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Stephania Bell’s Top 5 Injuries to Monitor | Fantasy Focus
00:25:48
Should you target or avoid CMC?
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- [00:00]
Daniel Dopp
Are you feeling more fulfilled now that you're back to work on August 15th?
- [00:05]
Stefania Bell
No, I need a vacation.
- [00:07]
Daniel Dopp
See the movie that critics are saying is an awesome look at that crowd pleasing, fist pumping all out brawl of a film.
- [00:17]
Field Yates
You're right about that.
- [00:20]
Matthew Berry
They're coming after our family.
- [00:23]
Daniel Dopp
Go fix this. Oh, my. Nobody 2, rated R. Holding in theaters August 15th. Fantasy, you're in the.
- [00:43]
Field Yates
What'S good, friends? Welcome in to Fantasy Focus, another offseason edition of the show. Today, Stefania Bell and I are going to dive into a bunch of injuries, making sure you're all set up for your fantasy drafts, knowing all the injuries that happened in 2024, what to expect for those players in 2025, how they've been recovering and all that. But before we dive into the work stu on you, I've barely seen you this summer. You've been out gallivanting, obviously, boondoggling as you usually do. It's wonderful to see your beautiful face. How you doing, kid?
- [01:12]
Matthew Berry
I'm doing well. You know, everybody says the boondoggle thing, which was started by our dear friend Matthew Berry, but honestly, I fight it all the time because I'm usually working and then people pretend it's boondocking, but I'm not gonna fight it. Like, I took real vacation this year. I drove up the coast to California. I saw friends, I saw family. Then I babysat my niece and nephew for two weeks while their parents are off boondoggling on safari. And let me tell you, I just want to shout out not only all parents, but man, single parents, because I had two and I thought, I'm ready to come back to work.
- [01:47]
Field Yates
I'll bet. Well, I can imagine you were probably ready to put the kids to work knowing that you've had them out there scouting the Chargers on multiple occasions before. So maybe Auntie Steph was able to help make sure that we getting everybody ready right for fantasy football season. Not just us, but the niece and nephew as well.
- [02:02]
Matthew Berry
Yeah, my nephew provided a charger scouting report and offered to do it again this year.
- [02:06]
Field Yates
So I love it. I love it. Well, Stefania, we have a bunch of huge things that we want to talk about. I mentioned all the injuries we're going to dive into, but first and foremost, how about a little bit of exciting news? Fantasy Focus is hitting the road this season. It's been a little bit. Last year we went to Boston, did a show. We also went out to Bahamar. This year we are doing even more. On August 7th, New York City, we're going to be doing The Gramercy Theater. Stefania Live. That is going to be so much fun. And if that wasn't enough. Aug. 14 at Union Transfer in Philadelphia, we're doing a live show back to back in weeks, consecutive weeks for both New York City and Philly. Stefania. We've played New York City a bunch of times. We did a Philly show that we remember very well as well.
- [02:54]
Matthew Berry
I expect rowdy crowds at both. I'm so excited. I mean, these are fan bases that get really fired up. And you're right. I think of all the live shows we've done, we had decided that Philly was maybe the most loud and now they're coming off a Super bowl win. How do you think they're going to be this time?
- [03:15]
Field Yates
I think they will be raucous for sure. I think that is the word that I would use. Feel free to check out our social media handles for tickets to all of those events. And in case you wanted to be able to head out to the Bahamas again with us this year, we are doing the Baha Mar Ultimate Draft weekend again this season in conjunction with Baja Mar. We love our partners down there. August 21st through the 24th. Feel free to scan the QR code on the screen right now. You can also head on over to Baha Mars website Bahamar.com draft to be able to look at everything, twist our arms to have us go back and do more draft stuff in the Bahamas. Stefania, I'm ready for that one as well.
- [03:53]
Matthew Berry
Who does not want to go to the Bahamas? What is wrong with someone who says, no, I don't want to go. I think I'll pass on the Bahamas. Of course you want to go to the Bahamas and we'll all be there and we'll be doing shows. We'll be talking to you about your fantasy draft picks and making recommendations. And you know, you may want to pay attention to the recommendations earlier in the weekend as opposed to later.
- [04:15]
Field Yates
That's right.
- [04:17]
Matthew Berry
We know what happens as the weekend progresses. But we had a lot of fun this time. I'm sure it's going to be just as much fun, if not more more this time around.
- [04:24]
Field Yates
All right, Stevanya, let's start off the top with this show. We had one guy that was 1.01 last year. The guy that we all thought was going to just be unbelievable in fantasy football season. By the way, he was a Madden cover athlete. I would like to mention that Christian McCaffrey missed eight games in 2024 due to a bilateral Achilles tendonitis to start the season ended up coming back. You and Field actually made a trade on the podcast with the thoughts of CMC maybe coming back for the second half of the season. Unfortunately suffered a PCL sprain the second half of the year. Where are we at in CMC's recovery before we talk about his value for next year?
- [05:00]
Matthew Berry
You know, I had forgotten about that trade, which looked like a really smart move initially only to, you know, not really help me out in the end. But listen, I've been asked more about Christian McCaffrey than any other player this offseason and I understand it not only because of the talent, what he can do for your fantasy roster when he's healthy, but but because this is perhaps the hardest player to evaluate coming into this year. The talent has remained the same despite his age. So now he's a 29 year old running back. We usually look at 29 Ask Mike Clay as the time when a running back's performance might be expected to drop off. But if you look at McCaffrey and how he's performed, particularly in years when he's bounced back from injury, he's actually performed at his best. So there's not necessarily a reason to think if we didn't have these injuries to predate this, that he would fall off. Chris McCaffrey had his first injury in week two of his fourth season in 2020, and when he came back after 2021, he also he had subsequent injuries. So he never really recovered from that because he had a couple layers on top of it. But when he came back in 2022, playing in all 20 games, meaning the regular season, he got traded to San Francisco and he played three games in the postseason. He finished with over 1800 yards from scrimmage, so he did not have any problem with his mileage in that year. And then in 2023, his first full season with the 49ers. So you think 2023 just one season removed from last year when he suffered those injuries. He had career highs in rushing yards and yards per carry. So I set that up as the premise to why I believe Christian McCaffrey can and will bounce back this year. The Achilles tendonitis, just to recap, was something that cropped up in training camp and I think we originally heard about it as a calf strain. This is often the case might present a calf issue, Achilles and then he went away. As players often do during training camp, they sort of disappear from the radar because they're rehabbing and the messaging was he's doing well in rehab. We Expect him to be ready for week one. But we never really saw him engaging in full participation in practice, not at all up until the season began. And what happened was first game, if you had him on your roster, you know, because it was Monday night and he was a late scratch and all of a sudden that was it. And there was no Christian McCaffrey for eight games as he rehabbed from the Achilles tendinitis. He came back and as you might expect, didn't really look like himself initially. I mean, he had to work up the vol. He finally started to look like his pre injury self when the game in Buffalo, he fell hard. It was a snow game if you recall. Landed on his shin, that direct impact typical for a PCL injury, then that was it. So you wonder what do we expect after not seeing that much? Well, he has perhaps one of the best work ethics, an incredible training regimen. He was a track athlete in addition to being a football player when he was young. His workouts are highly track based and he does all kinds of unique movements to prepare him for being in the NFL. He's posted some video. If you want to be depressed about your own fitness, go watch some of Christian McCaffrey's video. But I think the telltale sign to me was that he showed up at OTAs with zero restrictions. He was not limited in any way. And in fact he made it clear that he wanted to participate in everything through the spring. So we had a chance to see how would he respond to that. He participated in every single drill, did everything. And I think he's made it clear to the 49ers he, he wants to be the guy. What did they do? They got rid of Elijah Mitchell. They got rid of Jordan Mason. Isaac Arundo, who is his backup this year, remains the primary backup. Yes, they added another running back through the draft, but you can tell that they plan to lean on Christian McCaffrey. And as we get closer, training camps begin next week. I think you're going to see the chatter rise and people are sort of going to become more, more entertained by the idea of drafting Christian McCaffrey very high in the first round.
- [09:12]
Field Yates
All right, when we come back here on Fantasy Focus, we're going to dive even deeper into the injury report with Stefania Bell. We'll see you guys on the other side.
- [09:21]
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- [11:10]
Matthew Berry
That'S.
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- [11:26]
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- [12:00]
Field Yates
Back here on Fantasy Focus alongside Stefanya Bell. My name is Daniel Dopp, diving into the the top five injury situations to monitor for the 2025 fantasy football season. Stefania we just talked about Christian McCaffrey. Everything that he was unfortunately in 2024 with the hopes of what he can be in 2025. But he wasn't the only San Francisco 49er that got hit with the injury bug last year. We had Brandon Ayuk, also torn ACL and mcl. I felt like there was some confusion around like when he had his surgery too. Where is he at in his recovery for fantasy managers?
- [12:35]
Matthew Berry
Well, it's hard to know because sometimes these guys do their rehab very quietly. We don't get a lot of information along the way, but if we just start with the injury that he had. And yes, you had to remind me that the 49ers suffered another devastating blow last year when they lost Brandon iu. Brandon iu, if you recall, who had a contract situation coming into camp that finally did get resolved and had a bit of a slow start but then really started to pick up and look like the player that they were counting on and unfortunately had a really ugly knee injury. Just looked bad when it happened. It's what we call a multi ligament knee injury because as you mentioned ACL and mcl, but other meniscal involvement as well. When you start getting into multiple things beyond a clean acl, the recovery becomes a lot more complex because the surgery becomes more complex. You mentioned not really knowing the surgery date. I think he was injured in October, but I believe surgery was in November. And sometimes that happens where there's a delay to surgery. So it can be a matter of getting the swelling down or if they want to do things separately. He did undergo just a single surgery that I know, but it was pretty extensive in terms of what had to be repaired. So that changes the timeline. If you think about the fact that we talk about nine months being sort of the average for an NFL player to return post acl, factoring in variables like the seasonal calendar and what have you. But around nine to 10 months is when we start looking at players coming back to return to play. And that's not accounting for return to performance, something we talk about all the time here. But about nine to 10 months return to play. Consider that Brandon Aiyuk will just hit the ten month mark. I believe it's late in September. So if you, you know, do the, do the backwards math. Surgery, November, September is when you're hitting 10 months. That's when we look at an average ACL beginning to return to sport. So let's look at what training camp looks like in a situation like this. You're not going to have the player automatically fully cleared. I don't anticipate at that Stage because it's really going to be July. Is it eight months? You would have a multi ligament knee situation where he'd be fully cleared. I don't anticipate that. There are some reports floating out there that he might start the season on the physically unable to perform list, which would make sense to me. That, that way that he can continue his rehab towards returning to sport and then they can remove him from that as they enter the season and then he can work his way back to entering games.
- [15:10]
Field Yates
We just watched another wide receiver sign a new deal this offseason. Three years, I believe, $60 million in Chris Godwin. We watched him last year. Unfortunately he had an unbelievable season until he got hurt. Just a really awful ankle injury. I know you're going to dive into it for us and. And then he got a contract which for me made me feel a little bit better as a fantasy manager. Okay, maybe the Bucks aren't all that worried. They gave him $60 million, but then they drafted a Mecca Abuka in the first round of the NFL drafts to find you. So I don't know what to make of all these different moves. What can you tell me about what you know about Chris Godwin? Because I don't know how to approach him in drafts this year.
- [15:49]
Matthew Berry
It's tough. And, and to add a little more context to the part of the conversation you were having, the Patriots, it looked like we're going to land Chris Godwin and apparently offered him more money or that was in the, that was in the realm of outcomes was to have higher pay to go join the Patriots. But Chris Godwin, we know is beloved in the city, in Tampa Bay. We know that he's by all accounts a great teammate. He's obviously been an excellent receiver for them and he's had a major injury that he came back from and performed really well. If you recall, he had the ACL MCL injury in the past, came back to play in a pretty reasonable amount of time, then had a hamstring injury secondarily to that which cost him some additional time. Again, common side effect coming back from ACL tears. We see this all the time where somebody has a subsequent hamstring injury. But then last year really was looking like everything pre injury. Chris Godwin and handling more volume in the slot, which we love to see. And just everything was lining up for him to finish a career year. And then the devastating injury. I think all of us were the most sad. The video of him getting carted off the field talking to the head athletic trainer and saying like, let's go. Like, here we go again. He had a fractured dislocation, so a break in the bone on the outer side of the ankle and also dislocating the ankle, which means putting it out of position relative to his normal alignment. As you can imagine, it's not just the break. It's the problem with the joint. After you have a violent injury like that, and we don't know. The only people who really know the extent of all the trauma are the people who saw inside that joint. Do you have any cartilage issues that end up creating problems down the line or an arthritic ankle? Do you have soft tissue injuries that need to be repaired? We just don't know. But what I will tell you is that it's not uncommon with this injury to. They have infections at a higher rate. They have compromise of other structures that's very frequent because of the violence of the injury. So once you're out of surgery and on your way to recovery, there are a lot more speed bumps to get through to get to the point of returning to play.
- [18:04]
Field Yates
All right, let's talk about one more player here for sure. We got Dak Prescott. Tore his hamstring in week nine of last year, underwent surgery. Stefania, I actually am in love with Dak this year. When I look at what's gone on with this team, I want to ask you before I talk about why I like him, how you feel like his surgery went, and if there's any reason for trepidation heading into the season.
- [18:26]
Matthew Berry
Well, I think it's understandable if you hear what the injury was, it sounds hideous. It's an injury I hope to never experience. But he tore the hamstring off the bone, and that's up high. So the hamstring is the back of your thigh muscles. Right. And there are three parts of the hamstring, and they attach up high near the glute, so up in the back of the hip and then down low across the the knee. He tore his up at the hip. And part of this really is just because Dak is so strong that when he moves and contracted those muscles, it was enough force to rip it off the bone. We call that an avulsion injury. And you're basically pulling the tendon off the bone. Horribly painful, as you can imagine. Makes it very difficult to walk. A lot of bruising and bleeding, and then it's a difficult surgery in the sense of just getting to the hip. Getting to the deep hip is hard. Luckily, there are people who specialize in this and who can do this and they actually enjoy doing it. But the thing when you're a surgeon taking on this repair in this athlete is, you know that they were strong enough to basically contract the muscle and pull it off the bone. So you have to do a really, really strong repair, tighten it up extra. And I think the rehab side of it, these are actually fairly straightforward. And it was early enough that Dak has had plenty of time to recover. The key for him is getting the flexibility back, making sure that the muscles are balanced around there so you don't have this asymmetry and putting him at risk for retire. But by all accounts, he's been doing really well. And you may have heard the reports at the minicamps. He was like, I could, I could play tomorrow. He was ready to play in a game. And I did say that I have it confirmed that if it were the regular season, he probably could have played then. So I feel much better about Deck going into the season. We're not needing to work off something. And again, kind of the Christian McCaffrey analogy. He had the benefit of not getting beat up so much over the course of the year. This was a surgical repair that was fairly straightforward. And as long as he his conditioning is right, there shouldn't be an issue. This is going to be not the same as when he had the ankle fracture himself that he had to recover from. As we were talking about, like with Chris Godwin, it made Dak a little bit less mobile. We didn't see him running as much. This I don't believe will impact him in the same way. I think it's something that we can move on from.
- [20:57]
Field Yates
All right, well, when we come back, we got two more wide receivers we are going to dive into. Stefan is going to tell us how worried we should be heading into the 2025 season around these guys in fantasy. Make sure you stick around. We'll see you gu on the other side.
- [21:11]
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- [22:09]
Matthew Berry
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- [22:43]
Field Yates
Back here on Fantasy Focus alongside Stefanya Bell. My name is Daniel Dopp. Diving into the 2025 fantasy football injuries you need to know about before drafting your fantasy team, Stefania. We've already gone through Christian McCaffrey and Brandon IU and Chris Godwin. I almost said C.D. lamb and Dak Prescott, C.D. lamb's quarterback. Now let's talk about a couple more wide receivers that we got here in Stefan Diggs. I want to start there moving from the Houston Texans to be the wide receiver one for Drake May and the Patriots. Obviously last year did not end the way that he wanted with a torn acl. This one gives me a little bit of pause because I feel like Diggs little older. Torn ACL happened in October. Should I be as worried as I am about Stefan Diggs, or is there reason to maybe, maybe pump the brakes a little bit on my fear?
- [23:32]
Matthew Berry
Well, I think it's fair to at least have question marks because of the thing that we've already talked about, which is when you tear your ACL in the NFL, your numbers dip the subsequent year and it usually takes a full six season to get back to that full return to performance. Now, he can be highly serviceable, he can be very valuable for the Patriots, and he might be valuable for fantasy purposes on volume if he starts the season on time. And I will say the fact that he was up to speed running in March. Now his surgery was late October, but he was running full speed. He was doing directional movement change early on. That gives him quite a bit of time, time to ramp up for football activity. It'll be interesting to see how involved he is at the start of training camp, but I think there's at least the potential for him to be quite.
- [24:20]
Field Yates
Involved all right, I got one more wide receiver I want to throw at you. He was unbelievable when he was on the field last year. In fact, over the last couple years, when he's on the field, the dude is one of the best wide receivers in the NFL. But Rasheed Rice, Torres LCL and his lateral hamstring tendon, that's what the note tells me. Stefania. I don't know where that is or what it does, but I know that it absolutely crushed me last year, and I want to be able to trust in Rasheed Rice as a fantasy manager this year. Coming off the board high right now, he is wide receiver 17 in the fifth round. So is there any concern with Rasheed coming off the injury he had last season?
- [24:59]
Matthew Berry
Well, of course, you know, I always have to put in the caveat that when you're coming off a major injury, there's got to be a little bit because you're getting back into football, and we need to see that you're the same, confident in your leg, able to move and cut the same. But there has been some video for she Rice looking really, really good in terms of how he's moving, so that's encouraging coming into the season. You said you don't know where the lateral hamstring tendon is. Let me tell you. So he tore the lateral collateral ligament, which is on the outside of the knee joint. And the lateral hamstring tendon, also on the outside of the knee joint, attaches to the fibula, that long, skinny bone on the outer leg. If you want to look for a silver lining with this kind of injury, it's that usually your. Your. These things are tearing. They're pulling off from there, and the repair is more direct. In other words, the way these ligaments and, and the ligament and the hamstring tendons sit, it's not deep inside the knee joint. You know, we're, We're. We're picking and choosing here, trying to find these things that make us more confident or not. But I, I feel very good about Rice based on the nature of the injury, the what we've seen so far. And Andy Reid's been very optimistic that he's going to just jump and right back in and, and. And be another weapon for them. You know, it's interesting, Daniel, because you got Rasheed Rice. You had Hollywood Brown who missed most of the season. You have Xavier Worthy. I think people have sort of forgotten about Hollywood Brown. He feels like the one who's left out of the conversation the most, but I actually think he's going to be a surprise. It'll be interesting to see what happens between Rice and Worthy and all the other people who could potentially catch the ball in Kansas City.
- [26:42]
Field Yates
All right, Stefania, it's so great to see you. We got to get together, just you and I, outside of the podcast. I'll give you a call. However, it was fantastic to do this show. Thank you so much for giving us all this information that I know only you can come by, the kind of resources, the people you, you have that you talk to, the contacts. I know that this is one of those things where, like, it's why we come to you, Stefania. It's why we have you on the show. You have these things that no one else in the industry has. And so, so grateful to be able to do this show with you. Appreciate you being a part of this. And I will see you very shortly. We'll do another show soon. Coming back five days a week here at the end of July, guys. So make sure you stick around for us. And one last thing. August 7th, New York City. August 14th, Philadelphia. And check us out in the Bahamas. August 21st through the 24th at Baha Mar. Stefania and I are going to be at all three of them, so make sure you check it out. We love you guys. Don't forget to love each other. Have a great rest of the offseason. We see you guys shortly. Five days a week. We'll see you soon.
- [27:39]
Stefania Bell
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Field Yates
I decided I wanted to have one of the most organized goodbyes in history.
- [28:02]
Stefania Bell
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