Fantasy Football 2017 - Week 4 Studs & Duds, Rising Stars + Biggest Surprises

Cameron Brate is, I mean, O.J. Howard had that really long touchdown on the completely broken play. But Cameron Brate is, he's the go-to passing tight end. And James Winston, he was Cameron great. Am I right? Hey, oh, am I right? You are right. And I love that joke. A.J. Derby with one of the best catches of the year. Oh, my goodness. If you have not seen the AJ Derby touchdown.

Do yourself a favor. Finish this podcast, of course. But then immediately go watch AJ Derby's one hand tiptoe through the tulips. It was awesome. And, you know, you mentioned his name, but Charles Clay, we've been pretty big fans of his. He's the number one receiver on Buffalo. He is just too important. And now Jordan Matthews has gone for a month. Love, love Charles Clay considering the landscape of how bad tight ends are. Are you buying into Tyler Croft as a startable?

No, he was tempting for my rising stars, but because he has Buffalo in a buy in the next two weeks, and Eifford's potential to come back, I'm holding off the endorsement of Tyler Croft. Well, let's say Eifford. He's more in the Mercedes-Lewis situation with the two touchdowns this week. And if Eifert's out long-term, yes, he's a potential streamer option. Let's get to the rising stars. Raising Cain's Rising Stars of the Week. All right, my rising star is a tight-in, so I'll piggyback there. It's Evan Ingram.

Of the New York football giants. Look, every week, Evan Ingram has been consistently targeted. Four receptions the first two weeks, then five last week in Philadelphia. This week's six receptions for 62 yards in Tampa Bay. That is the definition of a rising star. An increase in targets, routes run, the ability to get downfield. He is, as Mike has said.

Another coming of Jordan Reed. Maybe you go back to when Aaron Hernandez was able to be a speed route running tight end. And the beautiful thing is Ingram is not much of a blocker. So you bring him in. You give him 11 targets. 11 targets in yesterday's game. And with kind of the inconsistency of this offense and in terms of rushing the ball, you've got to throw it. So I love Evan Ingram. I think he's a player that I would start rest of season over.

anybody like Jared Cook. For sure. You know, I love Evan Ingram. Yeah. Evan Ingram was my, if you follow us in the offseason, he was my favorite dynasty tied in because he can't block. I mean, he's an athletic freak. You don't get points for blocking. Exactly. I don't want it's like O.J. Howard. I mean, you're like, the guy's a sensational football player. But in fantasy, I want receptions. You're blocking too well, son. Yeah. So you got, well.

You had to stay in a block. No, I want the guy who can't block, but is too big to be a wide receiver. Exactly. So Evan Ingram, this is much sooner than I thought for Evan Engram. I thought we were looking at at least a two-year learning curve here from Engram, but love it. Now, I'm going to give you guys some numbers, and let me tell you, let me ask if you can find the trend that is happening here. Five, six, seven, ten.

What's going on there? They're going up. They are going up. And those are the targets for Mr. Duke Johnson running back from the Cleveland Browns while Isaiah Crowell has been an absolute bust of a fantasy player. Duke Johnson is saying it's not a worry, guys. It's not a worry. You should pick me up, play me because he's game script proof. And I know that they were getting absolutely blown out in that 10 target game this past week.

But when they were in a competitive game with the Colts, that was still seven targets. He's going to be involved. He's on the field. He's out snapped Crowell in two of four games. So he's, at this point, these aren't full-on flames of glory for Duke Johnson. There's definitely a slow burn here that I'm going to put my spaghetti sauce on there.

Cook it up. Cook it up. Get the fragrance permeating the room. Bubbling. Pro tip. Put some brown sugar in your spaghetti sauce. There you go. Really? Oh, it's so good. Yeah. Put some brown sugar on blank. And put Duke Johnson in your starting lineup. Yeah. There you go. All right. It's not going to help me trading for him today. Like I'm trying. Because whoever I'm trying to trade for is definitely listening right now. Yeah. Just you. Just you. Whoever Andy's talking about. Duke Johnson's bad.

Thank you. Yeah. My rising star is Alvin Camara. We actually had a little thing where computer technology aside, Andy and I both wanted to pick Camara, but I got him. He cheated. He was the guy that before the season, I made on the bold predictions episode saying he would finish the year as one of the top three rookie running backs for fantasy, despite how great the rookie running backs have been. Right now, he is, he's fifth.

Dalvin Cook is gone, and he's just like two points behind Tariq Cohen. I think the outlook is looking better right now for Camara than it is for Cohen. Camara had 10 targets this last week, which he caught all 10 of them. He has developed the trust. Speaking game script-wise, the Saints were dominating the entire game. Yeah. So this wasn't a comeback measure.

No, this is... They weren't dominating the entire game. It was 3-0. There was 3-0 at halftime. Sorry, but they weren't down getting boat-raced where you have to have that to get these targets. Sean Peyton. Sean Peyton basically said, look, I don't care what Ingram thinks. We already know that. He's willing to offend Ingram. He does not care about Adrian Peterson, and his offense needs pass-catching running backs. Camara was on the field all the time. The reason that I like him the most is because in part of Adrian Peterson.

This three-headed beast of running backs here has become a two-headed tandem. I mean, Adrian Peterson is not involved. He is barely a factor in this offense. And that allows Alvin Camara to go into that Darren Sproul's role, that Reggie Bush role. This offense, we've seen it be successful. I think Camara is going to come out of the by next week.

just be all that more utilized and involved in the offense. He's going to be a startable asset rest of season. And just to add to last week we said we can drop Adrian Peterson. Six total snaps, four carries, didn't get his first snap until late in the second quarter. As Jason said, he's an afterthought if it wasn't for his name. You would not even be talking about him. You would not even be referencing him. You're just paying attention to the name, and he has no role in this offense. Unfortunately, it didn't come to fruition there. And look, this week I thought it would be Ingram.

I thought Ingram would take that carry share. It was Camara. So those were the Raising Cains, Rising Stars of the Week. Ingram, Duke Johnson, Alvin Camara. Remember, game day tastes better with Raising Cain's tailgates full of fresh 24-hour, marinated, hand-battered chicken fingers, and fresh brood, sweet tea. Visit Raising Canes.com to find your nearest location. That was funny. You were talking about Ingram, and then you said the rising stars were Ingram.

And then I was like, oh, that was Ingram with an E. Yeah, Engram. But on Mark Ingram, you said you thought he'd have the carries? He did. This back-to-back weeks where he had 14 carries. So I think Ingram is doing right. Yeah, he just needs to get in the end zone. And he'll give you a good week. I think he's startable. I think he's a startable player. Poopped in his big boy pants. All right. Honorable poopers of their big boy pants. Jay Cutler, you pooped like nobody's poop before.

Oh, man. And it's crazy because he's got two weeks worth of his pants filled. Yeah, and great matchups, at least on paper. But the way the game started, Jay Cutler was sharp. He was very accurate. Yeah. He made a bad pass, a bad fade pass to Julius Thomas in the end zone. And then it was done. Yep. Everything fell apart after that on top of Miami just loving.

They were loving those yellow flags. Every time something good would happen for J. Ajai or the Miami Dolphins, there would be a penalty. Yeah. Yeah, not good. Not good. You got to remember, Jay Cutler, he wasn't that good. He wasn't that good with Chicago. Deschon Kaiser had a stinker of a game. You know, he's up against it in Cleveland. And so you're trying to catch the lightning in a bottle week-to-week with him. You know, he's a streamer a couple weeks ago. Did not.

Looked like a good matchup with Cincinnati in this one. Matthew Stafford against Minnesota, disappointing week. They won the game on the back of their defense. Matt Ryan, though, against Buffalo, 24 for 42, 242 and 1. Did loop. He lost his number one and number two wide receiver. So it's hard to give a guy a free haul pass when they fail your fantasy team, and it just hurts in your soul. But, I mean, come on. What are you? Yeah.

So when we go through the Pooten their Big Boy Pants segment, what we're looking at too is do we believe these trends are going to continue for these players or do we believe they're anomalous? So as we get into some big names in the running back position, I want that to be our framework to talk about help the listeners out. Melvin Gordon, Marshaun Lynch, DeMarco Murray, Jaya Jai, Isaiah Crowell, those five names, those are all guys drafted within the first three rounds, several first round candidates.

We know there are injuries in play for Melvin Gordon, J. Jai, potentially. What do you think the headline, I mean, what should we be paying attention to as fantasy owners with these big names? Because the default is going to be, you've got to keep them in your lineup. The two biggest worries to me would be DeMarco Murray and Isaiah Crowell. Isaiah Crowell is unstartable. He is borderline cuttable right now. That's tough. But DeMarco, DeMarco has not looked good this season.

very high on DeMarco. I know, but if you take that one run away, week one, he didn't look good, week two, he didn't look good, week three, he got that big run, week four, he didn't look good. So you got a decent sample size for me to worry a little bit. So are you not worried about DeMarco? I'm actually, he's at the bottom of the list of worries out of this group, other than Corwell, which you definitely are right about. Murray, I mean, they got bull race. This was a matter of.

I mean, he got seven carries. So it's hard to say he didn't look good in seven carries. Derek Henry only had six carries for seven yards. But you would hope that Murray would get more than two targets. Yeah, but Mario would win out and they were boat race. Yeah. That's fair. I guess it's just the seven to six carry count, right? No, that sucks. But, yeah, I mean, that's definitely a problem. I'm more concerned about Lynch long term. I think he's almost unstartable right now. And then, you know, you got Baltimore next week. I'm not excited about Lynch in that game.

Jay Ajay is a concern because of the third down work and, you know, he was on the sideline furious being taken off the field on third down for Kenyon Drake or Damian Williams. Jayadjai is a guy that I will probably be trying to target. When I watch him run, there was nothing wrong with him. Like you said, he had a couple plays where it was just the yellow flags getting. He'd make this great run and then he'd turn around and be like, come on, guys, like stop, let me go. And, you know, Adam Gaze.

I think can turn things around enough. And look, if I was the coach there and Jay Cutler has been so bad, you have got to say, I'm going to put the offense on J.Jai's shoulders. And there wasn't anything that I saw on film that made me think he has lost a step or doesn't look good. So I know you're disappointed with him. He sucked this week. He sucked a couple times this year. But I'm not, I'm not riding him off. And Melvin Gordon, to me, I think this was.

A lot of this might have been injury, limiting his work. He only had 10 carries. So long term, though. Are you concerned? No, I'm not. Mike Gillisley, Mike, are you concerned with Gillisley? 12 for 49, no touchdowns, no targets. What was more concerning was when they're actually inside the three and they go to this nonsense play action to Mike Gillisley so they can throw.

a pass to, I believe it was Jacob Hollister, the third tight end. Like, just the getting cute. They do what they want. Oh, no, and I get it. And it's generally speaking, it has worked very well for Bill Belichick and the Patriots. But the getting cute around the goal line now for a couple weeks has been really frustrating. And he, he was running well. I mean, 12 for 49. I believe at some, at one point he was 10 for 45 or so.

And so he looks good, but he's just... He did get the goal line carry. He just got stuff. Yeah, and he only got the one chance at it. So if he's not getting the touchdowns, it's going to be disappointing. Mike, I'm going to toss it to you one more time. Another guy last week he liked him a lot. Joe Mixing at Cleveland, I certainly liked him. He's 17 for 29, four for 19 on four targets. Basically had the same workload of last week, not the same production, about eight or nine fantasy points.

Joe Mixon has Buffalo, then the by then Pittsburgh. What is the situation for Mixon? It's not good. And even more so was you, as the fantasy community, we're trying to take the temperature of the team, you know, from the outside. They had Bill Laser coming in as the O coordinator. You saw him willing to give Joe Mixon a bunch of touches last week. He came through with over 100 yards from scrimmage. Then Jeremy Hill starts the game.