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Adam
This is Fantasy Football Today from CBS Sports. Wanna play? Can you believe this? No, I can't.
Dan
It's time to dominate your fantasy league.
Adam
Off to the races and he stays on his feet. This is gonna go the distance.
Dan
Now here's some combination of Adam, Dave, Jamie and Heath.
Jacob
Hey, hey.
Dan
Welcome in everybody. This is Fantasy Football today presented by BetMGM. Make it legendary. And this is your Monday edition of beyond the Box score Advanced stats from simple people. We got a lot of things to Talk about today. T.E. mcMillan is now wide receiver 18 per game. He went from wide receiver 35 per game to 18 per game in one week. Nico Collins has been a lot better with Davis Mills. Is that a matchup thing? Is that a Mills thing? Is that a pass attempts thing? We'll give you the numbers there. The Bucks offense, the packers offense, the Chiefs offense, all that and more. Good morning, Jake. Good afternoon Jacob, that's for you. It's morning I guess. What's up?
Jacob
Yeah, it's still morning. Just finished my coffee. Yeah, I'm trying to rebound here. It was a really rough week for fantasy. We got the news that Drake London and Michael Pinnock's both are real banged up. Right before he hopped on here. My Chiefs lost. So yeah, not, not doing great but happy to be here talking with you guys today.
Dan
Happy to have you dance. Dan's laughing at your misery.
Adam
It's shot in Freud because I also am miserable myself. So you can laugh back. I mean I woke up to news yesterday from Jay Glazer who was was the only one to report the Odell Beckham trade back in the day when it happened. And he basically said after it, I will only report something if it's closest to fact as can be that Matt Nagy and Arthur Smith are on the short list for Giants head coaching candidates. And after hearing that Adam, nothing could improve for the rest of my day.
Dan
Yeah, yeah, that's not very good. But neither is the Eagles offense and neither was the Lions offense last night in a 16, nine games. That's we're going to start. We're going to start. Now I think one thing worth pointing out, I'm going to give you the number of quarterbacks that have scored 20 or more fantasy points in six point per passing touchdown leagues week by week. Okay, 15, 20, only nine in week three. 15, 16, 17, 12, 14, 16, 13. Remember we're into buys now, so typically we're around 14, 15. So far this week we've had five. It's been a horrible week for quarterbacks. At most we'll have seven. And I've gotta think that the weather had something to do with this. It was really windy in the Northeast, including in this game last night. Philadelphia 16, Detroit 9. Either that was just a bad week for quarterbacks, but it's especially bad. Jacob, your takeaways from the Eagles and Lions.
Jacob
So definitely wanted to talk about the Lions because there were some changes. This is just the second game of Dan Campbell calling plays. I didn't want to overreact to last week's game. Last week, like pre snap motion was up for the Lions. Play action was up for the Lions. But those are both affected by game script. Your teams are more likely to use both of those when playing with a lead. So this week we saw a completely opposite game script and there was not nearly as much play action, especially with the way that the Eagles were just wrecking their front. They didn't have time for it really. But motion rate was up again 69%. So that's the highest rate on the year for the Lions. So I think that's a real change. Another change was they use three receivers 91% of the time, which is way up from anything we've seen in the past. I think that's mostly a Sam Laporta note, but with Laporta on the ir, that's more. Not anything fantasy relevant necessarily, but more playing time for Isaac Tesla and a little bit more for the freaking Dan. I freaking forget his name every single time. I can't. Khalif Raymond. For some reason my brain wanted to say Greg Dorch.
Dan
Jameer Gibbs.
Jacob
Jameer Gibbs, though this is the most fantasy relevant takeaway I had was that the role changed for Jameer Gibbs. It was a season high snap rate. It was actually the highest snap rate and route rate the Gibbs has logged in a healthy David Montgomery game. Career high 100 plus receiving yards. So that was all really, really good.
Dan
Yeah, I mean look, you can't, you cannot start your week going I'm going to start David Montgomery this week. It's just he is not, he is not reliable. He's had two big games. One of them, one of them was the had a long run at the Ravens. One of them, he had that big game at Cincinnati with his family in attendance. And other than that, even if he scores, you're talking about 11, 12ish points. So. And then when it's bad, it's really bad for Montgomery.
Adam
They're just not running the ball like they had in the past. They don't have the same dudes up front and My. One of my takeaways from this game on the lion side of the ball real quick is let's do a little thought experiment. Yesterday's game, Amanra St. Brown had the fifth highest drop percentage of any wide receiver in any single game this season at just under 16%. With what we know about Aman Rain Brown, what does that tell us? We know this isn't a guy who drops passes. What it tells us is when we get these kind of games, we're going to get a lot of these as we roll forward through the next six weeks of fantasy football, whatever it is. It's the playoffs at Philly night game, 30 degrees, winds whipping the entire game. We just can't expect fantasy production. This happened now two weeks in a row. The Packers, Eagles, the Lions, Eagles. This is not a matchup thing. Yeah, these defenses played well, especially the Eagles defense. They're playing very well. This is a weather issue. I just want to point that out because I'm looking at it, my schedules. I'm looking for the dome teams. I'm looking for the teams that play south. And I'm not looking at like these games are going to hurt us in fantasy over and over and over again. You saw how Jared Go threw the football. That was the worst he looked all season throwing the football by far. It's no surprise. It's super cold and windy. So just keep that in mind as you look forward on your schedule. And if you're looking to make trades before your deadline, I'd be looking into the wind and the weather as we move forward in some of these night games in Philly or wherever we're going to be playing them.
Dan
Yeah. And that's why I pointed out the Bears on Wednesday's show as having a schedule that was mostly outdoors and in cold weather. Unfortunately, you can't exactly sell high on them because they just laid an egg in Minnesota. But it's going to happen. It's. It's unfortunate. This week was kind of an extreme. If you like, if you somehow sat Lamar Jackson, who actually was only started in what, 90% of leagues, which is pretty damn low for Lamar Jackson. Well, you were amazing. He scored 4.7 fantasy points. But if you sat Josh Allen. Well, he said six. Six touchdowns and 48.7 fantasy points.
Adam
Yeah.
Dan
So it is hard to predict, but this was a tough, tough week with win for sure. Okay. Over the last three weeks, here are the wide receiver stats for Detroit. Jameson Williams, 14 catches. Aman Ross St. Brown, 16 catches. Jameson Williams, 273 yards St. Brown 197 yards Williams three touchdowns St. Brown one. St. Brown does have 13 more targets though and he has all three of Detroit's end zone targets. All he has six of their 12 red zone targets over the last three games. Obviously we're taking St. Brown over JMO, but JMO is obviously a big topic conversation here and I talked about on Wednesday. He does so much better when they're under center and they're running play action. Well, they only had one target this game that was under center play action and it was his touchdown catch which was long one. What was it, 30 something yards?
Adam
Yeah, a little in breaker the house.
Dan
Yeah. But anyway, I have sat. I picked up Jameson Williams 3 weeks ago. Someone dropped him going into his buy and I believe I've sat him all three weeks. I have not had faith in him. Obviously we know what's going to happen when I finally start him next week. He's going to be bad.
Adam
I think I saw you asked before yesterday's games, am I going to play Jameson Williams or Pearsall? So I guess you went with Piersol.
Dan
Michael Wilson or Piersol?
Adam
Oh, did you. Who'd you go with?
Dan
I asked Twitter and 63 said Michael or 69 or something said said Ricky Piersolitt. I started with Michael Wilson. Let's go.
Jacob
Good for you, Adam.
Adam
There you go.
Dan
That was like a 30 something point difference. But anyway, who's buying Jameson Williams? Sell high. Ride it out. What do you think on jmo?
Jacob
It feels like honestly like I've been really nervous to invest in jmo, but I feel like everything is set up really well here with the same laporta injury too. I was just looking that up. He has a 14.7 target per route run rate with Laporta on the field compared to 19.7% with Laporta off of the field. So that's a pretty substantial increase. And then also with it seeming like Dan Campbell even before the laporte injury was intent in like getting Williams the ball more, getting him some of these horizontal looks that we've seen in each of the past two weeks feels really good right now.
Adam
Okay, he's a buy for me and I don't really want to be this guy, but I am becoming the weather truther in fantasy football and I will stand by it because I do believe in it. Every single game for the rest of the season, not including week 18 where hopefully your league doesn't run through, is a dome game for the Lions. So that's a really good sign for this offense.
Dan
Wow, that's awesome.
Jacob
Okay, this season has just been like, snip, snap, snip snap. Like so seriously, man, like we're like, it looks terrible for JMO now he's back. And it's not just him, it's everybody's Tedro McMillan. Like, it's so many people are going to talk about.
Adam
I know McMillan. I think the stat Adam opened the show. This is just so hilarious to me. Like he was wide receiver 30, what, four per game before this, like a bad pick and now it's like, oh, wait a second, he's a mid wide receiver too on the season. But I think that also speaks to what you said earlier, Adam, about just as we're trending toward the end of the season into the cold weather, we're really losing a lot of passing production overall.
Dan
Well, Telema McMillan. We'll get to him later. But he's averaging 13.9 PPR fantasy points per per game. That makes him wide receiver 18 per game in full PPR. 13.9 where? Yeah, right. 13.9. Where would that have ranked the previous three seasons?
Adam
Yeah, let's hear it at the end.
Dan
Of the season, not at the end of week 11. Wide receiver, 21 per game, 24 per game and 30 per game.
Adam
Yep.
Dan
So also, I have a lot to say about McMillan. I'm not fully buying in. Right. It's more about Bryce Young. It's not. Has nothing to do with McMillan, but Bryce Young just set a franchise record yesterday.
Adam
But yeah.
Dan
All right, we're going to talk about the Eagles quickly here. And before we do that, it is time for Football with BetMGM. Register with BetMGM to get instant access to the best variety of parlay selection features. No sweat. And boost tokens, live betting options and much more. New players can receive up to 1500 dollars back in bonus bets with bonus code fantasy if they don't win their first bet. You don't want to miss out on any of the hard hitting action at BetMGM. Place your moneyline, parlay bets and more today. Bet MGM. Make it legendary. All right. I honestly am so sick and tired of talking about the stupid Eagles. This is not a Giants thing. I'm rooting for the Eagles in fantasy because I have a lot of Eagles and I expected them to have a great offense. Well, guess what? Their offense is garbage. They are 22nd in points per game and 25th in yards per game. Opportunities have been there most of the year for A.J. brown, most of the year for Saquon Barkley and they are not doing enough with their opportunities. So I can't stand it anymore. I'm. I'm done having hope. I've been the optimist on them and I'm not, I'm not, I'm not saying I'm sitting them, but I'm just done, you know, I'm done thinking, oh, it's going to turn around, they're going to be great. I can't feel that way anymore. But Dan, how do you feel?
Adam
I mean there's some hope from a schedule standpoint, right? They get the Raiders, the Bills failing defense and the commanders with three of their last four games next week and the Cowboys next week though I think the Cowboys defense will be considerably better with Logan, Wilson and Quinn and Williams and build. That defense I think is going to be a massive change. And Overshone is coming back their star linebacker who was injured. So that's three great players to add to that defense in my opinion. Maybe Wilson will not say great, but you know, the fantasy playoffs is great. It's Raiders, it's Commanders, it's Bills, they're all outdoors though. I mean just to speak to that.
Dan
Like, yeah, what happened? Truther.
Adam
Yeah, that's what I'm saying. It's like the, the hold back for me. But the worst part of this Eagles offense moving forward for a fantasy standpoint has to be Liz. The Liz Frank injury for Lane Johnson. You know, I don't know when he'll recover from that, if he'll recover from that. We don't know the grade of the injury but Liz Franks are really tough to play through and if they lose Lane Johnson on an offensive line that already wasn't blocking well this year for Barkley and really a scheme that I don't want to say feels broken, but it really does. Right? Like it just feels like nothing is easy for this offense at any time.
Dan
Yeah, great call.
Adam
It's hard to find confidence even with the schedule.
Dan
Jacob, we've talked so much about Barkley and, and Brown, but what about Hertz? Two bad games in a row for him and man, can you imagine if Barkley scores that touchdown, they don't overturn it and we don't get the tush push touchdown, then we're talking about 8ish fantasy points for Hertz but he's actually overall he's QB 4 per game and 4 point QB 6 per game and 6 point and he was always very consistent. But two bad games in a row for, for Hertz concerns a little bit.
Jacob
Yeah. Lane Johnson is the biggest one I think Dan nailed it. Really?
Adam
Yeah.
Dan
All right, listen, I don't want to be. I mean, it's every week with the Eagles, so I think we should move on and talk about some other topics. I think. I think you're pretty much going to just keep starting these guys for the most part. But if we haven't. If you haven't lowered your expectations yet, probably making a mistake, granted.
Adam
Yeah, they were playing desperations like you'll desperately start devonte Smith because what are your other options at wide receiver 3 or flex, but, like, you don't know when you're getting the points.
Dan
Okay. All right, let's get into some news and notes, but first, tell us what's coming up on beyond the Box Score after this commercial break. Sorry, we're gonna take a commercial break. Then we'll tell you what's coming up on beyond the Box Score this week. Then we'll give you all the news. A lot of news. And we'll be right back on fantasy football today, Black Friday savings are here at the Home Depot, which means it's time to add new cordless power to your collection. Right now, when you buy a select.
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Adam
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Jacob
Intelligence beyond the Box Score Tuesday we are going to give you league winners. So we're like kind of locking in like, I guess like flag plant kind of calls like we've Done some. Like who. Who might be the rookie wide receiver, league winners, whatever. This is looking at every position. We're going to do this with our waiver wire show. Dude, I feel like Kenneth Gainwell might be a league winner, weirdly. So we're going to go off the wall with a few picks there. Try to help you for anybody who still has an active trade deadline or even just players like Gainwell, you might be able to pick up. And so we'll do some kind of deep dives on player profiles and then Wednesday will be more of like a broader view of usage and all of that. How things have shifted over the past month for all these teams.
Dan
Okay, sounds good. All right, here we go. Everybody sit down, get comfortable. Here come your news and notes. Yeah, a lot of them. Michael Penix could be out for the season with a knee injury. Kirk Cousins made one start earlier this year and he scored 7.1 fantasy points against the Dolphins. Through for 173 yards. Aaron Rodgers has a fractured wrist. There's a slightly broken bone in his wrist. We haven't gotten an update on his timetable. Bryce Young played through an ankle injury. We'll see how he's doing this week. Dylan Gabriel is in the concussion protocol. Kevin Slavanski said he's going to be the starting quarterback when he's healthy, but we'll see. Shador Sanders goes out and has a big game. Maybe that changes.
Adam
Did you guys see the greatest third Dent 10 conversion in the history of the NFL last night from Shador Sanders?
Dan
What is going on there?
Adam
She loves him. I don't know what it is. It's. It's very funny to watch it on all unfold.
Dan
I'm not gonna bring it up, but it's just if you're on Twitter, if you know, you know, I guess, yeah. Jordan Love's got a sore left shoulder, but he says he can play through it. And I think the other one was the Jets. Right. So they were going to Tyrod Taylor.
Adam
Yep.
Dan
They are benching Justin Fields.
Adam
We talked about Jacobs injury.
Dan
Running backs, here we go. So the good news. Well, I guess actually for fantasy managers is not good news. But Ramon Dre Stevenson is going to practice this week. They're at the Bengals. Great matchup and good chance he's back this week. Josh Jacobs knee injury. Jalen Warren left with an injury as well, so. And Basil Tutin is also injured.
Adam
Is there an update yet on tune? Because I did see he was speaking to the media after the game, but they didn't ask him about the injury. Did you see anything, Jacob?
Jacob
I haven't seen an update. It doesn't feel like a serious injury, the way that they've treated it.
Dan
Yeah, if you're speaking to the media, that's a good thing. All right, so who's a bigger priority for you or will it just depend on the timetable? Because Josh Jacobs doesn't have a season ending injury, it doesn't seem like it's going to be a long term thing. I don't know about Jalen Warren, but Emmanuel Wilson or Kenneth Gainwell.
Jacob
I would go with. With Gainwell, we've seen him produce some pretty electric results. He's got the receiving and the schedule is really nice too, over the next month. So if he's in there for the next month, I think he's going to give you a lot of points, help give you this, push the stretch run and potentially play well. I, I feel like he's played well enough in spurts that he could work his way into a like, flex type of role potentially. Especially if they want to like keep Warren healthy for the end of the season here and then Green Bay, like, I think Amanda Wilson's a great pickup, especially like based off the usage after the Jacobs injury. But their line's really banged up and so that's kind of where I'm at with them is like I.
Adam
True.
Jacob
They've got kind of. I remember Dan and I looked at Jacobs and we're like, he's probably going to continue to be a top eight guy, but he's not somebody I would necessarily buy because of like the offensive line play and the schedule rest of season. And so if we're getting like a diminished version of that, it's great to have a, you know, potential like plug in starter, but it's not something I'm like super, super excited about.
Adam
I think that's a great point by Jacob if you think about it. Yeah, Manuel Wilson's usage was amazing. But we should be torching. I mean, he should have been torching. It's the Giants run defense. It's the worst in the NFL and not only is the worst in the NFL, it's like I saw numbers from Doug analytics today. It's like reaching historic levels of bad. You're not going to get the Giants run defense. You can get the Vikings next week. You're going to get a division match against the Lions who play. Shepard runs a defense that's very, you know, tough against the run. You got Bears, Broncos, Bears again.
Dan
Bears. So Bears are really interesting. They've been either one of the worst matchups in the. In the. They've been a bad matchup when linebacker T.J. edwards has played and they've been one of the best matchups when Edwards has been out, which has been most of the season, including recent weeks. But I think if you just look at Gainwell's next two games, let's just say Jacobs and Warren are out for two games. Gainwell's next two games are so much better on paper than Wilson's next two games. Game. Well, gets at Chicago, assuming they don't have TJ Edwards and then Buffalo, this horrible run defense. And then as you already said, it's Minnesota and Detroit. Minnesota's been really inconsistent. Detroit has a legitimately good run defense, so it seems. All right. Amari D. Mercado also left with an injury. Wide receiver Drake London has a PCL injury, so he is going to be out this week and possibly longer.
Adam
And just so people know a little context on it, this is the same injury that Brock Bowers and Ricky Pierce Law suffered earlier this year. Obviously they had different degrees of injury and they missed different amounts of time. Pierce all basically missed almost all of his season and Brock Powers tried to play, then just couldn't play and missed a bunch of games. So I'm, I'm not hopeful. It's going to be like a one week thing.
Dan
And then Calvin Ridley's out for the season. We are waiting to see if Jamar Chase is going to get suspended for spitting at Jalen Ramsey even though he said he didn't spit a Jalen Ramsey. But he did.
Adam
They have to. If they caught him on camera. They got to suspend him, right?
Dan
I think so, yeah. K Sean Booty is going to practice this week. Chimeri DK bruised his chest and that's about it. Tyler Higby, ankle. We mentioned the Eagles. So Cam Jurgens also left that game late. I don't know if he's okay. I haven't seen anything on him. But they couldn't even push, push yesterday at the end. What is happening here? And Cleveland lost their left tackle Cam Robinson in the first half. I don't know the severity there defensively, Whatever. All right, let's get into snap counts. I'm not going to go through that stuff. Snap counts and other stats. Jacob, take it away, sir. What stood out to you in week 11?
Jacob
Yeah, so I've got a bunch. So at any point, if you want to get in here and talk about something to break it up, that's great. Okay, so Bryce Young, like we've got to start there. Obviously, everybody saw the result. But just a couple things I wanted to point out was like, first we finally got the peripherals for Tedro McMillan mattering. So it's probably been Matt who was like believing in Tedro McMillan with me this year. To hear me just be like, look at this stat. He looks like a top five receiver. Look at this stat. Like, he's up here with all these elite names. This is why that stuff is pointed out is because, like, if we ever see the. The underlying passing volume there to facilitate it, then this type of underlying stuff for TMAC could extrapolate to really big numbers. And that's what we saw here. 448 passing yards. What the heck? That's obviously unprecedented for Bryce. We pointed out a couple weeks ago that he had only two games with more than 300 passing yards in his career, which was the same as Andy Dalton as a Panther. And Andy Dalton had only, you know, six starts or whatever. This was number three. And it was 448 yards. And the previous high against this Atlanta Falcons defense was 259 yards from Drake May, like, this was not only the first one over 300, it was 448 yards. And so that's insane. It was like all of the, I mean, talk about snip snap. It was like all the stuff that we've seen from Bryce Young in the past that's made us so excited for him. It was here, it was the downfield stuff. It's all this driving to the perimeter, making throws against pressure against the blitz, against this aggressive defense that plays out a single high. Like he burned them for that. And so I, I just like, couldn't believe that we got this performance. I guess I, I can, but it's just like I, I've like, walled off the belief in Bryce because I don't want to keep being disappointed in it. You know, I was just like, okay, like, enough of this. Like, Bryce is not going to work at the NFL. And then he does this and it's just like, all right, I have no idea.
Dan
Look, I think that this might be Russell Wilson in Week 2, throwing for 450 yards against the Cowboys. And two weeks later he's benched. Now, Bryce Young's not going to get benched unless he's hurt because he is playing with this ankle injury now. But career high in yards, franchise record, 10 yards per attempt. I believe his previous career high was 8.2 yards per attempt or something like that. So 10 yards per attempt after three straight games, averaging 5.5 or fewer yards per attempt. So he was almost twice as good as he has been. I feel like he had been so bad that regression was coming. And I made the comparison yesterday on the show. By the way, this is supposed to be our first, you know, buy or sell topic. We'll just get into McMillan now. But what happened with McMillan, I'm really hopeful that it can happen with Justin Jefferson because, like, J.J. mcCarthy's obviously not that good, but I don't think he's this bad. I don't think he's gonna throw for 150 yards every week. Eventually things are going to click just because of blind luck or just because of, you know, law of averages. So I, I think that's what happened with McMillan. And I know you guys are dying to get in, so last point I'll make on McMillan here. Right, so he goes from, as we said, he was wide receiver 35 per game two days ago. Now he's wide receiver 18 per game. And I, I compared him to the rookie seasons of Chris Olave and Garrett Wilson, and they were also around 13 PPR fantasy points per game, something like that. They were also around 140 targets, 82ish catches, 1150 yards, three or four touchdowns. They had very similar seasons. But week two, Garrett Wilson scored 30 points. Garrett Wilson had three massive games that year, but at the end of the year he was held back by a bad offense and finished his wide receiver 30 per game. Chris Olave had one or two huge games. So I guess I'm just not buying into this second half breakout here for McMillan because of Bryce Young. So that's, that's. And I have one last thing to say, but I'll save it to the end. Go ahead.
Adam
Should we do the good cop or bad cop first? Because I know where both Jacob and I are going to stand on this one.
Jacob
Yeah, I want to hear from Dan because, yeah, we talked about this last week and he was like, I'm just kind of ready to move McMillan down, you know, like, it's not happening. There's not even like Tess Johnson and players like that. Like, I could see how it could happen for them. I don't really see how it could happen for Tmax. So I'm moving them ahead of him rest of season, which I think is fair. And where most people had arrived. The point I gave is just like, I'm being stubborn about leaving in this high because we know he's this good. And if anything were to change, then it could end up Giving us numbers down the stretch. I couldn't have predicted this. So yeah, I am definitely curious where you're at after like finally seeing it. We at least saw it come to fruition one time.
Adam
So just to be clear, and I like when Jacob and I disagree. We agree on a lot of fantasy stuff, so it's good to find a disagreement. My assessment of Teterom McMillan for fantasy has literally nothing to do with him as an individual player. I think he is awesome at football. Now, as far as moving forward, I haven't yet studied this tape, but I saw a breakdown and that breakdown showed some really, really, really bad coverage busts by the Atlanta Falcons, who I think at this point are really struggling on the defense side of the ball. I think everything you know about the Falcons defense from a matchup standpoint in fantasy, throw it out. I think down the stretch you are looking to target them. In fantasy football, they are going to give a lot of points in the passing game, especially now that Cousins is on the field and they're going to be punting a lot. With that said, I think the matchup played a big role in this because from my assessment of the Panthers and why I've been so worried about McMillan, it has almost everything to do with their past protection and not as much to do with Bryce. But if you're seeing, if you're playing a team like Jacob just outlined, playing a lot of single high and pressuring a lot because they're playing a lot of single high, that gives Bryce Young an advantage because he can catch the snap and he can identify the space that they're going to going to be affording him down the field and throw, that was what he was best at Alabama, anticipating space and throwing into space. But when you're facing a team that's going to only rush 4 and drop 7 into coverage, which is what most teams have done against Bryce Young, that offensive line cannot pass protect against even a four man rush. So you're wasting guys, in my opinion by blitzing him because you could be sending him in coverage. And when that's the case, that's why you saw the 5.5 yards per attempt and all those check downs that we that you mentioned, Adam. And I think if I'm not mistaken, this is only the second time Bryce Young has eclipsed 200 passing yards this week, this year. Is that right, Adam?
Dan
Yeah.
Adam
Is there any way you can look that up?
Dan
Almost positive you're right. Yeah.
Adam
So this is only the second game of two, let alone 300 or whatever. It May be. So I look forward at the schedule. We've got 49ers in San Fran. Maybe that's going to be okay. I don't know. Rams is going to be a disaster game for him, in my opinion in Carolina. Saints should be good. Bucks defense is failing. But it's a very interesting bag because then you got Seahawks in the final week of the season in the fantasy championship for McMillan. I don't really think he'll produce against the Rams or Seahawks. Maybe he can find some way against these other teams, but I don't know. It's not something I can buy right now.
Dan
Okay, I have one. I'm going to spin it. Positive, right? Because Bryce Young has had, I believe, three games with more than 30 pass attempts. And that's obviously a problem. They are six and five. They want to run the ball as much as possible. But his three games were two losses and this overtime win. And when you look at who they've beaten and when you like they've had, you know, they beat the teams like that they're kind of supposed to beat. But look at who's left on their schedule. You just said that the teams. But like they're gonna. I think they're going to be trailing in a lot of these games. San Francisco, the Rams, the Buccaneers. So you might get 35ish. I mean, that's a lot because he's averaging about 30 pass attempts per game. If you can get 35 a game and you've got a huge target share on a weekly basis, pretty much for Tetterola McMillan. Okay. And then we could be talking about literally nine to ten targets game. He's had a lot of games with eight or nine targets where he's been crap. But every time he's had 10 or more. Three times he's had a big game. So that's the positive. The positive is I don't think they're going to be just be able to win games with low scoring games and run the ball. The negative is he's still Bryce Young and you know, this is the best game that he's ever had. All right, but you can't sit here and say that Tedro McMillan doesn't have big weekly upside because we just saw it.
Adam
Yeah, that's fair. He's still an amazing player.
Dan
So.
Jacob
So we're feeling better about it, but not like overreacting. Yeah, this is some, you know, huge clue that we're in for league winning season. I think we're all kind of in the same place here.
Dan
Yeah, I'D say so. Okay. Anything. All right. That was, that was stat number one.
Jacob
That was just the first one.
Dan
Yeah.
Jacob
Yeah. So Sean Tucker, we know that he can rumble and we saw this is like the second time in his career where he's gotten Runway to do this and it's looked really good. The matchup was definitely great, but also I think he played phenomenal and we saw them go to him more, which is something that's been. It's a trend that's been developing over the past three weeks. In the second half of this game, 55 snap rate for Tucker, only one second half touch for Rashad White. Tucker had 12 touches and 21 PPR points in the second half. So that's all very interesting to me. We'll see what happens when Bucky gets back. But they seem to be going away from White, which is interesting. I want to talk about Darnold. I want to talk about the Seahawks. Of course, I'm obsessed with them. The chat knows this. So we're going to spend a little bit of time here because this was a really interesting matchup. So first quarterback with four interceptions this year is Sam Darnold, who was previously one of the, you know, best MVP odd quarterbacks in the league. He was the first quarterback since 2016 with four or more interceptions and a drop back success rate above 50%. So he actually like, played all right. They got to the red zone a lot. This is a rare game to, to turn the ball over but not necessarily be like completely melting down. The other note on Darnold that I had was that he was. This is per fantasy points data. They chart when a quarterback was moved off of the apex of their drop back. That happened to Darnold 10 times, which I want to go back and watch the film because he actually didn't have a super high pressure rate. So I wonder if some of this was his own doing or by design. But in entering this game, his number was 3.9 per game and it was 10 times, which is by far the highest number for him this year in a game. Only Stafford had a lower rate per game coming into week 11. So that's weird. It could be something about the defensive play calling that was flushing him out. Maybe more defenses will do that. I think it's just something to notice because nobody's really been able to stop this offense lately. So I want to make note of anything here along the way and see how this develops.
Dan
Well, you've been talking about how you felt like teams might change the way they play Seattle Right. And I was kind of watching the game and you know, I was watching red zone. So they're going back and forth. But Greg Olson, who I think, by the way, I would love to see the Giants hire him as their next head coach because he's freaking genius. But Greg Olson was talking about this exact thing and I wanted to see maybe if there's some data. I was looking at, for example, did the Rams play fewer eight man fronts than teams usually do? But he was saying teams always want to stop the run, but they really, it's just pride, he thinks, just, just, you know, you're not tough if you don't stop the run or something, but you should be trying to stop the pass. And I think what he was saying was maybe that the Rams were actually doing that. They were trying to take away the pass and let the Seahawks run a little bit, which is something that Jacob has been talking about. He's wondering if teams are going to start pivoting to that. When I heard Greg also talking about that, I wasn't 100 sure what he said because you know, they're going in and out of the game. But I was like, whoa. I think, I think Jacob was onto something here. So it's worth looking into.
Jacob
And we did see a bunch of running in this game. On that note, I've got a few more passing notes, but I just want to. Let's flip over to Kenneth Walker here. Out snap Zach Charbonnet in three of three games since the week eight by before the weekday by he was over five in healthy Charbonnet games in terms of out snapping him. So it seems like we're seeing a flipping here inside the five yard line over the past month. 67 snap rate for Kenneth Walker. He has four or five running back rushes from inside the five over the past month. We finally saw him score on one this week. Before that, before the bye week, the rate was 18 snap rate for Ken Walker and 3 of 12 running back rushes from inside the five. So definitely that's meaningful. It's to me feels like Charbonnet is basically become just a, a lottery stash type of player. Like if, if Walker gets hurt, he would be good. But even if Walker got hurt, I think they like the Holani guy and he would, I think he would be splitting with Charbonnet.
Dan
So I just have, I just have this one issue with, with the stat you gave about the five yard line because I had been talking about this over the previous two games, weeks nine and ten. I believe Ken Walker had three carries from the three yard line, which was encouraging. But then when they got down to the one yard line, it was Charbonnet. Now yesterday they were at the one and it was Walker and he got the touchdown. But they were in hurry up. They kept all their personnel on the field. So I still feel like if they. If it's not hurry up and it's first and goal from the one yard line, I still feel like it's Charbonne. But maybe not.
Jacob
Maybe not. It might be.
Dan
Yeah, maybe not. It's so funny how much I'm tracking this. I'm like watching it religiously because it's a huge deal. It's a huge deal.
Adam
It is for fantasy.
Dan
Yeah.
Adam
I'm not ready to buy into it just yet. With Walker, though, we'll see. Because I think those stats are definitely very promising. He's on the up for me. I'm keeping an eye on him.
Jacob
Yeah. As for the passing game, this was JSN's sixth straight game with 20 or more PPR points. But it was the first game all year that he did not have a yard per run rate above 3, which is absurd consistency to sell. Yeah. To hit that rate every single game. Also the first game all year that he did not have multiple catches of 15 yards, which is just crazy. Overrated. But yeah, still really good game. 9 of 12 in terms of receptions on targets for over 100 yards. So, like, even in the worst outcome here for Seattle is still a really, really good game. Insane.
Dan
All right, we gotta take a break. We'll come back with some more snap counts and things of that nature. I'll tell you about Ricky Piersol, RJ Harvey's role. Pukinakua. Weird thing on him. We'll be right back on fantasy football.
Adam
A massage chair might seem a bit extravagant, especially these days. Eight different settings, adjustable intensity. Plus it's heated and it just feels so good. Yes, a massage chair might seem a bit extravagant, but when it can come with a car, suddenly it seems quite practical. The Volkswagen Tiguan, packed with premium features like available massaging front seats, it only feels extravagant.
Dan
What's up? It's Draymond Green. I'm back for my 14th NBA season and my podcast, the Draymond Green show is back too. This season, I'm breaking down games, reacting to the biggest NBA stories and sitting down with teammates, rivals and culture shapers.
Adam
And trust me, I'm not holding back on the court or on the mic.
Dan
Two new episodes every week. New segments, big conversations, real basketball talk for the real hoop heads Listen to and follow the Draymond Green show wherever.
Jacob
You get your podcast.
Dan
We're back. We're better.
Adam
Let's get it. This episode is presented by State Farm.
Dan
Having insurance isn't the same as having State Farm. It's like needing the protection of an offensive guard on the football field, but getting an elementary school crossing guard.
Adam
Sure, they're both guards, but you can.
Dan
Only trust one to keep your quarterback safe when the game is on the left line. So don't settle for just any insurance when there's State Farm. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there. Rob in the chat says, hey Dan, I used to hate facial hair, but then it grew on me.
Jacob
Good dad joke for Dan.
Dan
It's really good. All right. What else, Jacob?
Adam
Really good. Yeah, so I'm a big Rob, so sure, I'll call it really good.
Jacob
I'm curious to hear your Puka note because I have a devonte Adams note and we'll stay in this game there. And then I've got some Bears notes and some Arizona Cardinals notes before we get into our topics.
Adam
Cardinals are so fun.
Dan
It's just two straight games since the injury. Pukas played about 2/3 of this. Oh no, this week it was 2/3 of the snap. The week before it was 52% of the snap snaps. Week 10 was a little bit of a of a blowout, but yeah, he's only had three games this season where he's played more than 69% of the snaps. Puka Nakua. That's insane. Some of that's been. He's left, I think two games early with injury, but I don't know if it matters. But Puka's not playing a full snapshare.
Jacob
Yeah, they've been incorporating way more of this three tight end on the field type stuff. And especially in games like this where they were leading the whole time. They do that a lot. And Puka's coming off the field for those. I don't know if it matters that much either, but it is worth keeping an eye on. Yeah, so devonte Adams had won the classic one, one, one here. One catch, one yard, one touchdown. This was the second fewest in a game in a healthy game in his career, his least since his rookie season. His yard per hour run rate is down to 1.84, which is the lowest it's been since 2017. Of course, like after a player has one yard, their yard per hour run rate is going to be like the lowest, you know, but still, like, it's not been super efficient for him. All year he's been kind of dependent on the touchdowns, but we know that there's a good chance touchdowns will be there on any given week. I guess I'm just wondering if you guys are worried @ all about Devonte, if we're seeing any sort of decline. I don't like the fantasy points data is charting in terms of separation would say like hell no. He's still crushing out there. But he has had like some weird drops that seem uncharacteristic and to me like that sometimes is one of the first things that goes with some of these guys as they get older is they start doing stuff like that that doesn't really make sense. Like we've seen it a lot with Kelsey this year with drops. I'm excited to talk about Kelsey later, Dan, of course. But any thoughts on devonte Adams?
Adam
Well, I mean my first thought is I pulled you both and you both said keep Adams over Nico Collins and trade away Nico and not Adam. So this is not great to hear right now. But as far as, as far as my concern goes, I think my only concern with Adams is the injury situation that he's dealing with oblique and I feel like he's never not really fully recovered from the injuries he had earlier in the year. But his role in the offense is great. His role in the red zone is great. It just kind of comes down to us getting the game script we need from the Rams which I don't know when we're going to get because their defense is so good. But I think he's a fine solid like probably in that like especially given how bad wide receivers have been this year for fantasy. I'd still put him borderline wide receiver one.
Dan
Yeah, I take him over Ted roll McMillan.
Adam
Like he reminds me of like the Josh Jacobs of receivers. Almost like you know, like he's not going to get that many yards and explosive plays but he is going to catch a touchdown a lot.
Jacob
Yes.
Dan
Don't know why he's not getting a lot of yards. It's been, it really has been pretty much all year and it's weird. So I'm not, I think I'm just going to keep starting. I am going to just keep starting devonte Adams. But it's worth bringing up. It was a very weird game. Eight targets, one catch, one yard, one touchdown.
Adam
Yeah.
Dan
And, and like Jacob said it on characteristics of drop or two he's 32 and there were three 32 year old wide receivers this year or four.
Adam
Or.
Dan
Maybe Keenan Allen might be 33. So there's there was Tyreek Hill who's after the season, Cooper cup has been horrible, Keenan Allen who's fading, and devonte Adams who hopefully is not fading.
Adam
Yeah.
Dan
All right. What else? Jacob?
Jacob
I did just check and the Rams did use like way less base defense against the Seahawks than any other team. The Texans are the only d' Amico Ryan, so that's the only other team that's come close to matching their rate. So that's interesting to me and we'll keep an eye on that going forward. So the Bears I watched every route this morning and I thought Luther Burden looked great and that is relevant because Zaki has barely played in this game and it wasn't an injury or anything. So I think, I think we've seen Burden flip him. He basically played Zacchaeus's role. It was 41 in the slot, 6161 route rate overall with an 18 target share. I guess I'm not quite at. Let's go. It hasn't been that exciting of a role for Zacchaeus. Like it hasn't really amounted to much. Burden looks way better so like maybe it will amount to something for him. But their schedule is pretty tough. I think they'll lean on the ground game as much as they can over the next month or so. So this is interesting. Like he was used in pre snap motion six times. That's typically Zeke's role. Love, Loveland and Burden each had six routes as the pre snap motion player. No other Bear had more than two. So I think they, Ben Johnson is giving him opportunities once to get the ball into the rookie's hands. But just keep in mind that it's the, it's not a great passing game right now for fantasy.
Dan
You know, they're actually 15th the Bears in gross passing yards per game. So it's not bad. Gross passing yards being passing yards just without taking away any yards for sacks. Sometimes, you know, if you look up who's the leader in passing, which team leads in passing guards, they take sacks away, but this is just, just not, not accounting for that. 238 passing yards per game. Not too bad. They're, they're two yards behind Cincinnati. Now Cincinnati's had different quarterbacks, whatever. They're five yards behind Green Bay. They're ahead of Tampa Bay. Caleb Williams is throwing for more yards per game than Baker Mayfield. Yeah, about that one yard.
Adam
I mean there's been a lot of question marks on Tampa's pass game. I want to get into that this week with you, Jacob.
Jacob
Yeah, I've got A really bad Baker stat.
Adam
Yeah, things. Are things not trending in the right direction there at all.
Jacob
All right, let me wrap up here with some Arizona Cardinal stuff for you guys. So Michael Wilson, excellent call by Adam Azer.
Dan
I gotta say, I really was. I had him maybe a wide receiver. 3. I was not.
Adam
I thought, no one's gonna remember.
Dan
No, I appreciate it, but he did the same thing, but I wish I had actually been more in on it, but go ahead.
Adam
So you said, basically what you're saying is the same exact scenario unfolded with you and Heath, and Heath took all the credit for it, but you were being hu and didn't take the credit for it.
Dan
No, he gave me all the credit, but he. I don't think he needed to. Just like Jacob. But I appreciate. I appreciate the teamwork here.
Adam
I was trying to stir the pot a little bit. So.
Jacob
Michael Wilson, 185 receiving yards on 15 receptions, which is the fifth most receiving yards by an Arizona Cardinal wide receiver dating back to 2000. That's more than Larry Fitzgerald's career high. And if I remember correctly, this is exactly what Adam Azer predicted would happen this week. Um, so that's really impressive.
Dan
You did remember that correctly. Yes.
Jacob
Yeah. So that's. I mean, and through three quarters, he had 154 yards, which is like more than any Marvin Harrison Jr. Game. MHJ has only been over 100 twice. So the Jacoby Brissette era has been extremely fun. More completions than any quarterback in any game in NFL history is what Jacoby Brissette just gave us. You look at this passing chart, it's just all over the field attacking. Like the. The Michael Wilson chart is really cool too. Like, often you'll see the receivers kind of like concentrated in one area of the field, but he was just winning all over the place. And I think you watched some of his film, right, Dan? Like, he's pretty good. I remember I watched all of the Arizona receiver like, plays like this past off season to dig into mhj, and I was like, if I didn't know who MSJ was, I would just be like, wow, the Cardinals have two beasts at receiver. They have two really big, strong, talented guys out there. But the quarterback play sucks.
Adam
Michael Wilson, Stanford tape still think is one of like the most underrated tapes of any wide receiver to enter the draft in the last five years. He was hurt a lot at Stanford and people felt, I think NFL evaluators felt like the style he runs route with. He's a really violent route runner. Like if you watch him jig, I'm so sure you notice watching this tape, like, like hard cuts and like just hard strides. And this is going to sound weird, but it really is a violent way of route running. But he's really good like this. This game was phenomenal. First of all, the vertical routes, he sells really well. And then like late in the game, like, he's selling verts the whole game. And then you'll see him just run a deep curl where like the DB is like falling over, almost like breaking his ankles trying to cover ground on a vertical route that Wilson sells really well. Then he's winning on in breakers too, because he understands space so well. And like I said, he's a violent cutter when it comes to creating separation. I think Michaelson's a really, really good receiver. Like, the problem for a fantasy standpoint is so much of this came and I don't want to call it garbage time, but like, when the Cardinals were trailing by an absurd amount, I told Adam before the show Jacob, he only had three targets until 55 seconds left in the second quarter. Michael Wilson. So that's like, not great, I don't think, from that standpoint. And so much of it was done in garbage time. But he's a really good player and I'm excited about him just because he's finally getting a chance to prove it and get actual targets. And this offense is so much better with Jacoby Brissette than Kyler Murray. Like, they actually can use the middle of the field. And it's. It's insane to say, but, like, this is a really bad sign for Kyler's future. I. I can't imagine any team is going to be giving him much of a chance after this.
Dan
Yeah, I'm not quite as optimistic just because I really feel like when Marvin Harrison gets back, Michael Wilson's going to be a non factor and he could be back this upcoming week. Michael or Marvin Harrison Jr. Left the Colts game in Week 7, Week 6 with a concussion pretty early. Zay Jones in that game had five catches for 79 yards on eight targets. Jones is out for the year. This is exactly why I sort of liked Michael Wilson this week. You had 57 pass attempts. You had an incredible game strip where they're trailing immediately.
Adam
Right.
Dan
You know, obviously no one's expecting Michael Wilson to do what he did. How much do you spend on fab? How much are you getting from it? I think just the question is, what is he if when Marvin Harrison Jr. Is back? And because obviously Trey McBride isn't going anywhere. I think we're talking about a non rostered player in 12 team.
Adam
Really?
Dan
I think we're going back to exactly what. I mean, it's hard to say that, but yeah, that's kind of how I feel. I mean, I feel like he's just going to be third fiddle on this team and he's been scoring seven, eight fantasy points. It might be that again.
Adam
Yeah, that's what. And I think that's probably right when Harrison gets back, maybe it's looking closer to that seven or eight fantasy points because let's be clear, like he was the design first retard re. First read target in a lot of the. On a lot of these plays. That'll just be Harrison again when he's back. So that's fair.
Dan
It could be wrong. You know, obviously you have a performance like this just reminds me that. Oh, I always forget who it was. It was a Thursday night game was the 49ers. I had like 200 yards. What was his name?
Adam
It was a few years ago for the Niners.
Dan
Yeah.
Adam
Oh, here. I was gonna say Kendrick Bourne earlier this year, but you're talking about years ago. I wish I could pick this out. I'd be so happy if I got this right. 49ers a few years ago went off for 240.
Dan
Richie James at 100.
Adam
James. Former Giant Richie James. Actually former Giant Richie James and Chief.
Jacob
That's the.
Dan
That's the game. Whenever I want to discredit someone, I always bring up the Richie James.
Adam
That's not fair to Richie James, is it?
Dan
No, it isn't. But. But it does happen sometimes. All right, look, we'll see. He's worth adding for sure. Michael Wilson is rostered, I think about 25 elite 27 of leagues. 15 started. Unbelievable game comparison out. Oh, yeah.
Jacob
The comparison I would make is like, maybe this is kind of like a Juwan Jennings thing where he like kind of came out of nowhere last year. But like anytime I've watched Michael Wilson, like, he's a pretty good player. He's a really physical player. And then maybe we could get some random games where if MHJ isn't healthy or whatever, they do kind of lean on him more than we've seen. And so you kind of throw out all the stuff that we think we know about him, but it's. You're probably right. It's unlikely that he's going to matter. If I had to guess.
Dan
Okay, Rico Dowdle, Chase Brown, they both played 82% of the snaps. Woody mark 66 of the snaps. Ricky Pearsall ran most of the routes, 75 of the snaps. But among 86 wide receivers who ran 15 or more routes in Week 11, Ricky Piersol was 14th in average route depth. So I watched all of his routes. I feel like he's a decoy. I feel like here's the clear, he's the clear out guy most of the time. So he had three targets in this game. There probably will be some, some pop games for Ricky Piersol. He's good and Purdy's good and you know, but I don't, I think until he starts getting more layups, it's going to be tough to trust him. R.J. harvey played 61% of the snaps. We're going to talk more about him later. When you consider that McLaughlin and Bidet each played only 13% of the snaps, that's pretty good. Josh Allen had three passing and three rushing touchdowns. According to ESPN, that has been done three times in NFL history. Three passing, three rushing touchdowns. Josh Allen's done it twice. Otto Graham has done it the other time. And a guy that I'm pretty much done with is David Najoku. He once again had a route participation rate under 60%. So it's not like he's completely phased out. But in that offense, if you're running 55% of the routes and you're the number two tight end, it's just probably want to look for better options. All right, buy or sell time. We were going to Talk about Tele McMillan if you missed it. We did that at about the 30 minute mark. Something like. No, the 22 minute. And we took it till about the 30 minute mark. It was very good stuff. So let's go to our second buy or sell, which is Travis Kelsey from Slum Beard Millionaire, which is very funny. Buy or sell. We should sell high on Travis kelsey coming off nine catches, 91 yards and a touchdown at Denver.
Jacob
Jacob, what's, what's the idea exactly? Like what, what does this mean in, in practice? Like, what are you actually getting for Kelsey? I'm curious. Yeah, because like I could see it, I, I could get down with that potentially. But it needs to be something meaningful, not just like kind of selling to sell. Because I do think that there's a chance that he's going to keep being involved. I said to Dan on beyond the box score last week that it felt like they were just kind of like forcing him the ball to try to get him going to try to like feel, get the vibes up a little bit before this, but this was coming out of the buy and it felt like in this game they were trying to get other things working and they weren't working. And then Kelsey was who ended up just being open the most. And that's who Mahomes ended up going to more in the second half. He ended the game with a 29 first read target rate. He forced three missed tackles in this game. I thought he looked really good in the second half and it was more.
Adam
Than he forced all last season.
Jacob
Yeah, just about. And that was like the only thing that was working. Like, I went back and watched all the routes this morning again because, like, obviously I've got some bias as I'm watching the live broadcast and I get a little disappointed. But like, there was nothing for worthy man. He got blanketed. It's obviously a brutal matchup, but like, I didn't see him win a single man coverage rep. And there's a lot of them against the Broncos. And then Rice. I think Rice is going to be able to do his thing. He's still finding his footing. He had a couple bad drops in this game and he. He's doing his thing against zone coverage and everything. I think he's going to be an important part. So that's why I was like, what are you gonna. I don't want to. I don't want to get carried away with Kelsey. It looks good, but I do think ultimately, like, Rice's presence as the zone coverage guy is going to cap his upside and Rice is probably only going to continue to get more and more comfortable and integrated into the offense.
Dan
I just want to take a look here. Oh, sorry.
Adam
No, go ahead. Let's take a look here.
Dan
Claire, if you wouldn't mind. Yeah, thank you. This is Travis Kelsey's player page on True Media. I'm gonna zoom in. Sorry, guys, but I just want you to look at some of the. Where's the zoom? Here we go. Let's take a look at yards per route. Run up to up to 1.89. And is that. Is that prime Kelsey? No, but that's second best among tight ends. 9.6 yards per target. That's coming close to his career high, which is in his rookie or his second season. He misses rookie season.
Adam
Yak.
Dan
Where's the Yak? The Yak is extremely encouraging. Here it is. 6.8. It was 3.8 last year. 6.8. Highest yak since 2006. 16. So at least he's being really. He's being pretty efficient. Really efficient this year. And he actually has a higher target share with Rishi rice in the four Rashi rice games. It's about 21. Before that it was about 20%. So it's about the same. But he hasn't lost target share and. And he's having an efficient season. So second best yards per route run at the position better than Trey McBride. I think only Tyler Warren, if I remember correct correctly, was better.
Adam
Wow.
Dan
So sell high. I mean, you could always sell high with a guy coming off a huge game, but I think I'm not selling. I'd probably just ride it out.
Adam
Yeah, I don't think he's a cell player. I think Jacob said it best. What are you getting for him at this point especially? I mean, maybe if you're a situation where you have two tight ends and you want it, you want to. You want to play your other. Say you have like Warren and Kelsey, which is definitely doable in drafts. Maybe you sell him. If you can get back a player, you can start every week. I just don't know if that's. That's possible. My real question for Jacob was like, is like, is the Chief's offense stale at this point? Schematically speaking? Yeah, I just. I mean these numbers with Mahomes these last two seasons or these last three seasons now have just been so different than anything we'd seen. And maybe it's just as simple as. Well, back in. Early in his career, he had Tyree kill or back early in his career, teams didn't play as much. They played more single high against him maybe, but I don't know. I. I watched this game and I feel like even what they do with Rice doesn't impress me. Like, Rice is a player who in his rookie season was winning on double moves on the outside, was winning vertically, like, but it's just like they don't use him in that way at all. I know you said Worthy wasn't beating man today. I feel like the best player that I've seen on a snap for snap basis doesn't even play for the Chiefs and Taekwond, quite honestly. No, it's not a joke. Like every single time he gets an opportunity, he makes a play. So I just don't really understand what they're doing offensively. It just seems like they've been figured out by NFL defenses to some extent at least.
Jacob
Yeah, I was just laughing because me and my friends say the same thing about Taekwondo.
Adam
Yeah, he's awesome. I don't really know why he doesn't play.
Jacob
A note on the Chiefs is that, like, these two defenses that they've struggled against these past two weeks know them very, very well. You know, the Bills and the Broncos. But, like, if you look at the defensive coordinators, they still have to face. They've got a matchup against Dallas that looks great. They've got Tennessee, but Denver is week 17. And then they also have Jesse. Jesse Minter in the chargers in week 15. They have D' Amico Ryan's and the Texans in week 14. They have Luanna Rumo and the Colts in week 12. So, like, those are deep defensive coordinates that I hold a lot of respect for and I think are going to study the film from these past two games and continue to give Mahomes problems, if I had to guess, headaches at least.
Dan
Well, yeah, before these two games, we were talking about this amazing season that Patrick Mahomes is having and all that. And yeah, he was. He was on fire. But matchups have been tough. I brought it up on Wednesday's show as a sell high because going into this past week, he had Denver twice, he had Houston, he had the Chargers. And that is tough. And he can make it work if he connects on the deep balls. But how many deep balls is he going to miss on this year? He's so inaccurate on those throws. He missed on two in this game. It could have changed the game. He's just not good at it. You've been pointing this out for a while, guys. He's. He's struggling on these deep balls even when he's cleanly protected. Whatever. He's just missing.
Jacob
Yeah, I've got a cell idea for you. You might be able to flip Travis Kelsey for Ronda Gadsden. If a Gadsden person is kind of panicking. Gadsden's on the buy right now.
Adam
Gadson over Kelsey.
Jacob
Rest of. Yes.
Dan
Yeah, I'm. I'm really nervous about the Chargers.
Adam
Yeah, me too.
Dan
Yeah, I. I don't know. I mean, really? Wow. Over Kelsey.
Jacob
Yeah.
Adam
Okay.
Jacob
I could be wrong for sure, but yeah, I think there's way more upside with Gads than. And we'll. We'll see on Kelsey, but I. I think that we could get plenty of five for 40 games.
Adam
Yeah, I just think Chargers o line looks so bad this week.
Dan
All right, let's go to Black Rose here. Buy or sell? Nico Collins is a sell because Davis Mills is feeding him more than Stroud ever will. Dan, how do you feel about that as you see the guy who foolishly traded away Nico Collins?
Adam
So sad about that. I literally did and then Drake London got hurt and now I have no receiver. It's like Michael Wilson. Thankfully I picked up, but I don't feel good about. But my problems aside, as Jacob outlined here with the statistics that he's put up, it's only been two games where the Texans have thrown for over 200 air yards. And both of those were Davis Mills game.
Jacob
200 catchable air yards.
Adam
Sorry, Catchable air yards. There we go. That's why, why we always need Jacob here, the smartest guy we've got. And that's not a good sign. Like, is it a sign that the Texans offense is evolving and their offense line is playing better? Hopefully, maybe. I don't know. Or is it a sign that CG Stroud was playing bad football this year? Legitimately bad football this year. I tend to lean more toward that. As far as like Nico with Stroud coming back, I still want to believe in him. He looked awesome. I watched every single Nico rep before the show because I saw this question. He looked awesome this week. Explosive getting in and out of his cuts. Yeah, I thought he did Okay.
Dan
I, I agree with this. Explosive getting in out of his cuts. But where are the wow plays?
Adam
There's no wow plays.
Dan
I know that's.
Adam
What are you expecting, wow plays?
Dan
Because that's Nico Collins. Nico Collins.
Adam
Was playing elite level football. No, CJ Stroud hasn't played elite level football.
Dan
But last year too. Last year too, Nico Collins was. Was elite making explosive plays. This is. He's. He feels like a slightly. He feels like a better version of A.J. brown to me. It's like you get these slants and.
Adam
Yeah, it's a lot of slants. It's a lot of deep or intermediate. I shouldn't even call them deep. Like short, intermediate curls, slants in breakers that he's just kind of separating on. But I feel like that's the Texans offense now. Like back in the past, they had Bobby Slowik, they went under center, they ran play action with 6, 5, 7 step drops. Hit your back foot and rip something into space to Nico. Now it's like, like our O line's so bad we have to just run quick game the whole time. And so that's why we're seeing so many short targets for Nico. I don't think he's going to be some star with if Mills played. But like these types of games where he's getting an insane amount of targets. This one, not as much as last week and you know, nine for 90 and a touchdown. It seems doable with Mills the question is, will it be doable with Stroud?
Jacob
I feel like it's kind of like Drake London's role if we have just like London with Kirk Cousins or whatever.
Adam
Yeah, right.
Dan
I mean I've watched every drop back of Davis Mills the last two weeks and I don't really think there's anything that he's doing that C.J. stroud can't. But I do think he played like not even really well two weeks ago against Jacksonville. But I thought he actually played pretty well in this game, you know, just very safe. I don't remember any turnover worthy plays off the top of my head, but there were 55 drop backs or something like that. He's just throwing. You gave that air yard stat. He's thrown the ball so much. All right, so here's, here's Nico Collins in two games against the Jaguars and the Titans with Stroud and with Mills. Because I think the matchups are very important here. Mills gave him a 30 target share.
Jacob
C.J.
Dan
Stroud 26 and a half point. 26 and a half percent target share. But the yards per outrun, the yards per target, the adot, they were actually better with CJ Stroud. When you look at just overall, Nico Collins with Stroud and Mills, it looks like he's been so much better with Mills than he has with Stroud. Here's our second graphic. 2.53 yards per outrun with Mills, 1.84 with Stroud. But then you just look at the games that they played. He played the Jaguars, one of the worst pass even I know, don't tell that to the Chargers, but one of the worst past defenses right now. And the Titans who also stink. And oddly enough he also faced those two opponents, two opponents with Stroud. So I think that he's really benefited from these matchups the last two weeks. And Davis Mills has benefited from it. Benefited from it as well. I guess this is my long winded way of saying I don't think that, that Mills is better for Stroud. The target share has been higher, so that might be the case. But I don't think the efficiency would necessarily be better with Mills than it would be with Stroud.
Adam
Yeah, I mean it depends, like what kind of version of Shroud are we getting? Are we getting the Shroud from this year? He really, it wasn't all just o line. He was missing throws that he didn't miss in past seasons. I, I just want to see what we get with Shroud when he comes back. I'm not sold that it's going to be great.
Dan
Strap. It could be. It could be another week because he's got to clear the concussion protocol.
Adam
Oh, yeah, exactly. I don't think he's playing this week because it's Thursday night game.
Dan
Yeah, it's against the Bills. All right. Yeah, I. I think. I think I'm. I'm making the case without saying it for selling high on Nico Collins. If you can still make trades. Yeah, but I. I don't know. He's still Nico Collins. He's still one of my favorite players. What do you guys think?
Jacob
I think Mills has done a good job getting the ball out quick, which is something they wanted Stroud to do. His time to throw is 2.1 seconds this week, which is extremely low. So at first I noticed that he had a low pressure rate this week and I was like, oh, nice. Maybe Houston's line is playing better. I know some people are optimistic about Ursary, the rookie at left tackle, but then I saw his time to pressure was 2.08 seconds, which is extremely fast. So when they were getting pressure, it was getting there very fast and I think so, yeah, that's mostly just like Mac Jones kind of where it's like just getting the ball out extremely quick is helping alleviate pressure. I. This might just be cope because I. I believe in Stroud and I want this to come together at the end for Nico and everything. I feel like that stat I gave about catch what areas might be sort of influenced by Nico playing better and getting these freaking rookies on the field finally, because we know Jaylen Noel can get open and Higgins has played better too. And so it's like easier to produce catchable targets and catchable air yards when you're open, when your receivers are getting open, which we aren't getting so much with Xavier Hutchinson and some of the guys that they've been trotting out there this season. So hopefully it can all come together. That's that. I don't know. I. I think it makes some sense to sell Nico if you can, if you feel good about the offer, which Dan just did. And I think I wouldn't freak out about where we're at after this week with the Devonte Adams stuff. I think that still makes some sense. I think honestly it probably is cope to like think that, oh, it's all just going to come together because we know, yeah, it can fall apart really quick with this offensive line.
Dan
Yeah, we're more or less out of our buy or sell topics, but we were going to spend some time on The Bucks offense, the packers offense. We talked about Emmanuel Wilson and the Denver and, and Kansas City. I think we got into the Chiefs offense. But Jacob, what. What else is on your mind for this show?
Jacob
I thought RJ Harvey looked okay, you know, like looked pretty good. There just was not much room to run at all. I thought the Chiefs defense played pretty well in this game, especially against the run. I think they didn't really respect Bo Nicks very much. And we're kind of like, you, let's see you beat us. So if you watch the Harvey cut up on my, on my Twitter profile, you're going to see like not very much room for him to do anything. So they've got the buy this week. They've got some tough matchups going forward, but I was mostly encouraged by the usage. It's a weird case of like the overall usage numbers don't look super exciting. You know, he's not pushing up to that like 60, 70 snap rate or anything like that. Julian McLaughlin was getting in to get a goal line touchdown, but early on it was like they were treating him as the starter. And you never know with Peyton. He just has shenanigans that he pulls out and that might just happen again. That might continue to just be really annoying. But I did like that like he was a starter and it felt like they're building things around him. And with Dobbins out for the foreseeable future, I wonder if coming out of the buy, there's more and more built around him and emphasizing his skill set. So I'm cautiously optimistic about him. And then depending on the news with Bashaw Toon, I thought he looked freaking great this week. He was, he was like kind of taking it over. Etien, I think is still gonna evolve because he's played really well this year. He's important to the team. But. But ET got the start, started the second drive as well. The third drive Tutin started, he got he mixed in on both the first and second drives. And at the time of his injury, he had handled 15 of the past 25 running back rushes, including like a lot of the short yardage stuff. And he was like at that moment in time, like gashing them and getting them down into the red zone is what was happening like right when he got hurt. So we'll see. But like that was exciting. Like it looked like he like everything that we've seen from the skill set standpoint in terms of him being able to navigate traffic and create when there's not much there was showing up and there Were a few plays. If you go watch the cut up where it's like, oh, that could have been a big play. That was close. You know, it's like the Travyon Henderson thing. People were like crapping on Travyon Henderson and saying that his efficiency sucks and he sucks and stuff like that. Based off of like a 30 or 40 carry sample size over the first couple of months. And it's like, that's not enough data. And he doesn't have any long runs because, like, he hasn't been able to find any rhythm. This is just a very small sample size. That's kind of where I'm at with with tune is like he's been really good at creating positive gains. And if he starts to get these long runs, which we know is in his wheelhouse, that's like what everybody was so excited about originally when he was drafted is his speed. Then all of a sudden he looks like one of the most efficient rushers, which is where Trayvon Henderson has arrived.
Adam
Yeah.
Dan
All right, well, you apparently predicted a breakout game for him in week 11.
Jacob
No, not at all. No.
Dan
All right.
Jacob
I just love him and I'm excited to see like that he's getting an opportunity because I think he could help their offense. They need it, like if they can. If they can get him and then get Britain strange going. They have hope. The Chargers were a mess this week, but like the Jags have looked like a mess a lot this year before this game. And I think it's because they don't have success rate players really. They have a lot of kind of like big play players. And Trevor can be erratic, but it's like if they get both of those guys back, I think that Liam Cohen can keep this offense on track.
Dan
All right, well, it's nice to see Dan not in a hoodie. It's good. Get the heat on over this. I hate this weather. This weather stinks.
Adam
This weather's so bad. I woke up today with a massive sore throat and I'm just like, why?
Jacob
You're so.
Adam
Why do I have time?
Dan
You are the sick guy now.
Adam
I'm now becoming the sick guy that taken over the mantle from you. Not one I ever wanted to inherit by any means.
Dan
When you put a stick of butter in your coffee every day.
Adam
Butter is not bad for you. I mean, it's not a stick. I take a little sliver. It's not a stick. I take a small sliver and drop it into black coffee and that cannot be bad for you. Probably the reason I'm sick or I'm getting sick is because I sleep with a fan on. I just can't not like I just don't know what it is. I can't sleep without a fan.
Jacob
Really?
Adam
Yeah. I need the sound.
Dan
I don't have a sound.
Jacob
Understand why this would be making you.
Adam
Sick just pushing cold air. I don't know. I don't really know.
Dan
I know it made no sense Jacob. I I instead of focusing on that.
Adam
I wanted to 60 of the things I say make not related to fantasy football I hope make no sense. Yeah.
Dan
Well okay. That was a really interesting insight there into Dan's life. It's Dan's sleep habits. But we I don't have a fan in my house. I feel like I probably need one. Like I'm a grown up. I should have a fan in the house. We should we we are out of here. And you should come back on Tuesday for waiver wire for beyond the Box score. Check it all out@YouTube.com fantasy football today. Subscribe to the beyond the Box Score podcast. And for Dan and Jacob and our producer Claire, I am Adam. I'll talk to you tomorrow.
Adam
Sierra Foreign. On Paramount plus it's the epic return of mayor of Kingstowne Warden.
Jacob
You know who I am.
Adam
Starring academy award nominee Jeremy Renner.
Jacob
I swear in these walls.
Adam
Emmy award winner Edie Falco.
Dan
You're an ex con who ran this place for years and now, now you can't do that.
Adam
And BAFTA award winner Lenny James.
Jacob
You're about to have a plague of.
Adam
Outsiders descend on your town.
Jacob
Let me tell you this. There's gonna be consequences.
Adam
Mayor of Kingstown new season now streaming on Paramount plus.
Date: November 17, 2025
This episode of Fantasy Football Today dives into what lies beyond the box score—using advanced stats and tape study to assess the real fantasy football implications of this week’s NFL action. Hosts Dan, Adam, and Jacob break down shifting player roles, usage trends, the impact of weather, and the surprising performances of players like Tetairoa McMillan, Jameer Gibbs, Jameson Williams, Nico Collins, and more. They also discuss several major injuries, waiver wire opportunities, trade strategies, and playoff outlooks for key offenses.
Tone: Analytical, conversational, humorous, with a touch of commiseration about a rough fantasy week.
[00:44–05:49]
Memorable Quote:
“I'm not saying I'm sitting them, but I'm done thinking, ‘Oh, it’s gonna turn around, they’re gonna be great.’ I can't feel that way anymore.”
—Adam [11:02]
[07:31–08:54]
[09:04–11:59] & [21:35–30:04]
Memorable Quote:
“You can't sit here and say Tetairoa McMillan doesn’t have big weekly upside—we just saw it.”
—Dan [29:52]
[15:54–20:44]
[21:35–35:35]
[41:10–49:40]
[51:24–62:43]
| Segment | Topic | Start Time | | ------- | ----- | ---------- | | Lions vs. Eagles weather/game breakdown | [00:44] | | Jameer Gibbs role changes | [03:52] | | Jameson Williams “buy or sell” | [08:03] | | McMillan’s breakout/advanced WR stats | [09:04], [21:35] | | Eagles offense outlook, Hurts/Barkley concerns | [11:24] | | Major news/injuries | [15:54] | | Snap/Usage deep-dive (Bucs, Seahawks, Rams etc.) | [21:35] | | Buy/Sell: Travis Kelce/Kansas City offense | [51:24] | | Buy/Sell: Nico Collins/Houston WRs | [57:44] | | Rookie RB/WR trends, deeper waiver notes | [41:10], [49:40], [64:29] |
For more deep-dive analysis—including player profiles, usage trends, and playoff strategies—subscribe to Fantasy Football Today and catch the next “Beyond the Box Score” episode!