Midseason Review + Trade Targets, Hungry for More - Fantasy Football Podcast for 10/30

Hey, this is Patrick Mahomes quarterback for the Kansas City Chief, and you're listening to the Fantasy Footballers podcast. To the Fantasy Footballers podcast with your host, Andy Holloway, Jason Moore, and Mike Wright. Oh, welcome in. The Fantasy Footballers podcast, back with you Wednesday edition. It's the end of October. Mike Wright is here, Jason Moore, Andy Holloway. Full deucers alley.

Al Borland, Papa Josh, the Falcon in the building. Stinky back in that alley. Good work, everybody. Yeah, look at us. Everybody came to work today, and we pay by the hour. So that's good news for you. And, you know, it's why we lobby against the raising of minimum wage for a reason. Oh, for sure. I mean, because... Gotta keep them profits in our pockets, boys. If you out there, if you're listening, if you're employees, The employees, the people that you support were the deucers? Right, yeah. Like if you had to work with those, if we could call them people back there, you wouldn't want to pay them anything. It's laying it on pretty thick. Love you guys. But they're here. And we got a show for you today. We've got a midseason review. It should be a lot of fun. I love taking a look at where we're at during the season. And I'm sure a lot of our conversations today will be.

based around the question, will it continue with some of these players that are in the top 10 of points per game per position? So that, I mean, to me, that's a lot of fun because it's a little bit of a rest of season ranking show in a way. Yeah, and I also think that there are a lot of surprises when you go through it. You're like, we're playing every week. We're paying attention. We're getting our wins. We're getting our losses. But sometimes when you take a gander and you're like, you know who's second? in points per game right now. You're like, really? Yep. Well, and it helps, like, the name effect. You know, I made a trade for Kate Otten. That doesn't feel as good as making a trade for Sam Laporta. Right. But I think Kate Otten will be better than Sam Laporta the rest of the year. So, I mean, we've, we've been there. We've seen those names come through and you just have to.

You know, we'll have the conversation about some of those guys. What else is going on? You can follow the show. News, brother. I know. Yeah. We do have news. You can follow this show on X at the FF Ballers. We shared a quick reaction to some of that news yesterday. Follow Jason at Jason FFL. Mike at FF Hitman. I'm at Andy Holloway. And be sure to join us for a Halloween episode tomorrow. Should be a lot of fun. YouTube.com slash the fantasy footballers. You know, as long as the costumes get here on time. That's true. You know what I mean? That's true. We should order them pretty soon. Don't overnight your stuff. Oh, dude, Amazon's got this same day by 5 for him. There might be some other people in the market for those products. Nah. Welcome to Hungry for More, presented by Uber Eads. It is another Wednesday, which means we have our hungry for more candidates.

Jason, you should be pleased that I am, you know, bringing up the name of Ladd McConkey. Oh, it's my little lad. Week 8 against New Orleans, 6 target 6 for 111 and 2 finally looked healthy. And there were some boxes that I needed checked for Ladd McConkey to be relevant for fantasy this season. And through the first six weeks, those boxes were not being checked. He was touchdown dependent. They were 30th in the NFL in pass rate, and he had a lot of competition. That doesn't seem to be the case the last couple of weeks. They are passing at a 60% clip, which is ninth in the NFL over that stretch. So they're using the all-pro superstar quarterback that they were gifted, that Jim Harbaugh was gifted when he came to Los Angeles. I know, a crazy idea. What's a little bit weirder about it is the fact that they've

turn to Justin Herbert right when they've lost some talent at wide receiver. So, you know, we've been joking about Will Disley getting it done and, you know, they've had to start some other players. Quentin Johnson's been hurt. But Ladd McConkey, in an offense that's passing the football, you know, this is a player that we love the tape of. And it was more about do you find a way to get him the football enough to be consistent even if he doesn't score. Now, last week he scored twice. But look, take the touchdowns away. Six for 111.11. You're happy with that performance. Jim Harbaugh came out and said he reminds him of Steve Smith. I don't know about that. Yeah, I love Lad. Look, I love Led. I've talked them up all offseason. Come on, man. That's too far. Well, I mean, maybe it's more technical than it is. I think it's just he's short. Like, he's a small guy that's a crisp Rout runner. But he doesn't have the same, like, he doesn't have the same athleticism. I mean, certainly.

Then, I mean, I like Lad a lot. I've been a little bit sad that he's not a squeakier wheel. He don't have that dog. I mean, Steve Smith was like. Sad McConkey? Maybe he could have the puppy. Oh, maybe he's got. The puppy just, we got to feed and nurture this thing. And then he turns into the dog. Yeah, I doubt it. He was already this way at Georgia. He's like, he's fine being like, just use me how you should. I don't want a wide receiver like that. I want a wide receiver. It's like, I want to ball every play. This is my game.

The I'm always open. I don't know. There's a happy media. Cooper Cup is not that guy. That's true. But what if he was? Larry Fitzgerald was not that guy. Cooper Cup does it, but it's just it's a real menacing whisper. You can barely see Cooper Cup's face anymore. So I don't know. He might be angry. You can't tell. The 17 game pays for Ladd McConkey, 73 for 913. You wouldn't get it done only with those numbers. But the 10 touchdowns. The fact that he's, you know, this is the progression of a rookie wide receiver. Earn the trust of your quarterback and your head coach. Get on the field more. Become a go-to guy on third down and in the red zone. He's on that trajectory. I'm hungry for more. And the schedule coming up, three of the next four games against bottom five wide receiver defenses in terms of fantasy points. So it seems like the right time to jump in on last. Since the bye week.

Justin Herbert is averaging almost 290 passing yards per game. That's like that is everything for Ladd McConkey. The beginning is 144, 130, 125 passing yards. They hit the buy week and they went, ah, guys, maybe we should change some things up. And they started having less success in the running game. Yeah. And on defense. That's fair. J.K. Dobbins stopped hitting the, uh, he, those big plays that he was hitting the first four weeks. It's just, it's great to see they're actually, like, the utilization of Herbert is the most exciting thing for me. The lack of good quarterbacks out there is nauseating. And then you get, you get a Ferrari and you're like, eh, let's take the golf card everybody. I don't, I think they have to. They don't, I still don't believe.

that they want to make Herbert the centerpiece. They want the offense of line to be the centerpiece of this office. The truth is, they can't run the ball. They lost Gus Edwards, and J.K. Dobbins has just not been that good. I know the first couple weeks. He was good. He got in the end zone fine for fantasy this last week. Good start. But he has been very inefficient for like five, six weeks in a row. And so they're not moving the ball well on the ground. I think they have to throw. And then, yeah, it's like, well, yeah, guess what? You can.

Because Justin Herbert's really good. So I love it. I hope Ladd continues with the arrow pointing up for my League of Record team. Before you get into your name, it will be tied in. But I just thought you might be entertained by the fact that you last week bamboozled the two deucers into giving you $2 for Anthony Richardson who just was released this morning. Yes. Nice. I did not know that Anthony Richardson hitting waivers. You could probably have him for free now. Considering when we get in the news, we'll talk about he doesn't have a starting job. I thought you might get into it like right now because you're about to talk about Josh Downs. I thought that might be a good chance. That's a great segue. My other league of record wide receiver, Josh Downs, I am super hungry for more Josh Downs. He has been very, very good. He was even good this last week with Anthony Richardson. It was a broken play was a large chunk of his yards and fantasy production, but he's still very, very good. He had another.

play that was more him where, oh my goodness, it was so close to a second touchdown. He's been great. How great has he been? He's among the league leaders in targets per route run ahead of AJ Brown, Justin Jefferson, and Alman Raw St. Brown. How good has he been? How good has he been? Joe Flacco, three games basically with Joe Flacco and Josh Downs together. The first game was like 80% Joe Flacco. That's when he came in. But in those games, he is averaging in half PPR 15.2 fantasy points per game. Now, we're going through today's episode, and we're talking about the top wide receivers, top running backs on a points per game basis. So this is like, if Josh Downs was injured, let's say Josh Downs didn't play any of the Anthony Richardson games. And it was like, okay, this player's only played three games. But in those three games, he would be currently between C.D. Lamb,

and Malik neighbors. Malik neighbors right now, 15.1 fantasy points per game. And in the three games with Joe Flacco, 15.2 and half PPR for Josh Down. So I'm very, very hungry. And then this week, they get the Minnesota Vikings, who is so funny. The Minnesota Vikings and the Baltimore Ravens, these defenses, they're so weird, they crack me up. They are legitimately very good defenses. But in the passing game, you pretty much end up always having good fantasy games against them because their offenses chugging and you can't run against them easily. So you end up being forced to throw the ball. Sometimes it's garbage time, sometimes it's not. But at the end of the game, the passing volume against those two defenses are always good. So I think Downs is a great play this week. I agree with that. I want to say I'm hungry for more of Jalen McMillan, the rookie wide receiver from Tampa Bay, trying to figure out what's going on here with the absence of Chris Godwin and Mike Evans.

and diving into what is like the actual film what was happening. McMillan did not take over that slot roll of, you know, that we, at least I personally was kind of hoping for it of. I think that if you put him in there, he can be, you know, a decent replacement here for Chris Godwin, but he played on the outside of the sun. The actual production wasn't, it was not incredible at all for Jaylon McMillan in the first game as him kind of being the guy. But the opportunities were there. There was seven targets. He had 30% of the team's air yards. He ran a bunch of routes. And when you go back and watch what actually happened, there were three potential touchdown opportunities for Jalen McMillan. His first target was a great design play. I don't know if McMillan, I don't know if it was an option route and McMillan turned the wrong way or if he just messed up the play. But the connection with him and Baker had McMillan turned left.

Turned out instead of turning in, it's a wide open touchdown. His next target, McMillan beats the double coverage. He has the safety and the quarterback beat. He's wide open in the end zone. Baker just barely misses him. Then there was another one where they wheeled him out from the halfback position and the safety tricked Baker Mayfield. But it was a shot towards Jalen McMillan that that would have turned into a touchdown. So I like the opportunities I see. I like that Baker Mayfield still looks like a very competent quarterback despite the lack of elite weapons around him. So I think that Jalen McMillan is, he'll be fascinating to watch moving forward. Unfortunately, he plays Kansas City this week. That kind of sucks for if he's going to be a spot start. But you got to keep your eye on him despite only four for 35. All right. That was hungry for more presented by Uber Eats where you can get all the best deals on game day food all season long. Uber Eats, the official on demand delivery partner of the NFL.

News and notes from around the league. Presented by USAA Insurance. Stefan Diggs, we had not heard. They were confirming via testing and apparently nothing leaked, but out for the year torn ACL. It's 31 years old next month, free agent after the year. So strange that it took this long. They feel like they almost always know if it's an ACL tear. But this is a big time bomber for Stefan Diggs. At his age, he will be going into the market without a contract at that age coming off of a torn ACL. The good news for the Texans, at least, is that it sounds like Nico Collins. He is eligible to return next week, and it sounds like that's what the plan is to have him right back in at week 10. But in the meantime, you know, huge opportunity here for Tank Dell. I don't know if he'll come through. Tough matchup. Oh, yeah, against the Jets, right? I think this is.

Probably just very bad news for C.J. Stroud, I'd be benching him. But for Stefan Diggs, like dynasty perspective, it is, this is probably the end of relevant digs, because I doubt he's going to get a bunch of money to go to an important role. And we'll see at age 32 coming off of Vanessa ACL how he'll heal, how he will play. Last year, Tank Dell, 700 receiving yards on just 47 catches. This year, so far, uh on pace for about 500 receiving you oh oh on 58 catches and four four hurts that one does so the knife went right between these two ribs right here it's close it's close to the heart but it's far enough i'm still alive they're doing whatever they can to get him more and more target share and by they i mean like nico's hamstring and stephan's knee and um

You know, it's now or never for Tank Dell. He'll have the chance. Yes, it's a bad matchup, but also, you know, they need him. It'd be really hard to not play him, in my opinion, just in the fact that you've got four quarters of football to play where you get the ball on offense. And, you know, you don't expect Tank Dell to have fewer than seven targets in this game. I mean, he's got to have. close to seven targets. That should result in a decent fantasy output. You don't know if Sauce Gardner is going to be on him since there really isn't another player to focus on. Would you start Tank Dell or Ladd-McConkie? The Chargers play. I'd play Ladd-McConkie this week. Who did they play? Well, I mean, yeah, I don't know. Cleveland looked so good last week. We've got a Denzel Ward issue there too. It's, it is, I'd probably play Ladd. Okay.

I know this is you. I know this is you asking. And this week, you and I play one another. Yeah. We'll talk about a lad tomorrow, too. Deontay Johnson got traded. The Ravens pick him up. This was not the destination that I wanted as a dynasty manager of Deontay Johnson. I wanted him to stay in Carolina with Andy Dalton. That would have been the ideal situation for me. I agree. Just. down by a million points every game, just throwing him the football a ton. This was a trade where the Panthers barely improved their draft stock. He goes to a team where he's going to help Lamar Jackson in Baltimore, but we already had problems relying on any pass catcher in Baltimore. This is the Derek Henry, Lamar Jackson offense with, you know, Zay Flowers.

being sometimes good, Mark Anders being sometimes good, Rashad Bateman being sometimes good. Let's just add another name in there where he's not acclimated to the offense. We've already seen Amari Cooper experience that through two weeks. Hopkins had 23% of snaps in week one. That'll be a time that we have to wait for with Kansas City. And it's going to be the same with DeAte. I think we're going to get to the point in three weeks from now and come back to me on this. We asked the question of if you would flex Andrews, Dave Flowers, or Deante Johnson, and you will not know the answer every single week. Yeah, it could get very, very murky. I agree. It's good for Lamar, bad for Deonté, but the thing that blows my mind, from an NFL standpoint, what a great move from the Ravens. The Ravens' offense is already very good. You add a super capable NFL wide receiver who can get open to a team that has Super Bowl aspirations. It's brilliant.

If Deonté Johnson leaves in the offseason, it signs a good contract after a good year in a Super Bowl run, they get a competitive. Yeah, you get a pick. I mean, Carolina, the franchise is being run very poorly. I mean, I don't know if it's the general manager. Obviously, the owner has his meddling fingers involved, but it's like you just trade it for Deontay. You are paying him more than anyone else. You're paying him more than Pittsburgh, more than Baltimore. You're paying the contract for the player you don't have that you rented. for a couple of weeks and you won't get the compensatory pick now. It's just like. I, yeah. I mean, I think they took their shot and I think we would have been mad at them if they didn't in the sense that Bryce Young needed targets. It didn't work. Like Bryce lost the job. Why trade him away for that when you can just just write out the rest of the year? Yeah. And then let him let him go let the free market sign. Like if he signs a really big deal, then you'd get a better pick. It would be a better pick.

I think so because it's compensatory, so it's just a straight up pick. It depends on the contract and everything that Carolina does too. That's compelling. If he didn't want to be there, though, it wasn't going to play football. Yeah. Deontay Johnson is, we're at the point now where it's fascinating to me. The Pittsburgh Steelers are a great organization as opposed to the Carolina Panthers. It seems like the Steelers are always doing things right. The Steelers get rid of wide receivers seemingly at the correct time. And they traded him away. Maple Tron. I mean, just a lot of guys. Yeah. And they had refused to give Deontay a huge extension. They eventually met in the middle and gave him like, I think it was like a year or two and a decent amount of money. But it was not a superstar wide receiver contract.

Then they trade him to Carolina. It was Dante Jackson who, I think playing fine for the Steelers and a 6-7 swap. Like he was not traded for a ton back then. Now he gets traded for very little again. The actions of the NFL are that Deontay Johnson is not valued nearly as much as the fantasy community likes Deontay Johnson. I believe that that will be proven incorrect. this off season. He'll be an unrestricted free agent. And because the wide receiver market is so important, you see teams trading for him, signing big contracts. And there's not usually a lot of good wide receivers who hit the market. I think he'll get a bag. TBD. He could. And then what does it do to flowers and Bateman? You know, we had, uh, who doesn't help them? No, no, I agree. I agree that it, that it should, should just take targets away. Was it was Josina Anderson? Yeah, I believe that's reporting.

Like, following the trade, Flowers and Bateman will remain the top wide receivers. For the first week. For a while. To me, I don't know if it's an indictment of either of those two players or more of a, they're disappointed with Nelson Aguilar. They're disappointed in their depth of Aguilar is Nelson Aguilor. And then their rookie Devontes Walker. Walker has, he can't even get on the field. Well, I mean, look, Rashop Bateman has not been on the field for three and a half years. He is having insurance when you're going for a Super Bowl title or having, you know, an assortment of options, they disappear quick. Unless Deontay is a locker room problem in a way that I am unaware, like a massive, you know, cancer to the locker room, I think any team that could have got him for this price that is going to the playoffs, even if you've got wide receivers, even if you're great. Like, why not add a depth piece before the trade deadline? I think it's brilliant.

The Colts are benching Anthony Richardson for Joe Flacco. It's not even temporary. They said this morning that Joe Flacco is the quarterback moving forward, gives them the best chance to win. That is exceptionally true. I would inversely say Richardson gives you the worst chance to win. And you've got to make this move. It is a wild one when you consider the age and the expectation. We've been here before, Trey Lance. We've been here before. The 49ers are... We've been here this year. I mean, we've been here for a while with a lot of players. From Darnold to Zach Wilson to Bryce Young to Richardson to Fields. I mean, the list of young quarterbacks that get thrust into these starting roles instantaneously and then quickly get the rug pulled out from under them. You know, everyone's shooting for the stars. I get it. You want to catch lightning in a bottle and get...

the superstar first season. But this is not like, it's not close. Like this is not, like Joe Flacco is so much of a better quarterback than Anthony Richardson is at this stage of his career. And they have so many other players. They have a chance to win the division. They just saw Houston lose another wide receiver that's fundamental to them. Like Houston's won a bunch of close games this year. They're not blowing people away. CJ Stroud is not taking the next step into MVP caliber play. The Colts are a good enough football team to win. the division, and Joe Flacco gives you the opportunity week in and week out. And it's not to me about what's going to cause more Ws this season for the Colts. Even long term for the good of Anthony Richardson, who they've come out and said they're not quitting on Anthony Richardson. He is their future. But right now, he's not ready. And the truth is he's not ready.

People act like the only way that this player can get better is getting out for those 60 minutes every Sunday on an NFL game. And there is a little sliver of truth. There's some stuff you can't learn outside of being there. But there is plenty you can learn. It's not like he's not practicing. He's not running teams. He's running offenses throughout the week, throughout the off season, they're going to train him and try to get him better. You know, when they made the move to Brock Purdy from Trey Lance years ago, There was still an offseason where it was like, Trey Lance came in. It was like, who's the starter? We don't know for sure yet. But the Niners knew. The Niners knew Trey Lance doesn't have it because they see him every day in practice. We don't. And we're like, we don't know. Maybe he's got it. But this was not some big shock to the Niners. The Niners were practicing every day and they're like, he doesn't have it. And then they trade him to the Cowboys and they didn't know. And now they're like, yeah, we know. It's like Anthony Richardson can still develop into something great.

But this is the best move for him because if you put him out there and he breaks a record for the worst completion percentage of a starting quarterback for the year. You don't want to Zach Wilson him. You don't want to go out there and break the man's confidence in the NFL in front of everybody over and over and just have him start his career failing. And then that's where it goes. So I think this is a great move for the Colts. I think it's a. hopefully good move for Anthony Richardson, which feels like inevitably not going to be one, but it is great for fantasy. And at the end of the day, that's all I really care about. This is a fantasy show. This is a huge. The fact that we got clarity on how long this change is going to happen, huge for Josh Samans. Josh Downs is a top 15 receiver rest of the season. I think it is humongous for every single player on the Colts. Maybe not Alec Pierce, but like.

And Alex Pierce had good games with Flacco. Josh Downs huge upgrade in weeks four through six. Michael Pittman averaged 12.5 points per game. Yeah, he was on pace for 1,048 yards through three games with Joe Flacco. Michael Pittman is absolutely a startable fantasy asset. Johnny Taylor, who's been much better. I was concerned, how would he do with Richardson? And the answer has so far, you know, small sample. But the answer is, oh, Jonathan Taylor's back. He's great. He can't hit that elite. top three status because he's not getting enough targets I should say consistently getting enough targets but with flacco in there the target share is definitely going to go up like Jonathan Taylor to me this this is he's the one that I think skyrockets I agree with Josh Downs and everything but it's like Taylor can go from a good RB1 to he might finish the he might finish at the end as the number one running back if you have a floor of three receptions a game

at running back, which I think is now about what I expect Jonathan Taylor to average. That is such a boon. And you know who's not going to vulture goal line touchdowns ever? Right. Joe Flacco. Looking at the numbers just so you have on 9.8 completions per game was the average under Anthony Richardson. In the three games we saw Flacco 23.7 completions per game. Yeah. Which, just to be clear, if you told me. that you could start Josh Downs, but he gets eight quarters with Richardson every week. That would be a good start because it's double the completions. There's more than double the completion. So that's the math behind it. Flacco brings a lot of good things to this Colts offense. Jordan Love says he's determined to play in week nine against the lions. I expect him to play. That's such a huge divisional game. Do you worry, though? I worry because of what we saw before he exited the game, but after he was injured. There was a stretch.