Late-Round Perspectives: Dr. Adam Hutchison

Doctor of Physical Therapy and Footballguys contributor Adam Hutchison joins Perspectives to talk all things injury. Ever wonder which injuries seem to matter more than consensus thinks? Curious about Terry McLaurin's return to play timeline? You'll learn that -- and more -- on this week's episode.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Adam Hutchinson is a doctor of physical therapy who's done
work for the undroppables, four for four, Fantasy Football, and
now football guys. He's developed injury recovery scores for individual
fantasy players. He's a Purdue boiler Maker, and most importantly,
he's a dad of two. These are his Late Round perspectives.

(00:32):
This episode is sponsored by DraftKings. There's no better way
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(00:53):
yours gambling problem called one hunter Gambler in New York
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The most stage eligibility strips to apply ends December thirty
first see terms at draftings dot com slash promotions. Now
back to the show. I do one of these shows.
It feels like every year like I had Edwin on

(01:14):
a couple of years ago. I had Jeff on last year,
and it's it's nice as like a good change of pace,
you know, of just like the typical you know, perspectives
episode where it's just all focused on, you know, the
very specific analysis of how this performance is going to
go as opposed to the injury side. It's just it's

(01:35):
just a nice breath of fresh air for me. So
I'm really excited to, like, I get to sort of
be like the consumer and listener here right where I
get to kind of pick your brain and see where
things are at. So I'm excited.

Speaker 2 (01:46):
I know I speak for those guys when I say
I really appreciate you having us on and it's it's
nice to be on here. Is like, has this show
become like the Rogan of Fantasy sitting down doing late
late round perspective here? So yeah, no, it's good to
be here.

Speaker 3 (02:03):
I'm excited.

Speaker 1 (02:04):
There was someone last year who said that I am
I don't know if that was in reference to that,
but there was someone on Twitter last year who said
that I'm only doing this because I'm trying to beat
the Joe Rogan of Fantasy Football. Is what they said.

Speaker 3 (02:17):
I did not see that I would being sincere.

Speaker 2 (02:18):
No, I tried to catch every one of these that
I can, just because it's you know, it's a little
bit more of.

Speaker 3 (02:24):
A relaxed forum.

Speaker 2 (02:25):
Yeah, obviously we're talking about fantasy football, but you know,
it's a cool show.

Speaker 3 (02:29):
No, I really enjoy it just as a consumer.

Speaker 1 (02:33):
Yeah, I appreciate that. Man, it means a lot. Before
I get into, like your journey in the fantasy space,
I want to get something out of the way, and
I've done this both times that the other you know,
doctors of physical therapy have been on and I've chatted
with them about injuries. But I want to get your
perspective on this too. It feels like the way people
react to people like yourself on social media is way

(02:57):
too harsh, way too harsh. And I mean that from
the standpoint of you know, you'll hear someone say, well,
you know this Twitter doc said this thing, and someone
you know, an analyst or someone we said, oh, they
don't know what they're talking about. And to me, my
my standpoint on it, and again I'd love to hear
your thoughts on this, but my stance on it is,
how is this really that much different? Than anyone else

(03:19):
who's forecasting and prognosticating and thinking about what's going to
happen in the future. I don't see how it's any
different as me as a fantasy analyst sitting here projecting
you know which rookie is going to be good, or
you know which wide receiver is going to see a
twenty five percent target chair. I'm projecting as well. It's
no different, and you're just projecting a different kind of thing, right,

(03:40):
I'm doing it with the production side, and you're doing
it with the injury side. No one is claiming to
be one hundred percent correct, and like, you're your help,
you're you're you're you're guiding us in the right direction.
Is that Is that sort of the way that you
view this too? Yeah?

Speaker 2 (03:54):
I mean I literally, well, I'll say two parts to
your question, Like I literally had this conversation. I don't
know if conversation is the way to describe it on
social media, but someone was saying, oh, I was giving
projections in terms of return to play timelines, and someone's like, well,
I'd rather there not be any guesswork involved in it.
And I was like, are you new to fantasy football?

(04:17):
That's all this is none of us are hitting in
the team meetings with the Washington commanders and being like, oh,
Jacory Kroskimer is going to get twenty two touches this week.
It's all this work. That's all we're doing. We're just
trying to as best as we can use our knowledge
to give you the best idea. And I mean the
second part, I've tried to be better at this. I mean,

(04:37):
I think everyone could get better at it. I try
to stay off of social media. I'm very much a
post and like ghost kind of guy.

Speaker 3 (04:44):
Like I put it out there.

Speaker 2 (04:46):
I don't read the comments. It's just not worth my
time and energy to get worked up or go back
and forth with people. I get sucked in sometimes with
most of the point. Most of the time, I'm pretty
much a post and ghost guy.

Speaker 1 (04:56):
Yeah, I mean, it definitely gets to that point. You know,
I'm mostly a post and I'll jab back at trolls
and just have fun with it kind of kind of
person at this point because you can't take it too seriously.
Then every once in a while you get into it
and you go back and forth with someone, as you noted,
But yeah, I mean, I don't know, man, it just
seems so so weird to me that the Twitter docs
are the ones that are the direct I mean, look,

(05:18):
fantasy analysts get destroyed too, don't get me wrong, but
like it seems like there's a disproportionate amount of hate
that the Twitter docs get when you guys are out
there using probability, you know, using information and data to
help make more sound decisions the exact same way we
would be doing that. So anyone going I wanted to
start with that because anyone going into this show and

(05:40):
listening to us have this back and forth, I think
having that perspective is very important. That no one is
coming on and saying I know exactly what's going on
within these teams. You know, I'm talking to Chris Godwin
directly talking about how his ankle's feeling or whatever's going
on with him, and I know exactly. No, We're just
using the information that we have to make the most
sound decisions we can make. I do want to throw

(06:02):
your way, though, as I do with every perspective's guest,
tell me about your journey, Like, how the heck are
you doing this in the fantasy football space, giving your background?

Speaker 2 (06:09):
Yeah, I mean, I think like most people we just
have an unhealthy obsession with fantasy football, and for most
of us, it was you know, consuming fantasy content and
then realizing where maybe there was a gap or there
was a void in the space, and you know, finding
a way to contribute. So honestly, I've been I've been
very fortunate that I've worked with great people along the

(06:30):
way that have really helped me to kind of improves
as a fantasy analyst and put my content out there.
I actually started with the Undroppables like right before COVID happened,
and I always mentioned them first because Chalk one on
one Nick, who is kind of spearheads that company. I mean,
I think he does a great job just giving people
a platform to talk about what they want to talk

(06:50):
about and help promote it. It helped me a lot
just kind of I don't know if this is the
best way, just find to my craft a little bit
and get my feet in the space. And I was
fortunate enough to kind of parlay that into a part
time kind of position at four for four where I
did some staff work for them, and then you know,
just through networking, I knew Dave Kology behind the scenes

(07:13):
and we had talked a lot, and when an opportunity
opened up at Football Guys for some fantasy football content
and the injury space because they just had Gene Bramble
wanting to take a step back a little bit. I
was fortunate enough that he was really pushing my name
to Joe and I was able to have a meeting
with Joe and it went well. And you know, that's
just kind of where I got here. But you know,
it's been it's been some some hard work. I would

(07:35):
be admit, you know if I didn't say that, like,
it's a lot of luck too, It's a lot of networking,
it's a lot of kind of who you know.

Speaker 3 (07:42):
So I feel very fortunate to.

Speaker 2 (07:44):
Be where I'm at now with football guys, and I
just feel like that's important to acknowledge too.

Speaker 1 (07:49):
Yeah for sure. I mean, did did you when you
went out to do what you do and you know,
you get like you obviously have to get extra education
and you're in school for a long time, and did
you have fans football is like a top of mind
I'm going to do this on the side thing or
did it just kind of like just you're just like
I'm a degenerate for this stuff. So why not just
kind of go in that direction.

Speaker 3 (08:08):
Yeah, no, more of the latter.

Speaker 2 (08:11):
I was in grad school, you know, thought I wanted
to do something in sports physical therapy. My graduating class
actually had twelve guys exactly, so we started a fantasy
football league with just the guys in our grad school class.
We would literally like the draft day was the best.
That was the best league I ever had for draft
day because we'd go to class all day and then
on a Wednesday we would stay after late, we'd throw

(08:32):
up a draft board, we would draft, and then we'd
stay there after and watch the Thursday night kickoff.

Speaker 3 (08:36):
So it was a fun league.

Speaker 2 (08:38):
We actually stopped that league when we graduated, and we
just did the ten year reunion of it, so we
were actually playing again this year. So it's been a
lot of fun to kind of reconnect with those guys.
But no, I mean, I think, you know, Stefan ya
Vell obviously is a big voice in the space with
ESPN and seeing a lot of her work. I got
on Twitter when it was definitely the interesting pre COVID

(08:58):
days where it was a lot less combative, you could
put a lot of more information out there without some
of the negative comments. And just was you know, producing
stuff on the side first for fun and then you know,
like I said, chalk Nick saw it and you know,
invited me to do some stuff for their droppables and
it just kind of kept snowballing and snowballing into this
thing that it is today.

Speaker 1 (09:17):
Yeah, that's awesome. One question I want to ask every
doc that comes on is about injury prone noess because
you know, we seem to see certain players get hurt
every year. But at the same time, me and my
my numbers driven brain, I'm like, okay, but like that's
like two injuries in three years or our three injuries
in three years, and that's not necessarily like a massive

(09:38):
sample size. So my question he is like, are you
a believer that injury prone noess is a real thing?
And then sort of as a follow of that up
of that, is there any examples of it being real
or not being real? And you think that like there
are instances where people look at it backwards and they
think that a player is injury prone and he's not
all that kind of stuff.

Speaker 2 (09:58):
Yeah, I mean, it's definitely a loaded question. I think
it kind of depends on who. Yeah, it depends on who.
You ask, I mean everybody, especially working in the space.
You work with different people, variety of different backgrounds, and
people heal differently. There are some people that that heal
faster than others. I think a lot of the guys,

(10:19):
specifically in pro sports, not just the NFL, are probably
in that position because their tissue quality is that of
like superheroes, like they're not They're not built like you
and I, and that's pretty obvious to most people. But
that affects with recovery times and just tissue quality. So
I think yes and no, I hate answering it that
way and sid in on offense like that. I mean,

(10:41):
something I've tried specifically to look at kind of spinning
off of that, is just looking at recovery timelines person
player player player two players specific and I found some
interesting trends in terms of like what's expected by that position.
So like, let's say, for wide receivers, if the expected
recovery timeline is two to three weeks, what wide receivers

(11:01):
undershoot that timeline overshoot their timeline? Obviously there's a lot
of variety of stuff that goes into that, but it's
given me some interesting players to look at so when
we look at just like recovery timelines, some players that
stick out at positions for wide receivers, like guys that
struggle with it Michael Thomas, Paris Campbell, Chris Olave gets
a knock for some of the concussion history or recurrent
cushion concussion stuff. But those are some guys that at

(11:22):
the wide receiver position stood out in terms of like
undershooting injury timelines, dealing with maybe even difficult injuries, or
not dealing not taking as long to recover from specific injuries.
Guys that took out wide receiver position mon Ross, Saint Brown,
Calvin Ridley actually which might surprise some people, but just
looking at return to play timelines, and then at the
running back position, you know, briefly here shouldn't shock anybody.

(11:44):
Christian McCaffrey, somebody that takes a while to recover, AJ
Dillon Good at the position, Bucky Irving, Josh Jacobs, Saquon Barkley.
Just give guys a couple examples. But those are some
things that I've just tried to look at, just you know,
if I know an average return to play timeline, some
some of the data that that I've collected over the years,
who what players are better at.

Speaker 3 (12:04):
Undershooting that or overshooting that is something I find interesting.

Speaker 1 (12:07):
Yeah, that's really interesting. And I know you shared some
of that content with me, you know, earlier this week,
and it was it's smart content. I think that is
not being tapped into seemingly. I mean, from what I've seen,
at least tapped into to look at the individual player
like that in their recovery simply because like I know
that me versus another friend of mine might have the

(12:28):
exact same illness or something or or just something going
on with our body, right, and like I could be
recovering faster or slower than that person. So it would
make sense that and we all have like that freakish
friend who's able to you know, come back and bounce
back from things super quickly, right, So it's going to
be like, you know, body to body, So it makes
sense that there are going to be certain players that

(12:49):
seem to bounce back. And then I'm assuming you use
that then, so you know, player X gets hurt, jamar
Chase gets hurt, and he's someone who tends to recover quickly,
you then are able to use that and say, hey,
look is this usually a four week injury, but he
might be back in three weeks because of what we
see in the past.

Speaker 3 (13:03):
That's that's exactly it.

Speaker 2 (13:05):
It's just to you know, give some of our subscribers
at football guys maybe a little bit of an edge.
And you know, it's it's small sample size, but everything
in fantasy football is a pretty small sample size. I mean,
we'll look at what we're what we're doing with aj
Brown versus you know, Jacori Krossky Marrit in our fantasy
leagues right now based on a five game sample size.
So it is small sample size. I don't use it

(13:26):
for everything. It just helps me give a little bit
of a guideline. I like to see what the average
recovery timeline is and sometimes it works out. Sometimes it
does that, I mean, and instance, Britt hasn't really worked out.
George Kittle was somebody that was a big standout at
the tie end position in terms of like undershooting those
those recovery timelines. He's someone that historically has played banged
up but come back sooner than expected. This hamstreing injury

(13:48):
has certainly lingered. You know, context is everything is probably
a more serious hamstring strain. The reason that he needed
to be placed on IR and he's it doesn't sound
like he's going to play here in weeks week six
when he's first eligible, but it can be helpful just
to kind of forecast, you know, and then spinning off
of that, I mean, some of the things I've looked
at too, is like, okay, let's talk about recovery timelines,
but let's talk about fantasy production when these guys come back,

(14:10):
Like who's good at returning into their normal baseline? Or
you know, if on average, wide receiver ce using the
hamstring example. Again, if on average, you know, wide receiver
cee about a ten percent decrease in fantasy production the
first game back. Okay, what wide receivers are really moving
past that that threshold or maybe even below that threshold

(14:31):
when they come back from injury. Is kind of helpful
for start sick questions when players are coming back from injury.

Speaker 1 (14:36):
Yeah, I would assume too, Like I think the Kittle
thing is interesting because obviously he's not at like the
early parts of his career where you would assume, you know,
like a younger player might be able to bounce back
a little bit easier, you know, if they're like twenty
four to twenty five years old, Like, is that a
layer two that you're factoring in or looking to factor
in later down down the line of like, all right,

(14:56):
well if this dude, you know, if I'm pulling data,
because obviously you know, you get a more robust data set,
and like you're able to look at it over across
like decades or something. I'm assuming you'd be able to
like look at the age trend too, of like, all right,
George Kittle when he was twenty seven look great, but
now he's not, and maybe that is playing some factor
as well.

Speaker 2 (15:15):
Yeah, and it doesn't it it's fun too. My dad
goes back to twenty seventeen. So it's getting pretty hefty
here in terms of the samples that we're able to
build up for specific positions. But it is interesting to
kind of drill down to I mean, I don't want
to get ahead of ourselves, but like looking for the
Mike Evans situation, he was someone that was a little
bit more skeptical about just because when you drill down

(15:36):
to wide receivers that deal with soft tissue injuries above
the age of twenty eight, where a two to three
week timeline seems more earlier realistic players in that bucket
tend to be at the three plus week mark, so
I always thought like his timeline might be a little
bit length and just factoring in the age to that
as well.

Speaker 1 (15:53):
Yeah, super interesting. I mean you mentioned too that there's
certain injuries that you know, you can look at the
fantasy production of that injury and stay all right, when
when wide receivers have a hamstring, this is what happens
their fantasy production, and this is the recurrence rate of
that injury, typically if it's if it's a low risk
or a high risk recurrence. My question to you is
when you kind of look at what in the way,

(16:14):
when you kind of look at the way that consensus
views injuries, are there any injuries out there that you
think consensus views improperly in either direction? So one example
would be, let's just say consensus like is scared out
of their minds about high ankles, and meanwhile you're looking
at the data and you're like, high ankles aren't that

(16:34):
big of a deal. Or if consensus thinks that hamstrings
aren't that big of a deal, but you look at
the data and hamstrings are a huge deal. Are there
any injuries that just seem like there's a pretty big
dissonance between the two.

Speaker 3 (16:44):
It kind of depends.

Speaker 2 (16:45):
I mean, I try to break it down by a
position by position too, so you know, anything lower body
for quarterbacks in terms of time missed, I see those
guys kind of undershooting time like what a typical recovery
timeline might be, and that could be a lot due
to just the positional demands.

Speaker 3 (17:02):
Obviously, they've got to be able to move.

Speaker 2 (17:03):
Around in the pocket and navigate the pocket. Some of
those more mobile quarterbacks got to be able to extend plays.
But in terms of like ankle sprains and things that
I've seen in quarterbacks, I tend to undershoot like the
typical recovery timeline that people put out there or that
might be expected with those injuries.

Speaker 3 (17:18):
For whatever reason.

Speaker 2 (17:19):
And this might shift a little bit because it's been
a big push in the NBA and we've seen a
lot of like Achilles ten ruptures in the NBA, But
in terms of times miss time missed and recurrence rates
like CAF strains and running backs. For whatever reason, I'm
trying to pull up the sample that I have here
just to see because I do think it's a decent
sample size. Looking at those guys, we've got about thirty

(17:40):
six thirty six running backs since twenty seventeen, That time
miss doesn't seem to be that missed. And then, just
to touch on another point that you were talking about
with like high ankle sprains definitely eliminating running backs in
terms of lingering production. I tend to look at a
three game sample size post injury compared to pre injury.
Definitely limiting for running backs, but for wide receivers for

(18:02):
whatever reason, doesn't seem to be that limiting in terms
of decreased fantasy production or lingering effects on fantasy production
when those guys return.

Speaker 1 (18:09):
That's pretty interesting. Yeah, I mean I think that there's
just like like, like, I mean this year you mentioned
the cat this is what I was gonna say. You
mentioned the calf strain stuff. Has that been happening more
frequently this year? Like that? Is that like you like,
do you think there's any like logic or reason behind it?
It seems like dudes are just like that. That's been
a comment. I mean you have tube of dealing with
that right now. Yeah. And then you had CMC at

(18:32):
the beginning of the year where people were worried obviously
because of what happened last year, But is that happening
more frequently, and is there like a reason for that
to be happening more frequently.

Speaker 2 (18:40):
I'm not seeing it a lot in football, at least
in terms of some of the injuries that I'm tracking.
I mean, obviously, this is a fantasy football show, so
I don't want to get too off topic.

Speaker 3 (18:48):
I think a lot of it in the NBA is
due to workload.

Speaker 2 (18:51):
I mean, some of those guys are The NBA season
has been lengthened. I don't even know how many games,
it's got to be eighty plus, But like those guys
are are are getting a lot of pressure to play
in the Olympics and represent Team USA. It just doesn't
really seem like those guys have an off season. Where
again I'm not a huge NBA guy, but yeah, I
would be interested digging into some of that in terms

(19:12):
of like what the workload has been to you, not
even compared to the nineties, just players in the early
two thousands, twenty tens, and what it is now. I'm
wondering if that's what's causing a massive eptich. I'm sure
people a lot smarter than me are probably looking into
that as we speak, just because that is a obviously
a big money making asset in the NBA when your
stars go down with all these Achilles ten in tears.

Speaker 3 (19:32):
But'd be interesting to see.

Speaker 1 (19:34):
Has your data like and this is something that is
just I'm just thinking about right now with you saying
that your data set is going back to twenty seventeen,
have you in that short period of time relatively short,
I'm just saying, like compared to like, you know, the
nineties or something. But even in that period of time,
have you seen any sort of difference in the recovery
of certain injuries? Like are you seeing medicine and just

(19:55):
like science be able to allow these players to bounce
back even when dating back to as soon as twenty seventeen.

Speaker 2 (20:02):
I mean, that's a that's a really good point. That's
something I should definitely look at this this offseason. That
would be that'd be interesting to dig into, just as
as that sample, you know, continues to grow a little bit.
It's not so specific to this, but it was just
like looking at in terms of just injury rates by position.
That's that's something I also looked at. I think that

(20:23):
was why a big push for the zero RB movement
was just because of you know, position positional volatility with
running backs, like last year was definitely an outlier. And
I don't know if that has to go into like
managed workloads or guys, you know, the workhoast running back
scene to be maybe a thing of the past, or
you know, talking with some people, maybe linebackers being smaller

(20:46):
has backed into that. Obviously, speed at the linebacker position
has been really important, but typically the running back position
has been a position of a volatility where you're less
likely to play a full game sample. And when we
just looked at last year sam compared to twenty seventeen
to twenty twenty three, it was drastically different at the

(21:07):
running back position specifically.

Speaker 1 (21:08):
Yeah, I know, I mean, look, I was someone who
was on here, you know, on the podcast and on
shows just being like this seems like this is not
like the norm, right, Like, I mean, you can look
back and just look at like the top twenty four,
top thirty running backs by ADP last year, and we
really didn't like the biggest injury was like Isaiah Pacheco
for the most part, and most guys were able to

(21:29):
play fourteen plus games. It was the healthiest from a
game's played perspective that we had ever seen the running
back position. And that really just elevated all of those guys,
because you know, the RB twos in fantasy football had
the best season that we've literally ever seen, at least
in recent history. And I think it, you know, the
injury stuff really had a reason to do a strong

(21:49):
reason to do with that. And I mean, right now
we're already seeing correct me if I'm wrong, we're already
seeing running back injuries at a much higher clip this
year than we did last year.

Speaker 2 (21:59):
Yeah, And I posted about that a little bit. I mean,
just to give some numbers to what you're talking about.
So if we use data from twenty seventeen to twenty
twenty three, the percent chance obviously bigger sample, so I
mean we're going to take that into consideration. But the
percent chance of playing a full seventeen game season or
a full season for the running back position was about
twenty seven percent, and twenty twenty four, Loan, that number

(22:22):
jumped up to forty percent. I mean, it almost nearly doubled.
And I tweeted about that earlier in this season because
it was like something I talked about this offseason a
little bit, and I was like, well, if you've been
following me, I clearly have no idea what I'm talking about,
because we lost like ceed Lambs super early, and then
we lost Mike Evans, and I said, either regression is
coming or.

Speaker 3 (22:41):
I'm an idiot and I don't know what I'm talking about.

Speaker 2 (22:43):
And then you know, we've kind of seen on the
onselet of running back injuries kind of pile up here recently.

Speaker 1 (22:48):
Yeah, yeah, we definitely have. All right, let's get through
some some players right now. I have a list of
guys that I had sent your way, and I think
people are going to be interested to hear sort of
your take on how long they might be out, you know,
how they might want to attack, you know, trading for them,
adding them on their waiver wires, whatever. A lot of
Buccaneers that we'll get to. We'll start with one right here.
Bucky Irving sounds like he has like multiple injuries. Now,

(23:11):
there was a shoulder that came out of nowhere. Is
he going to be able to I mean, it sounds
like he's not gonna be able to play this week, but
is he going to be able to play next week?

Speaker 2 (23:17):
Potentially yeah, it's definitely looking unlikely for this week.

Speaker 1 (23:21):
The thing that's a little bit.

Speaker 2 (23:21):
Concerning to me is like, I don't really foot injuries
for any skill position player, but definitely for running backs
always make me a little bit worried in terms of
time missed and like recurrence rates that we look at
for those specific injuries. But then when they were talking about,
like the shoulder injury might be worse than the foot injury,
So now I'm getting a little bit worried about that
because I'm like, geez, what is he dealing with. It

(23:43):
was kind of an interesting point because when we talked
about just like players that undershoot injury timelines, it kind
of was a mini victory for me because I mentioned,
like Bucky Everyone was one of those guys that typically
placed their injury. So to hear that he was battling
through a shoulder injury that he didn't even tell the
Bucks about kind of fulfills that narrative at least a
little bit as somebody that battles their injuries. But it

(24:05):
might have caught up with him a little bit. Without
knowing the specifics of the shoulder, it's a big unknown.
I really don't think so that he'll be able to
return in week seven. I mean, we do this a
lot too with injuries. We start to map out when
these guys bye weeks come up, So just factoring in
like what you would think for like a foot injury
or a mid foot sprain, and then you tack on

(24:26):
another injury on top of that. I think it probably
does make a lot of sense for Tampa Bay to
hold him out until after the bye week in week nine.
And some people might say, well, they're not going to
do that because they didn't put him on IR, but
sometimes it always doesn't work out like that. You know,
it's hard to forecast how a guy's going to recover.
And maybe they didn't put him on IR because they
didn't know that he was dealing with the shoulder injury

(24:48):
as well, which might have frustrated them. But yeah, I
don't really love it. Obviously we talked about not this week,
but I think week seven and week.

Speaker 1 (24:56):
Eight are pretty iffy, man. I mean that's for me
to hear. I've I need some some Bucky love, but
I get it. I mean it makes sense. Brock Bauers,
this one's been bizarre. It seems like he just rushed it.
Back too quick or they allowed him to rush it
back like he feels like one of those dudes, one
of those players who's just like, no, get me on
the field, I don't care, just throw me on the field,

(25:18):
and then the team's like, okay, sure we'll do it,
and it was just seems seems like a terrible idea.
So what's the timeline look for him? In turn? I
mean like this could beat could make Michael Mayer at
least somewhat relevant as brock Bauers is silent.

Speaker 2 (25:32):
Yeah, and it sounds like Michael Mayer is on track
to play this week. He was dealing with a concussion.
It's tough because there's not a huge and we got
confirmation on brock Bauwers. There's a lot of speculation that
he was dealing with a PCL sprain and then Adam
Schefner actually tweeted out that that was the injury. So
it was nice to get a little confirmation. And that
obviously makes our sample a little bit smaller. You know,
looking at knee injuries for that tight end position, most

(25:55):
players missed from anywhere between zero to three weeks, which
was a wider gap. I think it would makes sense
to give brock Bauers some time to rest and some
time to recover. I wrote this for a Football Guys
subscribers earlier as next last week, where I said, you know,
PCL springs are relatively rare amongst fantasy football players. We
do have some recent examples of players. In twenty twenty four,

(26:16):
both Puka Nakua and Del Kinkaid dealt with these injuries.
Examining their three game samples post injury, Nikua's fantasy points
dropped by thirty percent compared to his healthy baseline, while
Kincaid experienced a seventeen point seventeen percent decline. Nikua managed
top four top four top twelve wide receiver finishes between
week ten to seventeen, but failed to crack the top

(26:36):
fifteen every other week. Kinkaid never posted a top ten,
top twelve finish at the tight end position after his injury.
So I think this was going to be something that
for Boers if he continued to play through, this was
going to be really hard for him to manage, and
it was putting fantasy managers in a buying because you're
not going to Brent bench brock Bowers. There's no way

(26:56):
that you would be in a position to really do
that using the hydragt capital that you did. This is
probably for the best to let him recover for a
little bit. It wouldn't be surprising to see kind of
a two to three week absence for him, to give
him some time to heal.

Speaker 1 (27:08):
The big injury that happened this past week that was
probably the most brutal for me, my brand, and my
teams personally was Amri and Hampton. I mean, look, when
it happened, the reaction didn't seem very harsh because it
seemed like he was like trying to get back on
the field and like test out what was going on,
and then all of a sudden he's on IR. So

(27:30):
is this IR stint gonna be a true four week
IR stint? And then beyond that, is there gonna be
some decline in production potential when he comes back?

Speaker 2 (27:41):
So this is one of those that we talked about
a little bit earlier. We're definitely gonna have to use
some forecast dam projection into this because they haven't really
told us a lot more than just ankle injury. And
if you followed John Harbaugh, that's probably all we're gonna
get from him in terms of the specifics of this injury,
so we've got to do a lot of guest work

(28:01):
in some of the test detective work here. I think
the fact that they put him on IR and you know,
video is never diagnostic, but kind of looking at the
video a little bit, it would make sense that it
was probably a high ankle sprain, which is which is
tough for running backs. So we if we do if
we do assume that, I think four weeks is probably

(28:22):
a likely timeline when he's first eligible to come off
of IR, I think he will be eligible to play.
Looking at players again, since twenty seventeen, only about twenty
percent of those running backs missed more than five weeks,
so it's small most of them kind of falling.

Speaker 3 (28:36):
That that four week mark.

Speaker 2 (28:37):
I don't know how to forecast his fantasy production coming back,
just because he's obviously was looking great when he got hurt.
But we talked about, you know, high ankle sprains can
be a little bit limiting for running backs, and I
think the Chargers, you know, they wanted Najie Harris to
be involved, so maybe they don't there's an opportunity for
someone else to emerge or at least prove that they

(28:59):
can handle some workload and obviously not take the majority
of the work from Hampton. But you know, this is
the part of injuries where it's gonna seed some opportunity
for someone else to step in there. So I don't know,
to answer your question, Yes, I think he can come
back after he's done with the IR but what his
fantasy production looks like, It's hard to forecast that. But
I have some questions about it.

Speaker 1 (29:22):
So with the running back high ankles when they come back,
asking for of course my audience and not just myself
having Amario and Hampton bags, but when they come back,
is it like you see like a sweeping trend of
all of them really playing below expectation or is there
still players that come back like forty percent of them

(29:42):
or something like that, or they come back and they're fine,
Like you don't see any signs of them having suffered
that injury.

Speaker 2 (29:48):
Yeah, there's definitely some examples of players coming back and
doing well.

Speaker 3 (29:52):
But I tend to I mean, maybe I can.

Speaker 2 (29:56):
Get your input on some of this, so this is
a good way to look at it. So I did
a lot lot of like just you know, seeing pre
injury production versus post injury production and having you know,
percent decline pre injury versus post injury and kind of
taking an average and looking at a range. But then
this offseason I was getting just too many wide range

(30:16):
of outcomes, so I started putting players in buckets in
terms of like, hey, if you see a ten percent
decrease in fantasy production, you go into this bucket. It's
more than fifty percent, you go into this bucket. If
it's more than seventy five percent, you go into this bucket.
And more often than not, those players that coming off
of high ankle sprains, specifically, looking at a three game
sample sized post injury, we're going into that fifty percent

(30:38):
seventy five percent bucket. So it is one of the
more limiting injuries I only have in terms of fantasy
production declined three games average after only calf strings go
above high ankle sprains. And that's looking at fourteen injuries
that are the most common amongst the running back position.
So it's it's tough. There's obviously there's always outliers. There's
always guys that shoot that the overwhelming majority tend to

(31:02):
you know, struggle with this injury.

Speaker 1 (31:04):
Yeah, and you're looking three games out, So it could
be like like would you anticipate, just like physiologically, a
player like coming back from the high ankle struggling during
those three games or maybe not being as good during
those three games, Like can they get back to full
strength then you know, towards the end of the season
in the Mario Hampton's case, like maybe like week I

(31:24):
don't know, eleven or twelve or something like that or
what have you thirteen playoff you fantasy playoff time time frame,
Like could he get back at that point or is
it like that's just what it is for the season.

Speaker 2 (31:37):
No, as the weeks go on, players are going to
get healthier, that tissue is going to heal. It's an
arbitrary cutoff, it definitely is. It's just again just trying
to find because if you use pre injury production versus
post injury production. Wel if a guy had an injury
week four versus a guy yeah, injury week twelve, it's

(31:58):
just going to skew that data. I had to Yeah,
I had to choose like an arbitrary cut off on
that and just kind of saying like, hey, what does
a trend look like? And we kind of look at
the season in fourths at this point, where you know,
the first half the season or first quarter of the
season is kind of already passed at this point for
where we're at, So I just it's.

Speaker 3 (32:17):
An arbitrary cut up.

Speaker 2 (32:17):
But that's that's what I used to Yeah, well, players
can come back, I mean, assuming he doesn't have any
any setbacks. This is something that as the weeks go on,
he could continue to get.

Speaker 1 (32:31):
All right, let's move on to there's news that Christian
Watson is doing things and I don't know practice is
the right word, but at least like but I always
I'm always hesitant to like lean into an ACL when
they're just saying like, oh, I'm running at twenty two
miles an hour, because it's not really what we care about.
I'm assuming with ACL we want more of that, like
lateral movement and stuff. And so, is Christian Watson going

(32:52):
to be able to come back this year? Do you
think and be himself or is this like a full
year thing? We got to just wait until twenty twenty six.

Speaker 2 (33:00):
I personally don't have a lot of faith for twenty
twenty five. I don't even know if you can can
really call it a model because it is small. But
I've just kind of break broke off just looking at
wide receivers coming off of ACL injuries, and I've used
it to kind of give me just a predicted like
fantasy point and point range, and I don't use those
as like hard stops, but again, it just gives me

(33:21):
kind of a view of like, hey, is this someone
that can do well and produce or is this someone
that struggles. And there's nothing really novel that goes into
looking at It's things that you've used and a lot
of other people used, you know, pre ACL target share, career,
best yards per route run, pre fantasy points per game.
But I factored in a couple of my things looking

(33:43):
at age, taking into it and then time from recovery,
so time when they had surgery to when they first return.
It didn't really like Christian Watson for a variety of
reasons that a lot of the like pre ACL target
share things and some of those fantasy points per game.

Speaker 3 (33:59):
Obviously we're we're holding him back a little bit.

Speaker 2 (34:01):
So I just players like that that are more field stretchers,
that have a lower target share volume and not that
safe of a floor. We're going to see efficiency decreases,
you know, from those players, so they don't have that
that healthy target share to kind of give them some
type of safe floor.

Speaker 3 (34:20):
I think.

Speaker 2 (34:20):
I think those are the guys that struggle a little
bit more than compared to some other guys that might
be target hogs.

Speaker 1 (34:25):
Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. All right, Let's
move back to the Buccaneers. Chris Godwin is back on
the injury report, and I believe it's his I think
it's his fibular right, Is that what he's on the
report for? And so is this just like an aggravation
or reaggravation of what he's been dealing with, or is
this something that is new or is this like basically,

(34:46):
should should godwin managers be afraid that they might have
rushed him back a little bit too fast?

Speaker 3 (34:52):
I don't know about that.

Speaker 2 (34:53):
I mean, I think it's very likely tied to the
injury that he was dealing with this offseason when he
when he had the ankle dislocation. The fact that they,
you know, held him off I r I think they
were a little bit worried about some of their other
injuries that they were dealing with with with Jalen McMillan
and then obviously in season Mike Evans, I don't know
if he was rushed back per se, and I don't

(35:15):
even know that he'll necessarily miss this week. Like, I'm
not overly concerned, just based on some of this stuff.

Speaker 3 (35:21):
I don't know.

Speaker 2 (35:21):
I think if you, if you roster Chris Godwin or
Chris Godwin manager, your biggest fear shouldn't really even be
the ankle. Should probably be a mecha BUCA because I
don't know how you. I don't know how you put
that that tooth baste back in the tube now that
he's broken out this way. So I'm not overly worried

(35:41):
about the injury. It's likely, you know, those veterans tend
to get those veteran rest days where they give him
some additional time just to kind of heal up throughout
the week.

Speaker 1 (35:51):
And then and then what about Mike Evans. I know
you touched on it like briefly, but how many more
weeks do you think he'll be out?

Speaker 2 (35:57):
I projected him to return in week six. Doesn't seem
like that is going to happen, but I think he
would be close. So if you made me pick today,
like week seven feels like a safe return to timeline
just based on average time for wide receivers and then
looking at guys that are a little bit older, and.

Speaker 1 (36:15):
Then in San Francisco. You know, we'll talk about George
Kittle in a second. But Ricky Piersoll doesn't sound good
for Pearsaw at this point just based on some o
Kyaianahan's comments. Is that a next week thing for Peersaw?
And then the other players, Juwan Jennings, who I had.
I'm really interested if there's like any hesitation for you
there because I had Jennings as like a low key

(36:36):
by candidate this week, just because I think everyone's just
kind of forgotten about him for whatever reason. I mean,
he was good in his like single game this year
where he was healthy and running a normal number of routes.
But are his injuries anything that could could linger that
we should be worried about and could he just be
back in normal this weekend and be productive.

Speaker 2 (36:53):
Yeah, So Ricky Piersow does feel like a no at
this point, and again we haven't really got confirmation, but
his injury looks a little bit similar to brock Bowers,
where I do think there's some concern about potentially a
PCL spring. We talk about how that could be a
multi week injury sometimes, you know, three to four weeks
for those guys to come back to any capacity. Jenny's
I don't think there's like a single injury that's really

(37:15):
limiting him. It just seems like it's a culmination of
a lot of things. He's definitely really he just got destroyed.

Speaker 1 (37:20):
Yeah, yeah, he did.

Speaker 3 (37:21):
He did.

Speaker 2 (37:22):
He's dealing with like a shoulder injury. And then I
think he was playing with brock Bowers. Brock Bowers just
him out there one time for I think it was
against he just got rocked in like the chest rib area.
He seems a little bit more boom or bust, just
not in terms of like fans, in terms of like,
I think he's somebody that if we compared him to

(37:43):
a healthy player, he just has a higher chance of
like leaving a cam early because of all the injuries
that he's dealing with. Uh as it pertains to like
the shoulder and the chest rib area. So yeah, he
definitely is sneaky. But you know that anyone conld get
hurt in football. It's football. It's a contact sport. But
similar to like kind of like Xavier Worthy, what I
was telling people with Xavier Worthy, like with his with

(38:05):
his shoulder injury, I thought, you know, if he comes back,
I don't really see this being a big limitation in
terms of like his production on the field. I think
he's just somebody that could leave a game earlier than
most if he has a reaggravation or reinjury.

Speaker 1 (38:18):
Yeah. I mean Jennings also just from like a style
of play perspective, is a really physical wide receiver and
you know, not not like you know, obviously Pookinakua is
like the go to example of just throwing your body
around and you know, hopefully staying healthy while doing that.
But Jennings plays a really physical style of ball, which
I think plays into like seems like the kind of
injuries that he's dealing with right now where it's just

(38:40):
like he'll go out and like, of course he had
the ribs injury because of the pseudo hospital ball, but
also just like he's going to go out and get
it because he's got that dog in him. So it
makes sense. And then and then you said, you know,
George Kittle coming back later than you expected, does it
feel like a week seven thing for him? Like you
think you could be back next week.

Speaker 2 (38:58):
Yeah, and this seems like with the forty are saying
I haven't seen their practice reports today, I wouldn't be
surprised if maybe towards the tail end of the week
he's getting in some like limited sessions and then we
start to really see him ramp up leading into Week seven.
So that's where I have him slotted right now. Is
a week seven return for George Kittle?

Speaker 1 (39:15):
And then should people have Brandon Ayuk on their radar
at this point?

Speaker 2 (39:19):
This one's tough for me because I was I was
big on Brandon Ayuk in this offseason, and then obviously
we learned some stuff about like a secondary procedure, so
he's he's uh, he's not making it easy for me
at this point. And I mean, I get he's got
he's got to get he's got to get healthy. A
guy going to kind of what we were talking about
with Christian Watson and looking at some things for a
wide receivers pre injury post injury. I actually did like

(39:41):
some of the stuff on Ayuke's thing, but I also
get like a confidence interval for some of these guys,
and just with the unknown of his certainty in terms
of when he's going to come back, because that is
a factor. It is just recovery timeline from surgery. He's
got just a massive range of outcomes. So I do
I do like him. I do think he's somebody that
kind of similar to Stefan Diggs that we've been seeing

(40:03):
here recently. Like I think, once he is active and playing,
he could, you know, give you some of those high
ceiling games. But I don't know what it's going to be,
and I don't know if anyone really really knows. In
deeper leagues, I've got him stash, but I you know,
for you, I know a lot of your subscribers and
people I play with, sometimes that's not just a realistic possibility.

(40:23):
And some shallow leagues where our benches are very deep,
where we don't have IR spots. So I don't blame
anyone for not holding him. But he's somebody where if
I can, I am trying to keep I'm keeping a
light on for him.

Speaker 1 (40:36):
Now, you mentioned the calf stuff with running backs, and
that's what Tuba's been dealing with, you know, over the
last couple of weeks. Now I guess more than a
couple of weeks, because he played through right the one
week and then it kind of reaggravated and then they
used Rico Dawdle last week. Right now, it sounds like
he's trending to be out again this week and it
would be the Rico Daudle show against his old team
for revenge game. But is this something that could linger?

(40:58):
And is this is this something that like you're intoicipating now,
not just because of Rico's performance, but because from a
health perspective, it just makes more sense to make this
more like sixty forty instead of like the seventy thirty
kind of spit that we were seeing before with Cuba
versus Rico.

Speaker 2 (41:13):
Yeah, and we touched a little bit on this too
in terms of like calf injuries not over limiting in
terms of times miss in time in terms of time miss,
but in terms of like fantasy production limitations. There are
some some stark declines that these players suffer with when
they come back, and there is evidence that it can
can't linger. So I think that's interesting from the aspect
that I mean cats out of the bag with Ricro Doddle. Now,

(41:36):
I mean we saw what he did was over two
hundred and thirty you know, all purpose yards this might
be an avenue now where yeah, Rico Dondal has worked
his way into like a fifty to fifty splitter or
a time share here just because at Cuba. To answer
your question, I don't think he's going to play this
week in week six, but let's say he comes back
in week seven, Like if you put Cuba in there

(41:58):
and he's you know, moving al at seventy percent efficiency
in terms of what he was doing pre injury. You've
seen what Rico Donde can do. Why are you not
going to give more touches to Rico donnal at this point?
So it is interesting. It's kind of the nature of
the game though, when you get hurt, it opens up
an opportunity for someone else to show what they can do.

Speaker 1 (42:16):
Yeah, I mean I think that, like from a game
theory and from a fantasy football management standpoint and because like, look,
I was openly not really that into Tuba this year,
and this is not a victory lap whatsoever, because he
was kind of doing okay, you know, up until the injury.
But I do think that this is a situation where
when they're when you see a capable backup and you
know that the starter is not a can't miss player.

(42:39):
This is the situation that you can find yourself in
due to the injury, right, Whereas if this were happening
to you know, Christ McCaffrey or some elite run you know,
Bijon Robinson or something like that. Obviously, Tyler Aljee is
a capable backup, but he's not Bijon Robinson. So when
Robinson comes back, he's going to just naturally see more
of that workload. So I think it's just like a

(43:00):
a good case study and example of that in the
fragility of these kinds of players. But who knows. I mean,
maybe you know Tube is able to come back and
see more work than expected. Let's talk about Lamar Jackson now,
because I personally have like, it seems like I have
no idea when he'll be back. So what do you
got for him?

Speaker 2 (43:18):
Yeah, for quarterbacks, you know, hampstring injury tends to be
a multip injury, especially for a guy that's as mobile
as Lamar Jackson. Just kind of looking at some of
his things specifically, he's been a little banged up in
his career, but he has been somebody that did well
with injury that I definitely did undershoot his recovery timeline.

(43:42):
I told people I thought there was a chance he
could even play in week five. Obviously that didn't come
to fruition, and it's not really looking like he's got
a good shot to play this week. This is another
one of those circumstances where you look at Bie weeks
and I think it could make sense to keep Lamar,
but the Ravens are going to keep Lamar ale I
should say the Ravens are going to be in a

(44:02):
tough spot. I mean, if Cooper Rush plays this week,
they're about to be one in five and I have
Lamar in some leagues and it just makes me a
little bit nervous. At what point do the Ravens are
they just like, Yeah, this doesn't even make any sense
to play Lamar at this point. If he gets another injury,
he suffers a setback with this Hampshire and injury. Why
have him battled through a pair of injuries. So I'm

(44:23):
a little bit worried, but just circling back, I think
week eight probably.

Speaker 3 (44:27):
Makes the most sense in terms of when he's able
to return.

Speaker 1 (44:30):
And then another player who I've had a really hard
time wrapping my head around his return, especially in like
my rest of season rankings and stuff where I'm trying
to project, you know, how long these guys might be
out for is Terry McLaurin, Because it seemed like even
a couple of weeks ago he might have been fine,
and then all of a sudden, it's like, nope, nope,
not practicing, not practicing, And then again this week, like

(44:51):
I saw a report literally like an hour ago that
said that he's probably not able to play this week.
So do you think mclaurin's going to be back soon?

Speaker 2 (44:58):
Of all the ones that we've really discussed, this is
the one. I really do not like this situation, just
in the sense of I don't even think we're getting
like a clear label to the injury. They're calling it quad,
but he was seeing it like a couple of different
specialists and they were looking at like growing and is
this like a core injury? Like I think there's potential
that this might be like a spot tournia. Again, I

(45:22):
don't have any inside knowledge. I'm just reading between you know,
some things, and sport tournia sounds a little bit more
serious and is it's kind of like a core injury.
But they're difficult to manage. They can be painful. And
then if we just filter out wide receiver core injuries
oblique injuries, those tend to be the most limiting in
terms of time missed and fantasy production for that position.

(45:43):
So I'm not really getting great vibes on Terry McLaurin.
I'm certainly worried about this situation. He's, you know, base one.
I started hearing some of those things about what he
was doing in the specialists we've seen and kind of
the labels they were putting on his injury. I stashed
Luke McCaffrey and in a couple of spots just because
I really have long term concerns about Terry mclaurin's availability.

Speaker 1 (46:06):
Yeah, Noah Brown could be back this week too, and
that could be another another player who absolutely, you know,
see a little bit of work. That's sad though with
the McLaurin stuff, because it just what a bizarre sort
of like time frame and reporting and all that with him,
just because it seemed like it could have just been
like a one week thing at first, and then it's
just been lingering and lingering and lingering. Let's talk about

(46:27):
CD Lamb. Could he be back next week.

Speaker 2 (46:30):
Yeah, I actually to flip it here, this is something
that could be a little bit more promising for people.
It sounds like I don't really think he's going to
play this week, but they he's been practicing out there,
and I do feel like week seven is like a
realistic shot for him that would kind of undershoot the
timeline a little bit, but it's not like so far underneath.

(46:51):
Typically this is kind of like a four week injury
with high ankle sprains for a wide receivers. So we
talked a little bit earlier too about how a lot
of the data pointed to high inklesprains not being as
limiting for wide receivers compared to running backs. So definitely
optimistic about Ceedee Lamb. I don't think this week it happens,
but the fact that he's practicing I think bodes well
for next week.

Speaker 1 (47:11):
All Right, I want to end this going player by
player by talking about a couple of vikings. You know,
you have Aaron Jones, who you know, from my perspective
as an analyst of the game, I think they've been
missing that piece a little bit in that backfield, you know,
that that receiving piece and that ability from Aaron Jones,
not to say that Jordan Mason's been bad. I just
you know, I think Aaron Jones is much more dynamic

(47:32):
as a pass catcher. So I'm curious when you think
he could be back. And then JJ McCarthy, you know,
Carson Wentz has I guess, kind of gotten it done,
like been fine enough, but there's been a lot of
boneheaded mistakes as well. With him under center, we can
we can argue all day we as in me and
the audience or whomever. If JJ McCarthy is an obvious

(47:52):
upgrade at this point given how he was performing, But
as long as he's healthy, let's just assume that he
would be starting. And so when do you think both
these guys could be bad for Minnesota?

Speaker 2 (48:01):
So I think Aaron Jones will be eligible when he
first comes off of i R, which would be week seven,
because if I'm not mistaken, I think the Vikings have
a buy in week six.

Speaker 1 (48:12):
Yeah, yep, So.

Speaker 2 (48:14):
Yeah, they're on by this week, So I think he
could be back next week then at a week seven
when he's first eligible. He had been dealing with a
couple of Hampshire injuries the last couple of years that
are continuing to pop up and pop up, so whereas
you know most skill position players might be able to
get back from that type of injury in two weeks.
I do think his injury history could have factored into
why they just selected to play it a little bit

(48:35):
safe with him at the beginning of the season, shut
him down for four weeks and get him back, and
then JJ McCarthy, I think looking at you know, high
ankle sprains for quarterbacks, talked about how high ankle sprain
can typically be about a four week injury in the NFL.
With that Week six by, I think it just created
kind of a natural four week thing where they didn't
need to put him on IR from when he had

(48:56):
his injury, and I do think he has a realistic
expectation to return in Week seven as well against the Eagles.

Speaker 1 (49:03):
Awesome. It's good to hear. We need some we need
a healthier Vikings offense that we can feel better about
in general from a fantasy perspectives. That's good, absolutely right,
So that's it for the injuries before I let you go.
But doing this with every guest this season, I do
it most seasons, but I think I'll just continue to
do it give me a bold prediction for here in
week six.

Speaker 2 (49:23):
I mean, I gotta go on brand, right, I got
to talk about somebody that's been injured or was injured
this offseason.

Speaker 3 (49:28):
I touched on him a little bit. But we're gonna
We're gonna go to Stefan Diggs.

Speaker 2 (49:32):
We're gonna go to New England. Last two weeks ninety one,
one hundred and two air yards respectively. Starting to see
a little bit of red zone targets the last two weeks.
All off season, people talked about, you know, Drake May
being a guy, and if you were gonna invest in
Drake May, you had to invest in one of those
passion options. It was it was Booty for a little bit.
Pop Douglas hasn't really given us much. We've seen Drake

(49:54):
maybe a top ten quarterback. Three out of the last
five weeks New England, they got a healthy pace of play.
So well, I'm gonna go with Stefan Diggs top five
wide receiver in week six.

Speaker 1 (50:04):
Is that bold? No, that's that's very bold. Do you
want to know it's crazy? Is that this is the
second week in a row that we've had a Stefan
Diggs bold prediction because James co was on last week
and he said Diggs is gonna be the well to
be fair. To be fair, Coe was a little bit bolder.
He said that Diggs was going to be the overall
wide receiver one in fantasy, which, by the way, he
was like the wide receiver four last week, So props

(50:25):
to Co for making that call top five. Very bold.
I love it, though, I mean I've got a lot
of digs. Do you think that the start of his
season was like, let's just kind of get him going
a little bit to make sure that, you know, he
doesn't have any stepbacks and stuff, like, to be fair,
last week, he didn't have a crazy route share. He
just had a crazy He's had a crazy targets perou

(50:46):
run rate. But like I've seen his game look better
than it did the first couple weeks of this season.
Do you think that's like very clearly or like pretty
obviously like the ACL recovery.

Speaker 2 (50:57):
Yeah, And I was I was getting a little bit
nervous because I have I have a lot of Steffan
be digs bags and I think a lot of it
was just like if you look at the snap share trend,
like they just didn't have him out there a ton
running a bunch of routes. They wanted to slow play
that a little bit, which is probably why you saw
Booty explode and have some of the opportunity that he did.

Speaker 3 (51:16):
But I I, you.

Speaker 2 (51:18):
Know, you wonder a little bit the Bills revenge game
factor if that was like the overwhelming factor.

Speaker 3 (51:23):
But I thought he looked great.

Speaker 2 (51:24):
I mean it was it was an Island game, so
I was able to watch a lot of it. I
thought he looked really good, and it definitely made me
excited and optimistic about, you know, his rest of season production.

Speaker 1 (51:33):
Yeah, I mean I think that he could very realistically
be a wide receiver too rest of season, like just
just that kind of production. Not to say that that's
much with the way wide receivers are performing this year,
but you know, I do, I do think, and like
you said that that New England New Orleans game is
pretty interesting this weekend. You mentioned New England's pace. New
Orleans plays at the fastest pace in the league, so
you could you could see they have one of the

(51:54):
best pace scores for me matchup wise this weekend. So
love the call of Steph. I love this conversation, man.
I think that it's really important for people to hear
from folks like you from from the from the quote
unquote Twitter docs, uh, and your perspective on this stuff,
to know that like you, you know, you're you're coming
at it from a from a very humble place, and
you're not out there saying like I know what's going

(52:17):
on exactly based on you know, watching this stuff on TV.
You know, you're just reacting like we are to this
stuff and just trying to use as much information and
give us the best educated guests as you possibly can give.
So I really appreciate the time. Let everyone know where
they can find you and what you'll be working on.

Speaker 2 (52:34):
Yeah, I appreciate you again. Thank you so much for
having me. It's it's been a lot of fun. Can't
thank you enough. People can find me on X occasionally
at the Real Adam Underscore h if you want to interact.
Maybe if I'm in a good mood, you might catch
me on there. I've given a little banter, but they
can find my content exclusively over at Football Guys Football
guys dot com. Every Monday, I have an injury article

(52:54):
that comes out recapst injuries for happen that past weekend.
I have another article that comes out every Saturday day
morning around noon. I'm just giving us a forecast of
players that I expect to play or not expect to
play based on the practice reports, and then maybe what
that fantasy production looks like on some of the based
on some of the data that accumulated.

Speaker 3 (53:12):
And then every.

Speaker 2 (53:13):
Sunday Morning Live, Joey Wright, Jeff Bell, and Colton and
I sit down answered start sick questions. I go over
a little bit injury content. So people are looking to
find me, they can go to Football Guys and I'll
be around.

Speaker 1 (53:25):
Yeah, great people over there. I love everyone at Football Guys.
I love Joe, love Joey, love, Jeff love, Dave All.
Just a great sig of course, just just love love
the whole crew. So definitely check out everything going on
over at football guys. Obviously check out my workover on
lateround dot com. Make sure you subscribe to both the
podcast and this show that you can find on YouTube,

(53:46):
YouTube dot com slash at Laterounddeff. Thanks for tuning in.

Speaker 2 (54:00):
Four