Fantasy Football - 32 Preseason Takeaways + Key Questions - Podcast for 8/18

his film was good. He broke some tackles, had some explosive plays. He had a ton of great cutbacks this last week. So I think he looks great. AFC South Houston. Chubb played 11 of 14 snaps with C.J. Stroud. Now, Damien Pierce couldn't work himself in. He's still recovering from the quad injury. But Chubb played 11 of 14 with the starters. It seems like if there's no mixing, Nick Chubb is like where does he belong in drafts? late you know like if you're going with a more zero rb approach he is probably someone who's just gross that you can roll out there the first couple weeks you know he will get opportunities the Texans should be a good offense so like you have a chance of a touchdown every single week you know while he is the starter also with the Texans right now it seems very solidified that it's Nico Collins and Christian Kurt yeah

And then the more interesting thing is Xavier Hutchinson's been playing ahead of Jaden Higgins. Jaden Higgins seems like another guy. You may have to wait a little longer before you get the benefits of... I don't think it'll be very long for him. Okay. The Colts, my one thing I wrote down, Warren is awesome. Yeah. 97% of all snaps with starters to two preseason games. Deep downfield targets. I mean, he looks awesome. That is rookie tight-in Tyler Warren. Yeah, and this game, Richardson was six for 11 for 73 yards. Jones was 7 for 11 for 101. Neither of them really separated. Both had their good moments. Who do you think's going to be the starter? Week one. Well, I think that's an interesting question because I think it should be Daniel Jones. I think he's the better player. It's really hilarious that he looks like the stabilizing player for a quarterback room because he is the least stabilizing

quarterback historically but i think from a like position standpoint as a team like what's the easier thing to do it's easier to me to give richardson the start yeah let him let him if he collapses again you've got daniel jones waiting the other the other thing in reverse seems a lot harder because you can't go away from richardson if you bring him in after jones it's harder to to pull the you know you just look like a circus emergency court i mean it's it's it's I mean, we know exactly what Daniel Jones is. We've seen years and years of him as a starting NFL quarterback. I think he's the better quarterback, though. I think he's definitely the better quarterback. I think he is right now. But it's just your future and your ceiling. The season starts Miami at home. They're favored. Okay. Then they're at home against Denver. That's a tough defense. Then they go on the road against Tennessee, not favored.

Then they're on the road against the Rams. I don't know if that plays into your decision making. Who you think they're going to start? I think they'll start with Anthony Richardson, but TBD, they, you know, they'll announce it next week. I, as somebody who wants to see Tyler Warren succeed early in the year, I want it to be Daniel Jones, me personally, but I think that unless Richardson collapses in the third preseason game, I would give him the shot first if I'm the Colts because you're, like you said, you're looking for. One last shot at the Bryce Young Redemption story. Let's give the guy a shot to be successful. If Daniel Jones is better, it's still irrelevant. What Daniel Jones is, is not the future of a franchise that is a successful NFL team. Probably true. Jacksonville, Trevor Lawrence, through two games with Liam Cohen. You ready for this? 14 of 17 for 119 and a touchdown. Okay. So Trevor Lawrence, you know, the redemption story of Baker with Liam Cohen.

among others. But I mean, Lawrence, 14 for 17. It's been good so far. Tank Bigsby played every first and second down. Travis E.N. played on both third down. That's some swapped weeks there. That's the most interesting thing of everything we were hearing at a camp before games started, preseason game started, was that Tank Bigsby is the primary guy. Like, he's the starter, and E.T.N has his role. Then preseason week one happens, and that was completely upside down. And like, oh, threw everything for a loop. Now we're back to Tank on first and second down. It could parallel Tampa, where he just came from. You've got Biggs. Bigsby could be the Bucky. It could. The Rashad White could be the E.N. And then the Sean Tucker could be the Tootin. Which I, you know, I wavered in my faith after preseason week one of which guy I want. Not that, like, we're not clamoring to get the Jacksonville running backs in particular. But I'm still drafting Tank Bigsby.

ahead of Travis ETN. Yeah, if the starters play next week, that will be what to watch for. Like who gets first and second down between those two guys? I think it's fun to talk about Tennessee because Cam Ward seems like he is going to be the real deal at some point. Now, as a rookie, your production, you don't hit certain marks. It just doesn't happen in the passing game very often. But my takeaway from this was, I mean, you saw the rookie wide receivers getting a lot of snaps. Now, Calvin Ridley, Tyler Lockett, they didn't play. Iyamanner, D.K. They played a bunch of snaps. I have a nickname for it's Ellick Iow Manor, right? Mm-hmm. And, but when I type his name into anything, it auto-corrects it to Epic. So he is now Epic Ile Manor. Okay. All right. Let's hope he lives up to that as far as I'm concerned. Take it easy. So, but he was epic in this game. He looked great. He had a big connection with Cam Ward. He's playing right next to Van Jefferson, so it's easy to look good. Yeah, D.K. I just think you look at this team like,

Lockett stage of his career. I like Ridley a lot. I think Ridley is a super great steal. I just haven't said it a lot because he was a my guy last year and didn't quite end up there. But yeah, I think he is a steel at his ADP. It will not be smooth sailing. But I think I.O. Manor could easily be their wide receiver too. Easily. I mean, you're talking about competing with Tyler Lockett, who really hasn't been a two in a couple of years. I mean, it was nice to see. So finishing up the AFC, we're in the West.

Denver, you saw Sutton, Mims, and Veilay all rested with the starters. Franklin and Pat Bryant both played and looked good. It almost makes it more confusing. Yeah, you can do it now. You can do it. This is his time. I mean, look, I think Troy Franklin, here's the real truth about Denver's wide receiver room. Sutton, stable, good, drafting, playing. I think then it's just going to be a hodgepodge every single week. I mean, like... If Mims is sitting with the starters, and Vela is sitting with the starters, and then Franklin and Pat Bryant get reps, and they both look good. Like, Franklin's going to catch what? Three or four long touchdowns. I mean, Pat Bryant could get involved, and he's the one that has the kind of like invisible upside. We don't know how good he could be. And Evan Ingram will be there to take plenty of targets as well. Yeah, that's true. I had almost nothing on the Chiefs, nothing too impactful. Elijah Mitchell still seems to be the RB3. Pacheco played a couple of snaps. Hunt rested.

But he's also banged up. Yeah, he had the quad contusion and old. And older. So look, it's Pacheco Hunt, then Elijah Mitchell. All right, help me with this one. And I'm going to give the shout out to Dwayne McFarland for breaking down the wide receiver room for the Raiders. So Jacobi Myers played 100% talking about the Las Vegas Raiders, wide receivers. Jacob Myers played 100% of snaps with the starters. Yeah. Full-time slot. He played slot the entire time. Then... You've got Deontay Thornton Jr. Okay. 25% target share with the starters. Average depth of target of 28.5 yards. Yeah, he's a nine guy. Yes. Seems to have a firm grip on the wide receiver three roll. Late round deep sleeper. But Trey Tucker was also on the field for 100% of all passing plays in the offense. Jack Bash did not play until he got out there with the second unit. So Myers, Thornton, Tucker? That does seem to be the starters.

It'll be, it's interesting of like, is Thornton, I mean, he's a later round pick than Jack Bass. Jack Bass was a second round pick, so it's disappointing to see him not be able to get on the field. Meanwhile, a guy drafted after him is, but does Thornton have like real upside or is he just a, you know, the way that they've used Trey Tucker, like just a real gadgety player who is big and fast that can help you. do other things on your offense, but he can't really become a focal point. I mean, none of, it's the time of year where you got to talk about those guys. We love Jack Bash's film. There's two rookies here competing, so we want to know what's, it's all irrelevant. The wide receiver three for this team, and that's what this is, because even though it's the wide receiver too, Brock Bowers is there, and then it's Jacobi Myers. Yep. The leftovers.

split between a couple of players. I mean, if we're being realistic, these guys aren't going to be week-in, week-out fantasy starters without an injury ahead of them. Yeah, and I would disagree if there was no Brock Bowers. I would say, hey, there's an outside role that it's an opportunity on the outside, but I think you're dead on. Chargers-wise, we talked about Clinton Johnston getting hurt. The stars of this game, there were the two rookies. So Kandre Lambert Smith. Trey Harris both made plays. Right now it seems like it goes McConkey, Keenan, KLS. Yeah, yeah. And obviously, Quentin Johnston up there as well. Trey Harris was with the twos. He did not do his work. But listening to Harbaugh, Harbaugh was glowing on both of those guys. Harris had a great game. He was behind. He's behind on the depth chart right now. All right. So we'll take a break and we'll talk. I'll run through the NFC teams and we'll do some mailback.

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Giovanni feels like a zero RB situation, right? He does, except I go back to, I mean, the Broncos were a good offense last year. The Broncos had a better offensive line. How often could you have started Giovante Williams last year? Not very. He was a D inconsistency. If you guessed right, you would have been able to start him three times. He had a hundred. He started for a lot of teams. Man, 209 carries and you end up at... If you're a running back with 70 targets for a good offense, how are you not a top 15 running back, a top 24? He was the running back 30. What if you're in a league that gives like 100 point bonuses if your running back goes 14 for 40? Then Javante's your guy. Javante. Second rounder. All right, so Javante is the best of the worst. The Giants. Russ, he can still throw the ball really, really far. Yeah.

I watched every Jackson dart snap twice because it was super impressive. He completed 13 straight passes in this game. It was all hurry up. It was all short area targets, mostly. I mean, there were a couple of good plays. It's still. You want to be accurate. It's exciting. Just the Fields would love to complete 13 straight passes. Goodness, in his dreams. With the Eagles, it's the Shipley story to me. I mean, Sequant and Shipley. Shipley. Those guys rested. Shipley looks locked as the RB2. So if you're looking to ensure Saquan or take a shot late on somebody that could emerge in an injury, whatever, there's your guy, I think, right? That's certainly how I lean. And I think Shipley's a good back with that offensive line. Something happens to Saquan after the massive 417 carry workload last year. Then yeah. Still be in ship shape. Nice. Okay. Commanders, they haven't played the play tonight. So NFC North.

Winners of every off season, champions of every off season. Chicago Bears. Caleb looked good. 97-yard touchdown drive five for six for 97 yards. To Zekees, right? Yeah. Yeah, of course, right? Because you've got what? Like Colston, you've got Burden, you've got Adunzee, you've got DJ Moore. Colson had a couple catches. Yeah, yeah. I mean, and it was we little man. They, yeah, very nice. The bears are going to be tough of like, are they going to play a lot of 12 personnel, like where I like Luther Burden a lot, but is this, is there a scenario where he's just not on the field because they got, they got Commet and Lovelland out there. Commet made a big play. Lovellum made a big play. They both split snaps in terms of like being on the field. So that's the problem. They paid Commet two years ago, or a year ago, really, and he's a good player. Yeah, he is. So it's like.

You know, this is a guy that's going to occasionally just steal targets from Colston Loveland, and he should. I mean, that's how it should work for the team to do well, not for your fantasy team, but for the team. Yeah, it's wonderful for Caleb Williams and Ben Johnson to have so many legitimately good options. It should. It should work. It should work. Especially with the offensive line improvements. It should work. Please do. Detroit. They rested the starters, but. Mike, if you need to go to the pants store again. No. What? No. He avoids that place now. Can you delete a location off of your Google Maps? The pants store? Oh, if he searches pants, nothing comes up. Make a choice. Mean. Do not buy stock. We're talking about Isaac Tesla. Yes. Who five targets, four catches, 41 yards, and a beast of a touchdown in their preseason game. He also looks gigantic.

Like he looks like, I mean, he is. He's a very large, but I mean, there's plenty of wide receivers out there that are 6-2, 6-3 or whatever. He's 6-4, 215. Yeah, he looks like he's 6-8. I mean, I feel like he's just, maybe he's playing with more backups and they're tiny, but. That's where I will, as excited as I am long-term for Isaac Tesla, he was, he's not running with the starters. No. Right now. But he will be interesting to keep an eye on waiver-wise. Injuries as well. They're my belief in the, looking at the depth chart and the talent, it's like Amina Ra and JMO are they're locked in. Tesslaw, like a month in, he could be the wide receiver three. Well, remember, there were there were weeks where that over the last couple of years, whether it was, was it Josh Reynolds was having a stretch, Tim Patrick, you know, that that third wide receiver.

has moments. So if he shows enough flashes, and they paid a lot to get him. They did. Three third rounders, essentially. Yeah, yeah, because they had to trade two to use a third. That's a lot of capital to give up for someone who going into this draft season, the NFL draft, I don't think enough people didn't know his name. Because he had no production. He was overdrafted from expectation. Yes. But he has had the drum beat all off season and then preseason. He looks good. You got to start paying attention. to Tesla. They're a team that goes and gets the guy that they think is going to make the biggest impact. Yes, they do. They're very convicted about their players in the draft of late. Green Bay, mostly all the starters rested. I talked about Marshall and Lloyd getting hurt again. I mean, you have to say it, Emmanuel Wilson is right now Josh Jacobs backup. Yep. And he's always kind of made the most of his opportunities. Minnesota, everyone rested that mattered, nothing there. Falcons, same story, first and second string.

Rested everybody. But let's talk about Carolina. Chuba Hubbard played 67% of the snaps with the starters. He was, you know, he gave way to Rico Dowdle on third downs. So that's kind of how, I mean, Chuba Hubbard was always the catch-it-and-fall-down guy last year with the targets, but Dowdell seems like he'll have a shot to be a third down back every week. I think he should. We've got two years in a row of Chuba being extraordinarily. inefficient in the receiving game. Great running back between the tackles, but passing to him has been like a negative play for them. Can either of you find a way to say good things about the Saints? It does seem like an actual battle for which bad quarterback is going to start. It seems like Spencer Rattler is going to be the guy to me from what I see on film. Alave had a drop in the game. Rattler was okay, but like Spencer Rattler as your quarterback. Do you have a snake man?

I think he's looking for a snake. I got a snake, man. I would say the one bright spot is Shaheed was moved around a little bit more in the slot a little bit more. So that'd be good if they involve him on some easy stuff. Because I feel like what Shahid has always been, you go deep, I'm going to throw you a bomb and you have big plays, but very low consistency. It would be nice because he's not a bad player. No, he's good. I think he's a very good player. So if he could get more involvement there, that could be good. You'll be excited about the one-handed Emeka Egbuka grab. Oh, I was. But for Tampa, I mean, he impressed. And then McMillan got hurt. And Godwin's on the pup. It's like, Egbuka could be like. The path is cleared. Like it's like week one, you're the starter with Mike Evans? It certainly seems that way. Also, I was personally.

Like, I'm a Bucky Irving fan, but I also acknowledge, like, you've got a committee situation. There were some camp highlights of Bucky making downfield catches, and it's like, okay, cool, that's camp. He did it again in this game. He caught, like, a deep touchdown on a wheel and made a competitive catch. If he gets involved more in the passing game, because, you know, when he's out there, it's better that the defense has that in their minds that you have a running back that's not just between the tackles guy. They can get him involved in the passing game. It changes his ceiling. Oh, for sure. I mean, that would be, that would be what takes his current average draft cost and actually makes it payoff. Because right now it feels like he's being drafted near his ceiling because he didn't have that. So I'm looking, you know, I'm in the UDK right now looking at it. On Sleeper in half, he is behind Jonathan Taylor now. Has he fallen, though? He was definitely ahead of Jonathan Taylor. Yeah, I thought so too.

So Josh Jacobs is at eight, Taylor's at nine, Bucky's at 10. Oh yeah. Okay. Okay. Yeah, that's fine. I think when we started this process, he was seven. He was running back seven where it was like, gosh, that's like when he had his breakout, he was basically about running back seven. And we were wondering how high could you go? And if you don't have targets, people are hurt in the wide receiver room. It can benefit the running back room. Two teams in the NFC West pretty much rested everybody and didn't do much. Cardinals, they arrested everybody. Brissette's their backup to Kyler. He looked okay. And then the Rams, same story. It was Stets and Bennett. Corum ran ahead of Hunter. That was the only note I had to mention for Kyrn. We did get a photo of Matthew Stafford. No, sorry, this is the video. Matthew Stafford at practice. Today? Yep. Today. Red jersey on.

Okay, all right. Stay safe. Be healthy. We need you. 49ers, Pierceaw looked great. He's going to, I mean, he was a starter. He might be, he might be one of the most undervalued players in fantasy because I think he's going like wide receiver 45 or something stupid. And no Ayyuk, no Jennings. Jennings is dealing with contract and injury. I would also say like nobody talks about DeMarcus Robinson, but DeMarcus Robinson has been a fantasy contributor before. Right. And. is currently, like, I know he's probably going to get a suspension. That's what we're waiting on for him. But regardless, like him being, I'm telling the way he's playing with the starters, like, okay, if he gets a game or two, like, is Iyuk back in a game or two? No. Yeah, I mean, like, Jennings still hurt? Like, they have to run wide receivers out there. So Pearsall seems like a highly undervalue player. Pierceall's early camp injury.

was really great for the ADP because he was, you know, he missed camp last year with the injuries had, you know, the unfortunate shot. And then this year, he was starting to get drafted pretty high, you know, a lot of hype because of the depth chart. And then when he missed time to start camp, people just forgot about him. Yeah. So I agree with you, Andy. I think his value, where he's going in drafts is. You can see his upside and you can't always see the players around him with a path to greatness. All right. And the final team, and I have a few notes on him, Seattle. First of all, the offense was humming. It looked great. Yeah. Charbonnet looked awesome. Yeah. He's healthy. Right now, Ken Walker's on his quote. He's on a plan. I don't like the way you talk about the plane, Andy. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Have you ever had a plan?

You follow it. Now the plan for the Seahawks might be Charbonnet being more involved than you think. What do you think of that plan? I didn't read that in the plan. So I don't know where you're picking that up. He definitely could be. It could be more more like that's if I had a plan for Ken Walker that involved him not practicing every once in a while, it might involve other players playing running back too. It definitely could be the plan that it's more timeshare. The way I just look at the Seattle situation. Like, yeah, Charbonate, you know, last year came in on a couple games because Ken Walker miss his time. He has to rest. Yeah. And, you know, Charbonate looked better last year. He has to rest. He did it. He burns real bright. He has to rest. I'm more excited about just the, this was the hope, the scheme, that even though the offensive line is not.

talent wise what we want. It might be better than we think. That Kubi, yeah, maybe the line's better than we think. And also the Kubiak run system is just such a good run system. And while Charbonnet is a good player and maybe he gets more involved than we want, Ken Walker is when healthy is a much better player than Charbonnet is in my opinion, a much, much better, more explosive running. I think he's better at a lot of things, not everything, but. It is possible that Sam Darnold could legit be the quarterback to the unexpectedly better offenses back-to-back seasons. I am so excited to be doubting Sam Darnold and then have him prove us all wrong. That'll be fun, but I'm going to doubt you. Kevin O'Connell and then Kubiak, those are good minds. Speaking of the wide receivers in the past catchers, Cooper Cup lined up inside of JSN on most all of their reps.

So you were talking about two guys that are slot dominant players, Cooper Cup, in the slot more. It's also worth noting that the, you know, athletically gifted, you know, they let go of Noah Fant. Elijah Arroyo right now played as the tight-in three, played into the fourth quarter. A.J. Barner seems. A.J. Barner is a second-year guy. And he played eight of ten snaps of Sam Darnold. So for Seattle, that was the story and that was week two of the preseason in terms of a quick takeaway for every team. All of the UDK rankings, I did a huge rankings update yesterday. We'll keep tweaking them this week and get you ready for your drafts. We're going to, yeah, Brooks would like you guys to know, A.J. Barner had one last touchdown than D.K. Metcalf did in the offense last year. Okay. So A.J. Barner fan, Brooks, Carmine.

All right, let's do some mailbag. Mailbag. Why is Richard Nixon coaching these teams? I'm not a crook. My gosh. You guys got a lot of sleep last night? Oh, man. I didn't sleep at all. This weekend was. Oh, that's fun. It's a good time. No, I had a solid eight hours. of sleep combined yeah over the last four days so that's that's an old school coach yeah oh yeah that's the that's the uh the college coach that's up in the face of all the players screaming and yelling yeah all right let's start some mailback by the way if you have a question you can go to the website the fantasy footballers dot com that's where all of our rankings and resources are and you can click that submit a question button or you can dial the voicemail hotline for