Fantasy Football - Starts of the Week + Week 3 Breakdown, Trade Techniques - Podcast for 9/18

So good. Very, very thirsty. The only thing that has gotten in his way is just not playing in the fourth quarter of week one because he was too good. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, it's fair. On the other side of the ball, how long do you talk about this team on the other side of the ball? Tony Pollard is a fine play. He's so weird. He was really good last week. Yeah. Like, that's the thing is he is giving you the classic, I'm doing pretty well for the NFL, but I'm not helping your fantasy team. Yeah. Cam Ward has not been checking it down.

He was 20 for 92 against the Rams. Yeah. That's awesome. 4.6 a carry, but no involvement in, you know, two targets on the season right now. Yeah. Ah, catch. But I still think that the Rams are a much harder defense than the Colts. So I'm playing Tony Pollard as like a running back too. Certainly in my flex. I'd say more like a flex. Yeah. Judkins or Pollard? Ooh, I would go Pollard. Ooh. I just moved Judkins and I moved him to just below Pollard. I'll go Pollard. All right. The Bengals at 2-0. The Vikings at 1-1, both with backup quarterbacks.

Vegas line, Minnesota at home, minus three. The over-under is 42 and a half. Cincinnati could have easily lost their first two games. They managed to win them. And now it's Jake Browning season versus Carson Wentz season. This game looked so awesome a week ago. Yeah, it did. Like, oh man. Bengals, Vikings. I'm looking forward to that. Jake Browning said, quote, if I didn't have some delusional confidence in myself, then I probably would have been toast a long time ago. You do like to see that. He's good. I believe he played. Wasn't he on the sidelines screaming like, you shouldn't have cut me.

You shouldn't have cut me. I mean, look. There's some other words in there. Yeah, there were. And he was good. Like, Jake Browning for fantasy. And I, you know, obviously if you're in a two quarterback, he's going to go. In a two quarterback league that I'm in, he went for 100 fab. That's a bit much for me. As in 100%? 100% of $100, as in also $100. I didn't know if it was like a 200 or a thousand. Yeah, no. But back when we saw him in 2023, I said this before, he was in his seven starts. He was the quarterback 18, four.

Quarterback four again. Quarterback eight, 21. Quarterback eight, quarterback nine. The majority of his games were top ten. They're going to let him throw the ball. They have the weapons to throw to. Everything takes, like, everything is nerfed from the Joe Burrow bangles. But everything's still startable. I'm still starting Tee Higgins. I'm still starting Jamar Chase. I'm still starting Chase Brown. I'm a little worried about Higgins in the long run. Without Burrow. Because even with Burrow, to start the year, it's been a slow start for Higgins. Would you trade Jamar Chase for Malik Neighbors? Yeah. For sure. What other names would enter that list other than Malik Neighbors?

CeeDee Lamb? Lamb, I would. I don't know if I would do that. Amon Ra, St. Brown? I would trade him for Amon Ra. I would trade him for Puka. Yeah, okay. That might be the end of the list. Not Jefferson. There's one name that is funny to me, looking at, like, the top performers? The top performers? Is it Zay Flowers? No, no. I don't think Zay Flowers will have enough touchdowns. I mean, you would never trade him for that. No, no, no. Yeah. But JSN. JSN. Oh, yeah. Yeah. JSN looks like he could be, like, breakout star. Could. Real quick, because we're talking about the Bengals, and we just want to see what Tee Higgins did when he had Browning back in 2023.

Tee unsurprisingly missed two of those games. However, in the... He misses games equally with either quarterback. Exactly. He is... He... This is not... Not anymore. He's not anti-Joe Burrow. Not with that schmoney. Right. He ain't missing nothing. He gets two million to show up. But in those games, I want to read you his stat lines. One game was three for 36, so that's kind of like the floor. That's terrible. The next game was two for 72. The next game was four for 61, and two touchdowns was the wide receiver seven. Five for 140 and a touchdown. Which year is... I don't like this matchup.

And then one for 19. I don't like going on the road. I don't like playing Minnesota at home. There's some overlap there, like a chase missing. If I'm not mistaken. He's a bench for me this week. T. Higgins? T. Higgins is a bench for me this week because of the matchup. Minnesota is... They're such a good defense. Their secondary has shut people down. They're giving up like 16 fancy points a game to wideouts. They're awesome. Jamar Chase is the one to bet on. I would agree with that. Do you play T. or George? No, I'd play George. That one. T. or Jacoby?

Jacoby? Oh, yeah. Yeah. That'd be like three targets versus 16. T. or Pittman. I actually... I think there are good games. Those numbers are helpful for the future of the season. Yes. But this game and this week... Now... There will be good games for T. Higgins. This will not be one of them. Yeah, that's how I feel. I mean, obviously, he could end up with a touchdown. Anybody can. But Jordan Mason, start of the week on the other side. Jefferson, slower start to the year. Probably neutral or better with Carson Wentz at quarterback. Playing at home. Jefferson should get fed.

You know, T.J. Hawkinson, I'm moving on. Yeah. I'm moving on. I'm looking for options on the waiver wire. I am looking for options on the waiver wire. I'm certainly not cutting T.J. Hawkinson. Yeah, you don't have to cut him, but I might try to start... I mean, would you rather have Hawkinson or Ertz? I'd play Ertz. Pitts? I'd rather play Pitts. I'd play Pitts. I would rather play both of those guys. Johnnie Smith? No. I'd probably go there. But maybe not. I think I'm still on the Hawkinson side there. Okay. I'm not... We're getting Hawkstrap stuff, man. So I'm like...

You're a red alert. I'm yellow. Okay. I think that this is like I'm paying attention. I want one more week. I want to see what happens if Carson wins instead of... Maybe this week will be better. Yeah. No, that's fair. And Carson wins gets to start. $134 million in lifetime earnings. So he's doing all right. Probably doesn't want to play. Probably doesn't want to play anymore. Let's take a break. We'll jump into some more matchups. Foot Clan, the season. Look, it's underway, Al. The season is underway. You got those rankings, those sleepers. You got the can't miss picks. We've got it all laid out on the line.

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Find the one with BetterHelp. Our listeners get 10% off their first month at BetterHelp.com slash footballers. That's BetterHelp, H-E-L-P dot com slash footballers. Pittsburgh, 1-1. New England, 1-1. The game's in New England. And Pittsburgh is favored by 1-1. Does that surprise you at all? The way their defenses looked and the fact that they just barely beat the Jets. I think the Patriots have been really disappointing. Yeah, through two weeks. They barely beat the Dolphins. Can I take this one? Sure. Does this one count? Yeah, it counts. Andy's almost upset of the week. I got good news for you, Andy. I took the Steelers in the spread.

And usually when you have an almost upset and I am like completely on the other side, you're right and I am wrong. Well, New England, underdogs at home. Over-unders 44-1. Both teams won. One and one. At least in their career, Jason. Mike Tallman, 3-0 against Mike Rabel. But they were all one-score wins, so they were very close. Both teams have not been hyper-targeting the wide receiver position the way we hoped. We looked at DK Metcalf. Mike was the big fan of Metcalf all offseason. Of course. And he was talking the targets, but the targets haven't been there. The Steelers. Is he a MyGuy for you?

I think he was. I don't remember, but I think so. He was the first MyGuy fantasy MVP combo. Right. That anybody's ever done. Yeah. Mike equal DK. Love that guy. DK Metcalf. That's what we used to. I remember that joke. That's right. And then he drafted him because he loved him. Yeah. It's all coming together. Nobody look into that. The Patriots targeted wide receivers 39% in Week 2. The Steelers targeted wide receivers 39% in Week 2. You saw Friermuth and Johnny Smith get involved. And the offense didn't look as good for the Steelers in Week 2 with Aaron Rodgers. Through the end zone interception, that was a big play in the game.

Obviously, Caleb Johnson contributed to the loss. But, you know. I mean, that game, it's funny. Hey. He literally didn't do anything. So, let's take it easy. They got beat, but they really. It was those two plays. Yeah. It was a free touchdown, and it was an interception in the end zone that I felt like defined the entire week. Aaron Rodgers, big drop off from Week 1 where he was four touchdowns and 73% interceptions. Threw two interceptions. Not a drop off from play. Like, fantasy-wise, he was great Week 1. He was not good in Week 1. We talked about it, like, off air, and there's a lot of metrics of, like, just showing his catchable target rate.

He was not that. He ended up with four touchdowns, right? Four? Week 1? Something like that. Yes, four. And so, he had a great fantasy performance despite not really playing that great. And he just looked the same week, too, to me. Well, Metcalf on the road here. How do we feel about Metcalf? Where does he slot in for you in your rankings? Gonzalez matters a lot to me, honestly. Like, if he is – if Christian remains out, then DK, I'm okay playing him. If – I'm happy to play him if he's out. Yeah, yeah. Okay. I would be on the side of I'm okay with it.

If he returns, then I think that it's a very sketchy play of, like – I mean, I'd probably play George over him. Tyreek will have already played, so you won't have that option. It's like Cortland Sutton. I think I'm playing above DK should that – the injury news pop in to do England's favor. Okay. It doesn't feel like Pittsburgh has a lot outside of the start of the week of Warren to offer the – you know, Warren and Metcalf. And then, you know, Calvin Austin, he plays a bunch of snaps. Johnny Smith and Fryer, he split time. But that's kind of where we end that story.

Yeah, the Patriots made Tyreek Hill look good again. So it's only one week, but that is – if that feels noteworthy for Tyreek Hill, who has looked terrible for all of last year and week one, and then all of a sudden you're like, oh, maybe Tyreek Hill is not washed. Maybe that's just the Patriots secondary. I've seen a wild amount of one question this week involving Patriots quarterback Drake May. The world has asked Drake May, Bo Nix, rest of season. That has been the question that people have asked repeatedly. I've seen it all over the place. I see it in our show docs.

So somebody else on our staff is asking the question. I know what I would say to that question. I know what I would say, but more importantly, for all the Foot Clan out there, if you are, you know, part of the Foot Clan at jointhefoot.com, our rest of season rankings will be going live very, very soon. Which we've never had. We've never had them. So this is a new thing we are introducing. What do they say about this scenario? Yeah. They'll say that Bo Nix is the right call. I mean, you look at... But they're going to be right next to each other.

They'll be close, but if you have to choose one of those two, you go with the guy who has done it a lot of times. Like his rookie year, Bo Nix was great. Last week, Bo Nix was great. Who has better weapons? Probably Bo Nix. Who has a more offensive play-calling mind at coach? Bo Nix. So that, to me, it's a clear Bo Nix. And I like Drake May. All right. Well, let's talk about a player that was reborn last week. Ramondre Stevenson is going to face a Steelers defense that is giving up nearly the most points to running backs through two weeks.

Are we all in on Ramondre for week three? All in is not the way I would phrase it. I was trying to get you to phrase it that way. I certainly cannot. Really wanted that phrase. Ah, phrase it! If I have him, he's a top 24-ish type of a start. But the small data point of hesitancy for me is the Steelers were crushed by speed. Speed, exactly. Speedy guys. It was Brees Hall. Yeah. Braylon Allen was stuffed like crazy. Yep. It was Kenneth Walker. Yep. Charbonnet was stuffed like crazy. Ramondre is not like the speedster. That's the concern. And I'm not going to tell people to play Travion Henderson after what happened last week.

Because it feels like it's very difficult. But while he's on your bench, it will not surprise me if things shift back to the way that they were moving. If you're playing DFS and you want to take a shot that is unpopular, Henderson is a good play for that type of a situation. Because he got benched with his holding and message sent. So either they now forgive him, move on, and go back to the original game plan, or they continue punishing him. We couldn't possibly know the answer to that. I think the biggest implication for last week for Henderson is I think they'll forgive.

He's a hardworking kid. Yeah. They're going to forgive that stuff. I'm not worried about that. It's actually the success of Ramondre Stevenson. The fact that he was that successful, I think this team looks at him, that redeems a lot to have a week like that where he's that productive. It sure does. Makes the catch. You know, if you wanted to paint a very clean path to Henderson having huge workloads and the involvement, it involves Ramondre really struggling regularly for Henderson to take over. There's no, like you're hoping for committee at this point. I think before you were hoping for takeover.

If Travion Henderson goes out, let me give you the situation. Let's say they give him some more snaps this week. Let's say he has 10 opportunities, five catches, five runs. He busts a long one. He's got a 38 yard touchdown run in the game. Ramondre is not off the, he's not going to stop being used. They're not going to stop using him because of that. And I think if Ramondre had been struggling or struggled for multiple weeks, then you can't, you know, you can't put the genie back in the bottle and it's a Henderson takeover. I think it's going to be a committee all year long and you're going to look to Henderson

to catch more passes and you're going to try to be excited about that, but it's going to be a little bit of matchup based. It's going to be a little bit of, can they get it done in the offensive side of the football? Is Drake May playing good football? Are the wide receivers more relevant? I mean, it's going to be a little bit of a path like that. I don't see a takeover. It's very mirrored to the Seattle Seahawks where Charbs and Ramondre are similar types of players. And that's why in timeshares, I mean, this week will not withstanding for, because of

what happened with Ramondre, if it's a timeshare, you want to bet, I'm betting on the efficiency guy. The more or less for Travion Henderson this week for receiving yards. Do you want to take a guess for what price picks has it at? I would guess 20, 22. He's such a good guesser. No, it's 18 and a half. Oh, okay. 18 and a half. So that's where Mike says, hey, just sit him down and let's wait and see what happens. And you know, the wide receivers right now are very unpredictable on the New England side because I think Stephon Diggs' snaps and opportunities are going to rise.

Booty got into the end zone, but one catch. That's tough. Demario Douglas, one catch in week one into the end zone. It's just kind of, was it Matt Collins that scored last week? Matt did score. Yeah. Let me double check. I think Matt played a lot more too. Yeah. Matt Collins had. He went from 56 to 65% of the snaps. Yeah. He's not getting targets, but just saying a body on the field. Honestly, you know that Jason won't like to hear this, but I would, if I had to play one player this week, it would be Diggs. If I had to pick one wide receiver, I think I would take Diggs.