Week 1 Studs & Stinkers + Russ Cooks, Mike Cries - Fantasy Football Podcast for 9/14

Yeah. Did not. Trubisky pulled a space jam and stole all his powers. Yeah, it was a complete flip-flop. So Trubisky, shout out for the Great Fantasy Day. No interceptions, which is crazy. But then I think about those first three quarters. Are they in a start? Three or four or no? They've got the Giants next week. We'll see what happens tonight with the Giants. But they've got a shot at home against the Giants next week. I'd have my, I'd be betting on the Bears. Yeah, we'll see. We still haven't seen the Giants. So we'll see. It's fair. Mitch Tribisky MVP. All right.

Kyler Murray at San Francisco, 26 for 40, 230 yards, one touchdown, had a second one that was called back. Hopkins got dragged down on the one-inch line. And then the big headline was the rushing yardage. I mean, 91 rushing yards. He was over 100. Yeah. Look, all right, fantasy people, NFL, whoever I need to speak to about this. Are you talking about the?

Neal down yards should not count against a quarterback. It is, it's ridiculous. If you want to put it in some kind of official box score somewhere to hide away, I don't care. Fine. I agree with you. But like for fantasy purposes, it should not count. It's a, it's a, I'm giving up. The reason this is coming up in that level of anger is that for the first time, I can remember.

Cliff Kingsbury had Kyler Murray take the kneel downs in shotgun. So he went from 100 rushing yards to 91 on two plays. So he lost nine rushing yards. On two, not just plays. These are positive plays in the context of the game. They are doing the right thing. Yeah. I mean, you should at least snap it to like the fullback and let him take the knee. If you're going to do it in shotgun. There's the answer or a wider. Oh, man.

A backup wide receiver. But Kyler had a monster day again against San Francisco. But let's talk about Cam Newton, 15 for 19. It didn't really seem to have, you know, you would have expected a hopefully better passing day against Miami. Doesn't matter. But 15 rushing attempts is the headline. Cam Newton's never had a season when he's played 16 games and not been a top five quarterback. So a healthy Cam Newton getting the opportunity.

You know, that's what we wanted to see. When we wondered about Cam Newton being the quarterback of New England, it was, will he run the ball? Because when he runs the ball, he's Cam Newton. Yep, this is why Cam Newton was, he just de factoed into my favorite late round quarterback. You guys know this. I drafted him all over the place in our leagues together as the last quarterback off the board. Late round, I want a quarterback that runs. And we weren't sure. You couldn't say with 100% confidence, is Cam Newton going to run? Is he actually healthy?

15 for 75 and two touchdowns. And to give context, it'd be fair to Cam Newton, he should have had a passing touchdown. But Nikiel Harry decided that as he's going into the end zone, instead of scoring points for his team, for the New England Patriots, he figured, ah, we have enough points. I'm just going to throw this ball through the end zone and turn it over. I actually think he did it on accident, Mike. Well, tomato tomato. Okay. Other.

Quarterbacks I'm going to mention quickly. Matt Ryan had a million passing yards, 54 passing attempts. This is exactly what Matt Ryan always does. You can count on him for yardage. Three wide receivers with over 100 yards each. Gardner Minshu. Gardner Minshu was 19 for 20 in this game. Just 173 total passing yards. Three touchdowns. He's the first player to ever throw at least three touchdowns and complete 95% of his passes.

Oh, in week one? It is such a specific stat. What a stupid stat that is. You know, whose first name is Gardner. We always go into week one, you know, wondering who's going to throw three touchdowns at a 95% completion rate. It's not ever. Kyle. Kyle. Kyle. Kyle, why do you got to put that stat in when I could have been over here just gloating about Gardner Minshu playing extremely well and winning the game? And then you've got to submarine the whole argument with this.

Just way too specific statistics. Yeah, that does make, that does kind of take away from the Gardner win shoe. Yeah. Flex. Except he did win and he threw one incomplete pass. And when you say he did win, you're not just, I mean, I, you know, obviously week one, but last year too, he actually won games with the Jaguars. He is playing for his job, right? Because if they're supposed to be in the mix.

you know, for the stud rookie quarterback to replace him. And if he wins games, he's no longer in the mix. Yeah, they have Tennessee on the road next week. So that'll be interesting for Gardner to see what he can do. But then Miami and the Bengals, this is what we highlighted Gardner as, if you want to take a late round chance on Gardner Minshu, he has a lot of very positive matchups to start the season. Running back studs to talk about. Oh, hi, Joshua. Yes. Josh Jacobs.

25 for 93, three touchdowns, four for 46. Yes. That's the big news. That is big news. I'm not sure he had a game last year with four receptions. I'm almost positive he didn't. Six targets. This is what we were saying that coming into year two for great running backs who didn't catch the ball in week one, they get utilized in the passing game more in year two. And so Andy's my guy looking.

Pretty good. 76.6% of snaps more than in any game in 2019 to start the year. Now let's see you do it against New Orleans and New England and Buffalo in the next three. Oh my goodness. That's going to be tough. Christian McCaffrey, Rahim Moster, Zeke. Big games from those three guys. Moster, really, the majority of his game was made on one huge play, a 76-yard passing, receiving touchdown. We talked a little bit this weekend.

Mostert's in that position where I wouldn't say that you have to go like trade or, you know, Rahim Mostert, but there is an opportunity to cash in on a game where Tevin Coleman had limited reps. McKinnon actually looked good and he took all but one of the third down snaps in this game. So if Moster gives up some of first and second down to Tevin Coleman and McKinnon has a, you know, stranglehold on third down, you might be able to cash in here. They do have the Jets, Giants, and Eagles next.

Mostard is the, he was the same guy he was last year where it's not. He's so fast. He's not as much work as you're hoping that Rahim Moster is going to get. Now the five targets was pretty nice. Yeah. But I agree with you that I don't, I'm not expecting five targets a week for Mostert. But his touches, they seem to be capped in generally in that 12 to 15 range. You're going to get great games like this, but you will also get, uh, like Mostert's going to find his way into Monday Punday.

as having bad games, probably just as much as his good games. Yeah. And when you say he's fast, Andy, per next-gen stats, he reached a top speed of 22.73 miles per hour, which is the fastest speed over the last three seasons. I didn't know that, Jason. He's very fast. Yeah, and that's the nice thing. If you have limited touches, but you are, you know, C.J. Spiller, top speed, you can still have those games. CJ Spiller? Did I just reference? That's the reference. Not like...

I just remember him getting limited touches and doing things sometimes. All right. Tomorrow's the big waiver show. But Naim Hines, seven for 28 on the ground, eight for 45 through the air, highly debated player this past off season. But, you know, we believed in Naim Hines because.

of Philip Rivers. And the tendency, and it didn't just extend to Naim Hines. It extended to Malcolm or Marlon Mack. And it extended to Jonathan Taylor because when in doubt, he finds that running back route. If he wants to throw to his team, it's got to be under 10 yards. Thank you, Mike. I mean, you know, he is really good at throwing under 10 yards and keeping it to his team. So I think the running backs are going to be.

a great option. And if he wants to air it out, then that other team is in play for every single one of those balls. It wasn't a pretty performance. What was interesting and nice to see if you're just looking for fantasy purposes here, Heinz was not just, this wasn't like, oh, next man up, Marlon Mack leaves the game, now let's get Heinz involved. Oh, no, Heinz was already a large part of the game plan. He was in a...

Go line packages too. He was in right away. Like he was in before Jonathan Taylor even saw his first professional snap. Yeah, this was supposed to be a one-two punch. Right. And it was a one-two punch. But it was supposed to be with Jonathan Taylor and it wasn't. It was with Naim Hines. That's such a good point to bring up, Mike. Well, and to be fair, Taylor, even though he didn't play in the first half, had more carries than Naim Hines. So it's more, it's about those receiving opportunities for Naim Hines. Yeah, I'm not saying Heinz takes over the primary rushing.

situation. I'm saying that Heinz was a game plan for Philip Rivers to check down to his running back and those opportunities will go up. Dalvin Cook, Alvin Camara, Clyde Edwards-Alero. We've talked about these guys before and they're very good at football. Chris Carson, only six carries in this game. This is a bit of a... Let me get your reaction to Chris Carson because he only had 12 total touches. Six of them through the air, which was great. He scored twice. So the stat line, incredible.

You only play 28 snaps in this entire game. Concerned. Concerned. Yes, you certainly need to be concerned. If I could. So you would react to this with a cell. I, no, this is not, I'm immediately going out and trading Chris Carson. This is not that type of overreaction, but it's a, I'm certainly going to put feelers out or be very receptive if somebody sees Chris Carson's stat line.

They drafted Austin Echler or someone who had a lower fantasy output and they want to immediately go grab a running back. I got a trade for you. I would be willing to listen to it. What is it? Mike, would you trade Chris Carson for Jonathan Taylor? Yes. Okay. Yes, I would do that. Would you include something with Chris Carson to go get Jonathan Taylor? Probably not. Okay. You'd put that out then. Here's what is concerning because Carlos Hyde ended up with more carries. Travis Homer.

Remember Travis Homer? Oh, yeah. He was on the field for 13 snaps. Both Carlos Hyde and Travis Homer saw carries inside the five. You know who did not? Starting running back, Chris Carson. That's why you have to at least have a little bit of concern. When you're running back was on the field that low and received that little of opportunities, then you should at least be mildly concerned. But he also looked good.

Sure. So it wasn't any, you know, opportunity and talent. The talent side was there. So this is one of those where, yeah, you can go out and look to sell, but you're not looking to sell. You're looking to sell high. You're looking to capitalize and upgrade the position, not just sell to get rid of him because you're afraid he's going to suck. And I got cold feet with Chris Carson in our League of Record draft. I wasn't, I went James Connor over him. And I was worried because of the.

I thought DJ Dallas would be involved in on third down. I didn't expect it to be Travis Homer, but I thought that they would share the load a little bit. And then right before game time, Pete Carroll talked about maybe kind of a hot hand approach with Carlos Hyde. So it's a great game from Carson production-wise. But like Jason said, you need to go try to sell high because, you know, New England and Dallas on the docket next could be difficult. Yep. So waiver wire show tomorrow. Malcolm Brown's going to be in the discussion, in my opinion.

I watched every snap of that football game. Absolutely. I'm a big Cam Acres fan out of college. I will tell you your eyes aren't lying to you. Malcolm Brown was definitively the better running back on every one of his snaps compared to every one of Cam Acres snaps last night. 18 carries for 79 and 2. 3 for 31 on 4 targets, which is a headline there. Designed screen plays for Malcolm Brown, two touchdowns. Right now, he looked like they had Todd Gurley.

in the normal rotation. Yeah, they seem like they weren't missing an absolute ton. The one concern here for Malcolm Brown for how in you are going to be on Malcolm Brown from going in on for the waiver wire. Acres still touched the ball a ton. He was not nearly as efficient as Malcolm Brad, but he was still heavily involved. Acres could easily end up taking this job. And on top of that, at Philly, at Buffalo.

that's not really prime matchups for a running back in a timeshare. It's going to be interesting because all the high value situations so far have been Brown. Goal line, third down, waste the clock out. But, you know, Acres is a rookie. Yeah. To me, Malcolm Brown looked like C.J. Anderson, which I was a fan of back of the day. Like good C.J. Anderson? Yes, like, yes. No, like good.

When I talk about C.J. Anderson, I'm talking about good C.J. Anderson. I only remember the good. Andy. I was a big C.J. Anderson fan. All right. Let's go through these wide receivers here. Calvin Ridley, Julio Jones, Russell Gage, all with nine receptions from Matt Ryan, all with over 100 yards, all with 12 targets. They all went back to the locker room very pleased with themselves. In a loss. In a loss. Yeah. So Russell Gage, he'll probably be talked about tomorrow. He was somebody that,