Week 8 Waivers & Streamers + Difference Makers - Fantasy Football Podcast for 10/22

I felt like you were conceding that he's not an inside runner, and I don't believe that about him. I actually think he is that, and they have to give him those opportunities. He is an inside runner against non-stacked boxes. So, wait, were you trying to say that so the next five weeks they have the best schedule? Correct. So then is Rahim Moster in the mix? Sure, yeah. I mean, I think the Dolphins offense should get better. Their running games should be great, but specifically. with how high the ceiling is. Exactly. Look at us. All right, that was difference makers presented by IMS pet food. When you choose IMS, you see the difference in your pet with your own eyes. Healthy energy in five days, healthy digestion in 10 days and healthy skin and coat in just 25 days. Feed Ims and see a visible difference. News and notes from around the league. Presented by USAA Insurance. You know, I'm going to go make a...

offer on HN, I think. I see what you did there. Mike, you look like you were just... I'm just... Because I feel like for the news today, you got to just... You got to take one of those big Ace Ventura breaths. Because it's... This guy's injured. That guy's injured. That guy's injured. Yeah. Evans, Godwin, Iuke, Debo Samuel, all injured. D. K. K. Metcalfe, Grade 1, MCL, sprain, week to week. Jaden Daniels. Very much in doubt against week for week eight. We were all excited to see. Dead things all over the place, man. No, look, it's not. It's mama. It's mama versus. No, that's all it is. Not just, no, not just mama. There was reporting yesterday. Like, he's week to week. But there's optimism that he's going to be out there on Sunday. And then we're 24 hours later. Now it's very much in doubt. I believe this game was flexed. This was a game that was changed a week ago because they wanted to see Caleb Williams against Jane Daniels. And so they moved it into more part club.

Right, yeah. So that's what they're going to get. No, it would be disappointing not to see Jaden and Caleb in that matchup, but they also understand this is a long game. They can win the ball game. They can win the ball game without him. They can. Jameson Williams, here we are. This is big time news. Knucklehead. Following a minus four performance now facing a two-game suspension for violating. the NFL's performance enhancing substances policy. And he has come out and said, while he disagrees with it, he's going to take it on the chin. So this is not, he's not, I think you got it wrong, but I'll go ahead and serve the suspension. I'm not going to kind of fight this one. Don't look into it further. So, okay, whatever that means, you know he's going to miss the next to you. I don't like it, but I'm going to serve it. Yeah. You guys are flat wrong. I'll see you in three weeks.

So, I mean, hugely disappointing. Another step backwards for Jameson Williams. Part of reliability is availability, and he's not going to be on the field. Can we get two weeks of Sam Laporta, please? I think we might. I think we might. That is more than two or one targets. I guess they can just throw it to Gibbs. That's fine, too. Or Tim Patrick. David Montgomery's knee injury, not considered serious with more lions reporting. It was a. You all right, Jay? Oh, I'm just, yeah, I'm good. I just want to make sure you, you know, it's good. You want him to take a week off and go? No, no, I want him to be a full participant in the first practice possible because they have no worries. Okay, uh, to a tongue of Iloa, we could talk about this. I mean, he's coming back from injured reserve. We have a definitive, uh, answer now on the guardian cap in, oh, he said no.

He was very demonstrative and said it was a personal choice. When asked specifically, I don't know if you saw the whole clip, he said, I was on the sideline last week. I watched how stupid Devaniy Chan looked. And I was like, I can't, I can't look that dumb. At least that's what he didn't really say that, of course. It's just a personal choice. But I've seen. I've got to think that factored in. You'd be surprised to learn that that's. press conference ignited the Twitter sphere. So, I mean, seeing discussions on, you know, just what are the actual true benefits of the guardian cap? What type of concussion does it prevent from or help prevent, I should say? So I don't know. It is a, it is. The zone is now flooded with crap and it's hard to get through it. These things are not, I'm with Tua. I don't really want to play the judge of that man's body and decision making in the NFL because.

You know, you can wear a different piece of equipment for posterity sake, and it may not benefit you. You know, you do have to adjust the equipment. It's a fast moving game. He may not feel comfortable in that helmet. And I don't know the reasoning for it, but I mean, it is a different. It's a different feel. He's a quarterback. And that might not be the best way for him to take care of his body. You know what I mean? We talk about the implications of. people come out with the narrative of, oh, if they just played in leather helmets or no helmets, there wouldn't be concussions because we'd take care of ourselves. There is an aspect of the subconscious that, what, does he take a different chance? Because he's got a guardian cap on. I don't know the answers to that. There is nuance. I'm choosing to side with the player's decision. And, you know, if he feels like he can play and play safely, that's his choice. Yeah, it's really up to the NFL. If the NFL thinks that,

the players shouldn't have the choice and say that they were coming out and saying like, hey, the first week back from a concussion, you have to wear a guardian cap. Well, then they need to institute that. Otherwise, it is a player's choice. And obviously the player's not going to, you know, I don't think, too, is trying to make a bad choice for himself. You know what I mean? No, he's not. And he is going to mean so much for fantasy football. Oh, stay healthy to us. Jalen Waddell, Tyreek Hill will be reborn? Dude, I really think he should go out there in a red shirt this week and just see.

If they don't hit them? Just see if the defensive players are like, oh, they pull up a little bit, you know? My goodness. All right, Chris Olave is still in the concussion protocol. The most recent things I was reading is that they hope he can be back, but it was far from certain. Yeah, we've got to watch practice reports. Spencer Rattler will remain the starting quarterback if Derek Carr can't play. Which is not, he's not expected to play this week. Jonathan Taylor, the head coach of the Colts, Shane Steichen, said he's optimistic he will practice. So we'll monitor. I would imagine so with such a mild ankle spring. We will. We will monitor that Juju Smith-Schuster will not play. Yeah, I mean, this seems like a serious hamstring injury. So when you know it this early, I wouldn't be surprised if he misses multiple weeks. We are previewing the Thursday night football game tomorrow, but we're expecting Cooper Cup to be back.

and T.J. Hawkinson could be back. Okay. Could be back. Aaron Jones Limited, but played really well last week. Expect him to play. Okay. Deep breath over. That was today's news and notes presented by USAA Insurance. Learn more at USA.com slash insurance. It took us a while to get here. We'll take a quick break and come back with the waiver wire. All right. Back from the buy. Caleb Williams and Company, the Bears playing football. And Dallas, who, by the way, Jerry Jones, more comments this morning on the radio show. I don't know if you saw it. Oh, I saw. He said Derek Henry's having a career year. I don't think he would be in our offense in the system that we run. And so that's one of the reasons we didn't sign him along with money. Mike, any comments? Jerry, shut up.

Oh, that's actually a good advice. That's my final comment. It's actually good advice because you haven't been saying a lot of things lately that have helped you out. Seriously? So for your own sake, because your family loves you, it was shut up. It was a little rude. So Jerry, you don't, you don't have to talk. You can just, just move on. Stop flapping your lips, old man. All right, no bye weeks this week. Okay. That means it's a busy week, busy waivers. I just realized their show's got about 20 minutes longer on Thursday and Friday. Don't worry, though, because four teams will be on buying week 10. Okay. Yeah, I mean, it's just not possible. I'm like, it's not possible to even it out. There's no way to do this. I just wanted to just an explanation. There's no way to do it. Just why? Why does it work out this way? Maybe there's a good answer.

On the surface, it seems like there's not. I'm searching my brain for a good answer. I can't find one. I mean, the logistic reason why it needs to be this way, I just, I don't know what it is. I'm sure there is. There's so much that has to go into scheduling that's beyond what we consider, like concert tours and all sorts of things. I mean, I can't imagine putting together an actual NFL schedule. That seems borderline impossible. If you told me. If you told me that they do the math on which weeks they need. more revenue from the TV ratings or something silly. Yeah. That would be a defining characteristic. Yeah. Like sweeps or whatever. NFL sweeps a week? I don't know. Oh, man. It's just, it's weird. That's a 90s cut. All right. I started the running back position. And, you know, Jalen Warren's name is going to come up there. He's only 42% rostered. He's probably at the, at the near tippy top of the list. If.

Somebody like Alexander Madison's not available who got 23 carries. Look, it's dirty, nasty, gross in Las Vegas. Where was this last year, Alexander? He does look better this year than last year. And got 70% of the snaps, but he's rostered in 62% of leagues. Jason's been faithfully playing him. He's one of his stars. Oh, man. He has been one of my stars. I mean, a lot of touchdowns. I don't believe he will be a star this week. No, no, no. Against Kansas City. Kansas City has been shutting down. Everyone their defense has made for ugly victories over and over and over, but every single week of the year. So I don't, you know, obviously if he's out there, you've got to pick him up. You've got a roster guy who's getting the amount of works and utilization. He was top 10 in snap rate for the running back position this week. And so grab him. He's probably rostered, though, and I don't want to start him this week.

You have Jalen Warren, who we talked about extensively in difference makers. They play the Giants, then the buy week. So that's the only trouble there. Giants good defense. He's a bit part player. It's more of an investment in the future. That's the way I'd be looking at Warren. Obviously, you could spot start him. You could also spot start a player like Tyler Algier, who's 50% rostered, who will get some chances. You're always begging for a touchdown there. You know, it's really kind of gross to me at running back this week. Ray Davis's roster percentages down at 29% Buffalo Bills running back rookie. You could try to get him and look at that as a committee scored last week, but only got six opportunities. Yeah, he wasn't on the field that much. When he got on the field, he still looked great. He looked just as good as the week prior. So again, he might be earning more playing time. Right now, I'd say he's just an insurance back, a stash guy that you're picking up.

in case of an injury. We have proof, you know, in the pudding of should Cook go down to injury. Ray Davis looks like a really solid. He should certainly be rostered, but again, probably not a play this week. If you want someone that you can- I don't want to spend fab this week. No, I think there are actually across wide receivers and running backs a lot of really good $0 bids. Like these aren't guys I'm paying up for or burning my waiver priority on, but there are a ton of shots you can shoot. where you can put out a single dollar bid or a zero dollar bid. If you need a start, you know, we talked about Jalen Warren, but I would throw Justice Hill in there, a very similar type of player where he's involved in the passing game, you know, this is a better offense. And even though Derek Henry is king of the castle, king of the castle, you know. He's king of the hill too. Yeah. Oh, nice. King of the Justice Hill.

You didn't even mean that, did you? Of course I did. Okay. You don't have to just say it. You regretted it afterwards? No, I didn't regret. I only regret it when you stated it like an explanation. Just let them have it. Justice Hill, though, the problem is there's been three good weeks and four bad ones. And so you are rolling the dice on, that's what they all feel like this week outside of even Jalen Warren. And here, look, I'm going to throw this out there. Like Cordero Patterson's back this week. So like there's a three-headed monster in Pittsburgh that makes me. That's been reported that he is.

Yeah. No, I'm just saying it could be a three-headed monster. We don't, we haven't seen what the Arthur Smith Steelers actually looks like when all three of them are really ready to go. The name I will throw out here at the, because, yeah, the running backs are mostly just like, just pad, you know, pick up your insurance running backs at this point. We don't know what the status of Travis ETN is. And Tink Bigsby is their primary guy when they're winning. But the Jaguars are playing Green Bay this week. I think that Deerness Johnson is going to be on the field a ton. He had nine carries and four targets this past week. And if you were watching the game at the beginning, when they were down 10 nothing, Tank Beaksby was doing nothing. So that's, it's nasty. But in. That's a 50 point over under in that game. And I'm guessing Green Bay is probably favored by 42.

Yeah, it's wild. I'm going to guess eight. I don't know. Is it in Jacksonville? It is. Yes. Then I'll say five or six. So if you are really struggling. Four and a half. I think that there's a chance that he is, that Dearness is on the field, ate a lot. With the lack of sexy in these names, are you going to let a Braylon Allen go or a Devon Singletarian go? I'm not letting Braylon go. These are the guys you need to pick up right now. Blake Corum doing nothing. while Kyron is out there 90% of snaps and owning everything. But listen to the other part of that. Kyron's out there 90% of snaps. He's going to snap. He could snap. He's snapped in the past. Oh, no. These type of insurance backs are those cheap bids that people, people aren't going hard after insurance backs right now, but they need to be rostered.

so that next week when the waiver wire comes after injury and you go, everyone's got to spend all your flab on. You know what? Just dump your flab off your body. We got to shed these LBs. I didn't even know that was an option. I can spend it. You can spin your flab. Fab or flab to pick up these players. But when we're saying next week on Blake Quorum or Braylin Allen that you've got to lose all the weight on them. You'll already have them on your roster. And, you know, if you have a struggle in losing weight, now you don't have to. Al just said he's getting every player. I've got so much more flab than you guys. Hey, speak for yourself, man. I got, I still got. You're working on your flag. I'm working on it, but got a lot left to love. So you guys will get the players. Look, if we turn the page to wide receivers, I'd want to know not whether or not you pick up Juan Jennings and Ricky Pearsall. Those are going to be tippy top of the list.

pickups. It's more how much do you invest and what are you willing to lose to do it? Are you, are we at the point now where yes, we love Josh Downs, but no, he's not going to have a quarterback the rest of the year. So we're going to go trade him in and get a Ricky Pearceal or Juan Jennings. I would punt Josh Downs off a bridge if I needed to have someone I could start. If this is an opportunity, like if I need to start him, putting Josh Downs on your roster to me is like putting Blake Quorum on your roster.

He could be great if his quarterback goes down. Is that dropping the flab is like when you let a guy go off of the team? Oh, man, you're trimming. You're trimming the flab? Trimming the fat. And spinning the fad. Yeah, I think guys like that, you can let go. Joanne Jennings and Ricky Piersall, you're going to burn your waiver priority. You're going to spend a good amount of fab. The question is. I want to know what that is and how, if they're the same amount or what? I am personally less bullish than most. I'm not sure Joanne Jennings plays. It's possible. If he doesn't play this week, they have a buy week next week. So there's a good. There's an advantage to maybe sitting in. Right. And so I guess I don't want to burn my priority or dump 2535 Fab on a player that maybe will be good three weeks from now if I can't play them this week. Now, you might drop 25 and play them this week and have a star. I don't know. But that's where I would rather put pierce all.

in my priority because I don't know that he's going to be as good as Joanne Jennings, but I know he's playing football. Yeah, I think that's a team construction differential because I would spend it on Juan. If Juan doesn't play for three weeks, I don't care. I think that I think he's going to be so good. Think about how bad Brandon Ayuk has been. And if Brandon Ayuk was on the waiver wire and healthy, like Joanne Jennings was actually productive. I would spend a lot if I had the capacity to withstand the next couple of weeks. and he could play like you said yeah i would go after that um there are three names that are really highly rostered that are on our waiver list by the way join the foot dot com get access to the ultimate dashboard and get a custom waiver wire list specific to each of your leagues like the ultimate dashboard lets you import your leagues and your rosters as many as you got and you can go through each one and not only get your lineup optimized but get spot starts from the waiver wire and a custom waiver list

specific to who's available in your league. So so much of what we talk about in the show is just like kind of bringing up why a player might be valuable. There's so much interleague context that you need to have. And two notes on that. One, the spot starts stew. What is? I just, I got a lot of body on the mind. I'm trying to remove flab and healthy BMs here. But that tool. is so valuable later in the week. When you're sitting there Saturday and you're not sure if you made the right waiver pickup, the spot start is awesome. You just go through your leagues and say, man, this guy could outscore someone in my lineup. But the other part is we do an hour, hour and 10 minutes trying to give you as much information as we can. We do not cover all the players in our waiver pickups. Like the tool online has far more players than the players we're mentioning here. And they'll be specific to your.

league. So check, check that out at join the foot.com. So the three higher rostered are Jerry, Judy, Khalil, Shakir, and Romeo Dobbs. Dobbs was eight for 94 this past week, so two good weeks since he's returned from his hissy fit. Cedric Tillman, eight for 81 on 12 targets. Seems like a concerted effort to develop Cedric Tillman in this office. I mentioned in the office. This is Cleveland, by the way. Yeah, the Cleveland Browns. He's a second year player. And after the Amari Cooper trade and breaking everything down, I was like, I, regret not at least mentioning Cedric Tillman because it's like is Jerry Judy good at looking at the career of Jerry Judy is he a a really good player and I think he's just he's fine like I've seen enough Jerry Judy say he can get things done every once in a while I don't blame you though because Cedric Talman had five targets on the year he was atrocious his rookie year no I mean this year

This year he had five targets in six weeks, so I don't blame me for not bringing him up because we all expected it to be Elijah Moore, David Njoku, Jerry Judy, and also gross. So now it's all changing. Yes. But he was a third round pick. His rookie year was, I mean, if you're looking at peripherals, was disastrous. But Cedric Tillman, over the off season, heading into the season, he was one of the names from the Cleveland Brown's training camp that was like, Year 2 for Sandra Tillman's looking a lot better. Now, obviously, that didn't happen right away, but Amari Cooper leaving. They're, like Jerry Judy doesn't play the same type of, he's not the same archetype of wide receiver as Amari Cooper, where Tillman's an outside wide receiver. Do you remember the bar that you could ride Ice Cage over? Yeah, yeah, the Josh character. The Josh's character. Yeah, moral character. His actual, like, fundamental personality.

That's kind of the same kind of bar that Jerry Judy and Elijah Moore have set on the ground for Cedric Tillman. So look, if it's Winston, I'm more excited about that pickup. I would agree. But he's available in 100% of leagues. But 12 targets this past week. Don't ignore the target. Eight for 81. Meanwhile, like Jerry Judy was at five targets. So it's, this is low probability stuff, but he is a second year wide receiver. He was a day two pick out of Tennessee. Like I liked Tillman. I thought that he was a very interesting outside wide receiver, knowing it could take some time for him to actually develop in the NFL. But the opportunity in front of him is, this is a major, a major break for him of trading the, trading Amari Cooper way, and having the potential of James Winston, which we don't, have we gotten any more news on what the Browns are planning to do with quarterback? I haven't seen anything. I would imagine that they're going to do the NFL coaching thing.

We're not going to know until late in the week. Hopefully we know like Friday they announce a starter, but, you know, maybe earlier I doubt it. I have a really difficult time with Cedric Tillman when you've been as bad as he's been. I get it. I know he's only in his second year, which honestly surprised me. He was so bad. I thought he was drafted like 20 years ago. It's difficult. But 12 targets, 82% of snaps, and he goes into a role that it was vacated. I get it. You got to pay attention to that. What was your reaction to Keon Coleman's 4-4-125 this past week? Because I think a lot of people would expect us to have brought his name up first. He's a rookie. We know rookies take time to develop. Mari Cooper, you know, none of Coleman's targets came directly because of Mari Cooper was on the football field. But you can see that being a good outcome potentially for him, the way that T. Higgins and Jamar Chase benefit one another.

He's not a big passing pie, but an efficient one. That's, he, Coleman's difficult. He's worth adding 100%. It's just the, the level of how aggressive would you go after him where, I mean, they, would you rather have him or Dantavian Wicks on your, on your team? Because both are pretty available. I think I'd go, I think I'd go Wix. I like Coleman there. But it's- Jason? Man, I was really hoping you didn't ask me. Yeah, sorry. It's not a huge difference. If you were in a black shirt today, I would not have asked you, but because you're wearing a slightly forest green olive hue, I will ask you. I'm going to go Coleman. Like a Packer shirt. Yeah, I'm going to go Coleman simply because this is a highly drafted rookie. He is a, you know, the opportunities are going to be forced his direction a little bit more than Wix. Wix, this last game, like I would take Dobbs over either of them.

Obviously, he's more rostered. But Dobbs is on the field. His targets are a little bit more assured. When you look at Wicks and Christian Watson, they're basically playing the same role. And they're kind of splitting the snaps while Reed and Dobbs are just on the field. So I lean, I would take Coleman there. I want to bring up a, we talked about the 49 wide receivers. There's been some rumors this morning about the zero target Cortland Sutton. to San Francisco. We already know that there was some rumors about Coral and Sutton going to the 49ers during the IUC saga because there were some three-way trade discussions about IUC leaving, Sutton being the piece coming over to San Francisco. Do it. The Denver Broncos are clearly committed to Franklin and Valet and Mims and the young crowd.

I say all that to say, keep that in mind with the 49er receivers you pick up and keep that in mind when you look at the development of a young player like Troy Franklin and Valet in Denver, who, again, they're going to have to depend on a rookie quarterback who has been hit and miss. But this past week, Troy Franklin was five for 50 on 51% of snaps. Okay. I mean, that's fine. If you look at the last two weeks, I don't want to make too much of it. No, but if you look at the last two weeks, there's been a shift. You still have Cortland Sutton as the clear.

snap leader in the wide receivers. He is their one despite having no targets last week. He's the one no matter what, unless he gets freighted, in which case the whole man, the pants are evaporating. You want him to take some of the zero targets from Sutton this next week? I want him to take the snaps because I think he can earn targets. You've got him right now over the last two weeks. He is leading in targets. He's leading in receptions. He's second behind valet in total yards obviously had a touchdown made and a touchdown dropped in the last two weeks. So why isn't valet on this list? Veilet should absolutely be on this list. This is a Denver Broncos team with Bo Nix that is getting the youth more involved. Their offense looks like they're clicking a little bit more. They're certainly not even middle of the pack or high powered offense yet. But this is the path of a rookie. And we talk about this with rookie wide receivers, despite the fact that you see someone like,