Fantasy Football - Week 1 Studs & Duds + Panic Players, Deep Breaths! - Podcast for 9/8

The Fantasy Footballer Studio is sponsored by Walmart. To the Fantasy Footballers podcast with your host, Andy Holloway, Jason Moore, and Mike Wright. Welcome in. Yeah. You're right. No way, no how. Exhale. Monday, September 8th. The Fantasy Footballers podcast, I'm...

excited to react to the weekend with each and every one of you. I'm Andy Holloway joined as always by Mike the fantasy hitman. Jason Moore is here. Big breaths, people. So here we are. Most of week one in the books, we still have a Monday night football game that I am very much looking forward to. Minnesota, Chicago, whatever's left of the Chicago secondary, Justin Jefferson, J.J. McCarthy. We'll see what Caleb Williams and Ben Johnson, you know, because it looked like the Ben Johnson, the lack of Ben Johnson might, might have hurt the lines. But again, this is the weekend of reacting, not overreacting. And it's very, very possible that Green Bay has a top five defense and they're playing at home in Lambo. And you're definitely going to have some.

transitional pains. So we'll see where they go. I don't know if Detroit will look like that again. My Super Bowl pick on whenever it was the last episode or last week or whatever, I felt so amazing about it because my Super Bowl pick was the Green Bay Packers getting to the Super Bowl. And they beat the Detroit Lions. Their NFC foe so handedly. And they were going to lose to the Baltimore Ravens. And I was like, and they beat the tarnation out of the bills. And I was like, oh man, this looks, wait a minute they lost. The game was awesome. We had a, we had a morning and afternoon where I think there was like one game that hit the over. And it was the Jets. And it was Jets Pittsburgh where Aaron Rogers. I got a text from my son. My oldest son doesn't play a lot of fantasy. He was in a league this year. Doesn't know a lot of the players. And he's like, dad, you had me draft Bo Nix. And.

Aaron Rogers dominated this weekend. Yeah. And I was like, always draft Rogers. I was like, um, I was like, yeah, yeah, that Bo Nix didn't look good. I mean, Monday, Punday today, there were a lot of inappropriate Bo Nix puns coming into the Twitter. I bet you could not guess it. No, no, you couldn't. But, but it was like, yeah, why didn't you have me draft Aaron Rogers? And that is a good summary of week one. Like that is, you know, we had big time wide receivers that struggled. We had. A lot of surprises, and we will get into all of it. We have studs and duds on the show today. We have news to catch you up on, including some injury news. We had a calf that held up, Mike. We had a calf that held up. Yeah, don't worry about it. Oh, are you victory lapping? No. Oh. What? Oh, no, no, no, no, no. You do not get to ask me that question after our slack?

When the injury came through and all of you were like, we were the only ones who believed he was going to get hurt. No, no, no, no, no, sir. No, when you say all of you, you really mean owl. I mean, I mean, I didn't mean it in a sense that it's inappropriate. I meant it is in a sense of you'd be tempting fate. Oh. Not in a sense that it's, you should celebrate his healthy calf. Yes. I just meant if you do it, watch out. Yes. But it was nice. In my main character syndrome. Yes. I will prevent that. Somebody is living on the edge right now. Yeah. You know. Yeah. He just said. But look, I was trying to celebrate you, but I got. Sorry. I'm sorry. I am definitely not victory lapping the health. I will victory lap the performance. Christopher McCaffrey is awesome. And he will be the entire offense. I saw a tweet from.

Hayden winks that he was like the expected points for running backs and his expected fantasy points. Chris McCaffrey's like 12 ahead of second place. Like he is just such a stud. Is he going to stay healthy? I will be watching every single week. I mean, look, it was great. It was great to see. We're back by popular demand Monday Punday. All the responses from the weekend, which by the way, you know, sometimes you can take the temperature of how a weekend went by the proportion of good and I don't mean quality because none of them are quality right but the good oriented things that were successful players players a hit and the amount of puns that come in on those versus the negative and this week was so so negative for the most part because expectations when they're not met that's how it goes but we'll start with the good Monday punday Jason go ahead oh

Well, let's talk about a mecca. Booyah! Oh, baby. A mecca. Bazooka. I like that a lot. A mecca bazooka. We had Josh Alien last night. Josh Alien last night. And Zay Powers. How about Dalton can, Kate? Yes, he can. Jackson Smith, Wing, Jigba. Huge performance. And your guy, Tyler Soren. Oh, it looked good. It looked good. Oh, Samuel. And Breece Lightning, of course. He is back. Very nice. To Infinity and Keon. He had a big game. Justin Fields of Dreams. Travis E.T. Win. Yeah. And Cedric Thrillman. Unfortunately, Bo Picks. Yes, we're into the bad. And RJ Hardley. Oh, he was...

Oh, hardly on the field, but he was okay. And, uh, Tua turned the ball over. Yes. Oh, AJ Brown pants. Yeah, we got to bring that back. Yeah. Cam Scatapoo. Oh, and, oh, Ken Moan Walker. Oh, yeah. Isaiah poop checkup. Dude. Dude, where's my Jammar? Yeah, that's good. Calvin Dittley Squat. Oh, don't bury him, but look out for Nico coffins. Oh, another one of those tough. Wide receivers. I Reek Hill, by the way, one year anniversary of his last 30-yard catch today. Oh, Lamason Williams. Terrible McLaurin. Yes. Stank Bigsby. Stank Bigsby. Wrapping it up. We didn't know if Tank Bigsby got hurt. Well, that's because he didn't get a carry in the first quarter. You couldn't find. Well, he got a nice. Co-starter. Co-fartter. Am I right? There was a starter. There was. And he was. He looked great. Pretty good.

But again, got to be careful when you're playing Carolina. It looks really good against Carolina. I believe I turned to you guys and said, whoever's starting against Carolina is my start of the week next week. Which, you know, that would be James Connor. Mm-hmm. Yeah, Carolina looks awful. Carolina looked awful. They looked so bad. It was. I mean, you're playing Jacksonville. You had so many opportunities to do something in that game. It was, that was one of the, there was, I mean. Many terrible things happened. What was the unders hit on basically all but one? Essentially every game except for like two. Yeah. Bryce Young looking just like that again. That sucked. Benjum quick and then take back. You know what I mean? Worked last time. All right. You can follow the show over on Instagram at Fantasy Footballers over on X at the FF Ballers. That's where we put out the thread for the Monday Punday.

A reminder, join thefoot.com is the community. It's a great time to get over there. You get all the premium in-season tools, including the ultimate dashboard, the lineup optimizer, which has, you know, you also get access to the expanded start sit, a bonus episode of the show. And it's where you want to hang out all season long. Jointhefoot.com. There's an app for all of the tools as well. Let's talk some news. News and notes from Around the League. Presented by Progressive Insurance. Well, he didn't have a big week. Nobody really did on the Lions. I actually read that the 10 catches for 31 yards for Jemir Gibbs is the fewest yards in the history of national football on 10 catches. Wow. You did it. Yeah. Yeah. So the Lions didn't look good and neither did James and Williams. But before the game, they signed him to a three-year $83 million extension.

which was a bit of a gut punch to the Isaac to Slaw. Oh my gosh. You didn't lower it. You didn't lower it. Take that. Quintan Judkins, signed by the Browns. Signed by the Browns, a fully guaranteed deal. There is a real possibility he plays in week two against the Ravens. I thought Dylan Samson looked good. I thought Jerome Ford looked slower than Dalton Schultz. Yeah, I mean, Jerome Ford said, hey. Quintan Judkins, I got you. You're going to get a fully guaranteed deal. Watch this. I mean, he was so bad. Dylan Samson, though, he's got juice. I think he will retain the passing downs role. So this might be a backfield between the two rookies, but they need Quinn John Judkins. They could not run against the incredible run defense of the Cincinnati Bengals.

Well, there was a surprise. Also, we found out that Chris Rodriguez was going to be a healthy and active. If you join Mike, which you should do on Sunday live, there was discussion about this and many different things that were going on right before games began. But Chris Rodriguez, who we thought would have a goal line opportunity, was inactive, healthy and active. And Bill Kroski. Bill Kroski. He won a staring contest with the sun. Okay. Bill Krosky. Oh, you got another one, huh? No. He made his teachers raise their hand to speak. Okay. All right. He looked good. He looked really good. Yeah. Injury updates. Xavier Worthy dislocated his shoulder right out of the gate. So we'll find out more about Worthy's prognosis. So try to play this year. Normally when you have the dislocation.

You need surgery at some point, but you can play with the brace after an amount of time sometimes. So we'll figure out that. George Kittle. This one is a bummer. I did take... I made you take George Brittle out of the... The puns. The Sunday puns. Yeah, you did. But... You can't do it. The man at least had the decency. Yes. To catch you a touchdown. We've asked players to do this for years. If you're going to get injured, get a touchdown first. It's that... Is that too much to add? It's the decent thing to do. It's the decent thing to do. Well, he did that. He had four catches, and then he left due to a hamstring injury, did not return. This morning, I was looking it up. He's been on injury reports 19 different times in his career, five times for hamstring injuries. Mm-hmm. We are hoping. That sounds terrible. Yeah, we're hoping that that means that this will be a brief absence, if any, at all. From the four previous or five previous hamstring, I guess this would be the sixth, because there were five previous.

He had only missed a maximum of one game with the hamstring injury. Now, does this game count as the miss? Has he missed the majority of this game? No. No, this one is not count. I do love that as soon as it happened and he had already like you, it's, it sucked because he would have been the titan one on the week. He was dominated. But it was nice that he didn't go back out to re-agravate. He knew and he stayed on the sideline. So hopefully if he missed his time, it's short. I'm prepping for up to three weeks, but we'll find out more when he gets the MRI. Well, yeah, the remainder of the game. I mean, you had Joanne Jennings, who also got hurt in the game. He's going to get an MRI. So go with George, the MRI machine. You know, Jennings had a shoulder injury. We don't know how long he'll be out. And you ended up with the backup tight end who's never really played. A name. Tongis McBasket. Tungis ends up with the game winning touchdown. So on an insane.

catch it was great this oh the the pass was horrible it would have been the third pick for purdy it should not have happened it should not have worked and yet it did it actually you know i i wonder how san francisco is going to play if they don't have kiddle like i really am curious what it's going to look like because no kiddle no jennings i think they're rebranding to the christian mcalfreys they i mean he touches the ball so much it's weird because it's not the It's not the best offense to just dump it to him all the time, but they got it done. They had the game-winning drive. Evan Ingram left early calf injury for the Broncos. That sucks. Brock Bowers left with the knee injury. Tom Pelliseros said that he talked to Brock Bowers, and Brock Bowers said he's fine. He took a hit on the knee. If you watch the play where it happened, to me it happened on the long run up the sideline on that.

35, 40-yard run when he was wide open. He took a hit to the knee going out of bounds. And, you know, he says there's no concerns. We'll monitor that. It was so scary because when you watched live, it looked like a non-contact. He got injured the play prior. Correct. And so then the play where you saw the injury and where he was limping around, he goes out, runs a route, nothing happens. And then he's limping. It's like, oh, no. Yeah. What I had seen was. He wanted to go back in, but medical would not let him go back in. Drake London left the Falcons game. I think people missed this, at least when it was happening. He left in the fourth quarter, shoulder injury, didn't return, considered day to day as of now, according to Ian Rappaport. I saw some replays of the injury, not a doctor, but they're talking about AC joint sprain. He basically collapsed on his left shoulder in the end zone.

Went down really hard on it. We'll see if he will miss any time. He probably will. It seems like it is going to be an AC sprain, and I don't, you know, hopefully it's not anything majorly serious, but you got to be prepared to be without Drake London. His usage was great before that. Yeah, it didn't turn into a great line because he caught eight passes for 55 yards, which is, but okay, I'll hit it. But 15 targets. Well, you're going to see, and if he missed his time, Kyle Pitts ended up with seven catches in this game. That's right. Seven catches for Kyle Pitts. Still has a hard time separating. Also, get ready for Casey Washington. Like I said, Kyle Pitts. Casey Washington. And then Pook and Akua left briefly with a concussion came back, or a concussion check, sorry. What looked like a bleeding eyeball. Yeah. And then Crystal Lave left with a chest injury, but also returned.

Olave and Jalen Waddle both fulfilled their quotas. Waddle left again looking miserable pain and then came back out there. I don't know how we can make the joke about how he does this every game as much as we do. And still have it happen. Yeah, and still have it happen. It's not a joke anymore. It's just, we're like, oh, there it is. Yeah. He did it again. And man, did they look bad. Oh, man, they looked so bad. Alave, though. 13 targets in his previous game with Spencer Rattler had a ton of targets. And according to our data that I'm looking at on our website right now, played 156% of the snaps. So that's great. Who did? Olave. That is... 156%. That is an impressive amount of our data team is doing good work in week one, huh? Making a boo-boo. He played 100% of the snaps for the Saints and 56% of the Cardinal snaps. Oh, I wish we could use them.

That was news and notes sponsored by progressive insurance quote today at progressive.com, progressive casualty insurance company affiliates and third party insurers. Not available in all states or situations covered subject to policy terms, limits, and conditions. I'm going to hit the button, take a break, and we'll come back with studs and duds. This episode is brought to you by prize picks. You and I make decisions every day, but on prize picks, being right can get you paid. Don't miss any of the excitement this season on prize picks where it's good to be right. Look, prize picks is the best way to win cash this football season, which players are going off, which ones are not. Make your picks in less than 60 seconds and turn your takes into cash all season long on prize picks. They also invented the flex play, which means you can still cash out even if your lineup isn't perfect. You can double your money, even if one of your picks doesn't hit.

Price picks is the best place to win cash while watching sports. Join millions of users and sign up today. Download the app today and use code footballers to get $50 in lineups after you play your first $5 lineup. That's code footballers to get $50 in lineups after you play your first $5 lineup. Prize picks, it's good to be right. Yeah, before the break, Mike was, I could hear him laughing a little bit because. Jason could not be more miserable with the Cardinals Victor. They suck so much. I am in complete agreement. That was... That team was embarrassing. In their defense, there were a lot of good teams that looked bad in week one. That's fair. And hopefully, genuinely. Like the Broncos, the Broncos were horrible. Yeah, they looked. They were equal to the Cardinals. It was the same situation where you go and excited for a team. Like, I haven't been excited for the Cardinals in...

I don't know, half a decade. Right. And this year I was actually thinking, hey, I think they could be a playoff team. They could win this division. And you get a Spencer Rattler version of the Saints that you should just go in and smoke. And nine seconds left, you basically were on the goal line. They were about to go to overtime and you couldn't do anything against them. My only hope, I know a lot of reports were coming out about Kyler being sick, being ill. Is that why you dressed that way? That might have been what caused it. Maybe the mirror check was like, um, but that's my hope. He did scramble a lot more. Kyler did and did nothing with it, which is rare. Usually when Kyler runs, it's a, it's a successful play. He made like bad decisions on Windows scramble. I'm, I'm just so hopeful that he was horribly ill. Okay. Horrably ill. Jason was horribly ill watching him. So, um, there you go.

It was a weird week for several quarterbacks. We'll get into all of it right now. But we'll start with the positives. This week's fantasy stud muffins presented by Lowe's. All right. We are into the studs. Top five quarterback scores on the week in four point passing. It was Josh Allen. Goodness, man. By a lot. And then it was Justin Fields and Daniel Jones. Yeah. Hey, Justin Fields. The Daniel Jones one is pretty shocking, but the Justin Fields one is not surprising to me at all. It should be. But it is not. But it's, well, I mean, he has been statistically one of the worst passers when he's gotten opportunities. And I will say from watching the football game, he was outstanding on every level. He had so much zip on the passes.

hyper-accurate, making plays constantly getting outside the pocket and battling through a collapsing pocket. He played outstanding. Mike, you deserve a ton of credit for believing in him, and we'll see what continues. They ended up losing the game, which, by the way, Pittsburgh was, we have the survivor pool we're doing. Pittsburgh was two of my three entries. Uh-oh. Didn't realize how close that was on that one. The, uh, for Justin Fields, we could, because he's Justin Fields and we've seen it. Next week he could come out and he could fall on his face. That is that absolutely could happen. My hope for Justin Fields is he's on a team that wants him. Like Pittsburgh, you know, last, Justin Fields started okay last year. He was four and two. I think Chicago really wanted him. I, but Chicago had, they had garbage. That was also the early career, you know, rookie second year type of player. Just I'm, I would hold out.

hope that this might be a year for Fields to just be a top five guy. Lamar Jackson was number four, Justin Herbert number five. So yeah, one Herbert one is is one that is like, man, if that pass rate sticks, then he will be, it's never been a question of can Justin Herbert do it? It's been. They just restrain him all the time. And not they just the pass rate, but the rushing. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We saw this is what I wanted last year with Giro because he has always used his quarterbacks in the running game. He is way more athletic than you think. And he had designed runs and he had quick scrambles. I loved it. Yeah, 318 passing hours, three passing touchdowns. You got to remember, there's conflicting forces in Los Angeles. There is Harbaugh's.

loving to run the football mixed with Harbaugh's unadulterated man love for Justin Herbert. And he believes in Herbert. And last year in the second half of the season, they made the switch. And they continued it. So it's not like, you know, it wasn't a great week for Amari and Hampton. Obviously, Naji was basically not involved. The usage was. We also knew that this was the number one rushing defense in football. So let's all just see what a few weeks looks like. But moving on, Daniel Jones was. 22 for 29 against the hapless dolphins, 7 for 26 on the ground with two rushing touchdowns. He looked really good. He did. Now he'll play Denver, then Tennessee, and Los Angeles. You know, this was a really impressive performance by the Colts all the way around. There are a lot of weapons. And Tyler Warren, adding him to that offense, that connection was awesome, all game long. But Michael Pittman, you know. Yeah, like, hey.

Dude, I need to drop back on my board. Come on. Do you need some help over there? Yes. So good. This is so good. I mean, let's not get over the skis, but. Hey. Hey. Some credit really, really needs to go to the Miami Dolphins. Yes. A lot of credit. Next week, they've got the Patriots. And I think it is the perfect matchup to find out. How bad they are? Who was true? You know what I mean? Who has the Patriots? The dolphins and the Patriots play each other. So Drake May, who had some plays that looked amazing and some plays that were just outrageously bad, this will be a perfect test next week to be like, if he comes out and does a Daniel Jones impersonation in week one and is great, I think we can just chalk up the dolphins to being one of the worst secondaries in the league. Patrick Mahomes had 258 yards in a touchdown, one rushing touchdown, ran a ton.

is Owen 1 and everyone else in the division, Raiders, Broncos, Chargers, all 1 and 0 in the AFC West, week 1 in the books. Aaron Rogers, four passing touchdowns and looked amazing. Yeah. According to my son should have been the number one picking fantasy. That game was so weird of, you know, I mean, look, you had the mirror match, the flipped quarterbacks. You had the offenses, which are both you would before week one. You're like, eh, they'll be. okay is and their defenses are going to be the strong part of the team and it was they went into the upside down that was that was a really surprising uh game surprising turn of events and but it was really and the ancillary pieces you know it looked like it was like d k macketh and no one and you got gareth wilson and no one and then you know other people got involved especially on the Pittsburgh side kenneth gainwell what oh yeah that was arthur is the

worst yeah but he is the no the history of the history of arthur is he's right we'll see is that just the john new smith correct yeah i mean it's but he's also yeah it's john new smith in lieu of kyle pitts but we know that that was the right call so that one is that one is so interesting uh yeah like but he had the most snaps yeah that was a that was a high school that was one of the only um over unders yes so Well, they were all over-unders, but it was that was one of the few overs. Thank you. Jalen Hertz had a couple rushing touchdowns, didn't pass for a lot of yards, hurt us with AJ Brown. Michael Pinnock's, you know, a lot of these sophomores, it was up and down to me. It was, you know, unfortunately Jason is responsible for Bo Nix because Bo Nix was looking.

outstanding and then Jason says, wow, he's still good outside the pocket and then he made some of the worst throws you've ever seen. I said it right before the first pick because he comes out in this game and he's looking on fire, just drilling perfect, you know, bread basket throws on a rope and and then he just was awful as soon as I said that the rest of the game. Yeah, you're right. Michael Pennix, Bo Nix, Drake May. We'll see Caleb tonight, but they. They all showed flashes of good and flashes of her, you know, just real, real bad. Baker led a game-winning drive, although that game should have gone to overtime. We wanted more of that game, but Youngwey Koo could not tie it up. They couldn't tie it up. Week one, but, I mean, Abuka was awesome. But Baker was 17 for 32, 167. He had the three passing touchdowns. This is against the Falcons defense.

I, I'm going to be a little skeptical for the Tampa Bay or for the bucks until we get a couple games under our belt. Running backs, top five scores of the week, Derek Henry. Oh my goodness. Still good. Still good. I hate you. It was, Fookland, the Jason and I, we brought it up. We were matched up in the league of record. That one was kind of felt like it was over on Thursday after. and AJ Brown laid an egg for him. And then all of Sunday, we were also matched up in our dynasty, our main one. And it looked...