The Show: Ekeler's Injury, JSN's Insane Outlook, and More

On this week's Late-Round Fantasy Football Show, JJ and Kitchen dig into the injuries to Austin Ekeler and Jayden Reed, share some lookahead waiver wire options, provide a couple of Week 2 bold predictions, and more.

 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
You're about to listen to the Late Round Fantasy Football Show,
which originally aired yesterday on YouTube. If you'd like to
catch it live, you can find it on the Late
Round Fantasy Football YouTube channel at one pm Eastern every
Friday during this twenty twenty five season. That's on YouTube
dot com slash at Late Round FF. So, without further ado,

(00:20):
here's this week's episode.

Speaker 2 (00:35):
What's up everybody? Welcome in to the Late Round Fantasy
Football Show, Week two. I'm David Kitchen, joined by JJ. Hello.

Speaker 1 (00:45):
How's it going? JJ?

Speaker 2 (00:47):
You're no longer you thought you were moving up the ranks?
The JJ ranks.

Speaker 1 (00:52):
Oh yeah, I thought until Monday Night happened. The second
half of Monday Night happened. And jjmccarthy good. I mean,
it's like it's like a we had Caleb Williams looking
good in that first drive. I thought he still showed
some flashes. That one throw. I still go back to
that throw that Caleb had to Roman Dunza on the
sideline when he scrambled and it was just a dart

(01:13):
right of the sideline and a Duneesay made a great catch.
But you know, I think there's gonna be a little
bit of growing pains with Caleb. But there was a
tweet and I can't credit because I don't know who
said it, and I'm sure it was a common sentiment,
but it did feel like JJ McCarthy showed more growth
in one game than Caleb Williams has shown in over
a year in the NFL. Right, Like, we saw him

(01:34):
completely turn things around in that second half. Looked really good.
I'm excited about what they have and JJ McCarthy and
what that offense might look like, you know with Kevin O'Connell.

Speaker 2 (01:46):
We I mean, people were burying this Vikings offense in
the first half and then like they were funny.

Speaker 1 (01:52):
Don't think guys, guys pro tip Okay, I've been around,
been around the block for a while. Yeah, don't send
tweets like the infinitive tweets about a player or game
in the first quarter, first half of a game. Let
it let it breathe a little bit, Let it breathe,
all right.

Speaker 2 (02:09):
I want to give a shout out to the UH
sponsor of the Say Show DraftKings. You've got the deposit
bonus you can get in there. You can see in
the podcast description how to get that. You can also
JJ scan the QR code.

Speaker 1 (02:25):
If you're watching this, guys, no one uses QR codes,
right they do?

Speaker 2 (02:29):
Ever since twenty twenty, people use q If you are
watching this, twenty have to do with it because COVID happened,
and then people didn't want to, like look at a menu.
I'm taking you back to like the history of like
when QR codes exploded.

Speaker 1 (02:43):
But I didn't want to touch what It's been around forever, right, But.

Speaker 2 (02:46):
People wouldn't want to touch a menu, so they started
scanning things.

Speaker 1 (02:50):
I hate to break it to you, but no one
cares about germs anymore.

Speaker 2 (02:54):
They still use QR codes. Companies use them like on
Super Bowl commercials on no One's.

Speaker 1 (02:59):
No one's on their computer. Look it up like a
boomer putting their phone up to the monitor and trying
to scan a QR code.

Speaker 2 (03:06):
Okay, I need just we have we have too much
to talk about to worry about this in the chat, Okay,
all right, in the chat, I just need you to
know and then comments later. Are you team QR codes
or are you not?

Speaker 1 (03:19):
It's pretty split right now, but se Park says, what
is a QR code? Just woke up from my twenty
year come this is a great way to use them.
People are on there.

Speaker 2 (03:32):
Imagine watching this show on you know, the big screen,
you just oh, there you go. I got my deposit
bonus on on racking.

Speaker 1 (03:38):
Look, if we get enough people, if we get enough
people that say they want to use a QR code,
we'll keep it.

Speaker 2 (03:43):
We're keeping it all right. Also, we got the weekly rankings,
in season rankings, Discord everything on Patreon. We had a
q and A earlier this week with with my first
time hosting and during the season with that. So that
was fine. So lots of fun there on the Patreon.

(04:03):
If you're not a member, just consider doing it.

Speaker 1 (04:05):
Discord's popping Man and last night, I gotta say last
night in the live game Banter channel on Discord, when
Tucker Craft started going ballistic against Washington. I mean, obviously
that was one of my dudes this year, and so
a lot of people, you know, have listened to my
work or whatever they ended up drafting him. There are like,
you know, maybe like five to ten players a year,

(04:26):
maybe like five players a year where like they're like
the Discord player and like when they go nuts, the
Discord goes nuts. And that is one of the players
this year. So it was a really fun time last night.

Speaker 2 (04:36):
Yeah, and the zapp models cooking, I mean it's yeah
doing pretty well. Mentioned that in the newsletter. If you're
not already subscribed, please please do that. It helps us out.
I spend some time on that newsletter. JJ writes to
fifteen trends earlier in the week, and then the data
dump fifteen transactions. When I say trends, yeah, yeah, sorry,

(04:58):
I just got to.

Speaker 1 (04:59):
I just got to make it right that people don't
because look when when I miss speak, yeah, people will
yell at me. And I just want to make sure
that you're also, you know, not missing people might yell
at you.

Speaker 2 (05:08):
Fifteen transactions and then we both did the data dump
this week.

Speaker 1 (05:12):
That's right.

Speaker 2 (05:13):
Yeah, you're giving me, You're giving me the data and
then I'm dumping it in there and formatting it, making
sure it's a nice, clean looking data dump the newsletter.
Some are saying it's the best looking data dump the
newsletter has ever had.

Speaker 1 (05:26):
I mean it's true because I used to just copy
and paste it.

Speaker 2 (05:29):
So yes, when I looked at past year, I was like, oh,
this is this is this will be easy. So lots
of formatting stuff and with that, JJ Are you ready.

Speaker 1 (05:39):
Let's do it all right, today's fantasy news.

Speaker 2 (05:46):
All right, a total disaster in San Francisco. Have you
ever had turf toe?

Speaker 1 (05:51):
JJ, No, I haven't. I've broken a finger, broken a foot,
never had turftoe.

Speaker 2 (05:57):
I've broken a femur.

Speaker 1 (05:59):
Hmmm, that's doesn't seem fun. Beat that you were. You
were pretty, You seemed like you were pretty injury pro.

Speaker 2 (06:04):
I had a pretty much a hospital wing named after
me when I was growing up, just for all the sports.
Femur broken femur playing soccer, torn to acl playing basketball.

Speaker 1 (06:16):
Start calling you, Kenneth Walker.

Speaker 2 (06:23):
But I remember I had turf toe, and my and
my friend, my guys the group chat. They still make
fun of me whenever turf toe's mentioned because they would
get around my foot and like turf toe, turf toe,
and then they started mocking me, saying, turf turf turf
tof fro. It hurts, though it sucks. And now we've
got mac Jones under center in San Francisco because of it.

Speaker 1 (06:47):
My reaction is that it's probably not. And again, for
those audio listeners, I write my reaction as Kitchen introduces
all these news items, I don't know what we're going
to talk about in this section of the show, and
so I'm just reacting, and my reaction is it's probably
not the worst thing in the world for San Francisco
because you have this infrastructure with Kyle Shanahan. We've seen
sort of like random quarterbacks be okay from like a

(07:08):
you know, accounting stats perspective within this Kyle Shanahan system.
You know Mac Jones. If you recall back when Mac
Jones was drafted, everyone thought that that was the the
Kyle Shanahan quarterback because he would fit what he what
he generally wants to do. And even last year, like
like Jones helped. I mean, if you recall, like Jones
was the quarterback when Brian Thomas was going nuts in

(07:31):
fantasy football. And so I'm I'm not like overly concerned.
I think you see a slight downward bump from like
a projection standpoint and such, and like a Ricky Pierson
and even a CMC. You know, he's CMC is still
Tier one for me this week. But the other running
backs in Tier one I just put above him for
the most part, aside from Saquon who just gets a
really tough matchup against Kansas City and so I don't

(07:53):
want to like overstate how bad this is for fantasy.
The problem I'm gonna have is that Brock Perdy, when
he returns from injury, I'm afraid that the mobility won't
be there the same way. And that was one of
the reasons why you know, he was an easy draft
pick this year, like an okay draft pick. It's because
last year we saw more of that mobility from him.
I just don't know if it's gonna be there the
same way once he comes back from the injury. But

(08:14):
you know, of all of all sort of situations where
something like this would happen and a quarterback gets hurt,
it's probably one of the best ones for a backup
quarterback to still be.

Speaker 2 (08:22):
Okay, Mac Jones. It's been an interesting pick up in
super flex leagues as well. If you just absolutely need
a quarterback, I mean could be worse. People were drafting
like Sam Donald last year, and I remember in Best
Ball because they thought if if something happened or maybe
it's two years ago, if something happened there in San Francisco.

Speaker 1 (08:44):
Just because Darnald was good last year.

Speaker 2 (08:46):
Yeah, a Shanny quarterback though, Yeah, it's fine, all right,
Eckler's sad face. It sucked last night. It doesn't matter
if you had tons of Bill Krofsky. If you are
a fantasy fan, you know that Austin Eckler has been
a huge advocate for the industry and he's you know,
he's probably done now. His career is probably done.

Speaker 1 (09:09):
Yeah, it could easily be done. You know, I don't
want to say for sure, because he's a he's a
gym rat. Like he he is ridiculously in shape, and
he will more than likely try to work back from this.
But you know, maybe he doesn't because he sees, you know,
some media opportunities or something outside of it, because he's
great in front of a camera and whatnot. But regardless,
it's a really, really sad situation. That's my reaction. We're

(09:30):
gonna get into what this means for that backfield later
on in the show, so I'll wait to sort of
talk about that until later. But yeah, I mean, like
it's it's it's not fun to see, you know, a
guy who is on the older side or on the
wrong side of the running back age cliff. You know,
you it was the classic achilles injury and achilles tear,
and we all knew whenever it happened. I know that

(09:52):
some people were tilting because al Michaels was like, hopefully
we see him back next week or something like that,
and and people were just not happy about that reaction.
But regardless, you know, I think that uh, that that
we should uh, you know, at least follow what what
Eckler's doing outside of football, because he's he's been, like

(10:13):
you said, a really good advocate of fantasy football for sure.

Speaker 2 (10:16):
And then on the you know, we Eckler knows as
a fantasy guy, if someone goes down, we have to
evaluate what's going to happen in that backfield? Uh in Washington,
and you had people were getting we're tilting also in
the in the you know, in the discord whenever Bill
crosskey Merit was not in there at the end. But

(10:38):
he's not the you know, he's not the two.

Speaker 1 (10:40):
Minute back right now. Yeah, yeah, So.

Speaker 2 (10:44):
You have any takes on uh crosskey Merit in that
backfield situation.

Speaker 1 (10:49):
We'll get to it later on the show.

Speaker 2 (10:51):
Okay, Oh yeah, we will. We'll get to uh before Yeah. Okay,
all right, let's get to another guy then.

Speaker 1 (10:59):
Read yeah, another just like I mean this isn't to
be like punny or anything. It's just a really bad break, right,
Like it's a collarbone break, unfortunately, and it's a bad
break for Jayden Reid where we were worried about the
foot injury, you know, going into the season, and then
this is this is a freak injury, like this was

(11:20):
just he landed on his catch. Oh it was a
great play.

Speaker 2 (11:23):
Yeah, I mean it didn't count. That's what sucks the most.
When people get hurt on plays that don't count. I
feel terrible for them.

Speaker 1 (11:30):
Well yeah, I yeah. It also is unfortunate because I
have a deep league where I had to start him
and you know, sorry, would have loved having those points.
Wouldn't been great. But yeah, I mean, like I we
are going to refer to this again later in the
show as well. But one player that I'm not going
to talk about is Matthew Golden. Okay, I had someone
in my mentions today already say I'm gonna drop Matthew Golden.

(11:53):
You know this, I'm not getting anything out of them. Guys,
if you drafted a rookie, you do not drop them,
especially like a higher end rookie. I'm not talking like
a random you know Alie Gordon player, yea, yeah, I'm talking.
I'm talking about a first round wide receiver who had, yes,
a questionable analytical profile, but an early declar receiver who

(12:14):
had a really good camp, who's in a really good offense.
The Packers offense is for some reason just undervalued in general,
Like Matt Lafleur has basically only had top ten offenses
and touchdowns per game since he got to Green Bay
every single year, and so you want to associate your
players with this kind of system in this offense. I

(12:34):
know that they're frustrating as can be with their wide receivers,
but guess what. One of them is now out for
six to eight weeks, So Matthew Golden could have a
more stable route share than he did before. And so
I do not drop Matthew Golden. This is the opposite
time to drop Matthew Golden. If it's week five, week
six and you're not seeing anything from him. Sure, I

(12:55):
understand like the urge and maybe having to do that,
but after two weeks it's like two NFL games, and
now one of the guys in the offense is out
for six to eight weeks, you do not drop Matthew Golden.

Speaker 2 (13:06):
Right now, Okay, we've got some the theme if on
the like the Q and A was tight end because
lots of people had Kittle and obviously he's out now
on the IR Brock Bowers missed some practices, Dallas Goddard
missed some practices. Evan Ingram miss miss some practices but
should be okay, you know what are your is your

(13:31):
take on the tight end madness going on right now?

Speaker 1 (13:34):
My take is the tight end dead zone is real,
but not from the standpoint of Kittle and Bowers obviously.
But I think that what we're finding off the waiver
wire this week is that that when you invest in
certain tight ends in that dead zone area that don't
fit the right archetypes and the right archetypes it's written

(13:55):
in the guide. Are you know younger players, right, or
guys who have a clear path to being a top
two target on their team. So when you're drafting older
tight ends or guys who are in more questionable situations,
you're bound to find disappointment, right And so then when
you get inevitable injuries because tight end is a brutal

(14:16):
position to play, I mean, because they have to do
both things they have to run routes and they have
to block, and so when you get these inevitable injuries
at tight end, and you combine that with disappointment at
the position, which is inevitable too, because it's just what
happens in the position every year. Did that episode in
the tight End dead Zone. I don't like the name
for the tight end dead Zone. It's just an easy
way to sort of encompass what I'm trying to say here.

(14:37):
You get more competition than off the waiver wire for
the guys like Juwan Johnson and Harold Fannin and hopefully
you guys listen to the Mailbag episode that dropped today
if you're listening on audio dropped yesterday, I talk more
in depth about Fannin. I'm buying more and more into
Fannin and it being a pretty legit situation for him.

(14:57):
I think that the connection between you know, Isaiah Likely
and Mark Andrews from last year and Likely having a
big Week one performance and Andrews still having more routes.
I think that what I said on the show really
should be stressed is that Harold Fannin is a better
prospect and already looks better than Isaiah. Likely from like

(15:17):
a fantasy perspective and like what we want out of
a you know, pass catching tight end, and Mark Andrews
is better than David and Joku. So I think there's
actually like some chance that Harold Fannon is just a
better fantasy asset than David and Joku this year. There's
obviously the out too that in Djoku gets traded or
something at some point this year, And I'm not saying
that that's the likely outcome. I'm saying that that is

(15:37):
a possible outcome that we should be open minded to.
So this is all just to say that there's a
lot of variants a tight end, and when there's a
lot of variance at the position and there's good waiver
wire adds, you're gonna get more competition for those players
off the waiver wire.

Speaker 2 (15:50):
Okay, the speaking of tight end madness, you mentioned it,
if you drafted Craft, you have to be feeling really good. Mean, yeah,
can you feeling great? Yeah? Can you just take a
real quick victory lap? No? Okay, no, absolutely not really
after one hundred yards over one hundred yards.

Speaker 1 (16:12):
We don't. We don't talk about that until after the
season's over. A kitchen Okay, Yeah, maybe just like I'm
not going to take an anti victory lap against about
Zay Flowers. Flowers.

Speaker 2 (16:23):
Yeah yeah, I made a bet Zay Flowers versus DeVonta Smith,
and I have DeVonta Smith, So I'm not feeling good
about that.

Speaker 1 (16:30):
Yeah. But I mean, look, Dallas Goddard's likely out this
weekend because he didn't practice today. Yeah, and so I
think that we could see a bounce back with Davante
Smith and uh an AJ Brown.

Speaker 2 (16:42):
Be good for the bags.

Speaker 1 (16:44):
This is exactly the contingent upside stuff that we've talked
about with those players is that they were being drafted
basically at their projection, but when one of them is out,
the other guys can thrive. Like but DeVante Smith and
A J. Brown could see a sixty percent target shair
combined this weekend, and I don't think anyone would be
that shocked if that happens.

Speaker 2 (17:01):
Yeah, Ertz has been dope too, says May Pecks. He Hey,
last night he seemed like he was the guests to
go to the I'm glad.

Speaker 1 (17:08):
Yeah, I didn't get to the point where and when
I say older players for the record, I mean in
the middle round like that that tight end, Like spending
up for the older tight end is usually not the
idea when you're going late. It's not that big of
a deal. I mean, it's like none of those like
a lot of those guys just aren't going to hit
in general. So if you drafted Arts, I mean, you
feel you feel decent right now. I don't know if
it's gonna sustain this way, but you you at least

(17:30):
feel pretty.

Speaker 2 (17:30):
Good, all right. Quinn Shawn Judkins is officially officially questionable
this week.

Speaker 1 (17:40):
I'm not holding my breath that he's gonna, you know,
get significant work this week. I still think Dylan Sampson
is probably the play out of that backfield. But you know,
I talked about this on the Mailbag episode. I think
that in the short term we still have to be
somewhat concerned. I know I whiffed on the Jerome Ford
pick last week, but I think the process was actually
there with Jerome Ford because Dylan Samson got a ton

(18:03):
of looks through the air. Ford actually played more like
a lot of the long down and distance two minutes snaps,
like it was the role that I thought that he
would be playing. And it's just that Samson had a
really ridiculous targets per out run rate, like an insane
targets per out run rate. That's not gonna happen each
and every week. And a game against Baltimore does scare
me a little bit about Samson, Like there's I think

(18:24):
he's a good sleeper. That's fine, you can use him.
I think he's like an RB three type. But it
does scare me a little bit that if they do
see a really big negative game script against Baltimore, we're
gonna see more Jerome Ford. We didn't witness that against
Cincinnati right like that game was closed. It's just that
we didn't think it was gonna be close. And so
I do still have some worry there. I don't think Judkins,
even if he plays, I don't know how many touches

(18:45):
you think you'll see like five to seven, Like nothing
insane I would imagine. But I do think in practicon
for a week, I do think that's starting soon, we're
gonna see Judkins as the one A Samson as the
one b Ford thrown in there in you know, the
Laquinn Allen role, if you will. And then as the
season goes on, they're gonna fade out for it a

(19:06):
little bit more and hope that Dylan Samson can kind
of play that type of role and that would make
him a little bit more valuable. Look, Judkins more than
Samson in my opinion, just given like the archetype that
he is. He fit more of like that Jonathan Taylor
style of like maybe an eight to ten percent target
share in the NFL if things really hit for him
and like went right, and he would see a lot

(19:27):
of work on the ground. So at the moment, like
I think Samson would be more of the pass cutter
between the two.

Speaker 2 (19:32):
All Right, you've already talked a lot about the jag stuff.
I just took it off as far as the running
backs go. But you concern it all about the Travis
Hunter playing more defensive snaps this week.

Speaker 1 (19:47):
No, not really. I think that they need to get
something going on offense against Cincinnati. I think this is
more so just like, hey, let's just throw it at
them this week because this is a really tough offense
to play against. I would I would be surprised if
Travis Hunter is not the number two routes run wide
receiver for Jacksonville this week.

Speaker 2 (20:09):
Okay, all right, now to the Dolphins because it's still gross.
We've got reports of the Chiefs being the trade Tark
Chiefs and another team were poorly interested in Pittsburgh's right
now for Tyreek. And then you've also got now Waddle

(20:31):
banged up, You've got Waller basically is retiring. I mean
he's not.

Speaker 1 (20:37):
He's likely a zero this year.

Speaker 2 (20:39):
He's done. So what are we doing about the Dolphins?

Speaker 1 (20:42):
I feel good about Wattle playing this week, and I
think I saw that he was expected to like an
hour ago or so, so that's good. I Mean, my
my stance is that this is really really volatile. It's
a very volatile situation. They you know, I'm I'm they
should be able to be I haven't Christian Gonzalez's status.

(21:02):
Is he playing this weekend?

Speaker 2 (21:04):
Do you know? Not sure?

Speaker 1 (21:06):
I can't remember what the injury even was for him,
because obviously we're focused so much more on uh on
the offensive side of the ball. But no, it looks
like he's not. He's not practicing today, so he missed
every practice this week. He's probably not going to go.
That really helps the Miami offense, right, so people are

(21:26):
saying he's out, Okay, that helps the Miami offense quite
a bit. Uh you know, we saw New England. They
were thrown on last weeks against Vegas, so hopefully that helps.
The offensive line is a disaster. The really weird thing
about Tyreek Hill that I feel like should be getting
more run than is is the off the field stuff
with his ex that's been going on. There's apparently and.

Speaker 2 (21:46):
They launched an internal investigation and.

Speaker 1 (21:49):
Yeah, and like all the while there's like trade rumors
and stuff like, there's zero chance that he in my opinion,
there's not there's not a high chance at least that
he would get traded while that is still going on. Right, Yeah,
So look, you just got to cross your fingers and
hope that they can find some magic this week. They
were just a disaster last week. They couldn't get anything going.
The offensive line looks horrible. The only player that looks

(22:09):
legitimate is is a Chan. Yeah, and uh, you know,
even then, you got to you gotta still hope that
he can find the end zone. I mean, it's just
it's just got to see what happens this week.

Speaker 2 (22:24):
Okay. As far as like the Wattle situation, I just
think he's so small, those like those tiny receivers they seem. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (22:35):
I mean, like I don't know about injury proneus. And
you know a lot of doctors will say that injury
prone this isn't real. I don't really fully agree just
intuitively with that.

Speaker 2 (22:43):
You're one hundred and sixty pounds like it, just and
there's some things.

Speaker 1 (22:46):
That like your bodies can and can't do, and everyone's different.
And you know, we've all played sports or we've all
like done things before, and we have certain parts of
our body and things that our bodies do that we're
good at and bad at. And so I don't know
why that wouldn't apply to an athlete, an NFL athlete.
Do I think injury pronus is like overstated, of course,
one hundred percent. But a guy like Waddle, like Deontay

(23:09):
Johnson was like this where he would just seemingly get
banged up every single game and it was really frustrating.
I mean, that's basically what we're looking at with Jalen
Wattle at this point. It's like every game it seems
like he leaves for like at least a driver too,
and then he's either out or he comes back. But yeah,
he's got these like nagging injuries all the time.

Speaker 2 (23:27):
Okay, we got a little bit of coach speak here
where Godwin Chris Godwin returned and uh Dodd Fole says
said that he could play on Monday or no.

Speaker 1 (23:40):
He also said that he could be back for the playoffs.

Speaker 2 (23:42):
I was about to say, yeah, our good bed of
buddy Pat Thorman said there's a chance if we can
make a late playoff run, he could be back.

Speaker 1 (23:50):
Yeah. I mean, I'm just I'm I'm just not like,
I'm not buying into anything that Todd Bowles says. And
I you know, and Mecha Buka look great and weak.
They ended up getting a w. Even when god Win's back,
it's gonna take time, I think for a ramp up
like this is an older wide receiver, you know, I
say older, Like you know, it's just not a prime
in his prime who's coming off a major injury, who's

(24:13):
already like behind their initial timetable, and they have a
stud that they draft in the first round who's already performing.
I just don't see a need for them to rush
him back. Nor do I think that when he comes back,
he's just gonna be like, sure, yeah, let's throw him
in our fantasy lineup. So I'm still not. I still
think like week five is when we see him probably,

(24:34):
and then I don't think we're gonna use him in
fantasy probably until like week seven.

Speaker 2 (24:38):
Let's say, Okay, Zay, you're worthy, he's unworthy of the IR.

Speaker 1 (24:44):
He's he's back.

Speaker 2 (24:45):
This kind of sucks. Why because I don't I want
like definitive information.

Speaker 1 (24:54):
Yeah, but it's good that he's not on IR and
he's out for the year or something like that.

Speaker 2 (24:58):
Yeah, Okay, that part is good. These like why do
you worthy? If you have Xavier worthy? Are you played
him this week?

Speaker 1 (25:05):
No, of course not. I don't think he's saying I
don't think he's gonna play. I don't think he'll play
this week. But what if he does, then you don't
play him, Like I think that there's a lot of
risk in doing that. Uh. Plus, he's like probably playing
with that like you know that should Yeah, that harness
or whatever. I think it's surprising because of all the
reports and stuff and what we initially thought. But I'm

(25:26):
not expecting him to play this week, and if he's
not in that means Hollywood Brown is probably in store
for like an eight to ten target game at a minimum,
Right because of what we saw, you know, last week.
Tough matchup. I think that game just like to me,
I know that we've seen some high scoring games between
those two teams in the past, but it just it
just screams like just a really like low scoring game

(25:49):
that I don't like. I'm not like overly excited about
as or as excited as I should be, given the
two quarterbacks who are at play right with with Mahomes
and Jalen Hurts in the offense, the firepower that they have.
But maybe, you know, maybe Kansas City really is going
to be a pass funnel this year and that will
help speed up the pace a little bit and get
more and more scoring.

Speaker 2 (26:09):
Okay, Drake, London and Mooney to play this week, that's good,
Yeah for Atlanta. Anything to add about this Atlanta offense.
I saw you answer a Poenix question.

Speaker 1 (26:24):
Yeah, I think Penix is a good play for like
the first half of the season and like a deeper
you know, like quarterbacks really really deep and so you
don't need to like force it with Pennix even this week.
I do have some concern about the pressure that Minnesota
should be able to generate Minnesota's front and but but
I think that what we'll see is just like a

(26:45):
pass heavy script from Atlanta because you know, it's in Minnesota,
it's in a dome. You know, obviously the Minnesota defense
can play well and then the offense can play well,
and so that could create that negative game script and
then maybe Atlanta can't run the ball as well, and YadA, YadA, YadA. Right,
So I think Pennix is a decent enough streamer this week,
but they have a really good schedule moving forward. So
I think having both Mooney and Drake Lennon back just

(27:06):
makes me feel better about Penix being a reasonable streamer.
And look, this to me is like quintessential why that
early season schedule analysis episode that I do each year
is really really important. We have situations like this that
pop up every year and people are like, man, Pennix
is really really good, and he might be really good,
but we also have to focus on who they're playing,
and the schedule is very strong, so don't be surprised

(27:29):
if we're like in week seven and everyone's like, Michael
Penix is the next big thing, and he might be right,
but again, a lot of that can be driven by
who they're facing as well, and they have a really
really nice schedule. Today's data. All right, Today's data. I
do want to preface all of this by making a

(27:51):
quick statement. So so last week I shared some data
about AI that that sorry. I shared some data that
I fed into chat GPT and worked with.

Speaker 2 (28:05):
AI on clean day, clean data.

Speaker 1 (28:08):
It thanks me for that, which someone else was like,
that's not a good thing because AI is gonna take
over like that kind of attitude towards it. And then
I had a lot of people responding being like, man,
you sol like me being a sellout for using AI
and chatgypt like, I'm not doing the analysis, guys. I'm
still doing the analysis. I'm just having them crunch some

(28:28):
numbers and do the formulaic stuff that saves me a
ton of time that I don't have to do. I
came up with the idea, I fed it to data,
I guided it through calculating that data, and I fact
checked it too. To a certain degree, I didn't like
redo all the work because that's because that defeats the
purpose and the whole point in sharing that stuff was

(28:49):
more more for just like interesting insight. It wasn't something
that I dug into in a super super deep way.
And like did an entire podcast episode off of it.
Maybe I will this offseason, But to me, it was
just an interesting thing to share, and to me, I
think AI is important for me to understand, for me
to use as a data person, and for me to

(29:09):
come up with different and unique insights that I otherwise
might not have discovered and figured out. So if you're
anti AI, that's your choice. I'm not gonna hate on you.
I don't hate on anyone for whatever choice they want
to make. But that's the way that I approached that.
And it wasn't like, hey, JJ is just not doing
any work now, and no, it took a lot of
work to get that done, right. That's not the way

(29:31):
the DAYI works. You know't just click a button and
with this kind of stuff and it just does everything
for you other stuff it can. But that wasn't the
case with this. This is nothing AI driven at all.
I pulled all of this this for Today's data. I
was really curious. I talked about this a little bit
on the ten Trends episode this week because JSN had
some of the most insane peripherals that I have ever

(29:53):
seen from a single game for a player like a
ninety one percent are yard share. He had a fifty
nine percent target share in that game. And so I
was curious, Like on the fifteen or on the ten
Trends episode, I looked at players in history since twenty
eleven who had a fifty percent or better target share
in any game in a season. And the results were
really good, obviously, because if you're getting a fifty percent

(30:14):
target share, you're a good player, you're a good wide receiver.
So obviously the result of those players and how they
finished their season was really really strong. But what I
was more curious about was, let's look at the first
month of the season, the first four weeks of the season,
and guys who got a fifty percent target share in
that bucket because you know, some of the guys some
of the results in the other grouping. And the other

(30:35):
query that I ran was that you know, they got
to a fifty percent target share in like week fifteen
or something like that, Like maybe they hadn't done anything
and then all of a sudden they just got to
that fifty percent target shair. This is more so, Okay,
my team is relying on me very early on in
the season at a very very high clip right, And
not only that. When you get that fifty percent target share,

(30:56):
typically you know you're gonna obviously see a lot of volume.
But there's a player, say Flowers last week, who was
at forty seven percent. The volume wasn't even that insane
for Flowers because they didn't drop back to pass that much, right,
And Seattle didn't drop back to pass that that much either.
But Jaysen still saw thirteen targets in that game. It
was still a decent target you know, getting games. So

(31:16):
I look back. There have been six other wide receivers
since twenty eleven who got a fifty percent or better
target share in the first month of the season. Here's
how they finished, Okay, Julio Jones he did in Week
three and twenty fifteen. He scored twenty three point four
PPR points that year. He was the wide receiver.

Speaker 2 (31:33):
Two.

Speaker 1 (31:34):
Deebo Samuel in twenty twenty one and week one hit
a fifty two percent target share. He finished with twenty
one point two PPR points per game. That was his
big season. Wide receiver three finished Devonte Adams in twenty
twenty one Week three, he had eighteen targets a sixty
percent target share, twenty one and a half PPR points
per game a wide receiver two finish. Mike Evans in
twenty fifteen, Week three, he had a fifty two percent

(31:57):
target share fifteen point one PPR points per game wide
receiver twenty one finish. He's the worst one on this list.
The other two DeAndre Hopkins Malik Neighbors last year. They
were both top six wide receivers in that year where
they had a fifty percent or better target share in
one of their first four games. JSN part of that group.
If you just want to average out right and what

(32:18):
we have, I'll do it right here while I'm while
I'm speaking, If you want to just average out the
points per game that we see from these wide receivers,
twenty PPR points per game is the average for those guys.
I'm not saying that's gonna happen for JSN, but I
am saying, yes, that's PPR points per game. Finish. For
the record, I see Ethan asking that question, JSN. I'm

(32:40):
not saying is gonna score twenty PPR points per game,
but I am saying that it's definitely not a bad
sign that his peripherals were as good as they were
in week one.

Speaker 2 (32:48):
Here you go when you mentioned like Julio Jones, gosh,
it just peak. Julio Jones was awesome. Seeing him as
a Titan not so awesome.

Speaker 1 (33:00):
That's all I'm saying. Yeah, I mean, look, you could
also look at just the names on this list. It's
Julio Jones, Deebo Samuel and that was Deebo Samuel's like
really really strong season, Davante Adams, Mike Evans, DeAndre Hopkins,
and Malik Neighbors.

Speaker 2 (33:11):
That's it.

Speaker 1 (33:12):
They're all studs. They're all studs. So I'm I'm anticipating
I want to be higher than the market on JSN
is what I'm saying. Like I was already higher, like
I said on the show, I was already higher. I
thought he was kind of the firewall you know, in
that third round in drafts and push him up the
board rest of the season rankings. I mean he is.
He is legit, a very legit wide receiver. And if

(33:33):
these peripherals even stick, even in a semi decent way,
I do like Cooper Cup this week, as I said
in the Sleeper Show, but if they stick in any
sort of way, He's gonna smash this.

Speaker 2 (33:42):
Year JSN more like js him.

Speaker 1 (33:46):
That's right, it's the late round, main event. All right,
we are here, it is the main event. I'm gonna
share players that I am higher on versus consents. This
week we'll start a quarterback. Joe Burrow. I have m
QB three consensus. I'm a QB four. I'll tell you what, kitchen.

(34:07):
I am mad that we got that Thursday night game
last night because all of my when I compare my
quarterback rankings, the consensus, Fantasy Pros consensus right now, and
I just you know, I do it after the fact
just to be able to have some some talking point,
you know, on this show. Yeah, I had the one player.
Every quarterback is like one or two spot difference. Like

(34:27):
I'm not. I'm pretty choky at quarterback this week. There
was one player that I was four spots higher than
consensus this week, and he was on the Sleeper Show
and he came through last week last night, and it's
Jordan freaking Love and I love him for it, but
I hate that he had to play on Thursday night
because he would have been the easy pick for this
quarterback spot.

Speaker 2 (34:45):
You know what, though, It's probably a good thing, because
you know, what we don't do on the show. What's
that take victory laps?

Speaker 1 (34:51):
We don't. I'm just mad.

Speaker 2 (34:53):
I know, I know you're just mad. I'm just saying
we we are not going to mention on this show
that you loved Love last night and the trucks, right, That's.

Speaker 1 (35:02):
Right, We're definitely not. Yeah, Joe Burrow, I have my
QB three consensus hasn't a QB four. And this was
because I had him over Jayden Daniels last night. I
think I think that was the difference between the rankings,
but I could I just I'll just fact check really quick. Yeah,
Jalen Hurts, so I have him above Jalen Hurts, but
Jaden Daniels I had him ahead of I think he.

(35:24):
I guess technically Joe Burrow was ranked ahead of Jade Daniels.
So I don't want to throw the other rankers under
the bus. But look, this game against Jacksonville highest total
on the slate. Jacksonville entered twenty twenty five with PFFS
thirteenth sorry, thirteenth worst secondary. I said thirteenth ranked. It's
the thirteenth worst secondary, and so Burrow has averaged against

(35:50):
Cleveland fourteen point two points per game over his last
four and that's clearly not where you know, his points
per game has been outside of Cleveland. It's been closer
to like twenty over the last few years. So I
like burrowing this game. I think there's a shootout type environment.
I'm going to reference other players from this game as well.
I think you should feel good about a bounce back
this week from.

Speaker 2 (36:10):
Joe Burrow and hopefully Jamar Chase. If you drafted Jamar Chase,
you're freaking out just a little bit. You need you know,
we need a little bit of comfort there for the
number one overall pick. All right, running back.

Speaker 1 (36:20):
You got Travis Etn. I got Etn. This is pre
Thursday night. I have an RB thirteen consensus has him
be at RB eighteen again, highest total on the slate
this week. Cincinnati is weak defensively, despite what we saw
last week against Cleveland. That was a divisional game and
we know you know that that Cleveland's not the best

(36:40):
offense in the world. Etn is coming off a game
where he is sixty four percent running back rush are
a ten percent target share. Tank Bigsby's now gone, which
gives him more upset at the goald line and in
short yardage situations. So I think Etn is just kind
of you know, I just think he's a little bit
undervalue just based on what his rule should be.

Speaker 2 (36:57):
Now.

Speaker 1 (36:58):
I actually am higher on Basehall Tooton as well this
week because I think I think Tutin could carve out
like a forty percent running back rush are realistically like,
there's a very real chance Etn sixty four percent rush
are you know, ten percent targets year doesn't really change
that dramatically without Tank Bixby and Tuton is just the winner.
Talked about this in the mail bag a little bit,
but I still like Etn quite a bit this week,

(37:19):
you know, versus the rest of the position.

Speaker 2 (37:22):
Yeah, and we get to see like I know, we
we have our like la Quinn Allen, I just don't
want I don't want him to be a thing.

Speaker 1 (37:29):
He's going to be a thing.

Speaker 2 (37:30):
I know, I don't want him to be a thing.

Speaker 1 (37:32):
La Quinn Allen is going to play you know, long
down and distance snaps probably the I mean, if if
they're trailing, I think the big testing to me, if
they're trailing, is he going to be on the field
a whole lot as their pass catcher. Look. I like
Leaquinn Allen as a player. As a prospect, I just
think that Basel Tutona is more upside.

Speaker 2 (37:49):
Yeah, I don't. I don't. I just want all of
my ETN and Tuton teams to feel good about themselves.

Speaker 1 (37:56):
Yeah, and Ethan's asking what's Tutan's path when Allen is
getting running back targets lists in the Mailbag episode, I
talked about that on the mail Bag. You've got to
remember that third down backs. Third downs are not happening
every single series, right like first and second un backs.
That's where we're gonna mostly see ETN and base shall.

Speaker 2 (38:12):
Tute, Okay, next wide receiver, Jae wide receiver.

Speaker 1 (38:17):
I'm probably going to be higher on most weeks unless
something changes with the market. Is Jacoby Myers Week one
thirty percent target share, ninety three percent route share, sixty
two percent slot rate, So seeing better matchups seventeen point
seven PPR points guys, since DeVante Adams left Vegas. This

(38:38):
is after week three last year, Jacoby Myers is a
twenty eight percent target share per game rate and he's
averaging fifteen point two PPR points per game Vegas. Now
the matchup isn't necessarily spectacular this week against La but
indoor game, so we could see a little bit more scoring.
You give it a little bit of a boost. And
also last week Vegas had the third high is passed

(39:00):
rate over expected according to NFELO in the NFL, So
maybe it's gonna be a more pass heavy offense than
we expected. Jacoby Myers is already seeing a high target chair.
Brock Bowers is banged up. I mean, Jakoby Myers to
me is just like a great, great play basically each week.
And if consensus is gonna rank him as like a

(39:21):
fringe wider, like almost a wide receiver four, I'm gonna
I'm gonna call him out almost every week on the
show until that changes.

Speaker 2 (39:29):
Okay, and we think brock Bauer is gonna play.

Speaker 1 (39:32):
This week, Yeah, we think. Yeah, I'm just saying like
he's banged up. Maybe like if he's not one hundred
percent then that could still help.

Speaker 2 (39:38):
But even so, yeah, even so, Jacob.

Speaker 1 (39:41):
Even with Bowers, he's fine, right all right?

Speaker 2 (39:44):
Now, on a tight end, you've got Jake Ferguson, you're
ranking him tight end nine. The consensus is tight end thirteen.

Speaker 1 (39:52):
Yeah, I mean, I don't really feel like strongly about this.
This is just the way that my projections and rankings
kind of worked out this week. Twenty five point implied
team total for Dallas, eighty three percent rale participation for
Ferguson last week, eighteen percent target share. You bring it
all together and you're like, Okay, this is a very
usable tight end. Like you get a top tennis route share,

(40:13):
you know, a really solid target share, a high implied total.
That's that's really what it comes down to at the
tight end position. There are other sleepers I like, for
sure at tight end this week, but this was the
guy who versus you know, consensus and versus the market.
My ranking or my rankings seem to like quite a bit.

Speaker 2 (40:33):
I've got Bowers in one of my leagues, and a
guy picked up two tight ends and dropped Chig as
one of the guys I know you mentioned earlier, but
like I'm I'm probably gonna be trying to pick him
up off of waivers before.

Speaker 1 (40:49):
So I think Chig should be rostered still. Like he
had a really good rat participation rate in week one.
His target share wasn't even that bad. You know. It's
just a really tough match against Denver. We should see
a little more movement from the Tennessee passing attack.

Speaker 2 (41:02):
This old boy, we we see a lot of movement.

Speaker 1 (41:06):
We're gonna bad drops last week by Calvin Ridley. You
know elk Imaner got deep frequently and maybe they connect
on one of those. Uh So, I'm I'm you know,
if you look at the the box score, you look
at the advanced stats, like, things didn't look good for
cam Ward, But I thought he showed a decent bit

(41:26):
if you were much.

Speaker 2 (41:27):
Every analyst, every QB analyst this week said that he
had a great game. He was just let down. He
was also let down by his coach. And I've told
I've talked to you about this earlier, but it's big
in the Tennessee circle that Ile Manner got a twenty
two yard catch which would have extended a drive had
his elbow down, which counts his two feet Tennessee Callahan
and his staff did not know that rule, and they

(41:48):
said he had to get a foot down and an
elbow down, and you know that stuff. You just I
think we're just gonna see.

Speaker 1 (41:57):
Yeah, I mean, he's he's he's got like the like
he had the high a dot in week one, cam
Warden did. So he's got the aggression, which is really
fun like for fantasy and just for watching. But he
also has some mobility to him. I mean he escaped
the pocket.

Speaker 2 (42:10):
Well like like like run in scrambling.

Speaker 1 (42:15):
There's definitely a lot to like from what I saw
week one. And I know, I know I'm the data guy.
I don't I don't give my film takes, but I
have to watch all these get your hand.

Speaker 2 (42:25):
I don't want to.

Speaker 1 (42:26):
I don't want to sound like a moron when I'm
talking about stuff. I don't think data tells the entire
story about a lot of stuff. I just think that
it's a you know, we're playing a fantasy. Football is
a numbers driven game, and we should lean into numbers
because of that. But you can still use, of course,
like use your eyes to to figure some stuff out too.
I mean you got to, of course.

Speaker 2 (42:45):
Uh Jobo BONDI says Kitchen the Homer. I resemble that,
all right. Uh, let's get on to bold predictions for
week two.

Speaker 1 (42:54):
Yeah. My first one is very simple. I think Detroit
bounces back. They're at home. Uh, Chicago's defense look decent
in week one. I don't want to take anything away
from that performance. But we saw them get torn up
a little bit in the second half, you know, against
JJ McCarthy. It was also in Chicago. This one's in
a dome. We know that the we know that the

(43:17):
Lions are Sorry, I get so distracted whenever all these
pop ups are coming up while I'm talking.

Speaker 2 (43:22):
Sorry, I would just was I was trying to highlight
Ethan that said JJ dissavel's data more at eleven.

Speaker 1 (43:27):
Yeah right, yeah, but the Lion, like Jared Goff, splits
at home and away very much a better at home
under a dome in a dome quarterback. And this is
a little vibe zy, but they played Green Bay in
Week one, and we saw last night green Bay's defense
is unbelievably legitimate. Like Green Bay right now today, do

(43:49):
they have the most complete team in the NFL, maybe
outside of Philly or even even including Philly.

Speaker 2 (43:55):
Yeah, they I would put them probably ahead of Philly.

Speaker 1 (43:58):
Sure, I'm just trying to give the benefit of the
doubt to the you know, the world chaps.

Speaker 2 (44:03):
So yeah, I mean like like the Parsons is like,
I mean, you add him to a group that's already
a good defense. You saw him last night. I mean
it was like, as someone who was trying to we
root for fantasy points, I don't like how good the
green Bay defense is. That's all I'll say.

Speaker 1 (44:19):
Yeah, I mean I yes, yeah. They definitely will at
least force the offense to not be as pass heavy
as we want them to be. But Green Bay is
just a really complete team. We saw their defense play
really well in Week two against Washington last night, and
I think that we should give a little bit of
grace to this Detroit offense who went into green Bay

(44:39):
had to face that same defense new offensive coordinator, now,
you know of you know, look, I'm not a vibes
based guy that's like, oh, they're definitely gonna bounce back
just because they're they're more motivated now or anything like that.
But Dan Campbell's the kind of coach that could can
rally the troops and I'm I'm optimistic about that. So
my bold prediction this week, given a it's at home

(45:00):
golf plays a lot better at home, is that Detroit
puts up a forty burger against Chicago.

Speaker 2 (45:05):
If they put up a forty burger, I mean Chicago's
getting a lit I mean they've got to put up something,
so you're gonna get some hopefully some garbage time or.

Speaker 1 (45:13):
Some hopefully hopefully Yeah.

Speaker 2 (45:15):
Because the spread six and a half, right now, All right,
Mark Andrews scores twice, But that both these bold predictions
are bold because of Week one.

Speaker 1 (45:27):
That's right, that's right. Uh, Mark Andrews, guys, My bold
prediction is that he's going to score twice this week. Okay.
I don't think we're going to see a very pass
heavy script, so this is going to have to be
like a four catch, two touchdown performance from Andrews. But
I thought this was kind of interesting if you go
back and look at Obviously he's faced the AFC North
quite a bit, but every team outside of Cincinnati and

(45:51):
Cleveland he scored no more than three touchdowns against. He
scored eight touchdowns against Cincinnati in his career. He scored
eleven against Cleveland. I was going through his box scores
and looking at how he's performed against the Browns. He's
like basically scored a touchdown in more games than not
against Cleveland throughout his career. You know, I think that this,
You know that the Ravens are gonna want to have

(46:11):
to They're going to have to get a w this week,
obviously after what they did in Week one, and they
might have to be a little bit more aggressive offensively
given how that defense kind of collapsed against Buffalo last week.
So I do think it's gonna be a run heavy
script for for Baltimore given the spread of this game.
But you know, we'll say that Mark Andrews is a
very efficient game without Isaiah Likely. I was a little

(46:32):
bit disappointed that Andrews's route share wasn't strong without Likely
this past week, or as strong as it was without
Likely last year, where he ran like ninety six percent.
I ran around on like ninety six percent the team's dropbacks.
But even if he's at like an eighty percent rate
this week, he could he could still find the end
zone a couple of times.

Speaker 2 (46:51):
All right, Well, thank you for that. I just plus
fourteen hundred scored two touchdowns on Sunday on.

Speaker 1 (46:57):
Dry I mean, I'm not saying look, I'm not saying no.

Speaker 2 (47:00):
You're not. I'm just saying I might have placed us
a small little.

Speaker 1 (47:04):
As I was talking. Yes, Oh my gosh, I just
looked it up.

Speaker 2 (47:10):
Your DraftKings has the app? You just open up the
DraftKings app. And you you know, scroll down all right,
because if if you're right for this bold prediction, I
want to not take a victory. I'm not taking a
victory lap.

Speaker 1 (47:23):
You're just taking a monetary Yeah, I'm just cashing out, all.

Speaker 2 (47:26):
Right, Look ahead, waiver wire. These are guys that you
talked about. We mentioned McK weapons, Jermy mc weapons and
Chris Rodriguez.

Speaker 1 (47:38):
Look, is it cheating that I'm talking about players that
got hurt, you know, on Thursday night and stuff.

Speaker 2 (47:44):
Because like people are going to be talking about this.

Speaker 1 (47:46):
Yeah, that was my thought too.

Speaker 2 (47:48):
People want to know you're because you've got kind of
a hot take right here.

Speaker 1 (47:52):
I have kind of a like, I have a nuanced
take to all of this. I think that like the gut,
like the instant reaction, is that like the knee jerk
reaction as Neckler going down and being out for the year,
is that Jakry Krosky Merritts sees a big, big boost, right.
I don't think that's really the case at all. Like,
I think that what we're gonna see is that Jerry

(48:12):
McNichols plays the Aust Neckler role like he's gonna see
a boost, like some boost, right, But Jerry McNichols is
likely going to see play the Os neck Roll Eckler
role where he's the down in long down in distance
two minute back.

Speaker 2 (48:26):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (48:26):
Maybe he sees some carries on the ground. JCM probably
sees a bigger bulk of the running back rushes than
he did when when Eckler was there, So there is
a boost to his overall you know, uh profile. But
the one thing that is in my mind is that
Chris Rodriguez profiles most of the four running backs a half,
so this includes as Neckler. He profiles most as a

(48:48):
goal line short yardage back of all of them. And
so what if had Maybe this is too galaxy brain,
but what if Chris Rodriguez getting called up and not
being a healthy scratch means that Jackry Crosskey Merritt no
longer is going to see some of those goal line
looks that we don't know if he would have been
seeing or not because they haven't had that many opportunities there.

(49:10):
But what if this is actually like a negative from
that perspective, I think long term it's definitely a positive
for jcm's fantasy value, just because he can grow into
a bigger role and grow into a pass catching role
more so talking about like the next month or so.
The one thing that does scare me too is that
they go and trade for someone because this is a
team with Super Bowl aspirations, and then backfield trade for

(49:34):
Brian Robinson. Yeah right, yeah, go after Brian Robinson. They
currently have a backfield of Chris Rodriguez, who's been a
healthy scratch. Jeremy McNichols has been a journeyman who I
loved coming out of college. For the record, I'm a
big Jeremy McNichols guy.

Speaker 2 (49:48):
Boise State.

Speaker 1 (49:49):
Yeah, yeah, big, big Jerry mcnicholls guy. Yeah, he was
a Boise State, Bois State guy. And then you know
Jacory Crosskey Merriot seventh round pick. I mean, would you
be shocked if they go and try to make a
some sort of move to get another running back in
that backfield. I wouldn't be totally totally shocked. So I
think that it is a slight boost for JACM but
maybe not as big as others do, and there might

(50:10):
be a little bit of downside just given the Chris
Rodriguez stuff. I think you have to probably add McNichols
over Rodriguez at this point because he's been playing over him,
and we know he has a role, whereas they clearly
like Jacory Krosky merrit more than Rodriguez in more of
that early down role, so that that could really really
go south. So deep leagues, you can go after Rodriguez

(50:32):
mostly as you can go after Jeremy McNichols.

Speaker 2 (50:34):
And people forget that Rodriguez played where in college Kentucky. Yeah,
there you go. JJ said. His little his little uh
bar party trick is that he asked his friends to
ask him where any player, any last year player from
the last four years, from the last four years where

(50:55):
they went to college, and he can he can tell you. Yeah,
all right.

Speaker 1 (50:59):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (51:00):
Obviously again last night, some people are saying, yes, this
is cheating, This is absolutely cheating. Gy. We don't want
to hear about what you have to say as a
fantasy analyst about these situations that we need to know
about for next week. Just kidding. Romeo Dobbs and Dontavian Wicks. Yeah,
Mix was on the Hands team by the way last night, Yeah,

(51:21):
which is pretty wild, bullish, bull wild.

Speaker 1 (51:25):
Yeah. So yeah, Romeo Dobbs, I think is you know,
the the easy go to he's been running the most
routes on the team. He's a more stable asset at
wide receiver. Dantavian Wicks, though had a sixty five percent
route share twenty three percent target share in week two.
He's gonna get a lot of run. Like they're gonna
have a three man rotation of those two and Matthew Golden,

(51:46):
and I don't think that they have like a go
to slot. I think that they'll rotate like a Wix
and Golden kind of going in and out. You know.
Dobbs is more has been more so a perimeter guy
throughout his career. But yeah, I mean, like without Jayden
Reid there, you're going to see these other guys hopefully
see a bigger boost in the amount of routes running.
So I will, uh, you know, be adding them off

(52:08):
the wires. I think Romeo Dobs is the one a
here or just the one. Wix is the two. But
in most leagues, like in deeper you know, and mostly
you should be adding Dobbs for sure if he's not
already added. And then because he was, he was also
a sleeper this week for the record, and uh, Dantavian
Wis I think is an ad in like you know
deeper twelve man leagues or fourteen teamers.

Speaker 2 (52:29):
Okay, let's get to Mason Taylor.

Speaker 1 (52:32):
Yeah, monitor is health. He was a deep, deep sleeper
for me. This is just again a look ahead waiver wire,
just trying to project, like what could go down that
could make people run.

Speaker 2 (52:43):
Exactly.

Speaker 1 (52:44):
There's tight ends stuff going on right now, and so
you know, people need the position. He had a good
route share last week. Maybe in this negative game screened
agains Buffalo, he gets targeted a little bit more. He's
a young player, and so people are like, oh, I
got to get in on this now, you know, because
it might be too late if the because the peripherals
are starting to get there already, and if they're there

(53:05):
this week, maybe the production matches. But even if it doesn't,
people are gonna start adding him off the wire.

Speaker 2 (53:11):
Yeah, I'll also ask for the golden after the read injury.
Go back and listen. I know ill also joined late,
but go back and listen to the news section where
we talked about Reid and where golden is for that. Yeah,
all right, You've got some other guys here, Isaac Tesla,
Kyle Manunguy, and then Troy Franklin.

Speaker 1 (53:32):
Yeah, so Isaac Tesla is just okay. We saw him
run three routes and he scored a touchdown on one,
so maybe that improves this week, or maybe there's an
injury in Detroit. You know, he's not a bad stash.
Kyle Manungai. There was some coach speaks stuff about maybe
them establishing the run a little bit more and getting
more stuff going on the ground. I don't think that
he like I think DeAndre Swift look good in week
one and Manungai did not from the limited sample, I

(53:55):
just don't think he's the same kind of like burst
as DeAndre Swift does. So I'm not like overly optimistic.
I know this is the second week in a row
that he's been on this list, but when you think
about what people could be adding without an injury on
the waiver wire, this is the kind of player, an archetype,
that we would be looking at. Troy Franklin last week
sixty five percent route share, sixteen percent target share, sixty
three percent of his routes out of the slot. So

(54:17):
he's playing that Devon Veleay role that they you know,
obviously they traded Veley before the season, and my question
is what if Denver just plays better offensively that could
easily translate to more fantasy point, especially because he gets
down the field and then all of a sudden people
are like, oh man, maybe we should be adding Troy Franklin.
So Franklin is one that is definitely on my radar
right now. And then lastly for the look ahead Waiver Wire,

(54:38):
I talked about them all week, Seattle's defense. I think
you can play Seattle this week. They're only twenty three
percent rostered right now over on Yahoo. And as Kitchen
likes to point out that, I say it weird Yahoo,
He's twenty three percent rostered on Yahoo and they get
New Orleans next week. I think you can play Seattle's

(54:59):
defense this week as like a fringe top ten option
and be fine. Uh. And then you can just play
them next week because they get New Orleans. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (55:07):
And I would also say, just in your I was
just looking up in my normal league, like someone picked
up Quentin Johnson, which is a good pickup, but then
they dropped like Ray Davis, Like those are the guys
that you want to look for that have those paths.
If you get like injuries ahead of you mm hm, for.

Speaker 1 (55:23):
Sure, you gotta you gotta you gotta watch this week,
especially there's a lot of like overreaction, Yeah, because there's
not there weren't like that many amazing waiver wire ads,
especially if you had like trade Bride and you didn't
need a tight end, so yeah, especially and if you
or if you need a running back, there was like
really nobody right, and so people were dropping like Jayden Blue,
who For the record, I don't think Jayden Blue is
gonna I think he's gonna be an active again this week.

(55:43):
But I still think the thesis of the stash is
still there in my opinion.

Speaker 2 (55:48):
Okay, you've got to Seahawks as your your defense.

Speaker 1 (55:52):
Yes, yeah, I talked about that.

Speaker 2 (55:54):
Yeah, any other defenses you like for next week? Uh?

Speaker 1 (55:59):
And I thought I had all right, let's.

Speaker 2 (56:01):
Get on then to the final closing, looking for that
the late round main event.

Speaker 1 (56:13):
So close to what a what a great Not only that,
but you played the main event one again.

Speaker 2 (56:18):
I know I was because I was looking for the
generic one.

Speaker 1 (56:22):
And I've got a media whatever you want me to
hire a producer.

Speaker 2 (56:25):
Now, no to please don't please don't fire me. All right,
We're going to get to the quad box. These are
games that you like, I have these listed. Here's the
thing though, JJ, this week two Monday night football games.

Speaker 1 (56:41):
Yeah, why do they do this? This is this is
the worst we do for week one. Yeah, but they
changed it. I can't remember why there was a reason
that they they changed it. I think they changed it
because they've been doing the Friday game. Oh that's right,
and so but then but then there's some because there's
some sort of like law that you have, like there's
a certain day where you can't do Friday games anymore
because it becomes a high school day, you know, high

(57:04):
school football day or something like that. And so now
they can't do Friday games. They just do the two
Monday night games. And it's the worst because the one
starts at ten ten o'clock till one.

Speaker 2 (57:15):
Am nine for some people.

Speaker 1 (57:18):
Yeah, it's ridiculous. Stop this.

Speaker 2 (57:22):
I was actually gonna put that game as one of
my quad box just the Late Night Hammer.

Speaker 1 (57:27):
I put it in there.

Speaker 2 (57:29):
Okay, first I'm doing I'm putting Chargers and Raiders as
the first game I have.

Speaker 1 (57:36):
I am going to go with the indoor game of
the Bears and Lions as my one one of my
games to watch this week because like I said, I
think that we could see a lot of firepower from
the Lions offense as a bounce back. And I liked
what I saw from a fantasy perspective out of Caleb

(57:57):
in Week one, maybe not as much a real perspective.

Speaker 2 (58:01):
Okay, I'm looking at this and i've got to I've
got to put it on here unless you want. I'll
give you a chance to add one if if you
feel strong about one. Okay, I mean, obviously, this Eagles
and Chiefs game, I know you said it's gonna be
a slog, but when you've got.

Speaker 1 (58:17):
I could easily be wrong because I've been wrong about
their Super Bowls, so I'm probably gonna be wrong again
about this one.

Speaker 2 (58:23):
All right, So I'm going, uh, and it's for like
the late afternoon it's the only four to twenty five
Eastern game too, so you're kind of getting to see.

Speaker 1 (58:32):
Yeah, not the only late afternoon game, but but the
it's the late right, there's like a four or five,
So like in the DFS ward, you got the four
or five and you get the four twenty five and
the four twenty five that's like the primetime so that
that that's the one that ends the right before Sunday
night football. That's the that's a sweat game. Yes, that's
a sweat game. And then I will go with as

(58:53):
the last pick, the other Dome game. It's actually a
Sunday night game. I'm gonna go Falcons Vikings or that
will be good my last one. I think that's gonna
be a fun game.

Speaker 2 (59:05):
Okay, I'll put it in here.

Speaker 1 (59:07):
We talked a lot about that already, so Falcons Falcons
Vikings could could see some points scored, especially if the
Vikings turned into the past funnel that they kind of
were last year.

Speaker 2 (59:19):
Okay, Bitton's giving me spreadsheet tips. Thank you, there you go.
I usually I thought it was shift. I don't know
it was alt that was a shift, but maybe it's not.
You know what with do you ever use keyboard short
Are you a big keyboard short cut guy?

Speaker 1 (59:35):
Yeah? I mean I do for like macros and stuff.

Speaker 2 (59:38):
Yeah, and I do it for my photoshop. But if
you ask me to tell you what button I'm pushing now,
because I'm such a such a boomer, you're just so
used to.

Speaker 1 (59:46):
It, there is there's a question that I have to
ask right now. And and this is more for visual
it's not more for it's not for really the audio
listeners and and Eli Goose asked this as well, what
what are you like, how are you deciding how to
capitalize these teams right now?

Speaker 2 (01:00:03):
That's what Bears versus Lions?

Speaker 1 (01:00:05):
No, no, no, look, it's fine, but there, but Bears versus
Lions is all lowercase Chargers versus Raiders, Chargers uppercase. Raiders
is lowercase Eagles versus Chiefs. They're both uppercase. And then
the Falcons Vikings game says Falcons versus Viking. So it's
just the Falcons team just facing one singular Viking this
week on Sunday night is where we're at.

Speaker 2 (01:00:27):
Sorry, you scan the.

Speaker 1 (01:00:28):
QR code.

Speaker 2 (01:00:34):
Just would It would get on my nerves as well.
I didn't look at it while I was doing it.
I'm just like typing in there, but it would get
on my nerves as well.

Speaker 1 (01:00:42):
You also call it paneras.

Speaker 2 (01:00:46):
Walmart's, Okay, yeah, I just say Krogers took it well, confirmed, confirmed,
Boomergar and Kroger's. Yeah. People call me kitchens all the time,
but Krogers you can least say you're going into Kroger's
like grocery store, you know, what I've noticed since working

(01:01:06):
with you is that people I didn't realize how often
people called you Kitchens with an S.

Speaker 1 (01:01:13):
It's like really common, like literally a fifty to fifty
shot that someone's gonna call it, call you Kitchens. It's
like you and Zachar Jason. Yeah, that's probably Actually I
probably get Zachar Yson more.

Speaker 2 (01:01:23):
Unfortunately, look at us, just two misunderstood last name guys.
Uh want to just say, if you are watching this,
thank you for watching. You're watching it later, leave a comment,
let us know team QR code not TIK team QR code.
What did you like would you not like? And you know,

(01:01:45):
are you okay with not taking victory laps? Like what
victory laps? Are you not okay taking?

Speaker 1 (01:01:52):
You don't need to hear me like victory lap things.
You know, if I got something right.

Speaker 2 (01:01:55):
Or wrong, That's what I'm saying.

Speaker 1 (01:01:57):
We'll talk about it at the end of the season
when it's all done. It's been one week.

Speaker 2 (01:02:00):
Let's that's what I'm saying. Don't expect victory laps.

Speaker 1 (01:02:04):
There's no victory laps, and there's no victory unlaps. I
mean sometimes I will actually unlap and say that I'm
wrong because then I can get ahead of it before that.

Speaker 2 (01:02:12):
Unlap is not a word. Yeah, I know, but I
just don't. You just don't run, You just don't run
the lap.

Speaker 1 (01:02:17):
Yeah yeah, I mean like there's there's like guys, I know,
I know, but we don't. My thing is, we don't
need to sit here and worry about what we got
right and wrong in the preseason when that's just helping
anyone win fantasy teams.

Speaker 2 (01:02:30):
No victory lap, but yes to pants off and Wesley
says JJ gets things right so often he acts like
he's been there before. It's like the end zone, you know,
you go straight to the sideline. No touchdown celebrations for you.

Speaker 1 (01:02:41):
I mean, look, if I were a player, I would celebrate.
I would have like a cool dance.

Speaker 2 (01:02:46):
If you're in the airwak.

Speaker 1 (01:02:48):
You just don't need to do that in fantasy football
because it's not you know, there's there's a lot you're
you should be. You know, the amount of touchdowns of
people score should be a lot less than the amount
of things you get right as a fantasy football analyst. Okay,
so there's a lot more volume here of getting things right.
I don't need a victory lapping is insane.

Speaker 2 (01:03:05):
Yeah, that's what I'm saying. No victory laps here, so
Mike Mikes, if you agree with us, leave it in
the comments. Thanks to JJ, Thanks to our sponsor, DraftKings.
Appreciate you and we will see you next time here
on the Late Round Fantasy Football Show sponsored by DraftKings