Week 5 Studs & Stinkers + Dak Fallout, Fumble Jones - Fantasy Football Podcast for 10/12

Hopefully he's getting, get a bag from somebody. Yeah. I mean, it's great that they actually had somebody on the depth chart this time. I mean, Christian McCaffrey, in previous years, there was nobody. Sure. Zeke, nice game for Zeke. Does Zeke take more of a responsibility for this offense at this point? Yes, he will. And he's going to smash Arizona next week. Yep. Todd Gurley deserves.

Our respect, I mean, this has been a solid, solid year for Gurley. He had another great week, 14 for 121 and 1, had five targets in this one. And at this point in time, are you trading high on Gurley? Are you holding him? I mean, the touchdowns, I doubt they continue at this pace, but what are you doing with him? I mean, I think if you can trade high and capitalize on the name and the fact that, I mean, he's.

You know, Todd Gurley's a top 10 running back right now. He scored more fantasy points than Joe Mix and the Clyde Edwards Allaire than Jonathan Taylor. You might be able to really get something great for him. What about those three players? Yeah, I would trade him for any one of those three players. If you could trade him straight up for those guys, done deal. Miles Sanders, I would include in that.

Fantasy production has been a little bit too touchdown dependent to think that it's going to be this consistent the rest of the season. Brand new head coach. We'll see what happens. Miles Sanders. Now, Mike and I, we were in our League of Record battle, and look, you weren't feeling great about Miles Sanders starting this week against Pittsburgh, right? No, it was an absolute terrible match upon Sunday live. I was expressing my concerns, my worry for Miles Sanders, and then boom.

74-yard touchdown run for Miles Sanders looking like an absolute savage. You know what that feels like, Mike? When you know that your opponent has Miles Sanders against the vaunted Pittsburgh defense, and he's doing nothing. In fact, he had 10 other carries in the game other than his 74-yard touchdown run. He averaged 0.6 yards per carry on those. Yeah. So 74-yard touchdown run. Finish the game with 80 yards.

On the ground, but he didn't have the two touchdowns. So, look, he dominated for fantasy purposes. It was, it turned into a great play. But that, if, if the process was correct saying be scared to start him. Don't be fooled going forward that the Steelers run defense is soft or, you know, right. They are, they are elite. There was one play on the season that, that did not work. But this will disrupt the analytics.

Because he scored another touchdown, which means the fancy points given up to the running back position for the Steelers this week was awful. Yes. And not true of the circumstances, really. Although at least we know they can give up a 74-yard run. Josh Jacobs, another great game from Jacobs. This was so funny because we talked about how Jacobs really, so far in his short career.

His good games come and wins. I mean, you know, his multi-touchdown games, they come and wins. This is a game where they're on the road, heavily underdog. This isn't going to be a good game for Jacobs. But then it turns out that the Rangers put a 40 and win the game. And it's a great game for Jacobs. He looks like we were right in the sense that.

In games that the Raiders win, Jacobs is very good. We were just wrong that they, I mean, what would you have put the odds that the Raiders win this game? Very low. 10%? Yeah, it didn't look like it was going to happen. And neither did Jacob's good game until they started getting going. He's the RB6 on the season. But this is why players like Mixing and Jacobs, you just play them every week. You don't, you don't try to chase other points elsewhere. You just play your studs.

Speaking of Chase, Chase Edmonds. Three for 36 and a touchdown on the ground. Six targets again, five for 56 through the air. Dallas, Seattle, those good matchups. But Kenyon Drake, Kenyon Drake was 18 for 60 and 1. I don't know where he would live in today's show. I guess he would live further on the good than bad. But I will tell you, I watched every one of those 18 carries. I was very...

discouraged with what I saw, a player running slowly, laterally. He honestly looked like David Johnson in Arizona last year. It was great that he got into the end zone. If it's me, I'm trying as hard as I can to cash in on Kenyon Drake this week. What do you guys think? I would trade him. Yeah, I don't blame you cashing in on him. And I think that if you can sell high, the routes run between Kenyon Drake and Chase Edmonds changed this week, the passing game involvement. Like, if you look at the carries,

Chase Edmonds is not involved. He, you know, he comes in, has a great surprise touchdown run. But carry count, it's all Drake. And I don't think that's going away, even with the inefficiencies of Drake. But what we've really been missing is the involvement in the passing game for Drake. And we said there was going to be changed this week. Either they're going to get him more involved or Chase is going to be more involved. And Chase was more involved. So to your point, Andy, I think, yeah, you can.

You can try to capitalize if you're afraid that it's going to be this way for the rest of the season. I also think he is getting a ton of volume. And for fantasy, that's what matters the most at the end of the day. Even if you're inefficient, you fall into the end zone and you have a decent game. It's called the David Montgomery approach that I've been taking. Yeah. For Drake, it's if you can trade high, I would do it. You don't have, you're not trying to.

Get rid of Kenyon Drake for free because he's still getting the volume. But I do believe that this game signifies a drastic change in the ceiling for Kenyon Drake, seeing the six targets for Edmonds and the one for Drake. I just want to remember because there's, there are not many people that get the amount of workload that Drake has been getting. Sure. You know, you can count them on both your hands and that's it. And so getting out is a little.

worrisome in the sense that, you know, last year we saw this with Joe Mixon, right? He was three yards of carry through the first half of the season inefficient. And I don't want to harp on my, this is just opinions, right? Sure. But I do want to stress the fact that Kenyon Drake looks terrible running the football. This is not a player that looks anything like last year. Joe Mixon watching him at the beginning of the year last year, in my opinion, was running as hard as he ever had run and it came to fruition later.

If I were planning my flag, I'd be planning my flag on disappointment. And if he didn't fall into the end zone yesterday, we would have been telling you to get out. This is just my opinion. Sure. I understand the volume argument. I just saw a really, really bad player. I don't know what happened. We said he gained weight. There's a lot of talk about, I saw on Twitter, a lot of talk about the boot. There could be an injury here. There's got to be something that happened because he doesn't look nearly as explosive as last year. And they're not using him in the passing game, which makes no sense if he's the same player. Yeah.

Miles Gaskin. Oh, the gasman. Jordan Howard does a healthy scratch. Yes. And that turned into a goal line carry for Miles Gaskin. This is why I kept bringing the name. I mean, you're Jason, the volume of Kenyon Drake. You could not deny the volume of Miles Gaskin over the first couple weeks. It was you're never like, yeah, I'm getting Miles Gaskin seventh round pick and he's going to turn into a star for my fantasy team. But he could be a.

He could be a solid running back too. Philip Lindsay year for Miles Gaskin. It could be. The problem with Gaskin and what was said is he's getting volume. He'll have a great floor. He'll get you 10 points. But when you get down around that goal line, he has no chance of scoring a touchdown. Because it's Howard. And Howard being a healthy scratch, that changes everything. Now you have a high floor with touchdown upside. Devonta Freeman had 17 carries in this game against Dallas. He also scored.

I told you last Thursday I was going to play him over McCull Hardman. And it worked out. And, uh, you look, it's a volume play. I don't think he looks that bad. I really don't. He does. He looks okay. Yeah. Uh, Chase Claypool. Oh, man. MapleTron. 11 targets. Seven for one, 10 and 3 had a rushing touchdown. Uh, he ran only 23 routes, which is just incredible. This reminds me of the, uh, was it Marvin Jones in Cincinnati?

when he had one of those three touchdown games. And he ran almost no routes over the course of the game. Now, this is, I mean, he was more involved than Marvin Jones was. But this, everything came together for Chase Claypool this week in a breakout performance. And I, if you've listened to the show through the off season, you know that I was amongst those on the very front of the, of the Claypool bandwagon. Love the guys, uh, opportunity.

the draft capital, the athletic profile of Chase Claypool, and the Steelers hit rate with wide receivers. You get this guy in your rookie dress because he has the makeup to eventually become a number one. Now, James Washington still had a much higher route rate, 90% compared to Chase Claypool at 67%. So I...

This is a moment of celebration and a party for Chase Claypool, but you need to have at least some caution here. If you're going to go all in on Chase Claypool, know that this could be like the game for the season. You would expect, you would hope that Chase Claypool has proven his worth to the team that they're going to get him far more involved, but that is not a guarantee. I completely agree.

We have to remember Deontay Johnson got knocked out of this game at the beginning. So Deontay Johnson, Juju, James Washington, Claypool, Ebron, Connor. There are multiple weapons here. But long term, man, you should be excited for Claypool. I agree. And we remember Juju, the contract. Right. He's not coming back with the money that he wants. Yeah. Travis Fulgum. Oh, dominant.

13 targets, 10 for 152 and 1. Unbelievable, man. You weren't joking. He was actually dominant against Pittsburgh. He had six total targets in his career coming into this game. Yeah, this would be the Eagles wide receiver. Brooks wants us to remind you. I mean, it's good for you, man. Yeah, that's awesome. Yeah, I, you know, what Zacharts cannot do, Fulgum can.

Brandon Cooks. Because Zachers is taking all the coverage because he runs these really slow uncrisp routes. But he's still got the name on in the back. Yeah. They're like, oh, we got to take out the number one option. Yeah. This was honestly a pretty impressive performance like Wentz getting it done against Pittsburgh. The game being competitive, obviously at the end, it fell apart. Brandon Cook's unretired. He decided to check himself out of the retirement facility without permission.

And good luck chasing these points. Yeah, I mean, his of all the of all the retirements were, you know, he's he's young, he's proven. There's so much change happening for the Texans. You're right, Andy, in the sense that this is chasing points. He's going to be a.

high volatility player that's not consistent. But I don't think... But he can still do it now. Yeah, I don't think this is his last good game or, you know, an outlier that's not going to happen a couple times through the year. It's just really when you're playing that Will Fuller Brandon Cook's flip of the coin, it's going to be gross. And the truth is you're going to need to start those players.

Every single week, if you want the chance of hitting those big games. These are great best ball players. And yesterday morning, I helped my son set his lineup in our family league is playing for the first time. And I was like, oh.

You got to take Brandon Cooks out of your line up. Oh, no. Then we get alerts all day. Big play. Brandon Cooks. Look, the disparity is highlighted in the last two games. He played 94% of snaps last week against a bad Minnesota secondary. He had three targets, no catches. This week against Jacksonville, 12 targets, eight catches. There's a completely different ballgame. Now, I want to be clear, though, Will Fuller still had a great game. Will Fuller's thought a great fantasy week, which is other than the week he was injured, he's been consistent each and every week. So this, the hope.

The hope here is not in Brandon Cooks and not in Will Fuller. It's in Deshawn Watson. It's in the fact that the offensive guy running the show is gone. And there's a change in mentality, a change in what they might want to do and unleash Deshaun Watson. And that this could become a new normal. That is the hope that we're, you know, because we do have to recognize Bill O'Brien is gone and Deshaun Watson went off. If Deshaun Watson goes off, his receivers are going to be good. Completely.