Week 2 Studs & Duds + General Mills - Fantasy Football Podcast for 9/20

A shocking performance. Come on, man. Given what you saw from Arizona in week one, a lot of fears playing against that defensive line. But they had a game plan. This is what we talked about. You saw week one what the Cardinals did to the Titans. And so the Vikings saw that. And they got the ball out quick most of the game. And the Cardinals couldn't stop Dalvin Cook. But a lot of this was kind of a broken play right in the beginning to KJ Osborne. Yeah, most of the yardage, yeah.

Yeah, and then Mahomes, he's great. He is. Derek Carr. Send in the car. Send in the car. 382 and two, no interceptions. 288 for 37 and destroyed Pittsburgh and Pittsburgh. Dude. Derek Carr against Pittsburgh. Oh, R-E-S-B-E-C-T. Yeah, it's...

We're two weeks in, but yes, yes, you definitely have to move. We were joking. They're just going to lose to like the worst team. Doesn't this feel like the trap? Like two is not playing. Two is not going to play. Brissette's going to get dominated because they shouldn't because they should not. Oh, right. Brissette shouldn't beat the Raiders. Yes, you're right.

I mean, the Raiders looks legit. This game's more important than the Pittsburgh Baltimore game. Yes, you were talking to Andy, like before the Steelers game, you believe that the Raiders are legit. And there's no reason on paper. You hear that Raiders fans? To doubt them at all. Meet me on social media. Their defense looks good. Their offense looks good. They appear to be a legitimate.

team. But last year this happened where they had a couple games stretch. You know, they beat the Chiefs and then they turn around and just lay an egg as soon as you start believing. So they don't have any layups for a while. Miami, Chargers, Bears, Broncos. Maybe they just don't need that easy matchup. If you get a middle of the road, they'll be all right. Yeah, unless Preset's playing. Two top 10 performances for Derek Carr to start the year against Baltimore, Pittsburgh. Oh, my.

We'll find out what's going on. And you guys can give John Gruden a bunch of credit in the future. Looking forward to that? Oh, I've talked about him on Sunday Live that I love John Grun. The fact that we had Josh Jacobs be ruled out so early. And then it's like, okay, you gave a backup running back, $10 plus million for this scenario. And he said, nay. We brought in Peyton Barber.

from a practice squad, who, by the way, I don't know if you saw the full quote. He was dapping up Peyton Barber before the game for his time in Tampa. Like, does Gruden even know? There was something else. There was another team in between? No, he probably doesn't. He's watched the Tampa tapes. I like this guy, man. He was learning from Shanahan. He's like, yeah. Trey Sermon, no. Eli Missal? Yeah. Russell, had a great week. 343 and 2.

They gave that game away at the end. And Cardinal fans are fine with that. Yep. Running back studs. Have you heard of Derek Henry? Oh, man. Yeah, he's back, baby. Just don't watch the first half. If you've got Derek Henry on your roster, just tune in at halftime because he is such a, like as the season goes on, as the game goes on, he just gets better and better. It's like a snowball rolling downhill at the bottom. It's gigantic.

A great analogy for the Yeti. Yes. I mean, you try tackling a snowball. That guy, a guy of his size. But the bigger news was they had, they got into a two-minute drill. And Derek Henry was like getting some checkdowns, man. Six targets. Oh, my goodness. Hey, look, Tennessee. If Derek Henry adds past, like week one, week two, it looks like it's legit. It looks like he is a pass catching back as well. He will straight up win people.

their leagues if that continues. I was, I mean, last week we were talking about, go get Derek Henry because in a game that they were absolutely dominated by Arizona, he had 17 carries and four catches. In this game, he had 41 opportunities. And you took your advice. 41. You traded for them and you were happy. I'm very, very happy. Yeah. I am not. Because we are in the same division. We're in division mates. Let's recycle that division. Christian McCaffrey.

is bad game proof. We know that. Yep. He had a good game. 24 for 72 in a touchdown. He left briefly freaked everyone out when you saw Chuba for a couple drives, but 30 more opportunities for McCaffrey and the 2-0 Panthers. Let's talk about maybe the topic on the top of most people's minds. Tony Pollard, Ezekiel Elliott. Pollard was 13 for 109 in a touchdown, had three targets, three for 31. Zeke was 16 for 71 and a touchdowns. Two targets. Two for 26.

So Zeeke had a great game. Yeah, Zeeq was, he's currently the number six overall running back on the week. Right. So if you had him, you like his fantasy output, you're happy with his performance, but you feel bad because it could have been better and because he didn't even have the best running back game on that roster. Are you concerned? No, not really. I mean, I'm not really concerned. I guess you could do the fantasy football taboo thing.

and start with your conclusion and then justify it with what happened on the field. Like, my brain goes to, they ran a trick play with Tony Pollard to get him that touchdown, and Zeke was on the goal line. Like, Zick could have had two touchdowns right there. And I think Tony Pollard has proved that he belongs in the NFL and deserves touches. And he's the kind of player that does a lot with a little touchwise. I'm not that concerned about Zique. This was a game where Pollard had the more

impressive stat line on a yards per carry level. He had a couple of huge plays. He gets to the edge faster. He's more explosive. Yes. When you watch these guys on the field, you know who has more speed and is making more breakaway plays. I think it might get to a point where you can confidently play Tony Pollard if he continues to get these touches. 13 carries to Zeex 16. That's the concern is like that's a lot of.

of rushing attempts that are being taken away from Zeke. But 71% of snaps were Ezekiel Elliott. 34% of the snaps for Tony Pollard. That matters. That matters a lot. Yeah, the snaps, a crazy amount of work for Tony Pollard when he was actually out there. The fact that he had the 16 opportunities when he played on under 40% of the snaps, I'm still in on Zeke. I think he's still a solid running back one for your team.

The targets are the more concerning part for Zeke. He's out there the whole time, and you know he's running routes. And just like in week one, you know, he had to pass block a lot, but he still ran a lot of routes in week one. And wasn't a focal point of the passing game. So that's disappointing to see him only with two targets this week. Yeah, I mean, Dak had one of the worst fantasy outputs and a win that you could ever have. Cordero Patterson.

plays running back, seven for 11 and a touchdown. Got the goal line work on that one. And then six targets for $5.58 in a touchdown. Yeah, I mean, he only landed here because of the two touchdowns, but he's an interesting name moving forward for fantasy to see what this evolves into. Yeah, it's a combination of the two touchdowns along with how he looks compared to his backfield mate Mike Davis. And we're going to talk about Corderald.

tomorrow in the smokefire segment. Mike is looking for cards because the Bears PR team just came into the media room to deliver a message from Matt Nagy, which says Andy Dalton is the team is the team starting. I didn't get very much separation there. No, you just threw a lot of cards around. Andy Dalton is the team starting quarterback when he's healthy, which you have the luxury of doing it. Get out of here, Matt Nagy. You have the like, I mean, it's up to fields.

It's up to Fields to take the job. You have every opportunity to take it right now. If I don't have a single problem with Nagy doing that, I think if I was the head coach, I would do that because it's the only way I can reel it back if Fields doesn't play well, is that it was always the plan. If Fields doesn't play well, I've got to be able to, I've got to be able to not break his confidence and go back to Dalton while he continues to learn behind the scenes. Okay, well, now the flip side of that is.

Justin Fields plays well. And you have confidently told your team that Andy Dalton is the starter. Oh, if Fields is playing well, you're winning ball games. The whole team wants Fields and it's easy. They don't care. That's easy. But I mean, but this is the point. Justin Fields play well. This is your shot. Take it. Take it from the cold, probably moist grip of Matt Nagy and take your shot. Oh, those hands are clammy. Oh, yeah. Real clammy hands.

Wait, doesn't he take the job from Andy? No, not at all. This is he's taking the job. You pry it from Nagy? He's not the quarterback? No, but he's who's doling out the job. You've got to take the job out of the hands of that. But he's alive. Oh, yes. Naggy's alive. It's very cold and clammy hands. Because when he performs on stage, it gets real clammy. He's nervous. He's a budget. Yeah. Hey, we had a remedy to a problem. Austin Echler had nine targets. Guess what? He caught all of them. Nine for 61. Right.

He also was 9 for 54 on the ground, looked great, played 78% of the first half snaps. Had a helmet-to-helmet hit. Might have cost them some snaps in the second half. Yeah, Echler's great, and I don't think anyone was concerned with the fact that he had zero targets week one. We've seen him play with Justin Herbert, and we've seen him play for years. You throw the ball to Austin Echler. Do you trade Najee Harris coming off of a...

a 15-touch performance where he was 10 for 38 on the ground behind a battle line, 5 for 43 through the air, got it, had a touchdown. So you love to see that. But, you know, the matchup looked good. Yeah. And he didn't.

Cross 40 yards on the ground. It depends on who you're trading him for. Like, for instance, Austin Echler, a player that you're confident in and you know is great. I'm fine doing that. I'm not trading Najee a way to capitalize because he's been inefficient and below hope and expectations for the first two weeks. Because you could have one of two situations here, right? Like Clyde Edwards Aller last year.

came out, didn't look anything special, and then continued that. You have Jonathan Taylor last year, come out, didn't look at it. People were dropping Jonathan Taylor at the mid-season point, and people were grabbing him off of waivers, and he's a rookie. Sometimes it takes a little bit of time to figure out the speed of the NFL, and so I am willing to capitalize on the touchdown if you can trade up at Running Mac. You know, I'll trade Najee for Mixin.

I would trade Najee for Echler. I would trade, you know, but I'm not just trying to capitalize on a week and get rid of them. Yeah, I think people want to hear that perspective. Five targets. That's nice. That's what I think needs to be focused on. The 10 for 38 is that part sucks, but five targets. James Connor's looking over there. He's going, I could get five for 38. Yeah. I mean, if Deontay misses time, you're talking about those short targets that could go Najee's way.

Oh, man, Juju's going to catch so many. Yes, Juju is going to be a PPR machine for the next month. Hey, 9 for 163 and 2. That is Cooper Cup's stat line. The Cooper Cup of Coffee. Say it with us. The start of the week, finish number one overall. So that, that works. Tyler Lockett, 11 targets 8 for 178 in a touchdown. Oh, brother. Tyler Lockett is somehow, I mean, it's not just him. It was Freddie Swain as well.

They just have, they use like voodoo on the, on the safeties or something. Like they get perplexed watching Russell roll left or, I don't know. He gets so many open looks down the field that what a start to the year for Tyler Lockett. Yeah. And so you're telling me that Tyler Lockett, he's kind of got to be the overall number one guy right now, right? I would assume so based on two weeks. So he is now going to be matched up against a secondary that just gave up 400.

passing yards and three passing touchdowns in the Minnesota Vikings? And that could be the MECAF breakout game too because both guys had 11 targets in this one. Lockett is just on fire right now. On fire. Yeah, the reason why I even breathed AJ Green's name out loud was the Minnesota secondary and Breshaad Breeland. So see who he's matched up against. Terry McLaurin, 14 targets from Thursday night was great. Mike Evans doing Mike Evans things. Two touchdowns, five for 75. There's a two-thirds rule.

In Tampa Bay. That two-thirds are good? Yeah. Yeah, only one catch for Antonio Brown in this one. And don't worry about it. I'm not going to think I need to bench him. You start your Tampa Bay. Look, Tyreek Hill did nothing. Right. He's great. All wide receivers have bad games because they don't get to guarantee touches. You just start all your Buccaneers wide receivers and hope that this week.