Week 1 Studs & Duds + Monday Punday - Fantasy Football Podcast for 9/13

going to take that away from Melvin Gordon. He did it. He came through in a big way for fantasy. Giovante Williams looked much better. He had far more juice than Melvin Gordon. I don't agree. I do agree. I turn to Mike about halfway through that game. And every time Giovante touched, I said, man, he looks like he's got a lot more juice than Melvin Gordon. Now, obviously, Melvin Gordon had that 75-yard run, which was great. But I do think that, like, Melvin Gordon's fine. The matchups coming up are...

Awesome Jacksonville and the Jets. I mean, you're going to get off to this great start with Melvin Gordon. That's fine. But when I looked at these two players, I did think by the end of the season, the changeover will be made. So he is another guy that I would be willing to kick the tires on looking to trade high because he's got a huge name. He had 100 yards and a touchdown, a monster fantasy game. You might be able to find someone in your league to actually trade up at running back.

Oh, I don't disagree with any of that. Who wants to get Melvin Gordon? Because I would do the same thing you guys would do with the backfield. My point was just, juice to me in that game just mid-speed. And Javante's faster, like, to the edge. But Melvin Gordon broke tackles in a way that Javante kept getting caught in the backfield. And I felt like Gordon broke tackles better than Javante did. I would 100% trade Melvin Gordon after a 71-yard touchdown run.

No question about it, although the next three weeks are going to be very attractive. So maybe I'd wait. No, you make a high trade offer for now. Go shoot your shot on what you think you might be able to get. If you get it turned down. If you get it turned down, whatever. Move on. Wait a week. Have a good performance against Jacksonville. Offer the same thing. And my point where I was going was if this is the split already in week one for Giovante Williams, that.

This was the type of situation where you're hoping by the halfway point of the season that Javante takes over being the primary game, Melvin Gorns not going away. But if this is where we are starting, we could get to that point sooner than later for Williams. Dalvin Cook, Alvin Camara, honorable mentions here in the studs. David Montgomery was outstanding. Yes, he was. 16 for 108. The Rams gave up zero 100-yard Russian games last year.

Montgomery goes out and does it in a negative game script against a Rams team. And he was outstanding. You want to talk about juice. That guy looked. He looked fantastic. We talked about it. There were a handful of small handful of running backs that when you watched, they were difference makers. And David Montgomery was one of them. It's going to be. He's a great running back. Yeah.

Some people moved him. The pendulum swung too far with the narrative of like easy schedule at the end of the year. Like it's not easy with an easy schedule to put that many top 10 weeks together, especially when you have just trash quarterback play in an offense that's not around the goal line a lot. Yeah, I don't think you're going to be able to trade for him. If you could, I would do it. Certainly. But if you drafted him, you're going to be happy this season. Now, so then you're not going to have any concern. So David Montgomery had.

17 opportunities. Damien Williams had 11 opportunities. That makes me happy, not sad. Yeah, and Montgomery went to the locker room with a dislocated finger and missed a couple drive. The fact that one of the big fears coming into this season was David Montgomery was without Tariq Cohen because of the injury last year and was left as like the last man there. And now they brought in Damien Williams and you go, is he going to be able to get enough volume? And we saw with Damien Williams there.

that Montgomery is the center of the offense. And so that's why I'm saying I see it as a good thing. Cincinnati, Cleveland, Detroit for the next three weeks. You may have two positive game scripts from Montgomery coming up. Wide receiver studs for week one.

Mari Cooper and C.D. Lamb, we saw them on Thursday. Tyreek Hill had a mediocre 15. 15. 15 targets, 11 for 157 and 1. He's unstoppable. Now, Mike's groaning and head shaking and kind of crumagony face is no reflection on the individual of Tyreek Hill, but more on the fact that he thought he had his matchup put away. I did. And then suddenly, Tyreek Hill. Eleven for 200 yards. Flew in with his cape. Yeah, I mean, that's Tyreek, man.

Ho-hum, 197 yards. Always open. Debo. 12 targets. Yeah, targeted on 48% of his routes. We've been talking about this metric recently of percentage of targets on routes that you ran being a very sticky indicator of success. That's why we called the Antonio Brown shot. And that is a super high number from week one. And yeah, let's just.

enter this into evidence to build the case for Debo Samuel being a very valuable, important part of the team that Kyle Shanahan loves trust and wants to be healthy so that they can win ball games. And I do still fully think Ayuk is going to get involved. I mean, he's still recovering from the hamstring injury. He's coming back soon and I still believe overtake Trent Sherfield and give him a real good wide receiver one.

wide receiver two punch are we worried about george kittle at all no okay no i'm not because of what tight ends represent and and you know he had he had one play that he was really close to breaking for a long touchdown he's going to get the he'll have the big touchdown in one of these weeks coming up and i'm not concerned okay uh only five targets so i was like yeah i thought i mean i thought he looked good but this was also a game like you brought up i mean they ran the ball like crazy elijah mitchell we'll talk about him more tomorrow

But, yeah, I mean, when they're down, you're going to see more kiddle. We've got three starts of the week here. Antonio Brown, seven targets, five for 121 and one. Tyler Lockett, four for 102, and two. And Adam Thielen, 10 targets, nine for 92 and two. I tried to trade for Thielen in every league possible for the week leading up to the season. Ever since Irv Smith went down, I was ready for action with Adam Thielen, and he.

was delightful. Now, it was of note, not that it stopped Adam Thielen, he saw 10 targets, but was an interesting note for the Minnesota Vikings, where their base offense has been two wide receivers on the field. Their base offense was 11 personnel this week. So there was a third wide receiver on the field out there. It'll be interesting to track if that negatively impacts the...

target share for Jefferson and Thielen moving forward. Based on what we saw from the offensive line struggles against the Bengals D line, I'm going to say they need to move back to some more 12 personnel getting an extra tight end in there and block. Do you know who's smiling right now with the way that offensive line performed? Chandler Jones.

Chandler Jones coming off of five-sack week. Is it possible for him to hit double-digit sacks by week two? How incredible would that be? I mean, yeah, that's going to be a problem. I'm going to take the Cardinals in that one. Okay. Corey Davis, five for 97 and two touchdowns. The Jets sucked. They looked really bad on offense, and yet Corey Davis had a game. But this is one of those. Which tells you something. Yeah, I mean, I'm not sure exactly how to feel because you can have.

the two different arguments, right? They were bad and Corey Davis was still good. He's the clear number one here. But also, they were really bad. And there were a lot of fears even for Corey Davis as the game went on. And then it worked out. Then he got the two touchdowns great. But I am pessimistic on the outlook of the Jets offense.

from what, you know, this was the first chance to see Zach Wilson, not in preseason, not playing against, you know, some backups. And it wasn't good. And it was Carolina. Exactly. And it was Carolina. But rookies get better. You know, it's, that's the one thing is rookies can improve over the year. So there is some, there's the chance that the offense, he gets more comfortable. He takes more shots downfield. I got so sick of watching him swing the ball to the left for negative one yards in this game. It was gross.

It reminded me of Adam, like they had notes from Adam Gaves still up on the chalkboard, and they accidentally paid attention to those instead of Robert Sulla. Hopkins and Kirk were great for Arizona. Two touchdowns each. We'll talk about Christian Kirk more tomorrow, I think. We've talked, we got Sterling Shepard, seven for 113 at a touchdown. Yeah, that was interesting. He was the best wide out in camp.

He normally, I mean, he does trick us year to year. He does. And Galladay was coming off of injury, so I'm not sure I would do too much there. Cooper Cup, big game. Oh, Jamar Chase, for sure. Jamar. Good for you, Jamar. You put the crow in my mouth. You looked great. He crammed it in your mouth. You had seven targets, five receptions, 101 yards. It was still squawking as it went in.

Yeah, I mean. And just like Devante Smith was the man, Jamar Chase was. He was the man. He was the number one wide receiver for this team. I think Higgins had four targets. I can vet it. Four catches. Like snap count. Jamar was the guy. Yeah. I think Higgins, I want to say, had five catches. But yeah, you can vet that. Higgins was five targets, four for 58 and a score. Yeah. I mean. And Tyler Boyd was kind of.

in the periphery. Tyler Boyd, yeah, was definitely the third. The 50-yard touchdown really, obviously, is what set him over the top. That's why they drafted him for the big playability. You hope to continue to see that. Obviously, he only had, you know, 4 for 50 outside of that. I think he is legit and will be great. I still, I still believe.

T. Higgins. Like if I would put the rest, well, we already have bets, right, on T. Higgins versus Jamar Chase. But the good news is, it doesn't matter if you're wrong if both are good. Sure. I'm just saying that the snaps were in Jamar's favor. The routes were in Jamar's favor. Target share. It's hard to not get excited. Zach Pascal, four for 80 and two. Pascal. I mean, you rap Scali. I kept saying this weekend, Zach Pascal is the Tim Patrick of the Colts.

And Tim Patrick is the Zach Pascal of the Broncos. And they both. They are both solid receivers. And Pascal did this last year. I mean, he did this last year. With Hilton going down, it was Pascal that caught the touchdown passes, 80 yards. He is a pickup to me. For sure. I mean, if you draft, like I drafted in a couple of spots. But as soon as you put him in your lineup. Right. It'll be tough. But by comparison.

Russell Gage looked like someone who had an opportunity to be solid, have a lot of yards, big involvement in the offense. He goosed. He is the type of player where if you had a Russell Gage on your team, replace him with a Tim Patrick or Zach Pascal. And Mike Williams and Keenan Allen had 12 targets for Mike Williams, 13 for Keenan Allen. Huge game for Mike Williams. Yeah, that's very interesting. Yeah, you just kind of hold your breath a little bit. He had a couple of plays he went down. I thought he was hurt again. I mean, I

Mike Williams, put him in your lineup. Don't watch him play. Yeah, yeah. Because then, you know, it's too scary. Grancowski, Kelsey. Hawkinson. Oh, baby. Ten targets. Eight for 97 for Hawkinson. Ten targets. So that means you had eight for Williams, 11 for Swift, and eight for Hawkinson, which was, I mean, that was more targets for those three than Winston had past attempts at all.

Yeah, he had a league leading 53 routes run at the tight end position. Second place was 40. Hawkinson is their passing game. Obviously, Swift is there too, but he is going to be reliable and a huge breakout. Any concern that Hawkinson's hair is going to get in the way for the rest of the year? No, I think it's giving him power. Okay. All right, important. What was that again? It's power. Power. Power. Let's move on.

Pooped in his big boy pants. Oh, it's back, baby, by popular, popular demand. Oh, very nice. Well done. All right. Popular demand? Goodness. Let me remind. What are you giving me? You grade me here? I'm grading that one. I got a nine. That's a nine. I was a big fan of that poop joke. Well, you'll be more of a fan of that joke in the drop than you will be some of the players we talk about. But a reminder, it's week one.

5.88% of the season completed. Last year, Antonio Gibson had a huge pooper in week one. Keenan Allen stunk in week one. Tyler Higby, bad week one. And, you know, Higby bounced back for three touchdowns in week two. And Keenan and Gibson, you know how their seasons went. So deep breaths. But Rogers' career's over, right? I mean, Aaron Rogers, his career is over. It's done. 15 for 28, no touchdowns. The two most shocking games of the week to me, Arizona versus.