Week 1 Matchups + TNF Reaction, Stack Boom! - Fantasy Football Podcast for 9/8

to the fantasy footballers podcast with your host, Andy Holloway, Jason Moore, and Mike Wright. Welcome in. Friday, September 8, the fantasy footballers podcast. Back with you, Mike the fantasy hitman, Jason Moore, Andy Holloway, joining you for this Friday episode of the show. Lots of matchups to get into today. We had... A little game called football. Real football. Played last night. Jason's in a Navy shirt today. Oh, it's a crazy day today. Which, what do the statistics say, Kyle? How many Navy shirts have we had in nine years? It's at least eight a year, so I'll have to do. Oh, you do it about eight a year? Eight a year. We do about 150 shows? Yeah. I'm honest. That's still a better catch percentage than this guy more. I am shocked. Hey, hey, hey, hey.

He caught a pass. It was called back. He did. He did catch a pass. Because that was just for you, Mike. Yeah, it was. Yeah, he's just not good at football. He's just really, really not good of football. I think the issue is he is too small. I just do. He's too little. There were, Patrick Mahomes came, he could have had him for about a 25, 30 yard game. Are you talking at the beginning of the game? Towards the beginning. Yeah, where he came across the middle and it just. There was a pick play out of his reach set up. Well, there was a pick play at the beginning set up for Skymore. Oh, you watched it all, Mike. Oh, yeah, because I played Skymore. Which was so dumb. Well, here's the reasoning behind it. I was, I am up against, like, the most stacked team in the league right now. And it was, I got to, I have to throw something in a bottle. I have to throw something in for upside. And with Travis Kelsey out, this is the one opportunity.

clearly did not work. No, I mean, Sky Moore is not a player that I've been really excited about all offseason. It was just second year player. They were talking about him as a starter. He ran a lot of routes. He ran the second most routes on the team. Which is embarrassing. It's just. Patrick Bowles does not like Sky Moore. This was, and just to get right into it, 21-20, the Detroit Lions take a huge, huge win. I was definitely rooting for them last night. I wanted to see them get off to the start that they have now. But this was a lot of the Chiefs losing this ball game. This was a game that could have won. No Travis Kelsey. Now we know. Now we know. Now we know that receivers do matter.

when Travis Kelsey and Tyree Killer are gone. We learned a lot of very important things for fantasy last night, even things that might not seem like they went well. We look like Travis Kelsey being gone. Oh, that sucks. But you know what we learned? Your Travis Kelsey pick was great. Your Travis Kelsey pick was awesome and you're going to love having him soon. Don't worry. So what if he misses another week? Yeah. They need him so, so bad. I also thought it was just incredibly brilliant coaching from Dan Campbell to pay for Cadarious Tony and Skymore. Yes. Especially the Tony one. I mean, just genius work to really have them out there out there on the field, dive bombing the chiefs. Just brilliant stroke. Cedarius Tony was the equivalent of a self-placed landmine. He was literally the MVP of the Detroit Lions. It was one of the worst performances. Like Skymore was.

Not as bad as Cadarious Tony, and Skymore caught zero passes. And out of, there were 11 eligible receivers in the game for the Chiefs, the only one not to catch a pass with Skymore. Who ran so many routes and was always on the field. And yet Cadarius Tony made many who were watching want a new category at it for quarterbacks, which I think we're capable of doing. Like there should be, look, in baseball, if you hit the ball. and it goes between the shortstop's legs, you don't get credit for a single. It's called an error. There's a difference between Patrick Mahomes hitting Cadarious Tony, square between the hands, and then they're like, the next line out of their mouths for the announcers was, it's the first interception thrown by Patrick Mahomes in an opening game since he came into the league. No, it wasn't. No, it wasn't. It was a perfect pass to a player who just had his eyes closed the whole game.

When he was handed the ball, he looked like a player that had four or five knee braces on. He was slow. He deleted his own Twitter after the game. Oh, yeah. Get rid of the phone, Cadarius. It's not a good place for you out here. You should not be tweeting at Tony. No. You can tweet about him. Sure. But don't tag the dude. Yeah. Which clearly must have been happening. But yeah, Cadarious Tony is getting the Baxter boot off the bridge from my team on Tuesday. I'm thinking about putting a petition into the commissioner myself to allow me to drop him ahead of time. Yeah, if you don't just, and you promise not to pick anyone up. I won't pick anybody up. You just want him off the roster. I don't want him.

near the rest of my players. I get it. That's a brilliant stroke of genius. Would you consider letting me do that? I would vote for it. I would allow it. I don't think he should be on a roster. I wasn't silly enough to play him. That would be embarrassed. He was on my bench. Yesterday, because we were playing each other. Yes, sir. You had mentioned at one point if Travis Kelsey doesn't go, that you might play Cadarius Tony. And I. I literally was trying to get you to play Cadarious Tony. Were you? Oh, big time. I wanted it so bad. I was like, that's not going to work. No, I did not do it. Cadarius Tony's line was one catch for one yard. Huh. He did have a carry for negative one yards. But because he had the catch for one yard, he outscored Skymore then, correct? That seems accurate. Yeah, he doesn't get minus points for his drop. In normal scoring.

Guy Moore would have had a half a point. And then in a half point BPR, Cadarist Tony would have had, oh, they may be tied. I don't know. This is a debate that is irrelevant for fantasy. And the truth is, spin the wheel of targets outside of Kelsey. That is the problem. The real fantasy message, and you guys disagree with me if you want. The real fantasy message is that it is a completely agnostic target universe for Patrick Mahomes outside of Kelsey. He is, it could be McKinnon, it could be Noah Gray, it can be Rashi Rice, it can be Justin Ross. It can be Skymore. It can be Cadarius Tony. It can be MBS. It's none of them. Richie James. If it's everyone, yeah, if it's everyone, it's nobody, right? Yeah, I mean, I believe that the 95% odds are that nobody will emerge as a weekly starter here other than Travis Kelsey. You can play DFS lineups and take your shot because the, you know, people will have big games when you play for Patrick Mahomes, but it's not going to work. If I.

The 5% to me is still Rushie Rice. I agree with you. He is a rookie that can earn his way onto the field. He didn't play that many snaps, run that many routes, and he was involved. He was more productive. He did, you know, find the spot in the zone for a touchdown. Granted, it was nothing special he did on that play. He made the smart play. He caught it? He sat in the zone. That is actually a really good needle mover. Let's not take that away from him. He did catch that ball, which was very. very difficult for Chiefs wide receivers. So yeah, if I'm going to make a bet on this team, it's going to be Rushie Rice. There might be openings for him. He may have some opportunities. And Kelsey will take away from the defense. It's one game. Like you said, best ball is the place to live with some of these guys. But it was tough. It was tough to watch that. It was tough to, you know, the leading receiver was Isaiah Pacheco. He had four receptions for 31 yards.

He had eight carries, so he led the team in carries and receptions. And, you know, it just wasn't a very productive fantasy day for Chiefs Options. On the other side of the ball, very interesting. David Montgomery had 21 carries for 74 and a touchdown. The most David Montgomery stat line. Three and a half a carry. Yeah, three and a half a carry, but crazy volume and a touchdown. Jamir Gibbs had seven carries for 42 yards. Dude. He also tripped on a, I mean, I watched the... On the turf. He tripped on the turf because his cut was too fast. He... And he would have scored. I mean, you can go look at the... 100%. What do they call that film? The all 22. I mean, there were no other chiefs on that side of the field. Yeah, if he didn't slip, it was a touchdown and then anyone complaining about Jemir Gibbs wouldn't be super upset. Obviously, the issue, if you watch the game... Two passes, 18 yards. A Jemir Gibbs manager and you're starting him.

You're disappointed because you're like, oh, he's not out there enough and you want him out there more. I get it. But if you watch that game, you also recognize that David Montgomery was a lumbering worse than Jamal Williams type of player aided by the offense of line that is excellent for the Detroit Lions by comparison to Jamir Gibbs, who was an absolute outstanding athlete, looked great every time he touched the ball. He will get worked more into the game. They came out and said, Jamir Gibbs might be brought along slowly as a rookie when you're playing against the world champion Patrick Mahomes led. Like, you can't have rookie mistakes if you want to win that game. And so I don't blame them for their utilization of Gibbs. And it's not going to stay this extreme. I do think Montgomery will be super involved every single game without injury.

and Gibbs will be more of the change of pace. But he'll get enough work as the season goes on to be excellent. I would be trading for Gibbs if managers are super disappointed in what they saw yesterday. It was a nice debut for Sam Leporta. He looked apart, was out there almost every single snap and lining up out wide a lot. And there's going to be opportunity there. He had five receptions in his debut. That was the, I think the second most over the last five years for a rookie tight end. Were you impressed? I was super impressed. like a pro the way that he caught the ball he's a rookie he's he's not going to be phenomenal this year um that being said you played him against me because of the Travis Kelsey injury in our live with it league of record and I was I was disappointed with as as the one against him he didn't you know get a touchdown he didn't put up a monster day but I was like man they are really utilizing him in the office so it's certainly someone you got to pay attention to going forward 14.2 percent target share for him

Josh Reynolds led the team in yards. Amon Ra was the best receiver by far. And there you go. Impressive win. Really, I think it's really exciting for football when new teams emerge as contenders. And they, you know, they showed their moxie on the road in Arrowhead. I mean, we said the stats yesterday morning. The Chiefs don't lose openers. No. Detroit, you deserve this. And I'm so happy for. You know, as a Cardinals fan, I know what it's like to be the Detroit Lions type of franchise. And what an awesome. You've got expectations, you know, the fourth highest odds to come out of the NFC, the highest odds to win the division. You've got expectations. And most of the time, those things are hard to live up to. Coming out week one, beating the chiefs in Arrowhead. Congrats, man. Which, which they finished last year, nine and seven, but started one in six, which meant that they went eight and two, the remainder of the season. And then one last night.

continuing it. It's nice. Mike, it's just the, just more lions love for Guns Mahoney, aka Dan Campbell, the going for it on the lined up in the, the fake punt at the beginning of the game, and then I believe that drive turned into a touchdown. It did. They were just, you were, that was a big Wayvos move. Oh, as big as they get. And then, so like, but like that's optimal coaching is recognizing the situation of we, We got to do something here. And then at the end of the game, they end up turning the ball over, but they went for it on fourth, which was, in my opinion, it was the optimal play of you need to go for it right here. You can't give them a home. That's the one where they tried to pass. Yes. Yeah, yeah. I don't know that the play call was what I would have gone with. And while I'll dab them up, but then what's the Marvin Jones screen pass on like third and ten?

And they expect Marvin Jones. So that play was a little bit weird. But overall was, it was a, I thought it was a very exciting game. Wish we had hit the over. But, uh, yeah, well, but we did not. But still, great opening night. I had a good, uh, showdown night. Yeah, yeah, you did. Yeah. Yeah, that was, that was fun to be back in it. And football being back, all the overreactions, just bring them on. Yeah. I mean, it's, it's all that can happen. If you're going to talk fantasy from February till now, just bring the overreactions. It's part and parcel with what's going on. Things will change over time. There you go. There's our reaction to Thursday night. A couple reminders at the top. You can join us. Become a part of the foot clan at join the foot.com. Get access to all the in-season perks. Check that out now. And you can find us on Twitter at the FF Ballers. It is Friday. Foot Clan Friday.

Every single Friday during the regular season, we have a giveaway on Friday to somebody who supports the show at Jointhefoot.com. And today's winner of a $100 gift card to Fantasychamps.com is Beverly V. Beverly. Oh, congrats. Congratulations. First winner of the year. Hope you win your league because then you can get a sweet trophy at Fantasy Champs. There you go. Let's talk news. News and notes from around the league. Presented by USAA Insurance. All right. We got some news. The PR team was doing work right before kickoff. I mean, it was perfect. Joe Burroughs signs a five-year, $275 million extension through 2028. He's now the highest paid player in the history of the National Football League. Got the bag. Whoever the latest great quarterback to sign a contract is, is the highest paid.

player in the history of the... Sure, but is there another one? Like, who would be the next quarterback who could actually break the record? Yeah, it'll be a while. I think it will probably be Mahomes. Yeah, that's true. As the next one reupping his old deal. Or... I agree with that. What do you think we'll do for Dak? Not set it that high. No, okay. He's not going to beat Joe Burrow money. Terry McLaren returned to a full practice on Thursday. Woohoo! George Kettle remained limited, which is the highest status he can receive. Kendri Miller did not practice due to hamstring. Is not expected to play. So Jamal Williams will have a backfield to himself. Both Chark and Thielen did not practice on Thursday, but Adam Thieland has... I'm back. He's back at practice today. I was at the buffet. The buffet? Yeah, early. Oh, Mike really enjoys this Thielen voice, doesn't he? Well, it's not, I'm Adam.

They hit the buffet, the old people. Oh, old people love buffets. I think they like the cafeteria. Yeah, the cafeteria lines. The lubies. Yeah. It was just kind of served buffet style. I get it. No, well, it's close enough. And the, I'm sorry. I don't know where I was. Where am I? Mark Andrews practiced again on Thursday. He was limited. It's still TBD. You've got to be prepared. Yeah, go ahead and read it. The quote from Andrews after practice asking about is he going to play. Quote is one of those things that's been a little tricky, but I'm feeling better for me. I'm taking it day by day. God willing, I'll be out there. Oh, man. Get on your knees, football fans. Mark Andrews. Yeah. Say a prayer. I'm going to be a little more than that.

Hopefully we know ahead of time because you might, if you're the Mark Andrews manager. Are they a morning game? Can I just pause versus? I'm having so much fun. It is so great to have football back. Yes. Yes, it is. Yeah, all the strategy, all that. But Isaiah likely is the pivot that you want if Mark Andrews goes down if you're the Mark Andrews manager. They're a morning game. So thank goodness. Back home is dealing with an ankle injury. But he's back at practice. But yeah, he's back at the start of practice. But it should. Remind people. The fragility of this past catching core has been an issue for years. You have Bateman, injury prone, Beckham, ankle. Andrews, banged up at the end of last year, banged up right now. J.K. Dobbins, let's go. Two legs, hopefully. But it does, if Beckham was questionable, if Andrews wasn't on the field, it would give me more confidence to make a rookie start of Zayflowers in week one. Packers wide receivers.

This is wild. Romeo Dobbs returned to a limited practice. Christian Watson did not practice Al Borland. How you feeling on this one? Not great. Not great. To be honest, I didn't have a lot of optimism anyway. Around Christian Watson? Christian Watson. Around just our season. Oh, okay. Yeah, prepping up for that. Keep your, if Watson does not go, keep an eye out for. Jaden Reed, their rookie wide receiver who will play a whole lot more. And Luke Musgrave. He will be, there's a rookie tight end who will be on the field all the time. He'll be an every down player. And, you know, Christian Watson is not there. Romeo Dobbs has his own issues coming back from. That's a Sam Laporta-style play. Would you trade Christian McCaffrey in a dynasty league for Damien Pierce, Luke Musgrave, and a first round draft pick?

No. What if it was the first round pick you thought it would be in the top five? More interesting. Yeah, maybe. I turned that down. Yeah. Remandre Stevenson, not seen participating on Friday, has not been on the injury report. We're going to have to... What? We're going to have to dive in. Now, when is... Don't we have the first injury blitz podcast? Yeah. Brooksie? Yeah, later this afternoon after all the Friday practices are done. So for brand new listeners, the injury blitz is a special bonus podcast brought to you by our injury expert in PT, Matthew Betts. It is exclusively on join the foot.com. And it is kind of a chance for the late Friday injury reports to factor into that podcast. Kenneth Walker. Limited with a groin injury.

This is bad. You hope that it's maintenance or protection, not re-injury. I do not believe it is maintenance. We will see today's practice report will say everything. If he's full, great. If he's limited, then I don't believe that he plays this week. Is this the Zach Charbonnet debut? Yeah, I mean, we've, I rebuilt, I've got two lineups right now in Draft Kings that I might play against you guys for our segment at the end of today's episode. One of them has Zach Charbonnet. in it if Ken Walker News looks bad. But he was added as a late edition in the week. He was practicing on full on Wednesday. So to become limited with a groin injury that he spent almost all of the offseason dealing with. It's not good. No. Brooksie, let us know if you hear anything before the end of the show. You got it. All right. That was today's news and notes presented by USAA Insurance. Learn more at USAA.com slash insurance. We'll take a quick break and we'll come back with.

all of the remaining matchups. It's a good reminder, Jason. We do have the fantasy face off returning at the end of today's show. Mm-hmm. So much fun. I'm ready to turn over a new leaf this year. This is going to be your year, Andy. There was a really nice reps gang gets credit for this. He put a giff up of, I think, was that every punishment from last year, Justin? I think it was quite a few. Because there was a lot of me in there. Well. Well, do better this year. Oh, yeah. Get body. I don't take offense to the reality that I was the wheel of shame winner in a matter of speaking. All right, let's do it. Fantasy forecast. Well, if I was a rookie quarterback looking to start my season, it would not be in Baltimore against the Ravens. The Texans travel.

This week, Baltimore nine and a half point home favorites over under's 44. That gives Baltimore almost 27 points. Houston, not as many. So this is a heavy favorite situation. Teams favored by nine plus points over the last five years have averaged 29 points per game. So it's going to be delicious for Baltimore this week. However, You do need to play in the game to score fantasy points, so we'll be watching Beckham, Andrews. If Beckham's out there, is he a flex option? Bias removed from dealing with Beckham over the years, just looking at the fact that he's a starter in this offense. I don't think so. I, you know, I still worry a little bit about the passing need in this game for the Baltimore Ravens, whether or not, you know, if Mark Andrews can't go and Odell Beckham didn't go.

Then there's like this consolidation where, okay, maybe Zay Flowers or Bateman, you're willing to take a shot at. But just because Beckham is out there, Zay Flowers, we know is going to be out there. Bateman, it looks like he should be good to go. So I'm not really wanting to start any of the pass catchers here because it's going to be split up. And I just don't think they're going to be passing the ball a lot in the second half. I will be interested to watch Will Anderson get acclimated. on the defensive line. PFF has Houston at 23 on the defensive line rankings this year. It should be a little bit better there. Even just adding Will Anderson is going to improve that defensive line. But it should be bright and sunny days for J.K. Dobbins and company. Yeah. Damien Pierce, it's a tough matchup in week one. You are, you know, if I am the Baltimore Ravens, I am doing, I'm stopping Damien Pierce. That is the only thing I have to worry about.

And so the nice thing, at least historically, we've seen Houston relentless, even when they shouldn't be running the football. And that has led to touches. But it's a tough, tough, tough matchup. And that puts Damien Pierce squarely in the post-week-1 trade target if it doesn't go the right direction, assuming the opportunities are there. It could, but I'm not very worried about it. It's kind of like what we talked about with James Connor yesterday. The matchups are always going to be. not in his favor. When you're one of the worst two teams in the league, it's always going to be like, oh, your team is projected to lose. You're going to be down. And you look back at last season. You know, they played against the Philadelphia Eagles. Unbelievably good run defense. He was a top 12 running back. Yeah. Played against Dallas. He was the running back 16. Cleveland had a good defense running back 21. He should be an RB2 or better this week and most weeks. So I'm...

You know, if you drafted Damian Pierce, I'm not scared off by this matchup. CJ Stroud gets to make his debut. Historically, rookie first round quarterbacks in week one, they average 216 passing yards and 19 completions. Are we done talking about Houston as a fantasy option this week? Houston is one fantasy option. It's Damian Pearson check out. Yeah. Dalton Schultz? No. No, I'm not in on Donald Schultz. Oh, the doctor. He's not. No, the doctor is on vacation. He's not in. But it will be fun to watch week one, see how the wide receiver room shakes out. You know, Robert Woods is the veteran. Does he get the treatment and become automatically the number one? Nico Collins has flashed at times and been a really interesting player. Does he emerge? We talked about him on the footcast yesterday. Sure. I look at drafting Nico Collins identically to drafting Jonathan Mingo.

You know, Nico is 6-4-216. He's a big guy. He's definitely better than Robert Woods. Woods is toast. He's getting the Houston final contract. I'm not saying go get him. I'm just saying he is a one on this roster. Yeah, which I agree. And that's what I, that's what I'll be watching for. The Green Bay Packers travel to Chicago. The Bears are one-point home favorites. The over-under just 42 points. Bears being favorites in this matchup feels weird because they've only been a favorite against Green Bay four times since 2008 when Rogers became the starter. Does that mean Rogers was injured four times against the Chicago Bears? Honestly, it could have been. That's my guess. And Justin Fields, he was the quarterback five on the week the last time he took on the Green Bay Packers. He didn't even have a passing touchdown in that game. You don't need him. It was six for 71 and one on the ground.

Are you excited about this matchup? Seeing Jordan Love make his debut. I'm very excited for this matchup NFL-wise. We have a lot of questions to answer in this. We want to know and have definitive proof that Khalil Herbert's the guy. That's the belief. I think that's the belief everywhere now. So that should come to fruition, but it'll be nice to have that confirmed. We want to see the passing game. Do they open it up a little bit more, which I believe they will do? And does that mean that DJ Moore can squeak into the top 12 wide receivers? And how is the passing evolution of Justin Fields? And then on the other side, I mean, we don't know which wide receivers are going to be there, but they're questions we want to see and how it relates to Jordan Love. Is he good? This game is absolutely one of the games I'm going to be watching the closest. Bears were not good defensively against quarterbacks and wide receivers last year. So there's opportunity if somebody gets out there.

Weren't good against running backs either. Aaron Jones, AJ Dillon, Mike. Are they both starts? Aaron Jones is for sure a start. And I brought up A.J. Dillon in our new Hungry for More segment. And I think that as a kind of low, low end running back too, low. Low. The A.J. Dillon, like last year, Bears 28 against fantasy running backs giving up over 25 points a game. A.J. Dillon is, I think, in play as a low flex option. The Raiders take on the Denver Broncos in Denver this week. Draft King Sportsbook Line Denver minus three and a half, the over under. 44. So the Raiders took both games against the hapless Denver offense last year. Got a brand new quarterback, Jimmy Garoppel. Still handsome. Just wearing the black and the silver this year. Russell Wilson, still an annoying. He's still a little bit annoying.