 Week five is going to be a tough one for NFL DFS because if you're a long-time listener, you know, our process revolves around stacking games, identifying games that'll be tight and high scoring and loading up on guys on both sides. If you look at the week five main slate, we don't have the cheese. There are no bills. There are no Rams, no Seahawks, no Ravens. A lot of teams we tend to turn to in terms of game stacks are all the main slate. That does make things pretty tough for this week. I still think there are ways to play things. We could get some value backs and help things out, but overall, it is a cumbersome slate to say the least. We're gonna break things down, let you know where we are going despite those issues and how are you in things in the week five main slate? Welcome on into the Heat Check Fantasy podcast powered by Number Fire. That's right here on the FanDuel Podcast Network and NumberFire.com. My name is Jim Sonnis. I am a senior writer and analyst for NumberFire.com. Joined here as always by Brandon Gedula. He is the managing editor for NumberFire.com. Brandon, heading on to week number five, how you do it today? Kind of pained as I look at these 12 games one by one for like the 40th time and try to figure out which game besides the Giants and Cowboys that I would rank second. And even if I could rank one second, I don't know what's third. And it's not because it's one of those weeks where it's so hard to narrow down these like five or six great games. Right. So like you said, I think that's the real talking point for this week, this show. It's gonna probably be a little bit more non-committal than usual, but that's okay because inevitably by Sunday, people will have really strong takes about certain games or situations. And I'm not gonna feel that way. So I talk about this a lot with the PGA show that we do, but if I'm kind of not super sold on certain things, I will just go a different route. And that's kind of how I'm gonna play a lot of this this week. I think that the separation from one game to the next is pretty small this week, which does make it easier to deviate if people get super Jasmine one game that maybe has some issues. We'll talk about those games in just a bit. But first, a quick reminder that our listener league is posted for week number five. Go to fandual.com slash league slash listener league. It's a $5 entry with three entries max and there is no rake, which means Fandual will make nothing off of this contest. That's the kind of contest you wanna play each week. So go to fandual.com slash league slash listener league. You get a $5 entry, three entries max, no rake to get yourself entered into that and play against other listeners, the podcast and other stuff as well. Fandual sports book is running back, it's risk-free, same-game parlay for week five in the NFL. 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Let's get to our slate overview for week number five and Brandon, I think the two things for me are, we just got the four, trying to identify games that we want to stack. But the second thing is value running back so we could have here. We've got Damien Williams for sure. We also, there's a possibility we get Tony Pollard, like that's an outside shot. There's possibility we get Alexander Madison. There is potentially some Ajay Pirine, one or four, not depending on Geo from Von Bernard. So to me, it is ranking those value plays, deciding who has upside and who does not and then deciding the game stacks after that. What are the things you're keeping your eye on and focusing on for this week? Yeah, I think those would be two of my keys, specifically with the game stacks. The question is always with the value running backs of, it's one thing to have like a good point per dollar projection in terms of your salary and your expected fantasy points, but you and I still care about that upside. So that's gonna be a big talking point. Unfortunately, we don't have a whole lot of certainty to go off of for there, but the other thing that kind of stands out to me, I guess actually two things, but one being bigger than the other is wide receiver at the top in relation to running back at the top, because we have like Derek Henry at 10,400 in a spot against the Jaguars where he could have a Derek Henry game. Outside of that salary drops off, expectations drop off depending on injuries and just I don't have a whole lot of fear of missing out with Alvin Camara. So you flip it over to wide receiver and you're like, okay, maybe it's a value back, heavy wide receiver week. A lot of wide receivers feel like they're justifiably the top salaried guys, but like 7,900 for DJ Moore is a pretty heavy asking price. Again, it's justified, but am I gonna get there? Am I gonna get to Debo Samuel Mike Williams at 7,700? Or am I gonna try to say, those are the guys who are overperforming. Guys with similar roles would be like Keenan Allen at 7,200, CD Lam at 6,900. Some guys who've like underperformed. So I'm trying to figure out where I'm actually gonna try to allocate my salary. And then the other thing that came to mind was like, we don't have a whole lot of tight ends to kind of feel threatened by with Darren Waller at 7,400. George Kittle, not a hundred percent. Like, if we don't play Darren Waller, we're gonna have a lot of salary. Then do we spend it on the running backs who might have some issues or the wide receivers who might be over salaried. So I don't wanna be like rostering wider. See where they don't love at their salaries just cause I have the salary to do so. So that's kind of a big piece of it for me this week. I think the easier I was just to use Devonta Adams. Like that's a very easy solution. Just use a good player. Just use Devonta Adams in every lineup. And then we don't, I could have saved myself. Easy game. Easy game. Like that's, we're done. We did it. Congratulations. That's all we need for this week. Use Devonta Adams. I think that like the one good thing with the wide receiver salaries is that although they're ranked highly in terms of salary, like they're not egregious salaries in a vacuum. Like DJ Moore with his role at 79 is fine. Yes. But like he's not, he's the third highest salary guy, which is typically around 82. He's at 99. Like that's, you know, it's not an outrageous salary. So I think that's the one saving grace there. I think with the, with the high salary backs, like it depends on the way injuries break this week. Like if we get Christian McCaffrey the full practice Friday, cool, I'll use him. If we get Dalvin Cook with the full practice Friday, cool, I'll use him. And Derek Henry, I will use as well. So I think to me it depends on how things break later on. Like there are guys I feel good about in the top range, but like it's a thin pool. So I think that's kind of what you were getting at is it's a thin pool of guys we like in the, in the stud range for this week. Yeah. So like across all positions quarterback included, tight end included. There aren't guys who I'm like, I got to be playing heavy exposure to this player. So like I might have salary to get to Derek Henry depending on, cause I like some value receiver. Cause again, receiver to me feels currently like the guys who were like 75 and above are the guys who have over performed and the guys right below that have just under performed. So I historically like to take the, a little bit of savings. I don't know if I want to build around Derek Henry and it could be stupid not to because I have the salary. Wait, why not? What? Like I'm just, I'm just saying like I kind of want like a more balanced build with those elite receivers who are kind of under salary. And I realistically can't be building around like CDLAM and Keenan Allen. And then also getting up to like the Debo, Mike Williams range while prioritizing Derek Henry. I can't have both. So the salaries at receiver while not egregiously high, they're still kind of high for me. That's how I'm viewing it. Okay. I think that makes sense. I thought you meant Henry like into vacuuming. I was like, oh, he's averaging like 16 Fando points from per game on yardage alone. Yeah. Which is stupid. No, yeah, yeah, yeah. So I have no concerns with him personally, but. Yes. I just want to make sure that I'm. I got you. It's like, it's kind of a strange build. It's not a typical slate. I got you. That makes sense. Okay. So let's get into some injuries impacting this week's slate. Two things for the bears. The first one is not an injury. It's very exciting. Justin Fields going to start for the bears this week and beyond starting with the Raiders this week. Second, David Montgomery. Unfortunately going to miss four to five weeks. Damian Williams should get the start this week. You're going to break down the bears under fields in the trend section for today. Jimmy Garoppolo missed practice Wednesday due to his cap issue. Not a lock that he sits. This is an indication, though, that Trey Lance may get the ball. They've said that he's going to try. I don't know why. George Kittle also missed practice Wednesday. Lodge Mitchell limited again. Talked about the 49ers in the bookmaker section. Christian McCaffrey got in a limited practice on Wednesday with his hamstring injury, which means he could return this week. Not a lot, but he could return. Talked about them in the trend section. Dalvin Cook didn't practice Wednesday due to his ankle injury. He said he's going to try to play through it, which is kind of the worst case scenario, but it's still an issue. So they were in an amazing spot against the Lions. Assuming that Dalvin plays, what is your level of confidence with him this week? Level of confidence is probably the percentage that I would put Dalvin having a full workload, which is very small. And I know he could do a lot of damage on 70% of his workload, but then you're getting into, well, this banged up guy's going to be super efficient on a limited workload. And that's not something I really want to bank on. I was in on Dalvin last week. It's not like a bitterness thing. It's just they don't really have to force him the ball, especially in this spot. And yes, he could be very efficient, but the probability that he burns us goes down if he's not fully healthy. And it sounds like he's not. So I think that that is, I don't know. It means that I feel less worrisome about not being as high on him. I think it depends a lot on what he does Friday. If it's a full practice on Friday, it'll have my confidence a lot, but I don't think that's going to happen based on the way things are trending right now. And for running backs, they have basically two paths to dominating. It's one is heavy volume. One is just being hyper efficient. The odds that he's either of those things just not being fully healthy, those both go down. Yeah. I will judge things based on what he does in practice Friday. So we'll see. Zeke Elliott missed practice Wednesday with a knee issue. It might be nothing, but just to put it out there, if Zeke sits, we are 100% Tony Pollard, correct? Yeah, I think there's not really, I've gone 100% on a few guys this year already, including Naji Harris. For me, it'd be 100% Pollard at 5600. That's, we've seen him carry a full workload. We've seen them want to get him the ball. I love that game. Again, we don't care about like floor and fantasy points per dollar in terms of either projections or outcome. We want that ceiling and Tony Pollard has that if he's in a feature role. And he would grade out above Damien Williams, above everyone else if that were to happen, just because we know he's good, we know situation, we know that offense is good. So if we get no Zeke, I don't think it'll happen, but if we get no Zeke, Tony Pollard's the guy. The Giants were still without Soren Shepherd and Darius Slayton at Wednesday's practice, making it likely they'll miss again week five. We'll talk about them in the trend section. The Titans got AJ Brown back at practice Wednesday. He was limited due to his hamstring injury. Julio Jones not practice. Carlos Hyde a practice in full for the Jags impacting James Robinson. We'll talk more about this game in the bookmaker section. Joe Mixon did not practice Wednesday due to his ankle injury. T Higgins is back. So he should play this week. Sounds like that is the sentiment there. Samajia Piran would assume leadback duties for the Bengals, but Chris Evans is someone they seem to like a lot for his past catching abilities. So Brandon, how would you view Pirine if Mixon were to sit? Yeah. So Piran's like a perfect, like if you pick them up in season long and do a Mixon's out and you need a running back, you just plug them in. The $5,600 salary is very nice here, but we should feel much more confident in the role that Damian Williams will play for 200 extra in salary than Pirine. I'm not saying this is a Chuba Hubbard situation necessarily, but what we expected Chuba Hubbard to play wasn't really what he played. Pirine is most likely gonna take Mixon's like rushing, but they're gonna mix in Chris Evans pretty heavily. Mixon. Yeah. So not, I wouldn't cross him off. He would kind of help bring back like a Devontae in the same game to kind of cancel out Devontae's salary, but probably not a whole lot of one off exposure. Would you say the same? I mean, like I think he'd be justifiable, but I also would think that I wouldn't need to prioritize him, I guess. Just because of what you talked about with like the studs being problematic at times, we have Damian Williams, so I feel a lot better about getting pass catching work than Smajep Pirine. If it weren't for Evans, and like I knew that Pirine would be getting passing game work, I'd feel great. So I think that what I would view here is what are the odds that Smajep Pirine gets good passing game work? If I think the odds are 15%, then I'll use 15%. So I think that's kind of the way I wanna handle it here is ask myself, what are the odds he gets this? I don't think they're super high, but I think it could happen. So that's probably how I'll view it. So I got a question for you. Same salary here. Let's say Zeke is like limited in practice Friday. Would you think Tony Pollard has enough work to be on par with Pirine if Nixon's fully out? Is it, or would you feel better about Pirine without mix? Cause like there's a chance that Pollard's just extra involved and they kind of limit Zeke if he's not fully healthy. I don't have a hard time getting to Pollard there, but I feel like that'd be my- It was just more of a- It's a good question. That's kind of where I'm at in Pirine that where it's actually consideration. Yeah, that's kind of, it also speaks to Pollard maybe being a little bit more involved anyway. Right. Yeah. Okay. Logan, oh sorry, one more here for running backs. Gio Bernard returned to practice Wednesday. He was limited. So it's not a lock that he plays, but hypothetically if Gio were to sit again, how would you view Leonard Fornette at $6,400? Pretty well. That would, I mean, the kind of issue there is the spread and you get me a little bit worried about spreads based on your research that you've done cause they're 10 point favorites. I don't know if that's big enough to go away from completely. His role was really promising last week. So I would definitely go there but I wouldn't go so far as to call him a core play. He'd be more of a rotational play. I'd be pretty heavy on him. Because like- You love him though. I also worry a bit less about Tampa Bay being conservative when they're ahead because we've seen them kind of keep the foot on the gas. So it's them and the chiefs I worry less about than other teams. And like their secondary is banged up that might help. I've got the spread at 8.23. Like I'm not betting the dolphins, but I think, you know, it's closer to me. The spread is larger. I think this is a closer game than the Vikings Lions game. So if I'd use those guys, I think that Fournet, I'd prefer Damian at 58. But I think that Fournet is like half step below to me. Yeah, I could see that. So I probably, the way that I sold it was a little bit lower on Fournet than I'd actually be. But I would definitely say Damian Williams above him. Okay. Logan Thomas is on digital reserve for Washington entering their matchup with the Saints. Very low total could be concentrated targets here though, which can kind of help cancel it out. So are you checking out anyone in this Washington passing game this week? I always have interest in Terry McLaurin. Other than that, I don't think I need to get there. I'm kind of having trouble narrowing down wide receiver a little bit because a lot of guys are in play for me. I mean, so last week, Terry McLaurin ran 97% of the routes. Adam Humphries was at 77%. Nobody else above 42%. You could maybe make the case that Curtis Samuel gets a bump, but you guys also in the red zone for him because we've seen him historically used in the red zone. I still like this game. Don't either. And people around McLaurin are in much more attractive games. So like his median projection is better than, I don't know. His median projection is better than DeAndre Hopkins. And he's probably better overall than, maybe DeAndre Hopkins is a bad example, given his poor workload. His median expectation is better than Mike Williams, but I'd rather stack that game. So I'd rather have Mike Williams or Keenan Allen than Terry McLaurin in that same range. So that's the down. And Ricky seals Jones. Like I think he's interesting, but he also got his salary jacked up to $4900. Like I'm not totally out, but like he's close enough to Jared Cook, Big Shot Bob Tonian, other guys who I think are more viable, Max Williams as well. I think I like those guys more. Yeah, if I like the game better, but yeah, I mean, for where it's worth anyone who's really curious, Ricky seals Jones played 92% of the snaps, 77% of the route. So it's a good role. Like you said, that's a, it's still a sub 5,000 salary, but that's kind of high for this game. Yep. Finally, Teddy Bridgewater mispracticed Wednesday as he is still in concussion protocol. Sounds like he has a shot to play though, based on sentiment around that team, but this game sucks. So is there a scenario where you use anybody from this game? Is it maybe Najee Harris? Maybe? I don't even know what his salary is, which tells you a lot. So 7,300, that's right. I remember that now. I would be much more inclined to use Cortland Sutton at 6,100. He's one of the best, he might actually be the best projected value in my anticipated air yards relative to his salary. That's about all I got in this game though. Yeah. I think Najee, you can go there, but like the ceiling is really bad. And that's a, that's what I care more about. So someone on YouTube said Denver defense. Yes. Also Pittsburgh defense at $4,000. A drew lock starts. Yep. Well, that's a ride baby. Let's take a look at what the bookmakers are saying about this week, taking a look at three interesting games based on their totals and such the Cardinals versus the 49ers as a total of 49 and a half. The spread is the Cardinals minus five opened at Cardinals minus three and a half, went down to five and a half, now back up to five. The total has come down. It was 53 and a half and 49 and a half still high for this slate, but it definitely has come down. Seems like it might be a reaction to Trey Lance starting because of a more run heavy script which does drain clock. So what is your view of this game from a DFS perspective? I want to like it. The issue is I would kind of single out both of these teams as teams that I don't like from a daily fantasy standpoint, which is wild because I love Kyler. And what I mean by I don't like them from a daily fantasy standpoint is just, it is incredibly hard to stack these guys. You and I had it back and forth about Debo Samuel on Monday on the recap show. Like Debo is getting some more downfield work, but his overall A dot is just kind of average, which means some of his other targets are close to the line of scrimmage, but his target share is really hard to like nitpick. But in this game across everyone's healthy games, do you want to guess how many guys have a target share better than 20%? I mean, Debo's done it like 16 times, so. No, I just mean like season, like if you look at everyone's healthy games, it's probably just Debo. Yeah, I have George Kittle at 22% as well, but that's it. Yeah. And Kittle's like not 100%. So we're looking at like 20% is almost like the bare minimum I need over a larger sample. Maybe if it's like two games, it's a little bit more excusable, but these are hard teams to stack. The running back situation for both sides is not really what you want with the split that the Cardinals guys have with Connor stealing all the red zone work. Like I want to like this game, but I just, I have a lot of problems with it and you and I talk about the value of being able to stack certain teams. Yeah. Well, I think the good thing is that it's not a situation like the Colts last year or like the old school Titans where they were spread out with no upside. Like Deandre Hopkins had 23 points a week one. Christian Kirk had 22 points a week one. Ron Delmore had 21 points a couple weeks ago. AJ Greens had some good games too. So like they have paths to upside. Yes. And like that's what we care about. So like I can still go to them in game stacks. That's not going to scare me out of stacking this game. But like, you know, for one offs, it matters a lot. For game stacks, I'm still going to get there. Yeah. I mean, this only really applies though to you know, people building multiple lineups because you could realistically settle on one of those. I'll call them all secondary, but it's really, I guess Christian Kirk and AJ Green at this point because Ron Delmore has kind of fallen off. I mean, Deandre Hopkins is kind of secondary at this point too. Yeah. I don't want to say that, but workload wise, it's like all, it's virtually all the same. It's really difficult. And like, yeah, these guys have upside, but you, I think for me, if I'm going to build around cardinal stacks, I really, really have to commit and be at like very heavy exposure to Kyler so that I can build enough lineups where I have enough of his stacking partners to make it worthwhile if one of them hits. If I have, you know, if I'm playing, let's even say 20 lineups, I have 25% Kyler and like two or three lineups with each of those guys. That's like, that's not enough to make it worthwhile. If you had to pick one for this week between Nuke, Kirk and Green, what would you do? I would, I might honestly say it. Go A.J. Green. Oh, I was gonna say Kirk. Okay, sorry. I like Kirk. I like, so last week he faced a lot of Jaylen Ramsey, but it was very predictable. He would not do well, but the first three games from a yardage perspective, Christian Kirk was the guy 70, 65, 104. And that means he can get by that a touchdown and he can score touchdowns too. So I think that he is the guy with the easiest path upside, the target share is not there because he had, I think, one last week, but he can do it. So I think Kirk is the guy for me on this team for this week. It changes by week, but that's probably the way it should be. So I like Kirk, pretty decent amount. As far as 49ers, we don't know who will start a quarterback yet. Let's assume it's Lance. How are you viewing this offense if it is Trey Lance and Trey Lance specifically at $6,900? I would love Trey Lance. I feel like you and I are down to maybe two quarterbacks, two-and-a-half quarterbacks that we like. I'm at two right now. If we get Lance, I'll get to a third. I'm at two-and-a-half. Your half is okay. That's fine. I know your half is. Yeah, Daniel Jones. Yeah, that's fine. It would be great to have at least three-and-a-half quarterbacks with Trey Lance. If Trey Lance plays, I'll have a lot of him with the, what was it, seven carries, 41 yards and a half. You like that. I was kind of tilting about Debo Samuel's salary. It's justified for how good the role is from like a market share standpoint. I worry that it's just elevated because of like the long touchdowns he's had. He's at 12, eight, 10 and 13 targets. I'm not doing this again. I'm just telling you, like it's not because of the long touchdowns, like that his fantasy production, sure, but like his broken coverage is don't lead to 13 targets. Yeah, but 13 targets without, like with a few of them being deep can lead to minimal. You're viewing the artist. You are using 2020 Debo when he was not fully healthy against 2021 Debo, when he is healthy. Also Trey Lance throws for the downfield Jimmy Garoppolo because he's a competent quarterback. So like, you know, there are things that work in Debo's favor here. I think you're too tied to your priors based on old data when Debo is hurt. I'm tied to like a league average or a position average eight odd. Actually, no, it's not even. He's at what, like 7.7. Right, but like 7.7 with 13 targets is awesome. So he's at nine points. No, this is big four. Yeah. Yeah. He's at 7.5 or 7.7, I think. Yeah, it's three yards shorter than that. I'm just, I'm saying it. He's a- Okay, but the average person doesn't get 13 targets. I know. I'm saying I'm fine with Debo if Lance plays because the salary is like it cancels out. If it's Garoppolo, I'm probably not getting there because I don't want to spend 7,700 for Debo. If it's Garoppolo, I'd probably still go there because like, I mean, for gain stacks. Yeah. Because- He's the only one. They'd probably throw a bit more. Yeah. I mean, I'm not using a Uke. If Kendall gets into full practice on Friday, he's like justifiable, but not desirable. So I think it's really about Debo there. I can't use the running backs given that Edmund says no touchdown upside. So, but like Debo works. I think that to me, if I'm building one stack here, it's Kyler Kirk Debo. And I feel fine about that. Yeah, it's just, that's like, I mean, there's probably two chalky stacks, like two of the most obvious. It's that one or sub in AJ Green there. And like- I don't know if people want to use AJ. AJ Green's barely rostered in season long. People aren't going to use him in DFS. Like I'm fine with him, but I don't think he's going to be popular. I'm just saying, not from a popularity standpoint, it's like, that's the path to stacking this game, basically. Yeah. Kyler, Debo, and then just pray for the right receiver. Like that's not a good game stack. I could say that same thing for like all these worse games. I mean, it's different when it's a good offense and it is a good offense and has a path upside. So like, sure, it can go poorly, but like again, our focus is not on floor, our focus on ceiling and they've got ceiling. So we have to divorce ourselves of ceiling or of floor mentality. We've been trying to do that all year and suddenly for stacks it comes back in, kind of weird. Kind of weird. I'm not talking about floor. I don't know, man. Where's that coming from? I don't know. I'll move on here to Jag's Titans. Two bad defenses here, which is always fun. Total is 48 and a half, Titan Saver, but I think four now? Who's betting? Oh no, it's four and a half still. Just kidding. Those numbers are pretty steady. We're betting Urban Meyer. Good for you. You spend your money how you want. We don't know for sure yet the status of the Titans pass catchers. Carlos Hyde will go as that does to me kill James Robinson, but are you willing to stack this game? No. I think I can do a Derek Henry run it back with Marvin Jones or those Gashals. I was gonna say no, but a mini stack maybe. With Henry. No quarterbacks, right? No. I mean. AJ Brown, I don't think I can use Tana Hill. Tana Hill's looked like, again, I don't try to watch football for film analysis, but I feel like I've just seen him get blindside sacked way too often. Well, then you've seen 10.1% of his drop backs because that's just about 10.1%. Just unaware, oblivious, just getting sacked. And it's like, I don't want any part of this offense aside from it. Marcus Mario is back, apparently. Getting high sacrates for no reason. All right, let's go. Yeah. But yeah. The Jaguars, we talked about their passing offense a little bit on their recap show, I think. Yeah, we did. I think it's just like Henry with a run back of Marv or Chanel, preferring Marv personally, because I think people will be on Chanel this week. Yeah. I'm not gonna play Chanel. Yeah. Because his salary is low and he has a role and he might get a better role. So I'll use him, but I don't really not seeking it out. Yeah. Let me clarify. I will play him sometimes when I play Derek Henry, but I won't play him outside of those line-ups. Yeah. That range is pretty bad. So I might, like in the same, I mean, Devontae Smith stands out at 6,000, but then you're looking at, with this goes by, Devontae Parker's role is fine, but his quarterback is do-do. AJ Green's there. Don't really like him for standalone plays. Darnell Mooney's fine, but like the offense really wants to run the football a lot. Robbie Anderson is dust, unless Christian McCaffrey sits. Like it's a pretty bad range. I like Kaderi's Tony 53, but like it's not a good range a wide receiver. No, but again, there's not a whole lot of salary we might need. Like if CMC does. If I use Derek Henry, I will. Okay, if you played, if you played Derek Henry, you don't need like, you don't need five guys in the 5,000 range. I think I do. Huh? I think I do. Salaries just aren't that high overall this week. Yeah, problem is the 5,000 range of receiver is not great. So I'll wind up having some Levisca, but you know, by the way, tight spread and plenty of fantasy relevant guys in Los Angeles for the Browns and the Chargers. Chargers now two point favorites. The total though ain't great. It's gone down to 46 and a half for an open of 49 and a half. That makes sense given the way the defenses have played here, but the Chargers operate at a fast pace. They are willing to air things out. So how are you being this game from a stacking perspective with the total sinking? Well, I saw just before the show that Baker Mayfields, like I think it was a torn labrum or something. Torn something in his left shoulder is nonthrowing shoulder. Nonthrowing, but still you got to figure that impacts efficiency and I've been kind of hard on Baker this year as it is. I talked about watching Ryan Tannehill and being kind of underwhelms. Baker's been pretty bad relative to expectation. He's got a 9.6% sacrate himself. Odell Beckham's role has been like quite good. The production has been quite bad. I don't want anything to do with Nick Chubb at this point. I'm also not quite there with Karim Hunt. So maybe Odell from the Cleveland side? Yeah. For the Chargers, I always liked them more with Austin Eckler, Mike Williams, Keenan Allen, Jared Cook, that's it. I'm fine with them. I honestly, because we're struggling with quarterback, I might consider Justin Herbert. But right, I'm unenthusied by that. So it's basically the Chargers' skill players without much confidence to bring it back. What is your level of confidence in the Chargers guys? Cause I feel pretty good about them. Like I love Eckler. I love Keenan. I love Jared Cook. Definitely okay with Mike Williams, despite his salary being a bit too high. So I'm okay with all those guys. Does the concern around the Browns trickle over into being concerned about the Chargers guys at all? Yeah, I think so in the sense of, like if I'm building like a single cash game on it for like our head to head that we play, I would have enough concerns where I would maybe try to go elsewhere to get access to games where I think it might be a little bit more competitive. But overall, like I'm, again, it's kind of a lukewarm slate to have like strong preferences. So relative to that, I like the Chargers. If this were like a better slate, I would be like maybe it's just a week where I don't really play the Chargers as much. I think Eckler is a firm cash game consideration. I wouldn't put him above Saquon Barkley, but I'm also very open to having both in my cash game lineup. So I think that Eckler grades out really well there, given the role that he has had. I think that he is definitely solid. Very care Jared Cook in the same situations, okay, having both in the same lineup as well. So the concerns I have around the Browns don't worry me as much about the Chargers because I think the Browns will at least do something offensively. I would also say, go ahead. Baker's hurt, it's a tight spread. They might lean on the run more and more. Nick Chubb's salary is 7,500 and Karim Hunt's is 7,000. Do you think you'll have any lineups with either of those guys this week? Do you say 7,000? 7,000. Are you kidding me? I was like, you know what? Karim Hunt's probably like 65 and they might trail, so maybe I'll take a look. I might use 7,000 then. I could use Nick Chubb because the Chargers desperately want you to run on them. Like that is their thing. Like they invite you to do it, so he will in no way be part of my core. He would be at most 15%, preferably 10, but there is a path to him having a really good game here because they like beg you to run on them. Well, a really good game for Nick Chubb is kind of its own thing. He's had 15 carries, 11, 22 and 21, with 21, 16, eight and 11 Fandall points. He scored twice in week one and had 21 Fandall points. He scored once in week two with 16 Fandall points and he's also turned 20 plus carries into 19.4 total points the past two games. The one thing that I think is helping him be okay there, like again, I don't like him that much, but the reason I could still use him is I don't know how high scores will be at running back this week. Like 21 might be an L. Even when Gumry got hurt last week and made it with 23. Yeah, running back is its whole own thing this year again. Yeah, it is. Remember that year where you just had to play like Levy on? David Johnson. David Johnson every week. They were 10,000 and it was like, who cares? We're still, I think, did someone get to 12,000 that year? Or was it Todd Gurley maybe? Todd Gurley was like just a weekly lock button too. Yeah, I wish we had that. So we get healthy, McAfrey, get healthy, Dalvin. Stay healthy, Derek Henry. These kind of Derek Henry is like actually getting that kind of work right now, but other guys are questionable there. So Chubb is a limited tournament playing. If I use him, I must, must, must, must, must have a charger on the other side. And I know a lot of people don't like putting running backs in game stacks. I don't mind a Chubb because most of his production is predicated on big plays, which don't burn as much clock. So he works better from that perspective. Let's move now to our trends discussion. Talk about some more games that could be stackable. And I think the one we like the most is the Giants versus the Cowboys. They're focusing on the pace here for the Giants. And what does that do for this game as a whole? Makes me like it a lot. I talked about this in passing on Monday's recap podcast, but the Giants have really turned around their offensive pace. I run some data looking at seconds per play based on pre-snap win probability. Back in week one, the Giants were clocked as the slowest team in the NFL when their pre-snap win probability was between 20 and 80%. But in the week since they've ranked between 10th and 14th, which is not blistering, but it is above average and it's a lot better than 30 second. And when you combine that with the up tempo offense of the Cowboys who have ranked first, first and third the past three weeks, you have to like that. So pace, the reason that we like pace and people talk about pace is that it just means more plays and at least in theory, that means more chances for fantasy points unless the clock is always running. But this game just combines to rank second in average pace for me on the main slate behind New England and Houston, which is not gonna get me on that game despite the pace. And I don't know about you. I think I know about you a little bit more, but I'm warming up to Daniel Jones. He's my half quarterback that I'm considering this week. He's got rushing potential. His eight dot is 8.9 yards, which is 1.2 yards better than the league average. His passing that expected points per drop back is a 0.21, that's number fires efficiency metric. Adjusted for opponents, he's easily outperformed that as well. And we have some injuries here that open up some value. Now we do, and I don't want to be hypocritical, we do talk about injuries to key pieces, hurting offenses. And I think there's a little bit of that here still, but the past two weeks with Evan Ingram and without effectively Sterling Shepard and Darius Slayton, we have Saquon Barkley leading the team with an 18% target share that's six and a half per game. Ingram, Kaderious Tony and Kenny Gholaday are at a 17% target share, which is six per game. Gholaday leads an air yard share. John Ross is playing a bit as well. He, his speed, he got it some downfield work for a long touchdown last week, but put him out there that's gonna open things up a bit. And the values there, like the salaries are low. Barkley's 7,800, which isn't a value necessarily, although that might be a little bit low for what his role is. Daniel Jones' salary, 7,400, Kenny Gholaday's 6,200, Kaderious Tony, 5,300. I think the question that we always wanna ask for game stacks is, we like one team, do we like the other team enough to bring it back? I'm willing to say yes, but I'm also willing to go even farther than that and say, I like the Giants as their own stack to bring it back with the Cowboys. So what are your thoughts here? I think that last week was the best game Daniel Jones has ever played? Well, question mark? We had that one game, like his first or second game, and then everyone put him in the Hall of Fame. No, I mean like, but this one, he was facing a very good defense in a tough environment without his top two, I would say his two best right now, pass catch, I like Darius Layton a lot. So like seeing him do that in that spot, to me really did change the way I view him in this team because I, as people know, I'm not a big Daniel Jones guy, but like if he can do that against them, he can do a lot against a Cowboys defense that is fine, but it's not like elite, I like them, I think they're good, but they're not elite. So yeah, I think that the Giants make a ton of sense. I love Saquon Barkley, Barkley, I probably put him in my cash game line up before Damian Williams. Like I go Barkley one, Damian two, probably relative to salary. So I think that Saquon is among the best running back plays in the slate. I think the Cadarius Tony is a really good value option on this team too, $5,300, nine targets last week, the first week where they were like game planning around him playing a significant role, they got in the ball down field, they got him on manufacturer touches too. Like when Cordero Patterson with the Vikings, we talked about how manufacturer touches are bad because they can't generate their own stuff. That's true, but when they're getting manufacturer touches on top of organic ones, I think that's a good thing. So I thought that was good for Tony. I like him a lot at 53. That's something those guys said once again. So I think that Tony is a core play. I think that Saquon's a core play. I like both these guys and it gives me a lot of confidence in putting Dak Prescott as my number one quarterback on this slate. Yeah, Dak's the number one because he is easy to stack. So I have him a little bit above Kyler from that angle. I'm warming up to Tony for sure with the work that he got. He also kind of the squeaky wheel narrative because he was not, he's not been very happy. Now it took some injuries for this to come to fruition, which is not really the progression you wanna see. You wanna see that happen before, but yeah. I mean, for 5300 that's a really key piece to game stacks. It helps with the salaries for the Cowboys and also Low salary too. What's that? It's Low salary. It's like, you don't have to offset that. Yeah, but I was gonna say, if Zeke's four to go, that helps me there. And then also Amari Cooper, it's 71. It's not like a high salary. If he's like a full go, because then he's got the Q tag. Like I would be more inclined to play Amari Cooper if I could bring it back with someone who's salary is 5300, whereas I might just heavily prioritize CD-Lamb otherwise. I agree. Let's say that Zeke and Amari both get in full practices Friday. How are you doing them here this week? Just like them. I mean, Amari's got his own issues. We're kind of ragging on Deondre Hopkins for a bad market share right now. Cooper's got that as well, even without Michael Gallup. So that's a bit of an issue, but within the right game. And I guess maybe this should just be something that, I don't know, I guess I sound like a big hypocrite here because I'm saying Nuke's banged up and his market share is bad, but I like the game a little bit. Amari's banged up, the usage is bad, but I just like the game more. I guess that's probably the distinction. I think Amari's gonna want to be third on the Cowboys for me no matter what. Like I think I'll wind up having more CD-Lamb than Dalton Schultz just because I think that their roles are good and their salaries are good. But I would like to get to Amari. I would love for him to be healthy so I could use him because I don't think people will use him this week. So I would love to get there. I just want to get the all clear first. Yeah, and that's kind of with call at A2 at 62. Like those lower salaries make me more willing just to take some chances on Amari. Whereas if the value wasn't as good in this game I would probably stay away more. So is this number one for you for stacking? It is by far number one. I don't even know what my number two is. I think I agree. So we're all in on Daniel Jones, what can go wrong? Let's move to my first trend here and talk about the Packers-Bengles game. It has a lot of the elements we like for stacking. It's a high total, tight spread. We generally know where the ball is going but there is risk this game is pretty slow. If you go by football outsiders, pace numbers, the Packers rank 21st in pace and the Bengals are 32nd. Brandon runs his own pace numbers too which he posts up on numberfire.com, great site. And this grades out as being the second slowest game on the main slate just ahead of Bronco Steelers which is an easy cross-off. And that's annoying given the number of good pieces we have in this game. I think that's enough where I can cross off Joe Burrow and Aaron Rodgers. The question is how much it dampens the appeal and the skill guys. And I don't think it matters for Devonte Adams. He is at 11.3 targets per game this year with 3.3 deep targets per game. That's despite a slow pace, that's worth anything. Aaron Jones in three full games. Cross-off week one where they left in like the second quarter basically. He's at 25 just opportunities per game, 103 yards per game. He has 53% of the red zone chances. He got banged up last week but he returned a kick late in that game. It was like kind of a, I think they were looking for an onside and they wanted like a sure-handed guy back there. So it wasn't like a true kick return but like they felt like he was fine. So at $8,400, his salary is up enough where he's not an absolute no-brainer. He does lose some work to AJ Dillon but I think that he's like a good rotational piece of return, it's a guy who does have a lot of upside. I'd like to capture. As far as the Bengals go, we talked about Samajia Pirai and being skeptical of whether he gets passing game work there. I do think that the pace impacts the Bengals pass catchers. If we look at the first two weeks with T. Higgins, nobody averaged more than 7.5 targets per game. The targets were concentrated but they were so run heavy that it didn't really matter. Maybe that changes of mixing is out but the salaries are up. March, ACE is 73, T. Higgins, 67. So to me, I like Jones, I love Devante, maybe Big Shot Bob Tonion but then whatever we read, maybe we go Samajia Pirine but like the rest of the stuff is kind of a tough sell. So Brandon, what's your view on this game all things considered? You're interested in C.J. Uzoma at 5,500. I have a Best Ball Dynasty League where you were required to start two tight ends. I hope he goes nuts, just not from my DFS roster. I need him. I lost David Montgomery. So C.J., rest up, bud, get those targets, man. Get those tuds. Yeah, we talked about just pace and pace trends a lot on Monday's show and I'm starting to rank teams by week. The Packers have not ranked better than 27th yet in pace and the Bengals were 17th, 22nd but the past two weeks, 28th and 29th. Again, this kind of adjusts for game context. It's really difficult to want to love games with expected slow paces. So I was gonna ask you, this game must rate out really well on expected offensive efficiency if the total is 51 and a half and we're expecting slow paces. I don't know if you have that pulled up, but I can. Okay, so Green Bay is fifth in expected offensive efficiency. Cincinnati is 21st. Okay. Yeah, this is, I mean, I like Jamar Chase plenty. The salary's high. Also, I just like, I don't know realistically what I'm gonna get to because like he's got a 24% target share. That's 6.3 targets per game, weighted for leverage on like downfield and red zone stuff. It's kind of more equal to like 8.2 targets but play volume is a real thing. That's why I'm just down on this game. That's why it's really hard for me to rank it second or let alone like kind of rank it definitively. So this might be one of those spots where I could look like a big dummy just kind of fading a game unintentionally like getting some exposure to Devonte and Aaron Jones but not really piling up on this game with a total of 51 and a half. I would probably bet the under here. So I think I might just kind of avoid it. Yeah, I think the under is in play. It's gone up though, so I'd wait to bet it if you're actually looking for betting advice. It went up to, it was 50 and it went 51 and a half. So if you want the under, wait until Sunday if you can but I think that is also attractive. Let's move to your second trend now and talk about the Bears offense under Justin Fields. It's not a big sample on it yet and only one game where Bill Lazer has called plays but what do you see in that small sample with Justin Fields as the bear starter? Okay, so in Justin Fields two starts the Bears rank fifth in offensive pace based on my data in the small sample of plays that's not garbage time, it's 37 plays. But their 29th and pass rate at about 46% by comparison in week one with Andy Dalton and his whole game they were league average in each. We like the pace, the pass rate is a bit of an issue. I will say that when you look at situations where they've trailed with Justin Fields in his starts when they've trailed by at least seven which was just week three, they did have a 77.8% pass rate but their first quarter pass rate in his two starts has been 25%. That's six passes and 18 rushes. They want to run the ball until they can't. That's pretty evident. It's worth noting the efficiency here. Fields was really bad against the Browns who ranked seventh by number fires, adjusted metrics and pass defense and he was good ish against the league's worst pass defense last week with the Lions but he said negative 0.32, passing unexpected points per dropback with opponent adjustments, he's at about a negative 0.43. I don't want Jerry Goff to catch any strays but I think that was like his rookie season. Come on, man. Number 0.43, but why? You could have chosen anyone. You could have chosen literally anyone. At least someone who always comes to mind. Why? But he's basically- But he's basically- He's just basically been the worst quarterback with any semblance of a sample here and that's tough. There is a very easy case to make that he's better than what he's shown through two games. I'm not saying that this is just who he's going to be but he has a big hold of climb out of to get his efficiency back on track after how week three went and he's not getting a lot of volume to erase that so I think it's going to be important that we just exclude week three, maybe even week four for him and just kind of see what he does against teams that aren't more outlier-ish with their defenses but I just laid out a case for an inefficient run-heavy offense but yet I still kind of won exposure to it and I'm not sure why. Well, it's because you know that he's not that bad. Yeah, but I also can't fool myself into thinking that he's going to be really good all of a sudden. I think the salaries are what really helps. Damien Williams just shaving up to be the lead back at a $5,800 salary. You and I both like him. 33% of the snaps, 39% of the routes last week with David Montgomery leaving early. He also was mixing in before that so that's nice to see but the receivers are also low salary with Alan Robinson at 6,100. Darnell Mooney as at 5,600 with his salary on all passes from Justin Fields, Mooney leads with a 28.8% target share which is really high for a target share that used to be like, like, this is now like a 29% we'll kind of see in more dispersed target shares but 42% of the air yards. Alan Robbins instead was getting 25% of the targets with a 10.9 or an eight-odd. The past two weeks that's led though to 11 and nine targets total respectively so you don't love that. And it is worth noting I talked about some first quarter stuff. Darnell Mooney got all four targets in the first quarter last week. Look good too. I love Alan Robinson but it's hard not to like Darnell Mooney here. Also Cole Comet at 4,800 has a 15% target share at 10.9 or an eight-odd on his eight targets from Fields. That's a pulse at tight end. 79% route rate over the past two weeks. Like market share wise if you told me like 29% for one, like an extreme value receiver, 25% for a really good receiver, 15% for a tight end I would be like, this is great. But that just doesn't lead to a lot of volume. The efficiency is not there. I still have interest in all three or all four of the skilled position players. Is that like outrageous? No, I don't think it's outrageous. One thing that I think justifies it is that I talk a lot about most relevant sample. Week three is not the most relevant sample because there's a different guy calling plays. Like Bill Lazer called plays and we four. So like, I'm not saying you just like toss out week three from an efficiency perspective because week four they're facing the Lions who are hideous and the raiders are more middle of the pack, but it does let me feel better about like, oh, okay. Like Justin Fields, the efficient, the inefficiency is not like a known. Like it's not a known. He could be fine. I don't think he'll be as good to deal against the Lions, but he could be fine. I think that that's encouraging. I don't think two is a script will not be as outrageous as it was against Detroit. But like, I would still assume it'll be a run heavy offense because against the Lions, they had 24 early down first half plays and they ran on 16, I think of those 17 of those. So they're gonna be run heavy when they can. I think that's good for Damian. So I like Damian Williams a lot. I think that there is enough there to justify Mooney. I will not get to Robinson though and I will not get to commit. I think to me, it's just the two guys. I like Williams a lot. I am okay with Mooney and I don't want Robinson to commit. We don't need to linger on this forever, but Fields wasn't even that good last week. He had 0.32 passing unexpected points for dropback. What do you mean? Adjusted for opponent, he would have been about a 0.6. 0.6 is good for a rookie quarterback. That's fine. If you give me 0.06 against the Raiders because they're a league average, that's fine. That can support a decent offense. That's fine. He was below league average against the worst past seasons. No, he was not below average. Because you're already adjusting, you're double adjusting. You're double adjusting counting for opponent. Okay. You can't double account. Either say he was below average when you adjust or you say he was above average in a vacuum. You either do one or you can't double adjust. Okay. Yeah, good. So against a league average offense like the Raiders, you'd expect 0.06. 0.06 is better than every rookie quarterback and we can use past catchers in that offense. Like it's not desirable, but it's fine. Yeah, and we got the large sample of 18 dropbacks to bank on. You were the one who said that you wanted to use and I'm lower on them than you. Why are you arguing with me on this? I didn't say I wanted to use Justin Fields. No, you said you wanted to use Alan Robinson, who I would never consider. Why would you never consider Alan Robinson? Because he's dust, dude. He's toast. Will Alan Robinson ever catch a downfield pass again in his life? Probably not. He is. He tops, he had 63 yards last week. Okay, so there we go. Can you give me 85 yards or two touchdowns? Probably not, I think Mooney can. So that's the distinction for me. So I need Alan Robinson to research. I thought maybe you were looking for some like positive signs for Robinson like I was, but you've already written them off. He's retired. He's done. He's done so, never even played. Okay, so that explains things. Yeah, I think Mooney is fine. William's very good. That's how I'm viewing this offense. And I hope that they open things up a bit more so we can be more enthused about Mooney going forward, but I don't want to assume that they will. Let's move now to my second track and talk about the Eagles because going to the year, I thought the Eagles would be a run heavy team because that's how they played last year when Jalen Hertz took over and he made sense. That has not been the case. Your numbers have them ranked ninth in pass rate with win probability between 20%, 80%. That's very good. That's good for pace. At established the run, they use pass rate over expectation. The Eagles ranked second there behind just the Bucks, which is good for Devontae Smith because targets are good, but it's also good for opposing team because it helps heat the pace high and the Eagles are ninth there by your numbers. That's a boost to everyone in this game between the Panthers and the Eagles. The Panthers will air it out too. They're 12th in pass rate for you, ninth in pass rate above expectation over at established the run. They're not a fast team. They rank 31st in pace for you and 25th in football outsiders, but the building blocks for a decently fast game are there. The total for this game is up to 45 and a half. It's come back up a point, but I think it has a shot to go over that number as well. And that makes Smith a play once again, 23% of the team's targets, averaging 2.5 deep targets per game. The Panthers side of things depends a bit on Christian McCaffrey with him out in week four. Robbie Anderson perked up with 11 targets, but he was at 3.7 per game in the first three weeks. If McCaffrey plays, I think it's just McCaffrey and DJ Moore for me, but that's a good duo. Like not saying just there is not like saying, oh boo-hoo. If McCaffrey sits, then I'll consider Anderson at 57, but I also just don't think he's that good. So I think this game is a bit underrated due to the low total. And I'm not sure I'll get to the quarterbacks here. I think that Hertz is along with Daniel Jones, like in contention for the third slot if we don't get Lance, but I like the skill guys here a decent amount. So am I wrong to be kind of okay with this game? It's definitely on the radar. The issue is I think it's just a very narrow way to stack it. That's fine, but we know where the ball's going. Isn't that good? You can't poo poo the Cardinals and say get mad when we know where the ball's going. Narrow as in like, if it's not Devontae Smith, D.G. Moore and Christian McCaffrey, I don't know where it's gonna come from. So yeah, but like that works, but I can't call that like a game that I love. I like what I see enough from what you've run down to wanna play those guys, possibly Janet Hertz. I would be open to Darnold because of the state of quarterback, but I also can't like, I don't feel great enough to rank this one. Like I can't rank a game second. I just like, I can't do it this week. I wouldn't put it in second, but like I can be very good with the skill guys. And I think that's the overall thing for me is like, I feel good about game stacking D.G. Moore Devontae Smith or Christian McCaffrey Devontae Smith, but I also think it helps those guys as one-off plays. I think that Devontae is a very good one-off play at wide receiver. D.G. Moore is a solid one-off play at wide receiver. And if we get McCaffrey, I would be down for him as well. So I think that's the main takeaway for me is, A, I can hit many stacks and B, I don't have a lot of concerns around those guys as one-offs. Yeah. I mean, Devontae's run like, significantly more routes than any other Eagle. He's just the guy. I'm not chasing any of the tight end stuff that we've seen from them. Miles Sanders is dusty. Would you rather play Robbie Anderson or Alan Robinson? It depends on if McCaffrey plays. If McCaffrey plays, I'd rather use Robinson. If McCaffrey sits, I would go Anderson, but I don't really want to use either. Okay. Like I would use Robbie if McCaffrey can't go, but like it's out of obligation due to the target volume. It's not because I want to use him or not because I buy it into the talent or anything. Or the temple narrative with that rule or the darnold narrative with darnold. Like I did, you know, the Jets narrative. Yeah. Yeah. I looked into that. He wasn't really like his number one receiver or anything. He was like a four game stretch at the end of two separate seasons, but it was, it was like, oh, wow, why didn't he do this the first 12 games? I didn't do it the first 12 games the next year too. So yeah, I agree. Whether for this week, there's only one to note there is a chance of rain in Washington as they host the Saints. Doesn't look too windy, but at least worth noting, could be rain there. We don't care too much about rain in a vacuum, but if there's wind, we care. Seems like that one should be good to go. So let's dive now into our positional plays for week number five, starting off at quarterback, Brandon, we got there for week five. I have Kyler Murray despite not knowing who to stack them with. I'll just take my chances. I said AJ Green first. I think it's probably Christian Kirk, just kind of as the 1A right now. I think Kyler is very much in play, possibly even without anyone, but I would just take the chance for the upside correlation to stack him whenever I do use him. Seventh and Pace for this game on the main slate, but fourth and pass rate, his floor slash, like if you compare his floor odds to his ceiling odds, he's easily the best quarterback on the slate. His 90th percentile comes easily the best on the slate. He's at a league average ADOT, but unlike last year, he's performing over expectation. He was really like league average with all the adjustments I use for his efficiency. So he's been doing better with the passing. He's not, he had the shorter thing last year. 5.8 rushes per game, 27 rushing yards per game. One and a half red zone rushes per game. I like that. And then my second love is going to be Daniel Jones, a 7400. It's too early to know if we'll get Tralance, who would be here, but I guess Daniel Jones is kind of shaping up to be my guy at this point. He has played above opponent expectation with his passing efficiency. Average 6.8 rushes, 47 rushing yards per game, which is third best behind only Lamar Jackson and Jalen Hertz, 1.3 red zone carries per game, which works out to 28% of the team's red zone carries. And I just love this game environment too much not to consider Daniel Jones. I think that he would be like third or fourth for me. I might not get there. I might just go with two guys if we don't get Tralance. But yeah, I think that he's right there. He and Hertz are the two guys like right on the fringe at quarterback. My first love is Dak Prescott. I've talked myself into this being the best game for stacking, which makes Dak pretty automatic. The Cowboys game plan the past three weeks is revolved heavily around the run, but it's also revolved around what their opponents don't do well. We saw on week one that they will be super past heavy when they need to. The Giants defense is, I think ranked 26 against the pass and 30th against the rush, so it could go out of the way. But that does mean that Dak has a path to volume. We know the efficiency will be there. He's $8,100 playing at an elite level. Dak is my number one. Number two depends on if we get Tralance. If we get Tralance, I'll go him, if not, I'll go Kyler. My number two quarterback, the appeal in Lance is pretty obvious. He ran seven times for 41 yards in the second half this past week. That does not mean he'll run for 82 yards this week, but it means he'll run. I think that that is a good thing overall. He's facing Arizona, good defense, but they struggled against the rush. I've heard, I listened to a lot of like football, heavy podcasts, like football. And like they said that it's like a lack of discipline on the team and I buy into that. So I think that that is detrimental when you're facing Tralance and Kyle Shanahan. So I think that it sets a well for $600. May not need those savings, but it makes it easier to get to Derek Henry and Devonte Adams. So I'll take it. If I get it, again, Kyler will be in that player pool. I think it's Dak, Lance, Kyler, and then either Jones or Jalen Hertz for that next spot after that for me for this week. Let's move to running back. What you got there? I had Seyquan Barkley. You're gonna talk about him too. So I'm gonna pivot to Derek Henry and talk about why he would be worth the salary. He's averaging 35.8 adjusted opportunities per game, which is carries plus double your targets because that's more indicative of how much a target's worth on a half PPR site such as FanDuel. Receiving work does matter for running backs even on a half PPR site. Najee Harris is at 30.8. So that's five more opportunities per game than anyone else. And Najee is obviously inflated by that 19 target game. Christian McAfrey is at 28.7. Dalvin Coke, 27.7. Obviously neither of those guys are super healthy. And then we have Alvin Khmer at 26 and a half. So he's basically like 10, like nine or 10 chances better than anyone else. And with the 86% red zone rushing share, getting some receiving work with the 3.8, 36% of the routes, I really need to make sure that it's clear that I'm prioritizing Derek Henry. I think I made it sound like I wasn't as enthused to get back up to him, but I am. My second lover then is going to be DeAndre Swift at 6,900. He's got an elite target numbers. Right now, 7.3 per game. The only other running back above 5.3 is Najee Harris at eight and a half, which again, inflated. That's 24.8 adjusted opportunities per game. Seventh among running backs. And sixth, if you don't include Christian McAfrey, Minnesota is middling in expected points allowed to running backs, not an outlier against receiving backs. And then my third love is going to be Damian Williams just because we know that the path is clear for him. He's pretty much close to a lock button, is dealing with the Thiboutz himself, but they're going to give him the David Montgomery role unless something really crazy happens. Played 19 snaps last week to Khalil Herbert, six, seven routes to zero for him, three red zone carries. And again, it was a bit of a factor before Montgomery's injury. Damian did get in a full practice on Wednesday. So quad injury, good to go there, which is good. Someone say, Juan here, my first love, just kind of too good of a role for this salary. He has over the past three games, 25 adjust opportunities per game. He has had 96 yards per game, 50% of the red zone chances. Dallas hasn't been anything crazy against the rush. So sake one to me. Again, if it's not Damian first, it's sake one, the first guy locking for cash games. My second love, I was going to go Echler. I still like Echler a lot, would consider it for cash. But I'm talking about Aaron Jones for a second. I don't think we talked enough about him because the reason why I'm okay pivoting off of Echler is because I think he's doing for some negative touchdown regression because he only gets 25% of the team's red zone chances. Whereas Aaron Jones in his three full games is at 53%. So the touchdown numbers favor Jones by a heavy amount. He's actually had more adjust opportunities per game in that same sample as well, about the same number of yards per game. So I want to make sure I'm not glossing over Aaron Jones. I do like Echler a lot still, but I want to mention Aaron Jones as being a really good play, $84. My third love is also Damian Williams. Six carries to two targets after Montgomery got hurt last week. He's played well. If you look at Russian success rates, so the percentage of carries that have increased the team's expected points for the drive, he's at 63%. Philly average for backs is closer to 40%. It's only 16 carries, but like he's played well. That's good. He has 10 targets, which is actually more than Damian Montgomery has. I think having fields is a plus for Damian Williams. So I like Williams a lot. I would say again, if Geo Bernard can't go, seems like he will, but if he can't go, I would like Leonard Fournette a lot. They're like, I'd rank both those guys above Samajae Pirine, assuming that Geo makes and sits. Let's move now to wide receiver. What you got there? Keenan Allen, again, always, always feels like a positive regression candidate. Like just never quite feels like he converts the workload that he gets, but 7,200 is a really good salary for Keenan Allen. Again, I kind of talked about one of my themes for this week being not trying to chase so much the guys at the top of the receiver pool who have overperformed, but instead look a little bit lower at some of the guys who have underperformed had 100 yards in week one, 108 in week two, with no touchdowns on either of those, then 50 yards with a touchdown in week three. Week four was not great for him. I'm not gonna explain that one away, but 11 targets though, which you can't hate on with 38 yards. I mean, he's had at least eight targets in every game, at least 11 and three of four. He's one of the prime regression candidates among receivers. Second level is gonna be CD lamb at 6,900, just sticking with that, like the good receivers who aren't 8,000 or in the upper 7,000 range, but probably could be just as easily. So that leaves me to CD lamb in my favorite game of the week. 89% of the routes, 24% of the targets, two downfield, one red zone per game. The biggest issue I think for him is the red zone work. We can see that good adult and Schultz and just anyone else, but just an 18% target share there, but CD lamb also has the ability to score from outside the red zone, which you don't want to bank on, but it's there. And because I went kind of higher salary with my first two, I'm gonna go down to Darnell Mooney at 5,600. Again, that 29% target share from Justin Fields. It's 11 targets total over the past two weeks, so five and a half per game. They've been super run heavy, I talked about that, but they like focused on him. Four targets, 93 yards in the first quarter last week. I don't think they're gonna be able to play Keepaway forever against their Raiders is five and a half point underdogs. If they do, Mooney should still get like five to seven targets. And with his ability to make plays, you gotta like that. It also helps that like he wins where Justin Fields wins like on the deep ball. So I think that's a good thing for him as well. My first love is also Keenan Allen. So we're all in on Keenan here. Same reasons he mentioned prime regression candidate, great usage, 28% overall target share, 25% deep, 28% in the red zone. He's just too low salary. I'm okay using him alongside Eckler. Okay, using him alongside Jerry Cook as well. I think that the usage here concentrated enough to make that super viable. My number two is Devontae Smith. I just like his role a lot. He is $6,000. He has 23% of the Eagles overall targets and 2.5 deep targets per game. Carolina has added guys in the secondary but Stefan Gilmore still on the PUP list. CJ Henderson just got there. Not sure how much that moves the needle for them. So I think Devontae Smith works really well at $6,000. My third love is Kaderius Tony at $5,300. It sounds like both Shep and Slayton are probably gonna sit again. And Tony got nine targets last week. Two of those were downfield. He had a bunch of line of scrimmage because they want the ball in his hands. It also helps that Tony should be in the slot a lot which should help him avoid Trayvon Diggs whereas I don't think Golladay will. So I think Kaderius Tony is my favorite salary saver at wide receiver at $5,300 in a game that I wanna stack up quite a bit. Let's move to tight end, Brandon. The best position on the board, what you got? I'm gonna stick with Mike Gasicki. Mike Gasicki? Stick with Gasicki? No, it's gonna screw me up now. Yeah. 5,600 is his salary. I don't, I'm already bracing for the Darren Waller like pain game because I don't quite feel the need to get there. But Gasicki has an 18% target share overall in the season, 20% in games with Jacobi Berset. He's getting one downfield target per game. If you wait his workload for downfield and red zone work he's got about nine targets per game which ranks him third since week two behind Darren Waller, nine and a half and Travis Kelsey at 9.3. So that's a really good workload. I'll take that. Tampa Bay's ranked 27th against tight ends and adjusted Fandal points per target allowed. The pass guys scored last week. They're gonna have to throw. I could see like 10 targets for Gasicki. That's what tight end is at this point. My second love is gonna be Jared Cook at 5,200. Really strong route rates or strong enough at 67% for Cook 5.8 targets per game. 1.5 combined high leverage looks per game. Just a 15% overall target share but that works in an offense that I like. Two end zone targets and Cleveland has been just 23rd in adjusted Fandal points per target allowed to tight ends. Yep. I think that Jared Cook is the best play on the board at tight end. I've got it as one of my loves as well. Good roll. He said five plus targets and three out of four games. I like this game a decent amount. He has some deep targets. Like you said, the end zone targets too. He had one that was called back by a penalty as well. Those don't count, but like, you know, it helps that they were throwing the ball to him in the end zone. I think Cook is the best play here. I also, this is not like a process based recommendation. It's more of like a field based thing which is always good. Oh yeah. Ever has gone wrong. Big shot Bob Tunyon. Got a resurge in week number five. He's due. Back to the grave. What? He's due. He's not. Robert Tunyon though ran a route on 67% of the drop backs last week, which is a very high number for tight end. He had seven targets, which was second on the team behind Devonte Adams and he kind of, he was kind of market as well as scantling, getting some prayer yards. He had a deep target that was nowhere near him, but hey, you know, it's still counts. He had one in the red zone. I think that he'll snap back soon and we need touchdowns at tight end. You're likely to get touchdowns from guys tied there and Rogers. So I will take some shots, take some shots at Tunyon. I can't have my exposure be too high because his role stinks and he's had less than 10 yards and three out of four games, but there's enough there. We just still take some swipes. What do you have a defense this week? I'm going to go with Pittsburgh assuming no Teddy, Pittsburgh is second in number fires, adjusted past defense metrics, true lock, not very efficient, can kind of turn the ball over, can take some sacks. So that's kind of my primary one, but if Teddy plays, I would back off that a bit. And I think I could pivot to your love, but also Minnesota at 3,900, I think would be in play. They're not, they're outside the top 20 in overall defense based on number fires metrics, but you know, against Jared Goff, you know, there should be enough play volume chances for some mistakes there. So I would go with them, they're 3,900. Like the Vikings a lot, I think for cash games, I'd be there and I will use them for tournaments too. My love is Carolina, because as mentioned, I'm cool stack in this game. I think Devontae Smith is very good. I'm considering Jalen Hurts a quarterback, but I just think Carolina is under salaried right now. The Philly offensive line is super banged up. It's going to be an issue against Brian Byrne, sounds like my lot of maybe back this week at left tackle, but it's not a good spot to be banged up on the offensive line. Eagles are passing at a high rate, which means more drop backs. That's good for opposing defenses too. They're $3,800. So the Vikings at 39 work, I like Washington at 38. They are facing the Saints and Jameis, if they ever let them drop back. Pittsburgh works, I don't mind the Chargers at 37 in line, I'm sorry, I don't have, I mean, I probably have a lot of Browns anyway, but I think the Chargers work too at 37. So really good mid range at defense this week. It allows you to not spend a lot and still diversify there, which is good, because I don't want to be overexposed to anything unless it's against Ben Ralthusberger, but I do think that it's a good week for defense for once. That is all that we have for this week. Brian, any final thoughts for you before we close up shop for week number five? I just hope we get some clarity early this week so we can plan, but I guess maybe for those of us who are just spend all Sunday morning building it doesn't matter, and we should just, I guess, prefer it to be delayed, but just really keep an eye out. It's probably not a week where you build your lineups on Thursday or Friday and leave it sit. Never do that anyway, just fish with it, come on. You build them by hand Sunday morning, like a true man, or like a true human being, how dare you, let's do it. Let the robots do it. No, no, come on, you gotta do it. No, you set the parameters and then you let the robots do it. Yeah, if you're gonna do it that way, but. Don't just, yeah. For anyone. I like having fun. I think it's fun to build lineups. Maybe that's just me, but be a true human being building by hand on Sunday. That is all that we have here for this week. We'll be back with you on Monday at 9 a.m. Eastern on the Fando YouTube page. Drap things up and go through our takeaways from week number five. So make sure you are subscribed to the Number Fire Daily Fantasy podcast feed. Wherever you get your podcasts, we of course have UFC and NASCAR coming up this week as well. So lots of good stuff here on the Number Fire Daily Fantasy podcast feed. Brandon, if people have questions for you on Twitter, where can they find you there? I'm at Godula13, G-D-U-L-A-1-3. And I'm at Jim Sonnis, J-I-M-S-A-N-N-E-S. You can also follow the Vandual Podcast Network at Vandual Podcast. Big thank you to everyone for tuning in for today. Good luck to you on week five. We'll talk to you once again next week. This has been the heat check fantasy podcast powered by Number Fire.