Late-Round Perspectives: Pat Daugherty

00:00:00
Speaker 1: Pat Doherty is an NFL writer and podcaster at NBC Sports Roadal World, and he's the king of.

00:00:05
Speaker 2: Player news Blurs. He's a Missouri.

00:00:08
Speaker 1: Native, a dad of many, a Jeff Fischer scholar, and he's very aware that he sounds like Charlie Day. These are his Late Round perspectives. This episode is sponsored by Underdog. Underdog is the easiest place to play fantasy sports and they give you a ton of different games and contests to choose from each week. If you think drafting is over because the season started, you'd be wrong. You can draft teams over there each week in literal minutes right now. If you sign up an Underdog with promo code Late Round, you not only get a deposit offer of up to one thousand dollars, but you also get access to my rest of season rankings. Those will be emailed to you once you sign up. But when you sign up, you have to use promo code Late Round. Had to Underdog Fantasy dot Com or download the app to do so. Again, that's promo code Late Round. Now back to the show. I was thinking, I was like, man, how how has it been this long before I had rotopat on Late Round perspectives, and then I realized, you know, I mean, I'm really just going by the people that I like the most in the So this is like this is number forty or so of late round perspectives, and so this is about where you would rank for me, you know, within people that I've met in the fantasy space.

00:01:31
Speaker 3: You know, that's the joke answer. Everyone knows the real answer, of course, because if Denny and I is ongoing litigation and it's just a little complicated to get me on to you. You, I'm friends with you. Denny's friends with you. This is a little weird the stuff between.

00:01:44
Speaker 4: Denny and I. But yes, exactly, the lawyer said this was allowed finally.

00:01:47
Speaker 2: Exactly exactly. Yeah, you and I. I mean, look, you and I have hung out a handful of times.

00:01:52
Speaker 1: Now you you actually back in I think we're in Nashville when this happened. We were out at dinner the one night, and uh, it was was like peak Jeff Fisher gif time, right like like like like I I had this. People don't even know about the Fisher gifts man, Like they don't even know that this was a thing. But back when Jeff Fisher refused to be fired, from his job where he just continuously maintained his gig. And look, I'm talking to somebody who is are you still do you still consider yourself like a Rams fan?

00:02:22
Speaker 3: No?

00:02:23
Speaker 4: Thank god No.

00:02:24
Speaker 3: I did not know what like the psychodrama with that would be if I would still feel some weird attachment. But now it was like a divorce where listen, I want her to be happy, but we're not ever speaking.

00:02:36
Speaker 2: Okay, okay, that's very very fair, very fair.

00:02:38
Speaker 1: But back then, so Jeff Fisher, you know, obviously was the Rams head coach, and there was a I mean, people knew that he was just incredibly mediocre at his job, but he was good enough to maintain his job. But he was also just kind of like an enigma, Like he was just a very interesting person and coach in the way that he kind of kind of Arthur Smith esque in a way. Right would you would you? Would that be his comforence?

00:03:01
Speaker 3: He was? He actually unlike Arthur Smith, he wanted to be loved, yeah, but he was just a man out of time. He was like stuck ever so slightly between eras and he got in at like the tail end of the old school football era where he found some success of course making a Super Bowl, but he was not ready for like twenty first century passing pyrotechnics, right, they actually call penalties football, and yeah, he just was not ready, especially in the penalties called penalties.

00:03:29
Speaker 4: Exactly.

00:03:29
Speaker 1: But he so so back when when he was like like in in the conversation if you will, I decided that I was going to make Jeff Fisher gifts part of my brand. It was gonna be because there were there were some random ones out there that I would use pretty frequently.

00:03:45
Speaker 2: But then what really got this going was.

00:03:47
Speaker 1: They were on Hard Knocks and I would literally I would watch Hard Knocks on you know, my computers that I could record a random Jeff Fisher interaction like one of them. I remember he was worn glasses and they were glass there. This is just so standard Jeff Fisher. There were glasses that they could they're like readers that he could pull apart from the middle.

00:04:10
Speaker 4: So that I remember the gift, So the.

00:04:12
Speaker 1: Bridge the bridge of the glass and then and then you could just pull them down and then they'd kind of hang around his neck. And I just made a gift out of that. Or do you say gift for Jeff? Are you a gift, I'd say gift.

00:04:22
Speaker 3: I mean, I'm from the Midwest though a lot of difficult pronunciations. Jeff seems like kind of a Pennsylvania thing. I know you're down in the sun belt. Now.

00:04:29
Speaker 1: Yeah, But I said, but I say gift, I'm I'm a gift. I'm not a But apparently apparently the creator says that it's Jiff and not gift. But Jeff to me is always just peanut butter.

00:04:41
Speaker 3: And you can't listen, like eventually phonetics wins out.

00:04:45
Speaker 2: Yes, right, exactly, it's gift.

00:04:48
Speaker 1: So I had all these Jeff Fisher gifts and you were probably my number one supporter with I was easily yeah, because it was it was just it was just a constant, and I know so many people were so sick of them. I eventually had to retire them whenever he lost his job. I made a thread including like fifteen to twenty of them. But you were the only person I think that I shared the library with. We were sitting at dinner, sitting at dinner, and I busted it out. I was like on dropbox, all of the all the gifts in your reason.

00:05:20
Speaker 3: I had ever seen a folder on an iPhone like, Wow, someone actually has a folder.

00:05:24
Speaker 1: Yeah, I had a folder of Fisher gifts and I think I had like eighty of them sitting.

00:05:29
Speaker 3: No, you did, and it was genuinely like amazing, and it's amazing how many of those have kind of like entered like the public domains so to speak, or the lexicon. Yes, one of my favorites ever was the gift. It was like an unsteady camera shot of him running out of the tunnel.

00:05:44
Speaker 4: Yeah, really like the Rose Bowl.

00:05:46
Speaker 3: I must have been the Super Bowl against the Rams, which was not in the Rose Bowl, but like a pretty young Fisher, like basically like a glamour TV camera shot a Fisher. Yeah, as much as Jeff Fisher can be glamorized.

00:05:58
Speaker 4: To have to show you the one I'm.

00:05:58
Speaker 3: Talking about after the show, yeah, yeah, but there's several of them. They're like I have entered and never left. Yes, so you did, people too. Genuinely, this is not a joke. This is the genuine hashtag. People forget how huge of a part of your early brand this one.

00:06:13
Speaker 2: It was.

00:06:13
Speaker 1: It was actually massive, Like it was a huge, huge reason why uh, you know I was able to sustain success within the space is because of the Fisher gifts my I think my favorite one that I recorded was there's like an interview that he was doing and it was like a black a very dark background, and you could only kind of see it was like a shadowed face of his and the camera the camera would slowly zoom on him, and then he had a he blinked once like during just a very natural human blank.

00:06:38
Speaker 2: It wasn't like a weird blank. And then I sent a tweet out once it said blink once.

00:06:42
Speaker 1: If you want to go eight and eight forever or something like that, and that was one of the most viral tweets that I ended up having.

00:06:48
Speaker 3: With I genuinely remembered that tweet, and I remember the gift. You wait so long for the blink, like the blanket.

00:06:55
Speaker 4: Cut out of this one. Yeah, and it always comes, It always delivers.

00:06:59
Speaker 2: It always it always hit.

00:07:00
Speaker 1: But yeah, I just have to say, I appreciate your unwavering support with all the Fisher gifts UH through the years. But look, man, you you've been You've been around the space for a while now. And I like to do this because people have called me or have said on Twitter that I'm attempting to be the Joe Rogan of the fantasy football space. It's what they've what they've said, because you know clearly when you go from a fifteen to twenty minute solo show and you start to do an interview show once a week, then all of a sudden, that's the path that you're attempting to go down. But in that in that sort of vein, like I want to know more about you, and I say this with every analyst that hops on, I want to know sort of the start to finish or not finish, or where you're at now.

00:07:42
Speaker 2: Journey of how Rodopat was born, Well, it's.

00:07:45
Speaker 3: I mean, I have one of the most traditional entries and like ongoing careers in the industry out there, I would say probably one they can't be repeated in this day and age. Where I mean my thing was, I went to journalism school. Well, I studied to become a writer. I wanted to become a writer. I got a job immediately writing for Fanball, which I believe is still back, but it was a different incarnation of Fanball. Was a local company too. It was based in Saint Louis. I went into the office. Actually this being the fantasy industry, it went bankrupt in eighteen months after I started working there, but I had already made like contacts and connections too. Like luck plays a huge part in a lot of this, and Evan Silva was quite literally a friend of a friend of a friend who I met in a fantasy baseball league.

00:08:38
Speaker 4: Is how I met Evan.

00:08:39
Speaker 3: So I knew the Silver Brothers via a fantasy baseball like, I didn't actually know them. My company goes belly up. All I've been doing for eighteen months is writing player news blurbs.

00:08:49
Speaker 4: Yeah, fanball.

00:08:50
Speaker 3: So I had like heavy experience and that I was doing all four sports too. You ever doing a player news site, I would recommend going by sport.

00:08:59
Speaker 4: Yeah, people do all four.

00:09:00
Speaker 2: Wait, so you were doing you were doing hockey blurbs.

00:09:03
Speaker 4: I was. I was not a joke.

00:09:05
Speaker 3: In twenty ten eleven, I knew not only all then thirty starting goalies, I knew.

00:09:10
Speaker 4: All their backups.

00:09:11
Speaker 2: Wow.

00:09:11
Speaker 4: Wow they did a lot of like so and so.

00:09:13
Speaker 2: Shout out, shout out front of the show. Roberto Lomongo, by the way.

00:09:17
Speaker 3: Yeah, so I'm sure Longo you know it was mostly starting back then.

00:09:20
Speaker 1: Yeah he I mean he was not a Yeah, he wasn't like a deep backup or anything like.

00:09:24
Speaker 3: That, so I didn't have to blurblongo a ton. But yeah, so where was I even going on this state company to go through that business? I have experience. I don't even interview it wrote a world. They just they gave me like a test shift and they needed someone like that Sunday morning. I was like, yeah, sure, wow, I'll try it. And I was a blurb. The lamest prodigy you can be is being a blurb prodigy.

00:09:47
Speaker 4: But I was a blurb prodigy.

00:09:49
Speaker 1: I mean, look, but but so, I do want to ask you when you graduated, were you immediately saying to yourself, I want to work in the you probably were you saying sports not necessarily fantasy?

00:10:00
Speaker 4: Yes?

00:10:00
Speaker 3: I so, though, so some people do get into the fantasy industry and they're not even necessarily fantasy guys. I was thankfully a fantasy football fanatic, which this is not fantasy baseball. I was a real big fantasy baseball fanatic. And this is really obvious advice, of course, But even now you'll still come across people who like clearly like aren't playing fantasy sports like they played or they have played, but they're not doing it like maybe on a daily basis, like they love sports, they love football, but they're not into fantasy. That is a hindrance. It's obvious when someone like does not play the way we did. So like I wanted to be in sport, I didn't really know what I wanted to. I wanted to be a writer. Yeah, in college I did zero sports writing, but I kind of always secretly knew that I probably would do sports writing. But I just like, for some reason, I don't know it was arrogance or whatever, I was like, I'm not even gonna do I'm going to do other kinds of writing, see like what I might be good at. But yeah, I played a ton of fantasy sports in college. Gotcha too, Like to get this job, I replied to a list and that didn't even list what the company was. So another thing that's probably, you know, wouldn't happen today. So it was traditional back then, I would say, probably not repeatable in this like really fractured media enviire.

00:11:14
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, tough economy back then too, because I graduated around the same time and it was not fun.

00:11:19
Speaker 3: You were talking about tough economy in the journalism sector too. All I heard in J school is about wait, another great paper went bankrupt today. Yeah, yeah, and yeah it was not good times in the journalism. It's never good times in the journalism industry. Actually, Yeah, very volatile sector to be working in.

00:11:38
Speaker 2: Yes, it sure is. So you've been at road a world since Yeah, I.

00:11:42
Speaker 3: Mean like it's twenty eleven, yeah, three, yeah, which some people. So I've always loved the job. I've always loved the company. There's been other opportunities, of course, it's just been so like so such a good fit for me too, Like it's so rare in this modern media.

00:12:02
Speaker 4: Environment to be one place for thirteen years.

00:12:04
Speaker 2: Yeah.

00:12:04
Speaker 3: I feel gracious for that and gonna keep doing it as long as I can, I think, Yeah, And I don't know if I'll ever mix it up at some point, But I love the job, and yeah, I love stability. I've got the one stable fantasy football job in the.

00:12:18
Speaker 1: Entire yeah, yeah, which does not does not exist in this space and most of the like you said, in most of like the content driven, journalism driven type spaces.

00:12:28
Speaker 2: But within rotal world, you've been doing player news stuff.

00:12:30
Speaker 1: You said you started even doing that at at Fanball out of school.

00:12:35
Speaker 2: I would say that.

00:12:36
Speaker 1: You're the king of player news within the fantasy space at this point like that, like, I mean, you are, you can take that however you want. You are pat, let that be. Just let that settle. You just don't don't don't deny it.

00:12:46
Speaker 2: Just let it be. Okay, you were.

00:12:47
Speaker 3: I mean, I love it. Don't don't get me wrong. Anytime someone says them like, try to be it is very cool. It is. It's just extremely cool to be known for something. Of course, other people as good at it as I am, So many people who've been as good at it as I have been at NBC. Yeah, but I would be lying if I said it wasn't amazing to you know, it's like the funny blurb guy.

00:13:07
Speaker 2: Yeah, you're you're you're the player news guy.

00:13:09
Speaker 1: And like if if there's a consist like if you've been reading Roote World for you know, the decade that you plus that you've been there, chances are when you've laughed out loud at any of the blurbs, like you've played a role in that. You know, obviously there's people that are doing, you know, similar things and like being funny and so I'm not I'm not trying to say anything negative about the folks. Who have been in and out of road a world, or even like Denny, who's there now, But like you you have I I know when a blurb was written by you at this point.

00:13:35
Speaker 4: Well it's funny.

00:13:36
Speaker 3: Friend of mutual friend Chris Harris always knows. He'll text me like this has to be yeah, and it's always me. But I will say to to the young people. One of the benefits of getting a reputation, especially a good reputation, is that now anytime there's a funny blurb, people do just assume it's me. Yeah, when you like, like you know a lot of know that was Denny, No, that was Rivers McCown.

00:13:57
Speaker 4: Yeah, like that was Kyle. Uh.

00:13:59
Speaker 3: But yeah, getting a reputation and then maintaining a good reputation, so like, you know, don't be getting an online arguments all the time. Yeah, maybe don't be like leaving jobs in a huff all the time.

00:14:10
Speaker 2: Yeah.

00:14:11
Speaker 3: Reputations are hard to get and even harder to maintain. So my my blurbing reputation allows me to take credit for every funny blurb that has ever appeared on them. Yeah.

00:14:18
Speaker 1: Well it's kind of like whenever we have like a player that we liked really early on in their careers or something like that. Like, for instance, like I liked Drake London a lot as a prospect, right, I remember that, and then I was totally wrong about him last year when I drafted him and told people to draft him all that kind of stuff, and then this year I was kind of I wasn't really like in or out on him this year. But now when he does well, people thank me for liking Drake London as if like like I'm like like two years detached from when I was actually kind of right about Drake London. As you know what I mean, Like when when you're associated with a player, you know, it's it's similar where we're like no matter how how far you know, we always hear the negatives, of course, but but oftentimes there's the positives of like, oh, you're attached to this guy no matter what happens, even if like you had a bad take or the wrong take on that player.

00:15:05
Speaker 3: Yeah, it doesn't matter if he didn't produce the last year. All the matters is that he has twenty five targets over the past two weeks and JJ is a genius.

00:15:11
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly. Look, I'll take it.

00:15:13
Speaker 1: I'll take it, but I do I always try to like like, but I'm like, guys, I didn't like have him as a as a target or anything. But when it comes to player news, I do think that people don't necessarily especially now, like you know, there's there's player news sites everywhere and a lot of them are aggregating, which is obnoxious and it's difficult. They're not the ones that are actually doing the work to create the blurbs. What do you think is sort of one of the biggest misconceptions about what you guys do with player news writing.

00:15:45
Speaker 3: Well, so one thing too, I'll say, I mean a lot of people don't like aggregated. We are still an aggregator, obviously at the end of the day.

00:15:51
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's true.

00:15:52
Speaker 3: The problem with the other aggregators a lot of times they send out stuff like without any context, without any credit. People have valid reasons. I'm sure there are journalists with valid reasons who don't like rote a world who we're getting glory for stuff they're reporting and posting all that, But we always try to credit, we always link. That's one thing. It's the rise and proliferation. I'm like, you know, totally decontextualized it's like those just like be like a tweet. It doesn't even say like Pella sero or chef.

00:16:20
Speaker 1: That's really what I mean by what I think that's because like aggregation kind of has the negative connotation that it does now, and I think it's purely based on the lack of credit that people are get. Like there's there's fantasy content aggregators that are gonna steal tweets from my data dump thread and not just say oh, if they're saying it's from JJ or J and I try to cite you know, PFF or whoever whenever. That's all it is, like that's all come like that's the important piece.

00:16:45
Speaker 3: So reporters might not even like like professional aggregators, like we are where we try to actually be like a professional journalistic enterprise. Yeah, the proliferation of like non professional ones has been you know.

00:16:56
Speaker 4: Kind of a tilting. It's tilting. It's all.

00:17:00
Speaker 3: It's like, what's the word something for down trodden. It's a demoralizing. But uh, the one thing too I wish people knew is like, uh, you're like like that it is not us. We are just aggregating. It's not this is just clickbait, like dude, I didn't.

00:17:15
Speaker 4: Report this, Yeah, right right.

00:17:17
Speaker 3: We got to send out what Jeremy Fowler put in his column, like yell at him about clickbait. Yeah, don't get me wrong, this one was clickbait. But we have to pass it along though, And that's one thing that people like will be mad at us, Like, dude, we're at the mercy of what these people report, like we like, we can't not like our whole job is just like put this information out there where we can't not put it out even if we like think it's clickbait. We might say that we think it's clickbait in the blurb, but we we still have to we have to get it out into the world.

00:17:44
Speaker 1: But you're also going out there and reading a ton and having to like like like sift through all this stuff, which is I think again the difference between sort of the aggregator that we're speaking to, where they're just looking at what rodal World says and then you know, saying, oh, this is the news item, versus you guys are at least finding the source and then reporting on the source after reading all this stuff we are.

00:18:06
Speaker 3: And that's another thing that has changed, like really severely in the past thirteen years, it's like, you know, like there's this perception we all feel it. I think there's more news than ever, there's more stuff to click and read than ever. There's way less original football news than there was when I started thirteen years ago, because I mean so many of the papers are gone, So many of the papers used to have three reporters just have one reporter. Like we're at the huge mercy like of the Athletic and ESPN to have beat writers. But it's just a little different when even when you're on a local team beat, when you're with the national like it's just kind of a different flavor of news and there's there's less to sift through than there used to be, so there is like more like there's like more saminess. There's more like just ripping off because there's less stuff out there. And that's been one unfortunate thing that's happened in the past fifteen years. There's just a lot less Like there's way fewer notebooks. Zoomers honestly might not even know like what a notebook is, Like they're in a lot of articles still, but like used to take it for granted every football colm there'd be.

00:19:10
Speaker 4: Like a notebook.

00:19:10
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I was the guy.

00:19:12
Speaker 4: Yeah, by the way, so and so it is gonna be the third down back this year.

00:19:14
Speaker 3: Yeah, and uh, there's just less news. So we're all fighting and aggregating over like fewer and fewer scraps every single year.

00:19:21
Speaker 1: I think it's felt by like, like the the more hardcore fantasy players who are not just getting their news items from a place like Roade World, the ones we're seeking it out themselves a little bit too. Like, I mean, I think of myself from an analyst perspective where I'm like, hmm, I wonder what's like a great example of this is this week. I was like, I wonder what's going on with David and Joku's knee that he evidently needed a time for, And there was literally nothing, you know, nothing for for I mean, I don't think anyone still knows what the MRI revealed. I mean it's not seemingly it was nothing, but like like there was there was no reporting on it. And it's very easy to get frustrated and say, what are these beat reporters doing? But I think to your point, it probably just stems from the fact that a lot of these papers slash institutions have just cut a lot of their reporting.

00:20:07
Speaker 3: And two so like as a result, they have less power. Like just like kind of like the beat writer brigade in general and access, it's very subtle and gradual. It's like curtailed just a little bit each year. That's another thing, like how in the world did five forty nine ers beat writers not know Christian McCaffrey. Yeah, an Achilles injury, which is kind of a fair question. Yeah, Like there's like a subtle erosion. This is especially since the pandemic. Some stuff that was changed like never was changed back or they have less access than ever. Yeah, and so there's fewer reporters, there's less access and as an extension, by by extension, worse information.

00:20:44
Speaker 4: Yeah.

00:20:44
Speaker 1: So we should probably you know, we should probably be a little bit kinder to the folks out there that are that are trying their hardest, you know, to get us the information that we that we desperately need.

00:20:54
Speaker 4: Let's let's get some desperately needed.

00:20:56
Speaker 1: Yes, yes, uh, let's get in some takes. Let let's with the New York Jets. Robert Salah gets fired. Uh today actually, because we're recording this on a Thursday, I have to always say this.

00:21:07
Speaker 2: It's before Thursday night football.

00:21:08
Speaker 1: So if something pops up with one of those teams, you guys know why we don't have takes after the fact.

00:21:13
Speaker 3: JJ curious you're not talking about brock Perty's injury exactly.

00:21:17
Speaker 2: Knock out would Buddy knock out Wood?

00:21:20
Speaker 4: I'm literally knocking.

00:21:21
Speaker 3: Yeah.

00:21:21
Speaker 2: We need we need nothing like that to happen.

00:21:24
Speaker 1: Do you like what kind of a fantasy impact you see from this, because today, uh, Todd Downing was was I guess from I don't know.

00:21:31
Speaker 2: If you call him a promotion or what, but he's.

00:21:33
Speaker 1: Apparently calling plays now, uh, you know, instead of Nathaniel Hackett, and now everyone's like, well, what's Nathaniel Hackett actually doing?

00:21:40
Speaker 2: Uh for this team?

00:21:41
Speaker 3: Uh?

00:21:42
Speaker 1: But what's your what's your general sense of like what's going on in New York right now and how that might impact fantasy football.

00:21:47
Speaker 3: My general sense isn't really based on the Jets, just based on the history of these kind of moves. And listen, I know Robert Salad was a defensive minded head coach, and jeff Oldbrick say his name, the guy being promoted is also a defensive minded So you might be like like how could this team get more conservative or how could they be even more into the run, which they haven't as under the run as they should be in my opinion, Yeah, like because it's always defensive mind guy is gonna want to run the ball. They just pushed out a defensive minded guy. Maybe you're not expecting a big change there where I just am, and I think that really is the move for the Jets. Like I know they're blocked, they're blocking issues, They've got chemistry issues with everyone. I think we're gonna see like maybe an all time defensive minded interim head coach, like circling the wagons around the Runause, how could you not after watching that game last week, We're all those short passes were just an extension of the running game anyway, Like why not just do the real thing like kind of like simplify, like restart the Jets offense and maybe then you can like build back up to more. I mean, Aaron Rodgers relied on balanced offenses for a while too, so it's not like this is actually new for him. I'm expecting like kind of like an all time and way beyond like Antonio Pierce's wild dream. It's like intrum, defensive minded head coach, establishment of the run, and I frankly think it's like the right approach.

00:23:05
Speaker 4: For the Jets.

00:23:06
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, I mean not only that, but they get they get Buffalo this week, and that's a team where that's like very easy to do that, that's.

00:23:13
Speaker 3: What you're supposed to do, and it's you can't do it if you have Daria Gumbawale. You can do it hopefully if you have Resall and Braylon Allen.

00:23:20
Speaker 2: Yeah, I do.

00:23:20
Speaker 1: I do worry though that the average fantasy manager is going to see them potentially do that, Like would we be shocked if they go they beat Buffalo and they run the snot on the ball and that's how they do it. And I think that's definitely the range of outcomes here, right, And then I think that there could be a sort of whiplash effect of that of then people assuming that this is the way the Jets offense will operate without really layering on it. Seems like this year, more than ever, people aren't layering on matchup stuff enough, like they're not looking at the fact that like it's like, oh Andy Dalton was so much worse in Week five than he wasn't weak. Well, yeah, he played Vegas and Cincinnati, Like what did you expect him to do whenever they've go and face Chicago, who's been amazing defensively this year. So I I think that's another thing to always keep in minds, Like, yes, like we can look at the peripheral numbers and kind of see how these offenses will Well, we'll shift and change based on these changes, but at the same time, don't overstate it based on what that matchup.

00:24:13
Speaker 3: Says, especially just beyond the matchup and the Bills, like you said, where you do want to run the ball. It's like it's a week where they're coming back literally from Europe. They're making all these coaching personnel changes. Kind of just by definition, it's gonna need to be a simplistic game. Yeah, true, and they just kind of want to get in, get out. They want to basically do something like get the taste out of their mouth for the past two weeks, suspecting a simple game plan against the Bill. And it's extremely good point though, like just don't assume then it will be that every week, right, But I'm just expecting basically a palette cleanser.

00:24:44
Speaker 4: Yeah, against the Bills.

00:24:45
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean they also I mean there's some like very obvious things too, Like if anyone watched that game against Minnesota, you saw that there were some easy plays to Breeze Haul in the passing game consistently throughout that game, like him just sitting in space. Understood, there's gonna you know, we can't always see every but even when I went, like I go back and I watch every game every week, and like he had room to work with that, they just didn't allow him to work.

00:25:08
Speaker 2: In that space.

00:25:10
Speaker 1: And that's obviously, Like that's you know, say what you want about Brelan Allen, who's been great and he's a great you know, ground game running back and you know he can be a great early down running back. And I also think that he can be a bell coal in this league. Like I liked him a lot as a prospect, and he's already proven that. But Breeshaw's bread and butter is is receiving. Like he's he's a he's a top tier receiver in the league, like top five in the league at doing that. Allow him to do that, and you can still use Brailan Allen, that's fine, But like allow breshall to get that fifteen to twenty percent target share in your offense, He's gonna be able to break one eventually.

00:25:42
Speaker 3: Maybe the operation was just two sped up. I mean he tempted like over fifty passes, So it was surprising that Brees saw Especially in that game.

00:25:50
Speaker 4: I think it was like three catches.

00:25:51
Speaker 2: Yeah, he had like an eight percent target share.

00:25:53
Speaker 4: Yeah, just totally insane.

00:25:54
Speaker 3: But their whole anyone to watch the game of court, Like, their whole operation was so out of sync. To the Jets, it's been back to back like elite defenses. Yeah, their schedule has been just like.

00:26:06
Speaker 4: Comically difficult and staying hard.

00:26:09
Speaker 3: It's the Bills and it's Mike Tomlin like it's just like they cannot catch a matchup break kind of. But it's it's not as Aaron Rodgers we know still looks physically honestly probably shockingly good. Yeah, considering his circumstances or hopefully knock on wood again, we've seen the low point.

00:26:25
Speaker 1: Yeah, second half of the season. Hopefully from a fantasy perspective, things can can turn around for them. We also across the league have a couple of rookie quarterbacks stepping in. We get Drake May in New England. We get Spencer Rattler in New Orleans with his Derek Carr injury. You know, I'll ask you about both of these guys. Do you think that Drake May will end up being an upgrade for this New England offense? And then with Spencer Ratler, are you worried about their their big three which is shockingly a big three with the way that Rashid Shah he's been playing, but with Rashid Shaheed, Chris Alavin and Alvin Kamara.

00:26:58
Speaker 3: I mean yes and yes, but also I mean like the Patriots had to make them. I just I don't understand like the narrative that has been around the Patriots and like that they can't put play Drake May. They can't put Drake May into this situation. Yea, like as if he's gonna be the first quarterback to ever rookie quarterback to ever play behind a bad offensive line and we know that's bad. Of course, the alternative is that we'd rather put him into a good situation, Like when is that going to be in New England? Like it's not gonna wait three years, Like let's just give it wait two years when we totally rebuild our offensive line exactly, and like this idea that it's just like irresponsible. You can you can run out the clock on a season when you're trying to get like a top three franchise quarterback. You cannot run out the clock on the a season where that player is already.

00:27:44
Speaker 2: On the roster exactly exactly.

00:27:45
Speaker 3: It's like malpractice to not see that player. Yes, and it's gonna be so hard for him to create juice of his own, of course, because even though we like his athleticism, we like it's basically the anti Jacoby Brissett when it comes to like moving around, Yeah, and like, uh, what he can bring to the table.

00:28:02
Speaker 4: The sporting cast is so limited that.

00:28:04
Speaker 3: It's ultimately it'll be I think it's just honestly from there'll be more fun to watch, yeah, but not seeing many more.

00:28:11
Speaker 4: Fantasy points for anyone. Are you Drake may maybe occasionally.

00:28:14
Speaker 2: Will be like a yeah, streamer, streamer type play. Are you?

00:28:17
Speaker 1: Are you intrigued at all by like a Jalen Polk in the offense?

00:28:21
Speaker 3: Well, he's another I mean he was the guy that I thought maybe they weren't gonna play earlier in the year, and then they did just throw to the wolves and then he is not producing.

00:28:29
Speaker 4: Yeah, maybe he should not have been thrown to the wolves.

00:28:32
Speaker 3: But yeah, I mean you'd like to think they had a lot of reps together over the summer. Uh, He's someone who stands to benefit the most. Yeah, I mean Pop Douglas is already there's no difference between Pop Douglas's floor and ceiling, you know. Yeah, And I not like Drake may is gonna unlock Hunter Henry Uh now he's gonna unlock even Kendrick Bourne.

00:28:51
Speaker 4: You have the one guy where like when you look at the roster.

00:28:54
Speaker 3: Like who could benefit from if not even necessarily improved quarterback played as livelier quarterback play?

00:28:59
Speaker 4: Yeah? Yeah, is Jalen Poke? Yeah?

00:29:01
Speaker 2: Yeah, I would agree with that. All right.

00:29:03
Speaker 1: So then in New Orleans are you are you worried about all three?

00:29:07
Speaker 2: And then is there one that you're maybe more worried about versus the other guys?

00:29:12
Speaker 3: Well, so the first time, do you think Spencer Rattler is good? I mean, I mean, did you like him as a prospect?

00:29:18
Speaker 2: I think so.

00:29:18
Speaker 1: I don't do a ton of quarterback prospecting, but I do think that we are very quick to get excited about Day three type players and that that's that's one of the fears that I definitely have.

00:29:29
Speaker 3: And my so I all with prospects, Like I watch a ton of college football, but I just watch it totally as a fan, right And when I was watching you know, Spencer Rattler for like five years, never once did I think, oh.

00:29:42
Speaker 4: Man, yeah, I can't wait till this guy.

00:29:45
Speaker 3: I know that he excited some people in the pre draft process, excited some people in the preseason, but like this is another team where you did not need to give them an excuse to like go more conservative, where they opened up the offense the first two weeks and like the first sign of adversity, like they closed it back up.

00:30:02
Speaker 1: Yep.

00:30:03
Speaker 3: So we know they're not gonna do anything cool with the rookie. Like there's nothing cool is happening with Spencer Rattler and Rashid Shaheed, Like the rookie even can be loud to like attempt to kind of pass this. Yeah, Rashid Shaheed like banks on, like makes his fantasy money on and like a lobby. As frustrating as he is, I think it's pretty safely banking like six to eight low upside targets where he's going down to like the two three borderline instead of like the one two borderline. But I think he'll still be in lineups Rashid Shaheed's I just will Spencer Radler even be allowed to throw to the game.

00:30:37
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's exactly how I see it. I'm more worried about Shaheed, you know, you like we see at times in the offense they're giving him some like manufacturer touches or easier touch it. But I mean his aid dot's still really really high. Uh, he's still getting a lot of those down the field looks. I mean even against that was it against Philly when he had that goose egg. You know, his his catchable target rate wasn't very high, and because of the kinds of targets that he's generating in the offense, it's just fortunately he's been converting on a lot of those to start the year. And he's good. I mean, like I think Rashid jia Heat is just an like you know, I liked him in the pre draft process this year, or in the draft process this year, all of that, so I'm not saying negative about him as a player.

00:31:15
Speaker 2: I think he's actually pretty good.

00:31:17
Speaker 1: It's just really scary when you have that kind of wide out where you know, it's not like a possession guy. And not only that, there's been a lot of I mean, I'm sure that you guys have seen this, you know, going through all of the news items and stuff. But it seems like Spencer Rattler is like a big Chris Olave fan like him. Him and a Lave have been like like talking up each other. There might be a little shower narrative going on there.

00:31:39
Speaker 3: Well, two and backup quarterbacks tend to do the one truism. I've always found a backup quarterback play like kind of best illustrated by Gardner Minshew and Michael Pittman last year. The backup quarterback comes in and asks one question like who's the best player here?

00:31:54
Speaker 4: Yeah, like they raised their hand like all right, I'm throwing you the ball forty times?

00:31:57
Speaker 3: Yeah right, Like because a it is a pretty good plan if you're the backup quarterback and Rashid Shaheed it's a skill to do what he does.

00:32:06
Speaker 4: Of course.

00:32:06
Speaker 3: Yeah. The downfield like we tend to like in fantasy view like downfield guys as oh.

00:32:10
Speaker 4: They're just volatile. Yeah, like no, it's there. I mean, it is.

00:32:14
Speaker 3: It's a it is volatile, but it's not a volatile skill. It's like a huge skill to like get.

00:32:18
Speaker 4: Wide open, yeah, on the field and fifty five yard touchdowns.

00:32:21
Speaker 3: But Derek Carr, even though he's not very good at it, loves to do those kind of passes.

00:32:26
Speaker 4: Yes, and Spencer Ratler will not be allowed to do that. I don't.

00:32:29
Speaker 2: Yeah, I hope that they.

00:32:30
Speaker 1: I mean, look, the other problem too, is that like weeks one and two, the Saints, we're using so much motion and where did I go?

00:32:38
Speaker 2: Why?

00:32:38
Speaker 3: Why they got behind one time and they just never did it again.

00:32:42
Speaker 1: Like that's also part of the thing that's that's really been frustrating h with that Saints offense. But yeah, I generally agree that I'm much more worried about Shaheed than I'm going to be.

00:32:51
Speaker 2: About about Chris Alave.

00:32:53
Speaker 1: Let's talk about the the Jacksonville backfield, because this is a big story I think this week. With the way that Tank Bigsby played this past week, he right now is first in the NFL and yards per carry over expected like he's he's doing very well on the ground, but obviously there's room for improvement as a receiver. He is one target the entire season. There's a lot of talk about him supplanting Travis Etn. Do you see that being in his range of outcomes right now?

00:33:21
Speaker 3: I mean I do, and I understand people not wanting to just overreact to it happening one game Finally, Yeah, he hadn't out carried him all season. He had tied Travis et in and carries once. Heading into week five, he had not out carried him. We now have seen that it is in the range of outcomes for him to out carry Travis Eten.

00:33:39
Speaker 4: I believe he out snapped. Yeah, Travis Etn.

00:33:42
Speaker 3: And like Doug Peterson is funny, like or he's like, no, no, we still don't have to change in the guard. Like Eten banged his shoulder again. So it's never good news when the good news is that you were hurt. Yeah, it's like, that's not I don't even view that as a good thing. Oh the reason Tank was playing over because he's hurt again, So that's bad for you. This is what Peterson wanted, of course, Yes, Like all off season they thought, we want we need more from Tank, can we year three, year two or whatever? And like we need to take more off of Travis Etn's play. They knew he was miscast, so they wanted this outcome. I've been a little surprised by It's like they're hesitant to commit to this. Not that they've been hesitant to give Tank Bigsby work. They have been giving him work, but I think this is something they wanted to happen. It is happening. It was a really good matchup, of course against the Colts. But what do good players do. They take advantage of good matchups. Tank Bigsby had one of the best rushing performances by any player all season in terms of like film like those touchdown runs.

00:34:41
Speaker 4: Like dude, like this is insane. I think it is happening and kind of like why would it not happen?

00:34:47
Speaker 1: Yeah, My thing with Bigsby is I don't know if like, like what do you what do you think about his receiving work and if he would be able to take that from Metn because my fear with Bigsby is that he becomes what basically maybe what some people thought like they could get from like a Zamir White or something like that this season, you know, like I mean, probably even worse than that. Lower than that because the target share for White there was at least some outcome that he would see a double digit percentage target shair. But like with Bigsby, it looks like it's capped to some degree. And I think we'd both agree that of the two, like Etn is a good pass catcher, like he did that in college a lot. I know that they he started his NFL career and for whatever reason, that wasn't the role that he was often playing.

00:35:30
Speaker 2: But yeah, yeah, right right, but we've seen that.

00:35:33
Speaker 1: My thing with Bigsby's, I could see a scenario where we continue to see a fifty to fifty, but we might even see like a sixty forty in favor of Bigsby on the ground, And then I just wonder what the receiving work is gonna look like. Do you have hope that that can change or do you think that Etn at least has that locked up?

00:35:50
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, I have no hope that that can change. Where I do agree with your pessimism there too. Like another thing, so Bigsby, you just basically said, it's a classic like do you win when you win? It's like Tank Bisby is out carrying Travis Etn and it barely matters because they're the league's nineteenth best offense. They're in comeback game script all the time where they can't even run and just beyond like the player attributes. We just know Doug Peterson as much as any coach in the NFL is like so committee committed, like to the point of like insanity. You know, We're like sometimes at Philadelphia they were begging him, like dude, like simplify the committee, and he would just never do it. And like he's been just so uncomfortable not having the committee the past few years with Travis etn where he's been dying for this, and I think this is his ideal backfield and that is the problem. I think Tank Bigsby, if I had to guess today, will outcarry Travis etn Rest. But Trevor, excuse me, Travis has I don't see any threat to Travis in the receiving game.

00:36:51
Speaker 2: Yeah, I do wonder too.

00:36:52
Speaker 1: I mean, have do you think that there's a non zero chance that they deal etn like that, that that they're out of it and they're just like, let's just look when we talk like, let's let's caveat this. When we talk trades, like this and hypotheticals with with with teams dealing players, it happens to it does not happen ninety nine percent of the time, you know, maybe more or more yes, Like like literally we have all these like grand ideas about this player are getting dealt. It's only when like the writing is literally on the wall, you can you can read it very clear, Like what's going on with Devonte Adams right now. It seems very clear that once the asking price goes down a little bit, he will be dealt. But you know, the out of nowhere kind of trade deadline things don't happen very frequently. So I guess my question you would be, would you consider putting that as part of the evaluation package with Tank Bigsby right now?

00:37:42
Speaker 3: Yeah, because I just don't think the Jags are the kind of organization not to go down to, not to go two down narrative street. Yeah, Like they're not gonna want to sell again, They're not gonna admit defeat, Like shod Cohn wants to win so bad. I don't think he'll be a white flag waiver. And it's a classic teams so one reason we're always concocting trade scenarios is because teams should be trading.

00:38:05
Speaker 2: That's true.

00:38:05
Speaker 3: Yeah, it makes no sense that there's not more trades in the NFL. Picks beyond the third round are essentially I mean, they're they're not even flyers.

00:38:14
Speaker 4: They most of them just don't work.

00:38:16
Speaker 3: They're like lead balloons basically any pick beyond Day two. But teams treat fifth round picks like they're still like the most valuable commodities in the world. So they don't even make the trades. If if ETN goes on the trade block unless you get one organization that like has loved the player since he got drafted, you're not getting a Day two pick obviously. And I don't see like what the motivation for Jacksonville be to trade them like a fifth rounder. Yeah, so they're unlikely to think their seasons like truly over and they just want to win so bad. I think they'll be counting on staying in it.

00:38:46
Speaker 2: Yeah, I would agree with that.

00:38:48
Speaker 1: We already talked about Breese Hall a little bit, so let's shift our focus to Bejon Robinson, you know, the other running back those drafted in Round one that we had high hopes for. And look, it's it's so strange how well Robinson and Hall have basically gone down the exact same path this season, Like going from week like after week one, I think we all looked at them and we were like, Wow, they're gonna be there.

00:39:08
Speaker 2: They could they could get it. Give us like CMC production.

00:39:11
Speaker 4: This mission accomplished right right, like.

00:39:14
Speaker 1: Everything look and then we too it's like, okay, this still looks okay enough, but you know there's some variant whatever whatever. And then the last couple of weeks it's just been pretty pitiful from a expectation versus reality standpoint, with the workloads that they're seeing. You know, like I said, we talked about Breeze Hall when it comes to be John Robinson, are you more optimistic or pessimistic about what's to come rest of season?

00:39:36
Speaker 4: I'm more optimistic.

00:39:37
Speaker 3: Where So last week felt like kind of like the low point for Bijon, but a snapshare like actually tipped back up last week and Algiers ticked down ever so slightly, and Algier as the change of pace guy. A lot of times you get you get like, you know, touches where it's easier to be efficient rind of and he was really efficient the first four weeks. But I don't think Tyler Algier is going to be more efficient runner the Majan over the course of a seventeen game season. And that was finally born out in Week five where Tyler o Jeeer came back down to earth in the efficiency department, Jon clearly looked better.

00:40:11
Speaker 1: Oh my god, that one move that he oh in the open, Like he's so ridiculous. He does things that literally knows what the running back and football can do, and.

00:40:19
Speaker 3: They do things the no other coaching staff does where they apparently only giving him outside zone right, like give him one normal carry man, Like how can you see?

00:40:27
Speaker 4: That?

00:40:27
Speaker 3: Part is annoying the NFL It is insane at running back or it doesn't matter if you're literally Jean Robinson in a top eight pick, who you were drafted in the top eight for the sole reason that you can be all three downs. If one coach decides you're a committee back, it's like it's like the Duke Johnson rule, Like you're just a committee back the rest.

00:40:47
Speaker 4: Of your career, no matter what.

00:40:48
Speaker 3: Yeah, And I am worried that that is maybe happening with Pajon, but he does have the strong side of the committee. The overall overall offensive environment improvement. This of course very good news for him, like Kirk Cusz not being dead after all. Like Bijon, I think we've weathered the worst of the storm. It was a it was a needed expectations adjuster, like, all right, whatever, we're not getting top three overall, Bajeon apparently, but we're still getting like seventy percent of the Snapsjon.

00:41:16
Speaker 4: I think it'll be good down the stretch.

00:41:18
Speaker 1: Yeah, great matchups coming up to they get Carolina this week. He should be able to to come through, you know, Yeah, I mean it'll be it'll it'll be very very frustrating if he doesn't come through to some degree, you know, against the Panthers at least. Let's just see that he gets good peripherals and that things look fine, you know from a target here standpoint all that. Would you would you say you're more optimistic about Robinson than Breeze Hall at this point?

00:41:41
Speaker 4: I am, But.

00:41:43
Speaker 3: Bries, I mean a very brave opinion. I don't think you can get any worse for Breese. Yeah, so I think it will only get better. I do think that I think we'll get a better Jets offense as we get a simplified Jets offense. Maybe they'll build back up to be like this crazy complex Aaron Rodgers machine. But but I just I don't see any path forward for the Jets that does not involve like way more pestall involvement. Yeah, it's a more violatile overall situation the Falcons. So I prefer Jon, but I think both are going to be much.

00:42:13
Speaker 4: More of fantasy managers we're hoping for down the stretch.

00:42:15
Speaker 1: Yeah, let's look over at Kansas City where I kind of just assumed that they were going to go with a running back by committee. So I, you know, I was right from the perspective of, like, don't spend up a lot on Carson Steele and samaj p Ryan. But then I was wrong to not spend more on Kareem Hunt because of what he did in Week five and the kind of workload that he saw. But then on top of that, we saw Juju Smith Schuster look like it was I don't know what year with twenty nineteen twenty, yeah, something like that, when he was when he was good at the game. You know, he he had a great performance in that matchup as well. Where are you at with these guys?

00:42:53
Speaker 3: So Kareem Hunt mean, easiest backfield takeover ever question mark, And I mean it has to be Kareem Hunt. Best Chiefs running back since Kareem Hunt. Question mark. Pretty crazy where I yeah, was not expecting this outcome. It's still only with sixty three percent of the snaps last week, I mean, which is not low. But it's not like he's up in like eighty like suffocating all competition. It's like closed book on the committee. You know, another guy who's old now, what he's known for his final fe years in Cleveland was like there's lots of Nixon bruises, being hurt, a lot, a lot of like just wearing down. So I wouldn't be shocked if this is the high point for Kaream Hunt. But also like, yeah, I mean he's way better than Carson Steel.

00:43:41
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, And.

00:43:43
Speaker 3: It's probably way better than Cech and he's just in a way better situation. And I think it's crazy he could be one of the waiver wire ads. I mean, again, this is not a brave opinion, but there's reasons to think it won't continue, But there are plenty of reasons to think that it will continue.

00:43:59
Speaker 4: And far more it will continues into the spectrum.

00:44:02
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's it's it's crazy because everything that everything that we study points to him not being this right where it's on the tail end of his career. He's already it's not like he was like good last year or it's not like like we're talking like one of the most efficient running backs in the league that's then stepping in after being you know, after team's not wanting him, right and him doing what he did. I mean, I think that there's this is sort of like the human element to fantasy football and the football that is just difficult to really measure, where you know, we're looking at trends and we're looking at history to say this is what should happen based on what we've seen historically, right, But we also always need to have an open mind that some players can be in better shape, or be motivated differently or or any of that, and there's just a wide range of outcomes as a result.

00:44:53
Speaker 3: Right.

00:44:53
Speaker 2: And I think with.

00:44:54
Speaker 1: Kareem Hunt, right now, we're seeing a player who has been openly talking about the motivation aspect of things. And and look, this is like the least analytical take of all time.

00:45:04
Speaker 2: I understand that.

00:45:05
Speaker 1: And people are listening to this and being like, why is JJ talking about this right now? Yeah, right of all people when he has a zap.

00:45:11
Speaker 2: Model and stuff.

00:45:13
Speaker 1: But yeah, I mean, like, I just I think that we have to recognize, like we're all human. We all have like good or bad days, whether it's like a mental thing for your job or like an exercise thing whatever.

00:45:25
Speaker 2: I was used like running as the example.

00:45:27
Speaker 1: If you go out for a run, you're not the same runner every single time you go do that, right, and sometimes you're just in better shape and a lot.

00:45:33
Speaker 2: And I understand this is his job.

00:45:34
Speaker 1: I get all of that, but at the same time, there is that that extra piece and that extra factor to any human, right And I I you know, this is sort of like a a coping It sounds like a coping thing, right because I wasn't high enough on Kareem Hunt. Like I've taken that L. I'm curious exactly I'm done with that. I've taken that L. But yeah, I mean, I I think I think the one thing that might get in his way would be cech Not that I think that he's better, but from the standpoint of like just the annoyance digging into the workload more than he would want, you know what I mean.

00:46:08
Speaker 4: But he also just seems like he's done this.

00:46:10
Speaker 3: I think it was forty five percent of the snaps two weeks ago and then sixty three. Yeah, if he's getting like all the important snaps, which why would he not, Like, they're not gonna trust the full back with the more important snaps. They're not gonna trust some igp Ryan who they just got right.

00:46:23
Speaker 2: For who has not looked good at all.

00:46:26
Speaker 4: He looks done.

00:46:26
Speaker 3: Yeah, they're not gonna trust h who has just failed every test unfortunately. Right, So even if the snaps hover in like the fifty to sixty percent range, right, he's going to get all the ones to matter, and it's it's the easiest backfield take over I've ever seen.

00:46:41
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'll say this about hunt to kind of to wrap this up.

00:46:43
Speaker 1: I don't think he's like a league winner, like I mean he is from the standpoint of like a cost perspective, because no.

00:46:48
Speaker 3: He might he might accidentally win leagues, Yeah, just to make the value Standford.

00:46:53
Speaker 1: Yeah, not from a value standpoint, I mean, I mean from the perspective of, like he still ran like forty percent of their routes, which is a good number, but it's not like a resall Bejon Robinson type number like you know that resulted in the lower target share. I don't know if we're gonna see consistent enough like high target shairs for him to be like a true like RB one in fantasy. But look, if you got him off the waiver wire, you have at least in RB three right now, and probably like there's a very real possibility that he ends up just being an RB two.

00:47:18
Speaker 3: More than h I'm just worried about again. Wow, someone You're worried someone might get hurt. I'm worried about this. The Nixon Bruises with Kareem Hunt, we had a really hard time kind of staying one hundred percent healthy with the Bronx.

00:47:28
Speaker 2: Yeah, are you?

00:47:28
Speaker 1: Are you feeling similar about Juju to me? I feel better about Kareem Hunt than JUICESM Schuster.

00:47:35
Speaker 3: Juju Smith Schuster extremely high odds. That's his most productive game of the season. But with the caveat, this is the difference. Even when it's a veteran who's lost like a step or five, like, this is the difference between plugging in like an experienced like actually in the past productive NFL player into a Patrick Mahomes system versus Justin Watson, Sky Moore, Mikol Hardman, Canarious Tony.

00:48:01
Speaker 4: It doesn't. He's not the guy that he was.

00:48:03
Speaker 3: When he was drafted with the Steelers, or even that he was like two or three years ago, like just a veteran who like knows how to play football, right, Yeah, basically, who isn't going to just commit a catastrophic mistake right every time he's targeted. That's like because people are probably shocked, like, dude, like, how did Juju, after like two years of doing nothing immediately do that? It's good, Like Patrick Mahomes is still Patrick Mahomes. He just doesn't hasn't had beoble to throw to, and even a washed Juju is so much better than throwing to like Mikael Hardman or Canaris Tuck.

00:48:33
Speaker 2: Yeah.

00:48:33
Speaker 1: My my thing with Juju too, if we're trying to like forecast where this might go, is we've actually seen him in this exactly in this exact situation, like you remember, but we have Yeah, yeah, we've seen We've seen this exact thing happen, and he was fine, like he.

00:48:48
Speaker 4: Was from a thousand yards right.

00:48:50
Speaker 1: I don't know, I don't I can't remember what his actual like. I think he ended up being like a three to four type player for fantasy.

00:48:56
Speaker 4: He was not very productive in fantasy.

00:48:58
Speaker 2: Yeah right, so like it was, it was it like like that.

00:49:01
Speaker 1: I think is like the eightieth to ninetieth percentile outcome for Jujus Smith Schuster in this situation right.

00:49:07
Speaker 4: Now, it was nine hundred and thirty three yards.

00:49:09
Speaker 2: By Yeah, yeah, almost almost got there.

00:49:12
Speaker 3: Only three touchdowns, I'm telling you, man, mahomes Is, he's I think there's gonna be a touchdown avalanche.

00:49:17
Speaker 4: He's been running so cold in the zone. He has been so so cold in the red zone.

00:49:21
Speaker 2: Yeah, it is. It is pretty frustrating, all right.

00:49:24
Speaker 1: So let's let's look at Miami now, Uh, you get two up potentially coming back. Does that Does that make you? Because I feel like the sentiment is still these guys suck from a fantasy perspective, and they're on by right now, so like there might be a Bilo moment. Do you think this is a by Low moment for a chan Wattle Tyreek Hill.

00:49:43
Speaker 4: What I'll say is there many thoughts on the Dolphins, one of which was they were not performing well even before two. It got hurt. Yeah.

00:49:50
Speaker 2: There was also the Buffalo game was rough.

00:49:51
Speaker 4: Yeah.

00:49:52
Speaker 3: Yeah, it was only like six quarters of football, But there were warning signs even before two got hurt. That being said, I'm not buying low maybe necessarily, but I'm not I'm not selling low at this point, Like I'm are definitely already pot committed. I Devin ah Chams on my teams like, like this is just gonna I actually I say, I'm not gonna buy low Tyreek Hill. If you can get Tyreek Hill like someone on the wide receiver two three borderline or something, or even just like a like a wide receiver two you don't love, I probably still make that trade.

00:50:24
Speaker 4: But I mean to what will be back in week eight? They have not said this.

00:50:28
Speaker 3: My sense all along was that the Dolphins didn't even want to place two on ir They basically had to be talked into it. Yeah, and that he will be back in week eight. Mike McDaniel. I think this might honestly be good for Mike McDaniel, who just does not adjust. Like, as as much as I love Mike McDaniel, the offenses have really slowed down down the stretch. Each of the past two years. They were totally horrible the first two games out too. It's like, dude, you've got to adjust. Yeah, he finally started adjusting last week in a way I think might help him even when Tua comes back, where he's like learned a few new ways to generate offense, maybe some easy completions and just that like you're not gonna get You're not gonna.

00:51:06
Speaker 4: Get equal value right now.

00:51:08
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm holding onto them. If someone's like tilted out of their minds, I am acquiring Tyreek Hill and then just trying to get myself to week eight, just get to week e.

00:51:16
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, I agree with you and my I had a volatile buy in my fifteen Transactions column Slash podcast this week for Devon a Chan Because if we were the way I'm seeing it, if I'm sitting with you, you know we're in Canton, right and we're sitting at you and I had dinner the one day I can't And let's say that we're sitting there and we're talking about von A Chan and I told you, you know a Chan's gonna see half of the team's running back rushes and a six sixteen percent target share.

00:51:43
Speaker 2: Where would you draft him in Fantasy football?

00:51:45
Speaker 4: Like where I was, yeah, where I was already drafted.

00:51:48
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, Round one likes he's like an easy round one pick with that, guys, and like that's what we're seeing from him right now, right, and so you inject Tua in there and you can see, you know, obviously, look, there's a ton of I said that on the show, like there's massive amounts of volatility with a transaction like that for obvious reasons.

00:52:05
Speaker 2: But I do.

00:52:06
Speaker 1: Think that we don't have a ton of opportunities to have by low moments that are quite like this when we know what Tyreek Hill can do, when we know I mean, Devona a Chan is it's bizarre that Tank Bigsby is the most efficient running back in the league right now and Devon a Chan is the least efficient running back in league right now.

00:52:25
Speaker 3: I know we knew he was inn regress, but uh, I'm not sure this isn't really Yeah, this isn't really regret what I had in mind.

00:52:32
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, so I think it really. I mean, you know, this kind of stuff usually just comes down to risk tolerance at the end of the day.

00:52:37
Speaker 4: It's true, and I tend to be more conservative player.

00:52:40
Speaker 3: But even that, he said a few weeks ago in my guillanteen league, I knew no one would be bidding on Jalen Waddle. Yea more seasons the team got the blade, but I put a bit on him, like and I won him, and like because I was worried about how they didn't look good even for the injury.

00:52:59
Speaker 4: But we there's just no way they're not going to be productive players.

00:53:02
Speaker 3: Yeah, right, even if it's like they don't meet expectations, they're going to be productive players. And yeah, you're probably are right to be buying on all three and not just Tyreek.

00:53:11
Speaker 1: Yeah, the more as the week has gone on, which is why I like doing lay round perspectives because then I can kind of like reflect on some of the things that I've said and like more, you know, after I've done more research and stuff, the more I'm just like, let's just buy them, Like let's just go for it and go for just just freaking go for it.

00:53:26
Speaker 3: You know.

00:53:27
Speaker 1: Like like even like people are I think people are really really low on Waddle because we know what Tyreek has done and there were already some question marks that people had about Waddle. I was really high on Waddle entering the year, and we saw like despite the performance of the offense, Wattle had an okay start to the like before Tua went down, like it was it wasn't like a horrific you know, he's not being used at all kind of situation. So like I I mean, if you can throw like bench players at Jalen Waddle right now, I would do that all day long.

00:53:55
Speaker 4: I would too.

00:53:56
Speaker 3: Might come into the years like man, Jalen Waddle ran so cold on touchdowns last year. Yeah, yeah, I'm looking at even amidst the apocalypse, he's catching four passes everything.

00:54:05
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean he's and his yards brout run last year was better than the year before that. Like he's a he's extremely good player. He just the unfortunate side is that he's got the Deontay Johnson thing in him where it seems like he gets hurt every game and then he's like out for a chunk of it and then he comes back and he's not one hundred percent and it's just very frustrating.

00:54:21
Speaker 3: It is, Yeah, because he he like doesn't miss games, right, right, He's always heard that, Yeah he misses quarters, not games. Yeah, he exactly which this quarter missing quarters is the silent killer.

00:54:31
Speaker 1: Yes, yeah, it truly is truly is another guy, another running back who all of a sudden is good seemingly is DeAndre Swift, but is he actually good all of a sudden?

00:54:42
Speaker 3: I think his environment is much better. All of a sudden is what it really boils down to, and the DeAndre Swift like revival. I think it is definitely about the Bears a shifting approach, which their initial approach never made any sense. And that was one of my most like biggest summer regrets, is like only looking at the Bears from like a fantasy football perspective.

00:55:02
Speaker 4: Like this is amazing.

00:55:03
Speaker 3: Yeah, Like they're acquiring all these guys who are going to be good at fantasy football, and like we've never seen anyone do this in the rookie quarterback. I don't know why more teams known, and that's why they don't do it, because they have to be protected before they can do anything cool. And Caleb Williams was not protected and was not doing anything cool. Part of it, of course, was his own struggles, and he has settled in. We've seen the Bears go his way run heavier the past two week. Like I feel like, take a much more sensible rookie quarterback approach and think it's like kind of the calming down of the entire offense has been good for DeAndre Swift, and he's being used like in like RB one, but he's getting like, yeah, like almost sixty percent of the rushing attempts. I think he's he's of course getting looks in the passing game. The touchdown chances are now materializing now that it's not a bottom five offense. And like I've always wondered if like DeAndre Swift is actually good at least, like think his the situation at least looks like it's gonna be good now.

00:56:02
Speaker 4: Yeah, and shocker, he's been more productive with the situation improving.

00:56:06
Speaker 1: Yeah, he's one of those players that when he retires, we're gonna be like, I don't I don't know if he was I don't know if he was.

00:56:12
Speaker 4: Good or back he was ever good.

00:56:14
Speaker 1: Yeah, I have no idea, like I have no but but you know, he obviously rose On Johnson's getting some goal line work. That's a little bit of a of a buzzkill, but it's just so interesting how the narrative shifts when DeAndre Swists peripherals have been nearly identical throughout the entire season, like all your long, and then they get, you know, a little bit better matchups, and the offense starts playing a little bit better, and then all of a sudden, people are like, yeah, DeAndre Swift is great, when literally two weeks ago people were ready to just throw him on the waiver wire.

00:56:39
Speaker 3: Which you know, I was not immune to that, but it was it was so much about having a rookie play hero ball. What they like they were doing Calebi Lams was one of the most catastrophically stupid.

00:56:51
Speaker 4: Approaches I've ever seen. Yeah, agreed, Yeah, And I was immediate like how did I buy into this?

00:56:56
Speaker 3: Like this is so stupid, Like I didn't even like Caleb, but like, it doesn't matter who you are, you cannot be having a rookie playing hero ball about his first two or three career starts. Yeah, but they seem to have somehow weather that storm though.

00:57:09
Speaker 2: Yeah.

00:57:10
Speaker 1: Are there any offenses, you know, we're talking about the Bears right now, Are there any offenses that have started maybe even worse than Chicago that you think could turn it around during the second half of the season.

00:57:20
Speaker 3: I think the most obvious turnaround candidate, and it's not like they've been bad, like the Texans man like get out.

00:57:27
Speaker 4: Of your own way, like moving up the offense a little bit, like let's see j every time. It's like c J. Stratt has reminded.

00:57:34
Speaker 3: Bobby Slowick like dude, like seriously, like look what I can do. And he did that last week with the touchdown to Niko Cohns, where he then got hurt and went on injured reserve, undermining my improvement argument.

00:57:47
Speaker 4: But so again, not that the Texans really need to improve.

00:57:49
Speaker 3: I think we're gonna see like a more explosive, more prolific Texans offense. I mean there's a lot of obvious one like the Bills can't be worse. I feel like the Chargers even to be honest, they're not gonna become like a fantasy Juggern.

00:58:03
Speaker 4: I don't think they've been.

00:58:05
Speaker 3: It's been like a comically bad Jim Harbaugh outcome so far.

00:58:08
Speaker 4: I think a lot of it.

00:58:09
Speaker 3: Justin Herbert has like not been healthy since like early in the summer. Probably really well timed by for Justin Herbert. Lad McConkie was kind of percolating before the buye Quentin Johnson looks like he'd be.

00:58:20
Speaker 4: A fine role player.

00:58:22
Speaker 3: I think maybe the Chargers I won't be like so comically harballized the Packers or another one kind of likes he gets healthier as they get more reps. These are still like really young receivers. I feel like they'll be better, but I don't know. The Jets just just accept who they are. Maybe like Dude Breesaw Garrett Wilson, this has to be the focus.

00:58:46
Speaker 4: Well, I'll get better when we focus on that. I don't know.

00:58:49
Speaker 3: I didn't have any ones I felt super strongly about. Though, do you what do you?

00:58:52
Speaker 2: What do you feel about this?

00:58:53
Speaker 4: Take?

00:58:53
Speaker 2: You're ready? The Tennessee Titans.

00:58:57
Speaker 3: It makes sense because like we're if you're gonna play some bet why not bet on talent? And they've got two really good running backs, a very good receiver corps like the kind of receiver corps or even the number four in theories at least intriguing and tryln Berg's probably get cut, but Tyler Boyd is still a fine number three. The Texans improvement though, excuse me. The Titans improvement though, might come when Mason Rudolph.

00:59:19
Speaker 4: Is under center. JJ.

00:59:21
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, look, maybe that's the case. My my thing with Tennessee is. I mean their schedule has been brutal, man, I mean they they faced unbelievably brutal Yeah, Chicago, the Jets, the Packers, and the Dolphins. I mean, like that's a brutal run in terms of secondaries and in terms of pass defense that they're gonna face.

00:59:39
Speaker 2: And look at the end, like to.

00:59:40
Speaker 1: Me, at the end of the day, like defenses are going to be driven by how well they stop the pass. We know that passing efficiency is what matters most, and so if they're consistently playing teams that can do that, then naturally, uh, you know, they're gonna have a tougher time coming out of the by I don't know, if you know. I don't think we know if Will Levis is gonna play this week or not yet, but like.

00:59:57
Speaker 3: Nikki is going to play, Yeah, and this is going to be me. This is We're gonna get our answer this week.

01:00:03
Speaker 2: I think so too. I think so too. I really really think so. And I have to. I'm streaming him in a league this week.

01:00:08
Speaker 1: That's how that's how rough I got it in a in a single quarterback league.

01:00:12
Speaker 3: I'm sorry, I'm streaming Will Levis.

01:00:17
Speaker 2: Uh yeah, I I don't know, man.

01:00:19
Speaker 1: I I was bullish on them as like a high variance kind of pick this year, as like a can you know, uh really outperform expectation And then you know, I bring this up all the time. But I did my like early season schedule analysis episode in late July, and they were a team that had a bad early season schedule.

01:00:37
Speaker 2: And then I'm.

01:00:37
Speaker 1: Like, like, this is why I do that show at the end of the day, because like, like even if we can speak away the reason as to why maybe this has gone on with the Titans offense and say schedule related, right, we're still in the back of our heads are like, yeah, but they've been like Will Levis has been horrible, But like the things that Will Levis has done, like let you know the week one when he did he made that ridiculously stupid play against Chicago, right, and like.

01:01:01
Speaker 3: Some are saying indelible, indelibly stupid.

01:01:04
Speaker 1: Yes, yes, those things though matter a lot less if if they were in a an easier matchup where he was performing otherwise, right, like where where he wasn't stuck in these in these spots where you know a lot of his passes, a lot of his dropbacks, were a little bit disastrous because of the matchup, and you have to wonder, like if that happens against Jacksonville, are we feeling the same way. I don't know, because he's probably playing a little bit better against Jacksonville, you know.

01:01:29
Speaker 3: And it's just a really really everything about this Week six against the Colts is well timed because a young quarterback who had been struggling really well timed buy in Week five and then just the best possible matchup you could ever want coming out of your by and Colts defense is like barely taking the field.

01:01:45
Speaker 4: Yeah, but he struggles this week.

01:01:47
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I would I would largely agree.

01:01:50
Speaker 1: But I also think, like right now, it could be a time where you're throwing that dart at DeAndre Hopkins or Calvin Ridley and like not again, it's all about casta qui. I'm not giving up anything significant to get these guys. There's no chance.

01:02:00
Speaker 3: Right, It's just you're right. We loved Denny and I taw that we liked the setup.

01:02:04
Speaker 4: Kind of the season.

01:02:05
Speaker 3: We get like a modern NFL play card, one who says he's going to pass on first down, right, a team that aggressively signaled they want to score more points with the way they pursued offensive talent.

01:02:15
Speaker 4: But yeah, if they can't do it against the cults, jj.

01:02:17
Speaker 1: I know serious, I know it'll it'll be an issue. The last thing that I want to talk to you about before I let you go. We're kind of in this fantasy football world where there's only a handful of players who are like, really performing well. If you have one of those guys, you're feeling good. If you don't, you're struggling a little bit. And unfortunately, I think last week things started to normalize a little bit and we saw more of the bad offensive scoring touchdowns, which was nice to see because it like evens out fantasy a little bit more and it makes it more entertaining. But amongst the players that are kind of performing well, are there any that you think are cell candidates right now?

01:02:50
Speaker 3: So we saw more points last week, and then we're seeing higher totals this week. Maybe sanity is returning to our game, jj O. So we're still seeing several totals like thirty eight.

01:03:01
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean some of the team, some of the team titles this year. It's like it's like Iowa football.

01:03:05
Speaker 4: It is genuinely astounded.

01:03:07
Speaker 3: I mean, Chargers are essentially becoming the Iowa of the NFL, which again I love, just to love to say the Chargers might play better offense in the second half the season. But I mean, not trying to be trollish, but like Saquon Barkley was the first guy who came to mind for me, Like he's still like barely involved in the passing game like a lot his huge explosion performances came like when AJ Brown was he had explosion performance in Week one, but like they've been so banged up at receiver that they had to put maybe more on his plate, Like Jalen Hurts doesn't look as explosive, but it's still Jalen Hurts.

01:03:41
Speaker 4: Competing for those touchdowns.

01:03:42
Speaker 3: And Saquon has been running really pure on touchdowns, hasn't been touching passes, you know, has the injury history of course, Yeah, where it's not like you gotta get Saquon Barkley off your team. But I don't think Saquon's gonna finish his RB one overall. I don't know who's gonna overtake him, but I just don't love Squon is RB one overall. Bet he's never gonna be more value valuable, Like, say, if you have Saquon on like a two and three team, maybe try to trade Saquon for like three usable pieces. Do the do the rare deal where you trade the best player like get depth or whatever. Squon was someone I feel like I'm being a troll though, No when I say Saquon, but I would I wish he was catching more passes. Man, Yeah, I agree.

01:04:24
Speaker 1: I agree from a peripheral standpoint, like Saquon is playing over his head for sure, Like when you just compare production versus you know, the kind of just general usage that he's seen. I think I'm pretty sure my numbers have them with a pretty good rest of season schedule for him, which is one of the things that I would be a little bit hesitant with. But like to your point, like I don't think he's far and away the best player in fantasy football, which I think there are people out there who probably think he's far and away the best player in fantasy.

01:04:50
Speaker 3: He's just totally defaulted into RB one. It's fast because everything around he's played well, but no one else is playing well, and he's kind of just defaulting into RB one.

01:05:00
Speaker 2: Yeah, No, I like that call.

01:05:01
Speaker 1: Like that call never be more valuable our guy Kareem Yeah, I was. I mean I was gonna say, maybe Kareem hunt for say I'm just kidding.

01:05:09
Speaker 4: Yeah, sell high on Ky Kyle Pitts by the way.

01:05:12
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, there you go, there you go.

01:05:15
Speaker 4: I don't know. I was hard to come up with the in the year. Like everyone's struggling.

01:05:19
Speaker 2: That's what I'm saying. It's hard to be like I do.

01:05:23
Speaker 1: I do fifteen transactions every week, and coming up with cell candidates this year is difficult because I don't have much conviction behind some of the cell candidates. I I mean, there's some that I definitely feel okay about, but like it was like I had JK.

01:05:35
Speaker 2: Dobbins after week two, you know that kind of stuff that.

01:05:38
Speaker 3: Was pretty yeah, pretty much pretty, But it.

01:05:40
Speaker 2: Was like it was kind of like a low hanging fruit one.

01:05:42
Speaker 1: You know, there's not there's not because because at the end of the day, like if you're like like even like Jayden Reid right now, I talked about this with Dwayne McFarlane last week, where Jayden Reid as a sub twenty percent target here right now in the packers, it's like just below twenty percent, right that's not what we see from wide receiver ones like ever in fantasy football. We know that he's doing unsustainable things when he touches the ball, but we also know that, you know, they're like he's kind of like a Deebo Samuel type, like he's he's got that in him to be you know, the outlier to some degree with with some of these metrics. And I also think that the mark I said this last week, the market finally caught up this week, but people were still like, way too low on Jayden Reid despite you know, how he was performing and stuff like that. But it's really hard to go on and say sell Jayden Reid when there just aren't many players that are doing anything close to what Jayden Reid's doing right now.

01:06:32
Speaker 3: Would a really really I thought of a really stupid one while you were talking. Yeah, would Dj Moore be a cell high?

01:06:39
Speaker 2: I like that, that's not a stupid one. I think that's why I.

01:06:41
Speaker 3: Love Dj Moore. Yeah, mean, well, like the target share was fine last week, but I worry about the raw overall target totals as they kind of play this more like protect the rookie style football, like Keenan Allen. I mean, at some point gonna command like ten targets in the game. I feel like Rome is gonna. I just wonder if I love DJ Moore. I wonder if he's like a peak value right now.

01:07:03
Speaker 1: I think that's an interesting call because a done say I because I was a little bit lower on More in my rest of season rankings this week, and someone on my Patreon called it out and I haven't I don't even think I've responded yet, but you know.

01:07:14
Speaker 2: It's it's because I have to really think about that.

01:07:18
Speaker 1: I always look, I have a very smart Patreon group, and they test me a lot, and I'm like, you know what, you might be right here and then I have to change. But with the DJ Moore thing, my logic behind being a few spots lower than consensus in terms of why, you know, I don't think he I was. It wasn't enough to like call him out as a cell per se. But I do think he and Allen, you know, we can't ignore that he was banged up and he's probably coming, you know, older, so it's not gonna be easy for him to just.

01:07:41
Speaker 2: Bounce back immediately.

01:07:43
Speaker 1: And then rom adonsay one of the best prospects that we've seen over the last five or so years coming out, and he's probably be more and more involved in this offense as we you know, move down the season. But like you said, it's you know, I like DJ Moore as a player, but I think situationally, there are reasons.

01:07:56
Speaker 3: Yeah, I just thought maybe more target competition with the smaller overall targets pie, because they've had success finally limiting the targets and protecting the rookie.

01:08:05
Speaker 2: Yeah.

01:08:06
Speaker 4: But I will have DJ Moore on a.

01:08:08
Speaker 2: Lot of teams, yes, and I feel that.

01:08:10
Speaker 4: And will not be trading him because I love him.

01:08:12
Speaker 2: But he's a fun a fun player. Yeah.

01:08:15
Speaker 3: Uh.

01:08:15
Speaker 1: He's also got that like Nick Chubb attitude to him where he just he just does his work.

01:08:19
Speaker 4: I know he does. He really really.

01:08:20
Speaker 3: That's a great compared by the way I've been workshopping a thermonuclear take. I've already said on a few shows that Stefanski was just a Nick Chub merchant this entire time, and that's what it was all about. The efficiency was always fake. It was because he had a Hall of Fame level runner. Yeah, and we're seeing that's why Kreeme Hunt struggled. That's why the offense has falling apart this year. I dig it, He's just a chub merchant, man.

01:08:43
Speaker 2: I dig it. I dig that.

01:08:44
Speaker 4: Take.

01:08:45
Speaker 1: Man, this was great. I always love chatting with you and hanging out and all that. All jokes aside of you being like the fortieth Perspectives guest and ranking you there. You know that you're you're higher on my list. Let everyone know where they can find you and all the stuff you're working on.

01:08:59
Speaker 3: I'm still you know, I'm a Twitter dead ender. I'll be here as the ship continues to catch fire at our ot o pat Roto pat Oliver wrote a world of course, The Rotor World Football Show with a friend of mister JJ, Denny Carter, enemy of me. Yes, but we podcast many times a week. I published several articles a week and always tweeting JJ and yet seriously, my pleasure. It was overdue on both our ends.

01:09:25
Speaker 4: And I really appreciate the invite anytime.

01:09:27
Speaker 1: Yeah, man, of course, you can find all my stuff over on lateround dot com. Make sure you're taking advantage of the underdog promo that's there if you want my rest of season rankings. Otherwise, everyone as usual, thanks for tuning in