2025 Fantasy Football Week 7 Rankings | Start Sit Advice, Sleepers & Injury Updates

The 2025 NFL Fantasy Football Week 7 Rankings are HERE!!! Pat Mayo, Jake Ciely & Ian Hartitz break down everything you need to set your best lineup and win your matchup. From player rankings to sleeper calls, we’ve got you covered.
 
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🏈 What’s inside this episode:

• Full **Week 7 fantasy football rankings** (QB, RB, WR, TE,)
• Expert **start/sit advice** to avoid lineup mistakes
• **Sleeper picks & breakout candidates** you can’t miss
• Early **bust alerts** and risky players to bench

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Show Index

00:00 Intro
4:00 Start/Sit, Injuries & Trade Qs
28:15 RB
45:03 WR
1:02:25 TE
1:05:30 QB
1:15:57 DST

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2025 Fantasy Football Week 7 Rankings | Start Sit Advice, Sleepers & Injury Updates It is the Week 7 rankings on the
Pat Mayo Experience presented by Underdog Code Mayo Turn 5 into
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Jake Seeley from theathletic.com.
Ian Hardens from fantasylife.com on the lines.
Jake, I have a question for you to kick things off ready.
Yeah, sure. You’re still doing your rankings
at the top of your rankings column.
Like your like your fun rankings, right?
Yeah, well, not at the top, but yes.
Have you done the best wrestling intros ever yet?
You know what? I have a list on my phone and
that’s one of the ones on the list for 2025.
You should, I mean, I don’t want to.
Ian, do you have any thoughts on what should be near the top?
And I don’t know if it’s like wrestling intros, like the
aesthetics of it, or just theme songs because realistically you
could get 2 columns out of that. It’s got to be Chris Jericho
number one, right? Just the entire thing, you know,
just standing back to everyone. He, I think he sings his own
song, too. That’s got to count for
something, yeah. I think I only sings his own
song in AW, not WWE. Two different things that night.
We’re ready. We’re going to go down this this
rabbit hole. See we.
Were having fun Jake and then you had to just go ahead and
show those levels to this all right so yeah, I’m sure you’re
right but. I mean, dude, come on.
Like I have the freaking you may just made the list.
Chris Jericho, Funko Pop. So what does that do?
It really should be. I mean I I don’t like the you
made the list. If I’m thinking of Jericho and
List, I’m just thinking about him listing off his 1004 moves
on dot matrix printer paper for like 97.
I love that meme just holding the scroll.
What about Vince’s intro? No chance, Jake.
It’s what you gots. That that’s a dangerous 1,
though. This Vince isn’t exactly
somebody you want to mention too often these days.
Listen. If you’re if you’re going to
mention wrestling, you, you can’t just.
Understand what comes with it, Yeah.
Vince McMahon is not the only bad guy in wrestling history.
I was just going to say a lot of people will probably vote for
Hulk Hogan and he I mean screaming racist so.
Is the is the most overrated 1 though?
Like the Undertaker, as awesome as the initial Dong is Like come
on dude, we got stuff to do. Like how long are we going to
take to walk? In the room, did you clip?
That pad we. Can get that one.
As awesome as the original Dong Gong.
Dong I I I will throw it that I thought the Kane’s entrance
music was better than the Undertaker entrance.
That’s just me because of the fire or just the song and
everything. Both like the the fire, the
explosion, then the song after it.
Like after you get by the gong on the undertaker.
There’s really not much to it. I, I will say when you’re in
person and they do a little extra for the undertaker,
there’s kind of almost nothing like that.
Bark is getting riled up over here as you can heal the
background. By the way, can I talk about
yours? So you just talk about
aesthetics and all that type of stuff.
Your graphic, Nicole complimented it and really sent
a dig my way. At the same time, I was like,
it’s tombstone. Look how awesome it is.
And I was like, you know what? I look really pale in that
picture. And she’s like, well, you’re Doc
Holiday and he had tuberculosis, so it fits.
And I’m like, do you realize that?
That’s kind of really insulting, honey.
Hey, shout out to Ian Ian’s one who came up with the tombstone
theme. That’s not true.
I came up with it. He just reminded you of it.
Oh yeah, sorry Ian, I’m stealing Jake’s credit.
What have you done for me lately?
You guys know how, and I look like I have tuberculosis,
everybody. Do you have tuberculosis?
Do you have to move to Arizona? Is that what we’re saying?
That’s that’s what it is. That’s why I’m missing the tooth
until January. There you go you got to get into
those arid places to make sure that you can really use all of
the lungs and recover yourself Let’s jump into the week 7
rankings. We’re almost halfway home in
terms of fantasy all Ian’s rankings, which we are using for
the purposes of this show. If you’re watching along on
YouTube live right now, we’re here every single Tuesday
morning at 10:45 AM Eastern. We’ll be taking questions along
with the rankings during the show, but you can find
[email protected]. The direct link is down in the
description and comment section right now.
If you want to grab those and just follow along that way.
Jake’s will be available this evening at theathletic.com and
mine gets sent directly to you through my free newsletter.
You can sub to that all down in the comment section right now.
Mine come out on Wednesday afternoon along with a full
injury report. Here’s what we’re looking at for
injuries at running back at the moment.
Chuba Hubbard, Bucky Irving, Aaron Jones.
Is Aaron Jones eligible to come off IR because it’s been 4
weeks, but it’s only been three games.
And now I asked ChatGPT and that didn’t know.
So, Jake, I’ll ask you. I thought the initial report
when it first happened was after the bye.
So was that the exact timeline that he?
Because sometimes it happens. Oh, Ian might know.
I think he’s got one more. I’m looking at ESPN, it says
estimated return date October 23rd.
So sounds like more of a week eight thing.
There you go. So Aaron Jones probably not
playing, obviously Trey Benson, he’s on IRMR in Hampton, is on
injured reserve as well. And Chris Rodriguez did not play
in the Monday night game. So no words.
Not that you’re playing Chris Rodriguez anyway.
And none of the Washington running backs looked overly good
on Monday Night Football. So we’ll see where they end up
in the rankings. Before we jump into it, we had
the Vidal, Sassoon and Haskins debate last week.
I will take a brief, brief victory on that one because I
think you should just pick a side and go with it.
And I went with Vidal. So, you know, you flip a coin,
eventually you get right. But going forward, yes, it looks
like Vidal, Ian. But I would throw some pause on
everyone who thinks he’s just like a smash start at this point
because he doesn’t get to play the Dolphins every week.
That is the big thing and also we saw how quickly some of these
backfields can change a lot of the Arizona Cardinals.
So Michael Carter looked like the clear RB-1 and then bam,
night was coming in and complicating things.
So if you guys do go back and watch that Justin Herbert to lab
Mcconkey, you know, game clinching completion, watch us
on Haskins that entire place. He threw a nice block for
Herbert and then got all the way down field to help spring
Mcconkey for another 1520 yards. So didn’t exactly see any plays.
You know, I believe inside the five yard line that should be
where Haskins eat. So great game from.
But now I do think he deserves, you know, that low RB2
treatment. But still we got the trade
deadline coming up, the situation where if he is still
out there on your waiver wire, I’m fine, you know, going 2030%
of fab to try to get the guy. And every team is different.
But I’m not so sure we’re immediately looking at, you
know, a top 15 RB the rest of the season or anything like
that. No, I put him in the RB23
conversation. We had this conversation last
week with the ranking and see it was Vidal was higher in my
waiver column and then Thursday rolls around, it’s like, oh,
Hassan Haskins is going to be the lead and then Sunday morning
even more so it’s hot has is going to be the lead and I am
Heinz. That’s why they signed him off
the practice squad. And I kind of bought into that
and I moved down Vidal and I had Haskins in front of them and we
got bad information should have stuck with what we talked about
last week and the gut that we were talking about the players
and their abilities, everything. Even though same as yeah, you’re
still looking at what Ian just said.
It’s still an RB23. I don’t think he’s going to be
Haskins is going to be used like Bam night was with the
Cardinals. But the point of being like
inside the 510 yard line, you have that risk of Haskins
stealing those touches and there is no dolphins every single week
as you brought up Pat, but he’s still somebody that has an RV
two or three, I think. And I’m not saying this at Ian.
I’m saying this for everybody out there just in general
because yes, it’s 100% at Ian because I get the questions in
the comments over the Athletic too, about like the Breeze hole
album, Khmer and all. He’s like, what if he gets
traded? What if he gets traded?
What if he gets these happened like one in 20 times?
Like it’s people only remember the trades when they happened
and not the night 19 other rumored trades that never
happened. If Vidal never has a trade
coming to that backfield, they don’t sign another like actual
relevant player off the street. This could be Vidal’s job until
I mean there’s now talk that American Hampton is missing well
past the four weeks, so it could be his job all the way to the
fantasy playoffs if not beyond. And I don’t know.
He’s not going to be top 15. I agree with Ian, but as an RB2
or three kind of in that 20 to 28 range, absolutely.
And that you can’t ignore that. From the free Mayo Media
newsletter. Again, it’s on sub stack.
You can sub for free down in the description from the Monday
morning. Ian Rico Dowell becomes the 6th
player over the past decade with multiple 230 yard plus games.
Not the 6th to do it in consecutive weeks, just the 6th
overall over the past 10 years to do it.
The other guys, Derrick Henry, CMC Saquon, Julio Chase.
I don’t know if Dijon ended up getting there last night because
this came out on Monday morning, but Dolphins were one of those
games and Cowboys were one of those games.
What does Rico Dowdle look like against a real defense?
It was crazy against the Cowboys where he had like 180 rushing
yards and did not have a long run over 15.
It was just literally 17 or 8 yard gash after another.
What a revenge game that was. As I said, you know, buckle up
and he went out there and did his thing.
So yeah, the matchups have been good.
And also Chubo Hubbard could be back this week, but I don’t
know. We were sitting here last week
saying that, you know, it’s probably shrunk at this point
and assume that Chubo is it’ll be a lead back.
I don’t know anymore, man. Rico has just looked so good out
there. So I will say that, you know,
the Panthers have been doing all this with several starting
offensive lineman out. So yes, the schedule should get
tougher, but hopefully that offensive line is able to
improve. They actually put a good amount
of resources in it during this offseason.
So I don’t know Pat, I’m kind of riding the wave right now.
Again, I got Rico in the top ten.
Assuming that Tribo hover is out, yes, the matchups will be
getting a little bit tougher, but I don’t know man, you’re
getting 2025 touches per game. I could really care less about
the matchups at that point. I would too, but I don’t think
they were looking at the sort of production that he would get
every week even on those 25 touches because that would just
seem impossible. But Jake, if let’s say Hubbard
is back because right now Ian has Rico at #7 in the running
back rankings for this week, assuming that there’s no Chuba
Hubbard. And I think that’s a good
assumption at that point until we actually see the practice
report and see Chuba back on the field.
But let’s say Chuba is back Week 1 this week against the Jet, I
guess week 7 this week against The Jets.
What do you think that the split would be between them and
touches out of the backfield? I think it would be pretty close
to 5050 if I had to guess. I would actually say 5050 and I
think that this comes down to what is NFL and what is fantasy
NFL. They realize they have two
talented running backs and they don’t need to turn to somebody
80% of the time and possibly get hurt again or you know, figure
out situations of like, oh, he’s only our short yard backers.
What? They have two talented options
and we’ve seen this before from other backfields.
I mean, Greg Roman lives and dies by using 2 running backs.
So I was just saying with the Panthers, you can’t ignore as
the Panthers, they can’t ignore what Dowdell’s done in the past
two weeks. I don’t care who you face.
Like the numbers that you put up against the two worst teams
possibly, sure. But like as you mentioned, what
Ian said, like these are Madden numbers to average 7 yards, 7
yards, 7 yards, 7 yards. So you have to use both of them
and that’s OK for them. It’s just going to be
frustrating for us because I think it could be 5050, but it
could also be 5050 where what happens if Cuba’s 50% over the
1st 10 touches, 8 touches, ends up being he can’t get anything
going and then all of a sudden it turns to a Daddle game or
vice versa. Daddle just struggles and it’s a
matchup situation where it’s just not working as well for
him. So I think it’s going to be
5050. I agree with you and I think
you’re looking at RB twos for that, but I think the problem is
you’re always going to have that risk where either one of them
could have an RB4 floor. Ian, where do you think that you
would put them into the ranking should both them be active?
I would give Rico the lane. Obviously, we’ve seen running
backs kind of get eased in coming off the injury.
Look at Adam, probably right around RB20, next to Kamani,
Vidal, Bill Krosky, Merritt, you know, I put him ahead of Andre
Stevenson I think at this point. So probably RB20.
And again, to Jake’s point, it could be a situation where it’s
a little bit like Seattle, honestly, with Kenneth Walker
and Zach Charbonnet, where again, we trust either guy on
their own, but together it could be annoying.
Share this show around if you’re watching live right now, get
more people into the chat because we are taking questions.
You need to be a sub to Mayo Media network in order to ask
questions. So do that.
I’ll wait. Thank you Smash the like while
you’re here as well question from crypto Cairo 3000.
He sounds like a robot, but morning morning percentage of
fab to use on Tez Johnson. The Tez dispenser Jake team
deeply usually late on prospects.
Where would you go on Bo Nix’s brother, Tez Johnson?
5% or under, this is potentially A1 week, maybe two week.
And the problem with Tez Johnson as he’s like smaller Cadarius
Tony, like there’s excitement there and there was excitement
for Cadarius Tony when he was doing his thing.
But Tez Johnson’s going to be your ceiling and extremely low
floor play. Cameron Johnson would be the
safer the two. I have no problem going with the
aggressive playing Tez Johnson. But what if Mike Evans surprised
recently we get Wednesday, Thursday, oh, he’s coming back
here. This is he’s in his time frame.
He’s in his three weeks, 3 weeks plus actually.
And there’s supposed to be less severe than his injury was last
year. That’s what they initially
reported. So Mike Evans potentially coming
back. But even if he’s out, it’s going
to be probably Shepherd, Cameron Johnson, Tess Johnson, a mix
where we could, you know, it would be a good comparison.
The Buffalo Bills, it could be any one of the three and your
safest option camera or actually maybe even Shepherd would be
kind of in that Shakur range. So I’m not going that
aggressive, Ian. I didn’t check.
Nailed it. I’m not trying to usually spend
unless it’s a very unique Pooka sort of situation in week 1 back
a few years ago. Not don’t want to spend over 5%
real on any wide receiver. I want to keep that FAB lock and
loaded for the sort of handcuffed running backs that
appear out of nowhere and really jump up the ranks.
How you want to feel, old Jake, older than probably your bones
feel right now, although they. Might tuberculosis keeping my
skin pale? Sure.
Correct. Yeah, maybe just get.
On the Sun, sometimes who knows colleague called Kino in the
chat says Pat and Jake. Not a question.
I wanted to say that I started watching the show when I was in
junior high school with Worst Place Mark Ingram and I have now
graduated from college and I’m still listening.
I don’t drink. I need to go.
I need to take a walk. Well, I take.
A walk in the sun. At least you’ll you’ll look
younger, at least for a little bit until you get too old.
I love the support, but holy crap, yeah, that makes me.
Yeah, we’re old Pat. Yeah, this is like.
You’re 12 or 13 of doing this show together.
He does have a question though, Ian, I’ll direct this one at you
because Jake kind of brought this up a little bit earlier.
Thoughts on buying Breeze all considering he probably gets
traded, How much better is his value if he ends up in Kansas
City or Houston? I don’t think.
I think Kansas City is really the only realistic destination
unless he gets traded to the Patriots, which I don’t think
would happen. I would just try to brief buy
Breeze Hall in general. Ian because if he stays on The
Jets he’s getting like 90% of the touches out of the
backfield. They’re useless, but eventually
they’ll become valuable. And he looks good.
I mean his explosive play rate I was noting last week literally
is the best of his career because I mean man, rookie year
Breeze hall was absolutely electric before that injury.
Just haven’t quite seen the same guy, or at least we weren’t.
But honestly again this year he has looked great.
So unfortunately some I’ll timed fumbles near the goal line.
No, we got Justin Fields vulturing some of those scores
as well. I don’t know how they on a full
60 minutes last week without throwing him the football.
You know, they had their whole offensive line out to run that
stupid ass fake punt to Breeze Hall.
So I mean, I’m glad The Jets have their priorities right
there. But I do think he’s playing good
football. We’re looking at 15 and 20
touches and we don’t have to worry about Braylon Allen.
Braylon Allen near the goal line the same way we did earlier in
the year. So I’m very fine buying on him.
You know, he does have a pretty tough schedule here over the
course of these next 5 weeks. I tweeted out some charts
earlier if you guys want to check those out position by
position. But no, I’m cool with buying
them. But again, he’s kind of a mid
tier RB2 in the ranks. I’m not so sure he’s going to be
elevating into the RB-1 stratosphere unless we do happen
to get that juice straight, Jake.
One for one deals for Breeze Hall today made over at Yahoo,
Breeze hall for Ladd Mcconkey, Breeze Hall for Rico Dowdell,
Breeze Hall for Corey Krosky, Merritt Brock Purdy for Breeze
Hall, Garrett Wilson and Breeze Hall for Derrick Henry.
That’s I do that one. Cuba Hubbard for Bree salt,
Tucker craft for Bree salt, Derek Henry for Bree salt.
I would make most of those trades.
I think Bree Salt is better than almost everyone I named.
I would take that. I was trying to find one that I
wouldn’t take Breece Hall in. I would take Breece Hall down
the board, including the lab. You take him over.
Henry. I would take him over Henry,
yeah. I think we’re about to see the
Ravens really catch fire after this by dude, their schedule
fairs, dolphins, Vikings, Browns, jets, Bengals, Steelers,
Bengals through week 15. I mean, they’re they’re one in
five like they need to win all these games.
Henry still haven’t been north of five yards for pop like he
looked good last week when they weren’t giving Mark freaking
Andrews tush pushes from the 1 yard line.
So I know it’s been frustrating, but man, I was looking at some
of the trades also on the Derrick Henry side of thing.
I think if you can get this dude for anything close to a mid
tier, you know, or be too wide receiver to man, give me King
Henry. Yeah, you might you.
Might be right on that. That’s that would be either a
bit of a lateral move depending on how you think it goes.
I think that I went through the Ravens schedule because I wanted
to bet them to win the division, Jake and they’re like plus 140.
So there’s no real value in it. I think that they will be
favored in every game the rest of the season.
I mean, they were already favored in games without Lamar
Jackson. So, yeah, I, I, I’m with you on
that. The, the, the Breeze Hall versus
Derrick Henry, Like what you just said, it’s kind of a wash.
You’re shuffling deck chairs there.
So if you want one of the other, the upside is that you have the
better floor in case something goes sideways.
Because you could look at the other argument.
I mean, we could play this 10 different ways of like, oh,
Lamar Jackson’s coming back and they don’t win games or he gets
hurt again. And all of a sudden, the
seasons, I mean. There are three one for one
deals for Derrick Henry right now.
Just to your point in if you wanted to get him, it’s all over
the map of how people are, how frustrated they are with him at
the moment or how he’s valued in certain leagues to certain
people. Derrick Henry 1V1 for Almond raw
St. Brown Derrick Henry for David
Montgomery, Derrick Henry for A.J.
Brown. I I would want almond raw I feel
like, but I think I would want Derrick Henry in the other two
circumstances. I like the last. 2 for sure.
Yeah, I wouldn’t. Be giving up Almond raw after
like one game where he still scored like 15 PPR points.
Like what? People just want to hate Aman
Ross, Dane Brown. Nobody wanted to take him in the
first round this year. And then he’s just doing the
same thing he always does. And then one bad game and it’s
like, I don’t want to monitor the same Brown anymore.
Like, possibly more disrespected than any wide receiver.
Last one. Before we get into the running
back rankings, which once you once again if you just want to
see them hit the description, you can just follow along with
[email protected]. Need a one week streamer as
Lamar on by. Keep Stafford or pick up Dart or
Darnold for this week. I think you go with Stafford
even without poop. It’s start against.
Denver that sounds bad. And that’s the.
Problem like I would go that’s what I was going to bring up is
start against Denver. I don’t really want to start
like I have Dart in my, I only have 6 streamers this week
because Stafford’s over 60% on Yahoo and it’s Stroud, Lawrence,
Mac Jones, Darnold, Gino, and then Dart just because in
Denver, I know he’s got got the rushing upside and he can still
get you 20, but that’s a really scary situation to be in,
especially if Wandel, like it’s been fun with Wandel Robinson,
but Wandel is your number one against their tan in that
defense. That’s a tough go.
So I’m with you as Stafford without Nakua.
Yeah, Darnold, the Houston defense deserves respect.
They’re good. Yeah.
Where would you go? I don’t.
Know I’d be going with dark guys.
He literally leads all quarterbacks over Fields, over
Lamar Jackson and rushing fantasy points per game.
It’s been ridiculous out there. Three straight games with over
50 yards. I think Fields is the only guy
with that many, you know already this season.
So #1 hold on, hold on. We just saw his comp, Justin
Fields play the same defense. I know, but Dart?
Can actually complete some 4 passes so I’m not saying he’s
going to go for 300 against the Broncos or anything like that.
It is a tough matchup. I don’t have him inside my top
12, but I’m just thinking, man, Stafford without puko, We kind
of saw what that looked like last week against a bad Ravens
defense. They really couldn’t get
anything going. So again, I don’t think any of
them are necessarily slam dunks. But Dart this year, he leads the
NFL and quarterbacks in both scramble rate and design rush
rates. So I do feel pretty good about
him having, you know, that safer floor.
Can’t say the same for Stafford, some of those other guys.
So I will say deeper, I would take Dart here, but also Michael
Pennix and then CJ Stroud. If you are looking over the
course of these next two weeks, pretty good matchups for both.
Currently in second place, would you trade Wandale for Zay
flowers? Assuming that Lamar comes back?
I I my instant gut reaction to this, Ian was absolutely.
But Wandale’s been pretty good with dirt as the number one now.
Yeah, I still believe in Zay. He had the unfortunate fumble
last week, but man, he was torching Derek Stingley deep,
you know, the week before that. Like this dude is so ultra
talented. It’s just unfortunate that the
Ravens obviously, you know, are doing their thing with Lamar
healthy, scoring plenty of points, but they do spread the
ball around. So it’s close.
But I don’t know, man, I think Zay is just such a better real
life player. And sure, Wando might be looking
at, you know, an extra target or two per game, but I would still
think Zayn, just the overall offense there.
Jake, now go. Zay, to your argument that you
usually make throughout the years as long as we’ve been
doing this, Pat, is that you want the guy who can get you 25,
even if there’s an occasional 5 mixed in there.
And with Zay, it’s pretty almost like 5050.
Wondo Robinson, he’s going to be consistent.
He’s going to get targets, he’s going to be out there, and he’s
been playing much better now that the offense is letting him
do more things downfield. But he’s the kind of guy that
you’re like, OK, I get 8 to 15 every single week.
With Zay, you’re going to get that 2025 mixed in there.
And if you could deal with that as your wide receiver, 3,
potentially 4, because if you’re in second place and you’re
trading Wandel Forze 1, though Robinson did not start the
season as one of your starting wide receivers.
And that’s part of the reason why I would also do it.
If it was PPR not half point not, I mean that would be tough.
If. It’s PPR.
I think it’s a bit of a different conversation because
you just might get those. Basically the minor league
version of what we just saw from Almond Raw on Sunday night that
Wandale puts up an 8 for 41. It’s like, OK, good, that’s
great. Yeah, I think, I think PPRI
would probably just hold Wondale.
I will say guys, last three weeks, I mean, OK, last week was
cool and stuff, but Darius Slay was out as well.
Three weeks before that, Wondale didn’t even crack more than 30
yards. So I don’t know.
I think they’re that was Russell Wilson.
Well, give me say, half PPRPPR standard, whatever you want, all
right. One more because this is another
age-related question. Been here since high school too.
I’m now turning 27 next month. Thanks Reese.
Thoughts on Whittington until puka returns?
I feel like I went down this road last year and it was
nothing but pain. I would want Tutu.
Just just play Tutu. The guy might catch it in the
air and touch it. That’s that’s what you’re
looking at. It’s the same thing with the
Buccaneer situation. Like Cameron Johnson is going to
be safe, but Tez Johnson could get 3 catches, 2 catches for 80
yards at a touchdown. That’s 22 out.
Well, 22 out. Wells gimmicky.
His role is not going to change. It’s just going to be Chuck it
downfield and you might get a big player too.
If you want Jordan Wellington, that’s fine, but Jordan, nobody
is Puka Nukua like my cohort over at the Athletic.
I don’t know, I called him a cohort, but the Ted win, he
talked about the fact that Nukua essentially plays almost this
like tight end hybrid role a lot of times because of where he
lines up and he does these chip blocks before he does half his
routes. No one.
Keeps getting hurt. Yeah, well.
That’s that’s probably part of it too.
Like stop doing that. Nikua is just you don’t replace
him. That’s like, Oh my gosh, she’s
going to replace Jamar. Chase is going to be Yoshava.
So what? Nobody replaces these wide
receivers. So we went down this route with
Winnington and yeah, Winnington can step in and be a wide
receiver 4 But to your point, Pat, like you might as well just
Chase the hey, I can turn 2 catches into 80 and I don’t need
6 catches to get to 80. I.
Also disagree that his role won’t change.
I don’t think that just pure within the scheme his role
changes, Ian, but I do think that he’ll play more snaps
because of this. Just we’re going to give
Whittington every puka snap, yeah?
And look, I don’t think I’m rushing to start Whittington,
but to Jay’s point, he is now a wide receiver 4.
What was he last week outside my top 80 wide receiver?
So no, it’s a nice bump there. And really 22 is the one where I
don’t see it changing. It’s like DeMarcus Robinson last
year. I remember thinking that D Rob
had all this great, you know, contingent upside if something
happened to Cooper, Cop and Puka and he got absolutely nothing
going while those dudes were out, end up scoring some more
touchdowns once they were back. So Whittington is having the
role change of course, though he is not Puka and I wouldn’t freak
out with, but comfortable with wide receiver.
For someone that honestly I’ve been happy to stash in Dynasty.
I do think he is a good player. No one’s Puka, but you know,
hey, he is going to be asked to do similar things, you know, as
a poor man’s version. Lutrell.
Asks if you had to start 1 coming off of injury, would it
be Ricky Bullets or would it be Terry Mclaurin?
Terry. Probably Terry, it’s going to be
interesting to see how parasol and know Kendrick Bourne are
coexisting because I feel like Bourne’s beginning a lot of
those Ricky targets as it is. So meanwhile, Juan playing
through 5 broken ribs, a low and a high ankle sprain, which is a
new one for me. So we’ll see what happens there.
But Kittle could also be back as soon as this week as my dogs are
very excited about. So could be a situation where.
We see Kittle getting fed. I thought that was Jake’s
sighing when you were saying. No, that’s I heard it too.
Like. I sighed, and I thought that was
an echo of my side. All right, we’re going to get
deep into the running back rankings.
If you have more questions, please pump those into the chat.
Right now. You need to be subbed, smash the
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If you want your questions answered on the show, we’re
going to get to the running back rankings right now.
Again, follow along in the description.
You just click on Ian’s rankings, follow along with us
or just see them up on the screen right now.
Ian, you stop me when it’s not a must start player.
OK, cool. CMC Bijon, Jonathan Taylor, Josh
Jacobs, Gibbs a chain, Rico Dattle right now, assuming Chuba
Hubbard is still out. We talked about that at the
beginning of the show, that situation.
Gente Kyron Saquon, Javonte Williams, Judkins Scataboo
Rashad White. Assuming again there’s no Bucky
Irving, Bruce Hall, Travis Jing, Jordan Mason.
Assuming, again, that there is no Aaron Jones about right?
There about right there I said I still like Bill Dobbins has, you
know, a winnable matchup at home against the Giants and
everything and we already talked about Kamani Vidal.
So that is just a point though, where you know all of a sudden,
if you do have a you know, a reputable wide receiver too, I
could see it going a different direction because all those guys
do have, you know, more involved running backs out there and
obviously, you know they’re warts.
But you know, I’m still feeling pretty good.
If you did want to include Vidal and that’s the top 20, you know,
Stevenson would be a very fine cut line as well.
So let’s keep. Going down the list here, Jay,
can you tell me which guys are a bit too high, a bit too low?
Because I think I’m pretty much on board with them.
Corey Crosky merited 18 Dobbins, Vidal Stevenson, Kamara Swift,
who had a very good Monday night game and now gets New Orleans,
Montgomery Pacheco, Kenneth Walker, Nick Chubb, Chase Brown,
Tony Pollard and bam night at #30 Charbonnay Warren.
Woody Marks is back. Taja Spears.
Travian Henderson. Kenneth Gainwell.
Michael Carter. Kendry Miller.
So now we’re delving into these backup territories.
Only Baltimore and Buffalo on by this week.
Which one of those guys do you think you would move up?
And where does Swift’s performance after the Monday
nighter now place him that he’s taking on the Saints, do you
think? Yeah, I move them up a few
spots. I’d probably trust Swift over a
dollar just because again, that’s one game.
Ian brought up the Haskins workload potentially in the goal
line situations. And it’s not that I’m
overreacting to the Swift situation, it’s just this is one
of those ones where we talk about rookies at coming out of
the buys. A lot of times you’ll see
upticks in their usage and Manon guy barely saw an uptick.
It was still swift. And I know while a lot of it was
that big touchdown play, but you still can’t ignore the fact that
they just they’re going to go to Swift 15 + * a game.
It is against the Saints as you brought up.
I’m not rocking them up the ranks again at 20 would be my
cut off. And that’s only because the
Stevenson backfield situation continues to be frustrating even
in a good matchup against the Titans is they keep going to him
and he doesn’t produce. And then sometimes they get some
to Anderson. He’s still.
So that’s the only one and the one that would move down, which
sounds crazy because I’m talking about somebody in the 20s.
But I’d move Chase Brown even further down at the fact that
they started using Samaj AP Ryan.
And I’m not look, I’m not saying Taj Brooks is going to be better
than Chase Brown because the offensive line in the offense is
part of the problem. But if they’re already giving
them touches, giving away touches to Semaj, AP Ryan, I
don’t know, like maybe they’re going to find out they’re not
enamored with Chase Brown, which is crazy to say because we saw
how good he looked last year. And it maybe it was just a
factor of Joe Burrow in the offensive line doing things last
year. But do they start to open the
door to say, hey, you know what? Maybe you’re the problem?
I don’t think he is because it’s the offensive line.
But they already opened the door to P Ryan where I don’t see how
you can just Chase Brown at this point to even start.
I like I would play Woody Marks, Jalen Warren over him and I
think long and hard about Taja Spears.
If Taja Spears was in a better match up because they’re
starting to increase his workload too, I would think
about it, but that’s the range I would put Chase Brown in now.
Yeah. I think I would switch Woody
Marks and Nick Chubb in this match up against Seattle Ian.
Yeah, I mean, look, it’s been 5050.
I do think Trump is probably the safer bet for, you know, 12 to
15 combined carries and targets. But obviously with where both
guys are ranked, I’m not exactly lining up to be going with
either. Seattle has been a little bit
better against the run in the past, as we’ve seen over these
past two weeks, particularly as long as Witherspoon and Wooly
are going to be sidelined. But I hear you on Chase Brown.
That said, like, at some point, can we break a run, man?
I know the offensive line sucks, but 94 touches this year, guys,
without a single gain of 15 plus yards.
The next closest running back has 36.
So really has been miserable for Chase Brown.
And to Jake’s point, I mean, it feels like a matter of when, not
if, they really start trying to get somebody else involved
because goodness gracious, man, come on.
Yeah, it’s. Not been good.
You want to hear the worst fantasy roster move of the year
so far? Here it goes.
I picked up Rico Dowdle 2 or so weeks ago once I started seeing
that Chuba Hubbard had this calf injury.
So I, I got Juba Hubbard on my team.
It’s like, oh, I’ll have his backup, I’ll just make A1V1
replacement if he can’t go. And Juba ended up playing that
week and that’s when he got more injured.
I think that was the Patriots game.
And then someone had just scooped up.
I ended up dropping him. The moment that I saw that
Hubbard was going to play, I was like oh perfect.
I I don’t need this guy anymore. It’s a keeper league.
So some of these very late drafted rookies hold a lot of
value. So my decision came between what
do I drop, Luther Burden, Taj Brooks or Rico Dowdell?
And guess who I dropped? Of course.
Like he he was of no keeper value to me.
The other two guys are like last round keeper, should they turn
into something and now I’ve lost every game since.
I can make you feel better, Pat. Industry League.
I was really I had injuries. I lost Joe Burrow.
I’m just scratching to have a lineup put together and I’m
like, hey, I still have Jonathan Taylor.
I’ll take a chance and I’ll trade him for a cheap Chase
Brown. No, Chase Brown, Chris Olavey
and George Kittle when he got hurt.
I’m like, hey, this is future, you’re looking and it’s all a
bunch of value. And yeah, it’s possibly that.
I think I might have one upped you on that one, Ian.
When it comes to someone like let’s say JK Dawg, JK Dobbins
has been routinely ranked like 20th to 25th.
I I’d be curious I I don’t know the answer to this because it
feels like he does nothing every single game.
Where does he rank the season of points per game?
Let me see, overall he’s been pretty.
Let’s see, he’s RB 18 overall, all right, He hasn’t had any
booms. So here is weekly PPR ranks
though. Week 1 RB 14 and then
RB17142818. And last week he was 49.
So last week was really his only pure dud.
I will say, I mean, it just ends up he’s still got the same role.
He’s not going to get that many targets.
But really it’s just the issue where RJ Harvey, even in a game
where Tyler Beday was actually inactive, we saw Julia
McLaughlin come in and go ahead and get his handful of touches.
So I hear you. But Dobbins really has been
making the most out of his touches.
I do think he is their best running back in Denver, and
yeah, it’s going to be tough to rank him too high because he’s
not really a threat for these 2530 touch games.
I’ll allow Rico Dowdle, but again, in this spot, Denver
still a pretty good team with a great defense.
I’m still fine firing up Dobbins and more lives than not, yeah, I
would. Also, bump down.
You said you’d bump down Chase Brown from 28 to outside the top
30. Jake, I’d bump down Tony Pollard
as well. And I mean, it’s part of my hate
for Tony Pollard, but just go look what running backs have
done against New England so far this year.
They cannot. I mean, Tennessee can’t run the
ball anyway, but now they’re playing a team that just shuts
down running backs. Yeah, and that’s.
Certainly fair. I, I think we think that the
Tony Pollard split is going to become more pronounced by the
weeks that we go on and we’re going to be turning into, I
would say Seattle. But like that was just such a
good comparison that Ian brought up is that’s the good version.
So I would say the bad version of like the Cardinals where we
could see it like kind of like that situation and all of a
sudden Tony Pollard is now band night and the roles are reversed
just because I think this is also the Tennessee Titans
possibly looking forward like Tony Paul is not a long term
solution. Spears been hurt and banged up
for most of his career so far. But today soup day, maybe he’s
our potential timeshare running back of the future.
I don’t think the Callahan firing is going to overhaul this
offense because most of the coaching staff is still there.
But they could still see they were already doing it with
Callahan and starting to see what they have in Spears.
So I think that split could become more pronounced as you
said the. Other ones that I would probably
bump up over those guys, I’d probably play Kenneth Gainwell
even as now like the one BI guess I would call it because
they’re, they’re getting Caleb Johnson more back into the mix
just against Cincinnati’s run defense start anyone who might
touch the ball inside the 20 cuz they might just break it for a
touchdown. Other than that, like Kendry
Miller, I’d probably bump up. I’d probably play Charbonnay and
Bam Knight over Pollard and Brown and Chubb in that spot.
And then we have this Kenneth Walker question.
A lot of the questions in the chat, Ian are coming in about
Kenneth Walker. Like question would you start?
I have Walker and ETN as starting running backs, Carter
and Chubb on the bench. Who would you trade for a
target? Like is Carter’s floor higher
than Kenneth Walker’s? That’s a really insane question,
but I understand the the fear of it that Kenneth Walker’s.
He looks good on the field, but he does nothing in fantasy.
And it’s crazy, man, because you look at the idea where OK,
Walker’s the big play hitter and he is like his explosive run
rate has been very good this year and sharpening, it’s not
his game. He’s got the third burst
explosive run rate. Sharpening also has the highest
stuff rate in the league, which means no running backs getting
stopped for zero or negative yards.
They both face A+ defenders in the box on at least 40% of their
rush attempts. So I don’t know man, again, from
a real life perspective, I know like we had Nate Tyson by Yahoo,
he knows far more ball than me and he was, you know, dunking on
my take that, you know, sharpener shouldn’t be touching
the ball. Just saying like, you know, they
want to keep Walker healthy and there are, you know,
opportunities for Charbonnay to get you 3 yards and you need 3
yards. And that’s all fine and dandy.
But regardless, man, in fantasy football here, like it’s
impossible to get too excited about either guy because we have
Charbonnay taking almost every single goal line rush guys.
I mean, in the games where they’ve both been active, I
believe there’s been 8 carries from the five yard line and
Charbonnay has seven of them. So again, I don’t quite get why
Seattle can’t give Walker a few more touches, but that’s the
reality we live. And I will say though, unlike
harder, I mean, the Seahawks offense is actually good.
I was actually looking this morning at, you know, the
implied pre season team totals versus what teams have actually
done in the first six weeks. And the Seahawks are one of, you
know, the top 4 offenses in terms of just being far better
than we expected. So that would be my tiebreaker.
I still would lean Walker versus those guys.
God forbid something happens to Chardonnay, we’d be looking at
Walker as legit RV one. That’s the.
Big one, here’s another Kenneth Walker trade, which I think this
is an insta click yes. But Jake, I’ll confirm with you
first. His Kenneth Walker and someone’s
going to trade him. Nico Collins.
Yes, Yeah, take Nico. In that circumstance, it’s not
even. A second thought, everything
that Ian said is right. And I know people keep still to
this day bringing up the fact that like, you killed me with
the Kenneth Walker in the third, fourth round pick and like, hey,
bad information again. But also we talked about
throughout the preseason and that was the information at the
beginning of August when he was supposed to be the bell cow.
He can’t stay on the field. And I think this goes deeper
too, like we’ve seen for years, like we look at backfields, like
why don’t they do this? Why don’t they do that?
Why do they not see the same things we’re seeing?
And we can’t know what’s in the coaches minds and we can’t know
what they go through every single week and why they make
these decisions. But sometimes I don’t know how
much we need to be told. And I’m not saying that that’s
what Ian was saying, but like we’ve clearly been told by the
Seahawks, they do not want Kenneth Walker to bell count.
Like there’s nothing we could like.
He’s not wrong. Kenneth Walker looks better,
performs better, he does everything better.
And they keep using Charbonnay 50% of the time and we can’t do
anything about that. Another trade question, Ian
comes from Aaron in the chat. Would you take out, would you
trade Alvin Kamara for either Jordan Mason or Kenneth Walker?
I would for Kenneth Walker because in my mind Kamara and
Walker like are about the same, except the upside for Kenneth
Walker could go way up should anything happen to sharpening.
Yes, yeah. And.
Honestly, even for Mason at this point, like come here, they’re
not throwing him the football and then last week he gets down
the one yard line. They bring in Jason Hills
geriatric asked to go ahead and score a touchdown.
So I I don’t know guys. So what is it in New Orleans
that they have to keep using this 35 year old coming off a
devastating knee injury and they have the audacity like skipping
to the end zone. I am so fucking tired of Jason
Hill. Eric asks, is Juwan Jennings
dropable for someone like Juan Dale Robinson?
I would say yes, because if Juan Dale’s still available in your
league, then Jennings probably holds no value whatsoever.
No. I.
Was saying, I don’t even need the name.
The dude’s playing to like, so if I would go back to Sunday’s
rankings when they’re like, hey, Jennings look like he’s going to
play. He’s healthy enough to go.
Jennings plays through injuries a lot to begin with.
So that was kind of why I was like, hey, you know what?
I’m still going to rank Jennings as a top 30 wide receiver
because he’s played through a nagging foot or a ham or
something like that, and he still goes out there and puts up
top 30 numbers as their clear lead option.
This is something, Pat, you’ve talked about in the past that
Jennings has been their number one and went out there.
But then we get postgame, 5 broken ribs and 17 ankle
injuries. Like, no, OK, well, that was
obviously a decoy situation. And now you have Pierce Hill
coming back. Kendrick Bourne is clearly been
connecting with Mac Jones and George Kittles is about to come
back too. So yes, Jennings is just
straight up droppable because he’s not even close to healthy.
Would you trade Dobbins and Gainwell for Derrick Henry
immediately? Yes, Ian. 100% yes, yes, yeah,
that’s. Dobbins on a throw and then and.
Then send some chocolate or whatever to, you know, whatever
you’re getting on that trade. My goodness.
Well. Here’s an interesting one for
you because you talked about just dropping Jennings.
Ian, would you drop Jennings or Darnell Mooney?
I’d probably drop Darnell Mooney.
He hasn’t done anything. He’s been hurt all year.
I dropped both. I don’t.
Know. Who you’re picking off?
I don’t see much value in either guy.
Again, like when we have these friends wide receiver fours who
you’re probably not starting anyway, like just give me the
handcuff running back over that. Nine times out of 10, there is a
decent list of them guys. I was actually going through it
yesterday, like just under 30% owned on ESPN and or Yahoo and
let me see if I can quickly get that.
But yeah, so just some handcuffs.
Tyler Algier, honestly, still sub 35%.
God forbid something ever happened to Bijan Bashal Tooten
still only 31% on ESPN. Brian Robinson.
CMC right now is on pace of like 440 touches.
And I’m not saying B Rob would be doing anything close to what
CMC is as a receiver, but I can see, yeah.
Jordan Mason, Elijah Mitchell. We’ve kind of seen that
prototype before. Kendre Miller, Taje Spears,
Jayden Blue. Now with Miles Sanders out of
the picture, Blake Quorum, Ray Davis with the Bills on by, and
maybe even Ollie Gordon. Gordon has a pure handcuff.
Just some guys where again, you have a wide receiver you’re not
using. Give me those handcuffs because
they have the changes. Did you bring?
Up Isaiah Davis, Yeah. You could, I mean just Breece.
Hall has the injury. I’m not even talking about the
trade. Breece Hall has injury history.
To come full like this is way back before I was pulling up
your point Ian, about Chase Brown because I was looking at
percent of explosive yards for running backs makes percent of
explosive yards for Chase Brown 0.
Do you know who else has a zero though?
Chuba Hubbard 0 explosive runs. My guy was out scoring Derrick
Henry before he got hurt. Poor guy.
I just I thought that was. Surprising to me, can I have?
Rico Dowdell’s fantasy points Ian in conjunction with
Hubbard’s to Be. Better than Henry Heather how
these things work that. Was funny because like Chua was
saving the day early on with this like garbage time receiving
workload, which we actually thought was going to go to Rico
Dowdle in the 1st place. So last year in the last two
years, Tuba was very good. So hopefully when he’s healthy,
he can do his thing. But yeah, Chase, Chase Brown
throttle are very, very much high, OK.
One word answers to these questions before we get to the
wide receiver rankings. We’ll go me, Ian and Jake.
Just one word answers. Is Chris Godwin worth holding on
to until he is back? I say no.
No, no, Luther. Burden on the boom or bust
category now. Yes, for me, especially with
this DJ Moore injury. Yes.
I can’t do it depends on DJ Moore.
He moves different man. He looks freaky if DJ.
Moore is fine. I burden was out there for 13
snaps or routes. I’m sorry, it’s one word, but it
matters, Lauren. Asks ETN or Breece Hall this
week. I would go with Breece Hall.
Brace, brace. Barely.
Yeah. Panthers run.
D has been better, though they’re not quite the same jokes
they used to be. Is there any value to Ollie
Gordon? No.
Yeah, pure handcuff. Handcuff.
What’s? Going to do like the reason that
a Chan is like doing well on this offense because he’s good.
Are you thinking Ollie Gordon’s going to come in and catch 8
passes a game? No.
But you didn’t see that’s not the question.
The question is will you have value of any chance hurt?
Yes he would be an RV 2 he’ll. Put up the the Romandre
Stevenson numbers from last week.
He’ll have like 32 carries for 14 yards.
Great. Can we get a?
Picture of Jalen Wright holding up today’s newspaper or
something. This dude has been back and
just, I mean to goodness gracious, talk about a bad take
by me. Yeah, listen, when he comes
back, maybe he’s going to be the man wide receiver rankings from
Ian 4 back that’s. My point?
Back, back, back and like actually on the field and good
wide, have we? Ever seen Ollie Gordon and Jalen
Wright in the same place? Go ahead, Bat, Sorry.
Wide receiver rankings four week #7 JSN comes in at #1 you Ian,
you stop me when we need to be stopped.
I’m in raw. Jamar Chase Jefferson.
Nico Lamb, back in the rankings this week, is expected to be
back. He’s at #6 Roma Dunze after a
bad Monday Night Football game. Devante Adams.
Waddle London. Rashi Rice, who is returning at
#11 George Pickens, Ted McMillan, Debo Samuel, Courtland
Sutton. DK Metcalf, Bryan Thomas.
Junior Lad Mcconkey, Kendrick Bourne, AJ Right.
There again, like Mcconkey obviously and BTJ coming off
some really nice performances and they’re also benefiting just
again, from a little bit more consolidated targets.
SBTJ is more so Travis Hunter not doing anything being used
like 2024 Wandale Robinson. But I’m feeling good about those
guys Born Again having them in the top 20.
That is contingent on Ricky Parasol obviously staying out of
the picture and George Kettle as well.
He would be moved down a little bit.
So I still think AJ Brown’s really good football guys.
And the Eagles actually have gone from 31st and drop back
rate over expected in the first three weeks to 1st over the last
three. So they’ve been throwing the
football more often. But again, just weird, weird
vibes in that entire pass and getting really all season long.
So again, AJB, I’m sure you’re not going to have many
opportunities to bench the guy, but those top 18 guys certainly
are, you know, more firmly in my circle of trust, Jake, the.
Injuries that I’m tracking right now, Puka Igbuca, Marvin
Harrison, Calvin Ridley, Garrett Wilson and DJ Moore I have as
projected as out this week with DJ Moore spending the night in
hospital after the Monday night game.
It’s at least in my mind less than a 50% chance that he plays
this week. Darnell Mooney, Terry Mclaurin,
Noah Brown, Curtis Samuel, Jalen Coker, Godwin Lamb, Evans,
Christian Watson, Ricky Bullets, Cavante Turpin, Calvin Austin,
Quinton Johnson all did not play last week.
I would expect CD Lamb to be back, maybe Mclaurin, maybe Mike
Evans, although probably not. Maybe Darnell Mooney and Jalen
Coker I would guess should be back this week.
It sounds like Coker should be actually, so that I didn’t hear
that DJ Moore, the hospitalization news.
I’ve been doing podcasts all morning.
So is that what I was? Hack because I mean, I know he
got backed up really in the game, but he kept playing.
Do you know what the? Reason was Pat.
I don’t know why, Antoine. And Randall L Can, it was some
sort of hip injury. So the hip back, so like, yeah,
that was surprising to me. So yeah, that changes the Luther
burden thing a little bit. Is the only one in that list
that sounds like we should count on him is potentially, like you
said, Jalen Coker is returned. Marvin Harrison one will be
interesting. He has enough of a window that
he might be the first of what we seen around this time of year.
We usually get the ones like, oh, the concussion, they come
back and play the next week. But if he’s out, Zay Jones fine
flyer to go back to the rankings list, though I know you haven’t
asked the question yet, is that the one that I would move up and
I would put up by like Drake London or Rashi Rice, especially
Rice’s first game back was Xavier worthy playing well.
But Brian Thomas junior, because Speaking of health, and I
mentioned this in the waiver column when I talked about like
power ups, like guys like I’m giving a boost to.
So we not only see the fact that I mean, I’m watching Brian
Thomas and in my opinion, he finally looks healthy, looks
like he’s trusting his body. And I’m assuming it goes back to
that wrist issue because he didn’t want to take contact.
He’s also seen 100% the past two weeks, 100% on target passes
from Trevor Lawrence. The first three weeks it was
40%. They’re connecting.
They’re on the same page. Brian Thomas looks healthy.
Brian Thomas is back into my full on wide receiver 1 circle
of trust. Is there any Jets receivers you
would consider if Gary Wilson is?
Gary Wilson looks like he’s not playing.
So, Josh Reynolds, anyone? I think like at the end of the
day, we want to win our fantasy matches, but like we want to be
able to look ourselves in the mirror, you know, afterwards.
And I can’t just I cannot imagine being able to do that if
I put Josh Reynolds in the fence.
A lot of Mason Taylor’s the only one that I think gets a bomb if.
Ricky Purcell is back and obviously Jennings probably
still ends up playing and Kittle might be back.
Would that influence your Born ranking at 19?
100% yeah, he’d be more down to the wide receiver through
wrench. All right, so.
After Kendrick, born at #19 A.J. Brown, Xavier Worthy, Stephen
Diggs, Olave Keenan Allen, Michael Pittman, Windale
Robinson, at #26 Devonta Smith, T Higgins, Marvin Harrison,
junior in the rankings right now, should Marv not play with
this concussion, how does that adjust all of the Cardinals
receivers? Because it didn’t seem it was
not Michael Wilson. It was Zay Jones who stepped
into that spot. Yeah.
Yeah, I would get Zay Jones and lesser extent Michael Bolson, to
your point, probably up around those Tampa Bay wide receivers
on that kind of wide receiver 3 borderline.
So look, it was nice seeing Jacoby Brissett throw for 300
plus yards. You know, we’re kind of getting
similar now, Jets vibes, you know, going on Arizona, like,
well, why is the backup quarterback looking like such a
better professional thrower than the actual starter here?
But again, also playing the Packers and company.
So also wouldn’t be surprised if the Cardinals, you know, lay an
egg in that spot. So not going out of my way to
start those guys, but certainly would be some nice deserved
bumps. I will say when we are looking
at, you know, the strength of schedule moving forward, the
Cardinals do have the best in the NFL out wide receiver over
the course of these next 5 weeks.
So if Marv is going to be available, he was starting to
come on really strong before that concussion.
Again, one of the worst first half I think we can remember on
that Thursday night game, but came back strong in the
second-half. Had a good game afterwards and
was even starting to do some good things last week before the
concussion. So Marvin Harrison Junior and
even T Higgins in that same spot, guys wouldn’t mind
floating some trades out for those two would.
You play Zay Jones or Darius Slayton, assuming there’s no
Marvin Harrison and that Slayton plays.
I go zay. Jones, I go Zay.
Jones as well in that spot. Do you think that Whittington is
going to get enough volume to start as a flex?
I don’t. I think we’re where Ian has him
kind of in that Jerry Judy Cooper Cup, Christian Kirk
range. I think that’s where he should
be. I think it could be, I mean
touchdown relying. I, I don’t think that
Whittington’s going to go out there and put up 6 for 110.
I think it could be like more of a four for 5070 a bet and then
maybe the touchdown volts him aside the top 20.
But I think it would take a touchdown for him to get there.
Let’s go ahead. With no more of Yeah, well.
Let’s go into that range. So Jameson Williams is at #30
against Tampa Bay on Monday Night Football, Sunday Night
Football, Monday, Monday Night Football, good game on Monday,
Monday Night Football. Romeo Dobbs, the DJ Moore is in
there right now at #32 I don’t think that he’s going to play,
but we’ll get more information on that.
I’ll have that reflected in my rankings on Wednesday and I’m
sure that Ian will update his at some point between now and
Thursday Night Football. So you can hit those down there,
same as Jake’s down in the description as well.
So Josh Downs, Tez Johnson, Sterling Shepherd, Matthew
Golden, Shaheed, Jacoby Myers, who, I’m sorry guys, he sucks
now that’s my bad. Gray Tucker, Ayo Manor, Jordan
Addison, Christian, Kurt Cooper Cup, Jerry Judy, Travis Hunter.
There’s Jordan Whittington at #46 Troy Franklin, Keyshawn
Bootay Mann, Juwan Jennings, Hollywood Brown, Camron Johnson,
Alec Pierce, Josh Reynolds. Then we’re into, like, Ray, Ray
McLeod. Little Jordan Humphrey is
interesting. If Slayton sits, where do you
think that certain goes? Because it feels like a lot of
the Broncos, like biggest things, are wasted on the
Giants. Yeah, I’m with him, man.
I don’t think that Sotan’s going to be matching up with Wandale.
He hasn’t played double digit snaps in the slot all season
long. And Wandale obviously is where
he’s living. So no, I mean, the Broncos
defense as a whole, I mean, I think I just saw a stat this
morning from underdog like they’re on pace to break the
single season sack record. So not saying it’s going to be,
you know, layup city for Wandale or anything like that, but he
could have, you know, I think you mentioned earlier, Pat, one
of those 8 catches, 40 yard games because I don’t think he’s
going to be catching that Sotan shadow lighting stretch.
But they are. So Wando’s actually at his
highest of running outside now. That’s still only 36% of the
time. So it’s not like it’s a huge
number. It’s not.
Here’s a. Good thing, Jake, I mean
probably a bad thing. The game is in Denver.
Every route will be outside. Oh, there you go.
Nice. So that that’s where you have to
worry. Like Wandel’s probably going to
do nothing, especially because he’s not a pure outside out
wide. Is that better, Pat?
He’s not a pure out wide wide wide receiver.
So that’s your certain. You might as well just shut him
down for those. And then if he does get a
sprinkling of certain into the slot, I just think that if it’s
not Wandel, I don’t really want anybody else because I really
was already hesitant on Darius Slate and if he’s not back, I’m
not trusting a little Jordan Humphrey game for a second.
Although anyway, isn’t that a revenge game?
So hey, you might get something. Is little Jordan Humphrey
revenge on the Broncos? Very.
Misleading name, by the way, little Jordan Humphrey.
Kind of a big guy. He is a big.
Big Jordan Humphrey, Yeah. Big Jordan that should be ATI
feel like little Jordan makes him sound bad.
Big Jordan Now people are picking that guy up off the
waiver wire. I think I.
Heard he got named that because of Michael Jordan.
So the family was just like, you know, little Jordan.
So kind of cool. He’s named after little Penny.
Shout out, those are great. Yeah, there’s just a couple
guys. It’s not necessarily even Tucker
or Myers fault that they’re so bad.
It’s just Gino has no time to throw.
You know, he can’t actually take a three-step drop, make more
than a second read to a second option and throw it to someone
like Myers is standing wide open most of the time.
So is Trey Tucker. They just can’t get the ball to
them. And it was brutal last week,
man, they really just massacred our boy, you know, and Gino used
to be one of the most, you know, prolific downfield throwers.
But I guess after the 8th or 9th pick this year, he finally
decided to chill out. 2.5 yard average target theft guys.
That was the second lowest mark of the entire season, only in
front of that game where Jordan Love got spooked by Miles
Garrett and company. So honestly in Vegas right now,
like they’re force feeding the ball of Gente, which is cool.
And the only other guy that I’m really starting with confidence
is Michael Mayer for as long as Brock Bowers is out because
they’re almost using him as just like, you know, chip lock and
then release check down option, which again, Gino is taking more
than ever. I would probably bump up Jordan
Addison here. You have him right to #41 I
think I’d make him a very firm like in that why I’d play him
over Tez Johnson and Josh Downs. Like that range like the higher
30s Jake. I can see that just basically
because the the fact that like the Hawkinson’s almost been
eliminated from the equation at this point.
Like they just don’t use them that much.
Even the garbage time they go, they got a sprinkle before the
by. I think really comes down to is
also how long do we get Carson Wentz?
And I’m talking about this week. So like, yeah, Addison’s there.
But when JJ McCarthy is back, there’s Addison still in this
conversation because McCarthy just hadn’t shown anything
outside of 1/4, really. But yeah, Addison, I’d probably
like if it was me. Addison are right around the
Dobbs. They feel like similar players
is that you might get only 4050 yards, but you also might get a
touchdown in there. So kind of that similar.
I think Dobbs and Addison are very similar fantasy outlooks,
honestly. Yeah, I, I has.
Been I always like. Dobbs.
The most of any Green Bay receiver in any given week.
That’s always me. Well, unless.
Watson’s back and then we just throw them all off the window.
I would still. Play.
If you gave me a choice even to play all of those guys, I would
play Romeo Dobbs over the mall. He’s been the top performing one
and even last week when Matthew Golden, you know, it looked like
he was kind of breaking out because he had a great game, you
know, north of 100 total yards. But you look at the targets and
it really was Romeo still sitting pretty as the one.
And honestly, Watson coming back.
I feel like that could be a bigger problem for Golden than
it necessarily Dobbs out there. So I hear on Addison, if you did
want to, you know, move him up inside the top 35.
I’m not going to freak out or anything like that.
But I will say that 100 yard game heavily influenced by what
that 80 yard catch and run on a complete broken coverage and
then the before the by like he got benched for some reason that
we still don’t find out for the first quarter, wound up getting
the bulk of his, you know, yards and then touchdown the last
drive, which is cool. I’m not trying to take that away
from him, but I just don’t really overly trust any pass
catcher in his Vikings offense other than Jetta’s obviously a
few. Questions in the chat right now
start sick questions. Let’s do some round table.
This time we’ll go Jake, Ian, then me.
So Jake, you’re up first. Would you go is a trade question
actually Devante Smith and Jalen Waddle for Ash and Gente yes or
no? Yes, Gente.
Yes, gente, sorry Ian’s your. Depends on your roster.
I think it’s fair. If you really didn’t need the
RB, well auto’s going to be the rest of season.
Wide Receiver 1, though I don’t know if it’ll.
Be a wide receiver. Why isn’t that offense sucks too
much? I think it’ll be a wide
receiver, one in points per game when we’re at the end of it, but
the game to game variance will be up there.
Would you start? Woody Marks or Travian Henderson
this week Marks. Marks.
Marks for. Me as well.
Would you start George Kittle if he returns or Matthew Golden in
the flex spot? Kittle if Watson is back.
Golden if Watson is not back. Yeah, Kittle either.
Way for me, if he’s active, I’m playing them.
Would you drop Chris Godwin to pick up Christian Watson?
Yes. Godwin’s.
Done. God, Godwin couldn’t get
anything going and then he aggravated the leg that he had
the surgery and the injury on like this.
Godwin’s done and Mike Evans is about to be back.
Yeah, I. Guess I’m not expecting much out
of Watson either, so maybe again, try to get one of those
handcuffed running backs instead.
But I’m I’m fine with that. Would you?
Oh, I already did that one drop Kenneth Walker or Kamani Vidal.
I. Don’t have to drop Kenneth
Walker. Yeah, find somebody.
Else. Leave him out of this I feel.
Like if he’s still. If Vidal’s still available, I
could see where that question comes from then.
But it’s very fit. It’s very like.
I know. But a lot of those times, I get
what you’re saying, Pat too, 100%.
It’s probably 10 team or something like that.
But a lot of those times somebody has a really good, but
it’s your 5th or 6th wide receiver that you’d never get to
start correct. Here’s a hard like Crystal Labi.
You would drop Crystal Labi before you would drop Kenneth
Walker in that situation, correct?
Correct. 100% yeah. Trippy.
JC, I’ll answer this one for you.
Do you trade Devin A chain, Jamison Williams and TJ
Hawkinson for Cortland Sutton, Sam Laporta and Chase Brown?
Absolutely not. You have the two best players in
that trade. You like write these names down
like what was it so a Chan Jamison and what was the other
and Hawkinson? For Chase Brown, Cortland Sutton
and Sam Laporta, that’s a. Massive overpay to improve your
tight end. No, I don’t even know how.
Much you’re improving your tight end, honestly.
Like 3 points a game. LaPorte.
LaPorte is usable. Hawkinson is not sure, but like
you. Can pick up, I don’t know,
someone you pick up Harold Fannin if you really wanted to.
For the time. Just find out what Tommy Tremble
if Jetavion Sanders still gets hurt like these guys all just
score 7 points a week. It’s fine.
Last one here on the question front.
There are actually two more on the question front.
Would you keep Josh? No, I keep looking at that one
because my scroll is over. I dropped Jerry Judy this week.
Should I pick up Alec Ayo Manor, Keshawn booty, Chris Kirk or
Travis Hunter? I would pick up Keshawn Manor.
No Ayo Manor, no that guy. Sucks you don’t want anyone on
Tennessee, probably. I think Eileen Booty again, like
I, I, I moved up AO Manor like 4 spots when I kind of realized
Ridley was out there. It’s just such a sad off mint
right now, at least in New England, Like we know Booty’s
going to be starting there and Drake may man should be in any
MVMVP conversation at this point.
Sounds wild to say, but he’s got the numbers.
He’s leading the team that, let’s face it, isn’t exactly
surrounding them with, you know, a bunch of riches.
Yeah. Drake May.
No, Drake May is the same thing as Josh Allen.
He spreads it around. This is the what happened the
four weeks in between the two good booty games like this is
just what happens like that. It is it.
Was a manner doing nothing and. You manner started off hotter
than Calvin Ridley. Now Kevin Ridley hurt.
That’s the only reason why he’s just going to get now he’s back
into the number one with no Calvin Ridley.
Drake not performed AO Manor last week.
I don’t that’s because. That’s because of the matchup.
That is the one team in the NFL that really struggles on the
complete outside Z wide receiver situation.
That’s that’s just what that was.
Well, that’s a good point. Jake.
Jake. Drake May.
Is up to 6th in MVP odds. He’s now 18 to 1.
Mahomes is now the betting favorite.
Makes sense really. I.
Thought I thought Mayfield jumped into the lead.
Did it change with the night game?
Mahomes, Allen, Mayfield, 123 And then there’s a big drop off.
OK, yeah, people. Always forget that these market
we talked about this on Monday’s show shout out to the big winner
that we gave out a four-game same game entry on underdog for
that Bills in Atlanta game. The three of us and the computer
put our best plays together. Boom, hit it and you can do that
too code Mayo at underdog. If you just play a $5 pick of
entry and you’re new, you get $100 in bonus funds win or lose.
But if it wins, you get that money too.
So go do that right now that this people always seem to
think, Ian, that these MVP like to win the MVP market is who is
the MVP right now. But it’s not.
It’s who wins the award like 3 months from now that yeah, Baker
would be the MVP at the moment. But this is a projection system.
It’s not who it is right now. Yeah.
And honestly, I think as much as we can sit here and give credit
for Baker for putting up those numbers, given the supporting
cast, I don’t think that carries the same way.
You know, when it does come time to vote for the guy, they’re
going to end up giving it to the quarterback with the best
numbers, usually the first team all pro.
I do think that Mahomes probably deserves to be the favorite for
that. Let’s see Ted Mason Taylor two
first for Justin Jefferson. I’m not here to get into your
fucking weird. I don’t.
You can’t ask keeper questions on this show because I have no
idea what the rules of your keeper league are like that.
That’s all that sounded that. Sounded like a dynasty question,
whatever it. Might be like I, I, I don’t
know, Vidal or Krosky Merritt this week in the Flex.
Krosky, Merritt. I like 2 spots.
I think I have it. I’d go.
Videl Sassoon in that spot for this week.
Tight end rankings for week #7 McBride comes in at #1 because
he is quarterback proof. It doesn’t matter if it’s Jacoby
percent or Kyle or Murray. Trey McBride continues to get it
done. Jalen Warren.
Jake Ferguson. Sam Laporta.
Tucker Craft. Travis Kelsey.
Darren Waller, Dallas Goddard, Kyle Pitts, Hunter Henry, Kate
Otten, Michael Mayer, Zach Ertz I feel like that’s the line
right there. Those 13 are not bad, Ian.
Yeah, I. Mean that’s like our we can,
that’s probably the second line. I mean, the realistic first line
is what after Jake Ferguson? I think after it’s not 3, but
it’s McBride, Warren Gap, Ferguson Gap, the rest.
Of them, then a gap. But no, I I agree man.
I do think again Taylor without Garrett Wilson involves is going
to be getting some target bombs. But again, we just saw Justin
Fields have -10 net passing yards.
So can’t have the most faith right there.
There are a handful of guys though in this later range I do
think of maybe help or Ronde Gaston if you are in dire need
of longer term tight end help. We did see a season high 77%
route rate even though the rest of the Chargers tight ends are
getting healthy. He even lost a fumble and I
think on his first catch and they just kept on going with
him. So Gaston is one of these guys
guys out of Syracuse where he actually has flash, you know,
some high end receiving upside had a good game a couple weeks
ago as well. So if you do need longer term
help, I think gassing could be your guy.
I will say though, guys, if David Najoku dealing with a knee
injury that I don’t know if it’s going to keep him out.
This dude played, you know, with half his face burnt off, you
know, the same week. So I’m not, you know, guessing
that Najoku is going to be sidelined.
But Harold Fannon for me without Najoku, man, I think I would try
to get him inside the top ten. That’s where.
I would be leading to I’d bump up Tommy Tremble, Jetavion
Sanders and misses time again into that like Jake Tongas, Evan
Ingram type range of like 15 through 20.
Where would you rank Kittle Jake if Kittle plays?
I would put Kittle right there with Travis Kelsey.
I don’t I wouldn’t go higher yet just be just because I don’t
know his first game back of like how much this is going to be out
there for the complete game or that kind of situation.
So I think that’s also there’s Ricky Pearsall back.
So no Ricky Pearsall. We get news that Kittle should
be full go. I could see kittle even as high
as Jake Ferguson, but I think it’s going to come down to the
effectiveness of like what Pierce old and Kittle will be
the first game back. So that’s where I put him there.
The fan in situation I agree with.
I put fan in man with no and Joku.
I put I played. I played fan in over Pitts.
I put him all the way up at 9. I I play him over.
Goddard in that situation as well.
No way. Goddard’s been on fire.
He has been but this. Is the week it stops.
How? Why?
Why don’t stop this thing? Unless the primary game plan is
we saw Cleveland and Minnesota where it’s like, hey, David and
Joku and Harold Fannon, we’re only going to throw to you and
we’re going to throw to you 3 yards down the field and pile it
up. Minnesota has been very good
against tight ends. Their defense is structured that
way to force more things. They just gave.
It up to David and Joku though. I just.
Told you they only threw the two guys and I, they didn’t really
give it up to him. He ran like 3 yard routes the
entire game. OK, I, I, I see no reason for it
to stop, but I would play, I’m playing Dallas Goddard.
Quarterback streamers for week number See what is this 7.
Jaden Daniels is your number one quarterback.
Ian Mahomes, Hertz, Drake May Caleb Williams, Dak Prescott,
Justin Herbert. And that’s assuming that there’s
probably no Quintin Johnston in that game.
Just in the offensive lineman. Joel is probably not going to be
back either. Daniel Jones, Baker Mayfield,
Justin Fields coming off a terrific performance.
Jordan Love, Jared Goof, Sam Darnold, Jackson Dart phone,
Knicks, Mac Jones, Michael Pennix, Matthew Stafford, Trevor
Lawrence and Bryce Young are the top 20.
Jake, I’ll go to you on this one.
Is there anyone from like the bottom of that list that you do
think is a good streamer? Or anyone that you think that
Ian may have ranked too highly? Too highly.
We’d go back to Jackson Dart, like against Denver.
I mean, I know what he’s talking about when we talked Jackson
Dart, but that just feels tough. Like you because we agreed on
the Matthew Stafford over Jackson Dart conversation.
We’re talking about streamers. So that would be 1.
And on the flip side, I was surprised that he has CJ Stroud
down this low because he talked about I’m a decent streamer in
the Seattle secondary. Still missing multiple pieces.
They’ve been giving up the past 2-3 games with all those
injuries. I know he has to do it all from
the pocket, but you say CJ Stroud in the conversation with
Stafford and then Jackson Dark kind of behind it.
Like those would be the big movers.
I mean, there’s other nitpicky ones here.
And to go back to that tight end situation you mentioned, Quentin
Johnson. I just want to bring it up.
That’s probably why he has Gatson as high as he does is
because he didn’t have Quentin Johnson in his wide receiver
rankings. Yeah, I think.
I’m good here until we get to fields.
Like I’ve been pretty anti fields all year and he’s had a
few good games but I just I couldn’t imagine playing golf or
love behind fields this week. Just even though it is a nice
matchup against Carolina, I’m just too terrified that when it
goes bad it goes so bad. Well.
So that’s The thing is it goes so bad and I’ve been the
proponent of Justin Fields and I’ve been telling people the
entire year over the Athletic that if you went with Justin
Fields, you just have to play him every single week because
he’s a roller coaster and he can do well against bad defenses.
He can could do, you know, terrible against good ones or
vice versa, that you get my point there.
I was saying the Broncos would be the one scenario where like,
yeah, I could see bench, you know, I think I had him at QB
131415 somewhere around there and obviously that was still way
too high. The interesting thing about the
Panthers is they’re actually number one in the league and I I
it’s only two weeks, so it’s a very small sample, but it’s not
two weeks of schlubs. But they’re number one in the
league against two decent backfields where they are the
number one run defense. They’re destroying run games
right now, and that’s Justin Fields.
Hey, like, so if they’re even half decent with Justin Fields
with no Garrett Wilson, Yeah, I don’t feel as good as I used to
about Justin Fields for sure. Yeah.
When? When I start thinking about some
of the names at the bottom of this list, like someone like
Aaron Rodgers at #22 I know that the deep field stuff isn’t
existed at this point. No word yet on whether Calvin
Austin is going to return for Pittsburgh or not.
It’s the Thursday night game. Short rest for incredibly crappy
Cincinnati defense. Yes, you can run all over them,
but a lot of Pittsburgh’s like short passing game is an
extension of the run game. You can really beat them up
there. I just feel like DK is going to
take a 3 yard slant and turn it into 90 yards.
The tight ends are doing a lot of heavy lifting with inside the
red zone right now. There’s like 5 of them on
Pittsburgh and they’re just randomly catching touchdowns.
I don’t know which one you should play, but it feels like
Aaron Rodgers has a good beat to throw a bunch of touchdowns.
If I was looking for upside here, like yeah, all the running
quarterbacks can do pretty well. Be it dart, be it next, be it
fields. In the right circumstance, you
give them some garbage time. All of a sudden they rushed for
a touchdown in 70 yards. They’ve saved their entire day.
Most definitely on the table. But instead of CJ Stroud, who I
think had the benefit of beating up on Tennessee and the
decimated Baltimore defense. Now that even though Seattle is
missing members of its secondary, that it’s still going
to be a bit of a tougher task. And we might see him revert back
into the CJ Stroud who has no time to pass that we saw earlier
on in the season. So it would be that matchup for
me in particular that I’d be looking at.
It’d be Aaron Rodgers against Cincinnati.
If you really need someone to come down and make start for
you. If I had to go pick someone up
because I know that he’s widely available in a lot of these
spots, even over like Mac Jones and Michael Panics, who could
have pretty good games going against each other.
Just I don’t trust those guys enough at this point.
And who knows who’s going to be playing for the Niners at this
point as well. I, I just don’t really
understand that part of it, that out of all of those guys, I do
think it would be Aaron Rodgers as the deep league streamer that
I would be looking at. A deep League 1 and I get all
your points in the honestly, Cincinnati gave up one of the
best games Trevor Lawrence had this year to them three
touchdowns in that game. They just gave up somebody else
just had a really good like probably their best game of the
season against them. So I definitely get your point
against Cincinnati. The only thing that would
hesitate my pick on and Aaron Rodgers is just because it is
Pittsburgh that if they do jump out to the lead, this is a team
that’s be like, all right, Aaron Rodger, you just only throw it
28 times today. Like so I could just see that
where against Penex, I’m not going to argue much.
If you want to go Rodgers against most of those, CJ Stroud
has to do it, like you said, all with his arm.
And if you want to make that argument, that’s fine.
The one I would push back on is I actually trust Matt Jones at
this point. Mac Jones.
Like, if for all the people that talk about Kevin O’Connell and
what he can do for quarterbacks, where did he come from and where
did he come from of a coach which who has turned
quarterbacks to gold in his? It’s Shanahan, and he’s made Mac
Jones really good. It doesn’t matter who’s been out
there at wide receiver. Mac Jones has been producing the
entire time he’s been at quarterback.
Atlanta’s a tougher matchup than some of the others, but that’s
the one I would push back on. I would go Mac Jones before
Rogers, but I don’t have a problem if you want to argue
Rogers over the rest of those. Some quarterback questions that
have popped up. We’ll be doing a big question
and answer here in about 5 minutes because I’m going to do
defense this week. Jake.
I forgot to do defense last week and like people are like, this
is the only reason I watched the show is to see the defenses.
So I’m going to get to those in a second.
Who do you think has a more upside this week, DAC or Baker?
I think it’s DAC and I think it’s every single week at this
point. Yeah, DAC, I mean, they’re
throwing. They’re playing more snaps and
opportunities than anybody, OK? Fields is a guy at the bottom of
your league. Mazeball.
Take the gamble. I just feel like Fields is owned
everywhere isn’t he? Is Fields available in leagues
to pick up? People that drop him left and
right and especially now coming off that game, he probably got
dropped. If waivers have already run,
he’ll probably get dropped after waivers when they do run.
Ian, would you go Ariel’s thing? It’s good to be back, by the
way, guys. But yeah, Fields QB 2QB4 and QB
7 and his other three starts. OK.
So yes, Carolina hasn’t been that bad, but I think we can
agree Carolina’s a bit closer to those 3 defenses versus the
Bills and the Broncos out here. So we know what we’re getting
with the guy. Yeah, he’s been atrocious, but
he’s also been really freaking good.
So, I mean, could be 10 for me. I that’s fine.
Do you start? Indiana Jones or picks Knicks, I
would start Daniel Jones. Daniel Jones, Well, next has not
been good, definitely. Now don’t tell that to Broncos
Twitter. They might freak out, right,
Ian? They actively are.
I had some very interesting DMS from them so look again.
Question. Who?
Are the offensive line playmakers who are?
These people, because I, I, I so rarely get sucked into this
vortex. All, all I had to do was retweet
you and all of a sudden these Broncos fans come out of
nowhere. Are they, are these like Broncos
fans who spent the majority of their life eating paint chips
and banging their head against a wall?
Like, are they fucking stupid? There’s a, there’s.
A pretty funny phenomenon where, yeah, people get angry and
fantasy and all that and stuff. I think generally, at least my
mentions is pretty, you know, neutral and level headed.
But once tweets get out of the fantasy sphere and then again
the real life fandom who people are just, you know, rooting for
their squads, like, it gets ugly quickly, man, Yeah.
It’s just bizarre behavior, Jake.
Like just the the commentary of like what they’re seeing versus
like objectively what is happening seem to be two
completely different things. And that’s the thing so and it
doesn’t seem to matter because I’ve watched him just like both
of you have this year and Bo Nicks doesn’t look as good as he
was last year. So that’s like a lot of times I
tell people what I say and people don’t be like, well, I
don’t see the same thing. All right.
So I went into the metrics and then Bo Nicks, his numbers are
not in line with last year with the one most important thing was
obviously the touchdown rate last year late in the season.
That touchdown rate was going to be tough to re redo this year.
But mostly it’s under pressure. Last year when he was under
pressure, he at least ran more. He’s not running when he’s under
pressure this year, which is part of the value of Bo Nicks in
fantasy is we want him to run. But, and now you look at it and
I brought this up. So he’s got the Raiders twice in
the Jaguars once the rest of the season.
Everybody else is in the top ten.
The Cowboys are 12th in pressure rate against the quarterback.
Texans 5th, Chiefs twice at 4th, Packers 9th, Commanders 8th.
Bo Nicks might not be turning it around this year.
Aaron Rodgers or Cam Ward in the Super Flex?
Ian Rodgers. Sorry.
Thanks, Ian. I mean, hear you.
Say, Ian, I jumped in. No, I thought.
I thought it was a good point as well with Rogers and also even
CJ Shroud maybe moving up a few spots there.
Rogers and the Steelers passing game guys, they’re actually
doing good. It’s like, you know, average,
maybe slightly above average. But since 2019, which is when
Big Ben originally had that elbow issue, like this is the
most efficient Steelers pass offense pretty easily versus all
those other additions. There you go.
Pat, that’s what it was. The one game that Bonex threw
over 240 yards against the the Bengals, that was his only good
game. See there.
There’s a good one. Someone’s asking for survivor
picks that is not on this show. This is on the survivor pick
show which comes out later this evening.
I’m still alive. I used Indy last week, held on
by a a thread with the last team that I have remaining in.
Last question before we get to defenses, do you spend the
number one waiver wire pick up on Harold Fannon for trade
Capital or is that too optimistic?
Need running backs. I don’t think anyone’s trading a
running back for Harold Fannon. I’m sorry, nobody.
Trades for tight ends. Period.
Yeah, I I wouldn’t burn the number one, but I like having.
Fanon. Sure, but I wouldn’t burn the
number one way like if fanon is still available.
Just don’t use the waiver priority and pick up Kate Auten
instead. They’re like the same guy.
Yeah, and don’t do it. If it’s your third tight end,
like if you have real tight. End.
Just don’t worry about it. Yeah, Kate Otten or Harold
Fannon this week, and Joku is a. Potential trade candidate.
He’s already dealing with that knee injury as well.
Fannon could be a sneaky, you know, second out boob that guy
every time he gets the ball looks freaking great.
I I would take. Fannon over otten but it’s close
I I would take. Fannon over Otten this week as
well. Unless I, I guess, unless we get
like full practice reports from Ninjoku that he is fine and that
everyone doesn’t play for Tampa. But we might not know that
because Tampa plays on Monday night.
Yeah, defenses. I got four of them for you.
You ready? If you are in a pinch, these
defenses are available in less than 25% of, can I guess one of
them. Well, there’s four of them.
I’ve ranked them one through 4 and they’re in my newsletter
every Monday morning. They’re also up on
fourforfour.com in my Monday column as well.
But yes, we’ll play Family Feud style and go back and forth.
Jake, you can be first. You got, you’re on the hot
money, Jake. Let’s hear it.
The Bears. The Bears are #1 against New
Orleans, Yes, there you go. Yeah, at 3:00.
Percent ownership and defenses. Ian, you’re next.
Man, I don’t even I think that’s kind of a trap honestly.
Rather hasn’t been that bad. He hasn’t been having these
mistakes as much as we feel like he probably I agree with.
You, but the Bears forced turnovers this year.
There you go, and they scored. Their.
Offense, I mean, they weren’t able to score many touchdowns on
Monday night, but I thought the offense actually looked really
good. Ben Johnson is scheming up stuff
to get guys open and keep the offense moving.
If they can just put up 10 points early, it’s just going to
force New Orleans to throw and that’s really all that I want.
Like if you can get 40 Spencer Rattler passing attempts against
you, I’m playing that defense. The only thing better pat is 52
Dylan Gabriel pass attempts. Let’s go Dolphins number.
Two in the rankings, Miami at Cleveland would be #2 so Chicago
and Miami both under 5% owned right now.
There are two other ones that are under 25% owned.
Jake Ball is back in your court. I’m going with the. 1% rostered.
I’m going with the Panthers against the Wilson.
Less Jets. I actually.
Didn’t put the Panthers on that #4 on the list.
Ian is actually the other side of the ball.
The Jets at home against Carolina.
Carolina good at home, awful on the road.
So I’m sticking with it. Yeah, The Jets are just so
freaking about it’s, it’s tough, man.
Again, I just kind of looked at the best strength of schedules
for defenses over these next 5 weeks and just the good teams,
like the good combinations of real life defenses and also the
good schedules like they’re already owned in 60% plus.
I mean, hey, if you can find the Patriots, the Colts are up
there, you know, the Packers and the Steelers, obviously the
Texans as well, but most of the teams aren’t going to be on the
waiver wire. So if you do have to go week to
week, you know, it’s gross. I will say I like the Miami call
though, because as rough as they were in the first couple weeks
and we know their secondary sucks, they do have some goons
on that defensive line that can get after the passer.
If you do look over the last three weeks, they have been
starting to get some pressure. My my.
Biggest concern with the Miami defense is almost sort of the
opposite of what I talked about with New Orleans, Jake, is that
if Cleveland is smart, they turn around and hand the ball to
Judkins 35 times and they win the game, which is.
What they should do? So yeah, they will concern their
So who? What’s your third team?
I can’t. 49ers, Giants. At Denver.
Yeah, OK. I can see that.
I mean, and he gets pressure the the Giants get pressure.
They have three guys inside the top 15 at quarterback pressure
rate. So.
Just just harass him. The the issue would be that if
the Giants can’t keep up on the scoreboard and they just run the
ball, then your defense is just, you know, they’re not going to
score a fantasy points. But if that could be a back and
forth and I was just getting Bonex’s face, let stuff happen.
Score fantasy points. And that’s why, like the Browns
defense, despite having, again, so much real life potential, was
just a struggle in, you know, fantasy.
How many, you know, short fields starting from the 20 yard line?
Can they really prevent I mean. The Giants have two plus sacks
in all but one game, so that helps your point there, Jerry.
Jones gave the thumbs up to CD Lamb this week.
That’s great news, Smash. Like, well, you’re going to be a
sub to ask questions. We’re doing them right now, so
get them in. Any opinions on the Jags
defense? I mean, they’ve been good at
generate. They’ve been great at generating
turnovers. I don’t know if I love them in
London against Stafford. I guess without puka it’s not
bad though. They’ll be when I do my
rankings. I’m guessing they’ll be like
right around 10 or 12. I can see that, Stafford, I
actually shouted. Them out as a great Yeah,
they’re actually a great ad. OK, so they have the Stafford
game. I don’t like that.
And then they have their bye week after that, though, guys,
Raiders, Texans, Chargers, Cardinals, Titans, Colts and
Jets weeks 9 through 15. You mentioned the Bears.
I mean, the Jaguars actually lead the NFL in takeaways and
they got a couple baller defensive ends.
That’s what we’re looking for. So I like the Jags call again,
just in a few weeks, yeah. The staffer doesn’t throw picks,
which. Defenses should I target for the
playoffs or weeks 12 to 14? I don’t fucking know.
There he is. Have this off the top of my
goddamn also. No.
And Pat, we’ve been doing this long enough.
The one year, I don’t know if it was like 2012 or whatever the
year was it, the Giants and Saints were completely flipped.
That year. It was avoid the Giants at all
cost and there was start everybody you could against the
Saints because everybody’s like, oh look, Julio Jones gets the
Saints twice at the end of the season.
And then it flipped and all of a sudden it was just start
everybody you possibly could against the Giants and avoid the
Saints. All of a sudden they became shut
down. It was a concern.
So to look that far out, it can flip in season.
Yeah, there, there. Is an article on fourforfour.com
right now I if you use code Mayo 50 get 50% off.
It could be a free 1 though. Under the research research tab
at the top, I think that there is a matchups for fantasy
playoffs for defenses up there. If you just want to go use that
resource at fourforfour.com. I can’t just I’m not looking at
the schedules right now. I don’t know.
Here’s an interesting one. It’s a trade question.
Would you four and two? Where do you rank Rashi Rice and
Roma Dunsay the rest of the season?
And would you try to trade fields?
He already has Drake May and Devonta Smith as a combo for
either of them. I would trade them for whichever
1 you can get. Whichever 1 you can get 100%
yeah, I, I still, I, I feel like I’m on an island on this one,
but I still take a doomsday slightly over Rishi rice.
I just think there’s a chance that Rishi rice is 90% of what
it was, which is still top 15. But I just think that Kelsey is
kind of welcome back up over the past couple weeks.
Xavier Worthy is playing well even though banged up.
I just think that they don’t need rice to have 35% of the
target share anymore. T Hamilton is asking questions
in the chat that were very easily answerable by the
graphics that came up on the screen.
So like, just look at the fucking screen or click on the
article with the rankings in them.
You’re going to be fine. Are they?
Positional who do I start Yeah dart or fields which we’ve.
Answered twice already and had rankings up on the screen so
we’re good here. Do you start Kenneth Gainwell or
Keenan Allen as a flex Ian? Keenan especially Slam dunk if
Quentin Johnson is out again, I, I.
Agree that Keenan, I mean, it’s funny that three weeks ago on
the show you didn’t have Keenan Allen ranked inside like the top
five at receivers and people were coming after you.
Now people are saying like oh can I start Keenan Allen or this
backup running back? It’s it shifts how quickly?
How quickly it changes. Let’s see, I’ve had Kelsey.
I traded. I don’t care about your team.
All right? We’re getting to the point where
I’m getting mad at the question, so I’m gonna get out of here.
Jake, when do you? Yes.
Yeah, I got one. Yeah.
Jared, hit me up. Trevion Henderson.
Is he a pure handcuff at this point or?
Yes. You go ahead and drop him.
Maybe. Sucks.
Yes. Not necessarily.
So I actually have them. I have him and Harvey in my
drops. And I said, let me make this
extremely 100% clear. You are not dropping them for
Kendra Miller or Ollie Gordon or Sean Tucker.
But they are now in the conversation where if you need
Kamani Vidal to start, they’re droppable.
But that’s about like, I mean, we’re talking only for top 25.
They’re still prime handcuffs. Since we didn’t put these ones
up on the screen, I’ll give T Hamilton this one and we’ll end
it with this Bears, Seattle or Browns D This week I’d go
Seattle, Browns, Bears. Yeah, Browns, Bears, Yes.
Yeah, I think you. Got it.
And I think that the I, I think that’s Seattle and the Browns.
Browns over Seattle maybe, but the Browns are still the Browns.
They’ll find ways to like, do stupid things and like somehow
to have a Chan run 38 times against them too.
At least with Seattle, Like, I know that Houston can’t block.
I know that Seattle can score. And it to me that feels like it
fuels Stroud to throw a bunch of times, which is what I would
want. Even if he scores points, I want
him throwing the whole time. Yeah, I feel a lot better if
Witherspoon and you know, lesser extent wooly can get healthy.
But I I hear you there, Mike McDonald.
Like they they are a good defense when they’re healthy.
It just hasn’t been healthy. So how?
Trustable is Bill as a flex as he is complete boom or bust.
Well, I think you just said it. He’s not.
If he’s a boom or bust guy, he’s not reliable.
You answered your own crunching. Up but yeah, disappointing.
I’m not sure there have been a smash spot last night.
The fact why honestly, the Washington offense this year has
not looked great guys again, Jayden Daniels going to make
some good plays, but. It so like what we had like 70
total yards like that’s his floor.
I’m OK if that’s your floor, but then we’ll.
Get Rodriguez back, eventually we’ll get Mclaurin back,
eventually we’ll get Noah Brownback and maybe that helps
him that they just have more options.
They can’t focus on him. It’s just I think it was him
putting the the second fumble wasn’t his fault if slipped out
of Jaden Daniel’s hands, but him like all security issues now,
just all that weird stuff that crops up in what still could be
a three headed backfield if Rodriguez is healthy.
And you always have to hedge against Jaden Daniels having a
big game too. It’s just it’s a lot.
It’s a lot like the Brian Robinson situation from Lasher.
Like Brian Robinson wasn’t a good fantasy running back.
No, but he was a friend RB2. And I think that’s so you’re
you’re not wrong. I think that’s the perspective
problem that people have in fantasy is that Kroski Merritt
was always a fringe RB2, even taking the lead, and he took
that lead from Chris Rodriguez before Rodriguez even got hurt.
So I’m not too worried about that.
But your second point that you brought up is, again, for people
that might not have watched the entire game last night, is it
wasn’t just the fact of like Debo in this offense without
Terry Mclaurin is Debo also being hurt.
You saw the Bears defense was pretty close the entire game.
Like they played a very intermediate short defense which
kept everything, which is obviously you’re able to congest
the run game more than you normally would if you had to
play back further. So that was a really good point
of the people not have seen that in the game.
That probably hurt cross game merit as well.
Jake, you. Got a podcast on the go?
Tell people where to sub yeah. Anywhere Apple, Spotify, the
name the name. Of the podcast I was.
Getting to that, you should lead with.
That Jake, that’s what the people need to know what the
name is, where. Though so all in speedrun
actually recently just had Ian on the podcast and we’ll have
another guest and you can catch this full episode in between
that episode and the Waivers episode.
Ian, you do live shows during the week.
Tell people when and where to find them the.
Fantasy live show. See how I did that, Jake?
You can find it on YouTube, Apple, Spotify, wherever you
happen to get them. I also do have a very free write
up at fantasylive.com about these rankings where again, I
just kind of have some takeaways from the week as well.
So check that out as well if you are so inclined.
I will. Have the full updated injury
report in my rankings which will be sent to you good people on
Wednesday afternoon. You can find them up at 4:00 for
four.com as well. Full list every position plus
write ups at each of the positions about guys who are
either going to over achieve or underachieve this week.
And I’ll update the rankings and the injuries within that column
as the week goes along. So please bookmark it or just
get the e-mail sent to you. It’s free, it’s easy.
Mayo media on sub stack or just hit the description.
All right, hit the smash of the like as well and sub to this
channel. Turn on your notifications
because I’ve heard that people are missing out on some of the
shows because their notifications aren’t on.
Don’t let that be you. You turn them on.
OK, I’m Hotmail. We’ll see you next time.