Week 9 Studs & Stinkers + Signs of the Times - Fantasy Football Podcast for 11/9

They need James Connor. And that just wasn't the case. There have been a couple games. Sorry, Mike. I'm curious. And this is just narrative trying to read tea leaves. Jason, if you're saying they fell asleep. I know Mike Tomlin's a great coach. But it might be, it would be very easy to look into the trap of the Dallas Cowboys and say we can make it through this. And maybe we can rest James Connor a little bit here. Maybe we don't have to use his body up in this matchup.

That would be the hope is the team decided that this one. They were down the whole game. No, I know. But once you have the game plan installed, you know, I've heard that several times from people in the NFL around coaches. Once the game plan is installed, they very often just stick with it. I will say this, though. And it happened in week one. There are weeks where they seem to turn the switch off for James Connor. Where they look, he does something wrong. One was he got hurt, right?

Well, he got hurt. He was bad and also got hurt. Correct. Yeah. I mean, he was so bad and everybody came out and said he's done and he's washed. Yeah. Watch James Connor on the bench. Watch his body language in this game from the very beginning. There was either a conversation about a blitz pickup or a mistake or something of that nature. There was a drive in the middle of the game where you imagined he'd have been out there. And even around the goal line, they were giving the ball to McFarland into Snell. And he's sitting on the bench just looking like somebody had a talking.

Yeah, it was like an important second and short, third and short, fourth and short three plays in a row where he wasn't involved. Now, all that being said, he had that week one, and then they just went back and trusted him in weeks future. And that's what I would expect, Cincinnati Jacksonville, the next two weeks. Zeke, 18 for 51. You know, he didn't look awful in this game. The matchup was tough. Yeah.

Yeah, I mean, this is what you're aiming for with Zeke now. Yeah, I was going to say it was about what was expected. And sadly, every time Tony Pollard touched the ball, it was like, oh, man, he looked. Oh, that's not secret. Right. You're like, oh, Zeke's fast now. But he's got the bye week. I think you'll probably see Andy Dalton back. That's my guess.

We don't know for sure. Yeah, had they pulled the win off, I think it literally would have been different, but because they actually lost the game. And he did have, he did have the hamstring. Remember Saturday there were the reports that Zeke may not even play. And they have the buy, right? Yes. All right, Melvin Gordon and Philip Lindsay, they did not help your team. They did nothing. The J.K. Dobbins, this was one of the bigger disappointments on the week. A lot of expectations for J.K. Dobbins, he only went 12 for 30. Didn't look good.

Tough matchup with the Colts, but yes. And then goal line work went to Gus. That's something to pay attention to. You should have tuned into Sunday Live. With me. I would rather not. Lev Bell, you can cut him. Four for eight. Ronald Jones, Leonard Fournet combined for how many carries? Do you know this answer? The answer is four. Yeah, I remember hearing at the end of the game about setting the record for fewest rushing attempts.

by a team in NFL history. That's just heaping just more pain onto Brady when he was, no help, no help to Tom Brady, no play action, no, he just was unrelentingly having to throw the football into the secondary that was beating him up. Yeah. Yeah, it was not good. You brought up Pollard and how he looked being shot out of a cannon compared to Zique. So let's talk about Chase Edmonds because it really wasn't a bad game in the sense that

His fantasy production was double digits for your league. He had three catches, 25 carries, he had 70 yards. But it wasn't at all what you expected from him in this game. And the truth is, if you watch the football game, he looked absolutely identical to Kenyon Drake. Because we were all speculating around the office. Like, is the first and second down run scheming for Arizona to blame for Drake's production and not...

you know, a decline in skills compared to Chase Edmonds because every play Edmonds was getting in, you know, was a here or there passing game route, third down before the injury. Now he's the starter. And he got all the opportunity you wanted. I mean, it was, it was as it was. 93% of the running back. 93% 25 carries everything you wanted except no.

No big breakaway runs. Nothing. Yeah, I think the scheming is to blame because we know we've seen Chase Edmonds is very good. We've watched it this whole season. He's not currently injured. He was like 5.1 of carry up to this point. Yeah. And so I think Cliff Kingsbury needs to take a look at that and open things up for whoever the running back is. Well, you would have you would have also hoped for more targets.

Yeah. Out of 93% of RB opportunities to get three targets was a problem. And you know, you got Buffalo next week. That's an opportunity on the ground. You got Seattle the week after. But Drake will probably be either limited or out of practice this week. And you're going to have to monitor whether he's back on the field. It does say that I expect when Drake comes back him to take back the role that was his when he left. DeAndre Hopkins, three for 30. Only three targets in this game had previously been the receiving leader in football.

It seemed like the team was avoiding Xavier and Howard for part of this game. I don't know why they didn't look to Hopkins more, but they were moving the football. He also had a lot more targets. Three targets are what goes down in the box score, but that's because targets with pass interference don't. Those plays never happened in the box score. And there were like four pass interference calls on Howard. So Hopkins was important to the game.

He won, he took away massive amounts of coverage by being shadowed and moved the ball on pass interference calls. So don't just ignore this one. It was bad for fantasy. Yep. Tyler Lockett, seven targets, four catches, 40 yards. So a couple down games for Lockett in a row. Metcalfe has out-targeted Tyler Lockett in four of the last five games. And Tyler Lockett's been under 50 receiving yards in four of the last five games. Wow.

So ironically, yesterday we were watching some of these matchups, and my son asked me. He said, would you rather have D.K. Metcalf for Tyler Lockett rest of the season? I said definitely D.K. Metcalfe. Yeah. DJMorges 2 for 18. Michael Thomas, 5 for 51. First game back. Well, first game back, and this was against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers who shut him down in week one. And they were just up so fast. Yeah. This was not a... Yeah, don't worry. Michael Thomas will have better games. Adam Thielen?

I mean, between Thielen and Jefferson, only five catches. The Vikings, was two for 38. The Vikings are the opposite of Kansas City Chiefs right now. Yes. The wide receivers can't do anything because they don't have to throw the ball ever. They just keep giving it to delving. So, you know, half of Thelan's games under 50 receiving yards. When the game goes to plan, they don't get the ball a lot. Right. Chicago next week. I'll be curious to see what they can do to slow.

Dalvin Cookdown. The truth is that they probably can't score a lot because they're Chicago. So the recipe might be, you know, if Dalvin Cook gets them out to a lead, you know, it's going to be tough counting on the receivers. They're very talented. They're always open, but they don't need to be used right now. And they're playing better football. I mean, Minnesota's winning football game. They are.

I have this marked as the Buccaneer trio of Pustain pants. Chris Godwin, Mike Evans, Antonio Brown. Six targets, five targets. Godwin, three for 41, Evans, four for 64, Brown, three for 31. This was a Tom Brady problem. Okay. He just, he looked awful. Rest of season, though, put him in order. Chris Godwin, Antonio Brown, Mike Evans. Ooh, so Antonio Brown.

What you read off, Chris Godwin was the snap leader 94% of snaps. Evans at 86. Antonio Brown played 78% of the snaps. That's encouraging if you had picked up Antonio Brown or you'd been stashing him in the five targets. So I think we can all agree that Chris Godwin would be the one of the trio, but it's difficult to navigate at this point. Who's number?

The number two. And make no mistake, Antonio Brown carries way more risk than Mike Evans. Antonio Brown could not even finish the season and could not even be a buccaneer at the end of the season. So if I had to pick who would I want on my fantasy roster going forward, it would be Mike Evans over Antonio Brown just for risk factor. But if all three play the rest of the way, that's how I would order them.

All right, sometimes the squeaky wheel gets the grease. Sometimes the squeaky wheel falls right off the car. Yeah. And Hollywood Brown, five targets, three catches, 38 yards, no touchdowns. Yeah, and they were, Lamar was getting him involved early on in the game, and then it just fell apart. And I... Hollywood Brown has been outside the top 39 in seven of eight weeks. It's the same thing every week. He had a 21% target share. He's getting...

a portion of nothing. It's irrelevant when he had 170 passing yards was what Lamar Jackson had the whole game. And they won 24 to 10. Are you dropping Hollywood Brown? Is he a minefield for your league? You know, we talk about putting the player on waiver wire that somebody else, they will sign him and they will start him and they will hope and pray. But he has had his best game of the entire season was a

Wide Receiver 17 number. The only thing I would say is, man, the playoffs. The playoffs, they just, they look juicy, but it might not matter. New England, Tennessee, Pittsburgh, the next three weeks. Yes, the next three are bad. Then Dallas, Cleveland, Jacksonville. That's fantastic. But he's already played, you know, Philly. He's played Washington since he. I don't know.

I think I would, depending on obviously what's out there on the waiver wire tomorrow, we'll probably have the conversation again. Yeah, Marky, you can, you can cut him. Sterling Shepard, he had eight targets in this game. I don't think it was a stinker. I mean, Corey Davis, Goose, Henry Ruggs, no receptions. It was Nelson Agallor who took it to 100. I mean, we knew someone was going to get a deep bomb. I was hoping it was Rugs. It was Aguilar.

Yeah, I would rather have Aguilar at this point with his production. Agalore's actually been really, really good. The week prior was that weathery game where, you know, nobody on either side of the ball did anything good. But if you look back, Agilor was the wide receiver 24, the wide receiver 10, the wide receiver 24 again. Yeah, it was just the week I made him the start of the week that he disappeared into the weathery game. That's right. Yeah, that's my fault. Reaping him. All right. Rob Grankowski.

He's got Pustain pants from Tom Brady as well. Six targets, one catch. Now, was it his own pants or did they all rub up against Tom Brady? What I understand. Who produced it? Who's the producer? Brady produced it. And he had enough to go around to like six or seven pairs. So he was changing constantly and then distributing them among his teammates. Here, throw these on. Yeah. And I think Brazarians may have produced some too. Oh, no. You know.

Tough, tough, tough stuff for Tampa Bay. Not what people wanted to see. I'm sure a lot of fantasy football teams lost last night, expecting some easy numbers in that game. Jared Cook, disappointing 2 for 30. Mark Andrews. Join the club. It's another conversation of what do you do with Mark Andrews? Mark Andrews is not a drop candidate, but you've had three, you've had three games where Mark Andrews was great. The tight end one in week one.

Back-to-back weeks is the tight-in three in weeks four and five. Other than that, though, he's crushing you. Has Mark Andrews had touchdowns in? Is it three? Yeah, it's three. Is he going to get a touchdown? This is the same exact problem of Hollywood Brown. It's a Lamar Jackson problem. It's a Baltimore Ravens offense problem. It's a Baltimore Ravens defense problem because...

They're phenomenal. The defense is great. And so they don't need to throw the ball a lot, and that's hurting the offense. It's really just a matter of if you get a touchdown from Lamar Jackson, which can happen, you're okay. If not, the pie is too small to be split up in, unless it's going to literally two players and no one else is targeted in the game, Lamar Jackson just doesn't produce enough yardage.

for it to matter. If Mark Andrews was a wide receiver, we'd be just as upset as we are with Hollywood. But you're exactly right. He's a tight end, so you keep him and you keep rolling him out there because he's got as good odds at a touchdown as any other tight end. But he's not what you drafted him to be. Which, I mean, to be honest, it's pretty much the Ravens throughout. It's Mark Ingram, too. I mean, efficiency is gone. Yeah, last year, he only had four games outside of the top 15.