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Cryptocurrency. Okay, NFTs. Alright, I'm in. Uh, investing.
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I'll be any more. And get ahead of the future of finance. To the Fantasy Footballers podcast with your host, Andy Holloway, Jason Moore and Mike Wright. Oh, welcome in.
Monday, September 13th. Welcome into the glass cage of emotion. That is week one. Fantasy football reactions, Jason Moore, Mike Wright.
I'm Andy Holloway, the fantasy footballers. We're holding your hand. We're here to give you a moment of silence if it went poorly. I'm still tilted.
I know. I know. Arms are wide open, guys. Ooh, like Scott's step.
And the embrace and the... This is one of those three second hogs. Okay, no matter what. No matter what.
It went well. Bring it in. Yeah. You had a hard time bringing in.
Bring it in. And this is a three second hook. This is one of those where we're going to hold. That's for real.
One Mississippi. Two Mississippi. We're going to breathe. Three Mississippi.
And let's get back to work. I was watching the game last night. And it was an enjoyable game. It was interesting.
And I put a little bit off. My wife's like, what is wrong? Were you like, hey, my fantasy team. Yeah.
And we're back. Freaking Tyree Kill, man. I've got some reassuring news for everybody out there. At this point last year, we were 6.25% of the way through the season.
And this year, we're only 5.88%. Ooh. I like those numbers. Because we got an extra game.
Honestly, it is so hard to manage expectations of a weekly game. Yes. Over the course of a season in week one. And that's what we're going to do today.
There are things we learned that are, I think, prescriptive. Things that we are afraid of that I don't think we need to be. And we're going to get into all of that. But the emotions and the reactions of week one are insane.
If what happened this week, identically happened in week seven, it's totally different. It's totally just because this confirms all the talk. This confirms or denies all of the thoughts and expectations. The problem with that is it's just one week.
Yeah, it does, indeed, actually. It's just one week. No, I have some numbers. There's a really, if you want the numbers for week one, if you want the the come down off of that reaction, all of the emotions, go read the article on our website by Matt Disorbo.
He talks. He plots out the week one performances over the last few years. The breakout performances and the inverse. We're going to get into some of those names today.
We're going to go through studs and duds. We're going to go through the poops and their big boy pants. We got Monday, Monday, momentarily, of course. I mean, that would be, that's always an appropriate reaction to the weekend.
But when you look at the real numbers, you'll understand what Jason is saying. Because if somebody has a down game or gets injured in week six, it's just week six, but week one, the authority on whether something is official, which is Twitter, has confirmed that week one is the most important week. And you need, you need us to walk you through this. We need you to walk us through this.
We'll survive. By the way, one of the numbers I'll throw out at the very top, because we'll get into some of this, studs and dudss. But with the breakout week one performances, just 13% of those historically end up being a top 12 running back wide receiver or tight end. Just 39% end up being a top 24 wide receiver running back or tight end for the rest of the year.
So the odds are not in your favor that it's prescriptive. And these are for players that are drafted at low 80P. So the Christian Kirk's like week one are those type of players. Very rarely is that prescriptive and we're going to help you through it.
But let's get sophisticated. Let's get sophisticated. Yes. Let's go to San Francisco, shall we?
How about Brandon, I yuck or Brandon, I puke more appropriate? Or maybe we go to Debo manual. Oh, now you're a man or Debo, oh, super Samuel. You said it incorrectly.
You are unprosured. We are very sophisticated. Debo, super se annual. Uh, Rahim, most hurt.
Oh, me. Went from must heart, must start to most hurt. Mm. Uh, let's go to Green Bay.
Shall we the Green Bay slackers? Or the Aaron fraudgers. It's just double choke. That's not my favorite I've ever seen.
The discount double choke. Oh, how about Detroit, Hock City? I like that or super cup. Mike Goose, icky.
Tyler McFlurry. Gronkowski. Ryan Hips, tragic. Oh, no, I don't like that one.
And then we do have some repeat classics that we'll get into, like, Polio Jones. Classic Ezekiel Smelliot. And Clyde Mer towards Ile. Or Devontae Saddlems.
And of course, James Winston. What a performance. By us? Oh, yes, yes, exactly.
Jason, Jason, it was a super awesome Dragon Ball Zebra. You got to hop in. You think I watched that show? Yeah.
No. Well, I don't see not for nerds. I don't blame Jason because the pun made more sense the way he said it with his last name. You know what I mean?
Sure. But did you guys see Debo Samuel this weekend? Did you see him? Oh, you're a minor.
Yeah. Oh, my. Yeah, we saw him. Very prescriptive.
He's the only prescriptive one. The lion saw his backside a lot. Oh, goodness. Yes, they did.
Twitter at the FF followers. Listen, I want to invite you right now. Go to jointhefoot.com. You will get an extra episode of the show.
You will be a part of the largest, most spectacular fantasy football community on planet Earth. The foot clan is mighty and strong and incredibly awesome. And you can join that community at jointhefoot.com and get a bunch of premium tools for in-season, our consistency charts, our streamfinder, and a whole lot more. That is our community for the in-season.
The ultimate draft kit was February through September. Now you had to join the foot.com and get on board for the next 17 weeks. Oh. Thefantasyfootbollars.com for all the articles.
And let's talk news. News and notes from around the league presented my sleeper. Man, it's not to talk about. Let's start in San Francisco here because you got a couple of bits of news.
One was the surprise and active of Trace Sermon on Game Day, which was, um, it was, it was, it was crazy. And I know we have a lot to talk about San Francisco in general. And maybe, maybe Mike, you deserve, or Kyle Shanahan deserves the magic card tricks because, because he's getting to the point now where either the beat writers in San Francisco are checking Twitter the same way we are and not glued into what's happening at camp, or you have a magician in Kyle Shanahan taking lessons from Matt Nagy. And you might have both.
So you had two things happen here. One was Trace Sermon's surprise and active, which, look, if people want to, and they were on Twitter, all over me over Reheamostr getting hurt predictably, right? Two for 20, then he's injured. Here's the thing.
Kyle Shanahan didn't see that coming because he would have Trace Sermon active on Game Day. Instead, you have a couple of running backs Elijah Mitchell and Michael Hasty, who are big time special team contributors, not something that Trace Sermon does. And so Reheamostr goes down knee injury, apparently, according to the beat writers that I checked in on. So wink, wink.
He's been dealing with an injury on and off during camp, and this was a re-aggravation. They're not concerned about ACL, but you should be concerned because Reheamostr is a walking injury factory lately. I mean, we're moments removed from him saying, check out my muscles, and then he goes down into plays. But Trace Sermon's inactivity, what that means for fantasy, and then the other one is Brandon Ayuk.
Brandon Ayuk played behind Trent Sherfield, didn't play much. Right. And everything we knew about camp, which was Trace Sermon locked in the second running back role, and Brandon Ayuk is poised to return to glory after last year. What do we do?
Yeah, I mean, the beat reporters that I follow, I need to unfollow. And but I agree with you, I wonder if it's them being bad at their jobs, which you were. Or if just Cal Shannion makes it really hard to do your job, but we're going to talk about Elijah Mitchell tomorrow on the way. When it comes to what do you do, how much do you go in, how much is this prescriptive?
Trace Sermon now, all of the questions regarding that. With regards to Ayuk, at least that was combined, Cal Shannion came out and said it was combined with the fact that he missed 10 days with a hamstring injury. So but he was he was active in the game. They didn't just, you know, take him out and rest him completely.
So it was very, very disappointing. And, you know, I think where do you go from here with Brandon Ayuk? Do you have to, I mean, at this point you have to binge him until he is more involved in past the hamstring? Yes.
And that can be even piggybacked on the data that we got this week and about people coming back off of hamstring injuries in general, whether that was Austin Echler returning who did fall into the end zone, but the workload is diminished where you saw more of round tree in Justin Jackson. The hamstring injury, if you had just played debo last year when he dealt with one, you would have regretted it because there was re-injury and some issues. You need to let him prove it at this point. And I think the lesson from Shannion has been, I'm not going to give a young player cart launch.
I mean, I think that's what it is. 10 days off while there's 10 days that those other guys were doing work and Trent Sturfield showed out in preseason. I will give him that. Yes.
He wasn't going to give him the job and he wasn't going to give it to Trey Sermon if those other guys were out working him. So, you know, I don't know what the age is when they say, okay, I trust you to be a grown man. I don't know what that age is in football, but it was bewildering. It was a disappointment for anybody that played Brandon Ayuk with optimism.
And I agree with you. I think it's binged to further notice Mike. Do you have any thoughts? I do not disagree.
It's just, yeah, I don't want to, you know, just completely throw the dumpster all over the beat reporters. But I mean, now you have reports like, well, you started off hot in training camp, but it tailed off at the end. Where was that report? Those reports after something's happened, right?
I'm still learning to be a pro. Okay. Well, it's crazy because he was a pro for the 17.8 man's points for gaming average over the last eight games last year. So bizarre.
But, you know, when you walk into a locker room and this guy's healthy, professional looks a little different. Yeah. I am going to embrace the evil while he's healthy. You should.
That was a heck of a game. Zach Moss was a surprise and active. Another one in Buffalo where what? I mean, he's healthy.
All reports are that he's completely healthy and he was not active on you. And I was reading some more reports of the team felt that Maparita was just the better player. Well, I might be, but none of them matter. I will say this, at least with this one, you saw the change in preseason where Devin Singletary became the kind of one and B like it was it was not a split workload.
They when when Moss and Singletary were both active ready to go and preseason, the starters were out there. Zach Moss wasn't. So at least there was an inkling of this. I know in my drafts, I completely was on the Devin Singletary side because of what we saw in preseason.
I don't know that the beat reporters talked about it, but I mean, it's not what we said to stay away from the backfield. So hopefully that advice was heated or you got, you know, the cost was so low that it made no difference. And you certainly weren't playing them this week, right against Pittsburgh. Correct.
No, you should not have played either of them against Pittsburgh, but going forward, I do think that Devin Singletary could be interesting if it's a one running back system. Yeah, I didn't catch the football. So makes it easier to put up some at least pedestrian numbers. This was unfortunate.
Bronco's wide receiver, Jerry Judy, card it off the field. He looks so good too. He did. He was by far the leading receiver.
I think six targets, six catches. This is a long term injury, a high ankle sprain. We thought maybe the ankle was broken. Extra is were negative.
This is a six to eight week injury minimum for Jerry Judy. And you're looking at players that are, you know, he depends on his explosiveness and his yards after the catch and you take away his wheel. One of them, he's got a bum wheel. It's going to be, I mean, throw them on the IR.
If you got a spot otherwise I would probably drop him and move on versus hold him to the end of the year to maybe get upside when you have so many other pass catches. Yes. If you don't have an IR spot on your fantasy roster, you have to drop him. He's, I expected to even be placed on the actual.
I are. Those IR. Yeah. So if you don't have this spot, yeah, I would have to move on.
And we'll talk about the options behind him, but Tim Patrick and Tim Patrick's very know a fan. Yeah. Yeah. And Sutton will get, you imagine he was kind of getting worked in a little bit, get more comfortable, not a lot of targets yesterday.
I mean, that stinks. He looks so d- He never does just emotional reactions right there. That was just, it's like so upsetting because it's that second year breakout wide receiver. Everything lining up from looks amazing.
It's like, yeah, yeah, Jerry Judy, let's go. And then it honestly, when it happened, we were worried about like a dislocated, horrific injury. So at least it's not full season. Your reaction was the way I was with him most because the news about Trace Sermon comes out.
The player prop on most of goes from like 50 or 58 rushing yards to 100. It's Detroit who, you know, Elijah Mitchell goes out and destroys. And I've got most of it everywhere. And then you don't, not getting to see what you hoped, you had a chance to see, is just so disappointing, but it's football and we don't control any of it.
So fits Patrick, that would be Ryan fits Patrick, fits tragic, hip, subluxation, which sounds slow. Yes. Not hip. No.
MRI today, Matthew Betts, our injury expert who by the way dropped our first injury blitz podcast, which is another one of the perks already joined the foot.com. Basically said, the mechanism of injury was similar to what to ahead in Alabama, but less severe. He expects fits to be on IR. He's going to miss this week's game against the Giants.
No question. And you're looking at a reconfiguration of your expectations in Washington unless you have a confidence I don't have in Tyler Hennicki and other options. No, this is a clear downgrade for Terry McClure. I still think Terry will be fine.
Okay. But the true breakout potential is the upside is hurt a little bit by having a backup quarterback. And then, you know, when it comes to Antonio Gibson, I think he's probably going to be fine. The team seems like they are going to rely on him.
Oh, he was a full workhorse. Oh, yeah. When it comes to the eye test of week one and just, you know, sometimes those things are more important in week one because you just see what is true regardless of the stats. And you go, oh, he looked strong and fast and good.
Yeah, there were only a handful of running backs that looked the part in week one, in my opinion, right? You had some of the small words had horrible games and we'll talk about them, but Gibson was one that absolutely looked the part. Zachar, it's hamstring string. So Dallas Goddard, you know, could you get more work in the team?
Look pretty good mind you. It was Atlanta, but you know, Goddard was a sneeze away from a touchdown in this one. Tyrell Williams, helmet to helmet hit left in the third quarter. You also had Richard Penny leave with a calf injury.
Oh, Goddard had a touchdown. Did he have a touchdown? Yeah. Also, yeah, he was a sneeze away from a second.
He was four for 42 with a touchdown. Because I remember seeing him kind of fight to try to get one and got out of bounds. Josh Jacobs, this is news for Monday night football. Yes.
Downgraded to questionable with an illness, but had been cleared for the toe injury. So got sick. I bet he plays. Yeah, he probably plays.
And I, if you didn't see this news, you probably need him to play because picking up somebody else in this game is going to be difficult. Kinyin Drake was drafted in almost all formats. Ty's on Williams. We've been through the waiver wire with him.
You might be able to get Latavis Murray. There's a chance. And then, you know, depth wise in Las Vegas, who gets work outside of Kinyin Drake. Barbour?
Probably. So let's just help you play. And it's good that it's not the toe. So it's, yeah, it's at least it's questionable.
But yeah, if you're depending on Josh Jacobs, you better be on that news. All right. So that was today's news and notes right to you by sleeper, which was very clutch throughout Sunday. If you noticed, they were quick with the breaking news alerts.
So just download the app, install it. It's free and then subscribe to the breaking alerts section and you'll get the news before everybody else. And before we get to the stud muffins, want to thank draft Kings, look, it's good to see the teams back out there on the gridiron. Indeed.
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This week's fantasy stud muffins. I'm off muffins. You know what stuck out to me when you guys were doing the Adreade was, you know, getting out on the grid iron and I'm trying to mentally think about where that phrase would have come from like grid iron. Okay.
And the best I've got is like, like a grill has got this grid on it. And like field's got the lines of like a grid. That part makes sense. But the iron, I don't know.
I just don't know. Because football started in the prison system. And so you're behind bars. Like long as you're.
That's right. And easy for you to see. That was a documentary. A lot of people don't know that, but that's where grid iron comes from.
Because like the grid, but they're all behind iron. So you know, you went and suddenly lost. Okay. Well, look, let's get into the studs and we're going to try to sift through these performances.
Are they a flash in the pan? Look, a couple of the studs from last year, week one. Let's remind you, let's set the context. Miss Trabisky had a nice 30 point opening week.
He was benched two weeks later. Naim Heinz was the running back five. Remember that madness in week one? Waver, Wire, extraordinaire, biggest pickup of week one.
And then he gets one target, no carries in week two. Yeah. And Jonathan Taylor, managers were concerned. So there's an implication for more players.
Robbie Anderson was the wide receiver five last year. He only finished inside the top 21 more time. The rest of the season. We may not forget about Sammy Watkins.
May week one superstar always be in our hearts. He's called Blood of the Wizard King. Yeah, he is. Although I can't find the drop no matter what I do.
That one is that's still to come. He'll get the lizard king tonight. All right, quarterback studs. Week one, Kylo Murray, sweet mercy.
He was electric, 21 for 32, 289 and four. Another on the ground. I mean, you didn't need that performance to know you start Kyler in fantasy, but you got Minnesota at home in Jacksonville the next two weeks. Oh, brother.
I mean, Joe Burrow carved up Minnesota. And Kyler has got weapons all over the field. Huge game for Christian Kirk, obviously. And Rondell Moore's going to give him some free points through the year as well.
Mahomes, yeah, he's a stud. He didn't matter that he had no touchdowns for a while. Yeah, I mean, it really, you watched the game and he had the Russian touchdown. But he had done very little in the first half.
Cleveland's controlling the game. No other passing touchdowns. You're like, well, you know, we'll have a disappointing game. No, he's bad homes.
He's good. James Winston had one of the most peculiar games ever. I believe it's the lowest yardage for a five touchdown game since 1948. That is correct.
148 yards passing on 14 completions. Five of the 14 completions were touchdown. The man can see. Yeah, I mean, the man can see.
Does Mike get he throw for more than 150 yards? Because he didn't need to. He just can't because he's throwing touchdowns. Jason, what do you want him to do?
This is one of the most obvious non-prescriptive performances of the week. Because he threw no interceptions. He put for 148 yards. He did throw an egregious awful interception.
They got called back on a egregious awful penalty call. That was ridiculous. But I think Winston's going to be fine. I would agree.
But this team was absolutely dominant on the defensive side. They've got a great Russian game. And I think Winston is somebody that you are going to need. You can't lean on yardage for Winston this year.
Because the team isn't Bruce Ariane's Tampa Bay Buccaneers. With I mean, 20 passatives. What's the last time James Winston started a game and had 20 passatives? Oh, I'm sure it's happened lots of times, but he didn't finish that game.
Oh, okay, fair enough. But yeah, I mean, he's got a great matchup next week at Carolina. So maybe he's in that conversation of, you know, he obviously can score touchdowns. And Alvin Camara can get tap passes for touchdowns for days.
But yes, he is not going to be a top, you know, what was he like the quarterback three this week? Rushall, Wilston. He's good. 18 for 23, 254 and four.
Indianapolis is not slouch defense. They were on the road and he torched them. And made a couple of ridiculous throws, dropped it in the bucket for Tyler Locket. He looked great.
No offensive coordinator situation was great. So feeling good? So far. Jalen hurts 27 for 35.
This one feels good. 7 for 62 on the ground. Jason started the week 264 and three through the air. Very, I think we all kind of came away saying, look, solid performance from Jalen hurts.
Mm hmm. You know, you got to see a little bit of Devonta Smith flashing. You saw Goddard, you saw Jalen Rager make a play. You saw Kenneth Gainwell and Quiz Watkins.
Yeah, Ken was very surprising that he was he was the two. Bosses got was not at all. Yeah, it was all Kenneth Gainwell as the change of pace back from Miles Sanders. And I'm assuming Devonta Smith made the wide receiver list, but just in case he didn't.
He's that dude. Like he was the guy out there for everything. Jalen Rager is kind of the number two wide receiver who he came through with a touchdown. But Devonta Smith has immediately established himself as you were projecting it, but you can't always just say like, oh, the first one, Rooki's going to be the man.
Yeah, I think behind him it's actually murky. I think it's Rager, it's Watkins, it's the tight ends, but I wouldn't put one in any order than the other. Yeah, I agree. What will be interesting is that obviously he did this against Atlanta.
And Atlanta just looked at us. Not good. So next week against San Francisco, we'll see because they're obviously a better defense. I don't know because Jared Goff, I don't know if you know this, but in standard scoring, you know, Tom Brady, Dak Prescott, they had these great monstrous weeks.
They were outscored by Jared Goff. I mean, you guys saw, I mean, it was a devastating injury to Jason Verrett, ACL tear back bone of the of the secondary. And all of a sudden now you're talking about Richard Sherman going back there. Now you're talking about, you know, them finding another solution and they didn't, you know, once they lost Verrett, they just they kind of fell apart.
Yes. And I think Jalen Hernds is going to have no problem putting up fancy points. Tom Brady attempted two and a half times more passes than James Winston and put up a monster week. Dak, we saw it great week from Dak, very impressive.
If we didn't already say so, he's healthy. And then, you know, Matthew Stafford was 2426. I expect this office to be super efficient because they just know how to set him up for, it's a lot like San Francisco and Jimi Garoppolo. You know, the designed pass plays are so well planned and executed that efficiency matters and touchdowns are going to matter for his staff.
And do not let the small passing attempts number fool you. This is a team that was passing nonstop. They did not run the ball early until they were basically in that, you know, in a neutral game script, they were they were only passing the ball, right? But his, you know, they went three and a couple times or it was a deep bomb that just finishes the drive.
You don't get more pass attempts. And then they were up. So I am really looking forward to seeing what Matthew Stafford can do. And I mean, you know, they talked about it at nauseum on the broadcast, but it does seem like his best friend is Cooper Cup.
And, you know, if I go two hours before breakfast together, if I could go back in time, based on week one knowledge, I would certainly move halfway up. I think he's going to be, I think this game was a little bit more prescriptive than just a week one outlier. You want a wide receiver that has breakfast with the quarterback? I mean, we've set it for years.
We set it for a scrambled eggs together. I love breakfast. I know. And so I want a wide receiver that is with me on the show.
I'd be like, we shared breakfast. Oh, we should do that. Yeah. But then we'd have to get up earlier.
If you bought breakfast, I would definitely share it with you. Okay. Running backs. Oh, hey, he's back.
Christian McCaffrey, you know, let me ask you a question about this game because Christian McCaffrey, it's not a surprise. He's amazing. It's nice to see. So good.
9 for 89. Also 21 carries, 98 yards on the ground. He had 25 fantasy points in score, which is something that is incredible for a player on your on your run. My tweet from last night.
I did not. So I was curious because he's the number one running back on the week. I expect him to stay there after tonight's games. He is and I went back over the last 32 games before I got bored the last couple of years to see if anyone had ever been the running back one without a touchdown and it had only happened one other time and that was Christian McCaffrey, who did it then?
I mean, if you can be the number one running back without scoring a touchdown, you're unstoppable. And in the weeks when he scores, he wins you the week. Yes. Let me bring forward something from this game because both of these players fit into the studs category.
And I one thing I would be doing and you can correct me, I'm concerned about Robbie Anderson 100,000 percent. Nine targets, 98 or 89 yards for Christian McCaffrey, one catch for Robbie Anderson. Now it was a 57 yard touchdown. Saved his week.
But you know what? That's what he did in New York. He had the one big play with Sam Darnell in New York. He last year, he was their Christian McCaffrey.
Yes. He was their PPR, short yardage solution. McCaffrey took all of it. So if it were me with Robbie Anderson, I would be shopping that one for 57 and a touchdown.
Do you agree? Yeah, he again, we're trying to say it's week one, let's not overreact, but it's hard to not overreact to the talk through the off season is when Christian McCaffrey is back, it's going to affect somebody because he's going to come in. He's going to see a bunch of targets. What is that going to be?
Because last year it was DJ Moore had morphed into the deep threat and Robbie Anderson was getting all the underneath stuff. Well, now DJ Moore is still running some deep stuff, but he's the number one wide receiver on this team as he should be. But Robbie Anderson dropping to three targets is terrifying. I am the resident Robbie Anderson, truth or here.
And you know, I have him in tons of leagues because where he was going in drafts, I felt like he was undervalued. I still feel that way that he will outperform where he was drafted. But I'm with you guys 100%. This game was perfect for you to be able to trade him.
You know what I mean? Like he had three targets. Terris Marshall had six targets. Obviously, Christian McCaffrey is the number one receiver for this team.
153 target pace after one week. But he ended up with a good fantasy game and plenty of managers did not watch, do not look deep enough to realize that the target volume and the reception volume, he had a good fantasy week. You can capitalize on that and and and trade him. And that's not to say you need to train.
He's going to be worthless. You can't start Robbie Anderson. He will have decent games, but he's not going to be the volume guy that that we hoped is how it looks to play out. And the volume saves you from a wrecking your week.
Yeah. Here's one of the few running backs that looked 100% like a workhorse Joe Nixon. Yeah. 34 33 touches, forced eight mixed mists tackles running back in week one.
29 carries outstanding performance from Joe Nixon and pretty impressive for the Bengals altogether on the offense. Joe Brokum back from injury. Yep, they get to take on Chicago. What are you laughing at?
I was laughing at the fact that Joe Nixon had 29 carries 127 yards and a touchdown and Christian repeat him. But that's going to get touched. I was like, it was ridiculous. Yeah.
Yeah, it was. But I mean, Nixon's going to get the rocket ton until unless he breaks down. It was really a little bit surprising, but the majority of the game, the Bengals were winning. Yeah.
So the pass versus run is something to stay tuned to. We expected this to be a very past happy team based on what we've seen the last couple of years with Sack Taylor. But that's also because they've usually been losing. So who knows?
If they're good, Joe Nixon could be awesome. Nick Chub did his thing on 15 carries two touchdowns. Jamal Williams, DeAndre Swift, both players ended up with monster or impressive fantasy games. Jamal Williams actually had fewer carries than DeAndre Swift, but had a touchdown nine targets, eight for 56.
DeAndre Swift, 11 targets, eight for 65. When you combine that with Hawkins and targets, all the targets went to the running backs and to the tight end position, Tyrell got hurt. You know, Tyrell can cause, I mean, he gets hurt every year. I mean, this is this is a third consecutive year for Tyrell Williams, where he has heard on like week one.
So not surprising there, but even then he didn't leave until the third quarter. And you know, DeAndre Swift looked great. He is no longer on the growing index.com. He should be fine.
So this was interesting. And both backs over 100 yards and a touchdown. It'll be interesting to see if you have confidence to play Jamal Williams going forward. Certainly, you have confidence fully in DeAndre Swift.
Yeah. I feel like Williams is going to be more of a desperation flats by week Phil, where Swift, look, Anthony Lynn likes throwing the ball to his running backs. He's gone from Los Angeles in the Chargers now, I said, I know targets in this game. Yeah.
And here's the honor. You don't have target of Christian McCaffrey. So, so I mean, you're talking about he was probably the number one most targeted running back in week one. I don't have that number right in front of you, but I asked to be at the 11.
I mean, that's, and their defense is going to struggle every week. It was a large product of the game script of San Francisco was up, like what, 20 something points? I know that by the, if all you saw was the box score in that, Detroit closed that gap. They were down massively, but they're going to play against Green Bay, Baltimore the next two weeks.
I think Jamal Williams is in, yeah, I would say slightly better than desperation flex. I think he's in. Okay. Flex.
Yeah. Yeah. All right. Melbourne Gordon 11 for one on one monster touchdown run.
Uh, Javante Williams had 14 rushes. He had more carries than Melbourne Gordon. Yeah. But I don't actually, I'm going to watch the game and this game was out of, out of hand.
So they gave the last like drive or two drives to Javante Williams when the game had nothing left. So I would look at it as a watch. I think they're going to mix both guys in equally. I think that's, that's where it's a positive for Javante Williams.
Melville Gordon saved the entire game with what was like a 70 something yards touchdown run. So that means before that carry, he was 10 for 30. Yeah. He just, when you were watching, not the breakaway run and I'm not going to take that away from Elvigorton.
He did. He came through in a big way for fantasy. Javante Williams looked much better. He had far more juice than Melvin Gordon.
And don't agree. I don't agree. I don't agree. I turn to Mike about halfway through that game.
And every time Javante touch, I said, man, he looks like he's got a lot more juice than Melvin Gordon. Obviously Melvin Gordon had that 75-yard run, but I do think that like Melvin Gordon's fine. The match ups coming up are awesome Jacksonville and the Jets that mean you're going to get off to this great start with Melvin Gordon. That's fine.
But when I looked at these two players, I did think by the end of the season, it will, the change over will be made. So he is another guy that I would be willing to kick the tires on, on looking to trade high because he's got a huge name. He had a hundred yards and a touchdown, a monster fantasy game. You might be able to find someone in your league to actually trade up at running back.
I don't disagree with any of that. Who wants to get Melvin Gordon because I would do the same thing you guys would do with the backfield. My point was just juice to me in that game just meant speed and Javante's faster, like to the edge. But Melvin Gordon broke tackles in a way that Javante getting caught in the backfield.
And I felt like Gordon broke tackles better than Javante did. I would a hundred percent trade Melvin Gordon after a 71-yard touchdown run. No question about it. Although the next 30 weeks are going to be very attractive.
So maybe I'd wait. You make a high trade off for now. Go shoot your shot on what you think you might be able to get. If you get it turned down, if you get it turned down, whatever, move on, wait a week, have a good performance against Jacksonville, offer the same thing.
The point where I was going was if this is the split already in week one for Javante Williams, that this was the type of situation where you're hoping by the halfway point of the season that Javante takes over being the primary guy, Melvin Gordon's not going away. But if this is where we are starting, we could get to that point sooner than later for Williams. Calvin Cook, Alvin Camara, honorable mentions here in the studs. David Montgomery was outstanding.
Yes, he was. 16 for 108. The Rams gave up zero 100-yard rushing games last year. Montgomery does it in a negative game script against a Rams team.
And he was outstanding. You want to talk about juice. That guy looked fantastic. We talked about it.
They were a handful of small handful of running backs that when you watched, they were difference makers. And David Montgomery was one of them. It's going to be... He's a great running back.
Yeah. Some people moved him. The pendulum swung too far with the narrative of like easy schedule at the end of the year. Like it's not easy with an easy schedule to put that many top 10 weeks together, especially when you have just trash quarterback play in an office.
It's not around the goal line a lot. Yeah, I don't think you're going to be able to trade for him. If you could, I would do it certainly. But if you drafted him, you're going to be happy this season.
Now, so then you're not going to have any concerns. So David Montgomery had 17 opportunities. Damien Williams had 11 opportunities. That makes me happy not sad.
Yeah. And then Montgomery went to locker room with a dislocated finger and a missed upper drive. The fact that one of the big fears coming into this season was David Montgomery was without to re-cone because of the injury last year and was left. It's like the last man there.
And now they brought in Damien Williams. And you go, is he going to be able to get enough volume? And we saw with Damien Williams there that Montgomery is the center of the offense. And so that's why I'm saying I see it as good.
Since Natty Cleveland to Troy for the next three weeks, you may have two positive game scripts from Montgomery coming up. Uh, wider severs studs for week one, Mario Cooper and CD Lamb. We saw them on Thursday. Tyree Kale had a mediocre 15, 15 targets, 11 for 157 and one.
He's on stop. Now Mike's groaning and head shaking and kind of crumudge any face is no reflection on the individual of Tyree Kale, but more on the fact that he had thought he had his match up put away. And then suddenly Tyree Kale 11 for 200 yards. Yeah, I mean, that's Tyree Kale.
Ho-hum, 197 yards always open. Debo. Target. Yeah, targeted on it.
48% of his routes. We've been talking about this metric recently of percentage of targets on routes that you ran being a very sticky indicator of success. That's why we called the Antonio Brown shot. And that is a super high number from week one.
And yeah, let's just answer this into evidence to build the case for Debo Samu being a very valuable, important part of the team that Kyle Shanahan loves, trusts and wants to be healthy, so that they can win ball games. And I do still fully think you could go into getting involved. I mean, he's still recovering from the hamstring injury. He's coming back soon.
And I still believe overtake Trent Sherfield and give him a real good wide receiver one, wide receiver two punch. Are we worried about George Kittle at all? No. Okay.
No, not because of what Hydin's represent. And you know, he had one play that he was really close to breaking for a long touchdown. He's going to get the, he'll have the big touchdown in one of these weeks coming up. And I'm not concerned.
Okay. Only five targets, honestly. Yeah, I thought he looked good, but this was also a game like he brought up. I mean, they ran the ball like crazy.
Elijah Mitchell will talk about him more tomorrow. But yeah, I mean, when they're down, you're going to see more kiddle. We've got three starts of the week here. Antonio Brown, seven targets, five for one, 21 and one, title, lock it for for 102.
And Adam Thelen, 10 targets, nine for 92 and two. I tried to trade for Thelen in every league possible for the week leading up to the season ever since Erasmith went down. I was ready for action with Adam Thelen and he was delightful. Now it was of note, not that it stopped Adam Thelen.
He saw 10 targets, but was an interesting note for the Minnesota Vikings where their base offense has been two wide receivers on the field. Their base offense was 11 personnel this week. So there was a third wide receiver on the field out there that will be interesting to track if that negatively impacts the target share for Jefferson and Thelen moving forward based on what we saw from the offensive line struggles against the Bengals D line. I'm going to say they need to move back to some more 12 personnel getting an extra tight end in there and block.
Do you know who's smiling right now with the way that offensive line performed? Chandler Jones, Arizona at home. Chandler Jones coming off week. Is it possible for him to double the just acts by two how incredible would that be?
I mean, yeah, that's going to be a problem. I'm going to take the Cardinals and that one. Okay, Corey Davis, five for 97 and two touchdowns. The Jets sucked.
They looked really bad on offense and yet Corey Davis had a game. But this is one of those you something. Yeah, I mean, I'm not sure exactly how to feel because you can have the two different arguments, right? They were bad and Corey Davis was still good.
He's the clear number one here, but also they were really bad and there were a lot of fears even for Corey Davis as the game went on and then it worked out and he got the two touchdowns but I'm I am pessimistic on the outlook of the Jets offense from what you know, this was the first chance to see Zach Wilson not in preseason not playing against you know some backups and it wasn't good. And it was Carolina exactly and it was Carolina. But rookies get better. You know, it's that's the one thing is rookies can improve over the years.
So there is some there's the chance that the offense he gets more comfortable. He takes more shots downfield. I got so sick of watching him swing the ball to the left for negative one yards in this game. It was gross.