Fantasy Football - Week 5 Studs & Duds + Cardinals Choke Job - Podcast for 10/6

This is two weeks in a row over 100 yards. The volume. The volume is, you know, I went pretty. And Drake May is playing great. Drake May is playing really, really well. Week one, I went decently hard in most of my leagues after booty because I see where the value of the, if there is a clear cut wide receiver one for the Patriots where target volume is predictable, there's value to be had there. And it might, it seems like it's not booty. It seems like now that Diggs is getting healthy, the guy that they paid a lot of money this off

season to come, you know, be a leader in this locker room, you know, he's going to still be on some waivers and needs to be, I think, paid a lot. He's ramping up and the Drake May confidence. It made sense to go after who you thought would be their best target. And we thought that maybe Stevon Diggs would be kind of stuck in the eight to 10 yard range. It didn't happen. Diggs was, has been such a funny roller coaster of an off season. When we finished the UDK, when we launched the UDK, he was in there as, um, forget if it

was values or, or, you know, I think it was in the values. He was one of those guys just seemed like a perfect situation for him. But then the reports were, well, he might not, he might start on the pup. And so we took him out and then it was like, okay, he's not going to be ready for the beginning of the season. Now he is going to be ready for the season. Now he's there, but he's not really used. It seems like now he is the wide receiver one. And you can play him. Oh yeah. I think you should.

41 and 43% of the team's targets the last two weeks. Second highest receiver was Hunter Henry. And what an impressive win by new England. Yeah. I mean, that's, that's great. You want that. You want some like competition in that division. Let's have some fun. I wish we had like Vrabel. I, I have always had a man crush for Vrabel. I think he is a phenomenal head coach. He is exactly what he is. He's a Dan Campbell. He is someone that's going to lead them in. He has a culture. It's different than Dan Campbell's. What would he do if Drew Petsing was on his staff?

He would never have hired Drew Petsing. But if he was on his staff, he would take him up to a bridge. Okay. And he would say, Drew, come here. Yeah. And then he'd say, I want to show you something. And then he would throw him off the bridge. Yeah. And that's the kind of man he is. Yeah. A man we respect. He would, he would take him to the train station. Right. Yeah. The train station. Oh, we do not condone violence. No, no, no. Uh, Puka Nakua machine, like every week. Rashid Shahid. He was a DFS dart throw and he had like a 900 yard touchdown in this game.

Kendrick Bourne, uh, the Bourne supremacy got it done. Tim. Yeah. I, uh, I was, I was, uh, on the Demarcus Robinson side. So was I. I was, I thought he'd be the guy. Because of Bourne's drops the week before. Yeah. But it was, uh, he was born again. Okay. Nice. AJ Barner, Jake Ferguson, Theo Johnson. Uh, I think all three of those guys caught two touchdowns. Am I right? That is correct. That'll help. Yeah. Uh, Sam Laporta and Darren Waller also caught touchdowns. Waller, um, Waller looks like a top five guy next, the rest of the season. To me. He appears that way.

I mean, the fact that you, you have him involved right off the bat, especially involved around the red zone oriented around the red zone. You need, this is like, uh, an archetype of a player that they, that the Miami dolphins desperately needed. And then when you combine that with looking at, you know, last year, John who Smith, uh, was the tight end four and they lost Tyree kill. So this is both necessary and perfect for the team. If you have Waller, you can lock him in. Uh, shout out to the first hundred yard game for Dalton Kincaid in his career.

Yeah. Who is now the tight end. The start of the week. Two. He is the tight end two. Is he really? Yes. Oh man. Yes. He is earning our praise. Tyler Warren had another touchdown and then Meowston Taylor nine for 67. Um, 12 targets. Uh, Kyle threw in this stat since 2000. There are only, uh, two rookie tight ends ever to see 12 plus targets in a game within their first five games. Brock Bowers, Mason Taylor. All right. We'll take a break. We'll talk duds where we're more comfortable. Foot clan. The season. Look, it's underway. Al, the season is underway.

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the reckless stupidity that defines our franchise. And that was at the time and for many years following the most embarrassing public defeat of our lives until yesterday. Yeah. Yesterday. We let the Titans off the hook. Yeah. We let them off the hook. Man. The Titans. I mean, the victory speech by the Titans and Brian Callahan in the locker room. I didn't see it. He couldn't even keep, he couldn't even go in there and be like, you guys did this. He had to be like, sometimes you need some things to go your way. He had to, he had to equivocate on his victory speech.

Is that because the Titans absolutely suck? I mean. Like they're 0-4. They look terrible on, in all phases of the game. Cam Ward does not look like he is ready yet. I mean, he had moments in that game. Sure. But. Moments. I mean, he had the. The Calvin Ridley throw. Yes, the Calvin Ridley throw. He had a moment. But they won the game. They won the game. That is, I mean, it's so embarrassing. You don't often win by a fumbled pick. But, look, the Cardinals season is unequivocally over. They don't play a sub-500 team for a long time. They're going to get their anuses handed to them in Indianapolis next week.

Oh, yeah. And then they're going to proceed to have that happen over and over again until we fire the guys. So, if you want to fire them now and give our offense some hope for fantasy, that's my position. I'm also thinking through the lens of, hey, what if we had a normal-ish middle-of-the-road offense where Marvin Harrison is targeted? He was dominating. Marvin Harrison was dominating. I don't think he got targeted for 26 consecutive plays. He finished at a 17% target share, which is very low. It's the lowest of the season in a game in which he had, what, 70-plus receiving yards

and was... Well, you got to keep in mind we had a lead. So, once you have a lead... Oh, that's when you stop playing. Stop playing football. Because leads are permanent. Right. Leads are... Once you get it, it's locked. Mm-hmm. All right. I'm still mad. All right. Duds of the Week. Justin Herbert. Ew. 166-1. He's been real bad for fantasy since the week one explosion. They had some really, really unfortunate turnovers in this game. Honestly, the score of this game, 10-27, seems like they got just beat up. But they were up 10-0, and it was a close game for the majority of it.

Yeah. But everything went wrong. As soon as you needed something to happen, something went wrong for them. And they have now... They lost to the Giants, and now they lost again to the Commanders. Justin Herbert, if you throw out Week 1, which was his super performance, right? Mm-hmm. The season pace... So, four games played since then. His pace is 3,800 yards and 21 touchdowns. Yeah. With 17 interceptions. The touchdowns are the big issue here. If you look at what the Chargers are scoring offensively, 10 points this week, 18 points the week prior, 23 points the week prior, 20 points the week...

Like, they're just... They aren't scoring enough to have as good enough fantasy relevance as you want. And it's... Genuinely, I think it's the offensive line. Like, at the very beginning of the year, it looked like, how do you stop this offense? And now, with the injuries they've had... Yeah, you see it every play. I know how to stop the offense. Get three guys in Justin Herbert's face as soon as the ball gets there. No, you're right. And despite the victory, Drake May was actually really bad for fantasy. Did not throw a touchdown pass. He looked good. He played well. But, yeah, if touchdowns...

Yeah, 12 fantasy points. When Ramondre has the two rushing touchdowns, it was kind of like Dak Presk at week one. He dominated the game. Yeah. He looked awesome. It was the quarterback 29. Yep. Like, dude, it was all Javante touchdowns. We also had the first dud of the season, and it was a big one, for James Cook. Only 4.9 fantasy points. So, he's in our duds list. Alvin Kamara, it seemed like he was constantly, like, being targeted or handed the football, but then, like, it's not really true because he went out hurt. I don't know if you saw this. He limped off the field at one point, came back.

The snap counts for Kendra Miller, 13%. 16%, then 27%, then 32%. Now 41%. He had more carries in this game than Alvin Kamara did, and he seems like on the rushing attack, not in the passing game, but in the rushing attack, it seems like it's a scary proposition that it could be a 50-50 split. We're too early to definitively say that. They could trade Kamara. I still don't know what that contract is. I know, but it's, I mean, the rumors are out there from a lot of teams. The contract is worth it if you have a major injury. Think about playoff-bound teams, too.

If somebody goes down. Yeah. You know, God forbid Saquon or somebody. They'll spend the money to try to repeat. Chase Brown, this might as well be called the Chase Brown Duds of the Week section. He has not finished inside the top 24. He is one of the worst picks in fantasy. Part of it is his fault. Part of it is not his fault. Part of it is the offensive line. Part of it is Jake Browning, who probably will not start another game for that team. I think Jake Browning starts next week. Well, the team has at least come out and said that they are looking hard at it.

Yeah. The turnovers have been outrageous. Since 2014, there have been 246 running backs who've seen 80-plus touches through the first five weeks of the season. 246 times. That's a lot of sample. Chase Brown, in total yards from scrimmage, ranks 246th. That's the least you've ever done out of that many? Out of anyone who's touched the ball that much. He's the least. He's the least of a lot. If I had touched it 80 times, I would have been the least. Correct. You would have been 246th. But instead, it is Chase Brown, who's 246th. This one was crazy to me. And Woody Marks, I mean, this was a huge whiff.

I had two major whiffs on the week. Woody Marks was one of them. Jacoby Myers was the other one. Woody Marks, seven for 24. He had a big run called back. He had 39% of the snaps. This game, you look at the snaps and you say, okay, he had more snaps than Nick Chubb. That matters to me. Yeah. But then you see Damian Pierce got snaps. 100% of the Damian Pierce snaps came when they were up like 40-3. So I don't care about those. They have a bye week, though, and then it's a tough start now because Nick Chubb had the

touchdown run and they gave Nick Chubb the first drive or two. And it's just... It's wild to me to come off of a game where you get 22 opportunities, 17 rushing attempts, have the coach say, we're excited to get him the ball more, and then come in the next week and you give him seven rushing attempts. It made no sense to me. And you could say, oh, it was a blowout. But it was a blowout the week prior. They won 26 to nothing. No, you're right. And the other part of this game was like there wasn't a check down situation.

Like CJ Stroud threw four touchdowns. He didn't need to check the ball down because the pass rush was non-existent from this Baltimore defense that felt like they had seven guys out there. So he didn't get any catches. It was really not great. I mean, it was just a process. I thought the process was right and it didn't work out at all. So it's a whiff. Travion Henderson, six for 24. Can't play him right now. He's going to keep hurting people with this Antonio Gibson injury. Yeah, there's always a reason to play him. There's always a reason to play him. Like genuinely, next week, he might be a good play.

Genuinely. Against the Saints? Without Gibson? Yeah, you'd think so. He might be a good play. But so far, he has not yet been. No, it's not great. Derek Henry, 15 for 33 and a touchdown. Saved himself with the touchdown, but he has not looked great. And without Lamar, you know, I was hopeful. I was shocked he was in the game for that touchdown because that was a garbage time touchdown. I was hopeful that Derek Henry would really dominate this. You know, he was running back 24 so far on the week. But man, week one, 169 yards and two touchdowns. Looked unstoppable.

Had a couple more big plays the next week, even though he had fumbles that kind of took away from it, but if you look from the last month after that week one, just like we were doing with Herbert, he is on pace for 195 attempts and 629 rushing yards. Well, and you've got an injury for a little while here. They're one in four? Yeah. What is Derek Henry good at? Scoring lots of fantasy points when they win. Yeah. When they don't win, Derek Henry. It's the same with Tennessee. When they don't win, you don't win. That's kind of the way it goes.

You better hope for snow in Vermont. They've got the Rams this week, then a bye week. So we don't know if Lamar's going to play, but obviously if they don't play Lamar this week, they get... If you could trade, here's the trade. You take Derek Henry and you throw somebody half decent with him and you try to get Jacobs. Because you'd skip the bye week. Oh, I would do that in a heart. I mean, I think that you could probably... I don't think you'll get that done. No, you could get it done if you put the right player in there.

You've got to give more than Derek Henry. If somebody sees that Derek Henry name and then you can throw him a wide receiver that's performing pretty well, I don't know. That's what I would try to do because this is the time of year with the bye weeks, too. When you make trades of major names for major names, if you can skip a bye week... It makes a big difference. That's a big deal. Quinton Johnston had his first dud of the season. It wasn't great for him. It wasn't great for Keenan Allen. We did see your start of the week, Ladd McConkie, score a touchdown.

He also... I don't know if you saw this play, Jason, in your... He scored two touchdowns. Yeah, I was going to say, they called his return touchdown back. That was the second touchdown. Made a bunch of great moves. It was awesome. He hurdled the guy at the end. He did, and it was an embarrassing hurdle for that person. Oh, yeah. That was a kicker that stood like three yards from the end zone and then got cooked. A.J. Brown, I mean, he's been the wide receiver 46 or worse in four or five weeks. I offered you D-ball for him last week.

That would have really locked up your victory. Yeah, or if he was one yard faster on a run, he would be like the wide receiver 15. Is that what you're going to hold on to for A.J. Brown moving forward? Yeah. Okay. You know, A.J. Brown has had stretches. Yips and butts, candy and nuts. Yeah, I mean, you look back at... Remember 2023, where the first half of the season, the first nine weeks, he was... He had like the NFL record for most 135-yard games in a row. Oh, yeah. Was dominant. Yeah. And then the end of the season, he was on pace for nothing.

You know, he was like 800-yard pace and was terrible. This happens sometimes on this team, but I still think A.J. Brown is someone you're not going to move on from. So don't send that offer back over. You can send it. Here's a red alert situation at this point. Jamison Williams, one target, one catch, nine yards. The worry when we talked about Jamison for the week was that they might not need him to win this game. Well, they clearly won it without him because he is not doing well. 2.2 receptions a game, 45 receiving yards a game. He's on a ton of rosters.