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

It was a big Sunday of football. We react to all the studs, all the duds, and break down some of the news, of course. Make sure you subscribe to this channel. Subscribe right now. Leave us some comments and enjoy. To the fantasy footballers podcast with your host, Andy Holloway, Jason Moore, and Mike Wright. Oh, welcome in. Monday episode of the fantasy footballers. I think the hardest part of...

The Monday show is not talking all about the games before we hit record. Yeah. Because we're all, you know, we were together for the majority of the day watching the games, but then you have the evening games. And you get the whole like stat avalanche that comes through the weekend on social media. And then you get in here and, you know, Al and the judge, we start talking about our leagues. And then it's like, hit record. Hit record. Because so much happened this weekend. You don't want to waste all the good stuff pre-show. No. And we all have so many different thoughts about what's transpired. We're three weeks in. We got two Monday night football games still to be played. We had some absolute madness over the weekend. We have to react to. Today's the Studs and Dudge show. We've got NFL news, injury news to talk about. We also have Monday Punday. And I was telling Jason this morning on average for the first two weeks of the season.

I looked through the puns. 80, 90% negative puns. Maybe a few people happy, content. This week it was all flip. This week it was 70% positive. This week was drunk. I mean, this was insane. Usually, you know, our footy awards at the end of the year, which stay tuned. Make sure you're there for that episode. We have like the best fantasy performance of the year. And over the course of the year, we have like just four or five monstrous fantasy finishes. This week we had like 10 monsters. It was insane. The best fantasy performance. may have been on everybody's bench. Yeah, we'll get there. But I'm saying like one of the best games of the year was just chilling on the waiver wire or on people's benches. The numbers I saw was about 0.6% of people played that player. And we'll talk about him shortly because there is a lot to talk about with Mr. H.A. But like I said, there's a lot going on. Follow us on social media.

at the FF ballers over on X, Instagram.com slash fantasy footballers, and the community has joined the foot.com. I wanted to give a quick shout out genuinely. The DFS passed this week. Matthew Betts and Kyle the Borgogan and the community there. It's been a really good year. I think that the team takes the right approach over there with the DFS pass, and we had more success. this weekend. If you don't know what that is, that is our exclusive season long resource. And it's really turned into, you know, there are tools. There's the DFS optimizer, which is brand new this year. It's awesome. But then there is the like Discord community you get access to, which is becoming more and more invaluable to reacting to news and to talking about DFS plays. And it's just a lot of fun. And we charge one price for the year, which we should probably rethink. Yeah.

We really should. I'm working on it, guys. And for the first time ever, we want you to go experience that. It's normally $50 for the year. There is a code you can put in if you want to grab it right now and it goes through the playoffs. That code is winner 23. Well, the code doesn't go through the playoffs. The code is limited time. The DFS pass goes through the playoffs. There we go. And if you were confused, like Mike. But winner, 23 is the code at DFSPass.com. Just to be a part of that, give it a try. Let us know what you think. And the props over there in the DFS pass are currently running at 69% for the season. Which is soon. You may have some, probably unsustainable. I mean, we went, you know, seven and three again this week. Seven and three again this week. Just ridiculous. So congrats to the team over there for the hard work. Really love what they're doing. And, um,

Let's get into the reactions in the most sophisticated manner possible. Yes. It would be ridiculous not to start with the 70-point brigade. TWA Infinity and beyond. Oh, Devon, my bench, A-Chane. But also, he is divine A-Chane. Ah, Rahim, most of the T-Ds. Yes, and the most popular submission, of course, Rahim must start. Oh, who's that? Is that? Winneth Walker? What? That one's terrible. Oh, he's a winner. Adam, feeling young again. Yes, he is, Jason. Hey, guys, it's me. Adam. It's Adam feeling here. That's right. That's a better voice. How about living La Porta Loca? Alexander the Great? Mike, oh, yeah. Keenan All-In? Did I read it right? Yeah, it's very simple. And there were some bad, like Derrickety Henry. Beyond.

Robinson. Brees Stahl. Bust Edwards. Come on. Yeah, that's not nice. But what about Jahan Notson? Yes. Followed up by Justin. Get off the fields. Oh boy. Justin shield your eyes. It's bad to watch. Yeah, I mean, there are some, you know, we're three weeks in. Uh-huh. Three weeks is, that's what we call a sample size, right? That's enough time. Three weeks sample size is what we call that. That's three weeks is what it takes to become on fire, right? Yes. NBA Jam rules here. NBA Jam rules. So we've got some decisions to be made. I know in the aforementioned Justin Field situation, I know that Al Borland and others with Justin Fields are making drop decisions now. Oh, yeah. So, so that's, that'll be.

Hey, it was week six last year. So if you're holding on the Fields, you just got a couple more weeks. When the turnaround happened and he went nuclear the second half? Yeah. Yeah, I mean, Joseph Fields is really, really interesting because he wasn't good last year as a quarterback, but obviously he was a league winner for some, brought people to the playoffs for fantasy purposes. It was great. Started the year just terrible. This year looks worse than he did last year to me, which is really disappointing with. DJ Moore in tow. The offense and the play calling looks as bad as his ability to let go of the football on time and in rhythm. Everything looks like a calamity. That being said, you know, Mike, you were bringing up. You believe this Chief's defense is fully legitimate, super for real. They've shut down everyone. They didn't give up anything to other good options.

Fields is someone that will be hitting waiver wires this week for sure in some leagues. If he hits a waiver wire in my league, there is no chance. I would pick him up. I would not be playing him, but I would pick him up absolutely to stash. Because if I'm picking him up, I feel confident that I have a starting option and I can just find out what's going to happen for Justin Fields over the next couple weeks, which. To me, it's landmine country. It certainly could be. Because I don't think you play him if you pick him up. Which means he has an explosive game on your bench at some point. And then you put him back in there. And I didn't know. I didn't know the floor was this low, Mike. What if I told you next week he plays the Denver Broncos? No, I know. I know, but I'm not doing it anymore because I predicted a bounce back in week two and I predicted a bounce back in week three. So I am now going to learn from said mistakes. Any quarterback can have a monster game. That happens a lot. Just ask Daniel Jones.

Yeah, so that's a disappointing. We'll get there. We'll get there to the duds. I guess we need to talk about some of this injury news. News and notes from around the league. Presented by USAA Insurance. Well, let's start with the headline that just formally broke. Mike Williams confirmed. Torn his ACL out for the season. That stinks. He was having a big game. He had had a 13 target week the week before. It seemed like things were starting to click. He finished as the wide receiver 8 this week. Had a monster touchdown from Keenan Allen. Yeah, you just had to find the right quarterback to get him the ball. But devastating news. I mean, at this point, we've gone through the injury to Austin Echler now in this offense. And they did manage to get the W in spite of themselves to some degree. They tried to not. They did, Brandon Staley. I think you're starting to see a man turn inside out in his own brain.

But Mike Williams out for the year. We had Echler go down and it looked like Josh Kelly, which, look, should have been in the puns with another Josh Smelly. But the backup didn't come through, is my point in Los Angeles, because the offense changed fundamentally. So you look at this and it'd be easy to quickly react and you probably should be picking up a Quentin Johnston to see what happens. Joshua Palmer's probably the under the radar pickup that people aren't going to pay attention to. Yeah. but it might be hard to expect those guys to come in and put up what Mike Williams was doing. Yeah, I think your point is important that what this team did when they lost Echler was not keep the same system. They said, okay, our backup running back isn't that good. They went from in neutral passing situations. When Echler was there, they were 30th.

because they were running the ball very successfully. And when Echler has been gone, they are first in pass right over expectations. So this is a team that changed because of their personnel. They lose Mike Williams. They're going to change because of their personnel, not just say, Quentin Johnson, you're the new Mike Williams. Now, he will get an opportunity to say, hey, I can be the next Mike Williams, but he's got to prove that. Yeah, and I mean, I'd be curious, quick reaction on who you would. pick up because to me like Josh Palmer had a good game. He was four for 66 and a touchdown. Comes down to what does my team need? If I'm looking at my, I have a two flex league and my second flex has not been what I need it to be. I'm going Josh Palmer. If my starting roster is legit locked in for the next couple weeks, then I'm going to go with Johnston. Shoot for the move. Yeah, pick him up and hope.

that he overtakes Palmer over the second hand. Yeah, Palmer, what we know about Palmer is he can go out there and have a decent game, but he's not that dude. We've seen that with so many of these players over the last couple of years, the Van Jeffersons, the KJ Osbournes. They can go out there and be a successful wide receiver three, but when given the opportunity to really show that there's something special, they're just not that guy, and I don't think Palmer is that guy. And I'd love to sit here and recommend Gerald Everett. But unfortunately, it's a shared situation because the par ham burglar stealing touches. I like it. Yeah, that was a Kyle special. Oh, give him a shout out there. That's his first good one. I'm so proud of you, Kyle. I love you, Kyle. The other news this weekend, Jamal Williams went on the IR with the hamstring. And so Kendrae Miller, Tony Jones, Tayson Hill, and all your other friends.

Well, Alvin Camara. Yeah, Cal Camara is back now. Dion Jackson was released, waived. Trace Serman moved up to the active roster. No one, I mean, it doesn't matter because there's just one workhorse in the building. I can't wait. I can't wait to tell everyone how great Zach Moss is, how well he's been playing and how I have completely. I don't want you to. Exactly. I want you to stay right where you at. Oh, he's great, guys. And he's going to be. Oh, now he's trying to reverse engineer. Zach Moss to disaster. Look, he has looked really good. That's not even a joke. He has made nice receptions. Yeah, that touchdown catch was special. There were plays where he was. I don't know if it's the bit still. I can't tell. There were plays where he should have been tackled four yards behind the line of scrimmage. He got to four positive yards. He has looked really good.

And I was so super wrong about him being an average player. Okay. And going forward, you know, I'm happy. I'm just going to eat those words. Yeah. So I'm so happy about that. 9-11 swap, though, in your favor. No, my favorite part of the weekend was Zach was yelling Zach Moss's name and yelling Adam Thielen's name. Those were the only two things I truly enjoyed this weekend. If you're going to bring up the trade, Andy, the 9-11 swap where I traded you, Zach Moss, it was really. Two pick up Devon A chain, which I'm happy to have right now. How many points do you score you this week? 50 on my bin. Okay, thank you. Yeah, but in the event of a tie. Right. Oh, no chance I lose. Jason's got it locked up. Derek Carr, AC joint sprain. He's going to miss some time. You're going to see James Winston a quarterback. Gus Edwards concussion. Yeah, he was cooking too. Hey, what do you know? Rashad Bateman exited the game with an injury. Yeah. So there you go. This guy's body does not want to play.

Zach Wilson is going to remain the team starter. The New York Jets. What are they doing? The Jets and Bears fans, I'm sorry. Things are so bad for you that you, in this building, we have a diehard to the grave lifetime Packer fan in Al Borland, who literally feels bad for you. It's true. I was just telling Andy that this morning. He was just telling me that, which I don't think they want to hear that. That's so patronizing for the Bear fan. Right. But. This was a good weekend for the Bears. Wow. You think the... The Cardinals won. Oh, sure. Sure. Both of those picks are, you know, maintained by the Arizona Cardinals. And so I know we've got a close friend, Chris, who is a diehard Bears fan. And we're just like, we're rooting against each other, but in the opposite of normal, it's like...

We're saying go bears. My team's going to lose. No, my team's going to lose. It's a good weekend. And I told you guys I've completely changed on the Arizona Cardinals approach. Because I realized this week, and maybe through the first two weeks, I am not rooting for the number one pick at all. Oh, okay. I don't mind if Houston loses, but they're not going to get the number one pick either. CJ Stroud's legit. But it would be silly to root for it for either of those teams right now because they're not that team. Both of those teams are much better than the number one pick, in my opinion. Houston ended up dominating Jacksonville yet again. I mean, that's a whole other discussion on what you do with Jacksonville's offensive pieces. But Arizona's, unfortunately, for you guys. Yes, thank you. A good competitive football team. They were on the cusp of winning the first two weeks. They dominated Dallas this past weekend. And Joshua Dobbs, if you were the quarterback of the New York football Jets, you'd be 3-0.

I mean, I think the Jets would be 3 and 0 if they had Josh Dobbs, a quarterback. There are so many better options than Zach Wilson. Well, wait two weeks and trade for Joshua Dobbs, Jets fans. Yeah, with Kyler potentially coming back. He could come back. He's post the timeline now where he would be able to be back within the normal timeline. From the injury recovery. Correct. And then he has one week left of ineligibility being on the pub. Can I try to persuade you to root for the Cardinals the rest of this season? I think I can make the case for you. If Kyler comes back week five, if he's back immediately following his minimum stay on the pup, then I'll root. Okay. Mike, you're not on that side? I just, I don't want mediocrity forever. Okay. Yeah, that makes sense. A six-win team is, that's a, I think a six-win team is, that's the worst. I think if you go backwards with, you got a new GM, new head coach.

and then you go backwards and you lose all your games. That's worse for the team, even if you get the number one pick. Because, you know, what's the net gain of the four free agents you pick up because you've built a culture and you start winning football games? It's really hard to bring people in and get them on board, especially in Arizona, where what, did we get ranked 32nd and, like, treating your players and making them buy their cafeteria food? Like, you have to change the culture, and I'd rather have the four free agents at this point because they're playing hard for Gannon. Whenever I hear the, like,

that we make players pay for their cafeteria food. It's unbelievable. It sounds like some joke that. Do you know how much they eat, Jason? Football players eat so much food. And do you know how much money they make? They can afford to pay for their cafeteria food from us, the Arizona Cardinals. This is not a Cardinal show, but I have switched. I was excited, and it's fun to root for your team. That's fair. It was fun yesterday. Joe Burrow expected to be a game time decision tonight. I think he's playing. Yeah, I mean, it seems like it. They say that he is campaigning to start. They also said that this morning in his, you know, warmups, things were good. He's progressing in the right direction. There was also a report they could put him on the IR. So hold your breath. He's a gamer. I think he's going to be out there. And I think, you know, this is make or break season time. Cincinnati is not competing in that division with how Pittsburgh's playing. The Ravens lost, which is helpful for the Bengals.

Yeah, yep. You're down to, I believe, after tonight, just three teams will be three and O in the entire NFL. So it's been pretty wide open and anybody seems to be able to win any given week. All right, that was today's news and notes presented by USAA Insurance. Learn more at USAA.com slash insurance. This week's fantasy stud muffins. Well, there were a lot of them, and it's fun to talk about players delivering. The Goods. Yeah, baby. Justin Herbert. Quarterback won on the season. Is that true? That is true. Really? Yeah. It is really, really true. And he was. And he was. Yeah, it does. Because he scored the most fantasy points. I don't believe that. I'm going to go look at it this morning. Did you? Yeah. I mean, obviously we've got quarterbacks that haven't played this evening, but those would be.

Baker, Stafford, Borough and Hurts. He's going to finish as the number one. The only one that would have had a chance would be Anthony Richardson and he's obviously. So he's ahead of Tua. Correct. Interesting. We're through three weeks? Yeah, we're through three weeks. All right. I'm seeing it's still Kirk Cousins. Yeah, that doesn't. It definitely has to be cousins. Are you guys looking in six point or four point? Oh, four point. I got. What Jason's got, Herbert, number one. Ah, okay. So four point league Herbert sitting at number one, huh? I see. What are the top three then? Is it Herbert? It goes Justin Herbert, Kirk Cousins, Tua. In four point. So Herbert was 40 for 47, 405 yards. It's the first 400 game, 400-yard game of his career. And he was vultured on a bomb touchdown to Mike Williams. Tua, 309 and 4. He was 23 of 26. He went 16 for 16 in the first half.

and they didn't have Jalen Waddle and scored 70. Half of his touchdown passes were right-handed to a play's left-handed at the quarterback position. That's an interesting fact. Were both of his shuffle passes? They were identical plays. You want to talk about embarrassing Broncos fans? I'm sorry, but the exact same play and the same formation. A lot was a lot of... you know, bad reviews were given to the Bears offense last week for running the same screen from the same formation twice. And that's why it was intercepted. The Dolphins were like, you guys can't stop us doing anything. I don't want to show you any new plays. Hey, just do that one that scored a touchdown last time. Do that again. And they did it. And it scored a touchdown again. Yeah, that game, I mean, just broadly reacting to that Miami game.

You ever seen anything like that? It was so fun. It was a blast. I've never seen anything like it. I turned to Mike. It was, I don't know. I think we were starting the fourth quarter. I was like, I don't think I've ever seen something like this. He goes, that's because you haven't. I mean, I wasn't alive in 1966 the last time someone put up 70 points. So I will then ask the question coming from the Foot Clan and one who was pulverized by this matchup. Was it fun? because you were not facing Rahim Mostert in any leagues? That was helpful. Because I was. Brooks was. And it was not fun. It was, in fact, super frustrating that they kept turning the ball over in positive area for the dolphins and then couldn't stop Rahim Mostert. Rahim Mosterd had four touchdowns. And he did not have, he did not stand alone as the only one with four touchdowns. A chain had four as well. Absurd.

on your bench. And you really thought about that decision too. That one was difficult because most people I would never blame anyone for not having them in their lineup. He hasn't done anything yet and hopefully you have better options. The morning of, I messaged my co-manager and said, hey, I want to put Von A-Chain in over Alger. Talk me off of this. I said, I think I'm the only person that would actually start him. So he was very persuasive then. No. He responded and said, I'm actually okay with that. I can see the path. And then I left them there. You chickened out. I mean, I can quote, I can quote Jason. I mean, I've got the, I got the receipts over here. He sent me a message too. I mean, I said, who are you playing a running back? He said, I have to play two of Algier, A-Chane, and Miller. I said, oh, I didn't see Kendra Miller was on your IR stashed away. He says, I can make a case for any of them. Seems silly to bench Alger, but I expect a putrid game. And I got it.

So that's cool. But the nice thing is, you know, sometimes you make a decision. It doesn't affect your actual outcome. No, this one, of course, did because he scored 50 points. So I lost and would have won. But whatever, we move on. It's still good. Like, this is always one of those things as a fantasy manager. You watch a guy on your bench go off. And it's a real bittersweet thing because you obviously want those points. You want to win. But it's always a good thing. You can't root against your guys on the bench. As much as you want to. As much as you were. You were actively despising every snap he took. I was reacting to it. I was cut to the core, but I was also happy. I was thrilled because the more that he proves himself, the more opportunity he'll get in future weeks. Here's the real challenge. 54 points or 50 points, whatever it was in your league format. Devon A, obviously the.

The Broncos are going to be the worst team against running backs the rest of the season no matter what they do at this point. They were terrible going into the game. They were terrible in the game. Vance Joseph is training on Twitter to be fired. The team is a disaster. They give up 90 fantasy points to running backs. Yeah, I mean, they gave up eight touchdowns to running backs in a game. So that game, the nuclear explosion. The Miami offense was already number one in football. They're going to be the number one in football for a long time. Here's what I'm saying, and we're into the running backs already, because we have some, you know, Mahomes, cousins, start of the week, Jordan Love, big games. Into the running backs, mustard and aging. They travel to a Buffalo team next week that just put up 28 fantasy points that had nine sacks, that had four interceptions, they made Sam Hal look like a Pop Warner quarterback. Mm-hmm. And the question is going to be, do you just...

play A chain as a reward for the bench performance of the year? Or is this a higher stakes, closer game? Divisional match. Are the snaps going to be there? I want to know what, I mean, your team is different. Your team has no running backs. Yeah, my team A chain will be out there. But do you think that that's going to be the recommendation this week, gentlemen? I think that you should put A chain in your lineup. I was pro A chain the whole off season. I'm going to put a wrinkle in this. Okay, okay, okay. So on Ahmed Monday or whatever, Wednesday's practice, he's back. He's practicing in full. Well, certainly. If Ahmed is back and active for the game, no. The case that I was about to make is that if you've got just Moster and A-chain, I don't think they want to give either player, you know, too much of a workload. They will split evenly. And my goodness, you can't have too faster.

options out there. And when you've got a guy, if he's going to touch the ball, let's say 12 times, if he gets 12 carries against the bills, you only need one sliver of an opportunity for a breakaway touchdown run. We saw it a bunch. obviously against a much easier defense and Sean McDermott has taken over play callings on defense and their defense has looked excellent since that's happened. So I certainly am not expecting a monster big blowup game. I won't start him over everyone, but assuming that it's Moster and A chain as the only two active running backs that you presume are going to get work.

then yeah, I think both of those players need to be started. This Dolphins offense has not been able to be stopped. They have creative play calling. They get guys open in space. They've got a good run scheme. You've got to stay in the flames. I certainly think that's the right call for this week. It will be something to watch when you get Ahmed back and Jeff Wilson back in week four and then A-Chane's performing. And then Mostard is running back one on the season, I think. The what? Mostert? Yes. Is Moster at the RB1? I believe so, yes. So, I mean, what a, it's not going to be 70 points a week is all I'm saying. No, no, no. But I do think everything you said was accurate. And if you look last week, the Bill's defense was incredible, absolutely shut down the Manders. But Brian Robinson was, he was having a fine game against him. He was 10 for 70 on the ground. They just had to pass the ball and couldn't pass the ball to Manders. They could only pass the ball to Bills.