Fantasy Football - Starts of the Week + Week 2 Breakdown, Bounce-Backs - Podcast for 9/11

The fantasy footballer studio is sponsored by Walmart. To the fantasy footballers podcast with your host, Andy Holloway, Jason Moore, and Mike Wright. Football time? Was the point for me to do it? Oh, yeah, isn't it football time? It is. Oh, yeah, I thought you were going to jump in. I was confused. Oh. Football time. Let's go. Thursday, September 11th, welcome into the fantasy footballers. We have matchups on today's show, starts of the week. We've got news to talk about San Francisco can't stay healthy. We almost need a drop specifically for them. I, yeah, or somebody falling down the stairs. Since I do all those voiceover work, I'm working on a new, you know.

49ers injury a bit. Yeah, update. It'll be coming. Let me hear a little bit of that voice. Well, Mike always does like some. Yeah, I got to do a lot of stuff to it. So make all a lot of software. It's almost like I turn it into another person. Right. Feels like that. Yeah, there's there's a lot going on. We have week two ahead of us. And, you know, we'll put to bed some of the week one. I guess I would say like our expectations for some of these players, they might change. And then some of those week one performances, you may get a follow up that makes you feel very confident about them. And some of them in the, some of the players in the starts of the week today are some players that we think maybe will, you know, a couple of them are guys that had good week ones. Yeah, I know my running back start of the week is scary because it was a player that, you know, is not supposed to be great week one, was great week one. And I'm saying start them this week.

I will tell you from Jason trying to trade me Keon Coleman multiple times that he doesn't necessarily believe Keonnong is going to keep doing what he did in week one. I'm not, I'm trying to acquire my running back start of the week. Okay. All right. A reminder, the weekly rankings, the start sit tool, a bunch of articles every week from an amazing writing staff, all available at the fantasy footballers.com for free. So you can check that out and make sure you prep your lineup up. this weekend let's jump right into the news news and notes from around the league presented by progressive insurance brock purdy a long shot to play this week according to kail shanahan he's dealing with a turf toe variant i did see it was like it was like turf toe it's just a kind of a it's a does that mean it's like uh evolved i don't i don't know that's more like athlete's foot

that evolved. It's a multiverse turf toe. But they are saying that the injury could be two to five weeks, which is quite the range. But this is obviously serious. They said earlier when he had the two different injuries that the toe was more serious, and it will keep him out. Chris Godwin expected to return to practice today for the first time. Week five remains the target return day for Chris Godwin. Tristan Wharf's as well return to practice. Not going to play yet, but we'd like to see that they're practicing. We have Evan Ingram Limited on Wednesday with the calf injury suffered in week one. Or is Jason? Irrelevant? Jason would say just limited. He also has a calf injury though. Right. Dallas Goddard knee sprain. Availability for week two for the Eagles up in the air. This one is very special for fantasy football players that this, I don't think anyone had a real inclination that Goddard was hurt. And then waivers ran. And there were two.

very juicy tight ends on the waiver wire. And people with Goddard were probably like, ah, I don't know if I need one or not. And then Wednesday they went, shoot, I did. Well, and a lot of people picked up Goddard. They spent, if he was on the waivers, if he went undrafted, they picked him up. It's also important for fantasy because we have a good amount of history with Goddard missing games. And when that happens, the two primary, the two primary wide receivers, especially Devante Smith. Yes. He usually skyrockets up in games that Dallas Goddard misses. But it'll be, you know, AJ Brown after his poor outing in week one. If Godder doesn't go, hopefully the wide receivers can soak it all up. You don't want to refer to the wide receiver one? John Dots? Yes. No, no, I don't. Yeah, it was bad for both Brown and Devante Smith in week one. So we'd like to see them bounce back. Quintan Judkins didn't practice Wednesday, was meeting with the NFL expected to practice today. And we'll see if he's available and active at all for the Browns.

So you're Dylan Samson drum forward. I would imagine that if he is active, you're still not going to play him this week. Limited in workload. Right. You could, if Judkins plays this week, I don't think it changes really anything, which is no matter what I'm not playing Ford, because he was so bad in week one. And I think you can play Samson in either situation if you're in a full PPR league where he should get the passing work. That was news and note, 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. Let's jump right in. Starts of the week, presented by Paramount Plus. All right, I felt good about three of my four last week. Joe Burrow didn't work out. I was trying to get a week one Joe Burrow performance. Nobody can get.

Joe Burrow to play well in week one. What was great was that the world did react to like you, how dare you put him as your start of the week? Right. Too easy. Because it's too easy. You drafted him too high. Oh, what the? Oh. All right. Well, I mean, it was pretty sad. Yeah, it was sad. I didn't need to hit that, but it was sad. Week two starts of the week, Jason, kick us off at quarterback. I'm going to go with the guy that I think I'm bought into maybe, you know, you don't overreact. from one week. I am overreacting for the rest of the season. I think Justin Herbert will be throwing the ball enough this season to be very important for fantasy. I loved the way that he ran the ball. He had more designed runs, and he scrambled quicker. He has athleticism. He had 32 rushing yards, 318 passing yards. That was against a very good Kansas City defense. The charges are three and a half point road favorites in a dome.

against the Raiders, where last year he was the quarterback three when they played there. His weapons are the best he's had, maybe in his entire career. I would say definitely in his entire career. I think this version of Ladd-McConkie, Keene and Allen, you know, Quge, the two rookies. You're going to include Quge. Absolutely, I'm going to include Q's. I didn't know if we were there yet. Yeah, well, when he is the third option, when he's literally like the... I'm going to go to Keenan Allen and Ladd-McConkie, and you can't stop me all the time, and the defense has to guard that. Oh, now I can throw a deep shot to Q. It's perfect for his skill set. All right, Mike, what do you got? I'm going with Kyler Murray. Oh, boy. Yeah, like he's playing. Yeah, I'll do it. It's fine. Yeah, yeah. The quarterback seven after week one. Yeah. No, actually, in week one, what was he?

Because he was, he's QB7 for us ranking this upcoming week. I think he was higher than that. He had two passing touchdowns. The, the, the at least the promise of, you know, the off season of like, hey, I think Kyler is actually going to run more. He himself said, I need to do that. And he did. It wasn't necessarily the prettiest of decisions when he chose to scramble and how it was, it was happening. But we at least saw it. We saw seven rush attempts for 38 yards. They are big home favorites against the Carolina Panthers. I expect the Cardinals running game to get it going, but I also expect that. Like Kyler, you know, the two passing touchdowns with another 40 on the ground is, I think it's in the range of possibilities. We had, well, look, Kyler was almost my start of the week. I had him in there, but the guy I think we'll run more than Kyler and why I moved him into my start of the week was Justin Fields.

He takes on Buffalo. We saw that incredible Buffalo Baltimore game last week. It wasn't just the legs against Pittsburgh that were great. He was also number one in completion percentage over expectation among all quarterbacks. Not something you've been able to look to Justin Fields for in the past, but he had the connection going with all of his receivers, 9.9 yards per attempt. It wasn't just dink and dunk stuff. And they play Buffalo. this week, the Jets do. Buffalo gave up the most yards per play in the NFL in week one. Yes, it was Lamar, but I think Justin Fields follows up a good week one with a great week two, and I'm excited to see what happens. At running back, I do not believe this will be a complete rest of season the way that I do think so with Justin Herbert, but it will be a week two success with Travis E.TN coming off a great performance against the worst run defense we've seen in our generation.

The thing is, is he's the guy now. There's clarity. He had 19 opportunities, 31% of the team's total rush attempts and targets. And then it was like, well, is it going to be him? Is it going to be Tank Biggsby? It's not going to be Tank Biggs. They traded him. So, you know, maybe Tutin gets a little bit more involved. But this is ETN's backfield, especially right now, certainly in week two. And if you look at week one, how good he was, the Jaguar's offensive line ranked fourth. in adjusted yards before contact. Now, again, that's the Carolina defense, but he gets the Bengals defense, which is pretty close, you know, if you can call a defense. So I think it's a great matchup for him. I don't think Tutin is going to work his way in enough right off the bat in week two. So yeah, ETN's good play, fire him out. Make sure he's in your lineup. I'm going with Jordan Mason.

Minnesota Vikings running back against the Atlanta Falcons. Aaron Jones had the highlight touchdown, but if you didn't pay attention, Jordan Mason was incredibly involved. He was the early down guy. Mason ended up 13-4-69, and Jones was 7 for 21. The thing that I find interesting about this is they tried at the beginning to have it be Aaron Jones. They gave Aaron Jones a couple carries that went. Nowhere. And then Jordan Mason gets brought in. And he is the powerback. The Vikings are three and a half point home favorites against the Falcons right now. So I love that environment. And just for some more context, like my dynasty team right now, I have Jordan Mason in my lineup over Kenneth Walker. So like that's the type of play that I'm talking about. All right. I'm going with Breece Hall taking on the bills. Yes, back to back jets. It feels so good. We're not done yet.

It feels so good. Look, this is very clear in week one who the lead back was not just by opportunity, but by talent and juice. He looked so fast. He looked great, and the bills just got absolutely gashed. Big play after big play. And if you look at those Henry big runs, they had room. He had room to get to that second level. That's when Henry turns on the jets. And so. Based on what I saw in week one, you know, the success Brees had against the Pittsburgh defense we expected to be a lot better. I think it was a lot about Brees. I think it was about the offensive line getting it done. And so I think Brees follows it up in week two. My wide receiver start of the week is D.K. Metcalfe. In a revenge game, he will be at home, not in Seattle, but he's playing against the Seahawks. And I think he's got plenty to prove. Aaron Rogers has spoke so glowingly of him.

This last week we saw it, right? 26% of his routes. He was targeted. He had seven targets. He didn't have a great game, four catches for 83. That's a pretty good game. No touchdown, but he had Sauce Gardner on him for a lot of that. He knows the Seahawks. He's working with Aaron Rogers, who Aaron Rogers hyper targets his number one. He's always been, whether it was Devante Adams or Jordan Nelson or Garrett Wilson. He can make fantasy stars. And I think this is a perfect matchup for him against Seattle. Speaking of Garrett Wilson, three jets in the starts of the week. Oh gosh, what are we doing? What could possibly go wrong here? He just, he was the alpha. 36% of the team's targets ends up seven for 95 and one. We mentioned he was just a fraction away from a second touchdown. And maybe the Buffalo secondary bounces back because that was just Lamar and the Ravens. However, it was the third most fantasy points to the wide receiver position in week one.

allowing 17 yards per catch. I think Garrett Wilson can have another big day. All right. I am going to go with Keenan Allen against the Raiders this week. That Monday night football game, the tandem with Justin Herbert. He was right back to the target machine we know him to be, which was cool to see in week one. You know, joining this team, he had a better than expected season with Chicago. 28% of his routes he was targeted. And he has dominated the Raiders historically. I think Keenan is a great play. My tight end start of the week. You just picked him up off of waiver. You had to spend quite a bit to get him. Good. It's Joanne Johnson against the San Francisco 49ers. You put him right into your lineup. This is probably their second target in their receiving game. Yes. He's their slot wide receiver. And you don't usually get that from a tight end. That's what we saw in week one. 34.

Of his 74 snaps were in the slot. They played so fast. I mean, 99% of team snaps is awesome. But the fact that he wasn't there to block, he was out there running routes. It was like 96% route participation. Unbelievably great. He was fifth most among all players in week one in those slot snaps. And he had a 24% target share, fourth highest among all tight ends. Now you've got a matchup against San Francisco where their defense is not the defense it used to be. The usage is so unbelievable that I'm not really worried about him falling flat. I think his floor is pretty high. Now, will he get a touchdown and have a dominant, like, oh my gosh, Juan Johnson won me my week? I don't expect that with Spencer Rattler. But in a position where you're just not sure if you're going to end up with a point or five, I feel like the baseline here in any kind of half-PPR league is like, you've got a six-point...

base where if he has a real bad game, it's going to catch enough balls. And if he breaks one tackle does something special, you can get to double digits pretty easy. The mustache is worth the start of the week anyways. Is he rocking a mustache? Oh yeah. I haven't seen it. Oh, yeah. Hold on. Hold the bone. He looks chiseled. Oh, man. Look at this guy with the mustache. I'm moving him up the rankings right now. I told you we. Look, some of our analysis is database. Some of it is. Wow. We have very pro mustache. I'm seeing a picture of him next to the character from Severance. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, it's pretty stellar. The solution for poor quarterback play when we're talking about fantasy football is just an overabundance of snaps and plays. And that's what the Saints gave us last week.

And that is what Kellan Moore has historically done. My tight end start of the week, it's Kyle Pitts. It is Kyle Pitts. Eight targets turned into seven for 59. That was the tight end 12 on the week. I mean, finishing as a top 12 tight end where you're not scoring. Like that's, you'll take that because then you actually have true upside. He lined up in the slot on 49% of his snaps, ran a route on 81% of the Atlanta Falcons dropbacks. which would be, that's fourth in terms of the tight end position. And I expect that Minnesota is going to create a game script where they will have to throw. So Kyle Pitts, I'd stay with it. All right, I'm going to go with Brenton Strange against the Bengals. This is a lot. I like this one. It's a little about Strange, who was involved, very involved in week one, but it's a lot about the Bengals who.

You know, until they prove otherwise, I'm going to believe that they don't know the opposing team starts tight-ins because they were the worst. I mean, Harold Fanon. Everyone, like, we are. Yeah, and the joke. Yeah, I was saying, like, we're so, the world is so excited for Harold Fanon. I think, justifiably so, but it's like, he was playing against the Bengals. Last year, the Bengals were dead last and fantasy points given up to tight-ins. And in week one, they're 29th, and they give up over 15 points to tight-ins. So I'm... I'm really chasing that. It's a great matchup, a great situation. The Bengals defense sucks, and Britain Strange seems like he's needed and necessary for the offense. You know, he had 59 receiving yards in week one. That was a team high. He caught all four of his targets, and he'll probably get another four to five, if not more, with the red zone chance. I'm going to go with Britton Strange. If you lost Dallas Goddard, there's a chance that Brent and Strange was not picked up as everyone went after Fanon and Joanne Johnson.

Absolutely. So that was Starts of the Week, presented by Paramount Plus. Paramount Plus is the streaming home to the NFL on CBS. Get started at Paramount Plus.com slash NFL. We'll take a break and jump into the forecast. All right, you blink and week two, here we are. Fantasy Forecast, presented by prize picks. We get to talk about that matchup right away. Jacksonville, 1 and 0. traveled to Cincinnati who had seven total yards in the second half of their victory, who are also on a know. And Vegas has Cincinnati three and a half point home favorites. The over under is 48 and a half. Very nice. I believe it's the, it's tied right now for the highest of the week. The Green Bay Washington game is also. Oh, no 50s? Nope, not yet. They're usually a little more, more rained in because we don't know what's going on yet. Both of these teams were, they're one and no.

And yet we were bummed mostly. Correct. By both of them in week one that we thought, you know, we'd see higher scoring affairs. The Bengals offense was incredibly boring. Nothing explosive. They couldn't do anything. Burrow targeted his wide receivers a career low, 39% of the time last game. So you had a lot of, you had the tight ends involved, right? Noah Phant was getting passes in Gisicki and Chase Brown. And then Lawrence, you know. He was okay, but Brian Thomas Jr. It just didn't work out. I think he was like, what did he catch? Two of seven targets or something like that? One of seven targets. I'm looking. Yeah, he was seven targets, one of seven. Seven targets, one for 11. So not good. And Travis Hunter, he had the most targets on the roster, but nothing big. So we're supposed to see him play a little bit more defense this week. But let's start at the quarterback position. It should be.

You're playing Burrow. A bounce back for Burrow and Chase and Higgins, right? Yeah, for sure. I mean, Jaguars last year were ranked dead last against quarterbacks. This is, you know, they might look a little bit more scary if you're looking at your platform. Like, oh, the strength of schedule. It's one week and they played against Bryce Young who looked abysmal. So, yeah, no one is benching Joe Burrow after one bad week. But what about Lawrence? Lawrence is to me. someone that if you're really, really not confident in your quarterback, he is a waiver wire guy that you could put in there. But he's primarily more of like a two QB. I think he's a good quarterback two this week. So Trevor Lawrence or Drake May? Drake May. Bo Nix against the Colts. I'm going to stay with Bo Nix another week. Okay. And I'll go one tier down. Let's go J.J. McCarthy. That's interesting. Yeah, I think I go Lawrence there.

had such an incredibly good fourth quarter, but he still showed kind of the early game jitters, the rookie. That was a tough matchup against. And now he's at home. Just saying, I think those two might end up closer than people would think. I mean, they are like back to back in my rankings. Oh, perfect. Is that true? NFL, NFC offense player of the week. Yeah, he was. He was. I thought it was a little. egregious i mean he played great for a quarter and he led the team to a comeback i get that but someone else had to have been better that's what i was trying to think about in the nFC it's like i'm oh yeah kind of struggling to find some maybe that's that must be why i mean nobody's jumping out you're right so it was pretty bleh week of football chase brown while the bengals did not put up the points

Oh, yeah. I would have gone Daniel Jones. Daniel Jones is in the AFC. Oh, God. Jason. A couple of idiots. I got you. No, that's Jason's fault. He's just throwing out names. Derek Henry. Guys. Goodness. Do you know how good he was? Jason in his conferences. Yeah. Chase Brown, 52% of the team's total Russian attempts and targets. Look at the workload, not necessarily at the, you know, Bengals offense in week one that was slowed down frequently. Chase Brown is a must start. Travis CTN's Jason start of the week. Brian Thomas Jr., I said it, seven targets, just one catch, had a rushing touchdown. He'll be okay. They'll figure out ways to get him in the football. Jason Higgins are in your lineup. Travis Hunter, is he a flex play this week? Would you play? Would you play him over Judy? Ooh. Travis Hunter, like I said, he led the team in targets. He had eight targets in this game, just nothing. They could not break a big play. He was really close to one big broken play. I'm fine having Brian Thomas Jr. and Travis Hunter both as like,

just wash away week one and expect what you expect with great talent. That's wild that between them, they caught four of 15 targets. The thing is about Trevor Lawrence, I don't remember if I brought this up on air or if it was when we were watching football on Sunday or whatever, but he reminds me a lot of Kyler Murray in the sense that he is not a bad quarterback, but he will never be a great quarterback. And they all, both of them, they have their games where they just look, you go, wow. Okay, he's figuring this out. Last week it was not, Trevor Lawrence was not dialed in. But if Trevor Lawrence comes out and looks dialed in against this Bengals matchup, it's going to be a really, really. I don't. No. Yeah. No. Yeah, I feel it. You're not. No, I feel it. Feel deeper. I feel it. Think more. Andy's almost upset of the week. Two weeks in a row. It's a good sign. I don't mind it. Two weeks in a row. A little absurd.

Week one, it hit, though. It covered. I mean, it's 1716. You can't be more of an almost upset than the team that absolutely should have won the game. Losing by one. I'm going to go with it. We talked about Britain Strange, and then there's too many tight ends in Cincinnati to care about any of them. The Giants are 0 and 1. They take on the 0 and 1 Dallas Cowboys in a divisional battle. Now, what division is that, Jay? That would be. NFC. Okay, how about this? That's a conference. I'm looking for the division. Oh, the east. Yeah. How about this? How about this? Going back to the JJ McCarthy or Christian McCaffrey. Oh, no, it'd be McCarthy for sure. Yeah. What? Yeah, Mike agrees. Yeah. That's ridiculous. I mean, accumulating a bunch of like short catches does not win you an offensive player of the week. You got the, it wasn't even close. It's hearing the whole offense. He did, but the impact of.

on the road first start coming back of the fourth i would go on the road getting to win yeah like mcalfrey no no not even close his performance macabry's performance was not special no he does that all the time he should be at every week then i mean he does that every single week if you had a breakaway touchdown run or you did something he has to score twice to get it yeah i mean jaden daniels deserves it over him last week for sure okay um but you did get the right conference on that one thank you giants own one dallas own one

Dallas four and a half point favorites over under is 44 and a half. Wild fact for you. Dak Prescott has won 13 straight games. No way. Against the Giants. No way. That is a lot. 13 straight. That's insane. That is the longest win streak. Any quarterback has had against a single opponent since, and we can probably remember this one, Brady against Buffalo. There was a time when Brady won 13 in a row against Buffalo. That's blowing my mind right now. It really is. It's wild. He is, yeah, Brian Dable is 0 and 6 against the Cowboys. Well, that makes sense. Well, but DAC hasn't always been there, but they still managed to lose. Look, on paper right now, you got Russell Wilson starting this game. You know, Tyrone Tracy, if you want to look at week one, this was a game where they played the commanders. Tyrone Tracy dominated the touches and the snaps. 74% of snaps. 74%.

It didn't go anywhere. And Scataboo's didn't either on his limited touches. But Tracy is the workhorse right here right now. So he is for now. The hard thing for Tracy is with overtime scataboo, I believe will eat into the workload. Maybe Tracy remains the 1A or whatever. But are the giants, you know, as the transition of the giants are moving from Russ to. to Jackson Dart, which will happen. I'm not sure which week. But it's like by the time that happens, and then we have more hope for the Giants, has Scataboo taken into a 1B? Because if Tracy's still dominating, the touches. Well, what about just on this week? Just against the Dallas Cowboys. I would, I don't want to start. Here's the problem. We don't have a lot of options running back in fantasy right now.

People are playing Dobbins out there. People are putting Nick Chubb out there. I play Daqler tonight or? I would play Echler. I would play Echler. What about Bill? No. I would play Bill. I would play Tracy. I'm starting to think Bill has a better game than Echler tonight. Oh, this was after yesterday's, it was like everybody but Bill. Do you want a formal, formally. Bill Prossi this thing? I think if the commanders have a good game. against the Packers, it will be because of Bill Krosky. Well, we're going to watch. We're going to see. Javante Williams. Javante Williams had two touchdowns in week one. 33% of the team's total rushing attempts and targets. Anything over 30% on that number is truly elite. Yeah, if you have, like I'd play Javante over Tracy. Oh, of course. The Javante, you'll be playing him. The thing to watch, honestly, is more, is Jaden Blue still at healthy scratch?