Beyond the Box Score: GB-DAL Recap, Revisiting Draft Strategies, New Backfield Splits, Buy Low WRs? (09/29 Fantasy Football Podcast)

Summary

Fantasy Football Today (09/29/2025) – Beyond the Box Score

Episode Theme:
This episode offers an in-depth breakdown of Week 4’s wild Green Bay Packers vs. Dallas Cowboys 40-40 barn-burner, plus a deep dive on running back committee changes around the NFL, critical wide receiver buy-low opportunities, updates on trending injured players, and a reflection on draft strategies through the season’s first quarter. Adam Aizer leads the conversation with analysts Dan, Jacob, and some cameo insights from Jamey and Heath.

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Main Discussion Points & Insights

1. Packers vs. Cowboys: Fantasy Takeaways

[02:32–11:24]

• Historic Game: The Packers and Cowboys tied 40-40, delivering a fantasy bonanza. Both offenses now rank top-6 in points per game; Dallas leads the league in yards per game (partly due to two overtime games).

George Pickens’ Breakout and CD Lamb’s Impact

• Pickens Usage Without Lamb:

  • Pickens saw a huge surge in target share in Lamb's absence (20.5% & 29%) compared to 12–17% when Lamb is active.
  • Adam: "There's just a difference between Pickens with Lamb and Pickens without Lamb." [07:56]
  • Jacob contends Pickens can still be explosive when Lamb returns because of improved offensive efficiency, but Adam and Dan caution that fantasy output is firmly tied to target volume and Lamb's return will likely suppress Pickens' ceiling.
  • Notable stat: Pickens leads the NFL in end-zone targets (tied with Davante Adams).
  • Dan: "He's a really good football player who's going to score a lot of touchdowns... but CD Lamb's return is not a good thing for him." [06:52]

• Packers WR Fantasy Outlook:

  • Dan likes Romeo Doubs most due to his red zone trust from Jordan Love but cautions Green Bay’s spread offense means week-to-week variance.
  • Jacob: Matthew Golden played 70% in the slot, up from 25–43% in previous games—worth monitoring.
  • Tight End Tucker Kraft: After elite usage weeks 1–2, his target rate tanked in Weeks 3–4.
  • Adam: "Is any wide receiver going to consistently stand out on this team from a fantasy standpoint?" [08:08]

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2. Backfield Updates & New Committee Splits

[29:11–38:35]

• Teams Discussed: Steelers, Saints, Texans, Seahawks, Cardinals

Texans — Woody Marks Emerges

• Jacob: “He ended up with 21 touches. He was the only running back to play in the red zone… it’s the receiving upside people are excited about.” [30:34]
• Caution: The line/run game is mediocre, so Marks is valuable for role, not for high-end RB1 upside.

Saints — Kendre Miller Rising

• 11 carries this week with increased red zone looks; Camara remains the passing down and high-snap back, but Miller looks healthiest as a pro and could vulture touchdowns.
• Adam: "If Camaro loses the goal line role… I wouldn’t be shocked if Kendre Miller took that job." [34:33]

Seattle Seahawks — Charbonnet Stealing Goal Line

• "Charbonnet is obviously the goal line back. It’s going to be really annoying for Ken Walker managers." — Adam [37:17]

Arizona Cardinals

• Trey Benson is a weekly RB2 candidate due to role, but performance will be volatile.

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3. Buy Low? Brian Thomas Jr. & Widely Debated WRs

[41:06–46:50]

Brian Thomas Jr.

• Stat: 5 catches for 49 yards on 7 targets vs. SF; still missing big plays and explosive rate is way down (from 21% to 9.4%).
• Adam: “It’s easy to blame Trevor Lawrence, but they didn’t have a great passing offense last year either… He was so explosive. He’s not hitting on them this year.” [43:09]
• Panel consensus: There are fundamental issues with the offense and QB play; feels like a true "hold and hope" and not a true buy low.

Jerry Jeudy

• No double-digit PPR weeks since Week 1. Unimpressive quarterback play and a now-congested target share.
• Jacob: “It’s always been a super-concentrated target distribution… Now it’s four guys.” [44:33]
• Adam: “The absence of Cedric Tillman could help him… that’s the only reason I wouldn’t drop Jerry Jeudy right now.” [44:27]

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4. Ravens Backfield: Derrick Henry Worries

[48:27–54:07]

• Game script and offensive line injuries threaten Henry’s workload and efficiency, especially if Lamar Jackson’s absence stretches multiple games.
• Jacob: "Outside of Lamar, nothing’s working... I’d definitely be nervous if Lamar misses time." [51:56]
• Dan worries Henry is less of a fantasy stalwart with Cooper Rush at QB and a beat-up line: “My bigger concern is less so the game script… but this Ravens O-line is not good run blocking O-line.” [48:45]
• Adam: “Their running backs are 30th in success rate. There are still explosive plays, but outside those one or two big runs, the Ravens are getting shut down when they run… I want to get Derrick Henry.” [51:24]

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5. Quarter-Season Draft Strategy Review

[55:02–67:34]

• Jacob draws on Hayden Winks’ data visualization:
  • Elite WRs and early RBs (first three rounds) have generally paid off better than “mid-round” picks.
  • Early QB (Allen, Hurts, Lamar) remains a “safe” pathway—“They continue to look foolproof.” [57:11]
  • Late-round TE is again the move: Hunter Henry, Jake Ferguson “were easy to locate.”
  • Dan: “I am ready to turn the page for good on early round tight end... It's the easiest position by far to find late round sleepers and values." [61:29]
• Jacob: “My biggest personal misses this year… placing really high, extreme-risk bets off of belief in the talent (Bowers, Edj, McConkey, etc.)." [62:35]
• Running backs taken in mid-rounds have generally been a bust; WRs in similar ranges (Pickens, Flowers, etc.) are performing.

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Additional Key Quotes & Moments

• On Fantasy Overreactions:
  Adam: “Sometimes it just doesn’t make sense. We don’t have to necessarily have regrets over it… A lot of guys have been busts, it’s just the nature of sports." [63:01]
• On New Kickoff Rule (Show Ending Rant):
  Adam: “This is basically arena football at this point… The field position has changed so dramatically. It’s unfair. It’s already impossible to play defense.” [67:34]

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Important Timestamps & Segments

• Packers-Cowboys Recap: [02:32–11:24]
• Backfield Splits & New Value (Saints, Texans, Seahawks, Cards, Steelers): [29:11–38:35]
• Buy-Low WRs Brian Thomas Jr. & Jerry Jeudy: [41:06–46:50]
• Ravens RB Panic / Derrick Henry: [48:27–54:07]
• Draft Strategy First Quarter Review: [55:02–67:34]
• Rant on NFL Kickoff Rule: [67:34–69:01]

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Summary Table: Buy or Hold on Key WRs

| Player | Panel Take | Notes | |--------------------|--------------------|--------------------------------------| | George Pickens | Hold | Target share dips w/ Lamb back | | Brian Thomas Jr. | Hold (not buy) | Offense/QB issues, not much hope | | Jerry Jeudy | Drop/Hold | Only worth holding if Tillman out | | Lab McConkey | Buy (by Jacob) | Expect yak and usage to rebound |

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Tone & Vibe

The show is dynamic and conversational, with the hosts well-aware of the season’s unpredictability (“We can’t have anything nice,” jokes Adam). Adam drives much of the skeptical and evidence-driven discourse, with Dan and Jacob providing analytics and film perspective. The group is quick to push back on each other for deeper debate, especially around WR usage, backfield splits, and draft regret.

Fans seeking focused, nuanced fantasy insights—especially on RB and WR roles, evolving offenses, and actionable trade/waiver targets—will find this week’s “Beyond the Box Score” episode essential listening.

Transcript

[Adam]

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[Dan]

Chris is gonna go the distance.

[Adam]

Now here's some combination of Adam, Dave, Jamie, and Heath. All right, what's going on, everybody? It is Monday. Monday, September 29th. Yes. Got it. Nailed it. Welcome to fantasy football today, presented by BetMGM, the sportsbook. Born in Vegas. And no one's gonna be able to say that I didn't get anything right on today's show. I got the date right. Took me a minute. What's up, Dan? How can you even wear that shirt?

[Dan]

What are you talking about? The Giants won yesterday. 30 Chargers team. They became the first team since 2008 to be an Owen 3 team and beat a 3. 0 team.

[Adam]

Oh, wow. But have you ever seen white men can't jump?

[Dan]

No.

[Adam]

Jacob, have you ever seen white men can't jump?

[Jacob]

Yeah. It's a classic. And thank you to the Giants for getting that win. As a 2 fan, I did.

[Dan]

I mean, I've seen clips of it, and I was a huge fan of Rosie Perez in that.

[Adam]

Yeah, it's great. But there's a her. One of her famous quotes is sometimes when you win, you really lose.

[Dan]

And that's what it feels like with the Giants losing league neighbors. Yeah. I think so.

[Adam]

Okay, so today we're gonna.

[Dan]

We can't have anything in life.

[Adam]

No fans. We can't have anything nice. Green Bay and Dallas tied last night. Wild game, super fun game. A score that we've never seen before in NFL history. 40 to 40. We're going to talk about. Our big topics today are about. Yeah, I think basically this show is. Is the Brian Thomas Jr. Show. So he'll be discussed. Also backfield splits. What we're seeing in New Orleans, in Houston, Seattle, Arizona. What will it look like for Pittsburgh moving forward? What about Derek Henry? We're going to talk about him and draft strategies that we might do differently if we could do it all over again. But let's start with Green Bay 40, Dallas 40. After this game. Both teams are currently top six in points per game. Dallas is first in yards per game, just ahead of Buffalo. They have played two overtimes, though, so keep that in mind. They are sixth in yards per play. Green Bay is 11th in yards per play. So this was everything we wanted it to be. Pretty much everyone was good. Maybe Tucker Kraft, a little bit disappointing, but yeah, bonanza to the max. Jacob, takeaways from Green Bay and Dallas.

[Jacob]

Let's just go ahead and victory lap. George Pickens. Dan, how about that wide receiver? 5 and fantasy through a month of.

[Dan]

Football, my most rostered player across my 23 leagues.

[Adam]

Oh, I mean, that's all well and good, but what happens when CD Lamb comes back? Because George Pickens his target share. Do I have his target share? Yes. In four games, his target share was 12.1%, 17.3%. And then the last two games without Lamb, 20.5 and 29 last night. So. So that's. I don't know how good he's going to be when Lamb comes back. Lamb gets all the targets.

[Jacob]

Yeah. I was. I was psyched to see him succeed without Lamb. This matchup has been absolutely brutal for wide receivers. This is the first wide receiver to succeed against the Packers. For fantasy, Debo is the closest. I think Debo had 17 fantasy points. And stylistically, this matchup fits Debo skill set a lot better. I was really nervous about somebody like Pickens, who typically wins deep down the field on the perimeter. And I was really curious what the. How the target distribution would find form without CD Lamb. I didn't know if we would get a lot more of Pickens. That's kind of what Brian Schottenheimer alluded to when he talked about the situation, was that we'd see more Turpin, more Ferguson More of the catch and run guys, but yeah, 33 points against this Jeff Haffley, Green Bay packers defense. We've seen Terry McLaurin only go for 10. I'm on our Saint Brown for nine, Jameson Williams for six, Jerry Judy for three, Cedric Tillman for six against this defense. So this is extremely encouraging. I think when Lamb's back, that's actually like best case scenario for Pickens.

[Adam]

Oh, I don't agree at all because I just don't think he's going to get the targets. I kind of know what you're, you're getting at here, but I think the proof is kind of in the pudding I gave you. The target share the first two games was pretty low, so I, I don't think I really expected him to get a ton of targets. He's, he's can be a big yards per target guy. He's a big play threat.

[Jacob]

I think this is an extreme outlier for efficiency. Got eight out of 11 targets. I think there's going to be a lot of games if it's like just him asked to do everything where he's going to have like three catches on 11 targets.

[Dan]

I don't, I, I have a few things to disagree with on here. One, he was, wasn't he, if I'm not mistaken, very much so efficient last year with Russell Wilson and the Steelers, like he would be eight, you know, getting nine targets, catching eight of them. I just think generally speaking, he's a very good player. I probably tend to agree with Adam that CD Lamb's return is not a good thing for him because it won't be just like this overload of the entire pass game felt designed in my mind around him, especially once they got into like have to have it mode toward overtime. But he's a really good football player who's going to score a lot of touchdowns. The Cowboys games are going to look like this almost every game. If they can score 40 against the packers, they can score 40 against anyone, it seems like this year. And their defense does not like they had some moments, but their defense still stinks. And they're going to run that eber flu zone all year and get torn up by most teams. So the game script's going to be amazing. This is why I wanted CD Lamb, an amazing player with the best quarterback of his career who's going to score a lot more touchdowns than he ever did.

[Adam]

Right.

[Dan]

Like, what is he up to now out from a touchdown standpoint? Jacob or Adam, you might know this too because that was a big Factor for me. He topped out at five during his career with the Steelers despite scoring eight in his freshman season at Georgia. He's always obviously profiled as a big touchdown getter. He has four already. He's almost matched his career high.

[Adam]

And he leads the NFL and end zone targets. He's tied Dante Adams and that will.

[Dan]

Go down when Lamb is back.

[Adam]

I don't know. He led the team when Lamb was there. He had. So, yeah, I mean, it might go down, but this is a guy that they are looking for in the end. So now some of the end zone targets are deep balls, by the way. They're not all, you know, we'll take them. Yeah, but that's, that's one thing that I talked about yesterday morning when we were talking about George Pickens because I was saying to start him, I think we liked him, but he is getting that end zone role. They. They like him there and he's been good. I'm not disputing it. I just think that, you know, it was a, it was an overtime game. They played the entire overtime, three through a ton of passes, which they are going to do a lot. And, and no Lamb. There is just a difference between Pickens with Lamb and Pickens without Lamb is all I was trying to say.

[Dan]

It's fair.

[Adam]

On the Packer side. Do you think they're like the Bills, really good, but they just spread that ball around?

[Dan]

Yep.

[Adam]

Is. Is any wide receiver going to consistently stand out on this team from a fantasy standpoint?

[Dan]

If I had to bet. I'm curious to get Jacob's take on this. If I had to bet, it would be Romeo Dobbs as crazy. I mean, not the one we're projecting. I just think that the role that he has in this offense and the trust that Jordan Love has for Dobbs in the red zone overcomes anything else. Like, I want to believe in Matthew Golden. I love his talent. I thought he made two great catches in this game and it doesn't matter. He doesn't get the ball. They tried to design something for him in the red zone, which I thought was a really dumb play that and ultimately ended up losing them the game. At the end of the game, that screen, which obviously was never going, going to work and put them in a second and 13 bad behind the clock. It was just a terrible play call. But other than that, I didn't see too much design for him in this game. So I don't want to trust him. Obviously. Dantavian Wicks. I feel bad for anyone who started him that's another bust for anytime you start Duntavian Wicks and he's supposed to blow up. He never does so like he was.

[Adam]

Started in 2% of leagues. So don't worry about it.

[Dan]

Okay? Okay.

[Adam]

It was me.

[Dan]

And Jacob was the 2%. The one I trust the most out is not even a receiver. It's sucker Kraft. You said it was he was the only disappointment for you, Adam, but he came inches away from two touchdowns in this game. So it wasn't really a disappointment to me. It was just kind of bad luck. So as far as it goes, I'm not really trusting anyone in this offense. If I had to pick, it would.

[Adam]

Be Dobbs in the passing game, you're saying and see the wide receivers, everyone's going to keep starting Craft and and Love after the first two games. I, I, you know I did that research basically over the last five years, almost every single tight end that's averaged 13 or more PPR fantasy points per game. I think once you get to that mark you're really having a, a really good season. You're standing out from the crowd. Almost every tight end who's hit 13 points per game has had a target per out run rate of around 22 to 23% or higher. And that's what Kraft had the first two games. But the last two games it's been 17.4% and 13.5% so it's pretty frustrating. Jacob, thoughts here.

[Jacob]

I want to get a note in on Matthew Golden. He spent almost all of his time in week four in this slot. His slot rate through the first three weeks was 23, 43, 26. That was up to 70% in week four. He also you was used as the pre snap motion player a lot more. So that is interesting that it might not be just go balls or bust.

[Adam]

But he did catch a go ball.

[Jacob]

Yes he did. Good call Adam.

[Adam]

And on that play, two wide receivers could have caught a go route, a go ball and golden was the one who came down with it. Boy, the Cowboys are the worst. And the thing is if you look at the Giants going from week two to weeks three and four, if you look at Caleb Williams going from week three to week four, the Cowboys are a fantasy boost. And you should maybe consider selling Jordan Love for example who's playing great. But you have to remember Jordan Love's past attempts in his first three games were 22, 31 and 25. Yesterday he threw 43 times in overtime and had his best game. The Cowboys are going to give fantasy player players their best or second best or third. Third best games of the season, it seems like all year long. So just something to keep in mind.

[Dan]

That's a good point.

[Adam]

Okay. And then the last thing, I don't think we'll spend time on this, but Javante Williams might be the fantasy mvp just in terms of draft value.

[Dan]

He is going to be.

[Jacob]

I was gonna say that we do need to talk about Javante.

[Adam]

We.

[Jacob]

We just did. Last week on beyond the Box Score, like an entire episode dedicated towards offensive lines and how they're helping the run games. And I thought it was really notable that they continue to be able to just move the ball with consistency, with.

[Dan]

Injuries up front, multiple injuries on the offensive line. It's kind of crazy. It's a scheme thing and they're going to get healthier on the offensive line. And Miles Sanders got injured in this game. I don't know if he returned after the injury. He said he was going to try to play through it. J Blue is still not a big factor here. Like this is Javante's team. He gets targets in the run game. I'm sorry, gets targets in the passing game and he's useful there. I watch him and I didn't watch this week's tape, but I watched him in the past, past few weeks on tape and then this game on broadcast. He's looking more like the North Carolina version. He's not as explosive. But what I mean by that is he's doing a great job of these little micro cuts. That's. That's the only way I can describe them to create space for himself and really process these runs really, really well to get forward and to create positive gains. He looks good to me. He's not going away. He's in a perfect situation like he should be viewed as a RB1 rest of season. I don't really understand why you wouldn't unless there's still bias against him as a player. Based on his past and how he looked, there's no real reason not to. He's in a great offensive situation that's going to score a lot of touchdowns and he gets roll up passing game work and there's no one really around him. So I mean I traded, I bought him high two weeks ago and I'm happy I bought high on him. I think some players are worth buying high on.

[Adam]

Is Quentin Johnston worth buying high on?

[Dan]

Yes.

[Jacob]

It depends on what the price is he. I think yes was clearly the answer like two or three weeks or one or two weeks ago. After week two, after week three I'm curious where he's going to be this week in perceived value because now it's like we have a whole month of confirmation. You know, everybody's. Everybody's saying he's a goodbye now.

[Adam]

Yeah.

[Dan]

Well, I'll say this, Jake. This is another topic we don't have to get into right now because it's a side. We have too much other stuff. But we spent last week on beyond the Box Score saying our. One of our favorite by high or by low candidates was lad monkey. They're watching a full game of McConkey and I'll let you know after I watch the tape if I can confirm this. I don't know if I'm staying with that take anymore. Like, I don't. I don't know if I have confidence in Makoni being what we hoped he could be rest of season.

[Jacob]

We need McConkey to have confidence in McConkey.

[Dan]

Yeah, he's dropping passes.

[Jacob]

Feeling better, my guy.

[Dan]

Yeah, that's the big problem right now.

[Jacob]

Him and btj, like in their heads.

[Dan]

Yep.

[Adam]

Let me tell you, the rookie yard per route run rate leaders since 2013, the best rookie seasons and yards per route run. I think that's the earliest we have for yard per out run rate data. And 2013 was the amazing rookie class led by Odell beckham, who's number one. So best rookie seasons, yards per outrun. Odell beckham, aj brown, justin jefferson, pukinakua, jamar chase. At your top five, number six, brian thomas jr. Number seven, chris olave. Number eight, rashid rice. Number nine, lad mcconkey. So the first five players are, you know, beckham, aj brown, jefferson, puka, jamar chase, the next four. Three of them just haven't, you know, I, I can't say anything about Rashee Rice, obviously, but Brian Thomas Jr. Huge bust. Chris Olave just hasn't been able to take the next step. Rasheed Rice, TBD, Lab McConkey, huge bust this year. It's. It's interesting if you just were to look at Lab McConkey's player page with his advanced match. Oh, the one that we're showing right now, everything is just so down. I mean, if you scroll over, oh, there's yards per hour run rate. They're underlined. 2.4 yards per outrun last year, 1.09. That is horrible. His yak, I believe, is. Is way down. Right. His yak per catch is. Is miserable. His catch rate. I mean, it just. I don't. If we were playing fantasy baseball, we'd be Looking at these guys going regression is about to come. We don't get into it like this with fantasy baseball. We just say like oh this guy was so good, he's had a bad month. He's going to be great. Like he's going to go on a hot streak. And that's what I want to think about lad McConkey and Brian Thomas Jr who we're going to talk.

[Dan]

But it's so different because in baseball, you know, it's a one, one on one sport in a lot of ways you're matched up against a pitcher and you as a hitter for in this example will regress to the mean most of the time in football there's so many different factors around you that that can change and in this case I think have changed. Like Quentin Johnson has developed as a wide receiver and become a much better player for the Chargers. Also Mauryen Hampton looked awesome last game. So I think that's his role will continue to grow as well, which is both things not good for Aladdin McConkey.

[Jacob]

I'll kind of push back on this and it's. I think it's good to bring it back to the George Pickens thing too. I was just looking at the splits when you know T. Higgins is off the field. That's just what came to mind. I we don't have enough of a sample size with Jamar off the field to like see how it's affected T really but T misses a lot of time and when he's been off the field, Jamar's been not as good like fantasy points per outrun fantasy points per target. They've force fed him the ball more and there have been spike weeks with that come with that where he has 15 targets or whatever which is out of the usual flow of the offense because it has to funnel through him. But that just like in reference to Pickens I do think is relevant. That's what I said earlier is like I think if you have a functional offensive environment as a whole and you have CD Lamb who scares the crap out of defenses, like is one of the three or five players in the entire NFL like top three or five that you have to game plan for, I think that really does affect everyone else on the team and especially Pickens. If you can get him in one on ones. If you can get him in situations where he just has to catch and beat one guy and then he can create a huge play. I think it would. I think it's only good for him if CD Lamb is there. I'll I'll take the. Over a larger sample size. I'll take the trade off and his target share dropping from 27 to 20 or whatever. I think the target share through the first three games was low, but I actually, I don't think that's really that representative of what we're going to get from him over a larger sample size. You know, he was, it was his first three games, the new offense and they weren't really designing a whole lot to him. So, yeah, I'm encouraged by what we just saw, but I do think it's only gonna be a good thing when we get Lamb back healthy, hopefully. And on the Conkey, on the McConkey thing, I know like, I know it's scary that it's like, well, we've got this piece and QJ's better. We've got Keenan Allen, we've got Gadsden. Now is good and, and Hampton is good. And like as long as he's good, like, I think it's still fine. Like, I think he's still a buy or a hold. I don't think he can possibly keep averaging, you know, this, like, what he's done so far. I think the Yak is going to come up. There have been a few plays where him and Herbert just barely missed, right. Got shoestring tackled or whatever. As long as he can get good, like with his mental, I think having this overpowering offense is only a good thing. But then again, like the Joe Alt injury, it might be the deal for all of this.

[Adam]

Yeah, it's apparently good point. A high anchor could be a high ankle sprain for Joe Walt. So that could be a month and that means both tackles are out right now.

[Jacob]

And boy, it could linger. Like I just don't like that.

[Dan]

It won't look as. Yeah, exactly. Coming back from high ankle sprain is not a guarantee. A lot of the players who come back just aren't very good or aren't playing at the same level. I will say it won't look as bad as it did against the Giants because they have premier pass rushers that not every team will have. But the numbers were crazy. Herbert was pressured on over 50% of his drop backs despite getting rid of the football at under 2.5 seconds, which makes almost no sense. Like Herbert was in tune with what he needed to do. Get rid of the ball, process where to go with it and he was still getting pressure. There's going to be times where he's not going to be able to process it as fast as. And the pressure is going to lead to sacks or groundings. It could get really ugly there.

[Adam]

All right, we're going to take a break and we'll come back give you the news and notes. Not really much has changed from yesterday, but there's an update on not Odell Beckham on Malik Neighbors. We'll give you the snap counts you need to know and our four big topics after this. Lowe's knows how to help make your home holiday ready for less. Get select Style Selections vinyl flooring for just $1.99 per square foot and have it installed before before the festivities begin. Our team can help you every step of the way. See a Lowe's Red Vest associate or visit Lowes.comholidayinstall to get started. Lowes we help you save basic Install only Date restrictions apply. Subject to availability. Install by independent contractors. See Associate for details. Contiguous US only. Imagine fast hydration combined with balanced energy. Perfectly flavored with zero artificial sweeteners. Introducing Liquid Ivy's new Energy Multiplier, Sugar free. Unlike other energy drinks, you know the ones that make you feel like you're glitching. It's made with natural caffeine and electrolytes so you get the boost without the burnout. Liquid IV's new energy multiplier, Sugar free hydrating energy. Tap the banner to learn more. Okay, welcome back to this edition of beyond the Box Score. What do we have on the rest of the beyond the Box Score episodes this week?

[Jacob]

Yeah, so I mentioned that we did the running back version of the offensive line overview. I think that's still relevant if you want to go check that out. We looked at every single team and how their line is helping or hurting them. We saw in week four that like all it took was a little bit of space for Ashton Genti and we get this huge breakout. He had negative two yards before contact through the first three weeks. This week he had 17, which is still not a lot because he had over 20 carries. So he's getting fewer than one yard blocked before contact per rush and just that was enough for him to have 30 freaking plus fantasy points. So we looked at every offensive line and just kind of help you like understand how you should maybe feel about some of this stuff through the first month because there's a lot of moving pieces to try to keep up with in fantasy through this first month. And this week Dan and I are going to do the same thing for pass protection. He brought up the stuff with Herbert like that's it's definitely relevant, especially with some of these Receivers who are running deeper routes down the field.

[Dan]

Right.

[Jacob]

Maybe there just hasn't been a good opportunity for those to develop. Maybe their team has played an abnormal amount of like really good pass rushes so far, stuff like that. So that'll be on Wednesday and on Tuesday. We're just doing like the classic looking through rest of season rankings. Give me some trade targets. Just trying to help give you some actionable takeaways, you know, on top of just the. The more nitty gritty stuff and some.

[Dan]

Of the new guys coming into mix. I'm excited to talk about Woody Marks.

[Adam]

Yeah, by the way, I have an update on that. I'll tell you the latest on Joe Mixon in just a moment. So Lamar Jackson has a hamstring injury. They have a buy in three weeks. They have Houston and the Rams then a buy. I have absolutely no idea when he will be back but we will keep you posted of course on Lamar Jackson.

[Dan]

It's got to be at least right. He would have came back in that game if he was able.

[Adam]

They're getting their butts kicked.

[Dan]

So wasn't it still a pot like it was the beginning of the fifth quarter.

[Adam]

It was not time to pull the starters yet. It wasn't far from that, I think. I think so. We'll. We'll find out. Whenever we find out, we'll let you know. You'll probably know before we tell you. Miles Sanders left with an ankle injury. Malik Neighbors did tear his acl. He's out for the season. Don't know if there's any more damage than that. Darnell Mooney has a hamstring injury but he probably will be back after the week five by so they have Buffalo in week six. Calvin Austin left with a shoulder injury. Cedric Tillman hamstring injury. And we are going to talk about Jerry Judy later. And Ricky Piersoll left with the knee injury. On the offensive line, Baltimore left tackle Ronnie Stanley left with in the first half. Two Vikings left with injuries. They're at Cleveland next week. Actually they're facing Cleveland in Europe. Joe Walt we mentioned Cleveland just acquired Cam Robinson from Houston. Cam Robinson, it's probably not that impactful of a player he was might hurt them. He was bench this week. But Cleveland, they, they lost their left tackle for the season so they needed tackle and their right tackle was out for this past game. Colton Miller, the Raiders left tackle, he has probably a high ankle sprain it seems and they don't have a buy until week five, six, eight and Lane Johnson, Philadelphia right tackle, left with a shoulder injury we know Baltimore super beat up on defense. We know Tampa Bay starters.

[Dan]

I think for Baltimore, it's crazy.

[Adam]

Yeah, they were out six starters yesterday. Tampa Bay had five defensive players leave yesterday's game. I have not seen any updates on them, but that's why I kind of like Sam Darnold this week. If you need a streamer for a few reasons. One, it's tough to run on Tampa Bay.

[Dan]

Yep.

[Adam]

Two, they score a lot of points so they often make you throw. And three, they lost five defensive players yesterday, but I'm not assuming all of them will be out next week or anything. But we'll see. All right, let's get into the snap counts after I tell you about BetMGM. All right. You got to bring that playoff energy to your pro football bets all season long was the Pro Football boost pack on BetMGM gives you three ways to boost your payout on a winning bet. Just log into your BetMGM account to receive your boost pack and then place any pro football bet and apply one of the tokens. Make sure to bet up to the minimum stake odds and legs specified on the token and if your boosted bet hits, you'll score a bigger payout. From opening kickoffs to game winning drives, this Pro Football Boost pack is your ticket to unforgettable moments this season. Don't wait on the sidelines. Join the action with BetMGM. BetMGM and Game Sense. Remind you to play responsibly. See betmgm.com for terms 21/only. I want to talk smack to Dan about something, but it's not really my mo. I'm not a smack talker.

[Dan]

Yeah, I want to hear it. Yeah, you froze a little. But now I want to hear it.

[Adam]

I froze. I thought you froze. Whatever. Somebody froze. You know who froze? The New York Mets froze for the last three and a half months.

[Dan]

You want to talk smack about the Mets? I don't care about, you know, I don't really care.

[Adam]

I know you don't care.

[Dan]

Like a fake fan, essentially, in the sense of what real fans go through. Like once football season starts, I could care less about baseball, but I'll watch in the playoffs if the Mets had made it. But obviously they didn't make it. I mean, it's very funny. Good job.

[Adam]

Good job.

[Dan]

The Yankees aren't going anywhere though. Everyone knows who watches baseball. The Yankees are also cooked for this year. That bullpen will blow up in the in the postseason and I'll be there for it. And you know what? I've become less of a Yankee hater. I grew up a Yankee hater and I'm not a Yankee anymore because it's too much. It's too hypocritical for me to be a Yankee hater because I hated them because I always thought baseball was so stupid that it didn't have a salary cap. And the Yankees when I was a kid just spent like gobs more than anyone. But now that's what the Mets do. So it's too hypocritical to just say that. So you know what? The Mets stink. Whatever. The Giants. Awesome league neighbors. That's what I'm concerned with.

[Adam]

Okay. You know who the Yankees are playing in the playoffs?

[Dan]

No. Is it Cleveland?

[Adam]

It is a pre game set. Oh, no, it's Boston with the Boston Red Sox.

[Dan]

Yeah, that's how little I care about baseball. Like I just once football's back, it just out of my mind at that point.

[Adam]

Yeah, that's exciting stuff. All right. Snap counts. Mark Andrews had his lowest route participant particip. Oh, you know what, though? I didn't check if I should check if this was the case in the first three quarters.

[Dan]

Yeah, Before. Cooper may have just been.

[Adam]

Yeah, he may have just been benched. That's on me. You know, everybody got benched at the end. I'm not sure. But I did think it was maybe the return of Isaiah likely. So I'm going to go check in on that. Unless Jacob knows it already. Xavier worthy played only 59% of the snaps and he had such a good game. So I'm really excited for him. Taekwond Thornton played only 34% of the snaps. Tenoroa McMillan was not shadowed by Christian Gonzalez. That did not happen from. I only watched maybe a quarter and a half of the snaps, but it was pretty clear Gonzalez was staying on one side of the field. They were in zone a lot. And I saw Jacob's tweet about Travion Henderson's route participation, his routes run. Anyway. Do you have that info? Because that was not good.

[Jacob]

It wasn't good? No. This is early charting. I'll double check right now. But what I saw was that Travion Henderson ran five total routes in week four, which is not what you want. Ramandre Stevenson ran 17 for comparison. Let's see where we've got. Yep, five routes, 23% route rate. So that's significantly lower than the first three weeks. Any of those games.

[Adam]

I just feel like when we do our Sunday night recap shows and Treveon Henderson is a bust every week. Even Though he scored this week, it feels like the guys seem to think that it's going to happen eventually. I don't want to speak for them, but I don't know. I'm just not. I'm just not sure. I'm just not sure it's going to happen. Another fumble might be what it takes, but do you guys think that he's worth buying low on Travion Henderson? That he's going to have a big second half? Maybe. Where are you guys on that?

[Jacob]

I would buy super low. Like if I'm 4 and 0, 3 and 1, even 2 and 2 and feel good about my team, I would buy low on. On Henderson.

[Adam]

Okay, I have an update for you. Mark Andrews Route participation rate with Lamar Jackson on the field in four games. 73% 79%, 71%, 63% so low but not as low as I thought. But he did have a third of Lamar Jackson's targets. Okay, anything else Jacob, in terms of stats, snap counts, anything like that you want to get into?

[Jacob]

No, not specifically. I mean I've got a bunch of stuff but I didn't prepare anything. I'm just ready for these topics.

[Adam]

Okay, so let's get into it. Our first topic is from JC and he wants to know about new backfield splits and values. He mentioned the Steelers, the Saints, the Texans, the Seahawks and the Cardinals. We will talk about Derrick Henry and Justice Hill in a little bit. But Dan, I'll throw it to you first. Do you see where do you see any type of major change in those five mentioned backfield, Steelers, Saints, Texans, Seahawks, Cardinals.

[Dan]

I think the clear cut major change obviously not including the Cardinals with Benson injury and what happened there would be the Texans with Woody Marks and I'll let Jacob kind of expound on some of the stats and and some of the numbers there. The one that's intriguing to me, the sleeper one and obviously with Steelers there's just a surprise inactive. I don't know if that will hold the intriguing one because I think he's still not rostered in a lot of leagues is Kendry Miller and the Saints saw a major uptick last week this past week including a red zone role. He was a player who I liked a lot coming out of tcu. Thought he had a really good tape and was one of my guys in that draft class. Did get drafted with pretty good capital and just kind of fizzled out with the past Coaching staff is finally healthy and maybe offering something I think in the run game that that Alvin Camara cannot currently offer them okay, Jacob, how about you?

[Adam]

Which, which backfield would you highlight here?

[Jacob]

Yeah, let's talk about woody marks. 59 snap rate, 50% route rate. And it was something that I was tracking throughout the game and it just kind of kept creeping up and he, he played really well. I tweeted out a cut up if you want to watch the film of Woody Marks. He's been one of the biggest surprises this year of film that I've watched where he had a ton of receptions in college, a truly ridiculous amount of receptions. And so people were sort of intrigued by him for fantasy as a prospect, but his rushing efficiency was awful in college. And so it was like, what, what can he be like? Can we expect this to become anything in the NFL? I think maybe the best comparison is like Kyron Williams or something in terms of that kind of a profile where they weren't a good rusher really in college. And like Kyron, he was very good in man gap scheme, which is what Houston has really leaned into more than any team. What I've really noticed is he's, he's more elusive than I expected. And so yeah, they, they just kept leaning into him. He ended up with 21 touches. He was the only running back to play in the red zone. And it's the receiving upside, you know, the people are real excited about for sure. I think, I mean it. We've, we've speculated on this for a couple weeks now where it's like Nick Chubb is probably the easiest running back to supplant in the NFL among starters. And I think we're seeing it come to fruition ultimately. Did you give your Joe Mix an update?

[Adam]

Oh, geez, no. I'm sorry. Let me go ahead and read it. So, so d' Amico Ryan's was talking today and he, you know, here we go. This is from Aaron Wilson. Texans coach d' Amico Ryan specifically indicated that Joe Mixon is not ready to return at this time. And then he goes on to say, not to make a Ryan's, but Aaron Wilson, per sources, it will be much longer, if at all, for mixing to get back on the field.

[Jacob]

Yeah, I mean that seems like that's where we're at. But what I was gonna say is ultimately it is probably one of the least valuable backfield situations in the league. The run blocking is not very good and the offense overall is not very good. It worked this week against the Titans.

[Adam]

Right.

[Jacob]

But I would, I would temper my expectations with it's fair marks. It's still like if you can get A running back who's playing a ton and getting targets, that's valuable. So go for it. If you want to blow a ton of fab on him, I think that's fine. It makes sense. But I, I don't think like, I wouldn't watch this film against the Titans and get where you're like thinking that this guy is like in the tootin tier and stuff like that. Basho Tutin, like a lot of these really exciting young running backs. I just think like this offense is not nearly as good as like the Jaguars running game has been so far. We've seen ETN just like crushing and a lot of that is because the blocking scheme has been awesome. It's not nearly as good as Washington's run game has been. You know, with Bill Crosky, Merritt, where there's a reason we've been so excited for these running backs to potentially step into a larger role. And you haven't heard as much about marks. To me, it's because one, like I said, he wasn't very good as a rusher in college and two, what's the upside really for this offense? But everything this week was, was awesome. Yeah, on the Kidra Miller note, it was kind of similar where like he got a lot of red zone work. His first carry of the game came at the 18 yard line and he broke multiple tackles on his way to a touchdown. And like, okay, like, just kept giving him more and more work. And I think he's, he's looked pretty good. Like this preseason. I thought he looked pretty good. This is the healthiest he's looked in a while, like probably as a pro. And this is a guy that people are really excited about. He's got size and athleticism and Alvin Camara has not played great so far. So the, the final breakdown was 15 rushes for Camara, 11 for Miller. Miller got a lot of red zone work, but you know, you see 69 route rate here for Camara, 5 targets for Camara. I think it's that he's just kind of like, it's not the same coordinator, but like the Jamal Williams compliment to Camara, like that kind of back coming in and doing more of the short yardage stuff and hopefully giving them some explosiveness on early down. So unless Camara gets traded or hurt, it probably won't matter for fantasy because you don't get the targets.

[Adam]

No, it won't matter for fantasy in terms of Kendrick Miller's value. And a lot of people feel like Camara could get traded. But. But it could certainly matter if Camara starts losing touches and Kendra Miller is not going to take over this job. But right, because Camara, like Camara's, averaged more than 4 yards per carry in three of four games. He had one terrible game against the Seahawks. Other than that he's I guess been okay. He's not ever making explosive plays and he's had two good games with targets, two bad games with targets. His target per out run rate is a by far a career low. His yards per catch is hideous right now. What's he averaging? 3.2 yards per catch or something like that, 3.8 yards per catch. His career yards per catch is 8.2. But yeah, if Camaro loses the goal line role, which we don't even know if he has, they've run eight plays inside the five yard line. Well actually that's kind of a lot. Eight plays inside the five yards line. Yeah, it's middle of the pack. They've thrown a pass on seven of them. He has been on the field for all eight of them. So I'm going to say right now he has the goal line role. But they have only they have the highest pass rate inside the five yard line in the NFL. Small sample size but they've thrown on seven of eight of those plays. But they both have one touchdown this season and I think they were both 18 yards out. So. But he always had lost that role to Taysom Hill because Camara has been really bad from the goal line from like the one to three yard line. He's been pretty bad the last few years. So I wouldn't be shocked if Kendrick Miller took that job but I don't think I'm ready to to say anything yet. As far as Seattle go. Well, as far as Arizona goes, everything you saw from D. Mercado was super late in that game when they were playing catch up. I am pretty excited about Benson as I don't know how good he is, I don't know how good he's going to be, but I'm excited about his role. So I do think he's someone that you're going to go into most weeks going all right, I'm going to start Benson unless I happen to have better options. He's not one of those guys where you're going. I'm going to sit Benson unless I'm really stuck. I think he enters the discussion as a starter, as an RB2 most weeks. I am going to make some buy low offers on Benson cause he's coming off kind of a bad game but it's those catches that really get me excited. And then for Seattle, I think it is a. Kind of a bummer because Dan, you seem to disagree with me, but I, I said with you, me and Jamie, I think like Ken Walker just gives them something that. No, I can't.

[Dan]

I agree with that. They're different backs, though. Like, Charbonnet is just a totally. He's more of an interior runner and he. He runs with a different level of patience. But I, I mean, I've watched. I watched that last game. Walker's obviously a better talent. I want to make that clear.

[Adam]

Yeah, but. But Charbonnet is obviously the goal line back.

[Dan]

Yeah.

[Adam]

Not to say he'll get every goal line carry, but it's going to. It's going to be really annoying for Ken Walker managers. Really annoying. And I don't. I think it's here to stay. I. Yes, I. I guess like Walker could start be running so well. But don't forget last week what I.

[Dan]

Said like two weeks ago. And I was like, just follow what Mike McDonald, the head coach said when he quoted. He's like, this guy is one of my favorite players on the team. Charbonnet. The way he prepares, the way he shows up for work. Like they're giving him a role for that reason. He's helping. He's one of those like team captain type players.

[Adam]

Yeah. All right, so that's. I think we're probably on the same page there. Anybody want to add anything about Seattle, Arizona or. We haven't even talked about Pittsburgh. I mean, do you think Sean.

[Jacob]

Sean McVeigh says pretty similar stuff about Blake Corum. I think we could see Kenneth Walker continue to see his role grow. It's growing each week.

[Adam]

It's grown each week.

[Jacob]

His touches have grown each week.

[Adam]

Well, one week Charbonne missed.

[Jacob]

Right.

[Adam]

Last week. Yeah. Last week they ran the ball a lot and walker had what, 18 carries? It's 19 carries to Charbonnet's 12. It's really. It's the passing downs. You know, the two minute drill stuff is going to be Charbonnet. The goal line stuff might be Charbonnet. But for Pittsburgh, you know, you talk about how Nick Chubb seemed so obvious that he could be replaced. Well, Jalen Warren has been really bad so far. He's averaging 3.1 yards per carry, his longest run.

[Jacob]

Take it back. Jalen Warren has not been so bad so far.

[Dan]

He said no problem.

[Adam]

Okay, well, you know what? They were both really bad, inefficient the first three weeks and then this week was the best we've seen a Steelers running back. Look.

[Jacob]

Look at this tweet. This is before the blow up game from Kenny Gainwell Running back 8 in fantasy points per touch since entering the NFL in between James Cook and Bijan Robinson.

[Adam]

Gainwell, not Warren. I would have thought that would have been Warren.

[Jacob]

It's PPR and he got really boosted by his early career stuff like anytime he's getting the ball it was just like mostly through the passing game.

[Adam]

So what happens in week six when they're back from by.

[Jacob]

I think it might look pretty similar to week one would be my guess. I think Gainwell will probably be more involved than he was the the weeks leading up to week four.

[Adam]

I hate the Steelers. We can't have the they're stay suck and they drive me crazy from a fantasy standpoint. I'm sorry but we can't have a split. We just can't have it because one thing they've given us, they've given us a running back worth starting four weeks in a row. But it's mostly because of catches. We can't have a split. I won't accept it. All right, we're gonna take a break though. I will accept that when we come back. We'll talk about Brian Thomas Jr. And Jerry Judy and Derrick Henry, et cetera after this.

[Jacob]

When did making plans get this complicated? It's time to streamline with WhatsApp, the.

[Adam]

Secure messaging app that brings the whole group together.

[Jacob]

Use polls to settle dinner plans.

[Adam]

Send event invites and pinned messages so no one forgets mom 60th and never miss a meme or milestone.

[Jacob]

All protected with end to end encryption. It's time for WhatsApp message privately with everyone.

[Adam]

Learn [e-mail] this episode is brought to.

[Jacob]

You by State Farm. Checking off the boxes on your to.

[Adam]

Do list is a great feeling.

[Dan]

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[Adam]

Gerwin wants us to talk about Brian Thomas Jr. And Jerry Judy. Brian Thomas Jr. Was started in 71% of leagues and he had five catches for 49 yards on seven targets. He had one carry for seven yards at San Francisco. Does anybody have any hope for Brian Thomas or a considerable amount of hope for Brian Thomas Jr. Turning it around?

[Dan]

I haven't for a while. I was out on it last week when we discussed it on btb. It's just. It's not for me.

[Adam]

Yeah.

[Jacob]

I mean, I'm basically exactly where I was last week, where the. There's parts of the run the game that's working and I believe in Liam Cohen. Yes. But the play from Trevor Lawrence is not where we need it to be.

[Dan]

Yep.

[Jacob]

So betting on that to improve and Brian Thomas Jr. To like get it together is basically just like, just a leap of faith on Liam Cohen, which, no, I don't really feel that compelled to do. I. I'm excited about everything he's done as a schemer, but like, I don't know about the vibes there. Kind of weird, you know, they are.

[Dan]

Odd vibes, but they're winning. They're three in one.

[Jacob]

They are winning. Yeah, but, yeah, like the weirdest vibes.

[Dan]

For a three in one team ever. The.

[Jacob]

Robert saw his stuff walking off the field and like, even his players were just kind of like, come on. Like, no, don't do this. And it's been that way the whole time. Like Trevor's waving him off and stuff and he's just like, I don't know. I'd rather just not.

[Adam]

The one thing that's really been missing for Brian Thomas Jr. The big plays. He. He had a 21.1% explosive play rate last year. What's that, a 17 yard catch or more? 16, 17. It's 9.4% this year. Trevor Lawrence is now two of 12 unpassed attempts of 20 or more air yards. He has not completed one to Brian Thomas Jr. The only big play he's really had was that busted coverage play that ended up getting C.J. gardner Johnson cut off Texans. And I guess, look, last year he had almost 1300 yards. Brian Thomas Jr. They averaged 218.6 gross passing yards per game. This year they're averaging 211.3. It's not that much worse, right? I mean, he was doing it last year and it's not like they had a great passing offense. They threw 19 touchdowns last year and he had 10 of them. So I. I don't know if it's just. It's easy to blame Trevor Lawrence, but they didn't have a good passing offense last year. They just kept hitting on these, these home runs. He was so explosive. He's not hitting on them this year.

[Jacob]

Yeah, it's definitely both of them. It's not just Trevor Lawrence, but it's like, even if BJJ was playing a lot better, I don't Know if it would really matter that much. Yeah, because of Trevor Lawrence.

[Adam]

All right, how about Jerry Judy? Jerry Judy did have nine targets yesterday. He had a drop, wasn't the easiest catch, but that could have been about a 30 yard gain. Yeah, he got shadowed by DJ Reed until DJ Reed got hurt. But obviously it's been a miserable year. He scored 11.6 fantasy points in week one and hasn't touched double digits since in full ppr. So Cedric Tillman leads the team in red zone, green zone and end zone targets. And Tillman might miss some time with a hamstring injury. Do you have any hope for Jerry Judy? Dan?

[Dan]

No, I think, I mean you just mentioned earlier this podcast that they traded for Cam Robinson. That is all I need to know to tell me that this passing game isn't going to get much better. He can't play in the NFL at this point if the Texans can't play him. It's is failed in each the last two opportunities that he's gotten. So I don't know how that passing game improves overall, which is what Judy needs health in the passing game. And I actually think that Gabriel will make things worse when they and they are going to go to him at some point.

[Adam]

I do think the absence of Cedric Tillman could help him. That's the only reason I wouldn't drop Jerry Judy right now.

[Jacob]

Yeah, what I was going to say on Judy is it's always been a super concentrated target distribution where it's like two guys. It's like all him and Joker, but now it's like four guys and they're kind of getting Isaiah Bond involved too. And Flacco hasn't been what we thought he was going to be. He was one of the least accurate quarterbacks in Week 4 on the year. He's like slightly below, you know, the middle of the pack. And so we need him to be more accurate. We need the overall volume of the offense to increase because he's able to be accurate and sustained drives. So it's like not only the turnovers from Flacco, but also like just down to down inconsistency a little bit more than we've seen in the past. And the fact that the targets are being, you know, four or five guys are getting targets instead of just two and the result is. Here you go. You see on the screen, why does he were 54 for Judy through a month. Still better than Brian or than Travis Hunter. The Travis Hunter stuff is unreal. It's crazy. Like I made this chart and it's Looking at targets per route run and first downs per route run. And so, like, with your opportunities, how productive are you being at, like, moving the chains? And BTJ is not good, of course, but, like, Travis Hunter is by far the worst player. The only players out of 80 receivers that have enough routes run. The only players with worst first down per run rates are Tyler Lockett and Johan Dotson. And like, those guys don't even get targets, you know? So, like, of course they're not producing first downs, but Travis is actually getting targets and almost nothing is ever coming from them. We have one play to show for it through a month.

[Adam]

When I see. For those of you who would like to see it and aren't seeing it, can you go back to that graphic by any chance? YouTube.com fantasy football today, when I see graphic like this, I think to myself, I am so stupid. I don't even want to do the 30 seconds of thinking to be like, what is this showing? I am the only. The only thing I could do for a living is talk about sports. Because I just. I don't have it in me to just be like, oh, I'm just like. When I see this, it's like reading the encyclopedia. It's so daunting to me.

[Dan]

That's why we have Jacob Gibbs to break it down for you. Make it easier on, you know.

[Adam]

Yeah, we don't really get a lot of feature articles anymore.

[Dan]

Yeah.

[Adam]

But if I see an article, I know I've said this on the podcast before, but if I'm reading a story on a website and I see an article and the first letter of the sentence of the. Of the. Of the paragraph is like a capital letter, you know, that style where it's like, oh, I know this is about to be a really long exploratory feature. I click X immediately. I am just. I am out instantly.

[Dan]

Basically, what you're telling the show and us is that you have massive bad case of adhd.

[Adam]

I just cannot. I cannot. Anything that's going to require me thinking. I'm just. Yeah, obviously I'm exaggerating. So I. I would like for you guys, if you have a chance to watch Jerry Judy and his routes from week four, because I thought that he was doing really well. I thought he was really winning, beating DJ Reed, who I mentioned he got away with a lot of illegal contact against Zay Flowers. Like, got whistled for one against Jerry Judy right by the end zone. I thought he was getting open a lot. And Flacco just wasn't, you know, not. You can't see it every play. Right. But didn't see him. I still think he's a talented receiver and I think the Tillman injury actually could boost him a little bit as they have Minnesota, Pittsburgh, Miami, New England coming up. It's. It's manageable.

[Dan]

Yeah. I mean, it's just the same reason I decided to avoid him in all fantasy drafts this summer is the same reason that stands now. I don't like buying receivers in awful pass games and it's just so hard for me to care about him winning all these routes from a fantasy standpoint because that doesn't really give us points.

[Adam]

Yeah, no, you're right. All right, let's go to our next topic. It's from Rob says the Ravens backfield splits between Henry and Hill. Should we be concerned? Jacob, should we be concerned?

[Jacob]

No, I guess if you think the Ravens might continue to run into games like this, which is definitely possible because they can't stop the run right now. It's like nothing has really changed from past years. I don't think like Justice Hill is playing his way into a bigger role or anything. It's just like we aims we need the Ravens to be able to Raven, you know, and they're not.

[Dan]

Yeah, well, my concern is like, let's see. So even. And I assume the question is mostly centered around do we have concern for Derrick Henry, who was a fantasy stalwart last year, drafted to be that again this year and the expectation was unless he gets hurt, we're probably going to get that from him. My bigger concern is less so the game script though. That's a big concern as well. So I'm happy you pointed that out and well, without Lamar on the field and who knows how long we'll be out for, that's not a good run game anymore. Like most of the reason I think Derrick Henry works is because defenses have to account for Lamar Jackson and they run a ton of zone read and every single defensive end has to hold up before they just crash and they just. And if they're going to be crashing, this Ravens O line is not a good run blocking O line and Ronnie Stanley's now hurt. Who knows what that's going to do to it. So it was basically winning in the run game purely from defenses having to account for Lamar Jackson. It's essentially playing like 10 on 11 in my mind when he's your quarterback with his own read run game. So that's gone.

[Adam]

I think you're taking a little bit of credit away from Derrick Henry.

[Dan]

He's awesome. For sure. But I'm and I'm not saying that's not like he's amazing. Once he gets going, you could see what he can do in the open field. But you can also see all the plays where the Ravens don't block it up well and he stopped at the line of scrimmage because there have been a lot of those as well. And it's such a one dimensional run game when Lamar Jackson is not in the game.

[Adam]

Well so actually I'm glad you brought that up. Bill Barnwell wrote an article on ESPN.com about the Ravens run game and they are doing well from a yards per carry standpoint. Standpoint. They are doing well from a explosive play standpoint. But I'll just read exactly from from Bill Barnwell. The Ravens Last year the Ravens were second in the league when they ran the ball per NFL Next Gen Stats Stats success rate, which measures how often a team stays on schedule by generating positive EPA. This year, even while they average more than 6 yards per carry, the Ravens are 28th in success rate when they run the ball. Take Jackson out of the mix and their running backs are 30th in success rate. There are still explosive plays which are great, but outside of those one or two big runs per game, the Ravens are getting shut down when they run. Basically they are still getting and then I just paraphrase, basically they're still getting big plays but too many bus plays. Getting stuffed as Dan just mentioned a lot. That is a big problem here. And then you just wonder is this just a small sample size? Just a fluke? I mean they didn't look good in Week 1 against the Chiefs last year as the Chiefs have a really good run defense and that's who they played yesterday. The Lions, sometimes they're a little inconsistent but sometimes they have a really good run defense and that's who they played last week. So the schedule is going to get easier. I made a trade offer. I cannot imagine it's going to get accepted, but I offered Quentin Johnston for Derrick Henry in a 14 team PPR league. I want to get Derek Henry. I think a lot of people are going to.

[Dan]

Yeah, I still believe in him once Lamar is in the game.

[Adam]

I just want to make him without Lamar.

[Dan]

Oh, I, I am out on Henry during the Cooper rush.

[Adam]

What do you mean you're out on Henry? You're going to be sitting out as.

[Dan]

Henry is somebody who's not going to sit him. You obviously play him. We have nobody to play in fantasy. It's a, it's a Death. There's just nothing in the landscape. Like every single third round pick is a bus. But I just don't believe he can be the fantasy stalwart he's been with Cooper Rush at quarterback. And I stand by that strongly.

[Adam]

By the way, Cedric Tillman's going to miss weeks with his hamstring injury. Jacob, how do you feel about Derrick Henry?

[Jacob]

Yeah, we did the, the running back show last week where we looked at like the offensive environment and how it's helping the running back. And last year Baltimore would have been top 10 easily. The line played surprisingly well, the coaching was great, and Lamar Jackson is like such a huge boost, but I think we only had them like 16th or something. They're behind like the Patriots and teams like that. And like there's really only 10 or 12 teams that are working right now. So for them to not even be close to inside of that, I think it's just a reflection of where they're at. I think the stat you gave is really astute, Adam. And it's like outside of Lamar, like, nothing's working. So I, I would definitely be nervous of Lamar misses time. And even right now, like, we, we need a number of things to get going. It's always been a fragile equation for Henry. I don't know if people realize that because he always puts up points, but in terms of like expected fantasy points and then players being outliers and way out producing their expected fantasy points, he's at the very top. Every year he does this where he somehow like doubles up his expected fantasy points.

[Adam]

Yeah, because he's incredible.

[Jacob]

Because he's incredible. And then also because of this situation, like being in Baltimore helps with that for sure.

[Dan]

Yes. Because there was good game script all the time last year. Now the game script, they're 1 and 3, Lamar might be out and they have a million injured on defense. That's going to really impact his fantasy value.

[Adam]

It could. Last year they didn't have a blowout loss. They lost seven, six games last year, including the playoffs. They did not lose any of them by more than seven points.

[Dan]

Right.

[Adam]

But even with that said, he only averaged 15 carries per game. The catches didn't go up, and he averaged 13.5 PPR fantasy points per game in their six losses. Again, that's including the postseason, so I could see the cause for concern. But I also remember people freaking out about Derek Henry after week one last year when he played the Chiefs, didn't look good. Scored a touchdown going, oh, he's slow, he's washed, he's Washed. Obviously not washed. He's incredible. Yes. And look, if Lamar Jackson's not out, they're going to run their offense through Derrick Henry. I mean, they're going to have to run the ball. And by the way, Cooper Rush is not that bad. Cooper Rush is not strong. I bet the Browns would do backflips if they had Cooper Rush.

[Dan]

Who?

[Adam]

The Browns.

[Dan]

No, I strongly disagree. I think Cooper should be terrible on the Browns.

[Adam]

I'm saying he's better than. Than what they're getting at quarterback right now. I don't think Cooper Rush.

[Dan]

I do not think so at all. Pretty well.

[Adam]

He's done pretty well filling in for.

[Dan]

The Cowboys in good situation with Dallas with what was a great offensive line and CD Lamb and a lot of weapons. Let's see how he does with this.

[Adam]

I don't know the details. Details on Ronnie Stanley, but it's. He hasn't been declared out for the season. I think we're being a little.

[Dan]

He's a fine backup, but I don't think he's a.

[Adam]

He's a. Yeah, he's a fine backup. Right. He can. He can get the job done. He could be okay. I guess not. Maybe I'm wrong.

[Dan]

Maybe I may be wrong.

[Adam]

I may be wrong.

[Jacob]

I'm legitimately curious about this next topic.

[Adam]

That's why I gave the date at the top of the show because I told you I wasn't going to say a lot of right things today. Jacob, the next you might be right on that is from stu33 the quarter season look back analysis of 2025 draft strategies. What worked and what didn't.

[Dan]

I love this question. Yeah. You want to start? Jacob, I'll go after you.

[Jacob]

Yeah, I've got a cool data viz. Adam, you talk about like looking too much. You talk about looking at that chart and like it blowing your mind. That's how I feel when I look at Hayden Wiggs charts. This guy's awesome. So shout out Hayden on Twitter for sure. He's got here it's color coded. I don't know if I can make this any better. Better for you guys. So you won't be able to see the names but I can talk you through it and you can see the colors. The green is running back. The the purple is wide receiver down here at the bottom. The blue is tight end and you might be able to see the red in between the green and purple lines. That's quarterback. And so this is looking at where everybody was drafted. So on the the leftmost players are you Know Bijan Robinson, Jameer Gibbs, Jamar Chase. Over there on the far right side of this you have Depot, Samuel Roma, Dunze, Chris Olave, even Stefan Diggs. So that's like what, round six or something like that. We've got basically the first six rounds here and it's looking at replacement level over expectation at their adp. And so at the very top, like the most elite wide receivers have been huge smashes. That's Puka, that's a Monroe, same Brown. And then guys like Jamar Chase have just basically been at expectation. George Pickens looks like a huge smash. Javon or Jackson, Smith and Jigba, Garrett Wilson are big wins so far, even at, you know, round three adp. And then green is mostly dominating. Early round running back is mostly dominating. They're not giving you quite as big wins as Puka and Sun God have. But, you know, after those two, it's like basically all green here at the top. Right? And so that's running back. So early round.

[Adam]

This is not. This is not, you said round six, round seven or so it's. So we're not seeing Javante Williams, we're not seeing Quentin Johnson.

[Jacob]

No, we'll get to that after this. This is looking at the early rounds. The further left it is, then that's the earlier picks. And so anything like on the left half of this photo is the first three rounds and that's where you're seeing most of the green players be the highest, which is running backs are mostly winning the early rounds.

[Adam]

Thank you for saying it because I know the people who are not watching, they can't see. But I think Jacob's doing a very good job of laying out the visual. All right, go ahead.

[Jacob]

Thank you. Thank you. The other takeaway I had, it's. You can't really say anything with the tight ends because freaking Bowers and Kittle have both been hurt. Trey McBride has out produced his pick. But it's just tough to say anything about like early round tight end as a strategy. But you can, I think say something about early round QBs, which is they continue to look foolproof. Like basically we talked about this a lot before the draft where it's like these are the easy button. If you have a round three pick that you think could out produce them, maybe you hit on that, you know, like James Cook absolutely has. But most of the time Josh Allen, Lamar Jackson, even Jalen Hurts are your safest bets. Jalen Hurts hasn't had a huge season. He's right in line with expectation here on this chart, whereas Lamar and Josh Allen are above it. They're really, really good picks. So it's like as long as these mobile quarterbacks stay healthy, then they're probably going to smash.

[Dan]

I will say this on one note though. I. I am ready to turn the page for probably good for me on early round tight end. And yeah, we say this every year and I gave myself an exception this year because I thought Brock Bowers was a generational talent. But what it turns out to be is that generational talent doesn't like supersede scheme and role in the offense he's heard.

[Adam]

You don't know you're. I think you're coming to this conclusion too quickly because Kittle's hurts.

[Dan]

No, Kittle's hurt. I mean Kittle wasn't. I. It really only applied this year to Bowers and McBride. Those were the two people who were being taken up top. Kittle was maybe a round or two later, which is still fair, but by that point you're getting into a different range of receivers and running backs that you're passing up on and quarterbacks for that matter. You kind of miss that elite here as far as those first two guys go, I think last year the entire Raiders offense was designed around Bowers and I just, I know you're saying he's hurt Jacob and hopefully that's the case.

[Jacob]

His role was completely different in week one. He was going to Smash in that role.

[Dan]

Maybe, maybe. I hope you're right.

[Adam]

He also played New England in Week one. But I, I mean I tend to agree. The thing. There was one stat that I sort of looked at and try to figure out the commonality between the tight ends in the last five or six years that have just. That have just smashed, that have been worthy of a top 18.

[Dan]

There's just hall of Famers like. Well, Kelsey and no one else.

[Adam]

I mean you had Earth's in there once upon a time. I think you have Kelsey three times you have Mark Andrews had a season in there. You had Darren Waller in there and.

[Dan]

He messed his after the season he had. You then drafted him high and he.

[Adam]

Hold on, you're George Kittle in there. I might be forgetting one. But all of them, except maybe Andrews, all of them were on these offenses that passed for more yards than I ever could see the Charger, the, the Raiders or the Cardinals doing this year. I think that's fair on these very prolific passing offenses. And I just couldn't see, you know, I couldn't see the Raiders getting up to 4,300 passing yards or something like that this year. I can't remember the exact numbers but. So that actually was the, was the main reason I didn't draft Bowers in any leagues. But then after week one I was like, I think I made a big mistake here. And last Yesterday he got 621 targets.

[Dan]

Garbage time targets at the end and they were short.

[Adam]

They only threw 21 passes.

[Dan]

Target was bad. But even beyond just the Bowers point, to me it's like I'd already sworn off drafting any of these mid round tight ends like the Laportas and whatever. Those to me are always wasted picks. But like the key reason is the same reason why I should have been sworn off drafting the Bowers, McBride's type because it's the easiest position by far to find late round sleepers and values in my slate round sleeper this year was, was Ferguson. He's the number one scoring fantasy line we had on Jacob when we did our sleeper show. And beyond the box score we had Ryan Heath on or I believe it was Ryan Heath. We had a bunch of guests. One of them had Hunter Henry as his sleeper. He's the number two scoring tight end. And then number three is another sleeper, a tight end that a lot of people like Dalton Kincaid who's basically only number three tight end because he scores a touchdown all the time in that offense. But that was believed to be the case because it was talked about all off season how you know, you're at Bill's camp and it's just always, it's always Kincaid in the red zone. They're just looking for McGinn. But those are the top three scores and you didn't use no draft capital to get any of them. It's just I am not going to do it again. I'm done with it. This is it for me. I'll find my sleeper. I'll probably be right because it was very easy to locate those three as sleepers this year.

[Adam]

Okay.

[Dan]

And even Kyle Pitts, like he's.

[Adam]

We'll see. Well, let's talk about it in August 2026.

[Dan]

Yeah, we will. And I hope I don't do it again.

[Adam]

I hope this is. Let's get our next data presentation here.

[Jacob]

Yeah, I think the late round tight end thing is, is totally fair outside of like bringing up Kincaid as an example. I think that's complete randomness.

[Dan]

He's tight end three.

[Jacob]

Exactly. I think that doesn't matter at all. I think that's completely random.

[Dan]

But it shows how dumb the position is. It shows why I don't want to.

[Jacob]

Waste capital or even, like, I don't know, like, even if you were willing to draft Kincaid, like, would you be starting every single week? Like, maybe if you have to.

[Adam]

He hasn't even been rostered every week. You know, he's been right in the 70 range in roster rate a lot. So now he doesn't even play that.

[Dan]

Many snaps and it doesn't even matter.

[Adam]

He's a little fluky. He's a little fluky.

[Dan]

You don't have to do much at tight end to score is the point.

[Adam]

All right, go ahead.

[Jacob]

But you also could get, you know, Juwan Johnson off the waiver wire and be starting him the whole time. Like, that's. That's a fair point. If you look at this chart, you'll see a lot of blue creeping up here. Jake Ferguson at the very top here. Hunter Henry is the next highest one there. So to Dan's point, like, yes, lay round tight end has. Has continued to look like a good strategy. The only reason I think that you would do the Bowers thing is if you do believe that he can buck all the trends that Adam laid out with the team level stuff.

[Dan]

Right?

[Jacob]

And him being that kind of a talent, which was a risky bet, which I think honestly is one of the. The. My biggest personal misses this year is like placing a lot of really high, like extreme risk bets off of like belief in the talent. That happened with Edj, that happened with lad McConkey, that happened with Travis, that. I'm with Bowers, where.

[Adam]

Yeah, I don't know.

[Dan]

Golden. It's happening with golden as well.

[Adam]

Okay. No, that's a late round pick. I get what you're saying. You're talking about early round picks. You're talking about rookies basically that you bought into. And I don't blame you. I cannot believe how bad Brian Thomas Jr. Has been. It doesn't make any sense. It doesn't make any sense that A.J. brown has been this bad. Right. Sometimes it just doesn't make sense. We don't have to necessarily have regrets over it. I mean, a lot of guys have been bus and I don't know that we did anything wrong. It's just the nature of sports. Also, it's only been four weeks.

[Jacob]

I would place the lad McConkey bet again 100 times out of 100, for what it's worth. No regrets about that one.

[Dan]

It's interesting too though, like, just to touch back on what Jacob said at the start of this conversation. I feel like we go through this every year. Adam Jacob where the middle rounds and not even the middle rounds the early middle rounds starting with like round three and then through like four, five, six are just filled with busts and of course but it's if we keep saying of course to that at some point it is worth the opportunity cost to pass up on a wide receiver running back bet there to get one of these elite quarterbacks who like Jacob outlined and like we've seen now for three years in a row are returning great.

[Adam]

Value but we said that all off season. I mean that's when we were I.

[Dan]

Didn'T I. I thought it was too small of a win and I never really made that bad except for one one quarterback league where I drafted Lamar.

[Jacob]

And All right also like we have the late round QBs you know like that have also looked great. Drake May, Caleb Williams like it's been a pretty easy bet for several years in a row now to go for the talented running late round qb. That's cheap and they often hit. It's been a bad bit a few times like when Anthony Richardson pushed up into round six or whatever. Justin Fields Price felt a bit prohibitive at times this draft season but then you were able to get him a little bit later so that might be a good pick still but that was where I landed with QB is like if you don't see one early it's fine because you have these guys and so far they have been hits but as I look at the middle round here what stands out to me these young middle round receivers are crushing. I don't know if there's. I don't want to attach to any takeaway from this through four weeks. Just observing what has happened with this middle range. The brutal picks have been the running backs like Travis ETN is hit and we still worry a little bit that maybe he'll lose some work as the year goes on. Javonte Williams has hit other than that it's like pretty much all bad picks. David Montgomery is up here but I don't that seemed like mostly a one week spike thing. Cam Scatter Boo's up here because he had a teammate injury. Jordan Mason's up here because he had a teammate injury. Kenneth Walker and Chuba Hubbard are like barely holding the line where they're like right at expectation but other than that it's like you've got Camara, you've got RJ Harvey Henderson, James Connor unfortunately got injured but Pacheco, Tony Pollard, DeAndre Swift, Aaron Jones also injured but really wasn't he was already losing work before the injury. Even, like Kyron Williams, Breece hall, like, they're kind of like right at the line, too. And all those other guys are below the line. So the running back picks have been probably the worst ones you can make in this range.

[Adam]

Yeah, and it makes sense because last year the running backs were amazing, so we knew it was just fool's gold. But. But look, I think we should definitely check in on this in a few weeks because things change very quickly. I was just thinking about that round four to five wide receiver range, really about four to six, which is where I just loved living in that range. I actually think a lot of them have been. Have been busts. Xavier Worthy's been a bus, only because of injury. Let's see. Cortland Sutton and Garrett Wilson have been really good. DJ Moore has been horrible. Devonte Smith has been Devonte Smith, not really that good. Tedro and McMillan has been kind of a bust. I mean, we like the talent, but the production hasn't really been there. Pickens has been good. Flowers, good. Jameson Williams, horrible. Calvin Ridley, worse than Jameson Williams. Jerry Judy, horrible pick. Ricky Piersol. Frustrating. Yeah. So I could keep going then. You have some good picks. You have Debo and a Buka. It's. I guess it's been about a 50.

[Dan]

Rate, which isn't definitely a feel thing, but it feels to me like this year more than any year through four weeks, there's just been so many bust picks in all rounds of the drafts. Like those players who are scoring a lot in fantasy are players who are either not drafted, drafted, or drafted really late. The Quinton Johnson's, the Hunter Henry's, the Jake Fergusons of the world. So I. It's hard for me to even come to too many takeaways based on that. Just think the NFL's changing a lot. There's a lot of injuries. There's a lot of passing games that don't stick together year over year and don't contribute the same way and the same. Now we're seeing, as you mentioned, with these running backs in the run game as well, a lot of these teams aren't blocking the same way they used to and aren't as healthy in the run game either.

[Adam]

All right, we gotta go. Actually, I'm three minutes late for another podcast, but I want to end with my thoughts on the new kickoff rule, which I think is ridiculous. This is basically arena football at this point. These teams score late in the game and they have almost no chance of keeping the opponent out of field goal range because they're getting the ball at the 40 yard line after these returns. Basically. It's just. You don't even know what to do, do you? Take a touchback and have it come out to the 35. It's just ridiculous. I know we want more kickoffs and they're exciting, but do we have to think of everything in five yard increments? Maybe we can put the ball at the 32 1/2 yard line. Maybe that would be a good compromise. Like can we, can we be. This is so ridiculous. I really can't stand it the way the field position has changed so dramatically. It's just, it's unfair. It's already impossible to play defense. You get called penalty on everything. Almost every defensive penalty is a automatic first down. Could be third and 25. You commit an illegal contact penalty, it's an automatic first down. And now you're making it even harder by giving teams the ball at the 35 yard line or better on so many drives. So that's my rant and that will do it.

[Dan]

For the most part, I agree with it. I don't like this new kickoff rule at all. And I think it's NFL's so unwilling to make major changes to their rules in general, despite some things that you can come up with that make a lot of sense. But then all of a sudden they make these drastic changes to the kickoff rules that impact the game in a major way. Like you're seeing teams return it to the 40 and these key drop 46.

[Adam]

Yard lines at the end of the game and then they need two completions to kick a field goal. I'm sorry, I do have to go. Jamie's waiting for me to record FFT Express. So we will talk to you tomorrow on both FFT and beyond the box score. Subscribe to both feeds Paramount Podcast.

[Jacob]

Dude.

[Adam]

Did you order the new iPhone 17 Pro? Got it from Verizon, the best 5G network in America. I never looked so good.

[Dan]

You look the same.

[Adam]

But with this camera, everything looks better.

[Dan]

Especially me. You haven't changed your hair in 15 years. Selfies check please.

[Adam]

New and existing customers can get the new iPhone 17 Pro. Designed to be the most powerful iPhone ever with eligible phone trade in and unlimited ultimate any condition guaranteed. Best 5G Swears Route Metrics Data United States 1H 2025 all rights reserved. Trade in and additional terms apply for all offers. See verizon.com for details.