MVPs before. People like the new, the new name who hasn't won one before. And I think there is a contingent of people who cover the NFL who have long wanted to credit Brock Purdy and have fought against this Chanahan merchant narrative and will be very excited to have the opportunity to reward him with their vote. It's a very clear top five deep row in the odds. It's Josh Allen, Brock Purdy, Lamar Jackson, and then Mahomes and Borough tied there. That's at plus 900 is Mahomes and Borough. Trevor Lawrence is next at plus 1400 and then next after him is Dacket plus 2000. So the odds are telling you that it's sort of a five person race. It's super early. This is going to change it ton, right? I'm not saying it's locked and loaded going to be one of those five. But there is a little bit of a gap there between the top five and everybody else. It's kind of like somebody came on this show in June and told people to bet the Brock Purdy odds at plus 2,200. Who could that be? There's no way to tell him. I don't know. We couldn't possibly go back and find it. You have to check the fan. I just just I don't know. Who could that be? So seriously, I do agree. Worm. I think that I don't want to bet his odds because how much they moved up the board. But I think he is a legit candidate. And I think I've said for a long time that he is not a system quarterback. Like divorcing reality from narrative. And again, Brock Purdy amongst 31 qualifying quarterbacks right now. Second in yards per attempt. Sixth and big time throw rate. Sixth and adjusted completion rate under pressure. He is the 12th best passer rating under pressure after week three. So he is he's ballin out, dude. And yes, you watch him play. I mean, he's swaggy, dude. He's running to the sideline. And he got he has little crow hop like throw going, which again, I will say was was a completed pass if they would have reviewed it. But to the MVP of it all, I don't disagree with a lot of like where the odds are right now. Seeing as like, you know, as high as he is on the board, I think like it from a betting perspective, I don't want to bet him. I think the value of that has kind of been shrinked, you know, out of it as he's moved off the board. I'd still say like my favorite bet on the board is the Trevor Lawrence odds right now consensus plus 1400 because of the state of the Jacksonville Jaguars. And we haven't seen a game to where it is rolled out where Trevor Lawrence has been able to just light it up this year. Like, yeah, okay, fine. We could say that about the Browns game. But also that game got out of hand so quickly that it wasn't a back and forth. It wasn't he law, just putting up video game numbers. And they go post like 40 plus points and Trevor Lawrence throws for like 380 and four scores and runs one in and it's back and forth in prime time or something. So I still think like the best bet you can make as far as MVP odds as T-Law's odds. But I'm not going to push back about a Brock Party at all. And I'm still willing to bet Joe Burrows odds at plus 900 because yeah, I mean, I know the Bengals didn't win this last week, but they still look much improved. I kind of think my favorite bet right now. And again, Alan Jackson, Maholmes, Bro and Purdy are the top five in some order. Then you get into Trevor Lawrence, Dak Prescott, Jalen Hertz, Matthew Stafford. Then there's like an enormous gap to the next one. So those are really kind of the top nine with nobody else really all that close. I kind of think Maholmes at plus 900. I just think the chief sort of a ton of games this season and he has been a handful of years since Maholmes won an MVP. And I think it might be one of those things where it's like, all right, we had the break where it was going to Lamar a couple of times and going to Alan and Stafford got his as the elder statesman. But I do kind of think like it's one of those things where it's like Maholmes is the best quarterback and football as most people see it. And like, hey, it's been a while and this team wins a lot of games and he's kind of back. I feel like that might get rewarded. And so the fact that his odds are so much more favorable than Alan or Jackson or party like that is that is standing out to me. I'll say a plus 900. I think do you think? Do you think with Maholmes that it hurts him that he'll probably wouldn't come back player the year? I think that's one thing that I was thinking because we've never seen anybody win though. We've never seen anybody win though. That's that's the only thing that I would again, just talking through the numbers here and what's going to mean the voters minds because that's I assume we even looked at those exact but I'm assuming that he's the favorite to win that award. I mean, maybe that's a good bet to make right now. Even if it's like juice because to me, the bigger risk of MVP candidacy is Kenneth Walker and the clear narrative of like, oh, walking this is gotta be juicy. He's minus 275. Yeah, honestly, I'd still bet it. Like unless he gets hurt, he's winning that award. I mean, if he's going to do it, hey, you know, go broke, make it a profit. Dude, he's competing with Kyler Murray, Fred Warner, Dishon Watson, Kirk Cuzz, Michael. Dishon Watson will never, Dishon Watson will get a little bit of a 80 touch out of it. He's never winning. He's never, and he shouldn't win it. He's coming back from what? Being god awful. No. Yeah, but do you know the kind of season Dishon would have to have to win an award voted on by media? It would be it would have to be like a kind where would Dishon Watson still thinks his talent level is in his head. It would have to be the greatest season of all time. To your point, worm, if I'm betting the MVP odds from a Holmes, I'm telling you one definitive point in time when I want to do it before this game. I want to do it before week seven. And the reason I want to do it before week seven is not only do they get the Seahawks and that could be the absolute ultimate proving ground. And if he plays well versus there, then he's going to go shooting up the board. He'll probably be the favorite number two. It's on a Sunday night. So Chris Collins worth is going to do everything he can to glaze the ever loving heck out of Patrick Mahomes. So the glazing of it all the Seahawks in week seven. If you're betting Mahomes odds, you need to do it before week seven. Yeah, that's a good call. The timing of this is really important. It's probably the best number. So yeah, it's how you finish like that's so integral to the MVP like the last four weeks, probably all that matter. It's been what you do from Thanksgiving. To that point, the last four games, they had the Patriots. We have the MVP showdown in week 16 versus the 49ers. So Mahomes versus party for the MVP. The winner of that game is going to be a thing. And then they get and then the Kansas City Chiefs get the chargers and the Raiders to close the season. I mean, the script writes itself or maybe it's already been written. Who knows? What if Caleb comes back and healthy and they start balling? I looked at it, but I just don't think. I mean, I would say I think it is better this early on to be more in the dart throws. I agree. Longer shots versus than betting into the favorites. But I think that putting party on people's radar worm was really sharp. And obviously, D-Roy, you talked about it in the office as well. Yeah, Caleb won't win it because they won't win enough games. Just straight up. Chicago will not win enough games for him to be in the conversation. After all this conversation, it might just be as simple as like, Josh Allen gets like 50 touchdowns this year. Oh, no, many. That's not funny. I do. I'm just saying that right past the heavy favorite. If the Jaguars can beat all these AFC contenders, they can beat the bills, which they almost did last year. They almost beat the bills like Trevor Lawrence again. That's the one that was like my one entering the season. And nothing through three weeks has suggested to me that I should jump off the bandwagon. It's been two and a half good games from Trevor Lawrence. Just second half bad against Denver. But also to Brian Thomas Jr. has got to get traded, right? Like somebody's got a call. All these teams need receivers. And it's like, dude, this guy doesn't do anything on the Jaguars. Trade him. Yeah. The dream. All right. We'll go ahead and wrap things up there. Thanks everybody for checking out our week three reactions on the tailgate for D-Bro and Erickson. I'm Ryan Wormley. We'll see you again next time. This is an iHeart podcast. Guaranteed Human.