Week 5 Waivers + Burnt Toast, Full Stream Ahead - Fantasy Football Podcast for 10/4

You see the spike weeks like week three for Isaiah McKenzie, so where he was seven for 76 and the touchdown. But when he's splitting time, you don't really like it. Now, Isaiah McKenzie is in the concussion protocol, so there's a chance that he doesn't even play this week. But the other option for them is Khalil Shakir, fifth rounder? Fifth round. So a fifth round rookie right now. So when you're making your decision between these players, to me, the way I'm looking at it is, A fifth round rookie wide receiver, will he, when McKenzie is healthy, will Shakir really take 50% of the snaps away the way that James and Crowder did? Or is McKinsey going to trend closer to a full-time player? And that's how I'm projecting it. And that's why I have him as my number one wide receiver pickup. I love Isaiah McKenzie's talent. If he gets 100% of the snap roll or, you know, close to it, you know, 80, 90%.

He's going to be great for fantasy. He would be my number one, except the concussion protocol thing. You know, if he ends up missing this week, I don't know how much the situation could factor in and bleed into other teams where you're just erring on the side of caution of, you know, let's give it another week, not have any of that. And that's, you know, it's probably not going to affect these teams that are trying to just win now and get their players on the field. But it does. factor in the back of my mind of like, well, if he misses a week and then you've got one week and then the buy week, I just think it's a little risky. And there's no guarantee he comes in and takes over 100% of that slot rule. There is the chance that Khalil Shakir comes in and takes the Crowder rule. Now, Shakir, those hips don't lie. So I, oh man. I don't know. Where are we?

Yeah, okay. All right. Wow. I think I didn't like the delivery. Yeah. Well, I was going Tupac at first. I completely switched. Oh. You know, so I'm really, you know, we're workshopping a lot of stuff today. Yeah, live here on the podcast. But if Isaiah McKinsey, we don't have writers. If Isaiah McKenzie misses with a concussion and Crowder is out, you've got a. a banged up Kumero, a banged up Gabe Davis. I think Khalil Shakir is a fine pickup and play and a really solid DFS play. I don't have any idea what his salary is, but it has to be next to nothing. Yeah, Pittsburgh allowing the seventh most fantasy points to wide receivers and Mike Tomlin teams generally.

They allow, like they get beat in the slot. Maybe they're just picking their poison of where they want to really shut down and they just let slot wide receivers go. So I agree. That's part of the appeal of McKenzie. Should he get cleared in play, there's so much upside where George Pickens looks like a fantastic player. The target share was incredible. But now you're relying on the rookie quarterback and for Gallup. I mean, it looks like what Dax's first game back will be Philadelphia. And that's not a great opportunity for any Cowboys, but Detroit and Chicago after that for Dallas. So Gallup is a fine pickup. We all play the game a little bit different. Yeah, well, whether these guys are first, second, or third, everyone we've mentioned is a really good waiver wire pickup. There's a good week for wide receivers. Yeah, I don't think Shakir is going to have a path to being picked up in redraft personally.

If Isaiah McKinsey is out? Yeah, if he's out, then he could be used. That's the only way that he should be in. But Devin Duvernay could, he's only 59% rostered. He's a must start this week if Rashad Bateman was to miss. He's also not a bad start anyways. I mean, he's getting targets every single week. He's there cleared wide receiver two. One B. Okay, sure. I'm saying that like... That was just a shot at Bateman who hasn't been able to perform in the past couple weeks. Wandale Robinson, we mentioned the giant situation. He's the one to pick up, in my opinion. This regime, they brought him in. They were using him. He got hurt. But I think he's got the best chance of volume in this offense. Ron Dale Moore, I mean, I haven't seen anything that makes me think Ron Dale Moore is startworthy.

he's you know there's all this offseason talk they're going to finally use him down the field they tried that one time he didn't even know where he was on the field he landed out of bounds every other target was behind the line of scrimmage same old targeting of rondale more it was depressing and you're you got a you got a clock counting down to the return of like they just brought antoine messley back this week you are integrating tray mcbride and you're getting down to hopkins back you're always going to start hollywood before rondale more i just I don't see the path. One of the things that was interesting to me looking at kind of the numbers behind the scenes was that Rondale played a surprising amount on the outside in the A.J. Green role, which I think Rondale, we've been excited to have him come in and play the slot role that Greg Dorch was really playing. And so if Antoine Wesley comes back, I assume he'll be playing the A.J. Green role until A.J. Green comes back and hopefully.

long after. But that is my path of hope in Rondale, is that if they put him in the full-time Greg Dorch role, maybe he can get the targets. Dorch was seen. Yeah, Dorch's only on the field 36% of the time last week. Drop candidates, Alan Robinson? Yep. For some of these names, yeah, I mean, I'm not auto-dropping him, but I would absolutely rather have Gallup Pickens McKenzie. Claypool, see you later. He's a drop-drop. Jarvis Landry. Yeah. I mean, he's one of those where you don't have to drop him, but I would drop him for any of the names we talked about today. I'm guessing that James will be back this week. No pun intended on the back injury, but he seemed like he was close-ish, just not enough to start this week. And he's got a good matchup, and we got to see, yeah, he's playing against the Seattle Seahawks who.

That's a delightful matchup for quarterbacks right now. And what's the status of Michael Thomas just don't know yet? Julio Jones. He's gone. He was out there ineffective and I don't think you want to play the game every week. DJ Moore. No. He had 11 targets. I would drop DJ Moore for Gallup, Duvernay, McKinsey, Pickens. I'd rather have Gallup than DJ Moore. But I think that's the... This... You've got Baker. That's what you're stuck with. And if they pivot off a Baker, you're stuck with Darnold. So DJ Moore is not a must drop. He's just a, look, you're trying to get wins in fantasy. Yeah. So who's going to help you the most? And I think you used up to make that call. And then Traylon Burks, what do you do with him? Because he's not been moved to IR yet in leagues. People are making waiver claims today. If he hasn't been moved to IR and you can't, or you don't have an IR spot in your league, you have to drop him. He's going to miss too much time.

to have clogging up a roster spot. He hadn't even done anything yet other than look good, like past the eyeball test, but he hasn't done anything for fantasy yet. Coming off of the injury, you can't wait another month clogging a roster spot. No, he's gone. All right. In a minute, we're going to dive into what running backs. We should welcome to the fold right after this break. All right, the ever important, difficult to find. running back position, waiver wire day. There are some really interesting names that look like some fable get spent. Yes. But I think that they're worth discussing because it's all a trap. It's probably, I think that there are a couple situations that I don't think are an instant trap.

To put it that way, what's difficult is there are situations like Naim Hines, right? He's 66% rostered. He's going to be available in a lot of leagues. And you don't know and won't know today whether Jonathan Taylor's out, I presume. I mean, it's possible they come out and say he's just out. But if you don't know, it's hard to sit here and say, hey, go spend all your fab on Naim Hines playing against Denver. where they won't just exclusively use him and the offense has been trashed. It's like we're sitting here saying Jonathan Taylor's been bad. Well, the offensive line. So certainly the backup will have success. Right. That's the hard part. It doesn't usually work for others. So you get into that position. Philip Lindsay will have tremendous success this week. So really, when I look at Heinz, I don't know if, if you're the Jonathan Taylor manager, there's an added incentive to roster Naim Hines.

because of re-injury risk, having somebody that you can start. But I just don't know if I'd spin up on him versus somebody like, let's throw Rahim Mosterd out there, who's getting the majority of the work in Miami. Would rather have Moster. Why a lot. And you get a longer term value there in my mind, right? So Naim Hines is not more than like a 10% of my fab. And I won't get him because of that because everyone else will rush to him. Yeah, I mean, he's probably rostered in the majority of leagues. But wherever he is, people will spend up on him. And I doubt he pays off on that value. And of course, even if Jonathan Taylor does miss and we go, okay, well, we're not sure it's a great matchup. And the office hasn't been good. Well, Jonathan Taylor's coming back. You know, they said it's not serious. There's a question as to whether he plays this week. So I'd imagine the following Sunday.

he's back. And so there's a very temporary uptick for Naim Hines. I would not break the bank at all. I agree with you. And Brian Robinson was drafted and stashed in a lot of leagues. And so they put them on the, they can bring them up from injured reserve, the non-football injury list over the next three weeks. How much are you investing, Mike? Would you blow a number one waiver spot on Brian Robinson? And would you, how much fab would you actually spend knowing that you could still be a couple weeks away? I wouldn't burn a top priority. And what I like about Robinson is the, I think that the main waiver competition is going to be these other guys we're going to get into. Like, because Robinson is still a stash, you don't, like, we're, we're being told he's close to return. I have no idea. Like, that could be three weeks. Like, they could take the entire.

a 21-day limit that they have to finally call him up. And even then, you don't even know how much work he's going to get. So this is just a, if your team is looking good, you don't want to break the bank because these running backs are like the Denver situation, the Atlanta situation, they're very, they aren't clear. There's some value to extract, but it's not clear who you should go after. So I think if you're looking good with your team, you just kind of put a low, low fab bid on Robinson to be prepared for a couple weeks from now. Yeah, I personally don't see the same upside. Let's say he's fully healthy, and he's been healthy all year, but now he's just magically allowed to play football. He's still not on a great team, splitting time, not going to be the past catching back, you know, when you've got J.D. McKissick there, and it's not like he's just, like, let's say,

You just replace Antonio Gibson with Brian Robinson. And they say, hey, Antonio Gibson, you now are the water boy. You don't get to play football. We weren't excited to play Antonio Gibson. So are we saying he's just that much better of a football player? But then they're not actually making him the water boy. Antonio Gibson will get work. They might. Sure. But my point is he's going to be involved. So this is a three-way committee. I just don't see the upside of opportunity. even though I fully admit the manders really like the player. I mean, they spent a third round pick and usually historically that kind of draft capital on running back, especially in Alabama, running back does pay off. But I just don't see the, I don't see the league winning upside with Brian Robinson. The upside to me is Brian Robinson's second game back. Sunday morning, we all wake up and Antonio Gibson is a healthy scratch today. Oh, man, water boy.

is not outside like that's a that's not a non-zero chance to me and at running back you don't have to talk about exclusively league winning upside for value to pick them up like we have major needs in terms of start worthy running backs we're about to talk about Caleb Huntley of the Atlanta Falcons so I think you're just looking at start worthy player at some point hopefully over 50% of the snaps at some point and goal line and that's where bad Washington teams still provided 10 plus touchdowns to Antonio Gibson at one point in time. So I think that that's my hope is that in three, four weeks, you're like, hey, I can start that guy, which is saying something at running back. So let's talk about Atlanta, and then we'll talk about Denver. Atlanta has Tyler Algier and Caleb Huntley. The surprise of putting Patterson on IR, leads to a clear path for a run-heavy team. Caleb Huntley was the slight...

Slightly better player in terms of fantasy output last year than Tyler, or last week than Tyler Algier. They were both double digits. Algier is the fifth round pick, went 10 for 84. Caleb Huntley was 10 for 56 and scored off the practice squad. So I think Alger will and deserves more of the attention on the waiver wire, but I'm not certain that you don't have a kind of, you know, Pretty much 50-50 timeshare with a lot of run opportunities for this, this tandem. But you got Tampa this week. I think you have a very split time share. I agree with that. It's not going to be the Tyler Algier show. Caleb Huntley will be involved. But Tyler Algier is certainly the player you want. He was more effective. You know, they both got 10 carries. He had.

about 30 more yards. He had a nice big breakaway run. I like, you know, I think we all kind of like Tyler Algier's college tape. So this isn't a player coming out of nowhere. But the main thing is one of these guys was running routes and one of these guys was not. Caleb Huntley was not involved at all in the passing him whatsoever. And even though Tyler Algier only had one target and I don't expect a heavy passing volume from Marcus Mario to the running back position, when you're talking about negative game scripts, which will happen more than it. than just this breakdown we saw last week where Atlanta won the game, I think Alger will be far more valuable than Caleb Huntley. So I would be going much more after Alger. That being said, this is temporary. It's a month-long IR stint. It's shorter than that. And Tampa Bay, San Francisco, for at least those are the next two weeks. So that's half of the month-long stint for Cordero Patterson on IR.

I'm not starting Tyler Algier next week. So if you're not starting him next week. It might be even shorter because Damien Williams, who was the starting running back for this team in week one, he went on to IR after that game with the rib injury. So that would make him eligible next week to come back. So is this the trap? That's what I'm saying. This situation is not clear. If you need a spot start of some volume, Arthur Smith will go high tea and try and establish it. It probably won't work. It's because he's seen Marcus Marietta before. It probably won't work. Tyler Alger is the play, but he is, I'm not breaking the bank for him going, we got four weeks here of Tyler Alger. Because I think there is a decent probability that Damien Williams comes back and.

is the number one running back to this team. Would you rather have the 72% of snaps Rahim Mostert over Alger and Huntley? Yes. Because you'll get him cheaper. I was going to say, for what it's going to cost you, it's the better play. Because I don't think people are scrambling to get Mostert the way that they're going to scramble to get Algier. And yeah, I think Mostert is more valuable. Atlanta is eight and a half point dogs right now against Tampa Day. I'll be putting in claims on Tyler Alger, I will. And honestly, if I've got enough, you know, if it's a larger bench, Damien Williams might be someone you should be picking up as well. Mike Boone for the Denver Broncos. Obviously, Melvin Gordon, if he's out there, is going to be the starter, but you're going to have a committee. Mike Boone played more snaps than Gordon last week.

Part of that could have been directly a result of Gordon's fumbled. Or Gordon also had an injury. Like, what, a neck? I think he had a neck problem coming into the game. He does have a neck. Wow, yes. He's an injured neck. He's got a problem with it. And then Latavius Murray was just snatched off the Saints practice squad. The Saints were dumb here. Latavius looked great, got into a rhythm last week, and now gets the flight of Denver. The Broncos pounced on him and, you know, you're looking at this situation saying, do I want to sign and play Mike Boone? I don't really want to do that. He went from being potentially the number one waiver pickup to being potentially unrosterable with the Latavius Murray signing. This is a guy who has had pass protection problem, dropped two game killing passes last week, and then they go out and they pick up Latavius Murray.

who is a good veteran. He's a fine enough pass catcher. He's a good pass protector. You know what else he doesn't do? Fumble. Yeah, that's true. So I think this was a really smart pickup. You know, when you're talking about you, you don't have a lot of options out there this time of the year to just go find a running back on the waivers. And they signed him off of the practice squad. Latavis Murray I would pick up before Mike Boone for sure. And when you sign him off the practice quarter, they stuck on the starting roster the rest of the year? Yes, yes. So he'll be up. I would still sign Gordon over Murray. I totally agree. And over Boone. Because like you said, you don't know how much was a little bit of an injury situation. You've seen him used as a workhorse in the past. He's more talented than these guys. If Gordon is out on your waivers, he's probably not worth checking though. If he was for some reason dropped.

I would go hard after Melvin Gordon. Isaiah Pacheco? He needs to be added. Chiefs running back. We're bouncing all over the place with the Kansas City Chiefs. Clyde Edwards O'Leary is the only consistent right now. It looked like he was going to be McKinnon. I mean, he was evening up the snaps with Clyde, but if it's one week at a time right now, and if last week is any indication, it looks like it's going to be Clyde and Pacheco. He should be picked up. I don't know if we're at anything other than just stashing him and watching right now. That's what he is. He's just a stash, but he is getting more and more involved, and his talent might be the best of the three backs there. Would you drop Chase Edmonds to pick up Rahim Mosterd off the waiver wire? Yes. Yeah, I would rather have, I would rather have Mostert than Edmonds, yeah. Would you drop Daryl Henderson?

to pick up Rahim Mostert, Tyler Algier. Mostert, yes. Naim Hines. Uh, Heinz. Daryl Henderson feels like a player you're holding and hoping that he gets like, you're not hoping, but in the event of a Kamaker's injury or demotion, you have a player. But right now you can't play him. No, I agree with that. That's why I was so hesitant of he could turn into something, but. As of right now, you can't play him. If Darrell Henderson were on the waivers, though, we would be making claims on him to pick him up. That's the running back landscape. When you said would I drop Chase Admonds. But not to play him, though. No, not to play him, but would I drop Chase Edmonds for Rahimosa. I would rather, like, if this is my roster, I'd probably not dropping Chase Edmonds to pick him up. I'm probably dropping a, you know, I would rather, like, drop a Michael Gallup level wide receiver that I like.

then yeah this is not we're not recommending that this is not like go through and purge your roster this is would you sign this player in lieu of this player yes um Travis ETN oh man yeah I mean I work porn work pony extraordinary work pony I like it I would man I still would not drop Travis ETN Edmonds or ETN on your roster as a staff ETN Michael Carter you want to boot him no You can't boot him just yet. I mean, he's the same. He's not a starter anymore, but he's still an insurance running back that if Bruce Hall misses time, Michael Carter will be featured on Tuesday's show. A good barometer check here. I said I would not drop DJ Moore. Like, that's a guy I'm not dropping. He has so many targets, 11 targets this last week, six each of the first three weeks. But if I had to make a decision between DJ Moore or these running backs, the Chase Edmonds, the Travis ETNs, just because of the running back landscape.

I'd rather fill my bench with these running backs. You can pick up a wide receiver almost any week and find a start Sunday morning. You just cannot do that with running back. So honestly, I'm not dropping any of those running backs. I'm just dropping more wide receivers to pick up more running back. Tight ends. Let's welcome some into the fold. Main waiver wire pickups this week. If Injoku is out there, grab him two strong weeks, 65% rostered. He is a must start tight end at this point with this landscape. I could not believe that he is still available in a third of active leagues. That is mind blowing after his weak performance two weeks ago. He was great. He would be just about my number one pickup of all of these guys. Strong performance, right? Yes. If I needed a tight end, you know, which lots of teams do, I would take him above all of these running backs and wide receivers. Robert Tunyon scored last week.

40% rostered, cursory at it, tight end, Hayden Hearst, Tyler Conklin. Conklin, he was involved still with, we wanted to see what his involvement would be with the changeover to Zach Wilson. Conk, he's better than a lot of rostered tight-ins right now. Again, it's the, what I was concerned about with Conklin is just his piece of the pie was not tremendous. Like he's not getting Tyler Higby. target percentage. So if the pie were to go down into the dryer, then Tyler Conklin's targets would go down, and it did. It dropped down to five. So he ended up with 52 yards, so that's pretty nice. But three for three catches is... I'd have him over the other guys. I'd rather have him than Irv Smith. Irv Smith, two for 32, three for 23, the last two weeks. You're getting into the zone of like, hopefully they score. Otherwise, they're disappointing you. Injoku's the priority, and then Big Bob Tunyon is the other one I want.

Dalton Schultz, are you willing to cut him for either of those two names? No. George Kittle? No, no, no, no. Irv Smith, I would, though, for those. Defensive options this week. Lay it out for me, Jason. So the first name to bring up sounds ridiculous. It's the Buffalo Bills. And you're like, what? The bills aren't, but they played Baltimore. And 20% of leagues dropped the bills because, you know, you don't always want a roster two defenses. If they are available, you absolutely must go hard after them because they're in every week's start no matter of the matchup. Their defense, I think, is going to be great. They're really beating up, though. Yes, they are. I think you're going to see them give up more points. Sure. They're not available in our league. So who are you picking up then? If they're not available, the Jacksonville Jaguars defense has been really good. This last week was tough against Philadelphia Eagles, but they've been getting after the quarterback, tons of sacks, and they play against Houston. So that would be.

the number one that I'm looking at. And I would say the Miami Dolphins, uh, I know that you're saying that Zach Wilson won, which is accurate, but he completed 50% of his passes and turned the ball over twice, got sacked once. Oh, Miami's a great start. Tennessee plays Washington and Carson Wentz and their defense has been playing better. And, uh, Kansas City plays the Raiders as well. That was welcome to the Fold presented by Samsung Galaxy with Galaxy Z Fold 4 unfolded immersive screen to watch games in full detail and maximize your viewing experience on the go. Visit Samsung.com to learn more. Full stream ahead. All right, streaming quarterback options for this week on the waiver wire. I'm going with James. I love it. James Winston, if he's back, he plays Seattle. That part, I mean, yeah. Yeah, if his back is back. If he's not playing, I don't love it.

Yes, less fantasy upside. Seattle allowing the highest yards per attempt in the league. That's who the Saints play this week. And 42% of past attempts against Seattle have been a first down. He has Crystal Lave, who is a weapon downfield. Might get Michael Thomas back, might get Alvin Camara back, and then Jarvis Landry is going to be out cut. Be back out there. I'm going to go with Trevor Lawrence. He had a down week in Philadelphia, in the rain. It was a bad game where even though the Jags looked pretty good, they were in the game for the majority of it. Four fumbles lost, one interception, really bad game for Trevor Lawrence. But he was a quarterback one, the previous two weeks. He plays against Houston. He's at home. I think Trevor Lawrence, with this new offense, new coaching staff, new weapons is he's going to be pretty good. And I'll throw out the following week.

He plays against the Colts in Indianapolis. And if you're a, you know, Jalen Hertz manager, a Jared Goff, if you've been rolling with him, buy weeks are going to start. So you might want to look two weeks deep if you've got some of those players. And I'm going to ride the lightning with Carson Wentz. The manders are at home. And Tennessee, three of their four weeks, they have given up top 12. production to the quarterback position. Guessing it wasn't last week against Mount Ryan. I don't have the numbers in front of me when they did. But Carson Wentz at home against that defense. I think that he will be able to be stream worthy. Would you play Jared golf over all three of those names based on the fact that Ryan was the QB12? Oh, he had the Mojali Cox combo. Yeah, baby.