 I was hoping that with this being our final recap podcast of the year revealed to come on and talk about, hey, you know, some good role changes, guys who moved into better roles organically, via good play and stuff like that. Instead, we got a lot of injuries. There are a lot of key injuries to running backs to dissect. A lot of them are pretty big bummers. We're going to break down what those injuries are, what they mean going forward for NFL, DFS and other key takeaways from week 16. Welcome on into the heat check fantasy podcast powered by number fire. That's right here on the fan dual podcast network and number fire.com. My name is Jim Saunas. I am a senior writer and analyst for number fire.com joined here as always by Brandon Gedula. He is the managing editor of number fire.com Brandon week 16. Kind of a bummer. How are you doing today? Oh, was it a bummer when we got Joe Burrow week? We got Joe Burrow week. T Higgins week. I am endlessly grateful. I stopped calling him a fake player several weeks ago and have used him and benefited from him recently, which is good. So that's that's good. I'm was really worried about that. Although several other fake players kind of came through this week, like the entire Texans team is fake. There were Rex Burke had going well is an aberration. Again, who is this? I'm not sure. The Patriots backfield for the most part written off less so when there's a guy missing but still like, you know, a little wonkiness going on there. Justin Jackson, the ball carrier had a couple touchdowns, not a fake player, very much a good player. So that was a positive at least. I mean, we got boy, that was I think that was the missed opportunity of the week for us was the Justin Jackson, Chris Conley game stack. Yeah. Two fun guys. It is fun to benefit from Justin Jackson scoring as opposed to being mad that it's not Austin Eckler. Yeah, maybe they should bench Austin Eckler for Justin Jackson so that I can feel not to make their team better because it wouldn't. But like, so I could feel better about like my my cheering. Hey, 5.8 yards per carry. Like 67 yards per target. I mean, on nine targets. Yeah. But yeah, this week was, you know, we or at least I say this, I don't put words in your mouth, but just kind of a week where you say, you know, stay tuned in the news, you'll benefit. But also other times of the year, we say, don't overreact. Don't change things that you like based on things that change. And you and I both love Joe Burrow. We love T Higgins and Mike Williams. We didn't get Mike Williams. But by the end of the week, we didn't have like, you know, no, as soon as the podcast was over, we learned no Doven Cook. So we got Madison, we got single Terry, Ronald Jones, Justin Jackson, four value backs. I was like, I don't need any mid tier receivers, even I can get up to the, you know, the studs. And so yeah, I, I missed out, you know, I had the salary to play Jamar Chase over T Higgins. And I said that, you know, hey, T Higgins has the better workload, but Jamar Chase also has been underperforming his workload. And it's a good match up for him. So I mean, it's just one of those things. And that's, that's kind of what can happen. But, you know, long term, you know, I'm glad that the process hit with Burrow because we covered him in detail. And that's not a victory lap so much as just kind of being excited that the process worked out. Well, I think the key part is that the, you know, we talked about how, despite the fact he hadn't had an upside gain yet, the building blocks, the word I said 15,000 times, the phrase is 15,000 times on Thursday, we're there. And those building blocks came through here in a really big way. So that was a good thing for sure. And with T Higgins, I think that one thing I tried to do, but maybe should have done a better job with was consciously building lineups where I did attack that mid range under the assumption that builds would bring people to stars and scrubs. And like I had too much Tyree kill as a result of that approach. Cooper, Cup and Justin Jefferson were fine. And a lot of them too. But like I needed to do, I think I needed to do more of that where I'm consciously building in ranges other people will not be in not because those ranges are bad, but because, you know, the typical default build takes them elsewhere. Yeah. And that's the kind of thing I try to, you know, I try to approach everything with more like a, even a more contrarian mindset than you. And just, I'll do, I'll do things that don't make as much sense. But by Sunday morning, it was a very clear way to build lineups with the amount of value backs, the sheer lack of reason to allocate salary to higher and running backs in terms of the salary pool. And I was like, you know what, I love Joe Burrow. I don't think I need to go there. I'll play Patrick Mahomes without Travis Kelsey, Justin Herbert without Mike Williams and Austin Eckler. And I don't think I would have done that if I had all this information on Thursday. But when you kind of get this over the weekend again, you know, holiday weekend, it's harder to kind of concentrate on. So while we can look at all the stats, there's still that level, that element of lineup building that is just crucial across all sports. Honestly, too, if I just had never heard that Tyra Kill came off the COVID list, I didn't know better. Like if I just hadn't known, because I would have had, me and Mahomes is fine, but I wouldn't have had Hill because I had a lot of ham. Like if I just not known that that happened, it would have been a better weekend. But I mean, it's hard to expect Tyra Kill to get two targets in a game where there's no Travis Kelsey as well. So yeah, I feared that like 19 target Tyra Kill game. And it's like, why didn't I just, you know, it made sense. But, you know, again, and you can say, either way, you can kind of tilt and say that, you know, you got it right or wrong. But yeah, as long as the process is there, I think the process was just there with Joe Burrow and Antti Higgins. And I forgot about that. But it feels good. It feels good next week. I had some Joe Burrow. I had Joe Burrow. I had some, you know, just an entire Boyd. Just keep the pollers more chase. I don't understand. I don't know what's going on. That's just a personal thing though. Boyd is whatever. But I think that long-term, it does feel good there. Okay, we're going to talk about those key injuries to running backs in just one second. But first, we still have Santa Barkley going on over at Fandall. This is the final day, December 27th, final day to compete in free NBA daily fantasy contests on Fandall for a chance to win cash prizes. All you got to do is go to Fandall.com and submit your best nine player lineup into a Santa Barkley NBA free play contest and follow along as the games unfold with nearly $7 million worth of gifts being given out now is the time to get into the holiday spirit by heading over to Fandall and taking part in the seven days of Santa Barkley. Again, final day of the day, age and location restrictions apply. Boyd wear prohibited. See terms at Fandall.com. Let's dive in here to our week 16 headliners. And again, that is the running back injuries we saw across this week, starting off with Clyde Edwards, E-Layer, exited with a collarbone injury and X-rays were negative. Still seems pretty likely that CEH winds up missing time. And the chase poll start is late. So hard to know what the workload would have looked like here had it been a more competitive game. But to the first three quarters, Darrell Williams had out snapped Derek Gore, 26 to nine. Williams had 10 carries and three targets, Gore only nine snaps, but still had six carries and three targets. So it could go back to what it was when CEH is out before with Williams being usable for DFS, but Gore has played well. It's mostly been in garbage time, but like he's had huge chunk gains and that couple of his catches on Sunday were before things were like super, super out of hand. So that's sticking out in my mind at least. How are you viewing this backfield if we assume CEH misses at least week 17 against the Bengals? This isn't exactly, but I'll kind of just, I think this is fair enough where I say Darrell Williams is now Clyde Edwards, E-Layer and Derek Gore is like Darrell Williams, where it's just to the point where it's like, you know, I would consider Clyde Edwards, E-Layer overall in most weeks now consider Darrell Williams, but it's not a must play. I mean, it does help a little bit that we're not getting those sort of ancillary Derek Gore plays with that Brazil Air and Williams. So, you know, it's fine, but it's really not a situation. This is not a team that I ever look for running backs. Unless the salary is super low, yeah. And even then, we get a 14 game main slate next week. So it's got to be a very, very low salary. It's outrageous that there's a 14 game slate, by the way, because we have no Thursday in football, no Saturday games. So it's just Sunday, Monday, football, which I'm at next to the following week too, if I'm not mistaken. I don't know. I guess there's no Monday. So it's actually 15 late. Yeah. Yeah. Even worse. I hate it already. Darrell Williams' salary in that game against the Bengals is 62. So I think they actually pushed him up enough where I can kind of view him the same way you did, where it's like, okay, would I use CEH in this spot at 62? I probably have some, you know, depending on the running backs slate, but not a situation where I feel like I need to jam him in just because I think that Gore has played well enough to earn something. So I think that's kind of the way I'd be doing that one. James Robinson towards Achilles. This is a bummer because I think I had about 50 percent. James Robinson is kind of like, oh, everyone will spend down at running back. That'll keep him overlooked. Big bummer. Also, just bummer because like, he's gone through a lot and to now earn this big role and then tear his Achilles, that stinks. So bummer for James Robinson. Carlos Hyde is on IR. So Daria Gumbawale led the way here. He had 17 carries and four targets and 83 percent snap rates. So like, in theory, that could lead you to thinking that a Gumbawale will have a big role in week 17, but I believe they just re-signed Reichwell-Armstead off the Packers practice squad. And my guess would be that he is active and we get kind of a committee here. We might get more word on this before we have to like, fill out line this week 17. So I'm not sure what that will look like here, but I think that would be my concern with getting too excited about a Gumbawale for next week. What about you? Yeah. I mean, everything kind of lined up for a Gumbawale to get as much work as he did. Robinson left pretty much immediately. He played 10 snaps. No Carlos Hyde. Just kind of was the guy. So I don't think it's a spot where you absolutely chase this. You would think that that snap rate comes down. Reichwell, you want to talk about someone going through a lot of stuff? Yeah. So hopefully, you know, just for my sake, we get the news that they'll kind of split work and I don't have to worry about it. But we're also looking at the Jaguars and I can't imagine that their implied team total is... Do you want to guess it? Okay. So they're playing... They're facing the Patriots. The Patriots, I would say probably 14. He actually overshot it. It's 13 and a half. So even if he were a bell cow or a featured back, I feel like we could still ignore him there given the way things set up. So that's pretty helpful. Miles Sanders left early with a hand injury and it sounds like it may be a fracture, but he might try to play through it, which is weird, but you know, whatever. Do you? Jordan Howard and Boston Scott split work and split snaps here. Howard had nine carries and four targets. Scott had 12 carries and zero targets. We've seen this backfield before with Scott, Howard and Gainwell healthy and Sanders out. That was weeks 8 and 10. In those two gains, nobody played more than 44% of the snaps and nobody had more than 15 adjust opportunities, which is carries plus two X targets. Scott, 60 and 105 yards in those two games. Howard and 83 and one of them and handled most of the red zone work. So I am most receptive to Howard, but I think this is probably a backfield to avoid. Hopefully Sanders plays to make that more definitive, but what are you viewing here with this one? Yeah, it's kind of similar to the Patriots in the sense that we might go from three guys to two guys, but as we can talk about with the Patriots, that just made everyone snap rate from 33% to 50%. Probably going to be the same thing here at best. And of course, Gainwell can mix in. He played two snaps this week and I guess you can always make the case for Jordan Howard to have some touchdowns because he had those four red zone carries and surprisingly the four targets, but overall 14 game slate, really hard to say that I'm going to play any backs and committees for next week. So you could play a back who is definitively not in a committee and plays Sonya Michelle because not only has he been a workhorse, but Daryl Henderson also left early with a knee injury on Sunday. Henderson has a nice sprain and he will get an MRI Monday, but that came pretty late in the game after Michelle was already just controlling everything. He played 90% of the snaps. He had 27 carries and four targets. It is an absurd role in an offense that is struggling, but usually good. So they get Baltimore next week, tough run matchup, but a good game. Name that salary on Sonya Michelle if we assume Henderson misses more time. Given the context of everything, 78. I was thinking 8,000 and he is 71. That's a bit low. I don't know the total yet. 46 and the Rams are three point favorites on the road. 71, I would imagine at this point, that will be one of the best one of the best salaries at running back that we get. I don't know how you can get a lot better than a 90% snap rates. Good team, good game for $7,100. Yeah. So here's here's a perfect Brandon's thinking smartly on Monday. I don't care like what kind of junkie value opens up. I shouldn't say junkie because these guys are pro athletes, but let's say we get news that Darae is going to get a chance to be just a feature back again. In his $5,500, we did not mention that. I do not want to chase that versus playing Sonya Michelle at 71. So again, I say that Monday, we might find out. I'm just trying to be clear with myself and set some expectations. I just put it in a lineup and I'm going to fill one out as we go along. I'm not sure if I'll submit it because I don't like wasting money, but I should have done that this week. So I'm going to just do this. I don't know. Again, it's not optimal to fill out lineups without all the information, but we're just going to see what happens and maybe I'll submit it. We'll check it out later on. Okay. So that's the running back injures. Let's talk about the other key injury this week, which was Adam Thielen re-injuring his ankle. In another lineup, on Sunday, played 37% of the team's snaps. As usual, KJ Osborne got an uptick in snaps and routes here, but Justin Jefferson, 12 targets. He had the most of the team by a wide margin. Osborne at seven, Tyler Conklin out of five. So Thielen, I think has a pretty decent shot to sit. They're not in the main slate next week. They're facing Green Band Sunday night, but would you go back to Osborne or Conklin if Thielen misses more time? I think I would be open to both of them if I really needed it, but the big winner is Justin Jefferson, I think. And it's hard to be a big winner whenever you're already so good and having such a big role, but that would just bump me up on Jefferson. Bump me down on the offense overall though, just because Adam Thielen is a touchdown scorer and you want touchdowns to go to the guys that you're rostering, but I do think that he makes a positive impact on the offense overall. I'm really seeing this offense lag the past four or three, four games. I don't, like they've faced some tough defenses, but I also don't think it's a coincidence that this downtake has occurred without him because like Adam Thielen in a vacuum, good Adam Thielen, the drop down is guys who are like fifth round picks or like, I think Conklin might have been undrafted. Like that's, that's tough. So I would say you phrased it correctly and saying that either Osborne or Conklin could be in place that like they're both going to have low floors with a path to like a decent game. And I think that's worth keeping in mind for like the single game slate that both those guys have the path, have a path to a decent game. Yeah. Sorry. No, no, no, sorry. I'm trying to be a great co-host and tweet out the link to this stream 18 and a half minutes into the show. So they missed all the key running back injuries and now they're going to join us and be upset with you. Can you go, I think you can go back on YouTube. Anyway, whatever. Let's go to role changes here and take a look at some guys whose roles shifted on Sunday and talk about the Bucks because they got a lot of stuff going on. It was their first game without their three stars and it was the Antonio Brown show. He had 15 targets. Nobody else had more than four. Brown had 3D targets, but none in the red zone. He was a legitimate target hog here in the backfield. Keyshawn Vaughn had a huge touchdown and he did play a lot of stats. He was a 36% compared to Ronald Jones at 52%. Jones had 20 carries and three targets for 81 yards. Pretty good usage there, but Vaughn's big run could earn him more time. The 52% snap ring for Jones came in the ideal script for him. So I'm sky high on Antonio Brown. Definitely good there. Still good with Robert Kowski despite the dud and I'm a bit more wary, maybe more than a bit. I'm more wary of Ronald Jones now than I was coming into this week. Where are you at on those three guys specifically? Yeah, I mean, Antonio Brown's the big winner and we should probably anticipate that we'll get Mike Evans back for next week. But even with that, Antonio Brown's going to be someone who I have a lot of confidence in because I broke down this offense on Thursday talking about just Antonio Brown's ability to be a relevant player with no change to his workload. We did see a change to his workload with the 15 targets. That was over 50%. Just was pretty phenomenal work there. I won't go away from Rob Gronkowski, but he kind of hurt me this week. I won't lie Rob. Had enough salary to get up there. Got off of Mark Andrews because of the quarterback situation and Gronkowski's dud was problematic. But yeah, I'm with you with Jones. It's a big bump down. I think the one plus is that his salary shouldn't have gone up too much unless the sheer popularity of him raised it, but the results weren't such that he's going to be completely elevated. Name me a salary for Ronald Jones for next week when they play the Jets. If you were giving me this in a neutral match, if I'd say 65 just because it's not a great role and there has a failure. When it's the Jets, I would say 72. I think it's actually worth a $700 increase for him specifically. 7,000. 7,000 is his salary. I think that's justifiable, but I think that we both would sit here and say Sonya Michelle over Ronald Jones. Despite the match of discrepancy for sure. Yeah. Yeah. And I think that that might be not the way people view it. I kind of hope that people would be more into Jones at that salary range, but I don't know. I'm not sure. The field's gotten a little bit smarter, so I think they might not overreact to a match or the way they used to. Yeah. I mean, I think that, look, like there's still edges to be had. Sometimes you see some plays that don't make a whole lot of sense to us, but I'm sure we play those two and people say, I don't think that makes a whole lot of sense, but yeah. I couldn't play my guy, I'm on Ross St. Brown this week with Tim Boyle. Some people did it. It worked out, so maybe I'm the dummy. Maybe. Maybe. I'm not going to urge you. Really got your back there. Sonya Brown is $8,500. If we assume Evans is back, I don't think that's outrageous, but I also think that's like appropriate. Yeah. I do. He shouldn't be higher than Tyree Kill, though, which he is. Yeah, that's, that's, I would say that's true because the role can't be quite as good with Mike Evans. I guess it can be. Yeah, with no Godwin, it's still good, be I think. Boy, he got targeted on 58% of his routes. And his target per route was already very high previously. Yeah. And that was, yeah, that was basically the, Oh, you said that. You told me that. Okay. Yeah. I don't know why I told you that. Yeah. Thanks, Jim. See, I do listen to you because I retain the information because you told me it, but, you know, sure. I mean, sometimes, yeah, occasionally, I will not listen to you about Diba Samuel. Diba Samuel became a wider seaver again this week. He played in the backfield just five snaps and he was out wider in the slot on 39 snaps. Team high 11 targets for 159 yards. Still did have five carries for 32 yards. Brett and I, five targets, George K. 03. So I don't know if this is actually a role change. That might be a hot take. I know. I don't think it's a role change because he did this once earlier while playing more running back. It was the first game in this stretch. Let me pull up. Okay. So it was back in, they don't have the rushing numbers on here. I think it was against the Rams on the 15th. That game, he had five receptions for 97 yards, and I think he had like five to eight carries. Same thing here. So I think that what we're seeing is that he just has a volatile role. So the upside is still there, but I don't think it's necessarily like here's some of those issues. Now, the one thing that could secure his role as a wide receiver would be if Eli Mitchell comes back next week, which I think is going to happen. So I guess for me, I'm kind of viewing him the same, maybe bumping up his ceiling a bit. I don't know. You seem to have a different view of this. You gave me like a disgruntled look when I said it might not be a role change. Okay. So you were going back trying to look at the carries, which I have pulled up. Yeah. So I think the demarcation here is the week 10 against the Rams when he had five, uh, five carries. So since then he's had five, eight, six, eight, six, and five carries. So the, the rushes were still there. The difference is his targets were five, two, four, one, five, and then 11. But like he was still running routes, the receiver just didn't get targeted. So like, I think that like, if you're looking at, so like if I'm looking at a most relevant sample, I include all of those games still, but I include the Rams game and this one, because like those are within the range of outcomes. He just has a really, really wide range of outcomes in terms of how he'll be used. I would, here's what I'm going to say. He's basically locked in to like 30 on the low end rushing yards on like five carries, which is awesome. Stupid. And with, uh, so it's the first game since week 10 that he didn't square rushing touchdown, which is just wild. But I'm going to change my view now knowing that he is capable of leading this team in targets and still holding the rushing workload that he has. So I would say it's a role change. It might just be semantics, but the fact that he finally got targeted is a change to me because now I got a fear that he puts up over 150 receiving yards and gets like five high leverage carries with this chance to score. That is, like that's, that makes me want to be more okay with a high salary for Debo than if he was getting, you know, I would estimate like three and a half targets per game before that. So I think the key difference is that I was viewing week 10 as being part of the sample, whereas most people were not. So I already drew them as having that upside. But it still was five targets. I'm not going to bank on 19.4 yards per catch, which I should for Debo, but like it's five targets and 11 targets are very different. Yes. But like that's just kind of like target variance. I guess, I don't know. I don't know. It's five, two, four, one, five targets and then 11 with the same rushing workload. Right. But they also didn't they throw a bunch because they were down in this game? I'm just saying like, but, okay, but market share wise, he's been behind George Kittle and Brandon IU by like a mile. Yeah. And he would, so I think that I guess the other way to phrase this is I also don't, I also viewed IU can Kittle as having a low floor and like this, this was an example. That's why I actually don't shift my view of them too much either. Okay. This has been the year of Debo Samuel for us. What salary? I already saw a salary and I'm, me too. Here's the thing. So the salary is 9,000 against Texans. If you told me Debo at the average, and I should have just pulled this up by this point of like three to four targets a game with the rushing, would I play him at 9,000? No. Would I play him if he still has the ability to lead this team and targets by a good margin and have that rushing workload? Yeah, I'm into that. So that's, that's a key difference for me. So I think it is a role change. See, I always thought he had that. So I guess, I don't know, maybe that maybe I was a being a fish, but like, I thought that that was still something you thought when he was getting, you know, under five targets that he had the ability he was still running a ton of routes as a receiver. And like, we've seen him get targets as a receiver before. So I thought that that was still something he could do. Like we talked about this for the Atlanta game. That's why I had him above IU in terms of when we were trying to like look at the guys within that game. So like, okay, I think he could still do this, even though his salary is 82. That's why I was still on him at that salary was because I thought that was within his range of outcomes. So from week 10 through 15, so not including this week, target per route rate for this team, George Kittle, 32%, Brandon IU, 21%, Debo Samuel 14%. 14% target rate, like route per target or target per route rate is not what we saw from him when he got a 39% mark. He might have been running routes, but he wasn't getting targeted. It's almost like regression is a thing when you see an outlier, you know, is what I didn't expect him to stay at 14%. But did you expect him to come out of nowhere and overtake IU and Kittle based on how he was being used? I thought it was possible because like he showed that he deserved those targets earlier on the year. Like I would assume that he was in like this new role where he couldn't get targets anymore because Debo Samuel, he's the best player on the team. I don't think regression is the same as like not getting the ball. Regression in usage is because usage isn't always sticky if it's outlier-ish and I think that a 14% target per route rate thing on Debo Samuel is outlier in the negative sense. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. I think we both like Debo at 9000. Yeah. That's what it comes down to. Name that side for Kittle and IU against Houston at home. Well, if now Debo is their RB1 and their wide receiver one. And their quarterback one. Yeah. And IU is just trash now and Kittle is going to get targeted on under 10% of his routes. They should be in the 4000 range. But in this matchup, I think IU is going to be probably 68 and Kittle probably like 74. So if I were like allocating salaries in my mind based on like what I think they could do, I think IU could be like 63 and Kittle should be like 7000 because like low floor. So you don't really want to fork over like still has like maybe the highest ceiling among all tight ends. So Kittle's Kittle salary is 7300. So we're both, you know, in that ballpark. IU is 59. I like it. I like that. I think that's an overreaction. I agree. So I'm going to, I'm going to make a note to play Brandon and IU. Should I just put him in this mission? I'll line up here. Yeah. Michelle and IU. Not my favorite player, but whatever. I'm not going to do it. I'm not going to pull the Higgins on him. I'm not calling him fake, but if he's annoying, I'll call Brandon and IUK annoying. So what? Yeah, he's annoying. He was there. We'll include George Kittle here. He was their wide receiver too, getting like 24% of the targets in a small sample. And he wasn't doing a ton from a yardage perspective with it. Just saying. Speaking of that Thursday night game, AJ Brown on Thursday, 16 out of 29 targets from Ryan Tannehill. My goodness. Also, but why wouldn't you? 55% target share for 145 yards in a touchdown. He had a 91% air yard share. How is that real? In games with Brown and Julio Jones. Plenty of these half the snaps this year. Brown has a 28% target share, 43% air yard share. Jones is next in line with a 10% target share. It's just kind of AJ Brown or bust. Next week, Tennessee is facing Miami. Good quarterbacks there, but like also who cares? So where are you at with AJ Brown entering week 17? You got to be pretty high because if you're going to be on a run heavy team, you need like mega high target shares. And it was very evident that that's what they wanted to do with him. Now, he threw a pass too. So make sure that that's factored in if you guys do your own like market share work because that'll come into play because he can't throw himself. So we could probably should. You probably should. But yeah, that this base, this team has basically been just written off entirely. And now with AJ Brown back. I'm cool with that. We'll see what Miami does tonight. Monday, I should actually clarify. But I think AJ Brown is trying to think of a good comp. Then it's not exactly right, but I'm thinking like that Terry McLaurin in a better situation where like he's the he's the only type of play from the team that you can justify back when Terry was actually getting targeted. He's like not anymore. I'm just trying to think of like those one off. It's like the team comes out in one receiver. If I ignore the backfield, he's just in Jefferson with Adam dealing out because like the back feels viable there, but that's because they're concentrated. If the Titans decided to commit to one guy, they'd be usable, but they don't. So yeah, I think he's just in Jefferson without without Adam dealing, which means his salary, I think is like worth 83 or so, right? Yeah, I still think that's a little too optimistic. If we're nitpicking like of the offensive expectations, I was trying to think of like a bad team that it's like, do I want to play this one guy or not? Well, I think the good thing is they're less bad when he's a lot less bad when he's out there. Also, he's 75. 75. That's totally doable. Okay, I can get behind that. I like that. Chase Edmonds was a feature back in the Cardinals offense with James Connor missing due to a heel injury. Edmonds had 16 carries and nine targets, which is 34 adjust opportunities. He had a 92% snap rate. Why couldn't this happen during the regular season when I had Chase Edmonds and Dynasty? It's awesome. I turned to like Jalen Rager and Tutu Atwell for him. And buddy gets hurt the week after. Now he's a feature back. Connor's probably not going to play or probably going to play in Week 17 if I had to guess, but let's just say hypothetically he doesn't name that salary for Chase Edmonds in Week 17. Like 82. Yeah, with that role. Yeah. Yeah. Or 15,000. No, it was weird. And again, holiday weekend. So it wasn't entirely tuned in, but Connor didn't practice was like expected to play. Yeah. So like Shefti, I think Tweet, Shefti never gets this wrong, but I'm pretty sure Shefti tweeted Friday night that he was going to play. And then he didn't progress as much as they thought he would. So he didn't play. So it seemed like Saturday morning just didn't feel as good as they thought he would. Yeah. So I mean, it's still a little bit concerning that he didn't practice. Yeah. Which kind of means that, okay, let's say, let's do the other thing where Connor is going to play may not be 100%. Where would you be with Chase Edmonds? I think then it's closer to like 7,000 just because like, if you put your finger on the lever a little or on the scales of it and shift things more towards Connor or towards Edmonds and they are towards Connor, he already had good yardage upside because he's such a good receiver. And that's a really good game. So if Connor is active, but we know beforehand he'll be limited, then I think Edmonds, the Edmonds shifts closer to like 7,000. That's a pretty good role, I think. What if I told you his salary was 6,500? Okay, confession time. I used Chase Edmonds on a two game slate when James Connor was active. I'm not the right person to ask about this. I love Chase Edmonds. We will dump this audio. It will never exist. I used him a couple times because I adore him and think that his usage is really fun. I'm not the right person to ask. I think that's a great number. Yeah, I think it was a two game slate in my defense, but sure. But if we get Edmonds with Connor, I think he's in play at 65. If we get for whatever news like Connor just has a big setback, we get Chase Edmonds by himself. Chase Edmonds against the Cowboys would be a lock button play. He would be well above Michelle at that point. Yes. And Michelle at 71. I think Edmonds would be my goodness. Just because that role is so good when there's no Connor to take away goal on usage. Because in this week, in this game, I don't know why I said in this week, he had four out of seven red zone chances for the team. Also Rodney Hudson likely back this week didn't play. And you saw the issues they had at center of this past week. I thought he'd be back for this game from the COVID list. He was not. So he should be back this week. That'll be a big lift for the offense. So I would adore Edmonds if that happens. So rest up, James. Get healthy for the playoffs. And we'll talk to you then. Michael Carter played 74% of the snaps for the Jets. He was at 54% last week in his first game off IR. Tevin Coleman, though, was still involved. Coleman 14 carries one target, whereas Carter had 16 carries and three targets. So it's a 74% snapper, which is very good. But it's a terrible offense. And Tevin Coleman still mixing in. Coleman's getting goal line work too, which I think is noteworthy here. So although a 74% snap rate sounds good, I am still very, very, very, very wary of Michael Carter. What about you? I am. And it's impossible to look at this team because this team's so master dependent that, you know, you need a perfect spot and they play the Buccaneers next week. So not the best spot unless you make the case that Michael Carter is going to get like 12 targets, which like you could. But not if they throw 24 times. I don't think they're going to be able to, they're going to try. Yeah. But I think that this is not enough, not enough juice here with a 16 point implied team total. Boy, we got some big, big totals and some low totals next week. Yeah, we do. Yeah, I think I agree where I'm not in despite 74% snap rate. Damian Harris played 52% of the snaps with no Ramon Andre Stevenson. He did score three times, but 18 carries and no targets. He had 56% of the red zone usage, which is pretty great, but you need things to break in your favor to beast out in the way he did with 18 carries and no targets. Those things did happen. So he has that upside. I'm just trying not to overreact to what he did here. My hope brand is that Ramon Andre Stevenson is back next week. And I can go back to just ignoring this backfield. That'd be a lot easier, but I don't know. What about you? Yeah. I mean, I don't really want to play Damian Harris because we know what his ceiling is. And his ceiling is like not horrible because he has multiple touchdown upside. And he especially is going to profile as someone with that next week against the Jaguars as a 15.5 point favorite implied team total of 29 points. He is going to get some optimizer love if there's no Stevenson for sure. He might even get it without that because of the touchdown equity that he possesses. I don't want to throw you under the bus, but there was a week earlier this year where you talked yourself into Damian Harris. I think it was against the Chargers maybe because of the high over under and the fact that the Chargers specifically can give up a lot of rushing against the Jaguars. Like, are you seeing enough here that you would play Harris and what salary would you kind of allocate for him? I'd play him because of the Jaguars. Right. If there's no Stevenson. If Stevenson plays, I think that that's tougher for me just because it'll be a three-man committee. Everyone gets 15 carries effectively. Mac Jones, you can have three pass attempts if you want as a treat. So if Stevenson plays, I'm probably just gonna, you know, but hope that no one bites me. Humor me here and say there's no Stevenson. What salary do you think is fair for Harris? So we talked about Rojo in his matchup. I think that they're kind of similar. So I would say like 7000 is actually probably pretty appropriate even though his role in a vacuum is worth more like 65, 63. His salary is 7400. Well, that's easy then. I think Rosa even said fade. Yeah. She was asleep on the couch and then she got woken up. Yeah. With this astonishing. She was pretty cute. She had her head laying on a pillow and sprung to life. Well, she might have been saying, hey, hey dummies, he's got back-to-back 100-yard Russian games. He scored in three straight. She's a box score scout. Let's be honest. Two, four, six, eight, nine. So eight of his past nine, he's got at least one touchdown. He's good. I mean, he's gonna be like, what, minus 200 to score next week? It's the worst. Also the worst is Rex Burkhead. He was featured for the Texans in their win over the Chargers. Yes, win over the Chargers. Fun stuff. Burkhead 22 carries for 149 yards and two touchdowns, had two targets, 64% snap rate that David Johnson. So my strategy of ignoring the Houston Texans no matter what backfired, I thought that I could feel more firm in that despite Johnson being out because Brandon Cooks is also out. I thought this offense wouldn't function, but instead David smells his drop and dimes to Chris Conley and move in the ball. So is there enough here for you to consider Rex Burkhead or can I just go back to modus operandi and keep ignoring this backfield? I think I'd need to know that David Johnson is just still out. Yeah. This becomes just an attrition game. And we're kind of getting to that point with some of these backfields where, hey, look, if, if Tevin Coleman were out, I know that the matchup specifically for Michael Carter is like horrible, but like, okay, I get it. I can, I can see the case for Michael Carter. I think it's the same thing for Rex Burkhead. If we get David Johnson back, I don't, I don't know that they're just gonna run Rex Burkhead like this again. They might. But, you know, within the offensive expectations too, I like to kind of avoid backs after blow up games. Yeah, in offenses that are suspect. A lot kind of went wrong for the Chargers leading into that week with, you know, their guys out, both offensively and defensively. So I'm not going to get there myself most likely, even if we don't get David Johnson, they probably won't do a whole lot next week against the 49ers. They're 15 point road underdogs. I'm not even going to ask a salary because I don't care. I'm not going to use them. So I'm not going to bother Byron Pringle led the cheese of seven targets in 28 routes, two touchdowns. He's been their number two receiver this whole time. And he finally got the usage, but it came with Travis Kelsey being out and Tyree Kill kind of being a weirdo. So next week they face the Bengals. Great game that we're going to want to stack. Let's assume Kelsey is back, which he should be. Will you include Pringle in game stacks of Bengals versus cheese? I think I will unless the two touchdown game really bumped up that salary. His role really shifted a little bit before the buy, but really specifically since the buy it's been pretty solidified. So he's run a route on 76% of drop backs. He's got a 13% target share, 16% air yards, some down like half a downfield target per games with two in the four games, a red zone target per game. I think you could do worse, especially if we haven't done the salary scroll, but there's 14 games in the main slate. Presumably we got some backs that we want to allocate salary for. I think you could do worse in a game like that. So I probably will initially have Pringle on the list unless his salary is starting with a six. No, it's 56. So it's not bad. But like the checklist receiver for inclusion in lineups is they need to get to 85 yards or two touchdowns. They need to get two touchdowns this week. How bankable is that? Probably not bankable if you put Kelsey back in there. He's not had more than 75 yards this year. So I want to remain hesitant and not be point-chasing given that the situational change. So I'm a bit lower. I think the snaps are valuable on that cheese team because it's tied to the cheese and it's tied to a very good game. I just don't know if he can hurt me for not using him, I guess, kind of did this week, but like a different context with Kelsey being out. So I'm still pretty hesitant person. I want to be hesitant. I may talk myself into it if I need the value. So this is kind of what you were saying too. But like I want to not get there if I can avoid it. There have been wide receivers in the like 56 to 59 range. I've actively wanted to say, look, I'm going to build around these guys. I think they're under salary. This is not one of those cases. This is for the salary within this game. I think that there's a path to playing some Byron Pringle just because of the fact that this is one of the standout games for next week. It's going to be really Cowboys Cardinals and Bengals Chiefs and then a drop off. So I think there's enough here within that context. And again, we should have Jonathan Taylor on the main slate against the Raiders. So I'm just trying to be pragmatic here and assume that I'll need some value at receiver and that Pringles. There's enough there. Being on the field and in a shootout is kind of enough for me sometimes. Yeah, we're saying he's not a priority. I think that's the key thing here, given that he did have two touchdowns. Okay, Devin Singletary has rolled decreased a bit this week with Zach Moss being inactive instead of Matt Breida. Snap rate went down to 71%. Did those still have 24 adjust opportunities with a 27% red zone share? In a more neutral script, it's possible Singletary could be usable for DFS, but I needed like the ideal situation to be super into him. He got the ideal situation last week, lost the ideal situation this week. I promise they get Atlanta next week. And I think that he's still like their lead back. So like, I don't want to write him off, but I also don't want to write him on. I don't know if that's a phrase, but I'm making a phrase. I don't know if I want to write him on, but I'm not going to write him off yet. Name me that salary for Devin Singletary, given this past game, but also given a matchup at home versus Atlanta next week. He should be like, I don't want to throw any comps with Singletary. I think he should be in the 66 to 67 range. I know the full game numbers weren't awesome, but he was so involved for them early on in that game. He had three targets, two carries in the first quarter. That's a really good workload. They were just leaning on him. They kind of went away from him. But if we have that type of potential, yeah, that's really appealing within this offense. He's still getting, you know, he's on the field, you know, near the goal line. That's promising. Not a guarantee that he'll ever bank cash in on those opportunities because this team spreads the ball around a lot between Josh Allen and all the past catchers they have at the goal line. But with that, I would say about 66. He's 6,000. That's low enough where I'm still going to have a lot of interest, I think. In this spot, yeah. I mean, what's their implied team total? High. 29.25. I mean, we have so many, like 29.25. Yeah, that's a really good spot. I think that's low enough where I'll be talking about him again. Chase Edmonds at 65 with Connor or Singletary by a wide margin there. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Okay. Cool. Let's go into situations to monitor here and talk about other things that stood out to us on Sunday or Thursday or Saturday. Brandon, what did you note when looking at the stuff? Yeah, we should get Austin Eckler back. But if not, it's just worth noting how good Justin Jackson's role was. 72% snap rate, 11 carries, team high nine targets, three of six reds and opportunities. So that's a great role for someone whose main concern has just been not, well, not being on the field, but, you know, when he's on the field, not being able to score. I'm not getting those opportunities. Those were there. Michael Pittman got back to 12 targets, which is promising. He's still been there by far there, wide receiver one. It's just been the Jonathan Taylor show for so long that it's nice to see that Pittman does have that. And in the spots where we think that, you know, they might have to pass more, Pittman has some relevance, some path to upside. For the Cardinals, Zach Ertz had 13 targets and in five games since his role improved with Arizona and without D'Andre Hopkins, he's got a team high 24% target share, 25% air yard share for 8.8 targets per game. Also Christian Kirk in that sample does leave the team with 29% of the air yards, 22% target share himself. I like that anytime. Can you name me that salary on those two or the Dallas game, please? Ertz should probably have a salary of like 65. Probably closer to 62, but I agree that it should be in the sixes. And then Kirk, he feels like a 67, 68. Ertz is 55. Okay. So like we talked about opportunity cost in terms of like, if you use a mid salary tight end, you're not getting into one of the studs, but he's had 11 and 13 targets the past two weeks. He hasn't had like a huge game because he hasn't scored, but like he had 24.8 points earlier on this year. I think he can have a big game. So I don't think the opportunity cost there is that bad, right? No. I mean, he's got 54, 74 yards, 42, 88. I mean, his yardage upside has been a lot better, at least anecdotally. Christian Kirk, 64. That's way too low too. Yeah. Sorry, your, your mic went a little haywire and I didn't know it's coffee. Well, you're okay. It's a coffee machine. Uh, yeah, those are both too low. Yeah, I think that's great. I'm in like, again, James Connor, we love you, bud. Rest up, get sent for the playoffs or free agency. I don't know who cares. Um, you can come back next year if you want. Well, it's just let's uh, or chase Edmunds rest up and James Connor, come back. I don't care. I don't care. Finally, awesome team to take advantage of buying low on them because people are out, I think. Yeah, for sure. Um, okay. Go to your other note, team that I'm not going to buy low on, you can if you want. Uh, just again, we're looking for some, some value at receiver always. Robbie Anderson has now had 12, eight and 10 targets in his past three games with 60, 73 and 64 yards. I think the more important note is that DJ more has 10 plus targets in four straight. And if I'm taking a chance on a good player and a bad spot with volume, it's going to be DJ more if you're taking advantage of a good player, there's only one to choose from there is DJ more. So I mean, also you forget that the I hate my quarterback narrative is coming back with Robbie Anderson with Santana playing again. So the I hate my quarterback narrative is back in Carolina and I think we should downgrade Robbie significantly as a result of that. Just floating that out there. Okay. Things I was taking note of Nick Chubb continues to be just discussing with no cream hunt. He had 184 yards and scrimmage on Saturday. He has played at least 55% of the snaps in seven games. He's averaged 127 yards and scrimmage in those seven games absurd number for Nick Chubb. So whenever hunt is out, Nick Chubb, he becomes like a mid 8000 back, I think, you know, with where how he's used. So keep an eye on Nick Chubb and see if we get him with no cream hunt. Joe Nixon snap right went back up to 80% after being 66% or lower in three straight games. Also at six targets, which is very good. The passing game usage, not easy to predict. So it's tough to tell if this is actually like any role change, but it's good to see the upside is still there for Joe Nixon. He had a nice downfield target too. It's because Joe Burroughs, like a deep, deep downfield. Joe Burroughs good. Also, he's good. People get mad at Joe Nixon for weird reasons. I don't know. Weird. It's weird. He has upside. That's all I asked for. Alexander Madison's role decreased a bit. He played 75% of the snaps, but had just 21 adjusted opportunities. He had 42, 39, and 28 in his other three games, no Dalvin Cook. This is the first game he played with Kenny and Wang Wu, where in Wang Wu was not like sick coming into the game. Wang Wu had five carries, two targets, a couple red zone chances. So I would downgrade Madison a bit if Dalvin misses time again. Not a significant amount downgrading a bit though. I think that that's worthwhile here. This was kind of the read you had earlier. Yeah. And it didn't quite pan out because in Wang Wu it wasn't 100%. Right. Would you kind of say that came to fruition here for you? This is kind of what I expected. The difference in terms of my fear with it with Madison is that he was 8,000 last time we were talking about it versus 55 this time. That's why I didn't care about it in terms of DFS, but I thought this was probably going to happen. This is basically what I was expecting. I was trying to bless you up, baby. Bless up. Cole Beasley can be activated before week 17, but if you were to miss more time, Isaiah McKenzie's role this week was awesome. Not sure why they don't just, I mean, Cole Beasley is a good player, but Isaiah McKenzie might be better. He had 12 targets with three deep and two in the red zone. He did this last year too with Beasley being out. So if they need a slot guy, McKenzie can fill in admirably. Also with Gabe Davis, definitely out next week. I think he has to miss next week. There's a decent chance we get McKenzie in a decent role again. I don't think they use McKenzie and Beasley at the same time, given that they kind of overlap in their skill sets, I guess I would say, or slash height. But it's good to know that he can, if Beasley's out, McKenzie can beast. Our shot, Penny, your boy, 135 yards again, a role remained a bit underwhelming. 17 carries one targets. He also had one out of seven red zone chances. So he needs to break off long runs to be relevant for DFS. And he's doing that now. He's done it like three times in the past three games. Not sure if I want to bank on that. You've been more of the penny guy, not necessarily this year, but like you, you buy into his talent broadly. Are you higher on him than I seem to be? I would say no, simply because my approach to fantasy football is I can like talent all I want, but if opportunity is not 100% there, the talent doesn't matter if it's not leading to more work, then you're just banking on production on smaller snaps. Similarly, everyone loves Tony Pollard, but the reality is his role was not good enough to be fantasy relevant. This is a different situation. We tried Penny playing a slight majority of snaps, being extremely efficient, but if that's not leading to more work, then I'm just kind of banking on the week that he doesn't break those long runs. He had 61 yards over expectation rushing this week, according to next gen stats. I think he's been like crazy efficient, like over expectation recently. That's just not a thing that you can really bank on. So give me the workload with some more modest production than the smaller workloads with that outlier numbers. I agree. Okay, let's move into some philosophical changes for this week. The first one is that the Bengals let Joe Burrow cook. They had 22 passes and nine rushes on early downs in the first half. It had been a pretty big talking point this week about how they had been more run heavy than people would like, but we talked Thursday about how they may throw more due to the matchup. The Ravens are very good against a rush and they kind of listened. They say, hey, good rush defense. Let's air it out. They did. I think we can kind of view the Bengals based on matchups, which is weird. I don't do that for a lot of teams, but when the matchup dictates, they will throw. I think that's a really nice positive. Looking into the opponent, deciding what the opponent does well, and pivoting to the other option, I think is probably the way I want to view this team. Honestly, I'm very okay with that. Where are you at this Bengals passing offense now? They were fifth in non-garbage time pace for this week. It looks like you're pretty snap win probability between 20 and 80 percent. They were also eighth in pace. It was just a fun game to watch for a very talented offense whenever they're clicking. Again, one of the trends of ours for last week was looking at the Bengals and kind of just determining that they were pretty matchup sensitive. They had not had good matchups, easy matchups since week eight. They struggled against tougher opponents. They got an easier opponent this week and they took advantage. There's nothing wrong with being matchup dependent so long as we don't play them in the tough matchups and just take advantage of them whenever they play. There's easier opponents. Matchup dependent is better than being unpredictable. I think they're kind of predictable. I'll take it. I think that's a positive for sure. We'll have to dig into the Chiefs, see what the Chiefs are excelling at now because their defense is obviously now very different than it was earlier on this year and decide how we want to use the Bengals there. I think the answer will be use them always and see what happens. Either way, other thing to note was Trevor Lawrence was ripping it deep. He threw deep 10 times and completed seven of them. Four of those were to tape on Austin through to Laquan, Treadwell, two to Marvin Jones. They faced the Patriots next week, so I don't care about it there. But long-term, it's good to see Daryl Beville letting Trevor Lawrence, I guess I think Shot and I recall plays on Sunday, but it's good to see the Jaguars tapping into what Lawrence can do well, even though the personnel there is pretty bad. I thought that was encouraging if it's not something that's actionable for week 17. Let's go into our salary scroll now. Open up the week 17 main slate over on FanDuel. Go position by position and shout out some salaries that stand out to us. Brandon, let's start off a quarterback. What are you seeing there? Kyler is 82, by the way. That's the first thing I see. And Dak is 74. I'm going to stack the poop out of that game. Well, I'm getting the rainbow wheel of nothingness here, so I don't have my I'm waiting on. I'm just going to tell you that Kyler and Dak are going to be like my saviors this week. I hope. Okay, all right. I'm here. Oh, my saviors are my downfalls. Josh Allen against the Falcons feels like some FOMO happening. Well, I think that he's like pretty good bet for 30 there, right? Like, you know, you're not going to turn down 30. No, you might get 40 somewhere else. So, you know, it's getting 40. Is it Josh Allen without the anchor that is Cole Beasley? Because that could help. I think Kyler and Dak are absurd standouts on this one. I mean, look, we have we have two games that stand out. Two games have totals above 46 and a half. That's that's Benglis Chiefs at 49 and Cowboys Cardinals at 50. Both spreads there four and a half points. So we have the two quarterbacks you mentioned. And then we have Holmes at 85 and Burrow at 77. We might not need to overthink this one. And we could just play those four quarterbacks and narrow it down from there if you want to get even tighter. But So Stafford is 76. He's facing Baltimore. Same spot that Joe Burrow is just in. Really bad pass defense. Pretty good rush defense. I know we like Michelle. I used Stafford this week. It did not go well. It was terrible. And he was not good through three picks. That's fun. And he fumbled. Oh boy. What a good game from Matthew Stafford. Good thing they traded two for just kidding. Anyway, I tailed off. I tailed off. I tailed off. I was joking. It was a joke. Don't come at me, people. I was joking. It's a joke. Well, now that I'm a film guy, I think I am able to say that Matthew Stafford looked a little like lost out there on Sunday. I don't know what's going on there. He was shooketh by the Vikings defense, which ranks middle of the packet across the board. Ryan Tannehill revenge game. That's a joke. But I mean, it is a revenge game, but I'm not going to roster him. I feel like we can just go with the game stacks given these salaries, right? Like the Chief Spengles and Cardinals Cowboys. Yeah. I don't think we need to overthink it at quarterback. I think Lamar slash Huntley, depending on who plays there, could be interesting because that Rams game is not terrible from a game stacking perspective. It's also a pace-up spot for them in a pretty massive way. But, you know, just give us Tre Lantz 64 against the Texans. I would take that. I agree. So yeah, I think quarterbacks those four and the two shootouts. Okay. Let's go to your running back. Jonathan Taylor is 10,000 appropriate. I mean, I know that like people were pretty tilted about what happened this past week, but that was with every offensive lineman like in a gutter, basically. Just going for 108 yards. I'm not sure if Ryan Kelly will be back because he's dealing with some really rough stuff right now. So he might not be back. I wouldn't blame him, honestly. I just feel bad for him. Go ahead. Do you think the target drop off for Taylor is? No. Okay. I don't care. I mean, they're not throwing. They did a little bit more this week, but they're not throwing enough for me to care. Okay. So I think he's well worth 10,000. Yes. Other things that may stand out. Eli Mitchell is 78 versus Houston. If he gets in a full practice by Friday, I could be into that. I don't think I'd like it more than like the people we talked about before, but like I could be into him at 78, I think. Yeah. I'm not going to talk about my season long team, but that would be good for me. David Montgomery facing the Giants, $7,200. 21-carat and nine targets this past week. That's not terrible. What's that? 39 adjusted opportunities? Yeah. So Montgomery over Damian Harris for sure. Oh my gosh, yes. He lapsed him. Yeah. That probably sounds stupid to a lot of people, but like passing game work does matter a lot on Fandall. So that's why that's the reasoning behind that, despite the gap in the respective offenses. It's 6.75 points in implied team total there. Yeah. That's a touchdown, but it's not so substantial that... Give me those snaps. Okay. Scrolling down. Can you rank quickly Damian Harris, David Montgomery, Sony, Michelle, Ronald Jones right now? I think it's Michelle Montgomery, Joan Terrace. Agreed across the board. All right. And that's the other guys we talked about. I guess Daryl Williams being 62 is like, again, flag worthy that like, okay, that's low enough where I can give him some thought in a game that I'm going to want to stack. Devin Singletary does stand out a lot at 6,000. Yeah. Depending on how things go Monday night, Duke Johnson's 58, I think that's worth at least mentioning. Yes. Versus Tennessee. That spreads three and a half. I think that'll lengthen as the week goes along, if I had to guess, but... So... Yeah. I think it's about that mid-range, the mid-range being good, Taylor being good. I think that's the key thing for this. That might honestly put Harris a little bit more into play, but we glossed over Alvin Camara, Joan Nixon. I don't think I'll be too heavy off the Neckler against the Broncos, but... No. But Nixon's fine for game stacks, for sure. But Taylor, I think it is like, worth prioritizing and using the mid-range to get there, specifically Michelle... Who is he? Montgomery. Montgomery. Yeah, I think those are key flags this week. Want to go to receiver? Yes, sir. CooperCup is 10-2 versus Baltimore. Fair. Again, I can't... How do I push back on that? He scored 16.3 points with no touchdowns. He's like McCaffrey. He's got it. Yeah. At least nine targets every game. He's Chris McCaffrey at wide receiver. That's unreal. Tyreek should not be 82. I know it's been weird, but the Bengals should be able to score points and keep them competitive, and Tyreek could go bananas, I think. He could. A.J. Brown's 75, I think, does stand out a bit as being a bit under salary, potentially. I'm going to go back to Jamar Chase in game stacks, for sure. Yeah, for sure. We prefer T over Jamar Chase straight up, correct? Yeah, I think so. I've been like T Higgins number one fan for a long time. He was like my favorite receiver coming out of that class, but... Yeah, I mean... I just love Jamar Chase, too. I think liking Higgins is... Having Higgins above Chase is more about liking Higgins a lot than it is about not liking Chase. Chase, if you have a single entry lineup for next week, you go to Chase over Higgins, for sure. Just because Higgins coming off a massive, massive blow-up game. Well, it's a 14-game main slate, so I think the popularity is going to be so flat, aside from very few spots. Maybe I'll dig into their past roster rates. Pull up Crab Tree Cooper type of thing, look into it, see where people go. Okay, what else you see in here? I was going to... I was trying to... Mario Cooper 67, Michael Gallup is scrolling, scrolling, scrolling, scrolling. 58, oh my gosh, that game is so... Okay, we're just going to build this. You keep talking. I'm going to build this game stack. I wish I could have told you whenever I first mentioned in the situations to monitor that Allman-Ross St. Brown's role is getting a lot better, that come week 17, he was going to be 6900 on FanDuel. It's golf back this week against Seattle. I wish I could have just had that information at the ready. Okay, what stupid defense are we going to put in here? Oh my gosh, Allman-Ross St. Brown, 69. Amari Cooper 67, Mike Williams 66, DK Metcalf 66. What a world. What a world? He has like 12 or 10 targets and four straight or something like that, right? Yeah, 11 plus and four straight with 73 yards in all four and a touchdown in three of the four. Okay, what stupid defense are we putting in here? Let's just put Carolina in for now. Don't tell me, don't talk to me about defense. Okay, so if I go DAC Gallup Earths with the Carolina defense, you're at 75-40 left. I put in Jonathan Taylor. You're at 69-25. Pretty nice. Pretty good. A pretty good game to stack. Maybe I'll just ignore cheese. No, I won't. I want to ignore cheese bangles. I'm not going to do that. That'd be stupid, but that game is stupid in terms of how low salaryed everyone is in it. The probability of those games scoring enough points to separate from the pack on a 14 game main slate, and with enough ways to stack those, you could probably build a 20-entry max where you play just stacks of those games, different iterations, and then you plug in with the best one-off values or mini stacks from there. Keep talking. Yes, yes, yes. I don't know how feasible it is, but we could try to look at popularity numbers on larger main slates. I mean, we've had 13 game main slates, but 14 is substantial and numbers get pretty flat. It's a lot of digging them pretty easy. Okay, other stuff. I think Kirk, even as a standalone player at 64, is a standout. Yeah, absolutely. I think I need to put him in my... I had Earth in there already. I guess we'll do both. Plan both. Yeah, let's do it. Okay. Okay, got that, good. We could do a wait and see on Devontae Parker at 59. Sure, what's Waddle? 7,000 maybe. That's a lie, a little high. Devontae Smith this week finally got more than six targets the first time since he was a freshman in college. That's good. It's actually since October 24th. It was more than two months. He went between getting more than six targets in a game. Love that offense. The best. You get 59. I still think it is a really good play. Not as much of a good play than when I see Gallop at 58. Sure. Like I think I took a Uke out of my lock-in and I put Gallop in. I still might be about equal on them. You want to do that? No. Boo. Coward. Yeah, that's me. Cow... Julio's 56. Hold on, I'll say Brown salary is $1,300 higher than Julio Jones. I hate it. So we already have... I think Gallop and IU take away Byron Pringle's appeal a lot. I agree. I don't think... Is there anyone like we're missing down here? I'd say Mackenzie, but like Beasley should be back by then because I think his 10-day window will be up. Yeah. I honestly... We have so many receivers to dig through that it's going to be extremely difficult for me to narrow down. One thing I forgot is Mike Williams is going to miss next week too, which means Josh Palmer at 52. Guyton should be back by then. So it won't be like the same role that he had, but Guyton gets like a target a game. In the two games where Palmer's been like a full player, he's had seven targets, six yards touchdown, and six targets, 43 yards in a touchdown. So it's not like amazing, but it's also not terrible. Also, Josh Reynolds 52, face in Seattle with a golf back. That's not the... No, I shouldn't do that. Okay. Sorry. Yeah. I mean, realistically, we're going to get some huge games from this amount of receivers that I don't want to tie too many lineups to someone whose ceiling might be like 12.3 fandal points. Which is Reynolds, probably. Yeah. I agree. You're right. But I do think Palmer is... Someone we'll have to at least discuss on Thursday most likely. If it gets me like a Jonathan Taylor, Cooper Cup, George Kittle type of thing, I'm more open to it. Yeah. But you just need guys who can make up for missed opportunities. Yep. Do you want to go to tight end? Yeah. Let's move over to tight end. Oh my gosh. Mark Andrews is $8,700. I'm on comfy. It's not... My skin is itchy. Oh my gosh. Tent. All right. Let's play this game. Is this Cooper Cups game log or... Mark Andrews. 10 targets, 13, 11, 9, 10, 10, 8, 10. Trick question. Well, he had Nate in there, so I know it's Andrews. But if you hadn't included the eight, the answer is trick question. The answer is both. It's the same person. How could you tell? Is there a difference? They both have good beards. Cooper Cups is not good. He has a beard. It's not good. But he has one. I don't think it's wrong. I probably won't get to Andrews though. If I'm being realistic. Really I. Like Mark Andrews or Tyree Kill with 500 in savings. I mean, I should probably take the guy who gets targets and go Mark Andrews. That's true, yeah. But realistically. Travis Kelcey's 82, and next game will want to play a lot. It's high, but it's fair. George Kittle at 73 is going to feel like the best value for sure out of the top four. And because Gronk's salary didn't budge from 67. So like we're going to be mostly on Kittle. I think at least that will be relative to salary. He's the best. He is the best relative to salary, but I'll be stacking that game less. So probably one up on Kelcey, I guess. As a result. Yeah. I wish Cal Pittsburgh facing Buffalo. I also wish you were allowed to score touchdowns. Yeah. It'd be great. Mike Kasicki is 59. He doesn't really do a lot. I shouldn't know. Just redact that. Pretend I didn't talk about him. He doesn't do a lot with when both Parker and Waddle are healthy. So just I don't exist. I don't think I can do much at all. Pits or Kasicki when we have Zachary at 55. Yeah. It's it doesn't make a whole lot of sense. Even if Zachary is like chalky. Yeah. Sometimes you get like the value tight end who's chalky because he's like slotting into like a Foster Merrill or something Ricky Sills Jones. Yeah. Like that kind of stuff. This is not that he's leading the team in target rate and those relevant games that getting yardage. Like, yeah. It's got multiple touch. Like he's got touchdown upside. He just hasn't scored in four games. Yeah. He will write that down. So is it as simple as earths or pay up? Earths are the studs. I mean, it might be. I think it is. I think it should be at least right. Unless you're going to like play Jared Cook at 49 and be like, you know what? 7.9. Fandall points is enough. It feels such weak. There's a difference between like yesterday. Well, there's like a fear of like, or there's a difference between the fear of missing out. Um, and just understanding the probability that these guys put up like 18. And if you're tight ends, your score, like, if Mark Andrews puts up like 22 points, which is a decrease from where he's been recently. Like you just, it's really hard to near impossible to make that up unless you're hitting everywhere. And as much as we like to think that if you go back and look even at like the these lineups that are winning tournaments, there are some guys who didn't quite perform at peak, but they won because they're having guys who can do well, like even like a T Higgins, because T Higgins is not like a low upside player. We know that the upside is there. It's a difference of like, so I know what I'm saying. I know what I'm saying. Let's go to defense. Um, Ick, you can. Ick, Ick, Baltimore against Matthew Trashford. Uh, 35. I'm joking. He's great. Kidding. Kidding. Let it, let it be. Let it be. Carolina against whatever plays for the saints. I don't know. I might be Miami, maybe best week. No, I think with, with AJ Brown back, that's tougher. That's true. 10. He'll take sacks. So they could work, but Drew lock plays again. If they get, and if the Chargers get Derwin, Jane and Joey Bosa back, I could see the Chargers at 4,000 being pretty good. I had a lot of Raiders this week, which wasn't, didn't really pan out, but I think using defenses versus drew lock in the long run will probably be a good thing. Is this going to be where we need to like earmark at least 4,000 in salary for potentially defenses? Yeah. That's not fun. No, not really. Also, none of them ones around 4,000 are good either. Like the first like defense, I'm like, yeah, I kind of want to do that is, is Seattle at 44 versus Detroit or Buffalo at 45 against Atlanta. I mean, I'll have to look more at defense at the top and see if there are like, can't miss spots, I guess maybe New England. Yeah. I might do some dumb punt plays at defense. I mean, I will. I always do. So this won't be a change. Yeah. Okay. Five, five defenses scored, doubled as your Fandall points last week and four score negative. Five score negative points. So you don't want to get it wrong. But just because you allocate salary doesn't mean that you're not going to get negative points like the Chargers. Correct. You are. Let's go now to a note to future me after having experienced Sunday. Look back on it and reviewed it. What are you telling week 17 on Sunday morning, Brandon? Trust the mid range running backs like Sony, Michelle, Dave Montgomery. At this point I had play Brandon IU, but I think I really need to like go one by one with every receiver. Because from top till from like 58 to up to up through Cooper Cup, we have a lot of receivers who could have big games. And I want to kind of rank them and know what I'm missing out. And then translate that over to Jonathan Taylor versus like the Montgomery, Michelle type plays. Yeah. So I think the big takeaway is you said, what am I going to tell myself on Sunday? Feel confident that I rank the receivers properly. Yeah. I think that that makes sense for me. It is don't be afraid of trusting the previous process with game stacking because this year has been different. This year has been different because I haven't a lot of high total tight spread games. We actually have those this week and I have I believe those are legitimate. So I want to remind myself to get back to my old process of game stacking games with high totals tight spreads and reminding myself why we did that in the first place. I think that's the key for this week. So we can do it too. Based on the salaries of Tyreek, based on the salaries of T Higgins, all the guys in the Cardinals Cowboys game. I think that I need to get back to that in a pretty serious way this week, which is great. I welcome that with open arms. Open arms. I'm excited to do it that way. Absolutely. Okay. That is all that we have here for the week 16 recap show, our final recap podcast of the entire year. But we still have our preview podcast running all the way to the Super Bowl. So we're going to be here a lot. Make sure you are subscribed to the Number Fire Daily Fantasy podcast feed wherever you get your podcast while you're there. Leave us a rating and review that does help us out a bunch. Thank you to those who have done so already. Brandon, if people have questions for you on Twitter, where can they find you there? I'm Matt Goodwill of 13, G-D-U-L-A-1-3. And I'm Matt Jim Sonnis, J-I-M-S-A-N-N-E-S. You can also follow the FanDuel Podcast Network at FanDuel Podcast. Big thank you to everyone for tuning in for today. Good luck to you as you fill out your lines for Monday night and also for next week. We'll talk to you once again on Thursday to get you set for week 17. This has been the heat check fantasy podcast powered by Number Fire.