 The key to last week in NFL DFS is trying to be different without being dumb, and I think that's the key for most weeks in DFS. For week seven, you want to be different, but I'm not sure we can avoid being dumb based on the options that are disposal for this week. It's a tough one for sure. Not a lot of game stacks I feel great about. I think that the best games in the slate have pretty obvious past failure. There aren't a lot of good alternatives. So it's a dicey slate. It's dicey for everyone though, so it's not necessarily a bad thing. We're going to break things down and let you know what we're seeing here and how we're analyzing this slate for NFL DFS. 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 Saunas. I am a senior writer and analyst for NumberFire.com. Joined here as always by Brandon Gedula. He is the senior managing editor of NumberFire.com. Brandon, week seven is coming in hot. I am feeling uneasy about this slate. How are you today? I'm good. I feel like we're going to complain a lot though on this show. I'm not going to complain because it's like everyone's dealing with it, so I can't complain. I'm just letting people know that like there are paths to failure. Yeah, and we're going to be like, or at least I'm, I mean, I know myself. I'm going to be like, well, here's why. Here's why I don't like Lamar Jackson as much as I should. There are a lot of ways to get upset about like the best plays still. So it's kind of, it's kind of a warning for everyone that it's going to be a little, I guess, I'm always that way. I wouldn't say that because people hit stop. But like I would say, what I would say is more so like, if people really hit stop after that, then they've, this must be their first time they've ever listened to the show. Yes, you listener, dear listener for the first time, I value you. Brandon may not, but I do. I love you. Thank you for listening. We appreciate all of you and your listens over here on the number fire daily fantasy podcast feed. I would say more so. It's like what I want to do today is explain why the paths to failure exist and whether those paths to failure are enough for us to deviate from the games that in theory should be the best ones of this week. That's my goal is. Yeah, I think one of the questions that we'll have to ask a lot and really figure out is, okay, do we for stacks that we don't love? Or do we just try to play the quote unquote best plays from multiple games have a lot less correlation in our lineups. That can work. You do lose a little bit of an edge. Stacking is a proven method long term. It's not guaranteed by any means. You can still get it wrong, but I think it's going to be that like, okay, you're building a main lineup that everything else splits off of. If you're that type of lineup builder, I mean, some people might just build 150 and not really have a main lineup. But if I'm building a main lineup, it's like, am I I want to play Lamar? If I can do it, which I probably can. Am I forcing in stacks with that? I can't really force Lamar and Mark Andrews together. So like, how much do I deviate from the what our status quo is? I think it's like the main the main thing I got to answer this week. And I think the one thing that to me is reassuring there is that we did this a lot last year where we had to kind of tweak our overall baseline approach and account for sub optimal situations. I think I'll be tapping back into that this week and like doing research in the off season having had those slates. I feel better about that now than I did last year. It's less uncomfortable for me than it was. So I think I can navigate around it. We'll break it down. Let you know where we are turning for this week. But first a reminder to make sure you are subscribed to the number fire daily fantasy podcast feed wherever you get your podcast. The NBA is back, which means that Tom Vecchio has you covered every weekday with the daily ISO that is up every weekday morning on the number fire daily fantasy podcast. He'd all have NASCAR for Homestead coming up tomorrow. We've got PGA still. We've got USC still all right here on the number fire daily fantasy podcast feed. So go hit subscribe wherever you get your podcast and if you like what you hear leave us a rating and review as well as mentioned NBA season is back. And it's the perfect time to download Fandall America's number one sports book because right now new customers get a no sweat first bet up to $1,000 that's up to $1,000 back and free bets. If your first bet does not win Fandall has all your favorite bets from the money line to point spreads to player props. 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Restricts and supplies see terms that sportsbook.fandall.com gambling problem call 1-800-GAMBLE or visit fandall.com slash RG in Arizona 1-800-NEXT-STEP or text NEXT-STEP to 5334-2 in Connecticut 1-888-789-7777 or visit the ccpg.org slash chat. 1-800-NEXT-STEP in Indiana 1-800-NEXT-STEP in Kansas 1-800-522-4700 or ksgamblinghealth.com Louisiana 1-877-770-STEP in New York 1-8778-HOPENWIRE or text OPENWIRE in Tennessee called the red line at 1-889-979 in Wyoming 10522-4700 or in West Virginia 1-800-GAMBLE.net. And we did touch on the slate overview earlier on in a bit of where we're feeling about this slate, but Brandon, when you sit down and look at this slate, what are the key things that stand out to you for week seven? I'm figuring out what I'm doing with the top two tight ends because we want to play them. We talked about this on Monday. They might be sort of salaried out up over 8000, Kelsey's 83, Andrew's 85, nobody else above 66. I believe it's like tight end day on Sunday, like national tight end day. Is it again? I think, I think that's coming up. I am not ready for those tweets again. That was the worst. So, you know, it would make sense on tight end day, but also with their market shares and everything that those guys put up big games, but Honor point, if it's tight end day, that would imply that more tight ends do well, which means we can go away from them. It definitely, it definitely could do that. Because you know who else is a tight end? People not named Mark and Travis. They're other people who play tight end. Oh, that's like, we're just a, we're just a Tom away from Blink-Randy 2. What? I don't understand. Okay, I don't know. Whatever. We're like the same age. That should be a. I've didn't listen to me. I don't know the names of musicians. That's the only band that's the only band I could do that with. Tom Trembl. Yeah. We'll get a three snaps that'll work out Eric Tomlinson. We could do that. Tommy Hudson. Oh, I miss him. Bless his soul. Maybe, maybe I go. Is Tommy Hudson related to Tanner Hudson? I don't know. Whatever. Proceed. I was going to say, maybe I'll just play like a Tom Brady and then Mark. No, no, no. Tinder, Thomas. Maybe I'll, maybe I'll flex a tight end. Oh, okay. I'm revoking the reins for you from Slade Over You. For me, I think the key thing that defines a slate is the lack of viable value at running back, because it really does force us into, I think at least, spending all three or two running back slots, but probably three. All three running back slots, having salaries of $7300 or higher, because the fall off after Kenneth Walker, the third, unless you want to talk yourself into Aaron Jones is massive, massive, massive, massive. Like so if we look at running backs in their most relevant samples, guys who have a salary of $7300 or higher, in that range, there are 12 running backs, 13, 13 running backs. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10 of them have averaged 100 or more yards per, yards and scrimmage per game in their most relevant sample. Nobody below 73 is above 88.7 in their most relevant sample. So it's a big, big, big fall off. So maybe you can talk yourself into Aaron Jones. I can't right now. Maybe you can. I can't. I'm more likely to play Zeke than Aaron Jones. I'm not. You can do that. He's like 20 yards per game lower than Aaron Jones. And he's a higher salary. What's, what's, okay. Yeah. Okay. One of these games we love, one of these games we want to remember. I don't care. One of these players I love, one of these players that rather gets stabbed in the eye than he is. Yeah. Okay. So then let's just play our favorite players and disregard the game. Yes, I will. Like we always do. I'm using Gino this week. I will do exactly that. What are you talking about? Anyway. Imagine having tuned out after I said we were going to complain. I am so offended that you would have been Zeke over Aaron Jones. Give me Aaron Jones over Zeke as a bet right now. Do it. Write it down. Do it. I'll do that. Do it. Okay. How dare you? How dare you? Okay. So what I'm going to do this week is I need three running backs, maybe two, but probably three at $73 or higher this week. I can pepper that range. Like love Kenneth Walker, 73. I like Joe mixed in 74. Love Bracehall, 76. Damon Pierce is great. Deioners Swift is kind of interesting. All those guys in 7,000 range. Maybe it's all three in the 7,000 range, but I can't get a lot lower than that. So to me, that does funnel me into one specific kind of build that I kind of have to share to what I'm thinking about quarterback, tight end and receiver. Yeah. It's pretty restrictive in that sense. You could probably like make a, a weak ish case for someone down in the, the lower 6,000 range, but I don't like, you could say like, okay, I like the, like Jeff Wilson. Yeah. He was then stupid role. Like we saw him be scripted out last week when they were trailing. There's a chance they trail again. He might have a bad role, but you could say like, they're just going to try to run it on Kansas city. And he's tied to a game that we like. I know, like preemptively Jim is going to freak out, but like if Melvin Gordon actually is considered like a stuff like he's 63. The winds up in that game, like he could have a big role. You got to really like extrapolate, but that's kind of kind of it with those two guys. Unless you just say, Hey, A.J. Dillon is just Aaron Jones at 5,700, which he might be, but then you're doing a whole lot of like, you're kind of handcuffing yourself in terms of your upside. I think A.J. Dillon is actually closer to Zeke than Aaron Jones is just or then Aaron Jones. A.J. Dillon is closer to Zeke. I don't know the right phrases. Anyway, whatever. Leave me here. Leave me behind. Yeah. I can't talk myself and anyone down there. If I have to talk myself into someone that probably means I shouldn't use them. I think that Jones is the closest, but he's still 68. So no value at running back this week. As of now, that could change. It could change. Yeah, sure. Good Dillon Jackson. But yeah, like the, you're going to have to talk yourself into guys at most positions. You should do that less at running back and quarterback because those are volume driven positions. And if you're questioning like the, if you're questioning the volume, it's probably a negative EV play long term. You're going to have to like talk yourself into receivers and tight ends, but that's more volatile anyway. So it's more, more doable. Yep. So that'll be a key thread for us throughout the podcast for today. Let's dive in now to injuries here for week number seven. Russell Wilson, limited in practice. Mr. Unlimited is limited. Weird. Limited in practice Wednesday with a hamstring injury. It initially sounded like he was going to miss a lot of time, but a limited practice gives him at least a shot of suiting up here. Melvin Gordon was a full participant and apparently will start, but don't care. Not going to do it. Wilson banged up if he plays. So how do you view the Broncos offense against the jets of the Russell Wilson? Not at full health. Whatever happened to the nano bubbles? Yeah. Do nano bubbles help hamstrings or just head injuries? I don't know. I thought like, we say he joked that he had like Wolverine blood, but did he say that? Yeah. That's deeply upsetting. I mean, you know, look, I don't know. I'm just here to ask questions, but like, if you have the nano bubbles, why do you need Wolverine blood? Or if you have boat, like maybe that's a, the nano bubbles give you Wolverine blood. Well, maybe it cancels each other out. Like, would Hugh Jackman be that a quarterback for the Broncos right now than Russell Wilson? You can say no. It's it. I just feel like the like knuckle things would like, whatever they're called, the knuckle things would like break the football and that seems so optimal. Deflate gate part two Wolverine melting all the footballs. All right. To bring this back to like the serious conversation. Russ, his kind of like, he started to look a little bit better. And I think a lot of that has to do with the fact that he would, he was like a statue in the pocket to start the year. He would not look to run. He would not run. They didn't want him to run. Now there's a little bit more of that, like old school Russell Wilson, like he's going to do a Patrick Mahomes sort of thing, which is probably unfair to Russ that we're calling it a Mahomes, but like, you know, scrambling and then throwing some weird like side or side arm underarm thing. But if it's a hamstring, that is probably going to go away again. And we might be looking more at like early season Russ, where there's no threat of mobility and they could just bracket the receivers again. And that's an issue. The wind is also up about 16 miles an hour for this game. That's going to like make this a more horizontal game. I'm kind of out. The jets also having a lot of 300 yard pass or if my data is right, but it's not like a stat I used to look at. But I think I'm kind of out on this one. You know, the defense is pretty good. I think especially relative to expectations. I think the biggest question is, do you downgrade the Broncos so much that you can't use Greg Dulcich at minimum salary? Because Dulcich played a lot of snaps in his debut, ran a lot of routes. I didn't get a ton of targets, had just three there, but like got some high leverage looks. He had a downfield target, had another end zone target that he didn't catch. I'm still willing to consider Dulcich if Russ plays. If Russ doesn't play, probably not. But if Russ plays, I'll consider Dulcich. I won't feel like tremendous about it, but I would probably use him. What would it be on Dulcich if Russ does play, but we know he's not fully healthy? Yeah. So at minimum salary, it's not as important. Like I'm not trying to write off like that we need a whole lot of potential or certainty. But with that minimum salary, you can get away with like nine points and feel pretty good because it's going to unlock your ability to get access to higher upside guys. And again, realistically outside of Andrews and Kelsey, not a whole lot of tight ends project for 15 points like safely. So I think you could do it. Dulcich also just deserves a lot of credit for, I think the best headshot per dollar on Fandall that you could really have. Also just good vibes. Yeah. He's a weird dude in a good way. I think maybe it's not seems fun. So that does matter. The vibes are good there. Maybe that improves the vibes, the entire team because they're really bad right now. But if Russ goes, I'll use Dulcich. If not, I probably won't with my ribbon. Dak Prescott has been cleared to return for the Cowboys. He got in a full practice on Wednesday. Dak back that good. We'll talk about them in the bookmaker section. Jonathan Taylor got in a limited session on Wednesday. He has missed the past two games, both the on Jackson, Naheem Hines were full. So Taylor practice Thursday Friday last week, but then still sat gets in a limited session this week. How do you feel about JT? If we assume he does play against Titans? Was he limited to end last week? Yeah. Look, like this is not a, like a hot take thing, but I think that if Taylor is still limited this far removed from his injury, they almost made it sound like he wasn't even going to miss time and now he's been out, you know, still limited. So they're probably, it's probably a more significant injury. I mean, it seems significant and they downplayed it, but now it seems like it was actually significant all along. And I think it's fair at this point to wonder if, based on what Dion Jackson did with Naheem Hines full, even if Taylor plays, if he's going to be like, if they're going to give him a full workload. Yeah. Like, I know people love to deal with Tony Pollard and Zeke, like, oh, just give, you know, these other guys more opportunities, but like they might not have to give Jonathan Taylor his full workload. And I think within this offense, if he's not getting a full workload, I have enough question marks where I'm probably out. I did like him last week assuming that he would come back with a full workload kind of under salary. The salary is the same just with all of this like added context now with high, because I thought JT might be JT plus without Hines. Yeah. And then we didn't even get either of them. And so like now there's two guys who can take some work. I think I'd be out. I think that's where Matt too. The one thing that would change it is if he were to get in a full practice Friday and be removed from the injury report, like that would change things for me pretty drastically, but I don't think we'll get there based on what we've seen so far personally. Despite having a buy, the Lions are still super banged up. No DJ Chark and no Josh Reynolds are practiced on Wednesday. Amon Ross, St. Brown was full. DeAndre Swift limited. We'll talk about them in the bookmaker section. Keenan Allen got in a limited practice Wednesday with his hamstring injury. The Chargers though have a week eight buy and Allen said he could sit again to gain the extra rest. So despite being back again, I'm not totally convinced he plays. Josh Palmer is in concussion protocol. He didn't practice Wednesday. I think, but based on the fact that he played the rest of that game and then is in concussion protocol, I think he's probably going to sit. We'll talk about the Chargers in the bookmaker section. Trent Williams returned to practice Wednesday with his high ankle. Spraney has missed the past three games. We'll talk about them in the bookmaker section as well. Darren Waller missed practice Wednesday due to a hamstring injury. How many hamstrings? Let's control F hamstring three. Okay. That's a lot less than I thought it was going to be. Anyway, hamstring injury for Darren Waller got hurt in week five and apparently is not fully healed despite the buy. Foster Moreau is limited in practice. He's missed the past couple of games. How do you view Moreau if Waller were to sit in this one? So he had a he had a stint last year with some fantasy relevance. And I know he talked about him a good bit. He's also been somewhat like involved already this year. 50% of the snaps in the games that he's actually played. 2.7 targets per game. I think he went 4-4-0 if that adds up, but like he hasn't been like, this is different than let's say, I don't know. I guess I don't have a great example off top of my head of like, what like a number one tight end goes out. And we don't know maybe maybe the Broncos from this past week knew for certain how tight end was going to shake out. There were some. Yeah. Well, you know, it wasn't so like we've seen we've seen this from that's not the same as just, you know, trying to guess. He has earned targets when Darren Waller has been active. And I think that that's what matters to me. Yeah, I should just say that. Thank you. So to me, I think that Moreau would be another option. And to me, like I think that I've entered this year with the mindset of when I can, I should spend up at tight end because there's a legitimate edge there. I think this week is different given that we actually do have like viable plays. We know we'll get targets and play snaps at lower salaries. So Kate Auden at 49 is one of those guys. Cameron Brayton is practice Wednesday. I don't think he'll play after a neck injury for him this past week. Auden is 49. I mean, you mentioned Dalton Schultz. He is 48. He was a full practice Wednesday. I think that's a viable play as well. Moreau this week is at 46. I think that can work as well. And then mentioned dulcich. So we actually have a lot of decent options at tight end at below 5,000. I think this week the edge and using them is better than usual is the way I'd phrase that. Yes. So I was trying to do a 2v2. It's hard to even. So it'd be like, I know we're not like a pro like we're a pro Echelor podcast, but like we don't typically play him a lot. But like you could play Echelor and Kate Auden or Andrews and like Jeff Wilson. I wouldn't even want to get back up to Echelor. So like the, the value, I mean, I wouldn't like hate it if I sent them back in that game. But like you, you're going to, you're going to gain a lot of ability to roster more, more significant, which is obvious. But I think like the confines that the two, the two tight ends put on us this week. It's, it's not just something I can write off. I agree. Jamar Chase, T Higgins and Hayden Hurst were all limited on Wednesday for the Bengals. That's an improvement for Higgins who sat out last Wednesday. He did play last week, 10 targets, but I think as we saw at the game Davis, like getting guys healthier while they're playing through injuries is important too. So Higgins practicing Wednesday is good for me. And we'll talk about him in the transaction. Panther said that PJ Walker will start this week with Jacob Eason as the backup. They're facing the bucks. They're implied total is 15 might be too high. Can you get to Christian McCaffrey in such wretched conditions this week? A good job on the pronunciation of Jacob Eason, by the way. Yeah. In case you missed it. DJ Moore was like asked about the quarterback situation and all this. And he's like, you know, Baker, PJ, Sam, the other guy, and he forgot Jacob Eason's name and the Panthers PR team tried to clarify. It was because he forgot how to pronounce Jacob Eason. Jacob is a somewhat common name. I've heard. I feel bad for DJ Moore. That explanation did not fly. Yeah. So for like Tampa Bay has actually been kind of an average against running backs. They haven't been like the super clamp down matchup. So I'm not as worried. Didn't practice again Wednesday. That should probably continue. So, like, it's not just a, oh, can't consider any running backs against the box. It's not that it's, it's just don't like a great situation when you're implied team total is that, that low, like McCaffrey has been awesome. Like it's, it's kind of gone overlooked because there's just not a whole lot of touchdown equity in this offense. But you really can't ask for a whole lot more than what he's given us. Aside from the touchdowns and you can't just say like, oh, it's touchdown regression. It's seems not good enough to be in the red zone very often. He's got, he's got to like do it himself. And that's not a really bankable situation at the salary. I think he's just out for me. If he were 8,000, like with, with Taylor, I'd be like, I'll get there. But 87, even with maybe some salary to burn in a sense. I think I'm going to say that a few times throughout. It's like, it's going to feel like we have a little bit more wiggle room because we can go down at quarterback. We can go down at tight end. We can go down at receiver. I still don't know if that's going to get me to McCaffrey as much as it is more mid-range running backs. I agree. We can get like his workload, like you said, has been very good when his production has been good. He's at 111.7 yards scrimmage per game this year. And that's a very good number for $8,700. But Josh Jacobs right below him $100 less and has had better production for the full season, including the times before he became this like past catching back to. So like his sample could be even better than what it is. DeAndre Switz has had a lot of yardage. He has touchdown concerns for a different reason. Damian Pierce, Brees, all these guys lower salary. So I can get not McCaffrey-esque production, but like McCaffrey adjacent production for lower salaries on better teams, including the Jets. And I think that that's why I'd agree with you where I probably will get there for this week. Brandon Cooks sat due to a rest day on Wednesday. It was deemed rest, but Lovie Smith said it was a coach's decision kind of odd. Cooks said he was good. Kind of weird vibes. I think he'll play, but worth noting he might not. We'll talk about them in the trend section. Yes, the Houston Texans and trends in the year 2022. First though, it's dive into bookmaker info for week number seven, starting off with the highest total on the board that is in Los Angeles for the Chargers and the Seahawks. That's a 51.5. I took the under on this. So that tells you how I feel about the slate as a whole. Chargers favorite by six in this game right now. I think Seattle couldn't win and that lends itself towards a close game, which is good. We want that. But the Chargers have been a frustrating offense. So do you think this game deserves to be viewed as the top game on the slate or the way we typically view the top game on the slate or is it a trap? Are you saying like, do I compare it to... Like Bill's cheese last week. How do you feel about this one compared to that? Or let's say like Seahawks Cardinals last week. We went in feeling pretty okay about that one. How do you feel about this compared to that? It's somewhat similar, but I believe in the Chargers more than I do in the Cardinals. Why would that be? I would like this one more if Keenan Allen played, but Keenan has made a personal vendetta to ruin the dynasty team. He's called you out and said, F that guy, not playing. But I think relative to expectations overall and like who performed, I know Kenneth Walker had a good game, but like the receivers for the Seahawks didn't put up huge games by any means. So I think that you could, it's safe to say both of these offenses underperformed collectively. I know that this is going to be a popular game still, but probably not as popular as it should have been because, or as it should be because of the results that we saw, but I think both quarterbacks are in play. This is definitely a 2QB game for me. There's three receivers I can very easily make a case for. I think it's like one and a half running backs, depending on whether I can get to Eckler in terms of salary. Possibly both tight ends. I know like I asked about Noah Phant before the show and you weren't intrigued, but he has a five and seven targets in the past few games. He's been a little bit more involved. And if we're talking about game stacks, again, it comes down to, would it rather play Kate Aughton in a standalone situation, or like Noah Phant in part of a game stack where I have Geno Smith or something like that? No. Okay. Is Noah Phant the Titan one on his team, or is it Will Disley? Because I think it's Will Disley. Like, I think it's Will Disley. But anyway, I don't want Phant, but like, I think it's dunked last week with neck half. 58% of the routes last week and Disley was at 39%. Seven targets go one. Okay. What do you do with them? 45 yards. Oh boy. That's exactly Kate Aughton's stat line from week five, but don't tell the people that. Don't let them know that I'm wrong. Let me be hypocritical. I think that the receivers in this game are phenomenal. Specifically Lock-In Metcalf. I'm guessing they will still be popular this week. I think that, I think that's, that's okay though, because I think that it'll be like, if they would have been on 17% of rosters, had they done well last week, I think they'll be on 13% this week. And my view of them didn't really change. Like, stuff like that happens. So I think that they're both phenomenal plays. We got discounts on both of them too. Salaries went down. DK is 69. Lock-It's 68. I shouldn't call him DK given this, but yeah, Metcalf went down to 69. Lock-It down to 68. I think both those guys are phenomenal plays. I think they're both cash game considerations for me. And Mike Williams, if we get no Keenan Allen, it'll be the exact same. Obviously last week was disappointing, but like, Pats or Tan's good. I think you kind of, we talked about that on the Monday show previewing that game where like, I was a bit worried about Mike Williams because of that. So it's not like this came out of nowhere. And now Josh Palmer is banged up. So we could have no Keenan, no Josh Palmer. That's bad for the Chargers, but could be good for Mike Will. Mike Will in the games without Keenan, 21.8% target share. He's had a double digits in three out of five, getting a good amount of deep work, even that game against Sartan, still three deep targets there. He's had multiple deep targets in every game without Keenan. So I think he would be, he's 78, so it's a very high salary, but well worth that. And I'd want to go there. What also helps like, if you're interested in Mike Williams, you're probably somewhat interested in like Gino Smith, a quarterback and that helps offset things a bit. Yeah. So we actually had people on YouTube talking about Gino. I think Gino is very in play. You said it's two quarterback game. I couldn't agree more. I think that honestly, like I think Lamar is still going to be my top quarterback this week. But like, I don't know if it's a full tier above Herbert and Gino. I think he is a full tier, but like I'm not fully, fully convinced of it. So I think that Herbert is a great play. I think that Gino like Herbert is probably the pay up to be contrarian kind of option this week. Cause I think that Gino revenge game, by the way, again, we'll catch some popularity this week. And as a result of that, that might make Herbert the better play. I am very okay taking the, the discount on Gino. I think that that does move the needle a lot this week. I think that's a great thing. So I'm not saying don't use Gino. I love Gino and we'll use him this week, but the appeal of spending up for Herbert to be contrarian is also pretty high. It sure is. I think it's fair to wonder where we think Mahomes will factor in. I know we're about to talk about that game. Yeah. But he might be the contrarian guy because of the matchup. True. But I agree with you where Herbert's not going to be as popular as it should be. Everyone saw what happened Monday night and you know, that stuff sticks in our minds more than it should. Where are you on Austin Eckler? Because I think that his role has gotten a lot better. And I am less out on him now than I was. For the full season now, 32% red zone share for Eckler. That is much better than it was. 29, adjust opportunities per game, which is actually the best on the slate. Each guy is most relevant sample. The yardage though still pretty underwhelming. And that bothers me at 95. So I think he's like a game stack consideration. And I say consideration to emphasize that he's not a lock for game stacks. And I think for a standalone play, I'm probably not going to get there. Where are you on him as his role has improved? So he's going to be tied to a lot of my Gino Smith shares. And I hate saying that and doing that because then it's sort of dependent on, you know, if Gino has a terrible game or Eckler gets held in check, but Gino goes off, something like that. But with the salary restrictions that are kind of present throughout the lineup, building process this week, I think I have to be okay with tying more players directly together and not straying from that. Because I'm not going to play Eckler a lot outside of game stacks. I'm probably not going to play him maybe at all with Herbert, although I probably should consider that. I don't mind pairing with Herbert. That's fine for me. But starting that with Herbert and Eckler, then I got to spend down a lot of places. And that feels too restrictive. So I think I'm going to have a lot. I'll have Eckler in Gino stacks, but probably not otherwise. Yeah, I think that's fair. I think other thing to think about here in terms of like combinations is I think that my favorite bringback for a Herbert team is Walker. Because, or Kenneth Walker, the third, I should say, because like with Herbert, he's frustrating because they don't unleash him. Like they play this like idiot style, like low ADOT kind of offense, partly because of personnel, but also I think because Joe Lombardi thinks that Justin Herbert is a late career Drew Brees as opposed to kind of a Patrick Mahomes alien type guy. If they get behind on the legs of Kenneth Walker, the third, that is how you could potentially get a Herbert ceiling game. So I think that my favorite bringback for a Herbert team is actually Walker versus a receiver. I still love Metcalfe and I love Lockett as bringback option, but I think that Walker probably my one A, whereas there one B and one C this week. Okay. Let's move now to our second game here in the bookmaker section. That is a chiefs at the 49ers. Chiefs are two and a half point favorites. One of two games this week with a 48 and a half point total. This game is in Santa Clara. I think it is. Anyway, it's the 49ers of the home team. I'll just phrase it that way. We've got big name pieces on both sides here. It has one elite defense in the 49ers and a lot of tough to trust pieces on both sides. How are you viewing this game for stacking? It is very, very intriguing. I think the matchup will keep Patrick Mahomes less popular than he probably should be. We know that he can and does shred good defenses. A fair question, probably the main question in this game is less like, okay, do we think Mahomes has a decent game? Because he probably does. But it's more, do the 49ers do enough to make sure that Mahomes is throwing a lot? Do they even get ahead and have like that come from behind Mahomes just going off kind of game? And then that leaves me to look at like their pass rate. Last week we saw the 49ers play from behind. So the passing volume was up and that led to good games for the three top pass catchers. San Francisco so far this year though has a 53% pass rate. That's 25th in the NFL. When they're trailing by seven or fewer and if we remove two minute drills, they're at a 66% pass rate though. Their pass rate over expectation is a plus 3.3 percentage points. So we're most likely assuming that they are trailing. They have not been super run heavy when trailing, even in like narrow situations like narrow leads. The thing is they might want to keep it on the ground because you can run on the Chiefs. So we got to like it's a lot of if then statements in this game. But if the Chiefs get ahead and you play that angle, we could see some legitimate volume from three pretty solid. We know we know like Debo is an elite DFS asset when my things are going well. But like IU can kid over now borderline. If they're actually going to throw the ball though, they're better than borderline. I am intrigued specifically, I think by Brandon IU. Why IU specifically? Because he fills receiver and I need receivers in the like low 6,000 range. Yeah. If you look at the four games they played with Kittle, which means the four games that Garoppolo has started. It's a 27% target share for Debo, 22% for IU and 20% for Kittle. And then targets last week kind of masking some underwhelming shares before then. He's up to 66, I believe this week, which is a little high. Yeah. I get it, but it's a little bit high. Deep target shares are kind of irrelevant because they aren't throwing deep because Garoppolo is Garoppolo and it's kind of keeping the Jimmy G way. IU leads with six deep targets across those four games. It's a 29% share, but like again shares are kind of fluky there in the red zone across those four games. We have 46% for Debo target share, not red zone share overall. And then a 23% for both IU and Kittle. So good shares for Debo and his salary is still forgiving at 77. So I don't mind that. I just don't, I don't love anybody in this game. Like Kelsey's hard to get to from a salary perspective. I refuse to love a cheese receiver because I don't hate myself enough to do that. I like Debo. I'm okay with IU, okay with Kittle. I just don't love anybody in this game overall, which makes makes it tougher for me to like feel super itchy to pivot to it, I guess. Yeah, but I do think that this is one of those games where you know, I know this is an afternoon game same at 425 same as the Seattle in LA game, but this game is definitely not bad enough where you're like, I can't touch it. I can't consider stacking it. I think if you want to get different without being dumb, it's playing my homes, IU taking a chance on like an MBS bounce back or like we saw a better, better usage. And honestly, we're not like, we're not film guys, but seeing Juju run after the catch made me reconsider like, Hey, maybe he can do this. Like if he's given the opportunity. So like maybe it's not just him. He just looked less checked out last week for some reason. Like that was the concern I had is like that Vegas game. Like he just seemed like spacey. I don't know. It was weird. Like this is why I shouldn't watch games like you were saying. Like I don't know. It kind of like I still use them in game stacks last week, but I wasn't enthusiastic about it. Right. Like it's, it's not a, oh, this is just as good as Charger Seahawks or it's so easy to pivot. But like it's justifiable. It's more justifiable than pivoting to these games with low totals, which I'll talk about in a bit. Well, where are you at on the, the, you mentioned Juju. How do you feel about the past catchers here? Cause I think that like, if I have one, one Mahomes team, I'm probably going without a stack. Like I'd probably do like a Debo bring back, but I'd probably just do Mahomes with no past catchers. Cause it's so tough to get to Kelsey from a salary perspective. I don't feel great about MVS for obvious reasons. Juju salaries a little bit high. And like, I'm still questioning the upside a bit. So I'd probably go Mahomes by himself, but I don't, I don't really know. Given the state of receiver and having it be pretty like unappealing overall, I would rather play MVS because if I'm believing that Mahomes does something. True. Most likely MVS is part of that. He's, he's the salary is 5,600. We know that he can get downfield work. You know that as we say, sometimes here and there, like it only takes one is, is really misleading because one 40 yard touchdown catch isn't going to blow you away even at 5,600. Yeah. But he's had, he has had elevated volume in certain games, didn't have it last week. I think he did have just the three targets and didn't catch any, but I think he had one or maybe even two where he was targeted, but there were penalties. Yeah. So it's probably not as bad as it is. He had a catch like a callback. Yeah. Yeah. So I think I would just play MVS with Mahomes because what else am I going to do? I probably should do. He's shown some yardage upside this year too. So I got a very important comment over on YouTube from Lobby, a CDQ. Mario to just torch the 49ers defense. He did. And if the number one quarterback in football, Marcus Mariota can do it, then Mahomes can't do. So that's worth noting again. It's hard to compare anyone to the best quarterback in football, Marcus Mariota, but I think Mahomes at least half a tier below Mario as opposed to most guys being several tiers below him. Let's move to our other game here in the bookmaker section. That's Alliance at the Cowboys, 48 and a half point total here as well. Cowboys seven point favorites because they are expected to get Dak back from his thumb injury full practice on Wednesday. He was practicing last week too. So I've warmed to Dak as week has gone along in terms of how I feel about him. Dallas hasn't only defense though, and that may prevent a Jared Goughlet offense from keeping up. That's concerning and Dak is it is his first game back. So I want to keep myself getting too excited about this game, but I do like it more now than I did on Monday when we first talked. Where are you at with Cowboys versus Lions? Yeah. So I flagged whenever we did the salary scroll on Monday's recap show, I flagged Dak at 75 as being someone. I very much considered like it sort of anticipated that he would be in the consideration set for my main quarterback. I think like I'm still there. The bigger fear, unfortunately. And I'm glad to hear you say it because I didn't. You just got to talk about Mariota. If I can talk about Mariota, then I can throw a little bit of shade at my boy Jared, my son, my large blonde son Jared. I don't know how that happened, but whatever. So Gough's had some interesting splits already. And I think we're deep enough in the season where we can look at some splits. As you mentioned, Dallas has a good defense in two games against top 12 adjusted past the events is based on number fires metrics. Gough's at 12.8 fantasy points per game, 220 yards, one touchdown, one pick, negative 0.19 passing that expected points per dropback. League average being about positive 0.06. In the three games outside that split against weaker defenses. That's when he's put up almost 24 points per game. Over 300 yards a game, three touchdowns. Some quarterbacks are matchup dependent. I think it would not shock anyone to not to write off Gough as like matchup dependent, but taking advantage of good matchups, maybe being a little bit more limited in tougher matchups. So that's why I can't go full two QB game type of stack, even though Gough's shown that ability to like light the torch. I think it's a one QB game though. I think that the one thing that's encouraging for him is that those games against tougher defenses, at least the Patriots one, he had nobody. Like everybody was out. Amonra was limited in that game. No shark. What? I knew you were going to have a rebuttal in favor of Jack Gough. And I was just waiting for it. It's more so like I'm providing like the counterargument that people would say to this because I don't, I agree with you. And the other thing too, I think is helpful for this game as a whole is that the one thing that Dallas, the reason that their defense is so good is because they create chaos up front. And the Detroit defense or offensive line is very good. Taylor Deckard in practice Wednesday says it was a personal issue. So I'm guessing he'll play, but worth mentioning on that. I think that's the healthier up front than they've been most of this year. So I think that's encouraging for them. That's why I'm not writing this game off as a stack. I think that if I want to go at it though, I kind of like doing so with the Andre Swift, he was limited in practice Wednesday. I would prefer to full. And it sounds like he's not as firm and playing as I thought he might be based on what he was saying post practice. But I do like him quite a bit. Amonra St. Brown salary is down to 75. I also think that's pretty intriguing given that we know what he can do. And I don't care as much about receivers against Dallas. I do against a quarterback. So I think that both Amonra and Deandre Swift are very, very fun bringbacks on this Detroit team. I will still use them despite respecting this Dallas defense a lot. I think that just keeps me getting too, too excited about this game as a whole. The Dallas side though, I will get excited about. That's specifically Michael Gallup at 61. He's had a 23% target share in two games, the past two games. It's I think 19% in this full three games. You want to count all those, but getting DAC back. We know DAC is a better quarterback than Cuba rush. And I feel like we're in store for either a lamb or a Gallup game here very soon. So I like the Dallas side a lot and I will not be talked out of that. Even if I'm worried about the Detroit offense. But you know, more so thinking about Amonra and Deandre on the lion side. Yeah. With Amonra, he's he should in theory avoid trail on digs a lot. Running from the slot. Yeah. I think that in year. So like last year we talked about digs. It was like, okay, I don't care about if digs is on guys because like he's chaotic and like to let up big plays. He hasn't done that as much this year because he's just been really good overall. So I think it's, it's good to flag that because people will be like, oh, you know, let's blot along plays and he's been better at that this year. So I think that's a good flag. So, yeah, pro football focus has a 66% of St. Brown's snaps coming from the slot digs covering he's in, in the slot on about 8%. So he might not really like follow St. Brown. Yeah. He likes to stay on the, on the one side of the field for the most part. So I think that it's a good call out with St. Brown being very much in play, especially when we're stacking up this game. Yeah. I guess my question is, um, I feel like somehow, some way I've become more pro CD lamb than you. I know a lot of that had for you had to do with the fact of who his quarterback was. Yeah. But what are your thoughts on lamb at 77? How do you actually view yourself stacking this game? The Gallup for the most part. Um, so lamb, like I don't tend to worry about cornerback matches very often, uh, mostly because like teams don't run man very often. So like you're not seeing a lot of guys actually on opposing wide receivers. It's kind of like who cares, uh, situation in general. But one of like the few teams in the league that actually does run man, uh, quite a bit is the Lions and Jeff Acuta has played really well this year. So I, I worry about it a bit more with them. And it's not like, I can't really use him as a result that it's more like I downgrade him a bit as a result of that situation. So a slight downgrade to CD lamb under the assumption that you see some, some Jeff Acuta, uh, because lamb does run outside quite a bit, got about a 58% slot rates. Uh, so like does run inside enough to avoid him. So I would say if I'm ranking receivers in the 7,000 range, which is Mike Williams, Debo, Mike Evans, Michael Pittman, uh, Amon Rod, et cetera, et cetera. And then T against the bottom, I think T is one. I would say Mike Williams to lamb three, Debo four. So lamb is still pretty up there and high enough where I'll still use him. But I think that Gallup is the best guy in his tier, which is why I'm higher on him. Yeah, I agree with that. Um, any thoughts on the, I know you're missing now, but any thoughts on the Cowboys running backs? No, that's my thought. You can, you can talk me in them if you want, but it's not going to work. You can talk to them. I just wish that, that Zeke was like 63, 64. I wish he was still getting passing game work. That's my biggest issue with him right now is he's not. If he were, I'd be more intrigued, but he's not. It's not like a Zeke's bad. I think Zeke's fine. It's, I just hate his passing game role right now. Yeah. He's at 1.3 targets per game this year. I need more. I just, I, I kind of feel like Dax going to just come back, move the ball on this defense. And then Zeke's getting like two goal line touchdowns and two goal line touchdowns and 15 Fando points. Well, come on now. Our album of the 18, 18 Fando points. People are too hard on, on Zeke. No, I like, I like Zeke. I hate his role. Like that's, that's the thing. I want more passing game work. So like, you know that I'm a pro like I like Zeke more than most. You know that. I hate his role. That's what I'm saying. Okay. If he would, if he were getting three targets per game, like Walker got last week, like Aaron Jones is a 3.8. Like you were getting that. I'd be more intrigued, but he's not. So I'm not, that's my main issue with him is not talent. It's usage. Okay. But we're, I mean, we're, we're into this game. Kind of a lot of ways to go. Preference for you between Swift and St. Brown as a ringback. Probably St. Brown because Swift, I don't know how much, how healthy he is. He also can just get yanked in the red zone. I agree with you. I like that as well. So that game is a high total. Let's solve our games with low totals. We move into our trends discussion for week number seven. You're looking at, at totals because we've got a lot of low totals on the board for this week. And that'll be relevant for us with running backs and stuff like that. So you're looking at different positions and how they do in games with low totals. What did you find when looking at that data? Yeah. We don't do trends on teams in the, in the odd section that we discussed, like the best game stacks. They're just, there weren't a whole lot of interesting offenses to go over. So I figured why not look at like, how teams perform in games with low totals? Because like I said, we're, we're nitpicking these games with high totals. And so we might be saying like, okay, well, why don't we look at these other games and see, you know, what's here? So I wanted to look at some trends on results from fantasy performers in games with low totals. There's a pretty clear line of demarcation. Six games this week have a total of 45 and a half or higher and then five have a total of 42 and a half or lower. Since 2016 quarterbacks in games with totals of 45 and a half or higher. So these bet these higher scoring games, they average 18 and a half fandal points. They reached 300 yards passing in about 30% of those games and three touchdowns in about 25%. In these lower total games, they average 14.6 fandal points. They get to 300 yards, just 12% of the time again, compared to 30%. And the, and the games with higher totals, three plus touchdowns in 12%, again, 25% in that higher sample. So there are about half as likely to go for 300 yards and three touchdowns, which if you're not rushing quarterback, you've got to be able to do that to have like a semblance of a ceiling, even if your salary is in the 6,000 range. Like I don't, if you can't give me 303, like I don't, I'm not interested, even if you're giving me like per dollar, like projected per dollar value, I need, I need more than that. Of course, then, you know, quarterback efficiency and production is tied pretty heavily to overall game environment. So that trickles down into tight ends and receivers projected wide receiver one. So the highest projected receiver pregame based on number fires projections, they fall from 13 fandal points to 10.6 between the higher and lower total games. Their 100 yard odds go from 22% to 15%. So it's not like these guys in lower games, lower total games never have good games. That's not what I'm saying, but it's less likely, which is again, obvious, but I think it's fair to call out like if we're nitpicking these higher games, what's the, what's the difference and why are we still trying to force our way into liking that the higher total games and, you know, like on a per game average, they fall from 69 yards to 59 yards. Again, these wider zero ones. Tight end ones from 7.4 fandal points to 5.7, 40 yards per game to 31. So it impacts tight ends, obviously touch on expectations also down for tight ends, which hurts a good bit. Running backs though are less susceptible to the games with low totals. The per game average falls for RB ones pregame projected from, or the pregame projected RB ones, their actual totals average 13.6 fandal points per game in the higher total games falls down about 2 points to 11.7 in these games with lower totals. A lot of has to do with the touchdown expectations because the yardage itself, not that different. It's about a 15% chance for those RB ones to get to 100 plus yards in the higher total games, but actually 16% in those lower total games to probably uglier, more run heavy teams to begin with. And it's only about a 7 yards per game difference between the high and low total games. So like yes, we want guys in games with high totals. That's why we talk about it. That's why everyone talks about it. We all know this, but I just felt like I was looking at the slate, didn't know which offenses left over to dig into. So I figured maybe the real key this week is to fade the games if we think they're imperfect. If they're not good, can we just go to games and not really overall, especially not a quarterback. I think my quarterback consideration set needs to be in games with high totals. If there are certain wider receivers or tight ends that have good paths obvious paths. I'm willing to go there at running back. I'm much more likely just to ignore total, but I don't think the way to differentiate this week is to look at that because again, it's like it's basically two tiers this week with the games. I don't think that the answer is getting too cute and trusting these games with low totals because historically speaking, it is not a good play. So to highlight guys who would be impacted by this. So looking at receivers and tight ends because the quarterbacks we're considering are not in these games. That's not an issue, but receivers and tight ends in those low total games. Kate Auden, he's in one of those games. Mike Evans, Chris Godwin, I don't think that's a good question to begin with, but like that would impact Kate Auden on that side. It would impact Romeo Dobbs, who I like at 58 would impact Robert Tungin, who is a consideration but not a guy I love at 55. It would impact Michael Pittman if you like Bunny targets. Let me see here. It would impact if you were into the Jacksonville guys or Wanda Robinson in that game impact him. I don't think we're super into any of the Broncos or Jets past catchers, except for Dulcich potentially. Those are the primary ones. So I think the biggest thing for me is asking myself is Dobbs role good enough and is Auden's role good enough to overcome bad totals because it's not just like the averages. You talked about averages. You did reference upside too with the yardage numbers, but like in perfect lineups, you don't see guys from low total games very often either. So it is upside too. So do I feel good enough and firm enough in Auden's role and Dobbs's role to like still use them despite the bad game environments? Maybe I shouldn't. I think those are the two that I'm pausing the most with right now. It took me a long time to figure out the three loves for the end of the show at receiver because spoiler alert, we both love T. Higgins. We both love DK Metcalf. DK Metcalf, Tyler Lockett and Michael Gallup. Those four we have a lot of overlap with looking lower than that because I think it's going to help me a lot if I go lower than that. I kept going to Romeo Dobbs but I was like, this is not a good game environment historically for receivers to have legitimate upside. Should I move away from that? And again, it's we can focus on Dobbs and say, here's why that doesn't matter. And if you can get there, that's fine because there still is paths to upside for certain players in low total games. This is not to say you can't touch any of these guys, but in thinking of ways to get different like this is going to hurt like Tennessee, Indianapolis, I was like this game has like kind of clear players that I could pivot to and do a really unique lineup. I did bet the over in that game. So there is a path to that game being less poopy. It actually rates out fairly well relative to the the two elite games of the week in terms of like stackability but the trend itself is kind of damning for guys like Pittman. I wouldn't use stackability because that implies both sides and I refuse to use a Colts player except for maybe their alpha wide receiver, Alec Pierce. It's good to get a reality check and make sure we're not overlooking stuff but that does mean we can kind of cut out five of the 11 games on the slate for the most part. Yeah, except for running back like Paul is still fine. Yeah, that was the other thing is I like Breeze. I wanted to make sure I was justified and still liking him even though the total is low. Okay, yep, I'd agree. So let's talk here about my first trend. That's the Bengals offense because they got off to a brutal start this year and it killed pieces within their offense like Joe Nixon mostly but they've been getting better recently and they face Atlanta this week. I think we should give the Bengals a long look. If you look at their early down passing efficiency, they underperformed or met expectations based on their matchup in each of the first three games. So that's bad. They were a below average offense the first three weeks in that Thursday game against Miami. They were 0.13 above expectation per drop back. They struggled against the Ravens bounce back to 0.17 against New Orleans. So they've been trending up and showing upside into their past three games. But that's not like a random trend. I'm not cherry picking here because the valleys have typically coincided with when T Higgins has not been healthy. Higgins barely played in two separate games this year and they fell well short of expectations in both those games. In the four games with full stats for Higgins, they've met expectations once and they well exceeded them twice. So when Higgins is healthy, this offense is much better and the rum game is getting better as well. They underperformed relative expectations big time each of their first four games. But they've actually exceeded expectations in two straight now from a rushing perspective. For the full season, they're still 30th and opponent adjusted early down rushing efficiency which is bad. But it's getting better than it was. This is all while having decent success the entire year even when they were struggling on late downs. So they're trending up both in the passing game and the ground game and their movement in the passing game is tied to Higgins who is getting further removed from his injury. I think that bodes really well for this week. Atlanta struggles against both the pass and the rush. They're not specifically awful against any one individual position. So I think we can just go at them with our favorite pieces here. Joe Nixon has not topped 88 yards in scrimmage since week one and his role has not been as great the past two weeks but still a snap rate above 70%. I doubt people are on him this week. I think he could be very fun for tournaments. I love Higgins though. Higgins is my favorite piece of the slate at any position I think. Is that fair? I think that's where it is for me because in the games he's played with Chase, full games 26% target share, 42% deep leads the team in both those categories and is tied with Chase in red zone targets. Chase has great shares too. This is not to diminish him but 25% overall 37% in deep people probably going to be there after his big game last week. So I want to load up on Higgins this week. I think Nixon will be a guy target if he's under rostered. Chase is awesome too but I'd rank him third due to salary and still want exposure. So where are you on the Bengals and will you get to Joe Burrow at 83? I was going to ask like okay, you're saying all this stuff, why not Joe Burrow? I think because people chase the points they'll be more popular than he should be relative to his rushing output. Okay, I don't, do you care about that? Like popularity of quarterback? Because unless it's an outlier number it historically doesn't matter. I care about it if I can get someone who's on like 4% of rosters who has an easier path to a ceiling game, a.k.a. Mahomes or something like that. Burrow or Herbert? Because it seems like Herbert but neither runs at least not right now. True. Maybe that's right where Burrow is the pivot off of Herbert. I think that's fair. Yeah, I think I was too low on Burrow. It's always possible that he is chalky but anytime there's a pretty clear value quarterback they can catch some popularity and Gino should be around maybe 15% or so, 12 to 15% that alone will eat enough away from everyone else where I don't think anyone else is going to get prohibitive. But yeah, so I'm sorry I'm thinking of Burrow but I love Joe Mixon I think it's a all of the question marks we have with his actual production over expectation that's accounted for in his salary I think that this is a very obvious spot just to play Joe Mixon I don't think that this is one of the situations where you can even say okay well I played Joe Mixon at 74 or I played Joe Mixon and I regret it it's like you played Joe Mixon with this workload at 74 I don't think in this matchup too it's a very good matchup I don't think I can walk away from this one at one o'clock it's not going to be two o'clock I'm not going to play Joe Mixon so it might be like I haven't thought this year but I'm less worried about it than I thought I'd be at higher salaries I mean his salary must have been 83 or so this is different so I love Mixon love Tee he's going to open things up for well as much as we love Tee Higgins on this podcast but Tee Higgins opens things up for us yes I want to make the joke that Tee Higgins is better than Jamar Chase they're both great they're both awesome but teams focus on Chase that leaves Higgins open I love all four of them I land on some secondary injuries too I think Terrell will probably play but Hayward won't so that's a good thing for Higgins as well Higgins is the coverboy for the youtube stream today too see you know um I think he's the best player on this slide can you bring it back bring what back so like yes you can you can the problem is that I think I think I don't know if I can with burrow because like well no that's not right the reason I'm worried about bringing it back with it in a burrow lineup is because if I use a falcons player that means I'm assuming they're forced to throw and forced to throw means that Cleveland or Cincinnati gets an early lead if they can early lead they're probably going to run so I feel like in a burrow lineup I might be less likely to bring it back than with a mix in lineup as like counter-ethetical to my typical process that may be that might be overthinking it it could be very very much the case my bigger concern is I don't know where to go I can't keep doing Kyle Pitts forever I haven't used him in a while so I could go there I guess because I haven't been burned by him but like what's the upside of 5 targets for those two guys 5 targets could be a 25% target share for them it sure could like Marcus Mario to one NFC offensive player of the week with 14 passing attempts last week so we're going to get into this with my next trend but do we what's the fear level 1 through 10 of 10 being like super terrified that the falcons can just control the clock and ruin the game not that high like fun games is here despite being annoying yeah I'm not that worried about them personally okay let's go to your second trend then you're alluding to the Cleveland offense who can be annoying at times facing Lamar this week on a slate where we don't have a lot of rushing quarterback so what do you see with this Cleveland offense and how it impacts this game as a whole just checking in we tried to be even limited yesterday or Wednesday practice I should say yeah anyway we love the Ravens offense always we love Lamar Jackson he is the best process-based play of the week a quarterback we almost assured they have the salary to get there because we can go down a tight end we also love Mark Andrews he's a lot harder to get to but one offense that just continues to elude me is the Browns because I can never figure them out but also one offense that can ruin things is the Browns this year they are 29th in pass rate over expectation at a minus 7.9% they're 27th in overall pass rate at 52% when they're trailing by any amount they do bump it up to a 61% pass rate but that's still below the NFL average of 64% and still about 7 percentage points below expectation based on all the game conditions the NFL fastest model uses Baltimore is just worse than the NFL average in rushing yards over expectation allowed rushing success rate allowed that's a bit worrisome because the Browns can and want to go with a run heavy approach and kill the clock as a result of this run heavy run like efficient rushing offense Cleveland has run has ran that's the one I can never I don't know that one run has run 8.3 passing plus rushing plays per game that's 4th most in the NFL and they've faced 58.5 per game 3rd fewest Baltimore already because of their play style doesn't run a whole lot of plays themselves 57 and they're facing almost 65 which is 6th most part of that is just just part of like playing from head so our teams like trying to catch up that kind of stuff a little bit is Cleveland runs a lot of plays doesn't face that many and that's the inverse for the Ravens so we could see Baltimore on the sidelines a lot while Nick Chubb is just grinding things away so like I think there is legitimate fear on my end this could be overthinking it of course but I think that there's fear that the Browns do kind of ruin this game keep the Ravens offense off the field enough and then we're then we're banking on just hyper efficiency from the Ravens Nick Chubb is my nemesis in 2022 he's my new nemesis he's averaged 19.3 Fandall points per game on 22 adjusted opportunities which carries plus double your targets almost 117 yards from scrimmage per game I have met 14.3 expected Fandall points per game because he doesn't get a whole lot of receiving he's a very efficient player so he's always going to overperform that but I don't know if I'm going to bring back my Lamar with Nick Chubb I think that if I like Lamar and I think he's going to put up points then if Chubb is probably going to do something so that's a little bit of a concern we always like David and Joku he's got an 18% target share 58 yards per game that's fourth best among all tight ends you shaking your head I was shaking my hex so excited to use him sorry go ahead at times I've had interest in Amari Cooper he's averaging 9.2 targets per game that's 12th among receivers but he's 31st in yards per game I think he's over salaried 58 per game I think he's over salaried at 72 but again like are we forcing in stacks or are we playing suboptimal like are we okay playing Lamar by himself nobody else in this game yes well Lamar within Joku I think is the way I want to stack this game if I have a single entry lineup right now I might do that Lamar than Joku because it's so hard to get back up to Andrews like he could torch me but I think the leverage or the not leverage like the financial flexibility I get elsewhere I sound like a 45 year old dad financial flexibility well there's a legitimate opportunity cost and rostering Andrews because it's not it's not 75 it's 85 this week yeah the reason sorry the reason I'm bullish on Baltimore is because I think their offense is due for an explosion very soon if you look at so I have opponent adjusted numbers on early down efficiency because I just want teams to be efficient early downs because that's how you can like build sustainable offense the goal of an offensive coordinator was to get into third and short yes third and manageable actually not short manageable please get the wording correct early down efficiency this year adjusted for opponent number one Baltimore 0.194 expected points per play based on number fires net expected points per play based on number fires metric again my own adjustments could be wrong the second best team is a 0.142 they are 0.05 per play better than every other team in football early downs I think that eventually that's going to lead to a game where they drop 42 in the first half maybe not the first half but like they're going to explode at some point and when you pair that with a quarterback who is still running a lot in Lamar and studying still playing very well potentially getting his his number two past catcher back this weekend or shot Bateman I feel like that situation where I want to take advantage of that on a slate where not a lot of quarterbacks can hang 40 and he can so I know that he'll be popular but I don't care and I think that that's why even in a bad game environment I don't know how much I care I think that Lamar is I'm going to revise my previous statement I'll say he is in tier of his own this week at quarterback because of the early down efficiency because the fact I think they're going to explode pretty soon I want to be heavily in on them here specifically with Lamar and I don't care about the rest right I agree with that I would have Lamar in a tier of his own I'm not afraid of going 100% with a quarterback and all my line-ups Lamar in a different matchup this week I think would very very be you'd be very close to that this week I think he's more 50% and I agree I want to differentiate a little bit more because I I do fear that this game is gross so to put words in your mouth because that's what people love having done to them you are taking Lamar from his typical baseline relative to the other guys in this slate and downgrading him for game environment I think that's fully fair I agree that we'll do the exact same thing and I think that we're on the same page which is encouraging to me so my final trend is talking about Houston's offense again weird but whatever I think the Raiders are pretty fun this week Josh Jacobs for the most part but potentially Foster Moreau as well the question is can I run it back with guys in the opposing side and I do think you can but it's complicated Damian Pierce definitely fine that's not complicated he's good I liked the Vegas run defense coming into the year but they've been below average against the Russian early downs adjusting for schedule so that's fine Pierce 107.5 yards of scrimmage per game and the four games is lead back 61% red zone share which is absurd for running back this year so stacking Pierce with Josh Jacobs pretty appealing this week the passing offense has also been better than I thought they were on early downs they rank 16th there once you adjust for schedule the problem is that they are awful on late downs a 33% success rate adjusted for opponent which ranks second to last ahead of just Carolina not great company to keep and what that does it cuts drive short keeps them from scoring keeps their games low scoring and the targets also are not super concentrated Brandon cooks leads with a 26% target share but he's at 27% of the deep targets Nico Collins leads there at 39% but has just a 17% overall share they're cannibalizing each other and it's led to neither guy topping 82 yards yet this year if cooks were to not play I'd use Collins happily I'd be very I'd be very into him there as a value receiver 56 I prefer Collins with cooks in their 56 because the salary but I'd probably just like my threshold at wide receiver is can you give me 85 yards or two touchdowns not really sure about that answer so I probably might not get to either Nico or MBS same salary Nico is that is that offensive that seems offensive right that should be appalled to myself right I'm not going to I would have Marquez about a scaling over Nico Collins like you can play both if you have like enough I'd rather play neither but like right but we might we might need I probably go Nico by a bit but I don't know if cooks doesn't play it's Nico by a mile but I don't know I love using guys against the Raiders in general I think it might just be limited to Pierce this week though because of the underwhelming passing game do you have a different read on the Texans than I do I don't have a read on the Texans what about Pierce where are you on him I see the case I see the appeal but personally I it takes to want to want to play a running back is a seven point or whatever the spread is currently underdog I have to feel flawless I don't know if I'm quite there I think this offense could also still implode they could I think that's less likely against a bottom rung defense we've got a pass rush but that's all they can do basically yeah Davis Mills league average sack rate not great at like avoiding sacks not great at both things so yeah again I'm not talking you out of this again you're only saying Pierce here unless Cook sits I don't think you will but I want to make the caveat in case something happens I agree with you with Pierce he's playable if you want to stack this one up a little bit otherwise I think it's getting too cute for no reason Pierce or Breeze Hall Breeze I think I go Breeze too but Pierce or Deandre Swift too early to say in the week honestly I don't know how healthy Swift is I'd go Swift if he's full in practice by Friday okay I think I'd agree with that too so maybe I'm lower on Pierce than I thought I was but like I want to have some game stacks where I have Jacobs paired with Pierce specifically because I think this game is not that terrible and I think Pierce's role is good Josh Jacobs' role is awesome and do you see yourself getting to Davante Adams realistically realistically probably not I probably should like should I yes will I I don't know man because I want to get some Jamaar Chase and I won't be up there very often so that's my issue I don't know the bummer weather for this week wind speeds in Jacksonville for the Jags and the Giants 11 miles per hour would be fine if it stayed there but check back on that later same thing in Nashville the Titans and the Colts and then wind speeds in Denver for the Broncos and Jets are at 14 miles per hour ripping ripping through the wind in Denver as well let's dive now into our positional plays for week number seven starting off at quarterback Brandon who do you have there I thought it was going to be a four quarterback week it's now extended to six with Mahomes and Joe Burrow in the conversation but I think the one play I might have the most of relative to the field is Justin Herbert 81 love the salary love the upside at that salary as you mentioned on Monday's show his ADOT's been down the past three games but he played some really weird splits in terms of like who he's faced three teams to start the year that allowed downfield passing then three that didn't in Seattle's 29th and ADOT faced 28th in yards per target allowed on downfield passes I think we can take advantage of that game that sort of dug game in prime time and there's no weather issues as well which I think is going to help separate things a little bit this week you're making a face there's a new Russell Wilson Subway ad and it's upset he's using a fork and knife to cut a subway sandwich I'm watching you with no audio and I'm okay with that I'm I can't handle the cringe I'm shutting this tab in case anyone wonders what it's like to podcast with Joe I'm so upset right now I was like did I say something wrong I'm gonna cry I'm so upset by seeing that video I think DAC is it was a coin flip between DAC and Gino for my second love I have Gino in here Gino versus Herbert is what I wish Gino versus Herbert was going to be it was a down game for the receivers last week as well that the primary receivers I'm more than fine with that he's at .22 passing that expected points per dropback on the year that's .14 over expectation per dropback there are big games that can be had from Lamar, Mahomes, Burrow, Herbert but I think Gino is in that tier with Upside at a much lower salary so I'm gonna have to do a revenge game also I mentioned before that the Ravens lead the league in early down efficiency after adjusting for schedule the team that's second at .142 is Gino, MF and Smith's Seattle Seahawks and so those are my top two loves so this week at quarterback Lamar Jackson and Gino Smith Lamar 58 or more rushing yards and five straight games might get a shot Bateman back this week hasn't had an eruption recently but I think based on their underlying numbers that's within the range of outcomes the Browns linebackers are bad so I want to get to Lamar at 88 despite the legitimate concerns you brought up earlier and if those are valid but I'm still gonna use Lamar you mentioned the Gino stuff I think that he's tremendous despite joking about the revenge game he's had 40 rushing yards and two of the past three games I think they can win this game I got the money line Monday or Tuesday at plus 250 I think that they got a shot in this one so Hawks baby let's ride I think that they're fun I think the DAC is he's right there like the DAC Herbert burrow discussion is really tough for me because I think all those guys could make a case I might have Gino number two behind Lamar after considering a salary is that is that wild considering salary no that's why I have him here to I feel I kind of I just feel weird because I want to make sure I'm not too low on the homes and burrow I can only I can only play so many quarterbacks I basically cap it at three yeah I'm gonna have a take a long hard look at this but I think there are six quarterbacks who are very much in a tier of their like if we make that the tier wide just the consideration said I think it's those six I think I'd agree okay running back what you got there I'm sticking in the mid range here if I build a lineup with like Lamar $4,000 defense and these three running backs I'm at $6,225 for three receivers in a tight end that feels pretty good about that but those three are Breece Hall, Joe Mixon and Kenneth Walker Breece Hall at 76 I'm a little bit nervous about the low total but again as I went over it doesn't matter as much for running backs Denver is about average against running backs in the year allowing a .37 rushing yards over expectation to the position overall in his three games with a two-thirds snap rate or better 25 adjusted opportunities per game 132 yards per game 15 and a half expected Fando points which ranks him 10th among running backs in that split I think it's I believe that Denver's offense is good but I don't think that it matters so much we can also see a lot of bunny targets if the wind is up so I think it's a good spot for Breece I would prefer Swift if he was full because I like that game a lot more but I couldn't go out on a limb this early in the week I love Joe Mixon I know the results haven't been there but he is the fifth largest underperformer among running backs in my expected Fando points model Atlanta is not good against the run 29th and rushing success rate allowed he's attached to a good offense there's still potential at this new salary I think he is going to be the he might be the running back I have most exposure to maybe Kenneth Walker Walker should be Walker probably the Charter's defense rush defense not good they did limit Denver's backs but I don't think that's saying a whole lot based on who was out there running the ball for them they're allowing a league high 1.56 rushing yards over expectation per carry the third most adjusted rushing Fando points per carry as well don't love a guy who can be scripted out in a two-minute drill but the second half was very very promising for Walker last week yeah walkers in my loves too for the same reasons he mentioned 21 carries three targets in that game I like this game as I mentioned I bet the Hawks money line on Tuesday so I think they can win this game much less keep it close so I think the Walker makes a lot of sense 73 fits my roster construction this week final guy before a teardrop off he checks every box in that regard I do have Josh Jacobs is my number one love as far as like the highest salary guy because his salary is way up but that's justified Houston is awful against the rush Jacobs 175 yards in scrimmage and back-to-back games and 80% snap rate both those it seems like they just trust him right now which is wild given they declined his fifth year option stuff like that I think that his ceiling is very big and I want to get to Josh Jacobs again my middle up between Walker and Jacobs I don't know honestly I like Nixon I like Swift I like Hall I like all those guys and I like Pierce too so I think that what I would just say is pepper that range load up on guys down there if I had to pick I think that like if I'm picking two guys to like feel great about Walker is the first guy I feel great about on the entire slate at running back I might go Jacobs to and then plunge back down here for the other options I'm I'm gravitating more towards breeze as I think about it more 132 yards in scrimmage per game in the three games with a 60% snap rate you can run on Denver a bit so I'm getting higher on him I like I've liked him for the entire time he's breaking out but I think I'm getting higher on him now so maybe it's breeze over Swift but if Swift gets into full practice Friday arrows up on him in a fun game to stack wide receiver this one is more fun I think than then try to figure out which one he back up because I actually know which receivers I like who do you got there I have Tyler Lockett here 68 he is one of four receivers for me to classify as being in a game with a high total projected for high volume with a high a dot in a low wind situation Metcalfe applies as well but Lockett does have the better individual matchup according to profile focus I love both it's just going to be a question of like which one I click on in my main lineups but like this game a lot the Chargers collectively neutral against receivers really good salary second love is Michael Gallup at 61 one of the other receivers to hit all four boxes big Mike is the fourth in case anyone was wondering Gallup was a write down on Monday for us not moving away from that throughout the week he has ran I got to look this up he has ran at least 82% of the routes in all three games that he's played target totals of 3, 5 and 7 in those but now those are going to be tied to a much more efficient passing offense third love for now and probably still because I don't know how much I can move away from it is Romeo Dobbs at 58 I don't love the trend of low totals but it's really hard to find receivers in better spots than this I just know I'm going to have a good amount of exposure here Washington allows a 22% target per route rate to receivers they gather just 20% so that's probably just something about their offense and also they're not particularly good allowing 1.98 yards per route run to receivers they gather just about a 1.6 there's room to growth for him he's got 8 targets in 3 or 4 games and of course Dobbs is Robert McLeish I don't know that reference from a white collar we watched the show if anyone gets that reference like we're cool I liked that show that people don't even know I've rewatched parts of it and I don't get the reference still you've explained it to me too my top love is T. Higgins T. Higgins is the best play on the slate in the full games he has played 26% target share 42% deep 25% in the red zone you can throw against St. Atlanta I think the Bengals offense makes a lot of sense so give me T. Higgins as often as I can possibly get him my second love is Michael Gallup he has a 23% target share has passed 2 games he had 3 deep targets last week with a guy who has a noodle arm now is Dak Prescott he's not the biggest arm but it's not a noodle so I like Gallup a lot at 61 my third love is also Romeo Dobbs I don't know man I think I agree with your vibe around it where it's like here because I have to be I think my preference at receiver is to have Higgins, Gallup and then either Lockett or Metcalf I think that's probably the way I prefer to go because I have to skip over Josh Jacobs and use 3 running backs in the 7000 range I think I'm okay making that sacrifice or if it means I have to go to Dulcich at tight end I'm okay getting there so Dobbs is fine my favorite guy in the 5000 range 20% target share it has 4 full games 4 games of full time player not a ton of high leverage work but might get more work now with no Randall Cobb I think that's kind of the one thing getting me through is not having Cobb there may up his role so I was asking before is Dobbs role good enough to overcome a bad total? I think that's more likely to be true with no Cobb so that's where I'm at there tight end what you doing there David and Joku 57 we talked we both love them I know that Baltimore is allowing a catch rate over expectation of 8.7 points to tight ends they're 24th and adjusted Fandall points per target a lot of the position again he's fourth in yards per game among tight ends there's that yardage upside but also stacks really well with Lamar you gotta like that and then my second love weirdly we have a few guys who are in the consideration set below at or below 5000 I like Dalton Schultz I think just because I'm going to be on this game a ton 4800 already got in a full practice on Wednesday it's signed in his three games with at least 80% of the snaps he has an 82% route rate 5.3 targets per game 1.3 downfield targets per game so targets at least 10 yards downfield huge quarterback upgrade and a really good matchup for him with Detroit being 26th and adjusted Fandall points per target allowed to tight ends I also David and Joku is my top guy for the reasons you mentioned 18% target share as you mentioned yardage upside at tight end which is kind of hard to find and it's a game where I'll have Lamar so I want to bring back and in Joku is my favorite way to bring it back on the brown side I'm going back and forth between Kate Auton and Dalton Schultz the more I think about it Schultz is probably the better play I think you're right I was hesitant before because like I didn't like Schultz earlier on this year when his salary was like in the 6000 range I was like I can't justify this this a guy who doesn't have like a great workload at that number he has DAC back now his salary is way down to 48 so I do like Kate totally fine considering him but I think if you forced me to choose now I'd probably go Schultz I think that's the better way and I would say again if Russ plays despite having cringy subway ads that are making you want to vomit while I'm on air and despite having a hamstring injury if he plays I would go Daltsich at 4000 too at times but Schultz is probably the best play below 5000 I think I think you're correct in that the more I think about it defense talk me into someone there since you already did a tight end I know like there are reasons to like the text is awesome I forgot Foster Moreau as well 46 could call out so there are four guys below 5000 who's like well speaking of that team the Raiders I think are in play at 4000 I'll have a little bit of extra salary not unlike the I don't even know what to do with this salary like it's not bad it's just based on how things break out I'm not going to have enough to get back up to the tight ends or like to the superstar receivers so I'm going to have a little bit of wiggle room pro football focus gives Vegas the best rusty advantage of the week on the main slate it better than average past defense matchup Davis Mills average sacrate underperforming relative to expectations we want we want drop backs that lead to sacks and potential picks I think that's a good spot okay I think the Raiders do make sense because like I said they can generate a pass rush and that helps too I'm going to go Kansas City because this game is a game people may want to stack and like I get it but it's a higher total we want that in terms of like play volume if they get behind they'll have to throw and Jimmy Garoppolo in a negative script is not fun angles again at 36 in hopes they build lead early to force land of the throw but I need to keep my exposure to both these teams in check because it's basically asking myself what are the odds that Kansas City or Cincinnati get in front early because that generates drop backs if they don't get ahead early they're not going to get score points so ask myself what are the odds they get in front early to generate those drop backs I think the Raiders make sense because they're more likely to have an early lead so I don't mind that kind of the Chargers the same thought process of like okay what are the odds they get in front force a lot of drop backs for Geno I like that game and I like Geno but I should consider the Chargers as well for the reasons listed and then also the other one I'd mention is Green Bay Green Bay is $4,500 if I can get there against Taylor Heineke they generate a good amount of pressure I think that makes sense too so it's a there's no firm play for me I think that's the best value in my model for the week Green Bay is? Yeah. I'll take that for sure alright that is all that we have here for week number seven Brandon any final thoughts for you now that we've talked through this slate in full I think we covered everything it was it's really hard to break down succinctly this slate because there's a lot of like again like if then sort of things but I still want to stack the games that I like most I think that all of this makes me higher on Chargers Seahawks and yeah stack them up only final thought for me is G E N O Geno Geno Geno we need Geno across the board for this week that's all we got here for week number seven we'll be back with you once again on Monday to recap all the action and the big takeaways and take our first look at week number eight over on FanDuel to get that plus daily ISO and our other heat check podcast make sure you are subscribed to the number fire daily fantasy podcast feed wherever you get your podcast 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 we find you there on Twitter at Gadol 13 G D U L A 1 3 and I am on Twitter at Jim Saunders J I M S A N N E S you can also follow the FanDuel podcast network at FanDuel podcast big thank you to everyone for tuning in for today good luck to you with your NFL DFS lineups we'll talk to you once again Monday to wrap it all up this has been the heat check fantasy podcast powered by number fire