Late-Round Perspectives: Dr. Jeff Mueller

00:00:00
Speaker 1: Jeff Mueller is a doctor of physical therapy who covers injuries for Destination Debi. He also does work for Dynasty League Football, four for four and Bet Spurts. He's a California guy, a forty nine Ers fan, and he went running back heavy in his fantasy.

00:00:13
Speaker 2: Drafts this year.

00:00:14
Speaker 1: 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. Head 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'm excited to have someone on that is actually smart, you know, I just have these fantasy analysts on all the time where we you know, we're saying stupid things constantly. At least with you being on, you know, we'll drop some some real knowledge for folks just get just given your background and stuff. But I want to ask you to kick all this off, like, tell everyone who you are, what you're all about, how you got into the profession that you got in, because as I said, you're at the standard fantasy football analyst that that hops on late round perspectives.

00:01:41
Speaker 2: And what is it that you do.

00:01:42
Speaker 3: Yeah, so I'm a doctor of physical therapist. I've worked in orthopedics for ten years now, graduated in twenty fifteen, and yeah, I've just thoroughly enjoyed that, worked through up until twenty twenty to where you know, COVID year started happening, going through some stuff, and my wife actually encouraged me, like, hey, you should look into another hobby to pick up, just with some of the extra time that I have. And I've already you know, played fantasy football for however many years, loved it, loved going through injuries obviously, so I kind of cheated it, she said. I cheated a little bit by taking my full time job into turning it into my hobby and it's worked out. It's been great.

00:02:22
Speaker 2: Where did you start to get yourself out there?

00:02:25
Speaker 3: Like?

00:02:26
Speaker 2: Was it just you you started a Twitter account?

00:02:28
Speaker 1: I think you and I probably have been conversing for a few years now or so like around that, but uh, you know, I definitely found you just via Twitter. Has that been the vehicle that you kind of started? And like you've just done work for other sites and whatnot?

00:02:41
Speaker 3: Yeah, pretty much. I started with with Matt over at Dynasty Vipers. That was my first gig. He was kind enough to give me the first my first job there, and I worked with Calvin and Matt over there, Matt Donnelly, and then yeah, I branched into Gotten the Destination DeBie raised been awesome. Has given me a platform there where I can do my thing and just kind of says, go for it. Whatever you want to do, go for it. And uh, and then I've written for DLF and four for four Now.

00:03:10
Speaker 2: Yeah, you've been You've been all over the place. Man.

00:03:13
Speaker 1: Did you ever think that when you sort of started your journey on this path of doing what you're doing, that you would be doing stuff in the fantasy football space?

00:03:21
Speaker 2: Like, was that what you know. I know that your your.

00:03:23
Speaker 1: Wife, you know, you had that conversation with her, but it was it like like something that you really thought that you were going to merge these worlds like was it was? It was was professional sports something that you definitely wanted to focus on and get into and and and and work with.

00:03:39
Speaker 3: Yeah, so well as a pet that was always kind of a dream. But also, you know, working as a pet with a sports team, it's it's brutal, it's gruesome. So you're kind of always on call, crap hours, you know, pays Okay, Yeah, so this is kind of a best of both worlds. I get to manage and on a clinic here in town. And then I already, like I said, I already play fantasy football. So now it actually kind of started where a bunch of friends would ask me questions like, hey, so and so got injured. What do you think about this player? Like what's the what should I expect? And a couple of my buddies also kind of encourage me, Hey, you already answer these questions for me. I bet there's people you know in the universe that want these answers. You might as well do it on a platform yeah. Yeah, so it's kind of a did I ever see myself doing this? Not necessarily has been very rewarding. Yeah, and I've it's been awesome building similar relationships that I've built.

00:04:35
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I feel you. I mean, like I feel like it's similar.

00:04:38
Speaker 1: Not that I am sitting here being like, oh yeah, all these teams have reached out to me to work on. Not at all, That's not what I'm saying whatsoever, but it's similar to like, you know, like I like the position that I'm in with my job and my workflow, and you know, the ownership of what I'm doing more than working for a team or even working for like a big media company or something like that, because it's just, you know, you're just doing what you like, are passionate about, and want to do, and you can at least have that balance to some degree. I would imagine that there's a lot of competitiveness to working for one of those teams as well, and they can probably dictate a lot as a result of Yeah.

00:05:13
Speaker 3: Land as Anners family, see all these injuries occur, and part of me is like, man, get me over there so I can get these people healthy.

00:05:21
Speaker 2: Yeah.

00:05:22
Speaker 1: Yeah, it picks them up right, exactly exactly one of the things I really wanted to talk to you about. And I had Edwin Polaros on last year and you know, kind of had a conversation about this a little bit. But I think it's it just it gets brought up almost yearly, and I feel the needs sometimes to like go out and defend folks like yourself on that that are out on social media doing what you're doing, because I just think that the way that people approach your work and what others are doing in the space, you know, in the similar spaces you I just think it's a little bit inappropriate at times, the criticisms that that folks throw at you. But do you why would you like what would you say as to why some of those criticisms of let's just say, like I'll throw some out there right where someone says you can't diagnose this because you're not in the room with this guy, or you know you're gonna be wrong, these Twitter docs are wrong all the time, or something like that. How would you kind of come back to that? Because I have thoughts too that I'll share afterwards, But I'm very curious as to where your head's at.

00:06:24
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, I think a part of me thinks that some of the criticisms are warranted at times, just in some circumstances where if you know, if we decide to be a little too confident in our taste, because ultimately what we're doing is trying to diagnose over or not trying to diagnose, but people take it as us trying to do by video chick and there's there's so much that can be inaccurate with that, with that methodology. But yeah, there's there's a lot of in us doing something that we already enjoy and are you know, all of our attentions typically how can we help, how can we help get this information out? So's it's a little defuading to get some of these comments, you know, either fake doc or you don't know what you're talking about, like you mentioned, and really it's just I think ultimately it comes down to the mentality of the psychology of fantasy football. People just don't want bad news, and oftentimes when we talk, it's bad news that's true. So I think, you know, when it comes to that, that drives a lot of the frustration of you know what, I don't want to hear you say anything. Just let the team doc announce what's going on. We don't need your speculation. I get it.

00:07:37
Speaker 1: The problem though, with that, in my opinion, not to say that you're wrong with what you're saying. I mean the problem with the way that folks act towards you know, and make those remarks is a lot of times teams aren't giving us that information, yeah right, Like a lot of times teams aren't providing true timelines for when guys are going to get back, Like we're going to talk about players later where I'm asking you the timelines because the teams have not really given the timelines for these guys. So it's helpful to have that other voice out there that is independent and isn't necessarily playing with the media a little bit or playing with their opponents as to you know, how healthy this player actually is. And the one thing that I do want to drive home, I think is that how is this, like what you're doing, How is it any different than what I'm doing?

00:08:27
Speaker 2: You know, Like, how is it any different?

00:08:29
Speaker 1: Like we're forecasting, We're we're using information and data at hand to help us make certain decisions and to help us come to certain conclusions. And for you, it's you know, this experience that you have in working with folks and also the literature that you've read and understand no different than me being a fantasy football analyst who's been playing for years and years and now analyzing for you know, more than a decade, and understanding the kinds of things that we should be looking for, you know, and understanding what data trends are important and aren't important, and all that kind of.

00:09:05
Speaker 2: Stuff we're forecasting.

00:09:06
Speaker 1: I get stuff wrong daily with my job, right, Like, I just it seems like Twitter docs are and I say that in quotes, you know, it seems like they're held to a higher standard that's unnecessary because no one should be.

00:09:21
Speaker 2: And maybe it is just some like some some folks out there.

00:09:25
Speaker 1: Who are a little bit more aggressive with the takes and who are maybe a little bit you know, more rude with their takes and the way that they approach things right and their conversations that they're having with people, And maybe that's just kind of like giving you guys a bad name. But in my opinion, you know, this is no different from a forecasting perspective than anything else that we would be doing in fantasy football. Do you think that that's accurate and fair or I mean, am I wrong in thinking that way?

00:09:51
Speaker 3: Well, I don't think it comes down to projection. And I you know, I recently played in some way two weeks ago, and I equated it to kind of like Matthew Berry coming up with his weekly rankings. You know, it's all it's all projection. Yeah, And I mean look at your commentsally, his comments, everybody else's comments in your posts. You'll get You also will get people who you know, I can't believe you said start this person over so and so, you know, I think there's maybe maybe Twitter docs we stand out a little more because there's fewer of us, and so there's more more people to yell a few ducks. I don't know if that's the case. Yeah, it's all. It's all just projection and using the tools that we have, our knowledge and then whatever databases that we use to try to come up with the best and closest projection as possible, and we're.

00:10:40
Speaker 2: Still going to get Yeah.

00:10:42
Speaker 1: I would imagine too that it's like a new thing that people aren't as used to, right, Like, I mean, a lot of this stuff has probably been around for five to ten years for the most part, with like the the injury analysis and whatnot. And you know, it's it's not like you said, it's not as frequent as what you'll see with like a fantasy football analyst who have been around now for thirty years out there just like touting and saying things.

00:11:03
Speaker 2: And that's that's also one of the things.

00:11:05
Speaker 1: You know, people are going to be more resistant to change and more resistant to like newer ideas and newer things.

00:11:10
Speaker 2: But I do want to just like to wrap this up.

00:11:13
Speaker 1: I just want to say to everybody listening to this, like, don't hate on the Twitter docs unless they're being jerks. Like of course, you know you don't. You don't want that kind of behavior out there. But and that that goes for literally any human being, right has nothing to do with with being a Twitter doc or not. But it's a forecast. It's it's just a game of forecasting and probability and looking at, you know, information that that we do as fantasy analysts, that other people do it their daily jobs. I just I don't know, it just seems like it's it's a it's an unnecessary thing to get so worked up over one question that I that I asked Edwin last year that I would love to get your take on too.

00:11:49
Speaker 2: Do you think that players are injury prone?

00:11:51
Speaker 1: Like it seems like there's some guys that just cannot stay healthy, you know, year in and year, like Jalen Waddle seems like you just can never ever stay on the field, like there's always something and Deontay Johnson seems like he has an injury every single week, right, and then he ends up playing and then he leaves the game, Like it's just there are.

00:12:07
Speaker 2: Certain guys where you have that vibe.

00:12:10
Speaker 1: Now, I've been an analyst who generally fades injury proneness if you will, but I just I would love to get as many, you know, angles at this as possible to be better at it in the future.

00:12:22
Speaker 2: Do you think that there is something to injury prone?

00:12:24
Speaker 3: Miess, Yeah, so I think Edwin and I have talked a lot about this, actually, but I think the answer honestly is yes and no. I think the player. You know, when we when we say this is my opinion, of course, it's going to differ from some other injury analysts, But when we say a player is entering this week with high or moderate injury risk, to me, that's us saying, Okay, this player has that risk of their more prone to injury. This is why I would pivot away from this player. So in a sense, in our analysis, we're actually saying that some of these players are injury prone. And and just from the medical side of it, you know, say Mike Evans is a perfect example. He strained his hamstring. He entered the game with a hamstring strain that he's going to try to play through. Well, he's going to be prone to a reinjury in game if he's trying to play through this, especially given his skill set, his long strides, and sure enough he suffered a hamstring injury and that's going to cost him multiple weeks. So I think there are certain circumstances. Now, do I think there's certain players that are injury prone who can get out of being injury prone. Yeah, it's it's all how they train, it's how they recover. A good example that would be Christian Watson, someone who specifically, you know, high risk of hamstring strains in the past with multiple recurrence. But he spent this entire offseason once the season ended last year and worked on that and you know, retrained, set up a new regimen. I think of a Deebo Samuel from a couple of years back, groin injury, soft tissue injuries. It's all how they train and how they recover. It's a huge influence on their prone status. So I think yes and no is kind.

00:14:03
Speaker 1: Of my answer for that is there are there like specific injuries that you would be looking for then that would lend themselves to injury prone? Noess, Like, if it's like you know, they talk about like what soft tissue type injuries and whatnot, Like, is that something that you would be more inclined to say, yeah, this guy is injury prone because that kind of injury has a higher likelihood of reoccurring, like and and I guess as a layer to that, and I know that everyone is going to be specific and every timeline is going to be different and stuff like that, But like you know, on top of that, are there certain injuries where, uh, there's a time frame at which that injury proneeness would would dissipate?

00:14:45
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's always hard to I think the hard part to analyzing that is that, again we're not assessing these players individually or face so it's all kind of projection on our end. But yeah, I mean I would say every week that a player self tissue injury is a perfect example of just knowing how the tissue healds, how how as a tealing scar, tissue lays down and the inflammatory response changes after multiple weeks. So as you get if a player is playing through an injury and they're not suffering re injuries as they're going every week, their risk is going to decrease. How much is it? Again that kind of comes under the projection we're truly speculating, but yeah, I mean, every every week a player gets away from their injury is goodness. And that's kind of where you know a lot of people you know listed as risk. That's kind of where a player goes from injury prone to not being injured.

00:15:41
Speaker 1: Are there any like context clues that you're looking for then, like as these guys you know you have like Nico Collins right now, right, So, so Collins on IR?

00:15:49
Speaker 3: What is it?

00:15:49
Speaker 2: Is it a hamstring that he's dealing with or a hamsterring?

00:15:52
Speaker 3: Yeah?

00:15:53
Speaker 2: Yeah, and so he's on IR right now.

00:15:56
Speaker 1: And usually when these guys, this is the the going back to what I was just talking about be for Usually when these guys like go on IR for an extended period of time. There's like weeks and weeks where we don't hear anything about these players from from the media and stuff, which is why again, you guys can be really, really helpful. But like with with Nico Collins, for instance, are there certain context clues that you might be looking for, whether through uh you know, press conferences, uh you know, what what coaches are saying, or uh practice and what you're seeing out of practices. You know, we get full practice, limited practice, those kinds of reports, but it's very binary for the most part in terms of like how they're reporting those things. But are there any of those kind of clues that that you're looking for as you sort of navigate when a guy might be able to return or how unhealthy he might be.

00:16:42
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's all. That's all trying to fit multiple pieces into the one puzzle to try to figure out, Okay, when when's this player actually coming back? Perfect example, like you brought up Nico, you know, I try to look at and again, every every injury analyst is going to be different. For at least my process. I try to dig into coach interviews, practice reports, specifically trying to find videos of that player either running, springing, and cutting something like a high ankle spring. If I see the player cutting off of that foot, off of that ankle and cutting, well, accelerating, decelerating. It all has to do with their movement patterns, something like a high ankle. I don't care as much about straight line. That's great, But how are they going to do with cutting? Because that's going to be the force that causes pain for his return and really depends on you know that that's going to dictate how he's going to return and how he's going to produce once he's back. So I try to dig a lot. Sometimes there's no information, and we truly have to stick with, you know, the practice reports and what coaches are telling us and then trying to decide, trying to decipher which coach index has helped a lot, how how truthful is this coach? Someone like Zach Taylor not very truthful?

00:17:59
Speaker 2: Yeah? Yeah, yeah.

00:18:01
Speaker 1: Do you do you have like a database you look at or something along those lines of like, all right, you know, Nico Collins, he has this hamstring, but he's never had a hamstring before. He's had a lot of hamstrings before. And then if there is that previous occurrence, you know, obviously you know, if it happened eight.

00:18:17
Speaker 2: Years ago, it's probably not that big of a deal.

00:18:18
Speaker 1: But like if it happened six months ago or something like that, is that something that you're putting into taking into consideration, you know? I think even Edwin had talked about at one point with Nico being worried about potential reinjury moving forward because of what he's done historically. I'm I'm not trying to pit you guys against each other here, so don't take this the wrong way. I have a lot of respect for both of you. But yeah, like, like just as an example, you know, with a player like Nico and what he's going through, are you looking at what he's gone through historically and maybe his return rates with previous injuries that have been similar, and if he's had this recurring injury and what that might do to his timeline.

00:18:55
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's so. I actually spent this past offseason building an entire database of just inputting all these injuries, how many games have been missed. Sometimes it's hard to find information on specific side, But as much as I can specific side, because that that helps me more so. It's like Nico, I'd have to pull up the database, right now, but you know he's I know he's had some groin strains, calf strains, ankle sprains. And actually when I when I so, I have a box on the side of every player profile, and as I wrote his up, I remember having some concern on soft tissue injuries, specifically lower extremity. But someone like him, you know, we can't just I think I've tried to tailor and make my my injury content looking at other what other injury analysts have done in terms of you know, we can be concerned about an injury, but what does it specifically mean for this player, Like what a hamstring strains or soft tissue strains lead to risk wise, re injury wise, just from a percentage and production production regression standpoint, But what does it mean for the specific player? So like Nico is a good example of you know, taking taking information like like from you or from Matt Harmon, Scott Barrett and just seeing you know, yes, I have injury concerns on a player like Nico, But what does that mean. You know, someone like Niko who is elite per touch you know, yards per route run, tardis per route run, all this, He's an Alpha wide receiver. So even though I have him, I actually had him in the red tier in terms of reinjury risk, he was still a player I was drafted because despite the injury risk, even if he's healthy for what ten games, he's going to pay off for you. So that's very different from someone like like Keenan Allen changing teams age reinjury risk. We don't know what the production will be. Yeah, probably that makes sense.

00:20:51
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, it's it's like an extra piece of the puzzle, right, It's this extra element where if it's favorable for the guy, that's great and you don't have to worry about it. But if it's unfavorable, if the guy's good and has all these other things to kind of boost, you know, to keep to retain value, than that matters.

00:21:04
Speaker 2: So it makes makes total sense.

00:21:06
Speaker 1: I actually I like that a lot because it allows us to not separate these two things so much, and separate the injury side and the health side so much from the analysis side, and that the you know, the you know what we're trying to do in scoring.

00:21:19
Speaker 2: Fantasy points and stuff.

00:21:21
Speaker 1: I do think that it's important to do that because you're you're, like this whole game at the end of the day is just a probability driven game, right, we're saying I like this, you know, I like his price based on the pros and the cons. The pros outweigh the cons. That's why I'm gonna like this guy more than where the consensus has him.

00:21:38
Speaker 3: Right.

00:21:39
Speaker 1: But we live in a world where people want black and white answers all the time, and you know, if you say, hey, I'm fading this player, people think that you have zero percent of that player or there's no chance that you would ever draft that guy, when it's just all a probability driven thing. And I think what you're basically saying here is that that's just part of the probability you know, equation for you is that you're, you know, weighing that risk and if the risk is still worth the reward, then you're still kind of approaching that player and still drafting him. And it sounds like, you know, so, was was Nico a guy? I know that we're just randomly talking about Nico Collins here, but he was a guy that you flagged at the start of the year.

00:22:14
Speaker 3: Yeah, I had flagged for specifically soft tissue injuries lower extremity soft tissue injuries but again I had him as a in the red tier reinjury risk in the AVP of the wide receivers, but I had specifically in bold by so I despite So that's how I tried to do it this offseason on all the players, is what's their injury risk, what's the tier that they're in, what's the what's the best projection or average projection of their fantasy points per game? And would I still take that player in that range because that matters to me, Like some people still look at total total total games or total points.

00:22:51
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, that.

00:22:52
Speaker 3: Doesn't A player could play seventeen games and average eleven points. I guess not league winning, you.

00:22:59
Speaker 1: Know, yeah, exactly exactly. Yeah, I mean, yeah, you're getting You're not getting. You're the point like, you're not you're not taking zeros when the guy's out right yeaheah yeah.

00:23:08
Speaker 3: Just draft in your later rounds.

00:23:10
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, exactly, exactly exactly.

00:23:12
Speaker 1: So, are there any injuries that you think are overrated by the masses or underrated by the masses? What I mean by that is, you know, a high ankle happens, and you know the community is like, oh my god, this guy is screwed.

00:23:27
Speaker 2: He's done. He's never going to be the same rest of season.

00:23:30
Speaker 1: Or you know, hamstring injury happens and people are like, oh, it's just a hamstring, it's no big deal. Are there are there specific injuries? You know obviously, like we all know an ACL tear is bad, right, But are there any of these like sort of more minor injuries that you think the community should pay more attention to or then and then maybe pay less attention to.

00:23:47
Speaker 3: Yeah, okay, so that's that's really funny that you brought up high ankle and hamstring because the again, this is all it has to be taken case by case, but I think high ankle springs are often over did just in terms of just because again just like you said, a lot of people see a high ankle and all they're done for the whole year, you know. And we've seen that with some players like Austin Eckler, uh who was last year suffered as high.

00:24:12
Speaker 1: Didn't didn't Kamara kind of have that going a couple of years ago too, like like at least his his his production slipped.

00:24:18
Speaker 2: A little bit, you know as the season like went on.

00:24:20
Speaker 3: Yeah, and Saquon yes, yes, but it's like you know, we see some of these players where they're actually I think it's because they returned too quickly. And again, this is so team driven, it's all going to be very different. But they returned too quickly. It's it's obviously going to impact their their production, and a lot of people don't think through it's it's going to impact their biomechanics, how they're moving, so that could lead to compensatory injuries. They could believe the other issues, their fear for contact, whatever it might be. So yeah, I think actually high ankle spreens are are kind of overrated, and we're seeing that a little bit this year with like Joe Mixon, Jonathan Taylor too. You know, Houston and Indy decided to keep them out a little bit longer and make sure they're actually one hundred percent. Sigmund Balloon I think recently posted about you know, seems like teams are starting to do a little bit better in their return from injury, so that once the player's back, they're actually producing a little bit better.

00:25:16
Speaker 2: Yeah.

00:25:16
Speaker 1: Yeah, and it makes it hard on us at times because if they change that up, then we're like, oh, we got to be cautious about playing this guy, and then little do you know, he's actually completely ready to go on and play. Are there are there any injuries then that, like you know, are are way worse than what the masses generally think.

00:25:36
Speaker 3: Yeah, I don't. I don't know about necessarily way worse, but at least the ones that I flag are usually growing or hamstring injuries, just because they impact so much of how a player moves, specifically in terms of deceleration, acceleration cutting, especially growing injuries cutting. So like looking at you know, you guys all have flagged or like Jawan Jennings trying to think of someone else suffered a groin injury recently that it's just it impacts. It puts them at risk for other injuries, especially hamstring Like we saw with Kyler Murray. You know he had a hamstring strain and he's a quarterback, he's a little bit more mobile. A couple of years back he tried to return play through it led to an acal tear. Because the hamstrings are key and dynamic stabilization of the knee. So there's so many other things that impacts where I don't think we should view it just as you know, oh, it's a hamstring straining it's no big deal. There are some cases where, you know, the ones that are hard to tell, and this is why I try to diggle out on the information, and really we just have to rely on information from interviews. Is if it's a if it's a player who just you know, they had a little titans it's not a true strain, but something's going on, you know, where it doesn't actually impact the production much, and then it goes away within a week, especially the ones that you know they've gone on for a couple of weeks. The player tries to return too quickly with Mike Evans, you know that's concerning.

00:26:58
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I mean it sounds like way you're saying is that it's it's like the over compensation of returning too quickly and what that can do to other parts of your body. I think anyone who like exercises have experienced this to some degree, right, Like like I've I've screwed up like my my butt muscles before running, right and then all of a sudden, I have it band issues and stuff or like you know, like it's just like you it's just very easy to see how it all works together in that way.

00:27:23
Speaker 2: I don't think the average.

00:27:25
Speaker 1: I mean, I don't even think this way, and I'm a degenerate with this stuff, but like the average fantasy manager is not thinking about that aspect of things that Like the Kyler Murray is a great example where you know it turns into that a cl but.

00:27:36
Speaker 2: We're not thinking about that at all.

00:27:37
Speaker 1: And I'm assuming that's all part of like the re injury risk that you're referring to here.

00:27:42
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, pretty much. And that's I mean, like there's no one so I say, no one. I just thought of one example, like take on Barkley, where someone an injury on us supposed to like I always saw this coming. You don't actually see it coming. It's just there, you know, there's risk. It's not like we're projecting Kyler here as ACL because he came back from a hamstering stream. It's one of those where it's just you know, just a know, there's risk involved here and we just have to hope that the player doesn't suffer.

00:28:10
Speaker 1: Yeah, It's it's similar whenever fantasy analysts like taut regression and then one guy just goes so far in the other directions like no, you didn't like It's like last week I talked about how the Rams were running for so many other touchdowns and like regression was gonna come, and then all of a sudden they throw for four touchdowns and it's like I didn't I didn't predict that. I mean, like like I just projected it to be a little bit more normal moving forward. You know, it's not an over correction. It's not like you're out there saying you know and you're to your point. It's like you're out there saying, this guy heard his hamstring, He's gonna tear his ACL today.

00:28:39
Speaker 2: You know, it's just be absurd, all right.

00:28:41
Speaker 1: So I want to I want to walk through kind of like what your typical process kind of looks like when someone goes down with an injury, Like what are the things that you're looking for when you're coming up for or coming up with the timetable to return? Are you looking at historical precedence, the age of the player. That's something that I feel like people have talked about a little bit more and more. I know Edwin's very very big on you know, younger guys coming back from ACL versus older guys coming back from ACL. Stuff like that, the team he's on, you've been mentioning teams a lot. I'm very curious about that too, Like, are there teams that you trust more than others, not just in terms of what they're saying to the media, but how they're training these guys and how they're they're bringing them back. What are some of the biggest factors that you're looking at to kind of get that timetable for return to play?

00:29:30
Speaker 3: Yeah, that that that makes me think of a couple other things. But I would say the first I'll start on every player is different. Uh when when a player suffers an injury. First thing I'm looking at is and again we're just projecting based off video, so there's gonna be some things that are wrong. But as much as close as possible as I can get is what exactly happened? What are the risks here? And I try to Over the years, I've tried to be more specific in terms of like, I don't want to throw everything at the wall. Right If I throw, say a player suffers knee injury, I could throw bone Brews mc L L C L A C L car you know, capsule everything, sure, and then I would be right, you can't you can't mark that as a hit, right, from an accuracy standpoint, Yeah, you got one out of your twenty nine guesses, right.

00:30:20
Speaker 1: Yeah, It's like here, here's my here's my sleeper show of twenty guys and one of them was right, so.

00:30:25
Speaker 2: Therefore it was a great sleeper show.

00:30:26
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, uh yeah, perfect example. So yeah, I've tried to be as specific as possible. And then from there, I look at, Okay, what is one Does this specific player have a pass injury of that or something related, you know, say it's a need. Do they have any past calf or hamstring or ankle injuries wherever it might be. And then I look at percentage in general on average of that injury, what are the typical timelines? And then I also add in it's just kind of a list that you go through. Yeah, and then I try to add in it's going to be imperfect on this one. But like you brought up the team asking, you know someone like Green Bay. Green Bay is a perfect example. They tend to be a little more conservative in their returns of play, especially because you know, I think of what their wide receivers, they have such a big rotation of receivers, they can kind of afford to have one out and then the staff in general, they or like the Rams, this I wish I you know, bringing up Pooka, I wish I had thought of a little bit more. I think I highlighted in one comment and then I just kind of didn't even think about it. The Rams use data for data, data points and player movement just to determine, Okay, how are they moving biomechanics wise? Are there any reinjury risks if they play? And I totally overthought that. So like a team like the Rams, you know, if the player is playing, that to me tells me, okay, they are going to be good. Goal.

00:31:54
Speaker 1: The team stuff is really interesting to me, Like are there teams that pop into your head that you're like, they rush guys back too fast, there's higher injury risk and we should be weary about that. And then on the flip side, you mentioned the Rams is like, don't be as afraid if these guys are coming back for LA because they have all these mechanisms in place.

00:32:13
Speaker 3: Yeah that's yeah. And again you know Puka, Yeah, I wish I had honed in on that a little bit more, and everyone really should have because one they're title the Cedars side, and I had one of the best medical facilities around and then too, Yeah, they have extra data points that tell them, Okay, this player is good to go. Whereas you know some information that we have and it's it really changes. It's actually really hard to track because you have to go through and see how the medical staff changed. Yeah right, you know their strength and conditioning team, the regiment. So like the Niners, I think I was cueued in a little bit more on them because I'm a Niners fan. But back in June there they're VP of player and player and health performance left to work for Atlanta, and in June a ton of their injury starts spiking up. Yeah, so it just kind of makes you wonder. It's information that we would never really have, but it kind of makes you speculate or wonder what changed there? Did someone new come in and completely change the strengthen conditioning coat or program their recovery program. Recovery is key and not a lot of teams do that. Plus some of us have a little bit more information boots on the ground with you know, like we know the Bengals that step that staff is not Uh. I don't want to throw anyone under the bus.

00:33:35
Speaker 1: Sure we trash teams all the time, as fantasy analysts feel I feel you.

00:33:43
Speaker 3: I'll just say, we know some teams are just not as good from a from a recovery standpoint. So there's some teams that we just know, like Baltimore a couple of years back, we just kind of knew, Okay, if they suffered there, they're going down with a bunch of injuries. I think we need to be a little more cautious with this.

00:34:02
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's super interesting, And I also wonder, like, I mean, there's probably like so much noise in that kind of data, even more noise than what you're gonna find in like coordinator data and stuff when you're analyzing like how guys want to you know, do their at least you can like visually see how coordinators are are working their offense and it's not just all driven by like you know, personnel and stuff like that. But I do wonder what I'm getting at is, I do wonder if, like the example of the forty nine ers, if you know him or her whoever it was, leaving to go to Atlanta, uh, and then you seeing a change in their injuries, if it was just merely a reporting thing too, write like it like could it like just be a difference in like the way that they were discussing the injuries versus you know, how they actually were working with the team and training with the team.

00:34:51
Speaker 2: I have no idea.

00:34:52
Speaker 1: I'm just I'm just playing into the idea that there's probably a lot of Like it's just probably really really difficult to really nail that down, but like a lot of things in fantasy football, it's probably pretty helpful at the extremes, Like it's probably relatively helpful to know that Cincinnati is a like watch out a little bit here. And I love that you throw out Cincinnati too, because t Higgins has just been a nightmare the last like two or three years of his career with with the injury stuff.

00:35:16
Speaker 2: But it's funny, all right.

00:35:18
Speaker 1: So I want to get into some player takes now, because you know, not not any of like the detailed stuff of like the weekly guys, who are they going to play?

00:35:26
Speaker 2: Are they not going to play?

00:35:28
Speaker 1: This is more so you know, the the longer term injuries where you know, we've we've tried to play some bets or not, you know, on these guys based on when they might return. And I want to start off with Jonathan Brooks, because I feel like, like I just want to know from your perspective, if you think the fantasy community with you know, of course, we have the advantage of hindsight right now where you know, it's week nine. He hasn't played a single snap yet. We don't know if he's gonna play this week. It sounds like, you know, we're recording this on a Wednesday this week. It sounds like he did practice today, which was a nice little change, and maybe things are trending in the right direction. But regardless of all of that, you know, the fantasy community, myself included, because I really liked him as a player, going back to what you were talking about before, of like weighing the risk and reward and all of that. But a lot of us were high on Jonathan Brooks, and obviously I thought that he was going to play a lot sooner than right now. I think others thought he was going to play sooner than right now. But do you think that we approach things incorrectly with him given the timetable of the ACL you know, he tore it in November of last year. You know, we don't have any real data on him for the most part because he hasn't played in the NFL yet. Do you think that we approached this to aggressively with Jonathan Brooks or do you think it was still okay even with hindsight in mind.

00:36:45
Speaker 3: I mean, ultimately, it'll it'll depend on how he produces once he does play. And I don't like you said that. Full practice today was great because, you know, looking at last week, the week before, he went from questionable the last week being doubtful. So I started wondering, did he have some cut set And then Canalis was talking about, you know, well we don't. We don't fully know. You know, it's still possibility that he doesn't play at all this year. Well what and where does that come from? Yes, and I don't have his I meant to write down his surgery date here. I think it was the injury happened in November. The surgery date I want to say was twelve fifteen or twelve eleven. Yeah, A bunch of numbers jumble over my head. But so looking at projection wise, you know, I thought for sure he would be active by now. I mean today he's now ten months, nineteen days out from surgery. So in theory, you know, it's so hard to determine. I guess we should have looked at, Okay, he's a rookie, he's coming off Aco. We don't fully know. The one thing from the coaching aspect, we don't fully know how conservative or aggressive Canalis or Carolina's staff is going to be, you know, from an injury standpoint, he's new in new staff here. And then also I think a lot of people underprojected how well Chuba Hubbard would be playing. Yeah, so I think that plays a role. And then also you know, you never know would he have been playing sooner if Carolina was playing better? You know, they have they kind of slow played him because they've done so bad. They're not winning, so why you know, kind of give him a one of my shirt red shirt.

00:38:22
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:38:23
Speaker 3: So you know, when I looked back at the ADP, it's like the running backs I think it was from May or June. The ADP of the running backs and the running backs taken around him, it's just kind of like, you know, yeah, you probably could have taken wide receivers there instead, but the bets weren't even that much better in his range anyways. So yeah, I think majority of people drafting where he was. I want to say he was between running back. He got up to running back twenty two at one point, which was too high in my opinion, but you know, range from there to running back twenty eight to thirty and really, if you were drafting him there, you're kind of drafting him from mid to late production anyways, right right, So it's just kind of a blumber that he's not active yet.

00:39:06
Speaker 1: Do you do you think it was like one of the comps that I went to and look, I understand sample size matters, of course I do. This is like this is what I talk about literally like every podcast basically, but there's not always going to be a sample size or like an easy comparison of a really good like he's young too, write a young, really athletic, great producer, great running back tearing his ACL in that time frame, getting drafted high, like having good draft capital, and then you know what is he going to do the next year? The closest comp that I could find was like Todd Gurley, right where like Gurley towards a cl in the exact same timeframe. And yeah, they slow played it a little bit with Gurley, but he was back in like week three four, and then he basically just dominated through and that was on a in a bad offense, like really similar situation as what we have with Brooks.

00:40:01
Speaker 3: You know.

00:40:01
Speaker 1: The difference maybe to your point is the tube of Hubbard effect here. But do you think that was a mistake to like look back at that that single instance and say, like, well Gurley did it, maybe Jonathan Brooks can do it, or like, I don't know. I've had this discussion a lot with folks on my discord because I think it's just a really kind of fun game theory related question and also just like like us trying to figure out what we should do in the future with this, with this kind of situation, I almost am sitting here thinking, like, I know we have hindsight to our advantage, but I think I'd make the same decision again when he's RB like he was in the RB thirty range, you know, RB thirty, RB thirty five range, and it's like, if he's as good as like my prospect models saying, and as good as what his talent profile looks like, I don't know. We saw Gurley literally, you know, give us that top ten running back performance, which would be massive if Brooks could give us that even I mean even from now through the end of the year, that would be massive. But you know, is looking at that single data point of bad idea or did that just kind of play into like, well, that's kind of the recovery for these acls to begin with.

00:41:07
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean it makes me think of everyone throws out like that, oh, trust the process, you know the statement, yeah, and it either ticks people off or everyone's like, yeah, yeah, trust.

00:41:19
Speaker 2: The process, trust the process. Yeah, yeah, a good.

00:41:25
Speaker 3: Yeah. I mean it makes me think of like, Okay, Christian McCaffrey, if he comes back and scores you know, eighty to ninety percent of his typical production because he'scoring touchdowns, he's getting catches, I think you still look at it and say, yeah, that hurt a lot for ten weeks, but now he's scoring what I needed him to score, right right, So it makes it worth it even though it's late season production and it's winning you weeks. Brooks, I think it truly depends on the type of manager, type of player that you are. Man, if we're talking best ball, that's different, like ynasty. I mean, yeah, if you if you're fine slow playing it, people were taking him at like one O five, one of four, one five, one of six. You're either fine with that and and you know you're comfortable with basically a red shirt year, or you look back and say, man, next time, why would I take the running back coming off of a c L. And I do think running backs coming off a c L underproduced compared to WDE receivers. But I'd have to dig into that more because obviously we have like James Williams, he was a very late season injury though each where his in in January?

00:42:33
Speaker 2: January?

00:42:34
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, and you played in like two games or have one or two catches. But you know, looking back at it's like, well, okay, I would rather I wish I would have taken Brian Thomas, you know, someone who's healthy in a high projection, uh standpoint or perspective there over Brooks instead of just hoping Brooks produces by week.

00:42:57
Speaker 2: Yeah.

00:42:58
Speaker 1: So can I just ask you straight up, like, as Jonathan Brook's recovery from this ACL the time that he has been out now since surgery, is it an atypical recovery versus what we typically see, because like I'm looking at like like it's like like TJ Hockinson. Has this been different than TJ. Hockinson and what he's been going through right now? Or is the timetable similar? Like, is this basically what I'm saying? Is this any sort of outlier or maybe even like a twenty fifth percentile outcome or something like that for Jonathan Brooks that we've seen so far, Yeah.

00:43:31
Speaker 3: I would say, honestly, thinking back, thinking of my database and all the all the running backs who have suffered ACO injuries, return has been between nine months, nine months and a week to eleven months, eleven months, two weeks. So and again he's saying he's active this week or even we don't know if he's gonna be active this week, but it sounds like he's going to be at least activated, So you will play at some point this season. Yeah, but it sounds like he's going to play at least by eleven months, So technically within that range. I guess, again, if I were to look back at it, it makes sense. Given he's a rookie compared to someone like t J. Hawkinson, Hockinson already has NFL reps, he knows the playbook, he doesn't have to get accustomed to. I mean Titland's different from running back obviously because you're following your blocks, you're getting used to all that. Yeah. T J. Hockinson has had a pretty quick recovery bill because from surgery. He's going to be off ACL and MCL. He's gonna be right at eight months twenty nine days.

00:44:31
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, so he no, sorry, that's.

00:44:34
Speaker 3: Sorry, my memory is off. That's weeks n So he's going to be nine months, thirteen fourteen days.

00:44:40
Speaker 2: Yeah.

00:44:40
Speaker 1: So it's just a matter of you know, the individual. But they're still within the within the.

00:44:46
Speaker 2: Range that we typically see for these injuries.

00:44:49
Speaker 3: Yeah, if Brooks was returning and it was like thirteen months fourteen months out, I'd be pretty concerned, like something something happened, something went wrong here on this one. Yeah, maybe he's dealing with some cartilage damage, you know, persistent swelling that they're trying to get a handle on. But I haven't heard anything like that. I don't know if if that happened, I don't know if we'll hear about it. That's the downside sometimes, you know, think of Jackie Dobbins in the past, where again the Harbaugh uh you know, he reported it as a clean a cl and then Jak Dobbins what a year and a half later, went on an interview and said, oh, no, it wasn't It wasn't just a cl I actually pulled my hamstring, my my PLC, my l C L It's okay, So that would have changed my projection a little bit.

00:45:36
Speaker 2: Yeah, right, right, exactly exactly.

00:45:38
Speaker 1: All right, So we we talked a little bit about Christian McCaffrey, very very briefly, but let's just let's just get to it.

00:45:45
Speaker 2: Is he gonna be ready at the buy?

00:45:48
Speaker 3: Have you?

00:45:48
Speaker 1: And also have you been surprised by, like as shocked as the layman has with how things have developed with CMC? Going from you know, us being pretty optimistic in August that he was just gonna be fine in week one too, Oh he's not gonna play week one, but he'll be ready in week two to all of a sudden he's hanging out in Germany and no one knows why he's in Germany. You know, all these things are are like, it's just been a crazy, crazy saga. So I guess this is a two parter. Number one, is he going to come back after the bye? And then number two? Have you been as surprised as a lot of us with this injury and the progression of it.

00:46:25
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think surprised is a good word considering how he was reported or not reported. Really yeah, it really initially was reported just as a cap string. And yeah, you know, looking again, like you said, I said earlier, hindsight, you know, thinking back to his cash strain back in I think it was week seventeen of last year. I kind of wish I had thought about that a little bit more and process or put that into the projection considering it's like, Okay, well that's been ten months since that happened. He's now dealing with another calf injury or new calf injury or re injury. And it led to obviously now hindsight, like looking back to the reports, led to muscut tennis junction issues. He was ten heightest issues and on both sides. So the good news on this is that, again probably perk of me being an understand I dug into it probably every day because I look forward to when he returns. He's now been about three weeks, three three and a half four weeks where he's been pushing it pretty hard and no setbacks. So it sounds like they're going to really push him in an actual practice situation, which is key. You know, you can't I know people talk about simulated practice and all that. You can't simulate how you're the reactionary movements, you know, when the defenders actually getting in your space. How are you moving, how are you how are you changing your direction of movement, how are you pushing off? You know a lot of these, a lot of the ground reaction forces that are going to go right through his achilles basically put him at risk of what they need to look at is does his achilles act up or get inflamed again with those specific movements. So as of right now, it sounds like he's on track and they're gonna put him basically through his final test and then as long as that goes well, it's hard for me to project because again it really just depends on how that practice goes. But it seems like he's going to be active a week ten.

00:48:32
Speaker 1: Yeah, would you anticipate if he's active if we don't hear any like, let's just pretend we don't hear anything negative through the media that there was a step back or something like that.

00:48:39
Speaker 2: He's active, He's ready to go.

00:48:41
Speaker 1: Are you anticipating the normal Christian McCaffrey workload, or do you think there's a little bit of a ramp up there.

00:48:46
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think there's gonna be a ramp up. I don't think we'll see Yeah, So I guess I have to take back my comment that I said earlier about one oh one drafting him at one oh one. Yeah. Sure, you know, just from a utilization standpoint, I could definitely see, especially thinking through how well Jordan Mason has run, not necessarily in the goal line, but right between the twenties and then Grendo. I think what we'll see is probably a forty utilization compared to what we're used to seeing. But I do think he's going to get his goal on work back right away and then probably probably the receiving word.

00:49:24
Speaker 1: And then this is this is a projection of short term but then eventually, if things go well, you would entericitate like how long do you think that would be? Like two weeks, three weeks or would it be the regular season until they get to the point. And I know that this is a not easy, you know, thing to answer, because there's this has been a situation that no one has been able to predict But would that be something though that that you think would be just a couple of week thing and then we will see the CMC. Or do you think that there's a chance that they just wait until the playoffs? Yeah, if they're there, of course, what they have to.

00:49:57
Speaker 3: Be there, Yeah, hopefully they're there. Yeah. Honestly, this I think it comes down to some of the team dynamics because I think I honestly think Kyle Shannon will go into each game with a game plan with a desired goal to hit for CMC touch wise and snapwise, But some of it will probably come down to how's that game specifically going, because we've seen that with some of these injury returns, like like Deebo last week. You know, I don't think he was set to play as many snaps or get as many touches as he actually did. I don't think that was the original game plan. But the game was a little was close for a while where they were kind of forcing the ball in situations where I would be willing to bet they wished they didn't have to do that, right, you know, So if they get in some of these situations where they don't, they don't fully trust Gorndo yet they don't fully trust Mason, especially again goal line situation, short yardage where Mason's kind of struggled a little bit. I could see CMC going a little bit over his touch projections, his snap projections that the Niners want to hit. Ideally, Yeah, with the long term goal of really preserving him for the playoffs.

00:51:09
Speaker 2: Yeah makes sense.

00:51:10
Speaker 1: Another running back who suffered an injury early this season was Isaiah Pacheco, And to me, this is another one. I mean, this is probably number one on my list of haven't heard much about what's going on with him, and so just based on the injury and based on what you've seen, I know that there were reports that he's been like running and stuff like that, and like you know, I have no idea what that really means to his return and his injury and stuff.

00:51:34
Speaker 2: But what does that tell you about is he going to be back this season? When is he going to be back this season?

00:51:38
Speaker 1: Then when he is back, do you anticipate a ramp up with him or do you think that he can just come back and play?

00:51:45
Speaker 3: Yeah? I think so. Kind of a similar situation to where I mentioned before, Like I wish I could see some video of how he's performing and how he's run is for him more so, the lateral movements can be key, and I've heard, you know, I've seen some reports that he's running out of treadmill. That's great, again, straight line that he should be doing that. But at this point, but the key with those you know, with his surgery is onn whitburn for a period of time, there's going to be atrophy that occurs, and then they have to make sure he's there's no bio mechanical issues. So I view it as he's going to come in with some conditioning issues. He's going to come in he's lost some strength over the time period of his recovery that he won't necessarily have regained by now. Like say he's active this week or next week, he won't be, but say he is, he's not going to be as strong as he should be. So I can honestly see this being a situation where they ease him in, and especially with how Kareem Hunt has played, I think it'll honestly help the both of them to keep both of them fresh. Because Andy Reid actually talked about Hunt recently of you know how it's been kind of wearing down because he entered. I mean he signed. I don't even remember what week it was.

00:52:58
Speaker 2: Because of definitely not prepared for this. Yeah right, right.

00:53:02
Speaker 3: So he's getting a little run down and he was talking about that. I was like, you, I want to find ways to decrease his load, but we trust him.

00:53:11
Speaker 2: Yeah, but we have a full back as there are, right, we have no choice.

00:53:16
Speaker 3: Yeah, So I do think that's kind of where I see I'm projecting a little bit of when Chico returns. I do see it more of a one A one B situation where Chico and Hunt probably help each other just from a volume standpoint, where their touches will probably be more efficient. But we I'm not projecting particular to go back to his week one, week two utilization, which was like mid to high.

00:53:39
Speaker 2: Range for oh yeah, yeah he was. He was getting awesome usage.

00:53:43
Speaker 1: Is that something that you're then projecting like this season just because it's that kind of injury and then maybe next year he'd be back to that kind of usage or is it maybe just like a three four week thing.

00:53:54
Speaker 3: Yeah, hopefull Well, so the challenge with that is, again we don't fully know when he's going to be active, but some of that projection leads right into fancy clouds. So he's going to be a guy that I mean, you kind of hope once he's active that he regains his at least goal ones, you know, situation, because if he's scoring touchdowns that makes up for some of the volume that he's a loss. We won't know if it's going to be him or Hunt. So that's that's kind of where I view Pachaco. So another challenge with Pajaco, I guess is you know, I would view that as next year efficiency per touch I would expect to be better than when he returns this year. But we already knew that the Chiefs return and replace Pajaco. You know, they looked into signing Josh Jacobs, they looked into signing a couple others in drafting and running back. So do they do that again? So that's more of a dynasty conversation about it. Personally, I would rather avoid Pajaco given his reinjury risk and overall injury risk, and then just the fact that Kansas City probably replaces him.

00:54:56
Speaker 2: So I got one more question I want to ask you.

00:54:59
Speaker 1: It's been in my opinion, this is totally anecdotal, Like I haven't dug into like looking at ADP versus games missed at different positions and stuff like that for this year, but it definitely feels like higher end wide receivers in particular are going down at just an absurd rate compared to what we typically see. And then, like I'm putting together rankings today, man, and I'm looking, I'm going through my running the running backs, I'm like, how is running back this deep right now? It's crazy, Like you get you get to like RB thirty and you're like, I'm still feeling okay about this guy potentially putting up like a top ten, top fifteen performance. It's just wild how we've sort of seen wide receivers go down at a really really high rate running backs go down at a really a really low rate. Now I've done really surface level analysis of this. I did this for last year's guide a little bit, and I found that actually there wasn't like a massive, massive difference between running back injury wide receiver injury with like early round guys, Like I think that, you know, people kind of seem to misinterpret zero RB a little bit to think that like it's only because running backs get hurt more that zero RB works when it's in reality it's about, you know, fragility and the fact that when a running back gets hurt, the backup running back is more predictable and projectable and all that kind of stuff.

00:56:13
Speaker 2: But my my real.

00:56:14
Speaker 1: Question though with all of this, is has this season been different in your eyes with these wide receivers and is there any reason that you think or is there anything that could be the reason as to why these wide receivers seem to be going down at a much higher rate than the running backs.

00:56:31
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think this year is kind of a flutier, Like I would not be surprised if next year is different where wide receivers are staying a little healthier. Looking at the guys the wide receivers who have gotten injured, I mean some of them, actually a lot of them entered, you know, looking at my database, a lot of them entered the season already in the red tier anyways, like Pooka just giving his play style, Mike Evans age as soft tissue injuries, Nico pass off tissue injuries. But even looking at running backs, I mean a lot of the running backs right now are healthy, but a lot have still been getting injured. They're just playing through these injuries compared to the wide receivers. So I honestly I'm kind of viewing it as a flute here. And a lot of the injuries, I mean, concussions, they're hard to predict, kind of individual you know, situations, ankle springs. There's spent a lot of hip tackle injuries, even though they're not getting called hamstring strains. Again, some of that comes down to just looking at past injury, past, past injury history with some of these wide receivers. I just I haven't specifically seen a pattern there, and I'm kind of viewing it as a flute here where next year I bet it of course corrects. It'll be interesting in a track. Yeah.

00:57:52
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I've been saying this too, is I would not be shocked at all if the market from like an ADP standpoint and stuff, they're boosting up the running backs and then all of a sudden, you know, then something like zero RB or at least a hero RB approach. Like this is why I generally just go hero RB every year, because it's just kind of playing the middle in a way where when these crazy things do happen, you're not completely toast.

00:58:14
Speaker 2: But yeah, I would I would what I've basically.

00:58:16
Speaker 1: Been thinking is that the market is going to overcorrect and over overreact to what's going on with these these injuries and assume that running backs can stay healthy and uh, you know, well will stay healthier than the wide receivers will when we know that that's not necessarily the case. I mean, I am, I am I wrong with that analysis about like running back and wide receiver injuries and the occurrence of them, that it's not like dramatically different between the two positions.

00:58:40
Speaker 3: Yeah, I would say not necessarily dramatically different. I think a small percentage lean toward more running backs.

00:58:49
Speaker 2: Yeah, but again, the.

00:58:50
Speaker 3: Game theory behind it is, you know, say, say a top wide receiver gets injured compared to a top running back getting injured, You're you're gonna be able to find a replaceable value at running back much easier right off waivers, in trade, whatever it might be. Yeah, I would say small difference between the two. I drafted Bryan back heavy this year.

00:59:16
Speaker 1: Nice, You're you're feeling good, right, Yeah, You're you're feeling you're feeling real good. I mixed it up, you know, I'm not, I'm I I played it very very middle of the road. So I'm having you know, I'm fine, there's not it's not been like a special year, but it's been a horrible year.

00:59:29
Speaker 2: But yeah, I mean, we'll see.

00:59:32
Speaker 1: I Like, it does seem like there has been fewer long term running back injuries and then unfortunately, just from like a regression standpoint, it feels like it's inevitable that one of these guys is going to like tear their a c l and knock on wood.

00:59:45
Speaker 2: Everyone knock on wood right now.

00:59:46
Speaker 1: But like, you know, like it just feels like it's like it's a violent game, right Like, It's it's crazy that we really haven't Now we had Christian McCaffrey, to be fair, but we just really haven't had many long term injuries going down with the backs. And I'm not hating on it. I like it for you know, a lot of my teams and whatnot. But yeah, hopefully hopefully that does not go down for us and we can we can continue to ride the running backs that we have. But Jeff Man, this was a pleasure to finally hop on and chat with you and pick your brain a little bit about this stuff. It's nice to to kind of be on this side of the discussion. Instead of like having to be the expert with another expert and kind of go back and forth about fantasy analysis, I can be the a completely dumb human being asking you very stupid questions about all the awesome stuff that you're doing. But let everyone know where they can find you, what you're up to all that good stuff.

01:00:38
Speaker 3: Yeah, thanks for having me on the show. Thanks for reaching out about that. It's been awesome. You can find me on Twitter x at jam Thrive PT and then Injury Analysis and Conversations and the discord at Destination Heavy or d D and then injury articles.

01:00:54
Speaker 1: On four for four awesome, awesome, And as usual, you guys can find my stuff over on round dot com. Make sure you subscribe to the podcast, make sure you subscribe to the newsletter, take advantage of the underdog promo. But as always everyone, most importantly thanks for tuning in.