 the best full slate of the entire season is finally upon us because we have week one data to react to. We've got some notes on different teams and what they want to do. We kind of know what teams are looking to do for this year as well, but also we have people who may overreact some stuff, who may underreact the other stuff, and hopefully if we are grounded, if we use a good process, if we kind of know we're looking for, we can make the right decisions and exploit all the stuff that we saw in week number one, making week number two the best full slate of the entire year. Let's dive on in, break it down, and get you set for the week two main slate. Welcome on into the heat check fantasy podcast powered by Numberfire. That's right here on the Fandual Podcast Network and Numberfire.com. My name is Jim Sonnis. I am a senior writer and analyst for Numberfire.com. Joined here as always by Brandon Gedula. He is the managing editor for Numberfire.com. Brandon, week two is here. How are you doing today? I'm great. Anybody who knows me knows I love to react to things. So when I get to overreact, I mean, just imagine that. Like, it's just, I'm just in my glory here. But week two is the best, you agree, right? Full slate. Yeah, I'm glad you added in that caveat because you're not. Yeah, no, no, you're right. You're right. Also, I'm not going to lie. I didn't like the reasons we had a lot of two game slates last year because mostly due to like COVID postponements, but like those two game slates I loved. So correct. Full slate, the best full slate of the year. Yeah, because we get, we saw guys who converted on their opportunities last week and then their salaries basically went up and some guys who had opportunities and didn't convert their salaries are back down. And then like by week seven, the salaries don't seem to change as much whenever someone just had like a back one bad game because the sample has been built up. So I think that this is just that week where you can look at something like an expected fantasy points model. They're, they're kind of out there. I've tweeted some stuff about it, what's receiving so far. Maybe I'll come up with something else. But you know, you just basically look at like who overperformed and should we chase them and why. And actually that'll be one of my, part of one of my trends that we go over for this week. Our trends this week will still be pretty process-based. You'll be talking about quarterbacks and the way that they're lost. You'll all be looking at close games and why we want to load up on close games and be wary of the larger spreads as we do have a couple of this week talking about big games, you will specifically from wide receivers. And then I'll be talking about the value of past catching at running back. So a lot to break down for today. We'll get into all that in just one second. But first, a lot of you on Twitter asked about last year's listener league. We had a listener league last year that we were running where you could go to a link that we'd say in the podcast, enter in. It was a great contest. So there was no rake. And because of your interest and because you made your voices heard, it's back. The listener league is back for this week to the week two main slate. If you want to enter, go to fandual.com, slash league, slash listener league. That's fandual.com, slash league, slash listener league. It is a $5 entry with three entries max. There is no rate. So again, you're not paying anything to fandual. Fandals probably lose money on this contest. You will gain money if you do well. So $5 entry, three entries max, go take Fandals money, a fandual.com, slash league, slash listener league for that. Let's start things off here with the slate overview, Brandon, and the key takeaways, the key things for you going to this slate are what? Narrowing down the games that I want to build my actual stacks around in week two, well, in week one, it obviously, for me, always feels like, well, we don't know things. So I want to make sure I'm not too, too heavy in certain buckets. And I'm trying to, you know, play for every different angle. For week two, you can kind of feel a little bit the same way, but for different reasons where it's like, I don't want to make sure that I'm so far off of either consensus or, you know, that I'm, you know, maybe, maybe someone who had a receiving role didn't convert is actually terrible now, like, like a Julio Jones, like, you know, and then I'm like, am I going to stick my neck out there to this degree? So basically kind of just reaffirming what I think is most likely to happen not just based on or not just what happened in week one, but moving forward. And then also, and this is just part of every single week is for me that moving forward, it's kind of new in my process is really, really, really narrowing down those games that I that I actually want to have heavy exposure to. Yeah, I think for me, it's all about two buckets. The buckets are players who are under salary based on the role they had in week one. So Najee Harris, guys like that. And then like you said, loading up on the games that we project us to shoot out. And I think that there are some hyper logical games on this week's slate. And I would say the most logical games for stacking are all in the late slate. So don't tilt early. I'm telling this to myself. We do new notes to future me on the Monday podcast. I'm doing one now. Don't tilt the early slate because the games I want to stack are pretty much all laid outside of maybe some minor exceptions early on. So we're going to talk about those games, how we want to stack them. But to me, finding players who are under salary based on their role, loading up on them and loading up on those games. And the best part is the convergence between those two. I would say Mike Williams fits in that department where he is both under salary based on his role and in one of those games also Chris Carson to an extent as well. And that's Seattle game. So if you can find the convergence of those two, that makes for a pretty good situation that you want to take advantage of. Let's take a look at some injuries here heading into week number two. The big one was are he most dirt he had surgery on his knee is now done for the year. We talked about Elijah Mitchell a bit on Monday. Let's talk about him again now and we'll talk about his broader role in the trend section. But just generally, what's your feeling on this backfield entering week two? So this is one of those where Elijah Mitchell at 5,800 on Fandall probably going to be more popular than he deserves to be. I know he had that long touchdown run the 19 carries. We talked about no targets for him. We talked about this on Monday. You ran 10 pass routes, which is fine. They didn't throw a ton. But your Michael hasty was involved in that angle as well. Trace sermon was not active last week. So they basically played the whole game with no most dirt, but they're adding trace sermon back in. You never know how that's going to go. And honestly, I'm always historically wary on the 49ers backfield anyway, because they split things up. So I think that we can find much worse process plays than Eli Mitchell. I think that's how he must prefer to go because that's where I'm starting to see him more and more. But we can also find a lot better process plays too. Yeah, I think that he is someone to whom I'm okay having exposure, but he will not be a core play for me because I don't project him to be this big pass catcher from out of the backfield. I do worry about the trace sermon situation. So I would bet if you made me guess right now, whether I'll be over underweight on him, I would guess I'll probably be under for reasons we'll discuss in the section later on. The other big injury for this week is Odell Beckham. The Browns have already ruled him out. We saw Donovan People's Jones and Jarvis Landry play a bunch in week number one. Jarv did well. DPJ didn't do a whole lot. Anthony Schwartz also got five targets with three deep while running limited routes. Big spread for this game, 12 and a half points, which always makes me pretty nervous, but it is a great matchup. So which Browns interest you most with Odell out for the second consecutive game? The spread here is one of the reasons I haven't dug into this game as much as I have some others. I do see Anthony Schwartz limited at practice on Wednesday, which is notable. I think that if you can sniff the practice field Wednesday, it doesn't matter. If you can physically smell the grass, I'm not going to care. Well, I was just going to say, I mean, what he does is speed. I started off the wrong way with that. You're like, that might get him suspended if he's just. But he's fast. And if he is already injured or he ran limited routes last week, this is a probably a perfect example of Brandon of three years ago would be like, yeah, give me all that Anthony Schwartz all takes is one deep target. He's so fast. That's not my process anymore. So I'm probably not going to chase Schwartz even at his $4,800 salary. Just because this this game spread. So you probably have a better feel for the Browns than I do. So I'm going to, I'm going to let you list off who you're looking at first and then I'll let you know where I'm thinking from there. Yeah. If I'm going to allocate a lot of salary to this game, I need it to be, or if I'm going to allocate a lot of salary to a wide receiver, I need it to be a game that I'm willing to stack. Probably not going to stack this game, you know, it is a Tarot Taylor revenge game, which means to me, I'm looking to save salary. If I do want to go here, which means not even people's Jones at $5,000, I think he's enticing did run a lot around week one, didn't get that usage, but we heard a lot about him during training camps. So he's only $200 more than Schwartz. So I think that DPJ is probably the place I'd be looking to go most, but like Jarvis $6,800. Nick Chubb has a high floor, great floor, but he's $8,400, not going to catch passes, did lose some goal line work again to cream Hunt last week. I think the floor is amazing. I'd rather go elsewhere for the ceiling for Nick Chubb. I think that that's kind of the thing that I would get there. So like the one Brown, I'm like, most interested in is down in people's Jones. I'd also note that they're offensive line pretty banged up. Jedrick Wills, mispractice Wednesday, he might play because he said they said he's day to day, but their backup tackle was also out of practice. JC Tredder was out of practice. So keep that in mind. But I think that DPJ is kind of the one Brown I feel really good about just because like again, if you're, if you're new to NFL DFS stacking tight games, for us, at least it's critical. It's kind of similar to like NBA where you just want to load up on tight games that that are going to be contested the entire time. I'd say it's actually maybe even more important than NBA. I'm bad at NBA. So what am I talking about? Probably not just because it's pretty rare for an NFL game to get to the point where all the starters come out for like the entire fourth quarter. You can see that in the NBA, but like they drank clock and stuff like that. So sure, same thing. Point being you want tight spreads. Correct. We'll talk about that later on as well. But I think that that's it's limited Browns me this week. How are you handling Nick Chubb? Yeah. So with Nick Chubb is something we talk about a lot with specifically Chubb and Derek Henry and their path to destroying you for not using them is multiple touchdowns and basically like 150 plus rushing yards. They're not going to get you the Christian McCaffrey like 90 100 yard receiving game with like eight catches. It's not and that's going to add up. So he's got to score twice. I can envision it now. I think I envision this more with Nick Chubb than anyone else where he's just like on the 10 and then like just walks a touchdown in to like envision it didn't happen to thousands of times. Yeah. So I always have that fear of missing out on Nick Chubb, but you know, he's probably one of the most likely guys to get you 20 in a given week, but I don't know how often he's ever even gotten like 30 just because he didn't all last year. He didn't he didn't top 25.8 the entirety of last year. So like, yeah, I mean, if he were in the 7000 range, it'd be one one discussion because 25 points at like 7500 is different than at 8400. So I think he's similar to Elijah Mitchell where I'm okay. I think some I will he will not be a core play for me and I will very, very likely be underway on Chubb relative to the field. Josh Jacobs did not practice Wednesday. He was banged up the entirety of Monday like you'd see that he was just kind of like doubled over. So I assume he's going to play, but he's not fully healthy. Where are you at in this backfield? Let's assume that that Jacobs plays that seems to be very, very likely. I guess you could talk about crew or Kenny and Drake just in case he doesn't go, but I think he's going to play just not fully healthy. It seems. Yeah. So Jacobs had those two rushing touchdowns, just the two targets and he's another one we can probably throw in the bucket where we don't you and I don't really like Josh Jacobs in DFS that much. Even at 6500 he played on that Monday night game. So already banged up played in, you know, that overtime game. The whole team, I think the expectations are down. If I'm not mistaken, that total is trying to down like three points since I saw it. I think I saw it at 49 and then at 46. I don't know where it is now, but I'm just not that I'm not that high on Josh Jacobs ever. And I'm not going to get there for this week. And then Ken and Drake is 5500. I don't think I think there would still be better plays. Yeah, I agree. So that's the injuries. We'll talk about the big games to stack in the bookmaker section in just one second. But first, speaking to bookmakers, hey, football fans, Fanduil is giving you the opportunity to bet on the second week of the NFL season. All you have to do is go to Fanduil sports book and opt in to the contest. Place a three plus leg parlay wager with cash on any week two NFL game. And if your bet loses, get a refund and store credits, site credits. Max refund is $10 bet on week two of the NFL season with Fanduil head over to the Fanduil sports book today. It plays a risk free NFL parlay must be 21 plus and present Arizona, Colorado, Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Virginia, West Virginia, New users only Max refund $10. See full terms at sportsbook.Fanduil.com. Gambling problem. I got to recalibrate my breaks. I haven't had Arizona in this one yet. But anyway, in Arizona, call 1-800 next step. I'll call 105-224-700 in Colorado, in Iowa, 100 bets off. In Indiana, 1-800-9 with it. For Conducts, help Michigan, 1-800-270-7117. In New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Illinois and Virginia, call 1-800-gambler. In Tennessee, call the red line at 1-800-8979 or West Virginia, 1-800-gambler.net and welcome to you Arizona, part of the Fanduil sports book family now as well. Let's take a look at what the bookmakers are saying about this week, specifically focusing in on the key game stacks for week number two. The highest total on the slate is the Chargers and the Cowboys. That's a 55 and a half of the Chargers favored by three and a half after the DeMarcus Lawrence injury yesterday. Yeah, three and a half right now. It opened at 52, but apparently the over just got just blasted to the moon. And it makes sense because both these teams ranked inside the top six and projected offensive efficiency based on my numbers this week. So Brandon, are you as high in this game as the bookmakers? And how are you looking to stack it? You are on mute. Welcome back. Yeah. I muted myself because I was drinking coffee and then I have like 700 tabs open. So never, never use as I drink my coffee while not muted. So yes, I'm as high on this game as the bookmakers and all the ways is how I'm looking to stack I think that's about it. I think I should probably constitute as a Gary Oldman game as Al Zeidenfeld or Al Smizzle would call it back in the day. I'm sure he still does, but it's when you play them all. Oh yeah, okay. Just play them all. He would also say play all the dudes and I think that that is an appropriate phrase for this week. Yeah. So I have this game fourth in combined pace, which adjusts for context. So I like you like to see that anytime that that pops up. I think it's easily the game of the week and this is probably part of and I will try not to like hammer home like guys check out my new process for the year. But this is like a perfect example of a game that we know we want to we should want to stack. Now you can feel like it's going to be chalky. So you cross it off. But I think that's not smart for reasons we'll talk about in just a second. But there are so many ways to stack this game that you can be different from the field. But there are also so many ways to stack this game that you can stack this game and still be wrong if it does if it does hit. So, you know, in past years, for example, I might have been like, well, I'm going to get my Justin Herbert, Mike Williams stack to save some salary there, run it back with either a Mario Cooper or CD lamb lambs $1,000 cheaper with his salary on Fandle. And then maybe I'll kind of just rotate in, you know, a few other guys. But then I'm missing out on two guys who had like, not the best roles, but still pretty solid roles, like understated roles in an Austin Eckler and Ezekiel Elliott. Everyone's panicking on Zeke. He almost scored that touchdown and I understand that yeah, he should have probably made a move and scored. But if you're looking at that, like, that's the problem with island games and watching too much tape, I think sometimes is that'll stick in your mind, but he doesn't have it anymore. But 82% of the snaps, this is a game we want access to Austin Eckler. Oh, he didn't get any targets. Well, he ran a ton of pass routes, just didn't get targeted and had seven red zone carries. So we can be saying inside the 10 yard line, four or five inside the 10 yard line. That's like more than he's had his career, I'm sure. I don't fact check that please. So like, we can be looking at, you know, Austin Eckler, well, he's going to catch passes, but he's not going to, like, he's not going to be involved in the red zone. It's like, now we get him involved in the red zone, but he didn't get targeted on his, I think, 24 routes, which isn't, isn't like, it's not getting me excited, but you don't want to, like, go to the most obvious places, the two under salad receivers with Mike Williams and CD lamb. There are a ton of other ways to kind of load up on this game. So I really am trying to stack it virtually every way, including both quarterbacks. I am somewhere strange on fan share sports. It's only defense is popping. I'm going to figure this out. Anyway, I do think that this game is a one where you can take advantage of overreactions, specifically, like you said, with Zeke and Eckler. And I think that that is a way that I want to go this week. I mean, like, I, like, if I am trying to just like maximize my expected outcome from this game, Mike Williams, amazing CD lamb, amazing Jared Cook under salad. I think all these guys are great, but I do think that we can, like you said, stack it while still being unique via Eckler and via Zeke. I think Eckler is my preferred between the two because he's $7,000. I think that the defensive matchup worries me a bit less. I feel better about him getting targets this week than Zeke, even though again, it was skewed. He didn't have any last week. I love the goal line usage. I love the offensive line with our guy, Rashawn Slater, moving bodies out there. Go cats. So I think that this is a really good game to stack where you can stack without being chalky. And that's always really fun. It's the best game to stack on the board, I would say. I think Dak is one or two in terms of quarterback for this week. He's going to be a core play for sure. The one downside is that the Cowboys do have Collins this week. There's no Michael Gallup. So there are some injuries on the offensive side of the ball, but I think we saw the Cowboys play really well against a great defense last week. They had Collins. They didn't have Gallup at the second half, and they played well there specifically. So I think that to me, it's a situation where you can stack it straight up, but you can also stack it in ways that are kind of fun. I don't think Eckler is going to get all that popular this week just because, you know, didn't get those targets deeply overreact. There are shiny objects both below him and above him in terms of salary. So I think Eckler is like a standout type tournament play for this week. Yeah. And I mean, so like if you've played DFS a lot or you're like a super, super big contrarian play, what we just said is going to be like, these guys are so chalky. But literally, like you can get access to this game. Like certain guys in this game will be very popular. That's true. But you also have nine, nine players to roster on Fandle. You can get unique with different combinations. You don't have to play everyone under like 5% roster rate like that. You don't have to do that. You can still get access to these big games and you can do to do it differently. So that's something that I'm really trying to focus on early this year. Absolutely. Second tie. A total of this week is the Seahawks and the Titans in Seattle. Total is 53 and a half. Seahawks favor by four and a half now. That line has moved a bit into the Titans favor. Obviously, the Seahawks played well in week one. Super run heavy, which is kind of annoying, but they, you know, they still did the ball. They played well. Titans sucked. How are you doing this game? Do those things worry you that the Seahawks being run heavy and the Titans sucking or is it wheels up on everybody in this game as well? They do worry me, but not enough to downgrade this type of game and put it in like the, like, I don't know. It's not New Orleans. It's not like you're putting it in that tier or anything. So you can downgrade it a bit. Now, this game, I do have ninth in expected pace, but also dead last on the main slate and expected pass rate, which shouldn't really surprise anyone, but so here's kind of the issue with me and Russell Wilson all the time is that Russ can like destroy a slate by being really efficient, but if he's not incredibly efficient, the volume won't necessarily be there. And you can kind of have like a 250 yard day and two touchdowns instead of the four yard in week one, I think at four. So that is a concern for me, but I still think that this is a game. This is my number two game probably on the slate, which is not again going to shock anybody, but again, there are ways that you can stack this one and be a bit different. Chris Carson is a name that you mentioned already 6,700 this week. He's not going to be someone who's super popular. Now he is kind of also in that like Nick Chubb bucket for me. Historically where I don't feel like he's really going to burn me, but he did play 77% of the snaps had 18 routes and three targets. I like to see that. Yeah, my guy. Although that's kind of an evergreen statement. Unfortunately, I'm not not funny, but yeah, I mean, so I can talk about the guys I love, but I'm going to defer to you here so you can name the best stacks and then I'll follow up with what I hear. So with regarding like the run rates and the Titans being bad, like I want to start putting things on like a scale of one to five, like red flags, like, because again, like I, for me, it's like something like in my brain that pings like, Oh, there's a red flag there. There's this thing that could go wrong. I would say on system where Defcon one is the worst. No, this is five is the worst. No, it's way too confusing. Five is the worst. I would say I'm that one red flag out of five on this game. If it were just as the ox pass rate or just a Titan being bad to be a half red flag, it's one. So make it a 10, make it a scale of 10. And then you have one, one through 10, you don't have to worry about 10 is way too it's it's chuggy, bro. I think that's the word that the the zoomers are using. So no, come on, just stop being a boomer. Make it one through seven and a half or one. Yeah, no, this is in my rules. It's a one red flag out of five. Stop fighting back. I think that that's not low enough for me to be too low. It's low enough where I'll put it below Cowboys Chargers, but I probably would have had it below there anyway. So to me, I think that Russ is a player I'd like to have is like, if I'm picking four quarterbacks this week, we're talking Dak Herbert, Kyler, Russ, fine. I think that that works. I think that Russ would probably be in the top four, maybe fifth. I think that's that's why I grade that. I do think that Carson is super intriguing, given that there were times where he lost snaps in high level situations. So losing snaps in third down, losing snaps in the red zone, but most of those snaps are lost to Rashad Penny, who is not going to play this week. So I think Carson six seven hundred dollars makes a lot of sense. I think that Metcalf and Lockett are egregiously under salaried relative to their talent. So even though they may not get a lot of volume, they don't need a lot of volume to beast out because they're so freaking good. So I would, and they also get so much a large percentage of the targets on that team. So I think that looks pretty good. I do have a hard time deciding about the Titans guys, but I feel like the easy rock to go is just go AJ Brown. He was limited in practice Wednesday, but like limited for him is good on a Wednesday. He's usually out. So I would say Carson and AJ Brown stacks be like my default, but this is a game where I want to hit the combinations. Yeah. I mean, and to do that, you have to build a lot of lineups dedicated to this is another one of those games where you can be like, well, I got my Russ Metcalf because he didn't erupt as much and is actually at a lower salary than Tyler Lockett. And then you bring it back with whoever else, but I think there are just too many ways that you can go. You can basically build a lot of your lineups this week centered on these top two games. And you still probably, you won't get access to every combination. And there's also like, it's important to say you can't account in tournaments for every possible combination of things that happen, but in two games, you have a better chance of doing that if you're focused on those two. So I think I'm in on Julio. I know that I'm in on Julio. He's one of my player loves. You know, I'll talk more about him in detail, but I want to throw it out there with Derek Henry. What are your thoughts here? Keeping in mind that Thanksgiving is, it's not post Thanksgiving yet for Derek Henry. I would say that he is someone I'd like to include in those combinations. I think the question is he's below AJ Brown, but I feel like you could justify putting him above Julio just because Henry we know has those disgusted, that disgusting upside. So I feel like we can still go there. He actually had three or four targets last week and his workload may have gotten diminished later in the game because they were down by so much. So I do think that Henry, like if you gave me one tournament team and asked me, would you rather go Nick Chubb or Derek Henry? I'd say Derek Henry. I think that Henry is in the more competitive game and more likely to potentially get targets on the stretch too. Yeah. 13 routes for him, four targets. That's pretty solid for Derek Henry. So someone, again, you can stack this game with like one or two lineups and then you're not getting Derek Henry. And then if Derek Henry scores twice, it's not going to surprise anybody. Yeah. So I think that he's pretty interesting there. Let's move now out, stay out west, I guess, and talk about the Cardinals and Vikings. Total for that game is 51. Cardinals, favored by actually, I think it's three and a half now. Yeah, three and a half, totals, 50 and a half. So the totals have gone down a half point, but the spread is tightened by a point which we always will take. The one downside here is the Cardinals are getting kind of buzzy. The initial look ahead line was the Cardinals minus one and a half, reopened at three and a half, then went to four and a half, now back to three and a half. So a lot of interest in the game, it seems to be a betting perspective. I think the one reason that I'm still kind of worried, despite the movement towards the Vikings recently, is I think the Cardinals defense could be pretty good. And the Vikings still not looking great thus far. They look kind of weird, I would say. Weird is the word I'd use to them in week number one. I don't think Darisaw is going to play yet. Seems like he's probably working his way up still. So how are you viewing this game between the Cardinals and the Vikings? I like this one as well. So we're kind of expanding that list of games that I want to stack. And again, just think about if you're building... Okay, maybe you don't build like 150 lineups, or you build 20. You can stack the top two games, but then if you stack one of those games with this game, you're still really concentrated, but you're getting exposure to a lot of those games that can shoot out. So that's something that I'm just trying to be more focused on. This game, honestly, might rate out a little better for me than the game we just talked about in terms of what you factor in pace and pass rate and things like that. So it's in that conversation. The Chargers game is very clearly the ones. This is probably the 2B at worst for the week. Now, we know to play Kyler, if we can get to him, that's pretty... I'm not going to waste the whole there. And same for Deandre Hopkins. The issues start to come in, though, with who else. Chase Edmonds played about 60% of the snaps. Christian Kirk had that eruption game. And I've chased Christian Kirk plenty in the past, and it has not really benefited me too much. Rondale Moore, I think, will be a little bit buzzy to use a word that you just used. But keep in mind that he did get five targets, but it was on 14 pass routes. So his path to 18 fandal points or so, which is kind of what you need from a receiver for GPP winning upside, it's still really low. And then on the flip side, so with Kirk Cousins, he's someone that we talk about sometimes with never play him. And it took him 49 pass attempts, 351 yards and two touchdowns to get to 22 fandal points. Overtime game, 350 yards, multiple touchdowns, and it still didn't matter. It's going to be against the worst defense. Like maybe once a year, you'll really kick yourself for not playing Kirk Cousins because... I don't think I'll ever kick myself. So it's just a part of our process, too, with if anyone's wondering why, like, hey, Kirk Cousins in the shootout, he kind of had that last week through almost 50 times and just got to 22 fandal points. He's not going to run the ball. So he's not really on the slate, like on the menu for us. Kyler, Dak or Kirk? Wait, sorry, not Kirk. Herbert. Herbert. Sorry, Justin. My bad, bud. Like straight up or at salary? At salary. Dak, Herbert, Kyler. You've Kyler last? Yes, because I don't think we have quite... Well, outside of Najee Harris. Mike Williams, Jared Cook. Yeah. Maybe Jared Cook. Anthony Ferkser, I think, is in play. Tyler Conklin's in play. Okay, so you give me those, like, the two V2s, and I'm actually going to throw some of these at you with tight end when I'm talking Jared Waller. So Kyler Murray and Anthony Ferkser. Okay. Erkster is 47, so then I could add, if I go down to Dak and add 700, that's 5,400 for tight end, that gets me back up to Jared Cook. I mean, I'm going to use Dak anyway, so I don't know if this is a proper one. But it's a... Yeah, so if I go Herbert second, that'd be an extra 400. So then I'm up at... Dallas Goddard or other vomit. Higby, Phant, Gronk, Pitt. I think Kyler... I don't know if you ever get to Kyle Pitt. Because, like, Kyler, I don't have any concerns. There are no zero red flags. There's a half red flag for Dak because he's facing a really good defense, doesn't have a lot of Collins. Okay, okay, fine. Go Dak, or go Kyler. Kyler's the best quarterback on the slate. As far as the non-Deandre Hopkins guys, I used Chase Edmonds last week under the hope that he would get like an Austin Neckler type role where he would get creative passing game usage, he would, you know, he wouldn't get the goal line stuff. And he did to an extent, he had 43 receiving yards, 63 Russians, he had 100 yards in scrimmage, but like... And that was the worst game script possible for him. But it's not... I don't think it's... I think that I'm less inclined to take a chance on a role when I have data. And the data says it's just kind of fine. So I would say Edmonds, I probably won't get there. I think that Kirk is fine. I'm not like... He won't be a non-game stack guy for me because there are guys I feel better about in his range. I also don't know what his salary is. He is $5,600. He's the same as Mike Williams. Mike Williams is way better. So for non-game stacks, probably no Christian Kirk. For Ron Dale Moore, like I know the snaps were bad, but like AJ Green looked pretty rough. And he still had five targets, two deep, one in the red zone. And it seems like they wanted the ball in his hands. So... Then play more than four... Then don't play AJ Green 30... Don't give AJ Green 30 rounds to give Ron Dale Moore 14. And like I don't trust Cliff Kingsbury. I'm not assuming he will increase Ron Dale Moore's role. But I think that there is credence to saying, you know, at some point talent may win. I'm not going to assume that. For a cash game, I could... I would not even give Ron Dale Moore an ounce of consideration. No. For tournament game stacks, there is a path to him having a good game. Therefore, I could consider him there. He will not be a focal point for even the game stacks. But for some... A couple, I think that there is a path to a good game there. Yeah. I'm just trying to weed out those like 2% rostered guys for me. Not rostered as in Slate, but my exposure. So like... Let me think. Sorry. Talking about being my bad. But for a wide receiver, the checklist for them to make a perfect lineup is 85 yards or 2 touchdowns. Moore had 68 yards in week 1, despite that limited usage, because he was getting like good target. He's a talented football player. So again, non-game stacks, no. But I think there is enough there where I can justify using him in game stacks. Yeah. I'm not going to argue that. But if Ron Dale Moore goes out and plays, again, half as many... Or runs half as many routes as AJ Green, maybe gets those five targets again, but catches two or three of them instead of the four. Like, you're basically kind of torching that lineup in a sense. Right. But like, that's true for anything. Yes. But you also know... I'm not focused on Floor. I'm focused on, do they have a path to a ceiling? I think he does. Sure. But to me right now, Ron Dale Moore's ceiling is maximizing the efficiency on half the workload or half the opportunities is AJ Green. So you're saying you'd rather use AJ Green than Ron Dale Moore? That is not what I'm saying. I'm saying I would rather use... I thought that was actually a saying, so I wanted to make sure. No, I would rather use other receivers than Ron Dale Moore, even when I'm stacking this game. Okay. So Ron Dale Moore, 2 touchdowns is a lock at this point. Ron Dale Moore, Christian Kirk, Isam Kirk, right? Kirk. I agree. As far as the Vikings guys go, love Justin Jefferson off of a down week last week. Adam Thielen, 3 touchdowns incoming. With Dalvin Cook, it's an ideal script for him. Slight underdog situation for the Vikings may need to pass, which gets him more passing game volume, which I love. I know we want the heavy favor running back. But like, good passing environment, good game environment. I think that Dalvin is tremendous for tournaments once again this week. What are your thoughts on the Vikings? Yeah, love them. And even though I love them, I won't be using Kirk Cousins. Sorry, we got Christian Kirk here. We just had the Justin Herbert. So I'm like really kind of walking on eggshells to talk about Kirk Cousins. But Jefferson at a lower salary than Adam Thielen I'll take all day. Dalvin's my number one love at running back this week. And then KJ Osborn, 46. I'm going to ask you Osborn or Rondell Moore. Because I think that's probably KJ Osborn, right? He ran 87% of the routes. Like that's at least a little bit more enticing. No, I'm not going to say that he would get more targets than Rondell Moore even. But you're basically just, you're locking yourself into an efficient game for Rondell Moore if he's going to just be kind of an afterthought. And he's going to have to get those two. So it's probably still Rondell Moore just betting on like talent. But KJ Osborn, someone I would consider it almost minimum salary. Yeah, I would too. I think he's running the Irv Smith rule basically. I know that Irv Smith is not a wider seeker, but he's kind of a wider seeker. He's KJ Osborn from a usage perspective is kind of in the Irv Smith rule more so than Tyler Conklin. I think that Conklin is a consideration because tight ends terrible. But like I would say Osborn's in that role. Nine targets last week. He had one deep target. You didn't get a lot of downfield work, but like, you know, he has some speed, stuff like that. So, you know, I'm fine with it. I think that Osborn's at least an option for this week. Let's move now to the trends discussion. This is where we get more process based and talk about the way we do things from a process perspective for NFL DFS. Because you know, a lot of you may be playing DFS for the first time, but it's also good if you're new to the podcast, you know, like why do they talk about game stacks so much? Or why do they not care about quarterback popularity? Things like that. So, Brandon, your first trend is talking about quarterback roster percentages and what it means for DFS. Yeah. I mean, even for myself, I need to learn. Like there's always more you can learn and always more you can re-remember because you probably heard some of this stuff, but then forgot about it. But I think we should talk about quarterback popularity rates just because, you know, like you and I, again, don't particularly care about them too much. That's why we're talking about the chalky quarterbacks and not thinking as Kyle are going to be too chalky. So, the reason in the stepping back, the reason people talk about popularity in case you are like kind of brand new or still trying to wrap your head around why that matters. If a quarterback is rostered by 30% of teams in a tournament that you're in and he just tanks or, you know, God forbid gets injured early on, you're basically taking out 30% of the lineups if you don't use him. So you gain instant leverage on the field in that situation. Now that logic applies like across positions and the logic behind it is correct. The issue is that quarterbacks don't get that popular on full 12-13 game slates. They just don't. Across all regular season main slates last year, only the guy that we already talked about, Kyler Murray, cracked a 30% roster rate on Fandle. He was at 30.6% in week three after he put up 29.2 Fandle points per game in the first two weeks. A below-average game for him is what you're saying. This is the quarterback won this week. Yeah, lock that in. 35 Fandle points for Kyler. But among 409 quarterbacks on main slates with at least 10 pass attempts, only 24, so under 6% of those guys were on at least 15% of rosters. So you're not getting a whole lot of guys, maybe one to two on even 15% of rosters on Fandle. Around 13% of them had a double-digit roster rate. Now is blindly rostering the week's most popular quarterback something you should seek to do and actively try to do and guess who's going to be the most popular student you can play on? No, that's absolutely not. Now is rostering a quarterback at 5% better game theory-wise than rostering a quarterback at 15%? Yes, that's still a better play. And Jim and I would say that all day, every day. But the odds that a quarterback ends up being substantially rostered like 20, 25, 30% super low. It's also the most predictable position that we have in DFS. And so you can also find other ways to get different with your whole lineup. Like you can stack him with guys that aren't the most obvious. You can also just play lower rostered guys at different positions to make that whole lineup unique. So I think it's just important to get that out of the way in week two that we're not going to care about how popular the quarterbacks are. So if I was ranking the importance of gauging popularity so I can try to avoid the potential landmines, the way that I would rank the positions are receiver because it's super volatile, tight end. But sometimes tight ends are chalky because the tight ends just have a pulse that way. You can have decent salaries. Defense, which I don't really think about that much anyway, which is probably a flaw in my process anyway. Running back and then quarterback is dead last. So how would you follow up this? Could you rank how a quarterback stacks up with you in terms of how much you care about popularity? Literally don't care a quarterback or running back. That's probably stupid, but I don't care. They're very predictable positions, stuff like that. So unless it's like bad chalk, which we will get, I was pleasantly surprised with the public in that Sam Darnold was not super popular last week. I thought he would be and he wasn't. So kudos to everyone for not using Sam Darnold. In the process there would not have been super sound. So quarterback and running back don't care. I would say wide receivers probably won for me as well. Tight end is probably two in defense number three. Defense is harder for me to avoid the chalk because sometimes I need to use, like if it's a lower salary one, I will say in general that people tend to roster high salary defenses, which is kind of weird, but so I don't really feel the need to, sometimes I just need to save the salary. For quarterback specifically, the reason that I am not super inclined to avoid it is because it's such a process oriented position. Last year, there was only one quarterback in a perfect lineup with a total under 48 for that game. So like that already whittles down the pool so much, I can't afford to like look at everyone. So if I am crossing off half the slate at least already, at some point I've got to use someone. So I think that I'm okay, like you said, you can deviate elsewhere, find stuff like that. I'm okay rostering a quarterback. I expect to be chalky unless I think that they're bad chalk and that does happen. We do see that happen, didn't happen too much last year. In general, the chalk is pretty good at every position last year, but I think a quarterback, I'm not going to worry too much or at running back doesn't really bother me too much there. Yeah, and I mean last week, the three quarterbacks who were on 10% of rosters in the Sunday million, and you can find this information every Monday morning on Number Fire. Oh, wow. I've heard of that place. Good reviews, good reviews. Patrick Mahomes was 12.5%. He put up 33.28 Vandal points. Kyler Murray, 10.5% rostered 34.56. And Jalen Hertz, 10.21% rostered 28.76. So there are going to be weeks where the chalky quarterbacks don't really kind of work out. Josh Allen was on, he was fourth in popularity, didn't have a great game. Aaron Rodgers fifth, but these guys were sub 10%. Anyway, you just don't see the need to differ. And you can look last week, the argument against this with running back, because you and I both said we don't really care, the two most popular running backs. Last week in the Sunday million were James Robinson and Raheem Mostert who combined for 8.9 Vandal points. So if you avoid those guys, yes, you're in a great spot, but the odds that these guys really bust at running back, it's going to take an injury, or honestly, James Robinson shouldn't have been the most popular running back last week anyway. Accurate. The bust rate of low salary backs specifically is very low. So I don't avoid running backs just because they're chalky, because if they're going to get a volume, they're going to get a volume. Sometimes I'll naturally avoid it, just because sometimes there's bad chalk. Like I think Nick Chubb's probably pretty popular this week. Okay, being lower on that, but I'm not actively avoiding, or actually looking to avoid it. Let's talk about spreads this week, because we've actually got some wider spreads in this week's slate. So we're talking about how that influences things. And I think that for me, the key is to sell out to stack tight games. Overall, last year, half of all NFL games had a spread of less than five points, so four and a half or less. That's the baseline. Those 50% of games produced 64% of all game stacks in perfect Fanduola lines. A perfect Fanduola lineup is the best lineup you could have constructed under the salary cap for that week. Only 4% of all game stacks came from games that they spread of 10 plus points. I think it was actually one. It was the Chiefs and the Panthers, that game that they played. I think that was the only one the entire year with the spread of 10 plus points that resulted in players in both sides being in the perfect lineup. That is despite 12.1% of all games having a spread of 10 plus points. And that kind of makes sense because you need both sides to come through to justify stacking it. And I think that it should lower the value of the Bucks and Browns offenses. They're both heavily favored. It might be tough to game stack those games. The negatives with heavily favored guys do translate to running backs as well. Hello, Mr. Chubb. Only 5% of perfect lineup running backs came from teams that were favored by double digits. That is lower than the league wide rate of 6%. So they were actually less likely to be in the perfect lineup than they were just as a baseline. Despite this, those players are almost always chalky because 13% of all popular running backs in the Sunday million last year were favored by 10 plus points. So again, Nick Chubb's floor is amazing. We should have questions about the ceiling, though. And the public usage rate of players on teams heavily favored was higher than the perfect lineup rate for every position, including defense and special teams. It is pretty scary to be low on these good teams like Tampa Bay, Cleveland, et cetera, et cetera. But I'm fine with it because historically, it might not burn me. How are you viewing the games that they had these spreads this week? So talking about Cleveland's offense, talking about Tampa Bay, and then in turn, Atlanta and Houston. I'm really glad that you added those baselines because I think sometimes analysis doesn't get into that with how many games actually had a spread of under 5 points. So again, to reiterate what Jim said, 50% of games fell within that, but 64% of the game stacks came within those games. So that's what you want to see. So for me this week, that's me about Tampa Bay and Cleveland. Well, I'll go with Cleveland first because we already talked about them. Probably not going to play a whole lot of Cleveland Browns. People's Jones might be first for me just because of that salary, but then also rostering a heavily favored receiver, which leads will come not from just running the ball, but I'm not that high on him to begin with. It's probably minimal exposure to the Browns. For the Bucks, this feels like a game where they could erupt again, but they're going to spread the ball out. Antonio Brown is going to run, he's going to run fewer routes than Mike Evans and Chris Godwin, but he's going to be as involved as those guys anyway. Still a little bit scary, but I'm kind of down to like Brown. Mike Evans fits the high ADOT receiver at home narrative that you like, but I'm probably not there just because he can get erased from that offense so frequently. I also do like that more for lower salaried explosive guys. If I'm trying to find a lower salary guy with upside, like with juice, Donovan People's Jones actually didn't realize that. He checks that pretty well, but that's that. Evans is 6,700. Now, normally I would be all in on that, but I think for me, I'm going to go with Antonio Brown pretty easily over him at 6,400, and Godwin's what, 8,000. So it's probably going to be like Antonio Brown, maybe some Gronk if I need to vary things at tight end. It matters less at tight end. So I think that does lend itself towards Gronk. Ran a ton of routes on Thursday nights, got good usage. So I think Gronk is fine. It's just more so running it back. Or if I'm using a wide receiver, that to me implies I can use a guy in the opposing team unless they're super low salary. That's why I'm much respect and adoration for Brandon Cooks. I don't want to go there this week. Calvin Ridley is amazing. Could do well this week. Probably not going to get there. Kyle Pitts, I think is in play. He's like the one guy from Atlanta at Houston I do want to go to. But I think just overall knowing that the public over invests in heavy spreads is a good thing. Because like you said, we can find ways to deviate elsewhere a quarterback. We need to worry about spreads. They're about popularity there. This is how you deviate. You load up on the tighter games. So all three of Tennessee, Seattle, Dallas, Los Angeles and Minnesota, Arizona have spreads of less than five points right now. So I think that those are the games we want to focus on more so than loading up in Tampa Bay, loading up on Cleveland. Because yes, the floors are great. But are they going to make you regret not using them? Potentially. But the odds that are lower than one of those blow up games. Yeah. I mean, I would be more in on Calvin Ridley if he wasn't still 7,700. That's kind of hard to get to. But. Probably just in his quarterback instead of Matt Ryan. Yeah. But I mean, I could first see myself having like Calvin Ridley and Antonio Brown mini stacks or like Gronk just to kind of get some correlation there. But that's about it. Yeah. I think that's where I'm at too. So Pitz is fine. Not writing and Gronk is fine. Not writing them off, but other pieces in those games are scarier to me and Donovan Peoples Jones as well. Let's move to your second trend talking about receivers who blow up because you didn't see some big performances last week out of wide receivers. We saw Debo Samuel Go nuts. We saw decent game at a Corey Davis. I don't know why I picked him out of all the like I would have discussed. Adam Thielen at a big game last week. We saw big games wide receivers. You're talking about what happens the week after those wide receivers. What did you see when you dove into the data? Yes. I mean, there's like a very fine line between reacting to good situations and like good workloads and good receivers who convert and can put up big games and just chasing points. And I think that especially happens more than any other position at wide receiver whenever someone goes off for like a long touchdown or gets to 100 yards scores and gets to like 15 fandal points. I think people take note. So I wanted to look at some following week data on receivers after they had a good outing the prior week. And I just set that baseline at 15 fandal points. So my sample here is receivers who one played on a main slate, two scored at least 15 fandal points on that main slate. And then three were on the main slate again the following week just because island games a little bit different. And also I just have this data handy. So yeah, either way, the initial week. So they're big game in this sample. Their average salary was 6,350 on fandal. They averaged 20.6 fandal points. They were drafted on 8.3% of rosters on average. I know it's not the best look at it because but this is just kind of looking at overall samples and not individual cases. The next week those numbers were 6,630 in terms of salary. So about a $300 increase on average across this whole sample. And I think like 10 guys had their salaries drop and most of them were by just $100. So probably match up based. They averaged 10.7 fandal points. So about half of what they averaged in their big games which I know is not like a fair comparison but that's kind of what we're getting on average. And then their draft rate went up to about 10% on average. So about a two point boost over a fairly large sample here. So that's a little bit concerning. Now 43 of these receivers put up another 15-point fandal game. So that's 28%. But among receivers with at least a 2% draft rate on all main slates, the 15-point average. So 30% of basically relevant receivers got to 15 fandal points. The guys you did it last week did it at a slightly lower rate. So it's not to say like there's no chance these guys do it again but they're a little bit lower in terms of their odds to get there and their popularity and salary on average goes up. So am I going to be crossing off receivers who had good games last week? No, of course not. That's silly. Well, I'd be trying to prioritize players who had down games but have good matchups, had good data, like peripheral data, routes, targets, things like that. You bet. I've tried my best to predict big games for receivers and it's like impossible. I know we're going to have that fear of missing out on guys who erupted last week but don't overreact too much to what we saw just one week prior. That especially applies to week one but this is also something that will apply throughout the season as well. So Jim, what's kind of your process whenever you see a receiver convert on his end zone target put like maybe a big catch as well and that kind of fear of he's going to do it again? So what's your thoughts here? Yes, I've looked at bust rates of different positions each of the past couple of years. And if you look back to last year, wide receivers who busted at pie roster rates in the Fandall Sunday million average 20 Fandall points a week before, wide receivers who hit average 16 a week before. Basically backing up what you said, people chase the chalk or people chase big performances and it doesn't work out very well. So I think that my process is to ignore what happened the previous week, like just ignore it. And if they're a good play, they're a good play and I'll take it. They're not a good play, easy to go away. So I think that it just kind of depends on what my process is. I think the other application of this is thinking about teammates in good situations. Last week, Tamar Chase went crazy. He was awesome, looked really good. And I think that I don't mind that game from a mini stack perspective this week. And I might be inclined to go at the Bengals against a secondary that had a lot of communication issues last week. Why wouldn't I just go T Higgins instead? Because T Higgins is $500 more. T Higgins also had good usage. He left for an IV at one point but still ran a ton of routes. He kind of touched down but didn't get as much buzz as Tamar Chase did. So I think it's applicable there too. Finding receivers who may not have done as much, the Jefferson versus Theland thing, not as applicable because I don't think people will chase Theland. I think that people, rightly so, prefer Jefferson, which they should. So I don't think it applies as much there but I think it's also applicable within teammates. Like I'm going at that situation, maybe I should go at the guy with similar usage who didn't pop off, didn't get as much buzz as the week before. Yeah. Again, none of this is to say, I need to clarify this. You don't just cross off the guys who had big games but they're going to be a little bit less likely to have those outlier games. Just barely. Some of these guys are the best receivers because this sample does include elite receivers who can post 15 Vandal points because they have great workloads. But for me, I'm really trying to be better of not copying and pasting last week because a lot of big games come down to, they're similar workloads at receiver but some guys are going to have a 95% catch rate and 100% catch rate on their targets that could lead to touchdowns. That's not going to happen every week. So some guys had the same exact workloads but just different results. So that's kind of one of mine up this week. I think a good example of what you said we're not going to cross them off. We just want to make sure they're in a good situation. Debo Samuel was in a good situation this week. He had amazing usage last week. He's $6,900. I am still okay using him despite the fact he blew up. I just want to make sure I'm not using him because he blew up and I'm not. I'm using him because he had good usage. He's in a good game. I think that makes sense. My second trend is talking about past catching at running back because we are leaning heavily on perfect lineups here. At least I am and those are flawed but you do want to roster players who can make the perfect lineup. Otherwise, what is the point? If you are admitting I'm not going to fill out the perfect lineup, what are you doing? Like what's going on here? At running back, most of those guys in perfect lineups catch passes. Last year, 42 running backs made a perfect lineup. 35 of them, 83% had multiple receptions. In 2019, it was 40 out of 45 running backs and multiple receptions. That's 89%. In 2018, 84% of perfect running backs have multiple receptions. Basically, 85% of running backs in perfect lineups were past catchers. In last year's group, they averaged 3.7 receptions for 32 yards per game. So that means in general, we should favor past catching backs. That is the top line takeaway here. You want past catchers at running back even on a half BPR site. But obviously, 15% is a non-zero number. So we should touch on what it takes to make a perfect lineup without catching passes. We are Derek Henry, your Nick Chubb, etc., etc. If we combine the past three years worth of perfect lineups, we have a sample of 19 running backs who made it with less than two receptions. Those guys averaged 152 rushing yards and two touchdowns on the ground that day. Those are massive totals. Only three of the 19 running backs had a single touchdown, just one touchdown. Only five out of 19 had less than 120 rushing yards. So I think that I mentioned before at Wide Receiver, I want a guy who can get 85 yards or two touchdowns. A similar checklist at running back, if a guy is not catching passes, is he needs to get to 120 yards and a touchdown or get to 90 yards and two touchdowns. If that's our criteria, only one guy has served as an exception the past three years. That was, I think Jordan Wilkins, he did it. He was the one guy who didn't check both those boxes or one of those two boxes. So if you're considering a guy who doesn't project to catch passes, can he get me 120 yards or 90 yards and two scores? If the answer is no, it's okay to gloss over them. If yes, you can consider them. But if they project to be popular, they need a massive date to burn you for not using them. I think that's kind of the key takeaway here too. And that's a comfort if you're trying to be underweight on the projected shock. So the big guy here is obviously Elijah Mitchell who had no targets on 10 routes run. Well, someone didn't specifically Brandon, how are you handling here at $5,800? Yeah, he's the name that came to mind. Tough for a matchup too, obviously. And if you look at like season long rankings for like the expectations, which I think could probably fairly handy for estimating some things about the slate upcoming, but he's kind of listed as like the RB like 28. So consensus doesn't seem to be super high on him. Of course, that includes all 16 games, not just the 13, but it was a little bit lower than I expected. I figured he would be getting a little bit more of that buzz. But for me, you've taught me well enough by now not to chase guys who have basically one path to production and that path being just rushing, especially again, he's going into a more difficult matchup this week. And I hadn't really given this much thought, but he had a really long touchdown run. And he ended up with 104 yards. So I don't know what he did on those other carries. I kind of just took it at face value that he had a really, really strong game, but it just hit me that, you know, he had that long run and only ended up with 104 yards on 19 carries. So let me look up his success very quick. His success rate was 42%. So not bad, about average. Not too bad. Yeah. So like, he's going to be good salary savings. I think the real question is, would you play him in a cash game for the floor? Absolutely. And I wouldn't. No, I wouldn't. No, I think his floor is bad because he doesn't catch passes. That's the weird thing about catching passes is not only is it good for floor, it's also good for upside. Like it's kind of like strikeouts in baseball. We talk about strikeouts in terms of ceiling, but like it's points. You get points. I want points and he doesn't get points without catching passes. I don't know if I've made that obvious enough. I want points. Is that Chip, Charlie? No, I just want, I want points. Just give me points. That's all I ask. So for cash games, wouldn't touch him. Just get up to Najee. Like if you want to save some salary, Darrell Henderson should play a lot of staff. $6,400. I know it's a tougher spot. We don't know what Sony Michelle's workload will trend towards, etc., etc. Chris Carson, Austin Eckler. Austin Eckler is actually probably pretty good cash gameplay. Maybe I should be higher on him there. I would not touch him for cash games, no. Yeah, I think, I think Eckler right now is one of my three cash game running backs at this moment. Yeah. If you buy like one point in our head to head last week. Not even. It was like, it was like 0.6. It was a 3v3. It wanted to be, we had six overlaps. I'm still annoyed about it. So I don't know. It should be a little bit different. Najee is going to be in. I'm just telling you that now. That's the same thing as last week. He was a given. He's a given again this week. So yeah. Yeah, I think that the same thing again, to reiterate with Elijah Mitchell, it's fine to use him in turns because in that offense, he can have 120 yards in the touchdown. Like that's possible. He'd almost hit it last week. But what are the odds of that? You know, it's okay to be underway. And quickly, what would you say to someone who was like, well, he's, his size is only 5,800. So if he gets me like 14 fandal points, that's actually good. Like what would you say to that? You need 20. You need 20. It's always 20. Like you need 20. Yeah. Old gym would be fine with 14 points. New gym. No, 14 is stupid. I want points. I'm just going to keep saying that. That's the takeaway for this podcast. I want points. There we go. Let's move now to weather for this week. There is at least a chance of rain in Jacksonville for the Jags and the Broncos. I don't care much. I know. Oh man, terrible. I don't care much about rain. It's like a heavy rain like we had for the Browns games at times last year. But check back on that one later on. Winds in Miami are at 11 miles per hour for the Bills and Dolphins. As we touched on last week, that's not a massive concern at 15 miles per hour. At 11 miles per hour, 15 is where I start to get a little uncomfortable and start to divest. But it is worth noting and checking back on later. Also, a slight chance of rain in Tampa Bay for the Bucks and the Falcons. Winds are low there too. Wouldn't worry about that as of right now. Rain seems most likely in Seattle for the Seahawks and the Titans. It looks light right now. And the winds are low. So as of right now, I don't care. I think it's fine. But check back on that one later on. Make sure the rain is not worse. Make sure the wind doesn't get worse. Otherwise, I think we're still good to go. Wheels up on the Seahawks and the Titans. Let's move now to our positional plays for week number two. Starting off at quarterback Brandon. Who do you have there? You talked me into Kyler number one. But I have. Did I? Yeah. That's never happened. Usually you don't listen to me. I'm impressed by this. OK, go Kyler. Well, I'm going to go with two guys in the same game. That's Dak Prescott and Justin Herbert. Dak at 8000. Just I love this game. I had 403 yards last week on elevated volume, which could happen again if this game is a true shootout. But ran four times twice in the red zone. 11th in EPA or expected points added per attempt. In week one, 1.7% sack rate on 58 drop backs, which you like to see. I know their offensive line is not totally healthy. If I'm remembering right, I black out whenever we talk offensive line. They're healthy. They're just suspended for not going to a drug test. OK. And we have two very obvious stack candidates to pair with him in CDLAM and Amari Cooper could also possibly throw in Dalton Schultz. We didn't talk about Cedric Wilson, did we? No. I feel like the bigger benefactor of no, Michael Gallup is probably Dalton Schultz slash Blake Jarwin. I don't think Cedric Wilson is a non-consideration. We've seen him produce. Man, I think that like the 85 yard threshold is something he can get to. But I think I feel better about the tight ends being difference makers. We have a lot of value at receiver, so probably don't need to get there. And my second love is Justin Herbert. It's just a dream game. It's basically what you would draw up for a game you'd want to stack. Herbert, last week, had 337 yards. 8.2 yard 8, so about a half yard deeper than the NFL average in week one. 12th unexpected points added per attempt against the good defense. Dallas obviously got nuked in week one. Now, you have a long week of prep, which is a little bit scary, but that's kind of the only thing you can say bad about this game. I think that's a good thing. So if I were concerned about one team keeping pace, it'd be Dallas, and that increases the odds they can keep up. So I actually think that's a positive. I don't know. That could be weird, but I think Herbert's good. I don't typically, I try not to roster quarterbacks who don't run too much anymore, but I think Herbert's, like for this week, it leads to one exception to that. I think that he's definitely solid for sure. My first love is Kyler Murray, because I mentioned that I assume the concerns of Vikings offense may collapse because they're a wild team right now, but we saw last week that Kyler can pay off even without that. He ran five times for 20 yards, and that's actually lower than you'd expect. That could go up this week. The Vikings defense pretty leaky against the Bengals. I like the Cardinals more than the Bengals and easily just stack them up with nuk. And I think that with the salary savings we have at running back at wide receiver this week, pretty easy to stack Kyler and nuk, so I'd like to do so. My second love is Dak Prescott. Again, this year, we're okay doubling up on talking about the same guys. Dak is a tough matchup, and I do respect the Chargers. I think that they'll do pretty well this year. Now that last week was only the 13th time ever that Joey Bosa and Durin James had played together, which is absurd. So I have high expectations for this defense, but it's also Dak. The end tough matchup last week didn't matter. He averaged 0.25, passing unexpected points for Dropback. The team was willing to throw a ton, which I adored, means that they're probably thinking, which is, I know that's like a low baseline to set, but they are using their brains, and I like people who use their brains. Dak ran five times, and three of those came in the red zone. And that's historically where Dak runs more. So even with no Gallup and no Lyle Collins, I still think that Dak is up there this week. If I have one single entry tournament lineup, I'm probably going Dak. You have to pick one for a tournament. Who are you going with? Probably Dak. Let's go to running back. Who do you have there? I've got Dalvin Cook at 9,200. 34 adjusted opportunities, which just carries plus two extra targets for running backs. I don't know if you mentioned that whenever you're talking about. Did not. I know it wasn't over time, but sure we know Dalvin Cook is going to have a lot of work. There's the third most adjusted opportunities among running backs. Very nice 69% snap rate, 45% route rate, seven targets. I have this game sixth unexpected pace, so it's at least kind of average for the slate. People might be a little bit scared after what Derek Henry did in this matchup, but I'm not. My second love is Austin Neckler. So I do think he's going to be cash game consideration for me, again, right now. I think these are the three running backs I would play in our head to head contest. So spoiler alert there, but I don't think we're going to deviate at running back based on who the other guy has. But Eckler, I don't think people will be in as in as they should be in this game. 24 pass routes, so 49%. Is it worrisome you didn't get a target on those 24 routes? Yeah, maybe a little. Would it be more worrisome if he wasn't running routes and not getting targets? Absolutely, 59% of the snaps. And also was coming in last week with that hamstring injury. And so maybe he was a little bit more limited, but still had seven red zone carries. So give me that for sure. And a game that could score 60 total points. And then Najee Harris is the third at 6100. I'll tell you this much, we're not going to get a running back with 100% snap rate at 6100 very often. 71% of the pass routes as well that he ran fifth among running backs. Second slowest game on the board, which is a little bit worrisome, the totals down, but I'm not going to overthink this one with Najee. How heavy are you going in tournaments with Najee? I probably would, I think I'm capping like all running back exposure at like 50%, but I know you're going to say like 90% for yourself. Well, I was going to say take that 50 and double it. So maybe you underestimated, it's going to be close, real close to 100, real close. Like I will have some lineups where I stack Echler and Zeke and that makes it tough because like I'm using them two guys in the same game, but like as a baseline, I'm just going to have Najee. I know everyone else will, but I can block them. Also, I'll be overweight of him. I know I will. I don't care. So he's going to do 45%. He will be under Rothschild 45%. Yeah, I was going to say the thing too is he will probably be like 35, 40%. Yeah. So if I go 100, I've got 75% leverage or sorry, 65%. Ooh, good math. Even I know that. Najee is my third love as well. Only thing that I would note too is that he had 57% of the team's red zone chances. So carries are targets inside the red zone. He had 67% inside the 10 yard line. He had two carries and two targets there, almost scored on one of those. I was desperately hoping for him to score, to bail me out after last week. When are I didn't happen? But I think this week he is a lock. My first love is Christian McCaffrey. I had him a hair above Dalvin Cook, but like could have gone either way there. Just it's a tough matchup with the Saints, but they're really banged up defensively right now. They've got some injuries along defensive line. Marcus Davenport, their secondary is a little banged up too. And McCaffrey's workload is disgusting. He scored 23 Fando points last week without a touchdown. How? Like how? How is the how? What? There is value elsewhere via the other running back. So I do like McCaffrey quite a bit. My second love is Chris Carson for tournaments. I don't like him for cash games. I think Eckler's cash passing game workload is more locked in. With Carson, I think it's a good way to get access to a fun game. He has a solid ceiling, whether the Titans keep pace or not. The team didn't run a ton of plays last week, which is why Carson's role may seem muted, but he ran around in 18 to 26 drop-backs week one, had a good chunk of the early downwork. Now there's nowhere shot. Penny, are you really going to use DJ Dallas Travis Homer, Alex Collins? Not as much. So I think that for $6700, Chris Carson makes a lot of sense. One guy we have not talked about yet, who I kind of think is pretty fun, is David Montgomery. He is at home against the Bengals. I don't mind that game for mini stacks, like a Montgomery with T. Higgins, Montgomery with Wichimar Chase, some other stuff like that. So would also mention David Montgomery at $7300 of being a guy. Joe Mixon too, $7800 in that same game. I think those guys are worth mentioning, even though they will not be as core-ish as the other running backs. Let's move now to wide receiver. Who you got there? So I almost went against what I said with the quarterback trends and talked about Josh Allen, just because I think he could easily be the one guy who people deviate from after what we saw in week one. I'm not going to get there very often. You mentioned the win concerns, so we got to keep an eye out there. But one way to get some exposure to Josh Allen is just to play Stefan Diggs. I don't think either of us are talking about like Amari Cooper, Kenan Allen, but I think that's implied that we love them. But we are looking at ways to get lower exposure, like less popular receivers. So Stefan Diggs is one of them for me at $7500. Fifth and expected fantasy points based on his underlying workload, based on like a little model I run. Should have scored 20.1 Fandal points, pad 11.4. He's the single largest regression candidate at the position on the main slate. And this game against Miami is rating out fourth in pace and fifth in average pass rate for me. My second love is Julio Jones, $6300. We talk about this in golf, or at least I do a lot. I don't want to put words in your mouth, but when you talk about like cold streaks for golfers, it's either just a matter of time before they return to form, or it's the beginning of the end and they'll never be the same. Typically it's just a matter of time before they bounce back a bit. And if Julio Jones bounces back to what Julio Jones can do, we're going to be kicking ourselves that we weren't heavier on him at $6300 in a game against the Seahawks. 78% route rate, six targets, which was 17%, saw an end zone target. So I'm back in on Julio Jones. He could easily be the highest like per dollar value if he puts up a Julio Jones game. And my third love is Jamar Chase, coming off a big game. So a little bit wary there, but I also had in my notes to my future self not to overthink it with Jamar Chase. Other receivers are at similar salaries. So I don't feel like I have to play Jamar Chase much more than these other guys, but Chase led the Bengals and routes, had seven targets for 101 yards and a touchdown. I had a 15.7 yard eight odd. So that high variance is something that I'm all about because you need more than just a high eight odd. You need the volume too. And so whenever you blend the two together, that's whenever you can get big games. Yeah, I think that Chase is perfect. I also think Devontae Smith in that same range. That game's not too bad. So Devontae is up there. Didn't have my loss, but I would mention that he is. Devontae Hertz is a very... It's one of my favorite stacks this week. Devontae Hertz running back with Debo. Let's ride. Or Kittle. Kittle as well. I think those are pretty enticing. My first level receiver is Justin Jefferson because he is a big play threat in a game that is a pretty high scoring environment. Last week, Jefferson had nine targets and two of those were deep. Like he had a great role. He didn't convert as much as Theland did. He's $7,300. Sweet. Give me Justin Jefferson. You can easily stack him. Like I've got here a McCaffrey lineup which has Kyler, Nuke, and Jefferson. I can make that work. It's kind of tough, but I can make it work. My second one CD lamb because $6,800 is too low for him. And if you ignore the volume last week because they threw 58 times, if we pretend that's going to be lower this week, which it might not be, for them. Lamb had 26% of the overall targets. He had 40% deep, 22% in the red zone. I want to get to Amari too, but I love this number on CD lamb at $6,800. So I think he's tremendous. That's not under the radar, but like who cares? My third love is in that same game, Mike Williams. He had an amazing role in week one. We didn't notice because that game was bad. Williams had 12 targets. One of those was deep. Two were in the red zone. And he only had one deep target but had four intermediate targets that were still kind of downfield. He had a 9.6 yard eight out, which is low for him, but the shorter targets jack up his floor and he can still get downfield look. So he sells a path to a great ceiling. I think he had like 80 something yards in week number one, $5,600. Mike Williams, which has never gone poorly before, going to be a core play for me. What could possibly go wrong? But again, it's not really Mike Williams. It's Mike Williams, you know, different situation. I like Mike Williams too. 82 yards, 115 air yards, 26% of the targets. Yeah, I think he's great. Let's move now to tight end. Who do you have there? I have Darren Waller at 7,000. He's got wide receiver usage, which is the case for some of these elite tight ends. And on this slate, it's really George Kittle, who I believe actually blocked a lot on past routes. The sample is small there, but that's something to keep an eye on. So I think Darren Waller is the guy, the only guy who, well, not the only guy, because George Kittle can do it with a few catches because his run after catch is crazy. But Darren Waller is the guy who can demolish this slate at tight end. 34% of the targets on Monday night, 38% of the air yards, they just got in the ball. It felt like the offense was Darren Waller. Drunk Rudin is going nuts over Darren Waller. So I'm just going to, I'm going to play a lot of Darren Waller this week. And I think the case you can make for him very easily is salary wise, Darren Waller plus Jamar Chase, Devonte Smith, Mike Williams. The kind of flip side of that is like a DK Metcalf, A.J. Brown, Justin Jefferson plus Jared Cook, Kyle Pitts, Tyler Higbee, both are viable to me. You know, if I'm building one lineup, I think the more appealing option is Waller plus, like a Mike Williams or something. I agree. I think that that is a good play this week. The one downside with Waller is that if they don't play well, given that they had an emotional game on a Monday night, traveling the East Coast to face a good team, that's the one down path. But like, he'll still get 10 targets. So who cares? And then I have Tyler Higbee, 5600, played every snap in week one, ran 93% of the routes, third among tight end and target share, 23% on a lower passing volume from the Rams. But I tweeted about this, which I know is funny, but the Rams were really aggressive on first down. And I like to see that for a tight end. Where do you sit on Daryl Henderson at $6400? Really good roll last week. I think that game's okay. The Colts are very slow, it seems like. And that's super annoying, but the Rams are fast. Henderson had a great roll. You know, the Colts defense didn't play as well in week one as it did last year. So Henderson, I feel like we probably should be talking a bit more about it, $6400. Yeah, I'm not out on him by any means, but he's not going to be someone I build around. For you yourself, if you're playing 100% Najee, I don't know how often you get there. He's a consideration, but the reason I love DFS is that I don't have to roster anyone who doesn't have, like I don't have to play a mile Sanders who might just be like the 1A and a committee. We don't know what it is with Henderson. I mean, he played 96% of the snaps. I feel better right in the mile Sanders. Yes, I was ramping into something. Week one says he's the clear one. Bringing in Sonny Michelle and understanding he's probably going to get more of a workload puts that more into question with Najee. We don't have that. So some Henderson, but not a ton. The Sonny Michelle trade was like six years ago. He said time. Come on. He said time to ramp up. I think Henderson over under 85% snap rate for Henderson. Well, I mean, variance suggests he'll be under because there are a lot of paths to an under 75% over under over. You want to bet? No. I'll ask my first love and tight end. I don't know how we got there. Oh, I asked about it. That's why also Jonathan Taylor is not terrible. I think that Taylor, the guys I would say I'd like to rotate in is like my secondary plays are Mixon, Montgomery, Taylor and Henderson. It's going to be a long list. Yeah. We haven't mentioned Alvin Kamara's name. Who? Who? He's wearing a NASCAR visor during freaking warm ups last week. He's the best. My first love is Kyle Pitts. Pitts just 31 yards in week one, but really good usage. He had eight targets. Two of those were deep. One is in the red zone. He ran a route either out wide or in the slot on 25 of his 30 routes. That's awesome. So Kyle Pitts, despite a bad environment, still a really good play for DFS. My second was Jared Cook. Another route for lower sourd exposure to my favorite game this week. He had eight targets in week one, and five of them were at least 10 yards downfield. He had two targets in the red zone. He's $5,400. I was not on Jared Cook for a season long. I was worried about if he would have the same role he had at the Saints. It appears he does not. So Jared Cook back in our collective conscience for week number two. Let's move to defense. Brandon, who do you have there? I have Chicago at $4,100 simply because I want games where there's some offensive pulse. Joe Burrow took a sack on a league high, 15.6% of his drop-backs in week one. Pro football focus has the bears with the third best defensive line matchup in terms of pressure rate by comparison. I'll use them, but only in line of story don't have the Bengals. I think the Browns are going to be mega chalk based on what I'm seeing with projections at $4,200, so a little bit of a pivot away there. For a cash game, I'm fine going Browns. I think that's totally okay. I actually took the same mind of thought for my defense as I want games with a pulse. I actually don't mind exposure to Seattle's defense against Tennessee, and I love stacking this game. Very cool with it, but Seattle's defense has upside. They had a 32% pressure rate in week number one. Ryan Tannehill had the second highest sack rate of the week. He also, in his passes, had sack-like tendencies, which is a weird phrase, but the Seahawks, $3,700, they are home favorites. I'm not going to overlap with Titans guys, as you said, but when I'm not there, I'm okay going to Seattle. I'm also okay with the Chargers. I love the Cowboys. Love the Cowboys, but this defense could be pretty good. It's going to be a heavy drop-back game for Dak. No Lyle Collins. So in the lines where I don't have Cowboys, I can go Chargers in the lines where I don't have Titans. I can go Seahawks, but then also others to consider to me. I think that, I won't do that one. I thought about it. I'll go, I think the Browns are a team to consider. I think the Saints are definitely a team to consider, despite there are defensive injuries. Cardinals are a team to consider as well. You've got good options to consider, but for tournaments, I think that exposure to the Seahawks and the Chargers is wise, despite how much I like those two games. That is all that we have for this week. Brandon, any final thoughts for you before we close our shop and send people off to fill out their lineups? The thing that really stood out to me by the end of this was that we love a few games and not necessarily have interest in a lot of other games, which is fine. But the one thing that really, really stuck out to me was that running back list of guys we were considering really was getting longer. And it's hard to, even at running back, where things are more predictable, it's harder to play like 15% of everyone. So I need to, I have my work cut out for me with who I'm going to narrow down, but my three loves, I still feel great about for sure. I do too. I like all three of yours. And Chris Carson was the addition on mine and Daven Cook or Christian McCaffer, I should say. So we'll see how things shake out. I'll have to whittle things down eventually, but there's a strong consideration set of guys I feel really good about for this week. Other thing I'd mention is, don't forget the listener league. FanDuel.com slash league slash listener league, $5 entry, three entries max, there is no rake. So if you want to play DFS smartly, play no rake contest, you get one here. FanDuel.com slash league slash listener league. If you want some more NFL discussion, we have a Thursday football preview coming up on the FanDuel YouTube, Twitch, Facebook and Twitter pages on Thursday, 4 p.m. myself in Olivia Moody of volume sports. Brandon and JJ and I will be here on Friday at 4 p.m. with our weekly snake draft. Brandon or JJ's Q&A at noon on Sunday as well on the FanDuel YouTube, Twitch, Facebook and Twitter pages. So make sure you're subscribed there. Also subscribe to the Number Fire Daily Fantasy podcast feed. Wherever you get your podcast, USC, NASCAR, PGA, MLB, everything is right there. Eventually NBA, coming back as well. So make sure you hit it up. Subscribe to the Number Fire Daily Fantasy podcast feed. Wherever you get your podcast. And if you like what you hear, leave us a rating and review as well. Brandon, the people have questions for you on Twitter. Where can they find you there? I'm at Gadoula 13, GD, ULA, 1-3. And I am at Jim Sonnis, J-I-M-S-A-N-N-E-S. You can also follow the FanDuel podcast network at FanDuel Podcast. Big thank you to everyone for tuning in for this week. Good luck to you in week two. We'll talk to you once again next week. This has been the Heat Check Fantasy podcast powered by Number Fire.