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Week 2 Waiver Wire Pickups || Fantasy Football 2025
00:59:36
In Episode 260 of the Footballguys Fantasy Football Show, Dave Kluge and Alfredo Brown discuss the best players to pick up off waivers as we head into Week 2 of the NFL season. Send your questions to fantasyshow@footballguys.com 🎥....
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- [00:00]
A
Back to school is better with family freedom from T Mobile we'll pay off four phones up to $3200 and give you four free phones all on America's largest 5G network. Visit your local T Mobile location or learn more@t mobile.com familyfreedom up to $800 per line via virtual prepaid card typically takes 15 days. Free phones via 24 monthly bill credits with finance agreement eg Apple iPhone 16128 gigabyte 820099 eligible trade in eg iPhone 11 Pro for well qualified credits end and balance due if you pay off early or cancel contact T Mobile about to see all of the running back love just come crashing down. Like everyone's gonna. I mean I don't know dude is this week one is just. I hate trying to react to it because like 1 out of the 10 things will be real and then if you just, you know, stick your nose up at all of them and act like it's all fake, it just doesn't. Doesn't help you or anyone.
- [00:54]
B
You know. It was very real. What Ricky Pierce all and Jackson.
- [00:59]
A
Yeah baby.
- [01:00]
B
Being absolute dogs running all over the field. Like just weapons. I don't know if you saw I, I shared because I, I talked about it like the, the, the, the history of Clint Kubiak X receivers. I don't know if you saw yesterday, but I shared JSN's.
- [01:15]
A
I don't follow you on Twitter.
- [01:17]
B
I shared JSN's route chart. I shared Ricky Pierce one of his route charts from last year. I shared Brian Brandon Ayuks from 2023 and Justin Jefferson's from 2022 and it.
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A
Looked pretty darn similar.
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B
Like JSN is getting that exact deployment that we had hoped for.
- [01:32]
A
Dude, it's, it's going to happen. And like defenses know this too and they still can't stop it because they're just moving him all over the field. And then on top of it, like Jason's just a good route runner, you.
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B
Know, who was 9% target share yesterday.
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A
It's just insane. Obviously he's not going to keep that but like good place to start if you did. Be a lot cooler if you did. You know who did not look good in that same game? Two guys. Cooper cup just simply can't get open. Ken Walker. He's hurt, bro. He's hurt.
- [02:03]
B
Like Charbonnet didn't look great either. I'm talking a lot of what we saw with Seattle. Yeah, I'm just chalking a lot of that up. To that run defense, they were just, they were, they were absolutely killing him yesterday. Like Charbonnet got the touchdown and that kind of blinds people from, from what was otherwise a pretty inefficient, not great showing.
- [02:21]
A
They had, they didn't have any long runs, which was surprising for the Kubiak offense. And they also didn't run the ball outside a lot. Like they kept running the ball right into the teeth of the defense. I just wrote about it a second ago, but like the Seahawks, Yeah, Seahawks faced a stacked box of eight plus defenders on 23% of their rush attempts and they still ran inside the tackles on 50% of their runs. Like they just, they just really weren't trying to get outside despite having the box stacked against them. Joey Bosa looked really good. He had a, he had a backside play where he like tracked Kenneth Walker down. I keep doing that. Yeah, Nick Bosa, they're the same person except for when they're on the field.
- [03:03]
B
Can I just say, it must be so hard being Joey Bosa. Like he, he doesn't have, he's not the most attractive man in the world, you know, and then you look at his brother Nick. Nick is just, you know, I'm comfortable enough in my masculinity say that Nick is a very attractive man and that must just suck having like one of the handsomest men in the world as your brother. And, and like Joey Bosa, he's, he's.
- [03:29]
A
A, he's an above average looking dude. Like I'm not going to say he's one of the most handsomest men, but I mean, I guess if you don't know that you're the ugly brother, then you're the ugly brother, right? Is that what it is? Thank God I'm an only child. I'd have no idea.
- [03:46]
B
I'm sure Nick has an idea that like he's the good looking brother and Joey probably knows that he's the, the not good looking brother. You know, I'm sure they, you know, look at it back at prom pictures. I'm sure they had different levels of significant others growing up, but now they're both worth hundreds of millions of dollars and now looks don't really matter that much.
- [04:06]
A
Yeah, but now you made me google Joey Bosa and his just, it's just there on my screen. Yeah, quick, top 10 best looking, most handsomest football players in the NFL.
- [04:19]
B
Go. I mean, Nick Bose is up there for me. Like, I think Nick Bosa might be the 101 if we're doing a handsome draft. Oh, God. Hold on. Jalen Hurts is a good looking fella.
- [04:32]
A
He is a good looking fella. Oh, Here we go. Ranker.com has the hottest NFL players. Saquon Barkley's number one.
- [04:42]
B
Yeah, I get that one.
- [04:43]
A
It's got a great smile, good abs, the arms. Yep. Jimmy Garoppolo is still number two.
- [04:49]
B
Get out of here. Oh, my goodness.
- [04:52]
A
I mean, it's not who's the. Who's who's handsome and good at football. Jalen Hurts number three.
- [04:57]
B
Funny story about being at a bachelor party and my buddies were like spitting game to this bachelorette party and they all went to eastern.
- [05:05]
A
First of all, I have not heard the term spit and game.
- [05:07]
B
That shows you how far out of game I am. Yes. And this was about eight, eight to ten years ago. But it was this bachelorette party from Eastern Illinois University and they said that they had like gotten word that Jimmy Garoppolo was in Nashville that weekend. And sure enough, like, as my buddy is like trying to close with this girl, Jimmy Garoppolo comes swooping into the bar and stole her, I'm sorry. Right out from under my buddy's nose.
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A
The first of all, he was trying to close with some girl. Mack it on some chicks.
- [05:39]
B
Buddy, I, I, I'm 12 years into a relationship, okay? I don't, I don't know the lingo anymore.
- [05:47]
A
Welcome to 2005.
- [05:49]
B
Everybody spitting game and macking on some names. I don't know.
- [05:55]
A
Did you say dames? Did you go to like 1885? Like, what are you doing? We had a crazy week one of NFL action and what that crazy. It was honestly just kind of bad. But there was, was a few really crazy games that were good. We're going to take a look at the week two waiver wire here, let you guys know which players we think are worth an ad, what kind of fab you should be spending on them, players you should be dropping and just overall give you our thoughts on, on a lot of these players. And Dave, we want to do this, not where we are each coming up with a list of players and saying, go add these guys. Like, we just want to sit here and talk about them, even if we aren't recommending picking up these players.
- [06:47]
B
Yeah. And I think, you know, every league is a little bit different. Like if you're, you know, drafting a guy in round nine that you were relying on to be at a starter and he didn't pay off for you this week, you might be looking at one of the guys that we're going to talk about as a potential short term kind of plug in. But yeah, usually we see like big blow up games in week one. So like in week one that like, really wow us and we want to go like splash a bunch of fab or we see a running back go down and open up the door for a backup running back to be that guy. And this was otherwise a pretty quiet week one, all things considered. You know, we didn't have any of those big blow up games that get us really, really excited. And even the guys that did kind of surprise us were drafted in most leagues as kind of late round darts anyway. So waiver wire is a little bit thin this week, but especially in your deeper leagues, you should always be making moves, kind of churning the bottom of that bench and just trying to get those little edges where you can.
- [07:35]
A
Yeah, churn the bottom of your bench, guys. Do it. Churn that butter. Dave, what do we start with? Who's like, who is the guy that if you're saying, okay, I need to go make a pickup this week, regardless of position, I need to start someone in my flex next week. Who's that player that you're going out to look for?
- [07:52]
B
I think it's got to be Hollywood Brown and he's still available in about 70% of leagues. And this is very much so a short term play because we know Rashi Rice is going to come back at some point. Xavier Worthy, we don't know the extent of his injury yet. It's kind of wild. Like, everybody's speculating right now. I've heard that it's one of those, like, you know, some people are saying, ah, they pop their shoulder back in. You know, you could put brace on and he could be fine next week. I've heard other people say that, like, if there's a fracture in the shoulder, it could be season ending. So, you know, we're recording on Monday morning. We don't have all of the information yet. I saw you raise your eyebrows a little bit though. Alfredo, are you. Do you have some insight here that I don't know about?
- [08:26]
A
No, no, no, no. I was, I was seeing the same thing that it's just. It seems more common and more likely that this is one of those injuries that might require surgery. And if it does, like, we could be looking at a four week absence, which essentially you're just getting right back into Rishi Rice territory with Xavier Worthy, which is not great. Yeah, I think Holly LeBron is, is the guy. My confidence level's not very high though, on him being that guy, like, I think for almost all these players we talk about in this show, they're all going to feel like rentals. There's one guy that I think is more than a rental, and we'll talk about him. And it's probably not who people think, but Hollywood Brown we saw. Dave, what was it, like 18 targets here in week one?
- [09:10]
B
15.
- [09:10]
A
Yeah, it was 15. Okay. I knew it was a ridiculous number. Yeah, 15 targets here in week one. Just. I think a lot of it is. You and I were talking before the show and you mentioned is just the Chiefs seem to be scrambling to sort of just figure out who can we get the ball to. And they sort of just put Hollywood Brown in this Rashi Rice role that Xavier Worthy was there trying to play, and then it really wasn't even working out. Like, we had a point where Hollywood Brown had like, what is it, eight catches for 38 yards at one point. It just did not look very good. Unless you were in the PPR monster.
- [09:44]
B
Right. And I look back to last year when Rashi Rice went down. The next week, JuJu Smith Schuster came out and had eight targets, seven receptions, 130 yards. Like, he kind of looked like a carbon copy of Rashi Rice. And if you're looking for a guy who is going to be able to catch those balls across the middle of the field, break a tackle, turn it up field, make those big yak sort of plays, I think juju Smith Schuster is a little bit better suited for that role than Marquis Brown is. So what I'm seeing right now is like juju Smith Schuster kind of being the Rashi Rice and Hollywood Brown kind of being the Xavier Worthy. But, like, we're not even talking store brand here. Like, what is like a step below store brand? Like, this is like your. You're. You go to that store where, like, things are already expired and you get them on sale.
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A
The Dollar Store. Yeah.
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B
Yeah. This is worse than the Dollar Store.
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A
What's worse than the Dollar Store?
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B
Like, where.
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A
Where are you shopping?
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B
The. The thrift store. This is your Goodwill version of Rashi Rice and Xavier Worthy, I think. I mean, it's just. It's not good and it's disrespectful.
- [10:43]
A
Dollar Store was fine. It was right there.
- [10:45]
B
Yeah, you know, maybe I've been a little bit disrespectful here. First of all, I gotta say, like, I was a big fan of Hollywood Brown in this Chiefs offense. Like, I was really pounding the table for it last year, but he just didn't look very Good. They were doing like really weird things to get him the ball, kind of using him as an extension of the run game. We hear that term often. But it was like screens hiding him behind the offensive line, putting him in motion so they can like just get him the ball out in the flat. There were a lot of throws where like Patrick Mahomes wasn't even going into a drop. Like he was just taking the ball out of the shotgun and just immediately firing the ball off to Hollywood Brown for 2, 3 yards. We saw that one big catch that he had, the 49 yard catch at the end of the game. And that was a nice play. But that even felt like it was like kind of broken coverage. You know, they ran this high, low crossing pattern where JuJu Smith Schuster was the low guy. He pulled the safety down and you literally see Marquis Brown like waving his hands just wide open behind the defense. So you know, that can happen every now and then. But like, I'm not banking on that. It wouldn't be surprising at all if like next week Hollywood Brown comes out with similar usage and has like eight catches for 41 scoreless yards. And that's just not great in fantasy. It almost feels like a Wandell Robinson type of role.
- [11:54]
A
I was just about to say at Wandell, Hollywood Robinson, Brown.
- [11:58]
B
Exactly. Yeah. Xavier Worthy, his. You know, we talked about it a couple times over the off season. Like Xavier Worthy was kind of like a souped up Wandale Robinson last year and that's kind of what Marquis Brown is in that role now. And he probably doesn't have the burst that Xavier Worthy does.
- [12:15]
A
What are the odds that the Chiefs make a trade and try to just get a wide receiver? I know that it might, it might feel short sighted because it could just be a couple weeks because Xavier Worthy and they've got Rasheed Rice coming back. I, I don't think they can go another season like this, man. Like, the Chiefs offense just looks bad. And especially in a game like this where they just had to abandon the run early, get into passing the ball and they just looked horribly inefficient. Like Patrick Mahomes just did not look good. Travis Kelsey, I know he had his touchdown. That saves his day, but he doesn't look great either.
- [12:45]
B
Yeah, you know, I think Kelsey looked okay. I was kind of surprised that he only had four targets because he does look a little bit slimmer and a little bit faster than he did last year. And that kind of corroborates some of the stuff that we were seeing out of training camp. Too, that he's in better shape than he class here. But, yeah, he definitely isn't the Travis Kelce of a few years ago. It, you know, I, I think Tyreek Hill makes sense. And we have seen, you know, the Chiefs, they didn't have the best parting with Kareem Hunt a while back, but they were willing to, you know, put that under the table and bring him back last year. I could see them doing the same with Tyreek Hill right now, though. Like, we're always looking for players to pick up and we want to say, like, oh, this guy is the lead receiver on the Chiefs, but the Chiefs offense isn't great right now. Like, this isn't where you want to be. Like, yeah, we need to get a piece of this Chiefs offense. I'm kind of okay not having any Chiefs players on my team in the short term.
- [13:33]
A
And I'll say this because we can get into, like, how much you'd want to spend on a guy like Hollywood Brown. I'm kind of not. Like, unless I'm really desperate for a flex play for next week and it's a PPR league, I'm probably not bidding because looking around at what most people are spending, I did the week two waiver wire polls over on Twitter and it was pretty even. A lot of people are still being very conservative with their fab, their free agent auction budget, but roughly 32% of people said they would be willing to pay up to 10% of their fab on Hollywood Brown. And I don't think I'm there. Like, I think I'm just comfortable letting someone else in my league win on Hollywood Brown. Is that kind of where you're at?
- [14:11]
B
Yeah, I think so. And if we were at, like, you know, if this was week six and there were a bunch of injuries and bye weeks and all sorts of stuff, I might be willing to go a little bit more aggressive on my Hollywood Brown bid. But the reality is that, like, by the time we get to that point in the season where bye weeks are getting really, really bad, Rashi Rice is probably going to be, you know, nearing his return. We don't know about Xavier Worthy, but Mark, Hollywood Brown, Marquis Brown, whatever he's going by these days, you know, he's probably going to be the, the fourth or fifth option on this team by the time you actually can rely on him.
- [14:42]
A
35% of people saying that they would spend over 10% of their fab is just, I don't want that. I don't want to have to spend that. So I'm willing to lose on that. I want to talk about another guy that I really like coming out of this week, and I did not expect this because you know what? He kind of just flew under the radar. I didn't have him ranked very high going into the season. But Keisha Booty has my attention right now. This is just another week where he has looked really good, Dave, and this wasn't. I wanted to check and see, like, was this just out of nowhere? It's not, because it's going back to last year. Three out of his last four games as a starter, he's been a top 18 fantasy wide receiver. And it hasn't all just been, you know, touchdown or bust with him. He is consistently getting a lot of targets. He's had seven or more targets in three of those four games. And this last game, he leads the team in snaps. He leads the team in targets. He's out there on two wide receiver sets with Mack Hollins. This doesn't seem like it is a Stefan Diggs wide receiver room or that Kyle Williams has a big role right now. K Sean Booty seems like the guy.
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B
Yeah. I'm not going to push back there. He does tomorrow. Douglas, seven targets, which is about what we would expect to see from him, but very, very inefficient.
- [15:56]
A
Say the yards. Say the yards.
- [15:58]
B
Negative two, I think. Yeah. Like, it was really bad and he bailed it out with a touchdown and had a carry as well. But Stefan Diggs, I'm not panicking on Stefan Diggs yet. And I think a lot of people are going to go back and watch that film and, like, really panic on Stefan Diggs. We got to remember he's, like, way ahead of schedule. A lot of people weren't even expecting him to be on the field week one. So I think the fact that he's even out there right now is kind of him defying the odds already. It wouldn't surprise me if we see him, like, by week four, week five, start to look like the Stefan Diggs of old. But also, like, we got those reports the first week of camp, like, Stefan Diggs looks amazing. And then by week two, week three, week four, they were like, it doesn't quite look as good as he did. So wouldn't surprise me if Kshaan Booty does just establish himself as the wide receiver one here in New England. This was a really, really good prospect. Like, we were talking about him coming out of LSU as being the top wide receiver in his class.
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A
Yeah.
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B
And then in his final year at lsu. He had a really down year, like really just kind of face planted and there wasn't really an explanation for it. So he went from being like people talking about him like up there with Malik neighbor as like a top five pick, and then he ended up. What? No, not Malik Neighbors. It was, it was two years ago. What. I forget what draft class he was in, but fell a little bit and fell to day three because of that, that, that final year in college. But he's a really good prospect. It seems like he's putting it together now.
- [17:14]
A
Yeah, honestly, all the LSU wide receiver years are just blending together. Like it could have been Jamar Chase or Justin Jefferson or anyone, literally. But yeah, with Booty, the thing was like, it wasn't even, it wasn't even a talent thing. It was, if I remember correctly, it was like a, a discipline thing. If I, if I'm remembering, it was like an off the field thing. And it's taken him a little bit, a little time to get there. But I think what I liked most is I went back, I was watching the film. I watched all the Keisha Booty targets. I watched the condensed all 22 over there on NFL plus NFL Pro. What I liked most is that he's not just doing it in any one singular way. He's beating, man. He's. He's finding soft spots in zone. And a big thing that I really like is Drake May is out here looking for K Sean Booty. Even when he's covered like, he is trusting him to go up and win contested catches, he's looking for him with anticipation coming out of in breaking routes before his head is turned. There's a lot of things that I really like there. And especially with young quarterbacks that are trying to make their way in the league. I'm not gonna lie. I think K Shan Booty is gonna be my favorite waiver wire pickup this week. And you can get him for. At least from what I'm seeing when I put out the poll here on the fabric, you can probably get him for like less than 5% of your fab. I just like, you can just spend single digits very little.
- [18:36]
B
Yeah, I like that one. He. He's a good player. And I looked it up. It was the, the JSN draft that was it. Like, people were talking about him and JSN as both being like the number one receiver in that class. And then he just really, really fell or also jumped out. To me, I remember his rookie season when he started like flash a little bit. That was the year if you remember, Jalen Johnson was graded as like the number one cornerback in football and Keisha Booty like put him in a spin cycle that year. There was a play where he just like completely got Jalen Johnson twisted up and gave up the biggest play of the season where he picked up like a 45 yard catch against Jalen Johnson. I remember that immediately piqued my interest because I was like, okay, this looks like the guy that we saw a couple of years ago at lsu. So yeah, I mean we, we talk so much like we, we liked Demario Douglas because we said this is a wide open wide receiver room and that's kind of who I had planted my flag on to step up as the guy. But from what we saw in week one, what we saw at the trail end of last season, Booty might actually be that guy and is worth a pickup even in your shallow leaks. Like I, I will pick him up as a wide receiver 6 or wide receiver 7 just to kind of stash him. See what happens here and hope that we get some clarity by the time bye weeks roll around.
- [19:38]
A
Go get that booty, guys. Sorry I had to do it. Cedric Tillman, another guy who's going to be a popular waiver wire ad. Dave, you and I were talking before the show that the Browns worry me. The Browns worry me a lot. And I look at this Cedric Tillman, he's been averaging over nine and a half targets per game in his last five full starts for the Browns. Regardless of who is at quarterback, he's probably the Browns wide receiver one, even though we didn't draft him that way. The problem is I don't even know what that means or how valuable that role is for fantasy football because this to me was best case scenario for the Browns. Pass, heavy game script, bad defense, lots of targets, lots of balls to go around and it still wasn't that great for really anybody. I, I don't know that I want to go out spend a lot of money on Cedric Tillman even though it seems like it might be good.
- [20:33]
B
Yeah, I don't even know if he's the best problems player to pick up, pick up this week, to be honest. I think that it was a weird game overall. Like they, they stifled the Bengals. Like the Bengals weren't putting up points and they just couldn't score. You've also got the fear that like, like you said, this is kind of the best case scenario. Like Joe Flacco out there against a bad defense and they couldn't really move the ball all that well.
- [20:54]
A
Did you see where everything was going for him, by the way? It was all in the flats and all in the middle of the field.
- [20:58]
B
Yeah. And then he had that really, really bad drop at the end of the game as well. I don't, I don't know if this is like a wide receiver room that I want to heavily invest in the guy. And we've got him on the sheet here. We'll talk about him as well. I think Harold Fannin, like we can kind of talk about both these guys at the same time. Harold Fannin is the one that kind of excites me. You know, had the second most snap slots next to Cedric Tillman and this is a guy who is getting really good usage right off the jump. Like I don't know if we have to wait for Harold Fannin to pan out. Like he is already close to a full time player getting a lot of slot snaps as well. And because of the positional scarcity, like unless you're in a league where you have to start, you know, three wide receivers and three flex spots, I don't know if Cedric Tillman is ever really making your lineup. Harold Fannin's a guy that like a week or two from now we might be talking about him as just like a plug and play top 10 tight end.
- [21:48]
A
I'm still intrigued. I'm, I'm like I think I'm gonna end up being out on Harold Fannin because I don't think I'm going to be willing to spend as much as league mates are. I think they're going to be people that are very excited about Harold Fannin because the shiny new toy syndrome. What I worry about is I think that it's going to be like an Isaiah likely situation where there's going to be some weeks where he's the lead tight end in that group where he's the lead even receiver, like whatever we want to call it, lead pass catcher for the Browns. But then I think there's going to be a lot of those weeks where he's the fourth or fifth guy and I, if I don't even know that I want the top pass catcher in the Browns offense. It's something you said before. The show is like what happens if Joe Flacco can't make it through the year and there's a switch to Dylan Gabriel or there's a switch to Shador Sanders. Any of these guys quinch on Judkins.
- [22:33]
B
Where they have they just, they were going to run the ball a lot. We're going to give him the ball 25 times per game.
- [22:37]
A
The running backs were terrible, right? It was. It was. I mean, Dylan Sampson caught a lot of passes out of the backfield. By the way, we're not talking about Dylan Sampson or Keenan Allen because they're just too heavily rostered, which is why not bringing them up in today's show just in case anyone wants. But, you know, go, go ahead. Comment down below. Let us know. Why didn't you talk about Dylan Sampson? Helps the algorithm. But yeah, like, I, I just. This Browns offense really worries me and I know we're trying to find gold in a pile of brown, but I, I don't know that I, that I want to spend that money on. On these guys, man.
- [23:11]
B
That's what makes you.
- [23:12]
A
Well, okay, so I was going to ask what makes you more excited about Harold Fanning than I am?
- [23:16]
B
The positional scarcity. And that's the thing. I think that we're going to see pretty similar production from Cedric Tillman, Jerry Judy, David Najoku, Harold Fanning. I think that like 10 weeks from now, all of these guys are going to be pretty similar with their usage, with their yardage, with their scoring and all that sort of stuff. So give me the guy who's going to be cheapest that I could put into my tight end slot.
- [23:38]
A
The nine targets on 32 routes run is, is really nice. I need to, I want to watch more of the film from the Browns game because I did not watch a lot of that one. I'm gonna be intrigued to see how Isaiah Bond kind of comes up over the next few weeks. What they do with this running game. I think, you know, we'll, we'll talk about. I think Jerome Ford might just be a drop. Are you, Are you there?
- [24:02]
B
Yeah, Yeah, I think so. I, I put together a list of drops and I don't know if I made, if Jerome Ford made the list, but yeah, he was kind of a guy I wasn't really too interested in drafting anyway because looking at like a, you know, league average running back on a bad offense who is going to get replaced in the next two or three weeks. Yeah, I don't really want any part of that.
- [24:23]
A
Quentin Johnston is a player that everyone was. Is very excited about, gets two touchdowns. I'm begging for him to just simply ever have a normal touchdown. But, but we'll, we'll. We'll wait and see when that happens. Dave, I think a lot of what everyone's going to be doing this week is trying to figure out what this Chargers offense is and I don't think that this week one even told us really what this Chargers offense is. This was very out of the norm. It was a very pass heavy game script. Um, and then even when they were ahead in the game, they continued to pass. And a lot of these passes ended up going to Keenan Allen, a guy who, I mean, a great, great draft pick for people late in drafts. Quentin Johnson, though, gets the two touchdowns here, so I think he's going to be a hot wave wired in for people.
- [25:11]
B
Absolutely. And I think he should be. I think that there's going to be enough going around. Like people are panicking about Lad Bikanki, and I don't think there's reason to panic there.
- [25:18]
A
Oh, don't panic, everybody. Don't.
- [25:20]
B
Yeah, I mean, I, I did bump him down my rankings a bit. I was one of the few that like actually reacted to the Keenan Allen trade. I felt like when or the signing, I felt like when that happened, everybody in the industry just kind of like, la, la la, la, la la la. This isn't happening. Like, I'm still drafted. Lad Biki in the early second, you and I both kind of bumped him down to like the late second, early third round. And I think that that was a fine pick. But Keenan Allen, like, this guy had 1200 yards on this offense two years ago. Like, he was still the lead target earner last year in Chicago. He's going to be a focal point of this offense. That being said, I think what we saw in week one is kind of what we could expect going forward. Like, Justin Herbert is a phenomenal quarterback and he was ban. I think they might have to throw the ball a little bit more than they intended to with a loss of Rashaun Slater. And they've got this big bodied, stout quarterback that can stand tall in the pocket even under the face of pressure. I think they're going to continue throwing the ball a lot. So QJ is the clear third option in this offense, but I think there's going to be enough passing volume that even as the third option, you can play him as a flex player and he can have these big weeks now. Yeah, you talk about it like it was a weird touchdown. Broken coverage. But even in that, like, like I love the play design there, where it was just like a simple mesh concept. There were seven guys in coverage.
- [26:32]
A
Did it look intentional to you?
- [26:35]
B
Yeah.
- [26:35]
A
The way.
- [26:36]
B
Yeah.
- [26:37]
A
Well, because, like, it wasn't. So this was. And I wish we had the film on here, but this wasn't like something where it was a pick Play where, like, Quin, Sean and another wide receiver were meshing across each other. This was Quinn. Quinton Johnston literally took his defender over to where another defender was and ran him into him and broke free. And either it's a happy accident or it's actually a really savvy move by qj and that's.
- [27:03]
B
I think it's a great play design, but I think it's also a good move by qj. Yeah. And you could see, like, the defense is focused on Ladd McConkey and Keenan Allen, as they should be. So if you look at this play, Ladd McConkey and Keenan Allen are both bunched to the left. And then you've got Quentin Johnson all the way over on the right side. Seven guys in coverage, one pulls down immediately to stick to Omar and Hampton. So you've got six guys in coverage. And when lad, McConkey and Keenan Allen cross across the defense, five of these six defenders follow. Lad, McConkey and Keenan allen. I mean, they pulled the defensive gravity there. And it was just one guy that was on QJ and he got jammed up in traffic and he tripped and fell and QJ was just wide open there. So, like, yeah, technically that will fall under broken coverage, but that just shows that, like, defenses are going to be so focused on Ladd and Keenan that you're going to have these plays where Quentin Johnson can just walk into the end zone. We saw some other plays that I really liked. Like the first big play, he had this 33 yard catch and run. That's exactly what I want to see from Quentin Johnson. They put him in motion, allowed him to just catch the ball in the fly where he could turn it up field and rip off a bunch of yards after the catch. Exactly what he did.
- [28:07]
A
Like the. Everything. Yeah, they're putting him into his strength of skill sets. And the only part where I think I get nervous is that a lot of the skill sets sort of overlap between what Quentin Johnston does. KEENAN Allen, lad, McConkey, they are different players. Quentin Johnson is going to be better running after the catch. And I love that they're finally not telling him, hey, man, go for the deep balls like that. We're, they're not trying to stretch the field with him. They are letting him.
- [28:32]
B
He's not a contested catch downfield guy. He's not Mike Williams.
- [28:35]
A
Exactly. They're. They're trying to get him to win on these deep breaking routes across the field. These deep crossers. Like, these are the things where he can win on the catch and run and that's what he, like you were saying, this is what he did so well at tcu.
- [28:50]
B
I do want to talk about that. That second touchdown he had too. That was like a, like a real wide receiver.
- [28:57]
A
Yeah. That is the ideal Quentin Johnston usage that I would love to see every week.
- [29:03]
B
That wasn't just him getting schemed up. That wasn't broken coverage. That second one was him running straight at a defensive back, kind of drifting left and as soon as that defensive back turned his hips, then he broke right and just spun that guy around and was able to like actually win a route. Like it wasn't busted coverage, it wasn't a play design. That was just QJ going one on one on the defender and actually winning it. So we, you know, this is a first round pick with good size, good speed. We saw like little steps of development last year. It's not crazy to think that he is still developing and can be a better player than he was last year who was a better player than he was in his rookie season. So yeah, I think like, of all the guys we're talking about today, Hollywood is the, the, the one that I think is like if you need short term production, he's the guy that I'd be picking up. But I think of all of the guys that we're talking about, I think Quentin Johnston is the one that could have the most production at the end of this year. Year.
- [29:53]
A
We'll see. I'm very curious. I'm very curious. He had the lowest target per route run out of the three wide receivers. I want it like when you, when you get him onto your team, are you starting him or are you just stashing him and seeing where this goes? Because that's the thing is like you're going to end up having to outbid someone who wants to start him this week in their flex spot. So unless you're getting him for cheap and stashing him. That's why I don't like week one and week two waiver wires because you basically have to, to open up the pocketbook and commit to a player.
- [30:24]
B
Right. And it's really tough because if you're in a 10 team, 10 team league with like a five or six player bench. Yeah. Then I think you really open up the book and like, you know, it's so tough talking about fab because every single league is so different. Like you want to get this guy in your team, but I don't know if you can like afford to put him in a lineup in really, really shallow leagues. But if you're in a 12 or 14 team league where you need to start three wide receivers and multiple flex spots, then yeah, I think QJ deserves to go in that spot in week two. Like, even if he isn't drawing targets at an elite volume, we know that he's got the yak potential. We know that they're going to scheme up plays for him in the red zone. And I think that alone is worth flex consideration in deep leagues.
- [31:07]
A
Calvin Austin, another name on here, did some nice things for the Steelers. The Steelers were surprisingly good. Aaron Rodgers goes out, throws four touchdowns. But Calvin Austin is another guy that we're looking at here on the waiver wire. Dave, while I think the performance was good, it's another one of these where I'm just like, I don't want to spend. And I know this is going to become a very boring show if I just keep saying I don't want to spend on these guys, I don't want to spend on these guys.
- [31:30]
B
That type of week one.
- [31:31]
A
Yeah, we gotta, we have to give good advice. The fact that like the only one, I'm like Keisha. Booty seems nice. That's an attractive booty. But like that's it, man. Like I'm, I'm not all that sold. And it's weird because you don't normally get target earners on the waiver wire, right? Like it's, is that, am I, am I out of line saying that? Like normally it's, you're picking up a running back or like a tight end streamer, a quarterback streamer, someone who sort of falls into something not, you know, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 target earners, 6 target earners. Jesus, a lot of these guys this week.
- [32:03]
B
Yeah, and, and I think Calvin Austin too, this is another one. Like if, if for anyone who's like paying attention to camp reports, like he was the clear wide receiver too and ADP just didn't adjust for whatever reason. Like ADP liked Roman Wilson because he's a buzzy name and you know, we didn't really see a lot from him his rookie season and people were hoping he could step out, but like just consistently they were saying like, Calvin Austin is going to be a part of this offense. He's the number two guy. And what we saw was similar to Quentin Johnston, like a nice mix of schemed up touches that allowed him to lean on his athleticism, but then also some really nice, just like pure wide receiver plays. Like the, the touchdown that Calvin Austin had was really nice. They kind of set him in motion. He's small enough that he can hide behind the offensive line. And then he leaked out inside of the tight end where he was able to just kind of like maneuver through all those big bodies and just wide open into the end zone for a nice easy touchdown. But leading up to that touchdown on the same drive, he had a beautiful contested catch like where he had good coverage on him. Aaron Rodgers just threw it up there and let him make a play on the ball and he came down with it. So, so we're seeing a little bit of both where like he can play wide receiver but then he's also good enough that they want to scheme touches up for him. So one, I, I think Aaron Rodgers looked really, really good yesterday. Like Aaron Rodgers looked better yesterday than any game I saw him playing with the New York Jets. It seems like that Achilles injury is probably not entirely behind him. And we got to remember this is still like a soon to be 41 year old. He's not going to be looking like a 30 year old Aaron Rodgers by any means, but had a little bit of a bounce in his step again like was just zipping the ball into tight windows and he looked good. So this like if DK Metcalf is the wide receiver one and Kelvin Austin is the wide receiver too on a team that can throw for 350, 400 yards on any given week. Yeah. That makes Kelvin Austin somebody who should be on the fantasy radar.
- [33:47]
A
See, this is a guy where, and I can't believe I'm saying this the way you were talking about Quentin Johnson just a moment ago is how I think I'm going to talk about, about Calvin Austin here is I do think that DK Metcalf and the tight ends are going to be drawing a lot of attention away from defenses. And what we got to see with Aaron Rodgers was play action. Aaron Rodgers, we haven't seen that in a long time. Like we, we used to see that on in the glory days in the packers where he looked good running play action. This was the first time in a minute where it's actually been good. This is what Arthur Smith does so well. I think this is a good marriage of Aaron Rodgers and Arthur Smith. How long does it hold up? I don't know. Like how long does the body of Aaron Rodgers hold up? I don't know. I will say this. It's like something that you and I have mentioned is like DK Metcalf might get get targets, but I don't know how good those targets are going to be in this Offense, he's going to draw a lot of attention. We saw him draw the attention of Sauce Gardner in this game where when he was covered one on one, it just was not good. Calvin Austin is probably going to be that guy a lot of times and seeing it on film, he's the guy that ended up having to be the zone beater. Just sit in, in the soft spots of the zone, get to the outside, get on some of those outbreaking routes as Rogers is rolling out where he can be the next option over the top beyond the tight ends. And I think that's what a lot the teams are going to focus on. Is the John who Smith, by the way, just ridiculously efficient. Six targets on 18 routes run just nuts like that. The Steelers offense?
- [35:12]
B
Yeah.
- [35:13]
A
Oh he does, he does. The Steelers offense, I feel like they didn't give us too many wrinkles. But what worries me about the Arthur Smith offense is that it does get figured out relatively quickly. Like they, they only have so many tricks up their sleeve with this offense.
- [35:28]
B
And you know, I was fading DK Metcalf pretty hard this preseason because I don't know if his skill set really pairs up with what Aaron Rodgers does well and what we saw were like really basic routes, like just trying to hit him on slants and like let him catch the ball and like that's great if you're the secondary option on the team, but that's not what you want to see your wide receiver one doing. And if you look back, DK Metcalf, his best season ever came in 2020 when Tyler Lockett was still at the peak of his career. So having a guy like Kelvin Austin, there's a similar skill set there to Tyler Lockett. A guy who is a really twitched up shift that can play out of the slot. A guy who has the speed to get behind defenses as well. So I think that as Kelvin Austin comes on, it might actually benefit DK Metcalf a little bit. But I, I, I do feel like I don't want to overreact to week one, but this is kind of confirming some of the priors that I had about DK Metcalf not being a good pairing with Aaron Rodgers. I think this ball is going to get spread out a lot more than people expected. And anyone that was hoping that like DK Metcalf would just be like Devonte Adams, you know, getting 180 targets per game or per season, I, I don't think that's going to happen with DK this year.
- [36:30]
A
No. And I just don't even know that is like in the Arthur Smith bag anymore. The way he draws up plays, he's. He's drawing up plays to be very simple. One or two read plays for Aaron Rodgers where he can cut the field in half. This is what he did with Ryan Tannehill years ago. That's what he tried to do with Desmond Ritter. Like, this is what the Arthur Smith offense does. He cuts the field in half so that an older Aaron Rodgers who doesn't have the time to move around and sit back there in the pocket can just make the easy throw.
- [36:57]
B
Let me push back on that a little bit because I wonder how much of what we've seen from Arthur Smith was him kind of being hamstrung with Ryan Tannehill and Marcus Mariota and some of these other guys. Because the last year that Matt Ryan was in Atlanta playing with Arthur Smith, we saw 626 pass attempts. We saw 4, 500 yards. Like, Matt Ryan was throwing the ball a lot in that Arthur Smith offense. And I wonder if Arthur Smith.
- [37:20]
A
Well, I'm not saying he's going to throw the ball. I'm not saying he's not going to throw the ball. I'm saying he does run a very particular style of offense that allows his quarterback to make one or two reads.
- [37:29]
B
I just, you know, I've been beating this drum for, for years now, and I know the YouTube audience never likes it, but I think Arthur Smith might be a better offensive coordinator, you know, a better offensive mind than people realize. And I think that he does. He's pretty good at adapting to the personnel that he has. And I think now with Aaron Rodgers there, we could see him get a little bit more creative and start to open things up a little bit more. I'm excited for this offense. I think that Aaron Rodgers looked good yesterday. I like the playmakers on this offense as well. And I think one of the major takeaways. I don't know if we're going to touch on it in this show or not, though, is the backfield being much different than we expected it to look like.
- [38:02]
A
Yeah, we'll. We'll talk about that.
- [38:04]
B
For a little cuts, I think.
- [38:06]
A
Yeah, let's. Let's go to tight ends here because you, you already mentioned Harold Fan. Is there anything else you want to add on Harold Fannin? Because I, I think he's probably going to be the hot name that's going to get pushed for. For a lot of tight end ads. I'm actually going a different way at tight end, Dave, and, And I want to get your thoughts on this, because Juwan Johnson is a guy that, like, normally I'd be like, we kind of know what Joanne Johnson is. The context here, though, it's a little bit different, is that we've got Juwan Johnson with a new quarterback. And going back and looking at his previous performances going back into last year, he's averaging over nine targets per game in his last three games with Spencer Rattler at quarterback. And that starts to just show me that there is a Spencer Rattler tendency here, especially considering that there's really the wide receivers all on the outside. Chris Olave, Rashid Shahid. They still got Brandon Cooks over there, Devon Vale. Like, I know Olave was the leader in the receiver room, but even that wasn't great.
- [39:04]
B
Need what's really four trips to the medical tent yesterday. Oh, God, it's not even like, being like, I'm not. No, it's like four or five times to the medical tent yesterday.
- [39:14]
A
Yeah, every 30 minutes. I was getting an Olave to the blue tent. Yeah, no, it was. It was not a great. Not a great evening. But the Juwan Johnson thing here, they don't really have anyone else at tight end right now. Normally they would have taste some Hill, Foster, Moreau. These guys are not available. And I'm wondering if this is just a chemistry that is building between a young quarterback and an athletic tight end that we've all been sitting here for years saying, like, if he gets the volume, he can probably do it. And the volume just has never been there. Now the volume appears to be there with Juwan Johnson.
- [39:44]
B
Johnson and something that our friend Andrew Cooper, you know, the. The tight end whisperer as. As we like to call him. He talks about it all the time. Like, you want a guy who's going to be number two on the team in targets, and I think Juwan Johnson could easily be number two on this team in targets. Came up just short of having a huge fantasy day, too, where Spencer Rattler targeted him on the last play of the game and had a touchdown in and out of his hands. That got broken up. So, you know, could be a really, really good player here if he ends up stepping up as. As that number two guy. And, you know, the Saints, we. I. I kind of tweeted about it with the Browns saying, like, you know, there's bad teams, but there are some, like, fun bad teams. I think the Saints are kind of like the Browns in that respect, that they might lose a lot of games and they might not be great, but they have some Fun pieces there that make them fun offenses that are going to have some value in fantasy football, unlike. I'm sorry, Alfredo, your. Your Dolphins, they're just not the type of bad you want to be.
- [40:37]
A
Honestly, I'm. They're happy bad because, like, now I can just throw away the rest of this. I don't have to worry about them for the rest of the season.
- [40:45]
B
Acceptance is the final step, and I'm happy that you are there.
- [40:48]
A
Oh, it's delightful. It's delightful. Dwan Johnson, by the way, led all skill players in snaps, routes, run, and then he was second on the team in targets. And Dave, that. That touchdown, that near touchdown that he owns almost had would have just been an absolute icing on the. I think if he gets that touchdown, he's been probably. Yeah. And I don't even think he's number one at tight end. I think number one overall. Like, he is the guy. It's. It's crazy how one play changes that.
- [41:16]
B
But because it wasn't quite weak overall for tight end, I don't think any tight ends had more than 20 points this week. Like, it was kind of a down week for tight ends, which is exactly what we saw last year, too. Like, everybody was saying the tight end position is dead for the first month of the year, and then. Then everyone kind of came on a little bit stronger. But, you know, the guys who had, like, good usage didn't score touchdowns, and then the guys who did score touchdowns didn't have great usage. So it was overall a pretty weird week for. For tight ends.
- [41:41]
A
Well, let's say it might be a strange week for tight ends because Bretton Strange is another guy on here. That was a good setup. You didn't even know you're doing that. Maybe you did know. I don't know. But Breton Strange is a guy that I was very interested going into the season. I wanted to see how he worked in the. This Liam Cohen offense. And this was. Even though it was a good day for the Jaguars, it was still a weird day. Brenton Strange gets four targets early in the game. He looks good early in the game. And then they just have such a lead that they just kind of run the clock out. And we, like, there were so many weird things. Like, we didn't see Tank Bigsby for a long time. Brian Thomas Jr gets one catch. Like, it's just. It's. It's not. It's. It's a very weird day.
- [42:23]
B
If he didn't have that Strange touchdown, people would be panicking about Brian Thomas Jr. Right now.
- [42:30]
A
I mean, seven targets for, for, for BTJ. But Travis Hunter leads the team and we're kind of doing a Jags recap here. But that's more so to try to give the context of Brenton Strange here. Is this a guy like if you need tight end but you're not going to spend up on Juwan Johnson or Hailed Fannin, you're dropping the, the 1% on, on Breton strange or even if you can, a zero, I might.
- [42:51]
B
I mean, the first look at this Liam Cohen offense was just a little bit disappointing overall. And I think that there was really Brenton Strange. Yeah, you know, they just didn't move the ball down the field quite as well as I had hoped. Trevor Lawrence just looked a little bit off. You know, I, I like the alignment and I like some of the play calls. I'm just a little bit underwhelmed by Trevor Lawrence and maybe this is just him learning a new offense, but I, I had higher expectations than, than what I saw yesterday. That being said, I think the, the big excitement for me with Breton Strange in the preseason was that he would play in Evan Ingram's role. And we didn't really see that. We saw Travis Hunter playing so much out of the slot and kind of being that short area of the field target magnet where Brenton Strange was playing a little bit more in line. He's more of a traditional tight end, which is great for the offense. Like, did you see. I, I forget who was on. He had a block on somebody where he just like dropped a shoulder on him and then did like the, the Allen Iverson over Tyron Lou just like, like standing over him, staring him down, flexing on him like he, he can do that. And that's not something that we've seen Evan Ingram ever really do. So I do wonder a little bit if like his abilities as a blocker will impede his abilities as a pass catcher. But he did look good. I, I just, you know, I, I think Brian Thomas Jr. Is going to be ahead of him. I think Travis Hunter is going to be ahead of him. And if you're looking at the third option on a team that is probably going to pass for around 30, 800,000 yards. I just don't know how reliable he can be on a weekly basis.
- [44:19]
A
I think we still. We have an INC grade for the Jaguars here where I think we. It's a little incomplete. We need to see where this is going. I think we saw Travis ETN can be very good. Yeah, that inside zone run scheme with With Liam Cohen for Travis Etienne is just Chef's kiss. It is perfect. That's exactly what I was hoping for. You know, brighton Strange here, second most snaps in the team behind Brian Thomas Jr. I know a lot of that is just simply being out there to block and play tight end, but still, 24 routes run nearly the same as Travis Hunter and Diami Brown, a couple other guys that were out there. So I'm. I'm curious because I feel like we really only got one half of what their real offense is. And then once the Jags were up, they have the weird rain delay because the thunderstorm and all that. I'm curious. I want to see how they are in the next coming weeks. By the way, just random, just for funsies, because I want to throw this name out there. The. Quint Allen was out there, second running back behind. I don't want to say quite a bit, but it was. It was surprising. He was a second running back out there early in the game, out on passing downs.
- [45:21]
B
Bigsby came until the fourth quarter, right?
- [45:24]
A
Second half. Second half.
- [45:25]
B
Yeah.
- [45:26]
A
Yeah, it's not. It was not great. Not great. Bayshell Tootin gets a little bit of run in there as well, but it seems very clear it was a Travis Etienne backfield. All right, quarterback, any. Any interest in Daniel Jones? Yeah, he's got Denver next week.
- [45:41]
B
Yeah. Which, yeah, that's a tough matchup. But I am interested. Like, Daniel Jones looked really good and I.
- [45:47]
A
You know, Miami might also be the absolute worst team in the NFL.
- [45:51]
B
I don't know if maybe is even a.
- [45:53]
A
You're right. They are.
- [45:54]
B
They're just. They're. They're bad, dude. Like, I wouldn't be surprised if when.
- [45:59]
A
People were bothered that Storm Duck got injured and this is no shade at Storm Duck, and they were like, man, our secondary is really screwed now. Well, we kind of been there, man. Like, I. I don't. I don't. I don't know. I. I want to believe in Daniel Jones and the. The, you know, the renaissance here, but it just kind of seemed like it's a cupcake opponent. I want to see what happens next week against Ed Denver.
- [46:25]
B
Three years ago, Daniel Jones was the QB9 in fantasy, throwing the ball to Darius Slayton, Richie James and Isaiah Hodgins as his number one receivers. Like, this guy has rushing upside. And Shane Steichen, you gotta remember, came from Philadelphia where he kind of designed this offense that we've seen Jalen Hurts flourish in. And that's why we were so excited because. Or excited for Anthony Richardson a couple years ago because we said, well, he's going to turn him into Jalen Hurts. What if he turns Daniel Jones into Jalen Hurts? I mean, a little tongue in cheek here, but Daniel Jones is a very good rusher. Now he's your tongue out of your cheek removed from that ACL tear. So yeah, you know, I, I think the team looked good. It's as simple as that. And this is. We've never seen Daniel Jones in a situation like this. Like, I think right now you could say Jonathan Taylor, where he's at, not that much different than when he had Saquon Barkley on his team, but a better offensive line, better tight ends, better wide receivers. I mean, Tyler Warren kind of had a quiet week, but that was because they just ran the score up so much that they didn't have to throw the ball in the second half. But like, my goodness, like this team looks good. Michael Pittman is healthy. He looked dominant. He looked like his old self again. Tyler Warren looked incredible. Jonathan Taylor looked incredible. The offensive line looked good. Daniel Jones just throwing the ball with pinpoint accuracy. And again, I'm just gonna flash back to like the last time we saw Daniel Jones healthy on a halfway decent team. He was a QB one. It wouldn't surprise me with the rushing upside here if we see him finish the year with double digit touchdowns, 5, 600 rushing yards and that could easily push him into that top five discussion. So yeah, I think like if you drafted, you know, I, I hate to like say it's time to panic on Bo Nicks. I'm not saying you should drop Bo Nix, but like next week I, I might have Bo Nicks behind Daniel Jones in my weekly rankings.
- [48:10]
A
I think Daniel Jones is Bo Nixon. Yeah, he, he only had four pass attempts beyond 10 yards in that game. Everything to the left side within five yards. Dave, he had a third of his passes were within five yards of the line of scrimmage. And to the left they were, they were like a kid in Madden, just spamming the same play over and over. They got the ball into the hands of Tyler Warren a lot early in this game. They got the ball into the hands of Mike Michael Pittman as well. They didn't ask Daniel Jones to do too much. And I think that's, that's like, that's the good thing here is the Dolphins didn't really bring a lot of pressure against him. Daniel Jones can make some easy reads, some easy throws. What I get worried about is what happens when he goes up against the Broncos who are quite a bit better and they're going to put some more pressure on him. And what I. Adam?
- [49:00]
B
Sure. I just want to say like what you're saying about Daniel Jones right now know same thing that we hear about Jalen Hurts for the last three years. It's just such a simple offense. They just, he's just a product of the office.
- [49:12]
A
You cannot. Dave, now in no breath can you compare Daniel Jones to Super Bowl MVP Jalen Hurts.
- [49:18]
B
I just did. I mean like they don't. They're not asking him to do a whole lot. Like he is just going to. He is surrounded by very, very good playmakers and all they're asking him to do is turn around and give the ball to Jonathan Taylor or throw it to Michael Pittman, throw it to Tyler Warren, throw to Josh Downs or run with the ball. And if that's what that offense is going to be, that's simplistic, that can print fantasy points every single week. And I, I think we're seeing a more athletic than people realize quarterback in a system that is going to allow him to accrue a lot of fantasy points. It might not be pretty. They might not win a ton of games. I'm not saying Daniel Jones is going to win a Super bowl and be the MVP this year, but I think that he could easily be a QB one.
- [49:58]
A
One. So that's, that's the thing that worries me most is when we talk about like how you said the simplistic offenses can print fantasy points. To me, that's, that's an expiring produce right there. Like, that's the organic produce that's going to expire really fast. It's good for like a week or two and then it just, it expires quickly. That's why like, I get worried with the Aaron Rodgers Steelers and the Daniel Jones Colts. And it looks really good right now. But we see it all the time where these week one offenses just, just they turn into a pumpkin after a couple of weeks.
- [50:27]
B
So let me ask you, if you drafted C.J. stroud, would you start C.J. stroud last week or would you pick up Daniel Jones and play him over C.J. stroud?
- [50:36]
A
That's very different, man. Like, C.J. stroud was like my quarterback 20 in. In rankings. Like same.
- [50:41]
B
Yeah, like his ADP was a lot higher than that. So like we were low on CJ Stroud, but a lot of people were drafting CJ Stroud to be a starter. A lot of people were drafting Bo Nix to be their starter. And like, I just Saw two quarterbacks that looked awful last week and you know, I'm not advocating to drop either of these guys, but I might advocate to go look at Daniel Jones or Aaron Rodgers and put him in your lineup over them.
- [51:04]
A
Daniel Jones, I haven't started the Week 2 rankings yet. He'll probably be somewhere around like Quarterback 15 or 16 for me in those rankings.
- [51:11]
B
Yeah.
- [51:12]
A
All right. Some running backs, we're just gonna run through these really quick because I don't really think there's a lot that's actionable here from these guys. It's just sort of if they're there, you have the spot that it's not going to kill your waiver priority or anything like that. Kendra Miller is the, the obvious backup for Alvin Camara in this offense. Blake Coram for Kyron Williams. Kenneth Gainwell said had a surprising role and we'll talk a little bit more about that with the other running back in the Steelers offense. And then DJ Giddens as the backup for Jonathan Taylor there. He didn't look great, but he's the clear backup. So just some, some handcuffs to, to take a look at Dave. Let's get into players that we would drop because this is intriguing. We already talked about Jerome Ford a little bit. I think I'd just be done with Jerome Ford. I don't see that there is any sort of value there in either the passing game, the run game, anything for him. Especially when Quinn. Sean Judkins comes back. Are you kind of same boat?
- [52:02]
B
Yeah. 100.
- [52:02]
A
Yeah. Okay. Easy. Caleb Johnson. I put a question mark here on the show sheet because I think a lot of people are gonna ask, should I just drop Caleb Johnson? My initial answer is going to be no, because I think if you drafted Caleb Johnson, I was hoping you would not be expecting him to be some sort of starter out of the gate. All the reports was that Jalen Warren was the starter. We knew that Caleb Johnson had this problem. I want to hold on for a few more weeks here. I don't, I don't think that holding on to Caleb Johnson at the end of your bench is what kill, especially in a bad waiver wire week like this.
- [52:38]
B
Yeah. And again, it's all like dependent on the league that you're in. If you're in a 12 team, eight plus bench spots, yeah, you're holding on to Caleb Johnson. But you know, some of the guys that we talked about, like if you're in a 10 team league with five bench spots, I'd probably move off of Caleb Johnson and pick up Quentin Johnston. Like, I don't think that that's crazy at all. I, first of all, I wasn't the biggest believer in Caleb Johnson. What didn't really like him all that much as a prospect. I kind of bought into like him getting plopped into the Najee Harris role, but I don't think that's going to happen. The big thing for me with Caleb Johnson too is that Aaron Rodgers, 41 years old, about to be 42 years old, you know, he needs somebody who can pass block well. Jalen Warren is a very good pass blocker. Kenneth Gainwell is a very good pass blocker. And even if Caleb Johnson is a better rusher than those guys, I think they need somebody out there that can protect their 40, soon to be 42 year old quarterback. And I think that that is pretty important here. So again, wasn't the biggest fan of Caleb Johnson to begin with. Worry about him getting buried on this depth chart a little bit and I don't think this is like a, like oh, I can't believe you dropped just Jefferson because he got off to a slow start. We're comparing a first round wide receiver in this instance to a third round running back and, and I just have some concerns about Caleb Johnson as a whole. So in shallow leaks I would be okay moving off Caleb Johnson at this point and you know, if he starts to pick up some steam mid season, you know, you can rebid on him. But I do think like the, the, the worst case scenario is that he just sits on your bench all year and ends up doing nothing. I'm okay moving off players like that now in short leagues.
- [54:10]
A
Yeah. I mean if it's a, it's a 10 team, five bench spot, sure. You know, you can go for like that means Dylan Sampson is probably available. Go out and grab him and just play, play these weeks in the pockets that they're in. I think what's keeping the light on for me with Caleb Johnson is sure he gets one touch for negative two yards, but all of the running backs in Pittsburgh looked pretty bad and this jets defense actually might be better than we expect, especially with, with you know, being run by Aaron Glenn there or at least the run defense because the past defense just got absolutely obliterated. Nobody looked good in that Steelers backfield. And I wonder like how long can the team just keep going with poor running until they're like okay, let's, let's mix things up. That's, that's my only thing. I'm not cutting him just yet, but I get it. If you need to do it for like a Dylan Sampson type in a shallow league. Wide receivers that can be dropped. Dave, some of the names on this list that we've got here, Xavier Leggette, Trey Harris, Marvin Mims, Xavier Hutchinson, some of those names are probably like deeper leagues. Like, I don't think there's a lot of shallow leagues that drafted Xavier Hutchinson, but I think there are a lot of people that went out and drafted Xavier Leggette and Trey Harris, said Marvin Mims with the excitement of the breakout. And it kind of seems, at least for Mims and Leggett, it's just more of the same.
- [55:24]
B
Yeah, and, and that's a fear. I mean, Trey Harris was a guy that like, I love the prospect coming in, but, but paying attention to the Chargers training camp reports, like, it was very obvious that he was going to be the fourth or fifth option on this team and struggling to get on the field. So I think, yeah, you can move off of him. You know, if Quentin Johnston gets injured or if Keenan Allen gets injured, then maybe, you know, we, we put a bit in. But in shallow leagues especially, he is a roster clogger right now. Andre Yosovash is another one that I'll, that I'll throw out there. Don't want to like panic, panic yet. But like we were hoping that this team would just be what it was last year where they were thrown for 350, 400 yards every single week. And we could see these splash weeks from Andre Josevich, but was not involved at all yesterday. Noah Fant was much more involved than we expected. Mike Sicki still had his role being pretty involved. So I almost wonder now if Yosavash ends up falling to like the fourth or fifth option on this team. And you know, I, I do expect the Bengals to turn it around. I don't think they're going to be as bad for the rest of the season as they look yesterday. But he's another guy. Like, I'd move off of Yosef Ash for some of the other names that we mentioned today.
- [56:27]
A
Yeah, that's. I wasn't even expecting you to bring that name up because, like, he's not even someone that I was considering as droppable because I didn't think he was very heavily rostered. Yeah, the Trey Harris thing, it's like he's going to take time to get better. Xavier Legat, man, if there was. It's. Once again, it's what I like to ask after week one is, are these situations sustainable or did we see them in the best possible scenario and did it not work out out. And we saw the Panthers in a very pass heavy scenario and there still just wasn't what we wanted to see for Xavier Leggette. Marvin Mims just wasn't out there as much as we thought, especially after what we saw in preseason. It just, it wasn't right. Xavier Hutchinson ends up, I believe, if I remember this correct, Dave not getting the start. Jaden Higgins did get the start over him.
- [57:13]
B
Jaden Higgins had some nice catches too. He looked pretty good.
- [57:16]
A
Yeah. So it's just. Just trim the fat. Trim the fat and go. Go play in these pockets, you know, these two to three week windows where you can win some games.
- [57:25]
B
You know, with us, the tight ends we were talking about too, like Juwan Johnson, Brenton Strange. If you drafted Kate Otten for whatever reason, I know he was kind of like a buzzy name that a lot of people were like and definitely cutting him to, to. To make room for those tight ends too. Just another name that I'll throw out there that, like last year, you know, we saw this little flash in the band where he was like really, really good when everybody was injured. But now with Igbuka playing primarily out of the slot, there just isn't a lot left over for Kate Otten, which Shout out. Yeah, Igbuka, another guy. Like we talked about JSN and Ricky Pierce all during the cold open, but Buka as well, you know, Good to see guys that we like really planted a flag on this off season. Just coming out week one and looking like absolute studs.
- [58:03]
A
Yep, yep. And we're gonna see it keep happening, hopefully. I wanted to ask you about this. Oh, my gosh. I can't believe. I just forgot what I was gonna ask you, man. There was another. Oh, Chris Rodriguez, he was a. He was a late scratch, a healthy and active. Is that a guy that you are just. You're comfortable just cutting right now? I know a lot of it is that Jeremy McNichols is the special teams guy. So they, the, the commanders went out there with Bill and Austin Eckler.
- [58:28]
B
Yeah. Burchard Smith too. Another, like deep buzzy sleeper that people were drafting. Got the healthy scratch week one. So, yeah, those are guys that I'm pretty easily moving off of.
- [58:41]
A
Yeah, Burchard Smith was totally active.
- [58:43]
B
Oh, you're right. He just did.
- [58:44]
A
Yeah, he got touches. Don't worry, we'll edit that out. It's gonna look great.
- [58:48]
B
You know, that's.
- [58:50]
A
That's about time when we're like, okay, we've gone too far with the show, guys. We're gonna be back again on Wednesday where we're gonna be doing something a little bit different where Dave and I are gonna go back, look at the previous week and come away with our biggest takeaways, maybe our biggest questions from that week. And, and some of the things that we just kind of want to solve some of these mysteries there in fantasy football and you know, ask are we panicking about these players? Are we confident in these players? Sometimes it's going to be trade stuff. You know, our Wednesday is going to be what we call our flex show. So you're going to see something different there every week. And then Thursdays you're going to be getting your starts and sits of the week there where we just want to get you guys some help for your lineups. Make sure you're subscribed to the channel because we're going to be bringing you all this content throughout the entire season. And we've got a bunch of other football guys channels as well. The, the audible, we've got the football guys live channel, we've got the football guys Dynasty channel. There is just so much so make sure if you're on YouTube or listening on Apple or Spotify that you subscribed in any of those places. Well, 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. Marketing is hard, but I'll tell you a little secret. It doesn't have to be. Let me point something out. You're listening to a podcast right now and it's great. You love the host. You seek it out and download it. You listen to it while driving, working out, cooking, even going to the bathroom. Podcasts are a pretty close companion. And this is a podcast ad. Did I get your attention? You can reach great listeners like yourself with podcast advertising from Libsyn Ads. Choose from hundreds of top podcasts offering host endorsements or run a pre produced ad like this one across thousands of shows. To reach your target audience in their favorite podcasts with Libsyn ads, go to libsynads. Com, that's L I B s y n ads.com today.