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Footballguys Fantasy Football Show
Players To Target Based On Your Team's Record || Fantasy Football 2025
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- [00:00]
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- [00:31]
Dave Kluge
Unitedhealthcare nurse Crystal checked in on a patient.
- [00:33]
Alfredo Brown
We do a routine call after surgery and I could tell in her voice that she was struggling.
- [00:38]
Dave Kluge
Crystal knew she needed help.
- [00:39]
Alfredo Brown
I knew that this is very serious. This is like septic. This is life threatening.
- [00:43]
Dave Kluge
And she knew just what to do.
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Alfredo Brown
And I called the hospital and said she's coming in, here are her labs.
- [00:48]
Dave Kluge
And got her the help she needed.
- [00:50]
Alfredo Brown
I see my role at UnitedHealthcare as a life saving role.
- [00:54]
Dave Kluge
Hear more stories like crystals@uhc.com benefits, features and or devices vary by plan. Area limitation and exclusions apply. I feel like we're a few years away from like anything over 90 seconds. Being long form goes right back the other direction. Attention spans are. It's. It's tough.
- [01:10]
Alfredo Brown
I mean like, have you, have you spent any time with a teenager lately?
- [01:15]
Dave Kluge
No. No.
- [01:16]
Alfredo Brown
Well, they're not listening to this show, but I'll say this, it's a nightmare. They. So they. We went out for my little sister in law's 14th birthday last night and she and her friend basically gave me the old man treatment and they handed me a list of words to read off.
- [01:34]
Dave Kluge
Yep.
- [01:35]
Alfredo Brown
It was skibidi Toilet, Skibidi Rizzler, 6, 7, something else. Some Oi oi baka. Like, I don't. It was just like a bunch. Just rent. They were just sounds like they were just guttural sounds. And I'm doing the old man thing. Like, what do these mean? Can you give me a definition for any of these? And they're like, no. Like, apparently so. Do you know what merch means?
- [01:59]
Dave Kluge
I do not know.
- [02:01]
Alfredo Brown
Parents everywhere, pay attention. Pay attention.
- [02:03]
Dave Kluge
Merchandise is what I think.
- [02:05]
Alfredo Brown
Like, that's what I thought. And I was like, oh, okay, cool.
- [02:07]
Dave Kluge
Like, like, oh, we sell merch at our company. And they're like, right.
- [02:12]
Alfredo Brown
No, apparently it means on everything except God. What? Like, like you're. I swear on everything except God. Like we're just gonna exclude him properly.
- [02:24]
Dave Kluge
Yeah, I was trying to think if there was like.
- [02:26]
Alfredo Brown
And I'm like, there's no, there's no acronym.
- [02:28]
Dave Kluge
There's no.
- [02:29]
Alfredo Brown
Like, you didn't short for hand anything. You're just saying things. And then I asked these kids and they're like, yeah, they admit it's like, it's stupid. It doesn't mean anything. But our generation really likes making up words that don't mean anything. And I'm like, finally you admit it.
- [02:42]
Dave Kluge
I like Riz.
- [02:43]
Alfredo Brown
But Riz at least has is a derivative from something. Right? Right.
- [02:47]
Dave Kluge
So I will say the last time I hung out with teenagers last year, we went to Hawaii with my entire family. And I've got some, some teenage stepbrothers and sisters. And there's a big age gap between like my brothers and I and then our, our younger step siblings. And there was a lot of just like them calling us uncs and making fun of us for not knowing all the Lego. And then of course we would just like lean into it and embarrass them so much. Like we start, start saying skibidi toilet to the, the, the, the servers at the restaurants having no idea what any of it meant. And just like watching them just like crawl into their skin. It is fun to just like. But the other day, Emily and I, my wife, we were watching football the other day and talking about Drake May, and I was like, I can't believe he's only 23 years old. And Emily, my wife kind of said something. She's like, boy, she's like, I Wish I was 23. She's like, those are some good years. And then I was just casually, I was like, do we know a single 23 year old? And we spent like 10 minutes. I was like, we don't even know a 23 year old. Like, that's just. We are so far removed from our early 20s. It's, it's hard out here, man.
- [03:51]
Alfredo Brown
You're making me realize like, I don't know if we could even relate to a Drake May type. Like a 23 year old, a 22 year old NFL player. We have. We can't. This is so sad.
- [04:05]
Dave Kluge
He drop a Borat quote and he'd be like, what's wrong? What are you doing?
- [04:21]
Alfredo Brown
Week 12 is here and we're taking a look at the players you need to trade for before your trade deadline in your fantasy football leagues. These are the guys that are going to help you either make it to the playoffs or win in the fantasy playoffs. I'm Alfredo Brown. Welcome to the football guys fantasy football show. I'm joined as always by Dave Kluge. And Dave, we're talking about six players today. It's going to be a quick show. We're going to go through this one, actually seven players, because we got a bonus. Some breaking news that just happened. Do we want to. Let's talk about that first. Let's talk about the breaking news. Let's hop into that. Trey Benson, his practice window just opens. Immediate thoughts and reaction to that.
- [04:53]
Dave Kluge
I mean, Amari De Mercado sustained a high ankle sprain, so he is projected to miss some time. And I think that if we're looking at, I mean, that was the fear with Trey Benson when he returned, is that he would see passing down work to DeMarcusato. But with him out of the picture, I don't think Donovan Knight or Michael Carter are going to be taking much of this workload from him. I. I'd imagine that Trey Benson, like, there might be one game where he's kind of like ramped up, but I'm guessing that once he is fully up to speed, he's probably gonna be handling somewhere between like 70, 75% of the touches out of this backfield. Is that kind of what you think, Alfredo?
- [05:24]
Alfredo Brown
Yeah, that's exactly where I'm at. Like, that's where it was prior to the injury. No James Connor there. It's. There's not really anything or any part of his game where Trey Benson has a deficiency. He can catch passes, he can be out there on passing downs. He can be the bigger guy and sort line situation. So there's not really a reason unless you're just spelling him for a. Just a quick breath. But this Cardinals team, man, like, they're having to pass the ball a ton. We saw that last week. Jacoby Brissette has actually been pretty good and pretty decent for the running backs, you know, like, these are guys that are not nearly as talented, at least in my belief, and they have been passable as starting running backs on different weeks. It's been sort of around Robin of who to start. But you put Trey Benson back in this scenario, Dave, I gotta think he's what, top 15 fantasy running back, week in, week out, more or less, once.
- [06:10]
Dave Kluge
We'Re through bye weeks. And we've got like, you know, all 32 teams out there. Probably like probably closer to 20, 20. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [06:16]
Alfredo Brown
Okay.
- [06:16]
Dave Kluge
But I think like, definitely a plug and play RB2, which, yeah, you hope so because you've been holding on to him all year. You got like half a game of him as the starter. Before he got injured. So, yeah, you got to hope that, like, if you've held on to him for this long, that he is going to be the player we'd hoped he'd be.
- [06:31]
Alfredo Brown
And honestly, I think that he was a guy that both of us were looking at as a trade target and considering. But we hadn't gotten any news. So we got news just 18 minutes before this episode started. We figured, okay, there's the bon player we got to talk about. So I do think that's a player that. Whether. I wouldn't say if you're. If you're desperate for wins, but I would say if you're already in the hunt for a playoff spot or you're a contender and you want to make this move now before your league mates start to hear about it or make moves for Trey Benson, there's a guy to go after.
- [06:57]
Dave Kluge
This is a weird week for waivers, too. Like, we didn't get, like, any injury information prior to Tuesday night. So, like, if you ran waivers last night, on Tuesday night, we were really kind of flying dark. So, like, you know, I. I made a lot of just, like, small bids on a lot of players and picked up, like, whatever I could for Che. Few small bits. We don't know what's going on with Josh Jacobs or Baysha Tuton or Trey Benson. Like, there's so much uncertainty out there still. We'll get more information as the week goes on. So subscribe to the channel because we'll be back tomorrow doing rankings with more information.
- [07:27]
Alfredo Brown
Yeah, subscribe to the channel. I actually wanted to bring it up my. Let me see. One of my home leagues. I ended up being the only person that put a waiver wire bid on Jacoby Brissette because I needed a streaming quarterback, Greg Dorch because I also needed a wide receiver. 3. And actually, well, actually, I needed a couple wide receivers and I got A.D. mitchell. So, yeah, we were going. We're going bottom of the barrel here. But, yeah, most someone's put a good amount of their fab on AJ Barner. So, you know, I mean, decisions made, decisions are being made.
- [07:59]
Dave Kluge
I made a pretty weird home league move last night, dropped Jackson Dart for Brock Purdy. And I have some regrets. I mean, Jackson Dart has been on fire, but I do worry a little bit. Like, you know, the. The rushing for Jackson Dart is kind of what got Brian Dable fired, right? So, like, I think Mike Kafka is going to come in here and clip his wings a little bit, and I just worry that we might not see that same Upside from Dart down the stretch. So felt sad to let go of Jackson Dart, but Brock Purdy, you know, just been a rock solid QB one since he's took over a couple years ago.
- [08:31]
Alfredo Brown
Not to, not to get too off track here. I do think for a guy like Jackson Dart, it's one of these things like they talked about it with Josh Allen for, it's like, you know, let's coach the running out. Like that just doesn't happen. You don't coach the running out of a player. So I think he'll still be running. I think what we're going to get is a lot less of those designed plays or when you get by the goal line, you're not running these read options for Dart, you know, to, to take on a defensive tackle head on like that, you know, you're going to be calling a few more plays to keep him safe.
- [08:56]
Dave Kluge
I just imagine Jackson Dart like in the film room. I'm a peacock, you got to let me fly.
- [09:00]
Alfredo Brown
Yeah, exactly. He's like, what you learned how to run the ball sarcastically? Yeah. So I could make fun of all those running backs like camp, go watch the other guys. Great movie. All right, so what we're doing today is we are each going to give you a trade target for three different categories. For the desperate teams that have three to four wins, for the teams that are in the hunt for a fantasy playoff spot with five to seven wins and the contending for a championship teams that have eight plus wins right now. So Dave, we each have a trade target. Kick us off. Let's start with the desperation people. Those they need to be hearing this right now. Who should they be trading for?
- [09:35]
Dave Kluge
I think Justin Jefferson is a guy that I would try to trade for. If I'm sitting at three to four wins right now because like what do you, what do you got to lose? Like if Justin Jefferson continues being the player he is, you're not going to make the playoffs. You're probably not going to make the playoffs anyway. But on the off chance that Justin Jefferson can revert back to the player he was like, we know the upside here. This is a guy who has given us multiple top three finishes in fantasy and I think that there's an opportunity to buy him now just because the vibes are so, so bad. You know how it is, Alfredo. Like every week there's a storyline that.
- [10:04]
Alfredo Brown
Every week I do know how it is to be an NFL player.
- [10:07]
Dave Kluge
Well, just, just the media, the way the media works is like everybody's talking this week about JJ McCarthy, how he's terrible how Kevin O' Connell finally, you know, found the quarterback that he can't fix, how things are atrocious, that his EPA per drop back is worse than any other quarterback in the league. And there are reasonable concerns about this Vikings offense as a whole. But Justin Jefferson, he's still six in the league in target chair on over 30 of the team's targets. And I'm just looking at a guy who could potentially get back on track. And if that's what they want to do is get JJ McCarthy playing better, to imagine the focus of the offense is going to be getting the ball to their best player. So over the next two weeks, Green Bay, Seattle, not great matchups, but we know that he can overcome a bad situation. Weeks 14 through the end of the season though, all plus matchups, it's Washington, Dallas, the Giants, Detroit, I mean, these are all good matchups that he should score more than average. So this to me just comes down to like, you need a big swing here. You're not trying to bunt and just get a guy who's going to get you 10 points in your lineup. You're looking for that guy that can turn your season around over the final three weeks. And just Justin Jefferson is one of the few players I think you can go out there and reasonably acquire that has that sort of just league tilting upside.
- [11:18]
Alfredo Brown
Yeah, I mean, when you're at three or four wins, like you have nothing to lose, but the league you're already losing. Right, exactly. Just go for it. I think the only thing that worries me with the Vikings is it's actually a positive that worries me is that their defense has been so much better over the last few weeks. And a big part of that is getting Andrew Van Ginkel back. And so you kind of notice they've started to slow everything down because they can control a little more clock. So I, I'll be interested to see like, do they try to mitigate as much of like the JJ McCarthy risk. And that doesn't mean that Justin Jefferson's performances get worse. It might just mean that he's more efficient. Now. The targets he's going to get are going to be easier because they're going to limit the throws, they're going to change the passing patterns and make this a little bit simpler for Justin Jefferson to make plays. So I'll be curious to see how that turns out. I've got a similar guy. And this is also once again for desperate teams. I'm going with Saquon Barkley. These are both players Dave, that Saquon Barkley, Justin Jefferson drafted in the first round of fantasy drafts, and they have been disappointments for one reason or another. Certain things out of their control, some things in their control. Either way, the vibes right now around these players specifically for Saquon and the Eagles, it stinks. But that's why you can swing for the fences. You can go and get a guy that's going to be potentially this cheap. You likely don't have a lot to bargain with anyways at this point. If you're a team that only has three to four wins, you probably have guys that are on ir, players that didn't work out for you in the draft, so it won't cost you that much to get them. Tank Bigsby is also likely a really easy waiver wire stash to go and grab because people may have picked them up a few weeks ago and then dropped them again. But when it comes to Saquon, Dave, the volume's been there recently. 52 touches over the last two games, but zero touchdowns. That's the big thing that we have seen has been the touchdown variance. Touchdown regression has been a killer for Saquon Barkley. Six touchdowns in 11 games this year. Nothing even close to what we were seeing last year. But this is also sort of what the Eagles do. They make everyone, like, halfway through the season start to think we need to be firing our entire staff. Fire the general manager, fire the defensive, fire everyone, bench Jalen hurts. And then we get to, like, week 13.
- [13:25]
Dave Kluge
You see that, like, the Eagles beat report yesterday saying that, like, they got Carson Wentz 2.0 with Jalen Hurts. And, like, that's where Eagles fans are right now. I was like, oh, we got Carson Wentz to get, like, what?
- [13:39]
Alfredo Brown
They're one of the better teams in the NFL based on their record. And this is what they do is they struggle throughout the year. They find their identity. They go through their ups and downs. It's almost like they're bored, like they're playing with their food. And then they get to the end of the year and we get to like, week 13. And right now also, we're seeing that the defense is coming alive. The defense is not quite the same defensive unit that we saw earlier in the season. They're actually stopping teams. The secondary is getting better. Defensive line is getting better. To me, that shows me an offense that is very similarly to the Vikings, like we mentioned before, could be controlling the clock a lot easier and giving Saquon the type of volume that we've been seeing. Over the last couple of weeks, and that does seem to be the case. Saquon's coming off this game against, I mean, one of the best defenses against fantasy running backs. Going up against the Detroit Lions. Now, next three games, Dallas, Chicago, and the Chargers. Once you get to the playoffs, he's got a top three schedule for fantasy running backs, including the championship week against Buffalo. Who? Buffalo. On average, over the last five games, they're giving up more yards to running backs than any team in the NFL. So Saquon Barkley is not just the guy where you're going to be swinging for the fences. You're going to get some value right now so you can get these wins, make your way to the playoffs. But then when you actually get to the playoffs, you have a good chance of winning because you got a guy who's got an amazing championship fantasy championship week matchup and a team that is progressively getting better as well.
- [14:58]
Dave Kluge
Yeah, and you talk about the touchdown regression. I didn't even notice or, like, mention that with Justin Jefferson, but same thing with Justin Jefferson. Like, he's sixth among all wide receivers in targets and only has two touchdowns like everybody else that has more targets than him has already scored, like, twice as many touchdowns. So we expect that to balance out. The other thing I want to say about Saquon Barkley, we talked about this a lot earlier in the year. We were just like, he's not breaking tackles. Like, it's the weirdest thing. Like, he still got the jump cuts, he's still got the burst, but he was just, like, going down on first contacts, like, almost every single time. And the. The numbers back that up. You know, I can look at this right now. I'm on. On pff. And we had six missed tackles through week five, six total missed tackles through week five, week six, five missed tackles. The week after that, three. Three. Three. Last week he said a season high seven missed tackles. So I don't know if this was just like him. Still feeling a little lethargic off last year's big workload or just taking some time to get up to speed. I don't know what it is, but now over the last few weeks, we're seeing the missed tackles, we're seeing the yards after contact. Saquon Barkley is starting to look a little bit more like Saquon Barkley.
- [16:03]
Alfredo Brown
Yeah. I don't think it's a coincidence, too, that Saquon Barkley was also top five in running backs. That was getting hit behind the line of scrimmage. Right. Like, you're not able to break nearly as many tackles or when you are, it's. It's. You're not going anywhere. So I think there's just a lot of things where this offense has been trying to piece things together, get the offensive line back on track, got new players in Johnson. Yeah, obviously that's gonna. That's gonna worry you a little bit. But the Eagles listen. There are things that are beyond data, beyond the forces of fantasy football. The Eagles just do this every year, man. I'm like, at this point, what do you have to lose? It's a fantasy football lottery. Go after players like Saquon Barkley and Justin Jefferson.
- [16:43]
Dave Kluge
Yep.
- [16:46]
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- [17:47]
Dave Kluge
Okay, only 10 more presents to wrap. You're almost at the finish line. But first, There, the last one.
- [18:10]
Alfredo Brown
Enjoy a Coca Cola for a pause that refreshes. All right, let's go to the next category here. These are going to be the teams that are in the hunt. I wanted to use, like, you know, NFL lingo jargon. These are your fantasy football teams. If you have five, six, or seven wins, you're in the hunt for a playoff spot.
- [18:31]
Dave Kluge
Who knows?
- [18:31]
Alfredo Brown
Your league might just all be really bad, and you're the number one seed. Who knows? But these are the teams that are still in the hunt for it. Dave, you and I each have one player, and they're each running backs from the same division. So why don't you kick us off.
- [18:45]
Dave Kluge
And I'll sneak in another half player? We got news right when we started recording. Marvin Harrison Jr. Is going to be out Again this week. So Michael Wilson, like if you are sitting at 5 and 7 and you need a guy that's going to immediately produce, we just saw Michael Wilson do it last week. So that's a guy that I think, you know, warrants consideration. But the guy I really want to talk about here is Jalen Warren. And, and we've talked about this football guy, strength of schedule, tool a lot. And we don't talk about it early in the season because I just don't think there's enough data points to really give a clear picture. But as we get to like the halfway point of the season, we start to know what offenses or what defenses are good, what defenses are bad, where they're susceptible. And there is only one running back who has positive matchups in each of the next three weeks, and that's Jalen Warren. He gets Chicago this week who's given up an average of 2.4 points per game to running backs more than average. Buffalo next week giving up 5.2 points per game more. And then Baltimore in week 14 giving up an extra two points per game. So that is three straight matchups that we're looking at, positive matchups here for Jalen Warren. This guy was already giving US high end RB2 production and now we're looking at plus matchups on top of that. I know there's some concerns because he left last week with the ankle injury, but I will just read a quote from Jalen Warren himself. I could have returned, but I was being smart. We've got a lot of games ahead of us, so they are looking out for me. And then Mike Tomlin corroborated that, came out this morning and said that he's optimistic about Jaylen Warren returning this week as well. So it sounds like they're just being safe with him in a game where they had a lead and they were just getting some good running from Kenneth Gainwell and they just wanted to lean on him a little bit. Another thing I'll talk about Ian Harditz. He developed this fun metric that I'm not allowed to say on football guys channels, but what he does is he takes all of the cool stuff that running backs do, touchdowns, explosive plays and tackles, and then divides them by how many touches they have had. And right now Jaylen Warren is fantastic. Fifth in the league in this metric behind only Jonathan Taylor, Jameer Gibbs, Omarion Hampton and Kenneth Walker. So we've talked about this a lot so far this year. You know, we, we saw the exciting efficiency metrics from Jaylen Warren early in his career and then we saw this year that he'd be in a bigger workload. What we see so often is that when that workload grows, the efficiency falls off. Jalen Warren has doubled his workload and maintained his efficiency. So he's a workhorse back right now with efficient numbers and he has three nice matchups leading into the fantasy playoffs. This is a guy that if you go out and trade for him, he is going to help you get into the fantasy playoffs. And if you're sitting at 5 and 7 right now, you're not at the point where you're preparing for the fantasy playoffs. You're not taking these desperate swings. You're looking for guys that can give you short term production to help you win these next three weeks. That's exactly what Jalen Warren's going to do.
- [21:22]
Alfredo Brown
And what you started this with was talking about the injury. This makes it the perfect time to go out and trade for a guy like this because that manager is a little worried. Maybe you see Kenneth Gainwell going out there, even Caleb Johnson got a couple touches and you know, there's Aaron Rodgers now has his wrist injury. And so that manager might be saying, oh good, this is the perfect time for me to unload this player, get something back in return. So I, I do like this Jalen Warren. I'm going with a similar guy, same division, similar play style. Chase Brown, running back for the Cincinnati Bengals. What we've seen has been a very different Chase Brown over the last, let's call it five games here. His yards per carry have more than doubled. His yards after contact per attempt have more than doubled. Missed tackles for his pro attempt, doubled. Everything has gotten better for him. And it's not just the Joe Flacco thing. He is playing better, right? Like a lot of the yards after contact has nothing to do with Joe Flacco. A lot of this is Chase Brown simply is playing better. And that's what happens when you're not having to play against top 10 run defenses every single week. On top of that, he's been able to get into a rhythm. You've got a guy now who's getting more of the snapshare. Smajay P. Ryan has been hurt, so Chase Brown's usage has jumped around 80% route share, 79% of the design. Running back rushes, 96% snap share. This has been a guy who has been very, very involved. And Dave, he's actually led all running backs and expected fantasy points over the last five weeks here. And just for those of you who are not sure what that is. Expected fantasy points. It measures a player's fantasy scoring potential based on their volume and opportunities, rather than their actual performance. Performance. Just to give context as to what that means. Right. So we're talking about a player who's getting a ton of opportunity, and we're seeing what he's doing with that opportunity. He's been the running back five in PPR since week eight. It's been a totally different guy. And I know what you're thinking is like, okay, well, if he's been so good, like, how. How am I gonna go get him right now? Well, you're gonna have to play a different angle here. Right? Like Joe Burrow's coming back. That fantasy manager who has had Chase Brown either traded for him because Joe Flacco was showing the signs of life, or they had Chase Brown when Joe Burrow was a starting quarterback. And this is where you got to play a little bit of the mental games with them. Well, Joe Burrows coming back might not be the same offense, but I'm willing to take that risk. You don't have to. Right. This is what you can do. The next three games are pretty simple. Week 12. This week I'm gonna expect actually a heavy passing game usage for Chase Brown. You got no going up against New England, no Jamar Chase here. You've got Christian Gonzalez going to be covering T. Higgins. This could be a big time passing game for Chase Brown.
- [23:49]
Dave Kluge
I just want to say last week we were saying, like, T. Higgins, this is gonna be a smash spot because Christian Gonzalez is going to be all over Jamar Chase. And then Jamar Chase just had to get himself suspended. Now we're. We're a little bit less excited about T. Higgins this week.
- [24:01]
Alfredo Brown
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Just a little bit less excited. And then week 13, right, we're looking at potentially having Joe Burrow back, or at least he says he expects to return. Then that would be a shootout game against Baltimore. And then I've already mentioned them before, but Buffalo, who's just been. They just got gashed by Sean Tucker. That's going to be week 14. If Joe Burrow's back for that game, that's even another big potential game for Chase Brown to have a blow up here. Five of their next six matchups will be top 18 matchups. So in the top half of the league for fantasy running backs, it's a great schedule, it's great opportunity. We're seeing a very different player with Chase Brown, and no one else is really threatening him for touches in this offense. I think we're finally getting the player that we all drafted earlier in the fantasy, fantasy season.
- [24:42]
Dave Kluge
Yeah, it took some time to get there, but it does seem like we are there. And you know, Joe Burrow, he has to be back by week 14. We talked about this a little bit on Monday, but like, once that practice window is opened, like that's 21 days and we already missed week 11. We're expecting he's gonna miss week 12 and week 13. Like, he needs to be back for that week 14 game. So another good player to go out and target. Like, if you're already locked in a playoff spot, Joe Burrow, you know, you can pick him up session on your IR spot. He's available in a lot of leagues. But yeah, we're just seeing this from Chase Brown. Like, you talk about the matchups and I think it is worth talking, talking about the matchups, but dare I say, like, I don't think it matters with Chase Brown. Like, this guy doesn't come off the field. He is literally like a night.
- [25:21]
Alfredo Brown
It doesn't. It doesn't. Right. Like, I think opportunity gives him that floor, but I think those matchups is what gives him that ceiling where you're like, oh, he was a top five running back this week. This is what actually wins me my week, gets me into the playoffs that I need.
- [25:33]
Dave Kluge
But because we see so many people that are like game script dependent, like Baltimore falls down two scores, Derek Henry's coming off the field, field. And that sucks. You know, Atlanta goes up two scores and Tyler Algier closes out the game in the second half. That doesn't ever happen with Chase Brown. Like, if they are up, he is getting a ton of runs in the second half. If they are down, he's catching a ton of targets in the second half. So, like, he just doesn't come off the field. Like he, he is just an absolute workhorse. And early in the year they're messing around with some Samaj AP Ryan and whatnot. And then we saw the issues with Jake Browning and what he did this entire offense. But like, if we get Joe Burrow through the fantasy playoffs with Chase Brown, there's no reason not to expect that Chase Brown doesn't do exactly what he did last year and just give us top five production.
- [26:18]
Alfredo Brown
All right, Dave, we took a look at the desperate teams, teams that are in the hunt now. We're going to move on to the contenders. These are the teams that have basically already made the playoffs in their league. They know they're going to make it Mathematically, you just need that one extra piece that you believe is going to get you over the hump. Let's go for our final two players here. Who do you have?
- [26:38]
Dave Kluge
You know, sometimes you just got to take the layup. And I really like to try to think outside the box and think of unique angles and whatnot in fantasy football. I'm not breaking ground here. Omarion Hampton is good at football, and he's a guy that you should try to trade for if you've already clinched a playoff berth. The reality is like, he was getting drafted second and third round in a lot of fantasy leagues, maybe falling into the fourth if you got lucky. But this was a highly drafted player who hasn't done much of anything this year. Got off to a little bit of a slow start. He had two really good games, and then he had the game that he got hurt and kind of burned. Fantasy managers in, has not played since. So I think that there are a lot of people that drafted Omarion Hampton that are probably below.500 right now that are hoping to trade for a Justin Jefferson or a Saquon Barkley or Jalen Warren or somebody that can help get them over the push. And Omarion Hampton is a guy that I'd go out and try to get. You know, in the two games we saw him with full command of the backfield before his injury. 24.9 PPR points, 27.5 PPR points, and then he got hurt. And you look at what he's got through the fantasy playoffs, you know, the one matchup he has, one not great matchup, but outside of that, he gets Arizona, he gets Las Vegas. Like, he has really good matchups through the fantasy playoffs. So this is just a talented first round player on a good offense. If you can go out and get him and just keep him stashed on your IR spot, he has all of the markings of a potential league winner.
- [27:55]
Alfredo Brown
I think that's the way to look at it too, is that if you are a contender, you're not going out there and trying to reinvent the wheel for your team. You know what got you there. And that kind of goes the same way into the guy that I'm looking at. It's just you need the cherry on top type of player, right? Like the one that just gets you over the hump. I think Omarion Hampton does that. I also think Ricky Pierce real quickly too.
- [28:15]
Dave Kluge
I did. I did misspeak. I said I had the wrong matchups there. It's Philly in week 15, Houston in week 16 and then the Giants in week 17. So Houston is the only negative match up there. Philly and New York, those are both positive matchups through the playoffs. So I. I don't know why I. I think I said Raiders for some reason, but they're the Houston Raiders. Yeah. Yes. Everyone knows about that. Wanted to fact check myself so nobody else had to.
- [28:38]
Alfredo Brown
Well, you've learned nothing. And that's the thing here, Dave, is you've learned nothing because you're supposed to leave the mistakes in. You don't correct them. People correct them in the comments. And then it boosts the algorithm.
- [28:48]
Dave Kluge
We'll go ahead and do that. Youtubers, if you're listening, just tell me what an idiot I am in the comments. No press is bad press. No engagements, bad engagement. We'll take it all.
- [28:58]
Alfredo Brown
Yeah, that's not true, but okay, we're gonna go to the last guy here. Contending teams trade targets, and I'm going with Ricky Pearsall. Very similar concept here to Amari and Hampton. It's a player that has been on ir, the differences. Ricky Piersoll is back. But the thing is here is, like, I actually think that his value on the trade market might have gone down. He comes back into his first game and all the excitement that was there. Yes, my boy Ricky P. Is back in the lineup. And then, boom, we're getting one target, no receptions. And I know there's the video floating around of, look, he was open in the end zone. Not everyone is seeing that right here. Okay. Also, let's not just do the thing where we look at one play and see everything could have been different. And it's. Let's not do that. Let's just contextualize everything. Yes, Ricky Piersoll could have had a touchdown in that game. He also could have had seven, eight targets in that game. What I like most about what happened recently with Ricky Piersol, 84% of the snaps on his first week back. That tells me they're not holding back. Now, this is a wonky game. Remember, George Kittle and CMC combined for five touchdowns on the game. There's likely going to be more scoring opportunities for other people. But the way I'm choosing to look at this, and you can, too, is I want a talented player with a track record of being good and productive for fantasy that's playing a lot of snaps on an offense that's scoring a lot of touchdowns with a quarterback that he has chemistry with. I can take. I can take the one bad week and look at that. And especially if you're a contender, you don't need this guy to jump in right away. You can have him be on your bench, wait for the performance to come. You can have him on your bench through the bye week. Then you get to the playoff stretch where they've got Tennessee, Indiana and Chicago, all top 12 wide receiver matchups. That's the big thing here, is you really don't even need to have Ricky Piersol in your lineup until weeks 15 through 17. And at that point, you know you've already got a really good lineup, you've got a good set of wide receivers. He's there as good wide receiver insurance, but he can be plugged in as your wide receiver two, your wide receiver, three, your flex, whatever you need. And that's the kind of guy that can put you over the top, especially if this Niners offense really does keep scoring points the way it has. So I really like this for Ricky Piersol. Kyle Shanahan, the quote from him was the way Ricky was playing before he got hurt. I mean, he was playing like a true number one receiver in this league. I don't think that just goes away. We're just looking at one game where he didn't get the targets. We should be back to normal pretty soon.
- [31:21]
Dave Kluge
Yeah, and I think this is nice, too, to have like, a different kind of like, I'm talking about Omarion Hampton, a guy that you're going to need to pay up for. You make a really good point that, like, you can get Pierce all for cheap right now. And if you already clinched a playoff berth, you're not requiring or like, you're not relying on Ricky Piers all this week or the next couple of weeks. You can take the next three weeks to see how this shakes out. Like, maybe he gets back up to speed and then you feel really comfortable putting him in your lineups in weeks 15, 16, 17. Maybe he doesn't, in which case, you know, whatever it happens. But I. I am of the belief that he is going to bounce back as well. You know, this was his first game back after almost two months off. He did not look 100. I think that we're just going to see this role continue to grow as he gets more removed from this injury that he's sustained. So you can get him right now for. I don't even know what you'd be able to get him for, but, like, I can't imagine that people are asking for a lot now. Like, they held on to him, they were already frustrated. He comes out, has this dud of a performance, like you could probably flip. I don't. The first guys I wanted to say were, like, the Seattle running backs, but I don't know if I want to do that. I don't think I want to give up. Zach Sharpener, Ken Walker for player that.
- [32:22]
Alfredo Brown
Came to my head.
- [32:23]
Libsyn Ads Narrator
A.J.
- [32:23]
Dave Kluge
Brown. A.J. brown.
- [32:24]
Alfredo Brown
Trade A.J. brown for Ricky Pierce.
- [32:26]
Dave Kluge
All. I don't know if I'm quite there, but I think, like, that's getting accepted in a heartbeat if you send that offer. I'm trying to think of, like, some other positions here. Like, Woody Marks right now. Like, Woody Marks is so hot. Everybody's getting super excited about. I. I'd flip Woody Marks for Ricky.
- [32:41]
Alfredo Brown
Beer's all, yeah, I don't want to say RJ Harvey. I know I'm not ready to give up after a week, but it's just Sean Payton, man. He just does this to us.
- [32:51]
Dave Kluge
And I'm gonna say I'm not even giving up on RJ Harvey. It was funny. Like, so many people ask me, like, why didn't you drop RJ Harvey in your rankings this week? And I was like, because that didn't move him up that high last week. Like, this is what it is. Leo McLaughlin, come in. Like, we knew this was gonna happen.
- [33:06]
Alfredo Brown
Yeah, I think I do.
- [33:08]
Dave Kluge
Ricky. Bears all.
- [33:09]
Alfredo Brown
Yeah, I'm trying to look through, like, running backs. The problem is that so many running backs don't have serious value anymore, right? So it's like, you. I don't even know that you can do a whole, like, swapping of positions here at wide receiver. I think you're probably just trying to play flavors with people and see, like, what they prefer. Cortland Sutton for Ricky Piersol.
- [33:29]
Dave Kluge
Oh, yeah, I do that in a heartbeat.
- [33:30]
Alfredo Brown
I'm doing that.
- [33:31]
Dave Kluge
Quentin Johnson, if somebody's still holding on to hope there. And you can turn your Quentin Johnson into Ricky Piersol. Keenan Allen, you know, I do that in a heartbeat. Wandale Robinson, Jordan Addison. Like, if we're looking at wide receivers.
- [33:42]
Alfredo Brown
Cash in on the Trey Tucker game.
- [33:44]
Dave Kluge
Oh, 100%. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [33:46]
Alfredo Brown
Okay, okay. There we go.
- [33:47]
Dave Kluge
See, we did this.
- [33:48]
Alfredo Brown
We worked this out. Guys, go find yourself a buddy you can do a little think tank with and just start making trades.
- [33:53]
Dave Kluge
Joe Burrow is the other one. Kind of snuck him in there. Like, if you're a contender right now, go pick up Joe Burrow. He's. He's coming back after this week. He has, like, you know, I think Jaden Daniels, that's the one, too, that, like, you might be able to go out there and get. I'm not certain Jaden Daniels comes back after the buy.
- [34:10]
Alfredo Brown
I, I think. What about Lamar?
- [34:12]
Dave Kluge
Yeah, I trade for Lamar too, if you can do that. But I think Burrow is going to cost you a lot less and you have the benefit of stashing him on your ice IR spot over the next few weeks. So I think like Burrows, the guy that I'm, I'm really going out like he's, he's still available in waivers in a lot of leagues. That league that I open up the show saying that I swapped Jackson Dart for Brock Purdy. The reason I did that is because I had Jackson Dart in my IR spot from last week. So I was able to drop a player, add Joe Burrow, move Joe Burrow down to my IR spot and then drop Jackson dart for Brock Purdy. So like a lot of weird management there. But basically the reason I did that is because like I'd much rather have Joe Burrow stashed through the playoffs than Jackson Dart through the rest of the year.
- [34:52]
Alfredo Brown
It's interesting, I wonder let us know in the comments down below because I almost look at it as Lamar Jackson has had multiple bad games back since being in and there could be excitement around Joe Burrow now the Bengals offense is doing but they do this every year. By the way, the Bengals suck early. They get better late in the season. Joe Burrow has an injury quarterback over.
- [35:11]
Dave Kluge
The second half of the season back to back years. Like this is what he does over the second half of the year, right?
- [35:15]
Alfredo Brown
And that's what I think is, I think like a lot of times it's like a mental warfare where a player's coming off IR and we're like oh finally they're back versus the other guy's been playing a couple games, it hasn't been as good and then it just week by week that value sort of changes. So let us know in the comments what you think here. But Dave, it's another good one man. We. We over promised or excuse me, we under promised. We over delivered. I almost said it the wrong way but we gave you guys our top trade targets to go after before your fantasy football trade deadline. These guys are going to help you get into the fantasy playoffs or win the fantasy fantasy playoffs. Dave and I are going to be back again tomorrow with our starts and sleepers for week 12. As always, I want to thank everybody for watching or listening all the way through. For myself, for Dave. We'll see you next time. Adios.
- [36:10]
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- [36:38]
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