Week 3 Studs & Duds + Fields of Sadness, Divine Achane! - Fantasy Football Podcast for 9/25

All right, quick break, back with some more running back studs. Kenneth Walker, the third, 18 for 97, two more touchdowns, three targets, three for 59 through the air. He's the running back three on this season, and he might just get Mike Wright a victory. He saved me at least from the shame. That is correct. I was in a dark place for fantasy face off. We had. three very high performing drafting squads and I ended up at the bottom. Yes. That's a shame. It's not me this week. I know. I know. Did you get first or am I first? Okay. Just barely. Kenneth Walker almost got you there. Kenneth Walker is what got me the shame because we were going into, I was going into the afternoon games with the Cardinals D, which performed quite well. And Mike had Kenneth Walker and I had like a 20 point lead or 27 point lead.

But Kenneth Walker said, I care not of your lead. I'm going to score two more touchdowns, and he's having a great season. Zachary Moss, 30 carries, 122, three targets and a touchdown. He has everything to the offense. They play the Rams, Tennessee, and Jacksonville. He's going to be so good, guys. Now, you have to mean it, Jason, for you to reverse the curse. Christian McCaffrey, big week, James Connor. He's so good. I told you I needed more for McCaffrey. You know, the Cardinals ran for more rushing yards in the first half against Dallas than they had given up in a first half of football since 1992. They ran for over 180 yards in the first half. James Connor is 14 for 98 in a touchdown. He is the RB 7. It's nice to see him performing. And the team is better than, like the offseason narrative means nothing once the season starts for any of these teams. Just ask Justin Fields. Jonathan Gannon.

is a comical, cringy character. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Comical cringy character, their triple C, you know, as we call it. Seems like it might be a good coach, maybe. Still a little early, but the players are playing hard for him. They have no Buda Baker. They have no personnel on offense. Their backup quarterback and James Connor's getting it done. Drumford looked good-ish. you can't run against Tennessee so let's and he couldn't 18 yards on 10 carries so he couldn't get to two yards of carry he had two touchdowns yeah do you trade high on that with hunts snap share likely to increase over time and Baltimore by week San Francisco seems like a bad run like I would probably trade drum for it interesting yeah I think you can make the case for it with Baltimore which Baltimore's defense right now I mean obviously Zach Moss played good we were expecting

Baltimore to be better. They were trashed with injuries. They came out and had so many starters out for that game, lost that game. But yeah, Baltimore by week San Francisco. If you think you can get something good, yeah, I would capitalize. Despite being destroyed by Houston, Travis E.N did have a good game. My start of the week, four for 50 through the air, which was nice to see, 19 for 88 on the ground. And shout out to Alexander Madison. Yeah, baby. Alexander Madison had the. Best, worst, best game that I've seen in a while, 20 for 93, seven targets. Well, he means, what do you think I mean, Mike? He means a bunch of drops and 22 fumbles that didn't count. Yeah, you were watching the game screaming at the screen. Madison had more fumbles that didn't count as fumbles that I've ever seen in my life. He was expertly timing his fumbles this week. Yeah, I would call that best worst best. That's fair. And also, which also includes a.

uh catastrophic play by kirk cousins where madison was wide open for a drag route touchdown yeah he was too busy getting tackle open uh but madison had a nice game with the uh does that make it messier for you guys of being kind of a more on the cam acres side nope it doesn't make it makes it easier to trade madison Sure, yeah. I mean, I still think this is going to come in. But a nice game. 20 for 93 is a good game. And be a split. What it makes it harder on is deciding to bench Madison this coming week. Because, you know, whenever someone has a good game, if Cam Acres is active next game, I think the right thing to do is to just put Alexander Madison on your bench, but it's hard to do after a quality game. Probably flexible. Yeah, I'll bet he can certainly touch his toes. Yeah.

Hey, Keenan. Here's 20 targets. Keenan Allen, 20 targets, 18 for 2.15. Didn't score through the air, guys, but he did have a... 18 for 250. 18 for 215. That is good enough. Check out. Be done. Nah, let's throw a 49-yard touchdown. He did everything. He is the only player in NFL history with three games of 15 plus receptions. He plays the Raiders. We'll call it a defense. And then the bye week. Loses Mike Williams. Yeah, I mean, Keenan Allen, the only person that could stop Keenan Allen is Keenan Allen himself. Yeah, if he gets injured. Otherwise, he is going to be the steal of the draft. We saw this last year. I mean, we saw it at that when he came back from injury, he was the wide receiver four in fantasy football, the entirety of the second half of last season. And all he's done is pick up right there, 20 targets. I mean, this is, this is some Pooka Nakua stuff that Keenan's doing.

He was the number one wide receiver last week against Tennessee. He is the number one wide receiver this week against Minnesota. And he caught 26 passes in two weeks on 30 targets. And it's probably not changing because handing the ball out to Josh Kelly's not going to work. No. And no Mike Williams. I mean, Keenan Allen's just going to get hyper-targeted. Enjoy the ride. In half-point scoring right now, Keenan Allen is the... third highest player. He has scored more fantasy points than quarterbacks. I mean, he's just... In what format? Half PPR. And in full PPR, hide your children? True, man. Yeah, I haven't even looked there. I mean, full PPR, that is... He is the number one highest score above everyone at all positions through three weeks. Wow. Okay. Congratulations if you have Keenan Allen right now. They do have an early bye week and then you get...

Which we did have a ominous quote from the coaching staff talking about Austin Echler. And they said, well, how's that we're doing? And essentially the quote was something about we'll see how he's doing over the next few weeks. Yeah. Which is. I don't like that word. If he rests this week and then has a bye week the next week, it makes it so much more likely that they don't push him out. The only reason to push him out now is if Mike Williams is gone and you feel like you need your playmakers, but they're playing the Raiders. Yeah. So if.

Again, pay attention to the schedule. We got a game this week, but then they're on the buy week. So resting Echler for that week, it makes a lot of sense. I think if you have no Echler and you have no Mike Williams next week, you play seven guys on Keenan Allen, and you use the other four for the rest of the team. You know, this is a really funny week for the. no one can guard them even if they try story. Because we talked about that, like Tyree Kill had, on that touchdown, like you don't have Jayne Waddle. And Tyree Kill had, had, I don't know, 15 yards between him and the nearest defender on the touchdown pass. He went nine for 157. And then you had Devante Adams, right? And Devante Adams is the entire offense for Las Vegas. And he had 20 targets and he was 13 for 172 and you can't stop him. And Justin Jefferson.

Like, you should probably guard him, and you can't stop him. He has the most yards through three weeks in the history of the NFL. And then Keannell, you knew where the ball was going when it was crunch time. You can't stop him. This is what Mike's been saying for nine years. If you've got a superstar, just target him every single play. It works. See what happens. The rules are conducive for that. And you can always get a penalty. on those targets to your star receiver as well because they're the best of drawing them. It also is a, I mean, is this a testament to the power of the wide receiver position in fantasy? Absolutely. You know, Devante Adams, right? The doubts. Oh, Jimmy G. Right. They didn't play good. Well, they didn't play well. Superman doesn't play good. Thank you. Or he does play good. Whatever. Whatever, man. Devante Adams is not, he's too good to be stopped.

by a quarterback or a defense. As we were watching the game last night, all I kept thinking is like, of course. Like anyone that doubted him this year because, well, he's a little old. He's got a downgraded quarterback. It's like, we just did this. He was a little old. He got a downgraded quarterback and was dominant. He won't be stopped. And to speak to Justin Jefferson, you mentioned his yardage through three weeks most of all time. He is on pace for 2,600 receiving yards. And maybe this is the year he goes over 2000 because they can't run the football. They don't want to. Yeah. Or win. They don't want to win either. But those are big performances. Adam Thielen, 14 targets, 11 for 1, 45, and 1. Now do you believe Andy Dalton was an upgrade, Jason? Yeah.

Yeah, for sure. I mean, he got catchable targets all game. He's also getting open a ton. I mean, you watch him. He's still getting open all over the field. 11 for 145 and 1. You can't doubt it. He's the wide receiver 7 so far on the season. I think this is, I still think it's. This is the peak probably. This is the peak except I will say this. Minnesota this week. Oh, that's good. Detroit the next week. Okay. And you're going to have to keep throwing the ball against Miami after that. So I don't know. He's going to have eight to ten targets a week. It does seem that way. It does seem that way. And rookie Jonathan Mingo left with a concussion. So he's probably in a situation where he won't even be on the field next week. DJ Chark could be a viable flex play next week. He could.

He was four for 86 and looked good and a touchdown. Tank Dale, five for 145 and a touchdown. Hope you picked them up. Hope we talked high enough about him on the waiver show. I know, Mike, you. Hungry for more. You paint del. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We talked about up on that segment as well, his college stats. He is very open. Debo and Amari Cooper. Jason started the week, seven for one, 16. Jason, do you want to go off on that whistle? Oh, my goodness. I was like, what whistle? There was, if you did not see this game, there was one of the most egregious, wild, wacky, reffing mishaps that I've ever seen. Like, I was watching the game and we've got a, we've got nine TVs going. And so there was no audio. You didn't know what was happening from sound.

But here's what happened. There was this pass down the sideline. Amari Cooper somehow catches it. It looks like an impossible catch. He gets it. His defender basically falls down. He's wide open on the sideline. He starts running. He's going up the sideline. He's going to run for a touchdown. He stops running. He starts jogging. He stops. He looks back. He's confused. The defender looks around. Like what's going on? And then he's like, should I keep running? So he runs to the in zone and scores. But the play was over. And the play was over because near the sideline, when the defender fell down, the ref who was right there blew the whistle. Now, I understand you get things wrong. But he was a yard away from the sideline. I mean, okay, a foot and a half. This was not like a, oh, I can see green. This was like he did not approach the boundary. His foot was nowhere near it. It was really embarrassing. You blew the play dead so you can't review it.

You can't go back on it. Thankfully, he got another touchdown later, but he should have had an even bigger game than his 7 for 116 and 1. It felt like the ref had decided that he's like, oh, no, Cooper's going to end up out of bounds here. So he just was already ready for that, but it was not even close. Sam Laporta, 11 targets, 8 for 84 in a touchdown. The most receptions in the first three games for a tight end in history. And the number two tied in fantasy right now. is Sam Laporte. I loved, I think all of us loved his collegiate tape. He comes from tight-end university. You know, this is, this is sticky. He's just too out there on the field. And, you know, it's funny because the whole rookie sensation tight end of like, oh, Dalton Cicade is going to come in, the offense needs them, I don't think enough was really credited to Dawson Knox, a good tight end, who keeps getting targets, keeps getting in-zone targets, like these splitting.

But Laporta's not. Laporta's also in an offense that could put up 30 points on, you know, the regular. And he is it. He's out there, you know, 80 plus percent of snaps, running a ton of routes. You got to stay in the flames with him. It's funny seeing the Leporta against like Musgrave in Green Bay because if Musgrave had more accurate targets, he would be right here. with Leporto. I think we've seen three or four. Bomb, wide open bombs. Yeah, just like looking like grunk, just a fly up the middle of the field. No one's around him. And then whoops. He's going to have some games for sure. Yes, he will. But the Loporta targets are what make him a consistent play right now. It was funny because this performance happened. And then in our dynasty league, the Leporta and Hawkinson manager instantly put Hawkinson on the block. It was like he had made the decision that Loporta was the future.

Kelsey scored. Pat Fryer Muth got into the end zone. That was nice to see. George Kittle, the big game. Start of the week. Yeah. Yeah, Mr. Fryer Mute. He got loose. He scored. He had 41 receiving yards, which was, what was he at? More than five. He now needs, he needs eight hands, nine hands. Poopped in his big boy pants. Well, we do have to talk about the duds because there are decisions to be made, gentlemen. Mm-hmm. And Justin Fields, we talked about him earlier. It was abysmal, 11 for 22 for 99 yards, 11 for 47. You know, when you talk about what happened last year, like, I get it because the situation is there where you went from bad to good. So we had that happen. I think teams know how to defend Justin Fields running the football now. I think that's been pretty evident through three weeks.

And so now you want to make Justin Fields a passer, and he's failing the test. So you're going to have the Denver matchup. Denver's been a really bad defense. Somebody has to win that game, by the way. Denver, Chicago, someone's coming out with a victory. Who's home? I think it's Chicago. It is Chicago, yes. Does that change how you look at the game? Not at all. I was just curious. I mean, those two teams, man, they are looking. putrid. This is a shout out to Courtney Cronin who tweeted this to highlight the performance as a quarterback. Since the start of 2021, Justin Fields has the most starts, nine, with a QBR under 10 from the pocket. Under 10 is not good. He posted a career low 1.5 QBR from inside the pocket against Kansas City. This is not going to work. If we are convinced that Zach Wilson is not going to work, which it's not.

Justin Fields and Zach Wilson, that? Yeah. I mean, I'm not joking when I say Mr. Ribisky should be the starting quarterback for the Bears. Justin Fields, I think we've seen enough to know Justin Fields is not going to work for sure. He's not going to work for the Bears. He's not going to work as an NFL quarterback. He won't be. If you're in a dynasty league and you've got Fields, I think you wait for a big game or two because he'll have him. And when he has a big game, people will be back in. And I think you trade him because long term, I don't think he's the quarterback of the Bears. The Bears have their pick. The Bears have the Carolina pick. So they've got multiple options in a draft class with top tier quarterbacks. So if Fields gets replaced this off season, he's probably a future career backup that maybe he'll have a few more starts. But for dynasty purposes, I think he's...

He's an expiring asset quickly. He's not going to work. For fantasy purposes and redraft, I'm still, you know, Zach Wilson sucks. Zach Wilson doesn't have a superpower of being able to run for 80 yards and two touchdowns on the ground at any point. I'm looking at the list of quarterbacks. And if you've been through the Justin Fields experience through three weeks, I'm looking at the list of quarterbacks other than Zach Wilson. And you're a starting quarterback in the NFL. I'm not sure that you're not playing that player over Justin Fields next week based on. based on the experience you've had putting him in your lineup. It's probably fair. Baker Mayfield? I think you're playing Baker. What about Desmond Ritter? No. Ah, we got you. We got them. So Zach Wilson. We got him. No, no, let's do it. Zach Wilson, Desmond Ritter. If Andy Dalton was playing quarterback next week over Bryce Young, I'm playing him over Justin Fields.

See, I would absolutely not be doing that. I still think that the matchup against the Chiefs was a bad one and that his rushing for fantasy purposes can be great. I realize how it feels, and I'm certainly going to be putting in, you know, all other decent options. You know, if you're telling me that you've got a, you know, a Jared Gough or, you know, Deshawn Watson guys who have struggled a little bit. Oh, I'm not playing Tannahill either. No, I'll play Fields over Tannhill. Sorry. Fields trying to find the list. As like, we still have, what, four quarterbacks to go. But as of now, he's the quarterback 22. So there were, there's a handful of worse ones. Not a lot. No. And well, and it's 22 on the year you're saying? No, no, no. Last this, as of this week right now. The four tonight will pass that. Yeah. Yeah. That's what I'm saying. So there's still some. No. No, I, look, Jason's right in the respect that if you.

There are players that you could play that do not have Justin Fields ceiling, clearly. But I'm worried about that little thing in the brains of fantasy managers where it's like this could be the week. There have been a handful of players like that where you just keep waiting and you wait because you've seen the power and the big weeks. Maybe Justin Fields will figure it out. Do you think he will? It is important to be able to move on. It is 100% important for any fantasy asset to not just. I drafted him high. I loved him. I thought he was going to be great. You've got to be able to move on. And so we need to make sure you have the freedom to say, yeah, I am going to start someone else. He's probably going to have a good game if he's starting among the next four. It's probably going to be one. Minnesota, Las Vegas, Denver. And those three are all home. I mean, that's the schedule you want. So one of those is going to be good for sure. Tough, tough, tough decision on the fields. Yeah, I mean, it's really, really hard.

Yeah, I mean, Kansas City is a tough matchup. Yes. But 202 starting to be your dream. Trevor Lawrence, what's going on? He's another really difficult one to figure out. He had a really bad matchup against Kansas City. And we know that Houston has been a bad matchup as well, but usually it's because you're up so much you don't have to throw. Houston. Houston just beat the snout out of the Jaguars, just dominated him, turned him over several times, and, you know, Trevor Lawrence needed to throw the ball. And he didn't do it well. You called Trevor Lawrence discount. No, no, no. Or I'm sorry, you called Dak Prescott discount Trevor Lawrence. Yeah, it was, I called Trevor Lawrence expensive DAC. So that means that can he pick it is discount DAC.

based on Dak being in the duds this week as well. Very disappointing overall for the Hulk Cowboys, but for Dak. So Dak was 25 for 42, 49 and 1. Tough looking at that matchup. And if he can't, if he's not a guarantee in that one, you know, New England, San Francisco, the next two weeks, DAC is waiver fodder. Yeah. Potentially. Yeah. I mean, would you rather start Dak Prescott against the New England Patriots or Justin Fields against the Denver Broncos? I know. I know. It's a really, really hard question. The answer is that. And I would go fields. And I think the answer is probably look to your waivers for a better option than boat. I got a tweet going back to Trevor Lawrence, a friend of the show, James Coe. He tweeted this out. Calvin Ridley posted 92 yards in the first half of week one. He has 81 yards combined in the 10 quarters following. Yeah, and they were missing their top corner.

Houston was. Super disappointing. And Ridley went down, banged up a couple times. This is really disappointing performances from Jacksonville's offense. Yeah. And Trevor Lawrence, not taking the step forward. I think we got a little bit. Too hopeful? Well, no, I just used to it. I mean, like, Jalen hurts. That was the pick last year to take the step forward. He did it. Right. Like we've had these quarterbacks take these monumental steps into superstardom. And we're like, man, Justin Fields. Trevor Lawrence, they're set up. This has got to be. Give them Calvin Ridley, give them DJ Moore. They were already pretty good for fantasy. Let's give them superstar wide receivers. It's starting to kind of unwind that narrative that's worked so well. You know, you give digs to Josh Allen and that worked out. Yeah, no, you're 100% Brown to Jalen Hertz. You're 100% right. And now it's a matter of deciding of, okay, when we look back at the end of the season and say, yeah, they did. They just started slow. Yeah, it's still possible. Exactly.

Yeah, this is the time of year where you don't want to, you want to make conclusions when they're actionable for your fantasy league, but you also need to stay water and be willing to, I mean, that's probably. I think the best piece of advice for guys like this, guys that you see the path and still could absolutely for fantasy purposes be great, you just bench them. You keep them, you don't drop them, you pick them up off of waivers if they're out there. Yeah. But you don't play them, you wait and see. Yeah. Running back duds, big storyline. Yeah. Derek Henry. Uh-oh. 11 for 20. Uh-oh. He played 17 snaps? Can I hit the button? Yeah, please. Uh-oh. I was, it was funny last week. Um, I was worried about him. Uh, you know, I brought up the fact that he was actually splitting carries. And man, this last week was terrible. You went into halftime.

with a total of negative seven rushing yards. Uh-oh. Uh-oh. Yeah, it's not good. He had no targets. He had 11 carries for 20 total yards. Is he hurt? Well, he was on the- Yeah, he was on the injury report for the toe slash rest. Oh, that's right. So I don't know. I mean, I don't understand the recipe for them having any success in all of history. with Derek Henry has been to give him a million carries. Which they did in week two against the Chargers, 25 carries only 80 yards. So what do you do? Is this a full like this is not a buy, this is not a sale? This is I don't know. I believe if I had, like yeah, it's a tough, it's a tough defensive front. If I have Henry, I am holding. I'm just going to stay the course, but readjusting how I'm looking at Derek Henry. It's no longer, yes.

Week in and week out, this guy should be top 10, top 15 at the worst. No, it's game script. They have another option now. They have Taj Spears. They've never had a true running back who can come in and replace Derek Henry. And they have a guy who has a three-down skill set, who they are using when they need to catch up. So we know that when you're like the grinder, the two, the, down one, down two, rusher, you have ebbs and flows because of game script, but Henry has been able to kind of buck that trend, but he's, I think he's right back into that now. It's, it's really, really difficult. He's just, he's like, he's an RB2, but running backs stink for fantasy in general. I think that if you have Derek Henry and I think you need to shop him for a premium and hope someone is paying and saying, hey, man, I can get Derek.

freaking Henry for my team because he had a bad game. I'm going to go try to get it. What we've said about Derek Henry for the last couple of years is really what happens with these elder statement running backs is usually when it's over, it's over. You don't see them take a season where it's like, ah, he was like, he was like 85% of himself on his way towards retirement. Usually. things go badly for their final season and they end up really, really disappointing. And so this is, this is like to me a marker that says this could be the beginning of the end. They actually have Tajay Spears there. He's, you know, Tajay Spears out snapped him by 10 this last week. If there's the chance that I can get a lot for him, not, not, I'm not saying you got to pun him off a bridge.

But I would be shopping Derek Henry to see if I can capitalize on him and have someone else hold the bag. Because it looks like, it looks like what about winter coming? Might be full of poop. And that's the, that's the story. That's the story. He was finishing his sentence. And the end of the sentence was might be full of poop. But then I asked him whether winter was coming. And he would not allow the end of the sentence to not be completed. I think that's the story you got to sell to others is that winter is coming. Yeah, but what do you do with the?