Week 2 Studs, Duds, and Surprises! - Fantasy Football Podcast for 9/18

Oh yeah, I know you're here for Zach Moss takes. I know you want to see that I traded him and he went nuclear, but we've got a lot of players to discuss, a lot of things to talk about. Make sure you subscribe to our channel. Get prepared to win this whole season. Enjoy the show. To the fantasy footballers podcast with your host, Andy Holloway, Jason Moore, and Mike Wright. Oh, welcome in. Monday, September 18th, the fantasy footballers.

Back with you. Apparently hat day. Every day is hat day. When you don't want to do your hair. Every day is hat day when you're losing your hair. You have committed pretty strongly to the hats, Jason. Yeah. Yeah, I find that. It's near full-time hat day. Yeah, it's near full-time hat day. I really like not having to worry about my receding hairline. It's great. Wearing hats is great. I mean, if I had your hair, Mike, I would burn all my hats. Yeah. You do you. It's a burden. Wait, if you go to, it's a burden. If you go to Deucer's Alley. Oh, look at that. Oh, man, so many hats. Any of us take a shower today? I mean. I did. Mike took a shower? Yeah, I did as well. Mine's more of a Jason problem. Okay. All right. The hat bros.

I didn't take a shower today. Nice. I skipped it. Yeah. Who needs showers? And you just told hundreds of thousands of people. Well, we're playing pickleball later. That's true. And I will shower after that too. Yeah, I mean, I just didn't want to double shower. Right. Yeah, we all are. You're correct. I showered last night. Oh, see, that's perfectly fine. I do not like when you do, like, you have the morning shower and then you do some sort of activity afternoon and you. go shower again, but your towel's not fully dry? Yeah. Oh, that's the worst. You gotta get the other towel out. Yeah, I was gonna say you only have one towel. Mike, you stick with that towel? Yes. How often do you change your towel? How often do you guys change your towel? Uh, I change my towel about once every week and a half. I changed mine pretty regularly, but we have like four towels hanging up in our bathroom. So I'll, I'll just grab the other one. Wait, do you share towels with your wife? You have, you have multiple showered? Yeah. Towels up?

This man right here, you expect him to not have multiple shower towels. Well, I'm just the way that he was... I'm surprised he doesn't have multiple showers in his room. The way he was expressing it was like, this is a normal thing. It's a totally normal thing. I got four shower hooks. What do you want me to not put towels on the hooks? Doosers, please, you have one towel per person up, right? One towel. Okay. Thank goodness. I thought I was losing my mind. Well, we are in some ways. Welcome into the show. Lots to talk about. I was driving into the office this morning and I kind of

You know, I look at week two a little bit like you, you glance out over the proverbial battlefield and you survey the damage. Like there are truths you find out through two weeks. And, you know, it gets into questions of draft loyalty to players. And I'm going to ask you guys that question later about some scenarios. But, you know, we learn a little bit more. You find out a little bit more about the defenses. And you survey the damage to your roster. then you make some adjustments. I mean, anybody out there that says that they know everything that's going to happen week to week in the NFL is a liar. And that includes us. Like we don't know. There's been a lot of surprises. And now it's our job to help you make the adjustments, make the tweaks, and propel yourself towards a footland championship, hopefully. And so that's what we're going to do. A lot of reactions. A lot of...

strong feelings out there this week and we surveyed the foot clan for their sophisticated reactions to the weekend are we back baby and we've got some good and some bad on the Monday punday reactions we're gonna start with the good Jason do you want me to take the first one no I've got you here because I love him Zach boss Zach boss Uh, Mike Evans. Yes. Good and good. Goody. James. Cooking. Okay. Hmm. Oh, was that T. D. Higgins? It sure was. Yeah, was. What about? What about T.J. Rockinson. Yeah, I like that. And Jason, you threw in, uh, Puka Nuclear. Yeah, baby. Eat an owl. Oh, but there was bad. Yeah, like Joshua Smelly. Or Jafart, Chase. Jafart?

And, wow, we'll be talking about scam acres. And Calvin Didley squat. Or Jerry Booty? Yeah. Why are we doing that? Yeah. And Damian tears. Oh, Least Hall. I'm getting all the poop jokes, boys. This is the best one of the day, though. A.J. Brown pants. That one, I feel like we got to finish with the, remember the Letterman top 10? Yes. And the final one's always, it's always A.J. Brown pants. I mean, that is, how have I not heard that? It is the lowest hanging easiest fruit. And it's perfect because, yeah, he had some brown pants on. Yeah. Well, they were very clean. And Rashad Penny said, no, you will stay in your dirty pants. The Jamar Chase, AJ Brown reactions. Oh, man. For the draft wide receivers not running back camp. It's been a rough couple weeks. Jason, what were you?

Yeah, I wish I could give credit to whoever had the tweet. I don't remember who it was, but there was a tweet that was saying the fantasy points per game. If you go from, you remember last year, Devante Smith had a goose in week one. Right. Didn't do anything. If you go from week two on, including this year, AJ Brown Pants and Devante Smith are averaging the exact same fantasy points per game. Yeah. That's why I whispered Smith might outscore Brown this year. Yeah. If the touchdowns don't go to A.J. Brown, I mean, Smith's going to ball out. Yeah, you saw the frustration from A.J. Brown wanting to be involved. And a couple weeks worth of offensive struggles have not included A.J. Brown getting as many opportunities. I would not say I'm panicked. No. I think A.J. Brown is going to be great.

Absolutely. I mean, go, go trade for him. Yeah, to me, this is very similar to the D.K. Metcalf Tyler Lockett situation where you have a superstar human being. You know what I mean? Like, when you look at A.J. Brown, that's a dude. You know, and D.K. Metcalf, they're very good wide receivers. They're very good. But it's their physical abilities, their attributes, their God-given bodies that are. special and make them the ones. But for fantasy, that's not always the one. Tyler Lockett out scored DK Metcalf last year because he's just a great wide receiver. And that's Devonte Smith. News and notes from around the league. Presented by USAA Insurance. Cam Acres. I think we found out, at least I found out, about 12 minutes before kickoff that he was a healthy scratch. It was one of those, Jay Glazer.

bombs that he drops on a Sunday morning. And it was, I think it was about 10 minutes before kickoff happened that that started going out there, that Cam Acres was going to be a healthy scratch. They're going to try and trade him and everything that happened in the middle of last year. We are right back there. How unlikable is he? So here's the thing. When this happened. I think we all talked about it in the studio. We felt like there just had to be something more. There had to be some kind of personal relationship issue attitude problem because that was what was reported last year. It was reported that this had nothing to do with attitude. He's had a great attitude and he just got healthy scratch because of play. Yeah, they said he had a really bad week of practice. Let me ask you this. Last year.

They went with the approach of it got out publicly that things are sour with the Rams or we're trying to trade him. Yeah, and they couldn't trade him. So this year, they're trying to trade it. But he's great. Dude, his attitude's amazing. I can't believe any team that gets Cam Acres. They would be the luckiest team ever. He's just enough for us. He went on Twitter, said, I am just as confused as everybody else. Dude. I'm blessed, though. Kyron Williams, 96% of snaps in week two. He's the RB2 for fantasy. And I believe that's the RB2 on the week and close to it on the year. Yeah, no, I'll bet it is on the year. He has four touchdown. Yeah, you had two touchdowns week one, two touchdowns week two, double digit targets. This is a player I hope you picked up on waivers because he's going to be probably the waiver pickup of the season because you're going to get him all year. Obviously we, you know, NFL's crazy last year.

there was a period in time where Cam Acres was cuttable, unusable, healthy scratch. And then he went on to be the absolute dominant workhorse at the end of the year. So crazy things can happen. I don't expect to see that happening. Sean McVeigh came out and said, you know, there's still room for Acres to be involved, but that it's not going to go back and forth. So I think next week will be very important. And this is Kyron Williams. This is the Kyron Williams show. Yeah, and that's big news for fantasy. We did get that. So we got that news prior to kick off barely. And then we also found out Amari Cooper had reaggraved his groin injury in Saturday's practice. And he is questionable, not expected to play. So for Monday night football, if you already were throwing David Najoku out there, you have an opportunity for a higher upside, I think. Elijah Moore, who we talked about. Mike had brought him up in the Hungry for More segment last week.

He's really hungry for more if he's going to have number one wide receiver opportunity here this evening. Yeah, and if you have lost Amari Cooper and you didn't realize, if you didn't hear this news before now and you're going, oh, man, I'm not going to have Amari Cooper and you're looking for the waiver wire. You can look towards Alan Robinson or Calvin Austin who could be on the waiver wire and have opportunities with the Alte Johnson out. Would you rather go? And Rashid Shaheed tonight. Yeah, Shih, I was going to say, would you rather have Alan Robinson or People's Jones?

I would rather have Alan Robinson. It felt bad saying it, but that is the truth. Sequin Barkley exited the Cardinals game at the very end with a right ankle injury. Yeah. X-rays were negative. He's having an MRI on Monday. He's not going to play this week. No, they're a Thursday night football game against the 49ers. The Giants came back, won the game against Arizona. Oh, man. Great work. I love the tweets towards us. Like we wanted the Cardinals to win that game. Have you paid attention all year? We're trusting the process. If you had a camera in our studio, we were the biggest Giants fans you've ever seen. This was the most perfect outcome for us. If people are like, oh, I'm so sorry. Oh, they're dunking on us. I'm like, sorry. Come on. We got up. I'm Ellie whooping that ball. Let's go. Oh, man. We shalacked the Giants to start and showed some great heart and some grit. Real moxie. Determination.

And then we lost, which is fantastic. Did you guys see that Marvin Harrison highlight over the weekend? Oh, yeah. Come on, people. Caleb Williams. Come on down. Look, for Sequin, he's probably not in this week. The first things I was reading was ordinary ankle sprain versus high ankle sprain. That was the hope. That's what the MRI is for. They're going to find out the belief is that it's a normal ankle sprain. The MRI will confirm whether it's high or not. Here's some. Significant news on one of the biggest storylines so far this season in the NFL and in fantasy. Joe Burrow aggravated the calf injury at the end of the game. Yeesh. Likely to linger for multiple weeks, according to our injury expert Matthew Betts. Minimal mobility out of the pocket for Burrow. If he plays, that's going to be the concern. They have looked bad on offense. Jamar Chase not been featured. We had a goose from Higgins in week one.

We had Jamar Chase now with pedestrian numbers for two weeks. Joe Mixon's really, he's getting by, but this team is 0 and 2 now in a tough division. It's a little, I don't know if it's full panic because Joe Burrow is that guy, right? I mean, he's certainly capable of coming out next week, the week after putting up 40 points and making you forget about this. It's possible. For sure he can. With the weapons he has, absolutely. And I expect towards the end of the year, The second half of the season, I think they'll bounce back completely. I'm not ever going to rule out this Bengals offense. But for fantasy purposes, for Joe Burrow, one thing we know is that he's not going to scramble. He's not going to run. If he's nursing a calf issue, he is purely a pocket passer. And when you aren't adding, you know, even just.

20, 30 yards on the ground, a couple scrambles here and there to your fantasy usage. You have to get the three touchdowns. You've got to go 300 yards and three to have a, in today's fantasy football while you've got these Jalen Hertz, Josh Allen's got, you know, guys just running like crazy. I like how you left Justin Fields off of that. That was smart. Yeah, well, Justin Fields will run a lot and I do think brighter fantasy days are ahead for Justin Fields. But yeah, I mean, Joe Burroughs going to. Be someone that you need to take a look at weekly matchups and you need to consider until he looks healthy and is dominating, which he will do. You don't drop him. But you consider starts. You consider matchups and you say, hey, maybe I should grab, you know, if you. The problem is it's going to be choices like Daniel Jones, Jared Gough, Brock Purdy. And those are choices for Fields managers too because, I mean, we're previewing the duds here. But Burrow and Fields are.

High draft capital selections that are sending chills down the spines of fantasy managers. Yeah, and I believe that you named a perfect pair of streaming options where you look at the matchup and you say, oh, against Arizona, Daniel Jones should have a good game. Oh, he did. Jared Goff at home against Seattle. He should have a great game. I believe he's home at against Atlanta next week. I don't think Atlanta is a... Great matchup, but he's at home. So you look at those and when there's a good matchup, you put them in your lineup. David Montgomery. I have one more quick note on Joe Burrow here, sorry, because this affects the fantasy football world. If Joe Burrow does in fact miss time, that means that in my dynasty roster.

I have to start Kirk Cousin. So if Joe Burrow misses time, we will now lose two quarterbacks. You'll lose Kirk Cousins. Because you're not capable of starting Kirk Cousins and having him perform. This is a follow up from last week's discussion. Is there any chance that the curse is lifted when it's default? I mean, we can hope, right? I doubt it. Oh, and it's not a choice when he's backed into Kirk Cousins? Right. You're not choosing him. Maybe, maybe. David Montgomery exited yesterday's game with a quad injury. The news as of this morning is that it could take a few weeks to heal. And so David Montgomery likely to miss time on this lion's offense. Jamira Gibbs should have more opportunities. It was very interesting in that Craig Reynolds is the next man up. And he basically just came in and took Montgomery's job. Like they didn't go. I mean, anecdotally, just watching the game. It didn't feel like they went heavier Gibbs. It was, okay, well, Gibbs, you stay in your role.

And Craig Reynolds is now the David Montgomery for the team. That could certainly change with a week of practice. Yeah, a week of planning and practice. All right. We have, we also had Ammon Rae St. Brown got banged up a couple times. Yeah, I think he's all right. Right foot, toe. Kept playing. He's tough. Never caught a pass after they looked at his toe and foot, though, in the third quarter. Oh, is that what happened? Yeah, at least according to Matthew Betts, unless he's a liar. O'Dell Beckham Jr. exited with an ankle injury. They're saying not serious. They're saying minor.

but something to monitor. Darnel Mooney exited with the knee injury. They're also saying not serious, probably not relevant to fantasy players. If you're wondering why Chase Claypool caught passes yesterday, that's because Darnell Mooney left the game. Did you hear he had to, he publicly apologized to his team, coaching the players. Basically, they, I'll take that. They kind of said that if he ever does what he did in week one ever again, they're just going to shop him. They will not find takers. Probably not. The concussion bug, Devante Adams, Anthony Richardson, Jalen Waddle, and then Logan Thomas. And the Logan Thomas hit was from the exact same gentleman who knocked Jacoby Myers out with a concussion last week. Oh, serious? So I hope he finds himself suspended because it was a ridiculous hit on Logan Thomas. And Logan Thomas managed to hold on to the football for the touchdown.

There were also players that exited the game and returned. He came Metcalf with a rib injury, went to the locker room, came back. Brandon Ayuk, shoulder injury, he was hurting. I can't believe he came back because he came back and reagravated it and then came back again. Garrett Wilson got the wind knocked out of him. Probably on that huge touchdown run. Yeah, he could add another one or two. Chase Edmonds, grade two MCL sprain going to miss time. Okay. It's for the bucks. It's another. He got more time than people would have wanted. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, he was in, he was kind of the second player up in front of Sean Tucker, but Rashad White had himself a bounce back game. He really did. He was over for a carry too. If Rashad White does what he did last week, then he will hold down to the job. I don't think he's going to keep playing the Bears. Fair. Mike, you probably missed this, but Salvin Ahmed left with a groin injury. Sure. Did not play after the second quarter.

And Rahe Moster had himself a day. Moster had a huge day. And Devon A-Chain actually got into the game. I think he had two opportunities of carrying a target. But that will be something to monitor. Because if the Miami Dolphins are like honest with themselves, you can't play Mostert like you played him this past week. With everything, the way that his body has broken down year after year after year, you can't run him into the ground. that way you've got to get other players involved i still don't see a path for a chain to consistent fantasy relevance outside of injury to most or which is always a possibility yeah i'm not saying he could play the akmed role in future weeks which could you know that could end up being 28 to 35 percent of snaps yes yeah and the hope is that he shows something that earns himself more time yeah and they are they were one of the highest uh passing

teams. So he can get involved in that element as well. Any other news that we're missing anything breaking this morning from the Hat Club back there? Not yet. Not yet. Okay, that was today's news and notes presented by USAA Insurance. Learn more at USAA.com slash insurance. Let's take a quick break and we'll be back with these studs and duds. All righty. Getting back into it. Time to talk studs. This week's fantasy stud muffins. Well, I mentioned it earlier. And while we get into the studs, we're going to have some names that weren't kind of consensus, high draft picks. And I felt like two weeks into the season, there's going to be loyalty-based start-sit decisions for fantasy players going into week three. For instance, Damien Pierce, he's had a rough two weeks. If you watch the football games, he's had no shot.

I mean, this has been a guy hitting the backfield over and over again. What was the Houston offensive line situation? They were four of, yes. Yeah, four of their five starters ended up being out for that game. Felt like five of five. Yeah, C.J. Stroud was able to throw the ball, but when they tried to run the ball, that offensive line couldn't hold up whatsoever. And he's not heavily involved in the passing game. So someone like Damien Pierce, you invested high draft capital line. You've got two disappointing weeks. And then you've got players that were lower draft capital or free agents, Kyron Williams, through two weeks has been great. Brian Robinson was the number one running back on the week, and he's a top five running back on the year now. Catching passes, scoring, heavily involved. When you look at that situation with Damien Pierce, are you taking a policy of bench and weight? Are you sticking with a guy like Damien Pierce? You have a higher draft capital option?

Josh Jacobs who ran for negative yards. Which is like the first time a rushing champ has done that in a long time. Kyron Williams is very interesting because of the Rams offense. They've looked great. They've looked very capable. I mean, there was a lot of nerves from me with Puka. Let's see. Week one was incredible. Go after it. You have to chase. You have to chase that targets from a player in his very first game ever. And you're going to play him in week two. But I was kind of bracing for impact of expecting the worst. And it was even better for Puka. And then the same with Kyrin Williams of what was the truth going to be with the actual split between him and Cam Acres? I mean, the beginning of the game kind of, or 10 minutes before the game, that became more clear. But the fact they had that success against the 49ers. I mean, the Rams have been.

Very, very surprising. So it's looking at matchups and things for the, like Damien Pierce. Brian Robinson has been great for fantasy football. Next two weeks, Buffalo and then the Philadelphia Eagles. Buffalo's who Josh Jacobs just ran for negative. Yeah. That's some difficult matchups here. But then it opens up Chicago, Falcons, Giants. So specifically Brian Robinson versus Pierce, that would be a tough decision. I don't see how you sit on from Pierce. So I think when we're taking a look at the guys we drafted and how we stick to it versus what we've seen in the first two weeks, we want to focus more on utilization. And, you know, Josh Jacobs, for instance, his utilization is incredible. He's still getting everything. He's getting targets. He's getting, you know, the snap counts. So I'm in. He is a trade four candidate to me right now. I would absolutely go and kick the tires for Josh Jacobs. Damien Pierce, on the other hand,

has not, you know, he has not wrapped 50% of snaps either week. So, you know, if this is a team when you're down and all of a sudden, what we saw in preseason that seemed so enlightening and hopeful was that he was utilized in the passing game completely in the preseason. And now when they've been down, he hasn't been on the field. They can't run with the offensive line. So yeah, like Brian Robinson, for instance, who, you know, in his own right, got. three targets. Seems like he is at least somewhat involved in the passing game and was north of 50% snaps. I would rather play him than naming appears for sure. All right. Let's get into the quarterback studs and we can debate some of those decisions on the way. Daniel Jones, after being shut out in the first half with an interception and 62 passing yards, he went off in the second half. 26 for 37 on the game, 321 and 2.

ran for a touchdown on 59 rushing yards and nine carries. He had a great game in the second half. Yes. Like an entire game in the second half. That was great. 259 and 2 plus 58 yards on a rushing touchdown. Pass rate above expectation has led the way for the Vikings. I think they're number one in football. 31 for 44, 364 and 4 for Kurt Cousins on Mike's bench. The number one quarterback in fantasy football right now. You're welcome. He is the number one quarterback. Absolutely. You're welcome, everybody. Wow. How many of those points have you had, Mike? Some. I played him in week one. Did you? Okay. Russell Wilson. The number three quarterback in fantasy football. No. You want to talk about a trade high. No. If people didn't watch the game, okay, which I would blame no one for not watching that game. The Manders against the Broncos. Can we be honest? We left.

Yep, we left the studio with about, what, five minutes left in that game, trying to get home to the families. Yeah, I listened to it on the radio or whatever, but it's like, yeah, I don't need to watch the end of this game. We already knew what was going to happen. And if you have Russell Wilson in a two quarterback league or something, and you can look to, he was awful. He had a great game, great fantasy. 50-yard Hail Mary touchdown at the end, really pads the stats. It does. But that. offense is not fixed. Russell Wilson is not good. What if I tell you that Russell Wilson will be playing at Miami and then at Chicago? I would say that that is a great thing to tell someone else when you're looking to unload. All right. So you're out. I thought the deep passes were good in this game. I'm not out in the standpoint that Russell can't have good fantasy value. I'm out in the sense that I want to capitalize on this monster game. I want to.