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FantasyPros - Fantasy Football Podcast
5 Moves You Need to Make Week Ahead Of Week 5 (Ep. 1741)
00:16:59
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This is an iHeart podcast.
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Hello everybody. Welcome into Fantasy Pros. I'm Ryan, warmly joined, as I am every Monday by Tara Roberts. We are talking moves to make ahead of the next week. We have a whole week to make these moves. This is now going into week five, so there's five moves to make before week five here. A quick reminder for everybody that all of our weekly consensus rankings and tiers can be found@fantasyprose.com rankings. Tara, last week we had some big name receivers on the list. I'm curious what direction we're going this time around. What do you got for us to start things off?
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We're going to do things. It's going to be a fun little list here. It's going to be a little bit different than last week. We're going to start off with a buy though. Last week we talked about buying Drake London that, you know, hey, if you bought them, it worked out because if you can figure out whether or not a player's lack of production is actually their fault or just the production being down due to short term circumstances, you can actually take advantage of it. So when we're looking at Drake London, the matchups were the short term circumstances that were holding him back. When we're looking at Brock Bowers as a nice little by candidate here, we're going along that same logical concept here. But it's not the matchups that are the issue. It is the, the physical nature of his injury that he has been playing through that's holding himself back. He's not the same player that we've seen in the past or even in beginning of week one when he played roughly 50% of the snaps before getting injured. He had over 100y in that game. He looked fantastic and he's ended up playing through this injury and good for him. That's awesome. He's in our fantasy lineups, but unfortunately you can just tell that he's really not himself right now. When we look at his production last year and once he kind of finally got going there and, you know, progressed towards the middle of the season, Valver was playing upwards of 90% of snaps literally every single game. When we look at his production this year, he is he's not hit that mark at all. Not one single game here. So when he's healthy, he is still himself. He just has to get healthy here. The good news is, is that while he's getting healthy, he's at least giving us a nice floor play. So if you're buying him, it's not like you're buying an injured CD Lamb and you're just waiting for him to get healthy. You're buying Brock Bowers. You can play him right now and then once he gets fully healthy, he's playing through that injury with the knee brace right now. At some point when he gets back to himself, we're going to see the regular Brock Bowers especially because aside from Trey Tucker, we haven't really seen Jacoby Myers pop. We finally saw Ash and Genti pop. The offense still still needs Brock Bowers and needs him to have volume. We just need him to get healthy.
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Yeah, I was going to bring up like even just looking at yesterday's box score, like he led the team in receiving yards. It was only 46 yards, but he led the team in receiving yards, second on the team in targets. He led the team in receptions. Jacobe Myers was the only other player to have more than two targets in the game. For the Raiders, it was Myers and Bowers and everybody else was at 1 or 2. So. So there's not this, you know, strong target competition obviously, like you just, just laid out for us. Do you worry at all when Bowers does get healthy that like Gino just isn't playing very well and like the offensive line is bad and that the offense as a whole might put a cap on Bowers ceiling? And I guess from that perspective, like, would you still see him when healthy as tight end one, like he was in the consensus rankings rest of season, or would he now more be like a tier one tight end, but maybe not tight end one?
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Yeah, it's definitely more tier one. And to be fair, that's kind of how I had it structured before the draft. It was kind of a tier one of him and Trey McBride, George Kittle, very interchangeable there. Now we've got obviously season starts and we've got other guys creeping in here that are very solidified. Tyler, Warren, Tucker, Kraft here as well. But yeah, more of a tier one. Maybe not the exact same upside that he had before, but still potential overall tight end one on a regular basis. The offense as a whole, not a big concern from me. Just because we saw the Raiders be objectively awful last year in either drive there. So Gino obviously is going through some struggles. I don't know if it's going to turn around for him as the season progresses. But for the offense to move forward, one they need to focus on getting Genti going. They got that. And then for the past game they have to focus on getting Brock Bowers going and maybe that will truly help him get on track.
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Who's your next player to buy?
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My next player to buy here. Now this is where we're going. The more of the non traditional route. Not everything has to be a buy low. We talked about last week when I talked about recommending buying Michael Pittman as an underpriced buyer because of the perceived value here. You know other players on the team have more hype. Don't view him as a true wide receiver. One skepticism of Daniel Jones. So you can grab him on the cheap and get a wide receiver. One that can get you a top 24 production every single week. That's the same exact concept here that I have with my second buy here in Travis etn. Perception there hype is around. Baychial Tootin. You can't get around that. I mean he's awesome. I get it right. We want to lean into those rookies. But despite that, I don't believe that Tutin will be stealing his job anytime soon. The snaps have been very consistent for Travis CTN. Despite his worst finish being literally RB21 in PPR, he is still not viewed as the most valued asset in that backfield. He is top 10 in attempts. He is averaging 6.1 yards per carry. There are only two running backs that have more 20 plus yard runs than him, Jameer Gibbs and Derrick Henry. Perhaps he's just good. Perhaps maybe he's just turned things around. He's thriving in this offense and our issue is not BAE Tutin. The only issue that we have with Travis ETN is that Trevor Lawrence isn't checking down enough. But the volume here has been just so solid for Travis ETN. He's been a solid RB2 giving you weekly RB1 upside. And because of that perception that Baezhal Tutin is coming for his job, you can get him on the cheap here. So if you're looking, you need a guy who can give you top 20 points every single week. That is Travis ETN and you can buy low even though he is performing at a high level.
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Where do you have him ranked rest of season?
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Rest of season I still have him as a top 20 back. I trust it. I I like facial tootin. Two backs can operate in that system, we know Liam Cohen's offense, especially if we get Trevor Lawrence pushing further in the right direction and get Brian Thomas Jr. Pushing as well. They can both thrive in that offense. But I see him as the lead back and a trustworthy top 20 back rest of season.
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I, I only have ETN on one roster this year and I, I pretty much it was like that the week one test. You see it once and you're like, okay, I, I messed up. I wish I had invested more heavily in him and that, that's how I felt. Yeah, for the season, like even with Tutin, like having a degree of hype around him, like I'm with you on Etna, I wish I had him in more places and maybe I'll have to go, you know, spend up to get him in more places after his first month of the year. If you want a chance to win the funniest, most infamous prize in fantasy football, the Golden Toilet trophy, courtesy of our good friends at Trophy Smack, the number one destination for epic fantasy football hardware, then this is your moment. This shining gold toilet is the ultimate symbol of fitness failure, designed to immortalize the last place finisher in your league. It's hilarious, it's bold and it's guaranteed to bring endless trash talk. To enter, all you need to do is subscribe to the Fantasy Pros YouTube channel right now. Drop a comment below on any of our videos. That is it. We will be announcing a winner right here on the channel, so be sure to turn on notifications so you don't miss your chance to claim this trophy and make last place unforgettable. Who Tara is the next player you want to talk about.
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We're going to go from the happy buys here to the unfortunate sells. We're going to sell DeAndre Swift here. So when we were talking about Travis ETN, we were talking about somebody who is the RB one who doesn't have that perceived value here. DeAndre Swift, unlike Travis ETN, doesn't have the stats to actually justify him as a buy candidate there. He's the RB1 in that backfield. But when you're looking at the statistics, I don't have a lot of faith in him moving forward through the remainder of the season. In terms of trustworthiness that I feel like we've got an ETN. ETN and Swift are essentially in the same category, right? RB1s that aren't really seen as the lead back, you know, that we can trust because of the perceived lack of job security here. And as a result you end up getting these underpriced price running backs that you can grab at value here, especially if you're dealing with your RB1 or RB2 having injury issues or poor production issues. But the difference here is that Travis ETN is actually doing his job well, so we want to invest in that. Swift is not doing his job well and that's a concern there considering that we do have a ton of volume in the Chicago offense. So to not be thriving at this point when you have a high volume pass offense there and you're also someone who benefits from a lot of checkdowns but you still don't have that incredible ceiling, you're not thriving at the goal line. Ultimately the problem here is that your job really isn't secure because anyone can take it and snatch it from you at any point. Chicago is one of those teams that often gets tossed around by people of saying, well, you know, if, you know, they start progressing forward and they're looking to buy a running back, there's this option and that option. I don't know that we want to invest in Swift long term here because he may not be the RB1 long term there.
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Would you trade away Swift for somebody like Woody Marks who is several spots lower in rest of season rankings right now, but obviously we just saw what could have been his breakout game. High upside rest of the way. Somebody like him would you trade Swift for?
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I would and it's and it's tough because you know, one, we don't know how much Nick Chubb will actually go away and then two, you wonder, hey, you know, how good is that Houston offense? Was this just literally the perfect matchup for their offense to thrive? And you know, in other games are they going to revert back to what we saw before where you don't really get any upside. But I will say that I do feel more comfortable with Marks because of that receiving upside that he offers as well and just how effective he's been as an overall runner that he can work around those offensive line issues. So yeah, I and we also get the report, you know, Joe Mixon, we're we're not expecting him back here. So we're talking about somebody who is with a offense that could progress forward but has the opportunity for volume receiving upside and has more pop and more elusive behavior. It's just a better situation for a running back that can actually still take advantage of the opportunities that he has.
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DeAndre Swift is RB26 in our rest of season rankings. That's as of updated from you know, after yesterday's games. Your other running back that you want to sell here is RB24. So a couple of guys in the same range. Who else do you have for us?
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Yeah, it's Tony Pollard here. This again is taking advantage. That range that you talk about there of the guys that are their lead backs and we've got a lot of people on teams who might be a little bit desperate to get some pop into their offense and want to make that investment into somebody who has some volume here. And that's one thing that Tony Pollard has. He has volume. And I love Tony Pollard. He is surviving off volume right now. He is not thriving off volume. That's the problem. And then at the same time, the big issue here is that, you know, we can deal with Tony Pollard's volume because we, we, we know that he is the primary back. But we've got Tajie Spears expected activated soon. And while we're not going to be shoving Spears into our fantasy lineups anytime soon, we do know that based off 2024, he makes just enough of a dent to be very irritating for Tony Pollard. And the volume won't be enough for him to remain in RB2. He'll be the lead back. But unfortunately with the way that the Titans offense is operating right now, there's not a lot of goal line opportunities. There's not a lot of yardage opportunities there. So you were just thriving based off pure volume. And if somebody comes in and starts to creep and take things away on a week to week bas, you are underperforming there. And when we look at the projections for the first four games that he's had here, he's already been underperforming unfortunately. And again that's not his fault. But when you are consistently hitting below your expected fantasy points, that is a major problem. The offense is second. It doesn't provide upside. And my fear here for Pollard in the offense is that it might be a situation where they have to get a little bit less controlled, let Cam Moore get a little bit wilder, push a little bit more volume and maybe that ends up benefiting Spears who has the edge over him in terms of pass volume and receiving work there. So if the Titans can't find a way to produce goal line opportunities, Pollard ceiling is legitimately 10 fantasy points here. So maybe trying to sell him before we get Tajie Spears out there and making the perception even worse. Offload him while you can.
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We didn't do any drops last week, so I'll go ahead and add a drop in here drop that hopefully everyone can finally come to an agreement on. Caleb Johnson is shockingly over 40% rostered in Phant see leagues and he is a sensitive subject. Right, because there's a lot of people that are truthers and it makes sense. Again, we talked about Baja Tootin. There's hype around rookies and you get very attached to them as prospects and the opportunities for them in offense. Anytime I talk about Jalen Warren or Kenneth Gainwell, you always get the comment of I'd rather have Caleb Johnson. Well, I hope that this game finally provides enough evidence that you've got to move on. It's not happening here. Rostering him even as handcuff just isn't realistic because you are bypassing actual direct handcuffs in order to stash a guy who factually has to have two players go down in order to see significant play time. And even then so would probably have the Steelers bring in another back to force it to continue to be a committee because that's what they love here. This week's game was as definitive as you can possibly get. Gainwell had 19 carries, 99 yards, two touchdowns. He was extremely involved in the pass game, had six targets, caught all of them. Caleb Johnson had six carries for 22 yards. Gainwell AB snapped him consistently. If you want a back in this offense outside of Warren, it has to be Kenneth Gainwell. And also when we look at this offense, I mean this was a great game on the ground for Kenneth Gainwell, but really the Steelers offensive line hasn't been providing a ton of yardage on the ground. Fantasy success for these running backs has been boosted up by their receiving work as well. So that's another dent there for Caleb Johnson because when it comes to fantasy value in that offense, you need the receiving work and that favors anybody but Caleb Johnson. Unfortunately you have to drop him and just move on at this point.
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Interestingly, he's 43% rostered in Yahoo and 43% roster on ESPN the exact same Number on both, according to his Fantasy Pros player page. Are we burying Caleb Johnson in Dynasty too? Like, is this a. Hey, like, we are just like moving on and if you can convince somebody in a dynasty format that there's still value here, that it's worth, you know. Cause obviously if you're, you know, we're going to try and trade him in a draft league, you would get nothing. That's why he's a drop, not a seller. In Dynasty, obviously he's not a drop. Would you be trying to sell and say, like, I just don't think this is actually ever going to happen. We've seen enough to already feel confident about that. Or would you still be interested in holding him or even, you know, buying on the cheap in a dynasty format?
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So the problem here is that if, if he was on any other team, I could make the argument for keeping or buying him on the cheap. But on the Steelers, they're very, they're very, they're not confusing. They're very straightforward. Here. When you get into the Steelers doghouse, you're in there and it's very difficult to get out of. Saw that with Roman Wilson, who was an early round pick, a wide receiver that could have pushed forward and, you know, been a wide receiver too in this offense, couldn't get past a guy like Calvin Austin. It's difficult to get out of the doghouse there with Mike Tomlin. And then we have Arthur Smith, who we don't trust as well. So it's just a bad situation. It's possible that maybe he can move on to another team and get a better opportunity, but hedging on that is difficult. So in, in Dynasty, he's not much of a buy for me as well, just because of the situation being more detrimental to running backs in general.
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We'll wrap things up there. She's Tara Roberts. I'm Ryan Wormley. Thanks everybody for tuning in. Make these moves before week five and we'll see you again next time. Thanks for listening to the Fantasy Pros Fantasy Football podcast. If you love the show, the best free way to support us is by leaving a positive review on Apple Podcasts, at fantasypros.com review or on Spotify. Follow us on X Instagram and tick tock at Fantasy Pros and subscribe to our YouTube channel@YouTube.com fantasypros.
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This is an iHeart podcast.