Unsolved Mysteries + Hungry for More, Prophetic Hope - Fantasy Football Podcast for 9/20

His utilization is going to be better. His opportunities will be more. He's still catching the ball. He's not as explosive as Jemir Gibbs, but I'll take the opportunity. He is still talented. He's not like, you know, an old busted guy that's just living on opportunity. Travis E.N or Jemir Gibbs? You staying with E.N? Yeah, the E.T.N snaps have been. They've been outstanding. Yeah, they've been outstanding. Like, he has the. possibility of the opposite happening to him because the team said, we're going to work tank big being slow. He's being worked in very slow. Zero opportunities is pretty slow. Very, very, very slowly. Well, he, I mean, he had a couple of bumbling accidents in week one, but by, like, by midseason, there's a chance that ETN's snaps are going out while Gibbs are going on. Okay. Second unsolved mystery, the Baker Mayfield Redemption Tour, which also includes the

Mike Evans' explosion through two weeks. Baker's completing 69% of his passes, zero interceptions, one sack. He's dominated under pressure. In fact, he finished 14 for 17 for 223 yards in a touchdown under pressure. So you talk about the offensive line issues. They have not been an issue for him. He's the third highest graded passer. He's making quick decisions. And then you've got Mike Evans, who has been. an absolute monster through two weeks. He's got a 28% target per route run. That's the highest number since 2015. So far, the dream has come true. When you look at Baker and his tendencies historically as a deep passer, it has come true for Mike Evans. So what is the truth of this situation? What would you project going forward? I think that Baker is, he's got quite the heater going, but it's going to be an issue.

the next couple of weeks. Starting out against Minnesota and Chicago, I mean, the numbers of him, you said he took, he's only had taken one sack. I mean, I would point to Minnesota and Chicago, not necessarily that Tampa Bay has fixed their offensive line. Perhaps their offensive line is, they figured out how to improve it, and Baker's making nice, quick decisions. But this week here, against... Philadelphia, it will be tougher. I think that he's still in play as a streamer because the Philadelphia secondary is banged up and Mike Evans, you keep playing him until that fire shows that it is out. But there will be far more pressure this week. And that's what we will be watching is when the pressure is finally coming through, how does Baker Mayfield manage that? And I think it's going to be a lot tougher for him this week. And then the following week is on the road against the Saints.

Jason, what are your thoughts on the Evans hot start to the season? Yeah, Evans, to me, I'm pretty confident in going forward, much more confident than Baker Mayfield. Obviously, they're tied together. You know, if Baker has complete implosion ahead, that's not going to, you know, come at the same time as Mike Evans exploding. And I don't believe Mike Evans is going to, you know, continue to be. Like, what is he, the number two wide receiver, I think, on the year. I don't, I don't think he ends on that kind of a heater. Three touchdowns through the first two weeks. Yeah, but what it does show is that his talent is there. He hasn't lost a step, and he's always been a really great wide receiver. But I do side on the side with Mike. I don't think that the Baker-Mayfield Redemption Tour continues. They're 2-0 right now.

Life is rosy. The way that I see the schedule laying out, they're going to lose to Philly, and I have them losing to the New Orleans Saints the week after that. That's in New Orleans, and then it's a bye week. So, you know, a month from now, I think things will be much less rosy. Baker will be looking up from his back more often, and I am skeptical that Baker will be a revelation. Well, let's put it to the test. Would you rather have Mike Evans or Brandon Iyuk rest of the season? Mike Evans. I'll take Mike Evans. Unsolved mystery number three, the Bengals offensive woes. Hey! It's a... Oh, here we go again. Is this a repeat episode? I mean, we were in this exact same situation last year, very slow start. They were not good to start last season, and now there was some news this morning. We didn't mention it, but Joe Burrough says he's feeling a little bit better. The Rams, the Titans, the Cardinals.

The Seahawks. That's the next month for the bang. Okay, we have our answer. Now maybe the Rams defense is better than we thought. You know, obviously they've got Darnold. They're not terrible. But they're not a world beater. The Titans defense and their secondary, we've got our answer. It's what they've been in the last, you know, two years. They're just not good. The Cardinals? Yeah, not good. So I think the schedule is really, really going to help them out over the next month. The talent on the offense is great. I think the only concern, like literally this would be the easiest question of all time. Will the Bengals offensive woes recover? Oh, yes. They're just chock full of nonstop talent. Of course they're going to recover. The only concern is the calf. And I'm not a doctor. How do you? Or a farmer.

Or a farmer. And that would all forms of calves. You have no knowledge of. Right. Yeah. I didn't understand. I did not understand the farmer. Hey, but I appreciate you going with it. You know, I'm going to yes and you might. But goodness, that was, that was great. That was some good. That was some of your best work. Thank you. That's the end. That was the end. Where do I go from there? Yeah, I think it gets a lot better for the Bengals and I would be targeting their options. I've made some offers on Jamar Chase in certain leagues. I've made offers on T. Higgins.

You know, if the calf is bad, then you've made the wrong bet. But it's hard to imagine him unable to get out onto the field. Maybe he misses a week here or there, but I think he's going to be able to fight through it. For fantasy purposes, I 100% would be targeting Jamar Chase and T. Higgins. But at the same time, I wouldn't be targeting Joe Burrow. And the reason why is because I think even with a, you know, less than 100% calf, Burrow can be better than he's been the first two weeks, utilize the talent that he has in T. Higgins and Chase, obviously last week with the CAF issue, T. Higgins was awesome. We don't need to talk about Jamar Chase's talent. That's going to win out, period. Even if the backup quarterback is playing, he'll still win out the same way that Garrett Wilson did last week was Zach Wilson. But for fantasy purposes, I don't believe Joe Burrough is going to run at all. I think he's going to be in the pocket and not move. And so...

for him to really have what the expectations and the hope would be for a bounce back for Joe Burrow. He was drafted, what, the quarterback four? I think so. If you're going to say, hey, just the expectation that he's going to be a top four quarterback, I do not think that's going to happen this season because I don't think he has any rushing touchdowns or very few. I don't think he has many rushing yards. And so you're talking about, well, he needs like 45 touchdowns or at least 40 touchdowns. passing if he's going to be top four this season if you delete out his rushing. So that's how I view the Bengals. What is the truth, our final unsolved mystery here about Jordan Luck? Is he the real deal? Because it was a huge mystery coming into the season. He's looked pretty good. He's got an insane touchdown rate right now, 11.5%, which is not going to hold up over the course of the year.

So that's six touchdowns on 29 completions. He's executing the offense and putting them in a position to win the ball game. Is it a little bit of fools gold so far from Jordan Love? Yes. He's cruising through for fantasy football based on the touchdowns. What are the rushing touchdowns for the Packers right now? I believe Jones had one in week one. So I think that's it. Kyle, go ahead and vet that for me. In terms of actual completion percentage, here are the three worst current starting quarterbacks in completion percentage. Zach Wilson at 54, Deshaun Watson at 55. I'm not hitting it. There's, yeah, no, we should not hit for that. Jordan Love at 56%. Like, I mean, guys just in front of him, Joe Burrow, which illustrates how bad he's been throwing the ball.

Joe Burroughs been terrible for fantasy. Bryce Young, terrible for fantasy. Kenny Pickett, terrible for fantasy, Fields, Tannehill. Those are the guys who are just above Jordan Love within a few completion points. And those guys are bad too. Those guys are bad for fantasy. So Jordan Love has been overproducing in terms of touchdown. Now, Jordan Love, I think, can improve as a quarterback. But the balance of passing touchdowns and rushing touchdowns, It always happens in the end, so there will be, I think, some swift regression to the mean in terms of rushing versus passing scoring. Yeah, if you just look at his 17-game pace, obviously, that's a ridiculous sample, only two weeks, but it's 51 passing touchdowns on only 3,300 passing yards. He will get. Of course that's not going to happen. I mean, this last game maybe is...

more of a better performance by him than maybe we even realized just in the fact that Christian Watson was not available. Aaron Jones was not available, who's a key cog in that offense. Sure. You will get those players back at some point in time. There is trust in the coaching staff. Yeah, and that could boost it up. I'm not saying it's a, I'm going to throw what he's done into the garbage. It's just a, I'm not, this isn't the Jordan Love celebration tour through two weeks. It's a. Okay. Well, maybe the Packers have a player here. I'm still going to continue to see. Two weeks isn't enough for me. Yeah, this, what he has proven to me is that he can be a really solid option on the right matchups. You could have predicted these two matchups. You know what I mean? The Bears, yes, please. Let's play my quarterback against the Bears. The Falcons, they're okay. And he was okay. He had three passing touchdowns still did not have a great fantasy week. He was the quarterback 16.

151 yards. Yeah, on the weekend. And one of those passing touchdowns was, you know, a little tap pass, which still counts for him. Hey, but we love that. We want everyone to do that. Seriously, if you get around the goal line, stop hand the ball off. Just hand it forward. Yeah. Pay it forward. Yeah, the Saints this coming week, you know, I'm not going to start Jordan Love this week. Like, he's on my bench. But in the right matchup, you know, the Lions the week after, yeah, I'll stream him. All right. Thursday night breakdown. The New York Giants are one and one. They take on the San Francisco 49ers who are 2 and 0. The drafting sports book line here. Thursday night football in San Francisco. San Francisco, 10-point favorites. The overrunners 44. That gives an implied point total to San Francisco of 27 points. Just 17 for the Giants. Heavy favorites generally crush. Over the last five years, team's favor of nine plus points. They average almost 30 points a game, and they've won 85% of the time.

Is this script going to be exactly what we expected to be? Because that's the side I am on. Yeah. No almost upset here. No. You're trying that on? Jason told me all I have to do is make chicken noises. No, it doesn't quite work. It's still fun to do. Yeah, I mean, we saw the Giants struggle in the first half against Cardle's defense. Obviously, they recovered, won the game, played great. But we also saw the Giants. When there is a pass rush that can get through, you know, if Micah Parsons is on the other side, they could not deal with the pass rush of the Dallas Cowboys. And a lot of teams can't. And you're not going to face the Dallas Cowboys every week. But the San Francisco 49ers are pretty close. I mean, you want Bosa coming down on you? Like, Daniel Jones is going to have a really bad day. Yeah.

Yeah. Pretty bad day. Mike, is there any fantasy value to be found on that side of the ball? On the Giants? Yeah. I mean, this stat could be shocking to people. Darren Waller is leading the tight end position in receiving yards. So Darren Waller is still in only the 20% target shares so far. We're going to need more than that. And I think week two or week one is you got to throw that in the garbage for the Giants. But. Week two is more of a bounceback. And I expect that Waller will still be heavily involved. Eight targets past week, six for 76. It was the tight in five because he didn't get a touchdown. But he is still in play. Do you, I mean, Matt Burrito was a hot waiver ad because Sequin is presumed to be out. They're giving us the whole, he's Wolverine recovering. It makes you think he's definitely going to be there the following week, which makes Matt Berita and the investment there to be very short term.

Very possible. And what sucks about that is if you were going in on Mapbarita when we were discussing him, this matchup is terrible against the San Francisco 49ers. But the next two matchups are like if Matt Barita has to be the starter for the Giants, he'll be very usable for fantasy football. I still think there's a chance that Saquan ends up missing the multiple weeks. And the Giants are just doing some razzle-dazzle Houdini stuff here. Oh, yeah, Kyle's mentioning it is a Matt Barita revenge game against his former 49ers team. But I don't really care. Yeah, I don't really care either. We were, just for a personal anecdote, like I was struggling. Kyle and I were very much struggling of do we go hard after Matt Barita for one week? Because right now our RB2 is AJ Dillon. And it's like, would you rather play AJ Dillon? I probably just paid.

play a.J. Dylan. And that's kind of where we ended up with a low, fab bit of, if we get him, we get him, but we're not super worried about it. But so it's right now, it's Darren Waller and I'm out. On the other side, George Kittle has the same fantasy points right now as Kyle Pitts on the season. That feels bad. And in case you didn't know, Kyle Pitts has fantasy points on the season, it's not a lot. 7.9 fantasy points for George Kittle through two games. That was including last week where Brandon Ayuk got banged up and was in and out of that game. Is this a breakout game? Is this one of those George Kittal type of weeks? Or is this a game that the defense is going to be so dominant? And if Kittle doesn't score the first two times, it could just be the running game. It could absolutely be that way. But there's no chance that you are looking elsewhere and benching George Kittle. You wait for opportunities for...

any of the wide receipt, you know, Iyuk or Debo, usually Debo, to miss time. And then you just have those games where it's like, hey, Kyle Shanahan has found a hole in the defense and he's going to exploit it and that hole is filled by George Kittle. So I don't want to miss the opportunity for the explosive game. George Kittle still has a wide range of outcomes here, but every tight end. Every tight end can have a bad game out there if you're not Kelsey or Andrews. So you're sticking with George Kittle. The opportunity for him to have a great game exists in this matchup. But Debo, Debo is like, if you've got a bunch of great wide receivers and you're just loaded and you think you can be bench Debo, don't do that. He's going to be awesome this week. Agreed, Mike? Yeah. Brock Purdy was your stream of the week? Yep.

Fisher McAfee's decent. Play him. 100% of snaps, baby. Okay. You guys want to jump in the mailbag for a couple minutes? Mailbag. Ronnie in Louisiana says, what should we do with Alexander Madison? Do we wait and see or trade him away? I'd wait and see. Next two weeks are winnable matchups for him. You had a really rough week one with Rashad White. You had a bounce back performance. I see them similarly where... I don't think the talent of Alexander Madison is going to win many tough matchups. But if he's in a good one, the problem is, is if he bombs out a couple more times, the trade option is gone. But I feel like the trade option for Madison right now is, it's not great anyway. So I don't think that if he goes the next two weeks and he's terrible, I don't think that the floor is going to fall out. It's already gone. Like people aren't going to want to trade for Madison right now.

All right, trade question from Chris in Minnesota. Probably hanging out with Mr. Madison. Should I do this trade? Full PPR. Tradeaway Jerome Ford and DeAndre Hopkins receive A.J. Brown. Yeah. Yeah, I'd do that. Yep. Jerome Ford's value could be the highest it will be right now. Yeah, it could be. I mean, drone Ford could be great, but this is trading on promise. And Hopkins is going to be. a flex wide receiver three type of a player who will have a couple of boom games but a j brown's value is people are so mad like people are so upset with a j brown and james chase if they're that high of a pick they are mad but jama i'm saying jama james has been garbage is something yards every week a j brown had a fine week one i think you had 70 yards or something like that week two the the touchdown got taken away from him i would if people are trying to

bail out from AJ Brown. I will be there pretty much every time. I agree with everything being said, but I want to go back to Madison real quick. Okay. If I am a team, and I am one of these teams that was devastated, I'm actually several of these teams. My injury luck across my leagues has been pretty bad through two weeks. You know, if you lost Nick Chob or Sequin or Echler. J.K. Dobbins, if you lost multiple of these players and you are sitting in a position where you're having to play a Matt Barita and you've just got garbage, I would go out and try to trade for Alexander Madison because if you're in a good spot, I'm not, I'm not sitting here, you know, standing for Madison saying he's going to be outstanding. But I think that the managers who have him feel like Mike just said like,

His floor is already lost. Nobody's trading for him. You might not even be able to get anything for him, so you just hold on and hope. But he was on the field 76% of the snaps. He is still getting the opportunity there on a good offense. 89% of the running back attempts last week. Yeah, he is the dude. Those numbers are simultaneously wonderful and terrible. Yes, I agree. Because it shows how little production is possible. despite all of that opportunity. Yeah, no, I mean, but that's why I think you can actually acquire him on the cheap, not give up a ton for him, just trade, you know, a middle-tier wide receiver, and you might be able to snag him away if you're in need of a play. And this week against the Chargers, because maybe you've got someone like Eckler that you expect to come back, hopefully sooner rather than later, it's not Chubb who's gone forever. There's a good matchup this week. Frank wants to know, would you trade Zach Moss for Jordan Addison and a half PPR. Yes, I would.

That trade is just, do you need a wide receiver? I think even if, I mean, if Zach Moss is like you're running back too right now, then I can see a world where I don't make that deal. But I would prefer to get Jordan Addison's value is going to just keep going up over the course of the season where we laid out everything with Jonathan Taylor possibly coming back. If Taylor comes back, your Zach Moss value is. is basically zero. If Saquan doesn't play on Thursday, Warren wants to know, would you go with Matt Breda or would you wait to play Kinner Miller? Kindry Miller would be the pick, but we don't know today that he's going to be the guy. I mean, there's the hope, but there's plenty of possibility that we would be surprised with Tony Brooks Jr. in that game. I was going to say, waivers have probably run, but if you can get a hold of Tony, Tony, James Jones.

Jr. I would grab him off of waivers. So you've got Matt Berita, apparently, and Kendrae Miller. If he is out there, I would go get Tony Jones and drop Matt Berita so that you have the pivot option should Kendra Miller not be able to go. And what's the difference between Matt Berita and a bad matchup and Tony Jones, who is bad? It gives yourself the option to pivot to Kendra. Did I say Tony Brooks? I mean, what is this man's name? Dude, I have, I believe it's. I've lost the real name. His name is Tony. Yeah, I believe it's. Tony. Tony. Hey. Let me look at it. Let me look it up. It's Tony Jones Jr. It is Tony, Tony, Brooks, James Jones, Jr. Yeah, I just got it.

It is Tony Jones Jr. For those who are needing to pick the guy up. See Alborland laughing through the studio. For people who need to pick him up. Giggling like a schoolboy. On waivers. It's Tony Jones Jr. For those of us, you know, you know, that it's Tony, Tony, Tony Brooks, James Jones, Jr. If you know, you know. All right, starts of the week tomorrow, matchup previews tomorrow, and then the fantasy faceoff on Friday along with the rest of the matchups. And the wheel of shame. Oh, it's going to be fun. Don't miss it. Thanks for tuning in. We appreciate you. Goodbye. Thank you for listening to another episode of the Fantasy Footballers podcast. Join our fantasy football community on join thefoot.com. And follow us on Twitter at the FF ballers.