Starts of the Week + Week 3 Breakdown, Late Week Pickups - Fantasy Football Podcast for 9/23

not been good. Obviously, they rush their left tackle back. They were down the right tackle and, uh, obviously, Quentin Nelson coming back off of injury. They've just not looked right. This is a game and a coaching staff that we've seen this coaching staff adapt to the personnel, which is wonderful. I love that. The problem is they're adapting to.

real, real bad personnel this week of Carson Wentz is out. Say whatever you want and make the jokes about Carson Wentz being bad. He is infinitely better than their backup options here. So I would imagine they're going to try to build a game plan around running the ball as much as possible, shortening this game clock and giving Jonathan Taylor a lot of work. But on the flip side, you've got to think the Titans are going to put everyone in the box. Right.

He's a huge question to me. I worry. Just have to play him. Yeah, I guess. I'm still playing him. This isn't the, it's not so terrible that I'm thinking about benching him because you don't have a option. That's going to be strong enough to play over Jonathan Taylor. Extremely disappointing if Carson Wentz does not play this week after the, the.

Big breakout game for Michael Pittman Jr. 12 targets, eight receptions over 120 yards. He did an excellent job at finding the soft spot in the zone, finding the place to sit down, and hopefully moving forward with Carson Wentz, he has earned that trust that Carson Wentz will just automatically start looking for him, believing that Pittman is doing the right thing and getting open. But this week,

Man, with Brett Hundley, even though the matchup is super juicy, I think it's, he's a, I think if you have a double flex, okay, I'm willing to take that shot off of the 100-yard game. I'm not. I'm not playing Pascal or Bitman. Unless Wence is active, I just don't believe in these backup quarterbacks. Yeah, you'd be scary. It'd be scary if you did it.

Trambling finger to put him in the lineup. I'd play O'Dell Beckham. Yes. Yeah, but that takes a lot for me to say. Okay, fine, but let's look at other players. Jacobi Myers against the Saints. Yeah, I would play Myers. You would play Sammy Watkins against Detroit. I said double flexed. I specified lower tier player. Yeah, I think I would. All right.

The Los Angeles Chargers at one-on-one take on the one-in-one, Kansas City Chiefs. Drafking Sportsbook line is Chiefs minus six and a half. Over under is 55. How are we feeling about Justin Herbert so far this year? He is our quarterback 10 on the week, which is not necessarily a ringing endorsement here. 26th in week one, 21st in week two.

Fantasy finishes. You would have expected a lot better than 21st against the Dallas defense in week two. Yep. Didn't happen. Now, the pass attempts, 47, 41, you love that.

The yardage, 337, 338. You love that? Just no touchdown. Yeah, it's really been wild. Is that a by low? It could be or it could be a problem of this offense in the red zone. And I can't tell which it is. Both games ended up, you know, I had Herbert as my start of the week last week because you watched him play week one. He looked great, just rifling the most. I still, he throws the prettiest ball in the NFL to me right now. When he.

It's just a laser beam, perfect spiral. I love what he's doing on the field. But every time he's gotten into the red zone, in the field shortens, he's really struggled. He threw the weird fumble out of the end zone in week one, but then got into trouble last week through some red zone picks. And that's, you know, if you can't score the touchdowns, you're.

you're going to be worthless for fantasy. So in this matchup against Kansas City, you would, 55 points you'd expect, it's going to be great, right? I feel okay with Herbert this week. I mean, we're excited about Keenan. We're excited about Mike Williams' evolution in the offense. We're excited about Echler. And Cook is okay in this game. So there's four pass catchers. How do you not take the?

Pass thrower. Yeah, no, it's fair. And they're projected for 24 points. So he just can't turn the ball over in the red zone again. Well, it gets easy on the other side. And by the way, Patrick Mahomes texted. He's super furious that you said that Justin Herbert throws a prettier ball than him. He does.

Not a better ball, no. It's very aesthetically pleasing. I agree with Jason. I'm talking about the aesthetics. Patrick Mahomes. You know, I am more aesthetically pleased by Patrick Mahomes' football. You know how when you see like water pouring out of a hose or just an area, but something, I don't know what the effect is called, but the water is literally not moving in the stream because it's just so tight, tight together. But you know that the water is on. Like that's what.

That's what the Herbert ball looks like. Mike gets it. Yeah. Yeah, he throws the second most aesthetically pleasing ball and football. Mahomes, yep. Tyreek, uh-huh. Yeah. Travis Kelsey, sure. Yeah. I would play a player that has what, what did you say the style was 20, or eight straight 20 point weeks or something? Nine, nine. His last nine games have been over 20 fantasy points. The only other player of that caliber is Christian McCaffrey. Have we had a wide receiver ever do that? Seriously. Like,

I don't have the answer, but I don't think wide receivers done nine straight 20-point games. Jerry Rice says, what? Well, okay, when we were tracking players on our phone, I mean. Yeah, sweet. Sweet 1980s reference, bro. I think McCall Hardman's a dart throw in a 55-point game where he was kind of involved last week. You could do worse than, like, would you play Sammy Watkins or McCall Hardman? Sammy Watkins, yep. Okay, okay.

But I don't disagree that he's earning more time, earning more. You want to do a Sammy Watkins, McCall Hardman, Waterbet? Not really, but sure. Come on. Okay, fine. Waterbed. Oh, those are the kind of bets I love. Now, Clyde Edwards Allaire. Next topic, please. No, I mean, this is an important one, right? People have to make a decision as to whether they can start him or not. And I definitely think you could start him.

the expectations have to be managed. This isn't a superstar. I think we brought this up on Spotify Green Room yesterday that this is a player who's getting, you know, the vast majority of snaps and usage on a great offense. It hasn't gone his way. He has not gotten the touchdown. He hasn't been receiving the passing work that you want. But at the running back position, I mean, there's a lot of, or even at your flex, there's a lot of questionable starts.

And the behind the scenes metrics say that he should be fine. This is the Chargers defense that so far through two weeks has given up a lot of fancy points to running back, a 55 point over under and a favored game at home. It has not worked out for Clyde Edwards O'Lear this year. But if you think that you're going to go through, you know, 17 games where Clyde Edwards O'Lear doesn't have, he's just, he has no good games the whole season.

That's not actually going to be what you look backwards and see. Clyde Edwards Allaire, Jason, or Damien Harris against the New Orleans Saints. Damian Harris. Clyde. Clyde Edwards Aller or the Gasman against the Las Vegas Raiders. Gasman. Clyde. Okay. All right. The problem with Clyde has never been the externals. Plays on the best offense in football. It's the internals. It's the internals.

The externals look great. You play the Chargers. You play from a Holmes. Damian Harris, by the way, I tweeted this out yesterday morning or the day before. He's currently number five in the NFL at the running back position and total touches. This offense is going to be. It's going to be Damian Harris through the entire year. Yeah. He is a good player. He's only seen four targets in.

Four more than I expected. But the one target he saw against the jet to turn into two yards. But did you guys see it? This was like a full jump, 180 catch to contort his body in midair because the past was so bad. And he came down with it. And you're like, how was, how was Damien Harris making that catch? And you refuse to scheme anything up to check down to him. James White. But there's, there's plays where Harris is on the field.

The Saints, let's talk about them here. The Saints traveled to New Orleans or to New England to take on the Patriots. Draft Kings has the line at Patriots minus two and a half. I wonder what the bookmakers are doing spinning their head about the Saints through two weeks because they're doing what we're doing. The over under is 42 and a half, not a high over under, two good defenses, two shaky quarterbacks. I mean.

Alvin Kamar has been one of the worst per touch from scrimmage backs through two weeks, but you're playing him. Yeah. It's not a great matchup, manager expectations, but you're playing him. Kind of the way you feel about Gibson this week against the bills. You're playing him. Damian Harris, tied with Joe Mixon, second most yards after contact behind Derek Henry. 26 opportunities, 17 opportunities. That's what I was talking about.

Again, not a good matchup for him either, but I'm putting him out there. No question about it. Yeah, this is a... You don't bench Damien Harris after those opportunities. Yeah, this is a very questionable game for fantasy in the sense that obviously Draft King's Sportsbook has this is very low over under, not a lot of implied points being scored, and both defenses we know are very, very good.

I'm not as bullish on Damien Harris this matchup as Andy is. He was obviously, you know, just fine last week against the Jets. But the Saints D line is is very, very good. And I'm wondering what we're going to see out of Mack Jones against...

kind of someone that I think he hasn't really had to deal with a defense of this level yet. And so I'm just expecting basically a lousy fantasy output to two teams that are going to need to run the ball a lot, which is good for Damien Harris as far as opportunities. But if you don't score a lot and the... I like both defenses. Yeah, yeah. For fantasy. Like I play both of them this week. Who scores more? The offenses or the defenses? Yeah, I...

I think the game plan for the New England Patriots in every game this year is handing the ball off to Damien Harris and managing Mac Jones. And I think, frankly, that's what the game plan is for the Saints. I mean, the over-under-on passing yardage for James Winston was like 212 or 205, something like that. And I would take the under. I mean, this is not, he doesn't have the weapons right now to have a game.

That's what I look at with the Saints. It's like, you don't have enough players to give you the game you want unless you're picking up yards out of the backfield with Alvin Cameras. So I just vetted this stat that shows up in the dock about Jacoby Myers. I can't even believe it. I saw Ron Dale Morgan get a game ball last week, scoring his first touchdown for the Cardinals. Jacoby Myers has never scored a touchdown. 137 targets. What a loser? 137 targets. You look at all of last year, all these games he's involved, never scored. He's never gotten.

into the end zone. So probably not going to do it this week either. Mack, Mac, you've got to help your buddy out here. Yeah. Get him a touchdown. Hunter Henry and Johnny Smith have been not good at all for fantasy purposes. I would not be taking a shot at them in this matchup.

And then on the other side, I mean, it's just Camara, right? And bench everybody else? It's Camara, Damian Harris, James White. Those are the three options in this game. Both teams are going to run the ball a lot. And James White's worth bringing up because he's had six receptions each week. So the baseline is there. Actually, got a rushing touchdown last week, which was weird that it wasn't Damien Harris's. But, yeah, I think all three of those are startable. Obviously, Camara, the only one that's exciting.