 Week number nine in NFL DFS is going to be one that involves a lot of guessing because we don't know what the Packers will look like with Jordan Love. We don't know what Christian McCaffrey's work load will be like. We don't know if Christian McCaffrey will return. We don't know who is playing quarterback for the New Orleans Saints this weekend. There are so many unknowns and it feels great to go into a week not really knowing how things are going to play out. Our job for today is to make some educated guesses, try our hardest, and see if we can figure out what will happen in week number nine. Welcome on into the Heat Check Fantasy podcast powered by Numberfire. 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 Gannula. He is the Managing Editor for Numberfire.com. Brandon, I feel like this week is a good week for procrastinators because the poop hit the fan on Wednesday. And had I worked ahead, I would have had to have raced basically everything. So heck yeah procrastinators, let's go. How you doing today? So I think you could view this one of two ways and it's what you said where we can't prep at all. But I was almost going to say this is why I feel really good about the Monday show that we do because I'm looking at longer term samples and I'm not reacting to like Jordan Love being available at 6,000 because he's not really on we'll talk about him later. But like I don't it's very easy to fall into the trap of like throw everything out the window and look only at what's going on this week, like with injuries and what's open and just disregarding everything we talked about in detail about what we're seeing, bigger trends. So I, you know, I see it one of two ways. It's and they're very, very different. And I'm kind of trying to think like, hey, maybe we don't just react to all the news and maybe we play some guys who aren't really affected by these situations. So that's kind of how I'm leaning in at the moment. I think the issue is there aren't a lot of guys who aren't affected because we talked on Monday about how, OK, do we go with Dalvin Cook, lots of network at 9000 or do we go with the amazing receiver selections in Tyree Kill and Devonte Adams, both of whom got knocked down by this Aaron Rodgers, Jordan Love news, because it's going to make the game, I mean, by your pace numbers, the Packers are already the slowest even football. They're not going to get faster with Jordan Love. I wouldn't think they're probably going to run a lot. So it takes what was already something that was not great and knocks down a peg. So like, I think that for me, when most of my process revolves around game stacking and you take the best game stack on the board and knock it down a bunch, that's going to that's going to alter a lot for me. That's that's kind of what I meant by scrapping everything. Oh, yeah, yeah. With that game specific, that game takes a big hit. Yeah. But there are still other games that are good. We still like we have offenses that we can feel pretty solid with. In three. Let's get it. I still feel solid with the Chiefs, even with the the downgrade. I feel solid with the Baltimore Ravens. I feel solid about the Dallas Cowboys. That's three. There's two. So are you like not good with the Chiefs now? I think they're fine. I just think that they'd like they're they're not they're not in a position to. It's not about the script is about pace. Like, I just don't know how often they'll be out there. And I think that hurts at their salaries. The Dolphins, then. It's the all week. Like, I don't know, man. I don't maybe I'm just like catastrophizing. But like it was bad about the Chargers. Justin Herbert's banged up. So, yeah, a little bit. I know, I know. I I just see red flags everywhere this week. So we're going to break it down. We'll let you know our thoughts on that Packers Chiefs game. We'll talk about who is still good question mark. I don't know. Great question. We'll talk about, you know, situations that could open some value for this week in just one second. But first, a quick reminder, we do have a listener league for this week. Once again, it's fan dual dot com slash league slash listener league just a $5 entry at three entries max. There is no rake, which means fan dual gets nothing from this contest. All the proceeds right back to you, the listeners fan dual dot com slash league slash listener league. Again, a $5 entry with three entries max. 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I misinterpreted the right there right from your phone with the super easy to use Fandall racing app, $5 max bet down with the Fandall racing app. Or visit racing dot Fandall dot com for details. Eligibility restrictions applies. Let's take a look at this late overview here, Brandon. Obviously, things changed yesterday, but with where they stand now, what are the key things that stand out to you on this slate? I think. Question number one is potential value quarterbacks, because you can talk about value at running back, receiver tight end, but it doesn't quite change things like it does it at quarterback. If you have a passer, let's say specifically Jordan Love at 6,000, which is the minimum for a quarterback, or we can even throw Taysom Hill in there if he were to be named the starter at 7,000. But more specifically, we know Jordan Love is there. If you're building around a minimum salary quarterback that changes everything, you can play a lot more of the high end running backs and receivers. Not that you're going to play all of them like that. It's not that egregious, but it does change things. And I think that my slate overview begins with a long, long look at Jordan Love. And I'm kind of not that drawn in. Yeah, I think that that's that's a key focal point for me this week, but also just identifying other question marks, trying to figure out what we expect out of Christian McCaffrey as he comes off potentially off into the reserve. We don't know officially yet determining what to do with the Saints. It's a very good spot against the Falcons. Like we love that match up for sure. But how do we handle that? How do we handle the Chiefs guys? So giving myself an educated guess on these situations that are in flux. That's kind of the key for me for this week. And that's what we try to do for today. So let's dive in to the injuries impacting this weekend slate. Obviously, again, the big one is the Packers. Aaron Rodgers has positive COVID-19 and will not play against the Chiefs, which means that Jordan Love will start and said break that one down in more detail in the bookmaker section. Christian McCaffrey has been designated to return from the from IR, but not activated yet. Sam Darnold is limited in practice due to a concussion. So we don't know if either will play yet. McCaffrey or Darnold, what do you want to see with McCaffrey to justify a $10,000 salary on the slate? And how are you viewing the Panthers here against the Patriots? So PGA Walker studies preparing to start this week. That doesn't necessarily mean much of anything, but it's at least no worthy. It's not promising, I guess. And I've been I've been a fan of Darnold for the most part this season. And it started off better than it's going now. I I'm low on this offense, whether McCaffrey plays or not, just because we don't know how effective a Darnold or PGA Walker would be. And my bigger question is, like, what are the odds we're really going to know in advance, like what McCaffrey's workload is going to look like? So yeah, that's tough. You're asking what I want to see. I want to see them come out and say, like, he's 100 percent. And we're not going to get that. So, like, right. I would say we got the opposite of that on Wednesday. They said that he was limited in practice and then like they didn't have to tell us that because he's he's on I.R. So they could just like not tell us anything about his practice status. They said he was limited. So to me, that implies that if he does come back, I'm not sure what the workload would be. And this is a different situation than last year. Last year in that Chiefs game, he had practiced week before limited the entire week and was ready to go. This time, we don't know what he's been doing while he's been on I.R. He has not been at the actual physical practice because he hasn't been allowed to. Now he is back. I think to me, I'm OK being lower here and taking a wait and see approach because I wasn't OK that last year. I was very into him in that Chiefs game. I think this is a different situation, though. So to me, it's a it's a downgrade and I'm OK, potentially not getting there in part because, like, you know, there are guys right around 9000. I do like quite a bit this week that may influence things as well. Kyler Murray, Miss Practice Wednesday sounds like he still has a shot to play this week. Cliff Kingsbury said Murray could play without practicing and Kyler himself said he expects to play. A.J. Green was placed in the COVID-19 list. He is likely going to not play this week. DeAndre Hopkins, Miss Practice due to a hamstring issue. So a lot of stuff in up in the air here for the Cardinals facing the 49ers, not a terrible game. What are you thinking about the Cardinals based on what we know right now? So the the initial sort of report for Kyler was a one to three week injury. So even if he plays, we're not looking at like it was day to day and he's kind of close to 100 percent. If it's a three week ankle injury, potentially, like he's not going to be able to run. And he hasn't honestly been running that much lately. Anyway, 21, 10, six and one yards is past four games. You know, he's still going to clarify he's running as much, but he's not like running very effectively right now. So that's a concern. The big plus is that his salary is 8,200. But I would feel actually kind of better in a way if Hopkins sits that way. I could just take some some of the value, especially with Rondeau Moore, his route rate went up a lot last week to about 75 percent, maybe 70 percent without Hopkins. If I could get Rondeau Moore with even a. 80 percent Kyler Murray at 5,300 with how value is shaping up a receiver overall. We have a small handful of options I would love Rondeau Moore. But if we have Hopkins playing and Kyler just kind of is like a tepid start, I'm not going to be very in on this offense. Yeah, I think that Christian Kirk might honestly be in play too. And sixty four to dollars. I'd expect both the Dolphins guys, Devonte Parker and Joan Waddle to get a lot of interest this week. And Kirk is right above them in salary. So I don't think we'll see people go to Kirk. If they go to the Cardinals, they're probably gravitating towards Rondeau Moore. And I think that's fine. I think that more I'd agree with you where we can get that route rate up. And like, you know, maybe if Kyler is banged up, they want to get the bottom of his hands fast. That's good for Rondeau Moore, too. But I think that Kirk at sixty four would be a good pivot off of both the Dolphins guys and off more. So I would say both those guys are in play to me. So you're OK. It was good. So you're high enough on a sub one hundred percent Kyler. Not to use Kyler, but to use his pass catchers. Yeah. Yeah. Like, if he gets in at least a limited session Friday, I think that. What if what if Hopkins plays? Is there going to be enough expectation for you as from a passing standpoint from Kyler that you would still consider? Kirk, would you play Nuke? I would play I would not play Nuke. I can say that one. But I think given a green's absence, I can pretty easily justify going with Kirk or more. I think that if Nuke plays and I'm probably more inclined to take the savings with more, just because I want to lower my salary allocation to that situation. But if if Nuke doesn't play, I think I like her. So if Nuke plays, I'll be decently high on Rondeau Moore. So can some of those green snaps. And if Nuke misses all behind Kirk as a potential pivot off of the Dolphins guys and off the board. Yeah. So it sounds like I'm low on Kyler, which I am. I don't think either of us would play him unless we get some fantastic news. Yeah. But there's enough here still were. I mean, his passing has been a lot better this year than it has been like last year. Yeah. But I think that that's part of it for me, too, is I just have faith in him as a quarterback. Dak Prescott able to practice Wednesday. Seems like he's on track to play. The spread is definitely treating it like he's on track to play. They also sound hopeful. Michael Gallop will be back this week. So we'll talk more about the Cowboys and the Trends section. Tayson Hill was able to get in a limited practice on Wednesday. He is still recovering from a concussion that he suffered back in week number five. Sean Payton didn't say whether or not he would play here. I was watching a video from Nick Underhill. He sounded pretty iffy on whether he would start as well. So it's either Hill or Trevor Simeon. What's your view of this Saints team right now, depending on the quarterback? And we'll talk more about them in the Trends, but I just want to get your feel right now. It's it's it's such a hard spot. Because it's a dome game against the Falcons. So you want you want to like this team? Thankfully, though, I mean, if we're being honest, it's are we going to play out in Camara or not? Like, there's not a whole lot else here. So I don't I guess I don't have to over analyze it too much. I'll say this, I like Camara, even at the salary. I think he's a little bit over salaried for the offensive expectations, regardless of who's playing quarterback this week. But I'm still going to play Camara. And I would consider Tayson Hill lineups if he's deemed the starter, because we know that he can do a lot. And I would actually probably bump down Camara if Tayson plays because he's going to lose out on goal line work. And we'll talk about that specifically in the Trends section, too. That's a good shout out more so than like the targets. It's the goal line stuff that does impact him, too. Seguin Barclay tested positive for COVID-19 on Wednesday. He is vaccinated. So he could still get cleared if he gets two negative tests. Twenty four hours of party has not gotten one yet, though. That's worth noting he also still has the ankle issue. So he might not have been good to go regardless. Kenny Galladay, Sterling Shepard, Dante Pettis on this practice Wednesday. Kaderius Tony was limited with that thumb issue. So it seems like we're going to get another week of Devontae Booker. Seems like Tony will play, but everyone else might sit. So it'd be like Tony with Colin Johnson and John Ross, potentially. I guess Kaderius Layton, who's fine. I feel like it's it's still a limited passcatcher core regardless. So what do you view of the Giants right now? Honestly, I considered them for just to name them as one of my favorite stacks of the week with with Tony and Daniel Jones, just from a salary saving standpoint, because, you know, you can't really talk about quarterback without talking about like the whole landscape, because we have someone and Josh Allen at 9000 all the way down to Jordan Love at 6000, who's in play. So you really got to like think about quarterback a little bit extra this week, Jones at 7300 does enough for me to sort of peak my interest. We have a pretty clear, I would say, stack candidate with Kaderius Tony if the hands OK. But I do kind of feel like I'm overlooking Booker for this week. It feels a little bit like the salary is good, the role has been good. And if he if he's kind of a full go, you know, this game doesn't jump off the page at all. To me. But it's still a solid workload for a reasonable salary. Yeah, he's sixty three hundred dollars. He in the games without Seyquan, eighty seven yards per game. He had a good game on Monday against the cheese, which means cheese. But like you can do some stuff on the ground against the Raiders as well. So I think that game. Oh, shoot. I totally blanked out the fact that he played for them, mostly because it was not memorable in any way, although John Gruden loved him. So, you know, whatever, there's that. I would agree that he's actually pretty in play. We got guys down there like Damien Harris, three dollars more. I prefer Harris. I know that. But like we've got Gaskin's there. Zach Moss is there. Probably should prefer Booker over those guys like Gaskin and Moss, right? Or what do you think? I like Gaskin a lot this week due to the offensive expectations. They've got a pretty solid implied team total. The Giants are probably they're twenty one and a half. But the Raiders have been like a very susceptible defense to running backs both on the ground and out of the backfield in terms of adjusted efficiency allowed. So, yeah. Like I've just kind of overlooked Booker all week, but I do think that he's in play. I would probably still rank Gaskin first. But then Booker and Moss, even though I like. Like we like Moss, getting more passing work. But that I could see Gaskin and Booker having a path to 20 points just from overall involvement with a touchdown. Moss doesn't really have a whole lot of yardage upside. And also like I don't expect them to be that involved in the red zone. So I would rank them Gaskin Booker as like a one a one B. And then three would be Moss. You want to do a Gaskin versus Booker bet? No, I just said they're like the one a one B. I know. But like, you know, you prefer Gaskin. I prefer Booker. I think they're both in the same tier, too. But I prefer Booker. This makes me feel like I should like to want a Booker because Jim historically dominates me and had the head bets on. I did beat you in the Wayne Gullman versus Todd Gurley one, which is also a giant backup running back. I'll take it for the fun of the show. But I do think it's close. Yeah, I agree. Yeah, I don't I don't know what happened, but I wasn't really taking a long look at a Booker. I think it was because we assumed it's a quantity back this week. That probably was in the back of my mind. Yeah. So and like there was a lot of questions yesterday of whether or not he actually tested negative. He didn't. There was weird timing of tweets and stuff like that that threw people off. But I think Booker at sixty three is a pretty decent play this week. So yeah, I mean, for sure. Sounds like Odell Beckham is going to sit out this week and potentially going forward with Browns. They get the Bengals this week. Jarvis Landry was practiced Wednesday, but is expected to be good to go. Did read a story about how he and Baker are still good, despite the fact that Jarvis is Odell's best friend. So that was reassuring for me, because I was worried about. It's got to be tough on Jarvis. Yeah, he's the poor middleman. Yeah, yeah, I do feel bad for him. Maybe we can feel less bad when he scores his third touchdown Sunday. What's your view of this Cleveland offense with no Beckham? The offense, not great. Jarvis himself, pretty good. It's a good salary and his two games with at least 55 percent of the team's snaps. He's got a 26 percent target share, 28 percent air yard share at seven and a half targets per game. That works for me. And that doesn't count week seven when he didn't play half the snaps and he had eight targets in that one. So it could be even better if we lowered the threshold, but you weren't cherry picking. Good on you. Yeah, I don't like to do that stuff. I just I'm proud of you. So for me, well, this is a game I'll talk about more in the trend section. I think this game has potential to be very appealing now that the Packers Chiefs game got bumped down. We're we're seeking that top game stack. I feel like I know. Actually, I don't know. I don't know what your top game stack is at this point. I think this game is stackable. I'll say that. Yeah, yeah. Definitely there. I don't know if I could. I will not get to Baker. I probably won't get to burrow either. I think you could justify burrow, but I probably won't get there because the pace in this game is really bad. But like I'm fully OK with Jarvis, Chase stacks, Jarvis, Nixon stacks. I think those are great. So I thought I'm very in from that perspective. Coming out of the buy, both Sammy Watkins and Latavius Murray are both still sideline for the Ravens. Latavius doesn't matter, like whatever. But Sammy does matter for Rashad Payton. We'll talk about them. The bookmaker section James Robinson, mispractice Wednesday due to his heel issue. Sounds like he still has a decent shot to play. But hypothetically, if he does not, are you tempted at all by Carlos Hyde at $5,600? No, I'm good. OK, let's move to the bookmaker section. No more discussion needed and start things off here with the Chiefs and the Packers with the news. Aaron Rodgers will sit. The spread is now seven and a half in favor of Kansas City. Shocker is not favoring Green Bay. The total is down to 48. I put an adjustment for love into my numbers. And it still looks like this game is the highest-growing one of the Slates. I actually readjusted down before I mentioned this. Let me just run this one more time here. OK, crunch those. I heard you hit that crunch button. I lied. You moved down to third. So it's third again. Yeah, it's third in offensive efficiency across all teams. But hey, it's still up there. Three is not bad. So I don't think it's totally out of play for stacks. It's kind of tough to tell whether or not we should include Packers players in these. So what's your view of this game with Jordan Love starting? Doesn't it feel like completely wild that we get the chiefs at home against a Packers team with no Aaron Rodgers and the spreads only seven and a half? No, no, like six. But like, oh, yeah, yeah. And you feel like last year's fallen. Yeah, yeah, like 15. Yeah, I mean, that would be the bills are 14 and a half point favorites over the Jags. So like, actually, let me do this. You talk, I'll I'll run it if I just go based on my priors. OK. So, yeah, this is a tricky one to answer. But I'm kind of taking the. The long term view of the chiefs where I don't care what the spread is. I don't care what the situation is. They need to win games and they're not going to win games by not putting up points, which they haven't quite always been doing. But Patrick Mahomes has still been really good. His opponent adjusted passing that expected points per drop back is effectively the same mark. His Josh Allen's and nobody's worried about Josh Allen. They've had a ton of like untimely or you're worried about Josh Allen, probably not not publicly. But like perception is that Josh Allen is on V.P. Yeah, and like they've had really unfortunate turnovers in and near the red zone. And that is not what you always bank on. Like, yeah, they got to stop doing that. But like. So I'm good with Mahomes. I'm good with the chiefs. But actually, the now that I say that I'm not that great with Travis Kelsey, because he looks slow. And that's like I'm sure he's dealing with a lot of like injuries to look, but he doesn't look like himself. And we thought that, you know, teams are blanketing the chiefs. They're not blitzing. It's going to be good for Travis Kelsey. They just threw it to Tyree kill like a thousand times. So 18. Yeah, like that's crazy. So I think that Hill is still a good option. Yeah, I'm good with the chiefs, which is honestly just Mahomes. But like, how high does my home's right out for you? Because I think that like saying we're good with him is fine. But realistically, are you going to use him on Sunday? Yeah. OK, I might not because. Yeah, we use about four or five quarterbacks the most. He's very much in that consideration, still. I think he's maybe fifth. I don't have them completely ranked out outside my top few. Yeah, I think he's fifth for me. If I did, if I had to like ballpark it right now, I think he's probably fifth. So like that's still fine. And I might get there. The reason that I'm not as high is because I expect the Packers to be very ground heavy here. They are already, as I mentioned before, dead last and pace based on Brandon's numbers. They will likely be slower when they run the football bunch and they can run the football against this chiefs team, which lends itself well towards the under my concern of the chiefs is not the spread, because I think that my numbers as a six point game even after adjusting for love. So like they view a very decently competitive game. It's more so about the pace that really turns me off with the chiefs. I think the matchup is great for them because I worry about my homes against smart defensive quarters. I haven't really seen that out of the Packers thus far. So I think that, you know, we could get Hill loose. I think the Hill is still totally fine. It's more so my homes who can stink. I would also say Darrell Williams is in play once again for me. The sixty seven hundred dollars. He did lose some like high leverage work to Derek Gore last week. And Gore looked good. But in the two minute drills, it was still Darrell Williams. He got over 110 yards or he got 110 yards exactly in that game. And that's my conservative thing is yarded upside. So the Gore thing prevents me from like feeling great about Williams, but I'll use him at sixty seven. I think, again, he's below Damian Harris. He is below. Do I prefer Darrell or Devonte? I should probably prefer Darrell over. Well, no, because Devonte is not going to lose work to to Derek Gore. Because he's not in the team. But I just love when you say it that way. It's funny, but there's no Derek Gore equivalent. Like their backup is Eli Penny as a fullback. So I think I prefer Booker over Williams. What about you between those two specifically? I think it's about equal based on the discrepancy and offensive expectations. Correct. So I might as well just take some savings and go with with Booker. Yeah, I feel better about Booker's workload, but better about Williams offense, and that's what makes it pretty level there. All right, any packers for you? I don't really want the reason we use the backs is for the red zone trips and like, are they going to get them? I agree with you on love, where. Sure, he's low salary, but like realistically, the ceiling for a quarterback whose team wants to hide him against a defense that has been fine against bad quarterbacks this year in a situation where Devonte Adams, I don't think has been cleared yet. He probably will be by Sunday, but I'm pretty sure he's not been cleared yet. So like, it's not the best situation. I feel like I'm OK. Totally missing out if he blows up, I think, even for cash kids. I don't think I want to go to Jordan Love this week. Yeah, so I mean, he's projected pretty well. A lot of places, including Number Fire. And I can say that since 2018, there have been 15 quarterbacks projected for at least 15 Fandall points on Number Fire for a main slate with a salary of 6,500 or lower and against bottom 10 adjusted past the offenses entering the week, which the chiefs are. One of those 15 scored 20 points. They averaged about 12 points. So even if you're like kind of having decent projections for these guys, they are not locks to score. I was talking to Jim before the show and like we have we've had quarterbacks like in the 64-65 range with like the quote unquote potential to put up some some points and we don't play them. So I don't really see the reason to go super heavy at Jordan Love on a team that almost certainly will run the ball as much as they throw it, if not more, unless they get floored from the get go. So I'm with you. It could be dumb, but I really don't see the like. I mean, I'm not talking like talent level, but what are the expectations between Jordan Love and like what Justin Fields was whenever like we finally saw him start like they might just try to run the ball and let him throw the ball like for like 14, 15 times if they can. And Justin Fields is more talented. So that's what I'm saying. Yeah, yeah, I agree. It's not it's not to do with talent. It's like question for you, though. Matt Jones, the 65 or Jordan Love and 6,000 like neither. Well, yeah, but like, but if I would never consider Matt Jones, and I think I put Matt Jones above Jordan Love. Yeah, like we've had Trevor Lawrence in like games where he's going to have to if they're going to be trailing. This is not a good week because Buffalo is a good defense, but like. We like we didn't use Lawrence last week against the Seahawks. Yeah, like are we claring to play Trevor Lawrence against the Chiefs in this spot? Like probably not. Like I'd be more inclined than with love, honestly. But yeah, you're yeah. But like it's not like oh, you lock him in 100 percent minimum salary quarterback. It's I would be much more inclined to play Taysom Hill at 7000 if we feel good to go at some point. We need points values value. We need points and I think it's ceiling is 20. Yeah, his path to and it's like, yeah, you can say, OK, well, he got me 20 and that let me pay up for Tyreek and like Camara, who went off and it's like, sure. But if your quarterback is getting you like 19 points, that's still generally not enough, especially on a week like this, where we have a lot of good passers who have question marks. But it's not like Jordan Love has no question marks. Correct. I think people are kind of overplaying like the running angle here because like he's athletic. His like speed score is good. He didn't run a lot in college, though. So like I think we're kind of overplaying that aspect of it. So and are they going to like let him run the ball a ton? Like are they going to keep the ball in his hands and let him run? Yeah, the price can handle because they have two running. They already have two running backs to they're very good. Yeah, like get a lot of work. So right, I mean, again, and this could come back in my face and he scores 28 points because he's just run the ball and sling in it against the bad defense, but it doesn't set up that that way. I watch the Packers with Aaron Rodgers because I track pay stuff. Not that I track it manually, but like they just want to go out there and snap the ball with like two seconds left on the on the clock with Aaron. When you're seven and a half point dog against the chiefs, you should snap it with half a second, not to a half a second. Yeah. So again, I'm with you. I mean, it does lower me on the chiefs, but I'm I'm probably going to have zero Jordan Love lineups. And you asked me about other Packers, like I don't think I can play Devonta Adams with a lot of confidence or like with any confidence, but I don't even I can play him really at all because for him to pay off at a nine thousand price tag, I don't honestly be a little bit concerned with Aaron Rodgers here because they're going to try to slow it down. So yeah, we'll see. I bet I agree with you. So let's move on to the Chargers versus the Eagles in Philadelphia. That is a 50 point total Chargers favored by two and a half right now. The Chargers offense has been struggling, but this is a good match if they faced Bill Belichick and they faced the Ravens, two very good schemes, Philadelphia, the Philly blew up last week offensively. So what's your view of this one from a stacking perspective? I think this might be the game of the week then because if I had to pick one, it's very difficult to stack. I'll let you talk about it first, but then I'll I'll go through my concerns after that. Well, those are my concerns, too. I think this is the game, but the stackability of it is a little bit more tricky than than we would like. I'm still going to play Justin Herbert because the salary is good. They have kind of moved away from throwing the ball to Mike Williams a lot. I think he's got a sub, like a sub 18 percent target share and three of his past four or something like that. I was looking into him. Keenan Allen, I love Keenan Allen. I think we both love Keenan Allen, but he doesn't really have a massive upside at this point. So that's kind of an issue. Now, I don't have that issue too much with Justin Herbert because it doesn't matter who he throws the ball to. If I'm not stacking him, the problem is you always want to stack your quarterbacks, even in like a cash game, I think. So that's a bit of a concern. But for the Eagles, it's just kind of Dallas Goddard, which I feel really good about because his workload has been really strong since they got rid of Zach Hertz and I always need tight ends. So I think Herbert Goddard and like maybe Keenan Allen does make for a good cash game core in a game that should be pretty solid. And that obviously includes Austin Eckler. But yeah, like there are stacking concerns. So what are your thoughts on this game overall? I think that they like both these teams play defense that is not conducive to big DFS days because they are one of those teams that plays the way every team plays the chiefs where they're like, you're not going to be as deep. The A dot against the Eagles is the lowest in football. Like the average at the target allowed is the lowest in the league. The chargers want to be that way. They're both encouraging you to run on them and teams do do that. We saw last week, the Eagles will run, you know, finally they will run. Now that Miles Sanders is hurt, they'll run. I think that hurts Jalen Hertz from a projection perspective, from an upside perspective, I think that hurts the game. If they're going to run a lot. So to me, I was going through my love's a quarterback extra. And I had Justin Herbert's name down and like I had to erase it because I was just like. I think that the concern on the A dot is enough where I'm like, I'm having trouble getting there. So I think he's fine because the salaries low and he's a very, very, very, very, very, very good quarterback facing a not great defense, but the style they play really hurts the overall appeal of Mike Williams hurts the appeal of stuff in this game. I thought you froze. No, I was staring. You stopped so abruptly and you didn't move. I thought you froze and I was like, my internet's out. But no, I'm with you. Like, again, I think this is the game from a process standpoint. But even within that, it's like hard to stack it up a ton of ways. Right. Like I think Echler with the Goddard mini stack. Cool. I'll do that happily. It's totally fine of that. I like the tough part is it's such a logical spot to buy Mike Williams in terms of like getting in on him because like they just face two defense that are scheming to take him away and I don't have trust in the Eagles defensive coaching to do that. So like I want to get there and I'm probably going to get there to be fully honest and just kind of disregard the concerns around a dot just because like he's seventy three to dollars. I know he can torch any slate because he's so good. So I'm still going to get there. But that's the hang up I have in like going all out. Oh, yeah, Mike Williams all the time. Like I'm going to have him. But like that's the hang up for me, preventing me from getting higher than I want to be as high as I want to be. I should say. Yeah. I can say pretty confidently that this is the only game. That comes close to a two QB game. Correct, which probably tells me a lot. I should probably just like chart those and just track the how those games go where you feel good about both quarterbacks. But this is the only one the one you could maybe make the case for is the the Chiefs and Packers. But again, I don't think we're playing Jordan Love for that's more so based on salary than expectation. Whereas these guys is based on expectation. Yeah. So I think this probably just sums it up. It's like my favorite game to stack this week, but I don't even feel good about it. Right. I think that the so Herbert and Hertz are firming the second tier quarterback. I think Lamar Jackson is in tier by himself. And then you look in a DAC, Herbert Hertz Mahomes on that second tier. And then that's why I said Mahomes is probably five for me. I think he's the bottom end of that second tier, but like. It's rough. So let's talk about that guy all alone in tier one in Lamar Jackson and talk about that game against the Vikings. Total is four to nine and a half. The Ravens are six point favorites up from five and a half at open. So I think the big question here, because I know you like Lamar, too. The big question is, do you have faith of Vikings keep this game close and where does this game rank for you in terms of stacking? Um, OK, that's multiple questions. I'm going to take it one at a time. OK. I forgot the question, though. Do you think the Vikings keep this game close? Yeah. I mean, why not? Right. This game is one of the better in my overall game scores that I look at. There are concerns with it, but, you know, it's. I have it fourth, like good implied team totals for the most part. Am I missing something with why you're asking whether Minnesota keeps pace? Well, the spread widened. That was why. Also, my numbers like the Vikings more than they should. I need like a sanity check to make sure I'm not like totally off on them. As we discussed offline, I think they're too high on them. Well, I mean, like number fires, metrics have been high on Minnesota all season. They like have a lot like they just they should have a better win-loss record than they do. But I wouldn't like this game so much if we had other like games to pick from. Right. If we had the if we had the chiefs and Packers at full go, this game would probably just get bumped out. But downgrading that game so much, this is a top four game this week. So if I I told you before that I reran my numbers with readjusted for love with the Packers and reran aggregate offensive efficiency. This is number one now. This is the number one game on the slate in terms of aggregate offensive efficiency, and it also has, I think it's the tightest spread based on my numbers. No, sorry. New England, Carolina is one and then Vegas versus New York and then Minnesota Baltimore, it's three. So I like the Vikings to cover based on my numbers. I prefer to bet their team total versus betting them to cover. But I think that lends itself to so we're good. Am I? I don't know. Anyway, I think it's a close game. I think it's a high scoring game. I like Lamar a lot. And there are very logical options than the Vikings as far as stacking. So to me, it's a very good game. I think it's my favorite game to stack on this slate. Maybe that's overly ambitious, but like kind of OK with that, honestly. I don't think it's wrong to say this is your favorite game to stack. Again, I think process wise, the best game to target is the Chargers and the Eagles. But there are concerns with how just guys are getting used and we have I mean, like I've been playing Devonte Smith all season. And this will probably be the week where he actually pans out. But it's not a good Devonte Smith week from a process standpoint. I still think that there's one of the things I was going to ask you and part of why I got tripped up with all your questions is because I was going to ask you. I don't think you named Josh Allen whenever you were talking about the second to your quarterbacks. Oh, I should have. Sorry. I just wanted to make sure. No, that was an oversight. OK, he's in there. Sorry. That was an oversight of my part, because like if I do have at least one Jaguar, I can bring it back with that might be enough for me to rate. Buffalo and Jacksonville high. Yeah, from a game stack standpoint. It's like that might by default end of being my number one. OK, I have a lot of Dan Arnold. Dan Arnold, if I do that then. But like I this is clearly one of the best games. I think it's I think it's a five game week with the Chargers Eagles, Bills, Jaguars, Cowboys Broncos. This game and Houston, Miami. So who is your preferred Vikings bring back? Because in theory, I to me, it should be Dalvin Cook. The problem is the Ravens have been really good versus running back this year in terms of limiting upside. So like I think it's still Dalvin Cook, but like I am very open to, you know, going with Jefferson feeling over him because of the matchup. Where are you at the Vikings skill guys? Yeah, so probably Jefferson from a salary standpoint, that helps a lot. I don't I don't care. I don't I don't see myself playing Adam Thielen. I did want to ask you about his yardage upside being a little bit better. He's got 126 and 78 in his past two. He also has a 92 or a game in the opener. Other than that, 50 or below in four games, which is not fair. Like nitpick and sick. He doesn't have yards upside, right? Because he's got but like. We've historically been low on feeling because he just gets red zone targets and doesn't get a whole lot of yardage. Do you view him any differently? Yeah, so he is up to a 32% deep target share right now, partly because they haven't thrown as deep as much this year as they have in the past. But like he's had the past four games, three, two, three and one deep target. That's pretty good. So I prefer Jefferson, but I'm very OK having a healthy amount of feeling, too. I think it's more even than usual because I'm not a feeling person either. But I think what you alluded to with the yardage upside is kind of what's sticking out to me, where I can pretty easy to see him getting 85. The benchmark in a wide receiver is 85 yards or two touchdowns and he can get either. So I think that's why I'm more accepted to it. So I think honestly, I might just split it three ways and like make it 33% Dalvin, 33% Jefferson, 33% Thielen and like let it sort itself out, honestly. Boy, if we got to do that, though, that's so that's tough. That's a tough ask because then we have Lamar, we have Marquis Brown, we have Rashad Bateman and we have Mark Andrews. So even if you're heavy on this, like this game and you want to stack it with three different past catchers with Lamar and three different players from the other side, like if you're playing, let's say, 30, 40, 50 lineups, like you got to probably play like Lamar in every line up then because you're going to very easily miss out on the right combination of this game of this game plus then the guys outside this game that you're trying to hit on. So right, I could probably see myself locking in Lamar. He's like the one quarterback. I think that we don't have big question marks with. Yeah, I agree. I think one of the saving graces, I don't know if I was going to phrase you there. One of the positives here is I feel a good amount of conviction towards Marquis Brown and would be OK, leaning heavily on him. I'm OK with Andrews, obviously, I'm OK with Bateman, but I think that this is a very much good spot for Marquis Brown. The Vikings are letting up a lot of deep throws. Marquis Brown, I think at eight deep targets before there by so probably because of negative script, but like he's been awesome this year and I expect that to continue. So I'm OK having a strong lean towards him. I'll use Bateman a lot as a one off and I like Andrews, but I'm OK leaning pretty heavily towards Marquis Brown this week. Any final thoughts for you on this game or game stacking in general? This will probably by default be the game I'm heaviest on at this point. Load it up, baby. Let's go. Let's move now to our trends discussion for week number nine, starting off at the Dolphins here because we got a bit of a sample now. On the Dolphins with to a tongue of Iloha and Devante Parker. Parker has now played two games with Tua. They're facing the Texans. What more could you ask for to a revenge game because the Texans said they don't want him? Let's go, baby. What you got here? Yeah, I mean, this game honestly isn't too bad compared to the rest of the main slate. Six and a half point spread in favor of the Dolphins, none like terrible total. That at least puts the Dolphins offense in consideration with an above average implied team total. So I wanted to dig back into their offense with Tua and Devante Parker sharing the field. We've got those two games that Jim mentioned a weeks one and eight with Parker playing with both these guys playing at least 80 percent of the snaps. Tua has a passing that expected points per dropback mark of just point three. But he did play the NFL's best adjusted past defense in that sample. Also another top 20 unit and the Texans are 27th adjusted for opponent. Tua did overperform in that two game sample, just an average of 204 yards and half a passing touchdown, which is not really what you're looking for. But again, one of those was an extremely tough matchup. So there are concerns, but I'm not really looking to justify playing Tua. I'm looking for justification for the running backs, receivers and possibly tight end. As for the target market shares in these relevant games, Jaylen Waddle and Devante Parker each average nine targets per game, which is 28 percent of the team's looks. Basically the same area of shares, 32, 34 percent respectively. Waddle does have a better weighted target share or at least weighted target total. 11.7 versus 10.1. And the way that I get those is just giving you the extra value on a downfield target and a red zone target because those are more valuable targets in terms of expected fantasy points. But still both are very viable. They have low to mid range salaries in the low 6,000 range. I need value at receiver. Usually I consider value at receiver in the 5,000 range, but I will take these workloads at those salaries with this talent level as well. I'm also open to the value at running back with Miles Gaskin at 6,100. I mean, he's actually third on the team in these two games with a 14 percent target share. Mike Gasicki's at 9 percent, I don't think that would. Good stick, but I think he's a little bit over salaried. Gaskin, though, played 60 percent of the team snaps last week with 20 adjusted opportunities. Saban Ahmed did play 25 percent of snaps, could steal some red zone work, but kind of in on at least three of these pieces, mostly the two receivers, but also Gaskin, just because I like the workload, 60, 65 percent snap rate in a very promising situation with a pretty good red zone role. Overall, the ability to catch passes. So I like the dolphins. Where are you landing on this team and this game? Is there anything on the other side you could bring it back with? So I like Parker and I like Waddle. I've changed headphones because that mind broke. It threw me off. Yeah. While we were talking. Yeah, sorry. Like they like snapped and I could still hear, but I knew it was going to go away. So I think we're going to go with the bug ones for the rest of today. Anyway, I like Parker a lot. I'm okay with Waddle. I prefer Parker over Waddle personally. Not into Gassicky. Bet. What? Bet. Bet me. Okay. Cool. Parker versus Waddle. Yeah. I have Waddle. Okay. Cool. It's fine. I'll take that. Not into Gassicky due to the salary. Like I just don't think the workload is good enough to justify $6,500 when we've got Darren Waller at 68, Mark Andrews at 71. We've got Goddard at 62. I think I'd rather go there than those guys. So that's where I'm at with him. As far as Gaskin, like I just kind of hate the yardage upside. He's not going over 100 yet this year. And the two games with Malcolm Brown being banged up. He's at 77 and 55. He had zero seven red zone chances last week. Like he's probably going to get you like 20 to 25 adjusted opportunities, but like I'm not sure what the juice is like in those. It's kind of like a old school Devon Singletary role where I'm not sure if he can get me 25. So I don't know. I think okay with him, but I prefer honestly, my first act boss over him too. I prefer Devon de Booker over him as we discussed with our bets and Damian Harris. And I just have a hard time with him and I agree that I'm not trying to get to Tua, but I think that like I see enough here where I can feel good about Parker, feel good about Waddle and primarily those two. Yeah. I mean, for me, it's mostly those two receivers. I don't think we'll be alone in that, but I think there's still enough for Gaskin at the low salary with the good offensive expectations overall. Uh, he's not going to be like an absolute core play for me, but I mean, it seems like kind of locked into 60% of the snaps. And like you said, 20 to 25 adjusted opportunities with an offense that that should score. That's the one thing that keeps drawing me back in is their fifth and implied team total on this slate. Interesting. It's pretty high. With a solid, but not like crazy spread at six and a half points. So like they should be playing from ahead, playing efficiently, but not pulling starters and like not trying. Definitely not. I don't think this Dolphins team is capable of that. So I'd agree with you there. Let's move now to the second trend to talk about the Denver Broncos defense and their pace because I like the Cowboys a lot this week. They're one of the offense we can actually feel good about. I would say it's not a perfect spot, but it's one I feel good in targeting. The biggest blemish here is Denver's pace. They rank 30th in pace by your numbers. So it is a pace down spot for Dallas, but Dallas fast enough by themselves where this game is still running six in the main slate by your numbers in total pace, which is very good. So it's not a slog. And I think that's encouraging. I also think we can target Denver's defense with opposing players. They rank 16th overall, 13th against the pass and 24th against the rush by number fires metrics. And that rushing number is very interesting. Both Najee Harris and Dearness Johnson shredded them on the ground. Jared Patterson was pretty efficient last week as well. We know the Cowboys will run when the situation dictates they should. And I feel like this matchup may do that. That helps me interest in Zeke Elliott. He's $8,200 for the full season. He's at 99.9 yards per game. He's at 112 plus and four separate games, which means the upside here is really nice. And the red zone share for Zeke is respectable at 37%. I would be most tempted by him over the pass catchers here, because Michael Gallup may be back this week, the Cowboys, nine and a half point favorites. My numbers use this as being a more than 10 point game. Denver better against the pass and the rush. So I'm not writing off CD lamb, Mari Cooper, Michael Gallup. But I do think that Zeke is the best route for exposure to this team. And I will use DAC, stacked with Zeke, decently often. So what's your view of the Cowboys in this spot at home against Denver? I still think they're one of the better offenses to target, which is not like a bold statement because they're implied team total is second best behind only the Bills. This is a pretty heavy spread, but not something that we have to get away from entirely, especially if Denver does play slowly. It would take a longer amount of game time for this game to get out of hand. I also believe enough in the Denver offense that maybe I shouldn't. They're not the worst. To get completely blown out from the start. The bigger question mark is without Vaughn Miller, if they do just kind of get shredded even more. You make good points with the rushing success rates and stuff allowed to running backs from Denver side. This is honestly, you asked me if I could name three offenses I feel good about. This is one of the offenses I do feel good about, even with the question marks. I think it involves more endowments of the two that I feel are firm yeses. I think so too. I would also probably put the Bills there because their pass rate is not as high as I thought it was whenever they're like up by at least eight. It's about league average. What's about? Part of it because that includes when they're up by 40. Yeah. I mean, I could narrow it down, but there's still like what the NFL average is overall. So like they're still throwing the ball at like an average rate. So I would say those three, but specifically Baltimore and then Dallas, I think are just the two teams that I feel best with. Will you use Dak? Yeah. Where you got on Zeke? Love them. Okay. I just want to make sure I was on base with those two. No, Jim, I love him. Is he in your loves? Yeah. Okay. Oh, you do. Okay. Little dachs in my love. So we'll talk more about them later on. Let's move to your second trend here and talk about that Brown's Bengals game. Pace here is gross, but there are a lot of other things that are good. High total, tight spread, justifiably tight spread, I would say as well. What are you seeing here with the Bengals offense and the road they face thus far? Yeah. So this is one of those games where it doesn't jump off the page. And I think it's really easy to overlook and kind of write off, but from a process standpoint, solid enough, total tight spread that can lead to shootouts. Not saying that will, but I just wanted to dig in because it's one of these like, I can't really call it a second tier game because there's, I don't even know if there's a top tier of games, but it's like second and a half tier. But Joe Burrow and the Bengals are in a game with that tight spread. So I wanted to look a little bit closer because this will dictate whether we feel good about Burrow, sure, but more specifically, Jamar Chase, Joe Mix and T Higgins. So I did look into this spot and I have some concerns, but I also don't care. So they, like the Browns have their own issues, but we have Jarvis Landry that we can bring it back with. So like there's enough that if what I say is not going to get us away from the Bengals that like, I guess that this game plenty. Pro football focus rates the Bengals past blocking 20 second overall, but the Browns past rush fourth. Next gen stats has the Browns second in pressure rate generated. So I know that we can overlook the fact that the Bengals don't have a great offensive line because Jamar Chase has been awesome and say that they didn't need to upgrade their offensive line, but they could face a lot of pressure this week. And Joe Burrow has yet to face the top 10 team by pressure rate on his face, just two inside the top 20 by pressure rate. So he's played a lot of teams that don't really get a lot of pressure against pressure specifically whenever he's pressured on his drop backs. He's a tick below the NFL average in EPA per drop back according to next gen stats, which is not ideal by any means, but it's also not drastically worse than the next expectation there. But in the two games against at least top 20 teams are about, I think they're 12th and 13th off the top of my head. He threw for an average of 349 yards and two and a half touchdowns against the Packers and Ravens. Again, though, this is a massive step up like an outlier and pressure rate. So this could also implode. And what part of the reason I want to bring this up is because, you know, a lot more about offensive line and defensive line numbers and ability than I do. But if we can overlook that concern and say that he's going to be able to get the ball out, he's going to stay upright well enough. We have like four assets, maybe five, if we include CG Huzama, which I don't think we will, but that's relevant. And in six games with T Higgins, Higgins does lead the team with target share of the 26% 32% a yard share. Jamar Chase is at 24% and a 40% a yard share. The expected Fandall points are about the same in my model. The actual Fandall points very, very different, of course, but easy to talk yourself into Jamar Chase, easy to talk yourself into T Higgins, if you believe that the target share is willing to stick. And then Joe Nixon, he's kind of back 76% of the snaps last week, 14 carries five targets. So should I be worried about the fact that the Browns can get a lot of pressure here? Yeah, for Burrow, because like quarterbacks are so dependent on efficiency and sacks kill efficiency. They kill touchdown drives. So I think for Burrow it matters. I don't think it matters for Chase, Nixon, maybe Higgins. I think that because they give volume and we can expect them to be like the actual like yards per attempt number for Burrow, I would expect to be decently high because he's playing well. The Browns have good pieces, obviously in their secondary, but like not what I necessarily need to like avoid. So I would say like a Jarvis Nixon mini-stack, I love, very okay with that. Jarvis Chase, very okay with that as well. I think that that's my primary access to this game, but the pass rush is enough where I am, and the pass rush and the pace are enough where I'm okay, not getting to Burrow for this week. What about for you? Are you going to use Burrow or no? I don't think I can get to Burrow. I think we have a lot of quarterbacks. Again, with question mark, sure, but with pass to massive ceilings, Burrow can get there if, because we've seen him do it, and if he can just kind of stay upright and throw the ball to Jamar Chase, who will then catch it and defenders will fall over and he will run 80 yards for a touchdown because regression is irrelevant here. Correct. It's fake. Like, but like, I think there's enough with this game where if maybe there were one or two more quarterback question marks, or if I find out that whether it's going to be bad for some quarterbacks or something that Burrow is close enough that I would still consider him. Not off the map. Yeah, I think that's fair. But probably on the wait list. Yeah, wait list. Let's go ahead and put it. I like that. I'd agree, wait listing Joe Burrow, not there yet, but on standby in case we need him later on. Let's talk here about the Saints with no Jamis because we know that part. We just don't know who will be the quarterback. We also know the face of Falcons. So good defense in terms of matchup. Hard to cross them off. We do have at least some idea of what they do of Taysom Hill where it starts. Let's talk about that here because Hill started four games last year. One of those was the Kendall Hinton Hinton game, which was pretty wild. So we'll chop that one off. But in the other three games, the Saints early down first half passer is 50 percent. So far this year, they're at 49.2 percent. They were actually more passive under Taysom last year than they are with Jamis this year. So kind of the same offense. Taysom was at 0.11, passing that expected points per drop back last year, whereas Jamis was at 0.16. So again, pretty similar. So if Hill starts, we should expect the run heavy offense to keep up with similar efficiency levels. If it's Sivian, it'd likely be the same run heavy but with less efficiency. The tough part here is that it's hard to determine how we view Alvin Kamera because in those three games, he averages 79 yards per game. He's at 106 so far this year. He also had just 28 percent of the team's red zone chances because Hill stole a lot of goal I worked there. And he's at 43 percent in the red zone this year. So I do think it's a legitimate downgrade to Kamera to not have Jamis out there. And he did lose Snats to Mark Ingram last week, lost a couple of routes last week. Only 10 percent of Sivian's pass attempts went to Kamera last week. So I don't know if it pushes Kamera off the map completely because when Jason's final start last year, they acknowledged that they had to get the ball to Kamera. He had 11 carries and 10 targets, but that was still just 94 yards. So I'm having a tough time getting to Kamera at 94 to dollars. As far as Hill, if he starts, the floor should be good thanks to the rushing. I just question the ceiling because he had 24.2, 18.5, 23.6, and 19.9 fan dual points in his four starts last year. And he had Michael Thomas in those games. The environment is worse now. I can get his rushing output plus better passing at other spots like via Jalen Hertz, more so than Jason Hill. So like I get to do that instead. So I'm probably going to be low on this offense in this entire game. Am I too low Brandon? Or how are you doing the Saints here? I don't think you're too low, especially because like we need like games to be competitive for like big, big games and the Falcons. Like first of all, this game has a total of 41 and a half. Like the Falcons are without Calvin Ridley. I talked about Matt Ryan playing better and playing above opponent expectation entering last week. And he immediately lost his best receiver. Look what you did. Yes. Now he did he did that against weak past defenses, which I talked about. And even with that, he was overperforming played a better past defense last week without Ridley and was bad. So like are they going to have to do a lot? Are they going to have to do enough for Jason Hill to like throw the ball? And if he doesn't throw the ball ton, his path to a big game is very, very small. The reason that like the stud quarterbacks like a Lamar Jackson now or kind of Murray's probably the best example. The reason that these guys are worth their lofty salaries almost every week is because they throw the ball about as much as like a traditional quarterback. And then they run the ball for like 40 yards with touchdown upside. It's different if you really only run the ball and they might not have to throw the ball ton. So like keep saying the ball a lot, but like what like what are the odds that this game goes? I don't want to say over, but like goes over 50 points. It seems extremely low. So I'm kind of low on Khmer myself. I think he's going to be a good snake draft pick for this week. But like 9400 is asking a lot for a back who very easily could have a worst red zone role and just few red zone trips this week. So straight up, not considering salary. Alvin Khmer or Austin Eckler. I knew that was common. I would probably say Eckler. I agree. Khmer or Dalvin Cook in a top matchup. Probably, probably Khmer. I think it's close though, right? It's close. Right. I think I lean Khmer there too, but it's very close. Yeah. Mike talked myself into Dalv by the time we get to Sunday. It's very close. I think those are the primary ones there. And what about Dalvin? 60 dollars lower. Yeah. What about this? And this is 900 now. Aaron Jones. Like we haven't, we kind of glossed over Aaron Jones when we talked about the Packers. Khmer. Okay. Khmer. Because of because of because the threats to his workload are lesser than the threats to Aaron Jones workload. They both have threats. But I think that Khmer is our lesser. I also like, I have higher expectations of the offense. So. I mean, bookmakers don't, or sorry, sorry, they do. I was looking at the Falcons though, my bad. Yeah. So I think that's where I'm at. What about you? Khmer even at salary, but I feel like Aaron Jones might get a lot of, it's hard to tell because people might think that he'll just get as much work as he can see. I've seen that sentiment on Twitter already. So I think that'll happen. I would not be shocked if AJ Dillon catches popularity too. Yeah. I'm going to be low on Aaron Jones. We're just scary in this rushing matchup, but with the expectations overall, I can't hate myself too much for it. Yeah. I agree. So let's move now to the weather. Two games to flag in terms of wind, but nothing too outrageous right now. Miami versus Houston. Winds are at 15 miles per hour. That's right at the threshold. I wouldn't worry too much yet, but just check back on on Sunday. 2-1 much. What's that? You wouldn't worry too much. Get out of here. Who invited you on the show? Winds and kid in the city for the cheese packers are 13 miles per hour again. Nothing to be too worried about right now, but just check back on that later. So let's move into our position by position plays for week number nine for the fan dual main slave Brandon starting off a quarterback. Who stands out to you there? The one quarterback I feel best about, and I feel like is a lock for our head-to-head this week is Lamar Jackson. It's a great salary and a great overall game. My Sims currently have him at 53% likely to get to 25 fan dual points. Just three quarterbacks overall are at above 35%. That's Josh Allen, Lamar and Mahomes. Only 10 or above 20%. I know that we have lower salary options, but there are plenty of quarterbacks who can put up 30. And I don't really think it's coming from Jordan Love this week. So I don't want to miss out. And so I'm going to go with Lamar. He's faced just one top 12 past defense. Minnesota is pretty solid there for sure, but I'm good with Lamar. I think he has the fewest question marks of the week and also has the easiest stack candidates, which is kind of wild to think about at this point. And then my second love is, I think for both of us, our second loves would be a little bit conditional. I'm going to go Justin Herbert at 76. I love the salary. I like this game a lot. He's faced one past defense inside the top 20 this year, according to Number Fires Metrics, Philly's 17th. If you remove that game against the top 10 past defense, he's averaged 278 yards, two and a half touchdowns, over 22 fan dual points per game. He is fourth in 90th percentile value in my Sims. So again, everyone has question marks, aside from probably Lamar. Sometimes I'll take some savings on Justin Herbert. And again, I was on Herbert initially, just got scared off by the eight out of loud, but I think he's firmed that second tier for me as well. My one is Lamar. I think that can kind of go without saying. Lamar Jackson, my first love this week, $8,300. He has 50 plus rushing yards, about one game this year, and 25 plus past attempts in every game, which is a deviation. They're throwing a lot, which is great. So love Lamar. He will be my default quarterback this week. Followed by Dak, I think. I'm willing to stack him a Z-Kear to make things a bit easier. Dallas ranks second on the main slate and projected offensive efficiency for me behind just Buffalo. But Dak is an $1,100 discount from Josh Allen. This game is indoors. The spread is closer. Dak has had 27 plus points and three out of six games this year. I'm expecting to be pretty much in full go this week. So I like Dak a lot and would like to be heavy on Dak. Again, primary stacking candidate Zeke, which feels weird, but I think that's appropriate for this week. Let's move to your running back. Speak of the devil, Brandon, but you got it as your love at running back. I'm going to go with Zeke to start it off. 29 and a half point. Implied team total second only to the Bills this week. Denver just traded Vaughn Miller. They haven't even been good against, you know, their defense has been so-so against the rush. So you would think that they'll be able to play from ahead, but probably not dominate. I do feel at least decent enough about Denver's offense and the pace situation where you can probably just feed Zeke. Also, Dak's not 100%. I mean, he might be, but you would think he's not fully 100%, just coming off that injury. He's played 72% of snaps this year with 24.3 adjusted opportunities per game. My second love is going to be Joe Mixon at 7400 just because there's not a whole lot to feel great about a running back. So I'm going to go with Mixon at a good salary. The Browns are not the best rushing matchup by any means, but it can really only do so much when the Slade is so weird at running back. I will need value and kind of assuming that we're not going to play a whole lot on McCaffrey, but if we get reports that he's going to play and be 100%, then we're going to need some value. So any savings I can get at running back is good. Mixon played 76% of snaps last week. 14 carries five targets, tight spread, high-ish total, not the worst game, good red zone roll for him. My third love probably should be Devonte Booker, but I still don't know if Seguin's going to play. Probably sounds like he's not going to play, but I'm going to go with Miles Gaskin here. I keep wavering on him. I like this offense a lot. I talked about that in detail. Good implied team total of 26 points. It should play from ahead. And Gaskin for his workload concerns, he's one of nine main slate running backs to average at least 20 adjusted opportunities with a 30% overall red zone opportunity share over the past four weeks, but his salary is way down with the part-time players, which he still kind of is with a 60% snap rate, but he has a receiving roll. He has a red zone roll. I like the offense this week. So I don't want to be completely off of Miles Gaskin just for some concerns. Yeah, I don't want to say completely off either, but a little bit lower or higher on some other guys here. Let's talk about my number one love, which is Austin Eckler. I think that I prefer Zeke, but I haven't talked about Eckler yet, so let's talk about him here. He has a good combo of roll, matchup, game environments. He's had 100 plus yards and five out of seven games here. He's had 120 or more twice. Eckler has had half of the red zone chances in three straight games. He is in a good spot here against the Eagles. They are booty against the Rush. They rank 25th there. I am tempted by Dalvin Cook as a pivot, but the matchup heavily, heavily favors Eckler, and I'm okay taking the path of lesser resistance and going with Eckler here. But again, I prefer Zeke relative to his salary. My love number two is the same as yours, Joe Mixon. Chris Evans has practiced again on Wednesday. When he was out last week, Mixon had five targets, and he had six, two games before that. And Mixon with passing game work is a really, really good fantasy back. He's gotten that twice recently. He's had 150 plus yards from scrimmage twice this year. That's awesome too. That's 15 points with no touchdowns and no receptions. I mean, some of that was receiving either way. But like, non-touchdown points, it's pretty good. He's $7,400, tight, high total game. Love all that for Mixon. My love number three is Damian Harris. They are three and a half point favorites over Carolina. Carolina ranks 23rd against the Rush. If we look at the full games Harris has played with no James White, he's at 100 yards per game. He has a 45% red zone share. I have been very low on Harris, traditionally I am less low on him this week because his salary is forgiving and they're favored. I don't know. I think that's what gets me there. I haven't heard you talk about Harris yet. What are your thoughts on him quickly? Fine wouldn't put him as a love. Still think that his best case outcome is like 22 fandal points, which sounds like you would always take it that salary, but that's his best case outcome, I think. And he's not always going to have his best. 24 two weeks ago, but anyway. I'm saying this is someone who agrees with you in general. I just think, you know, whatever, let's move to wide receiver what you got there. Tyree kill. I know there are pace concerns on the other side, but I don't want to be stupid about this. And I don't feel great about a lot of running back, so I might as well take some savings, such as Damian Harris who has a 24 point ceiling. It's like, I'll use some Harris. I want to make that clear. But like don't really plan on prioritizing him hill, though 18 targets. You can't really nitpick anything there. And even with the team is blanketing downfield, he had three downfield targets, three red zone targets, two end zone targets. Like Green Bay, though, you're going to try to limit the downfield work, but they're still bottom 10 and passing success rate allowed on short targets. And just the average against the deep ball. So I don't want to overthink this one too much. And then most realistically, I will be looking in the value range for a receiver so I can get up to the quarterbacks and running backs overall. So I'm going to go with pretty heavy exposure to Jalen Waddle at 6100. I talked about preferring him to Parker, but I like both. Waddle just has the better kind of adjusted workload with the 11.7 weighted targets per game. In this sample, two downfield, two red zone targets in that two games. So I would lean Waddle, but I like both. And then in the value range, I'm going to be pretty heavy, I think, too, on Rashad Bateman at 5400. It's a really, really low salary. That's going to open up a ton. 64% of the snaps, 64% of the routes in his two games. Just had a bi-week to get more acclimated to the offense. Sammy Watkins doesn't play that, only helps. He had a lot of bunny targets in the opener, but the ADOT overall in his two-game sample is 9.9 yards downfield, one and a half downfield targets per game. Minnesota is top five against running backs in tight ends and adjusted vandal points per target, but 18th against receivers. So probably the best routes to success is through the receivers this week. I agree with you and that'll be heavy on Bateman. Very much think that he's a great play for this week and will be there. I also want to get to Marquis Brown, who's my favorite love for this week. The Vikings do allow the fifth highest ADOT among all teams to opposing wide receivers. Brown has 25% of the Ravens overall targets this year, 47% deep and 23% in the red zone. His target share in two games with Rashad Bateman and notice Sammy Watkins is 28%. So $7,700 seems very fair for him. He will be my preferred stacking partner with Lamar, probably 60% Marquis Brown, 20% each of Mark Andrews and Rashad Bateman, but Bateman really good one-off play, standalone play, to save some salary. My love too is going head to head with Yora. We actually both covered a lot of the same teams here. I have Devonte Parker as my second love because I like the combination of volume and production. He has 80 yards in both games of Tua. He has 20 eeps in the targets in those, as you alluded to before, hasn't had the same high leverage work as Waddle, which is why the weighted numbers prefer Waddle. So I do like both. And I think that that's worth shouting out. But I think the production does count here. So I'll go with Devonte over Waddle, but I think both are very good and I will have both for sure. My third love is Jarvis Landry. He had 10 targets last week in his first game back with Baker. He has 26% of the targets in two games with Baker this year. He also had three deep targets last week. The rest of the team had two, which means that he shouldn't have yardage upside. He's $5,900. It's not the worst game. So I think that Nixon Landry gain stacks to me, really enticing it in a place I want to go for sure this week. Let's move to tight end. What you got there? We might have like a 1v1 in our head-to-head this week. I'm going to go with Dallas Goddard, 6,200. Love him. I loved him last week. I'm pretty sure he was my love. But 80% snap rate, 85% route rate, 26% target share, 30% a yard share in two games now without Zach Ertz. 4-1 downfield targets in those games with Philly barely throwing last week. They're probably not going to be able to just run the ball this week against the Chargers, who are top five against receivers and running backs, but 31st in adjusted Fando points per target, allowed two tight ends, which is just on a player-level basis. I'm not just a team-level basis. And my second love is Dan Arnold at 5,100. Since week five, so if you exclude his debut with 31% of the snaps with the Jaguars, he has a 69% route rate, which is very, very nice, which is top 14 mark at the position in that span. And he's also fifth in targets per game in that sample, trailing some bigger names. Travis Kelsey, Mark Andrews, T.J. Hawkinson, Kyle Pitts. They're going to have to throw this week, helps balance out whenever I do play Josh Shalon, who I think we kind of glossed over, but I love Josh Shalon this week, obviously. And Buffalo's tougher on receivers than they are against tight ends. Yeah, let's have a hard time getting there. It's like a mental block of using a team that's 14 and a half point dog, but like you're right, the usage is fine. So it makes sense. He's probably the best guy down there, maybe Tyler Conklin I might like more, just because I have higher expectations of the offense, but like from a workload perspective, Arnold is the clear pick down there, for sure. My first love at tight end is the same as yours. Shocker, Dallas Goddard has a 26% target share in two games in those zackers. He's averaging 3D targets per game in those. He'd never had 3D targets in a game. Now he's averaging 3D targets per game the past two. The Chargers are a team that want to funnel things underneath. That should help for Goddard. He has 70 plus yards in both games, which means he has yards upside at tight end without breaking the bank. Love that. Did consider Darren Waller for that slot, I will say. $6,800 should have a pretty good target share this week. Not the worst matchup. That game is not bad from a pace perspective either. So Devante Booker, Darren Waller, game stacks also viable to me. Are you groaning because I did push back on that earlier something or what? No, I just like they forgot Darren Waller existed. I will not because I don't want to get burned again. I'm frightened. My second love is George Kittle because it's not a bad game. Kittle has had four weeks to rest up. Kyle Shanahan said last week he was sure he'd return when he was ultimately activated. He is now. He is $6,000. Kittle had 19 targets in the final two games for his injury. He had a 23% target share. He's $6,000. I think that Kittle is a guy I want to be high on for sure this week. So Kittle and Goddard, a little bit of Waller where I'm going to tie it in for this week if I need to save either Arnold or Tyler Conklin. Let's go to defense. Finish up there. What you got? I'm going to go with the Chiefs 3300. I don't think they'll be that popular. I think that they don't have the best case either. But at 3300, that goes a long way. I think the perception of how bad their defense is will still get people away from them. And people who are playing Jordan Love aren't going to play the Chiefs either. Jordan Love is probably going to be like 10, 12% roster or something like that. They've faced a lot of good quarterbacks. A litany one might even say. Josh Allen, Justin Herbert, Jalen Hertz, Lamar Jackson could throw in Ryan Tannehill, maybe Baker in there. But against like- Pre-injury Baker. Let's be clear here. There's a difference. This is like BC and AD, pre-injury, post-injury Baker. But they played possibly comparable quarterbacks with Taylor Heinecke and Daniel Jones and their efficiency was not good against this team. So like you can rail on the Chiefs, but at least give them the benefit of the doubt with who they played. The bigger question is like how many times will they drop back and create sack and turnover opportunities? That remains to be seen. But I still feel good enough with this offense to put up points and force the Packers to have to throw. I think you go there and cash games just for the salary savings, like you just do that. For tournaments, I'm okay getting to the Cowboys because the Chiefs are kind of the obvious one, but the Broncos have been sacked on 8.3% of all their drop backs, which is tied to the fourth highest mark in the league. The Cowboys have a volatile defense in the positive sense in that they hunt for turnovers. And you want volatile defenses that can get you those high upside plays. Dallas can do that. So I do like them a lot this week for 39. I prefer the Chiefs to save salary, but I am okay with the Cowboys as well. That is all that we have here for today on the Week 9 preview podcast. Brandon, any final thoughts before we send off people to fill out their lineups for this week? Stay tuned to the news, but don't panic and only react to the new breaking situations. Not everyone is affected by some of these situations. You feel like literally every player is waiting on some key injury, but... Correct. That's not really the case. So don't get distracted from the Ravens if we get some breaking news that Saquon's going to play or something. Oh my gosh, don't even put that in the ether of being a thing that could occur. Don't do this to me. You're right. It's very easy to forget everything on Sunday morning or like Saturday night whenever we get some information. Yeah. I think just like think through a range of outcomes with these... What? Cowboys receiver Steve Lam sprained his ankle in practice yesterday. He will be limited today. Oh, well he's practicing today. He's fine. Limited today. Yeah, but he's practicing. He's fine. You also don't want a receiver to just sprain his ankle. More work for him already. He's fine. So you're going to split... Stay tuned to the news. I thought you were going to expand. Okay. Yeah. You don't keep that game closer for... I don't know. Whatever. This is terrible. I'm going to just like be sitting here paralyzed on Sunday morning, not knowing what to do. What I would say though is think through a range of outcomes on players of question marks. Like realistically, what is the ceiling for Jordan Love? What is the ceiling for Tays and Hill? What is the ceiling for name whoever you want and ask yourself, is that enough? If so, cool. Go for it. But like you need to ask that question first. Do you need a ceiling out of each player in order to erase mistakes elsewhere and get that top score? So just think through that long and hard for this week. That is all the time that we have here for the Heat Check Fantasy podcast. But as always, we got a lot of stuff here on the Number Fire Daily Fantasy podcast because we have NASCAR and UNC Tomorrow. We have NBA NHL every single day. The Atom Vecchio. We have PGA weekly on Tuesdays and our Week 9 Recap podcast will be on Monday, 9 a.m. on the Fandal YouTube page and up on the Number Fire Daily Fantasy podcast feed. Immediately after that, so make sure you subscribe and if you like what you hear, leave us a rating and review. Brandon, if people have questions for you on Twitter, where can they find you there? I'm at Goodwill13, 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 Fandal Podcast Network at Fandal Podcast. Big thank you to everyone for tuning in for this week. Good luck to you with your Week 9 lineups. We'll talk to you once again on Monday to wrap it all up. This has been the Heat Check Fantasy podcast powered by Number Fire.