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

you know, filled the target vacuum. Yeah, his name was supposed to be Hayden Hurst, but it was Russell Gage being used as that next target guy. Obviously, they're not going to play the Seahawks every week. I think that was part of it. Russ being on fire meant they're going to have to air it out both directions, but it was, I mean, what a Falcon day this was? Yeah. Julio Jones with 157 yards and no touchdowns. Calvin Ridley with two touchdowns.

As expected. Yeah, and Matt Ryan with 450 passing yards. Devonthe Adams is good. So is DeAndre Hopkins. Both of them with 14 receptions, 150 plus yards, 16 targets for Hopkins, 17 for Adams. So far, Hopkins target share is up. Yes. Look, I needed to clarify something about my concerns for DeAndre Hopkins target share. I was worried that what he received in Houston was actually too low.

Like he was going to come to Arizona and get away. 40% of his routes. It was very smart. This was. And his target share was higher than that. His target show was actually 44% on the week. 40% of the total targets went to DeAndre Hopkins. Yeah, this is. And he caught almost all of them. If he was always open. And look, Christian Kirk was not getting open. Larry Fitzgerald, are we playing the music again?

So I was trying not to overreact, but this will be a rotten, stinky egg all over my face if we're seeing 40% of the targets going to Hopkins. Yeah, it's one week, but it's the week that you would have expected more of a struggle. Richard Sherman, San Francisco, first week with Kyler. Oh, oh. Yeah, not a problem for that. I think Bill O'Brien's got any regrets? Oh, no. That man doesn't regret anything.

All right, Adam Thielen big week. Robbie Anderson, Jameson Crowder. Both had big touchdowns, yeah. Robbie Anderson, we have to remember. He's been dealing with... Number two. For a long time. So coming out from beneath that situation. Crawling out of the mud? I'm just saying there's no stink on him anymore. And six for 115 and one, targets evenly distributed among...

DJ Moore, Curtis, Samuel, Robbie Anderson. That's the bigger news. Robbie Anderson is as explosive as DJ Moore is. So if opportunity is there, he could still be a good player. Yeah. Only one week of seeing this completely brand new offense for us with Matt, or head coach Matt Jaw Rule. But it was a very even distribution between the three wide receivers, which, I mean, for fantasy purposes, that can turn into trubs because you're just always chasing the dragon of who had the huge week.

I do wonder if this is going to be the recipe for Carolina. Some close kind of high-flying type of games where they can't quite outscore the opponent but are going to have a lot of passing opportunities. It'll be interesting. MvS and Alan Lazard. First reaction to the non-Divante Adams weapons.

Who do you want in this offense? Four for 96 for MBS, four for 63 for Alan Lazard, both of them probably on waiver wires. Yeah, if I had to pick one of them, I think I would still lean on the Lazard side. But I think you can flip a coin. I'm going to pick neither of them. I still think that this was more on the Minnesota Vikings than on themselves. And I could be wrong there, but I don't think I'm rushing out to grab either one, even though they...

They both had fine fantasy games week one. Okay. And then tight ends. Mark Andrews is great. Dallas Goddard is kind of the one I want to talk about. Eight for 101 and one on nine targets. Ertz was just three for 18. He did have seven targets, but three for 18, very disappointing, especially since the touchdown came very early in the game for Zach Hertz. It seemed like, great. This fourth, fifth round tight end that I drafted is going to be sensational for me, week one.

Oh, except the tight end two is the one who's coming through with the huge game. Are you saying, is he the tight end? Yeah, he's the tight end too. Okay. Look. We've seen these games before. And again, it's week one. If it happens in week four, we're like, rolling in our eyes. But I don't know that we've seen these combined with all of the very negative contract talks that are spilling out of Philadelphia. It's true. Zackert's getting in our, allegedly,

getting in arguments with the brass for Philadelphia. He's seeing everybody get paid and they aren't paying him. Let me ask you this, Mike. Are you dropping Blake Jarwin for Dallas Goddard? Will you see what happens? I would be willing to do that, yes. I'm afraid you might say that to any tight end I say out loud though right now in comparison. You're afraid that I may say that? All right. Let's move on.

Stinkers of the Week, presented by odor eaters. Let's get stinky. We won't get stinky for too long, but let's do this. Let me set the precedent here for Stinkers of the Week this week, which we're excited to bring back your way, sponsored also by... Number two. And so I want to know if you're worried or not. So I'll bring up some bad stat lines. Everybody has a bad week, but I want to know if you think it's indicative of a...

a trend on the way or maybe something you saw on film that made you believe that fantasy football players should be worried. At the quarterback position, Jared Goff last night, 20 for 31, 275, no passing touchdowns, which happened quite a bit last year. You had these games where Jared Goff had okay numbers, but just somehow did not.

you know, getting to the end zone. Well, you know, last year the reason was because of Todd Gurley's insane rushing touchdown numbers. They just had the ability to score on the ground. And lo and behold, week one, that's the same thing that happened. Malcolm Brown with two rushing touchdowns took the scoring opportunities away from Jared Goff. I'm not too worried about the future of golf. I'm not worried about it either. I mean, you drafted him to be a quarterback too. If you have him, like you're

in a super flex league or you took the chance on him very, very late. Did Robert Woods go down on like the one or something? Not quite the one, but he had a play where he was. He got very close. In the first drive, yeah. You just, the touchdowns went to Malcolm Brown on these really easy two-yard in rushes. So no, I'm not overly concerned about it. Outside of Robert Woods, there really wasn't any pass-catching weapon that had any real numbers there. Higby Cup.

Everett, Van Jefferson, and none of them. Reynolds. Yeah, Reynolds. So not very worried. What about Dak? Are you worried about Dak? One passing touchdown. I am not. Should I had another. Did you guys weigh in on the Gallup catch? I mean, to me, that should not have been called. Oh, the offensive PI? Oh, yeah. I mean, that's a veteran. I give Ramsey credit for the way he.

There's some showmanship. Either he is really weak or he played that up a little bit. No, he played that up. There were two calls that I took issue with because I feel like if you're in the last 30 seconds of a game or something like that, you can't call tiki tack. You've got to call the penalties that are real and legit. But if it's kind of like...

These guys are playing a little extra hard. You got to let the players make the plays. And that would have been the AJ Green touchdown at the end. And the Michael Gallup. I feel like the Gallup one just equaled out. You're always going to have inconsistency with the referees. And then Jared Goff had that interception where he was hitting the face that they didn't fix. That was insane that they didn't see that. Drew Breeze, kind of a stinker. I mean, one for 160 and 2.

Yeah, it was... Michael Thomas wasn't around. It was very bizarre, but the Buccaneers are a good defense. I'm not going to bail out on Drew Brees yet. Carson Wentz from the moment I tweeted on, very bad. If you stop tweeting about him, maybe I'm back in. I'll try. I'm sorry, Carson. Look, we kind of expected this once things...

you know, trended that all of a sudden, oh, Lane Johnson, not playing. Yeah. I mean, their offensive line was already a problem heading into week one. Then you lose another starting lineman. And Boston Scott. And you combine that with Washington is very strong up front. And they got better. They added Chase Young, who's just a, uh, look, this dude is a stud. This kid is going to be great. You knew that that was going to be a problem.

for Carson Wentz, and it caught up to him in the second half. You did, but it's not like next week he's playing against Aaron Donald or anything. So I think you're going to, oh, hold up. Wait a minute. He's playing against Aaron Donald. Maybe sit Carson Winst next week with this offensive line where he's, because I think part of the problem for Dak was Aaron Donald. I mean, part of the problem for any quarterback playing against Aaron Donald. He's unbelievable. Baker Mayfield.

So you can go two directions here. This is same old Baker from last year, 189 and 1. By the way, he targeted Odo Beckham 10 times, and they only completed three passes. This was disgusting, but it was Baltimore. It was Baltimore, and it was the same old show for Baker Mayfield that we saw last year. It was the same show for Odo Beckham, where Beckham had two drops. It's a bad show. Yeah, it was, I wanted to change the channel on this show. I get a refund on that ticket.

And this is one where you've got to try not to overreact, but it's hard, man. It's going to be really difficult to not overreact to that. That's exactly how I feel. I keep telling myself, it was Baltimore. It was Baltimore. But then you watch and you're like, but what it was last, you saw this. I mean, he just looked identical to last. My take on the Browns was that you have to show me first. So if you saw what you saw from the Browns last year, you've got to prove you're not that team this year. Oh for one on that attempt. Yeah.

So you're out until they win you over. Yeah. Yeah. If you want to know what the opposite of DeAndre Hopkins moving to a new team is. Odell Beckham. It's Odell Beckham. Tyrod Taylor. Yeah. Ryan Fitzpatrick. Yeah. I mean, look, he's Ryan Fitzpatrick. He's playing the Patriots. Well, it didn't always hurt him. No, I know, but no one's, I don't know why we're wrapping on Fitzpatrick. Because he had a bad game.

Running backs. Are you worried? We're going to laundry list this real quick. Are you worried about Nick Chubb? No. I'm worried about Joe Mixon, 19 for 69 against the Chargers defensive front. No, I'm not. Devin Singletary. Yep. You see, the thing is, he did have 14 touches in this game. To me, I'm a little bit encouraged by that. I wasn't sure how, I mean, make no mistake, Zach Moss was heavily involved, but Moss didn't look good either.

Yeah, the seven targets are encouraging for Singletary, not encouraging all the offseason hype from their camp of, as soon as we're by the goal line, Zach Moss is going to be the guy. True. That turned out to be very true. So that is concerning. All right. Here's a big one. Mark Ingram. It's 10 for 29. Are you actually concerned here? I am concerned because the eyeballs said he looked different. He looked slow. You know, we had on a.

very recent show, I think it was maybe on Friday. The question was asked, can J.K. Dobbins play his way into more of the starter? And it was like, best case scenario is just an equal time share with Mark Ingram, because Mark Ingram is very good. He did not look good. And this was not a defense. He just looked a little slower, a little older. And I was surprised. And then Dobbins also looked great. Well, Dobbins was not great on the ground. Well,

But he scored twice. He scored twice. That's the big problem. In seven carries, he was getting high leverage opportunities. And that's where Mark Ingram was great. And there was concerns for Mark Ingram's touchdown regression. And so far that has kicked him right in the butt. I'm going to give it one more week. I want to see what happens next week against Houston to decide whether this team is ready to move forward with more of a committee.

All right, Mike. Are you worried about Antonio Gibson? Only 23% of the snaps, 9 for 36. Only two targets. It feels really bad because it's week one. The hype was real. You're really, really hoping that Antonio Gibson is going to break out immediately. But this is, I am definitely taking a breath saying we expected them to be in a committee. We expect veterans to get some run. And.

No one was necessarily great. I mean, Peyton Barber, I mean, I don't know. I don't like the argument of you're trying to grind out the clock, so that's why you're getting one to two yards per carry. Like, if you're really grinding, if you're good and you're grinding out the clock, you're instilling your will on the other team. You're not just getting shut down. You're not taking three downs and punting the ball. Like Peyton Barber.