Hungry For More + Cooper Heads to Buffalo! - Fantasy Football Podcast for 10/16

good rest of season start because of course he has he who shall not be named trying to throw him the ball and I do mean trying but like Amari Cooper has been super super disappointing I think the difference here is like if if nooku was a wide receiver I'd be pretty much out like Judy right exactly but like it's not just a matter of depth of field it's a matter of what's the what's the bar you have to hop to be a good start because if you could have started Amari Cooper as a tight end, you'd be like, dude, yes, because tight ends suck. That's absolutely true. And like Nijoku, before he got hurt, he only played 37% of snaps in week one, still finished top 10 tight in, was 4 for 44 in like a quarter of the game. He was. And then last week seven targets, I am still of the opinion that I would grin and bear it and put him in my lineup. So Cincinnati this week, but then at Baltimore, the Chargers, biweek, the Saints, Pittsburgh, Denver, Pittsburgh.

Kansas City. Those are almost all good for tight ends. I know that they're good defenses like Baltimore is a good defense. Kansas City is great defense. Kansas City is like the worst defense against tight ends. Just check down in garbage time. They're going to be in garbage time in every one of those games. He won't have 10 yards of reception. He'll dream of 10 yards of reception. But, you know, if you can get six, seven receptions at tight end on a weekly basis. Mike is hands off of anything that Voldemort's aura has touched. That is correct. I don't blame you. Thursday Night Breakdown. Also known as the Troy Franklin coming out party, baby. Oh, this Thursday. You're really, you're putting a lot into this. Look, I'm just happy that this. He caught a 20-yard pass. I'm happy that he's on the field. No, my bar is lower than that, Andy. It's baby steps right now. The fact that he, uh, yeah.

The fact that this is a rookie who has not been involved at all. And then last week, you know, got 65% of the snaps. The coach comes out and says, we're going to see more of him because we're a young team and we need to get our young players on the field. I think he is a talented player. I think he's dealing with a hard transition to the NFL. But the fact, you know, he got a touchdown last week. He's on the field. I just want to see him. I want to see him have the chance. I didn't think we were going to maybe ever see that based on how training camp went for him. Valet winning the job as a fellow rookie over him. And so now that he's on the field, I'm excited to see the chance. Well, Valet's on the field as well. Cortland Sutton's on the field. And the Saints matchup this week is an interesting one for, you know, the do you start anybody category. You know, Bub Means looks like he's.

the number one wide receiver. He means business for the New Orleans Saints. Busted. And, oh, hey, look at you. You got busted. I got busted. Bob Means was a fifth round pick. He went four for 45 in a touchdown last week. Hey, we have backup quarterback, backup wide receiver narrative in full forts right here. Well, and it's two rookies in this game, Spencer Rattler and Bo Nix. Um, I got a snake, man. This is a game where we don't have players to talk about, just buttons to push. Devon Valet or Bub Means. Who would you start in this game? Last week, Vela had been a healthy scratch previously, despite the fact that he won the job. Week one, Vela had eight targets, eight receptions, but just 39 yards. Last week played 62% of snaps, four for 78 with a 37-yard catch. So in the limited work we've seen of him,

Who would you rather play between those two? And I do mean, I'm not just, this is not a hypothetical that nobody has to think about. No, people have to. This is literally my choice. People have to think about it. And between those two, I would go Bub Means. Bo Nix, Bo Nix is a better quarterback than Spencer Rattler. However, you know, Rashid Shahid and Chris Olavay, you know, probably not playing with Bub Means there with the guy who has been. He's been practicing with him. Like Mike said, the backup quarterback and the backup wide receiver narrative, these guys have been working together. So I think Bob Means is not a good start because this is a very difficult Broncos defense. I don't think there are good starts here. The Saints defense is the easier defense to play against. Yes. We saw Baker carve it up. And you've got a better quarterback of Knicks. And so, but the bet, the bet feels bad on the Denver side because you don't know which guy is going to get the opportunities. So.

Cortland Sutton should be the primary read. I mean, so far to this season, he hasn't been phenomenal. But he's, you know, the last couple weeks, you're talking about, you know, the wide receiver 25, the wide receiver 24, two of the three weeks. He's getting the target share. Bow Nix is coming on. And this is, this is a one of those type of games where Sean Payton coming back to New Orleans. This is going to be an emotional game. And, you know, the team is. really going to want to do it for the Broncos. I think Sutton is an okay play. Denver is going to New Orleans. New Orleans is 2 and 4 now, Jason. So they went 2 and 0. We built you a little thermometer and they've lost four straight games. Denver's 3 and 3 right now. The DK Sportsbook line on the game is Denver minus 2 and a half on the road. So they're the favorites. So they have... The overrunner is just 37. 11 more games? Am I doing that right? Six. Yep. That's correct. So if they lose two more...

Wait, what I'm trying to do, math up? You're trying to see one week. Not that advance of math here. Okay, what is it? How many more games? They need to lose. So three more. They need to lose eight games. Eight games. Yeah, there you go. So look, I'm not worried. I'm not shaving my head for the reason of the Saints winning. But that means they got to go eight and eight and, no, eight losses will end it. So they need to go nine and three? Yeah, it's not happening. You should probably shave it anyways, though. Yeah, no, I know. I know. I was hoping I had an excuse that wasn't just my balding nature. Do you want to make some more bad bets? Because we could do some Troy Franklin stuff. I'll tell you what. If they get to five wins, I'll shave my head. You might be safe. Yeah, I think I would. I mean, the season has gone sideways there. Matthew Betts put out a tweet and he said the injury list for the Saints right now looks like a CVS receipt. You know, because you don't have car.

You still have a limited Camara. You don't have a lave. You don't have Shaheed. What's up with that? What's what's up with the CVS receipts? Why is it legal? Why is it legal for them to do that? What is just like an, you're trying to save the trees? It's very wasteful. If you want to save the trees, you can look at 1,000 businesses and change how they operate or just CVS. Because when I get a CVS receipt, it's like they receipts don't even feel like paper though. You know what I mean? That feels like. It feels like plastic. Santa Claus's list is shorter. I mean, I don't, look, hashtag not a sponsor either of these companies, but I'm a Walgreens mate. And Walgreens is like, do you want to email you the receipt? And I say, does it come as a giant email? That'd be amazing if you had to scroll. It's so far. It's individual. Everything is itemized just to individuals. Advertisements. I mean, the bottom of the CVS receipt is like the survey. It's coupons, right?

Yeah, I don't know. I don't read it. Nobody does. Hey, hey, do this survey for us and you might win $10. Oh, my gosh. But look, we've talked about a lot of things other than starting players in this game. Do you play? No. Giovante. I knew that was the name and no. Giovante Williams, who let's see. So last week, it was still, whatever. It was still 55% of the running back attempts. Oh, I knew that couldn't have been the yards. No, no, no. A 19% target share. Like this, his utilization is... He lost a fumble. Yes, he did. But it's elite utilization, or is this a... I wouldn't call six attempts elite utilization. And betting on him receiving the football is terrifying. But percentage... But percentage of the work is, like, this is how we get points. So it's just, do you...

You have been happy one time in six weeks and then on the road against New Orleans with Estimate back. That'd be the bet that I'd be betting against if you don't have another choice. The real question is, would you rather flex one of these dart throws at wide receiver or would you rather flex Javante? Well, I would never flex anyone on Thursday night football, Andy. They will be in my running back or wide receiver spot. Well, no, listen, that might be true. That might not be true. Really? I mean, we always tell you to do that, but sometimes you do get boxed in.

by the players that you have. I mean, if you're still waiting on another decision, you might get boxed in. But which would you play? I think I'd still play Javonte. Yeah. Three fantasy points. Yeah. I mean, really, it was terrible. Doing three fantasy points on six targets is an impressive feat in and of itself. Fumbling. Yeah. So there you go. There's five point. Mike would play Javante Williams. Mike, Javante Williams. Put those two things together in your brain. Yeah, this is a low scoring affair that without a defensive touchdown, I don't feel like it's going to get to 37 total points. Both defenses, right? Both defenses are in play. Alvin Camara obviously in play. And then outside of that, I mean, we talked about sudden, there's things to watch. There's a lot of things to watch. The youth movement for Denver, I'm excited to watch that. I want to see Velae. I want to see Franklin. I want to see Bo Nix. I want to see Estimate. I didn't hear Marvin Mims in there.

I want to see more of them in. You can want to see him. Same targets as Troy Franklin last week. Just throwing it out there. But, you know, outside of like what to watch for, mims for life, there's not a lot of fantasy relevant stuff here. We should do a senseless Mims Franklin bet just to have something to care about on Thursday night. Okay. And I realize I'm on the, like give me odds. Because of snap counts. He was 66. Mims was like 30 something. Same targets. Give me two to, you know. I'll give you a two point fantasy gap. Troy Franklin will outscore. All right, $100. $100. Unless the bet is null if no one scores any fantasy points. Oh, yeah, that's fine. If it's zero, zero? Yeah, because I'm not giving you the gap until my guy has at least two. Oh, okay. Couple dudes running routes, man. All right, I don't feel like I want to talk about anymore in this game. Play both defenses. Yeah. Let's take a break. We'll hit the mailbag.

All right, it's time to get you ready to win in week seven. Mailbag. Heck yeah, man. Sir, that, sir, sir, sir. That's my airspace. So no fly zone. I was supporting you. I was congratulating you. Yeah. I was waving from the from the ground looking at that beautiful jet flying overhead. You're saying I'm not allowed to wave. No support needed. Okay. Stay in your lane. Funny boy. I'm going to get a rocket launcher. Watch out for next week. Shoot those planes down. We have lots of questions. We've got a voicemail channel. We'll get into that. You can dial it. 302464 TFFB. Leave us a voicemail. You can go to the website, the fantasy footballers.com. Submit a question over there. We like to get you ready for the upcoming week, answer these questions. Our goal is never to tell you, you know, exclusively what to do.

Because every league is different. We're big on the context of your league, the scoring system, the amount of players you start, the other players you have on your team, the opponent you're playing. Our goal is to illustrate based on what we see on film, what we see in the box scores and all of the advanced metrics and kind of lay out the case for and against starting certain players and giving you the best odds because we don't know what's going to happen on Sunday. We just give you the best opportunity to make an informed decision. That's the goal here. Let's start with a voicemail question because we'd like to help with league issues as well. What's up, Ballers? My question, I'm the GM for my league, and I have a player who's inactive. Is it more fair to let him not set his lineup every week, or should I set him to the AI controlled and let the AI make changes for him, trying to figure out what is more fair for the league? Thanks. Yeah, I don't.

At first, I thought you were going to say, do you set the lineup? And I don't suggest that with you participating in the league. I like turning that into a game against the league median. That's the way that I would do it, as opposed to having the AI run and make decisions. The question was, we have a manager not setting their lineup. What do you do? It's actually very complex and difficult question. I think you're fine. If you're like, oh, the AI, we'll just. Whatever the projections for the platform is, that's the players that are going to go in. But that team might have a full roster right now. And next week, they may not. I mean, like, waiver moves have to be made for this team because. Buy weeks. Yeah, you're going to have the bye weeks. Injuries. And then someone's going to go up against that team and they're down two or three players. That doesn't feel very fair when someone had to play against a full team.

See, I understand that there's nuance. There's never going to be a great answer when you've got an inactive member. But you have to set the lineup to the best of that team's ability because let's say the schedule bears out and I don't play this guy anymore. But you sure do. And we're competing against the playoffs. Why do you get to play against a dead team and get an auto win? That's not good for the integrity of the league. I agree. Whoever plays against it. And so you could do it a number of different ways. You could do it like Andy said.

where you're just taking the league median, basically the average score of the league, and that if you are, you know, if you're one of the teams that scored in the top six, if it's 12 team league, or top five, if it's a 10 team league, then you would get the W against the fake opponent. I'm also fine just setting the lineup based on basically just like, what's the projection, set their best lineup, and then move forward. Yeah, unless you have to make waiver moves. Yeah, I mean, if you... That's the hard part is you probably will. Based on the way this season's going, Jason? So here would be my rule that I would say if you have to make waiver moves because they have by weeks or injuries or, you know, they can't feel the roster. I would say you wait until Saturday and then you pick up the whatever waiver asset has the highest projection for that position. Yeah, it's not bad. And that's it. That way it's a rule. This is no, this is no, you can't have someone making what they believe is a good decision or a bad decision. It's all just...

What is the projections of the platform? That's what they get and move on. Or alternatively. Yeah, the better option. Find somebody. Yeah, that's what I was going to say. Go to footclanleagues.com or do our Discord. Discord for the fantasy footballers. It's free. You can go to Discord. Find someone who wants to take this over. It's going to take this over. It's a lot of work to do the, like. It's a tough. It's a lot of work to do the, like. procedural, I'm going to sign this guy versus that guy. And, you know, it's tough. It's not an ideal situation. You really got to fix that in the offseason. But in the meantime, those are some other options you can go with. First question we got from X came in from Skyler. David Najokur Evan Ingram rest of season. I only want to roster one tight in. That's an easy of an ingram. Despite Andy and I believing in Najoku, they're very similar. Short.

you know, participation, heavy targets. One of them has a legitimately okay quarterback. Yeah, Nizoku's the much more athletic, explosive player. That's what we saw at the end of last year where he can take a short area target. And, I mean, man, his numbers were outrageous last year. Outrageous. Would you consider Nizoku over Ingram? No. Okay, I didn't think so. Nope. Maybe if they bench, like that is not impossible. Like, owners could bench. Make the call and bench Watson. That changes. I feel like owners are already making the call to not bench him. I mean, for now, for now. I'm just saying, like, at some point in time, the Ben Simmons situation happens. Give us James. And if James came in, like, it changes everything. That is very, it's a very big deal. And who knows? Jerry Judy could be relevant at that point in time. Instagram question from Steph is Nick Chubb in immediate start.

No, no, no, no, no. He is an absolute must grab mustache, but you have zero idea. Pierre Strong Jr. could end up with 65% of the work, and they give Chubb five carries to kind of test out the contact. You have no idea of the utilization. Let's not forget they're starting running back right now. Deonta Foreman. Oh. You think it'll be former? I think Pierce Stronger. At every turn, they have given him way too much opportunity. Yeah, the last week, it went pretty in Pierre Strong's favor, I think. He was 53% of snaps. Yeah, Foreman played 11 opportunities. Foreman played 35% of snaps. If you were a spot starting one of them, though, when you lost Ford, I mean, is that who you're going with strong? I think I would go strong. Just for past catching ability? Yeah, and they just, I mean, how many, how many weeks has Foreman actually, did you still have his thing pulled up? Sure, yeah. Like, done, not done stuff, but.

opportunities of note. You had that one crazy week. The last two weeks he's had 10 and 12 opportunities, which is still not a great number. Week two, he had 40, but I mean, he's, you know, he hasn't done anything with them to date. Would you start Giovante or Pierce Strong this week? I'd play Giovante. Man, those stink. I think I would go Javante. YouTube question. The Sacks loan writes in and says when you have a surplus. of one position in a lack of another, but our winning games is really worth making a trade to balance your team? Not to balance your team, but to improve your team. I'm not trying to just replace a running back with a wide receiver or a wide receiver with a running back of the same tier. What I'm trying to do is look and say, like, if I've got a guy on my bench that I can't really get into this position group, and I can package him with one of the other position groups to just make a serious upgrade?

I would do that almost every time. Yeah, the depth versus level up decision making that you have to do for your team is very hard. Because I always try to put some trust in the fact that I'm going to go find guys on the waiver wire that after a couple of weeks are valuable. There's been three times this year I've made trades that are two-for-one level-ups in our league of record. And they were contingent on somebody on my bench being good. You know, picked up Darnel Mooney off of the waiver wire. Darnal Mooney puts up a big game. He's part of a trade offer.

You know, you do free up when you do a two for one, three for one, you free up the opportunity to sign players. If you see weaknesses on your team, you should always be, you should, it was part of our 10 things to remember, right? You don't want to settle for what you think you have because it will change. The injuries this year have been outrageous. Yeah. Most players right now are stuck in a position of how do I fit enough players on my team because I don't have enough IR spots and. You know, do I have to trade an injured player to just free up an opportunity to start somebody? Jason has a couple of teams. I just want to die. My teams. I was looking at it. I'm shocked. You haven't traded those players to give you flexibility. Well, in some leagues, it's possible if you're a dynasty or keeper and others, because it's all of them right now. In others, people don't want an injured player. You know. Yeah, I got my own.

I don't need yours. Yeah, it's been tough. But to speak to the never being content when you're doing well, that was Mike's tip last year. He followed his practice and won in our dynasty league. Both of these two gentlemen who I apologize, both these two scumbags here. No, no, no, I'm pointing out you two, you two scumbags. All righty. Have just literally yesterday taking your own advice here and both you went out and added. an exceptional player to your different leagues, where Mike, you are the Dynasty League champion. You went out and you paid up for Christian McCaffrey. Yeah, I'm pretty scared about it. It's a risk, right? But you weren't resting on your laurels. You added him to the chance to back to back. And Andy, you did this Amari Cooper trade with other pieces, upgraded to Jamar Chase. You're just not resting on your laurels. Both of you have good teams. Both of you are in position to try to repeat those leagues.

What was your scumbags? What was your big move? Oh, I lost players, dude. I lost Chris Olbe. I lost. You just, you know, look at the injury report and then those are my moves. This start is wild to me, but I'm going to read it. Instagram says week seven, James Connor or Tank Bigsby. Bigsby's got New England in London. Connor, and he's obviously sharing some time with what Deerness? Deerness. Too much time last week. And then James Conner's Monday night at home against the Chargers, you know, this one's really, I'm on the Conner side, but maybe I'm biased. I'm on the James. You are wearing a shirt with James Connor right now. Concrete. Okay. That's pretty funny. It is probably James Connor. But it's the Monday night game, so we haven't heard anything yet out of Arizona. Regarding James Conner's health. Like, he's probably fine. What do you mean?

He got, he got banged up in the game and then DeMarcato played a, go look at the snaps. But it was also, the game, the game got out of control quick. They're saying it was game script, but it's James Connor. That's all I'm saying is, is wait, like, you need an actual practice report. If he, I didn't know he got hurt is what my face. He left. My face is saying, he came back. So, um, he came back, but then he, but then they were like, well, the game's out of hand, but that's a. Okay. It's a... I was unaware. I'm just reacting to the news. I thought he came out because they were down 600 to 3. Well, yeah, he left initially to... He got banged up. He did come back. But for the Cardinals... So he got his ankles taped and then fumbled. For the Cardinals to say, oh, the game's over and not play James Connor for that much of the game, that to me was enough for me to pay attention here of...

of to the practice reports tank and the split with tank and dearness johnson that was full on game script so when it's neutral it will be tank bigsby if they're if they're losing to the patriots by a lot it'll be dearness johnson don't think that that's the case but just pay attention to the practice sports as long as connor's good to go it's james connor it's a little bit closer tail than than we might think i mean if you look at the matchups as well new england has not done a good job stopping the run this year mostly because they're down and the other team gets to run a lot. And the Chargers have been one of the more difficult teams to run on, partly because they slow the game down and make it just ugly football where no one is happy. It's high-tee stuff. You've got to shut down the run. Tank Biggsby is a good play this week. I do think he's a good play. I expect them to win that game. That's also...

The full assumption is Travis ETN is out. Correct. With the hamstring. Correct. So, you know, wait for practice reports later in the week, probably James Connor. If he is missing fully, if he's like a did not participate on a Thursday, even if he's active, then I might switch to tank. Yeah, it's good information. I didn't realize. I thought, uh, thought he just came out after the fumble and they didn't bother putting him in. But it looks like he had his ankle taped. Yeah. Liam says D.K. Metcalf or Mike Evans rest of season. Ooh, I'm a Metcalf. I think I'm on the Metcalf side. They are playing so fast, so furious. Yeah. And it didn't work out with the 11 targets. We talked all about that game. Remember what happened? It was the weirdest stuff of D.K. Metcalf getting the play taken away from him, some weird drop PI questionable stuff.

But, and Gino Smith is playing excellent football. Yeah, there were two touchdowns that were hairlines away for D.K. McCaff. Right now, D.K. Matcalfe is on a 17-game pace of over 150 targets, over 1,300 yards. And I do think the touchdowns are coming because we've seen him be a touchdown machine in the past in his career, and they literally were right there last week. So I like D.K. quite a bit. I think he's a great trade-for candidate off of two mediocre weeks. Yeah, I'm for that. I'm with you guys. Reminder everybody, if your waivers went through this morning, which they did, check the players that were dropped. Yes. Drop it like it's hot this week, especially. Anytime buy weeks are going on, players are going to get dumped. And if you don't browse that, you're going to miss out on opportunities. So drop it like it's hot. Check it out. Tomorrow we'll get into starts of the week and the matchups and we'll get the parley partay out there and a whole lot more.

Check out Jointhefoot.com, become a member of our community of incredible Foot Clan supporters and get access to the ultimate dashboard coming soon to a mobile device near you. All right, that's it. That's it. Get well, James Connor. Goodbye. Thank you for listening to another episode of the Fantasy Footballers podcast. Join our fantasy football community on join thefoot.com. And follow us on Twitter at theFF ballers.