0:00What's going on, man? Welcome back to the basement. I'm Ron, and today we have my favorite video of the week, my top 10
0:06lessons learned in fantasy football takeaways from week seven as we look ahead to week eight of the football season. This is where we talk about all
0:14of the data usage, trends, stats, injuries, news, the world-famous rookie receiver report, the rookie running back carousel, which by the way,
0:24we thought for a second there this was a weak rookie class. We have rookies breaking out all over the place to talk
0:29about today. So, I'm going to keep you up to date on all of that to win your leagues. As always, if you enjoy, leave
0:34a like, subscribe if you're new, and of course, our first takeaway or lesson learned here is going to be the world-famous rookie receiver report. And
0:44if you enjoy the rookie receiver report, all I ask is that you leave a like, subscribe, comment, all of that stuff.
0:51It is midway of the football season, which means views, all of that start to tail off a little bit. So, juice things up for the boy, of course.
1:00Now, I will say, let me know what you guys think of this.
1:03I I changed up the formatting ever so slightly.
1:07I felt like before we had everybody's player names to the left here, and then kind of a hodgepodge to the right. Well,
1:13now, we have things kind of organized.
1:16Let me know how this looks to you, all right? I I want to make sure I'm not throwing too many numbers, too many
1:21colors at you. So, in the middle, we have each player, right? Of course, their name, team, position, and their points per game currently. This is every
1:28rookie receiver that runs 20 or more routes sorted by their points per game.
1:32I will put myself kind of down here, and we will cuz I I don't know. I don't I don't want to put too much on the screen
1:38for you guys to look at.
1:40Then we have our playing time. So, our route share in week five, six, and seven, we can see how we are trending up
1:46in terms of being on the field as a starter in the passing offense. Anything over a 90% route share means you are a
1:53starting piece of the passing game. Then we have our per route metrics. Targets per route run, are you getting volume on a per route basis, per route
2:03basis? Anything over a 20% targets per route run is strong. Yards per route run, are you efficient on a per route
2:08basis? Anything over 2 yards per route run is strong. First downs per route run, are you not only getting volume, being efficient, but are you moving the
2:17chains and being an engine in your offense? First downs per route run is going to be 10% or better is what we're
2:23looking for. And then I took away PFF grade. PFF has fallen off. I think their grades are like maybe fine, maybe they
2:28have some historical context, but the less I can throw at you the better and I just don't trust them anymore. That's
2:33where we're at uh on that side of things. Now, the man of the hour, the first guy we're going to talk about is
2:38is of course Casey Concepcion. We'll put him at the top of the screen here.
2:44And he had a monstrous day. He had 10 targets, eight catches, 129 yards, no touchdowns. Now, he actually left points on the board or left points on the board
2:55where going into half, I think he had over 100 receiving yards already. So, he had a quiet second half. In the second half, I
3:00believe he had like a 40-yard walk-in touchdown that he dropped.
3:04He could have had an even bigger score, but even still, crazy day, 81 yards after the catch, six first downs on
3:11those eight catches. And this is the biggest part. The biggest part is that this was the first time his average depth of target was over 8 yards
3:20downfield, meaning it wasn't just these pop passes and screen passes and gadget plays. Yet, an 11.1 yard ADoT, that is real big boy wide receiver usage. Now, I
3:30have to be honest, I did some investigating. I can't explain why his route share was 74%. I know Harold Fanning was a little bit
3:37more involved in the passing game here.
3:39I know Jerry Jeudy got more in the mix as the trade deadline comes around and they're saying, "You know what? I'm kind
3:43of fine not trading away Jerry Jeudy." I wouldn't panic on a 74% route share. I mean, I'm sure no one is panicking on
3:50their Casey Concepcion uh shares at this point, but I was just kind of looking for an answer here. I don't believe that Kahne Ception ever
3:57got banged up. Yeah, you had a 79% route share for Jerry Jeudy in week seven. So, really it was just that Jerry Jeudy ran
4:02more routes than him and is kind of getting more and more involved. I suppose that the Kasey Kahne Ception concussion kind of opened the door for
4:10Jerry Jeudy there, but I I wouldn't be concerned about it in the slightest. I also imagine that when you go for 130
4:17yards on eight catches, that you're going to take a breather here and there.
4:21Maybe a small benching for the drop, but I really wouldn't get too high or too low here. Now, when I say too high or too low, I wouldn't get
4:29too high either. I really like Kasey Kahne Ception, but we do have to remember you're not going to get I believe Deshaun Watson threw
4:36for 300 yards in this game. You're not going to get Yeah, 308 yards for Deshaun Watson. You're not going to get that in
4:42every game. That was also his highest pass attempt game of the year with 36.
4:46It was kind of a weird game script. They ended up kind of trailing towards the end there against the Titans. I will say
4:52I wouldn't lower Denzel Boston either.
4:55Well, I think Denzel Boston is a guy that he almost had a massive day, too, because when we have all this volume,
5:01you have 300 plus passing yards, we ended up having Denzel Boston and Kasey Kahne Ception when we talk about expected PPR points, so your usage, your
5:10volume, right? In terms of your targets, your red zone targets, all of that. How many fantasy points should you have scored? Both of them were around 18
5:17expected points and should have been the wide receiver five and the wide receiver six this week. As crazy as that is, we
5:22should have had two top six receivers on the week from the Cleveland Browns.
5:25Instead, Kasey Kahne Ception had a drop on a touchdown, and then Denzel Boston had his highest targeted game, which is crazy. It was one of his quieter games
5:33here, but he had nine targets. He only had three catches for 27 yards, but nine targets for a 15.9 yard adot means those
5:40are super valuable downfield targets.
5:42And if he could have came down with, say, six of those, all of the sudden he has like 14, 15 PPR points on the day
5:49and ends up being awesome. So, I wouldn't look at Casey Conception's box score and be like, "Oh man, like Denzo Boston wasn't doing it."
5:57This is fine. Like 17% targets per route run isn't great, but it shouldn't be uh it honestly shouldn't even be red. It
6:03should really be more white. I might have to change the conditional formatting here uh before our next rookie receiver report, but it's also,
6:10you know, it's still 17% is pretty low, but when it says downfield as it as it is, that's awesome. And why the yards
6:15per route run even though he has a high A dot is because when you have Deshaun Watson, you're not going to connect on
6:20every single deep shot. But, I would have both as like a wide receiver three, like a boom-bust wide receiver three moving forward, and that's really strong
6:28given where you drafted them, given they're on the Cleveland Browns, uh and given they're rookie receivers that can still get better and continue to climb.
6:35Somebody who feels like he's at the peak of the mountain right now is Amari Cooper. He's at the top of this list,
6:4016.3 points per game, of course. The funny part is is that I would that's a small sample, right? It's only a
6:45three-game sample, but you have to remember the first game in that sample was a game in which he had one catch for 20 yards and
6:54got tackled and then was out of that game and put on IR for four to five weeks.
6:59So, Amari Cooper, there's a couple of things happening here. First of all, Elijah Mitchell comes back, we go from an 85%
7:05route share to a 70% route share. That's not amazing. We don't like to see that.
7:09We want this to be 90% plus, but they love to rotate these guys. Mason Taylor had two touchdowns, so he looked good.
7:14Elijah Mitchell's in the mix. They love to get their uh sympathy targets for Isaiah Williams.
7:21They love to even get Jelani Woods in the mix there as well. I think this is going to come up. Of course, it's going
7:26to come up. He's playing too damn well for it not to come up. He now has back-to-back 100-yard receiving games.
7:33Amari Cooper, I never thought I'd be saying this. He had in this game five catches, 115 yards and a touchdown. The
7:39week before, he had six catches, 103 yards and a touchdown. He now is this big play game breaker where in every game
7:47he's played so far, he has a catch of 30 yards, 48 yards, and 60 yards in his three career games. He has back-to-back
7:52100-plus yard and a touchdown game so far. And you can see it's not even like he's doing it in a gimmicky fashion. All
7:59of his stuff checks out. First downs per route run, yards per route run, targets per route run, everything is juice, his
8:04production is there. It's all there.
8:06Now, am I going to sit here and say like this is the next coming of Ja'Marr Chase or Puka? I know there's stats out there
8:11that talk about um like most PPR points or most receiving yards through a player's first three games.
8:17Don't get me wrong. It's awesome. He's up there. He's doing amazing, amazing things. But I hate to pour cold water on this. I did
8:26it last week with Jerryd Bayless. I love Omar Cooper. Everything looks good. I would just pump the brakes on being like, "Okay, this is dynasty rookie wide
8:32receiver one. Put him ahead of Carnell Tate. This is the next coming of Puka Nacua or Ja'Marr Chase." Anybody out there is saying that that is not what's
8:38happening here. But this is a really, really strong breakout for a good player. Now, we'll see how things look when Frank Reich remembers that Garrett
8:46Wilson is on this team. Now, I did get a lot of questions in the Discord every single time I make one of these videos.
8:52I put out for everyone that's on the premium side of the Discord from the Patreon patreon.com/ronstewart. I ask, "Who do you want to hear about?" There's
8:59a lot of panic about Garrett Wilson, deservedly so. But he did have 100 yards receiving like two games ago. He's still
9:04an awesome player. He's going to command targets.
9:07I think Garrett Wilson's going to come around. But instead of pushing for high-end wide receiver two status, right? More towards like your Parker
9:14Washingtons of the world up there. I think he's more towards your back-end wide receiver two guys where uh he's probably in a similar range for me as of
9:21right now as like DJ Moore and Luther Burden and I was Michael Wilson.
9:30Like all of these guys that are like back-end wide receiver twos that are not super consistent every single week.
9:33Jameson Williams is probably there as well. Uh like he's probably somewhere in that range of like wide receiver 19 to wide receiver 25 rest of season. It
9:40sucks. It just kind of is what it is right now in terms of how they are getting him the football, but I would be
9:45very encouraged by Omar Cooper, Casey Canseco and Denzel Boston as wide receiver threes moving forward, which a lot of us play in two
9:53wide receiver two flex leagues or three wide receiver one flex leagues where that's a valuable piece to have boom bust options uh until
10:00we can kind of get them Well, it's a little bit tough. There's not really There's not really an until for guys
10:05like Carnell Tate, Denzel Boston, or Casey Canseco because at the end of the day their quarterbacks are Cam Ward, Deshaun Watson, and then for
10:11Omar Cooper, Geno Smith with Garrett Wilson already at the top of the target totem pole. Uh, but we can move on and
10:18talk about Carnell Tate who just kind of is what he is at this point. His per route stuff is awesome. You see
10:22everything else. Uh, he has a much bigger sample than a guy like Omar Cooper, so none of this is fluky. 24%
10:28targets per route run, awesome. Two yards per route run, awesome. Eight points like all this is perfect. It just comes down to the fact that Cam Ward has
10:34thrown for 200 plus passing yards once this season. Carnell Tate just kind of is what he is within the context of the
10:40offense. Now, let's talk about the Miami Dolphins receivers here. I guess let's let's sort it by this.
10:47Let's go down to the three of them here.
10:49Caleb Douglas comes back. He gets two catches on three targets. He scores on both of his catches.
10:57Now, of course, this is not somebody that's a wide receiver three rest of season that I'm rushing to plug into my
11:02lineup. He has similar limitations where he is in an offense that is bad or not The Dolphins offense is bad. Of course,
11:08they scored points against the Jets, but I'm more so saying like the passing offense. It's not going to be a lot of
11:11yards or touchdowns, but Caleb Douglas does look good as a stash. He's not a huge target earner at a 15.8% targets
11:20per route run, but when he gets the ball, he is awesome. He is 100% worth a stash in pretty much every format. Now,
11:27Chris Bell is coming back from an ACL tear, so I don't want to be too harsh, but for redraft leagues, I'd be shocked
11:31if he really ends up being anything just in the context of this passing game. I would even be shocked I have a lot of
11:36optimism for Caleb Douglas.
11:38I would just be shocked that there are many pass catchers that emerge. Like a Malik Washington has kind of been up and
11:43down. I don't think Malik Washington has even had I don't know why I'm slurring Malik Washington. I don't know if he's
11:48even had really a usable game past 12 PPR points. I'm looking here.
11:53Yeah, 12.1 in week five. And then you have Greg Dulcich emerging. So, I feel good about Caleb Douglas in dynasty and as like a deep league stash.
12:02And then Chris Bell, you could probably drop in all non-dynasty formats is what I would say. And in dynasty, I think we
12:08can give him a grace period because of the torn ACL. And then of course, I have been super super critical of Kevin
12:13Coleman. 8% route share. He went from 71% by week to 8%. Thank you for your service, brother, but your watch has
12:22ended. Uh of course, Caleb Douglas 81% of the routes off of the buy is also a strong thing to look at. Now, kind of
12:29recentering here. Let's talk about Jerry Bernard. This was a disappointing one.
12:32Of course, in the France game, Paris game, whatever you want to call it.
12:37Here is where we're at.
12:40Full-time player, 97% of the routes. I am comfortably putting him ahead of the depth chart of like guys like Roman Wilson.
12:47Uh and whenever Michael Pittman comes back, Jerry Bernard is the wide receiver two at worst on this team.
12:53The issue is and it's what I was kind of talking about last week when I was I I I hated that I put any cold water on it,
12:59but it's just these per route numbers are pedestrian. It's It is what it is.
13:01When you have such a low uh ADoT and you're such a high volume PPR style play, it gets a little tricky in terms of
13:10being a uber talented player. Like this is a good role, but I am not sure that Jerry Bernard the talent is anything
13:17special. I hate that the the way that that comes off because I like Jerry Bernard. We were super high on him in
13:22dynasty, but 1.3 yards per per run, a 6.3% first downs per route run, 18% targets per route run. Even for a
13:29hyper-targeted guy, he's almost a product of a high pass rate over expectations dealer's offense. He has a 8.4 points per game right now. We
13:36probably got way over our skis last week of being like, "Oh, this is a guy that you start every single week no matter
13:41what." Is he somebody that can get ranked as like wide receiver 25 rest of season? I also don't want to overreact
13:46in the other direction here. I still think I would have him again in that same group of Omar Cooper, Cornell Tate,
13:51Demarcus Robinson, Casey Conceicao, James Robinson. Uh all of these guys moving forward are wide receiver threes that you can start on a weekly basis. I don't think
14:01that this changes that for James Robinson or James Robinson, but it was certainly sobering to be like, "Oh, okay. So, this is not a I mean,
14:10obviously you didn't think you were getting rookie Odell Beckham Jr., but it's pretty clear you're not getting uh like rookie Amon-Ra St. Brown or Rashod Bateman.
14:18He's going to be a solid play for you.
14:20Uh and that's fine. Uh but, he still doesn't have a game this season with 100 or more receiving yards. He did have an
14:268-yard aDOT in this game, which was somewhat promising. But, when you have an 8-yard aDOT, that's still on the low side of things, right? We just
14:32celebrated Conceicao getting to 11, finally out of the 8-yard aDOT area.
14:37James Robinson went from a 1.8-yard aDOT, which is just laughable last week, to an 8-yard aDOT. But, what that does is it takes away your 12 targets down to
14:46five targets, and makes you a tougher start. Now, there's going to be plenty of better days ahead for James Robinson, but we just have to be real about who he
14:54is as a player at this point. Then, we have Tylan Wallace. This one kind of went under the radar, I think, but he
15:00goes from injury, 0% route share, 58% route share, up to 75% route share, despite Rashod Bateman playing in this game. Tylan Wallace had five targets. He
15:11didn't really produce much in this game.
15:13We're not really rostering Tylan Wallace for production with Tyler Huntley. We're hoping for Lamar Jackson to come back.
15:22But, five targets in both of these games despite not being a full-time player just yet, 19.1% targets per route run, and 8.8% first downs per route run is
15:30enough for me to kind of wave away this bad yards per route run number, and I think that Jacoby Lane is a fine stash
15:37as well. Now, we'll kind of bounce around with the best of the rest. Sadly, Keaontay Ingram, this Jets staff, uh I
15:44can't even really rant about. I don't want to. But, they aren't familiar with who their good players are across the board. Keaontay
15:52Ingram, he's just he's a fully a part-time or part-time player. He's doing absolutely nothing. When he's out there, he is getting the ball, but
15:58that's it. Mason Taylor, I can't even really say anything about Mason Taylor.
16:01He was awesome. He had two touchdowns that were both Gronkowski-like. Mason Taylor playing really good football right now. So, Keaontay Ingram is a
16:10dynasty play in a super super deep league stash, but that is it. Then, you have Ted Huston doing cardio here. We
16:16can now be pretty comfortable in saying that Ted Huston at best is a sacrificial X that is going to run, you know, 92% of
16:23the routes here without Emeka Egbuka and get no volume whatsoever to show for it.
16:27Of course, yes, Baker Mayfield, did he not throw the ball really at all because of his thumb injury? Sure, but still,
16:34this goes to show that even when he was running all of the routes on the 11 attempts Baker Mayfield had, he still
16:40did absolutely nothing with them.
16:42Ted Huston is somebody you can drop in most setups, not talking dynasty. Bryce Young, just keep an eye on Bryce Young.
16:50I'd be shocked if he ends up being anything, you know, similar to Ted Huston in that high route shares, reds across the board
16:57just means he's doing cardio as a sacrificial X, but he has been getting a little bit more targets as of recently. We can talk
17:04about Zachariah Branch, as well. Steady climbing here. We like to see this. 15%, 33%, 51%.
17:1019.4% targets per route run, but of course, this is somebody that is just getting super super low aDOT, uh kind of
17:16garbage usage, but he is interesting. He did have a fumble or two in the previous week's game, and then they kind of like
17:24put their arm around him, and in this one they used him. He's on special teams. He is a fun player who was a Devy
17:29darling at one point. We'll talk about Cyrus Allen. Bye week, 13%, 28%. Don't look now. I don't want to get your guys
17:37hopes up.
17:39Cuz what I'm about to say is devious, but this is very similar to what Rashee Rice looked like out the gate. It was
17:45very, very slow. It was 13%. It was 28%, and then we hovered around 30%, 40%, 50% for a while, and then it was like week
17:5113 where you could finally start Rashee Rice. I think uh Rashee Rice himself will be back before then. So, Cyrus Allen is purely a deep league stash, but
17:59we do have greens across the board in the per met or per route metrics department, and then you have someone who's not shown on this list is Berrian
18:08Brown, the wide receiver for the Saints. He had three catches, 57 yards on only six routes in the Paris game. I wouldn't go
18:15crazy, but he could jump Bryce Lance. It just probably won't matter because we're going to get Jordan Tyson back here very
18:22soon. Now, we get to the rest of this video where we talk about the happenings around the league. My number two lesson
18:28learned here or really takeaway is just JSN's historic pace right now. It is absolutely absurd what he's doing. You don't need me to tell you that, but
18:38if we put it into the context of the Cooper Kupp 2021 season, as far as I'm concerned, that is like the best fantasy
18:44football season in the modern era. 25.9 points per game at least for a a wide receiver. 25.9 points per game for
18:50Cooper Kupp. JSN right now is at 28 points per game. He is inevitable. His 196 PPR points right now are the most
18:57ever for a wide receiver through seven games. If you drafted JSN, if he's on your fantasy team, count your lucky stars. It is truly one of those seasons
19:06where sometimes you don't get a legendary wide receiver season. This is the one. This is the legendary season. Now, that's not
19:12to say that Puka Nacua can't kind of keep up his pace as a 22 plus 23 plus point per game guy, or
19:18that any of the other receivers can't emerge, but JSN has one game under 22 PPR points. He has three games above 30. He is absolutely
19:30absurd. He is the entire passing offense. There were some concerns from even myself that, "Oh, well, maybe Sam Darnold could regress. Oh, now they
19:38don't have Kubiak anymore." And none of it matters. He is that good. I'll also say if Emmanuel Wilson [ __ ] you, he [ __ ]
19:45me, too. That's really what I wrote down here. Uh that was a brutal one. If you went into the Sunday night game with
19:51Emmanuel Wilson on the other side of your matchup, you felt good all night, and then he scores a runaway touchdown to end the game with like 4 minutes
19:59left, and he goes from like six PPR points to 18 in what felt like the span a span of like 3 minutes. Now,
20:08with Emmanuel Wilson, he had 25 opportunities, 24 of them were carries.
20:12He had nothing inside the five. They gave that to Zach Charbonnet. They found weird ways to give Vilish Jones the football and lose 4 yards.
20:21It's again, these Seahawks I I I really this is a take that I'll die on. They won the Super Bowl last year in spite of
20:27themselves. If Zach Charbonnet never goes down, and they never just let Kenneth Walker run away to a Super Bowl win, they
20:36probably lose earlier than they did. I know Darnold was playing well. I know Kubiak was there. I know JSN was there,
20:41but truly this run game is a big piece of their offense, and they routinely love to get in their own way of putting
20:47the worst back on the field in whatever situation it is. I have very little hope that when J'Darien Price comes back,
20:54that he's going to be a featured part of this offense past like a 35% snap share and like 10 to 12
21:00touches a game. Charbonnet's coming back soon. The whole thing's a headache. They Again, they they have like in their head Emmanuel Wilson is actually running
21:08really well all night and then they get in close and it's like all right, let's put George Iloka in and give him the
21:12inside of the five carry and he gets stuffed. There's just no rhythm to any of it. It's mind-numbing.
21:17It's insanity, but you know, these guys get to paid paid the big bucks, not me. Emmanuel Wilson was a good week one week fill-in. I
21:25wouldn't really be dying to start him when Charbonnet comes back, but if you started him, you thank him for your service. And then I'll also say no one's
21:33panicking on Kenneth Walker, of course, but the Seattle defense, especially the rushing defense, is no joke. Any running back playing against Seattle, unless if
21:41they're like a PPR machine, right? Kind of like a Christian McCaffrey or a Jahmyr Gibbs or even Ashton Dulin right now is kind of
21:48built to play against the Seattle defense, but anyone who relies on rushing, right? Like a Derrick Henry or Javonte Williams, those guys need to get
21:56significant downgrades in weekly rankings. Now, our third takeaway from this week is it time to panic on Nico Collins?
22:03Now, we can talk about the Giants side of things. Of course, with Nico Collins, this is another coach who is just
22:10inventing new ways to do dumb [ __ ] on a football field.
22:13We are, you know, we are we're 7 weeks in and frankly fed up with a lot of these guys and how they run their
22:19operations. Nico Collins, 80% route share is laughable. Now, maybe maybe maybe you can talk me into the idea that he's been hurt, hamstring issues, all of
22:28that and they're limiting him. I would doubt it. They love to find new ways to give Xavier Hutchinson the ball. And
22:33before this six wide receiver rotation of 20% or more of the routes, which is very rare, by the way. This is a This is
22:38a hockey shift operation they're running with these wide receivers.
22:42They would love to find ways to get Jared Wayne on the field in place of Jaylen Nowell. Now, prior to this
22:48season, this rotating nonsense was reserved for every wide receiver not named Nico Collins. This year, it is now affecting Nico Collins and he is not
22:56running enough routes. Now, we wouldn't really care that much. If If was running 80% of the routes, but he had a 30%
23:02target share, okay, fine. So, it's a little bit of both. It's It's on one hand, if he's not dominating the targets
23:08in a given game, the route share is really hurting him. In other games, the route share is not a big deal as long as
23:13when he's on the field, he's getting a ton of targets. But, we wouldn't have to We shouldn't have to pick between the
23:17two. It should just be he should get all of the routes, and if he has a hyper-targeted game, he has a
23:21hyper-targeted game, and if not, he has as many opportunities to get on the field and earn a target as possible.
23:26It's that simple. Now, the world we live in, there's going to be a lot of Nico Collins panic. He was one of the most
23:34mentioned names in the Discord today.
23:37I lean buy low. I still love the talent.
23:40The Texans are in win win at any cost mode right now heading into the bye week. There's just no way that coming out of the bye week, they
23:49say, "Yeah, we're going to continue to do this with Nico Collins." He's coming off two to three down games here Nico
23:54Collins. I think because of the loss, because of where they're at in their season, they're going to re-evaluate things on the bye week and bring him
24:00back. But, there was a second there where Nico Collins was trending towards, right? Like he had his first monster game, misses games for the hamstring,
24:07comes back, 30 bomb. It's like, "Oh, is Nico Collins like a the wide receiver seven rest of season?" I would say he's
24:12probably more towards that wide receiver 12 in that I know I keep saying it, but like that Parker Washington range of,
24:17you know, somewhere between like wide receiver 10 to like wide receiver 13 rest of season. That's fine. That's good. That's what you paid when you
24:23drafted him. But, the idea that he could ascend to be the next 20-plus point per game guy, that is probably not the case.
24:29You know, when you talk about some of the wide receivers that are closer to wide receiver six, whether that's your Malik Nabers who we'll talk about in a
24:34second, your Chris Olaves, Drake Londons, all of that, Zay Flowers. Those guys are comfortably ahead of Nico Collins right now. I'd have Nico closer
24:41to your, you know, Christian Watson, Parker Washington, Matthew Golden, somewhere in the high-end wide receiver two range of kind of where we're at
24:51here. But, he goes on bye. If the guy who has him is losing games and he's kind of done with Nico Collins, I would
24:57maybe see if I could go and buy Nico Collins off of him. The other side of this game I want to talk about, JJ
25:02McCarthy, full apologies from me, full apologies from me. I not only was never sold on JJ McCarthy at any point in his
25:11All right, it's not at any point. I was drafting Justin Jefferson in the first round last year, so I was like, all
25:15right, he could sustain Jefferson.
25:17But he looks good. He looks good. This is a Texans defense that is good. I know they haven't been as good this year, but
25:22it's still a Texans defense with DeMeco Ryans that can give you a lot of fits.
25:25He was awesome stepping up in the face of pressure, throwing just like he he's been letting it rip. You saw it versus
25:31Saints as well, where there was this one uh I think if you look here like that 30-plus over there, the 30-plus white.
25:39You see what I'm talking about all the way over there, 30-plus white on the sideline. He like crow hops into this
25:45throw, and if the receiver had better position kind of the toe tap, it would have been a completion, and it was nuts.
25:50He was He must have been on the right hash and like evading pressure, and then he kind of moves to the left, and he
25:56crow hops into this throw, 30 yards on a rope. He's just I mean, if he's going to play free and just like
26:04essentially be a pitcher back there where he's like crow hopping into throws and just like letting it go, he's going to be awesome. So,
26:12I don't know. I I think maybe the fairy dust runs out at a certain point, but for now, he's fine. And what I'll say on
26:17the back of that is really the most thing I was wrong about or the the biggest thing I was wrong about is that I was really spooked
26:23about Malik Nabers rest of season given what we were seeing, right? Where like we had the Jameis Winston stuff, which was fine, and then Malik Nabers goes
26:30down with the the shoulder injury like two times in a row, and it's just like, man, we're going to have JJ McCarthy at
26:35some point. He has all these shoulder injuries, coming off of an ACL tear.
26:38Maybe it's not going to line up for Malik Nabers this year. And I fully understand that it was always going to
26:42be a ramp up period, right? He's going to ramp up, he's going to need to still get better off of this torn ACL, but
26:48that was with Jackson Dart, not with Jameis Winston and then JJ McCarthy, who Justin Jefferson couldn't produce with.
26:54And I bring up Justin Jefferson to say Jefferson is an awesome wide receiver in his own right.
27:03Through the lens of fantasy football right? When we talk If you want to talk If you want to zoom out for X's and O's
27:07and like what you want in an X receiver or number one receiver in the NFL as like a play designer or whatever. But
27:12through the lens of fantasy football Neighbors is better. He just is. He just is.
27:21There's no excuse for Jefferson at this point in terms of producing with J.J.
27:23McCarthy. Neighbors already has two 100-plus yard games with J.J. McCarthy.
27:28He's the only player in the NFL in 2026 to have a four-game stretch with 100-plus receiving yards. He moves different. He is awesome when he is
27:34healthy. He is best wide receiver breathing not named JSN. That's where we're at. It's just where we're at. He is I'm not going to say that he is
27:42definitely better than your Ja'Marr Chase, Puka Nacua, CeeDee Lamb, whatever. But he's in that tier at worst. He's in that tier at worst. He
27:49does not need to have the most beautiful setup of all time.
27:53Even his rookie year, he was balling out with like I want to say it was a hodgepodge of bad quarterback play.
27:59Before he tore his ACL, he was playing out there with I want to say Russell Wilson. He, you know, we we make all
28:05these excuses and I hate to say this because obviously I'm a Jets fan, Garrett Wilson's my guy, but he's had as
28:09bad quarterback play as anybody in the NFL.
28:12And he continues to be awesome. Yeah, his rookie year when he was awesome, he had Daniel Jones, Drew Lock, and Tommy
28:17DeVito. Those were his quarterbacks that year. No excuses. He shuts up and he scores fantasy points. That's what he does. So
28:25tip of the cap to Malik Neighbors, special special player. And then Skyy Moore. I wish I was a little more bold
28:30on that one. It did feel like maybe this could just be a one-game doghouse thing.
28:34They cut Najee Harris. That's what it ended up being. It was a one-game doghouse situation where they wanted to make sure they punished Skyy Moore
28:40publicly, I guess. I I feel bad for him.
28:43He's in all these commercials. You know, when it turns bad for these guys who are in these commercials, I just can't
28:46imagine what that feels like.
28:48You know what I mean?
28:50To be like a publicly facing guy who just is kind of a bum. But, he played well in this game, had a a couple
28:56explosive runs. He had the game-sealing run after fumbling the overtime game away against the Commanders. But, he did only have 55% of the snaps in this game,
29:06and James Winston and Tyrone Tracy stole pretty much all of the goal line work.
29:09So, if that's going to be the case, if we're going to get inside the 1-yard line, and it's James Winston QB sneak
29:14time, that's a big issue for Scat Boo because we used to we thought that this role would be goal line and receiving.
29:20And it's really more between the 20s rushing for Scat Boo, and that's not awesome. So, he's kind of like a high-end RB3, but at least last week it
29:29looked like is this a guy that I can even start in a given week? Now, you can start him. He heads into the bye week.
29:33He did pull a hamstring on that final play, which is concerning, but it seems like bye week he'll come back and be just fine.
29:40We shall see. Tyrone Tracy also picks up a hamstring injury, which kind of opens things up further. I would say Devin
29:45Singletary is a big add on the waiver wire. But again, they have a bye week next week. So, it's not as enticing.
29:53Now, my fourth takeaway is the Josh Jacobs return. And then Sam LaPorta gets put in his own little dog house. Speaking of dog houses, we have
30:03LaPorta. Let's first talk about Josh Jacobs, his return to the NFL.
30:11My biggest concern is that the the reason for the Packers' success so far, at least like the Matthew Goldens of the
30:16world and the Jordan Loves of the world and the Christian Watsons of the world is that we were seeing a pass-heavy, more
30:24up-tempo Packers team than we ever have before, at least since Jordan Love's like first year as a starter in like 2023.
30:31Either 2022 or 2023. But, they actually had a higher pass rate over expectation to go from 0.4% to 6.4%. Now, I'm not saying that's going
30:39to stick, but at the very least they didn't revert back to just handing the ball off to Josh Jacobs. Josh Jacobs
30:44essentially is playing in the Marshawn Lloyd role. Now, I think we could get more from Josh Jacobs, but I did just
30:49want to say don't panic on your Packers.
30:51Don't be like, "Oh, Josh Jacobs is back.
30:52Matthew Golden is cooked. Christian Watson's cooked." That's not the case at all. Matthew Golden so far, weeks 1 through 6, was fifth among receivers in
31:00targets. Christian Watson 14th. And then this past week, 12 targets for Matthew Golden. Of course, he doesn't connect on them, but that's still first in the NFL.
31:07And then eight targets for Christian Watson, 13th. The volume is still there.
31:11They're still passing the ball at a high rate. Do not panic on anybody in the passing game. Of course, Tucker Kraft
31:15gets home. And Tucker Kraft is somebody we feel a lot better about moving forward that he finally had a big game.
31:2114.8 PPR points, nothing amazing, but we are still talking about he only has one game under five targets here. And they're passing the ball so much,
31:29they're scoring points to the point where Tucker Kraft is in a good spot in this offense. Then we can talk about
31:35Josh Jacobs in particular, right? Like what he did here. We have his usage, 54% of the snaps.
31:41Rushing. His receiving work was actually the best. Of course, his touchdown was nuts.
31:47Caught like a little dump-off, and then tiptoes the sideline in for a touchdown.
31:50And then he actually dropped a second touchdown that I I believe would have been a receiving touchdown. Uh so, he would have even had more points. But
31:57we're not going to bank on Josh Jacobs to be this receiving back. I want to say Josh Jacobs has like maybe like under
32:03five career receiving touchdowns. That'd be I would set the line at I would set the line at three and a half career
32:09uh Josh Jacobs receiving touchdowns if I was to guess off the top of my head.
32:13Uh I do actually want to fact-check that. In terms of receiving touchdowns, he has three. So, pretty much spot-on.
32:19What do you know? Pretty much spot-on.
32:20Three receiving touchdowns. He gets one of them in his first game back. I wouldn't bank on that, but I do think
32:25the 54% snap share, they will ramp up to probably more of like a 70% snap share.
32:29And he'll be a good high-end RB2, right?
32:31Wherever you kind of have that tier of guys from like Bucky Irving, Chuba Hubbard, Basil To'oto'o, uh De'Andre Swift, any of those guys,
32:38Josh Jacobs slots right in there.
32:41Now, Sam LaPorta comes out, which by the way, I have a conspiracy theory. I have a conspiracy theory, and I'll be honest, fellas,
32:47we're deep enough into the into the season. My top 10 list of learned videos are a 1-hour platform for me to talk about
32:56whatever I want to talk about.
32:58I firmly believe LaPorta buddies with George Kittle, George Kittle buddies with Pardon My Take, George Kittle and Sam LaPorta share the same agent.
33:07I do wonder if the agent set this up on the bye week for LaPorta to come out and publicly position himself against the Lions
33:16posturing for this new contract. I would be shocked if those guys at Barstool Pardon My Take, uh they usually do nothing but softball
33:25questions. There is no way that without being briefed in some way by an agent, would they have been like, "Oh, yeah, let's actually ask him about his
33:32contract coming up here." That was 100% told to them, "You guys ask this question." That's my conspiracy theory.
33:39Is that that was all planned. It's all a work, it's all wrestling, it's all show business. Uh but, all right, let's get
33:44back to the big thing here. Do I think that they purposely left Sam LaPorta out of the game plan on National Tight Ends Day
33:51because of his public comments?
33:56Gun to my head, not really. Gun to my head, not really. I really do think uh probably anything going on with LaPorta
34:03and his contract negotiations, I have to assume that the way his relationship with Dan Campbell or whatever is more so that like the agents in the front office
34:09figure that out. For right now, we're all football. But, there was a quote or something where Campbell was a little uh
34:16pushy about it. So, who knows? But, I I'd be shocked if they were like, "Yeah, we're not going to uh like LaPorta, we're we're actually
34:22going to play with our hand tied behind our back in this game."
34:26So, that's where I'm at. LaPorta also, there was a I think it was a tipped pass, but LaPorta had a uh slant on the
34:32goal line where he almost scored a touchdown on that just didn't end up getting through. But, really the broader picture is with these Lions, we just can't be
34:41reactionary. You have to zoom out. It's one of the best offenses in football.
34:44You have Jahmyr Gibbs, you have Amon-Ra St. Brown. Those two are kind of undisputed on a weekly basis. But, there's going to be swings in the season
34:50where it's going to swing towards LaPorta. Weeks 1 through 4, LaPorta had 14.2 points per game as the tight end five. Weeks 4 through 7, Jameson
34:56Williams was the wide receiver six with 20.3 points per game. It's going to swing back and forth. They're both as much as Jameson Williams gets
35:05typecast as a boom-bust player, which he is by the way, LaPorta is kind of the same vein. Where you have Gibbs and
35:11Amon-Ra, they're always going to get theirs, but these two are going to be kind of boom-bust, which most tight ends are boom-bust, so you don't really
35:16associate it with Sam LaPorta. He's also not a like 4-2 burner like Jameson Williams is, but he's a similar archetype. Where
35:24Did he score a touchdown?
35:26Okay, he had a boom game. Did he not score a touchdown? Oh, I bet you Jameson Williams probably did. So, it's really
35:30that. I wouldn't get too crazy about either of them. And I think when either of them are in their slump, assuming
35:35that either of them are healthy, they're always good buy candidates. Then we can talk about some other players should we be panicking on. We have Chase Brown.
35:45Now, time to panic is probably a bad headline here because if there was a time to panic, it was the game before the bye week where Samaje
35:52Perine took his lunch money. But, everybody was hoping that coming out of the bye, that was just an aberration, and now it's time for
36:00Chase Brown to get back to his usual workload.
36:02And it's somewhere in between. It's somewhere in between. It's not quite full-on panic. It's sadly just readjusting expectations, and we're at
36:10that point in the season where you just kind of have to eat it. You kind of just have to accept what it is.
36:16It's not full-on panic.
36:18This is still fine. This is, by the way, the Fantasy Life Utilization Report. You have your utilization score that takes into account all of these metrics, snap
36:24share, rush attempt share, uh route share, target share, inside the five, rush attempt share, all of that, spits out a score zero to 100.
36:34Course, week four, it's all looking up, 19.1 PPR points, and 91 usage score, and then week five, it falls off a cliff.
36:42So, what happened? Where are we at? How do we feel?
36:47And there's positives and negatives here with the Chase Brown game.
36:53Positives, 75% snap share is the second highest of the season. 58% rush share is higher than he had in week five.
37:0115% target share, third highest of the season.
37:07And that's kind of where it stops.
37:0975-25 split isn't bad, but you can't get vultured at the goal line. He got pulled out pretty much purposely is what I would call it. Like
37:17it it it was a conceded effort to yank Chase Brown and get Samaje Perine on the field in a goal line situation, and then Perine
37:26converted. So, you draft this guy, and I say we draft this guy. Chase Brown is such a weird one for me because I
37:33know what probably one of my best performing videos this year was the legendary running back research where Chase Brown stuck out as a huge target
37:41for the legendary upside case. Now, I did know that there were conflating issues here in that Chase Brown is going to always look good in the projections,
37:48but there comes a point in time where you have to have the talent to get to the Kenneth Walker, to get to the Jahmyr
37:55Gibbs this year. You have to be a really strong running back, and I had questions about that. So, anyone out there that
37:59had the draft guide, there was a spot where yes, that research moved me to put Chase Brown ahead, but by the end of the
38:04off season, we had Chase Brown behind Kenneth Walker. Now, we also had Chase Brown behind Saquon Barkley, which honestly at this point with Saquon
38:10getting back healthy, I think him and Chase Brown project very similarly rest of season, but this was the concern, that he is more
38:17like Chuba Hubbard than he is Bijan Robinson, right? And that's like very sobering to say, but it just kind of is where we're at, where he's a uh
38:28but like even Chuba Hubbard, if you put Chuba Hubbard on the Bengals, he'd probably be better than he is now. But I
38:33mean, the Panthers have been hooping. I know the Panthers this week were tough, and people are going to be uh panicking a bit about the Panthers, but
38:41this is just kind of where we are. It it's just the the spot we're in. You have to kind of accept it, but I do think that he's like
38:48a top 15 running back moving forward, and that's fine. And Chase Brown always has this this hidden upside where it it's causation versus correlation,
38:57right? You can't really put your finger I guess you can put your finger on it that uh last year it was sparked by a
39:02Samaje Perine injury, but then even Samaje Perine came back and Chase Brown was still awesome down the stretch. Of course, the first Chase Brown breakout
39:09happened because Zack Moss went down, and in the second half of the season, Chase Brown was a league winner.
39:13Chase Brown is always liable to heat up from like week 10 on. So, do not lose hope. This Bengals offense is heating
39:22up. We're seeing Tee Higgins go crazy, Joe Burrow go crazy.
39:25I can touch on that for a quick second.
39:28I'm not panicking on Ja'Marr Chase, but you are again, it's just a lot of readjusting expectations, because Ja'Marr Chase isn't going to be a bust
39:34where you took him, but I think that he has a pretty hopeless chance of ever catching up to Puka or JSN. And if you drafted him, you
39:44probably took him over one of those guys, probably both of those guys, if I'm being honest. So, it doesn't feel good, right? But I do think that there
39:50is a chance that Ja'Marr Chase could be like a 25-point per game guy in the weeks that matter most, and be the guy
39:55you needed. So, uh I wouldn't panic on Ja'Marr Chase, but it is frustrating. It's extremely frustrating that like Tee Higgins is
40:01outproducing him, Ja'Marr Chase isn't playing awesome. Is there some uh injury component of this? Right before the season, he tweaked something, and it was
40:11like no big deal, but maybe it is a big deal. Uh they're coming off a bye week, so it should be less of a big deal, but
40:15who knows? These things do linger. Now, I do want to talk about the other side of this. We talked about all off season,
40:21who is this year's JSN? Who is this year's JSN? It's Zay Flowers. Now, the issue is that last year JSN had a 21.2
40:27points per game. Zay Flowers is nowhere near that because he continues to get hurt and Lamar Jackson continues to get hurt. It is legitimately a
40:36uh the stars need to align and like a solar eclipse needs to happen where you finally get Zay Flowers on the field
40:47and Lamar Jackson on the field for four quarters. I don't think it's happened yet this season. Even so, we still have
40:54Zay Flowers producing a ton of fantasy points. It's just like if he's going to ascend to this year's JSN, right? Where
41:00like JSN was the guy you needed to have if you didn't have Puka Nacua or Jahmyr Gibbs or whatever, Zay Flowers is at
41:0720.4 points per game. So, I actually I'm underselling him. He just is this year's JSN. He's at 20.4 points per game and
41:13the solar eclipse hasn't even happened where him and Lamar Jackson are on the field healthy together. This is everything that we sort of foretold in
41:19the off season.
41:21Zay Flowers could be this guy. I was told Zay Flowers can't score touchdowns.
41:24He scored three touchdowns through seven games this season. That is going to play. He is awesome. You look here at these metrics and this is why I say this
41:33year's JSN because per route he is eating. Like this is not just oh, he's a breakaway merchant or a touchdown merchant or whatever. It's he is finally
41:43getting healthy. This is the Week five was the first game where he played 80% or more of the snaps. We now
41:48have a three-game sample in a row of him playing 80% of the snaps and he has nine plus targets in each of those games. 11
41:53targets in each of the last two games.
41:55And again, >> [clears throat] >> no Lamar Jackson.
42:02So, it is really really impressive here.
42:05He's the wide receiver two in yards per route run. He's wide receiver four in targets per route run. Wide receiver three in fantasy points per route run.
42:11Wide receiver seven in expected fantasy points per route run.
42:14He is going to be right on the fringe of a top six wide receiver rest of season the moment Lamar Jackson comes back,
42:21which of course is like the biggest if in the world right now. Now, the next thing I want to talk about is
42:26Jaylen Warren. That Bears game made me want to scratch my eye out. Uh I had him in You're the Lit League Mates, right?
42:33With the BDG guys, Ninko Colano, uh the snapback guys, the settlements, all of that.
42:39He is such an awesome player and he's still got 20 plus touches, so you can't even really be mad about it, but it is
42:45infuriating because not only did Rico Dowdle get the inside the five carry, not only did Rico Dowdle get all of the
42:52fun uh uh uh toss plays and like the Essentially, I don't know. This is maybe more me just watching it and and like kind of
43:00seething, but Rico Dowdle would get all these like fun pitches to the outside and toss plays and stuff. And then Jaylen Warren, there'd be not even a
43:07tight end on the left side of the formation. Like essentially just no fullback, no lead blocker, here's the ball, you got guard, tackle, you got two
43:16defenders and a linebacker in there, go do a Texas-Oklahoma drill I don't know why I said Texas-Oklahoma.
43:21Go do an Oklahoma drill and figure it out. And then he just gets stood up. Uh it's where we're at, but he has 100 plus
43:28rushing in three of his last five games.
43:31He has uh 16.7 PPR points in this one, 9.8 before that. It just sucks because if we could stop the Rico Dowdle stuff, if
43:40Dowdle was hurt, we would get Jaylen Warren to have 20 plus points per game as like this generation's Austin Ekeler.
43:46Instead, we are getting like 15 points per game because Rico Dowdle is cutting off a lot of the usable and like valuable workload
43:56here. This is from Ryan Heath. He did a a pretty good breakdown on it where 66.7% carry share is good, but weighted opportunity, so that takes
44:04into account uh it takes into account your red zone work, your receiving usage, all of that, he's had 59% and 52%. It's almost been a
44:1350/50 split of the weighted volume of this backfield. That really sucks. Rico Dowdle was also the only carry inside the 10-yard line, a 20% target share.
44:21It's infuriating, as well, that Rico Dowdle, somehow the guy who has been in between the tackles grinder his entire career, is now being
44:30trusted as like a two-minute drill back and passing down back in place of Jaleel Warren. It's all It's all confusing. It all makes no sense. Uh
44:41it sucks, but he is still a top 15 running back rest of season for me. He is still awesome, but he has to produce in spite of his
44:49role now, which is really frustrating.
44:51Then we move on to our seventh takeaway here, the rookie running back carousel.
44:55We've kind of buried the lead here because we have Jaleel Coleman, who is fun to talk about. Of course, Jeremiah Love has been out the last two
45:02games. There's a chance that Jeremiah Love misses this next week, as well, is what I've been hearing. We'll see. Keep an eye out for that. It'd be awesome if
45:09he played against the Dallas Cowboys.
45:10He'd be, you know, right on the fringe of an RB2 start for me. But Jaleel Coleman comes in here, and first game
45:15back from IR, nine carries, 54 yards, two runs of 10 plus, two missed tackles forced. Both of those metrics led the Broncos backfield.
45:25Now, of course, Jake Moody had six carries, 23 yards and a touchdown, and then R.J. Harvey had three carries, six yards, completely ineffective as a
45:32runner, but two catches, 54 yards and a touchdown. Sadly, I think this is going to all slant towards Jaleel Coleman, but not meaningfully enough
45:43that you feel good about starting any of these guys in the short term. Now, maybe Jaleel Coleman can run away with it.
45:51R.J. Harvey, I think in more competitive game scripts, right, where this was against the Cardinals, they were never really trailing, so he gets three
45:57carries, he gets two catches, and you get lucky that he scores a long touchdown.
46:03That's not going to work moving forward.
46:05J.K. Dobbins ineffective, pretty much just got the goal line carry, and then Justice Hillman was the entire rushing game. You also had receiving work for
46:13Justice Hillman, which is huge that they not only want to get him the J.K.
46:16Dobbins role, but they got him two catches, 15 yards. He had 11 opportunities in this game. He looked awesome.
46:23I'm not sprinting to throw him in my lineup right this second, but if I have him anywhere, dynasty, redraft, whatever, you feel great about it. You
46:30see what happens here role-wise moving forward. They have a week 10 bye, and then they get the Las Vegas Raiders in
46:35week 11. That to me reads like a post-bye rookie bump for Justice Hillman.
46:41Anywhere you have him, you should feel awesome. Now, the rest of the rookie running back carousel is pretty weak.
46:47You have Ke'Shawn Black. He scores a touchdown. He's trending up as C CMC gets hurt in this game. We don't know what the extent of his injury is.
46:55He said that his leg died on him, essentially. He said his thigh died on him, and then there was like a montage
47:01of him like stretching himself out, the trainer stretching him out, him getting on the bike, begging Shanahan to let him play, comes back in. Then he's on the
47:08bye week. He is on essentially 1 HP for the rest of the season, Christian McCaffrey. I could see any given hit
47:16knocking him out for the season.
47:17Ke'Shawn Black would be one of the guys to own. Of course, there'll be other guys to stash on that team, on that
47:23depth chart, uh you know, whether that's Jordan James or like whoever else is like hanging around that roster. But, Ke'Shawn Black
47:30for now is a very high priority handcuff given McCaffrey's injury history. And then of course, Ke'Shawn Black here has
47:4146% snap share, pretty much his highest since week one when he got a ton of usage in that game in Australia. So,
47:47Ke'Shawn Black stock up just in the near term until we get some closure on what this McCaffrey injury looks like moving
47:54forward. Then we also have Seth McGowan.
47:56This is a big one. He'll be on my waiver wire video tomorrow because Jonathan Taylor has been involved in trade talks. Right now Seth McGowan,
48:04he had 12 touches in this game against the Vikings, and that was a season high. Essentially, it seems like they just wanted to get him as many
48:13touches as possible, see what they have in Seth McGowan, and then decide if they want to trade Jonathan Taylor. I couldn't tell you if they were impressed
48:18or not with what they got from Seth McGowan.
48:21He's a backup running back drafted on day two or day three. He did have 4 yards per carry against defense that is
48:26very good. It just comes down to again if they're going to move Jonathan Taylor. If they do move Jonathan Taylor, Seth McGowan would be an every week
48:34back-end RB2. Then we have Mike Washington. He ripped off an explosive play here, 21-yard carry. No other Raider had a longer run than 8 yards,
48:42but his role every week is three to 10 carries. Can he rip one off? Can he score a touchdown? He is really just a
48:49handcuff. Then my eighth takeaway is one that we talked about in the off season with Ben Grech. RB air yards. RB air
48:55yards are super fun. It's how you can kind of juice running back scoring, and it's how Ashton Jeanty had a serviceable
49:01day yesterday. He had I think two separate I don't know if I'd call it a wheel route, but essentially was that.
49:06Like he kind of leaked out, and then he got behind the defense. He did it twice yesterday, and it's why he is putting up
49:11decent fantasy points despite being a poor rusher. He had eight carries for 15 yards in this game. He had 21.6 PPR
49:18points on the back of eight catches, 61 yards, and a touchdown. Okay, air yards here, which, if you're not familiar, is the
49:26amount the yardage the ball travels prior to the target, right? So like on the target. If you get targeted 20 yards
49:32downfield, and then 5 yards downfield, that's 25 air yards. The more air yards you have, the more implied PPR points you get on a given target, right?
49:41Because if you get targeted 10 yards downfield, and you catch it, that's two PPR points. If you get targeted minus 10
49:46air yards, right? 10 yards behind line of scrimmage, you get your catch, and you're tackled minus 10, that's zero points gained. So,
49:52that all becomes cumulative cuz the further downfield you get, the more points you'll get for securing a catch. So, it's McCaffrey at 103, Achane
50:01at 101, and then Kyren Williams at 99.
50:04Very under the radar is how much Sean McVay is doing the downfield receiver work. And honestly, it's no surprise that this is 49ers Kubiak who comes from
50:14this whole tree, and then McVay uh for having you know, 90-yard plus of air yards for these running backs, and it's why all of
50:23them are thriving. If we look at how much PPR points each of these guys are getting off of PPR points, you can see
50:28it's a big component of RB air yards.
50:30It's Achane at Achane first with 11.9 points per game coming from receiving.
50:35Jahmyr Gibbs, he's getting that really purely on volume and efficiency. And then you have Kyren Williams at 8.8, and then McCaffrey at 8.3. Now, RJ Harvey is
50:45just getting a ton of targets. Uh his are also not his air air yards look tough because sometimes he will get a
50:51downfield target, but then he'll get a minus five air yards. So, you have to you do have to remember that that some
50:56of the air yards will get negated by uh negative air yards from a designed target, and then it'll kind of offset
51:03some of your more downfield work. But, it's a good gauge again. And this is a good gauge as well when we talk about
51:07running back upside. You need to have the receiving upside. That's why Jahmyr Gibbs is so good. It's why Achane has stayed afloat despite bad efficiency.
51:13It's why Kyren Williams has kind of kicked into a next gear this season. RJ Harvey, obviously, I mean, he just doesn't get anything rushing, so this is
51:19whatever for him. But then Jaylen Warren, we need Rico Dowdle to stop taking the receiving work away.
51:24McCaffrey, again, big part of his game. And then guys who we want to see jump up into the eight plus. Bijan has been disappointing
51:30in the receiving department, only around the 10 or 11% target share. We need that to get to 16%. I don't know if it does.
51:37Kenneth Walker's on a good enough team it doesn't matter. Chase Brown, receiving is definitely helping his profile, but he needs to score more on
51:43the ground, get more goal line touches, be more efficient. So, I think it's always good to look at who is getting
51:49receiving work in a meaningful way around the running back landscape, so we can gauge upside there. Also talk about Kyren in particular just being that he
51:57had a split with Kyren or he had a split with Blake Corum. Kyren Williams fumbled. This game was never close. It
52:01was like 28 to 3 at one point. I wouldn't go crazy. No, Kyren had the public media quote, and then Corum got a
52:07lot of work in this game. I think he's still a back-end RB1 at absolute worst moving forward. I wouldn't move down
52:13Kyren meaningfully. Now, our ninth takeaway on the week is the Jordan Mason return.
52:20JJ Zachariason has it here. Jordan Mason returns in week 7, handling 56% of Minnesota's rush attempts, 62.5% of the snaps, 35% of the routes, his 8.3%
52:29target share was third highest in a game as a Viking. Of course, Aaron Jones gets banged up in this game, but that is kind
52:35of the story of Aaron Jones this season.
52:36He has been hobbling around. He's listed as day-to-day, but Jordan Mason will be the lead back moving forward. Aaron Jones playing sparingly when his knee
52:44can handle that. Now, the Vikings are one of these teams that could trade for Jonathan Taylor or any I'm trying to think of like the other
52:51running backs on the market. I don't really think there is besides Jonathan Taylor.
52:55It could be the Vikings. So, that could kind of nuke Jordan Mason, but in the meantime, for as long as Aaron Jones is banged up,
53:02Jordan Mason is an absolutely fine uh you know, he was probably going to get ranked somewhere around wire or running back 25 in a given week. And for
53:11where you drafted him after waiting all this time, that's going to be absolutely fine. He gets to play in the dome at
53:16Detroit in a really strong matchup that Aaron Jones will be banged up for. Uh and you can fire him up there and be
53:22pretty excited about it. Now, of course, Josh Downs, Keenan Allen, all of the Colts really had a really tough game. I
53:29would say along with the Seattle defense, the Vikings defense is another buzzsaw that you just have to kind of accept that when your guys play them, this is
53:38what happens. Now, of course, Jonathan Taylor, 19 PPR points, 5-plus yards per carry. He actually had his highest yards per carry of the year against the
53:46Minnesota Vikings here. We'll see if he gets traded, but the passing game was nothing. When you blitz Daniel Jones like that and you get pressure, nothing
53:52good's going to come of it. There will be better days ahead, but when I say better days ahead, I say the PPR scam
53:58that is the Colt passing game right now.
53:59You are hoping for nine plus targets for Josh Downs or Keenan Allen and you hope that they come down with some of them,
54:04right? Like Keenan Allen had 11 targets, eight catches, 82 yards in week six versus the Titans. You're hoping for anything among those lines uh because if
54:12not, they are just not startable uh in these games. And then especially when Tyler Warren comes back, it makes everything even more tricky. Now, my
54:21final takeaway here is a lesson learned I'm uh debuting here, the fantasy football infirmary. I don't know how much longer I don't know if I'm going to do this
54:30again. Let me know if you guys appreciate this one, but we can just kind of talk about the injured players.
54:35The biggest one being Jaylen Waddle this week that seems like people are concerned about. Shout out to Jeff Mueller. Uh he works over for Fantasy
54:44Points. He's awesome. I've been following him for years and he seems to think that Jaylen Waddle will be back somewhere around week nine to 11. That
54:52is pretty rough. It means essentially I think that they have a week eight bye.
54:57No, they don't have a week eight bye.
54:59Sadly, they have a week 10 bye. So, like maybe he comes back in week nine, but there's a very good chance that he misses week eight. He
55:07misses week nine, goes into the bye, and then comes back after there uh for like week 11 on.
55:14I wish I could say something positive about Jaylen Waddle. He has been a disaster this year.
55:19There is no redeeming qualities about what he's been for fantasy football.
55:22Now, him getting banged up is even worse. It was on a weird reverse play that just didn't need to happen.
55:27And his two best games were 21 points in week two, 14.5 in week four.
55:34Nothing else to show for it. Bo Nix had a somewhat positive game if you want to go that route, but this was supposed to
55:39be a you know, can Jaylen Waddle get off the mat game and he didn't. Now, on top of that, I want to show the other
55:46injuries around the league. There's nothing else to really see. Jahmyr Gibbs, I mean, you guys know I don't have enough Jahmyr Gibbs, but I like Jahmyr
55:53Gibbs enough that I did uh you know, hold my breath on the last play of the game where he like uh stops on a dime
55:58and slides to not score a touchdown. And it's like a multitude of things could have happened on that play. Uh and it
56:04wouldn't have shocked me in terms of injury. Christian McCaffrey, we talked about that. Jaylen Waddle, we talked about. Aaron Jones, we talked about. Uh
56:10Kenneth Gainwell, whatever.
56:12Jaylen Noel gets banged up in this game into the bye week and then he's just going to sadly seem like a Jaylen Noel
56:16breakout could have been on the horizon, but he's now just going to get lost in the shuffle of Kayshon Kayshon Boutte,
56:21Marvin Harrison, Xavier Hutchinson, all of that. And then Jaylen Wright, I will say I have to look deeper into the game
56:27log. Uh Ollie Gordon looked awesome. Ollie Gordon is going to be a great waiver wire add this year.
56:35But I do think before he got banged up, he had six carries in this game. Uh I think that he even had a goal line carry
56:45in this game. Like he certainly was used in and around the uh goal line.
56:51I I I actually want to look this up over on the Fantasy Points Suite. Shout out to them. I don't bring it up to rain on
56:57the parade of Ollie Gordon, but I would just caution against saying like Ollie Gordon always had this awesome role. He has had a good role as the lead back in
57:05this backfield, but with Jaylen Wright back healthy, it did seem like we were going to get uh a little more of a split
57:11than people would have wanted. But then again, Jaylen Wright gets banged up and none of it matters.
57:16But let's see. If I go to uh week seven, I want to say like inside the 10,
57:28maybe I'm just thinking of things or I'm just seeing things, but I'm pretty sure uh yards to goal if we're inside the 10.
57:36Jalen Wright Yeah, Jalen Wright did have 22% of the snaps inside the 10.
57:41And again, he was somebody who got hurt.
57:43So, it was just something that I found interesting.
57:45Uh something I found interesting where he was on the on the field on like a goal-to-go situation uh before getting banged up. Just something to sort of put
57:52in the back of your head. But, Ali Gordon has been awesome. Ali Gordon is going to be the waiver wire pick up of
57:57the year, and he's someone we said to even buy last week. So, uh Ali Gordon stock all the way up. Eric Ebron, sad to
58:04see that he picked up an injury. He's somebody who had I think two or three knee surgeries so far in his career, but
58:09that's all I got for today. As always, if you enjoy, leave a like. Subscribe if you're new, and I'll see you guys in
58:16the next one.
58:19>> I [music] I I This is my kingdom. [singing] I I >> [music] >> I I Leave me a dance.
58:30I like this pulse, [music and singing] but ice cold. But, oh oh. But, ice surround my body like I'm frozen.
