Starts of the Week + Week 5 Breakdown! - Fantasy Football Podcast for 10/3

to the fantasy footballers podcast with your host, Andy Holloway, Jason Moore, and Mike Wright. Ah, welcome in. It's football time. Once again. I, I kind of forgot. That it was football time? Yeah, so my intro, my welcome, it went really, went pretty long. I was going to cut you off no matter what. I appreciate that. I want to see that someday. I want to see you just come in right through it. I just want him going, ah, cut the mics. You just football time all over him. You can't stop football time. No, you can't. I don't care if you want it or you don't want it. It's football time. Yeah, it's happened. Thursday, there's going to be a game. I believe I heard yesterday that starting today, we have, now this is between collegiate.

Yes. Football and NFL football, we have 55 consecutive days of football. Yeah. Is that too much football? Not for me because I don't care about college. And if you do care about college, if you love college football and you love the NFL, then probably not. You're probably jazzed about that. Yeah, yeah. It's a lot of football. They tried to cancel football time last week. The Cowboys and Giants did their best. Yeah. But we get a different game tonight. Oh, man, that game was so bad. It was a rough game. So my in-laws currently live with me, and they got home. I'm watching the game. And I'm just, I'm sure my face is looking. It's reflecting what the television is projecting into my eyes. And they're like, well, you know, how's the game? Like, this is the worst game I've ever watched. Well, we turn the page. You know, we've got football time tonight. We've got a better game.

You get to watch Kyle Pitts run routes tonight. We get to watch Laser Mayfield, baby. That's true. That should be fun. Welcome into the show. We've got our starts of the week today. We're getting into the matchups for week five. We've got news to catch you up on. We got players we hope are going to play that we don't know are going to play because they've been banged up and they have anything from a mild low ankle sprain to a mild high ankle sprain to a maybe some other kind of. It's in his elbow now. Yeah, it's moving. Moving target, but lots to talk about. I want to invite everybody listening to join thefoot.com, become a supporter of this show, get access to our incredible community of Foot Clan supporters. You get to be part of the Discord, 50,000 plus over there. You get premium tools and resources for in season, including the SARTSIT tool and the ultimate dashboard and the extra episodes every week and our dev team.

working very hard to get the Foot Clan perks out to our free in-season app, which you can pick up on the app store or the Google Play Store. So check that out. And you can learn more at join the foot.com. Let's jump right into the news. News and notes from around the league. Presented by USAA Insurance. All right. Devante Adams is not expected to play. Shocker. What? You know, the hamstring. From what I hear, it's going to get better soon. So it was reported. I forget who it was who looked into it. And they are saying it that the injury is real, that it's a legitimate injury. Because there's got to be the question. Everyone has the question. I'm sure the teams trying to trade for Devante Adams are like, okay, is he healthy? When we trade for him, is he going to be able to play week one?

I forget which reporter. I mean, it was Diana Rossini. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. She said, I mean, I've been told it's a real injury. He's expected to miss this week. But, you know, could be back next week if there's no snags. So, I mean, the snag is what jersey you have to put on and what locker room you're in when you're putting it on. I mean, it's the trade talks are going to heat up. Devante Adams has played his last down as a raider. And is it the Jets? Is it the Steelers? Is it the Saints? Is it somebody else? There's going to be.

Mike, you mentioned it yesterday. You were spot on. If a team's willing to take some, if the Raiders are willing to pay some of the money, a deal's going to get done. And you're going to see Devante Adams play for somebody else. And so it's going to be very interesting for fantasy. And one of the players we didn't bring up, I mean, we talked about Trey Tucker and Jacoby Myers and stepping into the void at wide receiver. But Brock Bowers is positioned to be the new alpha of this passing game. And that needs to be noted because maybe. After a bit of a down week, you could swing a trade for him or something like that. Probably not. Malik neighbors unlikely to be ready for week five dealing with the concussion. It's still a possibility, but it seems like a long shot according to ESPN's ESPN reporting. This sucks. We want to see neighbors out there, but the concussion was always going to be a challenge.

Yeah, you usually miss one game. We kind of had hopes that because they were early, that they'd have 10 days and he'd be able to get back. It looks like that's not going to happen. Devon Singletary has. Oh, my, let me check groin index. Oh, he's still going to be there. He's hurting. Oh, we got a Zemir White, though, did say. Oh, no. And I quote, ah, my groin. Oh, that was Zemir. Okay. He did get added to the Madison, Jay. Groyne index. Your addition of Alexander Madison. I mean, I'm rolling him out there. He's got the backfield to himself. I am lucky. It's not that bad. It's really, I mean, anyways. He sucks, but he's not going to suck this week. Singletary has a shot to play this week, but he is hurt. I, you know, I view that as 50-50 right now. The Giants offense.

You know, a lot of people might be run into the waiver wire to pick up Tyrone Tracy in case Singletary is gone. Which he did. I got him for zero dollars. A lot of people like me. Well, I mean, I put a zero dollar bit. I didn't. I assumed I would not get him. You walked to the waiver wire. I walked to the waiver wire. And I said, all right. Come on. Come on. Come on. Get in the truck. Let's go. You're on my team now. It's going to be tough sledding. The giant's offense is going to be rough, I think, without neighbors. Yeah, I mean, you can dart throw Darius Slayton this week. You can also, I mean, Wondale Robinson. Yeah, Wondale's a good place. Should have, you know, 15 passes his way. So, yeah, Devin Singletary dealing with the groin says he feels better. We'll see. Tray McBride Limited should be back this week. Kalil Shakir didn't practice due to an ankle injury. That's a little bit.

He got banged up during the game. Unsettling the bills. Bill's being talked about as a possible destination for Mr. Devante Adams, which I don't, you know, I don't know if they want to go down that road again. But maybe. I would. Yeah. I think that Devante Adams is just too good of a player. Any team that gets him right now. their championship odds. Like I would, you know, a lot of times you see an injury happen, a trade happen, and nothing, unless a quarterback goes down, you don't see lines move a lot, whether it's for a weekly game or Super Bowl odds. I would imagine the team that receives Devante Adams, their Super Bowl odds will improve. Yeah, no question. So they'll be in contention. Joe Mixing didn't practice on

Wednesday. He had practiced at the end of last week. I was talking to Matthew Betts. He was still kind of, you know, thinking he's going to play. Maybe it was Kyle. Maybe it was Kyle. Yeah. He was going to play. But you got to monitor this because it could be Cam Acres again, which I've. No. It's just not. No. It's not Cam Acres is the story. Because it seems like it's going to be Cam Acres. But what it really is is it's Cam Acres sometimes. And then in two minute. And in third down, it's Daria Gumbawale, and that combination is not enough. Like, you need... Mixing was a three down back. Cam Acres would be a fool me thrice, and I'm not going for that. Yeah, I mean, two weeks ago, he had nine fantasy points. Yeah, shame on him. Five fantasy points this last week. And that was in a good matchup against the Jacksonville Jaguarts. He only played 40% of the snaps. The matchup seems great. Well, the matchup seems great against Buffalo. However...

It really is a fool me thrice situation. I'm going to be fooling myself thrice. I mean, if Mixing out, I don't have a choice. I got players on by like Jemir Gibbs and ready to be hurt again. All right, Cordero Patterson, Jalen Warren didn't practice. It's a Sunday night game. Naji was awful. Yeah. But on the field enough to do some things in the passing game. I think it was like 13 for 19 on the ground. It was brutal. He had a big play through the air. And this is unfortunate for, despite Devin Singletary playing poorly against Dallas last week, I'm still going to target them, especially with the deletion of two of their top tier defenders. If Najee's alone, that's an easy start. Just volume and hope he gets into the end zone. Clyde Edwards-Dillard was designated to return from the NFI list to further muddy the backfield in Kansas City. That one seems to me like it.

It's probably Kareem this week. The big question then becomes the week after that once Clyde has had two full weeks of practice, does cream look good this week and they stick with him? Or does it turn into just a full like a three-man rotation with him and Samajia? I don't think he needs the week. This wasn't a physical injury. This was a mental time. And he knows the system and knows the playbook. I mean, Kareem Hunt came off the street. and they gave him work. I think we're going to... But they had him for a full week. No, but to Jason's point, like, I mean, Clyde already knows everything and he's not recovering from a physical injury. Yeah, you're going to see this week what their plan is. I don't think it's going to be like they're slowly going to put him on the field and then next week unleash him. I just don't see the reason for that. Pryan had 40% of snaps last week, too. Yeah. So right now, if I've got to start one, it's obviously Hunt. And we'll just find out as the game plays on whether Clyde is just a...

a backup that is active on the team or whether he's really involved. Nick Chubb, designated to return from the PUP, the videos of him returning to practice were awesome, incredible recovery. What do you do with him? Because I think everybody in the world is rooting for him. Nobody doesn't love Nick Chubb. And also, he is, he's a superhuman. He has truly, he has come back from horrifically devastating knee injuries already before. When he was back from that was, you know, Derek Henry. She was just unbelievable. He was Nick Chubb. But this is an injury you bet against at an age that you especially bet against it. So I have a hard time deciding whether I want to like buy in to maybe he will return to form or just go he might be a, he might feel like a superhuman. But in truth, I believe he is actually a human.

Yeah. I think he is actually a human. And if he is actually a human, odds are that he's just a regular human, then he should not be able to come back to previous form. I mean, they take, they took more time. That's good. Him hurt is probably better than Deontiformant healthy. So, you know, from, I think I'll always be, I don't think there's ever going to be a point where we're looking at this team this year. And Nick Chubb is, you know, getting old school numbers in terms of snaps and opportunities. But could it be a great complimentary? One, two, with Jerome Ford. I think that's in the cards. I mean, not right away. I wish I could tell you the medical side. I don't know how he feels. You know, none of us do. So we don't know if two weeks in he feels great or if this is going to be a really long process because it was just a severe injury that he's just getting out there. So I think having him on rosters is probably important. This team's going to get, by the way, like.

They're one of the worst offenses, right? The Browns statistically have been one of the worst. David Najok is coming back this week. Judy has been, you know, a contributor so far. Amardi Cooper, the return of Nick Chubb, like the offense in general and Cleveland should improve. There should be more opportunities around the goal line coming up for somebody to contribute. I mean, Mike, do you have a different perspective? No. I don't want to beat it into the ground. It's just we don't know a lot about how he feels. Yeah, I think in. Once he actually hits the field, I think you're still a few weeks away. It's a good player to stash. I mean, his roster percentage is extremely high, so this would be you have to, if you don't have them, you're going to have to go trade for him. He's not going to be on your waiver wire at this moment. But the offense, it should be better, but it's still Voldemort. If they lose a couple more games here coming up soon, I think they'll trade Amari Cooper. You know, like this is one of those.

towards the trade deadline chief targets for Cooper, which could obviously hurt the offense as a whole. Yeah. Could make David Najoku a good pickup right now. Yes, it could. That was today's news and notes presented by USAA Insurance. Learn more at USAA.com slash insurance. Starts of the week. All right. It's time to jump in some of those confidence plays, those players that maybe you're on the edge of feeling good about and need somebody to tell you. Yeah, you got permission to put that guy in there and be confident. Oh, man. Call the blacksmith boys. Oh, you got some on these? Oh, I got some spicy ones today. Okay. Great. Let's start a quarterback. I'm going to go Jordan Love against the Rams this week. It started slow last week. We're in the middle of mocking Mike for making the Jordan Love over Sam Darnold decision. Oh, I was mocking yourself. I was mocking myself, yeah.

With tears. And then he did pretty well. Yeah, but then who got it right, boys? Oh, you're a genius. But I'm going Jordan Love. He's at a couple of great starts while he's been healthy. Quarterback 11 and quarterback two. It's not always pretty. But, you know, Dantavian Wicks, the weapons he has with obviously Jane Reed, Tucker Kraft looked good last week, Romeo Dobbs, and the Rams dead last in yards per attempt allowed. We're expecting big things from... from the Packers this week, and I'm excited for Jordan Love. I adore that start. I came into the dock to make that my start of the week and was very disappointed because you had him. Instead, I'm going to have to go with CJ Stroud against Buffalo through the first month of the season. We've had two good, one meh, one bust game. It's kind of been a mixed bag for Stroud as their play calling has been stupid without Joe Mixon. But I wouldn't pivot off of him this week for a streaming quarterback. Buffalo just lost Vaughn Miller.

to a four-game suspension. And if you look at C.J. Stroud's six touchdowns so far this season, five of them have come from a clean pocket. You get Tank Dell back, and this game has a nice 47 point over-under. So I think Stroud is a solid play this week. Brock Purdy against the Arizona Cardinals and his three starts against Arizona, 38, 35, and 45 points scored. San Francisco has the highest implied team total of the week. Brock Purdy, look, he's second with... In passing yards, Arizona's defense sucks. And as long as Jordan Mason doesn't take every single touchdown this week, Brock Purdy is going to be a really strong option. All right. My running back is complicated. It's complicated because it's not. Like Avril Levine? Exactly. Exactly. Mike. Thank you for that.

reference uh no it was going to be joe mixon against buffalo the matchups great and the bills are dead last and yards per carry aloud receptions to opposing running backs schedule adjusted fantasy points to running backs it's not cam acres though so if joe mixon plays i'm telling you right now go play him put him right into your lineup and play him but the lack of a practice yesterday and we don't know today and i've told the producers break in if we get a practice report out of houston but Right now we just don't know if he's going to be out there. There's some confidence by some people that he's going to be out there. So I would say play him if he is. But my backup start of the week, Truba Hubbard against the Chicago Bears. He has been incredible. He has. And it's not like he's on the field every single day. Like Miles Sanders, we were getting annoyed how many opportunities he had last week. Also, Carolina, get him out of here. Sanders, stop it.

Whatever they're doing is working because Chuba's been over 100 yards rushing two consecutive weeks. It could be higher. He's got nine receptions in each of those games. Nope, not in each. Sorry. I was like, oh, in those games combined. I struggled to hit my over last week. I know he didn't have nine. You get 20 opportunities with Chuba Hubbard. Yeah. So 20 opportunities against Chicago, I'm okay with that. Yeah. And to clarify as things are coming into, you know, as we are. starting to have clarity on defenses. The Bears defense is really, really good. But they are much, much better in the passing game. It's difficult to pass on them. Their pass rush is great. Their corners are good. But you can run on them. They're kind of turning into a run funnel. So I really like the Chuba confidence play. And they're just scoring points with Dalton. So it gives him a chance at a touchdown every week. All right. Running back, Jason. Running back. I'm going to go with Travis E.T.N. I know. I know. It's been a slow plotting start.

for the Jacksonville Jaguars and for ETN. I went back and I watched RB2 on that team. I was, stop it. Well, you know, when, when Andy's my guy, Tank, Tank Bigsby's looking so good. Goodness gracious. I went back and I watched Travis E.T.N. film yesterday. I wanted to see like, you know, is he look bad? As he look injured? And I didn't, I didn't see anything that I didn't like. It didn't work out for him. He hasn't been great yet. But I think this matchup is too good to. to bench him. Teams are running the ball nonstop against Indy. 37.8 times per game. That is most in the NFL through four games. They've seen the most opponent rushing attempts of any team over the last decade. So you know ETN is going to get the work and they're also giving up the second most rushing yards allowed per game. They are 24th and scheduled adjusted fantasy points to the running back last year against these Colts who they played twice. He was the running back six.

and the running back three. This is a great matchup for ETN. Let me throw something out there on ETN, by the way. The Jags are 0 and 4, and they picked up the fifth year option on him, but there's been some word out there, Jeremy Fowler from ESPN talked about teams could inquire about Travis ETN because they may not want to extend him. And if they believe they have a player in Tank Biggsby that they can move forward with, paying running backs is not necessarily a commonality. Like a popular. Don't do it if you're a losing team. It's also not something you can do when you made your quarterback the highest quarterback in NFL history. Like that you can't pay both. So just, I'm just throwing out there. I mean, more injuries at the running back position by other contending teams could put him in trading contention. It has nothing to do with this week's start of the week other than Tank Biggs. We should be on a roster. Yeah. And my running back, look, the forge is heating up. I don't think I got a call in the Smith just yet. Oh, boy.

But this is all about process. I'm taking the running back on the opposite side of that game, Jay. I'm going Trace Sermon against Jacksonville. Of course, this is only if Jonathan Taylor doesn't play. But he has not practiced yesterday. He didn't practice, I believe he's not practicing today, despite the whatever they're trying to do at Indianapolis of promising everyone, this is the mildest of mild high ankle sprains that they've ever seen. But opportunities will be there. Should be 15 or more for him and the matchup is juicy. Jacksonville ranks 29th in schedule adjusted fantasy points to the running back. They've allowed the fourth most running back receptions. And we've seen backups. You sound like me last week with Cam Acres. Yeah. It's the exact same situation. So I hope. Sure. Cerman's better than Acres. And but it's part of the confidence is, look, we've seen guys Zach Moss who were basically their career seemed like it was toast. They were just a backup guy.

And then the backup comes in for the Colts and they are able to get some things done because of how they play, how fast they play. So this is totally trusting the process. My turn on wide receivers here? Yes, sir. Well, I'm going to go ahead and correlate with my start of the week at quarterback. Stontavian Wicks. Stantavian Wicks against the Rams. Going to stack with Jordan Love here. The biggest waiver wire pickup of the week by Not Jason. And you can slide them right into the starting lineup this week. Almost. Almost. Really close. He actually leads the team in red zone targets already this year. And this is without Christian Watson missing a full game yet. And, you know, been targeted on 31% of his routes. I watched all the Dantavia and Wicks of the past week. They missed the connection like the first seven times. Yes. Or six of the first seven targets. And he still ended up with two touchdowns at a big game. So.

You know, we talked about the RAM secondary. I like Wix. He gets open. He's big. He's fast. I really like him. If you picked him up, I... He just needs to use more of the stick them. Yeah, the hands are a little suspect. Yeah, go touch some sap, okay? Is that the new thing? You grab a tree? Yeah. Oh, good, good. They've started planting trees on the sidelines so wide receivers can just go over. Sap up? Sap up. We are so dumb. So I'm going to do some anti-correlation with mine, but it will be causation. Brian Thomas Jr., the wide receiver for the Jacksonville Jaguars, will score touchdowns early in this game, setting up Travis E.TN to run the clock out. You're going double? I'm going double jags. This is a get right week for them against the Colts who are reeling with their own injuries. They are desperately in need of this, and it's a matchup that's really good. I'm playing Brian Thomas Jr. because of his talent. He is.

Really, really good. The biggest knock at LSU was we weren't sure. We weren't sure if he was good enough to be the one. No, I mean, he was a first round pick. But my point is, like, don't say we. I still like Brian Thomas. I wasn't just. I was sure. I'm just saying I was sure. You lied. We as a whole. We as a community. We're not sure because he had 19% of his, you know, target on 19% of his routes run. last year in college because of Malik neighbors. This year through his first four games as an NFL starter, he's already up to 23% target share on his route runs. He has been really, really great. The Colts are allowing the second most passing yards in the NFL. We talked about on the ready to roll segment, certain run funnels, certain pass funnels, and certain defenses you just want to target all of them. And the Colts are one of those bad defenses across the league where they can score points and their defense isn't good.

So I think both the passing game and the running game is going to work for the Jags this week. It's Jordan Whittington, rookie wide receiver for the Los Angeles Rams. It's following the entirety of the story. He was like the name of the off season for the Los Angeles Rams. But it was how does this kid get on the field? When you have Cooper Cup, you got Pook and Nakua, and you got to Marcus Robinson. The path seems very limited. Then Cooper Cup and Pooka and Kua both get hurt. It's been a slow. Rise for Jordan Whittington, but he took over. 97% of the snaps. He was the guy. Look, 2-2 is a fine play as well. But Jordan Whittington, he's coming through with the promise of what Sean McVeigh has talked about, targeted on 25% of his routes this year. That is an absurd number. He will be hitting the cross. He's going to be hitting the plays, essentially, that Pooka and Cooper Cup run. And the Packers secondary, it is beatable.

27th that scheduled just fantasy points allowed to wide receivers. So if you're desperate, he might even still be on your waiver wire. I think you should pick him up even if you're not going to play him. But if you're desperate, I think that you can get away with Jordan Whittington this week. Uh, Whittington or Mooney tonight? Oh, goodness gracious. I think I'd, I'd probably still go Mooney that one. Tighten start of the week. It's a big hat. I'm going Jake, turd Ferguson against Pittsburgh. It's a funny hat. Brandon Cooks is now out one to three weeks. Ferguson was already a great start. He might be one of the best tight-in starts in football here on out. Seven plus targets. I expect that tonight. He's been the tight-in three and the tight-in nine since returning from injury, and the Steelers haven't covered the tight-in. So he's a very, very strong potential tight-in one overall pick.

Yeah, this week, some weeks you're struggling to find a tight-in streaming guy. And this week, I think there's a couple good options. I like all three of our picks. I'm going to go with Tucker Kraft going with your love stack over there, Andy. The love stack. That's what I heard, too. Last week, you had Tucker Kraft on the field for the Packers, nine targets, six for 53 and one. More importantly, he played 86% of the snaps. We saw this in week one with love. He played 90% of the snaps. You had Musgrave as the rookie tied in last year who looked like, oh, wow, this is going to be an important player for the Packers' offense, had a lot of big fantasy games. If you haven't paid attention, there's been a full switch of route. It's Tucker Kraft. He is the starter. This last week, 86% of the snaps while Musgrave was...

33% of the snaps. Routes run, everything. Participation. Obviously, the targets were there last week. The week two and week three, kind of throw the whole Packers offense out as they were trying to figure out life without Jordan Love. I think this is a player that might be good the rest of the season. And the matchup this week is fantastic against the Rams. Another one of those teams we want to target basically every position against. Teenium underpants. You got to upgrade this one because it's Jawan. Johnson of the Saints taken on Kansas City. Process-wise, Kansas City. Dead last. Tight-end receptions allowed. Tight-in receiving yards. Schedule adjusted points to the tight-end position. And it was not just Isaiah likely. Remember that weird game against the Bengals where Mike Gassicki all of a sudden was a relevant player? That's true. And then scores negative points last week because that's where you can beat the Kansas City Chiefs right now. And the rise, the takeover, I think it's happening for Joanne.