← Footballguys Fantasy Football Show
Footballguys Fantasy Football Show
Week 14 Running Back and Wide Receiver Rankings and Sleepers || Fantasy Football 2025
00:55:46
Loading summary
Transcript183 lines
- [00:00]
A
Our Christmas cards started hitting people's mailboxes over the last couple of days.
- [00:05]
B
Did I show you Christmas cards? So when did you turn 65?
- [00:10]
A
We never have before. My wife has had this idea. She's wanted to do this for years. So her birthday was a couple of weeks ago. So I said, you know what? Let's just do it. I'm old enough that I don't care what people think about me. We went to. I mean, it was a fun day. It was a really fun day. We went to the thrift store, and we picked out the most insane Christmas outfits you can find. You know, I had a turtleneck with Christmas trees printed all over it, and then a nice little Christmas vest on top of that. And then we went to JCPenney and we did a just absurd photo shoot and sent out Christmas shots.
- [00:45]
B
Nice.
- [00:46]
A
Yes. And it was one of those, like, I will say, when we got the digital album and we're looking through the pictures, I had tears rolling down my face, like we were laughing so hard. And then the reality set in that, like, okay, now we paid for these Christmas cards, and we have to send them out to people. And, like, friends understand the joke that we're, like, trying to be, like, you know, goofy and awkward and whatever. But then I have, like, ants reaching out to me, and they're just like, are you okay? Like, is everything okay? Because we just did, like, really absurd.
- [01:12]
B
I would have. I would have thought that they would have loved it. They would be like, oh, good for you guys. You know, keeping it classic, taking pictures and sending a Christmas card.
- [01:21]
A
I feel like maybe you need to, like, what did you do?
- [01:23]
B
What did you do? That would cause someone to ask if you're okay.
- [01:27]
A
Hold on. So you're.
- [01:31]
We might have to, like, work this in here. I'm going to text this to you right now. So check it on your imessage. Like, here are the pictures that we took, and you can see the outfits as well if you open up your imessage. Like, these are just absolutely insane.
- [01:45]
B
Absolutely insane serial killer vibes. What is going on?
- [01:50]
A
The mustache, the glasses.
- [01:51]
B
David, how many kids were in your van when you took this picture?
- [01:55]
A
Yes, they were. They were pretty. Pretty insane. Here. Oh, no, I just sent you another. Hold on. I don't know. I'm not good with computers, apparently. I'm trying to send you another one. This was the. The picture that we had on the front of the Christmas cart.
- [02:12]
Oh. So for people who can't see this at home, it's like me sitting down my Wife's sitting on my lap. Like, legs wrapped around each other. I've got the mustache, the. The tur necks, the sweater vests. It is. They were, they were absolutely insane.
- [02:25]
B
I get it. I get why they're concerned.
- [02:28]
A
Yeah.
- [02:28]
B
Makes sense.
- [02:29]
A
Yeah. Yeah. We. We really committed to it. And then as the pictures came back, we were just like, this cannot be real.
- [02:36]
B
This looks like they're going to make a Netflix series about you.
- [02:40]
A
Yeah. I mean, Jeffrey Dahmer vibes for sure.
- [02:42]
B
Yeah. Like Ryan Murphy is going to get the rights to a Dave Kluge documentary.
- [02:46]
A
I just sent you the one where I'm laying down with my feet up and she's sitting on my feet. Yeah, it's. They, they. They were. I'm not kidding, dude. We. We went very over the top with it.
- [02:58]
B
Oh. The thing is, is like, you've got. You've got the little half smile that like a kid with braces does. Emily's got the straight up crazy eyes working in every picture. I know that's not what she looks like, cuz I've seen her in pictures before. She's really working the, like, we murder people when we're not here face. Yeah.
- [03:17]
A
And the just like me with the corduroy pants and the middle part and like everything.
- [03:22]
B
Oh, sweet cords. I didn't even realize those were corduroys. Look at you.
- [03:25]
A
Yeah, yeah, we, we really, really sent it.
- [03:28]
B
You seem, you seem not very proud of this. We.
- [03:32]
A
We had fun with it, I will say that. But now, like, the aunt's just like, hey, we got your Christmas card. Is everything okay? And it's like, yeah, yeah. This was more for, like, you know, friends. But then we just ended up sending it out to family as well, and maybe that was the mistake.
- [03:57]
B
It's week 14 and we're giving you these sleepers that you can put into your starting lineups. Welcome into the Football Guys Fantasy Football show. I'm Alfredo Brown, joined as always. Got Dave Kluge. And we're going to do like we've done every week, go through our running back and wide receiver rankings tier by tier. Dave and I have created a consensus ranking here and we're going to look at the guys that we think we have a little bit above consensus players that you could plug into your lineup. Not so much the obvious guys, but the ones that are on that, you know, flex spot or maybe at the top of your bench. You're wondering if you can plug them in. This week. We got a ton of players on by. We've got a lot of players with murky injury situations. So hopefully this is going to be helpful for you guys. Dave, we got to keep our eyes on the news at all times. We're trying to figure out the injury situations with all these players in practice.
- [04:40]
A
Right now which shout out footballguys.com news. We have an awesome news wire that stays up to date so you can get all of this stuff. So we're doing this right now with the information we have available to us at about a little bit after noon on Thursday afternoon. But Thursday practice reports come out which give us a whole bunch of new pieces to the puzzle. Friday practice reports help us get a much clearer picture and then we always get that news dump. I don't even know if like most people are aware of this. Adam Schefter and Tom pelissero, it's like 2 2am on Sunday morning. They give us the kind of expectations for a lot of the questionable players. So we're just constantly getting a clearer and clearer picture as we inch closer to Sunday.
- [05:17]
B
Well, let's do this. Let's just start off with the running backs. We're going to go through, honestly, there's not much to say with tiers one and two, so we can just fly through those. Let's do this. These are going to be running backs one through 14 in tier one. We've got Jameer Gibbs, Devon H and James Cook, Jonathan Taylor, Bijon Robinson, Chase Brown nice and highly ranked this week. And then Josh Jacobs. Then tier two eight. We've got Bucky Irving, Derek Henry, Breece Hall, Kyron Williams, Quinshawn Judkins, Javante Williams, Saquon Barkley, Dave, there is a name I got to talk about. It's the name that we made a sound with Chase Brown. From here you've got him ranked very, very high. Running back four. I've got him ranked as running back nine. Nine. Interesting that we're doing this in the week where Samaj Piran is supposed to be returning. So why chase Brown as RB4 on the week? I get it. He's probably RB. He's in the top 12 discussion. But RB4 is high. Yeah.
- [06:14]
A
And, and you know, Samajp Ryan was back last week too and he came out and he got a lot of snaps and he got some of the garbage time work late in the game and I think that's it. Like when people look at the box score they say like, oh, Samajp ryan pushed the 60:40 split and he did in the box score. But prior to when that was a three score game. It was all Chase Brown. He's at six straight games with 100 scrimmage yards and that extended even with Samajp Ryan back last week. So he didn't score a touchdown last week, so the overall production wasn't there. But he is very clearly the RB one in this backfield. He gets it through the air. He gets it as a rusher as well. And I just look at that matchup where he gets to go up against the Buffalo defense that is allowing the third, I'm sorry, fourth most fantasy points to opposing running backs. They haven't been able to stop the run. They're letting running backs get going through the passing game as well. To me, Chase Brown is very similar to the Chase Brown he was last year where he was giving us consistent high end RB1 production. And I think that looking at the box score, looking at the overall fantasy production from last week doesn't tell the full story.
- [07:15]
B
Yeah. And since week seven, Chase Brown has actually been the running back seven in PPR points. We tend to do this where we throw the baby out with the bathwater. He has a couple of tough matchups early in the season. We see that things are not going his way and then we also don't give the context of he loses his starting quarterback, the offense loses its identity. He's got tough matchups over and over and over. Now all of a sudden, week in and week out, he's an RB one that you can plug in. It's. It's kind of refreshing. It feels good to see him being ranked that high as an RB4. Especially in this, I think in this matchup too. Going up against Buffalo, they've just been getting gashed on the ground. Yeah.
- [07:49]
A
And, and you look at his overall season like 12.1 points in the week one with Joe Burrow. And then you look at those next three week four weeks with Jake Browning. 7.5, 4, 8.6, 8.3. And then since they made the switch to Joe Flac, now back to Joe Burrow, it has been back to RB1 production from Chase Brown. So we talk so much about early season biases and how they just like leak into our analysis for the rest of the year. Anything that you thought you knew about the Bengals from that four week stretch with Jake Browning, just throw it in the trash. That was not real football.
- [08:21]
B
We've had to do this before too. Every time that Joe Burrow misses time, we're like, ah, throw that season out with the Bengals. It didn't really make sense. And then Last year. Joe Burrow looks great and the offense looks great.
- [08:31]
A
It's.
- [08:32]
B
We've done this before. All right, let's go down to the next here. This is tier number three, where we're going to go through running backs 15 through 23. At 15, we've got Ashton Jinty, 16 RJ Harvey, 17 Ken Walker, 18 Jalen Warren, 19 DeAndre Swift, 20 Travis Etienne, 21 Kyle Manungai, 22Amarian Hampton and 23 Woody Marks. Couple of players to note from in here. Kyleman guy was dealing with. I believe it was a foot injury or ankle injury. Dave.
- [09:01]
A
Yep. DNP was not at practice. Neither was Roma. Dunes. Yeah. Hopefully they can get on track. But again, this is like when we're only working with Wednesday practices. We don't know the full story yet.
- [09:11]
B
Right. So that'll be something to keep an eye on. And we did get word that Omari Hampton is expected to be back for this game and get the start. We don't know what that workload is going to be like. So given the situation with a bunch of these players, is there anyone here that stands out to you as someone who is an absolute, absolute must start for those managers that are kind of teetering back and forth?
- [09:30]
A
You know, I think a lot of these guys do fall into the must start. I mean, this is like our top 24 running backs. I think the one that, like, I find myself a little bit more cautious on compared to our consensus over at football guys. I saw that I'm a little bit lower on Omarion Hampton. You are lower on Omarion Hampton than a lot of our other staffers as well. And this is one where we know he's a talented player, but potentially no Justin Herbert. We know Joe Alt is out. We know Omarion Hampton has been out for over two months. He's coming back from much more than what we thought was a sprained ankle. He's coming back from a broken ankle. So I think that this is a game where we. We have seen Commodity Vidal is playing well in Omarion Hampton's absence, and we know that Greg Roman and Jim Harbaugh both have tendencies. They want to split the backfield here. So. Well, I think there's still, like, long term. And when I say long term, I mean we're looking at four weeks in the rest of the season. I think, like, during the fantasy playoffs, you'll probably feel more comfortable with Omarion Hampton, but if you can bench him this week, I don't think it's the worst thing to do when we could Be looking at potential wrap up.
- [10:27]
B
Yeah, I would say Amari and Hampton is the one that probably gives me the most pause outside of injury. Like, you know, a guy's like Kyle Manungai and stuff like that, but I think he gives me the most pause out of this group. But I also think there's some really good upside here where you're looking at a guy that could be top 12 on your week. So it kind of has to do with how risk averse you are looking. Like there's incredibly safe plays out of this. Jalen Warren, safe play. Deandre Swift, pretty safe play. Quinch on Judkins, another safe play. Maybe the ceiling's a little bit limited there. RJ Harvey is interesting. Dave.
- [11:00]
We assume, you know, a good workload for him. Vegas is a good matchup. Where's the trust meter here though? Because, you know, we, we do this all the time where as soon as I think I'm out, they pull me back in. And then you realize it's a Sean Payton backfield, right?
- [11:16]
A
And I mean, he's getting pretty much the same workload that J.K. dobbins was getting early. I think anybody who thought that RJ Harvey was going to run away with 100 of the touches in this backfield has just been asleep for the last 12 years. This isn't what Sean Payton does. Like we talked about this immediately, where we were saying like, hey, go put in some claims for Tyler bidet and Jaleel McLaughlin in these deep leagues because they're going to get touches as well. And that's what we've seen. But still, RJ Harvey is getting like 60 to 65% of the backfield touches here. That's enough to keep him in the RB2 discussion. And then he's still got that game breaking athleticism. He doesn't need a full workload. He can always score from far out. He's also getting the majority of the red zone work, which we like to see. I think the one other guy to keep an eye on in this year. Just, you know, a quick note for people watching Woody Marks dealing with that foot injury, it knocked him out for a little bit last week. He came back in, he finished the game, but he was a DNP yesterday as well. So keep an eye on Woody Marks whether he's able to practice or not, because we do see this often where people can play through these injuries and then the next day it tightens up on him. I mean, J.K. dobbins, we were just talking about RJ Harvey, perfect example, like he plays through the injury, closes out the game, and then gets put on season ending ir.
- [12:22]
B
Speaking of injuries, our next tier starts off with a guy who we're not sure if he's playing or not, so we will have to follow this as the week goes on. Let's start tier number four. It's running backs 24 through 33. We're starting that with Aaron Jones, then Devin Neal, Kareem Hunt, David Montgomery, Chris Rodriguez, Bashel Tuton, Kenneth Gainwell, Bam Knight, Jordan Mason and Blake Corum. Now, Dave, there are movements going on here where if Aaron Jones plays, we kind of have him here on the cusp of being an RB2. But it's not pretty because you and I were talking before the show. You're worried that if he goes in there, takes a bad hit, he ends up leaving, right. And then what really is the ceiling on the Vikings offense right now? So I, I get the trepidation here with Aaron Johnson.
- [13:09]
A
Yeah. And I, I really do love the tenacity that we see from Aaron Jones. Like he plays through injuries often. He says he wants to be out there, but if you just watched last week, like when he took that hit on the shoulder, which like he got wrapped up, all the body weight fell right on his shoulder. He was in so much anguish on the sideline, like screaming in pain, holding at his shoulder. Like, I, I got to imagine that's going to change the way that he plays a little bit next week. Like I, I have a feeling like, you know, even if he does have like a tight crease between the tackles that he might squeeze through on a normal basis, like maybe he tries to bounce it outside or you see some green. Maybe instead of dropping his shoulder and running through a defender, he steps out of bounds. And then there's always the risk that he does take a shot in the shoulder that puts him out for the game. So I think even if he is healthy, there's a lot of risk in starting Aaron Jones this week.
- [13:51]
B
Listen, man, I'm 35, I've hurt my back enough times where when I bend down to go pick something up, I think twice about it. Yeah, I think I've asked myself, is it worth it to pick up this thing on the floor? Do I call my wife over? What's going to be the form as I get down there? There's a lot of questions that go through my. I can't imagine doing that on a weekly. And Aaron Jones is younger than me, finely tuned, athletic machine, don't get me wrong. But yeah, I, I can't imagine it. So let's talk about Jordan Mason then, because he is also in this tier. What happens if Aaron Jones is out? Because this is a good matchup. Going up against Washington, we saw that RJ Harvey, so he wasn't great actually on the ground. He did score a couple of touchdowns. Jordan Mason is another guy who has not been very efficient. He's been better over the last few weeks running the ball. But this is still kind of a, I guess we can call it a juicy matchup going up against Washington and.
- [14:47]
A
And that's why I think like Jordan Mason, you want to get him in as an RB2 if you can. If Jordan Mason doesn't play but, or I'm sorry, if Aaron Jones doesn't play.
- [14:55]
B
But would he jump to that running back 24 ranking then I think he'd.
- [14:58]
A
Be inside the top 24. But we have also seen that there is a clear limitation with Jordan Mason. Like we were hoping that Jordan Mason would just get 100 of the touches, that he would be this kind of bell cow back. And there was this guy that I, I gotta be honest, Alfredo, I had no idea who Xavier Scott was prior to this season kicking off. And then all of a sudden like we start looking at the depth chart. Yeah, I don't, I don't think a lot of people did, but like he's been involved and he has taken all of the passing down work. He is a converted wide receiver, so it makes sense that they are going to put him in the Aaron Jones pass catching situations. Jordan Mason, if you're starting him, he's not a guy that you're expecting to get 25 carries and to get seven targets. Like you're hoping that he scores a touchdown, but he's going to seed a lot of that passing down work. And the other thing is like we have to abandon our preseason notions where we said Kevin o' Connell is a great coach. It doesn't matter who the quarterback is. This is the Minnesota Vikings. They're going to be good. They haven't been. And we have seen that with J.J. mcCarthy on the field, this team really struggles to move the ball down the field. So yeah, it's a good matchup and we want to have faith in this Minnesota Vikings offense. But based on what we've seen this year, I think it's okay to like say that Jordan Mason probably falls inside the top 24. But I don't think he's like a must start, need to get him in your lineup type of player.
- [16:10]
B
This is one of those Things too with the running backs is like, if all three play, I, I don't know that any of these guys are super valuable. You're just kind of plugging them in because if, because you're desperate if Aaron Jones is out. I think Jordan Mason is a low end RB2. I think Xavier Scott becomes a Flexworthy RB3 with some PPR upside. The problem here is like, I just don't know if there's even going to be a lot of scoring opportunities. JJ McCarthy has been turnover machine two, two interceptions in each of the last three games. It just kills drives. And that's, that's the sort of thing that you don't think of that, but it really affects the running backs. Especially a guy like Jordan Mason where you're saying, well, he's got touchdown upside. Okay, well let's remove two drives per game and how much time comes off the clock and then all of a sudden we're trailing. We've got to go into pass heavy mode. Let's get Xavier Scott out onto the field. So like, these are the things, it starts to become this like domino effect where it's just, it's not as great for Jordan Mason.
- [17:06]
A
And the weird thing like, too, if you watch all of these vikings games with JJ McCarthy, I feel like his final stat line never tells the full story. And we talk about this all the time, like trying to add context to what you're seeing in the box score and seeing in the fantasy production. Jason McCarthy, every single game has one drive where it's just like, oh, it clicked for him. He figured it out. And like, I swear, if you look at his box score every single week, like 80% of his production every week comes on one drive where this dude is horrific for 90% of the game, then just has one drive where he, like we saw down the field and scores. And it's like, where did this come from? And then he goes back to being terrible.
- [17:40]
B
Didn't we see that? Week one, it was the same thing. He was bad for three and a half quarters, then comes in, plays like a God. The Vikings win and we're talking about, man, they got themselves, they got one over there, J.J. mcCarthy. And then it just all.
- [17:54]
A
It's happened in every game since. Like you look at his final game and like, you know, I'll have like 120 passing yards and like 85 of those will come on one drive. It's just been so bizarre watching him play. And I don't know if you heard Alfredo now they're talking about like stripping down the fundamentals even more. Which, like, that was already the talk this preseason that they were trying to do. And they're like, okay, like, we don't even want him focusing on footwork and things like that. Like, we just want him focusing on finding the open receiver. And it's like, oh, boy, this, this doesn't sound good.
- [18:23]
B
This, this reminds me of. I'm, I, I'm not making the comp, but this reminds me of when Tim Tebow was, was in the NFL and they were saying, well, we just got to get him practicing taking some snaps under center and how to drop back with an appropriate, you know, three step drop, five step drop, change the mechanics in that long windup that he's got to throw. And then eventually he just kind of went out there and just started playing the way he wanted to play. It didn't work out long term, but it gives me the same vibe.
- [18:52]
A
They've always got that playoff win, they've always got that big one.
- [18:55]
B
We'll always have the playoff win. A couple other guys in this tier, Bashal Tutin, three touchdowns and three rb, three or better performances in three of his last five games. Now, each of those games have coincided with a touchdown. It does kind of feel like he's becoming touchdown or bust. I guess the question is how much work could he be getting even with Travis Etienne out there on the field? I know our own Sigmund Bloom talked with Mike Dempsey yesterday and they were talking about how the Jaguars might be wanting to give Bayshaw Tooten more work here down, down the stretch because they don't imagine that Travis ETN will be coming back next year.
- [19:31]
A
Yeah, absolutely. And this is one where, like, you know, we can see in our internal ranking platform, Alfredo, you can see this, I can see this. Nobody else can, unfortunately, but we can see how rankings kind of descent with the rest of the staff here. And the guy that I am most bullish on this week compared to the rest of our staff is Bashal Tutin. Because we saw last week, like Travis Etienne is the guy who, for whatever reason, like people think that he is the RB one there. We saw a 60, 40 split last week. Like Bashal Tutin continues to be involved. And I will say the touchdowns feel a little bit fluky here, but kind of like you were saying, like what you were just saying, Dempsey wanted to say, I, I think that they do want to see what they have in Dutton because if they bring ETN back, it's going to be on a second contract that's going to cost them a lot of money and I think that they are pretty confident in la. Quinn Allen doing a lot of the Travis ETN things and Bashaw Tutin being the lead back next year and they want to see what both of these guys, if they invested draft picks into this year, if that can kind of be the one, two punch next season. So I don't think they're, they're going to completely phase Travis Etienne out by any means. But I think that we do see Bayshaw Tootin continue to get 40, 50, 60 of touches there.
- [20:40]
B
Well and the Colts Colts offense hasn't been as juiced up as it was earlier in the season. Trevor Lawrence has been playing better too. So I can imagine we could probably have a closer game here, potentially even a game that is winnable even for the Jaguars. I mean interdivision stuff always does that.
- [20:56]
A
So you talk about Trevor Lawrence playing better. This, this shocked my mind. I was just looking again like trying to like remove early season biases. Do you know since week five Trevor Lawrence is outscoring Drake May in fantasy.
- [21:08]
B
Shut up.
- [21:09]
A
Yeah, dead serious. It does not feel real. But I was looking at it. 19.4 points to 19.1 points. Just, just crazy to see like Trevor Lawrence is a QB1 on the season. He is 12th in scoring this year. And it's just one of those things that I don't think people have really caught on to that Trevor Lawrence is like quietly since week eight he's been the QB8 or I'm sorry, since week five he's been the QB8. Like he is a plug and play QB1 this year. And I think we, we remember the rough start like him in a new offense early in the season. But he has quietly been a very solid fantasy quarterback.
- [21:44]
B
You know what it's been, it's been the rushing, the running has been the big game changer for the great equalizer for Trevor Lawrence. Ironically something that Drake may hasn't been doing as much despite being such a good runner last year. So like that's something. You know what it made Baker Mayfield a better quarterback with, with Tampa and Liam Cohen and.
- [22:02]
It'S just probably it's all clicking at this point.
- [22:05]
A
Yeah, just one of those things. Again, like we get so anchored to what happens in like the first three or four weeks that I was looking at that today and that was one that like shocked me where I was just like I cannot believe that Trevor Lawrence has been this good in fantasy.
- [22:16]
B
Yeah, it's. I mean the Jaguars offense looks better especially the last two weeks. He's been, he's been a better passer. Jacoby Myers being there has opened things so much and especially it's given him confidence to throw over the middle. It's just, it's not, it's not exactly the same team.
- [22:29]
A
I hate how much Jacoby Myers looks like Brian Thomas, by the way. Like they both have the same short dreads, like similar builds. Like last week. I'm watching red zone and I'm like, you go Brian Thomas.
- [22:38]
B
He's going.
- [22:38]
A
He's going. Oh, that's Jacoby Myers.
- [22:40]
B
Jacoby Myers, damn it. Yeah. Okay, anyone else from this tier here, Dave, that you want to speak on?
- [22:48]
A
I mean, Chris Rodriguez we've talked about a lot. He just looks like the best running back in Washington. Like he has very clearly earned that role. They trust him on early downs. We're going to see Jakori Crosby merit come in like every two or three drives to spell him. Jerem McNichols is going to get some of the passing down work. But Chris Rodriguez, you know, I think we're seeing Marcus Mariota looks okay, like they were hanging in that game last week. You know, he's a decent quarterback. He could at least keep the offense on schedule, keep them moving down the field. And Chris Rodriguez is a guy that gets all of the goal line work. So if this is a commander's offense, they could move the ball down the field and put him in scoring opportunities. There's always that touchdown upside with Chris Rodriguez.
- [23:25]
B
And that's the thing. It's touchdown upside. It's the fact that he's the goal line back, the short yardage back. He's the volume back in this offense as well. I remember a few weeks ago I was saying, I don't know about Emmanuel Wilson because this Vikings run defense has been so good over the last few weeks, getting Andrew Van Ginkel back. And the, the run defense still is good. But we can see that the Vikings are susceptible to getting beat by a running back if they're going to get the volume. And so I think that's going to be the thing here is, does Chris Rodriguez get the volume? It's very possible. And with, with injuries buys. We're at a point where you're saying, okay, Chris Rodriguez sort of becomes a flex play for me because of the touchdown upside.
- [24:01]
A
Yeah. And if you look over like the full season, Minnesota Vikings are one of the better teams against the run. But for whatever reason over the last four weeks, they are perfectly middle of the pack. Like they're averaging 25 points per game to running back. So we don't have that fear about like starting running backs against the Vikings.
- [24:16]
B
Yeah. And to give you some like some actionable advice, like I've got Chris Rodriguez over, over David Montgomery over Kareem Hunt over Bam Knight over Devin Neal. I'm pretty, I'm pretty bullish on Chris Rodriguez. Yeah.
- [24:29]
A
Montgomery is the only one that you listed that. I have a couple spots ahead just because I like that Dallas matchup. But yeah, I mean just, just the fact that we're even talking about Chris Rodriguez in the same conversation as David Montgomery should tell you how much confidence we have in him.
- [24:43]
B
Yeah, you know what? And the, the worry with me if we're just talking about Dave Montgomery now, it's been the usage, it's just been the single digit carries over the last few weeks and the, the fact that we can end up in a, in a passing, you know, matchup back and forth with Dallas here, especially now I'm on Amanra St. Brown. I, I worry that a guy like Montgomery gets schemed out of the game. It's just, it's possible.
- [25:07]
Okay. Also in this tier, just the last guy to throw out here, Devin Neal, we haven't seen much of him, but Tampa Bay Buccaneers have been susceptible to pass catching running backs and we've seen Neil, eight catches on 10 targets over the last two weeks here. So he's someone that. Dave, where do you have him ranked? I'm trying to look right here. You've got him as your RB25 and then I've got Devin Neal as my RB29. So he. Is he pretty much just flex appeal this week?
- [25:36]
A
Yeah, I, I think so. And I don't think you have to.
- [25:38]
B
Force him into the lineup.
- [25:39]
A
I think it was 9.9 PBR points last week and you know, not great, but we see this guy like the only competition for touches is Evan Hull. And like we are not scared off by Evan Hole whatsoever. I think they want to see what they have in Devin Neil. It doesn like Alvin Camara is coming back this week. My big fear last week was that we'd see Taysum Hill get like a dozen carries and that didn't happen. So it seems like they're just going to treat Devin Neal. I mean we don't see like true workhorses in today's NFL outside of like a handful of guys, but Devin Neal should get like 70 to 80% of the opportunities. It's not a great offense, but Tyler Shuck is looking better every single week. It's not a Guy that you're like, need to get into your lineup. But I think there's a high upside there where he can catch a bunch of passes if they end up down. He can score if they end up up. Like, there's multiple outs when you're on field that much to have yourself a boom fantasy week. And I think that because we didn't see the upside last week, people think there is no upside. But the usage tells me that he could still pop off.
- [26:34]
B
All right, Dave, final tier here. We'll make this quick. It's running backs 34 through 41. And I'm not gonna lie, I'm looking at the names, and I hate every single one of these except one. Oh, maybe two at 34. Zach Charbonnet, Kimani Vidal, Tajie Spears, Michael Carter, Tony Pollard, Isaiah Pacheco, Tyler Algier, and Keaton Mitchell. I want to rephrase that. I don't hate these men as people. I don't know.
- [26:57]
A
Do you hate Zach Charbonnet this week?
- [27:00]
B
I don't hate him this week, no.
- [27:01]
A
The dude is just like a honing pigeon for the end zone. Like, I don't know why you can, like, it's. It's not pretty, but every single week you start Zach sharpen, it's just like, well, did it again, right?
- [27:11]
B
He's one of the two players from this group that I don't dislike, especially with Atlanta being susceptible on the ground. And this is Kirk Cousins, Atlanta Falcons. Right. And we never know what Sam Darnold we're going to get. This could be one of those weeks. They're up four touchdowns in the first quarter. It could very well happen. And then it becomes the Zach Charbonnet Ken Walker show. So he's one of the guys that I, I'm, like, not bothered by. And the other one is Taji Spears, just for the past catching upside here, but a lot of these other guys, I, I worry that we could be falling into traps with, with. With a few of these players, like the Keaton Mitchells, Michael Carter, with Amari D. Ricado back. That's something we were talking about prior to the show. Not knowing what we have with Kamani Vidal. Could it be a 50, 50 split? Is it going to be an 80, 20 split? These, all of these players worry me. And there's really only two that I look at here and I say, man, there's some actually, some pretty good upside.
- [28:03]
A
Yeah, Vidal is probably the sketchiest start here, but also, like, if they want to, like, really ease Hampton back in and like, you're still getting like 70, 80 of the touches going to Vidal. Then you could feel like a fool if he's on your bench having a game that he has had. But also, I mean, it is hilarious. I'm sure you've seen it, Alfredo. The, the back and forth. Every single week, Kamani Vidal puts up like 2 points, 21 points, 4 points, 19 points. So, like, he had his boom week last week. So history tells us that he's going to have a dud this week, but we'll see if that trend can continue. Michael Carter is the other interesting one because we have seen like, it has been a much closer touch split than I think people realize. Bam. Knight keeps scoring the touchdown, so he's getting the fantasy points. But Michael Carter is getting like 45% of the touches and all the hard.
- [28:50]
B
He's getting like six catches in a game.
- [28:52]
A
Right. So I think that he makes for kind of a sneaky start and you don't feel great about it. But again, watching the practice reports, Amari demarcado returned to practice this week and we know that they also like using Amari demarcado in the passing game. So. So my fear is like, it feels like we finally have some sort of read on this backfield where it's going to be like a 60, 40, 55, 45 split, whatever between Knight and Carter. Knight's going to get the goal line work, Carter's going to get the targets. But if you throw player three in the great in the game and we've got Amar de Mercado, I don't know if you can trust any of these guys. So paying close attention to that, if DeMercado is active, I think I'm pushing all these guys outside of my top 36.
- [29:31]
B
Yeah. If DeMarcado is active, that's a big red flag.
- [29:34]
A
Especially we're not even talking about Trey Benson. Like, we thought Trey Benson was going to come back in week 11 or week 12 and like now he's DNP back to back games or back to back practices. At the end of last week, opening up this week at DMP again, I don't know what's going on there. It is bizarre.
- [29:50]
B
If, if Aaron Jones is out, I think I'm taking Xavier Scott over a couple of these guys. I'll probably put him in the same spot as like Zach Charbonnet and Taji speaker years. As a guy that's just gonna be catching passes. All right, let's go over to the wide receivers here where we are going to be talking about 42 players. We'll go fast. We're talking about all 42, but we'll go quickly through these first two tiers I think are relatively skippable. But let's run through this. It's gonna be wide receivers 1 through 16. Dave at 1. We've got Jamar Chase and Jackson Smith, Jigba, Rashi Rice, CD Lamb, Pukinakua, George Pickens, Jameson Williams, Devonte Adams, Jason Williams.
- [30:23]
A
At wide receiver seven. Brings it.
- [30:24]
B
Yeah, my eye feels good. Feels good. I've got him at wide receiver 8. You've got him at wide rece. Done.
- [30:30]
A
Yeah.
- [30:30]
B
Averages out.
- [30:31]
A
And you know, I remember both of us this off season, we were pointing to it that last year Jameson Williams was the wide receiver 19 and we said this is a 24 year old ascending player. Like he should outperform what he did last year as wide receiver 19. Alfredo, do you know where he ranks right now in wide receiver scoring?
- [30:48]
B
Wide receiver 18, wide receiver 19.
- [30:50]
A
So like all he needs to do is finish inside the top 19 this week and he is outpacing what he did last year. It's been a, but a bumpy road.
- [30:58]
B
And I was gonna say but it's been annoying. Like, like there's a lot of context that goes there was like six straight weeks where he was just unusable.
- [31:05]
A
I mean the fact that over the last seven weeks he has two zero point performances and he is still a top ten wide receiver is just insane. Like, I mean it's, we got desean Jackson all over again. This is fun. We like desean Jackson and now we like Jason Williams.
- [31:20]
B
Well, I mean listen, there's, there's growth, man. Like look at where we're at with George Pickens now. Like he was, he was a very similar player not too long ago and just, just the right situation changes things for him. Lions not having a Monroe St. Brown this week and us not really knowing like what's going to happen with the other receivers. I think a lot of us are assuming Isaac Tislaws can. His role can grow. I've been seeing Tom Kennedy posts out there that get him in your lineups, folks.
- [31:45]
A
Let us know. Here's, here's our call to action for this episode. Let us know in the comments. Was Jameson Williams a good draft pick this year? Yes or no? That's what I want to know. That's, that's what I want to know. I think he was. I mean you drafted him as a wide receiver 24 and he's giving you wide receiver 19. Production and he's getting hot at the end of the year.
- [32:03]
B
Come on.
- [32:04]
A
Sounds like a good pick to me.
- [32:05]
B
It's going to be great for the consolation brackets. Let me tell you. Let me tell you. All right, second tier here, wide receivers nine through 16. Got Nico Collins, A.J. brown, Chris Alan.
- [32:17]
A
Welcome back, A.J. brown.
- [32:19]
B
Yeah, kinda. We'll see. We'll see if you're staying here.
- [32:23]
A
I saw the AI. I don't know if you saw it was kind of mean spirited, but it was an AI video of AJ Brown giving like a post game press conference and he's like, I don't care that we lost the game. I got my two touchdowns, I got my targets, I got 100 plus yards. That's all I care about. Let's go out and do it again next week.
- [32:38]
B
Did you see AJ Brown's Spotify wrapped that he put out there?
- [32:43]
A
I did not.
- [32:44]
B
Oh, it's amazing. I gotta find it right now. But man, his number one most listened to artist, Sabrina Carpenter.
- [32:52]
A
Love that.
- [32:53]
B
So, yeah, let me.
- [32:56]
A
Now I got another early season bias thing that we hold on to. Like everybody, everybody who's a football fan watched the Week 1 Eagles at Cowboys game or A.J. brown had one catch and everybody. What's wrong with A.J. brown? We had to dissect that game for three days before we got any more football. And since then he's been averaging almost nine targets per game. Like, he has also had his boom games and his bus games. But like this guy has three games this season with over 100 yards at a touchdown. Like, he is still A.J. brown. He still gives you those boom weeks. We're just not looking at the consistency. But like he's still a wide receiver one.
- [33:29]
B
You know what, man, His Spotify rap tells the entire story. The entire story. You can't see it here, but I'll hold it. All right, we've got top artists. Sabrina Carpenter, Taylor Swift, Frank Ocean, Hunt Tricks Dave. Do you know what that's from? K Pop Demon Hunters. Yeah. All right, even A.J. brown is there. And then Gracie Abrams. Top songs, Sad Man Child, Self Control, Marvin's Room and Save Me.
- [33:55]
A
The top songs, Sad Self Control. He knew exactly what he was doing.
- [34:03]
B
Sad Man Child Self Control. Marvin's Room and Save Me is absolutely nuts.
- [34:10]
A
You can't. I love it. He didn't just play those songs on repeat on mute in his sleep, like just to make that his rap.
- [34:17]
B
He's just like, man, people gonna love this. The people are gonna love a Spotify.
- [34:21]
A
Sad Man Child is too good.
- [34:23]
B
All right, if it's not fake. I think that tells us everything.
- [34:28]
A
That's hilarious.
- [34:30]
B
He's down bad right now, man. A.J. brown. All right, let's go to the next tier here because this is where we're actually gonna have some players that we can. We could discuss here.
- [34:38]
A
Skip the end. We. We got wide receiver.
- [34:42]
Sorry, Model wide receiver 13, Emeka Ibuka. 14. Justin Jefferson, Lad McConkey, and then DeVonta Smith at wide receiver 16 to close that out. Justin Jefferson. You know, I know people want to bench him. It's been frustrating. But moral Tremblay, he. He said it so perfectly. He's like, you know what's gonna happen as soon as everybody benches Justin Jefferson, he's gonna have 100 yards and two touchdowns because it's Justin Jefferson. And, like, it's tough. I know it's been frustrating. The production has been awful, especially without Carson Wentz. But I feel like you still just need to do it with this matchup.
- [35:16]
B
What if you're making the decision to start him or the first wide receiver in our next tier, Michael Wilson?
- [35:27]
A
I'm going Justin Jefferson. But I. I get it. I get it.
- [35:31]
B
I just love that the answer was if this was captioned, it'd just be guttural sounds.
- [35:38]
A
Yeah, that's a tough one. And I mean, we're ranking it as If Marvin Harrison Jr. Is not going to play. And, you know, I've got Michael Wilson up in my rankings, but I think I'd still go with Jefferson over him given that Washington matchup.
- [35:53]
B
I've got him back to back, by the way. I've got Jefferson as my wide receiver 14. Wilson is the wide receiver 15 because, yeah, I, I kind of subscribe to the same. Like, there's nothing tangible to give you other than I subscribe to the same thing. As soon as we all give up. He plays well. I. I think if you want to be safer, you go with Wilson. If you want to go for the big boom and you're a little more, you know, risk tolerant. Justin Jefferson. Which is just crazy to say at this point of the year.
- [36:20]
A
Yep.
- [36:21]
B
All right, let's go into the tier. Number three. That starts with Michael Wilson. So at 17, it's Michael Wilson, then Christian Watson. Good to see him back in there. T. Higgins, Zay flowers, Michael Pittman Jr. Terry McClure, Carlton Sutton, Jacoby Myers, Khalil Shakir, Dave. Who stands out?
- [36:36]
A
I think Christian Watson. Just the fact that, like, we are finally there. It took four years and a torn ACL and a first round drafted wide receiver like this.
- [36:46]
B
I don't think he has any body parts left that are his own at this point.
- [36:49]
A
This is the year that like, I remember it in the off season. I was so wrong on Christian Watson. Like people were talking about Christian Watson, like, oh, sprinkle him in is like a late round best ball pick. And I was like, no, no. Like they just drafted the guy to take his role in Matthew Golden. He's coming off of a torn acl. I drafted zero Christian Watson this year and, and I still, the process was right, as they say. Like, who could have seen this coming? This is a guy who like every year of his career has just been like a 35 yard per game guy is the occasional boom week. This year he's averaging over 60 yards per game. Like he is operating as the team's wide receiver. 1. We've seen him look better every single week. He's still getting those valuable downfield targets, but now he's also getting the chain moving targets, the quick targets across the middle of the field. He is playing like the wide receiver one we thought he would be four years ago. I don't know why it's finally happening this year. But yeah, Christian Watson looks phenomenal. And like this is just maybe one of those reminders to just like keep a light on for some of these like young developmental receivers. Because we knew that about Christian Watson coming in. He was a freak athlete, but he was a very raw prospect. And you know, we get frustrated. Like I remember I was in a dynasty league where Christian Watson was dropped his rookie season and like I put a bid in for him, but I didn't go that hard for him. Somebody else ended up getting him. Year two, nothing promising. Year three, nothing promising. Now here he is in year four, finally looking like a wide receiver. 1.
- [38:10]
B
I mean, Christian Watson, we're seeing. It's the targets, man. Five targets and seven targets and 10 targets. Last couple games it's been 33 and 36% target shares. We're seeing a guy that he's not the one trick pony anymore. Like, he is actually the player that is making this off this passing offense move. Now you go up against the Bears allowing the fifth most adjusted fantasy points to wide receivers. It's all the stars are aligning where you've got a player that has playmaking ability, getting volume, going up against a favorable matchup. Yeah, I'm in. He should be a top 20 player this week.
- [38:43]
A
Week. I saw somebody say the Bears secondary is the Jamis Winston of NFL secondaries, that they're either going to get an Interception or give up a touchdown. And that is so spot on. Like, this is such an aggressive defense. They will get those picks, they will get those sacks, but they give up so many touchdowns. And I can't believe I'm gonna make this comparison right now. People are going to skewer me for this one, but. Do you remember devonte Adams, his first years in Green Bay? Nothing for three seasons. Devonte Adams, coming from a small school, a developmental guy with good athleticism. He didn't do anything for his first three years, became a Pro Bowler in year four, turned into devonte Adams. All I'm gonna say is we have seen as long as I have been watching football for the 35 years of my life, the packers are very good at drafting and developing guys. And we see it all the time that these guys that we think are a lost cause end up in year three, four, five, developing into superstars. I'm not going to say that Chr. Christian Watson is the next devonte Adams, but we have to have faith in the packers development or developing guys because we have seen them do it time and time again.
- [39:49]
B
That was a good. That was a good way to ride the fence at the end there. I'm gonna say that he can be devonte Adams, but I'm not saying that he is devonte Adams.
- [39:59]
A
All I'm saying is that I remember a lot of talk after year two and year three saying devonte Adams was a bust. And we had those same talks about Christian Watson. And I mean, we. This is what the packers do. They. They draft well, they develop their guys, they keep them homegrown, they keep guys in house. And, you know, it wouldn't surprise me if Christian Watson ends up just being that wide receiver one for Jordan Love for the next four or five years.
- [40:22]
B
Yeah, we'll be back in three years talking about Matthew Golden. It's gonna be great.
- [40:27]
A
I mean, you joke, but yes, I think that that is a perfect example. Yes. Keep a light on for Matthew Goldman in 2028.
- [40:34]
B
One could argue the packers actually draft horribly at wide receiver.
- [40:38]
A
Right. But.
- [40:39]
B
But then their coaching staff is decent at developing it. Just, you know, there's that there, too. All right, from this tier also, Dave Jacoby Myers, this guy that stands out to me. We talked about him a little bit earlier and like, what he has done, like what he has done for the Jaguars offense and opening things up over the middle, especially if Parker Washington is going to be out in this game. Jacoby Myers thrived. He can do it outside, he can do it inside, in the slot. And that's something that has been really, really helpful. Colts top five in most fantasy points allowed to wide receivers. So this is actually a good matchup. And the target shares, similar to Christian Watson. Target shares for Jacoby Myers have been great. 27%, 20%, 24%. He's been producing and he is, I mean, dare I say, I think he's just the wide receiver one for this team. Like, I don't think that's that crazy to say he's the wide receiver one for the Jaguars and the offense is playing better because of the.
- [41:28]
A
It. Yeah. And, and I do think Brian Thomas Jr. Last week, I mean, three weeks off, coming back from an ankle. I think he was limited by the ankle more than anything else. I think it's very feasible to say that Jacoby Myers can outscore Brian Thomas Jr. Between now and the end of the season. But I, I saw this thing going around on Twitter saying that like Brian Thomas Jr. Is now the wide receiver four in Jacksonville and I'm not, relax, I am not there at all. I mean, I, I think that Jacoby Myers, I think that he being in Jacksonville can benefit Brian Thomas. And this is something that we talked about so much in the offseason, the Liam Cohen offense, that he likes these high, low passing attacks. Jacoby Myers is going to be that low guy. Brian Thomas is that high guy. Very similar to what we saw last year with Chris Godwin working in the low intermediate across the middle of the field area, Mike Evans working on the boundary deep downfield. I see Brian Thomas Jr. Kind of being the Mike Evans, Jacoby Myers kind of being the Chris Godwin. I could see this balancing out. The nice thing is now we kind of get this last week, like if you're, if you're fighting for a playoff spot, it's not great. But if you've already locked up a playoff spot or you kind of know where you're at, you've got your first round buyer or whatever. I think a wait and see approach here with this Jacksonville room. I think we'll get a lot more answers this week now that Brian Thomas Jr. Has that first game back under his belt. And then hopefully we have some confidence going into week 15, how we want to rank these players.
- [42:46]
B
Could you just one more time, you said Jacoby Myers is the low guy and Brian Thomas is the wife.
- [42:50]
A
What the. The high guy?
- [42:51]
B
I think. There we go. Okay, next here gonna go to wide receivers. 26 through 34 here. Starting out, Debo Samuel, Adonai Mitchell, Alec Pierce, DK Metcalf, O Roma Dun. Brian Thomas Jr. Chris Godwin, Quentin Johnston. This is just the island of sad. Like, not even misfit toys. This is just like the. We used to be something something, and it was only a few weeks ago. By the way, Troy Franklin, last one on here. Also kind of fitting.
- [43:23]
Who's not depressed?
- [43:24]
A
Chris Harris likes to say the wide receiver three and infinite sadness. Like, that's just what it is. Like, all of these guys can give you 30 points this week, or they could give you zero points. And that's just kind of where we are at this point. Ed and I Mitchell, I mean, we, we've both got him. I believe you got him inside the top. You got him at wide receiver 31. So I mean, like, yep, we're saying to start him as a wide receiver three or a flex, like. And I mean, Adonai Mitchell is a guy that you and I both really liked. I remember we were in Vegas, or, I'm sorry, not in Vegas, we were in Nashville together. We were doing a live stream during that draft. And I remember watching round one where we just kept saying, like, all right, they're taking AD Here, right? And. And we just. Every single pick, like, they gotta take Adonai Mitchell here. Gotta take him. And he ended up falling all the way, like, pretty deep into round two. But the reason we, like, liked the prospect so much, AD and I Mitchell, was the relative athletic score. For people that aren't aware, relative athletic score just kind of takes all of the combine testing, puts them all into one nice fancy number. On a 1 to 10 scale, Adonai Mitchell's relative athletic score was 9.99 of over 3, 000. Wider seems good.
- [44:26]
B
Is that good?
- [44:27]
A
I'll tell you how good it is. Over 3, 000 wide receivers drafted since 1987, Adonai Mitchell was the sixth, sixth most athletic. I mean, like, this isn't just good, this is elite. Like, this guy on paper is the perfect prospect. Six foot two, game breaking speed, can jump out of a stadium. Strength, explosiveness, he's got everything. He just can't catch the ball all that well. And turns out that's a pretty important part of being a wide receiver. But now he's getting his opportunity.
- [44:55]
B
He can do the first half of the name really well. He can get wide open. The receiving part, it's a struggle. It's hit or miss. I remember, man, I remember that. That draft night, wanting Adonai Mitchell to go to the Bills, and they took Keon Coleman instead. And it just, it Just broke my heart. Just absolutely broke my heart. Yeah.
- [45:13]
A
And. And there were so many good spots and like we like the spot. And I think the reason he got shipped off, you know, they've got a lot of good pieces. I think they drafted AD and I Mitchell hoping that he could be the future of Alec Pierce. That like. But. But then we saw Alec Pierce take this huge step forward this year and now they're probably going to extend to Alec Pierce. So, you know, and they. They push in. They wanted to get Sauce Gardner and I think the jets were happy to get Adonai Mitchell in return, but we see this all the time where these guys just come out of nowhere at the end of the season and become league winners. And right now I think that what they are going to do is try to explore what they have in Adonai Mitchell. Garrett Wilson's out for the year. Well, not out for the year, but it seems like he's out for the year. This is very much so just a lost season for the Jets. I think they're just going to force feed the ball to Adonai Mitchell to see if he could be that number two option next year behind Garrett Wilson.
- [46:03]
B
Another guy, and you mentioned him earlier, Alec Pierce, former teammate of Adonai Mitchell. I really like him this week, Dave. I've got him as my wide receiver. I lost it here on the paper. Wide receiver, 28 this week. I think he's an easy wide receiver three at easy flex play this week. He's been on a hot run three out of four games. Over 17 PPR points here. And going up against a soft Jacksonville secondary. Like I mentioned, this could be a way more competitive game than expected. It hasn't quite been the same Colts offense as early in the season where they could just rely on Jonathan Taylor here. So we might see a little bit more of a balanced attack. But I really like Alec Pierce this week. Another guy. And I want to get your thoughts on this. Jaden Higgins. He's had the floor as of late. 11 or more PPR points in four of his last six games going up against what we would say is a generous chief secondary. Now, the issue has been that that was without Nico Collins. That was with Davis Mills. We've had CJ Stroud back. What are your thoughts going into this one with Jaden Higgins? Is he a guy that you're going to be flexing or a must start? Where is he at for you?
- [47:08]
A
Yeah, I think, you know, I've got him ranked right about where you do and you know what it is like the, the, the floor, you say a decent floor, but that floor is still like five or six points. And I think the ceiling here, of course, like we know what the ceiling can be. This is a great athlete. He's got the size, he's got the athleticism, he's got the red zone opportunities as well. So I think he just, you know, I wish I had a strong take here. He just falls into that bucket of Wide Receiver 3 and the infinite sadness as we've been saying.
- [47:35]
B
Yeah.
- [47:35]
A
One last thing, you talked about Alec Pierce. I do think Alec Pierce is a good start. But I, I kind of noticed a trend that Michael Pittman just like when he faces a shutdown corner, he gets shut down. And Alec Pierce is the one that benefits. Like if you look. And last week he was going up against Stingley and he didn't do anything at all. And Alec Pierce had his big game. You know, two weeks ago when we saw Alec Pierce have another big game that was going up against Atlanta where AJ Terrell just shut down Michael Pittman. So I think this is a game where I do prefer Michael Pittman ever so slightly just because he isn't going to have that shadow cornerback on him. But I think Alec Pierce still like you're getting him in your lineup if you can.
- [48:11]
B
Oh yeah, don't get me wrong, I prefer Michael Pittman over Alec Pierce here. I'm just saying Alec Pierce is absolutely start worthy in this.
- [48:17]
A
Like it's just we hear all the time about these like shut down quarters and like, like nobody gets shut down the way Pittman does. Like if he's got to go up.
- [48:24]
B
Against, nobody's better at it.
- [48:26]
A
Yeah, he's just, he gets completely deleted from games when he has to go up against a good quarterback.
- [48:32]
B
Okay, fifth and final tier here and there's one player that if we don't talk about the SEO gods will kill us.
- [48:39]
A
And Tom Kennedy.
- [48:41]
B
Yes. Nailed it. Final tier here, Xavier Worthy, Jaden Higgins, Romeo Dobbs, Keenan Allen, Jordan Addison, DJ Moore, Isaac Tesla, Darnell Mooney and I put the emphasis on Tesla because this is the guy that a lot of people ran out to pick up off the waiver wire this week. There's a lot of excitement. It's Lions, it's Cowboys. There's going to be a lot of passing. There's no Aman or St. Brown. Isaac Tislaw goes into this role here that we didn't see much but we did see last week. 92% snapshare, 94 route participation, two targets, two catches, 35 yards and a touchdown, the most to slob possible stat line ever. So what's the confidence level here going up against the Cowboys? I think we can, we can genuinely see a little bit of anything here from him. What I love is just we've got a player that's getting a lot of opportunity with his athletic ability. I can see him getting open and making big plays. I can't imagine this is going to be Jameson Williams getting 15 targets in the game to slot, coming down with two.
- [49:45]
A
Yeah, and I think the thing that gets buried in a lot of the Tesla discussion as well is that, you know, his role was kind of growing before this game and I haven't heard many people talk about that. He ran 23 routes two weeks ago, which was a career high for him and then 30 routes last week. So this didn't just come because of the Amon Ra St. Brown injury. Like they were already starting to open up his opportunity a little bit and we knew this like this was a very raw prospect. This is the second time on the show I'm going to talk about relative athletic scores. Shout out to our friend Kent Lee Platt who puts all of this together. I talked about how Adonai Mitchell was the sixth most athletic player drafted since 1987. Isaac Tesla was the 11th most athletic player drafted since 1987. So this is another super athlete who if they can get the ball in his hands, he can make fun plays with them. And now the opportunity is here. I, I think like, you know, when you're looking at this tier, of course, like Jordan Addison, first round pick, he's got the pedigree. You want to find a way to get him up in those rankings. Keenan Allen, he could always come down with the touchdown. But if you're looking at pure upside in this year, I think Tesla has far more upside than anybody else here.
- [50:54]
B
Well, and I think a lot of people are going to look at him as the big guy, go fast and can play outside and make the, the long plays here. I think a lot of people are going to be surprised to hear that this uber athlete also played the slot in College. He played 79% of his snaps in the slot as a senior coming out of Arkansas and in the NFL he hasn't had that opportunity because a lot of it is him going in for Jameson Williams or going in on the outside and doing things with Aman Ra St. Brown but now with St. Brown out. Now Dave, we talk about this all the time is that coaches just have to put players in when an injury happens. And then they just figure out the rest later.
- [51:35]
A
They want to revolve the offense around Tom Kennedy this week.
- [51:38]
B
And that's the thing, right? It's like, okay, let's keep the same playbook, let's put Tom Kennedy in the slot, let's get him 14 targets in the game. I can't imagine that's what's happening. I'm not suggesting that's what they're going to do with Tesla, but I'm saying there's going to be, I think, a little bit more motion here. There's going to be a little bit more of a mix of where these players are getting lined up. It's not a one trick pony. It's not setting them up on the outside and telling them to run 40 yards in a straight line. I think we're going to get a lot of him going over the middle, being able to run across field and use that athleticism to run after catch. You know, dare I say this is something where we could see something kind of like a puka nakua where they can use him in that same sort of set skill set. Like that's something that Isaac Tesla was talking about a lot of as a prospect is that he was extremely physical, extremely fast, could win over the middle, but couldn't do much else. Well, now we got that opportunity and.
- [52:30]
A
I think what we can see to like make it as simplistic as possible for the listeners out there is I think that like we can still see the same Lions offense, but I think we probably see Jameson Williams move to the Amon Ra St Brown role and I think we see Isaac Tesla move to the Jamison Williams role because I think, I think right now, like at the respective points in their careers, I think Jameson Williams is a little bit more well rounded. You know, he's a little bit. He's got a bigger, more.
- [52:56]
B
I just don't think it's that simple. I don't think you just plug one guy into the other role. Like, I think you're just going to be getting bits and pieces.
- [53:01]
A
I don't think it's exactly that simple either. But I think that we're going to see Jameson Williams and that's why I said like trying to make it as simple as possible because I think Jameson Williams can be that possession receiver. Like we saw him last week take just a bubble screen where he was able to break one tackle and then off for a touchdown. Like we can see him do that and I think Tesla can do that as well. But I think they're Going to want to use him as more of a deep threat. So I think a lot of those, like, valuable crossers that we saw deep in the middle of the field that were going to Jamison Williams, he could still get some of those, but I think we'll see some of those going to Tesla as well. I think that Jameson Williams is the guy that is probably going to get 10 to 15 targets in this game. I think Tesla probably sees like four to eight targets maybe, but I think his targets are going to be downfield and much more valuable.
- [53:44]
B
I think this would have been simpler had Khalif Raymond been available, but he's not this week.
- [53:49]
A
That's the other big thing. Yeah, like, Khalif Raymond would have taken a lot of that slot work and now he's out, too.
- [53:53]
B
That's the thing, is you could have just plugged him into the slot and I think that we would have expected Isaac to slot and maybe be in that, like, Josh Reynolds role that we had seen with the Lions for, for so long. And Jameson just stays doing Jameson things and then you just kind of, you know, parse out the targets here. But yeah, I think the potential is very high for. I'm starting him in, in a couple leagues where it's, you know, it's. It's three wide receivers deep, it's two flexes. I've got him as one of my flexes. I went out and got him off waivers. I'm rolling with them. This is, this is the. Especially in this kind of matchup, Lions versus Cowboys, where we could see a lot of passing. This is the kind of upside that wins you your week entirely. And if this is how I lose, man, then this is exactly how I want to go down. Is taking a chance on a player with massive upside in a game that could have a ton of scoring.
- [54:36]
A
Yeah. And we are talking a lot about the Thursday night matchup for a show that comes out on Thursday afternoon. We see viewership for this show. We usually get a lot of it Friday morning. So I'm sure a lot of people are going to let us know how rough right or wrong we are tomorrow morning. But, you know, that's. That's the nature of the business.
- [54:54]
B
Yeah. Well, podcast going out now.
- [54:57]
But. Yeah, well, Dave, we did it, man.
- [54:59]
A
Tesla does nothing. Just forget this last five minutes that we talked about. We were just having fun. We were just joking.
- [55:05]
B
Just leave us an angry comment, but then give us a thumbs up and hype the video there.
- [55:08]
A
Five star review, please.
- [55:10]
B
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Five star review. But I hate you guys. You're wrong. Everything. It's great. Thanks. It's. Yeah. All right. We did it. Week 14 sleepers. We'll be back again next week. Week 15 as the fantasy football playoffs kick off. As always, I want to thank everybody for watching and listening all the way through. For myself, for Dave. We'll see you next time. Adios.
- [55:39]
A
Sam.