NFL Week 1 Fantasy Football MUST START or Sit!

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1:02Imported by Mass Yeager Meister, US, Wipe Tanks, New York. Week one, start, sit on Fantasy Football Daily here on the Fantasy Points YouTube channel. I am your host, Brett Whitefield, joined by the always grumpy Scott Barrett. Scott, how are you today? I'm doing good. What are you talking about, grumpy? Bro, did you see the comments on our last video? It's like, oh, one guy said I'm like a sassy barista. The other guy was like, no, he's just from New York, New Jersey. And he's a ball buster. Just legit disdain for the topic. You don't like the idea or something. No, I'm just ball, ball bus in here right now. That's just who you are. I get it. You know, I have takes, you crap on them. You get proven wrong. It's just the cycle we live in. So no worries. But guys, we're excited. Week one is here. Obviously we've watched one game. By the time you're listening to this, two games will have been played. And we're ready to drop Start Sit. I want to shout out Joe Dolan, who is doing the Start Sit this year.

2:06Yeah, this is, this is, I think Scott and I had the same reaction we read it. It's like, Start Sit got even better. And it's great. Joe did a really good job week one. Hopefully he keeps that same energy through the whole season. How did you feel about this, Scott? I thought it was excellent. I thought it was a perfect start, sitcom. I remember like a number of years ago, I had a friend who barely ever played fantasy football. I used to write the Start Sit. And they were like, I hate it. I just, all I want is to just scroll down and see the names of my players and know whether or not to start or sit them. And you wrote like 15 paragraphs. This is awful. And this is exactly what they wanted. This is what the people want where you could just scroll down and see, see your player's name. Read two quick sentences. We get the most important points. And of course, recommendations based on our projections. This is a free article. So make sure you read it every week. Before we dive in, I want to dive into the week one, Start Sit and get rolling. But before we do, let's remember, if you're a returning subscriber, you already know what makes this the best fantasy football channel on the planet.

3:09So hit the like button. But most of you watching right now are not subscribers. And I want to tell you, this is the best fantasy football YouTube channel you will find. You will help you win leagues from week one all the way through week 17 or 18, depending on when your championship is. So please hit the subscribe button, turn notifications on so you don't miss an upload from myself or Scott. All right, dude. Let's start with quarterbacks. Let's do it. And yeah, this is a fun list. Fun list. Jackson, dark, Jared, golf, Tyler, Shuck. And on the sit side, we have my homes, Caleb Williams and Bo Nix. A lot of these guys, you know, their ADPs were as QB2s. And on the flip side, we're sitting some of the guys that were drafted to be your starter. So let's start with Jackson, dark, Scott. This is your boy. We have to talk about this guy every day because it's officially a giant season now. So go ahead. Yeah, so it says QB6 finish on the screen. That's his current projection at our site. He's the overall QB6 projected for 19.9 fantasy points.

4:11I don't know if you remember, but Chris was never really as bullish on Jackson, dark as I was, but clearly he is this week. Dallas's defense was the worst in the league against quarterbacks. And it was like twice as bad by scheduled just at fantasy points per game allowed as any other defense last year. And it's just a player. You guys all know I'm very high on. He just had a top five quarterback, rookie quarterbacks season ever by fantasy points per start. If you exclude the Minnesota game, he would have outscored Josh Allen. So yeah, I love to see Chris just as bullish on one of my guys as I am. Yeah, one from an X is an O standpoint. Dallas is going to play a lot of cover three. It's just what they do. And Jackson, dark has kind of shredded cover three and single high coverages in general. To use the data suite to you can go to the player cards, the player matchup tool. You can see all this information here where Dart wins versus where Dallas wins. I don't know if you're paying attention at home, but that's advantage Jackson, dark, lot

5:14more, lot more wins than losses there. So you know, Christian Parker is is a nice defensive coordinator and they've rebuilt this, this defensive squad on the Dallas side. But I just think week one, Dart is still going to have quite the edge here. So I agree with this one for sure. Yeah. This two are in the same game and it's just, yeah, 50 point over under in this game. Tyler Schuck to me based on my rankings was what a mid range QB two, low end QB two. This week he's a fringe QB one. Jared got to elevate him to mid range QB one. It's a game that's at home indoors with a 50 point over under. So he's got to also crush his cover for which the Saints run at a top 10 rate. Over the last four years, he's here's a crazy stat for you. Brett over the last four years, Jared got averages 21.3 fantasy points per game at home. 15.4 fantasy points per game on the road.

6:16So that's basically the difference of him being the QB three and the QB 24. So you know, you always want to play quarterbacks at home, but for some guys, it matters more than others. Ben Roth, it's burger famously as well, but certainly Jared golf. And then yeah, Tyler Schuck, you know, he's a touchdown underdog. The Lions, I mean, you could talk about the Lions secondary. They're down safety is Brian branch Kirby Joseph. And it's also a good schematic matchup. Tyler Schuck was excellent against a man coverage last year, which we know the Lions like to play at a top three rate. Yeah, I'm actually, I don't want to just flat out disagree with this since we put so much time into writing this up, but I don't think I'm comfortable starting Tyler Schuck this week at all to be quite frank. Okay. You know, this is in Detroit. This is, people talk about the questions in the secondary. They didn't anticipate having Brian branch and Kirby Joseph to start the season. Like they planned for this. They brought in free age acquisitions and draft picks to, you know, start the season

7:22at safety. They brought in Chuck Clark, who's been a seven year starter at safety in the league. They brought in early brought back of ontematics, who is actually better than Kirby Joseph on the field last year. So like, I don't know if that's just missing those two guys when they've been planning for it the entire off season is enough for me to think this is going to be a good situation for Tyler Schuck. What the lines do have is a healthy Aleem McNeil. They do have a healthy Aiden Hutchinson, a healthy Derek Moore, a healthy DJ Reed who missed, you know, like nine games last year and played injured in a handful more. So like, I'm actually pretty confident that George defense kind of Molly Wops, New Orleans in this game. I also think there's a lot of fake hopeium with New Orleans right now where it's like, they went on this hot streak to end the season. They finished four and three, but look at the teams they played. They still lost two games with Atlanta who sucked in that stretch. This stretch of games where everyone's got really excited about Tyler Schuck and the team. So, but they four and three down the stretch against the seven worst teams in the league arguably.

8:23So, yeah, you know what? So if you're wrong here and Tyler Schuck goes off, YouTube chat, please plan on bread for being the world's biggest Lions Homer. But yeah, looking at the projections, when I saw this and wrote this in a show sheet last night, he was QB 13. Now he's QB 16. So, looks like Chris might have dropped him a little bit. There's still some surprising names like Patrick Mahomes, Bo Nick's, I'd start over him. But yeah, less a fringe QB one now, just a high end QB two. Boom. There we go. Chris settled this without me having to settle it. All right. I like that. I'm sorry about the guys were sitting here for just a brief second. Yeah. Patrick Mahomes coming off of the devastating injury plus surgery. He probably not going to be running a lot. It's up against a really tough Denver defense. Caleb Williams, you know, it's not a fantasy football daily with Brett and Scott if we're not criticizing Caleb Williams. But I think this is a sneaky bad matchup for him.

9:25Caroline as defense has really underrated last year. It was one of the top five toughest defenses by schedule adjusted fantasy points per game allowed. Also an interesting note from Nick Spanolo, one of our writers. So we know that Ben Johnson likes to deploy under center play action at the league's highest rate. But Caroline is defensive coordinator far away best in the league last year at defending under center play action. So I thought that was an interesting note. But yeah, just I would lower your expectations for Caleb Williams this week and then Bo Nick's I was shocked at how low Chris was on him with the projections just QB 20. I'm guessing that's that's the matchup. What do you think, Brett? Yeah, I feel like Chris, I don't know. I've disagreed with him on the Denver passing offense all off season. So maybe it's just an extension of that Kansas City.

10:28I don't know. I honestly, I don't have a good feel for why Chris is so low on him. I think I like Bo Nick's in this matchup to be honest with either their secondary Kansas City secondary had to get completely rebuilt in the off season. I know we really like Montsourne Delane as a prospect, but like, is he going to be Trent McDuffie day one? No, I don't think so. Kansas City had a ton of pass rush issues too last year and I don't think that's changing. So I do think Bo Nick should be relatively fine in this game. Yeah, well, for the folks who don't know, we have our big projections meeting on Fridays generally where we debate and we hammer things out. So we'll certainly have to push Chris on this one on Friday. Yeah. Agreed. All right, let's move over to the running backs. We have three starts and three sits for you. Travis ETN against Detroit, Breeze Hall against Tennessee and David Montgomery against Buffalo are the starts. Then the flip side, you got John Brooks as a sit, Jeremiah Love, March on Lloyd.

11:29I definitely get the love sit, not sure about the other two, but let's talk. Let's talk Travis ETN. Are we going with HN? We've been over this. Travis ETN. It'd be like if Drew Locke pronounces last name Mahomes. What is this stolen ballot? Why are you stealing Devon HN's last name? Yeah. He finishes as, if he finishes top 15 and fantasy points per game this year, I'll put some respect on his name. I'll call him whatever he wants me to call him until that happens. He's Travis ETN. But he is a start this week. He's a player. I largely faded all off season, but I would start him this week. Alvin Camarro, it looks like he's going to play week one. That wasn't jeopardy, but certainly he's going to be more limited than he typically is, which means more work for ETN in a game with a 50 point over under. And this is going to be a common theme today is start all your lions, start all your saints, start all your bangles, start all your buck and ears.

12:31We want to be targeting those 50 point over under games. What is the saints implied point total of that 50? Because I think this is going to be a blowout. I think it could be the lion scoring 35 of these points and the saints scoring 15. So like he'd be a sit to me. I don't know. It was another one I don't agree with. Right. Well, they have a 21.25 point implied point total, which I remember correctly. It's like 25% higher than their average last year, their average point scored per games. So yeah, like Vegas is projecting a blowout. They're projecting the lions to win by seven points. But one interesting wrinkle about this offense is it's a calendar more offense that leaves the league in pace of play every single year. And so have to imagine that's good. You have to imagine it's a pass heavy affair with a lot of targets for at TN. Because you're seven point underdogs, you're really forced to speed up the pace of play and lean pass heavy. And so I think this is going to be a really high scoring affair.

13:32But yeah, certainly the lions are going to win this one. All right, Breeze Hall RB 17. You take this one. The note is Brett loves the matchup. I love the matchup and I love the opportunity. But yeah, Tennessee's run defense, I've been saying it all off season. They traded away their best run stopper and Tevondre's sweat. Robert Salah is, he prioritizes a way more attacking style defense. So less gap sound stuff. They're not as good against the run, but he's going to get after you and get creases find edges to rush the quarterback. And so I just, not Robert Salah defense typically aren't great in that run pass transition. So a lot of play action stuff usually gets the best of them. Even think back to the Robert Salah 49ers, they got absolutely bodied by the Philadelphia Eagles multiple times at Detroit Lions. So like, I don't know, I'm not, I'm not super, I love Robert Salah as a defensive playcar, just not with his run defense, especially after they traded away their premiere runstopping nose tackles. So I think Breeze Hall should have some space in this game.

14:35And it should be relatively close game too. I think the, you know, the Jets will be able to stick with the run for the entirety of the game. Breeze Hall is also a weapon in the past game. So love the matchup. You know, we don't really have data on Tennessee as far as like run, run splits, man zone stuff, but I, I don't really care. I think, I think Hall is good at both of them. So it doesn't really matter to me. Yeah. The Jets are only 1.5 point underdogs this week, like most weeks, like six or seven point dogs. Yeah. And I think it's a little bit better for Hall. I'm picking the Jets to win, by the way, for what it's worth. So there's a bet for you. You got to, you got to put that in the in season betting package. We got to flag this in this episode. Propel Fitness Water with Gatorade Electrolites, zero sugar and vitamins. Propel hydrates better than water to help you get the most out of your workout and get back to your best self. What propels you? Propel with Gatorade Electrolites.

15:37This episode is brought to you by State Farm. No two football players are exactly alike, and the same is true off the field. That's why State Farm gifts to know you so they can help personalize coverage for your life and budget. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there. How do you guarantee your Yeager Meister is always ice cold? Well, you could move to Antarctica. Sure, frostbite is a thing. You're dating apps won't let you sent your radius to 3,000 miles. And your neighbor is an emperor penguin who honks outside your egg loop. Or you could just keep your Yeager Meister in the freezer. Drink it cold or don't drink it at all. Yeager Meister. Damn, that's cold. Drink responsibly. Yeager Meister will occur 35% alcohol by volume imported by mass-Jager Meister US White Plains, New York. Dave among gummere. Yeah, so I just put him in here because I really wanted to pick your brain on something. To me, you're starting him because he was in exodia. But I wanted to know if you had any thoughts on the matchup because historically, Buffalo

16:42was one of the best defenses to target on the ground. And it was like an intentional schematic thing that Sean McDermott did where every year he had the best defense by shutting down the deep ball and the worst defense at stopping the running game. And it's intentional. It's like we'd rather you just rack up those short carries and not give up explosives. But with this new defensive coordinator, do you expect that to change? I'm sure some of it was also personnel related to the make any major improvements this off season. What do you think about that? Yeah, great question. So Jim Leonard comes in to be the decordinator. It's a totally different mindset. They're going from an even front that lived in Nicholand, Dime. I think the bills have led the NFL and Dime packages like the last three years under Sean McDermott. And that's definitely going to change. And that's why you see that really stark run defense split between the past defense. It's just they literally don't care. It's like cool. We'll give you five on the ground, but we're taking away all your intermediate and deep passing

17:42windows. So that's definitely changing Jim Leonard's a way more aggressive play collar on defense. But he's also like the front is going to be more heavy on front. You're going to have a lot of guys to gaping and playing gap and a half type type assignments. Big Dion Walker, the nose tackles like three hundred and seventy pounds, TJ Sanders going to work in as a four technique. So it is a very much a new look bills defense. And so I would expect them. I would expect their priority. This usually happens with with new coaching is like we're stopping the run. You have to earn the right to rush the passer. And that's probably going to be their mantra. It doesn't mean it will work out though. It doesn't mean they're all you know magically going to be great at stopping the run. But I definitely think the emphasis will be to stop the run. I think you'll see them playing more base packages and being aggressive with the run fits. Yeah. Well, even if it was a tough matchup, I would be starting Dave and Montgomery this week. Because he was an exodia, but an exodia who I hopefully you drafted as like a bench player to start because really you drafted him for his second half of the season upside.

18:47I would be playing it conservatively with Jonathan Brooks. I mean, he has not played football in a really long time, like a real regular season game of football. And so I think he he doesn't do much in the month of September. I think it takes him a while to get fully up to speed to earn the trip. The coaches trust. And again, it's for what he's going to do in the second half of the season. But week one, yeah, I would rather start someone else almost certainly. Are who he's sitting at running back Scott? Yeah, Jonathan Brooks. Oh, sorry, who's the next one? The next one would be Jeremiah Love. I mean, this one's easy. It's, you know, he's even if he suits up this week, he's not going to be at 100% full effectiveness. So I think we see him a little bit more limited. It's also just, you know, the Arizona Cardinals extremely low. 19 point implied total. They're 9.5 point underdogs.

19:48There's just not really a whole lot to like here. And yeah, again, another player on more bullish on in the second half of the season, but I am anticipating a slow start. Surprise and not see Ash and Gentian here. Kind of going to say throw him on here too. Yeah, certainly. Okay. Marshal Lloyd, the last one. This one was a little surprising, not because I disagreed. I tried to add more surprising names. But yeah, this is, this is one that Chris is a lot lower on Marshal Lloyd than it seems like the consensus around the industry, but Ryan Heath agrees with him. He thinks Marshal Lloyd is going to get scripted out of this game. Doesn't trust that he's going to get the passing down work. And it is a tough matchup against the Vikings. Or is it? What do you think, Brett? The Vikings are like kind of a tough one to figure out because the way they play defense that aggressive Brian, Brian Flores, the flow style where they're, they're mugging the A gaps constantly. So on paper, it looks like it's a hard team to run against, but the way they play, it's

20:50so aggressive in nature that if you get a crease, you can rip off a ton of explosives against them. And I think traditionally, like the lines of love playing the Vikings because they just rack up explosives last year that they'd not go so well for the line. So it's going to sound stupid, but if the interior of Green Bay's offensive line can hold up, I think it's a good matchup. If they get beat up with that double mug A gap look, I think it's going to be a, you know, a quiet day for Marshawn Lloyd. Yeah. All right, let's hit some wide receivers. Let's do it. We have the starts here, Lad Macon, a lot of starts. Lad Macon, Quinten, Johnston, Malik neighbors, Luther Burton, Jameson Williams and Josh Downs with the Sets being Marvin Harrison, Jr. Alec Pierce, DJ Moore, Brian Thomas, Jr. Casey Conception. What I like about the list here is there's a lot of like, you know, the same team guys, right? So you have Alec Pierce on the sit, but you get Josh Downs on the start. You know, what was the other one? There's another one here, Brian Thomas, Jr. Parker, Washington, we don't list Parker

21:52Washington as a star, but he is a start, right? Scott, yeah, the exodia player. All right, let's start with Lad Macon, and Quinten, Johnston, we're saying start both. This is interesting. It's, it's really simple, Brett. So the lines, you know, we're talking about lines and sayings. It's the chargers who have the highest implied point total on the week, 28.5 points. And it's just the worst secondary and football by a landslide. Am I wrong? I don't, I didn't rank in one through 32, but I'm sure they're bad. Let's just say they're bad. Very bad. Yeah. Right. So I would be starting all of my Los Angeles chargers, past catchers. You know, it's certainly possible. It's just, you know, Mary and Hampton game and they just lean on the run, but still just like the matchup, it really think this is like the worst cornerback room in the NFL. The second worst safety room in the NFL. And it's just, it's just a really winnable matchup for both of these guys. So I think, I think both are starts.

22:53And I, yeah, to me, Lad Maconkey is a low end wide receiver one and QJ is probably a fringe wide receiver too. So you've come full circle. You're now a team lad ahead of QJ. Oh, yeah. I, we've been over this. Yeah, I'm just, but not everyone's like. Every video is a small quote. Yeah. Brought me back in the fake, the fake quote from Greg Rogen, though, I love it. Love that we're hanging our hat on that. Something. What are you talking about? It's fake in that it was reported a year after the fact that QJ also dealt with injuries all last year. It's complete fake analysis is what I'm saying. Yeah, I disagree. Okay. How? You've made a compelling argument against it. The dude had one of the best second half rookie seasons ever. There's actually literally the best ever second half of a rookie season by a wide receiver by yards per game better than OBJ better than Puka, Nakuha, Amin Ross, St Brown, Chamarchase. That's really hard to do. Last year he sucked ass. He was awful. I needed just an excuse for that because I think he's a way more talented player than

23:57what we saw last year. Greg Rosenthal comes out says, yeah, you have this injury in August. They knew about it. They knew he wouldn't be anywhere near 100% all year. Some guys play better with through injuries than others. It makes sense. Maybe QJ plays through it a little bit better because guess what? He has no ass. He can't separate. Whereas Lad Makanke, an extreme ass god. I think it might make sense that an injury kind of holds him back. QJ has one of the highest route win rates in the NFL the last years. If you, first of all, he doesn't. He does. He does. He's the worst ass over the last three years. And his win rate is not terrible if you control for injuries. It's not exactly great. Either if you control for what? Injuries. It's not. It's not Lad Makanke versus man levels of what is lad do better than QJ? Break that down for me. He is a route running god. Tray, if you could pull up my video of Lad Makanke's route running. He gets open at will.

24:58He was sick in college on a per route basis. QJ. He's like a yak guy who can't separate my mind. I just told you he can separate. His win rate is extraordinarily good. It's like top 20 in the NFL the last two years. Pull it up. Pull up. Data suite 2.0. We can answer these questions. You're telling me or trade to pull it up? Tray, pull it up. Receiving. Advanced receiving. I scroll down. Receiving separation by alignment. Whoops. And then receiving separation by alignment. Any of those? And do the last two years. Did the last three, three years? I didn't say last, the last three, but anyways, Quintenja. I'm looking at it right now. 2025, Quintenja since 19th and win rate. And that's not curving for injuries, by the way.

26:02And then, yeah, he's top 20 of the last two seasons. I'm looking at it right now. There's no way. OK, well, yeah, he's literally. We got to leave this out. This isn't entertaining. This is entertaining. This is entertaining because you're taking an L right now. It's very entertaining. That's why we get to take it out. That's why we get to take it out. Well, now you're making me question our data. Hold on, let's see. Why are you questioning the data? So he's 25th in separation win rate of 103 wide receivers, 15.1%. Yeah, 15.1%. He's in between DeMarcus Robinson and Jalen McMillan. This makes me think this isn't a great stat, at least in comparison to Ass, which we've tested and know is extremely predictive. Yeah, but I also know how to put context on Ass. Yeah. And by Ass, he's bottom 15. Because of a couple of games where he played through injury, by the way.

27:02And no, I'll explain what it means because you don't even know what it means. So Ass, the separation score is a weighted scale based on quality of win. So what you're saying, so guys that get like plus 2s and plus 3s in the scoring system, they rank higher in Ass than guys who a win rate is just anything we deem a win. And so if you get pressed into oblivion off the line of scrimmage, that you're catching a minus 2 more than likely that's going to dramatically crush your ass score, but your win rate could still overall be very good. You look at games he was injured, his ass was terrible. You look at games he wasn't, his ass is pretty good. This doesn't even matter though, because the role he plays doesn't require him to have plus 2 and plus 3 type of wins. That's not what he does. La Mcconkey ranked six in separation win rate as a rookie. QJ does not have that upside in his range of outcomes. But yeah, it doesn't matter. How so you can say that, but why doesn't he? He's just not as talented.

28:03Says who? Says every, every chargers insider beat right reporter. Says they definitely know what they're looking at college says who do you wear when healthy? But you're starting both this week. So there's that. Oh, no, I just, I want to fight this narrative that lad just automatically better than QJ. I think it's bowl. It's bowl. All right, bowl. And you've never seen either of them play with Mike McDaniel, by the way. That's the other funny thing. So yeah, Mike McDaniel comped QJ to Andre Johnson and Julio Jones, which is, which is crazy. Yeah. It is crazy. All right, Malik neighbors next up on the list. We got to talk about the giants again. Here we go. Yeah, I was surprised that Chris, who's very typically a little conservative when it comes to injuries is not have Malik neighbors as a set his first game back. Let's not forget like week one was considered in jeopardy, but maybe even a long shot just a few months ago. But we have a mind receiver 15 part of that is the matchup Dallas, like I said, really

29:07bad against quarterbacks, really bad against wide receivers last year as well. So I don't know. I kind of was anticipating sitting him, but you know, certainly having him wide receiver 15 and then bacon some wiggle room. Yeah, I guess you're starting Malik neighbors this week. Yeah, I think Chris, I haven't talked to him, but I'm assuming it's just like a pie situation. Like, yeah, if neighbors plays, what were else do the targets go? Like we don't really have a strong opinion on that. And so where I'm a little skittish on neighbors, just because the injury, I think it will be a slow start for him. I have to just default to Chris. Chris's projections are the best. So let's ride. Let's do it. Let's do it. Yeah, we had the most accurate DFS projections in the industry last year, DFS projection, a little tougher than just regular C football. The other one is another exodia, Luther Burton. This is a player you're going to hear Ryan Heath speak lowingly of in advanced matchups.

30:09So he was awesome against cover three last year. Get a team high 3.76 yards per route run. Only Pukinakua was higher against cover three. As Luther Burton's best coverage shell, it's where over a third of his targets came from in Carolina over the last two years. He's covered three at the league second highest rate. So even though I'm a little bit more pessimistic on Caleb Williams in the Bears this week, I think Luther Burton is the exception. Yeah, I get the coverage cell thing. I'm a little, I'm a little more hesitant for one. We put Caleb Williams on the set list, right? Yeah. For two, the way the Carolina Panthers play cover three is not like the other teams in the NFL. Is Gyer. Is Gyer is Everro is a, I would like to call my mad scientist. They do all of these disguise looks. They actually, I'm pretty sure they led the NFL and disguise coverages last year. Yeah, but they have like the worst pass rate over expectation over the last two years. So what? They just like, what did they have? They're not pressuring quarterbacks. Oh, right.

31:10I mean, really good. Well, the defense. Well, the defense in 2024 was like historically bad. They took a massive step forward last year. This year they added a top three linebacker in the league in Devon Lloyd. They added Jalen Phillips to be their new prime premier pass rusher. They drafted the kid from Texas Tech to be their new nose tackle. Derek Brown is back healthy. So like, I do think the D lines in a much better position than they've been. I wouldn't say their pressure rate is still amazing. But the thing with disguising coverages and creating these sim pressures is even when you're not pressuring the quarterback, you're creating the illusion that you are or that the clock is ticking. And then with the disguised covers on the back end, you're forcing them to hold the ball a half beat longer. And just, you know, ball comes out laid. It's just there's a lot of issues. So I just, I get that Luther Burns been good against cover three. This just isn't a typical cover three. It's not, it's not like a, you know, the Dallas Cowboys play a ton of cover three and it's pretty straightforward, right? This is not that type of of shell. So just just wanted to caveat that a little bit. Yeah.

32:11This episode is brought to you by State Farm. No two football players are exactly alike and the same is true off the field. That's why State Farm gifts to know you so they can help personalize coverage for your life and budget. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there. How do you guarantee your Jaeger Meister is always ice cold? Well, you could move to Antarctica. Sure, frostbite is a thing. You're dating apps won't let you send your radius to 3000 miles. And your neighbor is an emperor penguin who honks outside your egg blue. Or you could just keep your Jaeger Meister in the freezer. Drink a cold or don't drink it at all. Jaeger Meister. Damn, that's cold. No responsibly. Jaeger Meister Laker 35% alcohol by volume imported by mass Jaeger Meister US might play

33:14in New York. All right. Let's move on. You take this one. Jameo, James. You're boy. It's your TN. Yeah. Doesn't need a ton of analysis. We've already talked about the lion's Saints game. It's the huge overrunter. Is it the biggest overrunter? The week's got 15 and a half? There's one other game in the 50s. I think Chargers, Cardinals maybe. Either way, I think it's, I think the. The overrunter is true. I think it's going to be a ton of points scored. I think the lions win in a blowout. So, you know, we've seen games like this. The lions are also a really interesting team because they don't take their foot off the gas pedal. They're perfectly comfortable beating teams by 30 points. So even, so like you don't have to worry about that in this game. If it does start to become a blowout, they're going to keep throwing the football. And I think that's good for Jameo. I think the Saints secondary, it probably overperformed last year. And maybe that's a coaching thing. Brandon Staley back in the decordinator chair is excellent. Not a good head coach, fake sharp as a head coach. As a decordinator, he's had a lot of success in the league.

34:15And I think this defense taking a big step forward last year was a big part of that. Kool-Aid McKinsey, a young, you know, press man corner that can get it done. I like Quincy Riley. I like Jonas Sanker. I think the secondary has really come together nicely, even though they lost a Lante Taylor to the Titans. So, that said, I think the lion's just run these guys out the field. Yeah, again, chain of some Williams much better against single high coverage. It's target per route run drums from like wide receiver 70 to wide receiver 26. Going from too high to single high, you should see a lot of that with the same. So it's another little cherry on top that you're only going to get with fantasy points data. Yeah. By the way, DS2, if you haven't heard, it's out, you know, go to fantasypointsdata.com. So you see on the screen right here too. So yeah, everything you're seeing on the screen is DS2, data suite two, views code DS2 when you're checking out. You get 15% off. I think that's pretty special. Yeah, that's worth doing. It's already underpriced, right? And so you get getting in for another 15% off.

35:17It's ridiculous, but we love you guys. We're four of the people. So that's right. All right. Next one, Josh Downs. Yeah, this one's easy. Hey, you've heard me hype up Josh Downs quite a bit. I just think he's really good. I think he's going to finally get a full-time workload. He's always smashed whenever he gets a full-time workload, even when his quarterbacks are literal grandfather's. It's also I think he gets a little bit more work this week. He has Alec Pierce. I don't believe is fully 100% healthy. And he goes up against Jesse Minter, who loves his too high coverage. The Chargers top three in their rate of too high coverage last year. Over the last two years, only two wide receivers have a higher target per outrun against two high coverage than Josh Downs. Those wide receivers are hook and a kooa and Amun Ross, same brown. Was that mean it's an ideal schematic matchup should get a lot of targets. So Chris Wekt has him wide receiver 48. That means he's a sit, but I am going to pull my I K B card on Chris Wekt and say I know ball.

36:24And I'm going to start him as a high end wide receiver for fringe wide receiver three. So I think he's, you know, me hopefully because no buys and everyone's on your team is fully healthy. You actually don't need to start him, but he's certainly viable as of what the heck flex play. I love that. Yeah, Chargers gave up like 17 1700 yards last year in two high coverage is like on short. I pulled the stat yesterday. I forgot to write it down. So I can throw zero to nine yards to give up like the third most yards in the league. So Josh Downs a low eight out type of player. He's the exact type of player that can blow up a Jesse Menter defense. And they're going to need him to this game is going to be competitive. So. All right, the sits. Let's we just talked Josh down. So let's just go right in to Alec Pierce. It's not wasting time. Yeah, I just don't think he's fully healthy. Even if he does get this expanded role or he's not just a deep threat. I don't know.

37:24I don't think it happens week one. So I'm out on Alec Pierce. Yeah. Yeah, same same thing. Yeah, I agree. Also like, you know, good luck throwing deep on a Jesse Menter Baltimore Ravens defense. That's going to sit too high and get after the quarterback. And that's kind of Alec Pierce's game. So don't love the matchups dramatically for him. Even if he was healthy, Marvin Harrison Jr. We're projecting for 9.3 points and he is a Sith. Tell us about him Scott. Well, technically he's a star. He's he's Chris's wide receiver 35. Although, maybe that's a lot lower than where you drafted him. But I would have him even lower than that. I'd have him behind Josh Downs. For one thing, it's an 18.5 point implied total. For another thing, I just I don't think he's good. I don't like him. I think Michael Wilson might probably will outscore him. And so I need him to prove me wrong before I feel comfortable starting it. Sorry, I don't think he's good caught me off guard.

38:25How does that catch you off guard when all off season? I've been saying he's a nepotism draft pick. His name is is Marlon Harrison. He doesn't he doesn't deserve the same name as a Hall of Famer. It's. Yeah, his name was was Marlon Rodriguez with anyone care. Yeah, I've heard where would he go in drafts. Yeah. And on that note too, you know, the the chargers don't do a lot of press type stuff on the outside. Or at least they didn't will see what they do now. You know what's funny is I have no idea who this offensive coordinate or defense coordinators for the chargers. Like I know every coach in the NFL. I know all the position coaches is O'Leary dude. He was Western Michigan's defensive coordinator last year. Well, I feel like they just hire guys with Irish sounding names. I feel like they here's what it is. That's the whole like hiring process. It's like Declan Doyle, McVeigh, McShane and McDaniel. The list goes on. Yeah, they're just their desires.

39:26Well, so this guy coached with Jesse Minter in 2024 at Michigan, I think, or in Baltimore, something like that. But he was with Western Michigan last year. So they brought a guy from Western Michigan to run an NFL defense because presumably he's going to be able to. The run the Jesse Minter defense that they they lost when he left for for the head coaching job in Baltimore. Anyways, I just thought that was funny because I know like every coach in the league for me to not know a defensive coordinator. It's pretty wild. Dude, I the Irish are running the coordinator jobs in the NFL like they ran New York City in the. Early 20th century with their. Just Shanahan, McDaniel, McDaniels, McDonald, McVeigh, McDermott, O'Connell, Callahan, Brady, Kelly, first names Liam, Callin, Sean, and then Declan Doyle. Yeah, it's the most Irish name ever. Yeah. Have you seen the departed? Yeah. One of my all time favorite. Yes, it's a great one. A lot of times like, yeah, a lot of times the Oscar winning, you know, big, big good review movies kind of stink.

40:30But that one is truly good. So yeah, it gets better with every rewatch. All right, DJ Moore listed as a. I don't know that we need a ton of analysis coming off an injury plus he's facing the Houston Texans. Like, dude, does it need to get any deeper than that? Like this guy has to go against Derek Stingling, Kamari Lasseter and probably the best past Russian football. That's that's just clearly a sit to me. Yeah, it's also a play player I wasn't drafting. So, you know, when it fits my priors, I'm going to lean into it, especially this early into the season. Matchups matter. It's just they don't really matter a whole lot week one because there's so much turnover. It's just like anything we think we do know it's it's actually very fragile or fragile than we think. So yeah, it's it's a little bit of both right there. All right, Brian Thomas Jr. We've talked about the murderous slate he has early in the year. He gets to go against Denzel Ward this week. He's listed as a sit for you and for Joe Dolan here. What's up with, what's up with your guy, BTJ? Yeah, I think he could catch a shadow from Denzel Ward. It's just, you know, also like I just think Parker Washington blows up.

41:33I think it's a better matchup for him. I don't think it's a great matchup for BTJ. But we kind of went over this when we had deep Rolan. I'm anticipating a slow start to the season from BTJ. Yeah, it should be. I was talking to Chris the other day and I asked him directly. Does Denzel Ward scare you at all or no? And he said nah. No, he doesn't think there's a shadow. Well, it's he said even if there is like he doesn't think Ward is still that good to. I mean, it just means that easier spot to go at the ball is Parker and Jacobi. You look at the rest of that secondary for sure. And I'm like, well, why go at Denzel Ward if you don't have to? Right. And that's I think the game plan Liam Cohen will go into the game with. That's typically what happens. So all right, last six months, I think he's going to be a good matchup. So that's what happens. So all right, last sit here for the wide receivers. We have Casey, Colin, Sepsy, you know, my take and then I'll get to you. I just agree, you know, regardless of matchup, regardless of anything that they are playing with tough defense and jacksville, but like to Sean Watson.

42:33I think this could be a slow start to Casey. He's a rookie playing with arguably the worst QB situation in the NFL. Not great. Yeah, it's I'm very bullish on Casey, but I think it probably takes him a while to get going. This is generally what you see from rookies is they get a lot better in the second half. Or you know, targets per route run yards per route run, fantasy points per game. I'll jump by about 25% something like that. So I think you, yeah, if you drafted him, you drafted him as a bench player. You go forward to sit him and you're rostering him and not dropping him for what he can do in the second half of the year. Not to go backwards, Scott, but my as Gyer of Vero, Carolina Panthers, not the same cover three. You see everywhere else. I was right. They disguise their coverages on 46% of dropbacks against last year. That is freaking insane. So the guys are a legit mad scientist. You sure had coach, huh? I don't know. He's kind of had that buzz, but it's kind of dissipated over the years. Like he was like a big deal when he was, I think Denver before Carolina and then all the sun.

43:35It's just kind of like, yeah, he's always been good. Like really good relative to his is is personnel. Yeah, very much so that's that's the biggest thing I would say about him. Very good relative to the talent he has at his disposal. And this year he has more of that than any year prior. All right, let's get into some toy dens here. Do you know what country? Jiro of ever row. How do you pronounce it? Is is now I'm confused. Now I just confused myself because you said it that way. I don't know. Ever row is his last name. Jiro ever row. Is he. I don't know. From grew up in or he was born in England to grew up in California. Okay. All right. Interesting. But the Wink of P.D. I called him an English American football coach. I'm like, what? Oh. Right on. Titans three starts two sits. Michael Mayer. Like, come on. Obviously reasons Brock Bowers goes down. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Yeah, but who would you start Michael Mayer?

44:36Would you start him over Travis Kelsey? Would you start him over Tucker Kraft? Would you start him over Kyle Pitz? Harold Famon? Dallas Goddard? He cares what I'm going to do. Yeah. I'm going to pull up Chris Wex projections. And he's shockingly high. Propel fitness water with Gatorade electrolytes, zero sugar, and vitamins. Propel hydrates better than water to help you get the most out of your workout and get back to your best self. What propels you? Propel with Gatorade electrolytes. This episode is brought to you by State Farm. No two football players are exactly alike. And the same is true off the field. That's why State Farm gifts to know you so they can help personalize coverage for your life and budget. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there. How do you guarantee your Jaeger Meister is always ice cold? Well, you could move to Antarctica. Sure, frostbite is a thing. You're dating apps won't let you set your radius to 3,000 miles.

45:37And your neighbor is an emperor penguin who honks outside your egg loop. Or you could just keep your Jaeger Meister in the freezer. Drink it cold or don't drink it at all. Jaeger Meister. Damn, that's cold. Drink responsibly. Jaeger Meister will occur 35% alcohol by volume, imported by Mass Jaeger Meister US White Plains, New York. I'm going to... Okay, I'll start him over. Tyler Warren. Would you start him over Tyler Warren? That might be the line. I think I'd start him over everybody not named McBride, LaPorta, Loveland Warren. But yeah, so Tyler... This is a little too high, honestly. Max Eskano was in my mentions yesterday. He actually doesn't think Michael Mayer sees a substantial uptick in routes or targets. He kind of thinks he plays the same role. Maybe it's Jack Besh who gets the increased role. But I mean, Titan 4 is pretty high. I'm not starting him over Tyler Warren. But yeah, mid-range Titan 1 sounds about right.

46:38You saw it last year in the games without Brock Bowers. He had 78% route share. He had 2.25 yards per route run. Those are exceptional numbers. Let's not lose sight of the fact that Michael Mayer is good. One of my favorite stats is in all of college football history. There's only ever been two tight ends to have multiple power five seasons with 800 receiving yards. One is Brock Bowers, the other is Michael Mayer. So this guy is good at football as well. He marked my words right now. He's going to get paid in the offseason and set free to go be Titan 1 somewhere. Yeah, and people with the casuals will be like, what? He's got like 800 career receiving yards, but like it's not going to matter. It's going to be like our boy Charlie Kohler down in Los Angeles, Mocking Oranda Gadsen. You know what I mean? You know what I mean? Scott? Alright, who is next? Travis Kelsey.

47:39Travis Kelsey is a start. Yeah, what's the thinking here? I don't have a real good take on Travis Kelsey. I'm not a player I was drafting at all, but I'm going to like him the most this week. And I'm going to like him less and less every week that past because he's an old guy, a dusty guy, a wash guy. You just saw Cooper Cup, you know, at least have one really sick catch. And so before age and injuries take its toll week week one. I'm pretty bullish, especially as Richie Rice, maybe isn't fully up to speed yet. But it's also a good matchup Denver is a tight end funnel matchup because their cornerbacks are so good. It makes sense to target the tight end a little bit more. So I get see Travis Kelsey having a big game. You catch that or you just gloss. I'm going to lose my shit. You do it one more time. Inside jokes people inside jokes.

48:39They're going to turn on you. They're going to be 1000% beyond. They turned on me. What do you mean? Guys in the mentions call me a meadhead, you know, like they say something. You see the Romeo dobs tweets after last night. Oh, that was fun. Hey, you know what? I watched the tape on Romeo. Wasn't as bad as you made it sound. Dude, it was bad. I mean, he had that really bad drop. Don't get me wrong. That was bad. But like the route running everything was fine. He was open a lot. Just wasn't the primary in several reads and Drake made literally lost his mind. It's not the only thing that makes it worse because he is that goofy. I know. You can't hide him. You cannot hide him. So you come in with zero or a you can't be dropping passes like that. It is true. Watching watching all of his routes going route for route. It was so easy to find him. It's the only like like it's indispeedable that it like prevents concussions and it's so good for your health. But like no, no one that's except for does wants to wear it because he think it makes you look like a loser.

49:43Yeah. Yeah. I mean, they're right. But yeah, dude, protect your brain health. The pressure they pressure they paid him to like as a official sponsor. I think so. Yeah. Speaking of getting paid like the Patriots paid him a lot of money. Yeah. And he was relic like he got out targeted by four different players on that offense. Yeah. Well, my page reads beat said, and Demario Douglas is probably the wide receiver to. Yeah. And without AJ Brown, he expects him to get a lot of targets. He agreed with me. Dobs looked like trash, but he also was saying, yeah, I just kind of think Douglas was better based on what I saw. What was the occupation? He's the local TV reporter out there in New England. He had me on a few times back when he was in Houston, but he's in New England. Okay. Cool. So, yeah, I think it's a great opportunity to play against the New Orleans. Yeah. So, yeah. I think it's a great opportunity to play against the New Orleans against Detroit. Another Detroit New Orleans matchups start. This one I agree with. Finally, we get to a New Orleans player.

50:43I agree with. I really like to want Johnson this week. Especially because. The way the lines are they kind of have transitioned to like a real too high heavy team and a lot of inversions, but. I think it's going to be a great opportunity to be in part of the the pass first package and the Blitz game and the stunt game and the twist and all that it's great at that stuff. What Devon White is not good at is covering. He cannot cover anything. And that's going to be the primary matchup and coverage when they go man. So, Joanne against Devon White, the will linebacker there in Detroit. I think that's an absolute smash winnable matchup for Joanne. So much so Dan Campbell pointed it out three days in a row in his press conference talking about we got to shut down Joanne Johnson. So I think Dan recognizes that, but I don't know that they have what it takes to take it away. So start Joanne Johnson. Yeah, super underrated over the last 10 weeks of the season last year. He was top 20 among all players and receiving yards. Kind of just got really unlucky with touchdowns. So yeah.

51:44It ranged to low end tight end win this week. Cool. The two sets, Dalton, Kade, Jake Ferguson. Why are we sitting in Kade? I feel like this is a good spot for him. Yeah, it is a really good spot for him. There's a lot of things that Ryan Heath likes, you know, crazy stat we had last year is just excluding all games he was on the injury report. He would have finished tight end five by fantasy points per game. I brought this up for like to give you an opportunity to dunk on me or disagree with me just in the hopes that, you know, we become more educated. But yeah, to me, he's someone you probably drafted as your tight end to. I feel like I just want him to prove it to me that he's going to get an expanded workload. And if that happens, that's just like a little special treat on your bench. But I don't want to be counting on it. And Chris is very bearish. Look at this tight end 20 projection. That's pretty crazy. So I would sit him, but I know Ryan would start him again.

52:46And five last year went off the injury report. This is the healthiest. He'll be all year. Well, here's where it gets tricky, right? Because you just said, if you drafted and you probably drafted him to be your tight end too. So then you got to figure out what tight end you're starting him over, right? I doubt there's a lot of like Kelsey, can Cade combos. I think a lot of the concade owners are probably Tucker craft George Kittle owners as we've been laying out all off season. Right. So I don't know who exactly you're starting him over. I'll just say this. If you are streaming the position, if this is one where you didn't draft a tight end or you draft the one really late and you plan on playing matchups every week, I love this matchup for for concade for one Buffalo is there an offensive wagon. They're one of the most efficient offenses in NFL history. Do you realize there like their possessions per game is near the bottom of the league every year, yet they lead the league or they're like top three and scoring every single season? Like you cannot stop Josh Allen in the aggregate. Will you have occasional missteps here and there? Sure. But in totality, like as good as the Texas defenses and as they might take away DJ more completely, somebody has to produce for Josh Allen.

53:53And I think it's going to be don't decay. When you look at matchup specific metrics, the disguise coverages zone too high, split out wide versus slot, nickel single high. All of these tendencies that Houston's defense will lean into don't decay to get some massive massive yards per out run boost. So I think this is a really good spot for again, I don't know who exactly I'm starting him over. I'm talking more to the streamers, the people streaming the tight end position because they waited so long they didn't they didn't get one of one of our guys, but that said, yeah, I like it. Yeah, Jake Ferguson. It's just again leaning into my priors is very low on him from week eight on last year when everyone was fully healthy. The Cavaliers knew what they had in George pickings. He was just a total afterthought. It's tight on 34 by targets per out run tight on 26 by fantasy points per game. So I think I need him to prove something to me before I feel really good about starting him. Do you remember last year when he was like on pace for like 160 targets or something?

54:56It was like a moment last season. Yeah, yeah, he was one of my guys. I was all over Jake Ferguson. And that was that rocked for us in the first half and then he just totally disappeared. If it's possible, pull up big Ferguson's player page with the matchup card. It's one of the funniest things you'll ever see because it tilts so heavy against Ferguson. It just it made me laugh the first time I saw it. But basically the way New York's going to play defense versus the way Jake Ferguson wins. There's not a lot working in his favor. Click the player matchup at the top left tray. Boom. It will break down this matchup. So there you go. Look at all the negatives on the right in red versus the positives in green on the left. This is really is not a good matchup for him. So that said he's going to catch five dump offs and ram rumble for 60 yards in a touchdown just because we slammed out. But all right, we good. We're good. That's all that starts it for week one. We did it. We did it. We're going to be doing start set every week. That's going to be what Thursday is for sure. Right Scott? Yeah.

56:00In season, possibly splitting that in the two episodes Wednesday Thursday. We're not entirely sure yet how the weekly calendar will work. But we will bring a new start. We'll be bringing you start set every single week from now until the end of the season. Thank you so much for sticking with us. That's going to do it today. We are out. This episode is brought to you by State Farm. No two football players are exactly alike. And the same is true off the field. That's why State Farm gifts to know you so they can help personalize coverage for your life and budget. Like a good neighbor. State Farm is there. Labor Day savings are happening now at the Home Depot with select appliances starting at $399. Plus save up to an extra $1,000 and get free delivery on a appliance purchases of $998 or more. Get a whirlpool laundry tower featuring industry first UV clean technology designed to reduce bacteria in the wash without fading fabrics. Plus with great prices at the Home Depot, you can save on select appliances designed to make laundry day easier shop Labor Day savings at the Home Depot today.

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