0:00What's going on, man? Welcome back to the basement. Um, running the fantasy football playoffs are brutal. You are in a match-up and only one of you get to
0:09advance to the next week and a lot happened in week 15. So, we are here to break it all down with my top 10 lessons
0:16learned from week 15 as we look forward to week 16. We're going to talk through all of the most important stats, data,
0:24usage trends, the world-famous rookie receiver report, the rookie running back carousel, everything you need to know from this week as we move on to the next
0:34round of the fantasy playoffs and we set our lineups and we think through what needs to happen for us to win these
0:40fantasy football championships. As always, if you enjoy, leave a like.
0:44Subscribe if you're new. And our first takeaway, as always, is the world-famous rookie receiver report sponsored by Underdog. When you play $5, you get $75
0:55in bonus entries over in the pick'em lobby. Use promo code Ron. You'll find the link to that in the description and
1:01the comment section down below. There's going to be plenty of plenty of promos over the Christmas holiday where you can go higher or lower with gimme pick'ems
1:10and pick'ems for the NBA on Christmas, NFL, of course. Everything across the board is on Underdog and the playoff drafts are super fun as well. I've been
1:19messing around on the gauntlet myself.
1:22Now, with the rookie receiver report, you guys know the drill.
1:25It is every rookie wide receiver and tight end to run 100 or more routes. If they're not on this list, they're either
1:32injured or they're playing on Monday night football. We have each player's route percentage. That is just the percentage of times they are
1:40running a route during a pass play.
1:42Anything over like 90% means that they are a full-time starter. Uh, their PPR points. I just added this just to see
1:48their overall production on the entire year. Targets per route run. That is your volume on a per route basis. Yards per route run. Your efficiency on a per
1:56route basis. Targets per route run, you want 20% plus. Yards per route run, you want two plus.
2:01First downs per route run. That's going to be are you not only getting volume, moving the chains, producing, but are you moving the chains? I meant to say
2:08are you not only getting volume, producing, but are you moving the chains, helping out your offense? And then also, your PFF grade.
2:16Do you look good on film? For first downs per route run, we're looking for 10% plus. For PFF grade, we're looking
2:22for 80 plus, but anything in the 70s is pretty solid as well. Now, let's just start at the top here with Tyler Warren. This is sorted by
2:31their week 15 route percentage. And this is what we said last week, that Tyler Warren, rest of season, you kind of have to treat him like Harold Fannin
2:40as a back-end tight end one who has all the talent in the world. That is not up for debate with Tyler Warren. You see
2:45his per route numbers all still really strong here, but they are fading due to quarterback play. He now has Philip Rivers. We'll talk about Philip Rivers
2:53later in this video, but, man, when your quarterback gets downgraded, which is crazy to say that Daniel Jones is some kind of crazy good quarterback, but this
3:01year he was. And now you get downgraded to Philip Rivers. It was against Seattle if you want to look on the bright side
3:06here, but this downgrade means that he goes from somebody that you just kind of set and forget as a tight end one to now
3:11you are playing the match-ups with other streamers. Uh, speaking of that, Harold Fannin, the same way. Uh, he just barely crosses 10 PPR points despite getting 14
3:22targets. And again, that's just kind of the experience of having these bad quarterbacks. He's now hit 10 plus PPR points in each of his three games or
3:30each of his last three games. Fannin is a very good player. I am very certain about that just looking across the board
3:35at his per route metrics and his production considering how bad this Browns offense has been over the entire year, but it's why 14 targets only gets
3:45you seven catches for 48 yards, no touchdowns, just 12 PPR points. Again, 14 targets for a tight end is just absolutely nuts, but when Shedeur
3:54Sanders is your quarterback, these things tend to happen. He does have 25 targets over his last two games. I am certain that Harold Fannin is a great
4:04player, somebody I want to be all in on for dynasty and next year in fantasy football. Then we get to talk about
4:10Teteral McMillan. And this has been such a weird year cuz we're going to, of course, get to a Trevion Henderson where we're seeing,
4:16you know, this rookie Trevion Henderson be a league winner down the stretch and it's what we're used to seeing, right?
4:21You think of Trevion Henderson, you think of Jonathan Taylor when he was an absolute monster down the stretch. You can then think of, in terms of wide
4:28receivers, last year with Brian Thomas who was absolutely amazing.
4:33This year, the wide receivers are not holding up their end of the bargain right now. Teteral McMillan has just five catches in his last three games,
4:40which is just so weird from him. I don't know if it's because if you want to say maybe it's because Jalen Coker is back in the mix, I could
4:48maybe hear that argument, but it's tough. Like he Coker is one player and he's not even a crazy target earner. I love Coker, by the way, but
4:58his four targets shouldn't make it so that Teteral McMillan can't perform. You can definitely look at like Bryce Young who 163 yards this past week, then 206
5:09before that, 169 before that, but that's he didn't he only passed for over 200 passing yards once in the first seven
5:15weeks.
5:16And that was over a span where uh, Teteral McMillan was, you know, scoring 10 plus PPR points every single week, getting a ton of targets.
5:25This is just weird. Six targets combined in his last two games after never being below five targets in a single game from weeks one through 12.
5:34So, I would love to have a rhyme or reason for why this is the case, but I do think that Teteral McMillan, especially cuz
5:42they lost this game, now it's crunch time for this team. They get Tampa Bay next week. I think this is where we
5:47could see Teteral McMillan really turn things up. Now, also, wide receivers just by their nature are very up and down players. So, it wouldn't be all
5:56that wild to see. Uh, then we'll talk about Emeka Egbuka cuz why not? He played in the Thursday night game. He is
6:02somebody at the top of all of our minds here. He leads all rookie receivers in targets per route runner. He's tied with
6:07Harold Fannin. 1.83 yards per route run.
6:09Not bad, you know, it's it's more than Warren and Fannin. It's like right on pace with Teteral McMillan. His first downs per route run got
6:16uh, dinged here. His PFF grade actually went up this week because he actually had a good week. Now, here's the thing
6:22that's scary, right? When we see these route shares go down after Chris Godwin is ramping up, after Mike Evans is ramping up, my guess is Egbuka hasn't
6:30been great over the last, you know, anywhere from five to 10 weeks. This is a team scratching and clawing for a playoff
6:37spot. They probably just want to lean on their veterans here in these must-win games with Chris Godwin and Mike Evans.
6:43And based on what Emeka Egbuka has showed you over the last five or so weeks, I don't blame them for wanting
6:48that. Now, they still lose against the Falcons, but I do want to pump the brakes on full-blown panic here. 63% of
6:54routes is brutal, right? He's he's less than Jaden Higgins this week, which is unheard of for Egbuka over the entire year, but he still ran 25 routes. Like
7:03there were a lot of dropbacks in this game. 25 routes compared to Tyler Warren who ran 27 routes up here. So, he only
7:10ran two two less routes than Warren and he only ran three less routes than Teteral McMillan, two guys up there in
7:15the 90% plus threshold. So, in terms of raw routes, it wasn't terrible, but it wasn't great for what we're used to from
7:21Egbuka. Now, what I will say is that it was his best game since week 10 when he had 20 plus PPR points. He
7:27had seven targets, four catches, 64 yards. And not only that, but he had an 82.4 PFF grade. It was his first game at
7:352 plus yards per route run since week 10 with 2.56.
7:39It was actually a really strong Emeka Egbuka game despite not playing a ton. So, it's something to monitor moving forward. I think now he
7:47downgrades to a boom-bust wide receiver three, but as a rookie, he does always have the upside to just go absolutely nuclear here down the stretch. These are
7:55going to be do-or-die games. I still do like Egbuka as a fine option in your flex spot moving forward. He didn't kill
8:02you this week like he has been killing you in weeks past. Uh, we'll talk about another player not running a lot of
8:08routes, another first-round pick. We'll talk about Matthew Golden here. Uh, has a decent game. He was injured. He's been playing sparingly since then. 41% of the
8:17routes kind of thrust in there with the Christian Watson injury. And here's what you can say about Matthew Golden.
8:23He had three catches, 55 yards here. He had a 79.5 PFF grade on the day. 2.89 yards per route run. It was actually
8:29probably one of his better games as a pro despite playing on super low volume here. Now, >> [sighs] >> what does this look like moving forward?
8:38I'm not sure because Jayden Reed is surging. Christian Watson is getting healthier. I I I don't know if this route percentage ever gets to a spot
8:45where you're comfortable starting Matthew Golden, but he's at least showing some life as a dynasty asset or like a guy you want to bet on in year
8:52two. These per route numbers aren't fantastic, but they're not, you know, they're not the worst of all time.
9:02It sucks when that's kind of the lens we're viewing Matthew Golden through, but it is what it is. Somebody we can
9:06talk about more glowingly is Luther Burden. This one is bittersweet. Again, his per route numbers are amazing. 24% targets per route run, up there with
9:14Harold Fannin.
9:152.48 yards per route run, the best in the entire list. 9.3% first downs per route run, behind only Teteral McMillan.
9:2177.2 PFF grade, behind only Colston Loveland here we'll touch on in a second, but 50% of the routes. Now, this wasn't due to him being low on the depth
9:28chart. Romeo Doubs got uh, ruled out two minutes before kickoff, which is for a fantasy playoff game. If any of you guys
9:35ate a zero from Romeo Doubs, I am so sorry about that.
9:38Uh, Luther Burden gets hurt in this game, which is brutal because we know Burden's a good player.
9:47We just need the routes. We were looking It was this was, you know, 57%, 69% Noah Doubs here. We're about to get one more
9:56Noah Doubs. we have hit 80% for the first time?
9:59I guess we'll never know. But, Luther Burden gets 50% here and outside of playing time stuff, we don't know the severity of the injury. We don't know if
10:06Roman Doomsday comes back next week. It kind of derails him being somebody you confidently can start, but on 50% of the
10:12routes, Luther Burden had seven targets, six catches, 84 yards for 14.4 PPR points. His season high in targets and
10:22catches and his best PPR game and his best receiving yardage game since week three when he had the big trick play uh
10:31down the sideline for the big touchdown.
10:33So, even if you started him, he gave you something and it just sucks because I just dream about what this could have
10:39looked like if he played a fully healthy game, but we'll just kind of see how that settles over the week. Then, we have Colston
10:47Loveland here who looks amazing per route. He's now the only rookie receiver, rookie tight end to have an 80 plus PFF grade. That has
10:56been a huge indicator in the past. His per route numbers look great. They're now actually starting to kind of like converge here with Tyler Warren who
11:03Tyler Warren got out to a late lead. It looked like, "Oh my god, how did the Bears take Loveland over Warren?" And
11:08now they're really getting close together here where you look at targets per route run within 1.5% of each other.
11:13Loveland now has him in terms of yards per route run. He has him in terms of first downs per route run and now has
11:17him in terms of PFF grade. The issue with Loveland is because of Kmet, he has just been stuck around this 60 to
11:2570% of the route area in terms of kind of splitting up the route share between him and Kmet, but he did give you five
11:34targets, four catches, 63 yards. He had a 3 yards per route run in this game. He had all four of his catches were first
11:40downs. He's just absolutely amazing. He has had 10 or more PPR points in three of his last four games despite playing
11:46in this part-time role. I think from here on out, you can start him pretty confidently uh even with the low route
11:53share. He's a little more boom-bust because of that, but when he's on the field running routes, they prioritize him in the passing game. Uh we can touch
12:01on the Tennessee Titans guys. If you guys want me to touch on them, we have Camerun Dede.
12:05Uh we have uh Alec Aamann as well.
12:09Nothing crazy.
12:10Both guys are just struggling. Like, they're just they're not They shouldn't be Cam Ward's number one option. Uh they're running a lot of routes. Dede
12:18has been playing better than Aamann, but there's really nothing to see here uh as you guys can see. But, the one guy I do
12:25want to highlight, you guys know I love him. We'll highlight Gunner Helm. His per route numbers as a tight end still
12:30look absolutely amazing here. He's not running enough routes next to O'Connell, right? So, we're actually taking from 50% to 40 to 30%. You hate to see that,
12:37but on just 10 routes, Gunner Helm had four catches for 49 yards and a touchdown. Uh Gunner Helm is somebody to
12:45keep an eye on in dynasty next year in fantasy football. I like Gunner Helm. He should have He really only slid in the draft because
12:52he came to the NFL combine banged up, but he was a really good player at Texas. Uh we can talk about the
12:57Chargers. Uh we have of course Quentin Johnston gets ruled out before this game. And this is important to note.
13:03Trey Harris leapfrogs Keenan Allen as expected, right? So, on this depth chart, QJ and Lad are the perimeter receivers. Keenan Allen in the
13:11slot. With Quentin Johnston gone, instead of Keenan Allen becoming an outside receiver in two wide receiver sets, Trey Harris has that role. I think
13:18they also like him as a blocker, too, where you see a lot of the times where even with a healthy QJ, uh sometimes
13:23they come out with like a one wide receiver set uh on the goal line, right?
13:27Whether that's something super heavy like 13 personnel or something, Trey Harris will sometimes get brought out to block. So, I think they really like him
13:33at X as a blocker, as a big physical receiver. So, he goes up to 82% of the routes. Uh And he had like an okay game, Trey
13:41Harris. Uh he's out there running a ton of routes, five targets, three catches, 49 yards. Nothing crazy, but when you consider that like Lad McConkey didn't
13:50really do anything. Nobody really did anything in the passing game. It was a low-scoring game anyways. Trey Harris is an interesting name. Was a fun prospect
13:57out of Ole Miss. Uh you also have Keondre Lambert-Smith who I really like.
14:00I actually added him to the list just for this reason. I loved him in the preseason and then he's kind of been
14:06overshadowed by Trey Harris and kind of just the rest of this receiver room, right? You have QJ, Lad, Keenan Allen. I
14:11Ronde Gadson has been absolutely huge.
14:13He was a guy who was fun in the preseason. He got some run in this game.
14:16He scores a touchdown, but that's really about it. Nothing else to really see with Keondre Lambert-Smith. And then, I Ronde Gadson. Sadly, his route share has
14:24really declined over the last few weeks down to 61% despite no Quentin Johnston in this game. Per route numbers are still amazing. These are all really,
14:31really strong for a tight end. I still feel really good about him long-term.
14:34And I will say despite a decrease in route share, he still had a good individual game, especially just for a tight end. He had five targets, four
14:42catches, 61 yards. He was the highest graded rookie receiver on the week at 90.2. He had a 3.05 yards per route run
14:49and all four of his catches were for first down. So, I Ronde Gadson uh really good on an individual basis. It's kind
14:56of similar to Loveland. He's just not running enough routes to be a like full-on holy this guy is here sort of idea. Uh then, we can talk about like
15:06miscellaneous notes. Uh the Texans game was weird. They killed the Cardinals.
15:10Jayden Higgins ran more routes than he did in week 14, but he had like four receiving yards in this game. They
15:15didn't really throw the ball a ton outside of Nico Collins in this game.
15:18You had Jaylen Noel actually see less routes than normal down to 22%. He had nothing in this game. Uh we can talk
15:26about Terrance Ferguson. This is actually a huge one. Tight end for the Rams.
15:30He was somebody who goes day two. People were very excited about and we just kind of almost It almost looked like it was
15:35going to be like a redshirt season for him. Kind of similar to Trey McBride's rookie year on the Cardinals with Zach
15:40Ertz.
15:41But, with Tyler Higbee going down with injury and Terrance Ferguson getting led on here, we go from 27% of the routes to
15:4745% to 71%.
15:50And somebody you can start to think about starting, but I wouldn't. We'll talk about Colby Parkinson later. Colby Parkinson has been balling out. And
15:55sadly, Ferguson even with 71% of the routes just two targets, one catch for 6 yards.
16:02Really tough.
16:05I wish I had more positive things to say about Terrance Ferguson, but at least he's getting more playing time.
16:11We just need production. We need him to show something on the stat sheet for that added playing time. We could talk
16:16about Jack Besh as well. Uh back-to-back weeks now of 75% plus of the routes working ahead of Dante Thornton down here all the way at 10%. But, the issue
16:25is the Raiders suck. Kenny Pickett is not good. So, Jack Besh, all he had was three targets, two catches, and 17
16:31yards, but he is working his way up the depth chart. And then, the last guy we'll touch on is Isaiah Bond going from
16:3643% to 55% to 76%. I think it does coincide with Cedric Tillman getting banged up, but Bond has a good game. He
16:43had a big play. He had three targets, two catches, 89 yards. If you kind of want to squint and look at Isaiah Bond,
16:50he's an interesting player, but that's really kind of it. Now, moving on from that, our second takeaway for week 15 as
16:58we head to week 16 is the rookie running back carousel. This one just sponsored by the channel. Subscribe. Leave a like.
17:06Do all that good stuff. It's late in the season. If I helped you make the playoffs or advance further, just leave
17:12a like. It helps us out a ton. Now, let's talk about the man of the hour.
17:17Trevion Henderson. He goes absolutely nuts. Two super long runs for touchdowns.
17:23He's so explosive. Yes, is he at 49% of the snaps? So, he does get put fifth on this list? Sure. But, it's not about the
17:30snap share with running backs. It's really more about the touches here. Snap share is just an easy way for me to sort
17:35of sort these guys by. You also got to remember with Trevion Henderson, when he's breaking off 50 plus yard runs, he doesn't have to
17:42stay on the field for another snap.
17:44Like, he just has an explosive play and gets down there. So, he's going to have less touches and less snaps because
17:50when it's like his drive or his time to be on the field, he had two times yesterday where he just took it to the
17:55house. So, that's something to remember with Trevion Henderson. Uh of course, with the rookie running back carousel, we have rookie running backs sorted by
18:02their week 15 snap share, their snap shares from week 13 through 15, their points per game, so their production, their PPR per touch, their efficiency,
18:08and their PFF grade. How do they look on film? Now, with Henderson, he gets 17 opportunities to Rhamondre Stevenson's nine opportunities. Even if Rhamondre
18:17outsnapped him, Henderson out touches him. He also gets 14 carries, 148 yards, two rushing touchdowns. He's now tied with Devon Achane for the best rushing
18:27yards over expected per attempt in the NFL. Super, super impressive stuff. And this has been why we were all in on
18:34Trevion Henderson this offseason. Did it look shaky there for a second? Sure.
18:37Right? Weeks one through seven from Ian Hardee's 6.7 PPR points per game, RB47 to 18.8 PPR points per game as the RB6
18:46since week eight. He now has tied for the most 50 plus yard rushing touchdowns by a rookie since 2000 with Saquon Barkley.
18:56Just ahead of Adrian Peterson from Underdog there on the bottom. Now, here is kind of the big debate. Uh people were mad that I was like I wasn't
19:06even so much a victory lap. It was just like finally, this is what we drafted Trevion Henderson for.
19:10And this is kind of the disconnect cuz there are a lot of people like, "Oh, well, Trevion Henderson teams didn't even make
19:15the playoffs." Well, that's just not right. Uh he, you know, starts to turn up by like week eight, week nine, week
19:2010 as like a late push guy. Now, of course, early on he was hurting your team, but especially in home leagues
19:26where you were drafting him fourth round, fifth round, he it's not enough to just kill your team. For people out there, this is really inside baseball,
19:32but we're going to talk through the lens of you guys watching this channel a ton.
19:36We streamed teams in the offseason. For a $2,000 league, we had a guy misclick in the sixth round and pick Ricky
19:43Pearsall.
19:44He ended up making the playoffs in the league championship in that league. You can I'm not saying that picks by their
19:51own don't matter. But, what I'm trying to say is that you can in theory light a sixth round pick on fire and be
19:57absolutely fine. So, Travon Henderson hurting you for 7 weeks is not like you took him first overall. You took him third to fifth round, maybe sixth round
20:04in some really casual home leagues.
20:06And yes, was he annoying and frustrating early on? Sure.
20:09But, that's what we were preaching all off season. As I kept telling you guys, we draft the rookies to start slow.
20:15Maybe draft an extra running back later on if you'd like to, right? Like a higher floor uh dusty veteran. And then
20:22he's going to be good for the stretch run. Now, was that always true? No, right? We have Ashton Jeanty, we have
20:26Amari Henderson.
20:28It is a big boomer bust thing. But, only one out of 12 people in your league are going to end up winning it all. It's
20:34just how it works. Now, for all the people in the comments saying, "Oh, well, when Ramondre's back get used to it." Like this isn't going to be how it
20:39is when Ramondre gets back. Well, we've now had two games with Ramondre back and Travon Henderson has been fine, putting up big games, being a top six running
20:46back that you drafted outside of the top 12 running backs in fantasy. So, he has been It's interesting because I wouldn't
20:53I'm also not going to hop on here and say that Henderson's been a smash pick.
20:56He's probably been to this point about neutral, right? Because he hurt you through 7 weeks.
21:01But, if you could just withstand the storm, if you got any kind of help off of waivers at running back, whether that
21:06was like a Kareem Hunt early or there were certain points with like Zamani Vidal, or if you picked up a Rico
21:11Dowdle. Now, of course, these are all best case scenarios, but I'm just saying in the land of fantasy, all of these
21:16things are possible. And then Henderson kind of catches the baton around week nine, and all of a sudden it could have
21:22supercharged your team into the playoffs, where this is what fantasy football is. Yes, do you want players who are good weeks 1
21:29through 14? Of course. But, there were also definitely teams yesterday, and this is the beauty of fantasy, that probably got bounced out as a third seed
21:38despite having Jonathan Taylor or despite having Jahmyr Gibbs.
21:42Some of the studs that got you there, sometimes they don't perform. And then that's how things go. So, having like a
21:48sixth seed team with Travon Henderson and you beat those teams, that's what it's about. We want to win the league championship. Now, I think whether or
21:54not Henderson come becomes like a good pick for this year. Right now, again, I'll say he's like neutral. I would say
21:59like a slight positive. I would say that he's a he was a he's a fine to good pick. The idea There is an idea out
22:04there that he was a bad pick because he knocked you out of the playoffs. You didn't make the playoffs if you drafted
22:09him. He was not that bad. He was not holy this guy was like you know, like Caleb Johnson or a player who's
22:14been hurt all year, whether you want to say like Mike Evans or Terry McLaurin or Alvin Kamara. These are other guys who
22:20actually killed you.
22:22Henderson has not been that because he's been so good down the stretch. Now, what I'm trying to say is he's anywhere from
22:26like fine to a good pick. He would be like a smash home run pick if like weeks 16 and 17 he does it again and gives you
22:32like 15 plus PPR points and is a top six running back for the fantasy playoffs.
22:37That's what he needs, but that's what you drafted him for, right? I showed this graphic all off season.
22:43Where we talk about rookie running backs from weeks nine on. That's what we're looking at because before that they kind of can flare out. Jonathan Taylor, he's
22:51the famous one. 20 plus points per game from weeks nine on. Before that, he was brutal. People were calling him a bust.
22:57People were saying, "Oh my god, Jonathan Taylor is awful." It's just how things go. A lot of the times these rookies
23:02they figure it out, they become studs down the stretch. You could have see these rookies through a similar lens as like a Rashid Shaheed, right? Towards
23:08the end when we got, "Okay, he's going to be a six game suspension guy. He's going to give you zeros in your lineup
23:12every single week." But, it's managed.
23:14You can just get somebody else to go in there, right? Like you can just pick somebody off of waivers or you can draft
23:18somebody in the seventh round. Or maybe you drafted, you know, before maybe you drafted Michael Pittman, who was kind of the perfect guy to pass the baton,
23:25right? Before the De'Von Achane injury, but uh ahead of the Rashid Shaheed suspension. I'm kind of rambling here, but it's week 16 and I'm just going to
23:31sort of vent about what I want to.
23:35When we draft rookies, and it's what we said the entire off season, is you look at it through this lens. You don't
23:39expect anything early. Draft your team through that lens, whether it means you draft another running back or figure something out that way.
23:47And then towards the end, this could be somebody that really supercharges your team. I will say this is an anecdote, we
23:52don't really have data across the board.
23:54Uh we do have BBM data, which I looked at. He was a slightly below advance rate player, which that's what you expect for
24:00rookies. As weeks 1 through 14, they're going to be a slight net negative. But, in the fantasy playoffs, where you are
24:05actually going to win money, they're going to be the guys that you might have needed to have to win it all anyways.
24:11And again, only one out of 12 people win in an individual league. So, you have to swing for the fences. You have to
24:17weather the storm early to have, you know, one of the guys that were a cheat code to win your league, right? Like if
24:24you had Travon Henderson this week, you probably won.
24:28Now, I will say, in my home league, when we talk about anecdotes, I have Travon Henderson on my team, but I had a I had
24:32a bye week this week. So, he wasn't so bad that you couldn't get a first round bye. Is sort of what I'm trying to say
24:37here.
24:38Other people out there are kind of upset about any of the victory laps on Travon Henderson. It's just that this is what
24:42we drafted him for.
24:44It was going to be rough early with Ramondre, but there's going to be a point in time where he was going to ball
24:49out. That's kind of the idea with any rookie that we are drafting highly. So, I think now Henderson isn't, you know,
24:57it was [clears throat] through 7 weeks it was looking rough, where it was like, "Oh my god, this guy was a terrible
25:00pick." Now, I would just say that he's anywhere from a fine to a good pick. And really where on that spectrum from like
25:06fine to amazing, time will only tell from week 16 and 17.
25:13Uh I'm trying to think if there's like anything else that I wanted to touch on there with Henderson. That was just kind
25:16of my rant there. People on Twitter were upset that I was like, "This is why we draft rookies so highly." Right? Again, the net negative
25:25on the front end for what they can do down the stretch, and Henderson uh outlined that very well this week. Uh
25:31let's talk about the rest of the the rookies though. Let's talk about the rest. I feel like I kind of rambled
25:34there. We have Ashton Jeanty at the top.
25:36The Raiders just suck, as we talked about with Jack Besh. Uh RJ Harvey, he gets banged up in this game, I
25:41believe, but he still had 20 opportunities. He didn't have the best game in the world, Harvey, right? In terms of uh scoring. But, it was against
25:48a really, really strong solid Packers defense. He gave you 10.5 PPR points, 19 carries, 65 yards. He did score a touchdown. He He just scores touchdowns,
25:57man.
25:59RJ Harvey just scores touchdowns. Uh I do believe he fumbles in this game, which you hate to see. Maybe uh I
26:05wouldn't say that he really got um punished for it. He still had, again, 20 opportunities in this game. Over the last 3 weeks though, since the bye week,
26:14since JK Dobbins getting hurt, uh he has been the RB8 in points per game at 17.9 points per game. RJ Harvey's been solid.
26:20Judkins, this one's been tough. They lose 31 to 3. The Browns suck. Uh Judkins gave you kind of nothing here, and that's sort of been the story with
26:28him is the Browns have been so bad. The The Browns offensive line has been so bad that it's been really difficult for
26:33Judkins to do much. He did have two straight 15 plus PPR point games in week uh 12 and 13. This past week though, 12
26:41carries, 21 yards. But, he does tie a season high with four targets in this game. They didn't amount to much, but we
26:49like to see him getting involved in the passing game. Something that wasn't happening earlier in the year, but with Jerome Ford and Dylan Sampson hurt, it
26:55made sense. Uh we can talk about Amari Henderson, who we have to scroll down for here.
27:00Just 37% of the snaps. They are slow playing him. He does lead all rookie running backs in points per game at
27:0614.2, Amari Henderson. But, it's a little tough here. Still under 40% of the snaps. He had 15 plus opportunities in both of these first two
27:15games back from injury, but he's still getting out snapped by Zamani Vidal. So, he's getting the touches and the opportunity, but he's not being super
27:21efficient, and they're still kind of holding him back behind Vidal. There's something that we have to kind of just monitor moving forward until we get him
27:29having more snaps than Zamani Vidal, being productive, and getting, you know, maybe 20 plus opportunities instead of 15, then we can say, "Okay, this guy
27:36moving forward is a top 15 running back rest of season." For now, he's like a shaky RB2 in a given week. I will say
27:42Casey's really tough against running backs, which is important to remember.
27:46We have Bill Kroskey Merritt coming around. Of course, you needed the Chris Rodriguez injury to get there, but Bill against a pretty bad Giants
27:54defense, 18 carries, 96 yards, and a touchdown. Good for Bill. Any game that Rodriguez doesn't play, you can fire him up as like a fringe RB2. Uh Monangai is
28:03still operating as like the 1B to Swift's 1A. He's had 10 or more opportunities in each of his last two or
28:08three games. Really for the last like long stretch, really, uh for Monangai here.
28:14Really, whether or not you're happy that you started Monangai comes down to whether or not he scored a touchdown.
28:19Yeah, so since the Minnesota game in week 11, he's had 10 or more opportunities in every single game.
28:27Whether or not he scores 10 plus PPR points just comes down to if he scored a touchdown. He, of course, didn't score a
28:33touchdown. Uh Bijan Robinson gets hurt.
28:35He now is going to uh have surgery and be out until it seems like the NFL playoffs. That's a pretty big blow. Uh
28:42Devin Neal gets banged up in this game.
28:44That's why you see his snap share go down 32%. He does still still score a touchdown here. Woody Marks gets hurt in
28:49this game. It feels like the 18th straight time that Woody Marks has left the game with injury. We do have this
28:54tweet from Ryan Heath on the Woody Marks backfield. Woody Marks had his final touch in the second quarter. From that point on, we had Ja'Quan Jordan. I
29:04forgot he existed. He was a I want to say like a UDFA out of Louisville, Ja'Quan Jordan. Ends up with a 78%
29:11backfield carry share to Darrel Williams' 22%. We may talk about Ja'Quan Jordan on the waiver wire show. Now, after that, our third takeaway is ACL
29:22Mcgeddon uh comes for Patrick Mahomes. Brutal, brutal, brutal injury. You just hate to see it. Uh he tears his ACL, out for the
29:29season. And I just want kind of want to talk about what to expect from this offense moving forward, right? Maybe you
29:34have Rashid Shaheed, maybe you have Travis Kelce. And I wish I could tell you it's all going to be butterflies and
29:38rainbows, but it's not. This was an offense that was top 10 in EPA per play.
29:42Mahomes is Mahomes. And now next week, I already looked ahead, they have an implied team total. So, if Las Vegas in
29:47terms of their projected point scoring against the Tennessee Titans, a defense that sucks, they are projected for just 20.5 points.
29:56That would have been a bottom-10 number this week. So, this is now a bottom-10 offense. They go from top-10 to bottom-10.
30:04Probably going to run the ball a lot more.
30:06And Kelce goes from a set-it-and-forget-it tight end one to just another streamer, you know, somewhere in that Dallas Goedert, Mark Andrews area as you play the matchups
30:15and you hope that he scores a touchdown.
30:17And then this backfield is still a mess.
30:19I wouldn't really want to start either of them. Uh split almost 50/50 in terms of snaps when we look at the Fantasy Life
30:25Utilization Report. Just really, really tough all around here. If you want any you know, I guess like analysis on
30:36Gardner Minshew, we have from Ryan Heath here saying that when Gardner Minshew came in, he had four attempts that were on target. Three of them went to Kelce.
30:44Maybe you can get some of that Kelce PPR scan, but it's such a small sample that I'm not going to extrapolate that.
30:50Rashee Rice, of course, gets a huge downgrade here as well. Just brutal across the board for all Chiefs. And that's just kind of what it is when we
30:57talk about, you know, the best team or not the best I was going to say the best team in the league, but you know, kind
31:02of like the best uh blue chip, you know, stable offense year to year, right? Like since Mahomes 2018, this offense has been the Chiefs
31:11offense. When you lose Mahomes, it's done for. Uh we can also talk about the Chargers on the other side of this game.
31:18Lad McConkey has been under 40 receiving yards in every game since week 11. I think it's a combo of Lad underperforming this year, Justin
31:24Herbert having that injury. KC and Philadelphia are two good defenses and you know, former Super Bowl champs of the last 2 years. But they do get Dallas
31:34this week to get right. But Lad McConkey, I think heading into this week should be right on the wide receiver two
31:38fringes, like a high-end wide receiver three. That's kind of boom-bust against the Cowboys. Then we can talk about the Packers wide receiver room. Uh
31:46thankfully, Christian Watson is going to be okay. This was a big story where uh Love uncorks a bomb and then Watson
31:54kind of gets uh Sutton picks the ball and kind of falls on the Christian Watson's shoulder. I thought it was going to be like a broken
32:01collarbone. Thankfully, it sounds like he's going to be fine. But I think it was important to kind of look at how did
32:06this wide receiver room get split up in the meantime. Doubs, of course, led the way.
32:13He has been unusable for fantasy. You can absolutely just drop Romeo Doubs at this point. We're seeing Jayden Reed trend up here. He led the team in target
32:21share when we look at the utilization report over on Fantasy Life, but really all you can say here is you're hoping
32:26for Golden to climb the depth chart.
32:28You're hoping for Jayden Reed to climb the depth chart, but most likely Watson will just be back in the lineup as soon
32:32as next week and still be the main guy for this offense. Now, speaking of the ACL phenomenon around the league, Micah
32:41Parsons tears his ACL. Hate to see that, but if you want to just look at like the silver lining here, it's not like we
32:47care about that for fantasy football. I have I mean, just as a fan of football, losing like if we were to do a fantasy
32:52draft Madden-style in the NFL right now, I think Mahomes and Parsons would both be like top-10 picks. So, you hate to
32:59see both of those guys tear their ACL.
33:01But with Parsons hurt, this Packers defense kind of makes game scripts a little wonky at times. Maybe their defense will lighten up a bit and we'll
33:08see a little more high-scoring action from the Packers. They get the Bears next week and then the Baltimore Ravens.
33:14Two games that I feel like can maybe shoot out, especially without Parsons moving forward. Then my fifth takeaway is the Trevor Lawrence supernova. This
33:22is what we were hoping for when Trevor Lawrence got drafted. I mean, oh my god, like this was I have been a Trevor Lawrence fan the
33:29entire way. If you watch my videos in the off-season, I said that I loved him as a late-round quarterback pick. I'm
33:34not going to sit here and act like if I picked him up in like a 12-man league, I probably would have dropped
33:38him after the first few weeks.
33:40And even after that, there there were games here and there where you didn't have the balls to start him, but then he
33:45scored like two rushing touchdowns and was fine. But in like best ball leagues or superflex leagues, Trevor Lawrence has been absolutely amazing here.
33:52Uh Ted Nguyen Sefarian kind of outlines how good this week was for Trevor Lawrence, how good he's been over the past uh you know,
33:59five or six game stretch here. Uh he ranked first in total EPA in week 15, showing far how far the Jaguars pass
34:06game has come as a whole. Weeks 1 through 10, they ranked 25th in EPA per dropback. Since week 11, they ranked
34:11eighth. Yes, their schedule has been easy over that span, but you just like to see them be consistent and play well.
34:18Uh Jakobi Meyers has been huge for the offense. Liam Cohen's offense had a 8.6% pass rate over expected and a 99th
34:24percentile EPA per dropback game. So, they were passing the ball a lot and it was working on all cylinders. From a
34:29fantasy perspective, we have uh this, which is Trevor Lawrence has 21.2 points per game since week four. That is
34:41more than Matthew Stafford and Drake Maye. He's just been balling out of his mind here. He put up 44 points this
34:46week.
34:48And because of that, Brian Thomas actually played okay.
34:50Uh he tied the team lead in target share, 21.9%.
34:57First time since week six.
34:59I believe he scores a touchdown in this game. Yeah, he had seven targets, four catches, 66 yards, a touchdown, 17.1 PPR
35:05points. Hit that all day. That's that's his best day since week six against Seattle when he had 10 targets for eight
35:10catches, 90 yards, and a touchdown.
35:12Maybe we'll see Brian Thomas kind of turn up here down the stretch, but I will say could have just been the Jets.
35:17The Jets are just absolutely brutal. I will say this will be the true test for the Jaguars. This is meaningful football
35:22time. They play against Denver, maybe the best defense in the NFL if it's not the Texans. And then you have the Colts
35:28or like, you know, Seattle and the Rams are very good as well. Then the Colts, who they made the Seahawks win with six
35:35field goals. So, two really tough matchups for the Jaguars. We'll see how that goes. On the other side of this game, the Jets
35:41absolutely suck. Uh but it is worth mentioning that after a week 13 that got me very excited with 89% of the snaps for Breece
35:50Hall, he then goes down to 54% this week because he came into this game banged up. Who knows over weeks 15 or weeks 16
35:57and 17 how much Breece Hall will be playing with this season pretty much out of reach. Uh then we can talk about Kyle
36:04Pitts from the Thursday night game. We you know, why not talk about uh two guys who were at different points in their
36:11careers stamped as busts from that 2021 draft class getting drafted over, you know, Ja'Marr Chase and Pat Surtain and Penei Sewell and all of the uh I think
36:21Micah Parsons was in that draft class as well, all those great players.
36:26Pitts had a 45-piece, Trevor Lawrence 44-piece for two of the four highest-scoring games this season. Uh Kyle Pitts, now I will say this is some
36:35voodoo magic from doing stats. Kyle Pitts is going to look good at in all of these before turning X age stats because he played at
36:44such a young age. He was like a 20-21-year-old rookie. But when we look at the most receiving yards by a tight
36:50end before turning 26, Kyle Pitts doesn't turn 26 until October 6th next year, so he's still kind of accumulating these stats. You have Gronk, Witten,
36:58Gonzalez, Kellen Winslow.
37:00Uh Four, I believe, Hall of Famers there.
37:03So, Pitts is in good company there. But when you start factoring in touchdowns or you factor in the fact that he
37:07started so young, so he probably has more games played than all of these guys besides maybe Gronk, uh things start to get a little bit more
37:14blurry. But he is trending in the right direction. 15-plus uh PPR points in three of his last three.
37:21Sadly, it's really been more of a Drake London thing. Drake London hasn't played in those games, so that's why Pitts has
37:25really been shining. I think once London gets back, Pitts becomes kind of an afterthought. I think that he's still going to be somebody who can
37:31start on a weekly basis, but right now he's like a must-start with London out.
37:35With London back in, he's probably more like a streamer. Uh on the other side of this game though, Mike Evans now back on
37:39the menu as a wide receiver two option.
37:41He runs all the routes. 12 targets, six catches, 132 yards in must-wins moving forward. He is going to play as much as
37:48he possibly can. He even came back in the game after the weird kind of like tabletop. He lands on the back of his
37:53head or back of his neck uh and like really busts up his back. He ends up being fine. I can't believe that he's
37:59balling like he is at his age off a broken collarbone uh for like maybe like six weeks ago. Crazy.
38:05I will say as well, Bucky Irving, not a great game, but up from 45% to 76% of the running back rush attempts in this
38:11game. Uh then we can talk about our seventh takeaway. Let's talk about Colby Parkinson.
38:17Davante Adams aggravates his hamstring.
38:19I would guess that he doesn't play week 16 and 17, but I don't know, maybe they shoot him up with some stuff and
38:25he's all right. But these hamstring injuries seem to linger and they could just be safe so that he's there for the
38:29playoffs. But maybe they really care about that bye week and they kind of rush him back as soon as I know, there's
38:35no way he plays on Thursday.
38:37But I thought there was no way that Amon-Ra St. Brown would. But I'm going to say he probably doesn't, Davante Adams. But what that means is that Colby
38:43Parkinson led the Rams in routes run this past week. Look at his usage. Over the last 2 weeks, he has run 70%
38:51of the routes. That is great usage for a tight end, especially in this offense.
38:56Since week 10, he is the tight end four with 13.5 points per game. And I just don't see this stopping with like
39:02Terrance Ferguson not being that good, Davante Adams banged up, how much they love using the tight ends in this offense. I think Colby Parkinson is kind
39:09of a set-it-and-forget-it tight end uh for weeks 16 and 17. I really do.
39:13Parkinson is a good player on a good offense. Uh then let's talk about Philip Rivers. It was uh a fun story.
39:22But let's kind of talk about what we can expect from Philip Rivers the rest of the way.
39:27First thing to note is from Ryan Heath here is he threw 33.3% of his targets to the running backs.
39:33You know, their offense is so bad with Rivers that I will say it was against Seattle. So, let's see this against an an opponent.
39:42but the very least the offense and the scoring opportunities are not going to be there the way that they were for the Colts.
39:49So, that hurts JT in terms of efficiency, moving the ball, scoring touchdowns. It's a little bit of a consolation he's getting more targets,
39:56but it also means Ameer Abdullah is going to be more of a factor as well.
40:01Now, in terms of looking at this offense, -17% pass rate over expectation. They are just running the ball and if they're
40:08not running the ball a third of the time they're passing the ball to the running back.
40:12They were 24th of 30 teams in EPA per play over the weekend, not great, and they are actually tied with the Chiefs
40:18heading into next week with a 20.5 team total.
40:23So, now we are working with another bottom 10 offense in the Colts.
40:29Pretty brutal.
40:30JT is like a mid-to-backend RB1 you're just hoping can win on his own efficiency, but the last 2 weeks it has
40:37been brutal for him. I will say now on the other side of this game, Rashid Shaheed is now fully back on the menu
40:42here.
40:43Did not want to show that, but Rashid Shaheed is fully back on the menu.
40:47Season high 82% route share with the Seahawks.
40:50He was the wide receiver 27 on the week with seven targets, five catches, 74 yards. He now seems to be a staple of
40:56this offense moving forward. If you want to talk about the Seattle running backs on the side of this game, Walker had a
41:0143% snap share, his lowest since week 10. Charbonnet wasn't much better, like it was just really a defensive battle in this game, but
41:08not looking great for Walker moving forward. Then our ninth takeaway is the Ravens still don't look right, but I think there's a few things at play here.
41:15First of all, Ravens win 24-0 with a defensive touchdown against the Bengals, so it was a bad game script anyways. Then on top
41:23of that, Lamar, Derrick Henry, like all the starters sat out the entire fourth quarter. So, you only had three quarters of game play from those players.
41:31They had a defensive touchdown, the game script didn't push them at all.
41:35Lamar Jackson only attempted 12 passes.
41:37He had two passing touchdowns. And then on the flip side, the Ravens have been the fifth best EPA per play defense
41:42since week six, only behind Seattle, Houston, Cleveland, and the Rams. So, I think you can give both of these offenses a mulligan, right? Where like
41:50the Ravens weren't pushed because of the game script and then the Bengals played against a good defense in the Ravens.
41:57Chase Brown does get out carried by P Ryan in this game, but still 20 touches for Chase Brown. It's not as juicy as a
42:03split as it was before P Ryan came back from injury, but even with P Ryan back, Chase Brown is still a high-end RB2
42:10moving forward. Then we can talk about number nine.
42:14J.J. McCarthy strings together two consecutive weeks. They go 2-0 versus the Commanders and against the Cowboys, two of the worst passing defenses in the
42:21NFL, but he has five passing touchdowns. Really, the issue is is first of all, him and Jefferson just aren't on the same page.
42:27It's crazy to see. Jefferson has the most targets over the last two games, but has just four catches for 33 yards.
42:34Addison not as bad, nine targets, six catches, 128 yards. A lot of that came on one play from last night where I
42:39think McCarthy McCarthy kind of underthrew him a little bit. Should have been a touchdown, but it is what it is.
42:43And then those five touchdowns have all gone to Hockenson, Nailor, and Oliver.
42:47Not good for fantasy. So, even though McCarthy's played well, it has felt a little tough, specially as a Justin Jefferson owner, but I do think better
42:56days are ahead if McCarthy is finding his groove. I will say Javonte Williams on the other side of this game does have
43:02just a 29% snap share, but he was battling through injury and still gave you 15 carries, 91 yards, and a rushing
43:08touchdown. Now, my bonus takeaway from today or from the weekend is just some messy backfields I wanted to touch on.
43:15First, we have Arizona.
43:17Bam Knight carted off. Michael Carter had a 78% backfield carry share, 10% target share, got the only carry inside the 10 from Ryan Heath there. That's
43:25monster usage and somebody we'll definitely talk about in the waiver wire video. The Giants backfield, Singletary has a 24% snap share, his lowest since
43:33the Scat injury. Tracy 76% snap share, highest since the Scat injury. Tracy could be a low-key late season hammer here. The Carolina
43:41Panthers. Some people thought maybe a flip-flopping was happening. Rico Dowdle is still the number one having a better usage score, 59% snap share to 43% for
43:50Hubbard. So, a 60-40 split in favor of Rico Dowdle here still. And then Tennessee. Pollard now has back-to-back weeks of being
43:58an absolute monster for fantasy, but I just want to make sure that we're all on the same page, that his role hasn't
44:03changed, right? You look at his snap share hovering around 50, you know, like 45 to 60% snap share. Rush attempt share
44:09still around 70%, but Pollard has just been good the last 2 weeks, 28.1 PPR points versus Cleveland and then 18.2 this past week against San Fran. He gets
44:19Casey this next week and then New Orleans.
44:21Again, his role isn't different. I wouldn't treat him much different than the middle of the year, but he's also just finding his way into the end zone
44:29and finding his way into a 6+ yards per carry in each of those last two games.
44:34Maybe Pollard just kind of found found his stride, maybe the offensive line has found its stride.
44:38I wish I had a better reason for why this is happening, but Pollard is running well. Now, that's going to do it for us today. As always,
44:47if you enjoy, leave a like, subscribe if you're new, and I will see you guys in the next one.
44:54I I I This is like [singing and music] I I I I I I I Leave me a stone
45:06like this fossil, [music and singing] ice cold.
45:09Oh oh oh oh oh oh I saw my body like I'm fossil.
