Fantasy Football - Week 3 Studs & Duds + Broken Offenses - Podcast for 9/22

Yeah, yeah. It's great. Granted, it did take the injury to Tyrone Trace. We don't know what that split would have looked like if Tracee didn't go down. Oh, oh, my God. Cam Hampton had his 26 opportunities. Obviously, Najee went down there as well. We don't know the timeline for Scadaboo and the Tracy injury to see if... But the thing is, is sometimes when you get the opportunity and you show out, the opportunity doesn't go away. And Cam Scadaboo is a very rare... Like, we are universally anti-day three running back picks. Like, we try to pump the brakes on them and say, guys, they don't work out.

Like, it's like a 10% bet. Some do. But, like, the vast majority don't. And this was the one guy beforehand we were like, he shouldn't have been a day three pick. He is... He had... His last season in college was like Christian McCaffrey-type numbers. And he falls to day three and then he just comes to the NFL and looks like this. And, man, his pass blocking. He is vicious. He's a dog. I mean, did you see... He got that guy in the ribs and that guy went down. He was like, what just hit me? Although, Judkins also had one of those.

Do you see where he took out Parsons? When he chipped him? Yeah, he chipped him. But it was more of a, like, cold forearm shoulder shimmy. Yeah. James Cook was number five on the week. McCaffrey, 15 more targets for the 49ers who are running out of wideouts. Juwan Jennings did not play in this game. So, he has 84 opportunities through three games. Oh, my gosh. You're going to break him. No, he's fine. It does scare you. It is. It's a weird season right now. He's fine. Like, Ken Walker and CMC are healthy. That's right. Through three weeks and, like, you've got all the peripheral players on these teams going

down. Just be careful with him. 15 targets and 17 rush attempts? Yeah. Well, I mean, here's the truth. He saw a rush attempt or a target on 55% of their plays. The majority of their plays was Christian McCaffrey. Yeah. That shouldn't work that well, but it did. They're 3-0. Kyron, 24-94. Super impressive. This was against the Philadelphia. I took his less on prize picks because going up against the Philadelphia Eagles and that front. Man. 94 rushing yards against them. That's pretty impressive. Speaking of impressive, you saw it the first week that he got an opportunity. Quinshawn Judkins, 18 for 94 and a touchdown against Green Bay's defensive front.

He's up to 55% of the snaps. Go ahead. 55! And so Judkins looks like a studkins going forward. Ken Walker, 16 for 38. The most Ken Walker line ever. For two touchdowns. Which in that it is. I took him more than 54 yards and he wasn't even close. It's just a beautiful Ken Walker stat line. That game was also super weird. I mean, he got 16 carries, so you expect more. They knew what Seattle was going to do because Seattle was up a bajillion points. Yeah. He didn't play for like the full fourth. I was going to say, it was 21-3 in the first quarter.

With like five minutes left to go in the first quarter. Yeah. This was the, let's see what the Saints do outside of being at home. Do they still play these teams close? Nope. No. J.K. Dobbins keeps it going. 11 for 83 in a rushing touchdown. He's been the running back 13, 15, and 10 through three weeks. And, you know, they've lost two of those games, right? So there's that. But he's playing well. Mm-hmm. We had, yeah. I mean, anybody else want to talk about from the running back group? I think it's worth mentioning the Manders running back room because that was a question going in is like, how did it work out?

Because you started the game with Chris Rodriguez Jr. getting everything. Yeah. I think he got two full drives. Yeah. He ended up playing 38% of the snaps, had 11 rushing attempts, didn't do much with him despite looking pretty good on that first drive. Bill comes in afterwards. He gets some work, Bill Krosky, and he looked pretty good. He got a touchdown. And then you still had McNichols who worked in, and he ended up with the biggest play of the day for the Commanders. He had a 60-yard touchdown run, which was pretty crazy because he was stopped at the line like three times.

Mm-hmm. They looked like they gave up on that one. Yeah. That was crazy. Going forward. 11 opportunities for Rodriguez, just so you know. It's messy. Nine for Krosky and four for McNichols, but the game was also out of hand after a certain point. It's a tough one. I'm not looking at McNichols as a pickup because of the play, but I would say that Chris Rodriguez, do you feel like you could play him going forward? I don't know about that. I still think Krosky's at the top of the list, but we had a backup quarterback that was running a ton of read option.

Mariota was running the football a lot, too. I don't know how many rush attempts he had, but I'm guessing it was maybe more than McNichols. I mean, yeah, six rush attempts for 40 yards. Yeah, I mean, Bill is definitely the one you would want the most. He still seems like the best. I think what's sad is this was his opportunity to kind of take over, and it wasn't. He didn't have a takeover. He had a split. Yeah, I mean, he didn't even get to start the game. We were like, why is Rodriguez out there for a drive? We'll take a break.

We'll talk wide receivers. Dude, can we bring up your dynasty? Oh, please do. Okay, we have to bring this up, because you have literally the worst roster I've ever seen on paper. This is the greatest case against listening to our podcast that you could possibly make. So Andy went into sell mode. Okay, you've got a ton of future assets. You are doing a rebuild. You were famously on this show for the last decade. This is Kmart sell mode. This is we're bankrupt. Yeah, you have always been in it every year, selling future assets, never having picks for multiple years out, competing every single year, and you finally said.

I've never had a losing season in that league. Yeah, you said, I'm tearing it down. Yeah, to the nubs. To the nubs. Let me explain some nubs. You started your best lineup of Mac Jones. This is in a single quarterback league. Yeah, Mac Jones. Ramondre Stevenson. Oh, refumble. Kareem Hunt. Mmm, touchdown. Epic Io Manor, probably your best player. DeAndre Slayton. DeAndre? Darius Slayton. Hunter Henry. Double touchdown. Taequann Thornton. Touchdown. And Trey Tucker. One, two, three. Three touchdowns. You have one of the highest scores in the league. Yeah, two and oh. Oh, man. It's just wild. Could you imagine losing to that?

Sorry, Brooks. I mean, yeah, it was Brooks, and he's like staring across. He's playing Josh Allen and Chase Brown. Brooks had already moved on to week four. Justin Jefferson. Hubbard. Flowers. Just got smoked. Week one for my team, 76 points. Week two, 61 points. Week three, 130. Oh, man. Trey Tucker, number one. It's ridiculous. Yeah. Fantasy stupid. All right, number two, Cortland Sutton back at it. Could have had more. Yeah. But 20 points. We'll take it. A.J. Brown. Hey, you play football. And he looked strong. I mean, he had a lot of plays where. I still don't like the Eagles offense.

This is what I wanted to talk about. Let's talk about that for a second. Because this was the product of being down 26 to 7 or whatever the score was in that game. They were getting boat raced. It showed that they have the capacity. Yeah, because they've got talented players. A.J. Brown and Devontae Smith are awesome wide receivers. Not good. Devontae Smith was 8 for 60 in a touchdown. A.J. Brown was 6 for 109 in a touchdown. This was classic offense. If they need them, those guys can go ham. I still don't like the system. But sometimes if your players are just good enough, whatever.

It doesn't matter. Like, just go make a play. Play backyard ball. And A.J. Brown catches, you know, a 10-yard pass and then is like, you know how much stronger I am than you? You lay down. I'm going to run over you and keep picking up yards and nobody can tackle me. I mean, Tampa, Denver, New York, all three of them have pretty good run defenses. So, maybe things will brighten up and this will be more permanent. Garrett Wilson, 19.4, despite the backup quarterback situation there with Terod Taylor. And they almost stole that game. But they didn't. Although that dance. Oh, man.

Shout out. Aaron Glenn, you had one of the coolest. I don't know if cool is the right word. Overreactions ever. Yeah. That was not an overreaction for the moment. You've got to look up the Aaron Glenn celebration dance on the side. Sideline when his team looked like it was going to win the game on the blocked kick touchdown. First year head coaches do that. Veteran head coaches would never do that because they didn't mean you won the game. Right. And then you just went and lost the game. Yeah. You didn't win. Andy Reid ain't doing that on a touchdown with three minutes left in the game.

Andy Reid's not doing that ever. It was awesome, though. Garrett Wilson, Nico Collins. Nice to see. Andy Reid don't have those moves. Yeah. I mean, I made a lot of offers for Nico. I made a lot of offers for Brown and those type of situations where after the first two weeks, you're like, hey, we already know. This is a proven commodity. So, yeah. Aaron Glenn, if you want to go watch. It's amazing. Yeah. We'll retweet the dance. It's the dance of a loser, though. Oh, it is. I mean, it's the dance. It looks dumb when you lose. Oh, man. It's so good, though.

All right. We had Nico. We talked about it. It was under two minutes left. Yeah, but it was so. I mean, it only puts you. You needed a field goal. We all knew it was going to happen. It was obvious. It was cool, but I'm just saying as a head coach, I don't know. Luther Burden, three for 101. He'll be very unpredictable, but he will have games like this. That's what I think the story is with him. Roma Dunze, start of the week, three for 62 and a touchdown. That's really it? Yeah, he just missed the second touchdown, but only three catches.

Yeah, you're right, Mike. It's interesting. Where is he on the season? He's got to be close to number one. Yeah, he's like wide receiver two or something. Let me see. Yep, he's wide receiver two behind Puka Nakua, who has 300 receptions. You know who the wide receiver four is? I do because I'm looking at it. Jackson Smith and Jigbus. Five for 96 and a touchdown in like half a game. I have a different scoring format. Where's JSN on the one that you're seeing? Five. Quinton Johnston. Oh, huge. Yeah, I'm looking at the player profile, so I'm not sure what the differential is there.

Puka, 11 for 112. Ho-hum. Easy stuff for him. Jason's start of the week, Michael Pittman Jr. Yes. We built this city. Yes. Woo-hoo-hoo. Six for 73 and a touchdown. It was all Alec Pierce and Josh Downs early, and then all of a sudden, it was all Michael Pittman. Six for 73. It's amazing. Touchdown in two or three weeks. It's amazing what a bad quarterback can do to good players and your opinion of good players. There's a tier of wide receivers, Pittman, probably McLaurin, that you're not quite Chase Jefferson. Yeah. And so you really, I mean, it sounds the dumbest thing.

You need a quarterback. Malik Nabors needs a quarterback. Right? Jamar Chase needs a quarterback, too. Yeah, Jamar Chase does, too. Yeah, it's just like yesterday, there was nothing Malik Nabors could have done. Nothing. It's like Michael Pittman, Michael Pittman's not an elite player. He is a very good wide receiver. He's getting it done. And like Jonathan Taylor had, you know, we kind of started turning our opinion later in the draft season on the show. But it's like Taylor had been, I feel like the public opinion on Taylor had turned so, so much. I mean, he was a former number one overall running back.

Yeah, and he kept getting hurt, and it was like, this offense is going to be doo-doo, and I mean, betting that the offense was going to be this would have been a crazy person's tale before the season started. But here we are, and Jonathan Taylor looks incredible. Well, the nice thing is Jonathan Taylor's also getting some work. I mean, not heavy, not Christian McCaffrey-level numbers, but, you know, he's getting three targets a game. Yeah. And that's, you just get him a couple of those in space. Let me tell you some numbers here, because we've got a stud, but it gets mixed with a dud here.

Keenan Allen, wide receiver 11, wide receiver 20, wide receiver 12. He's the best friend. Lad McConkie, wide receiver 25, 55, 47. Yeah. So when they got Lad McConkie, he was brought in to be their Keenan Allen. Mm-hmm. Then they got their Keenan Allen back. And now, you know, if you're staring down McConkie versus Allen rest of season, I mean. It's a fair debate. I think that they are in the exact same tier, and I would start them both every week. I don't think that it's going to be Keenan at the end of the year with 17 touchdowns and Ladd with none.

Keenan's the only player through three weeks who has a touchdown in each week. That's not going to just continue happening, but they are both quality wide receivers who will. This is in the draft season. I was talking about, like, my biggest issue with Ladd where he was being drafted was, of course, Keenan's going to come in here and eat some of that volume, but Ladd still looks great. You know, I don't think that—I mean, he has been a disappointment, obviously, for fantasy. Statistics at the end of the game haven't given you what you drafted. They're not close on the targets right now.

What's the Ladd targets at? Well, I'm looking at season pace, 160 to 119. So it is—it's not like a red alert. I agree with you. It's not a red alert on Ladd. But it's a—this was the fear. It's a—you need to adjust the tier for Ladd McConkie. Right, yeah. For both of these guys. Keenan was so obviously underdrafted. This was, you know, my favorite value in the draft. He was—because he basically wasn't on a roster through training camp, his ADP was criminally wrong. And Ladd was overdrafted, but they're both good players. I think— They need fewer third downs because Keenan—that's Keenan's down.

Here's the problem, though, too, and we need to bring this up in the context of it, is Quinton Johnston. Yeah. Quinton Johnston is on pace for 136 targets. That puts Ladd third among the wide receivers. Quinton Johnston, three straight wide receiver, 24 are better weeks. Keenan, three straight wide receiver, 24 are better weeks. Ladd, zero of them. Zero. You don't need Ladd the way you did last year. What was Ladd's yardage yesterday? It's 40. 40? And the week before is 48. Yeah. I'm just saying, like, Keenan's in the 60s all three weeks. I would try to trade Ladd. That's what I would do.

I'm not—this is not the A.J. Brown-Nico Collins situation. This is—Ladd's a great player, but Ladd is not Chase Jefferson, Nico, Brown. His physical attributes are possession-oriented. He can have seven catches for 40 yards. Like, that's kind of what he does. He could have 12 catches for 125 yards if they need him. Right now they don't. Exactly. Yeah. And Hampton can catch the football. I don't know. I just think that my view of—like, if you had to rank Ladd rest of the season wide receiver-wise, it's like 25 for me. Yeah, that's right. That was like the number in my head. Yeah, and it's like—that's a big tier change.

And you can still—I think you can get better than wide receiver 25 value in a trade right now because of the name and the pedigree and the draft position. Yeah, it's really a matter of value. If you're viewing him— You want Debo or Ladd? I'd rather have Ladd. Okay. Interesting. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, McLaurin's banged up, and obviously Debo, two good weeks, and then this last week wasn't as good. Yeah, I mean, I'm not saying I don't like Debo, but I still do like Ladd. This is a matter of value, and I think if you're viewing him about the wide receiver 25, that's—

Would you rather have Pickens or Ladd? Well, now Pickens. Yeah, with the seedy injury, probably Pickens. Would you rather have Quinton Johnston or Ladd? Oh, that's a great question. Yeah, and it's Quinton Johnston. He's going to score more touchdowns. Yes. He looks great. More week-winning weeks. That's crazy, though. That is crazy. Three weeks in to say that sentence. Yeah. I'm sorry. We watch and we learn. Yep. George Pickens had a good week. And I would imagine if you're trading Ladd— Yeah, Josh said he barfed a little. For Q. Do you barf a little? You got Ladd someplace? Yeah. That is gross, man.

You would have to—you could probably, in a lot of leagues, trade Ladd for Q. Plus, plus, plus. You know, it's like just on the draft day value. Maybe. Q. over the shoulder, right in the face because he didn't get his hands up, but then he catches it. Did you see Mac Jones' comments about his interception?

Because we already have the Mac Jones comment about, like, most guys would have gotten surgery, but I didn't. This comment was like, hey, I threw it right at him. It's not like he made a good play or anything. That's what he said. He's like, it's not like he did anything good. He's trying to take the play away. Yes, he did try to take it. It wasn't even very good. Actually, he gave himself a compliment. He goes, look, I actually ripped it. He's like, I ripped it. He's like, you know. Did you see the quarterbacks need confidence? Dude, Mac Jones is a character.