2nd Half Sleepers + Hopkins Traded! - Fantasy Football Podcast for 10/23

I don't know. Well, if you're concerned, if you, yeah, no one knows. His mom is unsure. Let's see. Yeah, 26.6. Yeah. You know, to his health should come first for sure. I know Mike McDaniels talked about like that coming for. And that's why they're going to start him against Arizona Cardinals. Because they're like, where should, what team should could we hand select? How many? To make sure he does not. It's like a preseason game. Right. The Cardinals sack Justin Herbert a handful of times last week. Their defense was wildly. There's the black jerseys. They were feeling. Yeah, it made no sense. You couldn't run on them last week. Their pass rush was coming, despite no personnel to do it. So it's mostly a joke. Maybe they're figuring something out with a defensive head coach, but I doubt it. I think it's probably Monday night football at home. Big, rare opportunity. Human beings get up for that. And they're, Dennis Gardett, tore his ACL, the linebacker that was playing well for the Cardinals.

just another injury there, although Darius Robinson should be coming back on the defensive line soon. Mike Evans expected to be out until after the team's week 11 buy. They did not put him on IR. Because of that by week, I think. I think they're looking at this like a four-week injury, but because their by week is in there, he might only miss three games. Do you feel confident that he'll be back after the buy? And do you feel confident that, I mean, when you take Godwin off the table for the remainder of the season, are we missing an opportunity? Like is Mike Evans?

a player you'd go acquire today if you're a contending team knowing that look your playoffs are not till 15 to 17 i mean that is a long ways from that's it's a massive amount and baker's and baker's a tremendous he's having a tremendous season where evans will be the primary target when they're competing in this division you're not going to acquire mike evans for nothing so it's going to cost your team something And then you don't get anything for a month in the hopes that when he comes back, he doesn't reagravate. I'm not taking that risk now. If you're telling me three weeks from now, you know, when he's on by and you're a contending team, if you want to try to take that risk then, sure. Well, I think the price is lower now. Oh, well, of course. And he has to go on to IR. Yeah, I mean, if you've got an IR spot and it costs you nothing, well, fine. But if you've got to give up something and you're not going to get the player for a month, that's a real tough pill to swallow. And yes, during the week.

Fantasy football wise, you'll be able to put him on your IR. But I imagine he's going to be one of those players where it's Wednesday rolls around. And it's like, oh, he's questionable. So you're going to have to like deal with that. Like this, he won't just be marked out for four straight weeks. All right. Dan Quinn said Jaden Daniels is getting close to being back on the practice field. So we could get our Sunday night football. The. News on Debo Samuel released from the hospital dealing with pneumonia. We'll keep you updated on his status for this weekend. Andy Dalton was involved in a car accident, but was at the team facility. From what I read, nobody in the accident was taken to the hospital. Aaron Rogers dealing with a hamstring injury in addition to previous ankle and knee injuries. Is this a man setting up his excuse Rolodex? I mean, what is?

Maybe. I believe they're real. He's just old. We've seen his legs getting twisted and battered in these games. So I'm sure they're real. I think the news here is he's not healthy. And so it's, you know, if you're trying to rely on him, oh, he's got, you know, Devante Adams, Garrett Wilson and Bruce Hall, maybe I want to start him. You've got to be worried about the injury risk that he's carrying right now. I was looking quite extensively yesterday at our... strength of schedule tool which at this point you know it's kind of interesting to look at it broken down by playoff weeks remaining schedule um you know Aaron Rogers Devante Adams can they get on the same page can this be a meaningful end of the season maybe I think so I think I think they will get on the same page and it will be meaningful I'd say yes so fantasy meaningful yeah that's what I mean

I don't care about football. I mean, like, wins and law. I don't care if the Jets win. For what? Who cares? I want James Winston out there throwing pick sixes, so he's got to get right back on the field and throw touchdowns. The Rams have opened up the 21-day window for wide receiver Pooka Nakuwa. Take it easy. I just, I need him so bad. I think you might have attached too much of your future to Pooka Naku. I'm going to go ahead and say, I know I did because I. You know, we're in nine leagues, probably like six that we really care about. And in those six, I got them in four. And so I've had them in none. And it sucks. Similarly, I am also overexposed to Cooper Cup, who should be back this week on Thursday night, but many teams have inquired about trading for Cooper Cup. You can take the chiefs off the board there. They had inquired. They didn't want to take on the money that the Rams wanted them to take on.

But Cooper Cup could get sent out of town. We've got rumors about Darnold and Matthew Stauffer being traded for one another. That's the scary one for me with Puka coming back. If the Darnold Stafford swap was made, that would be tough. But those are just rumors right now. And to be more specific on the Cooper Cup, Kansas City, it looked like the Rams were willing to pay the contract if the chiefs were willing to give up a second. Yeah, high pick. But they were able to give up only a fifth to get Hopkins who didn't have a big contract. That was today's news and notes presented by USAA Insurance. Learn more at USAA.com slash insurance. We have a special segment today. Second half sleepers. What was the expression you used yesterday, Jason, when I told you who my second half sleeper might be on the show? Oh, I said, I just want you to know.

You don't have to do that. Yeah. You don't have to pick him. Is that a similar feeling that you have Mike when you've seen who I put in here? The news today was really helpful. We live in America, the land of freedom. You are free to do what you want. Are you moving forward with this? Yeah. I'm good. Unobtainium underpants. Hold on to your boots. You gave me the highest grade. I can't have stronger underpants for you. I feel like I would like Mike and I to leave the room. And you could, can we blur out the faces of the innocent? Just like, you don't want to be even peripherally associated with this idea. I don't think it's necessary. But you might be right. Can I just tell you the process? 17 targets over the last two weeks for this player. And he happens to be the teammate of DeAndre Hopkins who has been shipped out of town. Okay. Listen. Put them underpants on and talk, brother. I'm not going to say the name.

What I'm going to do is I'm going to tell you all of the facts. Okay. 17 targets over the last two weeks. Kind of. The number one schedule for wide receivers for the rest of the season. That part is true. From weeks 11 through 18. So your stretch run. Minnesota, Houston, Washington, Jacksonville, Cincinnati, Indianapolis, Jacksonville, Houston. Every one of those teams gives up more points to the wide receiver position. than the average, some of them by a lot. Jacksonville two times in that stretch. So the number one schedule, not just for wide receivers, but for whomever his quarterback is, the targets will be there. Will he catch them? Will they be in the, will they be catchable is the question? This is a second half sleepers. To me, this is a monumental downgrade from what this player was associated with to start the year.

Look, I have regrets, but my second half sleeper is Calvin Ridley. Oh, you said you were going to say the name. He wanted to lay out the case. Yeah, you don't. I would have just said wide receiver one for the Titans. Sure. Maybe that'll be easier for people to make that decision. There are plenty of times. 30%, 24% target share over the last two weeks. There are going to be games. There are plenty of times in fantasy football where the names betray you in both directions, where because of a name. Like, for what you said about Hopkins. Hopkins so far this year has had one reasonable game. Everything else has been like one point, zero points, four points. I mean, the whole season. I think he had negative yards last week. Yeah. And so I went based on the news this morning. And I was like, oh, okay, waivers haven't gone through. Let me go see. And I check the Sleeper has, if you don't know about this, because I didn't know about it until this year, you can click on a player in Sleeper. And there's a little banner that says,

Check his availability in other leagues. And you can click that and you can look at all the leagues you're in and see if he's on any of the waivers. He was on none of the waiver. He should have been on all of the waivers. Check the waivers for Calvin Ridley. Through the first seven weeks last year, these were players that were outside the top 36. Garrett Wilson, DJ Moore, Chris Godwin, Debo Samuel, Rashi Rice, D.K. Metcab, Jaden Reed, T. Higgins, Alman Ra, St. Brown back in 2021. Most of those names were from this year. I was reading some from 2022. Like big names and big performances, they do come later on. All of those names that I read were like top 15 guys back half of the year. I'm not saying that's going to happen. I'm just saying that everything laid out on the table is positive for the opportunity. And now DeAndre Hopkins is not even there to compete. Like you have to play four quarters of football. You're playing teams where the quarterback and the wide receiver.

literally have the best schedule. I don't know what else to tell you. That's what we do here is we tell you all the numbers that tell you why something should work. And if it doesn't work beyond that, blame Andy. Blame me. Not Jason Mike. I definitely blame the Falcon. But you will get the credit if it comes to. I doubt that. Looking at, you know, preparing for this episode. Oh, I saw it. I saw the quarterback schedule. I saw the wide receiver schedule. You saw the opportunity. You could have done this tonight. And I went, no, thank you. Not today, Satan. Look, it's, it makes so much sense. It just, it comes down to can they actually take advantage of the schedule that is placed before them? And that's where the risk comes in. This is, I mean, in terms of getting Calvin Ridley on your team.

That's probably a low risk propagation. What's it going to take to get Calvin Ridley at this point? A bench player who you're like, hey, you want your insurance running back? You're like, you just give me Calvin Ridley. You can get him so cheap. I don't think you even have to go play him right now. Just put him there and see if something materializes over the next. handful of weeks. Yeah. He's played what, four games, three games with Will Levis, one with Mason Rudolph. I think we're getting another one with Mason. I think we're getting another Mason game this week where a difficult part for Calvin really is probably dumb to have brought up again. I'm trying to help you, man. It might, and it could be even slower because like if it's Mason Rudolph this week against Detroit, I'm not interested.

And then you have the two actual tough games remaining, the Patriots and then the Chargers. So it could be a slower start. This is a, this is really a week 11 through championship week type of a play. And by the way, 11, 12, and 14 are major buy weeks. I will say this. So if you need a buy week fill in, that's what I'm saying. Second half sleeper. If Calvin Ridley were on our waivers, and this is just true. And it's not true for every team. Your team's chugging along. You're great. Just don't. Don't worry about this. You know, just be happy and keep your team intact. But like for teams that are struggling with injuries, if Calvin Ridley were on waivers, I would have gone hard after him in hopes that he can develop that rapport, especially with Hopkins gone. There is a place for him to be important for certain fantasy managers. And I think about half of every league out there, Calvin Ridley will be important for them. I mean, this is really just setting expectations right.

You've got a guy who's going to get a lot of targets as the one with an easy schedule. It's not like Lil Levis is not an NFL quarterback by contract. Yes. Technically speaking. He just have an NFL contract. All right. Let's move forward. Mike, why don't you hop in? All right. High pressure situation here. But I'm going to go. High pressure makes diamonds, brother. It does. And hopefully we get another one this year. I'm going with wide receiver, the wide receiver from the Pittsburgh Steelers, George Pickens. I'm the only one. Well, I don't really care about the other guys there. Things have, he's, look, he's not a sleeper in the sense of people don't know who he is, but his value, while it's now, the market value is up for George Pickens based off of last week. I think there's a chance that we go even higher here over the second half.

The Pittsburgh Steelers have the fifth easiest remaining wide receiver schedule. Now, this one does have a couple caveats of week eight here against the Giants. The Giants are actually negative four points above expectation, so I guess below expectation for wide receivers, and then the buy week. That part is unfortunate here for George Pickens and Championship Week as the Chiefs. But between then, You have this really strong stretch, like I said, the fifth easiest remaining wide receiver schedule combined with the hardest schedule remaining for fantasy running backs. And if you're asking about Jalen Warren, that's part of why I like Warren of, because he actually catches passes unlike Najee, where he's just going to be running into stack boxes and things. But combined easy schedule for wide receiver, hard schedule for running back, plus the change.

into Russell Wilson for George Pickens. I think that we have a, not just a good play. You have like some really, really elite potential here moving forward. He's seen 51% of the team's air yards. That's a number that only AJ Brown and Malik neighbors are seeing. And those air yards, you saw it last week. Those things went through the roof compared to what we've been getting for Justin Fields. When he was the quarterback, targeted on 29% of his routes. Like that's a top 10 type of a number. Fourth among all wide receivers and expected fantasy points per route run. And again, they changed to Russell Wilson. While I was questioning it for the Pittsburgh Steelers, Mike Tomlin looks like he was correct again. That was a hard matchup. That was not an easy game there for Russ to be thrown into in his first game with the Steelers. So after the by week, Washington, which we brought up of our...

That's kind of up in the air still. I don't know if they're a good defense or not, but Baltimore, Cleveland, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Philly, Baltimore. Like, this is a really, really strong run here, and I expect Pickens to kick it into turbo mode by week 11. All right. We all see the potential with George Pickens. To see it consistently would be outrageously great. That would be awesome. The only down, the only hardship there is that that means Russell Wilson's just back. You know, he's going to play well rest of season. We've seen in one game. If he plays the way that he played for the Denver Broncos last year, which is competent for fantasy football, what was it? Cortland Sutton. Double digit touchdowns. Like, it was for the Denver Broncos as a whole last year, just everything felt terrible. But the play of Russell Wilson was.

competent. I can't give a higher compliment than that, but it was enough that if you have a star wide receiver, you're going to get fantasy production. They were winning games down the stretch second half of last year, but because of his contract guarantees, they chose to bench him so that they didn't have to pay out the rest of that contract in a different fashion. Sometimes the second half of the year sleepers. Lightning strikes twice. Sometimes lightning strikes twice. Sometimes it's easy. And I believe this is. I think this is easy. I think this is going to happen just like it happened last year. And I think you've convinced me of that. It is Dak Prescott. Dak Prescott has pretty much, he's super disappointed so far this year. He hasn't, you know, he's had three top 12 performances. Okay. But for the most part, it's been suboptimal. If you compare, so both, both years, last year and this year, week seven buys. Last year, the six games beforehand.

versus the six games beforehand this year. They're almost the same across the board. Completion percentage in the 60s, 222 passing yards per game last year, 267 this year. Quarterback rating 88, 85. Fantasy points per game last year, 14 a week, 15 a week this year before the buy. They had a top 12 difficult passing schedule so far in the six games that DAC played. Now coming out of the buy. This is a team that has the sixth easiest strength of schedule for the quarterback going forward. Last year they had an elite defense. This year they don't. They're going to need to score even more. And if you look at how Dak Prescott plays after the buying the specific matchups, so over the rest of the season, they only have two quote unquote difficult matchups at all. The whole rest of the way, as far as fantasy points given up,

when you compare for schedule. And those two matchups are both the Philadelphia Eagles this year, which are technically top five. But he's used to playing the Eagles. Last year against the Eagles, he had a game of 374 and 3 and a game of 271 and 2. Those are both fine matchups. And you might look and say, well, San Francisco out of the buy, that's maybe a more difficult matchup. That's a good defense, generally speaking. But so far this year, They've been giving up more fantasy points over expectation than the average quarterback, and DAC is coming off a buy. Jamie Eisenberg pointed this out on Twitter how awesome DAC has been after his buy week and seven career games after a buy. Prescott is averaging, averaging 28.1 fantasy points, and his worst outing over that entire career is 22.3 points. So I think this is a team that can't run the ball, doesn't have a great defense anymore.

Dak after the buy last year, if you don't remember if you didn't have him and didn't experience it, also known as you didn't win the championship, he was on pace after the buy for 5,000 yards and 46 passing touchdowns. Him and Citi were awesome. Part of that was because, and we saw this last year, he was on this episode last year because the strength of schedule coming out was like, hey, it's all green. It's green lights, it's wheels up for Dak Prescott. Well, guess what's happening this year? Same exact thing. So I think I saw him on waivers in our league of record, which is why Andy's grimacing. You've got CD. You won the championship last year with that CD DAC stack. And I was like, I am not. I am not letting Andy get him. So I paid one more fab than you had. And you didn't go after him. So you would just spend up on Caleb. Why don't you give me DAC plus 10 fab for nothing? I will. Those trades are hit. They're hot right now. They're everywhere. They're big time. I think you're right. And.

You know, I guess it's somewhat comforting that I literally couldn't have gotten him. Right. Yes. Until today. We'll talk later. All right. Bone is second half sleeper picks. I'm going to throw T.J. Hawkinson's name out there. He should be returning soon. They've got the third easiest schedule for tight ends. And they could use him. They could use him. Why do I know this? Because Johnny Munt has production in the offense. And he's not. T.J. Hawkinson. And we know that T.J. Hawkinson passes all the tests all the time. So he's ready to go. He's the second half sleeper for me. Yeah, that's pretty interesting. My guy to pay attention to is Braylen Allen. The number one rest of season schedule is the Jets. So this is really a for running back. This is really a Brees Hall statement for sure. But obviously Braylen Allen's out on waivers. And if something happens to Brees Hall, the matchups are so juicy.

Especially through the playoffs. Yeah, absolutely. Make sure he's rostered. Mike. And I'm throwing out of defense here. Not that I think that the Cincinnati Bengals defense is an elite by any means, but it's rest of season they have two bottom half remaining matchups for a DST play. And then in the playoffs, like if you're looking at who actually has good schedules in the playoffs, we got the Jaguars. You're going to play the Jaguars? Got the Colts. You're going to play them? The Cardinals, like these are not teams that I'm going to believe in. You're saying, just to be clear, those three teams have good schedules, but you don't believe in their defense. Right. But the best one on paper right now is the Bengals. You get the Titans, you get Cleveland, and then maybe you want to pivot away against Denver. I don't know. You're at home against Denver and Championship Week. It's not the end of the world. But that's what I'm saying. It's not, that's the worst. That's the worst one.

for that three-game run here for the Bengals. And normally we talk about like you want to mix and match, of course, of play the best. Like if you can play against the Cleveland Browns all three weeks with your defense, sure, go ahead and do that. Well, and that could change now. Yeah, that definitely could change. New offensive play caller, new quarterback. But pay attention to that DST. And before we get into the Thursday night football matchup, I just want to remind people that the rumors are out there. There's just rumors. that there could be a potential trade of Sam Darnold for Matthew Stafford. Okay, let's go. Why are you reminding people about that? Do you not remember what the Thursday night football game is? Oh, fair. That's pretty interesting. All right, we've got to take a break, then we'll hit the Thursday night preview. Thursday night breakdown. I want to see the trade pulled off Wednesday today. Half time.

Oh my gosh. At halftime, they come out in different jerseys. Yeah, yeah, Minnesota at 5 and 1 taking on the 2 and 4 Los Angeles, Rams, the Drafking Sportsbook Line, Minnesota, minus 2.5 on the road over under his 48 points as the third highest of the week. Mike just did a fist pump because he's happier with this than last week. Yeah, then last week's just. Well, look, the Rams should get back Cooper Cup in this game. Some of the rumors around the darn old Stafford swap. You know, there's a significant age gap between Darnold and Stafford. And the rumor is that, and Jack Settlement was the first one with sources to talk about this and other sources have confirmed discussions. Kevin O'Connell and Sean McVeigh have that connection. They won a Super Bowl together. Matthew Stafford's 36 years old. I believe Sam Darnel's 27. The Rams are interested in a long-term deal with Sam Darnel. And the Rams are looking at resetting kind of the timeline. Stafford is like.

To put it into fantasy football dynasty terms, he's the guy you pick up because you need to win a title this year. It's not necessarily the future of your franchise, but I don't think any of us would like. If Donald's legit, that trade makes so much sense for both teams. Well, Donald is five and one playing in the Sean McVeigh system right now. Yeah, I mean. And this is, it feels like a dishonoring thing to Donald to talk about this trade. But the truth is is. When push comes to shove and you go to the playoffs, you need Stafford. You're not going to do it with Darnel. Yeah, Donald's not winning a Super Bowl. Not this year. Genuinely, the way that the Vikings defense has been playing, their offensive weapons, you put Stafford there? I mean, yeah, O'Connell's won a Super Bowl with Matthew Stafford already. It's very, very interesting. We don't know what, if anything will happen. But for this game this week, specifically, you know,

Minnesota finally took an L. It was a late loss. It was a great game. It was very fun. It was a last second field goal, right? It was. He did not have a great game. He was okay. He took sacks, four of them. He threw an interception. He didn't look, you know, he looked middle of the pack in that ball game that they lost, but the defense is so great. And he, you know, he was fine. In this game specifically, Start sit decisions. You're always putting Kyron in there. He's been unbelievable. He has 24 touchdowns in his last 18 games. He's as close to betting on a touchdown guarantee as we got since the Christian McCaffrey run. Cooper Cubs should be back out there. What does that do with the rest of the wide receiver options? It seems like it pushes them into a can't start category. At least that's my impression. But what do you guys think? I think it's still open because the, like,

teams have to pass on the Minnesota Vikings. That's just, that's where they have ended up, at least so far through the season. The problem is, like, I mean, I guess you can maybe go with 2-2, 2-2-at-well, but, like, I want it to be Jordan Whittington, but you had the last year, or last week's debacle of he's questionable, he's, you know, he's limited in practice, and then he goes out and doesn't run a single route for the whole game. I think he had like nine blocking snaps. And it was injury related. But there's four names there. Yeah, Tyler Johnson was the guy who stepped up, seven targets, four for 57. Because Whittington didn't play. And Marcus and Whittington and two, two. Those are against this defense. Yeah, I'm going to start Cooper Cup. He's going to be active. He's going to be in my lineup. This is a, I mean, right now on the course of the season, the Vikings defense has been great, but so is their offense. So the other teams have to keep up. You can't run on them and you might be down.

You would expect them to be down in a game that they are, you know, literally Minnesota is favored. So Cooper Cup's going to need to throw the ball. You can throw on them their 30th right now in schedule adjusted fantasy points given up to the wide receiver position, averaging Minnesota Vikings averaging 32 fantasy points per game given up. We've seen in the game where Cooper, you know, when Cooper Cup was there and Puka was injured, it's like Cooper Cups, it felt like at least 50% of not 75% of the wide receiver targets. He's just. He is their guy. They waited. You know, McVeigh talked about why he didn't play last week. It wasn't because he wasn't healthy enough to play. It was because he wasn't. Return to performance, not just return to the field. Exactly. So Cooper Cup is like, I mean, there's no world where I would not start him on any roster. So Kyron and Cooper, I feel like that, to me, is the end of that story. It is to me. There's enough other tight ends who have.