Starts of the Week + Week 4 Breakdown, Air Yard Analysis - Fantasy Football Podcast for 9/30

This episode is brought to you by State Farm. Every football fan is different. Some won't wash their lucky mustard-stained jersey until the season's over. Some insist they can't sit down on third downs and some pick their favorite team because, I don't know, just like football fandom, nobody's life is exactly the same. And that's why State Farm gets to know you, not as a policy number, but as an actual person.

so they can help personalize a coverage plan that's just for you. Whether it's game day or just another Tuesday, State Farm has you covered.

Granger knows if you're a procurement manager at an industrial manufacturing facility, you're balancing inventory and budget while sourcing critical supplies across the operation. Too much inventory? Cost climb? Too little? Production slows. Granger's $2 billion in on-hand inventory helps you get what you need when you need it. So you can help keep budgets balanced and lines moving. Call 1-800-Grangeer. Click ranger.com or just stop by. Granger, for the ones who get it done.

Today's show is sponsored by head and shoulder scalp shield technology. Regular use of head and shoulder scalp shield provides a continuous and visible shield of protection against dandruff, itch, and dryness, renewing your protection with every wash. Get up to 100% dandruff protection that's never not working with head and shoulders scalp shield technology available at walmart.com. I also want to tell you about Alto IRA, and this is something I just recently learned about.

All of us here, we have Coinbase accounts. We've been into this crypto world. And so if you have a Coinbase account, if you have Bitcoin, Ethereum, Cardano, if you have any of the cryptocurrencies, which in a lot of ways represent the future of money, check this out. You can trade Bitcoin Ethereum and over 60 other cryptocurrencies in a tax-advantaged IRA. That is what Alto IRA does. So you can get into investing in crypto.

and you can do it in a tax-advantaged way. They are the easy way to get crypto into an IRA. You can trade all you want without any of the tax headaches, and you can create an account in just a few minutes. You can invest with as little as $10, and there are no set-up charges. If you're ready to take your investments to the next level and diversify, like the pros, and trade without tax headaches, you can open an alto crypto IRA with as little as $10. Just go to alto IRA.com slash...

Footballers, that's Alto, A-L-T-O-I-R-A dot com slash footballers. Start investing in cryptocurrency today. Go to alto IRA.com slash footballers. To the Fantasy Footballers podcast with your host, Andy Holloway, Jason Moore, and Mike Wright. Oh, welcome in. It's football time. Hey, hey. Yes, it is, Mr. Wright.

Yes, it is. Guys, I got something. I got to get this off my chest. Oh, you're bearing a burden? Pull up a seat. I've been holding on to this one for a while. Oh, buddy. I love football. Oh, man. I love it so much. The fact that I have to go from stupid Tuesday through Wednesday and I don't get a game, those are days of sadness. Well, we're back. And despair, but we are back, baby. Football is back. Tonight we have Jacksonville, Cincinnati.

I'm excited. We'll talk about a lot of matchups on today's show. We have starts of the week for fantasy players. We've got Never Not Working, very excited to get into that discussion. You know, now's the time, really, to make moves, to go the extra mile, to put your team in a position where you increase your odds at success, not just this week, but throughout the rest of the season. And we're here to help. You can find us on Twitter at the FF Ballers.

If you want to follow Jason Moore, you can do so at Jason FFL. Mike is at FFHitman. I'm at Andy Holloway over on the Twitter sphere. Instagram.com slash fantasy footballers, if that is your preferred social network of choice. And you can watch the show, YouTube.com slash the fantasy footballers. Make sure you subscribe, click the bell, and you can be notified when Mike goes live every Sunday morning right before the games.

to kind of be your tilt counselor. He will take you through a little of his own tilt, and he will go through the most frequently asked questions with Brooksie, his best friend. Yeah, you don't have to feel alone on Sunday morning. Like you're the only one freaking out. No. Hold hands, lean. The great news for you is you don't have to do it in front of thousands of people. Mike does. That's what I'm here to do. Now, very good news for you, Mike, your best friend Brooks.

is on a better microphone than he's ever been on. He was. He was my best friend for a day. Let's hear those pipes. Oh, my goodness. That voice is so rich. What was that? Morgan Freeman back there? I'm a new man. And it's me, Al. And Al is here, too. So how are you doing today, Al? I'm great. Thank you. Okay. All right. You sound great. Thanks. All right. Let's jump in. Never not working.

Presented by Head and Shoulders, Scamp Shield Technology, available at Walmart. All right, like I said, we've got to work a little harder to guarantee success. By the way, I'll never make fun of you again, Al, the second you get a verified checkmark. Ooh, I don't believe that at all. Make it happen, Foot Clan. They can't. We tried to enlist them for Mike a long time ago, and unfortunately, that is the one area, the Achilles heel of the Foot Clan, is they have no control over the verified checkmark.

We'll see. Okay. All right. So what do we got today and never not working? So on today's show, we're going to be highlighting some players that we think you should trade for right now because they haven't fully unleashed what they should be doing for football and for fantasy football. And this one, we're taking a look at specifically at air yards, which if you are new to the idea of air yards, it's simply.

How far does the ball travel in the air? And it's just a simple conclusion that if a player is getting a lot of targets down the field, a lot of air yards, and that if they catch those, it's going to be a big play. It's going to be, you know, the 50-yard or it's going to be the huge touchdown explosion. And some of these guys, because the throw is difficult, it's further down the field.

It doesn't always work out. We were highlighting Emmanuel Sanders for the last couple weeks of, look how they are using him. Look at his average depth of target. It's just they haven't connected just yet. And as soon as that does, big things are going to happen for fantasy football. And boom, Manny Sanders last week was a weak winning type of a player that you could have just.

grabbed right off your waiver wire and plugged him right in. So here's a couple of players that I want to highlight that I think that you could go after because their value is lower than it should be. We'll start with Emmanuel Sanders. His teammates, Stefan Diggs, so Andy, you just traded for Stefan Diggs. Jason Grimmises because he was kind of backed into a corner where he had to make the trade. Yes.

I don't like this segment. He's seeing nearly 36% of the team's air yards, and he has second in unrealized air yards, as in he's getting these targets deep down the field. They just have it connected, which Stefan Diggs and Josh Allen were dominant in that part of the game this last year, which is part of why Stefan Diggs became such a fantasy revolution in the fifth round, which people are like, okay, Stefan Diggs, great, I should go try and trade for him.

Here's a couple other names that I really think you should be looking at. Devante Smith, he's seeing 45 plus percent of his team's air yards. It just has not hit. It came through on week one, but then weeks two and week three, it's been very disappointing for the rookie. He's third and unrealized air yards. Michael Pittman, Jr., of the Indianapolis Colts, while he is crushing, like, it's more of a low-key.

crush that is what Michael Pittman has done because yeah he had the 100 yard game in week two he's seeing a whole bunch of targets over 30% of the Colts targets the past two weeks but it could be even better for Michael Pittman like there he's sixth in on in the air yard share and it could get even better for Pittman moving forward and here is the guy that I really want to focus on because he is truly

The Ridler. He has an enigma of this doesn't make sense. Statistically, this does not make sense what is happening to Jacobi Myers of the New England Patriots. He has cruised it along in PPR. He has 104 total receptions over the course of his career with zero career touchdowns. That just does not make sense. He, in fact, is seeing similar air yard usage to

His teammate Nelson Aguilar, who's considered to be the deep threat, you're getting the targets over here for Jacoby Myers. You're getting the air yards. It just hasn't come through in a huge way. Still waiting for that first touchdown in his career. Yeah, we're still waiting for it. But against Tampa Bay. Tampa Bay is giving up everything through the air. You cannot run against the Tampa Bay.

Front. It is one of the toughest in the league. And teams simply give up on it. And now you have a situation with Tampa Bay going into New England. Mack Jones is going to be forced to throw a ton in this game because Tom Brady is going to put up points. You think Tom Brady doesn't want to put up as many points as he physically can in this game? And they're going to have to throw. And Jacoby Myers.

This could be the moment that we finally see the true fantasy football explosion. And you can get Jacoby Myers for very, very little in a trade. I haven't had the courage to play him in our Dynasty League yet. And then last week was 14 targets for Jacoby Myers. Would you play Myers this week in that narrative against Tampa Bay at home or Cordarrel Patterson?

against the Washington football team in a flex. I think, man, I think Jacobi Myers is just so much safer. Like where Cordero is a running back, everything he is doing is through the air, but it's, you know, six, seven targets, and he's getting a handful of carries. While Jacobi Myers is seeing such a massive target share, you know, on the season he is at 25%, 27% of the targets this past week against the Saints.

And I do think that this could be the week that Jacoby Myers finally hits the paydard, finally gets recognized. And we go into Monday, Punday, and there will be some really clever stuff said about Jacobi Myers. And everyone's real happy. So if you're saying if you're going to try and trade for him, you could just, you could go over to the other manager and say, I want this guy. Mr. Manager. And I say, you know.

That's just throw a throw in a deal. You're going to drop Jacoby Myers anyways from this two-for-one trade I'm sending you. So just send Jacobi Myers back. Troll you to horse your way and sneak Jacobi Myers onto your team. I do want to caveat something when I look at this stat about air yards and how I would be judging who to acquire. It does to me. Like I put it through one more filter.

It's unrealized air yards, but it's also the filter of the confidence I have in the quarterback that is attached to them. One of the reasons Sanders worked out is because the competence in Josh Allen is tremendous. One of the players with a ton of air yards, but a low reception percentage is DJ chart.

I'm not going out to pursue DJ chart because I don't have confidence that Trevor Lawrence is going to suddenly manifest into a spectacular quarterback where the downfield throws are going to be accurate. I doubt last year a player like AJ Green with the quarterback roulette he had in Cincinnati. None of us were going to go out and heavily invest on those unrealized air yards. So I'm not saying that, you know, you have to make a decision for Devont to Smith. What do you believe about?

you know, Jalen Hertz. And so if you are confident enough in him as a quarterback, go pursue that. Same goes for, you know, potentially Pitman. Jacoby Myers, you know, I think we've been impressed for the most part with Mack Jones, not from a fantasy output perspective, but from a competence running the offense perspective. But that's what I would do. I would be looking through that filter. I don't disagree at all. Like this is, this is an opportunity for someone who could explode. This is, this is probability.