Week 8 Studs & Duds + Monday FUNday, Ready to Roll - Fantasy Football Podcast for 10/28

This was my fear about them not being able to repeat what they did as an offense last year, is that there seems to be more dysfunction to the offense right now than there was last year from a play calling functionality like frustration, frustration standpoint. I will say this. They did play a very good San Francisco 49ers team on the road. This is, you know, it's not always going to be easy. I mean, Dak Prescott this season against Baltimore was the quarterback one on the week. It's not like he's going to disappear. Going forward, Atlanta, Philly, the Texans, the commanders. I think there's a good stretch run ahead of passing. They are. I don't know if I like those last three, though. They're two and a half point dogs right now on the road against Atlanta for this. Yeah. All right. Let's talk about some of the good that happened this weekend. This week's fantasy stud muffins.

It's not going to be possible for me to get into every name of every player that did well. No. But I want, go ahead. Yeah, I was just saying this week there's too many people that went nuclear. But I want you to like focus on some of the names that might be prescriptive or interesting. The top five scores at the quarterback position were Jalen Hertz, Kurt Cousins, Brock Purdy, and Matthew Stafford. Hertz was such a slow start to this game. Ends up with three rushing touchdowns. Three rushing touchdowns and a bomb touchdown that was awesome to Devante Smith. He ended up having just an outstanding game. I really wanted to discuss Bo Nix because Bo Nix has been really good on this season. He's the quarterback 10 right now. And that's despite starting really poor. Like the first month of the season, he didn't look good. He couldn't connect on anything down the field.

Three of the last four weeks, the second month of his career, he's been a top 10 quarterback barring Monday night football, although he's the quarterback too right now. He's going to stay in the top 10, I think. Las Vegas, Los Angeles, New Orleans, and Carolina. So I would point out that, you know, if you want to find a trend there, home games, you know, those were his three top 10 games were at home. And not the hardest defenses. No. And what's wild is like, and this is anecdotal from watching the games every week, I feel like Denver has the ball the entire game. That's how it's felt. Like the past attempts this past week, 37. I just feel like they have the ball the whole game. Their defense is very good. He has to go on the road against Baltimore, Kansas City the next two weeks. Yeah, Kansas City, I am definitely afraid of. Baltimore, I'm not. Baltimore is actually.

Yeah, they're giving it up to the quarterback. They really are. They're 30th on the season of fantasy points given up to quarterback. So I'm not too worried. And I do think we need to. The reason I bring up Bo Nix is because people don't view him enough as the dual threat that he is. You know, we don't have any problem playing Jaden Daniels from before week one coming in because we know he's a crazy dual threat guy that could run for north of 500 yards. Maybe he runs for 700, 800 yards. That's. amazing. And Bo Nix is not the runner that Jaden Daniels is. Jaden Daniels is starting to look like he's in the Lamar Jackson tier of like four people in history. But right now, Bo Nix is on pace for over 550 rushing yards. Even with a down week. Even with a down rushing week. So this is a dual threat quarterback and that's going to raise your floor quite a bit. Yeah.

He does have to throw it to Troy Franklin though. Papa Josh. He doesn't have to. He didn't really do. He didn't throw it to Troy Franklin yesterday and it didn't bother him at all because he was slinging it to anyone and everyone. But Papa Josh, mad props this week. You traded for Anthony Richardson from my team. I got rid of that fool for $2 of fab. But then despite doing that, you went to the waiver wire picked up and played Bo Nix over Anthony Richardson. Very good move. He wanted to play my stream against me. That is fair. That was your stream of the week. And Cousins was Jasons and Cousins had a great game. We finally got another big time game from Kirk Cousins, 23 for 29. Does he play Tampa anymore? You know what? I guess that I'm going to have to apply that. He does get to play Dallas's defense. Brock Purdy, Matthew Stafford, Lamar. It was a struggle for Lamar. They lost the game, but he put together a good fantasy week. Herbert threw for almost 300 again. Wait.

Baltimore didn't lose the game. They played against the Browns. The Browns can't score 20 points this season. They're one in five. They had to rely on their backup quarterback, a little known quarterback named James Winston, who I like this. Somebody pointed out that James Winston, when he gets to speak to the media, always looks like he is. He's like reading a line from an inspirational movie that he's been practicing really hard in the mirror. Yeah, he is a character, man. I love that guy. He is, he is. Play for the name on your helmet. Oh, wait, there's no decal on my helmet. I mean, I love him. But it is so interesting that the team that was one in five hadn't scored 20 points this season puts up 29 against Baltimore as soon as they moved to the backup due to injury.

Now you've got the Browns and you're going, they're interesting. I mean, they lose Amari Cooper and it was fine because they had such an improvement of quarterback. It just shows you how good Amari Cooper would have been on the Browns. Really? He could have been sent to like a purgatory right now. We'll see. I'm telling you, as someone who has Dalton Kincaid who, praise God, he got into the end zone. But as somebody who has watched this team week after week after week, If they could throw it zero times, I swear they would. I swear they would. They do not. It, like, it hurts them to throw the football or something. And Marty Cooper had a disastrous week. We'll talk about it later. Now, going into the week, I think a lot of people were off of Baker Mayfield. But if I had told you before the week began that he would have 50 passing attempts, I believe that that narrative would have changed. It would. Yeah, we did say that we thought he'd be better than people expected. You know, the headline is we.

You lose Godwin and Evans, but Baker has been good independent of them. Yeah, he's been a top eight quarterback in all but one game. And this game, the first one we've seen without those two star wide receivers, he puts up 330 and 3. Now, he did throw two picks, but 330 and 3 with backups is amazing because, because Laser has been awesome. I would bench him against Kansas City this week. Yeah, on the road against the Chiefs is. Jane Daniels Hale married his way to a productive day. He fought through an injury. And then Kyler Murray on the road winning back-to-back games for the first time. Good for you, Kyle. And one thing to point out, Arizona's offensive line has not given up a sack for three consecutive games. That a finisher sentence for the first time in like 25 games. Yes, sorry. Kyler had not won back-to-back games in years.

and going east, the Cardinals have struggled. And then they end up winning another game and lead the division and have a better seed than the Packers. Well, the Packers right now, they're not a division winner, but the Cardinals are. So how does that make you feel, Owl? Okay, he can't talk. He can't talk. Very good audio. Falcon, how about your Niners would not be in the playoffs right now? while you look up at the awesome car long season. Look straight up. Long season. I got to dunk now because I can't dunk later. Yeah, enjoy this. Running back studs this week. Top five scores. James Cook, two touchdowns. Josh Jacobs getting it done. Devon A. Chan. Welcome back. Baby, that's my guy. That's exciting. Remandre, two touchdowns. Romandre's in this list. It's so stupid. I moved Ramondre into my lineup and placed at Chuba Hubbard.

Moments before kickoff. Which I agreed with, I answered that one on. Did you? Yeah, Sunday live. I'm like, I'm not playing Chuba. I'm going to play these gross running backs. And Remandre had 23 opportunities. He carried the ball 20 times on the ground for 40, 80 yards. Zeke's like, what's wrong with that? Yeah. No, maybe like, what are you talking about? That's, that is amazing. Joe Mixing, baby, 21 points. Joe Mixing is. Just unstoppable. So I think A-chan is the headline there, like 10 for 97, eight targets with Tua. The offense had meaningful, you know, fantasy players once again. We are back. Yeah, I mean, the running game opens up. I talked about this ad nauseum. And most are two touchdowns. Yeah, most are two touchdowns. The fact that you're not, the running back behind the line of scrimmage is not running against 11 people when Tua is there with the weapons they have in Tyreek and Jalen Waddle.

It's a completely different defense, and Devon A. Chan is not meant to go up against stacked boxes. What he's meant to do is catch the ball running full speed. And if you just look at his three starts with Tua, forget the rushing work, which he's been very good. I mean, he's just giving his fantasy point. His reception pace in the three starts with Tua would be 11.13 receptions for 11. receiving yards and 11 receiving touchdowns. That's a wide receiver one. And then you add on the rushing work. He's basically, he's averaging 23.1 PPR points per game with Tua. And look, you can make fun of Ramandre. But the opportunities were there on a team that has proven they're going to give them to Remandre. For the third consecutive game, Antonio Gibson was under 1.5 a carry. Yeah, it was atrocious. Shut up. Huh?

I'm still mad at Andy for having Rahim Moster, Ramandre Stevenson, and Cedric Tillman put up. Those were, that was the trash part of his lineup, but they put up six touchdowns on me. Mike, I'm not sure you're aware, but Jason and I'm aware. I'm aware. And, um, you know, things went the way they went. Yeah. I mean, Romandre with, with that line, it's unbelievable. Like you're, what, what was Gibson running at? Five carries for six yards. 1.2 a carry. Yeah. So that's atrocious. And Ramandre's at what, like 2.4, 2.6 or 2.4? Nearly. Oh, that's double. It is. They have a problem. So look, DeAndre Swift, it was a slow start. It was a fast finish. He keeps dominating. Jason started the week. DeAndre Swift plays Arizona next week. You can start him up. Yeah, he'll be all right. And then Jonathan Taylor back from the waiver or back from the injury lift. He is so.

Good. He looked amazing. I mean, there were plays that just there was not, the play was not there. And he was just, he made the play. He chunked 10 or 11 yards here, they're all over the place. He was the best part of this offense. Anthony Richardson looks. The fact they were three points away from a win when Richardson went 10 for 32 from the pocket. I thought for sure they were going to win. When that, when that fumble recovery ran back for a touchdown and on the field, I believe it was a, it was, it was. not blown dead at the fumble spot. On review, they brought it back. Oh, yeah, yeah. But at that point, it looked like the Colts were going to win, and Anthony Richardson was going to win another game he did not deserve to win. Anthony Richardson, we'll talk about him. I promise. Yeah. Isaac Grindo, 14-45 in a touchdown. Mason went out hurt and most or two touchdowns. Not efficient on the ground, but, you know, it says something that he's the goal line, goal line back there in Miami. It does. From a week to week.

standpoint. Here we go. Wide receivers top five of the week, C.D. Lamb, Ladd-McConkey, Cedric Tillman, Josh Downs. This feels like a magic trick to put up 20 plus points on 10 completions from your quarterback. Marvin Harrison, baby. Number five. Nice to see. Josh Downs, I think it's important for people listening that you've seen good stat lines from Josh Downs for the majority of the time he's been playing, and now you watch him with Anthony Richardson put up 20.2, and you're going to say, I need to start him. You do not need to start him. His stat lines, like, his big bomb touchdown. Can you start? I think I would. Man. I'm willing now. Did you see the big bomb touchdown? It was basically a broken play where he was, yes, Anthony Richardson connected with him, but he had half of the field to himself. Yeah, he did. He could have got a wheelchair out and wheeled himself in.

the last 20 yards. So I mean, here's the only reason why I said that is because they get to play the juiciest pass funnel defense in the national football league this next week. I agree with you in principle on the year round. I think on a one week basis, you could go back to him. It was nine targets, right? You can have a broken play, but nine targets against the number one pass funnel. He is a good player. Yeah. I mean, he's their best receiver by a lot, in my opinion. Yeah, I mean, he can actually get downfield. Well, and he's just, he's just separation, constant separation. Ladd McConkey, six for 111 and two. They're throwing the football a lot right now, and McConkey got it done, had a big touchdown, like a long one in this game. He's sitting at wide receiver 20. This is exciting because you have rookie wide receivers that.

It normally takes time to get going. And if this team can't run like they want to, which they can't right now, like J.K. Dobbins, like he's not having the big play anymore. Right. And so it means they're throwing the football a little bit. Their defense is giving up more points. Marvin Harrison, 6 for 111 and a touchdown. Hello. And he caught his passes. That was the big thing. It's one of the keys. It's super important. But over the course of the season leading up to this, he was like a 50% maybe even below 50% catch rate. He was out of sync with Kyler. And some of the catches that were in sync were just dropped. This game, I guess, I mean, he told himself he has to catch these because there were some difficult catches. It felt like why is every Marvin Harrison catch have to be so hard?

Look at superstar wide receivers around the league. Yep, they make those. But it doesn't have to be every catch. That being said, it is nice to see him, have a big game, catch passes, be more in sync. And so, you know, it's arrow up for a great rookie. If it wasn't for Malik neighbors doing what he had done to start the season, I don't, you know, and the draft cost of where you spent up for Marvin Harrison. He's having a very good rookie season. It just doesn't feel like it because of those other two factors. And I think it's going to feel more like it soon. Cardinals have a couple home games. Marvin and him getting on the same page. 15 targets, 10 catches, 143. Who's that, Andy. Who? Superstar Calvin Ridley, everybody. With Mason Rudolph. You just had to get DeAndre Hopkins out of the locker room. That locker room cancer, DeAndre Hopkins.

Look. This was a game for a couple seconds. I will dance while I can dance. But 15 targets is going to get it done every single week. I can tell you that. Yards in the first quarter. I, it was a very, it was not, it was really in my heart not a dance party. It was an exhale. Yeah. It was not, it was not a victory lap. It's one week. It was an exhale because. Hey, it's possible. I didn't have to bring the name up. as the second half sleeper. And I'm thankful that, look, from my mentions, people did pick them up and play it. That was the cool thing to see is that some people benefited from this. They didn't just all have them on the bench. It was a week where a lot of wide receivers performed, but this is important for the confidence level of Calvin Ridley, the $90 million man on this team that got boat raised by Detroit. Maybe Calvin Ridley will be consistent for you.

Maybe. I would say without Hopkins there, just like we saw at the very beginning of the season where he was a heavier target. Bright days are ahead for Calvin Ridley. It's all going to still come down to the quarterback play. And I don't know if Mason Rudolph, who started the game looking really, really good, this was a game where it was tied 14 to 14. I mean, it was like, oh, my gosh. What did it end? What was the final score? Are the Titans going to win this game? Are they going to make it better? It was not 14 to 14. So, well, it was 14 to 52. Yeah. Yeah. I believe that the Lions had 40 plus points when Jared Goff had 30 passing yards. For real? Yeah, yeah. Whoa. I think he was at 40. Do you know the Goff line? I think he was at 42 passing yards. Goff completed 12 passes for 85 yards.

With 52 points. And three passing touchdowns. Oh, yeah. Those passing touchdowns were annoying because they were, they used the, you know, where the lions and were going to run the football against the opposition. And they were at the goal line multiple times. And it was Brock Wright. It was Sam LaPorta. It was Khalif Raymond. And they would just fake it to the Montgomery Gibbs. Who could have had even bigger games? I forgot Montgomery through one of the touchdowns as well. That's true, yes, yes. Devante Smith, big bounceback game. You know, Jason's been really loud in reminding you that he's going to be fine. There were people that after one bad week wanted to give up on Devanti Smith, which was wild. Half PPR, last week was terrible. Last week he had, you know, one catch. He did nothing. But outside of that single week, he hasn't been.

single digit fantasy points at all. He's double digit or better than half PPR. That's a great barometer. He's literally on our consistency score on this. He's an A. So like don't move off of an A. Tight-in studs this week. Kate Otten, 24.6 points looked great. It was a big week for the tight end. It was it was Scott Hansen said it over 4,000 times during Red Zone that it was national tight-in day. Scott Pianowski pointed out in week one, a 4-4-45 line would have made you the Titan 7 on the week. This week that would have made you the tight-in 24. That's how many big performances there were. Kyle Pitts, 23.1, almost made the biggest mistake. One-and-half touchdowns. Almost made the biggest mistake ever going into the end zone. Not almost. He definitely did. Got lucky. The mistake is that the multi-billion dollar corporation, that is the NFL, they can't possibly have a camera.

Down the line. Just pointed down the sideline. What in the heck are you doing? What in the heck? Four, four cameras. Spin up NFL. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, four cameras. One from each direction on the side. You know where the goal line is. It's not moving. You don't have you can you can tripod this thing. Where's the other two cameras? I'm saying each goal line. Oh, I see. You can have them going down the line in both directions. Yeah. At the end of your camera. You think we were suggesting only pick one of the insos? No, I'm saying it's not even good enough. Only the north side. Because they only put a camera, even when they have the goal line camera, they only have it on one side of the field. I want every time I look at the goal line down the line angle, I want to see a camera on the other side. They should have lasers on the cameras.

Yes. And they should have the high speed ones that they use. And what's the, what's the TV show where they just test stuff all the time? Mythbusters. Mythbusters stop. Like give me high speed, high resolution. Get Nolan out here to like film. Christopher? Yeah, get him to film the goal. I mean, we have lots of money. We have, you guys can spend. We've been in headquarters. You got bidets on every toilet. Oh my gosh. It's on, it's your NFL headquarters. You're doing great work there. Outstanding property. The ATMs there don't require a pin code. You're just like, hey, you need some money? Yeah. Go buy some cameras. Yeah. All right. For per stadium. Kyle Pitts has been great. He has. He was already the tight-in for before this week. George Kittle keeps getting it done. Kelsey, the big game. Super glad it was against me finally. That was fun. Trey McBride. Can we get Trey McBride?

A touchdown? He was awesome for crying out loud. Now we cannot. He was awesome. He was a go-to target. 11 targets, nine for 124, absolutely outstanding game. Maybe the best performance of the week, except no touchdown. The dude is currently, what I'm seeing here, he's missed a game. So, like some teams have had a bye week, but he has played seven games. Zero touch sense and is the tight end four on this season. Just give him a couple. He would be crushing everybody. He's definitely third in the packing order around the red zone right now because Connor, they like to hand the ball up and then Harrison. But he's going to get in there. Michael Wilson got hurt this week. It didn't look great to me. Could have been a multi-week ankle sprain. I don't have an update there. But the tight-ins got it done. We got to take a break and get into the duds. Breaking news, by the way.

McBride still didn't get into the end zone over the break. No, he didn't. But before you move on, you have to read the name that's right after Trey McGrath. I knew you weren't letting him move on. No, no, absolutely not. Four for 85 and a touchdown? Oh, he took advantage of the injury to the, to the starter. Adam Troutman, four for 85. Yeah, they did four years too early. I believe Kroll, Lucas Kroll went out hurt. Lucas Kroll had been, getting some snaps. Yeah, but he's not putting up four for 85 and a score. Against Carolina. Unleashed the fish, man. Oh, my gosh. That is. That is very funny. Also, on the course of the season prior to this game, he had a 17-game pace of 77 yards. Well, he beat that in one game now, didn't you? He sure did. Poopped in his big boy pants. Look, this could not have been more appropriate for Caleb Williams. The big boy pants had been fitted.

And he went out there and had a stinker of a game against Washington. 10 for 24, 131 yards. It was a regression type of game. Washington's defense. That's the question. We mentioned this. I mean, they have been getting 5% better per week. They might have gotten 10% better in this game. You know, he was not leading drives, not getting first downs. It was 33 passing yards in the first half. What was crazy. So the drive to take the lead and win, he looked pretty good. It was like the only time in the entire game he looked. Most of his stats came from that. I think it was like fourth quarter and we were talking about how he had three completions. Like what? That seems impossible. It was a putrid game for him. And so the nice thing is we've seen the flashes of brilliance. We've seen great games put together.

I know it's really, really tough because a lot of people started him in this matchup. You expected that high over under. And instead, this game was so important between Caleb and Jaden. The defense has stepped up and it was a slug fest. Joe Burrow without T. Higgins, solid start to the game and then it went south quickly. He only ended up with 234 and one. CJ Stroud, one touchdown, 285 yards. What do you do now? Like, Well, now you've lost eggs. Next week is on the road against the Jets. There will be no Nico, which we've heard he's on, Nico's on track for week 10. Have people been playing Stroud? Of course people. I mean, I had him as a start of the week this week against Indy where he, you know, against Indy early in the season. He was the quarterback eight. I mean, this is, this is not a player that's been consistent at all going back to last year for fantasy. I mean, he's an half in our consistency ranking.

He has two games you've been happy with this year, both with Nico. In weeks one and four, you've got to push him to the side right now. I agree. I don't think you can start him right now, especially this week. You look at him as a streaming option, but this week without Stefan Diggs, without Nico Collins. You put Sauce Gardner on Tank Dell by himself, and all of a sudden, that's a matchup you don't want to put you. Don't forget they have the slowest player in the NFL not contributing on a weekly basis. Dalton Schultz, what's up? So on the web portal. I can say anything I want about him, by the way, because he can't catch me. Yeah. On the web version of Sleeper, I see numbers of C.J. Stroud is 98% rostered and 79% started. Yeah, that's 79% too many. I'm just saying like, it's

Next week is a bench. Here's a hot tip. Don't start somebody from that division. Just don't start a quarterback. Everybody in the division should not be started a quarterback. I've got a better question for you. Rest of season. Bo Nix. So no, that's easy. I'm making it hard. CJ Strout or Patrick Mahomes. Mahomes. Yeah, I'd take Mahomes. My stream of the week, by the way. That's not hard? Superstar Patrick Mahomes. No, that's not hard for me. He's been so bad. I mean, if Nico comes back, Stroud, will be better. But look, this team, they won the game. They have Joe Mixen. They are a running football team. Joe Mixon has been a top five running back. Every week he started. Joe Mixon is the running back two in points per game just behind Derek Henry. Anthony Richardson, 10 for 32, passing. 31% completion rate, huh? Yeah. And you need to be 60 plus percent to be a top 10.

fantasy quarterback. He's almost there. He's that 31% his efficiency and performance at the position. By the way, he took a playoff because he was tired in this game. That was unbelievable. Unbelievable to me that afterwards Anthony Richardson came out and they asked like, you know, because he, he missed a play and we thought maybe he hurt himself on a run. He said he called himself out and told coach he's tired. He needs a play. You're a quarterback. You see Lamar Jackson after a big long run being like, I need a breather. Give me a freaking break. This is the biggest quarterback bust in the league. This is the biggest dynasty freak out that you're ever going to have. This is a quarterback that has been outside of the top 20 at the position five straight weeks. He ranks two. Look, he has two good passes on the year. They were both in week one. That's my opinion on anything. Hitting downs this week was pretty good. Meaningful for fantasy. I'm sorry. Yeah, yeah, yeah.