 Hey, what's up? I am Greg Sosman, joined today by Jim Sotis of Fandle, who's here to talk about the three players whose stock has risen the most after week four of this NFL season. What's going on, Jim? Yeah, Greg, I wish these discussions weren't because of injuries. And unfortunately, all three of them are, which kind of stinks because it's the three fun players getting banged up. That does change the stocks for these three guys. So it's unfortunate, but I guess that's the way the NFL works. So we will go on and try to assess what their value is going forward. Yeah, absolutely. You don't want to have the stocks go up because of injury, but that's the position that we find ourselves in. And specifically in Cleveland, where everybody said during draft season of season long leagues that if one of these backs were to get hurt, you were walking yourself into a top five option at the running back position. Unfortunately, it was Nick Chubb going down in week four, going to be placed on injured reserve. He's going to be out for the next at least three weeks. I assume it will be more. I believe they're by his week nine, which means Kareem Hunt is going to carry the load for the Cleveland Browns for the next while. And he's stepping into a position with the head coach that wants to run the football, that's going to run the football. Kareem Hunt immediately is an RV1. Yeah, he definitely is. And I think that you could look back yesterday's game and see that Don Trail Hilliard and Deirdre Johnson were involved too and maybe expect this to be more of a running back by committee in Cleveland. But that would not be my expectation because it's important to remember the context in which this game happened. Kareem Hunt was a big question mark to play on Sunday because he did not practice Wednesday or Thursday. He was limited Friday that Edward on Saturday reported that Hunt would play a limited role during Sunday's game. So the expectation going in if Nick Chubb hadn't gotten hurt is that Kareem Hunt would kind of be like an emergency only type guy. And instead he had to play quite a bit. But if we go into week number five and if Kareem Hunt is able to get any more practice throughout next week, he's a little bit healthier with that groin injury, I would expect him to be what you said and being a top flight, top flight running back because he was being used heavily while Nick Chubb was there. And it's very clear this team values Nick Chubb, Nick Chubb is a very talented running back. And if they were using Kareem Hunt, then we can expect him to play a lot now. Like Nick Chubb had a good role in fantasy. Kareem Hunt's role without Nick Chubb, we better than what Nick Chubb's role was. So that's kind of the benchmark I would use is take Nick Chubb and then add a couple targets onto that. And that's going to be a very valuable back for fantasy football. So keep an eye on the injury reports throughout this week, because we do want to make sure that groin injury does not linger for Kareem Hunt. But if he's able to get into full practices, especially by Friday, I would expect him to be playing around 80% of the snaps, getting 15 to 20 carries, five or so targets. And that's a lot of work from a daily fantasy perspective. It's a tough matchup for them on tap week number five against Indy. But I don't care if you're getting this much workload, you need to be in lineups. So Kareem Hunt, despite a running back by committee on Sunday is someone who's stock is way up with Nick Chubb being out. I think you put it right, Jim, that Kareem Hunt without Nick Chubb becomes Nick Chubb with a little bit of Kareem Hunt. That's how good it's going to be in Cleveland for Kareem Hunt. But I do want to throw this back at you for a moment, because if they do do a bit of a committee, as they've said, and they don't go 100% of the snaps for Kareem Hunt, which running back other than Kareem Hunt would you want to invest in in fantasy football over the backups of the other committee? Who else? Who's the priority here? Yeah, for daily fantasy, I'd avoid all of them because they're not going to get a big enough workload to matter. But D'Ernaz Johnson for season long, I think it'd be the guy you'd be looking to pick up because he was already on the active roster. Before this week, they added Dantra Hullier from the practice squad during the week, which is kind of what spurred some of the concern around Kareem Hunt was him being added. So I'd go to D'Ernaz Johnson first, he was actually the most carries on the team on Sunday. So D'Ernaz Johnson would be the next guy up there, but I'd expect him to be sitting around seven or so carries per game if this thing shakes out and if we get Kareem Hunt to full health. Kareem Hunt, obviously, as we said, the RB one here, D'Ernaz Johnson, the second choice, but with as much as Kevin Stavasky wants to run the ball, I wouldn't be surprised if D'Ernaz Johnson is a part of the weekly game plan and should be a part of their game plan in season long leagues. Another injury to a top flight running back was in Los Angeles here, Jim, where Austin Eckler went down with a pretty serious hamstring injury that's going to keep him out for a few weeks, which means it's time for Joshua Kelly to step up. Kelly assumed the backup role right at the beginning of the year and he hasn't looked back. He wasn't great yesterday for this Chargers team, but I still believe it's him over Justin Jackson. Yeah, based on yesterday's usage, I'd expect roughly a 60-40 split in this backfield going forward and that's enough given how well Justin Herbert is playing. Like we'll take a 60-40 split in favor of Joshua Kelly. And I was a bit concerned because near the end of the first half, we saw Joshua Kelly lose a fumble. That can always be risky because Justin Jackson was not active in weeks two through three in two and three. When we saw Joshua Kelly's role get bigger, you got hurt in week number one. So we didn't really know if Justin Jackson might get that role back after the Kelly fumble, but in the second half, it was still Kelly out carrying Jackson five to two. They both had one target for the full game. It was a 57% snap rate for Kelly compared to 40% for Justin Jackson. And that's what I would expect going forward. Now you mentioned the productivity not being there. That's very true, but it was against the Tampa Bay Bucks who have a very good rush defense and they didn't have their right guard or their right tackle in that game. I'd expect both those guys to be back here pretty soon. And once they are, I'd expect Joshua Kelly to be getting pretty efficient work and a decent offense and a team that wants to run the football. And again, Justin Herbert playing well lists everybody here. So Justin Jackson is not going to be a non-factor by any means. He will be getting decent work and he's probably going to be a frustrating player when it comes to people who want to use Joshua Kelly, but I'd still expect Kelly to get roughly maybe 15 carries or so per game, get three to five targets, not on that workload. You can be in play for DFS as long as your offense is good enough. And we've seen the chargers play really well recently, even in some tough matchups. So I think that Joshua Kelly, it's not going to be a Kareem Hunt type role where I'd expect him to play about 80% snap rate. They're probably closer to 60%, but I do think that's enough given what he has shown this year and given what Justin Herbert has shown too. As long as Herbert remains in the lineup, I think you're going to find that Joshua Kelly is a fine DFS play. I think the matchups get easier. Hopefully his offensive line will get healthier as well. And Kelly will be productive in this LA system. We mentioned the backup here just like we did in Cleveland. So in season long leaves, if you have to pick somebody up, Jim, I'll throw it back to you. Would you rather pick up Justin Jackson or would you rather pick up Deioners Johnson? I would go with Justin Jackson because I think that there is a bit more room for upward mobility there because Kareem Hunt is an established veteran to whom the Browns just gave a larger contract, whereas Joshua Kelly is a running back who has had some fumbles. So I would say Justin Jackson would be my preferred guy there just because I think there's more room for upward mobility. The guy ahead of him is less established. So I'd go Justin Jackson, the Northwestern logo on my pullover aside as my preferred option over Deioners Johnson. Just Josh Kelly in front of him, which is less scary, I'd say, than Kareem Hunt. Justin Jackson may have some value coming up in the next few weeks, but Josh Kelly, that's the player you're going to want to invest in right now for the Los Angeles Chargers. One more running back to chat about here. And again, it's because of an injury. Now, this injury wasn't yesterday. It was from last week, and that was to read Cohen, who tours ACL. Cohen is out for the rest of the season, which means David Montgomery is going to take an every down roll. I think some people invested last week in Cordero Patterson was like, all right, maybe he'll assume some of the snaps from three Cohen, but mainly if you watch this bears game and it wasn't good. It was David Montgomery. That was the primary ball carrier. And he can catch some passes up the back of them as well. David Montgomery is approaching RV1 territory himself. Yeah, we have to give the caveat here too, because we're talking about how Joshua Kelly didn't produce because he was facing Tampa Bay. David Montgomery is facing Indy and now he gets Tampa Bay on Thursday. So if you're expecting big production at a David Montgomery in week five, I might lower expectations a bit, but the longer term outlook, like you said, that's the bigger implication here for David Montgomery. Once he's not facing elite rush defenses, he could be awesome because he had a career high six targets on Sunday. He ran more than 30 routes and that was shocking me. I was kind of in the same boat as you were. I was like, okay, Cordero Patterson may get some more, some more running back work here as the in the tree Cohen role, but no, it was David Montgomery and Montgomery before the groin injury and camp was getting a lot of positive buzz. And we know that he was a guy coming out of Iowa State, very physical runner who could do a lot of stuff. We didn't see that last year, but there is that potential for David Montgomery. And if you give him some targets and you know, six targets, like I said, is a pretty good workload. He could do a lot with that. So Indy's defense has been legit this year. I wouldn't worry too much about the fact that Montgomery couldn't get the ball rolling there. And again, I wouldn't overreact when he probably will struggle on Thursday night as well, but this is more of a longer term thing. Because like you said, tree Cohen is done for the year. We're talking about week six, week seven, et cetera, et cetera. Those are the zones where David Montgomery really could flash the fruits of this new role. If we get him to get the, to keep those six targets per game, he could be, you know, a borderline bell count. It's not going to be as valuable on a Chicago bearish team as it would be elsewhere. But if you're getting that target load, it gives you a weekly floor and it gives you an easier access to a ceiling. So David Montgomery earning a bigger role in Chicago because of the injury to tree Cohen, hopefully you can hold that down despite some rough matchups here in the, in the near future. And I think that once we get beyond these tough matches with Indian in Tampa Bay, David Montgomery will be a guy we can turn to a DFS, even in an offense that may not be that great. The offense is not exactly exciting. The schedule doesn't really add up, but David Montgomery is the guy now for the Chicago Bears. You've heard a lot of nice things from that, that neggy in regards to Montgomery and without three Cohen's who steal away opportunity, Montgomery is going to take advantage here and it's going to be worth playing both DFS and certainly in season long. That's going to do it for us here on the fan dual hurry of Jim. We appreciate the time, the advice, the insight. Good luck this week. Same to you, Greg. We're looking forward to talking week number five with you on Friday to talk some stacks. Should be a lot of fun. Absolutely. But before we get to the week five stacks, I'm going to be joined by Tom Beckio tomorrow as we take a look at the high price players that we should start building or week five lineups around. For Jim Sonos, I'm Greg Salsman. Thank you so much for watching. Have a great night. Enjoy Monday night football and we'll see you back here tomorrow for another edition of the fan dual hurry up.