 We have got six games and 16,000 different slates coming up this weekend. For NFL, DFS, you can play on the Saturday through Monday, Saturday only, Sunday only, single game slates all across the board. A lot of different ways to slice this puppy. So we're gonna break down all six games across Wild Card Weekend, get you our thoughts in them and get you set to win some money over on fandual.com or whichever slate you wanna play. This is the Heat Shack Fantasy Podcast powered by Number Fire. That's right here on the Fandual Podcast Network and NumberFire.com. My name is Jim Saunders. I am a senior writer and analyst for NumberFire.com. Joined here as always by Brandon Gedula. He is the senior managing editor of NumberFire.com. Brandon, the playoffs are here. We have fewer games to prep for. How are you doing today? I'm good, but I think every single year I fall into the trap of assuming fewer games means less preparation, but it actually, I think might be even more because this is like a double Thanksgiving slate where on a full slate, we're not talking about like Isaiah Hodgins at a salary of like 6,400 or looking at like KJ Osborne under the microscope, but you can't just gloss over situations easily on a smaller, and we're talking, I'm talking like in the context right now of a six-game slate. If the two-game slate, three-game slate, single-game slate, like it's not true that everyone's in play on small slates, but a lot, we're gonna be digging deeper into depth charts than we typically do. So I think it's always a splash of cold water on the face every single year, but I don't think it's gonna change. Even by next week, I will think it's a lot easier and it's gonna be just as tricky. Yeah, I think the good thing about this kind of week is that typically the content around NFL DFS is focused on the main slate, which means you'll have a lot more broad knowledge of the broad slate because that's kind of the stuff you're consuming out there. This week, like you can play a lot of different slates. Not until like our primary focus, I said primary brand, our primary focus for this podcast will not be the Saturday through Monday slate, but we're gonna talk about it. And like maybe that means that the roster construction for that slate gets under discussed. Maybe that means you go that way because there are still good contests on Fandwill for the Saturday through Monday slate. So I think it's a good week to play different slates, play different combinations of slates, try to find the ones that might be under analyzed like the Sunday through Monday slate as well, stuff like that, trying to find under analyzed offerings to take advantage of the fact that this is more of a weird, wild, wonky week than we typically get across NFL DFS. I like the alliteration there, Jim. You should be a podcast host or something. Disagree. I avoided all bad words, start with W, and I think that is impressive, but we're not gonna press our luck. Instead, we'll talk about the slate overview here in just one second, but first, a reminder to make sure you are subscribed to the Number Fire Daily Fantasy podcast feed. Wherever you get your podcast because PGA is back, we are doing weekly podcasts every Tuesday, breaking down the that week's event for Daily Fantasy Golf. We talked about the Sony Open to Hawaii this week, back again next week and every Tuesday to get you set to play some PGA DFS if you want to fill the time without like Thursday night football and stuff like that. If you wanna research something else earlier in the week, you can do that via golf, but also Tom Vecchio has the Daily ISO every weekday breaking down NBA DFS. Get those by searching for 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. The 2022 NFL season is winding down and Fandall and GMC are back to bring you the GMC Sierra Mountain Climber Pickham, a free to play contest series that gives you a chance to win a share of $10,000. And Fandall site credit every Sunday, courtesy of GMC. Of course, here's how it works. Every week, including this week, answer questions around that week's gains. The more questions you answer correctly, the higher up the mountain you will move. If during any week you answer every question correctly for a perfect score, you'll reach a summit win a share of $10,000 in a Fandall site credit for more information. Go to Fandall.com slash free slash contest slash GMC to get in that entry. Fandall.com slash free slash contest slash GMC today and start climbing the mountain. Now we'll dig into each game individually here just in one second. First brand, I want to start things off by talking about your overall view of these six games. You can talk about short slate strategy. You can talk about players on this slate, whatever way you want to go with it. What is the overriding thing standing out to you as you look at these six games? Just the one thing? I don't care. Okay. I'll have to put one open for you. We didn't say primary, so I didn't know what we were doing. That was a pre-recording callback. We don't just fight on the air. We fight beforehand too. It's good. Yes, because focusing on something, you have to clarify- You can have more than one focus, Brandon. You can have more than one focus. You can have more than one focus. So I think for this week, whether it's the two-game, three-game, single-game play, it's a little bit of its own thing, but I have content about how that stuff plays out as well. But last year, was it last year? I think it was last year. I wrote an article on Number Fire. It's called Fantasy Football Stacking Guide, examining hit rates and correlations in breakout games. And a lot of the stuff's gonna, even I have to pull this back up and make sure that the things that I uncovered are actually what I remember. But I think it's really important for this week, for all small slates, for the playoffs moving forward, to have correlations all throughout your lineup, because yes, you could go back and cherry pick the best players in an individual game and kind of put together an optimal lineup over like a three-game slate of stuff that doesn't really go together. But I think that that's gonna be less common than finding obvious correlations within a game. Even if it comes from unlikely sources, you should be able to sort of say, like, okay, here's, I can see why these players both made the lineup from this game, something like that. So I have some takeaways at the bottom of that article. But one thing that does jump out to me is like, you're gonna almost assuredly, at least on like the two-game slate, play a defense against players within your lineup. I have numbers on like, when a defense does well, which other positions, including the same team or your opposing team, or the odds that they do well, I think it's helpful. I don't wanna run through like all of this stuff, but the QB1 wide receiver one stack is super important. Running back ones kind of can be game script agnostic, game situation agnostic to a degree. If they have good projections, we're gonna have some teams with clear RB ones than others. I don't wanna just point everyone to this article, but I do think that this stuff's gonna dictate a lot of how I'm building individual lineups because correlation is going to be vital. And it's just, we're gonna be able to make the case for the best process-based plays, but we're getting one iteration of how the slays play out and you gotta find those correlations and just sort of be okay being wrong because you wanna be able to be right. I think it's also important to remember that even though we are deep into the season, we kinda know what to expect from most of these teams, betting markets can still be wrong. So make sure you are finding ways to be different without being dumb. And we talked about that for a full slate, but it's also true for a shorter slate. Now you're not gonna find guys at 5% roster rates as often who are like legitimately good plays, but finding ways to identify players who may be overlooked for one reason or another. Maybe they've been underperforming, maybe they have been, maybe they're in a game where bookmakers don't expect their team to do a whole lot. Maybe you disagree with the bookmakers. That's totally okay. And that's fair to make that assumption, make that leap and play things that way. So definitely a different build in terms of overlapping players in the same team. You don't need as much upside. That's the primary reason not to pair a running back with a tight end or something like that because if the running back score is a tight end, that's going. So on a full slate, I'm still fine with it, but it's not something I'm actively seeking out here. Tight ends are probably gonna be paired with a player on their team in almost every lineup of mine. I prefer to pair them with the quarterback because they are touchdown dependent. I'm assuming that the quarterback throws four or five touchdowns or whatever it may be and tight end will probably benefit. So for me, it leads to lumping the tight end a lot with stacks, specifically tight end is the one that I do deviate most on. I do see that on the full slates too, but especially on the shorter slates. Yeah, and it's just like again, it's sort of, we're both saying the same thing in a different way. It's like, just make sure that you're not going through and finding the best projected value plays and then plugging them in because they might not have any sort of relationship. Again, that could work out, but probably not the best way to build from scratch. Exactly. Okay, let's dig in here to the first game on Saturday. This is the Seahawks at the 49ers right now. The 49ers are nine and a half point favorites over at Fandall Sports Book. The total in this game is at 42 and a half wins speeds for this game. They have been fluctuating right now. They're currently projected at nine miles per hour. There's some rain there potentially as well, but not awful weather in any of these games thus far. Injuries here, Tyler Lockett got in a full practice on Tuesday and Wednesday despite his shin injury. He is good to go. Kenneth Walker, the third full on Tuesday did not practice Wednesday. Sounds like that is load management for his ankle injury. He should be good to go. And that's important because DJ Dallas has missed both practices thus far and there's no Travis Homer. He's on IR, DJ Dallas might not play. We might see 100% snap rate Kenneth Walker potentially in this game depending on the way things break. 49ers very healthy right now, especially with Elon Mitchell and Debo Samuel coming back in a limited fashion last. So Brandon, what are your overall thoughts on this initial game Seahawks at 49ers? Yeah, another thing that I was considering making like my overview is it's gonna be tempting to look at like past matchups. We have a few of them on this slate. Every single one repeat matchup. Yeah, they're not all relevant necessarily. Correct. In the week two game between these two teams, that's when Trailance got hurt. Jimmy G came in after that. George Kittle wasn't playing Jeff Wilson Jr. Jeffrey Wilson, Jeff Jr. Wilson. Jeff Wilson Jr. pops up, which is not accurate. I don't think that permutation is actually a thing we can do. Yeah, he was still in San Francisco, obviously no Christian McCaffrey. We're trying to penny. We're talking about Kenneth Walker maybe playing 100% of snaps. That was just a glint in the eye of an optimistic Brandon early on in the season. Ended up dropping Kenneth Walker and flowing the whole budget to get him back. But, you know, so it's gonna be tempting to wanna look back, but just don't get too caught up in that. For me, I think that this is just sort of, it's like DK's game, like DK McCaffrey's market shares. Like if I had to pinpoint one thing that I feel great about, it's like I'm just gonna load up on DK McCaff because everything points to DK having the right doting blocks for a big game. If you look at 14 matchups where Metcalf and Lockett both play at least half the snaps, Metcalf has a 27% target share, 41% red zone share, 51% of the end zone targets, four and a half downfield targets per game, which for me are targets traveling at least 10 yards downfield. So, you know, as an underdog, usually that's kind of a sign that they're not gonna score enough, but on a smaller slate, especially a two game slate, I have a hard time not looking at this game and saying, I wanna make sure I have enough DK McCaff. Yeah, I think the DK McCaff, if you look at the full six game slates, you could argue he is the best value wide receiver. And I don't mean value in terms of like, lowest salary guy with a good projection. I mean like, whose salary is the biggest gap between what I'd expect out of him and where the salary implies he should be. I think that he is arguably one of the best options across that six game slate, which means that for the two game slate on Saturday, he's gonna be very, very good. So DK McCaff in the games, the full games he has played with Tyra Lockett, the overall target share is very good. It is at 27% in that time, but 34% of the deep targets and 40% inside the red zone, that's a 14 game sample. That is not a small sample, but DK McCaff is getting a lot of work in that time. In the week 15 matchup on Thursday night, DK McCaff, nine overall targets there, tied with Tyra Lockett, first in the team. Marquis Goodman played that game. He will not play here obviously. And Travis Homer also had four targets. So I think we're gonna see a concentrated targetry. And I think a lot of that will go to DK McCaff. So I'm thinking DK McCaff is going to be one of these standout plays across the entire slate. A question for you is, we both agree Kenneth Walker III has a good snap rate projection. We both agree he has a very good role. Does the matchup nullify that for you to the point where he is not a priority on this two game slate? I think he still is a priority. We're gonna talk like, we gotta talk flex. I think that we can be okay not jamming and running back in the flex on these smaller slates, but overall with the projection being what it is for him from a workload standpoint, it's hard to move away from him based on like just marrying the snap rate and the salary of 6,600. Like that goes a long way. And I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that yes, we do have two superstar running backs on the slate with Christian McCaffrey and Austin Eckler, but I don't really love them. I can nitpick them both to a degree. And so I don't necessarily think that I need to get to them. So that helps me get up to or not get up to Walker. Usually feels like we're getting up to Walker, but just taking what we get with Kenneth Walker at that salary. So I wanna talk to you about McCaffrey because I think you could view in one of two ways. The first way is Eli Mitchell is active, which means McCaffrey's workload in those games has been pretty poor. In the games he's played, I'm excluding week 18 because he got pulled early, but the three games he's played with Mitchell this year, just 77.3 yards from scrimmage per game, 23.3 adjusts opportunities, which is carries plus two X targets. You could view that and be like, hey, you know, he gets a big downgrade, which he does. However, this is the playoffs. And I think that part of the reason why they were willing to limit him in those games is because it wasn't the playoffs. And the thought was to conserve him for the playoffs. I think we're gonna squeeze out every single touch that went to TDP, Jordan Mason, guys like that in that stretch and put them to just McCaffrey and Mitchell. Mitchell will still get work. I think Mitchell is in play in the two games late at $5,500 because he's a very good player. They should get the ball in his hands. But if you're projecting out like in the Seahawks defense, like, I don't know, making up this number, 26 carries for San Francisco, I still think McCaffrey gets a lot of those. And as a result, I think he is well worth $9,800. I think it is tough to fit him in with other guys I wanna get to. But I wanna make the effort to get there because I think he is worth that. If I have to make a consolation at tight end and use Colby Parkinson, hypothetically, to get to Christian McCaffrey, I would like to. So I think I'm higher on McCaffrey than you because we've seen the playoffs in past years where running back snap rates get jacked up if they wanna focus on that guy. I think that could have been part of the reason why McCaffrey is limited in those first three Mitchell games. So I think I am more inclined to think that we see McCaffrey with a 75% snap rate and eight targets. And that makes him worth a salary at 98. So I think I'm a little bit higher on him than you are. I think it comes down to, and again, I'm gonna try not to defer to, well, it depends on your expectations and it depends on how you think this game plays out. They're favored by nine and a half. We like Seattle from like a fun standpoint, but Seattle is reeling. They don't look very good. This game could get out of hand. So if you're playing the angle of, you know, San Francisco goes out, does its job in the first half. Christian McCaffrey is probably not gonna pay off that salary unless he has like a two or three touchdown first half and he's the lone reason that they get there. But I would not be... I don't think in the playoffs, I have to worry as much about blowouts because like A, the odds of the blowout are lower and B, you're not gonna pedal back unless you are 100% certain that you're gonna win that game. But they have Eli Mitchell who they clearly wanna get involved. If he was not there, I would say, yeah, I don't care about the score. They clearly want to get Eli Mitchell involved and can give him touchdowns. Right. So again- But I think that there are multiple paths to McCaffrey going bananas. Those paths being, it's a close game. I comprehend those, but I'm also saying that I think there's enough reason to think that he is not, I'm not viewing him the same way that I would view him in the regular season without Eli Mitchell. Just because it's a playoffs, I understand the snap rate could be better. And I think that he can take advantage of this matchup, but what do you indicates that Eli Mitchell is not gonna be relevant here? Oh, I think it'd be relevant. I think that I'm gonna have lineups where I both, McCaffrey and Mitchell in the same lineup. That's fair. I'm on board with that again, just because I'm a little bit low and McCaffrey doesn't mean I'm out on him. Right. I just think that they're gonna concentrate things so much given the leverage in this game that Mitchell can get his 10 carries and McCaffrey can still get enough work via his work in the passing game and as a rusher and being efficient as hell, like to still be worth it. So I think to me, I like Mitchell and I will use Mitchell on this slate. His primary appeal is as a salary saver, which means I'm using him as a salary saver to get to McCaffrey, which means I'll probably have them in the same lineup decently often, but I think that that actually is very viable for this slate. For the two-gamer specifically, for the six-gamer, I wouldn't do that personally. I agree. So talk to me then in terms of let's open this up and we don't wanna spend too long on just this McCaffrey situation, but I think it's worth a little bit longer. Six-game slate, how high of a priority is Christian McCaffrey for you? Pretty high. The problem is running back is very good across the six-game slate and there's good value on the six-game slate because if you look at the six-gamer, I like Jeff Wilson a lot under the assumption there's no Raheem Most, $36,000, awesome salary saver. I am on board with Kenneth Walker III in the same game. I think that if you're making the snap rate increase in an important game narrative, I think Tony Pollard might be agent zero for that in terms of, I don't know if that's a way to phrase that. Anyway, I think he's a primary guy. I'm like singling out as being like guy who snap rate could increase in the high leverage game, tries ETN as well. So there's a lot of value there. I think that I want to use the value running back to get to McCaffrey. So to me, six-game slate, I can use guys like Darius Slaton at wide receiver on the six-game slate to get there. So I think McCaffrey might be easier to get to on the six-game slate weirdly, might be a bigger priority there. Is that weird? I don't think it's weird. Again, like I'm not down on McCaffrey. I'm just saying there are reasons to think that there's a path to like an 18-point game where he scores, he has yard, or maybe he has like 120 yards, but doesn't happen to score because this team will spread the ball around. They have guys who can score. George Kettle, I must call him Travis Kelsey, he can score from 50 yards out. They can hand a ball to T.I. Mitchell on the goal line. I see, maybe it's just that I see a wider range of outcomes for McCaffrey than maybe you do. That's all. I like the wider range of outcomes because it implies Forty Burger is in his range of outcomes and I like that. So yeah, I don't really care about his floor. It's fine. It doesn't matter to me. I'm not playing, yeah. So that's for me. Other notes in this game that I have, Colby Parkinson I think is viable for the two-game slates. He had a 62% snap rate in week 18. He had three targets, 47 yards and a 12.8 yard ADOT. He was really good in college, dealt with a lot of injuries his first couple of years in the league with no will, thisly. I think Parkinson is a super viable salary saver at Tide End, $4,700. I think there are better options on the six-game slate, but on the two-game slates, I can get to Parkinson. Any final thoughts for you on this game? We gotta talk 49ers pass catchers. Oh yeah, sorry. I think Debo is under salaried at $6,900. And so on that cap, I said is one of the best values across the six-game slate. I think that Debo is not in that tier, but he is like a tier below it, which means very likely to have Debo on a six-game slate and someone I'd like to get to on the two-gamer as well. What are your thoughts on him? I, you can kiddle. Love Debo. I have him as one of my core plays for the two-game slate. Who else you asked me about just now? I, you can kiddle. They're both like, I wanna have kiddle as like a core play, but if I'm gonna go the route of like getting access to a superstar for the 49ers, it is gonna be McCaffrey over kiddle. Kiddle does have that like runaway with the slate kind of potential compared to the other tight ends on the slate. So he's great. Ayuk for me is a little bit more of a secondary play. I'd rather go with Debo. I'd rather take some savings with some other guys in the next game. And then just quickly, two-game slate only. How weird are you getting with quarterback with Gino and Brock Curty? If you're voting 10 lineups, do you have any of them? 10 probably no. Okay. Cause it's another thing and we can speed through some of this for the next games, but you don't wanna get too spread out. You don't wanna share it like for two shares of every quarterback. It's not gonna work out long-term. If I had 20, I'd get to Gino, I think. I'm doing something he runs more because he ran a decent amount last week and ran effectively and I would not be shocked if that increases this week. I think Purdy, like best case scenario frame is like 21 fan dual points, but that could be enough on the two-game slates. So I don't think he's out of play. Just not really someone I think I will use personally this week. Agreed. Okay. Let's move now to the nightcap there. The Chargers at the Jags right now, the Chargers are two and a half point favorites. Total is 47 and a half injuries in this game. Mike Williams is yet to practice this week. He suffered a back injury in week 18. They sound optimistic he will play. I'm still a little bit skeptical of that. We'll see what practice reports are on Thursday. He is at least not at full health, no matter how you wanna slice it. That's noteworthy. Joey Bosa, full practice Tuesday, Wednesday. He is good to go. Jaguars right now, pretty much fully healthy. So Brandon, when you look at this game, what are you focusing in on as being the key thing to zero in on? This one could go a lot of different ways. And I mean that in terms of like, who has a big game because there are multiple guys in this game that have passed the ceilings. I consider Keenan Allen, someone who has a ceiling based on volume. He's one of the few guys who I kind of would bucket into his own tier. But even in games with Keenan Allen and Mike Williams, playing at least 50% of the Snaps, which is a four game sample. He has a 29% target share, 2.24 yards per outrun, 33% red zone share. I do think that the $8400 tag, if we, like whether we get Mike Williams or not, might make him a little bit hard to get to with McCaffrey there on the same slate. So I think that he could go a bit overlooked. But I do like that. And if we don't get Mike Williams, then something like Josh Palmer, I'd bump up Gerald Everett. I'd look for these pass catchers for some value. So I feel pretty good about the chargers either way. The question always comes down to what are we doing with Austin Eckler? Yeah, it's a tough question this week because the Jags Rush Defense is actually very good. I know people are talking about, oh, they finally bottled up Henry last week, but they've been doing that for a while. They rank in the 73rd percentile against the Rush early downs based on my numbers. So they're a good Rush Defense. The chargers are not eighth percentile there. So of the running backs in this game, I am higher on ETN. Now the counterpoint is, Austin Eckler's snap rate tends to be around 60%. That could go up this week. With it being a playoff game, we know that even if they don't run the ball effectively, it doesn't really matter that much for him. And with Mike Williams being banged up, he could get a bump in target projection too. So there are a lot of factors that bump up Austin Eckler. And I would say if I'm tearing out like running backs on the slate in terms of prioritization, ETN is top priority, I think in a tier of his own. I would say McCaffrey is in a tier of his own in tier two. And then Eckler is in tier three. Actually, let's put Kenneth Walker in McCaffrey's tier. Eckler tier three with Eli Mitchell. I think that's the way I tear out them in terms of prioritization. I think that if I am to be wrong in Eckler, that would be too low. And that worries me. Yeah, I have the same tears aside from the fact that I threw Eli Mitchell into tier one just due to the salary. Okay, sure. But yeah, I'm with you. I think we need some Austin Eckler. I think you could make the case again. Process wise, I much prefer Christian McCaffrey, even though it probably sounds like I was low on him. I prefer McCaffrey to Eckler. But if I'm building only five or 10 lineups or something like that, or two, and I just say, you know what, McCaffrey, I don't think he's gonna have the huge EM, I think that they're gonna spread the ball around enough. I think Mitchell is gonna do enough. I'm just gonna go to Eckler, and then over like five lineups. I think you could make that case. I just prefer McCaffrey from a process standpoint, but it doesn't come down to just who makes the most logical sense, because that's not how these small slates work. I would say that if we're talking about the slate as a whole, this two game slate, I would say that I want my like first set of action to be putting in a quarterback from this game, probably Herbert's because of the matchup. I think that the Jags should be able to stop the run pretty effectively. So starting off with Herbert has salary $7,800. That is very nice on Fandwall for this week. Start off with Herbert's and then run it back with Eckler, or sorry, ETN. I think those are the two primary focuses here. And then where I go from there can change. I don't mind. I think that this is going to sound stupid. I think that my favorite stacking candidate with Herbert is Eckler because of Keenan Allen's salary. It's fine, but it is high. And if I want to get to ETNs and not like, sell my soul elsewhere, I think that I kind of have to like be okay with maybe not getting to Keenan. I think that a naked Herbert lineup where he has no stacking partner is also okay. So Eckler might be my favorite stacking partner with Herbert. But having a Chargers passing game-centric lineup paired with ETN as a bring back, I think that to me is very appealing. ETN with like Zay Jones as well, Evan Ingram, whatever it may be, that's also very good. But I think that I want to really focus in this game for like the, where I splurge outside of McAfrey. Yeah, I think that I'm with you whenever I'm building lineups. It's one of these two quarterbacks then ETN and then from there it's, you know, where do I go? It depends on how I'm playing that particular lineup from an expectation standpoint for how the games play out. Talk to me about the Jaguars pass catchers and can you rank them, including Evan Ingram? Yeah, so if we're looking at the 14 full games with Marvin and Zay Jones both healthy, Christian Kirk has slight edges over Marvin Jones or Zay Jones in all three, the overall deep and red zone target categories. Evan Ingram, 17.6% overall is pretty good for a tie down on this slate. So I would say if I'm ranking them, Christian Kirk, salary 75, coming off a big game last week, I would rank him second behind Zay Jones. Zay Jones salary is 63. I like that discount a lot. I think people, other people will as well. I think I want to give the NFL DFS public credit for being a little bit less point juicy than they have been the past. They kind of analyze, doing a better job of analyzing things for that current week. So I would say Zay will be more popular, but I'm okay with that. So Zay won Kirk two, Ingram three, but the odds that I have two of those three in a given lineup are pretty high. Yeah, I think I'm gonna even be open to like a Lawrence ETN Zay Ingram kind of just poor player because look, I like Seattle. We like Walker. We love Matt Kafe. I guess we didn't really talk about Tyler Lockett that much, but this is the game that most people, including myself, are gonna anticipate is the game. So it's easy to differentiate and go the opposite way, but this matchup, it makes a lot of sense because a lot of these guys have like between 18 and 22% target shares. I usually hate that on a full slate, but it's very welcomed on this smaller slate because if you plug in one of the quarterbacks from this game, ETN, and then one of the two stud running backs, it gets tough quick. So that's very welcomed. So Evan Ingram is the better play between him and Everett this week. How tempted are you to deviate to Everett under the assumption that Ingram monopolizes most of the popularity? It'll mostly be tied to who I have his quarterback in that lineup. Very smart. I agree with that. Speaking of quarterback, we said that if we have 10 lineups, we're probably going with just these two guys. What is the distribution for you between the two? Probably go 5-5, I think. I agree. I think the reason I go 5-5 as opposed to like 6-4 in favor of Herbert, despite liking his matchup, is Lawrence is more likely to get me rushing yardage, I think, than Herbert is. Lawrence, in the games where he's been like pushed, I know he didn't run a lot in that Tennessee game, but in that Jets game when it was raining, seven carries, 51 yards. That was after his toe injury and he was still pretty willing to run. So I think that Lawrence more likely to run and also likely to be less popular than Herbert. So I think that's why I would go 5-5 as well for the quarterback distribution. Yeah, and I'm not going to argue with anyone who wants to like go with a different quarterback to differentiate, but I don't think that, I think you can differentiate in other ways on this, even on this two-game slate. Yeah, I'd agree with that. Any final thoughts for you on this game or this Saturday slate? I don't think so. Okay, let's move to Sunday and talk about the first game there, Dolphins at Bills. Bills now 13 and a half point favorites. Total in this game has shot down all the way to 43 and a half. That is because Tua Tunga-Viloa will not play here. He has been ruled out. He has not been cleared to practice as of yet. Teddy Bridgewater likely to back up the backup behind Scala Thompson. He was active as a backup last week. We did not play. So likely Thompson is a starter here for the Dolphins where he most heard as a broken thumb. Mike McDaniel did not rule him out. Most are didn't practice Wednesday. I am assuming most of it will not play. I don't think you can play with a broken thumb as a running back personally. So I'm going to assume he won't play. Tyree Kill not even on the injury report, despite limping through week 18. So he's good to go and the Bills fully healthy on the offensive side as well. So what stands out to you for Dolphins at Bills, Brandon? Well, this one's tough. Love the Bills, which is not like just gonna shock anyone. I just don't know. And again, I understand it's the playoffs, but anytime I see a matchup that could be this lopsided, and especially for like the wildcard weekend where teams don't have a buy, they don't necessarily, if it gets bad enough, it doesn't have to be, like they don't have to push their guys too much and they can sort of just take a milk the clock situation even if the starters are still on the field. That being said, really want to build around Josh Allen on the slate. It's kind of hard to think about it differently. My, the counter for the Bills thing, heavy spread would be, they keep their foot on the gas during regular season games when they're up big. I feel like during the post-season against division rival, they're not gonna pedal back. I think they go full bore and take a flamethrower to them if they want to. And I think they probably will want to. So that's why I feel very good about the Bills offense, both for this two games or this three game slate and for the full six games. I don't think that Josh Allen is like, I was talking about McCaffrey being like a priority at running back. Allen is like creeping into that territory as a quarterback, which is not super, super common for me. Allen's salary across the six game slate is 92, very high, but well worth it. So I would say Allen to me is just a tremendous play, which is not surprising at all. The aid you can get in offsetting Allen's salary a bit is via Gabe Davis. I know Gabe has been awful. He has, he's been pretty bad. It has burned me. It has burned everyone who was listening. I'm assuming at some point this year, but if we look at their target shares from week six on, and week six on for me is because there's no David's a Crowder activated or he was designated to return in his practicing, but is not expected back this week. But from week six on with McKenzie being active too, Gabe Davis, 21% target share, 33% deep, 25% inside the red zone. If you are getting that from Josh Allen, eventually it's gonna hit. So I feel like Gabe at $6,200 is a standout for me and a guy I wanna get to often. So I will use Gabe Davis as a way to lower the effective salary of my bills passing game stack. Brandon, what about you? Thoughts on the bills passing game here against the dolphins? Yeah, I was actually gonna start with a joke and say that before we start, I wanna make it known that I love Gabe Davis this week because Jim and I, believe it or not, had a, not even an argument. I just was kind of trolling with Jim a little bit and saying that I didn't like Gabe Davis that much. But yeah, it's a phenomenal workload tied to, you know, the QB1 for the slate. You know, I like Joe Burrow, but I think that the game environment is very, very different between the two. So it's gonna be important to get enough Josh Allen on the slate. But yeah, I'm there with you with Davis. If you just average out those salaries, I'd be okay with taking the discount on Allen and overpaying a little bit in that sense to get to Davis. I just always, I'm never high enough on digs. I could say that. So how hot, like, you get 10 Josh Allen stacks to make it simple. How many have digs? How many have Davis? How many have Knox? How many have multiple? What are you thinking? Knox would be in most, I would think, just because like he has big touchdown upside. His yard hasn't been that bad recently either. He's 56, so he is in line with like some other guys who are pretty good. But I think I'd have him in a good chunk of those. I would say I'd probably go half and half, half digs, half Davis, just because like, if Josh Allen goes off, the odds that Staphon digs goes off are pretty high. So I can't go lower than half, I don't think. Yeah. What about you? Yeah, like, I wouldn't normally get that high on a full slate, but on a smaller slate, it makes sense. One of the key takeaways from that correlation piece that I talked about is like QB1 or wide receiver one is like the gold standard. And we can very easily overestimate wide receiver twos and threes in terms of their predictability of hitting a big. Not to say that Davis won't or can't, that's not the same thing, but it's telling me if I like Allen that much on a small slate, I should like Staphon digs because he is truly their undisputed wide receiver one. Right. On this Saturday slate or the Sunday slate, we have three stud receivers. I'm gonna omit Tyree Kill, not because of him, but because of the quarterback play there. But the three studs are Justin Jefferson and 9000, Jamar Chase, 87, Staphon digs 86. Rank them for me, please. I have, I have a Jefferson and I had Jamar and then digs, but I think I should probably go with Jefferson digs, Jamar. Probably fair. In an environment. I think that I will let quarterback dictate ranking between Chase and digs, but I'd agree with you that I think that that's the way to play things. The bill's running back situation always sucks. They're pretty worthless. It is worth noting that James Cook did get an increase in his snap rate last week. Devin Singletary lost a fumble and Cook did get some work. It's still not like a great role, but you know, it's a small slate. Cook's salary is 59. Will he make it into the mix for you? Probably, because in looking at the slate and who I have ranked as core plays, which I do based on like process, not necessarily just the value. I love Josh Allen, Joe Burrow, like Daven Cook, I like Saquon. All the receivers. All the receivers. I need value and I'm gonna have to get imperfect some places to get access to a ceiling. So I think he's probably gonna be there. Does this mean no Devin Singletary for you then? I wouldn't touch him with a 15,000 foot pole. Like I know that single digits can be okay on this slate, but I don't care. I'm just, if he burns me, he burns me. I don't care anymore. I'm just done. The other running back in this game is Jeff Wilson. I'm assuming now I've mentioned that he most of it does not play. If we look at the full games, Wilson has played with most or neither out or limited. He has 97.5 yards from scrimmage per game. Didn't have one dud. It was like a 70 yard game against, or something, it was something low against the Texans, but he had like 143 yards in one game too. Wilson is 6,000. I think there are good odds the dolphins get blown out, but kind of going back to what you mentioned at the top, we have to be okay with running backs in imperfect situations if their role is good. I think that Wilson is kind of like the poster boy of that this week. So how are you doing? Wilson, is he a priority for you despite the bad setup for the dolphins? Well, if we're gonna get like into semantics priority, only in the sense that I want to roster the studs. And so is he like one of the first value plays you turn to to get there? Yeah, I have them listed for me as a core play because I know I'm gonna be there a lot, but it's not simply because of his situation. It's how important that salary is to getting to all of the guys we already discussed and have not even really gotten into a deeper, like Justin Jefferson. Exactly. I'd agree with that assessment of Jeff Wilson as well. Dolphin side, what are you doing if anything with the pass catchers? Yeah, I mean like Jaylen Waddle had two big games against the Bills early on, but both of those games were with Tua quarterback. I'm not saying they're out of play, like if you're really banking on this game to play to the spread and Miami's throwing all game, volume's not really what you want from a quarterback, you want efficiency, I don't know if that's gonna be there. You can make a volume based case for any of the pass catchers just because they're talented. I will say that Trent Schurfield ran 72% of the routes last week if you're going for like a true pun play, but he didn't have a single target, so. Yeah. I think it's really tough. Yeah, I'm not doing that. I'd rather swallow my tongue and go, well, that's not a phrase. I'd rather go find the way to get to Gallup or well, Gallup for the six game slate, Slayton for the three game slate, I can't get to Schurfield. I think for me they're probably just cross offs and if it burns me, it burns me, that's okay. I just can't use everyone and I don't want to use guys tied to a third string. Undrafted I think or seventh round pick rookie quarterback, although I guess Brock Purdy is also that, but whatever. Any final thoughts for you on this game? I think we hit on everyone relevant and you made a good point where you don't want to get access because I was thinking like, yeah, we need some Tyree Kill just to, but you can't play everyone. Yeah. If you do that, you're just gonna shuffle around and that's not what you want. I agree. Okay. Let's move now to the Giants at the Vikings. Vikings are three point favorites at Fandals Sports Book total for this game is at 48 and a half. No real injuries note in this game. I think everyone is pretty healthy. So Brandon straight up, what do you think of this game? Giants of Vikings. Yes. We got a recent meeting between these two, Minnesota one by three, 27, 24 in Minnesota, Justin Jefferson, 16 targets, 133 yards in a touchdown, T.G. Hawkinson ruining my personal fantasy season with a two touchdown game of his own. But I think we have value among the Giants receivers. I think we have a superstar with Justin Jefferson. I think we have a running back at a reasonable salary in Delvin Cook with a workload that I can get behind. I think it's realistically a no quarterback game or like a half quarterback game. I'd probably say just in case I do build some different lineups, but all things considered a pretty strong game for a small slate. Yeah, it's not bad. I think there are some flaws in that neither offense is super explosive. So if I were like, if this is mostly my pitch of like, if I get the read, this game will be super, super chalky. I could justify differentiating from it because neither offense is super explosive. You know, that's kind of the pitch. I agree with that. But if we look at the six game slate, we have Baltimore, which is almost a cross-off in Miami with the quarterback situation. That's like a J.K. Dobbins. They're a cross-off, you know, they're a cross-off. Well, like, and then Miami, like there's only so many guys there. So if you cross-off or like really, really downplay this game, then you're looking at Buffalo and Cincinnati. Sounds great. Sure. I mean, I just wanted to flag that. You can't punt four teams on that. I might. I might. Well, I'm not punting them. I'm saying downgrading them if they get too popular. Yeah. Yeah, I got you. So just downgrading. Like I'd still use Dow, happily. I'd still use Jefferson happily, but like that's why I can make the pitch about Cousins and Jones. And I do think that like both those guys have appeal because Kirk Cousins, he's been more efficient since he taught Hawkins and got there. It doesn't seem like because they've gotten blown out like six times in that time. But he has been more efficient. He is at point one, two, passing net expected points per dropback with Hawkinson versus point 06 before that trade is eight out has also gone way up. 8.6 with Hawkinson versus 6.3 without. So mass of deviation, 19.9 Fandall points per game. The Vikings defensively very bad against the pass, pretty good against the rush. So I could see playing this similar to the Chargers Sea or Chargers Jaguars game where the puzzle pieces match up pretty well where I want the Jags rushing offense, Chargers passing offense. You can make the same pitch for the Giants passing offense paired with the Vikings rushing offense. The problem is the Vikings rushing offense sucks. So you're kind of putting faith in them being efficient or getting down work in the passing game. So I might view Daniel Jones at a 0.75 as opposed to a half maybe because the rushing is very good. He hasn't been efficient since Isaiah Hodgins really separated, but like he's had good Fandall point outputs because of the rushing. So I would say Jones is more of a 0.75. Like if we do the 10 lineup question, I would probably have Jones in one. I think that's fair. And I don't think that that's getting like trying to get exposure to everyone. Jones has a path to a ceiling because of the rushing. You know, at this point it's like a quite, the Giants are really weird with like what sample to use. I just looked at after the Wondale Robinson injury about excluding week 18 in that split, just 211 yards. What's that? What weeks is that? 12 through 17. So it's like recent. I had the same one. It was when Isaiah Hodgins were all expanded, which is the way I pitched it. But yeah, same sample. But 6.7 rushes per game, 46 yards per game for Jones. I think that's fun. Again, if you're playing the angle of maybe Baltimore Cincinnati plays like a classic AFC North game and it's 21, well, I don't wanna throw up for Baltimore, but, and then maybe Josh Allen just doesn't completely erupt. Like Daniel Jones could be in the perfect lineup. And it wouldn't surprise me. And he has some solid pass catchers to pair him with. I think straight up I prefer once I account for salary Darius Slayton in that sample that I cited. He's got an 18% target share, 38% air yard share, 12 yard eight odd that leads the team. Richie James has the best target share at 23%. Hodgins is at 19.7%, but has better leverage. I think they're all in play. I think people will most prefer Richie James just due to the safety of like target totals, but the juice on them is good enough to go with Slayton or Hodgins over James, not to discount James or say like I won't, I wouldn't touch him in stacks with Jones, but we have three guys who I think are relevant here. I think the primary pitch for Slayton is a matchup because the Vikings let up a very high A dot defensively and he's the guy who best fits that message with that. So in the first matchup week 15 or 16, I don't know, whatever week it was 16. I have 16, but 16, yeah, week 16. In that game, Richie James 11 targets, Isaiah Hodgins 11 targets, Saquon nine, Daria Slayton had just six, but he had three deep targets for 79 yards receiving in that game. So that to me is a pitch where he can get downfield work against the defense that lets up a lot of downfield work. He has the lowest salary and I'm not like taking a total swing for the fences in that six game sample with Hodgins snaps up. Slayton is last of that four player group and targets per game at 5.5, but he leads in deep targets at 1.7. And I think that's valuable playing indoors against a defense that lets up a lot of downfield attempts. I would rank Hodgins second somewhere to you. James third, I think they're all in play. That's not saying I won't use her to James. I think I'm fine with them, but I agree that Slayton is the best guy on this team for this week. Any Daniel Ballinger? No. You? I think it's viable if you're like going with the... It's viable, I just don't want to do it. That's, yeah, that sums up a lot of these smaller Slate plays, but... Yeah, I think I'd rather get to Dawson Knox at 56. I don't think T.J. Hawkinson's pretty good. Relative to Sauer even. All right, so a lot of Giants we like, but where are we at stake on how much of a priority is he, Seyquan versus Josh Allen? Somewhat similar salaries, like who were you most fearful not to have in your lineup between those two? For the two-game or three-game Slate, I view Josh Allen as being the bigger priority. What about you? Same. Yeah, I think having Dalvin $1,000 lower is the primary reason there. The Giants, so to prepare for this, I was going on a sheet and looking at where teams rank in different metrics that I have and doing early down, passing early down, rushing. The Giants are in the zero-width percentile. Is that a thing? Zero-width or first percentile? They're dead last against the Rush on early downs. They're very good in late downs because Wink Martindale is a psycho, but early downs against the Rush, they trash. The Vikings are too, so that is, again, worth noting. They're very bad as a rushing team, but I still think that Dalv is the better play straight up. I think he and Saquon are in the same tier, but I prefer Dalv after accounting for salary. I agree. Any final thoughts for you on this game? Anything else here? KJ Osborn, Adam Fulin. I suppose. Okay, so looking at the sample on them, since Hawkinson came to town, Thelon's at six targets per game, KJ Osborn 5.9, excluding Wink 18. Thelon 1.1 deep targets, 1.1 red zone targets, Osborn 0.8 in both those. So Thelon has had the better workloads, but his production is doggy due. So despite the fact that production is favorite Thelon, I think I would still go Osborn over him. And I think that Osborn, if we get to a situation where all the Giants guys are super popular and looking at optimizes right now, they are popping a lot. I could see Osborn being a really good pivot and Gabe Davis too, being a good pivot off those guys. Yeah, I mean, I definitely want enough Jefferson and Hawkinson, but in those lines of story, do you play Saquon and go somewhere else? I mean, I don't know. I haven't tinkered enough to know if I can play Josh and Saquon and how I feel about that. But I think Osborn and Saquon is enough to start you on a different path and you don't have to get completely wild with everything else. But I think KG Osborn himself is gonna throw a wrench into the lineups. And like you said, similar workloads overall, maybe preferring Thelon, but we've seen Osborn pop off with huge games. I don't know if Adam Thelon has that. I agree. Okay, let's move now to the Sunday night game. Ravens at Bengals. Right now the Bengals are eight and a half point favorites. Total is down to 40 and a half. And that's not great for DFS. We want higher totals tight spreads. This is not that. Still think the Bengals are pretty interesting. Lamar Jackson, this practice Wednesday, he's probably gonna sit this week. Tyler Huntley was throwing left-handed during practice, which seems bad because he is a righty. If you did not know, he has a right shoulder injury. It's not like he's actually like in question. I think he'll play, but like it's not great. Gus Edwards missed practice because he is in concussion protocol. T. Higgins didn't practice Wednesday, but it was due to an illness. He should be good to go this week. So this game, if you look at it from a like traditional process perspective is gross. I think if the world fixates on Josh Allen and that Vikings Giants game, I think that Joe Burrow becomes supremely attractive for daily fantasy as a be different without being dumb candidate. That's kind of my key thought on this game. Where are you at with this one from the top down? I'm with you. Like Joe Burrow, Jamar Chase stacks don't make as much sense as Josh Allen's, the fondig just from a process standpoint, but once you factor in variants, once you factor in popularity and trying to win tournaments, I would not be surprised if Jamar Chase and Joe Burrow were just like the Sunday night hammers on this slate to bring back that old term. I think I saw some comments from Jamar Chase saying he was like not happy with how Baltimore was playing them last week. While I don't usually put stock into that, Jamar Chase is one of the guys who I think could do something about that. I think Jamar Chase makes a ton of sense. I know I ranked Stefan Diggs ahead of him for game environment from like a baseline standpoint, but boy, it wouldn't take much for me to go pivot to Joe Burrow and Jamar Chase in lineups because we know that upside is like 30 points for each of them. Yeah. I agree that wholeheartedly. And I know that like you look at the efficiency for the Bengals in those two Ravens games they've played, it's been bad, especially relative to what they've been doing. But if you look at them against like tougher defenses, so looking at, it's kind of top 10, but I looped the Steelers in there too because they had TJ Watt and they could fit Patrick for that game, so I put the Steelers in there too. So it's kind of a fake split. But in that sample, Burrow 21 points, 22.0, fan dual points per game. This is just since they changed their scheme in week five. Point away passing that expected points per dropback. It's not great, but it's not terrible. The Bengals, 27.4, real world points per game. 37 and one, 34 and another, they can beat good defenses. The Ravens are that definitively, but I have faith in the Bengals putting up points here. I think that that Burrow would be the key catalyst and he saves you $1,200 off of Josh Allen. So let's have the quarterback discussion now. Full six game slates, how do you view the quarterbacks there? Full six game slate. I still wanna have the most Allen just because the ceiling is 40 points. I love Joe Burrow and he can put up 40, but it's gonna come from five or six touchdowns, which I know he has done that to Baltimore in the past, but I don't think it's quite the same situation. I'd go Allen Herbert Burrow. Okay, Lawrence? And I think those four are the primary, honestly, they're my only consideration set for that slate. Like Jones could jump in there, Cousins could jump in there, but I think I kinda wanna keep it to those four. Those four guys are enough where you're betting against some solid games for sure. Super stars. If you're going down to like a Brock Purdy or something, you're saying four of these guys are all tanking. Yeah. Do you get a question on YouTube from One Eye Jack Productions asking about concerns around the Bengals offensive line injuries? Alex Kappa not gonna play this game. He got hurt in week 18 against his Ravens team. And it's always a concern when an offensive line that had been gelling due to continuity now is down two starters, Lyle Collins also out. So it's a good question. The reason I am not going to get off the Bengals despite that is the sample I'm looking at here is the Bengals from week five on. And that's when they changed their scheme to be more of a shotgun type offense. That includes a bad game, two bad games against Ravens. We're not cherry picking here. It's just based on where their scheme changed. And it includes the entire absence for Jamar Chase, a couple of out games for T Higgins. In that time, borrows at 0.22, passing that expected points per dropback. Cyborg stuff in that time, despite having no Jamar Chase, no T Higgins in some of those games. So yeah, it stinks to lose offensive line, but they've shown they can excel without key players before. So I think Jack, it's more of me having faith in the coaching staff navigating around that is why I'm still there. But it's a good question to ask about that because it is a fair concern to have with them. Joe Mixon, what are you doing with him? Because if you look at the workload in the games, since he came back, it has not been great, but still 24 adjust opportunities per game in that sample, that's not bad for $7,900. It's actually a bit above Dalvin Cook and his most relevant sample, match up very much favors, Dalvin Cook, but Mixon getting a lot of work in the passing game, he's losing stuff to some of the P-Ryne, but I don't think he's out of play. So I think for the six game slate, I can cross them off because I get access to Travis Etienne, Tony Pollard, stuff like that. But for the three gamer, how do you mix in there and then talk to me about JK Dobbins after that? I think I have some combination of Saquon, Dalvin and Jeff Wilson as my top three with Mixon probably four, then Dobbins five. Is Dobbins in the Mixon tier or no? I initially don't have them there. No. I agree. I don't think that there's a path for JK Dobbins to demolish this slate. What's the size, 66? Like I think he's one of those players you could wind up being a Jamal Williams type where he's in the perfect lineup and you wish you had used him, but he's not gonna be the slate changer, like the guy you needed to take down every tournament. He could be in the perfect lineup without being a guy you needed to take it down. Yeah. That's kind of how I'm viewing it. Now that being said, I don't like love Joe Mixon. Even a week 18, you'd think like important game for them. 56% snap rate overall, but 56% in the first half as well. So it wasn't like they got to go back at all. We know that he's not gonna be there two minute running back because they just don't use him that way. He's sort of a differentiation piece. It's sort of a bet against the bills putting up a ton of points and therefore you're not necessarily jamming in Josh Allen, Stefan Diggs, instead you're building around maybe the Bengals or maybe you go, I'm playing Daniel Jones. I think that the Giants Vikings game is the best game of the week. Therefore, I don't think Joe Burrow's gonna do a ton. Jomar Chase not gonna do a ton. And Joe Mixon, they're just gonna kind of like control the game because that's all they need to do. I think that makes sense logically. That's not my first, second, or even third thought process but that's kind of stuff you gotta think about when you're building the lineup. So I think for me Mixon on this Sunday slate, the RB four. Yeah. And that might be low enough for he's not super, super in consideration. Cause again, I'm not necessarily playing three running backs in every lineup on these smaller slates. Correct. Let's talk about the non-Chase Bengals pass catchers, T Higgins salary coming in for the Sunday only slate. He is $7,600. Again, missed practice Wednesday due to illness but he should be good to go. We got Tyler Boyd at $6,000 and we have Hayden Hurst at $5,100. How do you view those guys on this slate? I think Hurst and Boyd are specific to whether I'm playing Joe Burrow. I don't wanna get overexposed to this game if I'm not playing Burrow. Correct. Because then I don't think that it's gonna be necessarily a great game. I have an eight game split with Jamar, T and Mixon all playing at least half the snaps. In that sample Jamar is at 27% of the targets but T Higgins still 22% then it bumps down to Tyler Boyd and Joe Mixon at 14 and Hurst at 13. So it is kind of still concentrated like a 13, 14% target share from a value guy. Can work on a smaller slate but I'm not going out of my way to roster Tyler Boyd or Hayden Hurst. Very often I'd rather take the value with like the Giants Vikings guys like KJ Osborne over Tyler Boyd for me. So I'm not having a whole ton. We talked about quarterback dictating tight end. Would that apply to Hurst with Burrow? Like in a Burrow chase lineup? Are you putting Hurst in there or are you seeing if you can get to guys like Dawson Knox or Fiji Hawkinson? Cause I think that I would be okay omitting Hurst from my Burrow stacks despite my inclination to lump the tight end in with the quarterback for the most part. Yeah, I'd probably try to get to Hawkinson there because realistically if I'm playing Burrow and Jamar I'm not playing Jefferson or Diggs as well. True. Probably not playing Saquon there. So the best access to another stud is probably gonna be Hawkinson. Very fair. So. Yeah, I think that makes a lot of sense. Yeah, I think Boyd relative to the Thelans, Osborns, all those guys in the 6,000 we got a lot of them. I think he's above Thelan for me, but that's kind of it. Maybe he should be above Osborn honestly. I don't know. That's tough. I think they're similar. And I think that Osborn has the larger ceiling. That's fair. Okay, any final thoughts for you on this game or on this three game slate? Just quickly, any Ravens pass catchers? Is it just Dobbins and log out? If that, okay. Even on a three game slate, I can do better. So I will. Okay, let's finish up here with the Monday night game. Now it's worth noting the single game slate is not posted yet on Fandall. So we're talking about that without salaries, but also including it in talking about the full six game slate. So Cowboys at Bucks, Cowboys, two and a half point favorites, total is 45 and a half. No injury reports yet for this game because their first practice is today on Thursday. So no practice reports, but I'd expect everyone here to be pretty good to go, which means we can analyze it straight up. I think, again, going back to something I alluded to earlier, I think Tony Pollard is one of those guys who could potentially get a snap rate bump because it is a high leverage game. As a result of that for the six game slate, if I want to be different without being dumb, he is one of the first guys I turned to. So to me, Pollard is the primary focus in this game. Where are you on Pollard? And then if you want to start with any thoughts this game you can, but let's talk about Pollard quick. I like Pollard. I don't even know necessarily because the salary is down to 6,900, how much I need like a huge bump in his workload. I have a sample weeks 12 through 16, which is with Pollard and Zeke, post Pollard's breakout, DAC back, not using week 18, Pollard 53% of the snaps, Zeke 50% Pollard, edging him out and adjusted opportunities per game with 22.8, 83 yards per game, 4.6 targets per game. I think there are a lot of paths to seeing Tony Pollard just get sort of peppered out of the backfield in this spot. And with the salary being down because these guys have been up at like 8,000 lately, it's not there. And so I think Pollard makes sense from a baseline standpoint, even with what his workload is, like what's realistically, they're not exactly the same, but it's not like JK Dobbins at 6,600 has a huge snap rate leverage and they're like we're like Pollard, I would bank on Pollard playing just as many snaps from baseline with room to grow. So I think Tony Pollard is a phenomenal six game slate play. Yeah, I think that he's more attractive on the six game slate because there are other running backs in that range who people will like and they're flawed. Kenneth Walker is a almost 10 point dog against the best defense in football right now based on my numbers. So that's a downside. JK Dobbins, his team stinks. So that's a positive for them as well. And also I don't think Pollard's gonna project well in terms of like optimizers. I think that because I've run them and I know that he doesn't pop in those very often. I would say at running back for a tournament on a six game slate, even though he's not like the quote unquote priority in terms of like being under salary, he might be a priority for me in terms of getting a guy with a massive ceiling at a low roster rate. I would say he's probably one of the first guys I plug in for a six game slate just because I wanna make that assumption that he can go bananas. Yeah, and I do think that there are enough names at running back on the six game slate from the studs down through the salary that I will flex at running back on the six game slate. I agree. For sure. But yeah, Pollard, and if you're gonna play him on the six game slate, make sure he's in your flex. Agreed, unless you don't have a running back in your flex. But yeah, cause like then, let's say hypothetically, you get to Monday and you think, okay, Pollard will be popular. I need to differentiate. You've got Chris Godwin there. It's 72, you can switch to Zeke. As another guy, you've got options if you need to differentiate. So keep that option open to you there. Would you consider swapping to Zeke? No. Oh, sorry, go ahead. 204 net. It's a good question. Playoff Lenny, he's back. He was tweeting about Playoff Lenny, which I think adds to the narrative. Nice. Four nets in the five full games for him since he came back. 82 yards since he went to per game, 25% red zone share, 10.8 carries, 6.4 targets. So actually like good numbers. Maybe that goes up in the playoffs. So I don't think it's dumb. I think it's telling too that like, Rashad White was supposed to sort of take over and once Lenny came back and was healthy, like... And Rashad White played deeper in the last week's game too. Lenny sat almost immediately, which I think is important to note. Yeah, so 55% of the snaps for him and that's of the same sample since his return. 23.6 addressed our opportunities. He can get targets that he's kind of game script proof from that sense where he's not going to get scripted out just if they trail. I think that he makes a lot of sense and I'm starting to feel like there's fear that there's too many running backs in the six games late. What a problem to have. Yeah. This is a fun slide still. I think I think the six games late is awesome. So I will have a lot in there as opposed to the other ones personally. But I think that four net is definitely an option there. What are you doing relative to Walker and then Jeff Wilson for the six games late? Like I have higher expectations for this offense. Yeah. Assuming there's no most hurt. Yeah. I'd probably go Wilson one just for the guaranteed workload. Or did I just count two, it doesn't hurt. I might go four net over Walker. I don't think that's wrong. I'm really worried. Watching the Seahawks lately is not fun. It used to be fun. It's not very fun. And they got a tough matchup coming. So. Option D in Iran and overtime was pretty fun. But yeah, I guess no, that wasn't OT. That was regulation still. But that was fun. Outside of that, yeah, you're primarily right. Not that the Buccaneers offense is the most fun. Right. So also from like a win expectancy perspective, I have the Seahawks win odds in their game. This is not like, you know, one for one. There went out to me 20 points. Ooh, that's the implied odds. 21.4%. And I have the Bucs win odds at, that's not right. Is it? Oh, that's Dallas. Okay, I was like, okay, that's weird. I had 10-phase win odds at 43.8%. So pretty high. So relative to Seattle at least. Yeah. So yeah, probably landing over Walker as weird as that is. I think you're right. I think you're right. Okay, one final little Pollard. If I have a single entry lineup for Monday night, I am putting Pollard in my highest dollar single entry MVP slot personally. I think that. I don't disagree with that. Okay. Let's talk about the Dallas passing offense here. Is Dak in play for you on the six game slate? And what are you doing with CDLAM and the other guys? I don't think on the six game slate. I love Dak. I think that he gets a bad rap, but I don't know if the true upside is high enough. Now, in weeks 12 through 16, he's at 263 yards, 2.4 touchdowns. It's thrown out like a lot of picks, but still efficient from an EPA standpoint, despite that. I don't know if the true upside is quite there, but I wouldn't really talk anyone out of it, especially because I feel like most people are gonna study the Saturday and Sunday slates more and assume that they're not just not gonna take as much interest in this Monday night game, but I can see the case for it. Obvious stack candidate specifically with CDLAM has got a 26% target share in that sample. If you go through, he's at 8.4 targets per game, but if you account for a red zone target, like the added value of a red zone target and a downfield target, I have met at the equivalent of 12.1 targets per game, which is pretty sick. So like DAC, CDLAM stack and like Chalk everywhere else still gonna be pretty different on the full slate. So I think that's fun. And I think if I don't go power to MVP, I would go LAM as the other option for an MVP on the single game slate, just kind of the guys with most easy to envision paths to upside. Talking about the six game slate here, we got LAM at 81. I think that he's a lot better than Keenan at 84 personally, just do the upside. I like him more than Evans at 77, like him more than Higgins at 76. I think the low 7,000 range is very good. You got DK there, Mike Lins if he plays down there, Debo 69 is right there. So I do like the low 7,000 range, but I think on the six game slate, getting to CDLAM is pretty enticing. I prefer Pollard just because then he'll be pretty low rostered, but I think that LAM also has a decent amount of appeal. Yeah, no problems with LAM. What about Gallup, Schultz, anyone else for you, pass catcher-wise? I'm almost in HBAB realm with the Gallup, which for the uninitiated is hit by a bus. I'd rather get by a bus and use Michael Gallup. Almost there, not quite, especially now that we have smaller slates. Gallup's salary is down to $5,600. That is very low. CDLAM will command the majority detention. That's good, but like just the yardage upside is bad. It's bad, like for the single game slate, whatever, fine. But I prefer Schultz by a wide margin over Gallup if I'm forced to use one of those guys. Sorry, I'm trying to figure this out on the fly here because you pulled a, guess Gabe Davis's target share since week six, like since their buy or whatever that was. So I have, the shares I have for the Cowboys are eight games with Tony Pollard, so emitting week 17 since their buy because Noah Brown played all those games. Okay. I have weeks 12 through 16, which again was like post Pollard's breakout, DAC back, not using week 18. Where would you think Gallup is in terms of target share? 16%. 18.4. Okay. It's not bad. I think that I would need this game to shoot out and I like, I took the under in this game, so probably not gonna see a shoot out there personally. That's fair. Okay. Tom Brady projects well from a passing yardage perspective. I don't wanna use him. Maybe you do. Don't wanna get there personally. What are your thoughts on Brady and then the Bucks pass catchers as well? Sorry, I saw a DAC at 73 and it's a Brock Purdy at 71 and my brain just read Tom Brady and I was like, wait, I haven't actually seen Tom Brady yet. So Tom Brady, lower salary than Gino, Tua, who's out, Purdy. So that's kind of, I don't know. So it's Tom Brady, Scalar Thompson and then Anthony Brown bringing up the rear or I guess, Huntley, if he plays like it's a, it's grim. I think people might be willing enough to chase like Tom Brady, Mike Evans to the point that they're overvalued. I agree. On a six game slate, I'm not going there. Even on the single game slate, like Tom Brady's not gonna be an MVP play for me. I agree. I'd rather go different and either go with DAC or like a skill, I know, like a skill player and not GM in a quarterback there. So it is what it is. Since week 13, excluding week 18, like only Chris Godwin has better than a 20% target share and he's at 20.8%. They just really spread the ball around a lot. They do throw a lot though. So I have five full games with Russell Gage being back, which might be the same sample you're using. 9.8 targets per game for Godwin, which is good. 1.2 red zone targets per game, but 0.4 deep targets per game. So his ADOT is super low. And on a six game slate, that does matter. On a single game slate, not as much, but like six gamer where we have really good plays right around him, like DK, maybe like Williams, Debo, that's tougher. So his volume is fine. I just don't know if there's enough juice in the targets right now. I'm with you. I have him at 11.9 weighted targets. Evan's at 12.5, which I know I said. Lam was at 12.1. So, but I just kind of find a difference between CD Lam and Mike Evans. Maybe Mike Evans is back. I don't know. Maybe, yeah. Evans in that sample, 8.4 overall targets, 2.2 deep targets. He's getting downfield work that does include the Carolina game. So he has that in his range of outcomes, but how likely is it to happen? I don't know. I don't know. And Evan's salary on the six game slate is 77. So within $4 a lamb, I prefer a lamb by a pretty decent margin there. Kate Aten is a lower salary tight end. He comes in at $4,700 on the six game slate. I mean, his snap rate is very good even with break playing recently has been very good, but his yards per route run is negative. I'm pretty sure you can fact check me on that, but I think it's negative. What? It's not. I lied. Let me lie. Let me lie. I said 0.61. Close enough. Same thing. And a catch rate over expectation of minus 23 and a half percent. So that's why I prefer Parkinson at the same salary despite the fact Parkinson is not the lead tight end on his own team. And his team might get, it's doors blown off. Where are you at an odd? Yeah, not really there. Single game slate, different conversation. If I like maybe do play Tom Brady, not at MVP and go out and then just sort of fade the other past catchers then sure, but that's about it. So you're saying you're not on odd on? Yeah. Okay, good. Any final thoughts for you on this game on anything else across super wild card we get? I hate that phrase. I think we covered everything in this game. I know it was a lot of like if then statements from probably for me especially, but they're necessary. I think it's necessary. And like think just think through how your lineups gonna interact on a full like 10 to 12 or 13 game slate. We try to find the best process plays because that's gonna win out longterm on a smaller slate. It's not to say play bad process plays but it's the process doesn't matter as much because there's gonna be a way more variance with fewer games to pick from. So I think that's the key. And I find it fun because I like just assuming that there's gonna be some chaos and fading very obvious plays because I just hate myself I guess but I think that that's important this week being open to being wrong and being different. Yeah, I'm also like warming to this slate even more. I think the running backs are really good on the six game slates. Yeah. There are ways to be different without being dumb. There are teams I like. So I think it's a fun slate. I'm excited to get things rolling on Saturday with that first game with the Seahawks and the 49ers. That is all that we have here for today for this wild card weekend preview but we are back with you once again next week to break down the divisional round. Save format breaking down each game talking about the various available to you to get that as it is posted. Make sure you are subscribed to the number fire daily fantasy podcast where ever you get your podcast and also check out the daily ISO with Tom Vecchio heat check, Austin Swain doing UFC stuff there as well. We have PGA all in the same feed and the NFL once also live on the FanDuel YouTube page Thursdays at 10 a.m. Eastern. Brandon, if people have questions for you on Twitter where can they find you there? I'm on Twitter at Godula 13 GDULA13. And I am on Twitter at Jim Sonnis, J-I-M-S-A-N-N-E-S. You can also follow the FanDuel Podcast Network at FanDuel Podcasts. Want to thank you all for tuning in for today. Good luck to you with all your lineups across the slates for wild card weekend. We'll talk to you all once again next week for the divisional round. This has been the heat check fantasy podcast powered by number fire.