Starts of the Week + It’s Football Time! - Fantasy Football Podcast for 9/5

When Zacherts outscores Pat Fryermuth in week one, don't come crying to me. All right. Well, you put on the titanium underpants. That's the name because that's usually my last round tight end. So are you, look, name value had, if you had Fryer Mewt, would you. This is already too much time on Earths. No, but I'm genuinely curious because this is your start of the week. If you had Fryer Muth, would you drop them for Ertz and play Ertz? If you don't say yes. I would play Zachertz over Pat Fryer Muth. Yes. We're taking a break. We're jumping into the forecast. All right.

Week one of the NFL season, boys, it is time to jump in. It's time for Fantasy Forecast, presented by Draft King Sportsbook. All right, Mike, I got to get back to the Zacherts thing. Oh, man. I know it's been too much time, but I am in a league. Okay. It's deep, very, very deep. I think I got my tight end in round 16. Okay. Because I went Hawkinson a little earlier. I went with Luke Musgrave. Okay. going into year two. He showed a lot of flashes as a rookie for the Packers last season. I know your answer is you would start Ertz over Musgrave. The question is, would you drop Musgrave? Because I'm going to make that move right now and play Ertz in that league if you tell me to. Should I drop Musgrave to pick up Ertz and play? Andy, you're a yes over there? I think that.

The drop is the hard part because I think over the course of the season, Musgrave is probably the guy you're going to want to have. But just saying week one, I think that Ertz is going to be tied in three on the debt to start the year. It'll take him time. Zach Ertz is going to be the dirtiest, most disgusting accumulator of catches. I would drop him if it was made. I need to hear from Mike that I should drop Musgrave for Zach Ertz and I will make that transaction. All right. Make it happen. All right. Make it happen. Sound effects. You're not even touching the keyboard. Are you actually doing it? Thank you. No, I am really doing it. Okay. Let's ride. Our first matchup we're going to talk about. We already preview the Thursday night game. That happens tonight. We did that yesterday. So if you want to hear that preview, go back. Click on yesterday's episode. But we're starting out with Friday night in Brazil. Oh, Bunchy. The Green Bay Packers take on the Philadelphia Eagles. Apparently, we chose teams.

that are green to try to match the flag in Brazil, which I think is very courteous of the NFL. Next level thinking. They don't have to get like new gear down there? They do not. Just wear the flag. They can wear their own colors and root for both teams. The Draft King Sportsbook line here, Eagles minus to the over under is 49 points in Brazil. We've got two playoff teams. We've got two teams with a lot of fantasy options. We got one team. with Mike's start of the week, Christian Watson. Jordan Love, he got paid this offseason. His DK line right now is, you know, 250 plus passing yards is minus 145 for Jordan Love in this game. Secondary for the Eagles last year was ranked 30th in fantasy points allowed. Are we going to get what we want in Brazil? Yes. Jordan Love is a great play.

You can look at his DK line right now. It's already 250 plus passing yards. I think that he can make that. And on top of that, just real quick, Jordan Love plays the Eagles, the Colts, the Titans, the Minnesota Vikings, the Rams, the Arizona Cardinals. That is the opening schedule for Jordan Love. I think that he is going to start super hot. Josh Jacobs is the last and only running back remaining for Green Bay. We're very excited about him in this one. Even though it has been a tough defensive front to run against, we know he's going to get everything. Yeah, and you believe in LaFleur. You believe in the system to get him the ball where he needs it. You know, the Packers offense is one that I think we're all really, really excited to watch to kind of see if there's any clarity, which I don't believe there will be in this receiving core.

Similar to what you were talking about with the Texans, it's going to be you kind of got to get lucky. You've got to have the right week for whether it's Jane Reed or Christian Watson. So that means you really should be starting them because if you want to get the big matchups, you have to start them through the duds as well. But then if that passing game is working, I think that we've always seen value from Aaron Jones. And Josh Jacobs will catch the ball more than he did as a raider. So, yeah, I mean, obviously you're starting Josh Jacobs, but I think it will work out this week. I mean, the only thing to really look out for, Romeo Dobbs popped up on the practice report limited with a hand injury. So like if Dobbs was one of your later double flex options, you may have to pivot. What in the wide receiver room for Green Bay happens this week that would disappoint you? What would disappoint you? Yeah, what would disappoint you from?

You know, is it Jaden Reed underperforming, Watson underperforming? Is it Dobbs being the leader of the room in week one? Is it Wix not getting any play? Yeah, it's the most disappointing thing just to be contrarian is Dantavian Wix not getting the snaps that we hope because of his production that he had on a per route basis last year, like real elite numbers. Not saying Wix is an elite player, but he is. We, oh, okay. Yeah, no, I'm saying. I guess Jason's willing to say it. But if he doesn't get on the field very much, that would be disappointed. On the other side, it's pretty easy from a fantasy perspective, Hertz, Sequin, A.J. Brown and Devante Smith. Every week. Every week. And we'll get to see Johan Dodson on the field, hopefully, maybe. Yeah, he should be there wide receiver three, which I think, and I hope that role is irrelevant. If Jahan Dodson is good this year,

That will really not be good for, I think, fantasy managers. I want to see what the running back breakdown is Philadelphia-wise. Like, do they use, how much do they use Barclay? How much are they trying to manage his workload? You know, and what does Philadelphia look like after a really tough end to the season where they lost, I think, five of six or six or seven games got blown out in the playoffs? They have a whole new offense. They have a whole new defensive coordinator. This game's going to be very interesting from that perspective. Now, Goddard's going to be back out there. A lot had been made of his injury and the fact that whenever he's missing time, Devante Smith eats his opponents, as Jason would say. Gobble him up. So Goddard, though, he should be playing. Are we ignoring Goddard for fantasy because we're tired of it? Yeah, I think I personally am. I mean, Dallas Goddard has not been good in a long time. He's just, you know.

He had a big name, and we were hoping for him to break out behind Zacherts a long time ago and showed a lot of flashes. But you look at last season, he missed three games. And then he had four decent fantasy games. The rest were all unusable, awful. Consistency score of a D. So even though the matchup here is fine, Dallas Goddard coming off of an injury, even though he's healthy, he's going to be playing. I'm not going to roll those dice. All right, let's turn the page to the Sunday games. Pittsburgh at Atlanta. The overrunner here is just 42 points. Atlanta at three and a half point home favorites. And the revenge of Arthur Smith begins immediately. The fact that he can instantaneously use Cordero Patterson against the very team that he used. Oh, man. So good. Him on last year is incredible.

And so, you know, we haven't seen any of Atlanta in the preseason. The offense has been, you know, none of the starters played any snaps, right? I don't think anybody was out there at all. So Kirk Cousins, the recovery from the Achilles switching teams, you know, Bijon, London, there's a lot of anticipation. Kyle Pitts came out this morning for what it's worth. It wasn't in the news. But he came out and mocked everybody making a big deal about his hamstring. He said he missed two. reps on the rack or something like that, and that meant that everyone freaked out. He said, see you Sunday. So I don't know who reported what and what mattered, but Pitts is going to be out there. And so I'm going to ask you the same question. What happens on Sunday at home in Atlanta that would disappoint you right out of the gate?

Oh, I mean, there's so many things. I mean, the Falcons are an offense that I'm very excited to see. I wish they had a good matchup for week one. The Steelers, they always find a way to have a good defense, even when they lose players and they're bad for a couple weeks and they figure it out. I think this is a really tough matchup. So the thing that would disappoint me the most would be Bijon. splitting time more with Alger than we think. I, that shouldn't be what happens. I mean, Alger will be involved. And I think there's been a lot about Alger at the goal line. Right now, the DK line for an anytime touchdown for Bejohn Robinson is minus 105. I mean, that was like Christian McCaffrey last year. Remember when you were trying to get a touchdown.

and make that bet. It was like minus 200. It's like crazy. The expectation is that you get a touchdown. That is awesome for fantasy. So that will be the most disappointing thing. If Alger comes in around the goal line, I will be so, so upset. All right. On the other side of the ball, Mike Tomlin came out, talked about the running back rotation. He says in terms of how we divide the labor up, that's going to be week to week. We have some capable guys. You throw Cordero Patterson into the mix as well. He's talking, of course, about Najee Harris and Jalen Warren. Both guys will be out there against Atlanta. Atlanta was pretty good against the run last year. But if Patterson is getting worked in, are you taking, is it a, is Najee a must-start situation? Is Warren a must-start situation, or do you want to feel it out? I'd prefer to feel it out with Warren for sure.

He limited on Wednesday. He's been dealing with a hamstring all for some weeks now in training camp. So for Warren, I want to see it. Naji, I'm okay putting him out there just as a pure volume play. It doesn't feel like it's upside at all. The Steelers are, I would kind of rather see what's going to happen here with the new quarterback, with the new offensive coordinator. Pickens is fine. He'll be in my lineup. But everybody else, if I can avoid it, I probably would. You mentioned Pat Fryehmuth. If he was the guy you took at the end of your draft, you're obviously going to throw him out there. But this matchup, low over under, a lot of unknown on both sides, two brand new quarterbacks. And we don't know a lot of what that's going to look like. And the low over under makes you less excited about the matchup. Yeah. And the way that the Muth.

It's just the usage is I have my concerns of how it's going to work out. More. Because of Smith? Yeah. Yeah. I agree. Arizona at Buffalo. The D.K. Sportsbook line here, bills minus six and a half. The overrunner is 48. We like that total. Mike's my guy. Kyla Murray was my start of the week. And I'm a big fan of this game script in the way it should play out. There's a lot of question marks around Josh Allen figuring out who his weapons are going to be, how the offense is going to function. There's a really good chance they look pretty good in week one against Arizona's defense and maybe quell the fears and then maybe don't buy into everything that you see on the field in week one because Arizona's defense is it is the perfect setup for Alan. Alan, when he's not pressured.

Number one in fantasy points per game on non-pressured dropbacks, second in fancy points per dropback, and third in completion rate. He completes 75% of his passes when he's not being pressured, and the Cardinals cannot pressure. They can't bring pressure. They don't have the personnel to make it happen, and they're already dealing with defensive line injuries. So when you talk about getting a feel for the new offense in Buffalo, you could see, you know, my biggest problem is trying to identify. what guy I'd roll the dice on. Like I have this decision in a couple leagues. I could go Curtis Samuel, who's recovering from turf toe. That is not an injury that I really want to mess around with in week one. He could have two rounds, and we've seen Curtis Samuel leave the field. For me, it's Khalil Shakir. I mentioned earlier, that's kind of what I settled on. But Keon Coleman, how much run does he get with the starters on the outside? If you take the shot, what's the name for you? For me, it's Shakir.

At the wide receiver. At the wide receiver position, I'll go Curtis Samuel from, I get that he's coming back from the toe injury. I mean, that's if I have to pick. My pick is actually none of these. Despite the bad defense. This could be a game where you are also up and you're running the ball a lot. That's why James Cook is your start of the week. Yeah, this could be a Ray Davis game. The rookie backup running back could end up with two touchdowns in this game because you look at what happened last year. And the nice thing is the Cardinals offense might be able to keep pace here and make it to where it is more of a shootout. But if the Cardinals offense, you know, stumbles at all, their defense is not good enough to stop the Bill's offense, which means.

Last year, what you saw is despite how bad the defense was, wide receivers didn't really do well against Cardinals. The running backs did because you just get to a game script point where you're not throwing the ball much. So I love Dalton Kincaid. I love James Cook. Josh Allen will eat in the past the game. I wonder if he'll have any rushing yards. He'll just stand back there for like 12 seconds, find the guy he wants to throw it to. If it's a Ray Davis game, as you called it, that will send panic through the streets. I think more just of a they're up.

And James Cook has gotten his work done. It would be a both-hand. Yeah, the concern is that Cook gets his work done and that doesn't involve a touchdown. James Conner's over under right now on DK is 51.5 rushing yards. It's one of my favorite of the week. James Connor is the workhorse back. When your offensive coordinator has the willingness to call you the bell cow, that doesn't happen a lot in the NFL level. You normally equivocate and say, well, we're going to feel it out. We're going to play different guys. We're going to see what happens. We've got a lot of guys in the back field. Now, this is like James Connor just, it's his. Yes. It's all his. Yep. That has been what it has felt like all offseason over the summer coming out of Arizona. Trey Benson is a very interesting bench stash insurance running back. But until James Connor misses time, it.

I think he is, he feels like in your draft, which we talked about, like the cheapest real bell cow for a good offense that is available in the draft. And Matt Milano is not part of, you know, he's not going to be there. Right. Their defense won't be as good as it's been in the past. Yeah, and it started to struggle at times last year. Marvin Harrison makes his debut. If you drafted him, you're starting him. Same with Tray McBride. And I think I'm going to get this out of the way. Andy's almost upset of the wig. I wondered, before the show even began, it's like, I kind of wanted to say it, but I don't have, I don't have the magic powers. If there's a feeling out period on the offensive side of the football for even a while for Buffalo with a high over under and the defenses both, like on both sides of the ball, I don't like the defenses. Right.

So, and I like the quarterbacks. I know more of what Arizona is going to bring to the table, but both teams are figuring it out. So I think it'll be a very competitive game. I think it'll be close. And I think they'll almost upset the bills. I think Arizona will miss a game winning field goal on the last play of the game. All right. We'll take a break and we'll jump into another matchup. Kaya wants me to explain the almost upset to new listeners. I thought the drop did a pretty good job. Well, it's like you're going to almost upset.

uh the team but you're not going to go all the way i get credit when they do upset and if they get close and cover the line right um that's how i've worked that and you get credit despite wearing that stupid hat right now you get you get credit from genuinely you're almost upsets historically have been they hit at do you have some data kyle do you have that pulled up i can pull it up but you are scary good at it like i hate it it's all very good at it i find though the the ones that like this one

You know, it's hard. I know the listeners are going, is this just a Homer thing? It's just a Cardinals thing. I will say that most of the time when you drop this on one that shocks me and I think like when I, when my jaw drops when you hit that. Oh, that's always a good sign. That's always a good sign. Yeah. I think you hit on 100% of those. Yeah. Last year was very good. Yeah. Can we get Jason jaw drop into the data into the database? Yeah. Do you have some numbers, Kyle? Last year, you covered the spread 80%. That's unbelievable. That is unbelievable. And then it was an outright win on 67%. You were flying too close to the sun. Wow. There's no chance of that happening again or will it. All right. Tennessee at Chicago, very excited about this game. Yeah, this is a fun game. It's going to be a lot of fun. Both teams, they're kind of like new look franchises right now. You've got.

Caleb Williams, Will Levis, a lot of players that are relevant for fantasy that have been drafted. You've got the trifect of wide outs in Chicago. And this game, you know, right now the drafting sportsbook line bears minus three and a half. They're the home team. The over under is 44 and a half. Two young quarterbacks, two new offenses. A lot of excitement, but also a lot of nerves as to, whoa, you know, like can these guys get it done? I would expect Chicago to win with that defense at home against Tennessee, but... They should, but very excited to see the Titans as they have been just drained of all testosterone as they made the move away from the last regime of what we do is we grind out games with Derek Henry. And this regime said, we're going to have running backs, but we're going to bring in Tony Pollard to go with Tajay Spears to, you know, not...

gigantic bruising running backs, guys who are excellent at catching the ball. Seeing what the turnaround for this team is to be more of a past team, it'll be fun to watch. It feels like both running backs, Jason, have been tossed to kind of this middle ground, maybe the dead zone, maybe players that nobody has actively been targeting. They settle on Pollard and Swift. Are we in for a surprise here? Or is there the potential that we get in here? I mean, Tony Pollard's rushing yard mark on DK is only 43 and a half. Yeah, I mean, that's not great because I genuinely believe that Pollard and Taj will be an almost 50-50 split. I mean, someone has to start. So it'll be, you know, 53, 47. But those guys are going to both be on the field in the exact same situations, be used the exact same as running backs.

And that might work for the Tennessee Titans, but that does not work well for fantasy football. Also, the Bears have a pretty solid defense. I'm not sure that I love either of the running backs on the Tennessee side. Swift, on the other hand, he projects like he could get a lion's share of the workload there with Herbert and Roshan Johnson just basically being backups who spell him from time to time. So if I had to pick between Pollard and Swift, it would be a pretty easy swift for me. Is that in your situation too, Mike? DeAndre Swift is just, it's a devil of the time. I'm sorry. I should never ask you to choose him in a situation. Please don't do that. I'm on the Tony Pollard side for what it's worth. That's not a utmost confidence, but I think he's the better player. I believe he will, I mentioned it last year. He will do what Swift did in Philly. I think we started the year with Gainwell as a starter, and Swift is the backup.

This is a co-starter situation. I think Pollard will outplay Spears to the degree that it becomes a 1A, 1B or a 1 and 2. Over time. On the Bears side, there's something to pay attention to. Keenan Allen did pop up with a heel injury. I'm not going to make any comments about. He's got a lot more to carry around. I'll do it. I'll do it. I mean, that's. That's a lot of weight on those heels. I was going to be a little more eloquent about like gravitation. Are your heels feeling better in the last few months? They are, yeah. You know, and so. Keenan's really absorbed some of that for me. And, you know, the interesting thing here. Because you look pretty good this year, Mr. Dead ringers. He's got his League of record jersey on. He's wearing a hat, of course. Yes, my Dead ringer hat. Thank you, Kyle.

I couldn't find it. Kyle found it. Anyways, one interesting thing here, Sneed came over from the Chiefs, and he was an absolute monstrosity for opposing wide receiver 1's last season. Like he became, he got to the point where you'd be staring down a superstar and be like, can I play him against the Chiefs? Now, that took a whole defensive scheme and all of that. We don't know that he can do that here, but he is here now. So it's like, if DJ Moore. is locked down. That's who I would assume if you were going to shadow. You'd kind of put Sneed on DJ Moore. And Keenan has a heel problem. It's like, does O'Donzee, is he a sneaky okay play week one? You know, I've got neighbors as my start of the week. I like Romadunzee. Okay. I like him. I've been down. I like him in this game. I've been down on Roma Dunezay. I still don't like him on a season long basis for where he was drafted. But if you drafted him, I think.

Let's put it. You could throw them in your lineup. Let's put it to the test. O'Doons Ayer, Brian Thomas, who was named a starter, by the way. Right now, just so you know, the starting wide receivers in Jacksonville, on the outside, it's Gabe Davis on one side and Brian Thomas on the other. Christian Kirk is only playing in three wide right now. So that is very significant to me. A dunes air, Brian Thomas in week one. Brian Thomas has the great Miami game. I'm going to take Brian Thomas. I'd go Brian Thomas. Rashid Shaheed. against Carolina or Rome Adunze. Adunze. Roam. Dobbs against Philly. O'Dunzee. I need more injury information. I would probably play Adunzee for the sake of the big game. Yeah. Which Mike will take his disrespect to Romeo Dobbs. Yeah, I will. He's a touchdown machine. Calvin Ridley? Yeah, playing. I am kind of excited about Calvin Ridley.

And we should have DeAndre Hopkins back to help take some pressure. Hopkins or Roma Dunzee? I'd play Roma Dunzee. I think I would as well. Coming off of the injury, yeah, I lean that way. It's more fun too. Less fun. New England is playing football this week against Cincinnati. Guys, this one's a bummer. The Draft King Sportsbook line, Bengals minus eight. Why do we got to start the Bengals against the Pats? The over under is 41, which means the implied point total for Cincinnati is 24 and a half. Okay, that's totally good. That's fine. New England is 16 and a half. That's not. I don't know how New England moves the football on a regular basis in this game with Jacoby Brissette throwing the football to Madlibs. I mean, I, pardon me. Yes. You know. If you punted your DST.

to the end of the draft as you should. But maybe you were at the end of the line and you don't like what your current matchup looks like. The Bengals Week 1 is going to work. It's tough. It's going to work. I don't think it will work from a DST standpoint. That offensive line is horse d' doo-do. They are horse-dudu, and I will certainly stream against them a lot. But I'm not sure that the Bengals defense isn't horse-dudu too. So it's, it's, uh, that doesn't, that doesn't bother me. A huge lead against the team. They're at home. Super favorites. Yeah. The other team has a bad offensive line. They're going to have to start chucking the ball in the second half. Okay. That's turnover city. Have you been. Yeah, I've been convinced. I think they will commit to remandre early and often in this game. He is the most reliable offensive piece that they have. So I think you're going to see a lot of remandre. What he, what can he do with the touches? I mean.