Week 2 Waivers & Mining for Gold, Streamers - Fantasy Football Podcast for 9/10

to the fantasy footballers podcast with your host, Andy Holloway, Jason Moore, and Mike Wright. Oh, welcome in. The fantasy footballers podcast, Jason Moore, Mike Wright, Andy Holloway. Joined as always by the deucers over there inducers alley, deusing it up. That's what they're doing. And we are... Here with a waiver episode today. Very excited to talk waivers. There's a lot of names, Jason. I heard you saying that this morning, that you were kind of... I think it's a deep waiver pickup. It's not an elite, like there, I don't see a puka. I don't see a Chiron from last year, some sensational breakout superstar. But there's a lot of depth. There's, there are a lot of running backs that are worthy of being rostered and obviously we'll get into it. But week one waivers is like...

I mean, this is an important time in fantasy football. You look back at championships and then you can usually trace something that happened to week one or week two waivers. And I don't, you know, I don't know if you can know in week one whether there's a puka there or not. I think when we picked up puka last year in week one, it was optimism, but not any sort of expectation to what we got from Pooka Nakua. Like maybe, maybe that is Jameson Williams this year. Maybe that is Xavier Worthy. We have a lot of season left in front of us. So we're going to break down our favorite waiver pickups at every position. We have waiver rankings on the website, the fantasy footballers.com. So you can see them on there. And for the first time ever, we have customized waiver pickups for your team and your league as part of the ultimate dashboard, which is one of the Foot Clan member perks.

You can learn about that at join thefoot.com. That is brand new for the in-season tools and resources this year. If you have a team in ESPN Sleeper or Yahoo, you can sync your team and your league, and it will give you a dynamic list of who's available based on our waiver rankings and who is available in your league. So it's custom because everything is contextual. You know, a lot of our pickups, we're going to give you our rankings, Do you need a running back? Do you need a wide receiver? Is tight end is the Isaiah likely sweepstakes going to be for you? These are all going to be questions we answer. Yeah. And when we talk about, you know, oh, picking up J.K. Dobbins, you might be like, well, he's not available in my league. Well, sync your league with that tool. And you can see all of our waiver rankings of who is actually available in your league. You can follow the show over on X at the FF Ballers. Follow Jason at Jason FFL. Mike is at FF Hitman. I'm at Andy Holloway.

And if you want to be a part of our Discord, Papa Josh over there running the Discord. You can go to BallersDiscord.com. Will I take you right there, Josh? It's Ballersdiscord.G, I believe. For real? Discord uses a GG. For good game? Yeah. By the way, BallersDiscord.com is what you can go to. I just verified that. That works fine. So good game, Josh. Yep. Works great. All right, let's get into the recap. We had a Monday night football game, the 49ers. Man, they looked good. Without 419ers. Christian McCaffrey took on the New York Jets. Wait, what? Who? Oh, man. No, no, McCaffrey, he's super healthy and he played football last night, right guys? Right? I mean, really, that was that was in a, that was the NFL slash fantasy football slash week one mayhem.

to the nth degree. I mean, to have a last second report, like we should just cover that part of the news now in the context of this recap because it was, it was brutal. It was as bad as it gets. Like in the leagues where I have McCaffrey, I'd moved him into the flex. That's something we advise so that you have the ability to put a wide receiver in in an emergency. I looked at those teams. I always want to plan for the contingency. The last thing you want to be doing is. get caught without Christian McCaffrey on Monday night. But when you think about the real pivot options you had available to your roster, you would have been talking about Joanne Jennings, you would have been talking about Kyle Usecheck. If you didn't draft Jordan Mason for that roster with Christian McCaffrey, which, you know, not everybody could do. You were in a real, real tough situation last night. The, you know, Xavier Gibson, zero. Isaac Garindo, zero. So I know a lot of people that were.

destroyed by the last minute news that Christian McCaffrey would be inactive, that Jordan Mason would get to start. This was a shocker. And the only way that it wasn't a complete and utter surprise is that Mike and his League of Record team has Christian McCaffrey on the roster. Mike took a... very wide stance and said anyone free kicks. Yeah. Anyone out there free kicks as he spread his legs. I see. Yeah, I mean. Yeah. Just. What a brutal week for you. Like it's pulverized guys. I said this yesterday. Read your lineup. We said we talk about. Yeah. Pull it up and while you put the guys that actually started. No, just your whole team. Yeah. So while you, while you pull up your lineup. Is this so we know who to avoid?

Just so that everyone can enjoy your pain. I'm sitting at the lunch table yesterday. And usually I would be tilted off the face of the planet because I came in a little shallow in my League of Record team. Right, right, right. And I lost puka. That's brutal. And I lost Njoku. And I'm sitting there happy as a clam because I'm not Mike. I mean, I had the Jordan Love Christian Watson stack. That's toast. McCaffrey didn't play. Javante Williams is probably toast. Michael Pittman, 40% target share, but 31 yards. Mark Andrews and Marvin Harrison Jr. combined for 3.3 points. Higgins is on my bench. You lost Higgins? You lost McCaffrey. Yeah. In a three-keeper league, between my three keepers and my first three picks, I scored about.

11 points. Oh my goodness gracious. What was your comment in our chat last night? You were like, you know, I lost puka and I had, but I spend all my day just being thankful. I'm not Mike, right? Yeah. I mean, that's, that's how it feels right now. It's like this is not only am in, I in a place of week one just ultimate tilt fest. It's not like. Hey, one thing went really wrong. Week two will bounce back. Mike, my team is a disaster. Yeah, like you. It is an absolute disaster right now. We say don't panic in week one, but we will rise. But Mike should panic. Yeah, we say don't panic in week one, but we don't think that that's going to happen to you. No, no, that is. You should panic. That's like, uh, what the time, not Tommy boy. What is the.

where he keeps falling down the mountain. Oh, that was black sheep. Black sheep. Strong little hearts. Just keeps tumbling and he grabs a root and then he keeps going again. Yeah, the route was Christian McCaffrey last night. And then he's like, no, man. Oh, also I'm probably not playing next week. Enjoy that. Well, if you had Kittle and you had Ayuk, you were disappointed too because Iyuk saw limited participation. Joanne Jennings was the leading receiver. Iyuk was only two for 28. Which, to be fair, I was going to say, he had a touchdown. I mean, he dropped a ball in the end zone. If you didn't watch, it was brutal. But, you know, the opportunity for him to have a good game was still there. So Jordan Mason was the story, 28 for 147 and a touchdown. He made the Jets look silly, as did all of the play calling by Kyle Shanahan. It was just, it was on par with what we saw from the.

Rams in terms of at times in the game, they were just dissecting the defense so well. Obviously, they didn't win their game, but the Jets, I mean, what were your impressions of seeing Aaron Rogers? I saw the chart today, the passing chart, and he did not target the right side of the field one time. Like, if you watch this game, it was Breece Hall to the left, it was Garrett Wilson to the left, and no one else was targeted. Xavier Gibson was on the field in the slot. The majority of the entire game never saw a target. I don't think... It was funny because when I turned the game on, I missed the first couple minutes because of life. And so I turned the game on and my first chance to see the Jets was their first drive that was really nice where they overcame on a couple of third and longs. And he was finding Garrett Wilson. I mean, Brees was running well. I was like, oh my gosh.

You know, I've been a doubter of the Jets offense and of Aaron Rogers bouncing back to who he used to be. And I was like, I was so happy and ready to take that L because they looked so good that drive. And then they didn't look good another time the whole game. Now, some of that, we've got to keep in mind. This Niners defense is awesome. And the Niners looked on all three phases. They just looked perfect. The next three weeks for the Jets, I think they will win all three games. So whatever you want to. say about how their offense looked. You're week one with Rogers, and the 49ers just whooped them. Hey, here's the good news. Silver lining, week two, you still have Aaron Rogers. I mean, that's a win. As a Jets fan. Yeah, no question. Breece Hall, 16 for 54 and a touchdown on the ground that was inefficient, but he got all the work. And then Breece caught five for 39. Yeah, he did. And that was the story of the game. The 49ers just kind of.

locked in after the first quarter and made it really hard on the Jets. Garrett, I believe, had four receptions in the first quarter and then finished with six. Yeah, yeah, he did. And Debo is really, really active, by the way. He was the secondary runner. You did not see any opportunities for Patrick Taylor Jr. or Isaac Garindo. They had a couple of snaps. No opportunities. Debo is really... the next man up at running back and the news that we have right now. You're not going to like it. But Christian McCaffrey is not a guarantee for week two. He's probably even more of a likely going to be on the bench. It's just a matter of who you trust, Andy. Because if you watch the press conference with Shanahan, and he was asked about, he was asked directly about the report that it is unlikely Christian McCaffrey goes in week two. And Shanahan says, I'd like to know who.

you know, who told you that it must be God because I didn't know he wasn't going to be able to play until today. He's doubling down on I did not know until today. He kind of had to. So there was this whole rigmarole. What happened is after the game on the field, Jordan Mason, you know, the star, the star of the game. Dude, the guy is on the highest high that I'm sure he has ever experienced in his life. What a moment for this man, for this human being. Just so he's on the field. He's being interviewed. He's happiest. as he should be. His family's there. I mean, the man is, he is pure dopamine. Yeah. And so he was asked, like, when did you find out you're going to be starting? And he said, you know, he found out on Friday, he'd be starting and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Whoops. Whoops. Because by the time he got to the press conference, this poor soul-sucked human being looked so sad and was like, I shouldn't have said that or whatever. He obviously got a, uh,

chewing out because now I'm sure the Niners are going to be investigated for the injury reports or whatever. You know, and Shanahan came out and basically clarified. He said he didn't say that. Maybe some of the other coaches did it to pump him up and that there was, you know, he had told him that he knew that he would get a lot of work this week because McCaffrey, they need to manage the injury. Long term right now. And we're going to talk about it in waivers. So I'll press pause. But long term we need to discuss. The McCaffrey situation, what he's going to be like to start this year, managing reps and knowing what they have in Jordan Mason. Because if you can go out and put up a performance like that against the Jets defensive front, you have somebody that is worthy of more than the backup role on your fantasy team. I agree with what you're saying logically. I do not believe that that's going to happen when Christian McCaffrey comes back. We have seen this before. Elijah Mitchell had.

unbelievably great performances when Christian McCaffrey would go down. And when Christian McCaffrey came back, it's just like, okay, you're gone now. This is the Christian McCaffrey show. In fact, I think we saw it here. They want that workhorse back. Like you brought up the other backups didn't even get a touch. They scored zero fantasy points. It's because they got their one guy and they game plan for them. And it's like you get all the work. And I agree with that in. in most situations, but the fact that McCaffrey is dealing with a lingering issue that he says some days feel good and some days feel bad, like doesn't seem like there's going to be a switch that you turn on McCaffrey that he's just fine for 28 carries because he wasn't fine to play in this game. He's probably not going to play next week. You think he's going to get a full workload when he's back in week one?

I think that they will keep him out until they're ready to give him a full workload. But, you know, we'll find out. And regardless, I mean, it's, it's pointless to discuss because when he's back, you're going to start him. And if he gets 18 instead of 28, he's going to be awesome. This is Christian McCaffrey. News and notes from around the league. Presented by USAA Insurance. Well, um, Jason Pooka Nakua. Dude. Was placed on the injured reserve with a sprain PCL. He'll miss at least four weeks. We have six main leagues that we share together. And I have them and half of them. So that hurts. That hurts deep. Yeah, you were not in a good place because of this news yesterday. Puka going to miss some time at least four weeks. At least. And Matthew Betts, our injury expert, who has been releasing some really good recap videos on our...

X account. These can linger for weeks, sometimes months, and you're going to be holding your breath when he's back out there that it doesn't happen again. Yeah, for sure. I mean, this is, it's worth noting that Puka has dealt with a lot of injuries in his life. Like, you know, obviously he only had one year in the NFL, and I think he, you know, he played most of the season, only missed very limited time last year. But he's injured this year. And he was injured a lot in college. And so his playstiles rough and tumble. I just want everyone to know. I don't have any puka. And this one is not, this one's not on me. Okay. This is my fault. I just wanted out there. Yeah. I didn't draft boobyca anywhere. So this is not my fault. Okay. You talk to Jason. Okay. Okay.

Malik Willis will start for the Packers. Let's go live to Deucer's Alley and get the reaction of the resident Packers fan. How do you feel about Malik Willis being a starting quarterback there, Al? Not great, Bob. Okay, yeah, me neither. This is, what do you do? What do you do if you are Jaden Reed's manager who just had the Monster Week? and you counted on him. Are you playing him with your blindfold on? I think you are most likely. He's a flex option this week. Like Mike brought up yesterday, he's the manufactured touch guy. He's going to get into rounds. He's going to get screens. You know, Christian Watson, I wouldn't start him. I wouldn't start anyone downfield. Malik Willis is a terrible quarterback. Mike, what do you have on Malik Willis? Kyle has just shared. So Malik Willis, let's see, I'm just pulling up. So we got three starts.

in 2022. A couple passes the next year. But he has a career grand total of zero passing touchdowns. It's not a lot. He has three interceptions. So he is his interception of touchdown ratio is zero to three. Yeah. Yeah. That's bad. That's called 0 and 2. For the Packers? Yeah. It does. Hand it off. Hand it off to Josh Jacobs. I thought Jacobs looked good. Jacobs will get all the volume. And he may get a lot more. Like if you look at the pass rush that was coming in the panic mode of Aaron Rogers last night, like maybe Jacobs catches a bunch of passes in this game. But I just real quick, because we're going to talk waivers. If you have Watson, if you have Dobbs, I am trying to find an option to not play them. Jaden Reed, I'm okay because they'll figure out how to get him the ball.

Roma Dunesay is now week to week with a mild MCL sprain, which is the same type of injury that we're hearing about Jake Ferguson. A Dunezay week to week waiting on practice reports for Keenan Allen. So, you know, if DJ Moore is the only wide receiver out there and he gets the 93 passing yards from Caleb Williams, maybe that's okay. Yeah, if he's the only wide receiver, that would be great. I mean, we had debates early this offseason about whether DJ Moore getting a quarterback upgrade would be. good or not because he was, you know, a top, what was he like, wide receiver six or something last season. But that was because he was the only guy there. If he's the only guy there, I'll definitely start him. The other news we have, apparently Brian Dable had to come out and say that Daniel Jones, their $140 million man is going to start in week two against the commanders. If Daniel Jones looks as bad as he did this last week against the commanders who just gave up four to Baker Mayfield.

and their defense looked atrocious. I don't know what Giants fans can do. I don't know what you will. Oh, you know exactly what they'll do. Root for that number one pick. See, I thought they might find a really tall bridge. Oh, man. That's, you know. It's dark. There are. This is, like, if you're in a deep league and you're in a, I mean, look, if a Superflex league as well, Drew Locke should be on your radar. Daniel Jones. I believe even if Daniel Joe's terrible, he's going to play the next few games at worst. But he has the thing where they'll bench him to make sure he doesn't get hurt. Because if he gets hurt, a guarantee kicks in, just like we saw with, you know, last year with like Russell Wilson.

The Broncos said, no, we're not going to be on the hook for even more money. We're pulling that rip cord right now, and you're not playing. They did it with Derek Carr. Yeah. So these things happen. Daniel Jones, it's only one week, but the way he looked, you can't expect that he will be finishing the season. Last year, they were defeated 40 to nothing in week one, the Giants. In week two, Daniel Jones was the quarterback one in fantasy. So I wanted to bring this up. I mean, he's not my official stream of the week, but I actually do think Daniel Jones was unwatchable. He was so bad. There were about four quarterbacks this week that were unwatchable. But the commander's defense will make it a little bit easier. He is still a dual threat quarterback who has weapons, and I think he'll end up with a decent fantasy week this week.

better than the negative four from this past week, you think? I guarantee it. It's an ironclad, locked and loaded guarantee. Jason Moore, Daniel Jones, guarantee. More than negative four fantasy points in week two. We have news that Rahim Mosert and Devon A. Chan did not practice. I'm listed. They're the Thursday game, so that's the, it's not a real practice. That's right. It's the estimation that they would not have practiced. But it is enough that you better be paying attention. I am really worried about age hand. I don't know. I just got the, you know. Just because of his fragility? Well, I mean, he got injured. You saw it. You saw him limping off the field at the end of the game. And then he's reported as, you know, as having an ankle and wouldn't have practiced. So yeah, I'm a little worried. He has an ankle? That's good. Honestly, if he has two ankles. You're not wrong. You just cut out the injury part.

Yeah, sure. He's been reported. Y'all know what I mean. I just heard Al laughing back there. I assume at the fact that he had an ankle. Well, that's the point. He needs two. Right now he has an ankle. Okay. No, you're, you're 40 chest. Justin Fields is being prepared to start against Denver. Russell Wilson feels better today than over the weekend. He was wearing, he was wearing shoulder pads on the sidelines. We did. We did get enough. Yes. Oh, thank good. We got an update on that later. that he was, in fact, the emergency guy because. Oh, thank goodness. I thought he was not active and wearing shoulder pads, which only Russell Wilson I would think that about. I genuinely believe if he was inactive. He still would have the eye black on just to support, like go through the routine. Yeah. You don't want to miss any moment to prepare. And the Brown signed Cadarius, Tony, they got injured in the receiving game this week. They lost.

David Nijoku, they're working out tight ends. I don't believe we have the David Nizoku report in the news, which we should. I thought it was high ankle. Well, there was, yeah, week to week, I believe, but he's going to be out for a while. And they are working out tight ends. And then they lost Judy to injury. So Kaderie's Tony coming in. That was today's, yeah, David Nogoku has an ankle. Oh, he does. He needs two. Yeah. That was today's news and notes presented by USAA Insurance. Learn more at usaa.com slash insurance. We're going to take a break. And then it's waiver wire time. All right. It is time to jump in to week one, the waiver wire. To the waiver wire presented by NFL Sunday ticket on YouTube TV. All right, Jason. What was your?

tips and tricks item relevant to this week? Well, if you listen to our top 10 tips and tricks episode, it was take dumps now, not later. And what that means is in week one, in week two of the waivers, you want to go hard in the paint. It's not just, you know, a lot of times you say, well, you get more weeks from the players. You know, obviously if you get a player in week one and they play the season, you get, you know, at least 12 more games of this player versus grabbing them in week 10. So that makes sense. However, it's the average fantasy points per game of the players picked up in week one. They are higher than the rest of the season. So there will be some stars here. We're going to try to, you know, sift through the gold mine and find the nuggets. But you want to go hard. You want to go hard in week one. You're mixing so many different.

different gold analogies like the mine i get what you're saying you want to the mine you're not doing a lot of sifting no that's in the river you don't i mean you don't sift in a mine no no man you use the pickax yeah you mine there are nuggets in a mine you can find them dude i didn't know that yeah they don't have any sifting is panning for me i know i'm dude i thought they did that in the mine too so you bring the sifter in the mine yeah They've got a whole bunch of equipment in the mine. Really? Yeah. But if you put the big rocks on the sifter, it's just going to rattle back and forth. Well, we still got to get the old stuff off the ground. Our job here is the furthest thing from being a gold miner that does exist. So I don't really blame me for crossing your gold analogies. I mean, forgive me for not being a gold expert. I thought you knew of metal. Yeah. Oh, yes, I am a metal expert.

All right, let's take a look at the running back position. Last night's game is going to have a big impact on the way we sort out our rankings because Jordan Mason, you know, it's going to come down to maybe a difference of opinion here between Jason and myself in terms of whether Jordan Mason will continue to be used. I look at the McCaffrey injury with a very concerned eye. You will obviously play an active Christian McCaffrey on your roster. But one of the things that we haven't got to see a lot of is a healthy player behind him in San Francisco. When we've had it for brief stretches, we have seen some Elijah Mitchell success, especially salting away games. Jordan Mason's performance combined with what I look at is an injury, a re-injury risk with McCaffrey, makes me think Mason's ranking here in the fantasy waiver rankings a little bit higher because I think he could start next week.

I think then it's a big question mark for the week after. He could start again. We don't know how long this is going to be for McAfrey. And then you combine that with maybe some flex appeal for a while. So does that move him to your number one pickup? He is my number one pickup for the entire, yeah, for all of wages. For every position or just running backs? He's my number one running back waiver pickup as well. He's my number one overall. Oh, okay. So he's my number one overall. Now I do think that there's context there. Like if you are.

You know, obviously if you have McCaffrey, he's number one, if he was out there without question. If you are desperate for help at wide receiver, I don't mind you floating somebody like, you know, James and Williams ahead of him. I met more of the question of, are we unanimous? He's ahead of Dobbins. Are we unanimous that Dobbins is the number two running back? He is for me. Yeah, he's my number two. So that's all I want. Dobbins is there as well for me, either number one or number two. I'm saying, are you looking at this like Jordan Mason is my number one running back no matter what, regardless. If I have McCaffrey, if I don't have McCaffrey, he's still number one. Right now he is for me. Because it's the balance of, you could be right of maybe he starts next week, maybe even a third one after that. But when McCaffrey comes back, Jordan Mason is the backup where J.K. Dobbins, while he was in a timeshare, he was by far the best running back and could be a.