 for the first time ever. We have super wild card weekend coming up this week in the NFL at the playoffs beginning this week. We have two games on Saturday. We have three games on Sunday, one game on Monday, which means we have a bunch of different slays you can play for DFS. Got the two game or the three game or the single game slate. We've got the full six game slate. You can go Sunday to Monday. You can do whatever you want. You can lop off the Monday game as well. We have a lot of different amalgamations. I don't know if that's the right word. Ways you can play things for DFS for this week. We're going to break them down each and let you know our prioritizations for NFL DFS and get you set for what should be a fun weekend of football. Welcome on into the Heat Check Fantasy podcast powered by Number Fire. That's right here on the FanDuel 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 Gadoula. He is the managing editor of NumberFire.com. Brandon, we started the show about 30 seconds late because we were already yelling at each other about Miles Sanders. So we're off to a blasting start. How are you doing today? Yeah, I'm fine. I know you're not a fan of how many tabs I generally have open on my computer. It's very bad. This week I did want to clarify that despite all the offerings that we have on FanDuel, we're not going to cover all of them. You kind of implied that. It was hard enough to run Sims four. We're going to cover the Saturday slate, the Sunday slate, the Monday slate, the sixth game slate. But we're not going to. I can't run Sims for the late Sunday. We're focused on four slates. That's a good number of slates. I just wanted to clarify. I think we should do all of them. I think that you should just run it without Sims. And just do it with the program. I don't have Sims. Who am I? I mean, at this point, you know? What's mean? You're the dong-du-la. Like, what else could people need to know outside of the fact that you're the dong-du-la? And the dong-du-la don't need no Sims to talk about no DFS, which is what we're going to do for today. And I think that the fun thing for this year, too, is I was kind of shocked when I opened up the lobby and saw how big the contests were for the Saturday through Monday slate, because last year they were bad. And they're not as big as the Saturday only and Sunday only. But I'm really happy with the offerings there, because I kind of dig the sixth game slate. I kind of dig the Sunday only slate. And I'm kind of OK with playing more heavily on the Saturday through Monday slate and just kind of building around that, given that we have that offering. Look, I mean, whatever you want, you can kind of play it. There's a lot, a lot of good games, some bad games. And sometimes it's fun on smaller slates to avoid bad games. So, you know, I mean, it's like Thanksgiving. Like, but a good holiday, I guess. Oh, gosh, we don't need to. You don't need to research Miles Sanders and be smirched Thanksgiving all at the same time. Just just rude. So we're going to mute Brandon and we're going to do things today. We're going to go through Saturday only first, then Sunday only, then Monday only. We'll mix in discussion of the sixth game slate throughout there as well. We'll make Brandon run the Sims for every single slate while we are talking here. If you were listening on Sunday and want to skip ahead to the Sunday only discussion, I put the timestamp in the description over on the podcast description, wherever you're listening to this, you can find that watching on YouTube. Sorry, you can't skip around as easily. But if you are listening to the podcast, if you want to skip to Sunday or to Monday, check out the episode description. There'll be timestamps in there that will let you know when those slates begin. The World Fantasy Basketball Championship is scheduled to take place on March 13th, which means there is still plenty of time for you to qualify for the live final. Get in on the action. Enter your best nine-man NBA lineup into a WFBBC qualifier and finish in first place. Each final VIP package includes a trip for two to New Orleans, two luxury box game tickets to the Hornets Pelicans game on March 11th, VIP entry to a special fan event, and so much more, the live final will be here before you know. It's at fanduel.com slash WFBBC today, and compete for your chance to party by the bayou. Eligibility restrictions apply. Go to fanduel.com or download the Fanduel app for more details. Also, I lied, you can skip ahead on YouTube because I will have like the bottom things we'll say where we're at. So it says Saturday only now, when it skips to Sunday only, it's talking Sunday. So if you're watching YouTube and you wanna skip ahead, just look at the bottom finger there. And that should tell you where we're at on the show. Let's start things off here. With the Saturday only slate, it is a two-gamer. It is the Raiders of the Bengals right now. That spread is down to four and a half. Bengals four and a half point favorites. The total has come down to smidge to 48 and a half. The second game is the Patriots at the Bills. Bills four point favorites. Total in that game is 44. Injuries note here for this Saturday only. Slate T. Higgins was added to the injury report on Thursday. With a foot injury, typically guys get added midweek when they suffer an injury in practice. So that's a concern. This means we should consider Higgins legitimately questionable for right now. Emmanuel Sanders, full practice on Tuesday and Wednesday. He should return after two game absence. Gabriel Davis led the team in week 18 in routes, but I had a very good tournament team that had Gabriel Davis on it and was very mad every time he did not haul in a pass. 14 targets, three catches. He drove me nuts. Usually I am a huge fan of Gave the Babe, but I think there's a chance his role shifts with Emmanuel Sanders being back this week as sad as that may make me. Okay, so for me Brandon looking at the Saturday only slate, the key is whether you can pitch yourself on deviating at quarterback because I can say with a lot of certainty that Josh Allen and Joe Burrow will be the most popular place in the slate. I would not be shocked if those two themselves suck up 80% of all roster rates on this two game slate. In theory, that means even incentive to deviate. I'm not sure if I can because the Patriots do not want to use Mac Jones. Derek Carr has struggled a lot since Henry Ruggs left. I don't blame him. And also like the Raiders are in a very tough spot playing that super late game on Sunday night. Now flying across the country playing the first game here this week. So that to me is the key here is can you talk yourself into Carr or Jones? As we talk right now, I don't think I can. What about you? Is that the key for you on the slate and how are you doing quarterback? So we talked about this with the Thanksgiving slate when it comes to the quarterback is you're kind of figuring out whether you can bet against the better plays. And right now my Sims have Josh Allen and Joe Burrow combined for about 75% probability for either of those to lead the slate in Fandall points. Josh Allen about 43% or about 45% Burrow about 30% himself and really Derek Carr makes up most of the rest. Mac Jones is about just under 10% which it's gonna take a very specific set of circumstances for Mac Jones to lead this slate in Fandall points at quarterback. And yes, there's more to a slate than just how a quarterback performs but obviously quarterback performance is generally tied to offensive performance. So if you're law and Mac Jones, I mean, you can't really be that high on any of his past catchers but they really comes down then to Derek Carr and whether you can talk yourself into Derek Carr and this Raiders offense staying in step with Joe Burrow and the Bengals and whether or not Josh Allen can be sly fold. Now we have rematches for all of these games, two games of course with the Patriots in the bills would be mindful the first match up there was that heavy win game. So if you're the type of person to look back at how teams played each other just keep that in mind but ultimately I'm with you. It's really hard to justify deviating from Josh Allen and Joe Burrow but of course, if I do that it's going to be for Derek Carr. I don't think I could talk myself into any Mac Jones. Yeah, and the issue with Carr is that he loses high leverage work to Marcus Mariota. So like in fantasy a quarterback can he touchdowns the score or touchdowns are rushing and Carr is not a big runner and he loses some touchdown equity to Marcus Mariota. It doesn't make Mariota in play but it just hurts Carr a lot. So that's why it's tougher for me to deviate a quarterback. So right now I think I'm probably just gonna go Allen and Burrow, I know that's not like the game theory type way to play things but I just can't deviate elsewhere. I would also say on the context of the full six game slate quarterback here is not gonna be super high I'm fine with Burrow being like up there but like I have concerns I think I had better options mostly on the other slates here. Where are you at Burrow versus Allen for this weekend? Most likely leaning toward Burrow for the savings but the thing that I just can't get away from and we're super data driven we try to focus on just the underlying data to make all of our decisions. I think the one narrative you can really spin is like, okay the Patriots have two games worth of Josh Allen themselves plus all of the other film it's not the playoffs. Is there something special that they can cook up to render Josh Allen? I can't say irrelevant because even in games when he has bad passing he has the ability to run for 50, 60, 70 yards if he runs for 50 yards in a touchdown I mean that alone on this slate is gonna like 50 yards, 50 rushing yards in a touchdown is 11 fandal points I don't know if Mac John's gonna get there very often himself, 11's a little bit low but the point being so for me I realistically think I will have the most Joe Burrow of the quarterbacks on this two game slate but I'm with you that if we look at this in the context of the full weekend probably not a slate where I'm looking too heavily at quarterback especially with T Higgins banged up because that is going to impact Joe Burrow negatively. Yeah I think that's the key thing if we had full like and we might like we might get word today that like Higgins practice is in full but like we don't know that as of right now the reason I'm okay being with you and being a little bit higher on Burrow than Allen is I mean it's a third time they face each other within the span of like a month basically because like we can throw out that win game from a data perspective but like they did just see him and the bills threw a decent amount in that game too. So like they just saw him, they just saw him again after that now seeing him for the third time in a couple of weeks. So that's a downside. Also Allen has really struggled in rough weather and the wind is not bad in this game but it's going to be very cold and Josh Allen is from California. I know he played college in Wyoming but he's from California and his numbers and cold games are concerning is what I would say. A lot of that's because he's had the win games and like that's in the sample too but like at least it does stick in my mind. I think the one reason I might view them as being even versus definitively Burrow over Allen despite the fact that Allen has seen the Patriots now twice in like a month is the rushing. The rushing has been so good for Josh Allen recently. They basically just said once they were in a situation where they might not make the playoffs they said, okay, you're going to run. Past five games, Allen's rushing yardage outputs 109, 24, 64, 81, 63. He's kind of become like Lamar Jackson in from a rushing perspective and- With the potential to throw- Right. 35, 40, 45 times with actual passing production. That's the scary part. 100%. So that's why to me they're even versus not being definitively Burrow. So I think that like, it's not fun to say, oh, I think they're about even, I think they're about even, you know, it's my hot take. Yeah. Well, I mean, I think that in a, like in a vacuum I'm going to say Josh Allen for sure, but $1,000 can go a long way on a two game slate where you really don't have that much. I mean, it's just two games you can only realistically have so much value. So I didn't get it's pretty even. I do think that Derek Carr is like a little tiny bit justifiable, but you're really again, betting against Burrow and Allen rather than kind of betting on car to have a big game because like you said, Mario to come in and those high-leverage packages, it just, and I know we're sticking on quarterback a lot here, but kind of It's the key driver of everything. Yeah. It indicates how we feel about receiver, et cetera, et cetera. So I think that's why we are there. Okay. Let's start with the past catchers here since we're already on the subject of quarterbacks. Why are receivers pretty bad for the Saturday slate and pretty, I probably don't need the word pretty in there. It's just bad. In part because I don't have super high offensive expectations for this team prior to Wednesday, I was very excited to be very heavy on T Higgins. Now, obviously that changed a bit with the mispractice or the limited practice on Wednesday. So a bit more uncertainty there. If we get T at a limited session on Thursday and we get confirmation of a shifty bomb on like Friday night that he's good to go, I'll feel very good about him at $6,900. If he's at less limited, I think that does increase the appeal and Tyler Boyd who is not a super high upside guy. I will say on two game slates, I don't focus as much on upside. Like you can win a slate via having one high upside guy in there, but the odds you don't get three high upside receivers are higher. So I think that that helps there too. So to me, receiver really underwhelming, I think if we're talking about the non-studs who could pop up here, I look at Higgins first, although I'd probably include as being a stud. Think that Zay Jones, I know, he's a stud. Zay Jones, $53,000. He targets this past week, even with it Darren Waller being back. He's had a 31% deep target share in the games he's played with Waller since Henry Ruggs was released. So I do like him and I would put him above Gabe the Babe Davis, just because I'm a little bit worried that Manny Sanders takes some of that role back given that Davis really, really struggled last week. So that's where I'm now the wide receiver. What about you at that position? I think you pretty much hit on exactly how I'm feeling with the value plays that you mentioned being the guys that I would have discussed myself. I think that there is some merit to Tyler Boyd even with T. Higgins. I'm not gonna say that Tyler Boyd is dependent solely on the health of T. Higgins or anything, but Zay Jones you talked about with 90% of the route rate in week 18 and you really want like large samples whenever you can find them, but in a must win game, I think that that is pretty telling as well. 90% of the routes last week with those eight targets, one downfield, so at least 20 yards downfield, two in the red zone, that's a pretty good workload for 53. And if you just take a stab at Zay Jones, then that really opens up a lot and I think that he's gonna be kind of integral to getting to Josh Allen and a lot of lineups as well. So you wanna make sure that on these two game slates, three game slates that not every Josh Allen lineup, for example, is tied to Zay Jones. So you gotta be mindful of that if you're building multiple lineups. But yeah, I really think that Joan stands out Boyd to some degree and I would feel better about him obviously without T. Higgins, but I think that then you have to look at the other game here and say, am I really gonna play any Patriots receivers with conviction and confidence? And for us, that's always been no, I feel like we're kind of alone in that. And then- Well, it's different on a two game slate, you know. With conviction and confidence, I said, I have a decent amount of confidence in Jacobi Myers for better or worse. Jacobi's the one option there, but outside of that, then you gotta figure out what are you doing with Gabriel Davis? Is it, can you play Cole Beasley? I know we're looking at receivers but then you look at tight end and that's gonna make sure you kind of have some salary for Darren Waller because the rest of tight end is gross. So I don't really wanna play a lot of Patriots receivers. So I'm gonna be heavy on Jacobi. Yeah. I mean, I think that he's the only one I really wanna play. Looking at there, they've had actually pretty stable health throughout the year. If you look at the 15 games they played with Nelson Aguilar being healthy, Myers is a 24% target share and nobody else is above 14% including Hunter Henry. Henry does have a 27% red zone share in that sample. So I think he's in play at tight end because the odds that Waller and Knox don't perform Super Waller decently high just because it's a volatile position, they don't have spotless profiles by any means. So I could see using Hunter Henry, but Jacobi- He's not saving you salary though. No, he's not. Jacobi Myers, a 28% deep target share, 17% in the red zone. So I actually do think he's a decent play. I think the question is, do you prefer Myers versus Boyd? If there's no T. Higgins, I prefer Boyd. If there is T. Higgins, I prefer Jacobi Myers. Do you agree there? I still think I prefer Tyler Boyd straight up. Okay, that's fair. I believe in offense way more. What about the Bill's receivers? Cause I think that it could just be like recency bias where I got burned very badly. Like by Gabe Davis this past week, am I overthinking it and being worried that his snap's decreased with Manny being back? So that's a tough one because you never really can tell. And it's one of those spots that I like to point out that there's value in seeing things a certain way and having them work out, but there's also uncertainty in assuming certain things that the coaches will see and do because that's not how it works. And it's always frustrating when people assume that it's gonna work that way. But I think now Davis has led this team in routes the past two weeks, which is a little bit surprising. His catch rate over expectation last week was about 32 points below expected, had a ton of air yards, 225 air yards. I really don't think he'd go away from that even with the fact that his role really should kind of come back to earth a little bit. I still think that there's enough of a role for him to be in that six, seven target range in an offense that might throw 45 times. So I'm not off of Davis, but I definitely am not as high as I was entering last week. Yeah, I think that that's right to phrase it where I'm not off because like he could just keep his role. Like maybe they don't overvalue one game and keep him in there. And if he keeps his role in the four games where he's had like elevated snaps, he's at a 21% target share with 39% of the deep targets and 35% of the red light. That's an amazing role for 52. So if I assume he keeps the same role, I want to be on game Davis and like the odds he keeps the same role, I think with Manny being back are, you know, 50, 60%. And like if I take that's 50, 60% and cut it down to like, okay, how often that 50, 60% to see beast out probably 50%. That's still like a 30% Gabriel Davis exposure level. That is the thought process I'm going through. Yeah, I see you laughing at me. No, no, no, no, I looked at, she had 5.4 Fandal points this past week. I stared at it. I know. My model for expected Fandal points had him at 20 and a half. Yeah. So, I mean- And a lot of him in the freaking hands. I love him, but he, ugh, but- Catch the ball. Yeah. It would be an extremely different conversation if he did something with that. And I know that that is what we're talking about here, but for him to go from that role to irrelevant is kind of difficult and the salary's so low that- Yeah. No, you're right. You're right. Okay, so a somewhat similar player with a lot of potential for downfield works, Zay Jones, would you rather play Zay Jones or Davis? Close, but probably Davis, because I have more confidence in the offense. Right. Right? Yeah. Okay, cool. Okay, tight end. I do like Darren Waller, despite the fact I have pretty low expectations for the Raiders offense. He sets up, he meshes well with his defense, just with the way they play. And we saw that in their first matchup. He had eight targets, 116 yards, 15.1. Fan dual points in that game. Last week came back and played his regular role. Nine targets, ran a lot of routes. Didn't do a lot on them and didn't like look 100%, but I think that everything combined, low salary, good route rate, targets, et cetera, that meshes well to make him still probably the best tight end of the slate at 63 despite my reservations. So like, I think I downgrade him, but so did fan dual. So I think it's Waller, tear down to Knox, tear down to Henry for this slate. What about you? Yeah, for sure, for me. Waller ran 93% of the routes in week 18. Two catches on nine targets for a catch rate over expectation of a minus 35 or minus 34. Sorry, I don't wanna dismerge Darren Waller too much, but you got a downfield target, 9.1 yard eight. That's good for a tight end. I think that with the matchup being what it is, Cincinnati not particularly strong against tight ends when she adjust, like he's the guy, he is rating out extremely well in my Sims, 55% likely to lead tight ends on the slate. In a fan dual points, Henry and Knox are rating out about the same, but I would definitely go Knox over Henry because again, just the offensive expectations there. Okay, so let's talk about running back now. I think that to me it's Singletarian one, Joe Mixon two relative to salary. The question is, do you jam and mix in or leave some salary on the table in order to get to Josh Allen, to get to you, Stefan Diggs, get to Jamar Chase, et cetera, et cetera. I think given offensive expectations, I'm okay going with Singletarian Mixon, but it is at least a conversation where I am like, okay, maybe I consider going elsewhere. Then I think it's a tear down to Josh Jacobs, Damien Harris. I prefer Jacobs just because I can feel good about the passing game work. Cincinnati is a team that does encourage you to throw to your backs against them. So I would say to me Singletarian is one, Mixon is two, Jacobs a tear down is third. Damien Harris is fourth, but still a decently strong consideration because I wouldn't be shocked. We talked about this in previous years. If we see the Patriots narrow things down in the playoffs, they seem to have told us what they think Damien Harris is the best back in their backfield. I know Ramandre last week missed time because he's getting checked for a concussion, came back in, but I think when the chips are on the table, they prefer Damien Harris. So I could see his role increasing, which is why I think that he's kind of by Jacobs, but still on the same tier as Singletarian Mixon because he's $7,500, that's just kind of high for his role. So that's where I'm at with Running Back, where are you? Yeah, I would say almost exactly the same, but I would probably go Singletary tier one, Mixon and Jacobs about tier two because of the salary gap, but that's kind of just semantics and being nitpicky. The thing is- Because you're high on Singletary or just tepid on Mixon? Being realistic and pragmatic about a salary of 85 and what that does to the rest of my lineup, I think that's what it comes down to. But yeah, with Harris specifically because I think he's just the number four option in both games against the Bills, he went over 100 yards rushing, 18 for 103 and three touchdowns and then 10 for 111 in a touchdown. I'm not saying that Bill Belichick will just look at the rushing yardage output, but realistically he's going to get a solid workload. There's gonna be potential for rushing yardage, especially if it's kind of backwards and I'm probably doing some mental gymnastics that I wouldn't do otherwise if it wasn't a two game slate. But if they're playing from behind and Buffalo is just kind of keying on the pass, Damian Harris could probably get some like third, fourth quarter runs for like chunk plays, which again, it's kind of like a galaxy brain thought, but realistically he's gonna get a big workload here this week and so I don't wanna be, I've historically been low on Damian Harris and I don't wanna do that again this week. I mean, part of it is because on a full slate, we need upside and his biggest downside is upside given that like, he doesn't get a lot of passing game work and that is the easiest path to having a big game. He did get four targets last week. He did, that's true. Part of that again, because Ramandre was getting checked for a concussion, but like, that does matter. They will use him. I think he ran 11 routes in that game. So not a great role, but still there. Saw some, some negative sentiment towards Joe Mixon chat via William. So I just wanna explain why I like Mixon and I think that he is at least in a similar tier to Singletary. If you look at the running backs on this slate and their most relevant sample, Mixon is at 25 just opportunities per game, which is carries plus two X targets that is second behind Josh Jacobs, but I have higher expectations of the offense for Joe Mixon. His 99 yards from scrimmage per game in that sample are the best. His 43% red zone share is the best in the slate by a decent margin. Second is Jacobs at 36%. So he actually has a standout. I think the salary does make it tough and that's why it's at least a discussion of whether I spend up for him, but the role is very good in aggregate. And we did see the Raiders, or sorry, the Bengals lean pretty heavily on the rush the first time they face the Raiders. I don't think that's like what they'll do this time around, but like if Higgins is banged up, I think he's a very good play. So I'm very involved with Joe Mixon and okay with spending it over, it's the salary, the main thing that is a detractor there. William Steady is being sarcastic. So I just did that whole thing for no reason. Sorry, William, my bad. Well, he also said that compared to Harris, Mixon is relatively low salary, which is like Mixon is a value relative to Damien Harris, but I think it's more that Damien Harris is over salaried. If you go through and build a lineup and you just start with Joe Burrow, Joe Mixon, single Terry Waller, and if you look at defense, if you wanna play at least one of the home teams here and you play the Bengals, you need three receivers and a flex, and you're at 65.50, which is doable. But they're using one of Zay Jones or Gabriel Davis in that build. But like you're just running into limited options that you can feel good about with your receivers. And so then you're building kind of similar lineups. And I don't even know. I mean, if you wanna play Joe Mixon, Josh Allen with that same lineup, it's down to 63. So like my issue is there's not enough past catching value to sit here and say like, yeah, I'm gonna be locking in Joe Mixon because I don't wanna be throwing in too many, too many lower salaried receivers I don't feel great about. Yeah, you can make it work. Yeah. Like if you go, I'm actually at Burrow in there, like Burrow, Mixon, Chase, that lineup works without getting too stupid. And I think that that is a pretty viable round for this week. So, okay. Let's say priority plays to this slate. All chips on the table, regardless, you don't need to list a title if you don't want, you don't need a list to receive if you don't want. Who are the guys you are building around for the Saturday only slate? Single Terry, Jamar Chase, Darren Waller, and honestly potentially Josh Jacobs. Because if I can flex Mixon Jacobs, well, I think it really comes down to those four running backs. I don't know if I wanna touch anyone else. So, I think by default, like all four of those backs, at least likely of all Damian are my priorities. I would say single Terry's my only priority at running back is like I could talk myself into going with just two running backs and like, you know, if I jam in digs, T Higgins, Chase, et cetera, et cetera, I can make that work. So from priority perspective, it's just single Terry. Realistically, I'll probably have three, but like priority, single Terry. I think that T Higgins, if we get good clearance on him from Thursday's practice, he'll be a priority for me because he's $600. It's way too low salaried. If you look at their market share, since he came back, 24% overall, 30% deep, 20% in the red zone, it's a very good role. It's not Jamar Chase's role, but it's a very good role. And the odds he had scores, Chase, you're probably like, you know, 40, 45%, that's pretty high. So I think that that works for sure. I think that Waller is a priority for me, despite the low expectations. Any other notes for you on the Saturday? Only a slayer or should move on to Sunday? Just taking a quick sweep here. I think we covered everything. I know we spent a lot of time on quarterback, but it was relevant. I'm with you where I might not have to flex or running back, but I don't really want to play four receivers on this late either. Waller knocks, baby. Waller knocks. Let's ride. Let's move now to the Sunday only slates. That is a three-gamer starting off with the Eagles and the Bucks, the Bucks eight and a half point favorites there, total is down to 46 largely due to weather. We had the 49ers at the Cowboys right now. The Cowboys are three point favorites. Total for that game is 51. And then wrapping up with the Steelers at Chiefs, total is 46. She's shockingly 12 and a half point favorites for that game. Injury's note here, Leonard Fournette is expected back for the Bucks this week. He was designated to return from IR. He was at practice. He apparently put Sean Murphy Bunting and like a headlock. So I think he's okay. Probably a good sign. Cyril Grace and Ronald Jones are doubtful according to Bruce Arians. So I would expect them to be out. Eli Mitchell and Trent Williams did not practice on Wednesday for the 49ers. Mitchell also did not practice last week on Wednesday but went on to play. So I don't worry too much that he missed practice there. Williams missed week 18 due to an elbow injury. And I would say he's legitimately questionable. He is one of the best offensive players, best players in football. So not having Williams the left tack would be a pretty big issue for the 49ers. They wanted that on week 18 and played well offensively but just noting that that would be an issue. Miles Sanders limited in practice on Wednesday to the Eagles. To me, that means he's likely to make his return after a two game absence. Tyree Kill, Daryl Williams, Clyde Edwards-Elair all practiced on Wednesday too, which means they should be available for this weekend. So those are the notes for this slate. I think a key to mention here is the weather for Tampa Bay. 22 mile per hour winds and rain in the forecast right now. That's six because I would otherwise you Tom Brady as being a standout for the six game slate. And now he's like not even my top quarterback for the Sunday only slate. So that's I think a key for me. What are the keys for you and how are you doing this slate? Yeah, I think the weather there and philosophy with that game specifically, because we know Philadelphia wants to run the ball and that's not really how you play against Tampa Bay. If you're trying to go at their weakness, this is a rematch game. 28-22, the Buccaneers won in Philly back in week six. And Jalen Hurst had 10 carries, Miles Sanders nine. So they ran 19 times through 26 times, really dropped back 28 times. So I really do think that they might try to just keep the ball on the ground. And especially if there's wind, just try to grind clock, keep this Tampa Bay offense off the field. It makes sense that that's what they're going to do. That plus the weather makes it really hard, like you said, to go at Tom Brady. So I think that's a big factor because this is a three game slate. But if you say one of these games is going to be pretty bad, and then we have one offense that she's, well, the rain game might be better than that. One, even if it's like 40 mile per hour wins. Well, you know, like it's not to say that if Philly tries to run the ball a lot, that that game will have no fantasy points. But if it's gross, windy, low eight-odd passes, plenty of rushes, especially with Leonard Fournette back, I think that Tampa Bay would lean on him, you know, pretty heavily. And then of course, Pittsburgh, I don't think you can really justify too many like core plays from Pittsburgh. This all of a sudden goes from a six, like a six team slate to a three team slate. And that really narrows things down. Again, that's not to say like, cross off those three teams, you know, in particular, but we're talking no stacks there, you know, kind of trying to more avoid those games than actively target them. So that does really change my philosophy on this slate. Yeah, looking at the Eagles rushing offense, I think that is kind of the key for this slate because Miles Sanders, again, $5,900. I know people hate Miles Sanders, which, you know, it's fine, I get it. I can't push back on that at all. He's burned me a lot this year. I haven't used him a lot, but like he's burned me when I've used him. Anyway, they faced some really good rush defenses this year. They faced the Saints in week 11, 242 yards on the ground in that game. They were very good as a rushing offense there. You know, other teams they faced are not as stout as the Bucks, obviously, but they faced 49ers back in week two before they actually decided, hey, we should run the football jail and hurt our quarterback, weird. 151 yards rushing in that game, so I think their rushing offense is good enough to move the ball in the Bucks. The Bucks rushing defense has not been as good down the stretch as they were last year. I think they finished 10th against the Rush based on number of fires schedule-adjusted metrics. Teams didn't test that much, but when they did test them, they could move the football. So I kind of feel like the Eagles could be okay in this game from a rushing perspective, which is why I am in on Miles Sanders at 59. He's played two games with Jordan Howard. I think that is the most relevant sample here because they liked Jordan Howard. But in those games, Sanders had 94 yards from scrimmage and I think a buck 42, depending on which one we're going with. No, sorry, 146 in the other game. That was despite having snap rates of 46% and 49%. Still a lot of yardage because they were so run heavy. 36% red zone share for him in that second game, which is the one game where he left early in that game and played for most of that game before then. So I feel like Sanders at $5900 is a pretty good play for the Sunday-only slate and I'm actually considering him for the six-game slate as well. How are you in the Eagles in general? If we assume this weather does hold. So week six and week 11. Sorry, my interns were trying to run the numbers and give them to me. Yes, all 37 interns that we have, yes. By interns, I mean myself. I was trying to run my data. So week six, week 11, those two games against, those tougher run defenses that you discussed. Philly in non-garbage time, which means they're pretty snappling probabilities between 20 and 80%, had a 55% pass rate. League average in that split is generally like 59%. So they're still pretty run heavy, not maybe as run heavy, but still you'd expect that they are gonna come out and do what they can to run them all. But wasn't it week 11 specifically because week six was before they like decided, hey, we should run the football. In week 11 specifically, it was 40%. 40% pass rate? Yeah. I think we can expect some of this week. So yeah, that's a good call. Sorry, the interns are fail, I gotta. I'm your intern, I think is the takeaway here. Yeah, I have to have a word with you after the show as my intern. But yeah, I mean, like, I don't wanna simplify that entire game to like, well, Philly's gonna run the ball and that means that there's gonna be fewer plays and fewer points, but that's really what we see with rushing teams, unless you're super efficient, which they can be. I don't know if they're gonna be hyper efficient in this particular matchup, but that being said, like, they're gonna be fine bleeding clock. And if you have Tom Brady forcing throws downfield, trying to make things happen in 20 mile an hour wins without Antonio Brown, without Chris Godwin, it's not necessarily the most promising game. So I am low on this game, and therefore I think I'm gonna be high on the other two games specifically with Dallas and in San Francisco. And it may feel weird to say we're low on this game because I think that for both of us, one of the best plays the entire weekend is in this game. Other side, that's Leonard Fournette, $7,300. Coming off of IR, he was at practice last week. He was not designated to return until this week. He couldn't return until this week. See, you know, the last week was the third game in IR, but he was at practice last week. To me, that says he is going to be relatively healthy for this game. If we look at the games since Leonard Fournette's snap rate increased, it is now a 10 game sample, I believe. In those 10 games, 103 yards of scrimmage per game, that would be, if Chase Edmonds plays, that would be number two on this slate behind Sanders. Sanders is a two game sample. So of the larger samples on the slate, it'd be number one. He has a 36% red zone share on that time, 15 carries, six targets per game. It's a stupid roll. He is facing a non-elite defense. They showed during the time he was gone that they missed him. Ronald Jones is doubtful. I think Leonard Fournette, among all players in the six game slate, is the standout of everyone unless we get negative reports on his health. What about you? Yeah, and I wouldn't even care if Jones plays. Like I think it was just Leonard Fournette's backfield. We're getting playoff liney again. Ronald Jones who? Basically. Yeah, Philly, just the league average defense based on number of fires metrics against the run. Fournette just honestly is the best play. And so once you factor in, again, the weather, they're getting Fournette back who they've leaned on and who has been good in a non-elite matchup, like, I. Rosa's very Rosa says a hundred percent playoff Lenny. I hope that's what it was. I hope it was not an objection, because if she's if she's objecting to Lenny, we're going to talk about her morals and values. But this game, I think, like, I think this game honestly could profile was a lot more run heavy than, you know, we would like for maximum fantasy points. Yes, if both teams are super efficient running the ball, there are still paths to fantasy points. You know, wind just historically, though, has not been good for quarterback production, passing production. It's not like a pretty obvious take. But, you know, I think then it comes down to. How much are bumping down this game? How much, if at all, you believe in the Steelers to keep that game competitive? So, yeah, I don't care about the running backs in terms of, like, if this game is bad, because it would be bad because it is running back. So it would be more so how much do I downgrade Brady, Evans, Gronkowski, Paramin, a decent amount because of the weather, not because of, like, it being run heavy just because of weather stakes. So I would still rank Brady third among quarterbacks on the Slates, slightly ahead of Hertz, very slightly ahead of Hertz, but behind Dak and Mahomes. So it would be a it would be a downgrade for sure, because like Brady be in play for first, if not for the weather. So that's where I'm at there. Let's talk about the Bucks passing game quickly, then we'll move on to some other games here on the Sunday Slate. I think if we assume the weather sticks, I will still be in on Evans. I will still be on Paramin, still be on Gronk, just moves in down. So on the Sunday only Slate specifically, we're talking about that one, I would say it moves Evans below Tariq for sure. He'd probably be below Tariq anyway. I would it would put me, I would say even with Evans and the Cowboys receivers, probably slightly towards the Cowboys guys. And that says a lot to me because I wanted to not be super high on them. CD Lam and Amara Cooper, because things are so spread out with them. That's a concern for me. That's that's so much I would downgrade him. As far as Prashad Paramin goes, you know, I still think that he'd be an option because he's $5,200. It's not like they're not going to throw it all. They would still throw. Paramin did run a good number of routes in Week 18 because Cyril Grayson left early in that game. Paramin ran 28 routes, six targets. Two of those are deep on the red zone. Tyler Johnson ran more routes and had one more target, but no deep targets. One red zone target hasn't earned a lot of targets at all this year, despite running a lot of routes. So I prefer Paramin over Johnson. I'd still use him, but like my enthusiasm toward using him would go down. Where are you on the Bucks passing game? Yeah, I was trying to get the interns to pull up. Tom Brady splits in the wind. Chris Allen of I think he's a four for four now. He does tremendous weather work. And I think if I remember correctly, his numbers have said previously that Brady is not super negatively impacted by weather. And he's played in a lot because of Foxborough. So but it's more so like combination of very high wind and rain. That's good. Yeah. So I think for me, it's going to be hard to build around the Tampa Bay passing offense whenever I just instead can go to Dallas. We'll talk about CDLAM when we get there. But overall, I think that this is this again comes down more to like a pivot type of offense. If you're pivoting away from, you know, Patrick Mahomes, Tyra Keel, Travis Kelsey, pivoting away from Dallas. So I think that nobody's really a core play for me, given the weather. If it wasn't for the weather, I think that I could probably put Mike Evans there, Rob Gronkowski as well, although tight end honestly on this slate is pretty stacked. Yeah. But yeah, I think that this is just more of a differentiation type of play. Similar to how I'm viewing the Raiders, but I'm still much higher on this offense, even in this conditions that I have on the Raiders, I agree with you. OK, let's move now to the other games on this slate. I think to me right now, Dak Prescott is my number one quarterback on this slate. Question mark, kind of like him a lot. I think that he is up there in terms of the full six game slate, too. That is for a couple reasons. First one is Tyran Smith was on the covid list, should be back for this game. That's always enough great for him. It is a close game. Dak has had a lot of bloods recently where he's lost time later in games because they've just been oblitering. He's had bad games, too, and he hasn't played well in those games. But like the spike weeks are there. I know how to stack him like obviously the floor is not great for Lamb, Cooper, Schultz, Cedric Wilson, but they all have paths to upside. And I think that matters a lot. So I kind of think I have Dak over in my homes. What about you at quarterback? I'm not going to fight you on that one, especially with the salary savings. I know we have an extra game here, so that gives us extra extra chances for value plays. But I view them about relatively equal at salary, so I'm fine to go Dak. The thing with Dak is, when I guess this also applies to my homes a little bit more now, too, is Dak can spread it out, so hitting on the stack is tricky. But my homes is kind of doing that, too, especially in the red zone. Like that's been kind of a trend all season where they share the ball in the red zone. So if I kind of feel like I'm not going to hit on the right stack, I'm fine going. No, I don't really think I can go Dak naked. Like I think I'd still try to force a stack there. Yeah, even if I'm going to miss. But yeah, for sure, I think Dak is basically on the same plan as my home straight up and with the salary, I think I would put him by a hair over my homes for this week. Preference for you in the Cowboys pass catchers? So I did some film grinding because I was confused as to why CDLAM played so much last week, but had just two targets. His target shares have been low. He's had five, four and two targets. I know that it's unlikely to stick forever. I did. But in that film analysis that I was kind of doing, looking at that game from last week, it seemed like he just did a lot of ran a lot of go routes. And so his like his yard run per route was one of the higher marks for him all season. I don't know if that's something that they're trying to do more. Maybe it was just something match up specific that they tried to use him to space things out and throw underneath, which I could definitely. I think it's because Gallup's out. And so he's running outside, whereas he isn't the slot war and Gallup was there. Yes. So what I would say is it increases his volatility. But does not decrease his upside. No, it's not an upside thing. It's what are the odds he gives me four or five targets again? Doesn't break high and Vandal points like it's high enough that I don't think that he's very clearly the one. So I might go Amari over CDLAM. I think I'm OK letting sentiment dictate where I go here because target is pretty even if we look at the games they played without Michael Gallup. So in a game sample, they're on 19 percent CDs at 20 percent. Amari is at 20 percent, 19.6. So like one target difference. Dalton Schultz at 18 percent. I do down a bit with Blake Jarwin being back because Jarwin takes some routes away from Dalton Schultz. So that's something to note there. D targets are 30 percent for lamb, 26 percent for Cooper, 18 percent for Cedric Wilson. Cedric Wilson is at 12 percent in the sample. So like he could pay off and that's why I'm OK considering him. But like if we were talking about a full slate, I wouldn't you know, there's not enough there to trust. But for the Sunday Slates, he's well below Brandon I.U.K. Well below Brandon I.U.K. for me in that that 6,000 ish range. But he could he could be fine. The Red Zone shares. I'm going to read these to you. Lamb 9 percent, Cooper, 18 percent. Dalton Schultz 13, Zeke 13, Cedric Wilson 13. That's what I'm talking about. It gets so hard to hit the right stacks whenever they they just share the ball. And it's like I said, it's with the same thing with the chief. So I want to be fair there. Well, it's not OK. So let's let's sorry. Sorry not to correct you. But they played four games since their buy with Tyreek and Kelsey being healthy. I admitted week 18 because Tyreek was not. So you're not looking at the full season when this has been the case. No, because they shifted things since the buy. They changed some things philosophically. They stopped throwing deep as much basically. But in that four game sample, Tyreek is a 25 percent overall. Kelsey, 25, Tyreek, 47 percent of the deep work. Again, less volume. Kelsey is at 6 percent there. So use a lot more underneath, which he should be red zone share. Tyreek, 32 percent. Kelsey, 32 percent. Oh, yeah. So they're still going to be chaotic because like Andy Reid is had a. He's they've known they've done the playoffs for a bit. He has some time to cook up some some Andy Reid nonsense, which is fun. I'm pro Andy Reid nonsense. But I think those shares will go down. But I think there might be better than perception. That's fine. I mean, it's not like I was going to talk myself out of Travis, Kelsey, Tyreek, either way. No, but. I think it's more so to say I have I have full confidence in just stacking my homes of those two and not worry about the side guys. The side pieces. This is why we're putting DAC above my homes if we know where the stacks are going. So I like DAC overall more because he's playing indoors. He's facing a team that's more competitive. And I don't care as much if I with on the stack is like everyone has a bad force like it was raised it. Yeah, he's playing against the team that knows that they're bad and shouldn't even be in the playoffs. Well, one one player on their team thinks that at least. So is that OK? You want to talk about the chiefs relative to the slates? How you view and Tyreek compared to wide receiver, Kelsey, compared to tight end, etc. OK, so the chiefs we I'll let you talk about. Now, let me I'll talk about the running backs. So I don't really talk about running backs a lot. Or do you want me to talk specifically about the past catchers? Now you can talk about the running backs if you want. I just don't. What are you going to say about them? Oh, well, I just. All right, fine. I'll talk about Tyreek specifically. Do you want to talk about C.H. and Daryl Williams? Well, I think we're going to we're going to cover them, but I'll talk about you can. So Tyreek Hill has has been basically. Not like not good lately. The the fandal points have been there. The the target shares have been way up and down. But if you look back at those specific matches, he's played a lot of teams that have kind of been either good at limiting the downfield pass or just straight up limit the downfield pass. He's also been dealing with that, you know, in illness. And so I think that there's a little bit more to his workload than maybe meets the eye. There's no reason to play him, you know, run him into the ground. I think people might look back in the game logs against Pittsburgh and say, well, you know, two targets to catch his 19 yards, but he didn't even he didn't play. I think he played 41 percent of the snaps definitely wasn't half. And it really just feels like this is a spot where, you know, the Steelers are 23rd in a dot allowed. So they're not really that great at like preventing the downfield pass. So that could kind of give Hill both the underneath work that they've kind of game planned more, but also just have some more downfield work. So Hill, despite the results he's given us, I really want to have exposed like plenty of exposure to. And it feels weird because like Debo Samuel seems like the much higher floor play with plenty of stealing as well. But I kind of anticipate playing a lot of Tyreek Hill this week. So I want to hear your thoughts on Tyreek. And then I guess maybe we'll talk about Tyreek versus Debo when we're whenever we get to that game more. Yeah, I think the only downside of Tyreek is game script where like they could just blow him out and not need him. I think the role is fine. I have no concerns about that. He was a full practice on Wednesday, which means that he'll issue that crop of week 18, not a big issue. So I have him number four at wide receiver, considering salary for the full six games late behind. I mean, Teagan's I think I use up there and then Cooper Cup and then Tyreek Hill, I think he's amazing. So I'll be very high on him. I hope people avoid him because of that stuff. I don't really worry about it. Again, the only reason I hire is because I don't expect the Steelers to do a whole lot in this game. So I think Tyreek grades that really well. I also think Travis Kelsey is one or two at tight end. If we consider the the weather in Tampa Bay, because I think that Gronk would be up there, if not for that. But I think it's Erz versus Kelsey for the six game slates at tight end. You know, I think they're both standouts to me and I want to be high on them. Maybe I should be higher on the homes as a result of that. But I still think that, you know, that's that. Let's talk about running back overall. We talked about Lenny, we talked about Sanders. We still have Eli Mitchell. We do have the Chiefs running backs. You want to discuss them? We have the Cowboys running backs. You want to discuss them and Najee Harris. Where are you out on the non Lenny, non Miles Sanders running backs in the slate? I have Elijah Mitchell. The next tier after Lenny. Yeah, I agree. And then I think it's a tier drop to. I don't even know who I think. So I think it's I think it's Miles Sanders three for me, probably. We have Ezekio Elliott at what? Seventy seven, Najee, eight thousand. Those are two specific backs I would target as like. Bax with really good workloads. But no fear of a ceiling like one hundred and fifty rushing yards or like one hundred and fifty total yards and like two touchdowns. I don't really see here. Well, they don't use the red zone. Yeah, I think maybe Najee against like a team that isn't super stout against the run might just see like thirty carries. Thirty carries, sixty eight yards, no touchdowns. So against Kansas City and nineteen for ninety three on the ground, seven targets, five catches, fifteen for thirteen and a half faddle points. Now he has had over twenty faddle points and two of his past five. And that's our big knock on Najee is not having ceiling. But he scored in both of those games. I don't know. I feel like I don't need to play Najee very heavily. I don't think I'm going to get good. Six game slates, Najee or Mixon? Mixon by a mile for me. I agree. I think pretty easily there. Eli Mitchell, I'll give you my pitch and you can give yours. In the games he has played, so not even like adjusting for the fact that he's left a lot of these games due to injury. He is at eight or nineteen carries per game, two targets per game, hundred yards and scrimmage per game. And if you look at the games he has played, it's five games since George Kittle's return with himself and Debo say no in line. I know there's a lot of qualifiers there, but it's a five. This offense has been the most needed. The most caveats, I think of any correct. But in that sample, Eli Mitchell, I lost this number. I tweeted it. What would you want me to give my pitch? And then you can circle back. Let me find this. All right. Actually, I don't tweet enough. I can find it pretty easily. OK, so yeah, here we go. And since it's a five game sample in those games, since Kittle came back, this is more like later season. Eli Mitchell was probably a good thing. Twenty one carries three targets per game, one eleven yards of scrimmage. That's a very good number. That's why I think he's number two behind Lenny. And having him second is not because I dislike him. It's because I love Lenny. So that's why I like him a lot. Also, Red Zone share goes down. He's a twenty eight percent there because they give Debo some red zone work. Debo's red zone share in that sample is thirty one percent, which is absurd for a wide receiver. Rushing or overall? Overall. Thirty one percent overall share is absurd for a wide receiver. Yeah, absurd. So for me, Eli Mitchell, even if I look just at the past two games since he returned, when he played between 50 and 60 percent of the snaps, which, you know, let's say that's his role, that's fine. There's really no right way to do this, I think, with this specific offense, because there's been so much change. One of these games, even, you know, different starting quarterback for the 49ers. But in those games with potentially like a scaled back snap rate, at least we could call it. There was not a scaled back workload. He averaged 21 carries for 102 rushing yards with three total red zone rush attempts, a red zone target over those past two games. He's now had at least 21 carries in five straight games. And yes, we value targets a ton, even on Fandall, because catches and receiving yards, those are worth fantasy points. But points are good. But on a three game slate, potentially even a six game slate with not a whole lot of slam dunk running backs, like I'm fine being pretty much guaranteed 20 plus carries. And even if they are trailing, they're not going to abandon the run super quickly. They're going to lean on Eli Mitchell with Devo, Samuel, George Kittle, IU being able to kind of move the ball for Jimmy Garoppolo. I still think this offense will be competitive. It's kind of hard to view this this offense busting completely. I could be wrong there, but, you know, I feel really good with Eli Mitchell. The odds they bust completely go up if turn away and sits. So I would keep and keep his status in mind, but I still think I agree with you. Fastest game of the week, too. Yeah, I'll take that. Bucks Eagles would probably be pretty fast, too, if not for the rain. I think that that does downgrade things. I know you're not going based on that, but Cowboys being fast helps that upgrades the 49ers for sure. Some of the past catchers are the 49ers. So in that aforementioned sample, which I think is the most relevant sample, Devo is at 98 yards per game. Iuk is at 81, Kittle's at 42. So that does not mean George Kittle cannot erupt. I think that it does mean that I look at his salary at 65. If you told if you'd show me that like a week ago, I'd be like, oh, my goodness, like, how do I not just use George Kittle in every lineup? I think Kittle is still a very good play and I would like to get there. But I think he's third among the past catchers. I think it's Iuk won because the salary is so low. Debo to Kittle three, what about for you? Probably the same for me. If anyone's been listening to the show all season, they know that I'm historically a little bit low on Debo. I just find it extremely hard to project because he's such a hybrid player. I do think that he's a I do think that he's a great play. There's such a high floor baked in with the way that he gets his touches. There is obviously still a ceiling. Now the target shares are a little better than they had been when he's getting like one, two and four targets. He's had six, six, eleven, the past three games. He's just like an outlier. They're going to lean on him. They're going to get in the ball creatively. So I have no issues with Debo, but like you said, I think salary wise, it's going to be Iuk number one for me for this week. Where do you view Debo relative to other top end receivers on the full six game slates? We got Cooper Cup there. We have Evans, Chase, Tyreek, Diggs, et cetera. Where is Debo for you in that equation? Like baseline, just like floor wise, number two behind Cooper Cup. Ceiling wise, probably behind Cup and Tyreek. Maybe with like Jamar Chase. Yeah, he's behind Cup and Tyreek for me, but I think that like that's not a shot. And honestly, like given the state of running back here, where I can save salary via Lenny via Miles Sanders for the six games. Like I can go to Devon Singletary as well. That allows me to kind of get freaky and, you know, get to Debo still. So I'd like to get there. I think that he makes a lot of sense. Ayuk at 61, I think is like a standout for the six games late, much less the three games late on Sunday. Again, 81 yards per game in the sample. It's very good for his salary range. He has set new season highs in yardage in back to back games. 94 with Trey Lance against Houston. 107 with Jimmy G. Last week versus the Rams. He's showing yardage upside to $6,100 playing in a dome. A game that I like a lot. I think he's great. I think he's a tremendous play, whether you're playing the six games late or the three games late, very much in on him there. Let's touch briefly on the Steelers. How low are you on Najee and Deontay Johnson? Low, pretty low. I agree. Just that's all we need to say. That's fine. OK, priorities. Ben Roth is like so that it's not just left at that. Ben Roth is burger since going on the injury report. I mentioned it was being an option. No, no, no. Ben Roth is burger since going on the injury. Look, I know it's we don't need to talk about it, but at least like here's just this 13.6 Fandall points per game, 211 yards per game, 1.3 touchdowns, 0.9 picks expected points per drop back of a negative 0.24. That's awful. And it's 0.024 or negative 0.24. 0.24. It's it's bad and a 6.5 at eight. So that just kills upside and over the past four games, it's even worse if you adjust for opponents negative 0.29 EPA per drop back, 169 yards per game, 5.7 yard, eight, his eight, it's trending down quickly. That's not what you want for upside. And that hurts Deontay and Najee if they're not going to get into red zone position often. OK, priority plays for the Sunday only slates. Go Sunday only. Lenny, Eli Mitchell, Tyreek. I you you literally read my list. OK, you cheat like this is rude. Well, we won one on the Sunday slate. We have three at least tight ends we can consider who are studs. I would still say three to four quarterbacks that we can consider. So I don't really view any of those specifically as priorities, although you and I both have Dak and Mahomes above the two quarterbacks from Philly and Tampa Bay. So that's why my my my core plays are going to come from primarily running back and receiver. So again, for me, it's same Lenny, Eli, Tyreek, I you I think those guys are the the priorities in the slates highest of Dak and quarterback. Do you like Miles Sanders? But those are the priorities for Saturday or for Sunday. Let's move now to the Cardinals versus the Rams on Monday night. Now, we're talking here on Thursday and the single game slate is now you have been posted over on FanDuel.com. So we cannot discuss salaries from that slate. We probably know generally where people will be. We could talk about them in the context of the six game slate as well. So this game right now, the Rams are three and a half point favorites and movements in favor of the Cardinals taken. Total is forty nine and a half. Brandon, what is your view of this game? I like it. I don't want to forget about it. I think maybe people do forget about it a little bit on the six game slate, just because it's so far off in the distance. And hopefully people try to build around the Saturday slate. I don't know if that's going to be the case. I would say in years past, we probably would have seen plenty of that. So people could get up in the leaderboard early. I think that's kind of changed a bit. But I think Thursday night for like a Thursday through a Sunday or Monday slate, TG Hernandez, a four for four would like tweet out like a roster of someone who had like eight of their nine players in the one game that made my day every time. Yeah, for sure. So I don't I think we'll get a little bit of that maybe forgotten with this game just because it's so far in the distance on the full slate. But one thing I do want to note is like Matthew Stafford, I think has kind of been under the microscope lately. And if you cherry pick his worst three weeks, like over the past three games when he's thrown a lot of picks and that kills your EPA per drop back is picks. He's still at a point oh nine on a positive end. And if you adjust, he's still been pretty solid. For about 250 yards per game to touchdowns. So like I don't want to overreact to this offense. Maybe maybe I'm pitching a straw man argument here, but it does feel like people are a little bit low on Stafford based on you know, it's not a strong man. OK, no, you're right. So I don't think it's as bad. I don't think we have to like divest from this offense at all. And so that gets me very excited to play Cooper Cup for sure on the sixth game slate. I agree. If I look at the projected offensive efficiency for full games across the sixth game slate, this is number two, it's behind Tampa Bay versus Philly. That does not adjust yet for weather. So it could be number one very easily because the margin between those two is very small. That to me says if I'm playing the full six game slate, I'm kind of OK with stacking this game as being like the focal point of a lineup, starting with Kyler Murray, a quarterback because on full slates, the public tends to under roster slight underdog quarterbacks. I think they will especially do that here where like roster rates matter a little bit more at quarterback because you can see some guys run away. I think we'll see people gravitate towards Mahomes, Allen, maybe Burrow, stuff like that. I don't think they're going to get to Kyler that often. I think that Kyler stacked with Christian Kirk and Zach Erz grades out really well. Now, Joe and Ramsey is probably going to see a lot of Christian Kirk because Kirk does operate from the slot. Ramsey is in the slot a lot. So I think you do downgrade Kirk a bit. So maybe you just go with Kyler and Erz, but still either way, I think that that grades out well. You run it back with Cooper Cupp and feel good about that. So I think this game actually is kind of fun from a full six game slate perspective. Kyler might wind up being my favorite quarterback of this weekend where you had on Kyler, Christian Kirk, Zach Erz, etc. Yeah, I can see that. I do think that he'll be for a lot of reasons just a little bit less popular than he deserves to be. Again, playing that Monday angle, which could be way off base, but I really would imagine people are just a little bit lower on this game by nature, especially because that we have. If you're playing like heavy Saturday and Sunday only slates and then you throw in some entries into the six game slate, you're probably looking at this game the least. So I think that that also kind of fits via Kyler. I think it's definitely just in that conversation for QB1 for sure. And I would also lean towards stacking him with Zach Erz over Christian Kirk. Yeah. Despite the fact that we do have a lot of stud tight ends in play. I have no issues with Erz because he's really really a stud with his workload, but he's not salaried as such right now. Yeah, Erz hasn't like had blow up games from a fantasy perspective. That's because of touchdowns, not because of like workload. Like it's just been variants that's worked against him. Look at the games, the past four games with no Deandre Hopkins. Erz is at 26 percent of the overall targets, 29 percent deep and 25 percent in the red zone. He has the building blocks for a huge game. Hasn't gotten there yet. I think it could happen on Monday versus the Rams. Let's talk briefly about the running backs in this game. We have Chase Edmonds and James Connor on the Cardinals side. I'd expect Edmonds to go. We do not have an injury report yet here because they play Monday. So their first injury report is Thursday. Edmonds missed the last game with a rib injury. James Connor was not in the game late. I'm not sure if that was because he aggravated something or if they were saving him for the playoffs, but like he was not in that game late against the Seahawks. I'd expect them both to play if they both play. I don't have a lot of interest in either just because, you know, they split so much. As far as the Rams guys go, I don't know. I don't know. I don't know what it's going to be because Cam Acres, they want to get him more involved. He didn't look great on Sunday in terms of like expositiveness, but you also like you wouldn't expect him to be because like he just tore his freaking Achilles. But Michelle wasn't great either. So I think there is some, you know, some there's some room for movement in the workload for Sony. His salary kind of accounts for that. He's sixty seven hundred dollars. So like not totally opposed to him still, but like I'm not actively seeking out any running back in this game. What about you? Yeah, not specifically the running backs because we could both we could have just somewhat time shares in each of these games with Cam Acres back last week. He played 20 percent of Snaps, Michelle at 80 percent. Now, Michelle had a pretty good workload, 21 carries, four targets of which he caught just one, five Reds in rushes as well. But if they bring in Cam Acres on the goal line, which they did twice in the first drive, they did. Yeah, like that alone, you could be looking at OK, well, Sony, Michelle got me 85 yards, but what didn't convert on any of his, you know, still probably majority goal line touches. But yeah, you know, and that's kind of nitpicky. But I really think that whenever you have, if you're looking at this from a six game slate standpoint, you have better running back plays who have clearer past the ceilings. I don't think you have to get so cute that you just load up on Sony, Michelle, whose snap rate probably is going to regress from 80 percent. Yeah. So I don't really think that any of these running backs here are priority plays on the six game slate either. So you ran Sims for this single game slate, right? Yes. With the salaries. Just kind of let us know like distribution of like MVP stuff. What did you find when you ran those sins? So OK, if I use all right. So two things, historical stuff, historical optimals in my database. Games since 2019 with spreads of four and a half or tighter and totals of at least forty nine, forty nine percent of the time, the optimal quarter or the optimal MVP has been a quarterback. That's about 2.3 points above the full season or the full sample. So basically, you want your probably going to play Kyler at MVP. That's a good play. However, running backs are down about five percentage points and receivers are up about four in these high scoring games. So I think that puts a lot of emphasis on Cooper Cupp as a great pivot toward Azure MVP and actually Cup Stafford and Kyler are all kind of rating out similarly. I would bump up. This is early. So I focus on this game a little bit less. But Cup is about as likely as Stafford to finish his MVP. And I can't imagine that he would be rostered as heavily as Stafford at MVP, but they're both about twenty eight percent. And then Kyler is about thirty five percent. So it doesn't leave a whole lot left for anybody else because you're looking at time shares for everyone else. So basically, you know, Cup Stafford, Kyler, the chocolate MVP with Kyler for sure. But I think Cup is a great pivot and I think Stafford again, for the fact that he hasn't been quite as bad as Perception. I think that you don't need to. I don't think you need to get too cute after those guys at MVP. And I think I want to start there with that conversation. Likely value plays here. We're looking at like AJ Green, Antoine Wesley, Tyler Higbee, Van Jefferson, Odell, to an extent. What are your numbers saying about those guys? You know, does anybody stand out in terms of what they may provide? Stand out not so much just because of the way that, you know, the media and projections that they're based around are all pretty tame. I would say that I would, if I was pivoting to anyone else at MVP, I still think it might be Sonya Michelle, despite the fact that I was so down on him. But we're looking at even if we still played 80 percent of Snaps last week, if that comes down to 65 percent in a high scoring game with, again, goal line work, red zone work, there's still a path there. But that's on this that's in the context of a single game slate. Yeah. Outside of that, I think that value plays. I don't know what Zach Ertz's salary would be, but probably around like 11,000, which 10, 5, 11, yeah, doesn't quite put him into value territory, but I don't want to overlook Zach Ertz by any means. Outside of that, there's not a whole lot that pops because it's so dispersed. OK, some of those those other guys like AJ Green, Odell, Van, in the context of the sixth game slate briefly, because we do have a yoke in that range to Higgins is at practice this morning. Ben, baby, just tweeted that out. So I've been refreshing Ben's Twitter feed the entire morning. Thank you, Ben. We have Higgins, most likely. We have Christian Kirk, most likely. We have what we do of him, but potentially doing with a bit more jail and Ramsey. We have a yoke, et cetera, et cetera. So we actually have options. Anyone stand out to you in terms of the full slate as far as those guys go? Let me let me filter this real fast. I got I got too many things. All right, it's it's it's Boston. So for me, the interns are letting me down again. I would say probably. So probably Christian Kirk, honestly, I still think the volume is good. Good enough for him. I know the matchup might be problematic, but should get plenty of downfield work. Two point three since week 15 with Earth's and no Deandre Hopkins. So just basically once Hopkins finally left. So I think that that Kirk would probably stand out most compared to the Rams guys. Yeah, Kirk has much better yardage upside. And I think that matters a lot. He's if we look at the games without Hopkins, 94, 48, 79, 43, whereas Odell hasn't had more than 81 since he joined the Rams yards. That is 81, 28, 77, 7, 37, 39, 18. So like the yards have been pretty bad. Van can get some yards just because like he gets the kind of targets you want, 31, 63, 6, 23, 58. So maybe not. But like I think that to me, they're both below IUK. They're both below Kirk. Then maybe you get that discussion, but like they're kind of closer to Devontae Smith from you than they are to Christian Kirk. I would say so, yes. OK, any final thoughts for you on the Monday slate or on the full six game or this weekend? I still I'm starting to get the I'm hoping that we get this game a little bit less popular on the on the six game slate. And I'm hoping that that's the case. So I'm just going to kind of hope for it, Jim. Let's go, Kyler. Let's go, Kyler. That's all I got to say for this weekend. That is all we have for the wild card weekend of DFS. Hopefully that was helpful for you. Getting you're out of set for the various slates you can play. Again, just go to Fandral.com. Check out all the slates that are offered there. Stay tuned to news because we didn't have any injury reports for the Monday game yet. Only have one injury report for the Sunday games. Stay tuned to that and fill out those lineups for this weekend. Also, do not forget to subscribe to the Number Fire Daily Fantasy podcast feed. Wherever you get your podcasts, we are on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Google Podcasts. You name it, you can find us there. While you're there, leave a rating and review and also hit subscribe because we have NBAN, HLDFS via Tom Becchio, USC via Austin Swain, PGA is back as well. A lot of good stuff over on the Number Fire Daily Fantasy podcast feed. Brandon, if people have questions for you on Twitter, where can they find you there? I'm at Cadulla13, G-D-U-L-A-1-3. And I'm at Jim Sonnis, J-I-M-S-A-N-N-E-S. You can also follow the Fandral Podcast Network at Fandral Podcast. Thank you all for tuning in. Good luck to you across all the slates this weekend. We'll talk to you once again next week to get you set for the divisional round. Welcome back to Packers and the Titans. We'll talk to you then. This has been a heat check fantasy podcast powered by Number Fire.