Week 8 Waivers + Full Stream Ahead, Iron Pants - Fantasy Football Podcast for 10/26

You look at catch percentages on players, and it's not a coincidence that the best quarterbacks have the receivers with the best catch percentage, right? It is more than just an equation that relates to the receiver and their ability. It has to do with, you know, Ron Dale Moore and Christian Kirk were leading the league in catch percentage. Well, your MVP candidate, you know, Kyler Murray has something to do with that. So Robbie Anderson is one part Robbie problems, two parts darnold issues. You know, this was a player who was extended.

who had Teddy Bridgewater throwing them ball last year and had no problems. And you wanted to come in and say, oh, it's all going to be like the olden days with same Darnold. And- Oh, it is. It is. It is. So be careful what you asked for. Other drop candidates, Tyler Lockett, Tim Patrick, I would keep those guys on your roster. Yeah. Real quick, because we're approaching. Lockett was a disaster last night. We are, oh, such a disaster. Freddie Swain was more. It was like the whole backup quarterback third stringer.

When I saw Freddie Swain grab that slant and go, I was like, go lock it. Wait a minute. That's an eight. Darn it. But real quick, before we drop Robbie Anderson, as I just said, you know, punt him off the bridge. It's too late. I already did. Is this a Watson conversation? It's a Watson question. What happens to Robbie Anderson if they do indeed trade for Deshaun Watson this week?

I mean, I'm not trading for any of these assets or paying up for anyone that could be affected by Deshaun Watson, but cutting them, you know, I guess it's if, I guess as I'm working through this, if it's not something necessary, I might just hold on one more week for the hope of that. But.

I don't blame anyone for moving on. Well, let's compare it to the available options, right? Because that's all that matters. That is all that matters. It's who'd you rather have on your bench? A lot of these waiver pickups, you might not be putting them right into your lineup on a week with only two by teams. You might be stashing them. You might be looking to the future. And so when we look at the waiver wire, you know, there's one player that's half available that is at the very tippy top of my list. And that's Rashad Bateman. I believe that Rashad Bateman is... Looking good.

If you want to compare it to another situation, I do compare it to D.K. Metcalf and Tyler Lockett in Seattle, where, you know, you look at that situation there and you say, which guy would I rather have? Well, I'd rather have D.K. Metcalfe. Which guy can have a big game, both of them on any given week? I went back and watched all the film on Rashad Bateman from this past week. This is an outstanding player that I think very quickly will be a primary target, the primary target in the offense.

That doesn't mean anything negative against Hollywood Brown. He's still going to get his three deep bombs a game. He's still going to be very productive. But he's not on the waiver wire. Hollywood Brown's not sitting there in the waiver wire. If he were, I would pick him up. Yeah. So Rashad Bateman is a player that may get more ignored, may cost you less fab because of the buy week that's about to hit. So if you're not signing to start, he's at the top of my list. At the top of my list, because...

Obviously, you're not starting Bateman this week, and he's almost... I dare you to try. I mean, I hope you do against me. About the same roster percentage is Cadarius Tony. I would rather have Cadarius Tony than Bateman. You might not have Cadarius Tony back this week. He could be, and if he is, Kansas City, heck yeah. Yeah. But he might miss a week, but...

Bateman will not be ready either. So if you're just comparing the two rookie wide receivers, they're both good options. They both have looked talented on the field. Obviously, Bateman has the better quarterback in Lamar versus Daniel Jones, but we've seen Cadarius already have a couple of just massive break-out games. I like what I've seen more from Cadarius, Tony, and his ability to actually become the one more.

than Batemans personally. But they're very similar situations. About half-roastered in most leagues might not be available this week, but could have the rookie wide receiver. We talk about this all the time in the draft season. Rookie wide receivers usually don't do well, but they do much, much better the second half of their rookie year than the beginning. So you don't draft them, but you do pick them up or trade for them. And so, yeah, these two guys. If Marvin Jones is somehow out there, please pick them up off of the buy.

there's the chance that he's out there. And Alan Lazard, Randall Cobb, Marquez Valdez, Gantling, if you're shooting your shot this week without Devante against the Cardinals defense, which has been frankly dominant over the course of the first seven weeks, you know, the Cardinals are going to be at home. This is a tough one. If you're going to start one, like this is a situation where maybe I'm taking my waiver wire and I'm not spending any fab. And I'll put.

Lizard and I'll put Cobb in there. And if I get one, I get one. And if I don't, I'm not going to, it's no sweat off my back. I don't think I'm going to lose a huge opportunity. I think I would actually spend for Lazard. I think Lizard's going to have a very good game. We saw last week he started to get really, there was a whole drive that was like all Lazard. He's got the trust of Rogers. He's going to be necessary. I mean, scored back-to-back weeks. Yeah.

I would pay for Lazard. I think that with Devante Adams out against a Cardinals, you know, the Cardinals have been a very good defense, but they're ranked 20th against wide receivers. They're giving up enough points, and if anyone's going to get it done, it's going to be Aaron Rogers. So I would take my shot on that. When I'm looking at the other options that I might be picking up, you know, Khalif Raymond, Ty Hilton, James, and Crowder, like, I think Lazard could be a top 15 wide receiver this week as not.

projecting that, but in his range of outcomes, whereas most wide receivers on the waiver wire are someone that you're just, you know, you're just hoping for like, get me to that 10 points. And I think that you have a higher hope with Lazard. Yeah, I agree. Of the Green Bay Packers, he would be the top of my list. And if, like, he's the most widely available player of all these, like, potential guys that you're picking up, uh, that can actually,

really get something done. So I'm with Jason that I'd drop a couple bucks for Alan Lizard. So let's do the Robbie Anderson test here. Would you drop Robbie Anderson for Alan Lazard if you had to play a player this week? Yes. I would too. Yeah. Yep, I would. And I would drop him for the Tony stash or the Bateman stash for sure. Agreed. Yeah. Everyone we've brought up so far, I would drop Robbie. Passes the Robbie test. Yeah. Tim Patrick is interesting because, you know, you are going to have Judy returning.

And so there could be some concern here. You know, stability is kind of what Patrick gives you. He doesn't give you ceiling. And with Judy's return, Sutton's playing well. Are you willing to start Patrick against the Washington football team this week? Yes. I am. The schedule is very nice. And while I know that- Only two for 16 last week. Right. This last week wasn't that good. I think he had an end zone target, but he had five targets. Washington, Dallas, Philly. At some point, Judy will come back.

And we'll have to, I'll probably bench him. I will not drop him, but bench him to see how that offense plays out with a healthier wide receiver core. But presuming that Judy's not ready yet, I think against Washington, he's a fine play. Yeah, I agree. If Judy is active, I'm not going to play Patrick. Oh, okay. All right. Yeah, that was a, if it's just him and Sutton again, Washington, their defense stinks.

I don't really happen. I don't know, man. They went from dominant, unbelievable shutdown last year to not like they're okay. They're like the worst in the league. It's funny though, but because for fantasy, they're not as bad as they are in reality. Because they, I think they had five sacks last week or something. I mean, they still put up positive totals defensively, despite the fact that they have been a disaster. But yeah, I don't, you know.

They've fallen apart. You know, your offense puts you in terrible positions too, right? You give up a lot of points, but then you're working with short fields. I mean, at halftime the other game, you remember this? This is hilarious. We're at halftime, and Taylor Heineke's playing all right, and the announcer comes out, and he's like, oh, we interviewed the head coach, and, you know, he said, oh, Taylor Heineke's playing like he's totally not afraid to make mistakes. And Jason and I go,

You should probably be afraid of making a mistake. I mean, two seconds later, he's got, he doesn't slide into the end zone correctly. He fumbled the ball twice. He turned the ball over and you give your team a short field to try to play defense against. I think at one point, the Packers were just trouncing them on the scoreboard. And in Washington football team had so many more yards because it was all just mistakes of turnovers. But their defense.

is bad. I mean, against wide receivers, they're ranked 31st. They're giving up the second most points. Right. So Tim Patrick is a play if Judy is out. Now, we don't know that by the time waivers run. We're not going to know for sure if Judy's out there. So would you pivot and prefer a different option? Yeah, let's test that. Tim Patrick with the risk, and I think Judy's back, by the way. They've talked about him way too much. Yeah. Which makes me think that he's also going to be heavily involved. But T. Y. Hilton.

You know, or Tim Patrick. T.Y. Hilton gets Tennessee, another good matchup. Tell that to the Chiefs. Yeah, seriously. I would, man. I mean, let's say you got, I mean, because you have to spin the fab now. You don't get the choice of waiting. If I got to go right now, I guess I'm going Hilton. I would as well. Better, even better schedule over the next three weeks. And the arrow will point up for Hilton as he gets healthy. The arrow will point down for Patrick as Judy gets home. What about KJ. Osborne or Tim Patrick? Osborne is barely rostered. You can pick them up off the by.

Jason and I were talking yesterday. When the Vikings barely lost in overtime to the Bengals, we're like, oh, my gosh, what a bad loss. Now we know the Bengals are great. When they barely lost to the Cardinals, it was like, oh, man, they should have won that game. Now we know the Cardinals are great. They should have won both of those games. And that's the number one seed in the AFC and the number one seed in the NFC. Like maybe the Vikings are good. Osborne or Patrick, if you're making a decision today.

Patrick still. Yeah, I would go Patrick. Osborne, it took overtime and some late heroics last week to be relevant. And that was his second time being relevant really on the season. It is the highest over under the week, 55 points for the dollar. Minnesota games. You're going to hear me talk about cousins this week. Russell Gage last week had a big bomb touchdown. Six targets, four for 67 and one. He's weird, man.

Because he had seven targets in week two. Granted against Tampa Bay and Matt Ryan looked very rusty in those first couple of weeks. He's looked much better. He has. Russell Gage is, he's at least interesting. He is interesting. He was supposed to come in as like he was one of my later draft picks pretty frequently because you look at the opportunity he has in this offense. And then he got injured early and has missed, you know, the majority of the season comes back as a good game. The problem is... I'm not interested.

Yeah, and what I was about to say is the reason you're not interested. The problem is he's at best third. Pitts has established himself now going forward that Pitts might be the one on the team. If not, he's the two behind Ridley. So you're really playing for scraps here. And you got to look at him. Cardarrell's ahead of him. Yeah, sure. He could be ahead of him in the passing game alone as well. And then so he, he being Russell Gage to me is a weekly matchup, a streaming option. And Carolina's defense is very, very good. So this isn't the week for him.

What do you think about Darius Slayton, New York Giants, where he was kind of the last man standing. I know that we had the incredible Dante Pettis touchdown. But nine targets for Darius Slayton gets to take on the Kansas City Chiefs. It is the Monday night game, so we don't know for sure. It's Tony active. It seems impossible to pick up and play Slayton. And I am in the Slayton camp.

but it legitimately seems impossible to do it this week because it came down to game time decision last week for Shepard and then Tony may be in that boat again and it just seems hard to because what's your pivot? I mean, I'm certainly not playing Slayton with a healthy Tony and a healthy shepherd. No, and the fact that it's Monday night.

not only makes it harder, you know, to make the decision early, but gives more time for those players to be healthy. I would presume at least one of them would be active. So I'm out on, uh, on Slayton. I think we kind of, I mentioned James and Crowder's name, but we kind of glossed over him with Joe Flacco in tow and James Crowder's available in the majority of leagues. He would be a really good pickup to me. I think he's going to be a safe 10 points. Maybe. You know, in six games with Flacco last year, he averaged 10 fantasy points game. Um,

Obviously, they've added Corey Davis. It's a new system. And there's, you know, there's question marks. But I think Crowder would be a somewhat safe option and a half or full PPR. Maybe. Taking on the Bengals this week, that's not something I want to mess around with. I think that White probably starts this week. But either way, like the Bengals defense looks legitimate.