Week 7 Fantasy Football Reactions & Injuries + Early Week 8 Waiver Wire (Ep. 2292)

0:00 All right. Welcome everybody to the fantasy pros podcast. I am your host, Matt Modai joined by Tara Roberts and hopefully Niffin, uh, not well, we'll join us as well. His first time doing this. So just a little bit of technical difficulties. He's our injury expert, but we might have to put our doctor hat on for the, uh, put our scrubs on for the evening and pretend to play doctor. If, um, if we don't get him, uh, the, the, the situation figured out, um, Recapping week seven, NFL Sunday.

0:27 Before we get into the injuries and stuff, did you have a good week? Fantasy went well? I don't know what fanhood team you are, but.

0:33 I'm a Packers fan, so I'm currently not happy about what just went down.

0:39 Okay. I did check to see how that game ended. I guess it didn't end well.

0:44 Last minute field goal, Detroit.

0:46 I mean, drives extended by penalties. Just....

0:53 Well, yeah, I saw, I saw the, um, the, the Dan, uh, Dan Campbell went for it on fourth down. I'd like the 24 yard line got, got stuffed. And then I didn't see what happened after that. Cause just cause I was prepping for this.

1:06 Yeah.

1:06 I don't know.

1:08 Um, everything was just quite a mess.

1:11 Yeah.

1:12 Yeah.

1:13 That happens anyways. Um, we can just kind of go through the big injuries and hopefully we can get, uh, we For the graphic, we have Devontae Adams. This one happened at the very end of the 4 p.m. games last week. We didn't know what the situation was when we were streaming. Obviously, we now have clarity on that that we can talk about. Aaron Jones Sr. left early with a knee injury. Tyrone Tracy Jr. left early with a hamstring injury. Cole Komet out for the year. That's a bummer with a knee injury. Then for Monday Night Football, not only do we have Saquon Barkley questionable, But we also have Devontae Smith and Tay Wicks out for the Eagles.

1:52 So Eagles, obviously a little bit shorthanded. Obviously don't have Jalen Hurts. So me and you can just kind of go through what the reporting was for the injuries. We'll start with Devontae Adams. So out six to 10 weeks is what I saw with a hamstring injury. I believe surgery, which is rare for a hamstring injury. Not great for Devontae Adams, that's for sure. Yeah.

2:18 I mean, the game is still going on right now, but I mean, takeaway was pretty clear. It's Puka or bust in terms.

2:24 Of, and that was the fear with Kanate Mumfield was that, you know, he might have value. And it was weird because obviously, you know, Puka got a questionable tag at the end of the week and was always going to be game time.

2:35 And then Saturday came through.

2:37 Okay.

2:37 No, no, we're feeling a lot better about him.

2:40 So with the receivers, I think it's very clear at this point, there is not a pivot. Whenever one receiver goes down, it's a pivot to the tight ends. Predicting which tight end it will be is the great carousel of life. Today, it was Davis Allen day. And we should have Terrence Ferguson back at some point, but I do want to caution people because I know this will be something that people want to jump on.

3:04 The Rams have a week 11 by week.

3:07 Terrence Ferguson can be added or can be activated from IR next week, technically, but they already went ahead and said that they're not going to do that.

3:15 He's not ready. So if you're ready to activate, that's not even close.

3:18 So considering the week 11 buy, there's a very good chance that it's not until week 12. So if you're looking at options, it is nothing but these tight ends that are active right now for the next couple of weeks.

3:28 Yeah.

3:28 And like, obviously you're going to start Kyron and you're probably going to start Blake Corum. But the biggest thing that I've noticed when like a big name receiver is out is the receiving work. A lot of times it doesn't necessarily go to like the backup wide receiver. A lot of times it goes to the running back. And that's not the case a hundred percent of the time.

3:42 Obviously there are certain situations where this receiver does step up, but It seems like with the Rams, like you said, it's, it's Puka or bust. And then from the receiver perspective, and then, yeah, you can play, um, Russian roulette with the tight ends, but like Higby was set up for a great start. And last I checked, he had like over one fantasy, like barely over one fantasy point. Um, and then for the Rams, it looks like it's going to be, it's going to be Kyron. Um, but, uh, there we go. We got nothing in here. If we can get his devices connected anyways. Um, I was going to ask, so I want to get the doc's opinion on this, but with Puka, He's got a pre hernia, which is scary. He pulled up lame with a calf injury,

4:19 which is scary. He's still performing well. Like if you just look at his game logs, he is healthy and playing incredible. Are you, would you be willing to trade him for a hall or are you just holding and you're not even going to bother? I'm holding.

4:32 I mean, it's possible that you can trade for a hall, um, at this point, trying to predict in terms of like, Hey, we're going to hedge against this injury.

4:41 It could go this way. Yeah. We attack the.

4:43 Injuries as we know of them right now, but unless you get the most significant hall ever, just stand pat where you are.

4:51 There we go.

4:51 All right.

4:51 We got, we got the doc in here. There we go. New for all of us. Anyways, thank you for, thank you for joining us. We were talking about Devante Adams. So real quick, what do we have on the hamstring injury for Devante Adams? Yeah.

5:02 Sorry. My late start, by the way, I was having some technical difficulties. But yeah, great to be here. And Devonta Adams, he had a grade three hamstring injury. So the interesting thing about it is that it actually attached at the knee part of the hamstring and it actually seems to be the less common injury to hamstring. So the return timeline is a little bit variable there, which is probably why they gave us that broad six to 10 week period of time. It doesn't sound like they need to reattach anything, and for that inside knee thing, there isn't really a surgical attachment procedure that needs to be done. That would knock him out for the entire season.

5:34 So basically, they're just cleaning up the frayed edges there, and they're waiting for it to scar down, heal down, and then he should be able to come back. So with them seeming like they pulled off the win today, keeping their playoffs kind of in sight, I do think that he'll be back this season, and he should be back.

5:51 near full strength, but it'll be in the, in the end of the regular season. So might not be really worth keeping on for fantasy purposes. If you have another player that you're looking at targeting.

6:01 Got it. And let's say you're able to stash them on your IR when he returns production should be the same. So he should be back in your lineups.

6:08 Yeah. I think that they'll take it back. They'll take it back until he's pretty much able to return back near full strength. One, I would anticipate just a one week ramp up, but that one week ramp up is kind of arbitrary. If he's, playing really well within that first quarter, they're not going to limit him. They might start off by saying he'll be on a snap count, but once they feel comfortable with it, that imaginary snap count is going to disappear.

6:31 Got it.

6:31 Okay.

6:32 Got it.

6:32 That makes sense. And then the next one that we had is Aaron Jones Sr. left early with a knee injury. So, I mean, he'd been fantastic with Jordan Mason down. Now he's down while Jordan Mason's back up. So what do we have on Aaron Jones Sr.

6:46 Yes, and he had that MCL sprain a little bit earlier in the season, and I think the staff said that he re-aggravated that injury. I talk a lot about MCL sprains. They have really good recovery rates. I'm sure Dr. Schoen had talked about that as well. So it's something that shouldn't hold him out for a long period of time.

7:03 I know we've seen other players like Jackson Dart get thrown out for the season, but he had an associated meniscus injury with it. Usually MCL sprains are like a one- to three-week absence, and in rare cases, they don't need to miss any time at all So we just kind of have to see how they decide to grade this, but usually their grade one, usually it's about a one to two week absence.

7:23 Okay, so assuming we don't have them next week, the Vikings are obviously past their bye, so we'll have Jordan Mason. Tara, as it wheels up on Jordan Mason, he had a good game this week. I'm not sure who their matchup is next week, but I've always liked Jordan Mason, so is he in your lineups next week?

7:36 Yeah, 100%.

7:37 Regardless of matchup or anything like that, you lean towards it, go into it's Detroit that they have.

7:43 Detroit, yep, I just looked that up.

7:45 Um, which Hey, you know, can be, can be tricky, but at the end of the day, we know it's going to be volume on top of volume because we saw enough ample evidence while he was out in Jordan and, uh, Aaron Jones got all the volume in the world that it's just going to be the Jordan Mason show.

8:00 Yeah.

8:00 Cause they don't seem to trust the rookie. I forget, I forget the guy's name, but the rookie they had, uh, they don't seem to quite trust him yet.

8:05 Cause yeah, DeMond Claiborne.

8:07 Yeah, exactly.

8:08 Claiborne. Yeah.

8:08 Cause I picked him up as a flyer when, uh, Mason went down, but yeah, there is, you don't trust him yet. So Anyways, the next one, another running back here, Tyrone Tracy Jr. I believe that was a hamstring injury. Scott came back to life. Singletary had a good game. So what's the prognosis on Tyrone Tracy?

8:25 The good thing is I think they have a buy next week, correct?

8:27 That's correct. Yep.

8:28 So that's perfect. I think both we can tackle both scat and Tracy the same one because they both came down hamstring issues.

8:34 Oh, that's right.

8:34 Yep. Yep.

8:35 Yep.

8:36 Tracy ended up leaving the game, not returning. I would say that he had an actual grade one hamstring strain. We'll see if they image it and they call it a higher grade, but minimum, it sounds like he has a great one strain. Usually those are about a one to three week absence. So I would expect him to be at risk for missing the week after the buy.

8:53 Scatru said that he felt his like tightened up and we didn't really get more clarity on it. So. Optimistically, it could just be tightness, which basically means like a little bit of a spasm without an actual acute strain or injury to the hamstring. So he could potentially miss no time at all. I'll be a little bit more lenient on the side of optimism that he's able to return back after the buy.

9:14 So we went from like having a four headed. monster for the giants for in two weeks from now, it could just be Devin Singletary by himself. We'll see, but they're on a buy next week. So I don't want, I don't want to spend too much time on that. I'm sure we'll get some questions about it. So we could just move on to the next one. Cole commit.

9:28 I don't know, like, you know, out for the season, not as huge fantasy guy, but really important for the bears. Should we see him healthy week one next year? Yeah.

9:38 It seemed like they didn't release what ligament was injured, but you saw him land kind of awkwardly on an almost extended leg. Buckled, and they said it buckled, and then he took that knee-to-knee collision. That would typically be an ACL mechanism, especially when they're saying that they're already ruling him out for the season. But he's got plenty of time to recover. fantasy wise i do think that bodes well for loveland it's kind of coinciding with his finally breaking out uh fantasy wise and coming out just means that there's more targets that will go to loveland but no issues with him week one.

10:07 Next season in my opinion okay good to know yeah i guess he's not much on our fantasy radar but important player for the bears so yeah i mean loveland that game was on thursday so we won't talk about him a ton today but two good games in a row for loveland is he back in the trust tree tara Ah, yes.

10:22 Ish. I mean, there are multiple pass catchers there and it can always be a, the only one I feel super good about is Luther burden. Um, but I think Colson is Colson Loveland is still back somewhat ish in the circle of trust.

10:34 We'll get there.

10:35 Yeah.

10:35 I agree with you on everything you said. So no notes there. And then, so we have Monday night football, Saquon questionable Devante Smith, take weeks out. So we'll go ahead and start with, with, with Saquon. I think you've got three limited practices this week. So what do you have for us on, on Saquon?

10:50 Yeah, Insiders have kind of been a little bit less reliable this season. So they do seem to be projecting that he's playing tomorrow, but I'm kind of putting a little bit less credulence on that nowadays. But the fact, like you said, he had a bunch of limited practices this week. He's not a player who has missed a lot of time recently in his career. He's had an adequate amount of time to rest that hamstring. And honestly, they don't really have that many other playmakers in that offense right now.

11:15 They sure don't.

11:16 They kind of have to put them out there. But Devontae Smith, it's kind of funny that you were talking about the burden there because someone even put in my comments. That they're like, oh, should I take this risky maneuver and trade Devontae Smith for Luther Burton? I was like, I don't think that's risky at all. I think that's honestly one of the– I was like, I think it's risky for the guy trading you.

11:34 Yeah, risky the other way.

11:36 But yeah, with Smith, I'm really concerned that he's going to go on IR. People were talking about him being shut down for the season. I think that's a little bit hyperbole because as we've seen with Devontae Adams who literally tore his hamstring off the bone, he's still not a risk for being ruled out for the season. So I find it– out of the realm of probability for at least a hamstring that Devontae Smith is going to be shut down for the season. That seems to be just a re-aggravation. I would say it's about a four to six week recovery in that, in that range. And if they do shut them down, I don't think it's the injury so much as maybe they're just.

12:06 You know, lost season.

12:09 Yeah.

12:09 The, the I'm glad you brought that up, the shutting down, because that was never reported. It was never brought up by Nick Sirianni. He was asked, do you guys consider shutting him down for the season? And it was, and then he answered the question. So I think someone was trying to kind of get a gauge and maybe he was trying to write an article about that is my assumption.

12:29 Cause it was never reported anywhere. And I think someone just wanted to like ask the question and then so they could, they could get it down. So I'm glad you brought that up and then less important, but Tay Wicks, I know he had an ankle injury last week. He did have returning in the game, obviously didn't practice an out for this game. Do you have anything just kind of moving forward on Tay Wicks?

12:47 Not too much there. It seems like he was just a little bit too banged up to, I believe they held him out of this game, correct? Yeah. I think he was just a little bit too banged up to get out there this week, but nothing that I would anticipate holds him out long-term. There hasn't been any language about ankle, and I didn't actually see the film of the injury, so I can't comment on whether it was an eversion or inversion sprain. But assuming it was an inversion sprain, I have really no concerns about it. If indeed it was the ankle turning outwards, meaning towards that little pinky toe, then that would raise my alarm bells.

13:16 That was the same mechanism that Stripling had, that Lamar Jackson had. We've kind of seen how they've missed the same period of time. So it's a really big deal on whether the ankle twists inwards or outwards based on severity.

13:27 Yeah, and he, like I said, he returned to the game last week. So I'm guessing it's not going to keep him out for too long. And Tara, my question for you. So with everybody out for the Eagles, even if you get Saquon back, the other pieces on the offense, like you're starting Saquon if he's back, you're starting Goddard, presumably.

13:41 But like, are you starting... Darius Cooper, are you starting Makai Lemon on if you need, like if you had Smith and you're scrambling?

13:49 I would start Lemon if you need to. Cooper, I'm a little bit worried about because theoretically, and probably they don't need to shadow, Dallas doesn't need to shadow, but theoretically that would be the Joey Porter Jr.

13:59 Matchup.

13:59 And assuming he gets a higher snap count this week, that would not be fun for him.

14:02 So it would make Cooper a little bit more risky.

14:05 And maybe we get that shift towards Makai Lemon finally.

14:09 Hopefully. I mean, the targets are there, but they're like these ridiculous screen passes. He looks good on film. He's getting open, but he's not getting the ball. It's a weird thing going on there. And then just a couple of quick hitters that we have here. So this happened at the very end, right before we hit record. Jalen Waddle looked like chest, shoulder, arm. Were you able to catch that and see what happened there?

14:30 Yeah. Did they specify the body part? Last I saw, they said shoulder. I saw the video though, but I was curious if they didn't know if they specified the... body part anymore.

14:40 I think they said arm, at least that's what sleepers report I got on sleeper said. So maybe nothing too specific. Okay.

14:46 That's interesting. You seem to know a lot of pain. So I know some people were thinking about a shoulder dislocation. The way that he landed was like right on the chest and his arm was kind of bunched up underneath them. So it would be, it's just like not a typical way that you dislocate, uh, that you dislocate your shoulder with just direct pressure on the front. Cause it's really hard to dissipate it backwards. I would be thinking more of an AC joint sprain. That we've seen with DJ Moore, where you take a direct hit to that clavicle, it irritates that just ligament that connects your clavicle to your shoulder blade. That's the most common injury in football. But with them saying arm, then, you know, it's a little

15:22 bit more up in the air. They could be like a rotator cuff strain or just a labral irritation there. We really have to wait till they say a little bit more. Without any information, if I just saw that video in isolation, though, I would say risk of an AC joint spring is the number one concern in my mind.

15:37 Got it. Yeah. Not like a long, long-term absence though.

15:41 But could it, like, like we seen with DJ Moore, it could be a high re-injury risk. Is that right?

15:45 It's more so that, so DJ Moore, it's not that injury risk that's limiting him. It's that pain. The like AC joint spring really limits the above shoulder pain tolerance. And when you're not able to lift your arms over your shoulder, then obviously as a wide receiver, you're not going to be able to play it. So basically there's not able to get pain under control. AC joint sprains are injuries that you can play through as long as there's not significant tearing and they've set pretty much. He's on the verge of returning multiple weeks. So to me, it just seems like a pain tolerance issue for DJ more, which is not, it doesn't have any tolerance. It's just that that is a very painful injury. Sure.

16:16 Yeah.

16:17 Yeah.

16:17 No, nobody's questions in anybody's pain tolerance or manhood here. Um, and then the, the last one, and this was, this was small, so you might not have anything, but chase Brown, I saw he got tackled kind of awkwardly. It looked to my, to my, I'm also what I saw the post say, like a hyper extension. He, he didn't get ruled out. He, I don't think he ended up like being checked out, but the running back split was a lot more 50, 50 after that, where he had been dominating the snaps prior. So did you see that? And do you have anything on chase Brown?

16:45 I heard about the off-board tackle. If it was a hypersension, then we'd be a little bit concerned about, there's like this cartilage that lies on the back of the knee, like right here.

16:55 Oh, wow.

16:57 There's like this cartilage right here that can get strained when your knee pops backwards. It's just called the posterior castle. So with hypersension injuries, that causes a little bit of inflammation there. You can also get a bone bruise. I would just be up in the air about it because Chase Brown has kind of been lackluster and been splitting carries pretty regularly. pretty decently already. So without any kind of confirmed injury report, I would just kind of chalk it up to a gameplay and game flow. But yeah, if they come out with a limited report and it's very limited info, I would go off of that hypersension that you reported and say that there's a risk of having a bone bruise there or posterior capsule irritation. And

17:33 that would be about a one to three week absence in most cases, kind of minimally.

17:38 Okay.

17:38 Got it.

17:38 So we'll just have to monitor the injury reports, um, and then kind of go from there.

17:42 Cool.

17:42 Well, uh, we appreciate you for, for joining us. We'll send Nathan on his way here. And then Tara and I are going to talk storylines. We're going to talk panic meter. We're going to answer some questions at the end. But first, we have a quick video to show you guys and we will be back.

17:58 All right.

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18:44 Before we do, real quick, the buys that we have next week, there are four of them, Saints, Giants, Texans, and 49ers. But in terms of storylines, the first one I want to talk about, and that's why I was kind of moving us quickly back or past Chase Brown and the Bengals, because there's a lot to talk about with the Bengals. A, Joe Burrow and the Bengals might be back. We see this all the time. They're a second half team, but Chase Brown, we got some question marks.

19:10 He's only gotten two games this year with double digit fantasy points for Chase Brown. Samadji Piran got the goal line touchdown. Maybe Brown was banged up and it would have gone to him. But then we see T Higgins, six receptions, 148 yards and a touchdown all in the second half, five receptions, 62 yards and a touchdown for Jamar.

19:26 And then Burrow almost 300 yards, four touchdowns. So a lot to talk about here. And I don't even know where to start. So I'll just kind of let you let you go where you ever want to go regarding the Bengals.

19:36 Yeah, let's start off at the sad part, Chase Brown.

19:39 It's an interesting one because while you don't necessarily want to sell low on a guy, oddly enough, he does still retain more value than at this point. I think he should because people still view him as I get a lot of trade questions of people trying to trade for Chase Brown and I've been very hesitant on that one because there are a lot of guys that are in that range that are a little bit lower than him but I think you know there might be a little bit more volatile but offer a higher ceiling like a Bucky Irving right would be theoretically below Chase Brown in terms of value but you we know that in the right game script, the right matchup, he can hit that ceiling. And with chase Brown, it seems to not

20:15 really matter what the matchup is.

20:18 He's just struggling. And we have this continued usage of P Ryan.

20:21 He was in the series and they got to the goal line where they got to the goal line. They kept him in, he got the touchdown. So if we're not getting that preferential treatment, we know that touchdowns are already a little bit scant for chase Brown because of the fact that they go so aggressively through the air.

20:37 I get very worried about him overall. So there's still some, a little bit of appeal there because he plays for the Bengals in the past catching upside that you might be able to trade and.

20:45 Get out of it.

20:46 But if you were thinking about that one as a buy low, I got a bad feeling that this is just something that we are going to continue to see from him.

20:54 Yeah. I go back and forth because I love Chase Brown and the last, like last year and the year before he was so much better in the second half. Now you had a lot, clearer reasons for that. The last two years, like two years ago, he was splitting time with Zach Moss at the beginning of the year. It's like funny to think about that in hindsight. And then last year, Burrow went down, they had Jake Browning for a while, and then they got Flacco. And then guess what? Chase Brown was fantastic again. And then Burrow came back. So this year it's been weird. He's been, he's been inefficient. He's losing snaps to P Ryan. I still, and maybe this is just me not wanting to let go of my priors view him as a, as a

21:28 buy for him. Because Piran is not like a 22-year-old rookie running back who's got explosion. You know what I mean? He's 31 years old. He's a vet. He's not bad. But he's not somebody that I'm super scared of. Like with Bucky Irving, when he was a rookie, it was like, oh, wow, we actually can't take this guy off the field. He immediately pops. To me, that's not Piran. Now, the snap count heading into the bye week was concerning. it seemed to fix itself until maybe he, he got banged up.

21:53 So the drive where P Ryan got the goal line, that was after the fact that that Brown got banged up. So you could go both ways. You could say, well, that was a split that it was before the buy, or you could say it was the injury. So just reach out to the chase Brown manager and see if you are interested, but, or if you're like Tara and you're not interested that you just, you just wipe your hands clean and say, and say, not for me. Um, But in terms of the other guys, like obviously nobody was benching Jamar or T. Higgins or Burrow. But I think we can now confidently put them in our lineup and think like, OK, we're going to see some high flying Bengals offense because they did literally everything in the

22:22 second half.

22:23 Yeah, it's funny.

22:24 It was looking a little shaky to begin there, but they eventually wore down that Baltimore defense who and, you know, hey, on the opposite side of that, Tyler Huntley fought very valiantly. We finally saw that massive game from Zay Flowers with Huntley. So, you know, on the opposite side, there's positive takeaways as well.

22:41 Yeah.

22:41 Flowers is just an absolute animal. I mean, that guy's, that guy's insane, but we can move on to the next one. So JJ McCarthy, are we buying it? He didn't throw a touchdown, but 252 yards went against the Texans. They put up 31 points. I believe neighbors had a good game, seven receptions, 111 yards scat. We talked about how to good game likely not so much, but you're okay with that for kind of a, um, a tight end like that. But are you in, are you buying this, this double nine resurgence for the giants?

23:11 Not in a way that I would trust him in any way, shape or form in a lineup. I mean, you can theoretically because of the rushing upside, but as we saw, you know, today that can be, that can come and go. It's not as reliable as, you know, our Josh Allen's or Lamar Jackson's in terms of consistent upside.

23:26 But what I am buying, well, I'm not buying into JJ McCarthy from a fantasy perspective. I am buying into, I don't really care who's at quarterback with Malik neighbors.

23:34 It's perfectly fine.

23:35 Like I know, cause a lot of people were a little bit worried in terms of like, Hey, what is, no one was benching him. But there were a lot of people maybe like in 10 team leagues that had a bunch of high end options and some in good matchups. And they were putting him in like, you know, start sets. And no matter what, we're expecting volume on top of volume.

23:52 And it's a very narrow target funnel. And it was good to see finally. And there was a little bit last week. But, you know, maybe JJ also brings along a little bit of upside for Malachi Fields. Sure.

24:03 Yeah.

24:03 Maybe that helps as well. But regardless, that's a very tight target funnel. You're not spreading it around to guys like Darnell Mooney that much. So we feel very positive about these pass catchers in general, and maybe we can get a little bit of Malachi Fields moving forward.

24:17 Yeah, sure. I mean, I'll admit that I was terrified of neighbors with nine coming in. I was getting Justin Jefferson flashbacks. I was like, we got a really good LSU wide receiver. His quarterback's J.J. McCarthy, but... he did a lot in the fourth quarter last week and then he did a lot against the Texans. Now the Texas defense, like I think every week I keep expecting them to bounce back and they, and they have another two and five.

24:39 But yeah, I'm, I'm, I'm kind of with you. I'm not buying nine, but sure. I mean, the league neighbors is, is that good? The only really one is like, is there any concern for Isaiah likely or just one of those games?

24:50 I need to see one more, but we've got to buy a week, so we're not going to see it, but I would need to see one more down game with, JJ McCarthy to really say for sure, like this was a bad switch and he's hyper-focused in on neighbors.

25:01 Sure.

25:01 Okay.

25:02 All right.

25:02 Next one. Another, are we buying segment? The Browns, six receptions, 91 yards, Harold Fannin Jr. Eight receptions, 129 yards for Casey Concepcion. Judkins, two touchdowns, the five and two Browns come back victory against the Titans. Denzel Boston, quiet game, but he had eight targets. So you like that. I feel like everybody on the Browns, like the receiving core and Fannin's had a tough year, but the receivers have been good. Just had like a stink over them because of the quarterback play, but it's been better. Are, are we buying it? Or if we have those players, are we selling them?

25:36 Uh, well, we got to remember it was a matchup against Tennessee. So that does benefit us, um, from that extent. So we got to be careful about those matchups. We've got a one coming against Pittsburgh next week. That's going to be a little bit more difficult. Um, and we've seen that one before Deshaun did He had volume, but I wouldn't say it was a good performance from him.

25:53 But it's funny that we, you know, just rolling through the list. Ironically, everyone benched Harold Fannin Jr.

25:59 And was rolling off. And now we finally have that breakthrough.

26:02 It's the inconsistency for Deshaun. You can't completely move on from Fannin because he's a starter. We know the talent. It's just that every now and then, you know, we've got that volatility from Watson in terms of overall volume. Finally getting that breakout game for Casey Concepcion. Um, and you write the targets there for Boston. So we still have hope this, this is what we want to see for the back half of the season. So if anyone has any wavering thoughts around, um, or had, you don't have them now around Casey Concepcion and Denzel Boston. Rookies talented early round rookies back half of the season on a team with a sketchy quarterback situation. as the season wears on, they just get better and become more reliable

26:42 from a fantasy perspective. So these are guys that you want on your team. You want to be able to turn to them as you hit the playoff run and have these high upside talented rookies.

26:51 Yeah, yeah, 100%. I mean, you always see rookies get better the second half of the year. The really only concern here is that it's like a decent, like it's kind of funny to think about, but it's a decent target funnel. Like you have those three guys, like Jerry Judy kind of pops off randomly. Dylan Sampson can get loose in the receiving game. So it's sneakily like a decent amount of targets. for an offense that we don't necessarily trust. So I think you're going to have games like with Denzel Boston, where you look up and he had like the team played well and he barely did anything from a fantasy perspective. But yeah, you're definitely not.

27:19 I mean, if you could sell high, sure. If you can get something big, but I don't think anybody's going that crazy for them. I think the only one that is maybe Judkins, maybe like a running back that scores two touchdowns. Maybe you could, you could look at like, if, if, if your team's in a good spot, look at like who's on a bi-week and see if you can get, I mean, guess, I mean, not going to get Christian McCaffrey and it's a tough week, tough bi-week for running back.

27:40 So maybe not, but that's kind of what I would be looking to do with Judkins regardless.

27:43 With me with Judkins.

27:45 So when we were talking about Chase Brown and his price tag being hefty, instead of like, for me, instead of overpaying for a Chase Brown, Judkins is cheap. People are like, it's, it's, he's one of the cheapest lead backs that you can get on the market. And as we know that, you know, the Browns are good, Not great, but they're just decent enough to make sure that these are not blowout scenarios and they stay competitive in games.

28:09 And as long as they're staying competitive, there's plenty of work on the ground. And because Deshaun's not lighting it up through the air, they stay extremely balanced. So you don't see the run being abandoned. as it was last year when we had a lot of those rough spots for Judkins where they were just scripted out, unfortunately. And it was good, actually, because it should actually lower his value as well because we had Simpson come back and Simpson gave a nice good performance.

28:32 He took some of those receptions as well.

28:34 So people might think that they're selling super high on Judkins, but if you're in need of a cheap way to get an RB1, that's a low value one that you can sneak in there and get for Not pennies, but maybe something like just some nickels, right?

28:47 Yeah, you're probably right. And I can see your argument where it's like, why trade for Chase? Like, why should we go out for Chase Brown? And we have quenched on chickens at home. It's like, it's like, they're kind of putting up similar numbers.

28:57 Um, all right.

28:59 The next one that we have, I want to talk about the Panthers because maybe I was too high on them, but in all my leagues, I was looking to trade for Chuba and Jalen Coker. Cause I just felt like the market didn't value them as, as much as they should. through one week. That's a big fat L for me. I did get Chuba in a league, but, um, he didn't have a terrible game. Like he had eight half PPR points, so he didn't kill you. But then Coker one reception, eight yards, Tet four receptions, 40 yards. They lost like their best offensive lineman. Um, like that game just got out of hand really fast. And maybe it was just like a, you ran into a bus all, even though you're at home, that happens. Is there any

29:32 concern for you on those guys on the Panthers?

29:36 No, the only concern would be they had offensive linemen uh taylor monten go down that is that could be critical right that's a good deal um but i think i mean i was along with you with the thought process of buying on chuba this was just unfortunately a defense that is underrated and has you know i thought there might be some hope for coker to come through as we've seen like with CeeDee Lamb, I think he got slightly injured in that game, but he played over 50% of snaps. So CeeDee Lamb was kind of shut down in this game. And then I think Christian Watson was shut down in this game against Tampa as well. So I was like, okay, might be a down game for Tet, but we can have one of those secondary options, which

30:13 is only Jalen Coker.

30:15 It turns out it was Darren Waller. One of those secondary options come up and have a good performance. So I wouldn't panic. Tampa is a defense that can shut you down and.

30:26 Baker Mayfield coming back, maybe that just accelerated things to where, yeah, okay, we're having this offense run a bit more smoothly.

30:32 We're not leaning on the pass.

30:33 We're handing the ball off to Bucky, and we're not trying to win it at all through the air.

30:36 We don't have.

30:37 To do anything fancy, just somebody that can manage the game properly. It might have just worked out from that perspective. It was just a bad matchup defensively for Carolina, so I wouldn't panic. He's still a clear RB1. Maybe it's a buy-low opportunity because he's a clear RB1.

30:52 Who was competing with him at that backfield?

30:54 Not, not, not HN, not Trevor HN Jr. HN Jr. Um, did he change his name too?

30:59 No, I'm just kidding.

31:00 Yeah.

31:00 Good question. Um, yeah, I also thought Coker was going to have, I like looked into that one a ton. Like the, the bucks play zone coverage at like the sixth highest rate and Jalen Coker. If you look at like his yards and targets per route run, it's like JSN is the only receiver in safe flowers better than him against zone. And it just obviously didn't work out, but weird game fumble recovery, some, some like you got flashbacks of the rookie year. Um, Bryce young, but yeah, I think you kind of teams have those. You flush it and you move on, which we can do with the last one. So the last one I want to talk about here is the jets and it's Omar Cooper jr.

31:33 Versus Garrett Wilson. So Omar Cooper jr. Got hurt. He was on IR. He missed some time returned last week. And the only thing that he's done in the last two weeks is 2019.3 PPR points. He put up five receptions for 115 yards and a touchdown today. Last week, six receptions, 103 yards and a touchdown. In those same two games, we saw 6.4, 3.6 half PPR points for Wilson.

31:57 So are you selling high on Omar Cooper Jr.? Are you buying low on Garrett Wilson? Or are you just saying, I don't want anything to do with Geno Smith and this Jets offense?

32:07 Well, next week is Geno's revenge game. So I might be on board for that one. But Vegas is a good matchup. So to that extent, I would be starting Omar Cooper Jr. And I would be starting Garrett Wilson, even though we've got this downturn.

32:24 I don't know. I don't think I would, I don't think I would sell if you can sell high on Cooper.

32:28 Yeah. But again, while the reports, maybe the reports during camp were just dramatic because they were saying that he was performing poorly and he was second team. And we never got a chance to actually see that on the field because he got injured so early. So we don't know if all of that really was just an over-exaggeration and this is somebody who is going to have this significant role moving forward in an offense that seems to be well-balanced, pushes good volume and the right matchups, right?

32:56 And we've got a good matchup next week.

32:57 So if you want to look at it and potentially sell high, but I also think you can just ride it out with that one and try to maybe take advantage of it.

33:03 Yeah, and I think you could probably buy Garrett Wilson. I think somebody's probably like, they see Gino as their quarterback. Yeah, the Omar Cooper thing was crazy because he, you didn't get it from my memory. You didn't hear anything about him in the off season. It was like a first round receiver who like was completely silent. And then he was on IR. So like, I was ready to just think it was like a lost year for the rookie.

33:23 I loved Adeline Mitchell and what we'd been seeing from him before his finger injury. So it's interesting. It's not an offense that we'd love, but, um, it's two receivers that could give you some value over the course of a season. And I feel like those receivers on the gross offenses might have some value. So yeah, I, I, I think it's worth, um, checking in and seeing, but so the next thing that we're going to talk about here is the, we're going to do a panic meter, but before we do that, I want to talk to you guys about the waiver planner, take the guesswork out of the waiver wire with the fantasy pros waiver wire planner, get a complete customized waiver plan for every league, including suggested fab bids and backup options in case your top

34:02 targets are taken and Once your plan is set, you can submit your waiver claims to most major league sites with just one click. Save time, stay prepared, maximize your chances of landing the players your team needs. Build your personalized waiver plan today at fantasypros.com slash plan. That's fantasypros.com slash plan. Now we have the panic meter. So get your player names in the chat. We want to know who you want to know. We want to know who you guys want to know if we're panicking about them or not. scale of one to 10, one means we're not panicking at all. 10, you're in full blown panic mode.

34:37 And while we're waiting for you guys to comment, I put some names in the chat here that we can just go through quickly. A lot of these guys we've talked about, so we don't need to spend too much time, but Chase Brown, we panic, like what's your panic meter on Chase Brown?

34:48 Yeah, it's a seven. I'm at it.

34:50 I'm not to the point where I would vent, but I don't, I would want to sell it off, unfortunately. Okay.

34:56 I think again, maybe we're just confirming, I'm just confirming priors here, but I, I'm still willing to buy. I'll put mine at a four, uh, Jalen Warren. Um, I, this game was so early. I feel like the, the international games, they might as well be six weeks ago, but to my knowledge, he was fantastic. If that's my memory from 18 J Mac here. So panic meter on Jalen Warren. I'm, I'm, I'm guessing it's with Rico back and Rico playing well, but I'm out of one. I, I, I, Jalen Warren's fantastic.

35:22 Yeah.

35:23 It's I think it's just the Rico thing. Cause Rico did get a lot of burn. Mike McCarthy is, you know, no, it was a lot of touches to be fair. Um, I would not panic whatsoever. They're a well balanced team, lower scoring than I expected, but those are international games.

35:38 So it is what it is.

35:40 Yeah.

35:40 And he is just, I mean, he's amazing. Uh, so it's like, how did the Steelers hide this guy for so long? Um, all right. Nico Collins. He was actually somebody that I wrote down from Axel Gonzalez, two bad weeks in a row. Um, where's your panic meter on Nico Collins?

35:52 It's at a three.

35:53 I don't think that it's not as if anybody else went off. It was like one of those quintessential, yay, Marvin Harrison Jr.

35:59 Got a touchdown.

35:59 What else was there? Jaden Noel got hurt. Tank Dell came back, got a catch. Technically speaking, that was not his catch. I can't wait to see what the snap count was for everybody, just to really kind of wrap my head around it.

36:14 But we're still holding faith with Nico Collins.

36:18 So I, he could be an interesting buy load candidate because I know a lot of people are definitely concerned there. So it's more like a three, maybe a four for me at the end of the day, he's still the wide receiver one there.

36:27 I'm a, I'm a hundred percent agreement. He's a two for me. He's, he's the alpha. I actually think he's a fantastic buy candidate if you can afford it. Cause he has the buy next week. So, um, whoever has him, he just witnessed him having two down games and now he's on a buy. Maybe they lost two games in a row. I think you could probably swing a trade for Nico Collins. Now is the perfect time to move on here. So the last we're going to do is a Q & A. But before we do that, if you want a chance to give your fantasy league the ultimate championship upgrade, courtesy of our good friends at Trophy Smack, the number one destination for epic fantasy football hardware, then this is your shot. We're giving away a 26 to

37:03 36 inch custom football trophy giveaway. It's a massive centerpiece built to make your league championship feel like a big deal. And the best part is that you can make it your own. Choose your topper. personalize the center and front plaques, customize the columns, create a trophy that represents your league to enter. All you need to do is subscribe to the Fantasy Pros Football YouTube channel right now. Drop a comment below on any of our videos. That's it. We're announcing a winner right here on this channel. So all you need to do, turn on notifications. Don't miss your chance to claim your prize. And now we will answer questions.

37:39 some questions. So I already, we got, we got some throughout the stream that we're going to answer, but, uh, we have about 10 minutes here before Sunday night football starts. So get your questions in, uh, the first one that I want to answer and we have Tara back. That's good. Um, so we got a super chat from BCB MLB 58.

37:58 So thank you for that. We appreciate it. Um, so I want to spend some time on this one. What should I get for Jefferson? I'm My starting lineup this week, 12 team PPR. Running backs are Swift, Dobbins, wide receivers, Puka, Jefferson, Bernard. Kraft is your tight end, and you got Shuck. Your bench is Lamar, Jonah Coleman, Ladd McConkie, Emmitt Johnson, and Dallas Goddard. So when you're looking to trade Justin Jefferson, what would you be looking for? Obviously, he's a huge name, got quarterback issues, but he's still Justin Jefferson. If you're trading somebody like him, what would you be looking to get?

38:34 So if you were going to do a positional one for one flip, let's say, but I'm guessing you're wanting to go running backs on this one, but if you were going to do like a one for one flip for a wide receiver, I would try to go down to like a Christian Watson or a Parker Washington. But if you were looking to do a running back to kind of reinforce your team, I mean, honestly, I know it's not going to be appealing. You might need to add something in because, um, Value-wise, it's kind of a little bit tilted, but Bucky Irving is an interesting one for me for the ceiling that he offers.

39:10 Perhaps you could see if you could get an Ashton Gentry. And that's one.

39:14 That's actually probably realistic because people seem to have an issue with Ashton Gentry because of the upside on the ground being a little bit limited because of the offensive line and whatnot.

39:23 But the pass catching remains there. It's not volatile. It gives him a safe floor. So I could lean that direction.

39:30 As well. Yeah. I, um, I like your thought on Ashton Jinty. He did have a receiving touchdown. So we had a good game. I actually, and you can tell me if I'm crazy. What about Chuba? Um, I actually have Chuba higher in my rest of season rankings than Justin Jefferson. I think the person who has Chuba obviously is loving life because he's been fantastic, but I feel like nobody was ever really going to believe that it was real. Cause it's not like we know what Chuba is.

39:52 He's been in the league forever. This Panthers offense, um, like this year, aside from yesterday or this today has been fantastic, but we have two years evidence. So maybe people were thought that they were going to come back down. Um, so I don't think that's crazy. You could probably, even though I have Chuba higher, my rankings, you could probably ask for something else. So it's like Jefferson for Chuba plus, like maybe you add in, like you send Emma Johnson to the, um, to the, to the Kenneth Walker manager.

40:18 Obviously they have to have the same players, but something like that. That's what I'd be looking to do where like, according to my rankings are actually upgrading, but because of the name value, you could probably ask for something back. So that's kind of what I, what, what I think. Um, so another question here in started off hot, but, um, should we drop, should he, this person, he, she dropped Juwan Johnson by week. So, uh, I think two gooses in a row, if I remember correctly. Yeah.

40:42 I just, I don't know why it's happening. I won't say I love him.

40:46 So I won't say he's washed, but it's time to move on if you need to, because now we can't feel comfortable on our starting lineup. And realistically it's possible that after week eight, we do have Jordan Tyson back. So, and that would throw a little wrench into everything and we're getting more Bryce Lance as well. And some are, um, yeah, it's, it's just a mess.

41:07 So.

41:09 He, you definitely don't have to hold him. It obviously depends on who's your tight end and what tight ends are on waivers. But I mean, he, he, so he goose last week, this week, he gave you 1.2 fantasy points, one reception for seven yards. So thank you for that. And the week before he gave you two, uh, four receptions for 16 yards and a nice 3.6 half PPR points.

41:25 So yeah, you, you can drop him again. It just, it just depends on who's available. Um, so another question here that I thought we did talk about him, but I think we can, we can answer this one from 18 J Mac. So Casey conception on breakout game and can it continue?

41:39 Yeah, yeah, again, short on that one, 100%, back half of the rookie season, especially in PPR.

41:45 That's where we're going to see the money for him.

41:48 Yeah, I don't think necessarily, and I know you're not saying this, but don't expect, what was the stat line? Eight receptions for 128 yards every single game? But yeah, I think it definitely can continue. Another interesting one, and I have my thoughts on Charbs, but I'll let you go. So the question from Darkside Wrestle, Charbonnet was dropped and on waivers this week. What fab would you bid to try and get him?

42:10 I would bid 5%. This is a perma committee. You're going to lose. Probably someone's going to drop more fab.

42:15 I don't know that I want to blow like maybe 10%, but blow all your fab on that. When you know that price is going to be back soon as well. Manuel Wilson still exists.

42:25 Jadarian price.

42:26 We have no idea if they decide to run for deep. Like I just, I don't, feel super comfortable and the fact that they have pushed it this far and he's not active again that was a super quick turnaround so i'm not even sure why they put like why they had i guess maybe they wanted a month of ramp up time in terms of practice to try and get him ready but i assume it's going to be a slow ramp up because of the turnaround for this injury and that we're not going to have an aggressive workload put onto him it's still going.

42:52 To be a committee Okay.

42:54 I'm in total agreement. I thought, cause I've, there was some charbs believer charbs truthers out there that I didn't know those people existed. If, if they're doing a committee with Kenneth Walker on the team, they're going to continue to do a committee. And we like charbs is a totally fine short yardage back, but he was already not super explosive. And now he's coming off of a torn ACL. Um, I would let somebody else, I mean, sure. Put 5% on him and then try to trade him. I would let somebody else deal with that landmine. Cause I think he's a running back. I just don't necessarily think that there's anybody that you can, that he's anybody that you're going to want to start. Yeah. So, all right, we

43:28 got one here from J red at nine, seven, nine, nine. My Arby's and PPR are Ramondre Stevenson, Irving and Pollard. Should I trade one or hold all? I still don't know which two to start each week. Yeah, that is frustrating. Um, I mean, absurd performance from Tony Pollard, but if, um, these are your, I'm guessing, I don't know if like, they're your only three running backs or if they're like, you have to weekly decide between two of them, but regardless, what are you doing with those three?

43:52 I mean, technically speaking, no matter who you started, you had a great week.

43:55 But yeah, long-term I feel I, I want to keep Bucky.

44:01 I've started like, God, I've been pro. I was not pro Bucky heading into the season.

44:04 So, but just based off everything we're seeing, I would want to keep Bucky because you know, the upside and matchups that are advantageous is just way too high. And then between Stevenson and Pollard, you're going to have to– that gives you the option. I know it's like you don't know who to start on a weekly basis, but that gives you the option to platoon based off matchup.

44:24 So neither Stevenson or Pollard have super high value.

44:28 You could trade Pollard and maybe try– to do that. That's the one that I would try.

44:32 Stevenson is one of those that no one is ever really going to give you something, but because we had the injury to Spears and Singleton was out. And so it was just really like, okay, is this just going to be the Tony Pollard aggressive show moving forward? Now that he has had a breakout game, you could make that argument, right? That maybe he just has an aggressive workload and succeeds moving forward. So try to sell that one, but otherwise you can just end up going back and forth there.

45:00 Yeah, I'm probably trying to sell high on Pollard. I mean, three touchdowns, 35 points. I can promise you you're not getting that again this year. But I don't know. He randomly had crazy games at the end of last year. I think when everybody kind of had given up. So maybe he'll do it again, but I doubt it. And I would probably try to sell him. The last question before we get on out here and you guys got to watch Sunday Night Football from James. We got we he's asked if Barkley is playing tomorrow. So we had the doc on earlier. Reports are that he's going to play.

45:27 Reports have been a little bit untrustworthy recently. So he's taking that with a grain of salt, but he is expecting him to play. He is not saying that it's a stone cold guarantee. And I believe, and also Deepak was pretty consistent on this as well. When Barkley is in, his production shouldn't be like the re-injury risk is there, but the production should be fine. It's the sprained ankle where the production is a little bit iffy on return there.

45:51 But that is all we got. So Sunday night football is starting any minute. I appreciate everybody for joining me. Thanks for spending time with us tonight. Right after Sunday night football, you can join the fantasy dude on the tailgate YouTube channel, which can be found at tailgate NFL. You can hear takeaways from tonight's action, but hopefully we got a good game tonight. We got a revenge game from Kenneth Walker. So hopefully he has a good game.

46:13 Thank you everybody for joining us and we will catch you next time.

46:16 Thanks for listening to the Fantasy Pros Fantasy Football Podcast.

46:20 If you love the show, the best free way to support us is by leaving a positive review on Apple Podcasts at fantasypros.com slash review or on Spotify. Follow us on X, Instagram, and TikTok at Fantasy Pros and subscribe to our YouTube channel at youtube.com slash fantasypros.