Week 2 Studs & Stinkers + Injuries, Injuries, Injuries! - Fantasy Football Podcast for 9/21

I will say this. There was no one that I came in contact with last week that believed in James Connor because I tried to trade him to all of them. And nobody wanted to bank on a bounce back from James Connor because it's a tough place to be banking on James Connor. But right now, Houston next week, he's 100% start worthy. Miles Sanders, 2495 and a touchdown after kind of a rocky start to the game. Seven targets really looked great to me. Cincinnati next week.

And he was the guy. He was the bell cow by far. Workload went up for Chris Carson, great touchdown reception, 17 for 72 on the ground. I love seeing the workload go up. He's playing great. And then Jonathan Taylor's season arrived, 26 for 101 and 1. Two targets, nine yards, has the Jets, the Bears in Cleveland. He is a locked and loaded RB one. Correct. All right, Calvin Ridley. Welcome.

To the party. Who don't? He's great. He's great. He's a great wide receiver. What's funny? His routes are silly. Like an interesting part about fantasy football. And I guess just all of like prognosticating, making projections is sometimes when things are so chalk, they're so chalked, so locked in of like it's so obvious, you feel like I have to pivot because it is just so.

obvious. And you more than most. Yeah, look, I've contrarian. We did not pivot from this chalk of Calvin Ridley, the off-season chatter. Is he that this year's Chris Godwin? I mean, some people felt that contrarian spelling him and had to bail. If he did, eggs on your face, because Calvin Ridley, we may have another Buccaneers situation where Calvin Ridley is actually going to be the higher scoring fantasy player.

over Julio Jones for the Atlanta Falcons. Ten targets, seven for 109 and two. He's the only one who can catch touchdowns. And you start to, I mean, you know Matt Ryan struggles down there. You know Julio's not the first read down there. And Ridley is just, he's got, he's so shifty. Very bizarre. Hey. Julio had, Julio had end zone targets. He just, whenever Matt Ryan targets Julio in the end zone, he doesn't get the ball near him. It makes no sense.

Here is a player playing very well. Stefan Diggs, 13 targets, 8 for 153 and 1, has made a humongous difference in Buffalo. I'm sorry, Mr. Diggs. Yeah, this might just be. Eat it, Mike. Yeah, I am. The crow has been devoured through two weeks. He's been outstanding and one of the biggest steals in fantasy drafts. Terry McLaurin, 10 targets, 7 for 125 and 1. He's a great wide receiver. Yes.

If he had a better quarterback, we would be talking even more about him. If he had a better quarterback, he would be a top 10 wide receiver. He was always open. There wasn't another wide receiver for the Cardinals to try to defend. And here he was still putting up seven for 125. The game script for Washington is going to be one where they're down very often. So he's got Cleveland, Baltimore, the Rams coming up. Edelman looked amazing in this game.

surprised at his production with Cam Newton, eight for 179? 179, yes. That's a career high. When a player puts up their most receiving yards of their career with their brand new quarterback and not with the greatest quarterback of all time, then yes, I am, consider me very surprised. All right, let me ask you guys real quick as we finish wide receivers. Are you in on DK Metcath? Four for 92 in a touchdown. Oh, yeah. Are you in on the target leader?

in each of the first two weeks for the Pittsburgh Steelers, Deontay Johnson. 13 targets, 8 for 92 in a touchdown. Yes, I am in. Yep, I am in. John Brown? Four for 82 in a touchdown this week. Still getting it done over the last two weeks, despite the fun digs. Yeah, that one's still difficult to fully buy into. I mean, I don't, Jay, where are you on John Brown?

Yeah, I see him as a flex option, but I'm not someone that I'm going to just rely on week in and week out. If it looks like it's a high over under, there's going to be good passing volume or a matchup that I like, then I think he'll be in flex consideration. At the end of the year, he'll be okay, but he's not someone that I even have to roster. He's someone that I can play the kind of stream at wide receiver. If I need to drop him for a running back pickup, I would.

I see D.J. Maher in here as a stud, 13 targets, 8 for 120, but I don't want to talk about him. I want to talk about Robbie Anderson, who went 9 for 109. Are you in on Robbie Anderson now? Yes, 100%. You had to figure someone else was going to factor into this offense. Even though he was the high-priced free agent, it still seemed difficult to go.

in on Robbie Anderson, but both DJ Moore and Robbie Anderson will have weekly value. What happens to the targets of the top two options on this team now that Christian McCaffrey is going to miss tied? Wow. DJ Moore is going to be targeted even more. He's going to be targeted a ton if Robbie Anderson happened to be kind of the waiver wire leftovers from last week, he is going to be a very high priority wide receiver ad. If you don't want to call it the week of the injuries,

Let's call it the week of the tight end. Oh, man. Oh, man. I mean, I've got so many names to get through. It's silly. Tyler Higby. Oh, start of the week. Five for 54, three touchdowns. Unbelievable. I mean, they were just looking to Higby around the goal line, those first two, and then he got loose down the field for the third one. Looked great. Mike Gisicki. 11 targets. Eight for 1.30. Now, his touchdown was.

It was like right at the end of the game. So a bit garbage. He was still going to have a great game. He hit a couple highlight catches in that game. Yes, he did. Jonu Smith, two touchdowns. With AJ Bran out, Johnny Smith was the go-to guy in the end zone. He's a little bit of everything. He's part wide receiver, part tight in, part running back. Jordan Reed, seven for 50 and two, rule 81? Rule 81? Rule 81 is that if Jordan Reed is healthy and George Kittle is not,

You play Jordan Reed. Yeah. I was telling Jay, I think we may have underestimated. It's not something that we didn't mention the offseason, but Jordan Reed had a season with Kyle Shanahan. It's not like he didn't know what to do here. Can you really trust him, though, with Nick Mullins and that offense? Giants, yes. If George Kittle is out, yeah. I think you can stream him. Kelsey, big week, 14 targets.

Hayden Hurst, eight targets, five for 72 and a touchdown. This was the week you wanted to see from Hayden Hurst. Amazingly, Russell Gage also got into the end zone at the end of that game. Both of those players stole all of Julio's touchdowns. And who's next? Okay, here's what I'm going to do, Mike. Here's what I'm going to do. By the way, let me throw Noah Fant out there, five targets, four for 57 and one. And if Sutton's down, Noah Fant is going to be a season-long play at tight-in. Yeah. But let me bring you.

down, and then I'm going to bring you up, okay? Okay. We're going to take you through the full range of emotions. All right. Dalton Schultz. Who is he, Andy? The tight end for the Dallas Cowboys. And why is he the starting tight end? Because the inferior, no, I'm just kidding. Because the injured Blake Jarwin is not available. Ten targets, nine for 88 and a touchdown for Dalton Schultz.

And now we'll bring you up Moali Cox. All right. We're back, baby. Gigantor, six targets, five for 111. Yes. Gigantor. Now, I want you to read the stat you found. I need to hear that again, Mike. Oh, goodness. Can you look that up? I'll talk about this game for a second while you find it. Okay. Moali Cox was the last Gigantor standing in the tight end room. Has the Jets, the Bears?

And the Browns, are you a believer, Mr. Jason Moore? Oh, yeah. I mean, look, they don't always work out when we name backups to the backups as like wait and see. But we've talked about Moe Alley Cox forever. The dude is ginormous. My strategy, my tight end head coach strategy of one day when I become a head coach.

getting some Yao Ming type of player where I can just throw it up four yards down the field over and over and over. You can do that with Mo Ali Cox, but he was actually going downfield. Could you do that with the actual Yao Ming at this point? Because you're just looking for height, right? Yeah, I'm just worried, you know, the bone density. These are some hard tackling, you know, playing. The difference is gigantor is a...

Stirty man. 6-7-275. Oh, yeah, right. We know when he was born. Yes, thank you. That's right. Full head of teeth. What's the stat? Did you find him? I can't follow it, but I can find it, but I can summarize it. It was the pro football. I can't believe you didn't tattoo it. The pro football focus grade that Moe Alley Cox hit this past week was the highest tight end grade for a single game that a tight end has received since 2017, a game that Rob Grankowski put up.

It was impressive. For what it's worth, it's a PFF grade. But Mo Alley Cox was awesome. I don't know if we can keep the job once Jack Doyle is back. He can't. But we will take this one week and we will celebrate.

And we will always remember the week that Gigantor went hamburger. Yeah, when you think of Blade Jarwin, just move that thought to Moali Cox. Oh, and by the way, anytime Dalton Schultz has a good game, I take full credit that that would have been a Blake Jarwin game. Yeah, I know. I know you will. We always say it's talent and opportunity for Moali, it sighs an opportunity. And he finally got the opportunity this week. Let's just spend a few moments on this week's stinkers. Stinkers of the week, presented by odor eaters.

All right, we're two weeks in. So when I mention some of these thinkers, I want to know whether or not we should be sounding the panic alarm. Two weeks' worth of data, information, eyeballs on these players on the field. Kurt Cousins in this Minnesota offense. Kirk Cousins had one of the worst days I've ever seen in quarterback Cave. He was negative fantasy points. Yeah, you need to be...

I mean, Kirk Cousins wasn't really drafted to be your guy. If you drafted him, it was more than likely in a two-quarterback league. But even in a two-quarterback league, man, you got to put him on the bench and see if the Vikings can write the ship. Carson Wentz. Oh, he did not look good. This is basically after Andy tweeted week one about how great Carson Wentz looked. Don't blame me. He's stunk from then on out.

He just, I mean, he's playing, he's playing poorly. I tried to reverse that. I tweeted when Dijax had no, DJX had no, like, targets in the game at all into the second half, ended up leading the team in receptions and yards. But this is not an offense that's functioning right now. No, I would take the same approach with Kirk Cousins. He should be on the bench right now. Todd Gurley, 21 for 61, no targets. Woof. I mean, the snaps did go up.

But we're seeing Brian Hill on the field a good amount. We're seeing Judge Edo Smith on the field, including Red Zone work. Yeah, I saw that. It was not pretty. There were so many opportunities down inside the 10-yard line where Todd Gurley wasn't on the field. This is a real concern. Todd Gurley is going to get the carries that aren't that valuable for fantasy. He needs the touchdowns.

to, you know, like he had week one. Otherwise, he's not going to be good because for some reason he is really not involved in the passing game at all. Yeah, you're right. I mean, when we talked about vacated targets there, they've gone to Hayden Hurst and Russell Gage. Yes, that is correct. David Johnson, any concern, 11 for 34? I think you have to have concern the fact that David Johnson plays the Pittsburgh Steelers next week. I think you almost have to bench him. And Houston will...

Their line is not up to the task that is managing the Pittsburgh Steelers. Yeah, I think what you saw week one was that David Johnson's going to be fine, but it is a little bit of a matchup issue that both this week against Baltimore and next week against Pittsburgh. Those two are going to be bad games. But I'm not concerned season long. He had 100% of the work. I think you can consider either trying to trade for him right now. Like trading low, of course. I'm not.

Or next week. Or that's what I was going to say. You can either do it now see if the manager who has David Johnson is perturbed at week two or you can even wait another week and be like, okay, remember when we were talking trade? I'm still willing to trade for David Johnson because after the Pittsburgh Steelers, Minnesota, Jacksonville, juicy matchups for David Johnson. Yeah. And Melvin Gordon did end up getting into the end zone against Pittsburgh through the end.