 Typically, we record this podcast on a Thursday and this week because of all the weird stuff, we decided to push things back one day and I'm grateful we did. I will say that does not mean we are out of the woods because things are going to change likely during the show for today after we record 13 seconds after we press done, things are going to change. But I'm glad we're talking here on a Friday supposed Thursday because week 15 is going to be a very weird and difficult slate. That's not a bad thing because we can still win money on difficult slates, but there's a lot to dissect here. We want to make sure we go through everything, identify key changes and let you know what to do on Fanduel.com for this week. Welcome on into the heat check fantasy podcast powered by Number Fire. That's right here on the Fanduel Podcast Network and Numberfire.com. My name is Jim Sonnis. I am a senior writer and analyst for Numberfire.com. And here as always by Brandon Gadoula, he is the managing editor of Numberfire.com. And Brandon week 15 is weird. How are you doing today? Yeah, you said we're not out of the woods yet. We're very much in Fangorn Forest right now where the trees are going to come get you. That feels like we're talking about Wizard of Oz type of thing here, but don't do that to me. You know, you know what this is. Wizard of Oz. But you don't like any other, any other IP that includes moving trees, right? You're killing me. But yeah, I mean, they helped win the battle of Helms Deep. But anyway, we're looking at a guy who falls me on Twitter is left in his Helms. So Josh, I think it's Josh. I hope if you were involved in this tree battle, I hope it went okay for you. So it honestly just feels like we're trying to navigate and then as soon as we find out one piece of information, we get other pieces of information. Obviously the COVID list is a huge factor, but we still have like traditional injuries to try to figure out. I honestly, you know, by Friday, you know, historically we have done the main, we have this show done. And by Friday, things are even more formed in my head. I'm like, okay, I talked, I talked out the slate with Jim the day before. I'm really starting to whittle things down even more. I feel like this week, I'm somehow like, I'm not even sure what the matchups are because I've been so focused on trying to make the adjustments in my head of like, who should I like, you know, from a workload standpoint before I even really get to the matchup. So you're probably going to like mention some like somebody and I'm going to be like, who are they playing? I will say that a ring of Saturday games, which is throwing me off too. Yeah. And the Saturday game is kind of weird too. I think the matchup portion of it is also pertinent this week because I think we're going to have to change our process for this week a bit because typically if you're a long time listener, you know, we revolve around game stacks, identifying games with for the most part, high totals, tight spreads where we want action on both sides. We can see things potentially shooting out. I think this week is a week where I will be tweaking that pretty significantly and relying more on single team stacks, you know, having Kyler Murray with Christian Kirk and then no bring back on the Detroit side, stuff like that. So it's an alteration of the process. I think that that is fine because we have to be malleable. We have to adjust. Our opponents have to adjust to so we can still win cash and it's a tough slate, but tough slates reward people who pay attention, who work hard to try to identify news. We're going to try to help stuff will change, but hopefully we can at least put you on the right path here. Quick update here for you once again, as always do have the listener league back once again for this week to get yourself entered. Go to Vanduul.com slash league slash listener league Vanduul.com slash league slash listener league to get yourself entered $5 entry. Three entries max. There is no rake. I know Robert. I think it was last week one and tweeted at us. Let us know that he won Robert Congrats run it back this week. Also rooting for all of you. Every single one of you, we are rooting for you in this listener league. Vanduul.com slash league slash listener league, $5 entry, three entries max. No rake, fun contest structure for you there. Also, what better way to gear up for the weekend than to spice up your thirsty Thursday night football with fan duel and Captain Morgan next week, the final Thursday night game of the year. So check out Captain Morgan's Thursday night pick them a completely free to play contest series that gives you four chances to win a share of $10,000. Here's how it works. Vanduul fans will enter with the chance to answer 10 questions centered around both Captain Morgan and that Thursday's NFL matchup. Fans who answer the most questions correctly will be eligible to earn their share of that week's $10,000 cash prize Thursday night football coming up once again next week. So head to Vanduul.com slash Captain Morgan NFL and spice up your game today. I believe those contests go up on Tuesday. So Tuesday, Captain Morgan dot com, Vanduul dot com slash Captain Morgan NFL must be 21 plus to participate for more details. The Vanduul dot com or download the Vanduul fantasy app eligibility restrictions apply and don't forget to spice up your game day with Captain Morgan. Let's take a quick look at the slate over here for this week. And I think that you talked about it before Brandon where it's a slate where we need to focus primarily on volume and grind into volume first and then add an additional elements. And that is going to definitely skew things and change our process. But to me, that's the key takeaway this week is identifying who will be getting volume, identifying if that volume will lead to points and deciding how that relates to things here. And I think being a bit picky with everything, I think that this week specifically with value plays, I can be picky because I've actually got something I like. So I think that's the that's the key thing for me. What about for you? You do have value play you like. Yeah. What do you mean? Very, very few. I mean, not to the point where I'm nitpicking them. I'm just lucky to have them. So maybe we got we got James Robinson. I like Devonte Freeman a pretty decent amount. I think that works pretty well. I would use Zeke if there were no Pollard. I would use Michelle if there were no Henderson. I'm OK with Antonio Gibson. All those guys are below 7000. Cordero Patterson is exactly 7000. I'm OK with him. We got Devonte Parker. We have Van Jefferson. We have Gabriel Davis. We have Zach Ertz. I think there's a lot of value on this side. So I can be picky. It's great. I don't need to chase Freddie Swain or D. Eskridge if they play. I can be picky. I think for me, that's like the five running backs you named or just the five running backs that we play this week. So like potentially. Like it's not really. Once we get AJ Dillon with no Aaron Jones. But yeah, I know we got a trend on the Titans. So we're never going to chase Naji or anything like that. But I think that I think the one of the overviews for me. Is, you know, in this house on this podcast, we pay up to roster stud running backs. We do not have them this week. We just don't. And so that alters everything. That also means that, yes, we have five or six viable, you know, 7000 and lower running backs. But is Davante Freeman going to be a better flex play than like a Christian Kirk at a similar salary? Yeah, I think this week I'm much more open to flexing a receiver or in a very specific case. If I play Zacher, I'll just flex George Kittle sometimes because I just view him as a receiver. But I don't think it's necessarily a week where I play three running backs in every line up, even though I'm still more inclined to do that. I don't feel like it's an automatic just I'm playing through. Who are my three running backs for my main lineup? Right. I'm not necessarily locked into that. Yeah, I fully agree. I think they're looking at this slate because there are fewer priorities because the scoring gap between the acceptable running backs and the acceptable receivers is not as big. And honestly, like there are a lot of receivers I want to use. Like you talked about Davante Freeman versus was it Van or Kirk? It was Kirk Kirk. I think you can go through the same thought process with like Cordero Patterson versus Deontay Johnson and like, you know, I probably preferred Deontay there. So I think that it's worth pointing out. I know a lot of people are more willing to use receivers in the flex than we are, but like I think it's worth noting that we are open to it this week, which means that if your baseline is, you know, 50 50, you might want to be just all in on receivers in the flex or tight ends. I think that also does work for those two specifically Erz and Kettle, I think. Yeah, I mean, I could see myself going to, depending on how salary breaks, if I have George Kettle and I play like and I have enough salary to like my sticky, I can kind of see that. But Dawson Knox, I think is like somewhat in that consideration too. Yeah, it's honestly, so I think just one of the running themes for us is like thinking about the slate a little bit more differently. And if we're doing that, most people probably are too. It's just again, that baseline is probably a bit different. But yet not having game stacks, though. The reason we like game stacks is correlation and have done the research and even slight, slight, slight boost in percentage odds over a nine player, including defense lineup. That helps your probability of a good lineup by a lot. If you lose those correlations, it's a little bit less likely. But I don't think that it's worth it to force it for for teams that just have nothing to bring it back with. It's always hard to hit an eight player parlay, which is effectively what a fan to a lineup is. It is a lot easier when those the legs of the parlay are correlated, which is why saying game parlays can be fun. Obviously, those are like they account for the correlation. But that's effectively what we're saying here. We might not get that this week. I think that there are still some spots to have at least like mini stacks, but it's very different composition than usual. And I think that is worth noting for sure. OK, let's take a look at one thing I would say that with the flex stuff. If we were to get Michelle with no Henderson, if we get Zeke with no Pollard, if we get Chase Edmonds with no James Conner, if we get all those situations to break, that changes things. So that's that's what I would say there. Yeah, that that. But even, you know, two of those guys with a Freeman, a Robinson, like I'm not going. I'm not saying like I'm not going to play three running backs, but right, it's, you know, it's a week. We're just less firm on it than usual. Yeah, for sure. OK, shifting to the injuries and starting off with a non injury. That is Urban Meyer getting the can overnight on Wednesday. They've had some weird stuff around him. They get the Texans this week. Carlos Hyde also in concussion protocol. I think for me, that's the bigger note here is like Carlos Hyde is in concussion protocol than Urban Meyer getting fired. So with those two things in mind, any alterations for you to the Jags for this week? Well, it's not a fun take to have that the opportunity. It's you should be saying you're more. Urban Meyer is gone. James Robinson will get 70 touches now. Lock him into your lineup. It can't fail. There you go. Gotcha. You know, usually I underreact to a lot of this stuff because, you know, you take out. In a more traditional sense, where a coach loses his job midseason, it's the team has been performing poorly. Then they got to, you know, promote someone who, you know, at least ostensibly wasn't a head coach for a reason to that point. And that's usually how I view it. I'm like, it's probably a wash it best. This one, though, so specifically might matter because the team really, really did not like urban Meyer. So I do think it's a little bit of a bump. Obviously, we are centered in data. We don't fall into like the we joke about a lot of narratives, like, you know, the homecoming narratives, the birthday narratives. But like, I think this might actually matter a little bit more. And I wouldn't say I'm going to play James Robinson if we had Carlos Hyde. I'm not saying I'm going to stack Trevor Lawrence with anybody. I'm just saying it helps me get much more in on James Robinson in an offense that's pretty bad. Yeah, I would agree with that. I think that with with in the two games, Hyde is missed. Robinson's snap rates are eighty five percent and ninety five percent. But grudgingly, I'm sure. Yeah, but like, you know, he couldn't use Carlos Hyde. I think the thing that helps here is that it's not like some rando is stepping in like Daryl Bevel was the interim coach for the Lions all of last year or for the half of last year and like he did a good job. He's a smart offensive coordinator, despite what our admire wants to believe. And I think that gives me more confidence here as well. It doesn't like make me super eager to get to like anyone else. But I think when you add in the hide injury with everything else, it makes Robinson a really good play at sixty three. The problem is I know everyone else thinks that too. So the question is, do you pivot to Marvin Jones as a way to get off of James Robinson or do you just accept Robinson and accept that value at a slate at a position that's not overly deep to me? I think that like in my non-Robinson Lions, I do want to look at Marvin Jones. I think that there is some appeal in that. But default is just I'm going to take the under salary volume and go with that. Yeah, I think that I think my main issue is that I view this as a net positive and an actual reason for change. But Trevor Lawrence in the underlying data hasn't been very good. And I don't know how much of that will change, you know, within a few days, just because he doesn't have Urban Meyer there like the doubt. He's one of the worst downfield passers in football. I know that the rest of the results of the worst. Sure. It's hard when you're throwing to Laquan, Fredwell, Tavon, Austin. We'll discuss it all. Well, I don't know if Louis has ever been targeted down for you. So I just, you know, I'm not saying I'm sitting here saying it's a positive. It helps me on James Robinson. I will consider Marvin Jones if he makes lineups really work. But I'm not saying like, yeah, I'm stacking this whole offense for their revenge. Yeah, it's mostly Robinson here for me. The Rams have a COVID outbreak with Odo Beckham hitting the list on Tuesday. Jill and Ramsey and Daryl Henderson tested positive earlier on. They have not been cleared to return yet. Meanwhile, the Seahawks plays Tyler Locken and Alex Collins on the covid list yesterday. Fun times. Really great. We'll talk about this game in the bookmakers section. Deandre Hopkins is going to miss the rest of the regular season due to a knee injury and then James Connor as a practice yet this week. Chase Edmonds expected back from IR. We'll talk about the Cardinals against the Lions in the bookmakers section as well. Lamar Jackson missed another practice on Thursday. That puts his status up in the air against the Packers. Tyler Huntley would start if Lamar were to sit. So where would you be on the Ravens if we assume that Huntley starts and how does this alter your view of the Packers offense? I'm doing a trend on this. Should I save it or yeah, we'll save it. I didn't look I didn't look at Tony Paul. Tony Paul got an unlimited practice on Thursday after not practicing Wednesday. That is a step in the right direction for him. Tyron Smith has been ruled out. They talk about that on the radio show on Monday. That's a bummer. We'll talk more about that in the trend section, but shed a tear for our board. Tyron Smith, Eli Mitchell was listed as a non-participant on Thursday. Probably did some side work, but he's not going to play. We'll talk more about this backfield in the bookmakers section. JD McKissick did not practice Thursday as he is still a potential protocol. And surprise, surprise, Taylor Heinecke just tested positive for covid. So they're going to start. Let me see here. Garrett Gilbert, Kyle Shermer or Jordan Ta'amu, shout out XFL. Yeah. Wasn't he like DK Metcalfe's quarterback like in college? I think he might have been DK Metcalfe and AJ Brown's quarterback in college. I think so. So that's not ideal. Oh, boy. Terry McClaren missed practice Wednesday. He was upgraded to limited on Thursday. So Kyle Allen likely out. Taylor Heinecke. I feel pretty firm in saying is out. I'm guessing I don't know about his vaccinations. Anyway, bad situation for Washington. Does that make you avoid Antonio Gibson in this situation with how much poo they've had hit the wall? So. I mean, this makes me so. OK, so workload matters at running back, but so does offensive expectations. I think I'd have to put Jacksonville against Houston above this offense now. So it's going to be hard for me to justify Antonio Gibson at 6900 when I can play James Roberts in at 63. That's not to say I wouldn't touch Antonio Gibson, but I really. I really don't think that I would get there. It's a really big downgrade. They are starting their fifth string center, who is apparently a plus size model. So shut up, big boys, love it. That's rough with it. Sounds like Kyle Schirmer will start. I think he's Pat Schirmer's kid. Didn't he go to like Vanderbilt? I don't know. Anyway, I shouldn't have to like Google the starting quarterback. I also OK. So I was going to look up his his college stats and because my brain is broken, I searched Kyle Schirmer racing reference, which is like the sports reference page for NASCAR and Formula One. Happy December, everybody. Kyle Schirmer sports reference. They go to Vandy, got that 8.2. AYA in his final year, which is 2018. He is not mobile. You know, that's actually not terrible stats for a Vanderbilt quarterback given the level of competition. But like, you know, typically third, you said this with coaches, typically third stringers are third stringers for a reason. I think you can probably avoid Gibson. I mean, like, I think there's still a path to him being fine. But like that path, the probability that path hitting just took a major hit. Yeah, especially with what we're about to talk about next with Jaylen Hertz likely out that game. Gardner Minshew is fine. I don't want to jump ahead, but like, yeah, trying to adjust for context of this game, like. Gardner Minshew might be able to move the ball against this. Defense and well, yeah, their whole defense on the COVID list. So probably we'll talk about that. Miles Sanders, Jaylen Hertz, Jordan Howard, all limited at practice this week. In week 13 with no hurts, Gardner Minshew was, you know, pretty good against the Jets. Problem is they were still a very run heavy team. They're only down first to pass or is 45 percent. So he had 11 first half attempts. He was crazy, crazy efficient in those, which is good. But like they don't really change. But let's talk about this Eagles team. I think it's 50 50 of Hertz plays. I think it's almost a lock that Sanders and Howard plays. If that winds up being true, how are you viewing this team? If we get Howard and Sanders, I can't play either of them. I don't like how they split up to work. We could see Miles Sanders play 70 percent of snaps between the 20s. And then they just handed off to Jordan Howard at the goal line. Even in a run heavy offense, that's not really enough for me. I mean, I guess I'd consider Devontae Smith at 59, but they're so run heavy that he's got a cash in on like four targets he'd get. So I'm probably out here. What's Dallas Goddard's out at 6,000. That's too high for me. Yeah, I mean, like so. At tight end, we love Kittle, we love Zach Hertz. I think Knox and Gossicky are both very in play. I'd rank all those guys above Goddard. And I'm not even sure I'll use Gossicky and Knox, because I think I could justify just using Hertz and Kittle in every lineup this week. So although Goddard is fine, I am OK with not being super enthusiastic there. If Hertz plays, would you use him or no? What are you using Hertz? Yeah, probably not. I agree. Emmanuel Sanders seems likely to sit this week due to his knee injury. We saw Gabriel Davis pop up in week 14 with a bunch of red zone work and routes. Are you considering Gabriel Davis at forty nine hundred dollars? The question is, do I have to? Like, I think that's really what it comes down to the way that I think the only reason I would need to go down to Gabriel Davis is if I'm playing either Kyler or Josh Allen, which spoiler alert, I might play just those two quarterbacks in every lineup. Anyway. Got a jam in Cooper Cup and George Kittle, but I don't really want to like load up on a Devonte Freeman, James Robinson, Combo. I don't know how often I'm going to do that. As much as I like Gabriel Davis, I still have. I don't really envision that he will be a high volume receiver who will have high leverage on his volume. But I'm probably not going to. He's a rotational piece, but he's not someone I would put in my loves. Yeah, I think so. If we're talking like exposure levels. Probably like 15 to 20. Yeah, like if he helps me increase my exposure to Cooper Cup, like if you use Gabriel Davis having a Kyler Cup, Kittle, which is fun to say, a Murray Cup, Kittle lineup is very easy to get to. And I'd like to do that. So I think that's kind of the main appeal of him is it makes it allows me to get the actual studs I do like, which is mostly those three. I think there's a strong case for some other receivers, too. But I don't need to go there very often because there are some other lower salary receivers with more volume who I do like. But I think that I'd use him to get more access to those studs for sure. It's just like on a more typical slate when we had like Jonathan Taylor or Alvin Camara or Austin Eckler. And we wanted to get to Kyler or Josh Allen. Like, yeah, I'd be like, you know what? I'm just going to take what he gives me down there because he does have that path to 85 and or a touchdown within this slate. I don't need it as much. And so I don't want to get too overconfident in his role. Yeah. When I'm already making assumptions and other places a little bit. Yeah, that's that's true. OK, so the Dolphins plays Jalen Waddle on the covid list on Thursday. They also currently have no running backs because they're all on the covid list. I think there's a pretty good chance of Miles Gaskin gets activated. Savon Ahmed potentially could, too, based on the timing of when they tested positive, but not a certainty right now. So I'm honestly just going to I'm not going to analyze the Dolphins backfield. I trust all of you to figure that out yourself. Once we know who will play, let's talk about pass catchers, though, because Waddle very likely out. What does that do for your interest level on Devonte Parker and Mike Gasicki? Yeah, it's up for sure. The volume should be there. The volume was there for Gasicki in week 13 before there by. He had 11 targets. Devonte Parker, just the five, which was actually three fewer than Albert Wilson. But I don't expect that to like stick around. So I'm I think one of like, I can't really view Gabriel Davis without the context of assuming I have Devonte Parker, Christian Kirk. Yes, these guys are a thousand plus more in salary, but the gap with their role, their, I think, solidified volume compared to his is really hard for me to take that leap with with Davis. Yeah, Parker 58, like he's not that much higher than Davis. And like, it's a thousand plus, but like, or, you know, but the gap between James Robinson and the guys in the low 7000 range is minimal. I think the gap here is probably larger. I think that the Parker would have been a good play, even if Waddle had played. Now you take him out and like, sure, you lower expectations for two atonga by Loa, but like against the Jets, it's not enough where I care about it for Parker or for Gasicki. I think it's more so just like, hey, they get a volume bump, really good matchup. I think we just use those two guys and feel good about it. Yeah, I would have considered to a because again, like we've I've said this outright already, but like we have Kyler Murray, Josh Allen, and then it's a big drop to a pretty flat here with a lot of guys with question mark. So I would have considered to I don't think I'll quite get there without Jalen Waddle, but my thoughts exactly. I agree. Other side of that game, Michael Carter designated to return for the Jets. Tevin Coleman also back at practice. The Jets suck, though, facing the Dolphins. Any interest in Carter or anybody else on this team? Uh, no, perfect. Let's move on to the bookmaker info for this week. Still a decent setup for Ram Seahawks, despite all the covid positive. It is a forty four and a half point total. The Rams favor by five and a half now as of this recording. Darrell Henderson, Oda Beckham, Tyler Lockett, Alex Collins, Jalen Ramsey all in the covid list. Henderson likely the one of the best odds to be activated because he tested positive first. But with how things currently set up, is this a game you will stack? Sorry, I'm get like every time I see a notification, I'm like, who else is out now? I'm just high now. I'm just high as officially out. Yeah, so I'm like, I'm just jumping all over the place because I'm like, who? So Ram Seahawks. A game that all stack. The only the only Seahawk I would even consider playing would be came at calf. I think I'm over Gerald Everett with tight end looking how it does. So it's really hard to say I'm going to stack this one up. Yeah, that being said, I'm going to play a lot of Cooper Cup and I don't know if that means I'll get to Matthew Stafford at seventy seven. He might be the QB. Four for me, three, four. So Murray Allen and then what? It's Murray Allen way up, like they're in their own stratosphere. Roger's next or what? I have Dak. OK, with Tyron Smith out on go Stafford over Dak. But it's, you know, I could see myself playing Stafford with Cup. And if we I'm going to one question I had, I was saving it for this section is your thoughts on Sony, Michelle, even if Daryl Henderson were to play, because I kind of don't care anymore. I feel like Sony's the guy. I think he would be available as a tournament option with like. So I would say twenty five ish percent. And like to me, that's a low number. I tend to be very concentrated at running back. So twenty five percent sounds like a lot, but it's not for me. That's like more of when I say twenty five percent, that is what I would deem to be a rotational piece versus a core play. Yeah. If there's no Henderson, is he the best running back on the slate? I think so. Yeah. Yeah. Pretty easily. So he goes from being the best running back on the slate to being a tournament option to whom I would want exposure. OK, so. I think we're roughly on the same page. Would you say that this is a game you'll stack? So, yes, it's indoors, decently tied spread. It is a repeat divisional matchup, but I can't really be that picky this week. But then I got to ask, who are you playing? So I'm Oh, D.K. It's just D.K. OK, so like, OK. So yeah, again, we're on the same page. I just kind of say it's not really a game I'm stacking. You're it's but I'm stacking it in terms of I will have three Rams and D.K. Like I think that Stafford Cup, Sony, but also Stafford Cup, Van. I'm not a put I never use two receivers in the same team because they cannibalize each other so much on Fandall specifically where touchdowns matter a lot. And if Van scores, Cooper Cups not scoring. Very rarely do you see two receivers in the same team in a perfect lineup. This week, I actually do think it's actually kind of fun. So when I say stack it, that typically means a three one with three Rams, one Seahawks, specifically being D.K. Mechav, yeah, I think any time there's only one viable bring back, I would just sort of semantically say it's not a stack. But like, again, we're on the same page here, just kind of saying it differently. But it's definitely, you know, the most likely game, I think, to to pop off. I think so, too. So where I think both sides are most in play. I think so I did my I was working on player picks on Wednesday. And initially had Russell Wilson in there. I took him out once the locking news hit, because I think that is a significant downgrade. And honestly, it does lower my interest in D.K. Mechav a hair, like as a standalone play, because I think the odds that this offense is just dysfunctional or higher. I that's another reason why I'm not going to chase Swain or DS Gridge, because they also both didn't practice on Wednesday, Thursday. So like, it's not like they're fully healthy right now, either. So it really is Mechav, you could make a case for Rashad Penny, but his role is very it's not very fantasy friendly because lack of passing game work. There are now greater odds they fall behind. Adrian Peterson likely going to play this week. So personally, I'm OK. Just being out on Rashad Penny that might be contrarian. I actually don't know. I haven't got a good feel for what people will do with him this week. But where are you out on Rashad Penny? So he played 58 percent of the snaps last week. He had two redstone carries, two of three. Forty percent of the routes, which was just 11. Again, he had the phenomenal run, like long rushes. He was about 65 yards over expectation, which I mean, that's what kind of what happens whenever you. But his success rate wasn't particularly good. That's a little bit worrisome. I think that will probably just be somebody who is more popular than he deserves to be because of the. The results from last week, but we're still looking at someone who played sub 60 percent snap rate and who just is doesn't project to have a whole lot of passing volume and a low volume passing offense. Even if he's running routes, you know, they're they're going to throw the ball elsewhere and just come back to DK Metcalf here. It's been 10 games since he's had more than eight targets. He's had eight targets in a lot of those exactly eight targets. But I know targets are sorry. No games in the past 10 with more than eight targets and none with at least 100 yards. He has a one 100 yard game this year. Like I know Russ has been hurt and like that's part of it. But yeah, he himself has not converted on a lot of opportunities, which is really, really worrisome because he's not 100 percent either. Right. Um, with Penny, the ground game has been bad all year. I don't I don't want to change my expectations on that because they tore up Houston, especially against the Rams. I know the Rams have some guys out, but still it's tougher than Houston, especially on the road. So. So. OK. Where would you rank him? DK 100. Oh, no, sorry. OK. Yeah. I'm I know I took it to DK. I'm trying to stay on Penny now. I just wanted to throw that up. So where where do you rank him among? Let's keep it even at. Let's make it fair. Let's say James Robinson, Rashad, Penny, Devonte, Freeman, all extremely similar salaries. He's the lowest of those three by like by far, because I think he is for me. Not by far, because if I assume Huntley plays that does lower Devonte and I am assuming he'll play. But I would say it's Robinson. Clear one, Devonte to Rashad, Penny, three, and I don't really have like any like trepidation ranking it that way. I feel pretty firm in that personally. Me too. OK. Cool. Highest total on the slate is in Detroit for the Lions and the Cardinals. What? What? Yeah. That's mostly because of the Cardinals. They are twelve and a half point favorites. That gives them the highest implied total of the week. They will be without DeAndre Hopkins. James Conner did not practice Wednesday or Thursday. T.G. Hawkinson done for the year. DeAndre Swift missed practice on Wednesday and Thursday, so he's probably going to set two. So what is your favorite way to get exposure to the Cardinals? And are you bringing it back with any Lions here? OK, favorite way is just Kyler because he naked in. What's that? Naked. No, I'm saying my. My absolute favorite. Aspect of this game is to get access to Kyler Murray. I will stack him with Christian Kirk. I will stack him with Zach Hertz. I will also stack him with A.G. Green. But Kyler is in a great position to put up a huge game and we don't need salary for running backs. I don't want to get cute and like talk myself into Russell Wilson without Tyler Lockett as much as I'm going to talk about Dak Prescott. I don't really think that it's even comparable like same planet. And if you look at four, we have 14 weeks in the books now. We have so then we have 14 main slate optimal lineups. 11 of those 14 quarterbacks in the main slate optimal lineups have had a salary of 7700 or higher. I know that you have to adjust that for everything. But like we see big games from quarterbacks and whenever we have big games from quarterbacks at the top of the salary pool, you still need them. And so I'm really letting that apply to me for this week with with Kyler and Josh Allen. So my favorite way is to make sure I have a ton of Kyler Murray. How I stack him will depend. But my favorite default is probably going to be Christian Kirk or Zach Hertz. As far as bring backs go, like, I don't know, you know, I'm an Amon Ross St. Brown fan, but I don't think I'm going to quite get there. Yeah, OK, in this spot. I think Kyler is the best quarterback in the slate, even without DeAndre. So we talk a lot about we talk about Russ getting downgrade with no locket. The depth here is very, very, very, very, very different. A.J. Green is better than the S grid right now. So like the drop off is significantly different. So that's why I think Kyler is the best quarterback in the slate. I will be using him in our head to head versus each other. Yes, you know, just full transparency there. Thanks. Thanks for the heads up. Yeah, I know. Really a divulging state secrets here. And I do think that Chase Edmunds is very interesting if Conor can't go like because the primary concern is Edmunds losing work at the goal line to James Conor. And if that's not the case, Conor practiced last week, which I think is a key, key, key thing. Whenever a guy practiced for two weeks before coming off the before coming off I are my level of enthusiasm. You meant Edmunds, you said Conor. Yeah, sorry. Sorry. That's right. Yeah. Thank you. My level of enthusiasm slash confidence in playing them is much, much, much higher. So I would say that like Kyler Corp play Erts Corp play. Edmunds would be a core play then if that were to happen. I think Conor probably still plays, but, you know, he'd be a core play then. And then I'd rank them in that order and then get to Kirk and Green after that. OK, I mean, I love Christian Kirk in this spot. He should be the primary beneficiary of the downfield work. I have some notes later on on how bad Detroit is against the downfield pass. But two questions probably quickly because we've spent a lot of time on this one. If James Conor plays, but so does Edmunds. Are you going to play James Conor at 8000? Nope, Jim Sheikin has had no. They said already they were going to lower his volume. So I'm on this outside. Any Detroit bringbacks? I will have. So because I'll have so many Kyler lineups, I think it'll be worth having a mixture of Josh Reynolds and Amon Ross and Brown. OK, probably prefer Reynolds because I think that, like, realistically, his rostering will be like 0.5 percent. And I think with his downfield role, he has an easier path to, like, actually me benefiting from using him. So I would say Reynolds be the one. But like he and Amon Ross and Brown are one A one B. But I think in my Kyler lineups, if you give me 10 Kyler lineups, I'm probably running it back in. Four to five. Yeah. Yeah, probably I think half half is as high as I'd go. Yeah, that's probably about it for me. Also, Amon Ross and Brown and his fandal player photo. He's like cut off at, like, just under his mouth. So he looks real low. They just like not move the camera. Well, I think it's apropos for his A dot. Short, you know, new Danny and Mandola. OK, second highest implied total on the slate belongs to the 49ers. They are hosting the Falcons. Forty six point total with the 49ers favorite by nine and a half. Eli Mitchell did not practice Thursday. George Kittle returned to practice Thursday. So same question as the last one. What is your favorite route for exposure to the 49ers and any interest in a bring back on the Falcon side? Favorite for the 49ers is just George Kittle. Bring backs with the Falcons. Cordero. Anything else or just Cordero? Nothing else for me. I don't think with Atlanta. I love Brandon and you. But my absolute favorite, George Kittle, similar vibe with him at tight end relative to other tight ends as we have with quarterback with Kyler and Josh Allen over the rest of the quarterbacks. If he goes nuts, nobody else really can go nuts. Aside from Mark Andrews. And as far as the Falcons go, I don't like the offense enough. Aside from Cordero, whose role I still don't love because the snap rates low, but they just basically inject him into the high leverage situation. So it's not really a true snap rate. It's interesting because I feel like he is very similar to Debo, where both of their roles have changed recently, but they're still getting work that can pay off. So for Cordero, I think the most relevant sample frame is the past three games where they've been using him more as like an early down type guy in those three games. He's at ninety six point seven yards from scrimmage per game. That's actually still a very good number relative to this slate at least. Like if it's Jonathan Taylor, it's not, but it's not. He has a forty eight percent red zone share that is actually second best on this slate among anyone behind Antonio Gibson and each guy's most relevant sample. And also like they're not going to. I mean, Gibson is not going to find the red zone with whoever is. I don't know. So I would say that works out pretty well. I like Patterson still. I know there was a blurb on NBC Sports Edge today about how they're like managing his touches. They're kind of in the playoff one, which is weird. He's been OK. They've been managing his touches. Like he's not been a high volume guy where they need to like limit him. He just like comes in near the red zone and gets like high leverage work. So I don't know what kind of workload they're managing. Yeah. So like I think he's a good play personally. I would like to be overweight on him. And I'm guessing I will just based on sentiments I have seen and looking at some I'm on the wrong. Sorry, I was scrolling down and saw Van Jefferson as a running back. And I got very confused, but that's because I can't read. OK, I found him. I don't think Cordero will be very popular. And I think that the blurbs about his workload will probably keep said popularity in check. So to me, I think he's a pretty solid play. And when I'm very inclined to use, I think he's kind of like the one bring back. And I think it's similar to Detroit, where I'm not going to bring it back every time. But I would say it's closer to like two thirds of lineups. I'll have a bring back, most likely Cordero. I might sprinkle in pits, but probably not. I don't know. It's probably just Cordero as far as Debo goes. So we have a four game sample on them using him as a running back. In those four games, can you guess yardage totals on average for IEUK, Kittle and Debo? For each of them? Yeah. Bro, I don't do I don't do yardage numbers off the top of my head. But for Kittle, he's got like two huge games. I'll just say a hundred. Well, Debo didn't play one of those. So that game week 13 does not count because Debo. But this is very complex on the fly. It's week 10, 11, 12, 14. Give me a number between zero and a thousand. For all yardage total. Yeah. I think you said on Monday, Debo is at like 90, 91. Good job. Yes. IEUK 85, 68. OK, I knew it was a point up a ton of yards. He's getting a lot of red zone work, though. Kittle, what, about 15? Sixty two. OK. You have three really bad games. It's a four game sample. So like. So I'm I'm still bogged down by the recency bias of Kittle's. Yeah. Well, last week, it was great. He played with Debo. So like that was a very good one. But like the first three games, he was a 50 or lower IEUK. So Debo's average is 91 yards in this this span. That is IEUK's max this year is 91 yards of scrimmage. Yeah. I mean, I don't. OK, so then if I'm if I'm reading this, right, it was at Cincinnati versus the Vikings at the Jaguars and versus the Rams. Was that week 10? I don't know. I just have George Kittle's game log up. And if you said 50 or fewer, yeah. You know, I don't I'm not that concerned. He scored. No, I'm not concerned about him. I'm saying Debo is still in play, as that was the point of that. Oh, like 62 yards for a tight end is still fine. With upside for 150. Sure. I'll take it. Yeah. OK. The point was the point was not to downplay Kittle was more to say, I think Debo is someone we should include in game stacks. Sure. I mean, we're also looking at a game against the Falcons, so true. Like, where are you out on Debo at a very high salary? I think he's over salaried, but I think that the upside is still there, which is why I want to use him. I just will you not use him at all? No. Well, I mean, to be again, fully transparent, I've been scaling back my lineup count. Yeah. So I don't play hundreds of lineups. Plenty of different contests, basically. Yeah. If I'm building 10 lineups, probably not enough to get there. Yeah. If I'm building 50, absolutely. Yeah. Because with 10 lineups, you really need a tight core, especially this week. This is a week where I'm risking looking at running back on Sunday morning and saying, I guess I've got to have a few shares of this guy and this guy because I don't feel great about certain options. We could get we could get news that makes me feel like I can just lock in Zeke or Sony or whatever. But without that kind of as it is now with some uncertainty, it's hard to sit here and say, you know, like I got to I'm just trying to remind myself not to get sprinkles of everybody. Yeah, even on a week like this. So. One thing I find very interesting here is that early roster projections do have a lot of Debo and I don't know why. It's kind of always there. Yeah, so he is. But like I sentiments trying to gauge sentiment on shows and Twitter this week. It seemed like people were pretty down on him, which is why I thought I was like, oh, yeah, I kind of want to talk him up because like. This is there's still stuff there that's like enticing. But if he's going to be popular, I just go to you consistently move. But I would say take the lower rostered piece. So, yeah, I didn't know if you're you're like trick question about all the yardage stuff was at all an anti-brand and IU thing. Now, he's fine. I think that range of receiver is not great. I like the seven thousand range a lot. But like so in the mid six thousand range because IU is sixty six hundred dollars. I don't want to use DJ more. Don't want to use Marquis Brown to Higgins facing a team that doesn't let up a lot of deep volume. I like him and I like his role. I just don't like that. Spot DK sixty eight like him more than IU. But like IU over Claypool Vans at sixty two. So like I use kind of like in a weird island spot. We're like he's fine. And I'm not opposed to him. I would never talk anybody out of him. But I also don't view him as being a priority. So two quick things. I do have my my sheet filtered now to the weeks that you were referencing. And IU has the same target share as George Gettle, which is fun. Yes. And you said in passing T Higgins faces a team that doesn't allow a lot of downfield work referring to the Broncos. My data has them tenth in yards per target allowed on downfield passes, but that they're thirty second in passing eight odd face. So could be phenomenal defense. Could be a lot of, you know, luck that I'd have to dig into that more. They're facing Teddy Bridgewater every week despite having Teddy Bridgewater on their team, basically. I mean, honestly, I look at like, I don't want to go off in a tangent, but there might be something to downfield target regression that that maybe it's not really a skill and it's just kind of like a luck based thing. So well, I think it's kind of like a NBA three point defense. Yeah, that's the preventing deep balls is one thing. Being good against them is a different thing. So yeah, yeah. With NBA, you don't actually you're not responsible for how opponents shoot against you. Correct. And but you are responsible for how they like what they shoot against how often. Yeah, how often they get threes. So, you know, teams are taking a lot of threes against the Broncos. They've been fine when they have taken threes, but they haven't taken very many. And that's no, no, no, no, no, no. I'm saying they've allowed the highest eight odd. Oh, but but the Broncos apparently, according to my data. Huh. What are you saying? Looks like that's a Vic Fangio team. Yeah, I'm not basing. I'm basing off of like the scheme they run. I guess I have done things different this year because they actually have like good personnel, but. Anywho, they've not let up a lot of big games. I know that. So well, like Philly, Buffalo, Tampa Bay, those guys, those teams would limit downfield. So yeah, Denver, I have the highest. Huh. Interesting. OK. We're going to move to trends. So I'm talking about that game to talk about that game. Anyway, with the trends here and talk about an offense that is interesting because it's confusing right now. And that is the Dallas Cowboys. You're going to go deep. You watched film on this, which is weird. I feel like I should kick you off the show because like we're not allowed to watch football. Like, how dare you? I will let you do your trend first and then tend to your regular resignation immediately. Well, if it helps, I did not actually watch the game last night yet. It's going to be our so. OK, it's actually pretty fun. Yeah, I know I got it spoiled. But it was it was pick up basketball night and then Christmas cookie decorating night after that. So are you going to send me some? Hey, maybe I won't be at my house and I'll send it there. Oh, yeah, I guess I'm wearing some some Cowboys colors here. So I guess it's fitting. But yeah, I mean, what's up with that Prescott is a question that I have. I wanted to find out. And honestly, there are a lot of ways we can go with this. Since he returned to week nine, he's averaged about 15 and a half Fandall points per game is twice surpass 20 as many single digit outputs. It's been very up and down before then. His passing that expected points per drop back was 0.35, which is about three times over three times the NFO average. And the rate at which his receivers dropped the ball was one point four percent. In this sample from week nine on passing that expected points per drop back down to point oh two league average point one oh. So, you know, not particularly good there and adjusted for opponent in this sample. Dak has been worse than expected. I'm not trying to like sugarcoat this and say, no, it's all good with that. It's just some bad luck. But there might honestly be some bad luck within what we've seen. His passing a dot is above the NFO average. His expected completion rate is above the NFO average by a little bit. He said four point two percent of his attempts dropped. The NFO average is three and a half percent. It's way higher than his early season sample. So maybe there's just, you know, maybe he had good luck before the sample with drops and he's had some bad luck and it's kind of regressing to the mean. But he's shown glimpses here towards the Falcons, towards the Raiders who are on opposite ends of the spectrum and pressure rate. So I don't want to say it's just a pressure thing. My numbers have Dak one and a half touchdown short of expectation in the sample. Overall, this, I don't know, in the sample, pro football focuses numbers have about three and a half shy of expectation in terms of passing touchdowns. And so, frankly, like the underlying data is fine. It's not amazing, but it's not as bad as some of the data makes it look. He has thrown eight touchdowns, which should improve, as I just mentioned, but also six interceptions. And so I went back and looked at all those interceptions. Some of them were egregious. Some of them didn't really seem to matter too much. The first one was when they were on their own 35 down 27 points to Denver. Second one was in the end zone to CDLAM sets very costly and an expected points model. The third was at the five while basically near the goal line, while on the 20 down 10 with a minute left against Kansas City. So that's costly, you know, basically a pun on a third and seven in the fourth quarter, a horrendous overthrow from his own 19, which is very costly to turn it over inside your own, you know, inside your own 20 and then a horrendous pick from basically the same situation. So there have been bad plays, but anyone who doesn't know should know now that the reason that we love expected points models on this show is the account for all this stuff. An interception is not just an interception, you know, it adjusts for all this stuff. If you turn it over inside your own end zone, if you ruin scoring chances, that hurts your expected points numbers. So if you remove all the picks, which is not fair to do for every quarterback in this span, he's been like league average. So he's just had really costly interceptions that ruin scoring drives, which also can play into the fact of the touchdown numbers being low. So I'm not that concerned about Dak Prescott. His EP DACs, EPA per drop back without Tyron Smith, according to next gen stats, drops off a lot. Point one, three with him to zero without him. However, the pressure rate and the sack rate are this like basically the same exact number, which is astonishing to me. I don't know what that's about, but we have Dak Prescott at 7500. We have CD Lamb at 74, Mike Cooper at 7000, Michael Gallup 59. I don't think that this is as bad as, you know, the results have been. So I'm kind of in on Dak. The only issue, the biggest issue is that I don't think he has quite the upside of Josh Allen or Tyler Murray. And I have the salary to get to those guys in most lineups. But I think that Dak Prescott's in the conversation for the QB three, although I'm probably have Stafford above them as you kind of made me realize. But, you know, top four, as opposed to just another guy. So any thoughts for you on Dak and this offense right now? I think you might be five for me. I think I might put Rogers above him. I know you're talking about that later, but I might put Rogers above him, despite that being a weird stupid game. So I'm like, if you gave me Dak with Tyron Smith and like the calf concerns were still there, but Tyron Smith are playing. I probably put Dak three or four somewhere in there with the Tyron Smith stuff. I do downgrade him because just this year, their EPA per drop back goes from 0.16 to negative 0.08 with or without Tyron Smith. Completion percentage above expectation, which are over expectation. That doesn't really care too much about picks. So like I had accounts of the stuff you were talking about. It's a plus 4.2 percent with Smith and negative 2.2 without him. So I think it's a pretty decent downgrade. That means I'm lowering Dak. I will still go to the receipt. I think that lamb is pretty under salaried. Like we were talking about flex stuff. Every running back in the 7000 range, unless we get Dylan of No Air and Jones, I would use lamb above them. Yeah, honestly, yeah. Honestly, the main reason I wanted to look at this was like, can I just play CD lamb still? Yes, or do I need to worry? And Gallup, like Gallup's role in week 14, 23 percent overall share, 40 percent deep target share. That is similar to what he did in weeks one and 11, where they had the first half with all these guys healthy. They've only had eight quarters with these guys healthy and Gallup shares and all those have been good. So I love Gallup. I love lamb. I'm going to use them a lot. If Pollard weren't to play, I'd go back to Zeke. I would hate myself for it, but I'd do it because like it makes sense. Whatever. But I think that I think the receivers are in play regardless. So I'm probably not going to get to Dak this week, but I will happily use his past catchers. Yes. Yeah. If I'm always a tournament pivot only. Yeah. If we did not have Kyler and Josh Allen, maybe just had one. I think that I'd have to like really consider Dak more. But this goes again. It's week 15 now. People who have been listening know that our process is to pick very few quarterbacks and usually high, high salary quarterbacks. A lot of strain from that in years past, I think I'd have been like, you know, I'm going to play some Dak and some everybody. I'm not doing that. But if I if I was still doing that, I would I would put Dak in that list. Not sure if you saw me get like Ghostface while you were talking, but I was checking Twitter to make sure nothing had happened. And I saw the words Josh Allen and COVID in the same tweet. And I was like, oh, so. But it was Josh Allen. It will be a full participant in D on Dawkins on the covid list. So it's fine. Quick update in the dolphins, Miles Gaskin and Savon Ahmed were back at practice today. Let's talk quickly about Gaskin here, throwing it in. Are you going to use them or no? He's like, what, 66? That's kind of high. I don't think I don't think even. Like the list of Jets, but. The list of running backs is getting a little bit longer. Yeah, but I don't think it's long enough to get to Gaskin. I would need for Aaron Jones to play. I would need for Tony Power to play. I would need for a lot of stuff to break for me to feel good about him compared to. Oh, I need Henderson to play compared to a lot of stuff. I'd probably still put Michelle above Gaskin if or Henderson were to play. But I don't know that one's up for discussion. OK, so let's talk about my first strategy, which is trying to find upside in games, low totals, because it's mostly or it's exclusively low totals this week, which means that slight wide scoring may be lower, which means the value of identifying even one high upside play is even greater. So I want to dig in here to perfect lineups and see what kinds of players make perfect lineups from games of low totals. The takeaway across all positions is that the players who made perfect lineups in those games had lower salaries and lower total output. So that helps solidify that on a larger slate or typical slate, bigger point totals do come from better games. So that's worth noting. Let's dig in beyond that, though. At quarterbacks, 16 of 48 quarterbacks from 2019 through this year came from totals of 47 or lower. Those 16 were more heavily favored than those in the higher total games. Spread was minus 4.3 compared to minus 3. And that's a pretty significant gap there. They also had fewer passing yards and slight upticks in rushing yardage and rushing touchdowns. The difference there minimal, but that is helpful because you score points more quickly via passing touchdowns via rushing production than you do via passing yardage. These players got a higher percentage of their total points from those compact scoring arenas, we'll say, than others did. So you need either touchdown variants in the passing category or rushing production to break your way through. And using guys with more heavy spreads is fine. And that makes sense anecdotally, because that would lead to a higher implied total to keep up with the other guys at tight end also looking from 2019 to 2021, because it's only one, typically one per lineup. 16 out of 50, perfect tight ends had totals of 45 or lower. They were pretty similar to the tight ends in the higher total games. The key difference was the spread. But here a tighter spread was more valuable. They were favored by point three points versus 2.5 points for the higher total games. So we wanted tighter games at tight end. Same thing showed up a wide receiver for a receiver and running back. I looked at 2020 to 2021 because samples were larger. Totals of 45 or lower. I could zero in more on these because there's more players. The receivers in the lower total games are actually point five point underdogs on average, whereas the higher total guys were favored by 2.2. At running back 20 out of 76 perfect backs came from low total games. Their spreads were more similar to quarterbacks. So they were more heavily favored, which jacked up their implied totals. It was a spread of 3.1 for them versus 0.9 for those in the higher total games. They also got less rushing production, 97.3 rushing yards per game versus 111.1 for guys in higher total games. So the receiving production relatively even, which means that they got a higher percentage of their points via receiving. So to sum it up, I know it's a lot of numbers and a lot of stuff. It seems as though we should be more accepting of big spreads at quarterback and running back when the total is low, because the jacks have implied totals. It also seems as though we should still chase closer games at wide receiver and tight end, like we should still value that. And finally, we want players to be able to score points quickly. In high variance fashion. So rushing for quarterbacks, pass catching for running backs. I think those are the key takeaways that I had. So with this in mind, any tweaks you're making to your process this week to account for the low totals across the board? OK, so I was trying to make a list, but I could not get it done. A list of, well, just of teams with the big spread. We can basically just say that every game this week is a low total. So the biggest spread to be Arizona, Dallas, Buffalo, San Francisco, Philly, oh my gosh, they're all favorite by nine and a half or more. I don't know that's quite how bad it was. So those are the six teams who really stand out with big spreads. So are you saying, so that we're on the same page here, that we shouldn't be worried about these teams? We actually want bigger spreads whenever the total is low, just because, you know, in theory, we're getting access to the higher implied team totals. I'm not saying actively seek out. I'm saying be more accepting of them than we typically are. OK. So then that makes me feel really good because me too. Basically, I wanted to justify using Kyler and Josh Allen despite the big spreads. Yeah. And I think the data does. Dallas is on that list. Yeah, to like, again, the waddle stuff hurts. Makes me feel good about the multiple 49ers. Again, the 49ers have three guys in play. So yeah, I think that with this also then just mean. We can think of stacks and stacking just the best offenses and avoid the teams on the other side to if the spread is big and the total is low, that by nature means that the opponents implied team total is very low. Yeah. OK. I think that's kind of the takeaway here is maybe you just like use kind of uncorrelated lineups and you go like correlated in the sense like, oh, I can go Stafford, Sony, Cup and like those three all work together. And then maybe run it back with DK, but then go get exposure to the Cardinals high total on another spot in the lineup, get exposure to the Bills high total, another spot in the lineup and kind of pepper it in that way. Yeah, I think and again, we're talking about being open to maybe two pass catchers with a quarterback, someone like a Kyler plus Erts and Christian Kerr, because Christian Kerr could really get there with like 130 yards or something. If he gets volume, he's good. He gets downfield work, but Zach Erts needs touchdowns. Like maybe that kind of works too. Or receiver tight end are paired together pretty often in perfect lineups. So very, very. And like that works for IU Kittle, Debo Kittle, less so because they don't pass as much, but like it still works for them too. Well, I was also thinking with Cup and Sony, Michelle, like Cup can get there on 14 targets and 150 yards. Yeah, and see if that's that every week. Yeah. So I think that like pairing uncorrelated teammates together like Sony, Cup, Kittle, IU Kerr, Kittle, Samuel, Kirk Erts, like you said, Kirk Edmonds, if there's no Conor stuff like that. I think that's also more appealing this week than usual. Again, typically on Fandall because touchdown weight matters more. I don't tend to do that very much. I know on other sites, it can be very popular and is very profitable. I think on this site in larger field tournaments is less so. So I don't tend to go that direction. But I think this week it's more appealing. I love it. OK, let's go to your second trend. Then talk about that Baltimore Green Bay game because got a tight spread ish, tight ish spread. It's got some guys we like, but the pace blows. So talk to me about that and what it means. Yeah, so we we've repositioned the show where we talk about the three best games in the bookmaker section. And then we have, you know, worse games to dig through. And there are worse games than this that I could have, you know, combed through for some trends and I did not want to. So I wanted to look at this game because. It's like you said, not great, I'll put it that way. You put it how you you put it, but I'll put it not great. It's doggy, do we may not get Lamar Jackson? Sounds like it's a real who could say situation by Sunday. We just don't know. But this game has just red flags, whether he plays or not. But we have two kind of higher profile offenses with potentially Lamar, even without him. We've got Devonte Freeman, Mark Brown, Mark Andrews, Devonte Adams, Aaron Rodgers. Like there are enough relevant plays here that I wanted to dig through. So the Packers, according to the pace numbers I run, are the slowest offense in football. The Ravens are 28th on the full season. It's no surprise that this game projects to be the slowest of the week by a good margin in my numbers. But it is worth noting that in games with Tyler Huntley playing a majority of the snaps, the Ravens have actually been really up tempo. They've averaged twenty seven point three seconds per play in the way that I measure pace, I think is different than other. I look just at what was the play clock when it was snapped. It doesn't account for how much time you've taken off the clock, anything like that. Twenty seven point three seconds per play with Huntley playing in those two games where you play the majority. In all other weeks, they're at thirty one point eight. That's the difference between ranking second on the full season and 30th. So even if their efficiency drops without Lamar, they could run plays faster. They could still run a lot of plays in those two games with Huntley. They've ran seventy two and a half plays, just passes and rushes. I don't care about like punts and field goals. And the other games are at seventy total. They run despite a slow pace overall, the full sample, they run the most plays in football, which is awesome. That slow pace, though, combined makes the other, the other side more worrisome. They have faced the fewest plays per game defensively. That puts me a little bit low on, I know you said Aaron Rogers was in your consideration set. I think you might not be for me for this reason. As for Green Bay, again, last in pace, twenty second in offensive plays per game while sitting seventh in defensive plays per game. I know it's a joke for us to talk about watching film. But when I do see Green Bay's offense, I feel like they just want to stand around and snap with, you know, two seconds left on the play clock. It's just the vibe that I get. That's what they choose to do. That hurts them. That can hurt the opponent. They're seventh in defensive plays. So, like, there might just be overall play volume concerns. Now, that being said, I did study some. I actually looked at pace numbers and, you know, this, we always talk about pace. We talk about, you know, seconds per play. But realistically, games are 60 minutes long. You got to run plays. The gap between like a low play game and a high play game, you know, that can be big, but a lot of games, they still hit a certain threshold just because you can't just not run plays because you're slow. You got to play clock to deal with. So I'm not worried about, like, the play volume being too low. It's just not going to be very high ostensibly based on all this information. So, you know, in a week without starting running backs, I was like, OK, well, I'm much more open to playing Devontae Adams, but I'm finding myself way higher on Cooper Cup and Stefan Diggs than Devontae to the point where I don't think I'll actually get to Devontae because I can't play them all. I'm just not going to play hundreds of lineups. Aaron Jones did not practice Thursday. So if he were to miss, I'd still go at AG Dillon, no problem, even with these concerns because his workload would be phenomenal. But as it stands right now, the player might be highest on in this game is Devontae Freeman at 59 just because of what he gets us access to with quarterback with tight end and Cooper Cup and Stefan Diggs. I don't want to write off Mark Andrews at tight end. He's actually been phenomenal this season. Doesn't really get talked about enough. Even without Lamar, I still think that this offense is fine in terms of play volume. But I don't think there's enough here for me to say I'm going to play Aaron Rodgers and Devontae Adams that. So any thoughts for you on either side here? I do think the Packers are still interesting. And I'm growing. I know you were just talking about why I shouldn't be. But I'm growing more fond of Rodgers the more I think about it because they paid. They played slow teams earlier on this year, which means it was slow on both sides. They've played Detroit back on week two. 26.8 Fandal points for Rodgers there. They played against Cincinnati in week four or five. 344 through the air for Rodgers. They're only two touchdowns. They didn't score a ton, but like, you know, didn't up. They faced Chicago twice. Chicago is bottom third of the league in pace, roughly. 23.7 and 29.64. The second game was flukey because Chicago had a bunch of quick touchdowns and those inflate play volume or inflate like Chicago's with Justin Fields, though. OK, so that that helps. I think the first time was without him. I can't recall. No, he was there. OK, so anyway, I think the point is he can pay off despite the slow pace. And so I'm receptive to him and on a slate where like, I may not need like a 99 percentile outcome to be the highest scoring quarterback. I think he's pretty attractive at 76. So I might push him above Stafford even. I think he's more likely to go above Stafford than below Dak in my quarterback rankings for this week is what I would say. So you said Detroit was one of those games. Yes. He went for 255 and four touchdowns. I don't think he could do that. OK, so you're banking on a Russell Wilson game then. No, because he's done other. He's had yardage in other ones. Like, I'm not banking on it because he could do it both ways. Well, speaking of yardage, Cincinnati was the other game you mentioned. Yeah, 344. 344 in overtime. Yeah, well, like against the Bears, 341 against the Rams are high pace, let it count. Minnesota medium pace, 385. Like I think he's drifting closer to number three. Slowly, slowly, slowly. I know to stack him. I go with Devontae. I think MVS works this week, too, not like a priority given that I have Devontae Parker. But MVS is in play still. So I just. Green Bay is going to stop the pass. They're going to let you run on them. That's what Baltimore wants to do. I think that this could just be a matter of Aaron Rodgers still can pay off, but I think he's going to have that Russell Wilson, like 275 and 344 touchdowns, which is doable. Yeah, but I don't play. I don't love playing Russ for a reason. Yeah, but Aaron Rodgers is better than Russ right now. So like it's not really even when I had to make Russ, even when I had peak Russ, I didn't love playing Russ. You play like an MVP level right now. He's not going to get it because he's an idiot. But like, you know, I don't know. I think. Do you want to do like a head to head bet on Dak versus Rodgers? Sure. OK, so I have Rodgers. You have Dak. Yeah, but it's something we were probably with Stafford number three. We're just kind of debating QB four. I'm getting closer to putting Rodgers at QB three, getting closer. I'm still going to keep Stafford there, I think, because he's indoors, et cetera, et cetera. But thinking about it, thinking about it, I do think that there are some appeal in Mark Andrews, the 74, under the assumption everyone goes kiddle. It's like a bringback here. So like Rodgers, Devontae, Andrews sounds super, super expensive, but I can make that work this week. So I would say that, too, as being a flag. I think it's Andrews for me and then Devontae in terms of my favorite guys. Regardless of his quarterback? Probably. Huntley's been fine. He's been, he hasn't been good. Like his EPA per drop back is negative 0.22, whereas Lamar is a negative 0.01, I believe. Yeah. His A dot's a lot lower. Part of that's because Hollywood was out for one of those games, and they don't have any field stretchers if he's not out there. But I would say Andrews is the preferred bringback over Devontae. But I think that both are in play. So I would not be shocked if I want to put in Rodgers third. And I don't think I'll put him above Josh Allen, but there is a non-zero chance I get to Sunday morning and have Aaron Rodgers as my number two quarterback. I don't think it's the most likely outcome, but I know myself. Sometimes we make mistakes. Sometimes we can anticipate those mistakes, too. I'll say this. I wanted to dig into this game because we had big names with big ceilings. I'm not saying that all of this points me to avoiding Aaron Rodgers at all costs, but it did not make me feel very excited to play Aaron Rodgers. I'm not excited. But I'm not excited about anyone. It's not a Kyler. So maybe we'll just play 100% Kyler. What could go wrong there? Nothing. I agree. Let's move now to my second trend here. Top of the titans defense, because a lot of the key high usage studs on this later on the Steelers. That's Najee Harris-Diante Johnson, which is concerning due to their offense, but they're also facing a stealth defense. That's the titans here. The titans rank ninth in a schedule-adjusted defense according to number fires metrics. They are 10th against the pass, 12th against the rush, which is noteworthy because this will be just the fifth time this year. The Steelers have faced a top 10 defense. And they've had ups and downs in that four-game sample. They have scored 23, 10, 27, and 10 total points. Ben Rothesberger is at negative 0.04, passing net expected points per dropback in that span. But against the Broncos, who rank eighth in overall defense, he did light things up and the team scored 27 points. So basically they seem volatile, both in the positive and the negative sense. And that volatility is applied to Najee Harris too. In those four games, he has 142 yards twice. In another two, he has 49 and 37 yards. Najee's pass-catching in his red zone role both taking a dip recently. And plus not many backs had blown up against the Titans. James Robinson, the only guy to score more than 20 fandal points against them. Robinson also the only guy with more than 70 rushing yards. Jonathan Taylor had 64 and 70 rushing yards in the two games against the Titans. So Najee is gonna grade out really well in terms of optimizers, and he's fine. But my preferred guy here is Deontay Johnson at 72. Deontay, I typically have a hard time getting to him because he typically plays in stupid, stupid games. This week, every game is stupid. So who cares? And I'll just take the volume. He has 30% of the overall deep and red zone targets in three games since Eric Ebron's injury since he was putting on IR. And that's tough to find, especially at such a acceptable salary of $7,200. Tight spread that we do still want that out of receivers and games in the low total. So I think I'm high on Johnson among the receivers. Harris is fine, but Johnson is the priority to me. How are you viewing this offense? I'll play Deontay. You're not gonna play Najee at all? Again, we're talking, we gotta set some boundaries with like what type of lineup count we're talking here. If I'm playing 10 lineups, no. If I'm playing 50, sure, a few. I don't think that there's enough here to feel like I have to play Najee Harris. His ceiling of, like his actual ceiling came in his most recent game of 23.3, or sorry, 23.9 Fandal points. Of course, your true ceiling is not just your career. The highest points he scored to this point. But based on everything we've seen within this offense, within this, against this defense, I don't really think that he's set for 30. And so let's say his ceiling is even a little bit better. Let's call it 25. Can other backs get me 20 while saving 2000 plus in salary? I think so. Yeah, I agree. So I will use him, but I'm not gonna be aggressive in my usage is what I would say. Where do you sit on Davante or Deontay? Cause like this is a good range. We've got CD Land there. Diggs is a little bit higher. You've got Amari, you've got Metcalfe. You've got, if you like Higgins, he's there. IU is kind of in that range. So like in the mid range, where does Deontay grade out for you? That's tough. It's really loaded. I think this might end up being the big question I have lingering into the weekend is which of the receivers I settle on. And, you know, is it a, I lock in these two or three running backs, you know, into my lineups like at 80, 90%. Cause again, just a smaller lineup selection for me. So I can rotate in all these, you know, receivers or do I try to balance it out more and just cut off a certain guy? So can I throw Jamar Chase into this conversation? If you want to. So I'd go Chase lamb over Deontay. I'd go Deontay over Chase by a pretty wide margin personally. Why? Matchup usage, et cetera, et cetera. I just don't like using dudes facing the Broncos at all. They're a dumb team. They're a dumb team. I don't know. Like, find me an upside game against the Broncos this year. Find me one. One. But again, they might be having extreme luck on downfield passes or they might be phenomenal at defending downfield passes. Yeah. I don't watch that much film. If you look at their personnel, they're probably pretty good at it. Probably. You know who else is good at on downfield passes? Jamar Chase. I think that for me, it's Deontay or lamb is kind of the conversation I'd have as being the top guy in that range. That's where I'm at on him. So you have lamb Deontay as like one A, one B. Yeah. I would say it's probably lamb one Chase Deontay, two A, two B. Okay. It's fair. So you're just hiring Chase and I basically and a little bit lower on Deontay. Yeah. Okay. It's not like I have Deontay way third like whatever we were talking about with running back with that conversation. I also, okay. So like you've been talking about how like I've had some weird process based things this year where you're like, oh, Jim would never do this. I will have lineups for a pair of Deontay with Julio. Despite the fact this total is dumb and I hate this game but I'm going to do it because it's a tight spread. So you can obliterate me on Monday when it doesn't work out, which it won't. So whether... Sorry, is it just the tight spread like that gets you there? Julio had a 29% target share in the first half last week played 64% of the snaps and then they scaled them back in the second half because they were up and he can't block. So I think his role will be better this week. So 30%, he was targeted on 30% of his routes which is a really elite number. Like we guys, I think Cooper Cup right now at 31.9. Yeah. I prefer Parker, but I'll use some Julio when I have Deontay. It's really, it's just really gonna be hard for me to click on Julio over. It is tough. Yes, I agree. It is tough. I fully agree with that. Weather for this week, couple spots with some wind that's noteworthy right now. Washington versus Philadelphia, it's currently at 14 miles per hour in New Jersey, I almost said New York, in Jersey for the Giants and Cowboys, 14 miles per hour, one more little tiny baby red flag there for rollback. Again, doesn't worry for lamb, but 13 mile per hour winds for Aaron Rodgers and the Ravens in Baltimore, shush, shush, put your hands down. Okay. Okay. And that's it. So check back on those later on. It's just wind right now, but it's like wind into where I think it's at least noteworthy. Check back on Sunday. Let's dive into our positional plays for Sunday Slade, starting off at quarterback, Brandon. What do you got there? I'm going to go Tyler Murray. Oh, is he good? Is he good? Yeah, elite matchup. At the Lions, they're 31st and adjusted past defense based on number of fires metrics. They're 31st and pressure rate generated, according to Nexon stats. 31st and average passing ADOT allowed, 32nd in yards per target allowed on those downfield attempts. I think there's seven defensive backs either on the COVID list or on IR right now. Honestly, this is stupid. I'm not even going to name a second quarterback. I'm just going to sit here and say I'm playing Kyler Murray in every lineup. Love it. Love it. I'm going Kyler's metrics. How could it go wrong unless he gets hurt, which, you know, which you can't play like that? What are the odds that he just busts again? You can tell me that. You have that. Have you run your sims yet or no? Yeah, that he busts. Yeah. I can pull it up. Talk to me about your guys and I'll have it. So it's Kyler. Kyler is a guy. He's indoors. He's on turf, playing a bad defense. They did lose Deandre Hopkins, but like I just, I can't nitpick Kyler. My second guy. I have Stafford. So the reason I have Stafford here, and I should go Stafford if I think logically, indoors, facing a not great defense. He doesn't get as big of a down curve to Odell as Russ gets to that locket. It's a high enough total for this slight tight spread. I should go Stafford faster pace for him. So I'll go Stafford as my second guy, but it's Kyler and Stafford. I am still thinking very hard about Aaron Rodgers, though. I just, I mean, I don't know. For me, it's it's becoming more and more obvious just to play Kyler. So I have him 84, 85% likely to score at least 15 Vandal points. So 15% to go under 15 Vandal points. It's very similar to Josh Allen, about 10% likely to return under 1.5 X value. Josh Allen's close to that, but that's just how he's projected. I think if you would count for everything, like it's just a phenomenal spot for Kyler. And what happens here where he doesn't, aside from again, leaving the game early. A lot of rushing touchdowns to the running backs. That's the one scenario I see. That's the only one. But you're still looking at then yardage to get there. Also if James Connors out, like. Is Kyler the goal line back? Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. Could be. So yeah, I think you should go Kyler. Running back. What you doing there? This is probably one of the harder spots because we have so many uncertainties. But I'm gonna say so to Michelle. I feel good with him. 97 and 100% of the snaps past two games. I don't care so much of Henderson's back. I still think he'd be the majority workload back. And I'll take that at the salary within this offense. And the Rams and Plot team total high. So I'll take that. Second love, James Robinson. 6300, no Urban Meyer. No Carlos Hyde now for sure. In the game, I know you'll probably have a different sample here, but in games with at least half the snaps, he's averaged 19.9 adjusted opportunities per game, which for us is carries plus double your targets. 54% of the Reds and rushes, 34% of the Reds and opportunities. The Texans are 28th and rushing at expected points per carry and rushing success rate allowed to running back to the season. And then my third love is Devonte Freeman, 5900. I don't love this offense regardless of who, but I don't love the game, I should say, like the overall game environment, but the salaries really low for someone playing about 68% of the snaps and a run heavy offense against the team that would rather have you run against them than throw against them. He's been pretty good too. And the Packers are 27th in rushing success rate and rushing at expected points per carry allowed to running back this year. Yeah, I think Devonte works, I am okay. Again, I think with Michelle as a tournament play if Henderson plays but a core, core, core play if he does not go. My one guy I can tell you right now all uses Robinson. There are so many other factors at play with everyone else. I will use, should use my hands. I'm gonna use James Robinson on Sunday. If you look at the games without Carlos Hyde who again has been confirmed out, 85% plus snap rate in both games, 17 plus carries, two plus targets facing Houston in a lead spot for a back. I'm just gonna use him. Other guys I would love. I would love AJ Dillon if there is no Aaron Jones. I would love Sony Michelle if there is no Daryl Henderson. I would use Ezekiel Elliott a lot if there were no Tony Pollard. It's not gonna love it, but I'll do it. I will probably use Core Daryl Patterson just because again a 48% red zone opportunity share in the past three games when he's been used as more of a traditional running back. Still 23.7 adjust opportunities per game in that span. He's $7,000. I think he works well in those lines. So right now I can say definitively I will use James Robinson, but I'm keeping very close tabs on Sony, on Zeke, on Devante Freeman, I'm probably gonna use I guess. I can be realistic about that, but it's thin. I think that we would, I'm hoping that we get some clarity for these backfields. We haven't mentioned his name, I don't think, Joe Nixon, 8,300 at the Broncos. He might be the one guy who we look back on and say, matchup wasn't great, but the workload, I know he was scaled back last week, but he was sick. He was sick, yeah. He might be the guy who gets 90% of the snaps and like a ton of work and that we just kind of missed out on. Do you think that you'll get there? So, let's say you do- I'm more inclined to play Joe Nixon than Nigel Harris, I think. Well, let's say you're giving me a decently high dollar single entry contest. I'm giving a lot of thought to Joe Nixon there, for sure. Absolutely, because of the reasons you mentioned, we're like, no one uses him and we don't have great options. So yeah, I think, yeah, absolutely. That's a good mention, for sure. Let's go to Receiver, what you got there? I'm gonna go with Cooper Cup. I don't think either of us are saying it's defined digs, but he is definitely in this conversation. I just think Cooper Cup is phenomenal. I think I've used that word like four times on the show, but it's a long show, so it's based out of it. Running back's weak, just easy to get the cup, easier than usual. He's had double digit targets in all but one game, at least nine targets in every game. That's silly. He's gotten in 90 plus yards in all but one game. Also would qualify as silly. My second love, Brandon, IU, 6,600 has been targeted on 25% of targets on this offense with George Kittleback in action, 28% in those four games with Debo playing as a running back, mostly same as George Kittle. Leads the team in that post-Kittle return sample with 1.8 downfield targets per game. 17% red zone target share, I'll take that. Thing against the Falcons who ranked 30th in my adjusted fantasy points per target, allowed to Receiver's number. And then my third love is Christian Kirk at 6,000. I don't need to punt at Receiver, so like a Gabriel Davis, not gonna make my list. We just don't need that much salary this week for the most part. Going with Cooper Cup, Christian Kirk, get that CK overlap. I think that there's some value in that inherently. Leads the team in downfield targets after the Andre Hopkins. And in seven games against teams who were 20th or worse in yards per target, allowed on downfield passes, so the teams who actually give up efficiency downfield. In seven games, he has at least 13 Fando points and four of them. 13's not enough, but you give him some extra volume there. I think that'll work. I do wanna note that apparently Robert Sala said today that Michael Carter will have a significant role. That doesn't really increase matches cause like I thought they have a good role. I was more concerned about the team being trash. So does that change anything for you on Carter or no? So he's basically gonna return to like peak Michael Carter. Yeah. That's a little bit appealing. Yeah. That would help me with, okay, so I could see we're not doing a whole lot of game stacks this week. I could see Parker Carter or Carter Kasicki mini stacks. Yeah. I really don't want to, but I don't know. Carter or Freeman, that's probably closer than it should be. If he's gonna get a significant role. Freeman's quarterback is playing better right now if it's Huntley. Like I like Zach Wilson long-term, like I liked him coming out. So like I'm not writing him off. Like this is not that, but right now Tyler Huntley is probably playing better. So I guess I'd go to Vante Freeman. We're gonna have a lot again. I feel like I'm gonna show up on Sunday morning to build my lineups and not know where to start with it. Oh, Jim wound up with 70% Aaron Rodgers. How'd that happen? Anyway, my first love and receiver is Cooper Cup. Same reason he mentioned indoor close game potential target bump with no Odell, but like does he need it? He has a 32% red zone target share. I'm gonna have the salary to get there. So I want to Cooper Cup firm priority for this week. My love for number two is Deontay Johnson. I think land's right there too. But I think that with the massive target load, he's had double digit targets and all but two games this year. That has resulted in just three 100 yard games because this offense is doggy do, but whatever. It's still a good target share. I don't need as much upside this week. I'd still like to get there, but I think Deontay can do that. My third love is Devontay Parker. He's just great facing the Jets. He was in play before the jail and Waddle news. In the games, he's played with Tua. Parker has a 22% target share and 27% of the deep targets, but Waddle being out vacates 28% of the overall targets. A lot of high leverage looks, he's $5,800. I probably will use Devontay Parker on our head to head. I think that's like where he's at. I think he's gonna determine play too. But either way, tight end, what do you have there? George Kettle, elite player. Just an elite play. We have a salary to get there. I have him 43% likely to go for at least 15 Fandal points with no other tight end at 30%. The gap here is just massive. Atlanta's 28th and adjusted Fandal points per target. A lot of tight ends. His consecutive games, the 40% target share. Like a single game target share. That's my idea is wrong, but it seems crazy, but yeah. I mean, he's had like 15 and 18 targets. So, yeah. And then I would go with your second love, but I think that this is the clear number three for me. Mike Gassetti, 6,200. No games yet without Jaylen Waddle, but 18% target share regardless. Waddle's leaving behind a good number of targets as you mentioned. It's gonna make the offense less efficient, which we cover, but bigger work here for Gassetti, good matchup. I think that he's the clear number three. My first one is Kettle for all the reasons we mentioned. In the games with Debo playing, more running back. He's got a 25% target share, 27% in the red zone. They're facing the Falcons. Decent game, I will happily pay for him. The guy you mentioned is Zach Hertz as being the lower salary guy for me. $53 against Detroit. In the games with AJ Green without Deandre Hopkins, he has a 21% target share, but 20% of the deep targets, Zach Hertz in the year 2021, getting downfield work, 50% red zone share, great role, great matchup, great quarterback. I think that I could walk out a Sunday slate with just Earths and Kettle and feel fine, and some consideration having both in the same lineup. Defense, what you got there? Again, prefer yours, but I like the Eagles still. Coming off a bye, playing, who knows? I guess at this point, because I had Taylor Heineke playing like Taylor Heineke, but probably not gonna play, so this kind of worked out in my favor for this is the only thing I think that, of course, I'm not excited that anyone has COVID or anything like that, but even their sixth and pressure rate, first and eight out allowed. Terry McClaren, not 100% either, like just seems like a really good situation for the Eagles to kind of do some stuff defensively. Yeah, especially with the way things are trending. I think that they're a very good play. I have Jacksonville. They can actually kind of rush the quarterback a bit. They've got a 26% pressure rate. Texans have an 8% sack rate on offense, and the Texans did throw a bit more than usual last week with Davis Mills. So some more chances for sacks, picks, and stuff like that. I do like the Eagles. I like the Steelers, Bengals, 49ers. I will spend up on the Bills this week. I think that they're actually a really good play if I can get there, but options at defense this week. That is all that we have here for today. Brandon, any final thoughts for you before we send the good people off into the wilderness of crazy, crazy news and changes? I think we honestly covered as much as we could at this point. Just try it. You gotta stay tuned to the news. That's it. Yep, that is what you gotta do. Okay, make sure you are subscribed to the Number Fire Daily Fantasy podcast feed wherever you get your podcasts. USC Podcast already posted the Austin Swain for Saturday's card. Check that out by searching for the Number Fire Daily Fantasy podcast feed. Also, we have Tom Becquio with NBA and NHL podcasts every weekday, so hit subscribe. And if you like what you hear, leave us a rating and review as well. Brandon, if people have questions for you on Twitter, where can they find you there? I'm at Cudulla13, 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 Fanduel Podcast Network at Fanduel Podcast. Big thank you to everyone for tuning in for today. Good luck with your lineups. We'll talk to you once again on Monday. Wrap it all up. This has been the Heat Check Fantasy podcast powered by Number Fire.