Fantasy Football - Week 1 Matchups + CMC Panic, TNF Reactions - Podcast for 9/5

The fantasy footballer studio is sponsored by Walmart. To the fantasy footballers podcast with your host, Andy Holloway, Jason Moore, and Mike Wright. Oh, welcome in. It's still football. Did you want to still football? It's still football. Look, there's a game tonight. There's an island game. Yeah, so. But I don't do it on Monday. That's fair. That's fair. It was football time last night. Yes. It was half. football time last night it was not football time we got half of a game we got half of a great game and half of a stupid game foot clan i am oh my i am so happy to be here with you andy holloway here mike right jason more yes the two of us are still here i am so happy to be here because i feel like this episode could just be

talking individually to each of you. This game sucks. Jason, Jason was more excited about week one than anybody on the planet. I, you heard it on yesterday's intro to the show. He literally couldn't contain himself. He was convulsing with joy and, and, and, um, why do we, why do we play fantasy football? Why do we do it? Like, this is a new record, everybody. This is a new record. I mean, it's so, like, post week one. We've all done that one. We've all had this, like me last year. Why do we play? After week one is like, this is stupid. My team is, my, I went through my draft order last year. Gone, gone, gone, gone. All these players are terrible. But opening night. New records. So Jason had, he's playing Mike. And he had DAC and CD. Oh, yeah. And AJ Brown. Yeah. Oh, yeah. You literally told everyone you should not play Dak.

And I knew it. I knew it. But that, to be fair, looked awesome. He looked awesome. He bawled out. He was putting, he was throwing dimes. And unfortunately, none of them were, uh, caught. And no touchdown. No touchdown. No touchdown. I mean, Lamb dropped four. Lam had four drops. Three bad ones. Uh, but four in the game. I don't know if it'll go down as four or three. Are we counting the layout as the four? I am. Oh, I count that as a drop too. Yeah. I mean, it's a hard catch, but for CD-LAM on fourth and game. That's not a drop if it's Tyquan Thornton. Right. That's a drop for C.D. Lane. No, it's also not a drop. It's also not a drop if it's a first quarter second and long. This is a, no, no, no, like this is a you have to, you have to go all out, put your body on the line, which he did. And, and, but you got to catch that. If you are paid as a top, where is CD-Lam? In the top 2% of.

wide receivers and like, okay, that means the hardest 2% of passes, you have to catch them. Those are the rules. Dave Richard highlighted the fact Dak did something only 6.8% of qualifying QBs did last year. Score less than 10 fancy points without a pick. Impressive. Beautiful. He was 21 for 34 for 188. CD Lamb. Look, the game was close and we had a really... Like, I felt like an idiot. I said, hey, the defenses probably have the advantage in week one. And then both teams scored all the times. Oh, it was such a great start to the NFL season. Yeah. Back and forth. No one could stop anyone. Javanti will. Yeah, really. Yeah, the double up Javonte. Oh, my goodness. Robbing everyone. Like, even people who drafted Javonte.

are unhappy because they didn't start him. No, no, Al, not Al. Papa Josh and the Falcon had had Chivante and he's on their bench. Of course he's on their bench. But they didn't know Jaylon Carter would spit it dab five seconds of the game and then the open, the seas would part. If we could have the NFL at the beginning of every game remove each team's best defensive player, that would be great. Because it was no Michael Parsons. No Jalen Carter. No Jalen Carter's a wonderful thing. But then even that, even when we got that, the sky opened up and said no.

No. Which was a point in favor of team. Oh, man. Team Dome over here. Big Dome. You guys with Team Dome. Big Dumb. We were strutting through the streets. No, man. It's cool to have weather factor in the games. Look how cool that. We're, we're tough. We're, man. We play through everything. Let's stop the game for an hour. And then have everybody come out looking awful because they're, because they're, because of course. Because of course, because they're humans. So Jason is doing great and we have news to talk about. I mean, we haven't even got through the other part of Jason's tilt. Okay. What's the other part of? Oh, AJ Brown. I go ahead and bring up the AJ Brown player card here. Yeah, we got some new graphics for YouTube. Oh, these are nice. We're going to be able to recap last week's stats. And for those listening, here's what the stat line says here up on the screen on YouTube. We've got the 100% catch rate. 100% catch one, one target, one reception, eight yards.

Uh, 1.3 fantasy points. So 5% target share. There was a point in this game where I was like, well, maybe the hamstring is hurting and he's just out there to draw the defense, which people were, I wasn't locked in on AJ Brown, but over the first half, I saw some people tweeting of like, he's not running downfield. So I would have to go back and check the tape of all the routes that he was running. So he ran, he ran fine. He is the wide receiver six on the year now. Nice. So, well, then how do you shut up? Yeah. How do you feel about, uh, Philly's wide receiver three, Jason? Uh, yeah. Wish you started Dodson? It will obviously, it will obviously get better from here. I know, this is why we play because someone loves it and someone hates it every single week, but, uh, Kyle wants us to remind people last year in week one.

Jackson Smith and Jigba had 2.9 points. Ammon Ross St. Brown had 2.8. Terry McLorn had 2.8. Drake London had 2.5. It's week one. I think it's compounded for A.J. Brown because of the hamstring of like, is he good? I also think what we saw last night shows the recipe is not changing for Philadelphia. That's one thing I will say, is that the recipe for success for them, and mind you, Jalen Carter missed the game. All of it. And the recipe is going to be Sequin. The recipe is going to be Jalen Hertz when they need to have them run the football. The Dallas secondary played pretty well. They have good corners. And then you have the interior passes. Dallas Goddard involved in a lot of like underneath stuff. So like, you know, Philly, I think there's going to be games that you are frustrated because the way the game flows, it's a lot of Sequin. They're hard to stop.

And, you know, AJ Brown will be fine. And if you want to target him in a trade, I would. If there's somebody that wants to be freaked out, week one, right? It hits harder. Week one hits harder than any other week because it's all your preconceptions of the teams. And then if it doesn't happen, you're like, oh, no, am I wrong? And George was three for 30. He is listed as four targets. He had, how many, did he have two PIs that he drew? He had 15 yards, I think, right? I think he drew two PIs, but one was a bomb. Yes.

potential touchdown, you know, 50-yarder. He'll be much better, too. Like, part of it is pass rush and I'm not having as much time to get the ball down field. I think, for me, watching the Dallas offense, like, Giovante didn't look special, but he was, you know, he was getting what was there for him. And a couple extra yards, you're not going to get huge breakaway plays. But, I mean, if you can get, like, what Rico had last year, where it's just like, you know, A lot of five-yard runs, chunk runs, get, he's trusted at the goal line, the two touched him. I was very optimistic. Yeah, I was, I was impressed with the Dallas offense of line. Like, and not just how they played. Obviously, Carter not being there made it far easier, but like the design, the motions and the polls and that type of stuff was like, okay, it looks like there will be more for a, just a guy running back to receive. I don't think Javante's going to get as, you know.

double up touchdowns very often. But yeah, there was some great takeaways from that awful game. Jalen Hertz, no passing touchdowns, but two rushing touchdowns, 14 for 62. You know, when they spread it out, he has got all day to figure out where he wants to run. If they don't spy him, he was toasting people. Dodson was three for 59, Goddard 7 for 44, Barkley, four catches for 24 yards. Devante Smith, I mean, we, we. We say, hey, A.J. Brown struggled. Devante Smith was three for 16. This is what happens sometimes. Like, this is Philly's occasional situation. If the Eagles can successfully run the ball, the majority of time, they will. And they're not going to be like, oh, but we want to pass. We've got great weapons. No, it's like if it's working, they're not going to stop doing it. Agreed. And we haven't even got to the other part of the news that I really am excited about. But first. Put Clan Friday.

Well, our first Foot Clan Friday of the year, a $100 gift card to Fantasychamps.com going to a random supporter at join the foot.com. The winner this week, Toby Robbins. Toby. The psychologist guy? You're talking about the inspiration. Yeah. Tony. That's Tony. This is Toby. He probably sells insurance or something. Toby Robbins. I don't know if your name's Toby. Come on. 50 50. You probably sell insurance. You probably sell insurance. What if Toby's like an artist? He's a sculptor. He makes artistic insurance documents. Yeah. As you say, there are a lot of like fine artworks with Toby signed in the corner. I mean.

I mean, yeah, we gave him something. Yeah, $100. Toby was. Congratulations, Toby. Yeah. Toby was Spider-Man for a little bit, guys. Oh. The worst. The worst. Oh, the worst. Oh, the worst. I mean, Toby from the office. The first two Spider-Man movies were great. Oh, man. Oh, I don't know. He's not cool. Yeah. He's pretty funny, though. But this Toby's cool because he won $100 fancy chance.com. Also, if you want to become a part of the Foot Clan, support the show, get premium in-season tools. The Ultimate Dashboard just released, a bonus weekly episode of the show, and a lot more. Go to join the foot.com. And now it's time for part two of what I'm looking for to do the most. News and notes from Around the League, presented by Progressive Insurance. The calf heard round the world. Christian putting the calf in McCaffrey. Yeah. Oh, I like that. I didn't see that coming. Added to the injury report.

Yesterday with a calf injury was limited. He was not on the injury report on Wednesday. No. Which at least, you know, makes you think new injury. He also did not appear to the media. He normally does on Thursdays. I'm assuming that just as like if you get hurt and you're limited, you don't have to go do it. But so I could be wrong. We are going to watch the Friday practice report with baited breath. Mike, how are you feeling? The season, we haven't even had game one. I believe yesterday you said something. Yes. To the extent of it was on the footcast and it was like, what do you think you'll be saying after week one of the NFL season? And it was something like that everyone should have drought to Christian McCaffrey because he's healthy for week one and you'll realize how great it is. Yes. I'm going to start with a flashback. Uh-oh. We do have this. Oh, man. That was talking about Christian McCaffrey, right? Let's get that one more time. Oh, you want that? Jason.

That wasn't Alzheimer's. And it's funny to think how many different people have got to experience this moment. So I got in over how many different years as well. Yeah. So got the tweet. Um, y'all the, there's the scene in the movie, the shining where, uh, the gal is trapped in the bathroom. Uh huh. That's what I know, I know what that feels like now. Cause that is the tweet felt like Jack Nicholson with an axe coming through my door to get me. um you do you think this will shock you guys think on sunday you will feel like the scene from dumb and dumber where he is stuck in the bathroom we'll find out later today um as you guys might expect twitter very calm and collected about very calm and collected didn't get a thousand i trusted you messages which we everything about christian mccavry was laid out of is is he healthy

That was the entire... I don't want Christian McCaffrey hurt. Right. I don't. So we will be watching... But he's hurt so much. We will be watching today. If he's limited today, then he's playing on Sunday. If somehow you get the DNP, then it will be panic in the streets. So at least... I am... I'm the McCaffrey guy. I'm freaked out right now, man. Yeah, you've got him in both major leagues. I have, like, I have him everywhere. Well, you have, you have, you have been in his camp. Good news, Mike. You had to go against AJ Brown and Dak Prescott. So you're going to be fine. But so the on it. So if you didn't see any of the, the Tom Pelliserro stuff, he was your favorite dude. Yes. I mean, he is the ultimate hype man. Uh, ultimate chill. But.

Tom has no idea that we have a feud. No, of course not. It's the one way. It's the one way. It is. Don't say we includes. Yeah. I love that guy. This is you v. Tom without Tom V. U back. The boot does not concern himself with the aunt. Yeah. But his report was was really strange, honestly, because when you see it in print and you're like the headlines are, you know, No red alarm. You're like, oh, okay, thank goodness. But then you actually watch him talk about it. And he's like, well, it's not DefCon 1. There's a lot of other numbers. There's tons of Defcons, man. There's two. And you know what? Two's pretty bad. Really bad. So at least one just don't know, man. One injury expert that I was, uh, reading this morning. Their opinion was he will not practice today and that he will miss time. Okay. But they also believe that it was not.

related to tendinitis from last year. They think maybe strain. That was one of the speculative people. I mean, look, we don't know. Yeah. We need the practice report today. If he practices, like there is a world where Christian McCaffrey never really practices a full week because they want to manage him. That is the thing about McCaffrey is literally the engine to. the San Francisco 49ers offense. The 49ers offense will go as Christian McCaffrey goes. I know Brock Purdy got the huge contract, but without CMC, their chances of winning a Super Bowl way down. I can't believe we're here. I can't even believe we're here. I can't even believe. I can't. I mean, I was not with like you said you want to play to win. My opinion was there are ways to do it without Christian McCaffrey. You can play to win without Christian McCaffrey. I just cannot believe we're here before week one. And just not like that was our.

Our welcome to the season was CMC News, Jalen Carter spit. A.J. Brown. And A.J. Brown. I mean, wow. Back, dud. You know who is? Good dude. Ken Walker, protect yourself right now. Just go be in a bubble for a while. It's not like all 49er running backs. Haven't been hurt all offseason, too. So it was like, yeah. One final time. I'm going to push this drop. One final time. Amari Cooper showed up in Las Vegas and noped out. He is retiring after 10 seasons in the NFL. He is not going to play for the Raiders, no return. And he just wanted a little practice. He didn't want to get the guy real close to the games. It was like, yeah. You guys remember when Reggie Wayne did this? Do you know, you remember what? He showed up to Patriots camp. The Patriots camp retired a lot of wide receivers. Amari Cooper is gone. Now you have even.

A clearer path for Dante Thornton Jr. Not that he didn't have one. Amari Cooper was not a factor in any of my projections for the Raiders. Okay, well, he's gone. All right, we've got some more updates for the games that we talked through yesterday on the show. This is going to be a long episode. I know it. We've got so many matchups to get to. We have fantasy face off at the end of the show today. Our first week of fantasy faceoff, but we did talk about some games yesterday. We want to update you on Devon A-chan. Tyree Kale, both remain limited on Thursday. Both are absolutely on track to play, according to Mike McDaniel. Darren Waller. What did his face look like when he said that? He was probably sweating. Did he have sunglasses on? Yeah, probably. Darren Waller, not expected to play because of a hip injury. How about this one, guys? Brian Dable, this is recent news in the last 15 minutes.

Malik neighbor's back is quote a little tight and he will be okay for week one against the commanders. You still don't like to see it because you had an offseason marred by three different injuries from Malik neighbors and a, you know, trouble with some injuries last year. Does it concern you at all to hear this? I mean, of course. You don't want any players injured. He's tough. The thing that gives you hope is that last year he dealt with a ton of injuries and played through a ton of injuries. He's not going to just, you know, take the day off.

But every player can be legitimately injured where they can't play football. And so hopefully he is not. I just checked groin index.com, one of the top leading websites in the world. Oh, it's your go-to source for groins. And there's only one groin on there right now. Kian Coleman, ah, my groin, which means Kate Otten practiced in full on Thursday, the groin. He went, ah, my groin. I don't know if we want to keep that guy. All right. Hey, big news, Christian Kirk didn't practice on Thursday. He's expected to miss week one for the Texans, if not more. You're going to have Nico Collins, and then you're going to have a combination of Jaden Higgins, Jalen and Xavier Hutchinson. So those are going to be your wide receivers there in Houston. Christian Kirk will not be playing. This is the time of the career. This is a tough thing. When you get older and you've had some injuries, they just keep coming.

Yeah, I would say if you're looking to pick someone up, obviously if Higgins wasn't drafted, he would be the priority pickup. But I presume he was drafted in most leagues. Jalen Knoll, another rookie, I believe a third round, still a high draft pick, teammate of Higgins from college, is a worthy speculation ad because if he comes out week one and has the opportunity and looks great, I remember right after the NFL draft, I wasn't even sure between Noel and Higgins. who was the guy to get, you know, it had clarity as the off-season went along, but he's a good speculative ad right now. Asking for a friend, start two, Jaden Higgins, Eilich, Iow Manor, Dante Thornton. Higgins is a lock for me. Yeah. Of those three. I would sit, Io Manor. Cool. I lean that way as well. Let me just talk to my friend here. My friend is going to go ahead and take care of that. Yeah, those are nasty boys.

All right, Keogne Coleman, growing soreness, dating back to training camp, flare up recently and limited, but they do expect him to play. Jaden Reed returned to a limited practice. This will be the Jaden Reed story every week. We might as well just say the same thing or record us saying it because we're going to say it all the time. Isaiah likely, not practicing, not going to play, most likely. Neither is Patrick Ricard, the fullback, which would be. The first game by him that he missed since the end of the 2021 season. And I mean, like obviously Ravens, excellent team, Derek Henry, tremendous. But you have to imagine this has an impact that your star fullback might miss, or is probably going to miss the game. Rocheon Johnson did not practice. Kyle Monongue guy will be.

Most likely the backup for DeAndre Swift, but I think it will be almost all DeAndre Swift because Monongai is also dealing with a limited designation with the hamstring. But when you're trying to figure out in leagues who you were going to just throw on the end of your bench, his name's been brought up a couple times on this show, but Monongai should be added. 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, coverage subject to policy terms, limits, and conditions. We'll take a break, and we'll jump right back into the forecast. Fantasy forecast, presented by prize picks. Okie-dokey, we covered a ton of games yesterday. It is still football time. The Chiefs Chargers tonight, Friday night in Brazil.

Two teams that I'm excited to see what they have in store. Divisional matchup, very, very exciting. So we talked about that game yesterday. We talked about Buccaneers, Falcons, Bengals, Browns, Dolphins, Colts, Raiders, Patriots, Cardinals, Saints, Steelers, Jets, and Giants, Commanders. And as we turn the page to today, we'll move on to the Carolina Panthers, traveling to Jacksonville to take on the Jaguars. Vegas line, Jacksonville minus 3.5. Over under? 46 and a half. Jacksonville favorites, two overall number one picks. You know, Cam Ward, or sorry, Bryce Young, after the resurgent end of the year. Trevor Lawrence, here we go. Bad defenses last year. That was the story between these two teams. Jacksonville was really a great target if you wanted to play anybody against them. Yeah, I mean.

I've been looking forward to this. We look at week one matchups for months. It's like who's going to start strong, and it's obviously the first week of the NFL season. I've been looking forward to this matchup as much as any, when you look at like the two mediocre to bad teams that have a chance to really level up and play each other with not great defenses, this is a very exciting game that I think. It is. Not only can there be a lot of fantasy relevance, There can be a lot of lessons learned quickly. I'm so upset at the chance of thunderstorms here. Like, don't do it. Just bypass the stadium. There's a lot of potential weather this weekend. You got to love the open stadium vibe. But, yeah, I mean, I hope it's clear weather. And we get to see Trevor Lawrence and Bryce Young and, you know, what the running back rotation is like here. Dude, why even play the games? If you guys, why don't you guys just simulate them on a computer?

Because we can play. That way there's no variables. But you can put it in a dome. It's a lot more fun. Put the computer in a dome? No, no, no. No, but it's real. But yeah, there's a solution. It's so easy. Yeah, I mean, like in the game, you know, they announced. You guys are big AstroTurf guys then because the grass might be a little different in different places. You probably want Astro. Well, the nice thing is when you have that dome. Yeah. The grass is protected from getting sloshy or, you know. Just saying. They were like, hey, everyone. You have the dome. You can't have grass. Seek shelter. You're like, where do you seek shelter? We literally have a dome with real grass in Arizona. They have a retractable roof, Jason.

That's fine. Okay. Put a roof on. Have it open for good weather. Just put a lid on it. I'm just saying team dome, team retractable roof. You may be, you know. Sure that we are the same. It just doesn't roll off the tongue. Yeah, exactly. All right. So Bryce Young Trevor Lawrence. Here's my biggest, my biggest worry from this game. Maybe not worry, but thing I'm watching. I wonder if we're going to come out of this game. Look, Carolina gave up the most points of all time last year. So it's a bad defense. I think we might come out of this game with like a top five performance at running back for Jacksonville. And I don't know who it will be. I think it could be Travis E.N. Could be. And I think we might come out of this game going, oh my gosh. And maybe it will be an exaggeration because they're playing Carolina and they're at home. It could be E.T.N. It could be Biggsby. But it will be probably one of those guys that has a pretty big game. It will be only priors confirmed. Like if Tank Biggsby has a game,

I know for a fact, Mike will double down and say, I knew it. He's the guy. How did you know? If it's Travis E.T.N. who has a game. I will dismiss it immediately. Nah, it was the Panthers. So really, I think we've got to focus on utilization versus performance. Who gets the carries? Who gets the targets? And just take that and not their performance away from this game. We're going to see a lot of Chuba Hubbard. as well on the other side. He's a good start. We'll be watching for Bryce Young to see if he can continue what he did from week 12 on last year where he scrambled a lot. He made plays with seventh in fantasy points per dropback. And we'll see if Liam Cohen and this Jacksonville offense can get Trevor Lawrence going. You play your Brian Thomas Jr. You play Jason's start of the week. Teteroa McMillan, the rookie, who is very much their number one out of the gate.