Week 5 Waivers + Seismic Shifts & Superstitions - Fantasy Football Podcast for 10/3

What's going on, Foot Clan? We got a waiver wire episode today, and it is a tough one. There's a lot of players out there that we're not sure how much Fab you should invest, whether you should burn that waiver priority. We're going to talk through all of them as the by-weeks begin, and we get you equipped for week five. Don't miss a minute. Make sure you like, subscribe, and leave us some comments. To the Fantasy Footballers podcast with your host, Andy Holloway, Jason Moore, and Mike Wright. Oh, welcome in.

Tuesday episode of the fantasy footballers. Welcome in one and all. Mike Wright, Jason Moore, Andy Holloway, back with you. Deucers Alley filled up with... To the brim. Deucers. Yeah. Oh, man. So much deuce. Overflowing. It's there. Keep on deusing. I will, Brooks. Thanks, Bruce. I will. We have some NFL news to talk about, but the headline of today's show is the maybe... Underwhelming waiver wire. Yeah. Or maybe it's more for the astute. Yes. Right. Always. A little bit more precision to be had in this week's waiver episode. We'll talk about quarterback streamers. And we'll, I guess, talk about the Monday night football game. Oh, Daniel Jones just sacked again. Just now. I am curious. And we'll jump right into it. Quick reminder, though.

This is the last chance for the Foot Clan out there to help us win the Best Sports Podcast Award from the Signal Awards, which according to our power rankings, have the coolest trophies. So we would like a cool trophy in the office. Who doesn't like a cool trophy? It's a trophy you could kill a man with. And that's really the staple of a good truck. Like what is the weight of this trophy? Some trophies if you wield them. and you would swing it, it would break apart before impact. This is a trophy that would not break apart before impact. No, full and pale. And that's what I go for in my trophies. So if you want to keep us safe and equip us, uh, Footplanvote.com is really our best defense at the office. This is for safety. Everyone grabs a trophy. We need a, we got, like, nine people working here. Yeah, we got to get more. Yeah, we don't have. We've only got a couple of signal awards. Yeah.

Look, every time that doorbell rings, I grab that signal ward. Never be too safe, JIC. It makes me want to share this story with the Foot Clan briefly before we get into Daniel Jones. But we do have a tradition here at the office that if a solicitor approaches, because we have no soliciting signs, but those are all over. Yeah, I mean, they're all over the place, but solicitors, they have a blindness to them. Yeah, I was going to say it's really weird that these people are out here. Like their job is to sell stuff and they don't know how to read. Well, you see, Mike, if they were to read that sign, they would not have the potential to make a sale. Anyways. Oh, I didn't see it there. We do have a fun tradition where Papa Josh has to answer the door and everybody else flips the lights off in the actual suite. And that has been very entertaining. No one's here. But the lights always go off mid-conversation. Yes. So that the solicitor sees everyone shutting down the office at 11 in the morning. We're closing up, out for the day.

But surprisingly, we don't need to buy a bunch of paper products. All right. Monday night football, I'd be curious if, like, was this a defining moment in the decline of Daniel Jones in your mind? Or was this just, we don't have an offensive line. And this is what a quarterback looks like without one. It is both. It's both to me. I mean, could have signed them on a franchise tag. Could have done a one year. We did a long-term deal here. It wasn't long. It was like three-year. I mean, I almost re-shared my tweet from March when they signed it, but it was a horrific. $82 million fully guaranteed, up to an additional $35 and incentives, four-year, $160 million contract, top 10 paid quarterback in the league. There was no reason to do this, none whatsoever when they did it. I got, I mean, obviously all the Giants fans were very upset with me, but.

Yeah, they should have absolutely franchise tagged Daniel Jones. 24 to 3, Seattle's defense causing absolute horror in the fantasy or joy, jubilation. I mean, if you went into Monday night football on either side of having the Seattle defense, that was the storyline. I saw people up 32 points facing the Seattle defense and losing. Sheesh. You know. wasn't really a big day for the wide outs on Seattle side. Locket four for 54. Had it been four for 53, I'd have won my matchup. Yeah. D.K. Metcalfe three for 34 and a touchdown. Kenneth Walker had a big day. He did, but at one point was, I believe, three or four carries with a touchdown, but negative yards. It was. You were watching with paranoia.

The nice thing about Kenneth Walker is he's a big playbreaker. Yeah. There wasn't concern at that point. It was just the like, if you have a touchdown but you have negative yards, does your touchdown still really count? Daniel Jones, this is fun because I saw this last night. Daniel Jones was the leading rusher. Matt Brita was the leading receiver. And so they just all switched roles. The Paris Campbell leading passer. Yeah. Yeah, he did take a sack. to add to the 10 that Daniel Jones took. And look, the Giants were very fortunate last year. They had a very good record with some maybe less desirable underpinning statistically. And so far this year, the Giants and Vikings, who were both very fortunate in terms of how the seasons ended up, not looking great, both one and three. Yeah, I do believe that this would have been

vastly different with Saquan Barkley. I think that the way they utilize him, the ability to quickly get the ball out to someone that can make plays, a threat of a running game, it could only help Daniel Jones. So watching that game, I just kept feeling the absence of Saquan. But that was the situation. So if Saquan misses another game, which I don't think any of us expect, he seemed like he was close to going this week. And we'll talk about that on waivers. Like I'm not, I'm not into picking up Burita anymore because I expect Saquan to be back. But that'll change the equation for Daniel Jones. The Giants also, just something to pay attention to. I get the offense who was putrid. Really nothing happened for them. But there was a pretty seismic shift at the wide receiver position. Darius Slayton ran the most routes of the wide receivers. But then it was Wondale and Jalen Hyatt.

So Isaiah Hodgins and Paris Campbell were out there fewer. So fewer routes, fewer opportunities for them. Paris, I mean, when he played, he was in the slot, so he was still getting targets just like when Wondale was out there. It felt like he was getting targeted heavily. Darren Waller ran a ton of routes. He was out there, you know, just four fewer snaps than Daniel Jones. But there's your storyline. Yeah, whatever. What do you do now? Whatever connection happened in the preseason. with Daniel Jones and Darren Waller that has seemed to evaporate at this moment. And it is really frustrating for fantasy football. Man, like, he's out there. So it's not a, it's not injury. It's not someone's playing ahead of him. It's just that Daniel Jones and this offense is so not functional at the moment. And he's not looking for Waller. Very disappointing. Yes, extremely. All right, into the news we go.

News and notes from Around the League. Presented by USAA Insurance. Jameson Williams officially reinstated on Monday wide receiver with a lot of pedigree, a lot of hype, a lot of anticipation. And this offense is already cruising. So they're not expecting him to play a full allotment of snaps right out of the gate. I mean, they've had big contributions thus far from Josh Reynolds, from Kleefe Raymond. Obviously, Alman Ra is their guy, but it opens the offense up. I mean, if you have James and Williams streaking down the sideline, it only helps benefit every other piece. Yeah, I mean, at the very least, it's great news for Jared Goff. If it means nothing for James himself for fantasy, there is, you know, I believe last year in all the games that James and William's played, he caught one catch, but that catch was a 41-yard touchdown. And so Goff will have a new...

super explosive athlete on the field. Today's waiver day. And we're going to be talking about Jameson Williams, whether we would pick him up, how much we would pick him up for. I am pessimistic on his outlook. I do not think he's going to be a reliable weekly fantasy starter. I know, Andy, you have shared earlier this offseason. You think he's going to be an absolute superstar. Regardless of your belief, the pathway and his special ability is worth taking the chance because he has a special talent. Yeah, and I don't remember what comments I made exactly. I think we both loved him coming into the NFL. I don't, I would certainly temper those words at this point in the season, just from the precedent that Dan Campbell has set with Jemir Gibbs, who's a high draft capital explosive player that is fulfilling a role as opposed to being a primary option. You know, we'll talk about him in waivers.

Yeah. But I don't think that, you know, I certainly wouldn't be starting him anytime soon. Jonathan Taylor, Shane Steichen says there's a chance he could play in week five against the Titans. It's been reported the situation still remains unsettled. All the language right now is coming not out of Jonathan Taylor's camp, but out of the cult side. This is so crazy fascinating. This is like a true Michael Jackson popcorn giff of just like, I want to see what happens because. I feel like he could just show up and play and we never hear another bit of drama. Absolutely. That is one option is he is the starting running back this week for the Colts. Next week. Yes, next week. Or wait. No, in week five. You're right. Yeah, it could be this week. And the story is over. And, you know, the credits roll and we just see what kind of value we have. Where was the climax? Right. The alternative is that Jonathan Taylor sticks to his guns that have been reported that he doesn't want to play for the Colts.

and they've activated his 21 day window. He has to play in order to accrue a year. So he has to get on the field. So now it becomes a game of chicken. If he doesn't, if he's like, I'm not going to play for the Colts somehow where it's like, oh man, you're going to get to that 21 day window. Bush is going to come to shop. It's going to be like, hey, you're going to get out on the field or you're going to miss a season. That could be the strategy. Take the 21 days maximum to try to pursue a trade. Yeah.

You did get me thinking there, though. Where in the world does the phrase stick to my guns come from? What do you think that was? I'm on it. Someone trying to get you to swap your guns and you're like, no, I'm going to stick with these? Yeah, I mean. You're like, you should use these guns. I'm going wild west. You think so? That's, that is based on. Jason, this is absolutely nothing. Don't, don't ask me any questions for the rest of the show until I have an answer on sticking. No, see, Al Borland claims to already know the answer. Go ahead, Al.

It says initially it was the command to sailors who handled or accrued the guns on military boats not to leave their posts even if the boats were captured by the enemy. Oh, that makes so much sense. Don't leave your post. Stick to your guns. Yeah, okay. But on a boat. Right, with guns. Even if they were captured by the enemy. Yeah, that's a tough job. Keep shooting. I mean, I'm sorry to tell you this. I cannot come with you. I have been told, stick to my guns. I'm following the orders of my captain. Can he picket dealing with a bone bruise in the knee could miss week five? This is a- Are we really going to miss him? Oh, no, but it seems to be a pretty big change because at first it was feared ACL, then it looks like it's going to be an MCL a couple weeks. Now it's a bone bruise. Could miss week five. Desmond Ritter will start week five against the Texans. Arthur.

I've got a plan. I don't know. I hate to admit this. I didn't listen to you guys yesterday. I mean, I tuned in to like, I think the Monday Punday and a couple little bits. But did you talk about Ritter? No, not very much. And Mack Hollins going, going angry man on the sidelines. Desmond Ritter coming over trying to give him a five. I feel like every target that Hollins got. Hollins was open all the time. And he just, he. Yeah, no, he had, so he had three targets, no catches on, he played 79% of the snaps. Oh, he should have a 70-yard touchdown. And he just, he had had it. Yes. He wasn't doing the old, let's dapp it up. We'll get him on the next. No. No, you won't. He was, you're going to miss me again. I tweeted that video. It's, it's funny. James Robinson hosted by the Packers for a visit. Oh, what?

He's trying to, he's trying to, doing him a solid. James Robinson is going on the tour. He wants to see every stadium. Oh, man. Jehan Dodson, limited participant at practice on Monday. Turns out he did come out of the game. Jason and I were like, when we saw Byron Pringle and Imi Brown on the field so much for Washington, in a game that was very competitive, we were like, what is happening? John Dodson came back in, caught a touchdown pass. But he was, he did leave briefly. Curtis Samuel D&P with a quad. Always worth watching that. Samuel misses time. And we'll talk about the Thursday night breakdown because that's a Thursday night game. So that's why those are relevant. Any other news? Brooksie, anything you've got? We're watching, but nothing now. Any scoring corrections in our league of record that might toss point to five points my way? Not yet. You realize that.

Here's a PSA. Don't change your line at five minutes before the game. Is this like when you're taking a test, stick with your first answer? It is basically exactly that. I am not a superstitious person. However, let me explain two things that happen this week. One, I pivoted five minutes before the game. Damien Pierce to Garrett Wilson, who's a three-point gap, I lost because of it. Last night, I was in a world of superstition. Because I needed Tyler Lock and not to score seven and a half points. I'm like, I'm just going to, I'm not really going to watch the game. Hey, first half went well. Well, I didn't watch it, Mike. You know what I know the first snaps I watched? First three of the second half. You know who caught all three passes on all three plays? Oh, yeah, baby. Tyler Locke at the end my week. I turned the game off. He never caught another pass. Never caught one before. How was, you're a magical man. It's like the science, you know, the photon science experiment where it's unobserved photons do something different than when you observe them. Uh-huh.

Something's going on there that Neil deGrasse Tyson would be able to figure out when you observe. This is quantum stuff. Same thing with George Pickens a couple weeks ago. Unobserved players on your opponent's team don't perform. Don't watch them. All right. There you go. Sorry, guys. This all would have came out on yesterday's show had I been here. That was today's news and notes presented by USAA Insurance. Learn more at usaa.com slash insurance. Brooksie were jumping into the waiver wire. Put me in, coach. What was my quote this morning about fantasy football to you, Jason? I believe the quote was something about fantasy football is for morons who want to be sad. Want to be sad. Okay. Might be overplaying that a little bit. Yeah. I believe it was because you lost in three different leagues by less than a point. Yeah. Yeah, that did happen this week. All right.

Waiverwire time, a reminder. The website has our waiver wire rankings. The Fantasy Footballers.com. What's nice about the show, though, is we get to, you know, the rankings do a poor job of contextualizing your situation. You may need somebody to stash. You may need somebody to play this week. The buy weeks are beginning. The Browns, Chargers, Seahawks, and Buccaneers all going on by. And you do have some. players eligible to return soon. We talked about Jonathan Taylor. Cooper Cup expected to be back at practice. The team said they don't want to be reckless with Cup and will determine when he will be back out on the field. They don't even need him. I mean, they got Puka. Yeah, right now they kind of don't. And I brought it up. Last time McVeigh talked about the return of Cooper Cup, it was like one to two weeks from the time he was talking about him getting back.

Jeff Wilson could come back soon. You know, Devon A. Chan has really established himself. It reminds me of what DeAndre Swift has done in Philadelphia, where you don't, you know, you don't really take a guy out that is performing at that level. Greg Dulcich, Evan Hull, could come back, week six, Jamal Williams, and week seven. All right, we've got four teams on by. And, you know, when you talk about Sequin coming back from injury, you're like, I really hope he's back because... You've got some players going into the buy. Kenneth Walker's on by. The Brown's running backs. Austin Eccler is going to get another week off here with the buy. Rashad White. So when you look at the running back landscape, it's not great this week. It's not great at all. You know, we're talking about players with roster percentages that allow you to go and pick them up. So keep that in mind. But you got no one on our list that you'd spend a maximum of 10.

percent fab probably 10 to 15 percent yeah the the hot story would be javanti williams he injured his hip flexer the estimates of what that we don't have enough information on the injury but the estimates you're seeing from you know injury experts out there i pinged our guy matthew betts he said i don't have enough information but i would consider him highly questionable for at least this week Some people think it'll be a multi-week absence. So it's Somaget P. Ryan and Joliel McLaughlin, which he is, I mean, McLaughlin has, he's got juice. He has some speed, you know, and he had 100 yards from scrimmage this past week, 7 for 72, 3 for 32 in the air and a receiving touchdown. It's when Javante left, and it was very early in the game, like, it didn't just go all to P. Rine, which.

You kind of, I would have imagined it would have, that would have been the natural move for Sean Payton. But he had six carries for 12 yards and McLaughlin had the hot hand. So he was the one who got in. So where do you prioritize those two? Well, so P. Rind's available in about half leagues. So I would guess that most competitive leagues, he's on a roster. But if both guys are there, which one would you? prefer to go after. Let's say they rule Javante out and you know it's going to be those two guys. Who do you think has more fantasy production? Because P. Ryan, while he didn't have as good a game, he was on the field more, played more snaps still than McLaughlin. He, man, he hasn't. It's not been a great year here for P. Ryan. I think it might take the upside, the unknown of the mystery box and see what happened. I would be placing a low bit on both. I don't like. But who's.

I mean, even if it's the same bid, you've got to put one of the guys at the top of the priority. Who are you going with? I'm talking like five bucks on P. Ryan and five bucks on McLaughlin. And not looking forward to the Jets matchup, not looking forward to the Kansas City matchup. I mean, I understand taking the shot. You need to throw somebody out there. I'd probably still prefer to have Justice Hill by a little bit. Last week was his return from injury. And he did, it won't show up in the box score, but he had an exceptional run, like a 50 plus yard run. It was brought back on a hold, but that, you know, on the field it happened. So he didn't look like he, you know, you look at the box score and go, oh, you know, he was not involved or whatever. He looked bad. That wasn't the case on the field. It's messy in both those situations. I mean, Justice Hill has to compete now with Melvin Gordon and Gus Edwards and.

Kenyon Drake? And possibly Keith Mitchell. Oh gosh. Who should be coming. I mean, he's an undrafted free agent for the Ravens, but he's small and he's fast. I mean, kind of like Justice Hill. They played Pittsburgh this week and Chuba Hubbard plays Detroit. Chuba had 16 opportunities. Brooks, what did you just type in our Slack channel? Will you read that to me? It says this week sucks for waivers, all positions. It's a struggle. I'm really feeling that. It's a struggle. I'm really feeling that. Jalen Warren plays Baltimore. You know, Roshan Johnson was supposed to be getting more work. He didn't. Khalil Herbert was very good. And then you're in the kind of stash and prey to category of tank and, you know, Matt Breedah. I mean, Jailen Warren and Chubbard, are you putting those two guys above the previous three, McLaughlin and.

It depends on what I need. I think Chuba is my number one, just because I think I know he'll get opportunities. Oh, but he plays against Detroit. I know. It's been great against Detroit. My number one's going to be Jalen Warren because I still believe he is the, now I believe he is the best running back on the Pittsburgh Steelers. He has the opportunity in the future to rise in production and in value and over the course of weeks can just get more and more involved in the passing game. Let me get creative with you. If you're looking for a running back fix for a week, would you rather invest the fab here and take the shot at players that seem like they could give you nothing? Or would you go take the shot on a one-week rental of Zach Moss before a potential expiration date? Because there are probably managers that look at him or even like trading for like a gain well or trading for an underwhelming other option. Right. I mean, if you can get.

If you can get Moss cheap, I don't mind that. Because I think those managers might try to cash in on getting anything for him. And we don't know. But Taylor could play this week. You could be getting nothing from Moss. Look, you're playing a game of probability of with a bit blindly because we don't have all the information. But if Taylor doesn't play, then Moss is a. It's a great start. It's tough because if the gamble with Moss is that he'd get all the work if Taylor doesn't play. Right. The gamble with these players is you have no chance of getting all the work for any of them. You're playing committee versus and here, let's just throw the wrinkle in. Moss plays Tennessee. That's not good. No, it's not. You know, if you want to take a shot at just some gross waiver, wire worthy running back, you might wait for drops to go through and then scoop up Tyler Algier.

who will probably be kicked to the curb or offer something piddly poop from your roster to trade for Tyler Algier because he's, at least in that situation, he's playing against the Houston Texans. You could see a pathway to relevance falling into the end zone. I mean, Algiers stunk, but there aren't great options. There are some teams that may accept piddly poop. for Alger. Yeah, I mean, I think most teams right now would be considering just straight dropping Alger. Yeah, that's probably going to happen this week. And that's a reminder. Like, when we have this show, we don't get to choose who's available on waivers. But we can remind you to drop it like it's hot. Pay attention to who's being released. And also, because I have been riding this way, Latavius Murray is, I mean, like the floor is,

is awful pretty low but at least for the last three weeks I mean that includes two touchdowns but this week there was no touchdown but he at least got 6.6 points and when you are just struggling on your team for an RB2 of any kind he at least has touchdown upside every week all right quick break back with some hopefully better discussions about wide receivers all right we're back into the waiver wire And we're looking at the wide receiver position, a couple of most certainly rostered, but if they're not, please pay attention. Romeo Dobbs, Joshua Palmer, Quentin Johnston, all rostered in 60% or more of leagues. But if they're not in yours, they're worthy of being added. There's also a chance, especially with Johnston, that he might hit the waiver wire with this upcoming week because he's going into the buy.

didn't perform last week, and there's a chance people just can't afford to hold him over on the break. So pay attention to those. Johnston, we'll get worked into this offense a little bit more. Yeah, I mean, obviously he had plenty of opportunity, did not come through in his first real shot. It's, it's tough when you see a player. And he had a drop, you know, he was struggling with those in camp. it's hard to believe in him, but obviously the talent was there for him to be drafted in the first round. If you keep going on week after week after week once he gets opportunity where he's not getting it done, I do think it might just be wise to stop caring about the name and move on. But if you need to start this week and you need someone who's actually available across most waivers, I think the name to look for is another rookie.