Unsolved Mysteries + TNF Preview, Alligator Man - Fantasy Football Podcast for 9/18

round draft picks. They're all involved more than we thought. They're all performing mostly on a weekly basis. Whereas a lot of the wide receivers, you know, it's like the stars are the stars, but the average guys, I just feel like teams right now are running the ball more. From 2018 through 2022, we were at this point in the season, up over 100 passing touchdowns. So that's a five-year stretch, 114, 105, 110, 110, 105. This year we're at 66. That is nearly half the total. So if you're feeling it, your opponent is feeling it, and the quarterbacks that you drafted to be high performers, like the fact that Sam Darnold last week was the quarterback four in fantasy and is the only quarterback with two passing touchdowns in each of the first two weeks is just. Gross.

Unbelievable. Gross is a good word. But like, are you worried about any of these guys? Because there are five quarterbacks that are outside the top 15 right now that people, they drafted and they're worried. I'm already going to answer one of them, Caleb Williams. You guys said drop them yesterday. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Won't worry about that. We know that the gap between where he's at now and where he needs to go is so far that it's not worth holding. But DAC, DAC was a quarterback 22 and 15. Been a slow start. Are you worried about Dak? I'm not worried. Dak, if you remember last year, he was a league winner. But in the first five weeks, he was outside the top 15 and was not that good either. So I'm not worried. He's too talented. So by the way, apologies to Derek Carr. It's Derek Carr and Sam Darnel. Those are the only two with two or more. My QB. Baker doesn't? The $16 man over there. Joe Burrow. Yeah, Baker was just one.

Yeah. This past week. He had four in week one. So you can average. Average. Joe Burrell. I'm not worried. Again, we talked about it last year and every year. They're slow starters. I think he'll get better. And he's still working his way back from the wrist injury that he says has no effect whatsoever, except it's better every week. He was 260 and 2 against Kansas City, which was good enough for QB 11 on the week. gets Washington, gets Carolina, Baltimore, Giants. So three of the next four matchups are plus for Joe Burrow. Aaron Rogers, how often do you think Aaron Rogers is going to be started in fantasy this year? Or worthy of a start? Worthy of a start in hindsight, I think it'll be probably five games where it's like he had a good game, whether or not you're going to choose to start him.

This 2024 version of Nathaniel Hackett and Aaron Rogers scares me a little bit. I think I've seen two unbelievably perfect drives in the two weeks. One each week where it was like, there's, there's Rogers, there's Wilson. This is the offense we were waiting for. But unfortunately, we've had a lot more than two total drives. And most of the other drives, they don't look like they're clicking. I don't know what it is. And maybe they'll get it together. Do you guys think? They'll figure it out. So for the Dynasty podcast, we had a big section talking about Garrett Wilson. So I went and I watched every, you know, Wilson Snap, which is correlated to Aaron Rogers. He looks hesitant and rusty. There were at least three plays in the most recent game, the Jets Tennessee game, which Garrett Wilson had a really tough matchup against Sneed. Sneed is, that's a takeaway. If you go watch.

the all 22 of the Jets Tennessee. Sneed is, he's just, he's one of those DBs that just, he can erase a wide, a really good wide receiver. He's always there. I feel like last year he was the best. Yeah, in my opinion, I think he was the best. Last year it was devastating for fantasy football when your number one went up against him. So that was one takeaway, but another was there was those, like I said, the three plays or so where young Rogers would have seen it before, but like as it was happening. and just chucked the ball up and had the belief that his, Devante Adams, he would have the belief. Adams is going to make this play. He's going to beat the DB here. I can see it happening. And if Rogers, he looks rusty, which he hasn't played in over a year. And he's working with a new crew. I know he's with Hackett again, but he's working with a whole new team. So I think it's going to take some time. Unfortunately for the Jets, Patriots.

Denver, Minnesota, Buffalo, Pittsburgh, Patriots, Houston. That's the next, that's the run here for the Jets. It's going to be really tough for Rogers. And I think for us to see that peak Garrett Wilson. there's going to have to be massive improvement. The 33rd team tweeted this out about Aaron Rogers and how quick he's getting the ball out and how quick he has over his career. Because this makes a big difference of whether you're going to allow yourself time to find Garrett Wilson down the field, maybe stretch a pocket longer. If you go back, here's how long his time to throw is by year. 2.79 seconds, 2.79, 2.79, 2.78, 2.582, 2.57, 2.51.

2.62, and then this year it's 2.3 seconds. So he's doing, yeah. He is getting the ball out. He's taking the snap and just getting rid of it. That jives exactly with what I said on the Dynasty show of like he looks like he's not giving the half beat of extra time of letting that play develop. And he's just choosing to throw it short instead of waiting that just a fraction of a second for Garrett Wilson to break open. One more player because, um, I just have an unfortunate question I have to ask, which is who has more fancy points this year? Daniel Jones or Trevor Lawrence? I love it. The Jags are broken. This, they're one of the worst teams to watch play football right now. Boston. Doug Peterson, this is like the trend. Yes, it really is. It starts strong and then you just, you just don't figure it out, but I don't know if it's the coaching. I don't know if it's Trevor Lawrence. Like,

Daniel Jones gets so much heat. He has four more fantasy points this year than Trevor Lawrence has. That's unbelievable. So, you know, Christian Kirk's doing nothing. Evan Ingram was hurt. Brian Thomas is boom-buck. Gabe Davis is doing the cardio thing. Like, it is not good right now. They're so brutal to watch. So I don't know. Do you have any hope for Lawrence recovering this year? I only have hope because Brian Thomas Jr. is really, really good. develop that connection, that'll work. But the turnover worthy throws this last week from Lawrence, they were, they were really, really bad. And I agree with you. The, you know, the coaching staff tends to get figured out. So I'm, I mean, I've never believed that Trevor Lawrence was this generational talent. I think he is an average NFL quarterback. And so that's, that's, that was my belief coming into the year. He did not get paid like an average quarterback.

Number two, Unsolved Mystery, is Sam Darnold actually good? Is his success sustainable? Like I said, last week, 268 and 2 in a victory over the 49ers. I think the improbability of that happening, you know, it's not like he's putting up crazy prolific numbers. He's still making mistakes. He's still taking some sacks. But he ran the ball a little bit. He was doing that in Carolina. I mentioned him in Carr, the only ones of two passing touchdowns. And Jefferson, you know, having Jefferson in and of itself feels like a baseline that he didn't have in previous places. Now, a question I have for the Vikings is how real is the defense? Because right now, it looks legit. I mean, they held the Giants to six points. They're real. They're real. They were great last year. And they held the 49ers to 17 points this past week. So that will impact things.

Because it's the game script for Sam Darnold, like if they were in competitive, you know, more competitive matchups, I think he puts up even better numbers. Week one, they just, you didn't have to do anything. And then week two was a combination of, you know, winning plus Justin Jefferson was lost and no Jordan Addison in that matchup as well. I think that there is, you should be optimistic on Sam Darnold. He's still, Sam, we still have a huge career of. of letdown so it's not a ready to go all in with Darnold. But I think there should be optimism. And they're tied for third in pass rate over expected. So they're still doing the Kevin O'Connell we throw all the time. Yeah, I love the coaching staff. And obviously having a weapon like Justin Jefferson is valuable. Sam Donald has a great arm. He has the talent. But he still makes stupid decisions. And I do think

that as soon as the cookie starts to crumble, I don't think it'll sustain the rest of the year. He's had incredible stretches before. Back in 2021, he had a week where he had 304 passing touchdowns, two rushing touchdowns was the quarterback five. He follows that up the next week with 301 and two. He was, he was just like, oh, this is the guy who was, you know, drafted so high. And then. The next couple weeks, he combines over five weeks for what's like, it looks like a total of 544 yards. Yeah, sub 200 average. He has no Addison right now. He'll come back. He has no Hawkinson right now. He'll come back. Naylor looks legit.

Jalen Aler wide receiver. Two touchdowns in two weeks. Jefferson has scored twice in two weeks. The weapons and the offensive system are there. The arm is there for Donald. I mean, everything should work. I just worry about the decision making long term. Well, I think what you were saying makes some sense, which is like if the game script flips on them, they've been up in both games. Does his confidence sustain a couple bad plays? Is it capable of bringing them back? Well, and that's the other thing, Mike. You're saying it could be even better if they're in more competitive games. It could be much worse. It could be like, oh, now they know they're throwing the ball. The thing about this offense is they, you know, they're really good schematically. If I'm up by 10 points and Darnold's going to have to drop back and I can pin my ears back and go get them, you can see real bad stuff. They're underdogs at home this week against Houston. Do you think that this would be the week to really? Yeah, Houston's defense looked great. If they're good this week,

I think we've got to buy in, but I have to see another one before I really believe. Nick Mullins, who is not good, he started five games at the end of the year for the Minnesota Vikings last year. He was a top 12 guy in three of them. That just speaks to the offense and Kevin O'Connell. That's what I'm I'm bullish. Was this a fantasy take or is this like, do we think Sam Donald is actually? Getting it together and it's going to be good. I think the implications of him being good extend to so many players on that team and the future of that team that I think that's how I'm taking it. I'm not really looking at Darnold's stream right now. I mean, I guess if he plays well this week, he'll enter that conversation. I think he's going to have a fine. I think he'll have another $2.50 and two. Did you see Mel Kuyper's rant about the benching of Bryce Young? No. He was talking about the fact that like. That he hadn't watched Bryce Young? Sorry, go on.

Well, he was talking about the fact that, I mean, obviously we have now, we have Baker and Sam Darnold who have left Carolina. They look terrible in Carolina and they've left Carolina and been not just good, but so far, very good. Like Baker for a year and a half and then Sam Darnold to start the year, both out of bad situations in Carolina. He was talking about the stupidity of the structure they put around Bryce Young and the fact that, okay, last year you were supposed to bring in, it was Frank Reich, right? But for part of the season. And so it's new offense for Bryce Young.

structure all around him, no receiving weapons. Then in the offseason, they clean house. They're obviously upset about the fact that they didn't draft CJ Stroud. So they clean house, they bring in a whole new system. So Bryce Young is going to learn a whole new system with new players and try to execute it. And then instead of doing what like Houston did, even this year with C.J. Stroud where Stroud played two full preseason games. Bryce Young played one drive of one preseason game in the entire preseason with a new system, a new offense, and you're supposed to go in on week one.

with all of those things and just be great. The difference, I think, to speak more like honestly is, yes, that's all true, but the system doesn't mean that you can complete a pass to that spot. When you're missing passes so egregiously, probably about 30% of your throws are not catchable passes that has nothing to do with the system. He sees the wide receiver, even when he makes the right call and the right read, and he throws it to that guy, whether it's a screen pass on a design like, this is just catch and throw it to him, or whether it's a rollout and, I mean, just over and over and over and over, not being able to allow the play to have any chance to work, that's where, you know, you saw the head coach come out and say, after watching the film, like, I owe it to every player on this team, every coach on this team, to put the best players on the field. And the thing is, is like, Andy, everything you just said is even more true of Andy Dalton.

And we'll see if Andy Dalton comes out and looks just as bad or if he's better. And I think we all know he's going to be better. Do you think that Bryce Young, though, like from a functional standpoint, this is a player that had a thousand like attempts as a collegiate athlete. Maybe it was a system that really, really made it work for him being undersized. But like for a 66% collegiate passer to lose it all, it just has to be more than physical. It has to be the mental side. And I think that's the point that I'm not really trying to defend the move. Like yesterday, I was defending Canales for making the move for Dalton and I still am in that camp. You have to do it now. I'm just saying like if you made me a list of like things to do to help a young quarterback gain their confidence, playing in the preseason to learn stuff seems like something that you might want to have them do. Like you might want to give them the opportunity in a brand new system.

To play a down or two in the preseason, it just seems like that the Panthers are repeating the bad decision making on every level for multiple years at a time. And we've seen players come out of it and be successful now in Baker Mayfield, who I think we were all willing to say was 100% toast. Done. Career over, finished. You're nothing. And then the same thing with Sam Darno. So. It's just an interesting thing to observe because I just don't know how much time you gave him to build confidence or did things to help him build confidence. I am, I am in agreement with both sides of, I think you have. No, no, no, no, no. I didn't know there were two sides. Because what Jason did call me a liar. What Jason is saying, what Jason is saying of you, I called Mel Kuiper. I said, I felt like Mel Kuiper's argument. You thought I was speaking for Mel Kuiper. You were saying what Mel Kuiper said.

You were saying what he said, and I think what he said was just not as honest to the film. I'm in agreement of Jason that I would have sat Bryce Young. There's way too many people and way too many jobs on the line to say, well, we're just going to keep going with this one guy who in week two was one of the most protected quarterbacks and still was awful. He was still awful. But the preseason, how the preseason has changed. where it used to be four games. Week three was always a real dress rehearsal for at least a half of football. And that happened. I believe the decision for that happened back in 2021. Kyle, please fact check me while I'm trying to remember this in real time. But what we do know is passing touchdowns through two weeks of the NFL have plummeted the past two years where preseason has.

really changed for these players. And the first few weeks are now kind of like the preseason. So that's what I'm saying. I'm an agreement of both sides of I don't think, I don't think that Bryce is fixable on the field right now. You've got to do it off the field. But number two, we got to get these guys some preseason action. I know it no one wants to see that it's when a guy gets injured in a preseason game, a meaningless game. You lose your mind. We all do. But we're getting bad offenses. Yeah, and that's the thing is it's supposed to be injury prevention. But it's like, you know, is your body more capable of handling a workload if you go work out in the gym or when you don't? Like if you go to the gym, there's a chance that you hurt yourself in the gym, right? There's a chance that you actually get injured, lifting weights or doing something, you know, in the gym. But if you don't go at all, you're not prepared.

Look, I don't know that I don't have the data at the, you know, drop of a hat right now to say that there's less injuries, more injuries. I know that injuries are a monster storyline right now. Sure. I know that every player, I mean, we're dealing with massive amounts of injuries on a yearly basis and not playing players because you think that that's preserving them may be hurting you competitively and it may be hurting you physically on the field. So it's interesting. We'll take a break. We'll come back with the most requested, the most talked about unsolved mystery. of the current NFL season. Well, here we are again. The most popular answer to the question of what's the unsolved mystery you want an answer to? What has happened to the elite, tight end? I mean, we got... This is the year was supposed to be fixed, everybody. We have Leporta freakouts. We have Kelsey freakouts. We have Andrews freakouts. Cancate freakouts.

Pitts is still, I mean, man, I got out of that business, but you got the touchdown. Look, I, you know, Kyle Pitts through two weeks is like 20 yards each week or something like that. I mean, you are not getting high tier upper echelon predictable results at the tight end position. You're at the point now through two weeks where I think if I had to put money on who ends the season as the number one fantasy tight in, I would put my money on Brock Bowers. I would put it down on Brock Bowers finishing number one, which guess what? That would be two straight years that a rookie did it. Sure. At number one. But look, it's really, really tough. But here's the data behind what's going on so far. In 2024, tight-ins are less involved so far. So yards per route run, way down. Targets per route run, way down. So targeted less. And then when they are targeted, it's not.

down the field as much. And most importantly, even more importantly is when they're in the red zone, the 10 zone. Where are the, I mean, that has always been when you're streaming a tight end, when a tight end has a good performance. That's the Kyle Rudolph zone. Yeah. It's just the big tight end goes. Rudolph's the red zone reindeer. Yeah, you get touchdowns. And right now there are just, there's no tight end touchdowns. What is happening? You look at the percentage of red zone targets to tight ends over the years. You know, 2019 through 2022, it was like 27 to 30% every year. We're at 19% right now. They're just not even getting the targets, let alone coming down with them. Only three tight ends have a touchdown inside the 10-yard line so far. And only one of them you would have played on your team. Yeah, Kittle. Because Darnell, Washington siphoned my Pat Friarmouth touchdown. And Foster Moreau got involved in...

was not started by fantasy players. So what is happening, Mike? Well, that's the higher level look at it, but specifically looking at two elite players who have really disappointed of Sam Leporta and Travis Kelsey. I'll start with the good news. Sam Leporta still on the field a tonne. He leads all tight ends in routes run. That's sensational. We need our guys out there. He's run 15 total routes inside the red zone. but he's only had one target inside of that area. Last year, eight of his 10 touchdowns came inside the 20. So that's the good side of the Sam Leporta. And I'll start it by saying, I think Leport is going to be fine over the course of the year. I do. I still think he's a top five guy easily. But where the conversation never went over the off season was we had the starting place of.

Sam LaPorte was in the ultimate draft kit as a potential bust because of his ADP, because last year he was a touchdown monster, but it was on such low volume that you knew that volume has to go up because that touchdown rate is just, it's not sustainable from year to year to year. You can have a few years like that, but to hit that touchdown mark on that amount of receptions every single year, it's just it doesn't happen. And so you transition that of, well, he's got to get more volume. And part of the argument against James and Williams was how can he break out if the target order is Amman Ra's safe, Jamir Gibbs is safe, and Sam Laporta is safe. But he was not safe. How can James and Williams fit in there instead of. By kicking Sam Laporta out. Instead of trying to flip that question on its head because it seemed impossible over the off season of like, well, what if one of those guys gets booted out?

And Jameson Williams takes that spot of target volume. Jameson Williams has 20 targets through two weeks. Sam LaPorte has eight. That's what happened. But I also think there's correlation between Jared Goff being the domster fire is because you're not targeting a, like, you can call it overperforming in the red zone for Sam LaPorte last year. Yes. You can also call it proving that you're pretty good in the red zone for your team and getting the ball into the end zone. 20 targets for James and. Eight for Sam Laporta through two weeks. I can't imagine what Kyle's going through emotionally with Jameson Williams starts to the year. Kyle, would you like to speak to that? Are you capable? He's good at football. I agree. Yeah. All right. You coward. But point being, Sam Laporta is still out there running. Travis Kelsey, on the other hand, 13th in routes.

That's not good enough. The Kansas City Chiefs are just through two weeks. They're not passing very much. And so Travis Kelsey routes, just for an example, 2023 was 34 routes a game, 35 routes a game the year before, 38. So he's always been a mid-30 routes run. It's down at 27 right now. And that he is being asked to block a lot. He has not been the first read where. There's courtesy of fantasy points. They track first read data. Mahomes looking at Travis Kelsey where he's the first read in the target or in the play. 12 and a half percent. Guys currently with a higher percentage of first read targets. Brenton Strange, Jonu Smith, Austin Hooper, Hayden Hurst, Greg Dulcich. We are in a disaster zone here with Travis Kelsey. I would throw one other name in there with a higher first read.

Target. That's gross. That is bad for Travis Kelsey. Xavier Worthy. Yes. So something is very, very different with the offense right now. And it's, we thought, hey, Travis Kelsey, you know, over the downside of drafting Travis Kelsey is you should get a great season, but maybe they're going to throttle back the snaps as they preserve him for the playoffs. They have not. Travis Kelsey is out there all the time right now. Let me make this practical for fantasy players though right now because Evan Ingram. injured. David Najoku injured. When you look at the actual landscape, this whole entire point of the unsolved mystery was that all the tight ends are struggling. So when you think about Kelsey's struggling, but we also know what he's capable of. He also missed a touchdown by a half a yard last week, which maybe it changes the way we look at it. Sure. But let me ask you who you'd rather have of the list, of the short list of players somewhat performing at tight in. Obviously, we're all on the McBride over Kelsey. Yes.

We're probably all on the Bowers over Kelsey. Yes. We're probably all on the kittle over Kelsey. Yes, I think those are the three top tight ends right now. That feels like maybe the, I mean, Loporta over Kelsey. Yes, Leporta over Kelsey. What about Mark Andrews? Probably? I think I'm Andrews over Kelsey, yeah. What about the, the Kincade option? That feels to me like they're the exact same. They're the exact same tier. So if you want to take the. The history of Kelsey, I'm fine with that. And the problem is that you can't, I mean, that's a short list and you probably can't, you're not going to pivot Kelsey directly to one of those guys. The Bowers manager is not trading you him for Travis Kelsey. You can try. You can try to do the Mark Andrews one. I mean, because they're unhappy. But like Kittle probably not. McBride probably not. Like I would be shooting those out there. But otherwise you're just sitting in Travis Kelsey right now. The, the upside narrative hope for Travis Kelsey is that.

This offense has to change now. I mean, unless Carson Steele comes out and he is Isaiah Pacheco good on the ground, they're going to have to change to be a more pass-heavy offense, which will then turn into more routes. And Travis Kelsey will almost certainly be more involved than he currently is. So that's where everything is for me right now. That's like the, if you have Travis Kelsey on your team trying to look at what is the silver lining of. the unfortunate situation that Pacheco is going to miss time, it could turn into more Travis Kelsey opportunity. All right. Well, this is definitely an unsolved mystery. We'll see what happens. Let's talk some Thursday night. Thursday night breakdown. I want to be honest with you. They've been advertising this game. My reaction to it hasn't been positive. I'm going to be honest with you. This is a good old-fashioned Thursday game. I've been thinking about having my pops over for Thursday night football.