 Welcome, welcome to the Fandall NFL Q&A for the New York Jets and the Indianapolis Colts Tilt on Thursday night to kick off week number nine of the NFL season. According to Fandall Sportsbook, we have the Colts favored by 10 and 1 half at home over the New York Jets. The no longer winless New York Jets after Mike White led them to a victory a week ago. 45 and a half point total for this one, double digit spread. So that's going to make for a weird single game slate for tonight. That is primarily what we're breaking it on down. So I get those questions prepped for tonight's single game slate. Of course, if you have any other NFL questions and start sit stuff, I usually get a lot of those. I would imagine with the slate looking like it does, might get some extra non Thursday night questions, get those in. But I do have a start sit article up on Number Fire that goes through everyone's odds to finish as a certain threshold within the position for the week. So I'll point most people to that. I can also show some numbers for start sits, but I'm here to break down this very intriguing single game slate. So get those questions in on YouTube, Facebook, Twitter or Twitch for tonight's game. I think that we have kind of a very, very obvious path to go in with this game, and that is to build around the Indianapolis Colts, which will not surprise anybody. But the data says that's probably what we should do. The implied team totals say that's probably what we should do. Number Fire has the Colts as about 84 percent likely to pick up the win the implied total here, 28 to 17 and a half. In games like that, there's enough scoring to go around, you know, 40 and a half or 45 and a half. I believe that's down from 46 just a bit ago. So total is trending down, but, you know, we get we get the roof in play tonight. So there's very likely going to be some scoring. The question sort of becomes, will the Jets score enough to keep this game competitive? And if they don't, what happens then? So that's kind of the overall takeaway for tonight's game. Again, get those questions in and then I'll catch up to those in just a second. But I like to kind of focus on the overview of tonight's game. But again, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter or Twitch get those questions in for the Thursday night game tonight. So jump over to my matchups for tonight. I like to start here because why not? Right. We have the Indianapolis Colts rating out as a pretty beatable past defense right now, according to Number Fire's metrics, 31st and passing success rate allowed. That's kind of enticing for Mike White, who had a very, very, very low a dot average depth of target for his debut, not grading out particularly well in terms of adjusted fantasy points per drop back. But also you combine that with the fact that they rate really well across the board against the run. And it makes sense that perhaps the Jets have to throw a good bit, including to their running back, Michael Carter, for the Jets, from a defensive perspective, kind of a middling past defense overall. And this number here does adjust for opponent's face. So about league average in adjusted fandal points per drop back allowed, kind of a middling rush defense overall, but very beatable, probably giving up extra touchdowns on a per carry basis, which is why that fandal points per carry number will look the way that it does. And then as far as receiving defense goes, both teams about average against the running backs out of the backfield, but the Colts a little bit more beatable on the perimeter. So, yes, the implied team total does favor or the over under that in the spread points to like a sort of just mediocre performance for the Jets offense. But there are paths to this game being pretty solid for the Jets. Now, one thing that would really lead to the under is these numbers here. Both of these teams play pretty slowly. This looks at only passes and rushes whenever your pre snap win probability was between 20 and 80 percent. Both teams like to kind of slow things down. It's very possible that both teams try to run the ball a good bit. It is a Thursday, so it's always limited prep work. But both teams actually kind of above league average in adjusted pass rates. So, you know, again, the default is going to be that we build around the Colts is heavy favorites, and that's what the optimal trends have said for similar game scripts to this in games with spreads of nine plus points with totals between forty three and a half and forty eight and a half. For the past three years, so up to including the twenty twenty one season, we see that in these types of games, quarterbacks are just very, very commonly the MVP. They've been the MVP in 60 percent of similar games to this running back, see a drop to about twenty three percent. So that's a differential of about five point eight points. And wide receivers get a drop and no tight end has been an optimal MVP in this type of lopsided game script since the start of twenty nineteen. And then I mentioned we're going to want to be in on the Colts about eighty three percent of the optimal MVPs in similar game scripts have come from the favorite side. So that's going to point us to the Colts, which, again, not really like surprising, but there still are going to be ways to differentiate. And one thing that jumps out to me is that in about half of these similar games over the past three seasons, the favorite quarterback has been the MVP. So I think a lot of people are going to want to build around Jonathan Taylor kind of sell themselves on the idea that they're going to play from ahead. The Colts are run the ball a ton with Jonathan Taylor. His red zone role is phenomenal and that he is going to be the MVP. And my sims say that he has the best case to do that. But all it takes is some touchdown variance to go in the favor of Carson Wentz and Jonathan Taylor is not the MVP. He might not even be at his salary in the optimal lineup. If Carson Wentz does have a good passing game and throws multiple touchdowns to various receivers and tight ends. So that's really the path for Carson Wentz to be the MVP. Again, that's not really like a hot take. But if we get the vibe that it's going to be Jonathan Taylor primarily, then Carson Wentz has a very, very easy case to make based on how heavy scripts have favored favored quarterbacks as opposed to favored running backs. Favored running backs, they can be they kind of feel like they're the right play all the time, especially even on a main slate. But if the game's out of hand, it's a lot harder for running backs to generate extra touchdowns, extra touches late in the game. And so that's why I think Carson Wentz is a great MVP pivot away from Jonathan Taylor for tonight. I always like to look at kickers and just kind of see. We do see about the same percentage chance that a kicker is in the optimal lineup in games like this, as opposed to a full sample, it is a little bit lower. Makes sense, because one of the kickers is just kind of naturally scripted out if their if their team's trailing early and often. And then not a whole lot of MVPs coming from underdogs. But when it is, it has been the the underdog quarterback very often. So that would point us to some Mike White if we want to go that route. OK, so that's kind of the overview for tonight. I will jump into some questions and get caught up there. Andrew on Facebook is asking, is Mo Alley Cox worth a play in DFS? Or is Zach Pascal a better option? So I'll pull up my Sims here and look at Pascal and Mo Alley Cox, who happen to be together here. Very similar salaries. So I see why you're asking the simulations I run, which are based in number fires, projections, I run the slate 10,000 times through the Sims and see what happens, see what the range of outcomes are. Unsurprisingly, Pascal is the preferred option from a median standpoint, but also a little bit from a ceiling standpoint, about 10 percent likely to make it into the top five, which is kind of an easy way to think about the odds that whole finish inside the optimal lineup. Although, again, at lower salaries, you don't really need a top five score for Mo Alley Cox. It's six and a half percent, notably two very, very similar touchdown odds, according to number fires, projections. But on Fandall Sportsbook, Zach Pascal is at plus one ninety five to score, so about 34 percent. So about one third of the time he's expected to score from that perspective. Actually, you know, outperforming what number fire has to say with his scrimmage touchdowns, Mo Alley Cox plus 330, so about 23 percent. So I know that most people will side with Pascal there, but I think that's the right play. Just historically, I've done research on optimal after optimal and tight ends don't really have the leverage without multiple touchdowns to make an optimal lineup. You know, Alley Cox can do it with one touchdown if we say that there's not a whole lot of scoring going on. But like I always tend to side with wide receivers, especially guys who probably won't be that popular. I think that from a salary standpoint, Ashton Doolin at five thousand will draw a lot of attention from the Colts because he's out there running around. It's not getting a whole lot of usage right now. I really like him as a small school prospect coming out. So I will be tempted by that as well. But I do think that we can probably not worry too much about Zach Pascal and he pairs really well with a Carson Wentz MVP lineup. So if we could go Wentz at MVP, Pascal and Alley Cox, if we wanted. And we say, hey, that's where the touchdowns are going. It's not going to be it's not going to be Jonathan Taylor and it's not going to be Michael Pittman, Jr. And then you build around some some jets and you say like, hey, that's that's a way that this game could go where Taylor and Pittman just don't happen to score the touchdowns. Like that's not that crazy because touchdowns are a high variance game, even though Jonathan Taylor's minus two ten on Fandall Sportsbrook to score. But, you know, that's kind of all it takes where lineups that are centered on Michael Pittman, Jr. and Jonathan Taylor don't really have the leverage. So it's scary, but it's not really that far out of the conversation. Because again, we're looking at about, you know, point two, five, point three, let's say between the two that they score. Like that's pretty nice. So I'm pretty into Moe Ali Cox, but also Zach Pascal for tonight. DJ's asking Jordan Love this week with Rogers Out. So Jim Sonis and I talked pretty much at length on Jordan Love's viability from a DFS standpoint on this week's heat check DFS podcast, which comes out every Thursday. We preview the main slate. He and I, I think more more aggressively, I am a little bit low on Jordan Love, I think, compared to consensus because the Packers run a really, really slow offense. They're about the slowest team in football. I think my numbers have them as the slowest team in football. But what are the odds that they are going to speed things up as underdogs against the Chiefs seems pretty low. And the Chiefs basically invite the run with how they play the Packers play slowly. They have two running backs that can hand the ball to Devonte Adams while seeming like he's going to play, not going to be a hundred percent. You could probably assume. So and I mean, they're having a lot of a lot of issues anyway with their passcatchers. So I think Jordan Love is going to be more popular than he deserves to be for this week. So I'm kind of out on love, you know, Jim, Jim made a good point. Like Mac Jones is sixty five hundred this week with his salary. It's really not that like Jordan Love is not four thousand. He's not that much aggressively lower than some other low salary quarterbacks for this week. So personally, I'm kind of out and historically we've had 15 quarterbacks projected by Number Fire for at least 15 Fandall points, which Love is with a salary of sixty five hundred or below since twenty eighteen. One of those guys got the twenty Fandall points and the average of that subset was twelve Fandall points. These guys feel really good, but they love is probably not going to have the passing that we need from a big for a big game from him for this weekend. Question from Andrew Doyle as a sleeper. So my one of Number Fire's editors, Austin Cass will love that question. It might be a burner, I don't know, but he is a big Jack Doyle fan. Let's see what we got for Doyle. Six thousand is a salary projected for just four point two Fandall points on the median perspective. You know, we would play him based on a touchdown expectation. That's basically what you're playing Jack Doyle as you say, hey, this game is not going to have a whole lot of points, not a whole lot of yardage. The the Jets are going to be able to move the ball against a defense that has some issues. They're going to be able to kind of check down a lot to Michael Carter. And therefore there's not enough, you know, fantasy points to go around for for Michael Pittman for Jonathan Taylor, one of those two guys to really get there. And not only that, but Jack Doyle steals the touchdown from those guys or Pascal or that kind of situation. So I think Doyle is very much in play. I would probably just cap that to sprinkle levels, especially because we have Ashton Dolan here at five thousand. Again, I think he'll be quite popular. But again, the the potential that a receiver catches a downfield pass that leads to a touchdown just always significantly higher than a tight end for virtually every player that we're looking at. DJ says, Fremuth or Noah Phant, if he plays same with Devonta Adams with love is quarterback. So if I understand, you could still start. I would start Devonta with Jordan Love over those guys if it's like a flex conversation as for Fremuth and Phant. Let me check out the the start sit here and see what we get. Yeah. So Phant is part of a good game overall against the Cowboys in a game where they should probably have to throw a good bit. It's about 63 percent likely that he is the better play in half PPR leagues this week, according to, again, these are based in number of our projections and then based on my range of outcomes that I like to apply based on things like downfield work and stuff like that. But, you know, Noah Phant, it has a really good target share overall. We saw last week that the Broncos just shared the ball with everyone with Jerry Judy back. I wouldn't expect that that just sticks. The team is going to revolve around Cortland, Sutton, Noah Phant and Jerry Judy. So I would still lean Noah Phant, even though Pat Fremuth is honestly one of my favorite rookies coming out this year, really got overlooked this year because of Kyle Pitts, but lean Noah Phant and don't really don't don't talk yourself out of Devonta Adams just because he's got Jordan Love at quarterback. Question on YouTube, Travon Westco or Denzo Mims? I'm going to side with Denzo Mims here again. Because he ran, I think, 59 routes. He doesn't get a lot of targets. He did have an end zone target that he dropped last week. Let me look here specifically with. So Westco's five thousand makes sense. Denzo Mims sixty five hundred on Fandall. The gap here is pretty sizable. I'll actually jump over to my spreadsheet here and look specifically at last week for the routes that these guys ran. Yeah, Denzo Mims, so 40 routes. I don't know why I said I think I might have said 59. I don't know what I was thinking. Maybe the 49 that I saw with Pascal, but 70 percent of the routes, just three targets, that's not great usage. Um, but that's still any time you can get, and I mean, but I'm talking about Pat Frye, but if he's doing well, I love Denzo Mims, too. He was had a really promising profile coming out. Um, it hasn't really panned out. I still remember the drop touchdown last week hit him right in the chest in the end zone. So I would go Mims there pretty sizably because, again, it's almost always better to side with receivers than it is tight ends in a single game slate, just because of sheer yardage upside and the ability to catch like a 40 yard pass, which Mims has. If Mike White ever throws downfield question from Caden Kittle or Myers, it flexed this week. That's a good question. So the Kittle situation, assuming he's all set to go, that's kind of a pretty like that's an interesting game. So long as kind of Murray is healthy enough to play. If Murray weren't able to play, I'd be a little bit scared about that game being competitive. But I'll jump over to the start, sit Sims here. And I'll just assume half PPR because it's always just best to assume that. Which Kittle versus Jacobi. So number five doesn't have Kittle projected yet. That makes sense. I would honestly, I would honestly mean Kittle there because I know Jacobi Myers has potential to score, but he hasn't. And I don't like that game as much as I like Kittle's game. So I would lean with Kittle there, provided that we get news that he's all set to go. A question from Grim fan. Start Crowder over Judy and Emmanuel Sanders in flex. All right, well, I have this pulled up. Even since they've been getting some good work. I love Jerry Judy and then. Just see what these say, but I do have a strong, yeah. And I was going to say Manny because the offensive expectation for the bills is incredibly high. Even whenever they're playing from ahead, they throw the ball. So if you look at their pass rate, whenever they're up by at least eight points, which doesn't even factor in the sheer fact that they've been up by tons of points. If you just look at their, you know, one square liter, greater pass rate, they pass the ball still at like the overall league average rate. So they're about as past heavy as your average team, even when they're up by eight or more, and they've been up by more. So I still feel pretty good about this team because it's very clear what they want to do. And if they want to throw the ball, they're going to score points. I would lean Emmanuel Sanders there pretty easily. Question from Nathan. Should I trade Brandon Cooks for Antonio Brown? So I do have, I do have a trade value chart that is not my chart. It's based on number fires, rest of season projections. I would recommend checking that out to see in it. It'll show you your standard league, half PPR, PPR numbers there. I would, I would probably just have to do that because when Antonio Brown comes back, he's kind of been their wide receiver one in a much, much better situation. Even though to Rod Taylor is coming back and Brandon Cooks has great usage, I would have a hard time turning down Antonio Brown. So long as you're in a good position to wait until Antonio Brown is ready to come back. Question from Jordan. Tonight's Elijah Moore. So I can talk about Elijah Moore, but I don't know if I'm missing something. So Moore has been pretty solid despite his limited route rates, 35 percent routes last week, 8.6 expected Fandle points last week on his six targets. I have no significant issues with. I feel I do more pretty solid projection for him at a reasonable salary of 8,000, so I'm cool with Moore. They've tried to get him involved and you would think that someone like that with a low A dot or the capability of racking up targets with a low A dot would fit well with Mike White for tonight. So I'm good with Moore tonight for sure. Question from Naughty 42. Cole Beasley or Jameson Crowder at Flex. Probably going to lean Cole Beasley there as well, but I'll at least run this through and see what happens. So we got Crowder and this is full PPR, so I'll make that adjustment. So about about even there. I know the Sims slightly side with Crowder here, but I would lean Beasley for this year. Fact that their implied team total at least was. It might have changed a little bit with 31 and a half. That's what 14 points better than the jets. I know that that's kind of simple, and I know that the Sims do prefer Crowder by a little bit. But I have a hard time going against Cole Beasley based on the offensive expectations there. Grim fan says Crowder for sure. So a little bit of a disagreement there, but I see the case for both. Again, the Sims do prefer Crowder by just a tinge. Grim fan says even when Sanders was terrible last week, so one week of data is not that indicative, especially for a player who has been involved as involved as Manny Sanders. But again, here's something like and this is not a sort of personal thing, but fantasy football and sorts of decisions come down to looking at a process, but also doing the things that you want to do. And if you feel like there's a change with Emmanuel Sanders that I'm not seeing, like you you can definitely go elsewhere. But for me, a longer term sample injected into an a longer term sample that's been really good injected to the league's best offense for this week. Really hard to go away from that. Whenever I have, you know, similar alternatives, I would use that as a tiebreak very often. I'm not. He's not on YouTube is asking Devonte Booker or James Conner. So I don't know. Press the sake one as, well, I'll say this, Booker for sure, if Seyquan's out, seems like he might be able to play pretty sure he passed protocols and now it's going to come down to his ankle injury. So this will probably be a simple one. Booker is no Seyquan for sure. I think Devonte Booker is in a great spot this week, too, from a daily fantasy standpoint at a low salary of 6,300 if Seyquan's out, good match up, good role. So I like Booker, but again, that one's just going to come down to Seyquan's health. Grim fans asking, how do you know if a league is either full PPR or half PPR? So that would come down to your league settings, which you should always know before you draft in your eight, like before the season. You need to know you need to have your commissioner be very upfront with what the scoring settings are, if there are any weird tweaks. And maybe there's tight end premium. Most leagues aren't. But, you know, the default tends to be half PPR at this point. But if it's a full PPR league, you can definitely be more confident building around wide receivers, especially in the flex position and especially if you can play four or five of them, compared to maybe you only have to start two running backs. Now, the gap between players within a position doesn't really change a lot in PPR. It's more the positional value like receivers get bumped up in PPR leagues and running backs who catch passes bump up a lot, too. But also within that, and this is something that Jim Sonos and I talk about all the time. He kind of, you know, came up with the phrase, adjusted opportunities. But a running back carry is worth about point six fandal points. A target is worth about double that. And that's just in a half PPR setting. And what I mean by worth is the average running back target has been historically worth twice as much as a carry. So even on fandal receiving matters, you also just get yard, you get yardage points, you get touchdown points, you get a half point per catch. But in a PPR league, that goes up to like almost two and a half to three times what a carry is worth. So something like a JD McKissick might only have five carries. But if he gets five targets, that's worth like the equivalent of 10 or 15 carries in expected fandal points or expected PPR points in a full PPR setting. So definitely always know your league settings because that is going to be ways that you can really take take advantage of the league settings. And that's kind of I don't want to say fantasy football one on one, but it really should be. And sometimes it's not clear enough. So if you ever have a commissioner, I've had this happen. If you ever have a commissioner who's a little bit vague about what the scoring is or all of a sudden it's a full PPR league when you've traditionally played in a standard league, I would speak up there. Question from Naughty saying on ESPN and fantasy episodes, take one is ruled out. So if that's the case, I would go Booker for sure. The note that I saw before and again, I was focused on this Thursday game, but I saw that he cleared, but was the ankle was still a thing. So again, take one out love Devonte Booker this week, especially against James Connor, especially with Kyler Murray banged up. They might not be in the red zone as much. And that's where James Connor scores all of his fantasy points. Question for Michael sit one PPR, Adams, Jefferson, Pittman or Cook. I use two receivers and one flex and sit one. I don't know who to sit. I'm assuming that's Dalvin Cook and not Brandon Cook. So if it's Brandon Cook, sit Brandon Cooks, but says Cook. So I'm assuming Dalvin, I would probably run this one through because that's a good that's a tough one. Devonte, Justin Jefferson, Dalvin and Pittman. So unsurprisingly, this says Pittman and is full PPR. I would be OK with that. I think that's the way that you go, especially with the again, a 10 point spread, 10 and a half point spread. The Colts shouldn't have to throw a ton tonight. I like the Vikings game a lot. And even with Jordan Love, Devonte, Adams will still probably account for like 40 or 50 percent of the team's targets. It just might be 10 targets, but that's still good enough against this beatable Chiefs defense question from Mr. Amix, Amox, sorry about that. Carter or Mitchell for RB two, half PPR. Carter Mitchell, half PPR. That's a so Eli Mitchell is really appealing, but Michael Carter's workloads also really good. The number of fire says, oh, half PPR. Let's go half. Yeah. So number fires, Sims or like, you know, our combo Sims would say Carter. I'd probably lean Eli Mitchell, though, myself. I know that's conflicting, but Eli Mitchell and a much better offense with a better better game overall. So I would go Mitchell as opposed to Carter. Who might get like eight targets tonight with a low A dot and a negative game script, but I'm going to I'm going to side Eli Mitchell there. Final question for today. I recently lost Derek Henry to I.R. But my team running back, Camara, A.J. Brown, Chris Godwin, Chase Claypool, thoughts on trading Camara and Godwin for Jonathan Taylor, Mike Williams and Jeremy McNichols. I would so you can check out the trade value chart that I publish on number fire that comes from rest of season projections. From number fire, I would probably say I would rather have Camara and Godwin the rest of the season. Mike Williams has some weird usage going on. His target shares dropped a lot. We don't know what Jeremy McNichols will do. And if Jeremy McNichols takes over the Derek Henry roll. Then you'll want that side. But I don't think that's the case. They already brought an Adrian Peterson in a lot of places, including number fire project him to kind of take the 1A role there, especially the early down work. So I would stick with Camara and Godwin and take your chances at running back. That's going to do it for me for today. We didn't talk too much about the slate, but I did get to show my sims for today, talked a lot about some starts and stuff. So thank you for tuning in. Thank you for the questions. It always helps. Remember, have some stuff to talk about and not have to sit here and make things up for half an hour. So thanks again. Thanks for tuning in. That's going to do it for today. Thank you to Joy Affleck for producing the video. Featuring your questions. Big thank you to Joy. Feel free to hit me up on Twitter at Goodwill 13 G D U L A one three. Check out all my DFS content on number fire dot com. Best of luck this week. Best of luck tonight. Let's hit a big stack.