Week 7 Studs & Duds + Tight End Dominance! - Fantasy Football Podcast for 10/23

To be Zach Evans and just be completely supplanted. It's not like he failed in active work. It means that he... Yeah, zero snaps. It means that he was not ready for the role. It also means I know he's a rookie, but it means he will never be ready for the role. How can you be so much more ready at home in Daryl Henderson? Yeah, I mean, there's just... There's no trust there. There's nothing they've seen that they like. If there's guys that they want off the street ahead of you when they are in desperate need of you who they drafted, Zach Evans, to step up, you will never have relevance. All right, A.J. Brown, a fifth consecutive 125 plus yard receiving game. 15 targets, 10 for 1, 37. He's pretty much manhandling the league right now. You have 50% of the targets.

So he's got that like black visor. And after one of his big plays, he stood up and, you know, flexed and screened towards the camera. It was a perfect camera shot. And I this. Did you get afraid? First time in my life, I was terrified at a television. Like I was a, I, he scared me. I was like, that is a scary dude. He was, he is, he just looks like I, I couldn't fathom trying to tackle him. No, he's a beast. He's a monster. And getting it done. He is the wide receiver won on the week right now. He was the wide receiver won three weeks ago, top 10 last week. In fact, four of his last five games, he has been a top 12 wide receiver and the only one he has it is the wide receiver 13. In the past five weeks, you have not had.

a performance inside the top 24 by Devonza Smith. You saw Goddard start to play better. He's being more involved. And Devante Smith has five subparish weeks. I guess we can talk about it later in the duds, but the initial reaction to that passing game. The passing game looks strong. They added Julio, too. Yeah, I mean, the passing game looks strong. It's a matter of, for fantasy purposes. Is it going to be such a clear one A and then three for everyone else? Like that's what it feels like right now. Yeah. And he was chirping too. You know, like he started talking and then he's like, if you just throw me the ball, it'll go well. And it has. I mean, I don't think it will stay this wide of a gap because, I mean, AJ Brown just set.

you know, he tied an NFL all-time record of games with 125 or more receiving yards. That's all time. What he just did is historical. It's not just normal. That's not just going to keep happening every week. He's not going to do it 10 weeks in a row. If you include the whole season, which Devante Smith started the year very hot, even looking at including those, the first seven weeks, he's on pace for 77 for 930 and 5. Yeah, you'd be disappointed in that, but that's not crushing you. It's not a bust. Josh Downs, big game, scored a touchdown. I tried to help your team, Jason. You just didn't, you know, the rest of the guys didn't get involved. Yeah, yeah, I was able to start him in my lineup, and I was very happy early when he went for touch. And I figure if I'm getting my second flex with a bomb touchdown, I'm going to beat Mike. I was wrong. Yeah, you picked up Josh Downs, and I picked up the other Josh, Josh Palmer. Palmer was five for one 33.

26% target share and seems like he's going to be a staple in lineups for the season. Yeah, he's very necessary to this offense. Cuge. Cuge was not Goose this week, which was nice to see him. Couple catches? Yeah, getting involved, but he's not ready to be the dude, so Palmer will stay. And the last two weeks, and make sure we have the drop ready for this here, Al. But the last two weeks, it has looked like Michael Pittman was going to. hurt your team. Yep. And then he suddenly didn't. And two for 83 and a touchdown for a pity city. We're all in, man. I mean, Anthony Richardson is unbelievably great for fantasy, but he's not as good for these wide receivers as Gardner Minshu. Tyreek Hill is unguardable. 11 for 88 and a touchdown against the Eagles who knew that they were going to throw to him every play, especially when Waddle was off the field. Didn't matter.

Huge game for Puka Nakua. Jason, you called it eight for 154. 44% of the targets. There's a reason Pooper Cup was in the top of the show is because Puka took over. Yeah, I mean, he is. This is great to see if you held on to him and didn't bail out. Yeah. Only two players in NFL history was 700 receiving yards and their first seven career games as per ESPN. 754 and 752 receiving yards for. Puka Nakua and Jamar Chase. I mean, Puka has been as elite as you could possibly be and he is for real and he is here to stay. Yeah. And yet we can't get a boom game from Stafford even if we begged for it. Yeah. I mean, they got kind of jobbed towards the end of that game with some refing. But.

Yeah, he could have done better earlier. Let me blitz a few of these other wideouts. You can comment on guys that you want to. Alman Ra ended up in Garbage Town, 19 targets for... You know, he doesn't always have to produce in garbage time, but man, 13 for 102 in just some yucky garbage time. Mike Evans continues a good season, 6 for 82 and a touchdown. Yeah, he looks outstanding. I can't imagine going away from him even if he has a down game here or there. Cortland Sutton, scored again. He just keeps scoring. Yeah. Chris and Kirk on Thursday night. Josh Palmer, we talked about. Diggs got into the end zone late. Let's talk about Rashi Rice because, you know, you saw more of what you wanted to see, five for 60, got into the end zone, played the most snaps. The snaps are what I was wanted to see. And really, the only real player that had like a significant amount of time out on the field more than him was NBS.

But I think we're seeing that transition, right? Like Rashi Rice keeps producing. Let's go. I'm excited. Who has him in our league? You are a dirty man. I will give him back to you for a second round pick. I made you the offer last week. I'm going to continue it. I will. I mean, what a keeper he'd be for you. I will knife you in your sleep. Okay. All right. Well, that's not good. Three for 84 and a touchdown for MBS who finally got on the board. And I was happy about this one. J.S.N. Oh, that was a good call, especially once we saw that DK Metcalf was not active in that game. Oh, it was great. You called it as your kind of sleeper pick of the week and had them in your draft king's lineup, which you did not win. I know. I don't know if you guys, like I thought I ran away with it. And I ran away. We both had, like we had a bad week. Real bad. And Mike, Mike isn't here because he is.

processing the fact he's going to get shame this week. Yeah. But I thought I had it won when Pacheco scored. Like you guys both had Ken Walker. I was like, I'm dead. Like I watched Ken Walker for the first five minutes at Cardinals game. I'm like, I'm a dead man. And then Jason scored. I'm like I'm alive. And then Pacheco scored. I'm like I'm a winner. And then Josh Palmer brought you back and you beat me by like a point. Yeah, I beat you by a point. I feel like this is, to me this is four wins in a row because I was out of town last week. That didn't count.

That is how Jason Moore would think about that. 92.54 to 91.86. Gross. You're the winner. Congratulations. Someone has to be. Yeah, that was a low week. Not good. Tight ends. Travis Kelsey? Oh, gosh. He was powered by the girlfriend. Anybody doubting whether he's worth a first round draft pick this year? He is. He is outstanding. I mean, you still have Mark Anders who. Two touchdowns. I think right now he's had an. absolutely incredible season. And he didn't cost you the same in the draft. So I think both have been great draft picks. Darren Waller. I mean, this was this was tight end day. National tight end day. And Kelsey, Andrews, Waller, Goddard, Tassum Hill, and a good gade from Don Kincaid. Yeah. I mean, everyone came through. They knew it was National Tight Ends Day. And every broadcast talked about it too much.

Yeah, they did. Yeah, they did. They hammered that home. Well, to be fair, the tight ends kept doing stuff. Yeah, that's true. How are you not going to say it's national tight end day when a tight end catches a touchdown? But they all did. Don't KK didn't, but he was very involved. 8.75. It's just a good week. All right. Let's talk about some of these sadder individuals. Poopped in his big boy pants. I'll be honest, when all the Monday punday submissions for Justin Herbut came in and Herbath or whatever else you guys were submitting, I was kind of shocked because I watched this game and I, you know, with the family, we're eating food and, you know, it starts so hot, right? Like the game was back and forth. Wasn't it like 1717? Yeah. And then I, I never really looked at the fantasy output for Justin Herbert after that. And well, it just didn't.

Get the job done. 11 fantasy points. One passing touchdown. That doesn't help if you throw two picks. Now you're either at no passing touchdowns if you're in a four point league or you get two points, you know, in a six point league. So we've talked about it quite a bit. The Kansas City defense is for real. There are struggles right now with the Chargers offense. Austin Eckler we're going to talk about in a minute. But the Kansas City Chiefs deserve some credit here. Next week against Chicago, we'll see. The Chargers are two and four. The Chargers feel like they're two and four. And Brandon Staley is like, you know how you see presidents before they enter office and after they enter office? Yes. Brandon Staley looked like a just like a young, virile, excitable, fun head coach at one point in time. Oh, he's going for it on fourth town. This guy's awesome.

Have you seen him? I don't know if he shaves his neck anymore. I mean, this guy looks like he has been put through a laundry machine. Yeah. He's aged 50 years in the last two years. He's, I mean, the hot seat will do it to you. Yeah, he's got to be on the way out soon. They're two and four? They're two and four, aren't they? Steelers are four and two. I know. Hey, I got that one right though. That was almost upset. Herbert, Tua, Tua had a bad game. One touchdown. and yeah, he's basically split the performances. He's either dominated or he's had some duds. They couldn't get the running game going. If they got the running game going, I think everything would open up. They couldn't do it. Jared Goff, 53 pass attempts. It was a turd of a game. Yeah. He didn't even garbage time. Like somehow he provided the garbage time for. Al and Ra, because of PPR. But, yeah, he didn't do enough to be successful. Next week, he is at.

home against the Raiders. I'm back in on golf. Bejohn, we talked about that. It's tough keeping them in the duds when it wasn't a performance based. Wasn't his fault. But at the same time, genuinely, like this is the year 2023. Everyone on that sideline knows and understands the importance of fantasy football. I know you might not care. That's not your goal. But at the same time, like, how do you not have anyone know before the game? that, like, Bijon is... Competitive advantage. Unhealthy and will be limited. Yeah, I don't know. I mean, he maybe woke up that morning and just didn't feel good. It was the night before. Okay. So they knew. Josh Jacobs. Super disappointing. All three of us smashed him for a lot of dollars into our draft king's lineup because against Chicago, and he has been really good. He has been, you know...

He's had a lot of work. He's had a lot of work and been a top 24 running back for four straight weeks. I am excited for Jimmy Garoppolo's return next week. This was not, the Brian Hoyer experience was not good. He also had a touchdown catch, a great one called back. That was a very nice catch. Did you see that? He also had a catch that was incredible. One hand of his one catch was awesome. Yeah, since this is the day of commiseration, I had to explain the sequence of events that took place for the Raiders around the goal line where I have Josh Jacobs and Devante Adams. Like, it's great. They're around the goal line. Second and goal. Fade to Josh Jacobs, touchdown catch, great. I got my points. Yeah. Called back. Oh, I'm sorry. Sorry for your loss. But guess what? It's okay because. Devante Adams.

Just shimmy shakes, the defender out of his shoes, heads to the back corner. No one for miles. Ball dropped perfectly into his hands. Touchdown. Drop the ball. Basically booted it out of the back of the end zone. Wow. But don't worry. They're down 24 to 3. It's time to go for it on fourth and goal, right? Mm-hmm. Josh McDaniels, he knows the numbers. Oh, yeah, he does. Kick the field goal. Kick to field goal at fourth and goal. And then at that point, the game was over. And they just took out their players. So that was fun. That was a fantasy ride that I did not enjoy. Austin Eccler, 14 for 45. You know, the big play was Josh Kelly. This is two games back from the injury for Austin Echler. Ankle seemed to be bothering him. Yeah. This is kind of getting to, is he going to be around to help you category for fantasy? Because if they have to.

if they have to like kind of protect him from his injury and share the work. Yes, Chicago is a good matchup next week. So sure, if he's active, you're going to play him. Then you get the Jets in Detroit. I hope this guy doesn't need to miss another week because if he misses Chicago, you're coming back off an injury to a couple tough matchups. It's just not going well. No. And we've seen this many times over the last several years. There are some running backs. We saw it with Sequin. When you come back from a high ankle sprain. it can take you, like you miss games, but once you're back, it still takes several more weeks until you're at full strength and as productive as you were before. And you just mentioned it. The Jets and the Detroit Lions, two of the most difficult defenses out there, speaking of the running game, then Baltimore two weeks later. It's a tough stretch coming up. Are you trying to sell Austin Echler?

looking long term at what your team's going to need for the playoff run. Yeah, I mean, it's possible. It depends on what your situation is. I think you've got to, you know, if you've got a losing record, you should probably be looking to capitalize, switch, find something with more immediate value. Because if you don't get to the playoffs, it doesn't matter if he's healthy by them. Yeah. Yeah, that is, it's this time of year right now. I mean, we're getting through week seven and. The playoffs are on the way. Rahim Mostert, 9 for 45, bottled up. Jeff Wilson. He played 14% of snaps. He was barely out there. And we expected him to take over. Ahmed played more. But still mostly meaningless. This was a situation where if you watched, you saw that the dolphins were missing some offensive linemen.

and the strength of the Eagles defense is that dominant Georgia Bulldog lineman. And so that they just, they owned that area. Mostard ended up with 45 rushing yards or nine carries, which is five a carry. Mostert was like three for negative eight to start the game. He did everything he could do. They just could not block Reddick and Carter and Fox or, uh, And, you know, this whole defense. And once you're down and you know you have to throw, which is what the dolphins got into, this is a couple situations now where we've, we have seen the dolphins absolutely destroying so many opponents. And then they've had really like two tests on the season. I know, I know. You know, it's like, oh, the big game against Buffalo. We were excited to see what happens. And they got smoked 20 to 48.

And then the big game this week, everyone was waiting for against the Great Eagles. And they just smoked 1731. So I think they, I think it's this defense, man. They need those, they need Stephen Howard. They need Jen Ramsey. They need some of these defensive pieces back. Two of them ran into each other last night. It was a mess. Aaron Jones, huge disappointment. I thought he would be back and involved. Instead, he was back and uninvolved. And you can put the Packers. Just put the Packers. What a wet fart. What a, I mean, that is a wiper. That is one where it's like, I can't sit here anymore. If I keep sitting, you're going to see it on the outside. So I got to stand up. I mean, what is the mental state of Packer fans, Al? It's not good. Yeah. I mean, what is the, what's the future hold? What's the just, the Jordan Love confidence level? He'll get there. I think. Okay.

The confidence level is 50-50. The Packers are 2 and 4, and it's not looking great. 2 and 4. So that would be the same record as the Bears? I believe that is true, yeah. Would that be the same record as the Vikings? I believe that is true. Let me look up that whole division. We could just move on. Vikings are 2 and 4. Packers are 2 and 4. I'm guessing the... The Bears must be two and five. That's correct. Probably haven't had to buy. Yep. That is correct. All right. Cooper Cup, two for 29. That's not good. That is not good. It is surprising. The consistency we've seen from Cooper Cup is like no other wide receiver. So it sucks to see. And while Puka did great, you've got the questions in your mind of, oh, is this going to be like a...

We get a Pooka game or we get a Cooper Cup game, and I don't believe that for one stinking second. I think both guys are going to be awesome, the vast majority of every game. Keenan Allen, four for 55. Nine targets. Down game. It was more Joshua Palmer in this one. And then Devante Smith, we talked about him at length earlier. He is the wide receiver 32 on the year right now. You know. Every player during the course of the season, especially when they're young, you're looking at, you know, are they evolving into a top 12 perennial talent? Are they, you know, what are they for dynasty long term? Like, Devonty Smith is a great player. But it's clear that he is, you know, like Waddle this year, like Higgins this year, there is a hierarchy that is reigning supreme. And so the possibility of Devante Smith having a bad game versus the possibility of A.J. Brown having one.

Smith's going to have more of those. Christian Watson, three for 27. Yep. Tyler Lockett, four for 38. Bad and shocking. Yeah, really disappointing game. No Metcalfe. He always tortures the Cardinals, but he wasn't really needed. Gabe Davis, one, four, six. Is this two turds in a row? This is two turds in a row, 21 yards last week, six yards this week, and in fact, four of. The seven games so far, so the majority, he has yet to reach 40 yards. Now, he's been good for fantasy because he has four touchdowns in four different weeks. But I think that the floor is too low to make him someone that you have to start. I'd rather have Pickens on my roster. Sure. George Pickens. He's been great. He's a dart throw for sure. You can put him in there and.

Hope he scores a big touchdown. Amari Cooper, two for 22 and eight targets. It was a bad game. It started really slow for him, like no targets for a long time. He was like, why aren't they getting him involved? At one point, the commentator towards the end of the game was like, you've got to go to Amari Cooper here. That's what's missing. And then they threw it to Amari Cooper and he dropped it. It was very important play. It was just a down off game. But the fact that you got eight targets. I'm not really worried about it. No, I'm not either. I think it'll be all right. Hollywood, this is a big disappointment, just three for 49 in the Seattle game. They dominated Arizona. Calvin Ridley, or as some say, Calvin Midley. I've seen Calvin Didley squat. Yeah, Calvin Ridley's performance, we talked about it at length on Thursday, but Kirk is a lock. I mean, coming out of week one. Oh, yeah. I mean, you thought Calvin Ridley was the next top five talent.

Top five performer. And you thought cursor Kirk might get tossed to the side. Zay Jones's injury brought Kirk back into the fold and Ridley, just not a go-to guy right now. And then there wasn't really a lot of duds at the tight-in position. That's nine years it took us to say that. I mean, that's kind of incredible. I mean, the Johnny Smith, Kyle Pitts, they were not great. Kyle Pitts's plays that he made were incredible. He made two catches. Oh, my gosh. That catch that he made one handed behind his back was... Which, of course, he had to. Well, yeah, I mean, that is the problem. That was one of the coolest catches I've ever seen. And when I watched it live, I didn't even understand, like, the replay looks incredible. But watching just full speed, you know, when it happened, I was like, what just, how did the ball was thrown behind him and then Kyle Pitts is running with it. It made no sense. It was crazy.

It was crazy. But, yeah, they were not good. Evan Ingram and Leporto were pretty decent. They kind of show up in the duds, but both were fine. Yeah. So any other players you want to talk about? I just want Christian McCaffrey and Jordan Addison to not combine for five points. Well, Jason, tomorrow we'll talk waivers, and we'll talk about how players need to keep fighting and hold on. And if you have a roster, you need to understand the fact that very few players are. consistent every single week. It's actually shocking to me. It was shocking to me that AJ Brown tied the record all time for 125-yard games. Yeah, you feel like some guys do that all the time. You feel like Cooper Cup must have done it. Or Justin Jefferson. Yeah, they've done it so many times. But yeah, this is when you... That's an all-time record for five straight games. Yeah, it was really surprising when I heard that week. So let's steal up and let's get ready for the playoff. Don't give up. No.

No, because sometimes all your division mates lose as well. And it gives you a glimmer of hope you shouldn't have. Or you should. Talk to you tomorrow. You for listening to another episode of the Fantasy Footballers podcast. Join our fantasy football community on join thefoot.com. And follow us on Twitter at the FF ballers.