Fantasy Fallout: McKinnon, Lev, Cuts & Breaking News

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And Mike Wright. Oh, we don't know how holidays work. They don't take a holiday. Mostly because we don't know how they work. Welcome in. It is Labor Day, and we're back to fantasy footballers laboring on your behalf, getting you ready for week one of the NFL season. Our pain is your game. Yeah, we did it wrong. The roads were empty today on the way in. That part was pretty sweet. Yeah, that part was cool.

What have we worked only on holidays? That would be... Great driving situation. Other than I won't have a car. I won't be able to afford... Oh, I see. A vehicle. Well, we're here. It's Monday, September 3rd. And you know what? I'm glad we're here. I'm glad we're here because there has been a lot of news. A lot of news. And a lot of things to debate and talk about it and get you ready for. I mean, this is week one of the NFL.

Yeah, this weekend was crazy. I remember Saturday. I'm out to lunch with the family. Yeah. And then it's like, blah, bloop, everything is going down. People are getting injured. People are being cut. We're trying to update the ultimate draft kit. I'm literally at lunch with my family pulling out my electronics saying, sorry, I got to go to work on the ultimate draft kit. Yeah. Guys, I got, wasn't even a holiday. I got a story to share. Okay. From this weekend.

I was at a draft. I was at my Money League draft. Yeah. And we're talking, I don't even know if it's five minutes before the draft starts. I can't remember if it's the first round of the draft. My sleeper app sends me a notification that Jerich McKinn has unfortunately gone down with a non-contact injury. It looks serious. And we all got the news.

Clearly the people in my league did not get the memo that they need to be checking news. And what are you supposed to do? Well, here's the thing. I did my fantasy football industry duties. I tweeted about it. I said, we don't have information yet on the injury. It's true. But you have to draft Barita. And now you've got to move forward like McKinnon's going to be injured for the season. So I tweeted it out.

And then I sat. And then I sat on that news. And I apologize for nothing. And the third round or so rolls around because it's a keeper league. So things are a little weird. His name goes out. I am full poker face. But inside I am just like, you got to pay attention, man. You got to pay attention. And then somewhere around the six round, someone else in the league happened to catch the news. And they went.

Wait, did you guys know about this? And I was like, I may or may not have known about this. Maybe you should follow me on Twitter. Wow. No mercy. Did you draft. No, I did not because I was. You didn't know if the news was. Right. Of course. We didn't know if he was going to be out for the year. And it was also, I'm pushing this to the end. But I was already planning on, okay, with one of my last picks, I'm going to grab Alfred Morris. And.

But I was on the turn. So once the chatter started in the draft room, then both of those guys got selected right away. I wasn't able to sneakily grab them. But I'm sure there are a lot of people out there that had a very similar situation. And if you chose to hold on to the news, I stand by your decision. It's a, it's a. That's completely fair game. 100% fair game. That's very different than.

The news breaks and you go try to trade him or something. That's you being shady. It's not your responsibility for people to have the latest breaking news. Mike's not responsible for being the sleep wrap for them. Correct. Yes. Yeah. No, that's fair. Look, we're going to get into that. That'll be one of the first things we tackle is all of the fallout from the very devastating news that Jerich McKinnon has suffered a torn ACL on Saturday.

We'll get into it momentarily, and we're also going to walk through each of the other teams. The fantasy fallout from injuries, surprising cuts. I'm going to take my cohort's pulse today about some teams and situations, how they're feeling heading into week one. And obviously, as we inch closer to Thursday, we'll be breaking down all of our starts of the week. Everything you need to know, you'll find it on this podcast and on the website, the fantasy footballers.com.

You can follow us on Twitter in case you don't want to miss any of that. I suggest that you do. At the FF Ballers. And then YouTube is YouTube.com slash the fantasy footballers this weekend. We put up a video. We recorded the loser punishment in our league of record. We've talked about the wheel of water. And the loser spins the wheel 11 times and then drafts soaking wet. And so we filmed that and put it on YouTube. It's pretty cool.

And you can check it out there. All right. Let's go ahead. Oh, by the way, Jason's deal with it rankings article. Yeah, Jason is up on the website. Congratulations. Yeah, deal with it. It's highlighting the players that I disagree with you two gentlemen on according to our consensus rankings. Now, you did, you paid for a full grammarly subscription. I was just going to say. Now, over under grammarly red lines in your, while you're writing it up. Here's a deal.

I'm starting. The article starts right off with a very purposeful. Morism. Morism mistake. So enjoy your own peril. Yes. All right. Let's go. No. The Fantasy Court with Judge Giamatti. Plaintiff Mike Wright is accusing Jason and Andy of overlooking Alfred Morris with criminal intent and being in love too much.

with Matt Breedah. That is absolutely true. And I'd like to focus more on the second part. Well, by the way, the judge works on holidays as well. So he's here and he's going to. He's got the face up and everything. Judge Diomadi is in the building. He's going to declare a ruling here. And this has been a hotly debated topic all week. Yes. Who do you draft? Who do you put your confidence behind fantasy wise, if anyone in San Francisco after the McKinnon injury? So.

If you were on Twitter this weekend, honestly, the way I saw it was really close to about 50-50. People saying Alfred Morris is the guy to go with. Matt Berita is the guy to go with. And we've kind of taken our sides. I'm actually somewhat neutral because I believe that both of these running backs have value. But I absolutely believe that Alfred Morris has value. And so here's some things.

that I wanted to talk about for Matt Berita. This is what I wanted to focus on. Last year, Matt Berita, who were throwing all the past catching duties onto Matt Berita, okay? McKinnon's out. He was going to be the past catcher. Well, McKinnon, the Brita profiles is that. He's a smaller guy, satellite back. Last year, on 36 targets, he only had 21 receptions, a catch rate of 58.3%. That's incredibly low.

John Paulson from 4-4-4 went through all of the targets for Matt Berita. He said he counted at least four or five drops, just straight drops from Matt Berita, which is on 36 targets, that is definitely troubling. You had Carlos Hyde, who is not considered a great pass catcher. He had 88 targets, but he still managed to catch 67% of his passes. Oh, by the way, Alfred Morris, who's considered one of the worst pass-catching running backs.

His career cash or catch percentage is higher than Matt Beritas. Well, yeah, three of four. Yeah, 75%. No, it's actually, it's more targets. But I just, historically, here's why I'm betting against Matt Berita. He's 190 pounds. Maybe he's 195 pounds now. 196. Okay, 196. No, I'm just making that out. He's listed. He's small. He's a little guy. 59, 195. On pro football reference, he is listed at 190 pounds.

I went back and since the year 2000, running backs under 200 pounds, there has only been 11 players, 11 running backs under 200 pounds that have carried the ball over 200 times in a season. There's only been 10 running backs since the year 2000 who have had over 1,000 yards weighing under 200 pounds. There's only been 11 guys under 200 pounds that have ever had six or more rushing touchdowns in a season.

This is why I'm betting against Matt Breed. It's not that he's a bad player at all. I went back. I washed a lot of him over the weekend to get ready to talk about this. I'm just betting historically. Running backs under 200 pounds just don't get it done. Well, that's fair. I mean, look, I'd like to say that I'm...

My opinion has been, and I'll let Jason first chair. I'll second chair real quick. Toss it over to Jason. Because Jason and I both side with the Matt Breedah side when it comes to who to go with in this situation. Right. Yeah. Neither of us are debating, I think, the workhorse viability of Matt Breed. So that would be the first thing I get out of the way. They cut Joe Williams. They cut Jeremy McNichols. This is the Morris Breedda committee. And I hear a lot of comparisons of Matt. Matt Berita needs to be.

The Tevin Coleman role. That's what he was carved out to be. You had Devanta Freeman, aka Jerich McKinn, and then you have Matt Breeder. He's the Tevin Coleman. Well, you know what? If you go to Atlanta and you drop Alfred Morris into the Devante Freeman role, I'm feeling a lot better about Tevin Coleman. And that's kind of the situation here. It's about explosiveness, utility. And if you look in the off season, look, Matt Breita, yes, he was not the most efficient pass catcher last year. But he did catch a lot of passes relative to his playing time.

He had 10 or more touches. I'm sorry, 10 or more carries in four of the last five games of the season. And he's flashed a lot in the preseason, a lot of positive talk towards him. The preseason. Sorry, in the training camp. He has not done a single thing. In training camp. I'm saying Shanahan talks highly of him. Yes. It's more a matter of believing that the 23-year-old that will be put in a position to, whether he can do it well or not, he's going to be in the position to catch a lot of passes.

and it's a 30-year-old Alfred Morris. I'm going to go with the more explosive Chris Thompson than the Rob Kelly-esque Alfred Morris. And ultimately, it's a price thing. I've seen more Morris talk than Breedah. Therefore, I think that the most affordable waiver-wire fab pickup is Breed. Yeah, I agree with a lot of what you're saying, obviously, Andy, since we're being accused on the same side here. Yes. I agree that Twitter, my Twitter timeline is...

at least 75% Alf. You got to diversify your follows. Berita. And it's not just the follows. It's also the people following that everybody's talking up Alf because he's the new shiny thing. And he will get the first crack. And I will grant you this. Week one, week one I much prefer Alf because you've got Brita still coming off of the shoulder separation. So I don't know how much he'll be involved. But I see this situation very similar. This is like a...