Week 3 Lineups & Falcons v Packers Preview

0:00Hey! It's the Harris Bookball Podcast with your host, Christopher Harris. Welcome! Hey everybody, welcome in my name is Chris and this show is 27% olive oil. Hi there everybody, thank you so much for listening today. A pleasure. Any day I get to talk to you and so many of you YAH possums are listening. It is truly my honor. I want to single out lovely emails that I got from two listeners. Michael B. John Patrick P. You both wrote in. JP, you're a long time emailer. Michael, it's your first. Both of you said really nice things about the audiobook version of Pound Foolish. Very very kind. Your words mean very much to me. This is just a little reminder for everybody else that you are kind of accustomed to the

1:01sound of my voice. If you have a long car trip coming up or you drive a lot for a living or you're just someone who likes to listen to audiobooks when you go for a run or on the treadmill, you can get my novel about the NFL and all its machinations anywhere you get audiobooks. That would be so lovely. You know, cumulative press is now a little less concerned about bestseller lists. That's not the thing anymore. Now I would just, I mentioned it because I'd love to get as many people as possible to read it or listen to it because that's why you write books, folks. It's thousands of hours sitting around writing a book to share your ideas and hopefully make people think and laugh and cry and whatever. That's why we do it. I appreciate that a lot of you are currently experiencing Pound Foolish. It's actually kind of overwhelming and like fills my heart with glee and joy. How many of you are currently experiencing it, reading it or listening to it.

2:03It's amazing. It's incredible. I'm so lucky to have all of you. That silly thing came out of my little brain over the past few years and now a lot of people are experiencing it. And anytime you want to write me and let me know or post on social media or something tag me, it means so, so much. You honestly can't imagine how much it means. Thank you so much. So on the Yacht Club podcast on Wednesday with Andy Barons, we did a full hour on the current goings-on in week three ranks and especially week three injuries. And so our complete thoughts about the state of the art are on that show. But I also know the vast majority of you listeners do not climb aboard the Yacht Club to listen to the thoughts of paywall Andy. It's not within everybody's financial means. I totally understand it. And I can't replicate an hour's conversation in one introduction. But I do want to make sure that I try and serve all the people and I love you all so, so

3:04much. So let's try to run through what we know about the big injuries right now, the morning of Thursday, what September 24th. You've probably mostly done your waivers and you're thinking about how you're going to manipulate those lineups for week three. I'm also probably going to repeat a couple of these names with Jeff Bell later in the show. I don't ask the guests to tell me who they're nominating to talk about. So we'll see. And we could have more in-depth conversations there too. And or we're also going to do reports on all the injury guys on the show tomorrow, but we're going to know more information then. And you might need to start planning now. I want to make sure everybody feels like they're getting enough out of the show. Just want to make sure you're even aware of the big names who are hurt. These are big names. So if you haven't yet come up with contingencies and you're not paying close attention, you're waiting for me to talk about them. Let's do it. Let's start thinking about them. Sick one, Barclay. Unfortunately, the first name I'm talking about here, we don't dance anything yet.

4:07The Eagles play on Monday night so they're like a day behind in their practice schedule. So certainly if you listened on Tuesday, you heard us talk about Cartavia's Bigsby. Bigsby was a smart waiver ad at the time. We might not get to use him. The party line on Barclay was his injury was a next stinger, got landed on by like three guys on the first carry of the game was though able to come back for some in the second half. So there's a chance that I will be getting him back into the running back ranks either today or tomorrow, depending on now that the Eagles will start making practice reports. Their Thursday will be everybody else's Wednesday, so it won't be definitive. But we'll see what they say. Giderian price was listed as limited in Wednesday's practice. But then again, aren't they all that isn't super useful information kind of like what we were talking about on the hot club show about how not major injury does not mean anything

5:14anymore either. And with Giderian price, they've talked about his injury being a chest injury and then they talked about it being a shoulder. And on Tuesday, we did discuss a manual Wilson being one of the waiver ads of the week. So I hope if you have price, you have Wilson as an insurance policy. JK Dobbins and RJ Harvey were both listed as limited with their hamstring issues in Wednesday's practice, which again kind of amounts to a walk through. The Broncos are now saying, first of all, Dobbins only suffered cramps against Jacksonville. And meanwhile, the guy we listed as the top running back option of the week off of waivers, Jonah Coleman, didn't practice at all on Wednesday because of an ankle injury. I mean, suffice it to say nobody knows anything yet, but we need to be just thinking about contingencies all through the end of this week for those guys. Hook and Akua didn't do anything in practice on Wednesday, which doesn't definitively mean anything, but Sean McVeigh giving the quote that he isn't sure about Puka playing

6:17in week three. At least so far, if I'm going to use my coach speak translator, I would say that means he's not playing in week three. That's a Sunday night game adding in and a little complication, Devonte Adams obviously very good in week two. Terence Ferguson gets a little more attractive if there's no Puka, Nakua, Zay flowers didn't do anything on Wednesday. The new coach for the Ravens Jesse Minter said that flowers has a good chance to play in week three, but we can't spend that. He needs to actually play as we discussed in waivers on Tuesday, Rashad Bateman, not a sure thing, but if you're in a deeper league, that's the one to one replacement that you probably want to see if you can get and ride with DJ Moore, did a limited practice on Wednesday with his shoulder slash neck injury. You know, we didn't list the little black backpack, Keon Coleman as a waiver ad, despite his good production last Thursday against the Lions, because frankly, we did not believe our eyes. And then Coleman didn't practice at all on Wednesday, a couple of colmans, not practicing

7:20unexpectedly. I cannot emphasize enough though that we should not get hung up on Wednesday practices. They really mean nothing. But today or tomorrow, Moore might get into the ranks after all. If he's active, my message to you right now is I'm not going to sit him. I'm using DJ Moore, if he's active, Brock Bowers, you know, finally practicing the suspicion all along was week three. The Raider certainly are talking that way. So we'll see how the rest of the week goes. And then the injured quarterbacks, kind of the reason for this segment, because there are three quarterbacks that are not going to play this week. The Bears weapons, like because Kale Williams not going to play Monday night against those Eagles and Tyson Baygent, since last week spoke on the free side, has been announced to have a concussion. So he'd be in a race against time to play in that game. It might be case Keonum. For the moment, I've assumed it is case Keonum in my ranks. You can see at Harris football.com. I was not particularly kind to the likes of Roma Dunze, Luther Burton, Colston Loveland.

8:25I am just fine if it's going to be case Keonum, if you look elsewhere. The surf movie bad guy Jackson Dart. Again, since we've spoken here on the free side, suddenly likely out for the season. So the giants weapons, you know, it's a hit. I think the wacky waving inflatable arm-flailing two-man, James Winston, for as much crap as I've scooped on him throughout his career. And I surely do remember in his early days, the same people, or at least the same kind of people who loved Anthony Richardson. They also used to tell us, oh, you're underestimating the great James Winston. Probably because he had six rushing touchdowns as a rookie. And I would shake my head. That was the very first year of this podcast. One of the first calls that some of you original possums celebrated the show for was our lack of belief in James Winston. But even all admit, it probably won't look as bad as it was Monday night when Winston is in command because he has upside.

9:26He's insane. He'll try to make throws. I think you're probably for the moment. You don't have to decide on anybody for week nine, you know, for the moment for this week. I think you're still using Malik neighbors. I think you're still using Isaiah likely. For the moment though, we're just going to rule out ancillary weapons. We're not taking a chance on some other receiver or tight end or whatever. Camps Gattaboo I think is going to be in most lineups too. But of course, the thing is you don't have to decide for the whole season. We'll see how it looks in a non lethal matchup against the Titans and the commander's weapons. Jaden Daniels not ruled out for the season yet, but certainly out for a long time with his twice dislocated elbow real bummer. He'd been playing really well in that game. Dallas, you've seen the Marcus Mario to movie before. I was a little harsher on the Bears case kingdom guys this week. Then I was Terry McClaren and Stefan Diggity McClaren and digs are 27 and 28 in my receiver

10:26ranks compared to 33 and 34 for burden and Odunze. But you're certainly forgiven for not feeling amazing about the ride and looking elsewhere. Today's mix tape. Okay. So I have to just play them. I have so many mix tapes. I go back so far. There are great ones that came in at the end of last year and there's just fewer spots in the show. But I just got to get better about playing them. I'm going to go back and find some old ones. I appreciate them so much and so many of them are so awesome. I just haven't played as many. So I'm going to play one right now. It came in probably two months ago, which is like kind of new compared to some of the ones that I still am sitting on and that are awesome. So I'm going to get to as many as I can keep sending them. You know what I always say. We want your mix tapes. Absolutely. Still want them. They make me laugh. They make me smile. I love you all so much for sending them. It's the stupidest thing in the world and yet it's wonderful. Send them to hey Harris at Harris football.com. Matt Simon, a multiple time mix taper.

11:29You're going to understand the subject matter here. You're going to remember my conversation about the fact that the Browns were playing De Shon Watson. It didn't seem so smart to me. It still didn't seem very smart after week one and then suddenly they go and win in Tampa. I still think the song applies. Why would they do this? Matt Simon, thank you. You're the best. Let's play it. Here we go. I'm not ever between you and me. I could honestly say this guy will never get better. Just chuck him away.

12:30Just stop the demons and your franchise. It wouldn't be long before you just might fight. I caught a bad coolism, a bad guy. But I guess that's why we call them the Browns and playing De Shon. The fans will surely boo. Just stupid franchise. Just plain deserves it. Haslums are dumb dumb. Yes, we've discovered. And I guess that's why we call them the Browns. Today's kickoff. OK, on today's show, we have two guests coming your way. Next up, it'll be the aforementioned Jeff Bell from footballguys.com.

13:33And Jeff is going to give us his five hardest to rank players for week three. And we'll talk about him from a lineup perspective. Plus we'll do a preview of the Thursday night game Falcons at Packers. And following that, Jake Trobridge will triumphantly join the show. And we will talk week three in our DFS contest on DraftKings. And both of these gents very happy to be bringing them to you today. We are sponsored today by BetterHelp. It's therapy online. I never want to push too hard because obviously not everybody needs to talk to a therapist this very second. And even if you do, you know, the time has to be right for you. I personally find that having someone to talk to who knows about what's going on with me, but isn't directly involved in it just really helps to get the stuff that circles around and around your head and have to say it in words, make it make sense.

14:34Better is a feeling, but it really is defined by you. For BetterHelp, it's a BetterHelp therapist who really gets you. It's a focus on your emotional well-being. With thousands of therapists and millions of members in over a hundred countries, if you could use someone to talk to, you can take a quick survey, get matched with the therapist, you can change therapists at any time, sign up and get 10% off at BetterHelp.com slash Harris. That's BetterHELP.com slash Harris. BetterHelp.com slash Harris. Today is guest. And our first guest today is the great Jeff Bell, not an old man on the sea.

15:39That's me. I'm not. I'm the old man on the sea, but you can find Jeff wherever you find people on social media. He will meet you there. He will be there. You can hear him and read him at footballguys.com as well. It's a pleasure to get to talk to him after we just started complaining about the days being darker. We're going to be much more positive than we were before he hit the button, Jeff. I'm here for the positivity. I'm here for it. Our nice things about fall. And we are going to enjoy those nice things about fall. Fair enough. I'm an L.A. I don't really get fall. I don't get seasons. I like it that way. I prefer. Although, you know, they say super El Nino is coming and we're going to have a really rainy January through March. And I'll probably complain about that because I don't want weather. But enough weather talk. It's not even John Degel. John Degel is the weather man. Let's talk about week three ranks. I asked you to come up with five of your most difficult to rank players for this week.

16:40It's so refreshing. I'm sure to come on and knock at yell that because I can't get mad at you. I can't tell you they weren't hard for you to rank. I'm just kidding. I don't yell at anybody. What are you talking about? I don't know. Guy I made up on my head. I never yell at anybody. I wondered how many of the guys you picked were kind of confusions about these injury situations that I kind of already referred to earlier in the show or some just kind of underperforming or overperforming players. Anyway, we'll find out. Are you ready to go with five names? Very much ready to go with five names. All right. Who do you want to talk about first? Devon Hien. I'd like to talk about him first because to me, I think it's difficult to figure out how to wear what to rank him as. He's kind of landing as a back end, running back one, still kind of high end, running back two in a lot of rankings right now. He's running back 23 on the season. The volume is certainly there. You can still make the volume argument. If you want to get there, but again, that volume is only led to running back 23.

17:43The scoring is a significant question in Miami. I don't know that it's ever going to get any better. I think he runs into, maybe he breaks a long run and we get there, but the way that they're functioning right now, it's the priors from the offseason coming into it or just the player that was a top six running back last year or what about it? Hien, I think, is very difficult. Okay. I take it back. You're wrong. He was easy to rank. I'm just kidding. Of course. Yes. Agreed. You're doing your list for week three and you're deciding where to slide him in. First of all, where did you slide him in? Right now he is sitting as my running back 10 and I feel like I'm wrong. So it's the person who has it. Right. Go ahead. Once you get past him, you reach time chairs, you reach other questions there as opposed

18:44to the player that really gets all the volume potentially in Miami. Yeah. And like hard to rank doesn't necessarily mean hard to start. I think if somebody spent the last pick of the first round or the third pick in the second round on Devon Hien, they're sort of locked in. They kind of don't have a choice at the moment. The choice is to trade him to see if you can get something. You pitch him as the look at the volume is the only act in town. Is the only thing good on the dolphins? Yada, yada. He had okay moments last week. It was a good first half. I thought the dolphins held in okay in the first half. Obviously got their doors blown off in the second. So you ranked him 10, I ranked him 12. We're in the same neighborhood of, come on, you probably don't have a choice. You have to start him. But I guess what I'm going to, what would be the, if you were going to take the put the pessimism, the false sucks hat on about Hien, where would you have gotten them down as low as how far?

19:45I think you can make an argument to get him down to about running back 18, probably realistically. When you look at the other running backs on the board, moving players like, I mean, you know, I've caught him in Williams, I'll marry and amped and buck year vein, Chuba Hubbard. Those are the players that I've got kind of right behind him. Deandre Swift, I think they're in there as well. And I mean, concerns about Chicago's offense without Caleb Williams. But I think that that's where, if you're going to be pessimistic about it, ranking him towards the bottom of its back end, running back to is the most realistic landing spot. For now, but you might come out of this week and feel, you might feel, I mean, the bottom feels low. The ceiling doesn't feel any higher than it is right now. We're still ranking him near the top of where we think he can go. And all it takes is one 14 touch 24 total yard game for us to be like, yeah, Devane Chan is what is running back 30. You know, we just go, okay, I him or Travis ETN, cool. I don't really want to start either one of them. Who's next? Who else did you want to talk about? Rashi Rice. I like to talk about Rashi Rice. And I think there's about every red flag situationally on Rashi Rice, he's still the

20:50White receiver 26 in 0.5 PPR scoring. But that's kind of week one. There was the bounce off guys ping pong touchdown. And then week two, there was the long play right before half time that kind of has buoyed him a little bit. But this is a player that many people are drafting him as potentially a low end. White receiver one high end, White receiver two. And it feels like even a Rashi Rice scam just to be the White receiver 26 right now. And you don't, I don't see anything other than they do play Miami, who we already talked about this week to suggest that they're thinking they need to change the usage patterns at all in that offense. Yeah, it's a good point. It really feels like the usage patterns are changed in that offense. We used to think of Rashi Rice as an extension of the run game. And okay, when you have a now, when you have a really good run game, do you need a receiver to be an extension of the run? You know, that's the question we're asking ourselves. Like, oh, you know, we've all been complaining or at least around these parts.

21:50And I know you've come on my show and complained also that we don't really think he's like a super crazy special player. Is that still where you are? Yeah, I think so. And they really, he needs to grow in his game. And he's never been asked to grow. They've been leaned into what he did well because they were desperate for players that could get the ball in their hands and create and handle getting knocked around because the other guys that they had were, they were worthy or Travis Kelsey prior to marriage. And those guys were not the creators quite in the same way that could handle the volume that Rashi Rice could, but you're exactly right there on they did, they really had to just scam it up because the running game was so, so bad. Now they're at the top end on the running game. And so they don't have that need anymore. And you get the sense that I mean, he's heading towards free agency here. They don't seem like they want to give any level of investment to him. So they're looking at him saying, this is a guy that's not in our future. And we have already kind of solved the solution for him.

22:51Meanwhile, he's still just kind of here. I love the implication, the pre-marriage Travis Kelsey, like marriage is fixed him. Marriage is, he's good again. All he needed to do was get married. So I think what, so I don't, I'm sure that Travis Kelsey tried very hard prior to marriage. But I think last year he did, it was the thing of, oh, I've fallen off and mentally, I want to try hard again. And then like, but didn't know how to do that. And then so basically still kind of got his butt kicked a little bit last year. And then I think of this off season, he was like, oh, this is actually how I get into shit. Or it's just the second game of the season and he's just fresh and that'll weigh down because that happens with football players. Probably the latter. But it's more fun to talk about the former in which he realized that marriage is so painful and such hard work that he needed to try harder on the field. This is my favorite thing of the day. Where did you end up with Rice ranked for the week? I've got him at wide receiver 26 right where he's coming in, but that feels like I'm,

23:55it's, I love the match up. There's going to be touchdowns against Miami probably. But again, it's, he's sitting at wide receiver 26 on the season and it feels like there's some level of fluke to him attaining that. Yeah. It's a wider range of receivers who could benefit. And then, you know, that's kind of the NFL now where every team has such a wide range of receivers who accidentally, Keon Coleman has a big game, you know, whatever. And now unfortunately, we find ourselves in the position of being like boy, I sure hope Rashi Rice is the one who accidentally benefits that I don't think it's going to happen every week anymore. So I definitely understand where you're coming from probably again, someone who's in line ups, but that doesn't mean he was easy to rank who's next that you want to talk about. Yeah. I've been trying to avoid talking about the guys that everybody's talking about, but there is one guy that I feel like is a little bit unavoidable. And that's Bryce Young at quarterback here coming in and we've seen great volume through the first two games. It really looks like a fundamental shift on how they're operating that Carolina offense

24:58between, I mean, some of it might have been chasing Chicago, but they weren't chasing Atlanta and they were still pouring it on in the passing game. We know Jonathan Brooks out of the lineup. They're really just down to Chiba Hubbard. Now they're running backs and I don't see a situation where they're going to switch dramatically to look like the team that they did in prior seasons when they really looked like they were covering up for Bryce Young. Now it looks like they are allowing Bryce Young to be explosive. And he's a player that coming into the season, there were some positive reports out of Carolina camp and I looked at him and I think he, you look at a quarterback and how can they erase mistakes? How can they solve problems? And he's a player that mentally was how he was going to have to do that. Well, he was running into a league where the league was far, far ahead of him as opposed to when he was at Alabama, best players all around him and he's smarter than everybody he's going against. I think now we've reached a situation where Bryce Young has the understanding and experience to know what defenses are throwing at him and to exploit those. And I think that they're leaning into him with having Teterombic Mill and having Jalen

26:01Coker, hopefully he's fine with the injury that he's managing and really laying, leaning into the passing volume. But this is a guy that consensiously was like quarterback 26, 27, 28 coming into the season now to push him all the way up into quarterback five territory feels a little bit aggressive. He's such a good one to bring up and to be honest, like I did that game on Tuesday and didn't really even talk about him as a potential fantasy starter because you talked about priors and wanting to not get super carried away and the numbers are going to look better because of week one, but the numbers look pretty good last week too. Where did you wind up with Young in your list? He's QB 13 on my list this week. I mean, in the exact same spot and it felt it's tough to get him above because there are established players above him and that you feel better about having a longer track record. But yeah, it does feel like I'm probably low on him. Maybe not, maybe I don't know. I don't know. It's like, can you do it one more time?

27:02Just one more time in a game where you're not getting completely pounded, you know, be great. And they're playing in Cleveland. It doesn't feel like they'll be getting completely pounded. Anything could happen. Like, I have Justin Herbert and Bryce Young side by side. And the person who has Herbert and is like, I'm out. I'm out. I don't want to do this anymore. And they decided to go Bryce Young. How could I criticize that? That seems like a fair comparison. It absolutely does. And you're exactly right talking about you'd like to see it in another game. And I think really kind of those first three or four game windows and breaking the season up into four game windows, I think is the right way to approach it. And so having another game, another data point on there, that's when I really start to pull off and move a different direction because through two games last year, Jemeer Gibbs was running back 17. And we know Jemeer Gibbs did not end up as the running back 17. And so we see these early samples and we see big fluctuations as the season progresses.

28:03We are sponsored by Hungry Root. It's how I eat healthy even when the season gets going and free time is much shorter. Hungry Root is both grocery delivery and a way to plan meals over a thousand grocery items with 50,000 ideas for meals. Nothing really elaborate. Put a few things together. You've got a great meal. That's healthy. There's always something new to try. I recently made a Taziki eggplant ball, couscous bowl. This four ingredients took 15 minutes to cook. It was so good. I will be eating it again. Until you try Hungry Root, you won't know how easy it can be to plan meals that don't take all day and still have them taste amazing and healthy because Hungry Root screens out over 200 additives, no high fructose corn syrup in the snacks, no artificial preservatives or sweeteners, no antibiotics or hormones in the meat. It's a huge time saver. I really think you'll love it like I do. For limited time, get 40% off your first order and give it a try plus a free item in every

29:06box for life. Go to HungryRoot.com slash Harris and use the code Harris. 40% off and a free item of your choice for life. HungryRoot.com slash Harris, use that code Harris. We are back with Jeff and we are talking five difficult to rank players for week three. Who did you want to talk about next? I'm going to stick in this game with Carolina and Cleveland and I'm going to also cheat in this game and talk about more than one player on the Cleveland downside. Quintet Judkins, Denzel Boston and Dishon Watson and looking at all three of those. It feels to me like Judkins is the player that I'm lower than consensus because we haven't seen him have any level of efficiency. Then you look at Dishon Watson is the quarterback 12 on the season. Denzel Boston is the lighter receiver 10 on the season. Watson, I mean, we know that one week one throw when he put it in the bucket there, but

30:07he kind of, he didn't look like Sean Watson, but he did not look like Sean Watson last week. I think he's starting to process a little bit there and the pieces around him, Denzel Boston, Casey Concepcion, Harold Fanon. He has playmakers around him in an offense that is willing to lean on the pass. You did cheat. There's lots of talk about there. I get it on Judkins. Where's Judkins in your running back rank? He's running back 24 for me and that's lower than our football guys consensus has. Okay. Yeah. So you're kind of similar there. We still 17 in our running back consensus on football guys. Yeah. Like maybe people are looking at Carolina and what they gave up on the ground in week one. I don't know. Yeah. He's going to come up later in the show. So we're going to talk about him too much more. And Watson, I have him, QB 28. I'm not, I'm not buying that. I think for for Brown's fans, Sanity, we played a little song about him earlier on. Like why do this?

31:08Why? I guess you want to win games. You think he just want to game? You got to use them again. But why create the temptation to sign him to another contract? What a disaster that would be if they ever signed him to another deal. I mean, yeah. And it is that double edge. They seem to be building in one direction towards putting everything around a young quarterback and now with him. And you start to put together the pieces that after the Miles Garrett injury, now that trade looks pretty good for Cleveland, bringing Jared Verson, a young player that kind of not one for one solution, but still edge that everybody likes prior to the deal. And then adding draft picks around them. We like what they did in the draft in terms of adding skill talent. I mean, I think everybody was in on these receivers and we're seeing especially Boston exploding here in the early season. So let's talk about the receivers then. I don't, I didn't take the bait. I don't think somebody who has Denzel Boston should really strain themselves to sign him, sign up to, to use him in a line up this week.

32:11But maybe you disagree. I have conception on 39 and Boston 40 among receivers. Are you significantly higher than that? Yeah, Boston, YT27 and I've got a conception on YT38. So similar range there with, but we got not Boston. Yeah, yeah, we got a, you know, we're ports during training camp about Boston stepping up and looking at the top receiver and that's what's happened so far. Has it, I don't know if it's looked like that. I feel like they come out every week, every week, two weeks, they come out every two weeks and hand it and throw it to conception over and over. And then the Boston thing kind of, you have to wait to the second half and then you go, oh no, is he going to do nothing? And I mean, I'm going to be honest, he could have had another touchdown. He kind of dropped it. It got knocked away, but he kind of dropped it. Boston did, but I don't know. I'm a little, that's one where I'm a little, that's another one. Prove it to me. But that's why I'm, that's why it was a difficult to rank player for you.

33:13I completely get it. You're not saying you're positive. You're saying, yeah, this was tough for me, but I'm going to choose to believe for a week. So it does give the Boston owner out there something to think about. And I can't tell you, like I'm not really strongly disagreeing. I get where you're coming from when they have good results. Who's the fifth guy on your list? Drake London. Is the fifth on my list. Good. That'll segue nicely into what's coming next because we are going to talk about the rest of the game. Am I might have done a show before, Chris? Yeah. Yeah. Go ahead. London, yeah, London here, obviously we drafted him as a fantasy wide receiver one. Wrapped at him in the second round, top 10 wide receiver. And really the thesis was either having, I mean, probably Michael Pennix was the preferred outcome for that thesis or at least to a tongue of ILOA. I mean, Cooper Rush, that Ravens last year saw two games of Cooper Rush and said, this guy does not need to be on a roster. The Falcon saw two games of Cooper Rush and said, oh, well, yeah, maybe we should listen to that last year. And so London coming into this wide receiver 52 and I understand hesitation and probably

34:18right to have hesitation on going back to the well with Drake London. And we don't know what this is going to look like with Michael Pennix. But at the same time, we did see Michael Pennix support Drake London pretty well through a good portion of the last season. And so I don't know where to rank him. And, you know, I think he's still, I thought with the Cooper Rush offense, you were going to have the genre I'm sitting in your lineups. I was sitting Kyle Pits week two everywhere that I could. And then Drake London was kind of falling on that fringe of you probably don't have a better option given what you gave up to get Drake London. I mean, now he's definitely in lineups. I think this week, but where does he come in? Yeah, this got easier for me. I feel a lot better about my rank now that I know it's not Cooper Rush anymore. I have him wide receiver 13, which is lower than he was to start the year. But that's partly because people like Chris Lava and Parker Washington are simply I think establishing themselves as stars that you can really trust. Where did you end up with London?

35:19London is my wide receiver 10 right now. And I do have him behind the Chris Lava and Parker Washington that you mentioned. But yeah, it does kind of, I do think you get into that hodgepodge of ambiguous wide receivers pretty, pretty quickly right now. The way it's stacking up once you get past kind of Parker Washington to about to Smith. I think this was a bit of a lie in your part. I think you knew you were going to start Drake London no matter what you didn't you didn't have that hard a time ranking Drake London. Come on. Once finished, it still feels a little aggressive given how bad things have been. But yes, I thought, okay. Well, let's do hold on. Let's do this sound drop. So let's talk about the Thursday night game writ large. Certainly another national TV game with a backup quarterback would have been we're already going to have one Monday night would have been not that fun to watch. But and frankly, it still might not be that fun to watch because we don't really know the status of Michael Panics's knee, but like a one-legged Michael Panics would have been

36:20at least more interesting to watch at least for a quarter than any more Cooper rush. Those were hard games on my eyeballs. So it lends some certainty, I guess, or some some ceiling, maybe, maybe not certainly, maybe the floor still stinks. But Bigeon obviously great looking forward to get to watch him. Drake London, we just talked about, you know, if you have Kyle Pitson or roster of skill issue, that's clearly not what I'm doing. But everybody, you know, all the Falcons you can feel like you can use, we just talked about. I wanted to ask you more about the Packers Backfield because the, there's three of them, the order changed a little bit. Last week, two of them fumbled by the very end. It was actually by overtime, it was all Chris Brooks, which is the third guy you would think that you'd want to use. I got to assume that you're not personally ranking any of these Packer running backs as anything like a must start. No, nowhere near.

37:21They are in football guys terms of what the heck flex is kind of think where they all land. And and Brooks, Brooks has always been the most interesting to me because they're clearly comfortable with him in the passing game. They have been for multiple years. He is a bigger back. You would think that he could handle volume and they've never, ever given him an opportunity to have any level of volume or to get any rhythm at all in the run game. And so that, that's baffling to me a little bit there on the way that we see a lot of teams willing to, especially leaning towards bell cow usage lately because they don't want to tip defensive hands. And if this guy is the passing down back, then maybe just leave him in as the early down back. So you're not throwing up a flag of what you're doing on this play. And then the March on, March on Lloyd of it, I think March on Lloyd, Johnson, Brooks kind of followed in the same bucket where the, they were complete write-offs by the organization and by those following them and probably a lot of fantasy football as well. And then as soon as they're healthy and making it through practices, then hey, you know,

38:21this guy's not a complete write-off. But then in our fantasy brains, we push way far in the other direction and say, it's going to be the guy that I thought they were when they were drafted two years ago. And they get shot up the board. And so I think that we've seen now that, you know, I think the, the trade for Caleb Johnson, I think when that happened, there was a lot of excitement about March on Lloyd and there was the, everything going on with Josh Jacobs that's still the everything going on with Josh Jacobs. So I think people saw that move as saying Josh Jacobs is out for the year. They believe in Lloyd. They're bringing a back, back up here. And I think it probably now two games into it was probably opposite saying, oh, we are really stuck. If March on Lloyd is going to be our top back here, we need to get another option in here. But I think it's, if I saw them give any level volume to Brooks, I would be there. But we haven't seen that ever. Yeah. And we're certainly, you know, it has to be a week by week. It's a week by week league. It has to be a week by week sort of guessing game based on what you just saw.

39:22And week one, we didn't see Caleb Johnson at all. And then week two, surprisingly, we didn't expect to see Caleb Johnson. And then suddenly he's a gun equal time share from the rest of the guys. I don't have any of them inside my top 40 for this week. But the moment we tune in tonight and we watch Caleb Johnson get 80% of the work, we're going to go, aha, I've got the solution. Now Caleb Johnson is running back 29 or whatever. But for this week, we're just not going to use them. And and wide receiver, you know, you certainly have questions that will continue to maybe be answered tonight. The Falcons pass trust pretty good. Falcons, the events is okay. There's a lot of their problems just simply but unreliable offense. Packer offensive lines have been such an absolute mess. It makes it hard to really trust Jordan love. It makes it, I mean, I think you're using Christian Watson no matter what. Matthew Golden kind of falls in that. He falls in that area of like, they don't seem to have a plan for him early in games.

40:25But he certainly, when they fall behind, he tends to get a bunch of targets to try to catch them up. Could have had a bigger game last week. Both are usable tonight. Would you agree? I agree. Yeah, I think that those are the pieces that you want to target here. Ajay Chorrell is out for the Falcons. Their star corner back. And so that's going to make life a little bit easier. But glad you mentioned that offensive line. And I do think that that's something that I know there's some good work being done in our space on the offensive lines. But I do think that probably in general, we don't exactly pay attention to the offensive lines quite in the way that we should. So that the fact that we need to are really paying attention to the Packer's offensive line tells you how quite how bad it is. And the chance that Tucker Kraft might play offensive tackle apparently, or was really close to playing offensive tackle. But I think that that's, you know, coming out of it kind of prior to really digging in and seeing that and seeing that talk around there, I think it was easy to look at Tucker Kraft and say, well, maybe there's a little bit more of the ramp up in the injuries here than he was kind of letting on. And now I think it looks like they just desperately need him to be blocking because that offensive

41:29line is so, so bad. Losing Jaden Reed out of this, it seems like Skymore is going to be the guy that kind of runs Jaden Reed things, but I'm not going to go there at all in fantasy. I do think it's Christian Watson for sure. And I agree with you on Golden. We saw a lot of volume week one, a little bit less volume week two, but it does all come after they've allowed a big leader. They're really scrambling trying to figure out how to attack the defensive facing. Well, we'll keep an eye on it tonight. It'll be an interesting aim to watch. I will talk about it off the top of Friday's show in the meantime. Please do follow Jeff all over social media, wherever you follow. He is there. And all of our friends at football guys, we always appreciate all of you guys coming on this show and check out football guys.com for more great Jeff Bell work. What a pleasure. Thank you for doing this on a Thursday morning, my friend. Thank you so much, Chris. We got football again. So it's good. It's a good morning. We are sponsored by draft Kings.

42:31I'm about to talk with Jake about our DFS lineups this week. We'd love for you to come play with us. There's a link to our week three contest in the show notes. And of course, every week feels bigger with draft Kings because draft Kings is now live in all 50 states in the US. One app, all the football nationwide. If you live in a state where that was never possible, it's possible now and it's great. Get that draft Kings app. Lineup using the code Harris spend $5 within 14 days like for example, on our contest and get $150 in rewards. It's very fun. Come on and play with us in DFS as well. That's code Harris when you download the draft Kings app. The crown is yours. Bet with DK Sports book gambling problem called 1-800-Gamber. What 800-My Reset. Connecticut called 888-789-7777. We're visit ccpg.org. On behalf of boot hill Casino and Kansas, that tax pass through may apply in Illinois. 21 and over, void in Canada. Event contract trading with draft Kings predictions involves risk of loss. Availability varies.

43:31Predictions offer void in New York. That to get bonus bets that expire in seven days. Trade to get predictions dollars that expire in one year. $50 in rewards issued every seven days via click to claim for 14 days. One non-withdrawable reward redeemable. Terms at dkng.co slash offer. Limited time offer. Nationwide based on sports book predictions and free-to-play sports contest availability. He's by state. That's a new, that's probably the newest Jake Trobridge song we have. Our second guest is in fact Jake and you can find him on Blue Sky. Just look up Jake Trobridge and it is so appropriate that we play that song because, well, I actually don't know if you tanked. Did you tank last week? You bet your bottom dollar.

44:32Yeah, you tanked a little bit last week. I had to. And you tanked into a monster. You tanked into $15. Whoa. Whoa. They call me Mr. Cash. That's what they say. That's my name. It's Mr. Cash. With all due respect to the Simpsons, 74th in our contest last week. Clearly, I mean, you didn't tank away from Jamar Chase and he was in your flex. So you moved to that room. Extra motivation. You had, you already had CDLAM last week. So he was huge. You also already had Dalton Schultz that you'd still a little pain by numbers, but it worked. But you tanked in other areas. I did notice because I looked, I had to look it up in my pain because I finished in the eight hundreds. You basically got away from some of our common players and it turned out to be a good idea because I finished in the eight hundreds. I mean, look, I said it a little bit last week and these superstitious is superstitions.

45:37Super stitious. I definitely they're able to the first time. They are, they are that for a reason. And I, you know, I didn't feel great about actually making those clicks because I want us to have this unifying moment every week and I feel like I'm taking that away from us. But I need my sweet, sweet cash. And so that's what happened. You got it. You filled up that draft King's account with some cash. And I'm just, I couldn't be prouder even though, yes, I could. If I had won, I would have been prouder. I easily could have been, I take it back, I easily could have been prouder. Just of myself, it happened so infrequently that I was really aiming for that. But whatever I lose, you win. Great job. And this just bodes well. It clearly 2026 is going to be the year of the bridge. Oh, I like the sound of that. Can we get that knitted on a throw pillow? Anybody out there? How about it? How about we put the call out there to all of our mix tapers to get the next newest Jake Trabridge walk up song, Year of the Bridge?

46:39Could we? Heck yeah. I mean, there's so many songs you could do that too. So that is it. Your assignment, hopefully for maybe as soon as next week. All right. Well, I was bitter about last week. I'm not going to lie, bitter, failure on my part. I watched it all crumble. For our week three contest, I have decided to zig in a few spots that I think will cause the folks to laugh. The danger with zgging in a few spots when you make your picks public is that then everybody goes, hey, that sounds like a good idea. And then they zig too, zag, whatever. And then you're not different than people. But these are so dumb. Yeah, these are me. My picks are going to some of my picks are so dumb that I think the listeners can be like, oh, no, he can have that guy by himself. That's cool. As I just mentioned on the Draft King spot, we would love to have you play with us. The link to our week three contest is in today's show notes. We have hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of listeners who play with us every week and have for this is our 11th season doing it.

47:43Draft King does not take a rake in this contest. They make zero money on this. It's an antiquated notion. Jake, every year I have to write directly to the like, I have I book Draft King through an ad agency because of course I do. They're a massive business. They have thousands of things that they sponsor. But I still have contacts from the old days at Draft Kings and Lauren is so wonderful there. And every year with my tail between my legs, I email Lauren and I go, can we have that contest again? And she's like, of course, you can. I got no problem with that. So this is the best value on the internet. There's no such thing as a free ride except for this contest. So we would love for you to play with us. It's very easy. It's $5. And you get to have fun. So please do it. And we will put our teams in today's show notes. So as always, Jake, what shouldn't they crash? Their car. Correct. Or any vehicle. Really? I know you always say car, but anything you're driving a bike, whatever. That is sort of carist. That is automotiveist.

48:44A little bit. I've got to watch that. All right. Well, we're going to listen, listen, let's start teams right now. Mine is very stupid. How did you start thinking about week three? I don't know if mine is less stupid necessarily. But when I'm looking at week three, I think the decision you have to make, or at least the one that I was having to make, was how hard do you want to pivot into the backups for the sudden backups that are out there? Because there's a lot of options for you to do that. I mean, if you start at quarterback, which is where I tend to most weeks, I just go down the list and I go, oh, he's out. He's out. How much further down can I possibly go? Do I go with Marcus Mariotta? Do I go with James Winston? I didn't do either of those fellows in my lineup, but I do have Drew Locke, which feels gross at 5,200. And I know that there's a possibility Sam Darnold actually does start, but you know, as the song says, that I have no issues thinking. And they're only 200 bucks apart. I can find that $200 within the rest of this lineup pretty easily. If I need to get Sam Darnold in there,

49:46but I want the Seattle quarterback against Washington, think it's a nice matchup, certainly nice enough to pay off here. And of course, I'm bringing in the caliber. I'm bringing in the fellow from last week. Well, it sounds like you probably have to put at $8600. He could be twice this much. And I would still try to find a way to get Jackson Smith and Jigba in this lineup. Oh, I think I figured out where you might think. I don't have the quarterback. I don't know the quarterback, but I do have JS. In my lineup, as my most expensive player. And you know, I like that there's mystery, not to not know, to like check in on Monday morning and look at the results and being like, did Jigsdick? Did Jigsdick? And I'm like, oh no, he left. He left JSN. So then, yeah. But I do have JSN. I did start with a stack, but my stack is stupid. I have not shown great intelligence in this stack,

50:48but by golly, I am going to go with the counterintuitive stack of the week. We used to have a robot Talia sound drop that was the counterintuitive opinion of the week. In fact, why don't I just play it right here? Counterintuitive opinion of the day. And thank you, robot Talia. I have Justin Herbert at 5800 and Lad Maconkey at 5900. Because that's how the NFL works. When we finally decide that someone is dead to us, that's when they go, boom, surprise, 40 points. So I know there's not a lot of logic to it. In my weekly ranks, I have Herbert down at number 12 or something. And that's actually about where they have him in draft kings. And if you take out Jane Daniels and Jackson Dart, he's probably a little higher than that. But the bills are that team. I don't think the bills defense is very good. And they are kind of that team who, they'll barfall

51:52over themselves the moment they're a made man. You know what I mean? And they probably won't barfall over themselves offensively. But they could easily get in a 4139 game with the chargers. And so it's dumb, but Herbert Maconkey, that was how I started. I mean, I don't hate this because that's the cheapest you could get Herbert. So far this season, because of course it is. Because that means he did poorly, his first two weeks. But I mean, it's just that matchup thing of, I mean, are they going to have to be forced into throwing a whole lot? Yep, probably. So just don't watch the game. I know you watch every game, Chris, just don't do it this time. Just accept the garbage time points. And move on, I did not take either of those guys. But I do have a charger in my lineup. I said last high-dend standing, I guess is going to be my guy, Aronda Gatzton. He's 3,500. I have similar thoughts just about the matchup and the fact that we saw this guy look pretty, pretty good in a few spots last year.

52:52And it's just do it again. Do it again, Mike McDaniel. Let him do it again. 3,500 just felt very cheap. Well, my tight end was not the first player I picked, but it was in the first half of who I picked. And it's funny that I went more expensive than Gatz. And even though I think Gatzton is a right answer here, potentially, just because he has to play, probably some. But I learned my lesson after mocking Dalton Shultz last week. And he's still only 4,200. The algorithm could not catch up to it. And what did I say when we did film review earlier in the week on the Texans? I believe it was seven catches on the last drive. Where they're just, you know, since Nadi was like, go ahead and we don't care. You're down 14. Go ahead and throw it to the side at eight times, seven times they did. So maybe it's fake, but at 4,200, I just swallowed hard and did Dalton Shultz here. How about your backfield? Backfield is where I got a little bit. I don't know.

53:52Creative might be the word. Because once again, I've gone very much studs and duds, the studs being my wide receiving crew. I'm not going to call the running backs duds, though. But I do wonder if there's some this pricing happening. So my most expensive guy is 5,500. It's Quinchon Judkins. I have not really. Oh, oh. Oh, I've not been a huge fan of Quinchon Judkins, but then he starts catching passes all of a sudden, Chris. And I'm like, oh, OK. I guess in this instance, he's 5,500 and against Carolina that seems, you know, not that intimidating, even for Cleveland. That you're saying, that's why I'm saying, oh, yeah. I felt the same way. I thought that was one of my stupid picks. So thank you for making me feel less stupid. Yeah, we're stupid together. You know, there's a, I don't think Carolina's defense is bad. I guess if you want to get in the weeds, Devon Lloyd, who played so well last week, sounds like he might not play in this game.

54:54And I kind of did agree that they at least found a creative way around having to constantly have Quinchon Judkins dash his body against the rocks that they just simply weren't making any progress up the middle. At least they stopped doing it and found another way to get in the ball, not his typical way. And I don't think he's ever going to be a dynamic receiver. But cool, extension of the run game, like one yard delayed screens that at least get him in the open agreed. That's kind of was my logic. Stupid, stupid logic. Don't get me wrong. Who was that other running back you were going to mention? We'll see if this stupid face gets onto your roster or not. There's stupid face being me really, not this guy. But Devon Henderson at $5,200. I looked at him. I looked at him. And you know, it's a good price, especially considering that Ramandre Stevenson fumbled and therefore is dead to the Patriots for at least three weeks. You know how that's how that works? Certainly. And it's been the thing since last year

55:55of like it's not always going to work out with him. Of course, it can't. But at $5,200 can he break off a big enough play to make it worthwhile? I think absolutely. So we'll see. Yeah. So he was an honorable mention for me. Gaston was an honorable mention for me. I feel like you're picking out smarter prices than I picked out, even though we both picked out Judgans, Herbert and Maconkean weren't as smart. My other running back is a stud. I have two studs, JSN and Kenneth Walker, who is a top five in all formats for me at $7,400. Kind of goes about saying, and do I have the cheapest defense facing him? In fact, yes. And I've planted the message in the Dolphins locker room that you guys are allowed to just find way to do zero points. That's fine. As long as you let Ken Walker score three touchdowns. And they've said yes. So the thing I'll say though is that I believe you stuck with not the cheapest defense last week.

56:56Am I correct? Not tinkalwood. I did end up keeping the extra couple of hundred dollars. So I mean, that is, but they'll be like, violates the commitment. Oh, you're on the Dolphins. This week I'm on the Dolphins. So I'm bringing it back. I'm bringing it back to Orbs. That's one where you're not tinkin. I know you're not. There's no way. I mean, even if I magically ended up with extra 200 dollars, at this point, I feel like I'm being prudent to put that $200 elsewhere. That was a long pause. All right, you have other receivers who are pricier. I do. Yeah, I have two again, very pricey wide receivers to pair with JSN. The math just worked out. I'm under all St. Brown $7,900. I'm just tired of ignoring him. I'm tired of pretending that he is not easily the greatest option on the Lions pass catching war. Tied in included. And then I also had CDLAM at $7,800.

57:58I don't know that I love the matchup, and it's fine. And I was very pleased to see Dallas generally sort of look more comfortable as an offense last week because week one was very scary if you had any of these guys in redraft. What'd you do? But CDLAM, JSN, I'm gonna ask St. Brown, what will go wrong? I mean, I think you're gonna have a lot of points there. And to win a medium size pool like this, you know you have to hit on other guys too, but that's pretty good. Beginning absolutely. Do I have any other wide receivers here? Who's my other wide receiver? While I look at that, why don't you look at your flex? Yeah, my flex is a true flex this time. This is not an inspirational motivational flex. This is a real, I only have this many dollars left. I had $4,300, and I said, Adney Mitchell, that's fine. I like this matchup, the Jets Detroit matchup. I now have two pieces of that.

59:00Mitchell certainly was getting targeted plenty last week against the Packers. It wasn't working out consistently because he's not Garrett Wilson, but he's also like half the price of Garrett Wilson. And it's kind of the same principle with Henderson where one or two big plays, and I'm sitting pretty with $4,300 invested into him. You're looking boom. I realized that in my notes, I wrote Quinchon Judkins' name down, both at running back and wide receiver. Oh, you really took that pass catching work to heart last week. And then I looked at my actual lineup and I went, oh, that's right, I put Jalen Coker, who is the same price as Quinchon Judkins, which is hence my mistake at $5,500. So Coker felt like underpriced, you know, like the algorithm hasn't caught up. And so I think he's gonna be widely owned for sure. And then at my flex, it was the last player I picked. I had 5,100 left and I did Romeo Dobbs. And this is a stupid lineup. Let's face it, the ones I would say aren't stupid,

1:00:01Walker, Cool, Jays, and Cool, and Coker, and Shultz. So four out of nine, not stupid. So, you know, I don't think Dobbs is stupid. I mean, he's cheap enough as the default wide receiver one. We were both, wait, I think I did pivot off of tie-down last week because weren't we talking about Hunter Henry and Lego? Oh yeah, Hunter Henry, he should be the true wide receiver one and that really wasn't the case. So, you know, maybe Dobbs can repeat. Maybe once again, lovely to talk about this contest with you and to have the folks play and, you know, they have room for like a thousand, I think more than a thousand people. So, come on and join if you've never joined before. If you do sign up, use that code Harris. It's $5 to play this contest. It's fun. And if you don't want to play, you're not committed. Any week you don't want to play, it's all good. Jake, I hope you cash again and I hope we both cash again. I hope I cash. I don't really care if you cash. I hope I cash, Jake. Thanks for doing this. I was just about to say I look forward to celebrating

1:01:04with you next week and instead, now I look forward to chastising you. And thank you so much for listening selfish, selfish behaviour by me. I hope we both win. Thank you so much for listening today. It was really fun. Let's thank the sponsors that made today's show possible. We had better help, hungry root and draft kings. If anything I said about any of today's sponsors, peaked your interest and you have the means. If you can use the promo codes, sign up, complain, DFS with us or anything else. It does help the show. You've all done so much of that and I really do appreciate it. All the current sponsors are listed at HarrisFootball.com. Anytime you pick out a sponsor and use a code, it's not like I'm making direct cash from that, but it just gives the message that advertising on the show works and you've done such a wonderful job. Thank you so much. That's gonna do it for this Thursday episode coming up on Friday, the return.

1:02:07The Prince of Darkness will be back. I mean, first of all, I'll talk about what happens in the Thursday game. And we'll quickly go over what we know about the injury guys, some of whom I already talked about today. But the main event will of course be cousin Josh's return from Europe. Who knows what he stole? We'll try to get some good stories out of him. He's also gonna mention five things that are simply blowing his mind so far in the 2026 NFL season you know that when cousin Josh's mind gets blown, anything can happen. You won't want to miss that one. Until then, thanks again so much for listening. Your hat is awesome. You're awesome for wearing it. I will talk to you tomorrow. The Harris football podcast opening theme is under the gun by Apex Manor. The closing theme is Say Yes by the Wellspray. Subscribe to the podcast on iTunes and never miss an episode. Say it. Say it. Say it. Say it. Say it.

1:03:08Just say it. Say it. Say it. Say it. Say it. And you'll just say it. Say it.