Unsolved Mysteries + Ride or Die, TNF Preview - Fantasy Football Podcast for 9/21

We have a fun show today. We're diving into some spooky unsolved mysteries of the fantasy football world, things that are perplexing everyone out there. We're going to try to get to the bottom of them. We've got right or die in the show today as well, and we're previewing the Thursday night game. Make sure you subscribe right here. Like the video, leave a comment, and enjoy. The fantasy footballer studio is brought to you by Samsung Galaxy. Visit Samsung.com to learn more. Hey, this is Austin Echler, and you're listening to the Fantasy Footballers Podcast. To the Fantasy Footballers podcast with your host, Andy Holloway, Jason Moore, and Mike Wright. Oh, welcome in. A little show intro from Between the 20s back, Austin Echler. Don't say that. I mean, it's true, but don't say... Don't say that, Mike. Don't say it's true. I mean, it's probably... Okay, only...

According to measurable statistics, it's true. Thank you. Not according to our hearts. In our hearts, he is what he was last year. Yeah, I mean, I take the same approach with Kyle Pitts. In my heart, he has been targeted 14 to 18 times due to his obvious physical advantages. No head coach would be so ridiculously, you know, wouldn't even up the Cadill-Hodge Kyle Pitts targets. No coach would do that. Of course, I mean, because you're trying to win. Because you're trying to win the game. Wednesday, September 21st, welcome into the fantasy footballers podcast. Andy Mike and Jason back with you. A lot going on today. We have NFL news to talk about, ride or die on the show today. Some unsolved mysteries we're going to explore. Thursday night preview already? We're already back into another week of football. It's great. It's Groundhog Day again.

Are we expecting big things from the Cleveland-Pittsburg offensive sides of the ball? It was a lot better game like a year ago. I had a note from a Steeler fan saying, why is Mitch throwing like Ben? Well, I don't think the offensive line was, like we had hopes, like, because you're entering the year, things could be better. They're not. So Mr. Trisky is dealing with everything. And Ben, Ben is on the couch. Leonardo DiCaprio pointing at the screen going, that's why I retired. You didn't fix it. It's fair. A couple of updates here. I want to announce the current Megalibul leader. Oh, is it me? It is not you, Jason. Jeem 213 sitting at 4-0. Now, if you are like 4-0, how is that possible? It's only week three. This year in the Megalibole, you have one matchup against your opponent and you have another simultaneous matchup against the league median score.

Just to add another wrinkle into the mix as people fight for the Megalobole playoffs, which Jason, I think you are in the playoffs. I am in the playoffs. I am also 4-0, but I do not have 396 points like Gene 213. Wow. Impressive. Keep fighting, everybody. It's going all the way until the normal regular playoff weeks start. And... The top three in every league will move on. So it doesn't matter where you're at right now. You've got plenty of time to get into the playoffs. And where do they see the entire leaderboard? Just megalobole.com. If you go there, that's the easiest way to see the rules, see any announcements. And then you can click on the standings and look at basically the standings right now if you are on that page. And there's a lot. I think there's, you know, 5,000 plus.

teams that are in the playoffs. You could search your name on that and see if you're currently in. The fantasy football community now over 30,000 strong at join the foot.com. Check that out for a bonus weekly show, premium perks, resources, tools, everything on the website that you see under the Foot Clan section is available to you. Our people. Our people. They're good people. Oh, they're the best people. And then as we mentioned yesterday, we're giving away some signed sports memorabilia. Jalen Waddle, Jalen Hertz. Not all Jalens, though. DJ Moore crashed in the party. Well, it's D. Jalen. Oh, is it? No. Okay. Well, thanks me. It could be right now, though. We're also giving away a virtual studio tour. You can hang out with us on Zoom. We'll show you around Ducer's Alley and such. So, Footclan giveaway.com. Let's get it going. Ride or Die. Presented by Chevrolet. Last week on Ride or Die.

Jason took it home. It was pure death. Die, die, die, die on all three predictions. Hollywood Brown as a top 15 wide receiver. It didn't happen. It was wide receiver 35. Aaron Jones with more opportunities than A.J. Dylan. I don't like that one very much. That one, Dylan had the much more inferior fantasy output. But I didn't even realize this. Three more total opportunities than Aaron Jones. Jason. Got that right as well. And then DJ Moore with at least 68 receiving yards, Mike, you chose to believe you were proven stupid. I, well, I mean, if you could go back and check the tape, it was not a belief in my core. It was really just, I was working on the secret. I was trying to put that thing out in the universe for, he got a touchdown for fantasy football players. He did.

just doesn't go to the yardage. Can I, can I bring up our discussions about DJ more this morning, Jason? Yeah. So Jason. Oh, cat's out of the bag now. This one's new for me. Well, Jason just, I just love the innocence of this. He, he tried to cash in on the big DJ Morgan. Well, he got a humongous. Yeah, the huge. The fact that he got 40, 43 yards in a touchdown. The fact that he got a touchdown, I sent out about. 12 trade offers last night with league is this dynasty oh no it's league of record our main league of record i sent out about 12 trade offers that were all pretty much DJ more plus a player for a slight upgrade on that other player and i mean they were just insta rejected ain't nobody want DJ more right now like do people have filters

for their, just in their trade folder that if a DJ Moore offer comes in, it's just, it's sent to spam. No, no, no. They, they, they, it actually gets rejected. They have, oh, it's just an auto reject bot. Okay, that's funny. The idea of having auto rejections with players. I want to be able to, you know, customize the language sent back. DJ Moore, I pass. But no, you didn't. Oh, wait. And we got Al Borland is spilling the tea. He's, he's screenshot in your conversations. Oh, no. What is I talk him up? Al, what was your, what was your trade? And tell me how good DJ Moore is based on Jason's analysis. It was just a comment where I told him I couldn't do the trade because I'd be giving up a keeper or franchise player. And he said, well, you wouldn't you wouldn't keep DJ Moore. And he's really laying on the sales pitch thick. I'm just saying, I think he's still probably keeper worthy for your roster. Not for your roster. No, not for my rob. My roster is great. Yeah. I'm saying for his roster.

Oh, the fun of trading. All right, week three, ride or die predictions. I'm helping you. I barely tick on this loss, but I'm willing to do it. Also, side note, DJ Moore, have a big week. Yes. You need more than one week to get the, exactly. I need two weeks and then I can ship you off. I like the two weeks. It's going to convince you he's good for your roster. It's going to get him to the point where you can ship him up. I've seen enough, Baker. We are actually getting all the more close to the deucer cam becoming a reality. It's not ready yet. We need lighting.

They're just, they're in the dark right now. You ever tried to set up a camera in an alley? Difficult. Yeah, I can see the cam right now. The camera exists. I say all that because Brooks, Brooks is going to be setting up our week three rider die predictions. Brooks, what do you got for us? All right, guys, Christian Kirk at the Chargers, 15 fantasy points and half PPR scoring. Week one against Washington was 14.7 points. Week two against Indianapolis, 22.8 points. I'm actually going to go die on this one. I think he's going to have a down week against this charge or secondary. Yeah, I'm right there with you. I think he's going to require a touchdown to hit that level of fantasy points in this game. This matchup isn't the best out of the slot, and that's where he's just been crushing it. So I will continue last week's diathon and continue. Yeah.

I'll complete the sweep here. I'm scared of the slot, the slot defense from the Los Angeles Chargers. They shut it down. Do we need to change the line then? I mean, do we want to go to 12? Would that change anybody's opinion if we went to 12? I mean, that would put him in low wide receiver 2 range, probably. I'll buy 10. You want to move it to 10 and still take? It's going to be hard for me not to buy 10. Let's move it to 12 for sure. All right, formal move to 12. I'm still going to die. I am as well. Fine. I will believe. All right. Everybody, I will believe. I was ready at 11. I was ready to move it to 11 and buy. All right, Brooks. What is our second ride or die? All right, guys.

Both Tom Brady and Aaron Rogers will finish outside the top 12 quarterbacks this week in the same game. I love how this is worded because now I get to ride. It's still negative, right? Because you're saying that they're going to finish outside, which I believe. I don't think either one is the top 12 quarterback. It's a double negative. It's a double negative. So I get to, I get to ride, baby. And still be negative because I now in my rankings, I currently have them as the. quarterback 13 and 14. So they are barely outside of it. But this is a game where I see two good defenses, two struggling offenses, especially with the injuries and suspensions on the Buccaneer side. So I'm not expecting this to be a barn burner. So I pretty much agree. I'm going to ride.

on the fact that they're both be outside the top 12. I think Tampa's giving up one total touchdown in two weeks. So I don't think Aaron's going to get there. What was week one for the bucks? Cowboys. Man, I mean. With Dak. Yeah, but Dak played what half the game? No, most of it. Was it at the very end? It was, yeah, I think fourth quarter. That being said, last week was a broken back. Broken back James Winston. So I'm going. Yeah, I mean. Oh, I think that one of them can finish in the top 12. So I will die, which is positive in this instance, right? That's right. Yeah. Thank you. One more, Bruxie. All right, guys, Miles Sanders at Washington, 70 or more rushing yards. I'm going to ride, baby. Yeah. Miles Sanders looks great. Pure positivity. If you're talking just rushing yards, oh, man, it's not total yards. I thought it was total yards. I'm still going to ride. Jump in. Yeah, I'm jumping in.

I love that it's not a fantasy finish necessarily because the touchdowns are hard to come by for running backs when Jalen Hertz can run all the touchdowns in. I'll go die. I don't think Miles gets to 80 in this one. He was 80 on the dot, I believe in this last game. He was 80 in game 2, 96 in week one. Yeah, I think I'll go with die on this one. Miles Sanders has looked great, but that's a pretty good bar. Yeah. I mean, he's looked fantastic and he's also like. Last week against Minnesota, 74% of the running back attempts. That's what we need for Miles Sanders. You're given that work in this Eagles offense, and if they keep cooking the way that they happen, Miles Sanders is going to be a tremendous running back. And against Washington, who right now, the Chase Youngless version of this Manders defense is horrible. Also, the Chase Young version of the Manders defense last year was horrible. Yeah, that's true. They were better the second half of the year than the first half, though, last year.

That was right or I presented by Chevy Silverado. You can learn more about Chevy Silverado at Chevy.com. News and notes from around the league. Presented by USAA Insurance. Well, the NFL has upheld Mike Evans one game suspension. He had tried to appeal it. I'm shocked. On what grounds would you ever win this appeal? I mean, if you can convince him, it's Tom Brady's fault. It's just like you came off the sideline. and smash the dude. Mike Evans, what was your defense? It was not me. Your honor. Check the camera? Not, that's not me. I was in the locker room. Someone else that looks very similar. Tom Brady testifies for him. No, that was not him. Someone grabbed my jersey. I love that you blame Brady for Mike Evans making a physical.

attack of Marcus Lattermore. It is not Brady's fault whatsoever, not even 1%. I, oh, it's definitely in the low percentile. I said, Mike Evans needs to control himself, but Tom Brady started a fight. Tom Brady started yelling. That's normal on the field. Not like that. You need to watch it again. Mike Evans is a feisty fellow. That's his own fault. Mike Evans used. Mike Evans used. the fact that it was Tom Brady as an excuse to get to go blindside Lattimore. That was not Brady's doing. That was frustration over years. I mean, this is like the third time that he's not only like gone after Lattimore, but each time's been like a blindside. He can't get the best of Lattimore when he's looking. Yeah, he's going to lose a lot of money, right? Is he? He'll lose a game check for the suspension.

I think he's got a lot of money already. I just say it. He wants to hit Latimore so badly that he's willing to like cut a check. Did you hear his defense? It wasn't him. Like if you had a thing on Amazon that was like push Marcus Latimore and it cost him. $500,000 or whatever. He'd be like priming that. I'll take three. Is that same day? I just, I get shocking. Cannot control himself. Marlon Mac has been brought up from the practice squad for the 49ers. This is not an endorsement of Marlon Mac, but an ordering of the depth chart now, which goes, Jeff Wilson, Jordan Mason, Marlon Mac. Maybe. Kyle Use Check. Yeah, Kyle Use Check will do what he's always done. Juice is probably too. It's still Jeff Wilson and then a huge tear break. The fact that they brought up Marlon Mac.

It just worries me a little bit that we won't see as much Jordan Mason as I want to see. You can see Mac. That Mac will kind of just be the give the guy the breather while Jordan Mason sticks to his special team's role. We'll have to wait and see you. It's definitely possible. And we had 14 touches, I believe, by Ty Davis Price last week. So there will be a change of pace, not Jeff Wilson type of situation. Just don't know exactly who it is. I would not. Like, are you adding Marlon Mac the way you'd be adding Jordan Mason? No, not at all.

Mason represents a kind of young, upside, you know, unknown Elijah Mitchell world. Exactly right. If the opportunity goes to, like if Jeff Wilson gets injured, even if Marlon Mac is the clear backup in this game and Jordan Mason is relegated to special teams, I will not pick up Marlon Mac in that situation. I would go after Jordan Mason because the explosiveness. that they need for this offense is not with Marlon Mack. Marlon Mack is just simply a veteran to give a breather to someone right now. I was just to say, if it's a super, super deep league, then I'm throwing him on the back of the bench. Marlon Mack in your dynasty leagues might be on your waiver wire right now. And the percentage chance that he has any value is like under 1%. But I mean, in certain leagues, I think that there is a place for him.

to be stashed. That's the same amount as Brady's culpability. Yeah. I got you. It's over zero, but it's under one. All right. All right. Seahawks head coach liar Pete Carroll said the team needs to open up the passing attack. He's just trolling. He's just trolling Russell Wilson right now. I mean, they said basically one of the ways he described opening up the passing attack is one that all fantasy players would endorse, which is he said they need to throw the ball down the field to D.K. Metcalfe. because we've kind of mocked the stat lines for D.K. In terms of total yardage based on targets, they do play Atlanta at home this week. It is a, it's the ultimate buy low for D.K. Metcalfe right now. So I don't really think McHef can get worse. When you talk about four quarters of football, they do have to throw the football some. I don't think McHuff can be worse than now. So I don't, I do think that he is an interesting.

uh, by low candidate. I really do. I, I don't know what you'll expect to get out of him necessarily, but you know what he is physically. You know he's not going to go the whole season without scoring. Right. And so let me, let me ask you DJ Moore. DJ Moore would you swap him for D.K. McKayne. Not a DJ more. Okay. Let me lower that tier for you. Would you swap, um, Adam Thielen for D. K. K. Yes. Elijah Moore for D. K. K. No. I would do that. Any of the rookies for D.K. Metcalfe? No. No. Darnel Mooney for D.K. Mekhev. Oh, yeah. Oh, certainly. The waiver for D.K. Mekf, absolutely. Hunter Renfro or DeVante Smith? Not DeVantz. Oh, yeah. And not Renfro. I would. Renfro's not getting the same level of targets, and he's still a close to the line of scrimmage. So I would go Metcalfe over Renf. Terry McClure. I'll take Terry. Same.

What it will be interesting is Gino Smith has been managing the games and Carol, okay, we want to open it up. Can Gino really open it up? Like if you go back to that world of the deep passing, are the interceptions just going to skyrocket? Yeah, skyrocket. And then Pete Carroll will say, whoa, whoa, we need to, we need to bring it back to what we were doing in the beginning. Yeah, I don't, I don't see D.K. Metcalf has a by low for season long fantasy. I do think this is a good opportunity. to have a good game. The matchup looks beatable. They're talking about getting him more involved downfield. So you've got to do one of two things. Either use him in like a DFS lineup. I don't know his current value, but if it's low enough, then he could end up being well worth that value. Or if you do trade for him, pennies on the dollar, and he has a good week, I am turning around and flipping him. Okay. Mike McCarthy, head coach of the Cowboys, says Michael Gallup will take a full slate of reps this week, Monday night.

looking like a good possibility for the return of Michael Gallup. You are going to watch from the sidelines as a fantasy player in this one. That's what I would do. Because you have Cooper Rush trying to distribute the ball to a number of targets. It's just not a high upside situation. And is Michael Gallup really ready to go? I mean, you have the re-injury possibility like that happened to Chris Godwin. Maybe that had nothing to do with his ACL, but it's certainly a giant coincidence that they rushed a guy back onto the field comparatively to the normal ACL recovery timeline, and he immediately hurt a muscle that's in the same area as his hurt knee. So I'm not playing Gallup yet. I want to actually see it. We talked about stashing him, but I need to see it before I actually play. Jason, you agree you're not saddling yourself to that situation.

Yeah, I'm going to ride along the sideline on that one. Okay. That's more of a trot? Yeah, like a little, you know, a little gallop. Isn't there a special word for like a little slow horse gallop? I mean, maybe trot is the word. It sounds like trot. Okay. I don't know if there's a special one for like the. DeAndre trot? Is that? Should we have gone? I mean, trot is a little bit of a show off, though. You got to have. Cantor. What about a canter? Meander? No. That's too close to manders. All right. That was today's news and notes. Brought to you by USAA Insurance. Learn more at USAA.com slash insurance. Quick break. And then we're back with some unsolved mysteries. Breaking news. A three-beat gate of a horse or other quadruped between a trot and a gallop is called a canter. Okay. So it's still getting the.

Wait. So you're still getting that. Yeah, yeah. I think that's too fast. I mean, if you're still, if you're still getting that, the, the triple whove action, you got too much. Do we expect, clippity clop? You think he's in a canter mode right now on the recovery? I think that's too fast. You think it's a trot right now? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Too hot to. Yeah, we're really special. Look, not a horse person. Sorry. All right. Let's get into Unsolved Mysteries. Unsolved mysteries. This one's very important. Why is that, Andy? Well, it's important for like layer after layer of reasons. The number one unsolved mystery right now in fantasy football is the usage of Kyle Pitts. That was the top reply on Twitter when we asked for some suggestions here for this segment. In two games, he has 10 total targets, four receptions, 38 receiving yards. He was the number seven fantasy tied in last year. I think he was at 68 receptions.

and the underlying metrics for Kyle Pitts are very strong, which, you know, is the kind of thing that people that want to rationalize believing in him are going to lean on because that's what we do. We need to find the reason to continue to lean on it. 88% of snaps, ran around on 82% of Marcus Mario to dropbacks. His snaps where he's lining up, 40 in line, 38 in the slot, 38 out wide, two in the backfield, two offensive line snaps. He's on the field constantly. And so we are looking at a tight-in landscape that has basically no options, right? You have a couple of categories. You have the retread. I'm going to try to play them and get some points, which is what I put Higby. Higby into for sure. Injoku can kind of slide into that. Conklin can slide into that. Hawkinson. Wow. Still feeling it. Wow.

He's really gone. He's into the retreats? He's gone, full turd. You tell, you tell me what the difference between T.J. Hocketson and Tyler Higby is. Nothing. Nothing. Well, I mean, points. Well, sure. Yeah, Higby's dominating. But you don't have a landscape where, like, high upside pivots exists. And so, you know, my advice, and I did an A.M.A. last night and unfortunately about half the questions were Kyle Pitts related. And every one of my answers is you just play Kyle Pitts. I do think that there's going to be a market correction target-wise. If you look at the full quote, we mock the quote from Arthur Smith saying, you know, basically it's not fantasy football we're just trying to win. The whole quote said this. Kyle is a huge part of our offense. You have to take it with context. Other guys made plays. It's not fantasy football we're trying to win. We will continue to look at everything and try to get better.

So there's a squeaky wheel part of this universe, too, even from the criticism of the outside media when Kiddaryl Hodge is getting the same targets as Kyle Pitts. Yeah, I mean, this is part of the full quote because that was the other part of it was talking about how, you know, he would take guys away and open things up for Hodge and, you know, plays like that. And it's like, that is not how you want a guy that is that highly drafted, that special of a physical. human being to be utilized in this in this game plan and you know right now it seems like he is with mariotta mariotta's not a one two three four reed type quarterback mariotta is designed on plays they're running the ball a lot in neutral game scripts which is completely not surprising coming into this year from last year we talked about this already that was

how Arthur Smith, you know, he thought he still had Derek Henry and was running the Titans again. But when he doesn't, you know, he's got to play action, he's got his one read, and it seems like it's Drake London, and then things don't go well. And for the amount of routes and utilization Kyle Pitts is getting, he's not getting the targets. And when he does, it's usually like a deep bomb. He drew a pass interference this last week valuable for the team, but not valuable for fantasy. So I... I mean, I completely agree that if you have Kyle Pitts, the only thing you can do is ride it out. But I'm really lacking belief that it's going to ever pay off on the draft capital of a third rounder. Like that's, you'll have weeks, but it's, he's basically the most expensive decoy of all time. That's what's going on. Yeah, they, so Mario, Mario, right now on non-play action passes, Mario is grading out in the bottom five per PFF's metrics.

uh his passing grade in yards per attempt and Mike Clay had over at ESPN had tweeted out you know he went and he washed everything and he says in his opinion it looks like Kyle Pitts doesn't seem to be the number one read very often so I think that and we're we're all feeling that and like that's the issue with Arthur Smith having this quote like he was a top five pick in the NFL he Kyle Pitts he can do things that no other tight end in the league can do. And you aren't formulating a game plan to really involve him. Like you need to force touches to him. You need to scheme things to him. He has been targeted zero times on his 16 out wide situations. That's ridiculous. So there is, this seems 0 and 2. So adjustments will be made. But I think everything you guys have said is right on the nose.