Week 14 is very much a wait and see kind of slate because as we record here on Thursday morning, it kind of sucks. It's very tough to find value that we like. There are some guys you can talk yourself into, but the fact that you have to talk yourself into them is underwhelming. With that said, there are some situations where value could open up. And on this slate, I think we're gonna need it. So we're gonna let you know, A, where the value is right now, B, where it could open up, and C, what to do if that value does open up later on this week. Welcome on into the heat check fantasy podcast powered by Number Fire. That's right here on the FanDual Podcast Network and NumberFire.com. My name is Jim Sonnis. I am a senior writer and analyst for NumberFire.com. Joined here as always by Brandon Gedula. He is the managing editor of NumberFire.com. And Brandon, that's where I'm at on this slate. Where are you at three week 14 right now? I'm at my house, but with this slate, it feels like we're gonna go through and talk about the slate for an hour and a half. And then we're gonna do our snake draft show tomorrow or Friday with JJ Zacharyson. And you're gonna drop like that. Well, we got this news and that news and this news. So like everything's different. What do you think about now? And then I'll have to sum it all up in like a minute and a half. Kind of feels like the way that it's gonna go because there are a lot of unknowns at this point we can speculate, but it's almost hard to speculate because like some of the speculation would be, okay, what if Melvin Gordon doesn't play but it sounds like he's going to play. I don't know about the Tony Pollard situation. I'm not trying to like get too far ahead but like it doesn't really feel like there's a whole lot of like things that we can even feel like we can lean toward. It really seems up in there in a lot of spots. And the things we can lean towards kind of suck. Like, you know, do I want to use Zeke? Not really, I might have to. Do I want to check out Jalen Geithen and Josh Palmer? Not really, but I'm gonna have to. Do I want to talk about how I view this 49ers backfield with all the stuff they've got up in the air? No, but I'm gonna have to. So it's gonna be a difficult one from that perspective. Also with the snake draft, lucky for you. If my plane gets delayed to Phoenix, you might not have me to ask these weird questions. So like, you know, there's always that possibility. That's true. That could bail you out from having to talk to me. So we'll see. Speaking of that, I'll be in Phoenix this weekend for the World Fantasy Football Championship. If you're there, swing by, say hi. I'm not hosting this year. I'm just kind of there to hang out. Think decent stuff for social. I got to justify my plane ticket basically. So I'll be hanging out for there. Come say hi, congrats on qualifying. I'll also be there for the FanDuel FanFest on Thursday. That is in Scottsdale, I think. I'm trying to figure out where these cities are. There's like Phoenix, Glendale, Scottsdale, and I don't know which one is which. So I'm gonna figure that out. I've never been to Arizona. I've been to like two states out west. I guess Colorado, California, Washington. So we're working on it. But if you're gonna be there, say hi. And either thing, Saturday or Sunday. It's a Nelly concert Saturday. I think that's pretty fun. So swing by there. Also, do not forget to get yourself entered at the FanDuel Listener League for week number 14. FanDuel.com slash league slash Listener League. FanDuel.com slash league slash Listener League. $5 entry, three entries max. There was no rake for that one. Again, $5 entry, three entries max. There was no rake to get yourself entered. FanDuel.com slash league slash Listener League. 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Let's dive in here to the slate overview of week number 14 in brand. I think this is a week where I can't nitpick value. If it comes across, I can't nitpick it. That also means, but like nitpicking to me means taking good plays and making them less good. It does not mean taking a mediocre play and making it good. I think that's a key distinction. I don't wanna talk myself into someone who might not be a suboptimal play, but I do wanna be very receptive to value that may open up. Is that a weird way to explain that? Does that make any sense? Was that totally convoluted or what about you? No, I think you said you don't wanna talk yourself into someone who's not a suboptimal play. I don't wanna talk myself into someone who is a suboptimal play, thank you. Okay, okay, it's still early. I was like, am I missing something? But yeah, I think that that's really what this week's gonna come down to is really staring at everyone you click in your lineup and be like, okay, is this guy in my lineup because he makes the rest of the lineup work or because I like him? And if it's not because you like him, maybe reconsider. We talk about upside all the time. We talked last week in depth about wide receivers and their odds of like, they really need to have like every checklist going, every checkbox going if they're low salaried receivers in order to have a big game. If you're just plugging in guys who let you play Austin Eckler or whoever you think is worth the salary this week, just, yeah. Cause I'm already there with some lineups where it's like, I can play Gerald Everett. Do I really wanna play Gerald Everett? I'm actually kind of high on the Seahawks. So like, that's probably not the best example, but. I'm eating a bench. So I think he actually is a good example. But yes, absolutely. This is a week where I could see like a 108 PM regret where it's like, man, I went like 30, 40% Jalen Geithen because he made lineups work and I shouldn't have done that. I mean, imagine waiting until one away to regret it. I regret the lineups I'm gonna make now. It's Wednesday. I regret them now. I told you on Slack yesterday, I regret how much redacted I'm gonna use. I'm not, cause like, do I actually wanna tie myself to this person publicly? I will eventually. I'll talk myself into it during the show. It's Clyde Edwards-Elair. I'm gonna talk myself into it, but do I want to? No, I regret it already. But there's this key difference between regretting it before and after a lot. Cause if it's before, you can do something about it. And that's what I think I really should, should be driving our decisions. I don't know if I can't do anything about it. So I actually ran like an optimal lineup based on like my 75th percentile outcomes. And unsurprisingly, it was the most balanced lineup that I could have imagined. I mean, Travis Kelsey was in it. So it was a Brandon lineup. But it had, well, no, cause that's a golf lineup that I would typically do. I don't really go balanced in NFL, but it's, you know, nobody below us, I think 6,300, it was Elijah Moore was in it. Jets defense at 3,000. So like, but I don't think anybody was above 75 or so. So like, it was like cam quarterback or what? I think it was cam. Yeah. Okay. Sorry, Rosa's trying to eat my cords, which is not ideal. She's locked in with me because my wife is doing interviews right now. So she's unhappy about the situation and biting my hand. We will try to get through that. Apparently what I jack on YouTube though is on board a CEH. So apologies in advance from wishing him. That's my bad. We'll talk about why I am potentially there later on. Let's start things off though with injuries because injuries will be a key thing for this week. You're still biting me. This is very rude. Anyway, Melvin Gordon returned to practice for Denver on Wednesday. So if he sits, we just lock button Javante. I feel like that's fair to say. How would we handle Javante though if Melvin plays this week, which seems to me to be the most likely scenario. Yeah. So this is, this would remain a backfield committee, although I will say that the snap rates before Melvin's missed game did start to trend towards Javante where it was basically like a 60-40 split in favor of Melvin to start the year. It was about 55, 60% for Javante and the two games leading in. He's not gonna play 79% of snaps this week with Melvin active, but maybe 60, like a solid 60 because of what he did. There's no need to play Melvin more than Javante, but I really don't think that we could feel great about Williams, even at that salary. That's not to say I won't use him because I probably would be interested enough because of how good he is. But yeah, there's a massive difference between whether Melvin plays and not with how I would view Javante. And it's really looking like Melvin will play to some degree. So he would go from like 100% to still prize like 30%. I still think that he's viable at that salary. I think 30 is on the high side for me. I'm curious what the public will do with him because I can see this being one of the situations where people are kind of like, oh, he won the role, I'm gonna use him anyway. And that would be concerning for me if he were to be very popular because there's a lot of fragility in his role and fragility in his workload too. Because if you were talking about the two games before Melvin, Miss Within Injury, he had 14 adjusted opportunities which is Karius plus two X targets and 22. That's not really enough, even at $6,700 to really stand out, especially when like Josh Jacobs might get 30 and he's at $7,100. So I think that like he'd be closer to like a 15% rotational FOMO type situation than he is a 30% play from me. So, okay, let's make it simple and say he was playing 60% of the snaps, two weeks leading in, played 80% of the snaps. Sounds like you're closer to thinking he'd go back to 60 where I think he'd be closer to maybe 70 where he would just- So we're rounding up with 60 because he was at 55 and- Yeah, I said let's make it simple, yeah. Okay, like if I'm projecting a snap rate, I put it 60 to 65 with like a 68% count but like that's one standard deviation, 60 to 65. Okay, so I would say like, I would say 65 to 70, so a 10 tryer. So I think that that probably explains the little bit of discrepancy there because I don't see the reason after what Javante did and how good he is to like play Melvin 45% of snaps here. Yeah, I mean, it's tough because like even in that one game where he was at 58%, Melvin, miss in time due to the injury there, came back in, but like he did miss in time in that game. So, I don't know. I think the takeaway here is we both would like to have some of Javante Williams but there is a capped number with Melvin being back because we both expect Melvin to have a legitimate role. Is that correct? Yeah, I would say that that's accurate. Okay, speaking of the $6,000 backs, Tony Pollard missed Wednesday's practice due to a foot injury. Zeke was a full participant. So hypothetically, let's say that Tony Pollard sits, how would you handle Zeke at $6,900? So, well, this just popped into my heads. It's not fully formed. Okay. Zeke right now is playing at like league average rate. Like his numbers are like league average but it's a really good offense, $6,900 with potentially like a feature back role. It's like a clad Edward D. Lair plus situation where like his snap rate is gonna be better than CEH's. He's still, no matter how quote unquote bad he looks, his efficiency numbers are like average. Give me that within this offense. I'll take it, cause he's been playing, no matter what anybody wants to say, he's been playing snaps. There's one thing to say he shouldn't be playing snaps and there's another if he's not, but he had been playing snaps. I think that like Zeke with, Zeke with no Pollard would be a big step up from Givante with Melvin. If we're trying to compare like guys at similar salaries. I agree. I agree there. And like, I think that like, you know, looking at the situation, you can feel okay about Zeke if there's no Pollard because the usage has been there and the usage will be amazing.  Like they were on a stretch of three gains in 12 days on that Thursday night game. They still used him a lot. It's possible his efficiency gets better. He was at a press conference yesterday and said that he is feeling a little bit better. He's not gonna be full strength for a while, but like he's feeling a little bit better. And I think that that's enough where like I can like pitch myself on it. So I would say in terms of confidence, I agree with you where if there's no Pollard my confidence in Zeke would be higher than Givante with Melvin. And I'd be pretty okay being aggressive with Zeke too. Like the Washington rush defense is pretty good, but you know, I think with this offensive line finally being healthy, that's a big plus. I just have a lot of faith in the Dallas offense in general. So to me, I think he'd be like a top shelf type play if there were no Tony Pollard. Yeah. And I think that it makes sense from a process standpoint, because you know, we're saying he's been playing Snapsee even like with the injury and with Tony Pollard like playing well. Zeke's played 69, 63 and 66% of the Snapse the past three games with all those concerns that you were talking about with like little rest, clearly not 100%. The Cowboys are fifth and apply team total on the slate. I don't think people would really want to use Zeke even if Pollard's out. So I think he works from like a cash game, but also tournaments standpoint. I'd agree with that as well. Okay, Elijah Mitchell's in concussion protocol after experiencing symptoms on Monday. He didn't practice Wednesday, neither did Debo Samuel. Sounds like Debo has a chance to play still despite not practicing there. Jeff Wilson dealing with a flare up in his knee and he was limited on Wednesday. So let's talk about this in two scenarios. A, how do we view Jamaical Hasty if both Wilson and Mitchell are out? And B, will use either guy, Wilson or Mitchell or Wilson or Hasty if they're both active. Okay, so without, if we get just the Jamaical Hasty backfield, what, sorry, 47? Yeah. Yeah, I'll take that. He's because of the receiving work. I can sacrifice some high end upside if your salary's 47. It's different if your salary's 67 or even like 57 if you really have no path to a ceiling, but his receiving role is good. And across all games he's played with no adjustments. He's run on 32% of the routes that this team's had. He's been targeted on 29.5% of his routes, which is like Cooper cup level. Again, he's a very specialized role, but you give me that in elevated snaps and with some rushing in an offense that just runs the ball efficiently. I'll take that at 47, it'll open up a lot. If Mitchell plays, I definitely wouldn't play Hasty by any means, but I still think I would consider Mitchell because I like that game a lot. And a lot of the projections love him, which could be a little bit scary, but I like that game. I think he's pretty likely to sit though. Right. I mean, you asked me that, right? I know I asked you, what if Wilson and, I think he's here. Wilson, sorry. I think Mitchell's most likely out. I think that if Mitchell plays, he's definitely in play for sure. Jeff Wilson's 49 too. What are you doing with him then? I'd probably, I think you can justify avoiding the backfield if they're both active. Cause I like, I have no read on who will be like the primary guy because when Hasty was going to pass and work earlier on this year, it was when Wilson was on the Pup List. And like when Wilson was getting work, it was because Hasty was out. So even seeing these two guys healthy without other pieces here before, and like, I mean, maybe you get some like low roster rate exposure to both, but I don't play that way typically. Like that's not the way I want to play things from a process perspective. So, I don't know, it would really, it might just be a situation where I'd avoid them if they're both active. Yeah. I mean, we really could use that level of savings we almost never get. Yeah. Especially this week it would come in handy. I'd be a little bit more open to it because of how the rest of the slate is shaping up. But I can't sit here and say that I would play like heavy Jeff Wilson if both of them were active. Yeah, I mean, would you use Hasty though? If both are active? Yeah. Probably not. Yeah. The most likely scenario then is... Hasty plays on third downs. Yeah, and Wilson could lose some high leverage work too. He could lose a rush attempt to Kittle. He could lose a rush attempt to IUK. He could lose a rush attempt to Jimmy Garoppolo on a read option. Apparently that's the thing that can happen as well. So, I feel like if Mitchell and Wilson are out, Hasty, very, very good play. If they're both active, I'm okay probably staying away for right now. Let's talk about the chargers here. Keenan Allen and Mike Williams both in the COVID list. So Keenan tested positive. He is vaccinated, which means he could still play if he were to test negative twice before Sunday, 24 hours apart. Mike Williams, it sounds like was a close contact and it sounds like that close contact occurred Monday in which case he could still be activated too. So, I think most likely scenario is like Keenan sits, Mike Williams plays, but it's a weird situation. Other side here is either Jake Fromm or Mike Glennon. Glennon missed practice Wednesday but could still be cleared in time. So a lot of moving pieces here. Just give me your read on this Chargers Giants game and I'm gonna give you the floor to say whatever you wanna say here, because I got no read on it. Well, I got a trend on the chargers. Should we talk about them then or now? Let's do a brief, brief thing here and do it there. With no Keenan and Mike Williams, I think this is one of the spots where the logic dictates going to Jalen Guy and Josh Palmer because they're wide receiver replacements. But I think that Jared Cook and Austin Eckler would get huge volume bumps. And I think that might be the right way to play it. That's not to say I won't use Jalen Guy or Josh Palmer because I really need value anywhere I can get it. But I think that the real kind of galaxy brain play is just to go with Eckler and Jared Cook instead. Potentially Donald Parham too. I think Jared Cook is a very good play. I think that Jared Cook is actually a good play even if Mike Williams plays but Keenan sits. Just because like they had two games last year where there was no Keenan and no Hunter Henry in those games, guiding at a 14.3% target share that was actually equal to both Donald Parham and Stephen Anderson and Cook has earned more work than Guy in this year. So I feel like Cook would be like a very, very good low salary tight end play. And I think that's true whether Williams plays or not. If it's both Keenan and Williams, then I'm okay missing out on that. I'm okay with a wedding Jared Cook. I have a hard time with the receivers. We can talk more about this later on but I think Josh Palmer is like on par with Guyton at least just because Guyton's not the kind of guy who earns targets. Just like the kind of routes he runs is like, okay, go get it. And like sometimes that happens like he did last week but doesn't typically happen. So we'll talk more about them later on. Alvin Camara is likely to make his return this week for the Saints. He'll do so with Mark Ingram likely out. Ingram is on the COVID list. He was, he does a positive Wednesday. So pretty late in the week to get cleared. Tayson Hill's finger is banged up. It sounds like he'll play through it. Taren Armstead was limited in practice on Wednesday. Ryan Ramcheck was out. We'll talk more about them in the trend section. Corey Davis placed on IR this week. He's done for the year, which means Elijah Moore should be locked into a huge target share here. But more also in his practice Wednesday with the Quad issue. He is now considered day to day. Tevin Coleman in concussion protocol. So if more plays, will you beyond him at 63 against a very good Saints defense and any interest in either Ty Johnson or Austin Walter with Coleman and Michael Carter potentially on the backfield? So Moore doesn't really fit the checklist because the defensive, the checklist that we talked about last week about how a lower salaried receivers have big games because he has a very tough defensive matchup. It's a little bit different because the volume is kind of abnormal for the salary or at least the volume projection. So I could kind of see that canceling each other out. So I would consider him probably not going to get there in anything close to a one-off. And I don't know if I would stack this game unless I go with just Kamara and Elijah Moore, which I could see happening. As for the running backs, I don't think so. Yeah, I'm going to leave it at that. Yeah, I mean, like, I don't think they trust Ty Johnson to carry an actual load. She's like sneaking around by like the outlets and stuff. I've got like bite marks on my fingers. It's been a trip. She's behaving now. This is my dog, by the way. I'm not talking, I don't know if people know who Rosa is. My dog, she's being mischievous. Anyway, I don't think they trust Ty Johnson to be like an early down guy. So I feel like it'd be Austin Walter early downs, Ty Johnson passing game working on this offense. That's not really enough to be viable for DFS. So I'd probably just avoid there either way. I think Johnson will get a decent number of targets but it's like a JD McKissack type rule and that's probably not enough. So I think more definitely works. I'm okay going there just because like you said that the target projection should be so good. But you know. Jeez, their implied team total is 19 points but it is only fifth worst on the main slate because we've got four teams lower than that. I think great. I think great. JD McKissack missed practice again Wednesday due to a concussion. It sounds like he was at practice but he was officially listed as a DNP. So let's talk through both scenarios here. How are you viewing Antonio Gibson with McKissack versus without him? With McKissack we're grudgingly really considering him still because we don't have a whole lot of other strong options. Without him just excited that McKissack's getting a week off while Antonio Gibson is pretty much locked into most of my lineups. Yeah. I would be very high on him without McKissack. I think with McKissack you can still use him. It would just change his range of outcomes. Ceiling comes down a bit, tiny bit and his floor goes down quite a bit because if they get down, which they could, I think McKissack would still be the preferred option there but there is a scenario in which they win. They're only four point dogs. There is a scenario in which they win this game or at least during a neutral script for the entire time and in that scenario Gibson grades out really well. So it would just change exposure levels like if there's no McKissack, he's a 60-ish percent type play. If there is McKissack there, you have to cut that in half I think just because you need a more specific script for him to really pay off there. Yeah, I'm with you. That sounds about where I am with this backfield. I was low on Antonio Gibson coming into the season that kind of worked out for me. I've been on him without McKissack, which is, you know, but I don't want to kind of forget about JD McKissack's impact on Antonio Gibson. Because they like him and they should. He's a good player and I think that matters for sure. Julio Jones and Jeremy McNichols returned to practice on Wednesday for the Titans. AJ Brown's still out. Titans are facing the Jags. So if we assume Julio is back, will you give him a spin at $6,500? Possibly. It's like I said, there's a lot of potential with a really mid-range heavy lineup, a lot of balance within that lineup. Julio, we haven't seen him yet without AJ Brown in a game, but he has a 12-yard a-dot. The Jaguars are 29th in yards per target, a lot on downfield passes. I think he could do worse. If Julio is back, it's probably because he's healthy enough to play. So, again, I think you could, I'll phrase it that way. I think you could do worse. Yeah. Darren Waller missed another practice on Wednesday. He is considered day-to-day. Foster Moreau is $5,200. Would you turn to Moreau again if Waller can't go? So, the results were awful last week. Three targets, but all three were down. I'm sorry, if anyone who's not watching, Jim's just doing like 180s. I'm moving my desk just to try to block her from getting to the outlets. So, yeah, the three targets, the one catch, but all three were downfield. If you give that proper weighting, he had about 5.9 targets worth of targets in terms of expected fantasy points. I could see that within this game, but I would rather go with Jared Cook at 51 in most spots, and I would also strongly consider Gerald Everett at 48 over Moreau. I would go Moreau over Everett, just because I think that there's a legit chance Everett gets benched. I don't know, maybe I'm tilting over the last one. I'm not to that point, but... I would use, I would definitely use Moreau over Everett. I think that Cook would be the better play, though. That sounds like a heat check bet there. Foster Moreau versus Gerald Everett? Do you want to? I think it's close to a coin flip, but I'll do it for the sake of the show. Oh, boy. I mean, that sounds like... Welcome to week 14. That sounds like a heat check bet. Yeah, let's do it. Okay, so I have Foster Moreau, you have Gerald Everett, only if Waller misses. Right. Deandre Swift still was not back at practice on Wednesday. He's considered week to week still. I think he's probably not going to play based on this practice. Probably because Jamal Williams' role kind of sucked last week. So even if they're in a situation where we're scrounging for value, I don't want to go to Jamal Williams anyway. What about you? Yeah, probably not. Under half the snaps, decent workload, but I don't want a sub 50% snap rate on a team with an applied team total of 17 points as an eight point road underdog. It doesn't really fit what I'm looking for. It doesn't really fit the path for running backs having big DFS outings. It was a 50% snap rate when they had neutral slash positive script, which seems like it's the one situation where they want to use them. Cause it seems like Godwinewgwebuk is the passing game back. So no, hard pass, even if I need value. Okay, let's take a look at what bookmakers are saying for this week. The highest total on the slate by a wide margin includes a couple of Super Bowl contenders in the bills and the bucks. Total is 52 and a half. I guess it's 53 now. That is four points higher than any other game on the slate. Three points spread in the bucks favor. So let's start the quarterback here. Where are these quarterbacks ranked for you and how are you stacking this game? Effectively first and second. I don't think that they're both, they're my two loves at the end of the show, but sorry Rosa, they're both my loves for the week. She wasn't into Jake Fronk. Sorry, she wasn't into Josh Allen coming out of the draft. Oh, don't say that. But yeah, they're basically top three. I think Patrick Mahomes is the other guy.  At least how I'm viewing the slate. So yeah, the quarterbacks are, top level plays, I think I probably end up with more Tom Brady than Josh Allen based on salary. But straight up I would have Josh Allen number one. Yeah, I think I would do the same. I would like to get to Allen and like if we get a hasty situation, like if we get Jamaical hasty and I can get to Allen without like dying, I would do it. Like that's like if value opens up and like if that happens, I'll be on board. If not realistically Brady would be the preferred option by a hair. And I think that they are one too on this slate right now. So like that's kind of where I'm at there. I think that the receivers are also among the best options on the slates. Stefan Diggs might be number one somewhere up there. I think that I prefer Evans over Goblin by the slightest amount. I think that Gronk is among the best hide ends on the slate. I cannot talk myself into any value plays on either team. I like, I'm afraid that Manny is gonna get benched for Gabe Davis, which could mean maybe you could talk yourself to Gabe Davis at 47 or so, but like that's kind of a projection and I don't wanna do stuff based on that. I can't use Cole Beasley because it's Cole Beasley. The Bucks guys aren't really, there aren't really any values there. So to me, it is a restrictive game stack because the salaries are so high, but I feel like it's necessary. I think so too. And I think that what you said about projecting changes goes back to the 49ers backfield of both guys are healthy.  We've had instances this year where we've seen what teams wanted to do. We've seen prior samples of injuries. You can do a lot of that this week. You're gonna have to do that, for example, with the Chargers receivers if we don't get Keenan Allen and Mike Williams, but we won't have to do that for Jared Cook. So applying that to this game, I'm not really projecting role changes. I'm gonna go with the main studs here, but I do have Rob Gronkowski as my top stack candidate with Tom Brady. Much better matchup, just long-term and he's really been phenomenal in two games since his snap rates back up. So I would go that way and it would also take care of tight end because we talked on Monday about all these stud tight ends. We're talking now about Foster Moreau and Jared Cook and like Gerald Everett. And I know it's hard to get up to those guys, but you could really be missing out because with the sheer volume of stud tight ends, some of these guys are gonna pop off and you can really be lagging behind if your tight end gets you six points. Yeah, I think that the Gronk point is very fair because he's $7,000, that's appropriate. Like you got jacked up, but that's fair.  He's in the three times this year. In his games with no Antonio Brown, where he's been fully good, eight, eight, nine and eight targets, he has 55, 71, 123 and 58 yards. Like what is the difference to him and Travis Kelsey except for the fact that Gronk is produces here? I think he's younger than Travis Kelsey, isn't he? That I don't know. I'm not really big on ages. So my dynasty teams are always bad. They're both 32, so that's close enough. So I think you're right in putting Gronk one. I think it's Gronk, Evans, Godwin have no objections to any of them. I think they're all very good plays. I was on Godwin last week. I'm okay pivoting elsewhere for this week. As far as the bucks go, I think it's digs one, knocks two, and then... That's it. Yeah. I really don't think it's being dismissive of these other guys. Whenever you have just dispersed unpredictable target shares. Yeah, some of these guys can have big games, but the odds don't really quite make it worth it. Now I could really just see the main case for going with some value options in this game is just we need value anyway. And it's the game of the week. Might as well tie our low salaried receivers like a Gabriel Davis to a game we love. But that's really, again, you're going to be staring at Gabriel Davis and really hoping that what you think could happen is what this had. Yeah, so. You're not going to use them, right? Are you? No. Okay, cool. I want to make sure that I wasn't like... Because I'm trying hard not to do it myself and I want to make sure I'm not going too far in that. I think you're on like 10 routes on Sunday or Monday or whatever. Like, I think there's a chance here places Manny, but I'll just react after the fact if that does happen. It's not worth... It's not a big enough rule for me to get in front of it, I don't think. Leonard Fournette, I think is a very good play once again. Not because of like, oh, the bills are on defense is vulnerable because of what Lenny does in the passing game. It's absurd the type of volume he's getting. Like the target share is awesome. And you can get targets against this bill's defense. So I think Fournette is a standout. I think that the receivers, the tight ends, all standouts too, I just can't get to the value options on either team. Anything else for you on this game? No, I think it covered, I think Lenny's one of the best plays of the week as well. I agree. One game that would have looked good two months ago is the Cheese and the Raiders. But now it's a 47 and a half point total. Cheese are favored by eight and a half. They saw the Chiefs pull up for 41 points against the Raiders. Back in week 10, but now the scheme is outdoors, divisional rematch, potentially 17 mile per hour wins, plus neither offense has inspired a ton of confidence since then. So what is your comfort level in stacking this game? Comfort level? Oh, how do you even stack this game? Other than, I think the one way you stack this game is, well, I guess the tight ends for the Raiders, but the main stack is Mahomes, Josh Jacobs, and then either Tyree Kill or Travis Kelsey, and that's really it. But I'm okay with that stack, I think that works. Oh yeah, like I'll have that stack, but again, this is another game where, similar to the game we just talked about, I'm not digging for the value plays. The Chiefs, secondary, tertiary, quaternary, quinary options, not a chance. Is that the word, quinary? Yeah, that's fine. Did you look it up or did you know that? I knew that one. I get a little lost after five, but I don't go sixth deep anyway. So, yeah, I mean, it's really that. And then potentially the tight ends with either Darren Waller or Foster Moreau, but there's nothing else, aside from possibly Clyde Edwards-Ealer, but I'm not really gonna stack Mahomes with CEH on the slate. I don't like this game that much. And I don't like CEH that much either. I don't mind stacking it just because CEH, he offset some of the salary tied to Mahomes and Tyreek or Kelsey. So I think that's the main pitch, because I'll need value and he's probably the best one below 7,000 as of right now. Yes, but usually whenever you talk about stacking a quarterback with a running back, you say it gets you access to basically every yard and every touchdown. That's not the case here. Yeah, it's more so like, I need to offset the salary. If Mahomes goes off, it probably increases the odds of CEH as well too. So I think it would be, it's not like a great process play, but I think on this slate, it works if we don't get Zeke, if we don't get Chavante, et cetera, et cetera. So to be out of obligation, I think that CEH is a very thin play, but potentially just a necessary one to save salary and he can pay off. He could score twice. It is what it is. I'm not enthused about it. I don't wanna use it, but I think on this slate, I will happily lock him out of my player pool if more value opens up. It just hasn't yet. So that's where I'm at with him. I think that like the way to phrase this in terms of your confidence in this game is I give you 10 lineups and you're only using Brady, Alan Mahomes. How do you allocate those 10 lineups? So, okay. So I'm building 10 lineups and using only three, those three quarterbacks. You don't have to use all three, but those are the only three you can use. Oh, realistically, five Brady, three Mahomes, two Alan. Interesting. Is that because? Just being realistic with the salary probably. Okay, okay. Fair enough. I think I'd be 4-4-2 with Brady and Alan being the four, Mahomes being the two, just because like there are more paths to this game being bad than the other one, I think. And that's the key differentiator for me. Yeah. Yeah, I mean. Because I could take away eight stacks of that one game and only two of this one. I think that's a proper allocation of my mind. Yeah, I guess I'd add seven, but yeah, I think that either way, and honestly, these might be the only three quarterbacks I end up using, even with value being tough, because I don't wanna play quarterbacks too low with their salary. Although one QB I keep going back to by overlooking is just DAC, I'm not really thinking about DAC enough. Probably. I'll talk about it on trends, don't you worry. I got it. Is it just Jacobs and Moreau or are you going back to Hunter Renfrow? Cause Renfrow's actually shown yardage to his credit. Freaking out about him entirely that it overlooked him. That's probably, he's $6,700. Like that is a high salary where you need a lot. He finally got 10 targets in the first time this past week. But like, I don't know. It's just, it's so last week it was Hunter Renfrow, right by Mike Williams. How can I justify using Hunter Renfrow? This week it's Hunter Renfrow by T Higgins and I'm already Cooper and I'm like, how can I justify this? Like it makes sense. But like, there's a massive, massive mental block there. I think my main issue with Renfrow is he could very easily get a 17 this week. 17, 18 maybe. Fandall points. He's not gonna get 25. Right. T Higgins, so long as he's healthy, could cause he's T Higgins. DJ Moore has the workload in a really good match. I know, but like, just like being realistic, range of outcomes wise, you know, Mark East Brown. Did not realize that DJ Moore had 103 yards against Miami before the buy. Did not realize that. Okay. Fair enough. Fair enough. Yeah, he did it on four catches. I know I'm not gonna get there, but like I think it's interesting. Amari, potentially Julio, Brandon Ayuk. Like these guys all have just better paths to getting like well over 20 Fandall points than Renfrow, who I think is kind of playing at his peak right now. I'd agree that as well. Optimal bring back for you, Jacobs, right? Yeah. Okay. I think that's where I'm at too. Anything else for you on this game? No. Tyreek or Kelsey? I really don't know how often I can get to Tyreek. Just being realistic. I can. Part of the reason why this latest so tough is I do wanna allocate salary to Tyreek, to Diggs, to Godwin, Allen, et cetera, et cetera. I think I'd probably go with Tyreek here because I feel better about other tight ends than I do like, yeah. Yeah, I think I'd agree with that. Okay. A non-divisional game that checks a lot of boxes is in Cincinnati for the Bengals versus the 49ers. Total there is 48 and a half. The Bengals now once... No, sorry. San Francisco's back to being favorite by point. It's gone Bengals minus one, San Francisco minus one. Bengals minus one and a half. It is now San Francisco minus one. So bounce and bounce and bounce. The one downside of this game is that it's projected to be the third slowest by your pace numbers, and that doesn't matter, but there are concentrated uses on both sides. There is some volume opening up potentially with Devo maybe being out and stuff like that. So where are you at on this game? I like this game. I think it's good for many stacks. It's definitely at best a half quarterback game depending on where we are with Joe Burrow. But if you're willing to play Joe Burrow, you can really build different lineups. Like if you do a Burrow Higgins IU stack, you can have some fun. Yeah, so it really changes things. Now, as much as I love Joe Burrow, the true high end upside feels higher than it really has been. He's also dealing with now a hand injury that really looked painful whenever he was trying to throw on a sideline last week. Like no 30 point games, I think just one with over 25 so far this season, which is kind of crazy for how good Jamar Chase was to start the year, but somehow three passing touchdowns over his past four games, like maybe that bounces back in his favor, but he's had games with three touchdown passes and still kind of has just sort of gotten there. So again, the many stacks are awesome. I don't know if I'm gonna play a ton of Joe Burrow. He's definitely on the list, but I thought he was gonna be the only like sub 76 passer I could consider, but there is one who popped up with a little bit more research. So Cam, Russ or Joe Burrow? Which one do you like the most of those three? I think I might be Russ. Okay. I think you can make a strong case for any of them. You can. I think, well, I won't pick on Cam too much, but. It means Atlanta. That's the thing. I think Cam was terrible in that Miami game, but like, it's Atlanta. That's not, that's a terrible pitch. Like that's bad process. You'd be like, oh, it's Atlanta. Who cares? But like he's 74, it's Atlanta. He's shown upside in a game this year, coming off by. Yeah, it was, you know, new offense again for him. And now coming off of a body to get prepped for the Falcons. So, and then the question you have to ask is like, do you think these guys go off? And if you do, do you think they can really match like a Josh Allen, Tom Brady? And if you do, like then you don't have as many concerns with value this week as we would. So I think that Burrow has the building blocks for a 30 point game, because we've seen the artist be there at times. There's nothing to the touchdowns, but like touchdowns are very fluky. Yeah, so honestly, you know, if it comes down to, okay. So going back to the very beginning of the show, when we're talking about guys we wanna, we don't wanna look at and click on, say, well, it makes this lineup work. If we really don't get any value plays we feel good about, I will consider going away from Allen, Brady Mahomes for the three passers we just talked about so that I can feel really confident with the ceilings in every player that's in my lineup, otherwise. Okay, Burrow, T, Iuk, Ronk, Diggs. So if you do a, sorry, if you do a Burrow, I don't wanna give a, like a Burrow, Higgins, Iuk, Diggs, Ronk stack gets you access to that game. And like it's not bad. You could also do like a Kelsey type thing. So I think realistically I'm gonna wind up with some Joe Burrow on Sunday. Yeah, I really think that that solves all the problems if you think these guys really have the high and upside. And for most of the season, quarterbacks in the 7,000 range haven't really had paths to big ceilings. That's why we haven't really been talking about them that much. It's the stud quarterbacks who, I really have the potential to get to 30 plus very infrequently do the other, the lower salary quarterbacks get there. I've done the research on it. I know it sounds obvious too. That's why I feel kind of like weird saying, yeah, play the stud quarterbacks, but it's a different NFL right now than it was a few years ago where high and upside wasn't really, like when Aaron Rodgers was like the top quarterback and all he did was like throw. I mean, he ran a little bit, but like it's different now. It also helps too that like Burrow at 71 actually does make a difference from a salary perspective because that is $1,700 less than Josh Allen, 1,400 less than Mahomes, et cetera, et cetera. That actually does kind of move the needle. So I would rank him below Brady, below Allen, below Mahomes, he is in the conversation for four though. I would say. I think quarterback is six deep. It's the three studs we've been talking about and these three sort of value plays with Russ, Cam and Burrow. Dak might be above. I keep forgetting about that. I'm telling you. I mean, Lamar is 79. Yeah, but I don't know. There's a blurb right now at the top of NBC Sports Edge about how they might run more up tempo. John Harbaugh said it's on the table. Just what I thought I was out.  I don't know. Quarterback stuff. I think it depends on value. If I have value at running back to go up to Allen and Brady, I'd like to. If I don't, I'm okay with Burrow and just doing stuff like that. And that's why I think I put Allen whenever we did the 10 lineup exercise. It's just like realistically, I think I need every hundred of dollars I can get. I think you're right. Okay, let's move now to the trends discussion and talk about those chargers because they're facing potentially the Jake Fromm lead giants. I did not delete my Jake Fromm tweets. They're still up. So if you are bored, feel free. I still have Johnny Manziel tweets up. Like I don't delete tweets just because like accountability, I guess, no one cares. But like out of principle, I don't want to delete stuff. So feel free to go nuts. Yeah, talk about the chargers. Let's do it. Well, I initially envisioned this trend as like when the chargers were playing from head and as favor, it's not kind of morphed a bit because we got some COVID news. But even with that, you know, it's important that we're looking at what teams do when they are ahead. They're still favored by 10 and a half. So I guess the line hasn't moved at all. It's all right. I thought it was nine and a half. No, let me check, Jack. Well, nine and a half this morning. Either way, it's a big, big number. Yeah, it moves like a point at most. It is nine and a half. So you wanna look at what teams do when they're playing from head. When up by eight or more through the first three quarters, they are two seconds per play faster than the NFL average and they throw the ball on 71% of their plays. Now, again, that might come down a little bit if you take Keenan Allen and Mike Williams off the field. When they've been up by 14 or more before the fourth quarter, still a 68% pass rate, which you would take at any split on 47 plays. It's important to keep in mind, like whenever you look at numbers on, like when teams are playing from a head super early in a game, the samples are really small because it doesn't quite happen that way. It leads build throughout the game. And you typically get three quarters out of most situations unless it gets outliers the bad right away.  That's not really what they've done. That might scale back a bit again with the receivers being what they are, but they're seven and five. Their playoff laws at Number Fire are about 84%. They need to win. So I don't think that they're just gonna be able to let up and really not push the ball downfield like they did last week. The Giants are 13th against the Pass, which is decent. And again, Sixth adjusted pass defense between 10th and 20th at Number Fire. Justin Herbert has averaged 27.3 Fandal points per game, 313 yards and 2.8 touchdowns per game. So that's very promising. Again, we're talking about all these quarterbacks, the one I kind of feel okay with crossing over now is Justin Herbert with the status of his receivers, but this is more about now potential value. They don't really have like a big sample of being heavy favorites. They did go on that shoot out with the Steelers when they were favored by six and a half. But if you look at splits now, because again, this morphed into something completely different, if you look at splits with Keenan Allen off the field and on the field with Justin Herbert, according to next-gen stats, Herbert to maintain good splits, even without Keenan Allen on the field, 8.8 yards per attempt, 9.7 adjusted yards per attempt, an EPA per dropback of 0.27. Within without Mike Williams, his splits are virtually identical, 7.4 yards per attempt, 0.07 EPA per dropback without him, 0.12 with him. So yes, it's better with him, not terrible without him, still kind of viable in this spot. And again, that all comes back down to like, okay, can we trust that Justin Herbert is relevant? And it seems like he should be. That then keeps me on Austin Eckler, who again, I think is, we're gonna look at the receivers, they're gonna get jacked up in projection models, just based on a point per dollar basis in terms of their salaries. But Austin Eckler should get peppered out of the backfield, Jared Cook should get elevated at 5,100. And again, Herbert has been fine without these top two receivers. So I don't think we need to overreact too much. So what are your thoughts on the chargers? Which, and I think most specifically, how are you viewing Austin Eckler now with potentially Alvin Camara back and how he shapes up against the rest of the running backs on the slate? Eckler versus Camara is interesting because I can't pay up for two. So I do need to decide. Lean Camara with assuming Mark Ingram is out because the workload has been better in games without Mark Ingram. I know the quarterback play is wildly different between the two sides, but I think the workload here matters a lot and the Jets matchup does help too. So I prefer Camara over Eckler. I think Eckler gets a boost, but like I think I can replace Eckler's production via guys with lower salaries. Kinda like Gibson, honestly. I think that he comps. You don't envision like a 12 target game coming for Eckler or anything like that? Maybe, I don't know. Maybe I'm too low on it, I don't know. We don't quite know. We haven't seen this offense in this state before, but. Yeah, it's very fair. It's a fair question to ask. I think 18% target share, like that's a good number, which is what you mentioned for week six. So that'd probably be eight, nine, which I don't know. I guess maybe I should be higher. Yeah, no, you're probably right. You're probably right. As far as the other guys, I think it's Cook for sure. That was my favorite option between Guyton, Palmer, et cetera, et cetera. I don't think Palmer's even on the table if Mike Williams plays. He'd have to be if they're both out. If they're both out, then I'd go Palmer over Guyton. But if just Keenan is out, then I would say it's Jared Cook, Guyton. So you mentioned that he had a 13% target share in week six with Mike Williams being limited last year. I skipped that part of the notes. What's that? Oh, just kidding. Okay. Last year, when Keenan was out for two games, Guyton's target share was 14.3%. He's more of a field stretcher than a target getter. So like, I just don't know if his role will change too dramatically. Like they could just go to Cook, go to Eckler, go to Nate Palmer if again, if there's no, or just go a lot to Mike Williams. So I think I am going to be underweight on Guyton and I feel pretty comfortable with that personally, just with the way things set up for him and stuff like that. So I mean, like, I think the fact that he gets down, I sincerely think it'll work, but I sincerely think that by Sunday, I will talk myself out of the receivers because I don't know if there's going to be enough there for a pair of them. Yeah. I think I could be there as well. Although like Mike Williams would be amazing Yes. So we got a question on YouTube about Mike Williams. Let's clarify his status here quickly. It depends on when he was a close contact of Kenan. It sounds like he may have been a close contact on Monday. Cause I think that's when Kenan tests positive, which means he wouldn't have been in the building Tuesday, Wednesday, which means if that's true, Mike Williams could be cleared on Saturday and play Sunday. So that's why we're saying if Mike Williams plays, he still could play. And I think my assumption right now is like 80% likely to play. That's why we're talking about this with him. So just clarifying that quickly. People who may be confused about that. Okay. Let's talk to you about the Cowboys because they're the Cowboys. They're facing Washington high game, high total game, tight-ish spread. And the issue here is where they're playing because I've always been a bit hesitant with the Cowboys on the road, whether that's like legit or not as debatable, but I at least want to dig in to what we should expect here with their game in Washington this week. There's also, there was a chance for some weather. It seems like that may have gone away, which would be great, but keep that in mind. I'm specifically looking at the Cowboys when they're playing outdoors because that is just a three game sample this year. It's week 14. They played three games outside, part of the issue here. In those games, Dak Prescott's passing that expected points for drop-back dips to 0.11, indoors he's at 0.28. That's not entirely fair because one of those games is the cheese game. He lost to Mario on Friday after they had installed the game plan. CD Lamb got hurt at halftime. And if you omit that game, Prescott's passing any peep or drop-back goes back up to 0.29. It's a very good number. The Cowboys scored 29 points in regulation in both those games.  Washington's defense has been better recently, but they are still 30th against the pass based on number, fire schedule, adjusted metrics. There are past three games that come against Cam Newton, injured Russell Wilson, and the Raiders that they're top two pass catchers. They did limit Tom Brady and the Buccaneers. So it is not just due to opponents, but there is some flukiness here and I don't think we need to avoid them just yet. I think when everything is combined together, we can still feel pretty good about using the Cowboys here. I do downgrade Dak because he's outdoors, but the receivers here can still work and Dak is still at least in the consideration for me. And the problem is with the receivers, we're dealing with very small samples. They've had three games this year with all three receivers healthy. Gallup got hurt in one of those right after halftime. Second game was a blowout and the third one Amari was limited due to conditioning. If you look at just the first halves of those first two games, before Gallup got hurt and before the second game got out of hand, Lam has a 33% target share, which is absurd. He has 40% of the D targets and 50% in the red zone. It is a small sample, but my goodness, CD-Lam, you monster. Gallup was at 19%, Amari is at 15%. So I think that what we have here is similar to the Bucks last week where even though the shares are spread out and that's the floor is low, they still have paths to a ceiling. I don't think you can lean on either Amari or Gallup for cash games, but I think they're all viable for tournaments.  Lam is in play in all formats, Amari and Gallup are for tournaments. So any differing takes for you on this Cowboys offense? It just sounds like it sounds like I'm going to be too low on this offense in a spot that's really not as bad as it might seem when you have other sort of better games to go to. I think the main concern for me is potentially bringbacks. If we get JD McKissick playing, there's not really anyone from Washington I would feel good about bringing it back with, like great, I should probably say. And then- You feel good about Gibson, but not great. Good, yeah, that's- Yeah, I agree. So I think that's probably what's driving me toward this indifference. CD-Lam, I know that these, we have a really small sample of games with all three of the top three receivers healthy, but if you look at per route numbers, CD-Lam's been targeted on a third of his routes in these games, which is phenomenal. And Gallup actually outperforms Cooper a little bit there. So that kind of helps adjust a little bit, but that puts me a little bit low on Amari Cooper. Always uncertain about Michael Gallup, even though I love Michael Gallup. So it feels like a little bit of too many question marks to want to stick to this game. And I think that maybe that's why I'm a little bit low on it, but I do see the case for this game being very, very sneaky. Lam versus Godwin for you. Lam straight up, but I'll probably have more Godwin because I'll have more stacks of that game. Lam versus digs, kind of the same thing. Digs. Okay, I agree. I agree that it's digs. I think I'll have more exposure to land than Godwin though, if I had to guess. As far as Gallup goes, I just think you look at the guys at a low 6,000 range. Most of them don't have the 100 yard upside that Gallup has. And I think that's why I'll wind up being there. Just the salaries low. Amari kind of the same thing. It's a better range for him by T Higgins and stuff like that. And by Mike Williams, if Williams is able to go, but like Gallup just like from a salary perspective, really hard for me to like not, like I don't want to go too crazy because he's such a volatile player, but like, I'm okay getting to, you know, 2030 somewhere in there with him. I think that's okay. Like that still gives me good cushion. Should he come up short? And I think that that is a key thing. Cause I think that after him, like the next guy up in salary is Cortland Sutton. I would never, you could give me 15,000 lineups and I wouldn't consider Cortland Sutton this weekend. Tyler Boyd, same thing. Cole Beasley, same thing. Emmanuel Sanders, I get benched. Amon Ross St. Brown, LOL. Tim Patrick, what are we doing here? Like it's really bad after Gallup. I think that's the key driver for liking him. That's not a great reason, but you know, it is what it is. Well, I think that goes back to the balance lineup I was talking about where everyone just like 6,000 and above aside from your defense, you can make that happen, especially if you're willing to go with like a, you know, a cam or Ross at a quarter, or Joe Burrow at quarterback. Yep. A lot of different ways to go this week. Yeah, there are. So let's talk about Russell Wilson. You had mentioned him as being a consideration. Sell me on him. That's the pitch here. Sell me on Ross. Okay. So it's really easy to write off Russell Wilson based on what he's, it is. And look, I know that you have to convince yourself with some stuff, but I think there's some underlying data within this offense heading into a matchup with the Texans that's like promising. They're just like straight up aren't a whole lot of offenses. I want to target on this slate. So I either have to have a really tight core or look really hard at these teams outside those top three games that we've been talking about to make sure I'm not missing anything. By week 14, I think we know largely who teams are. It comes down now to like making sure not missing stuff that has maybe been changing. And one team where things might be changing is with the Seahawks. They've been bad with Russell Wilson if you just sort of use the eye test since Wilson returned, but there are kind of signs of hope. We have four games with Wilson back. He's averaged 12.6 vandal points per game on 33 and a half passing attempts per game, 211 yards per game, one passing touchdown per game. The EPA per dropback is a minus 0.28, which is awful. It's way, way, way below expectation. But one thing that really stands out to me is that he's dealing with a hand injury, but he's still averaging 329 areas per game. That's the second most. His ADOT is 9.8 yards. That's the second highest among starting quarterbacks in that span. If you adjust his expected completion rate for drops and all that stuff, he's at about 68%. It's 1 percentage point lower than the NFL average. The past two games, he's actually overperformed the NFL average and expected completion rates. So that's promising. If you have the like high risk, high ADOT passes with an above average expected completion rate, that's kind of the recipe for potential regression. More importantly, even than that, well, not more importantly, but just as importantly, honestly, in that span, they ranked fifth in pace in non-garbage situations according to my numbers and sixth in pass rate. So that's something. Their running back situation is a mess. That much is certain. So Russ might be kind of playing better than Perception. They are throwing the ball pretty heavily. They are playing pretty quickly. And we know where the ball's going. Since week 10 with Russ back, DK Metcalf has a 21% target share. It's averaging just seven targets per game, but 2.8 downfield, 1.3 end zone targets per game. Gerald Everett is at a 20.6% target share, 6.8 per game, 0.3 deep, one red zone target per game, and then Tyler Lockett's at 20% targets himself, 3.5 downfield targets. Again, 3.5 downfield targets per game, 1.3 end zone targets per game. There's a lot of potential within that, within these great athletes that he's throwing the ball to. They're facing the Texans who are 25th in adjusted pass defense. Their average in pressure rate, the over-under is horrible. I get that. But look, we know at least anecdotally, any week DK Metcalf, Tyler Lockett, have slate changing upside within this matchup with Russ playing way better, I could say than perception, because perception's so low. I think there's some appeal to just take on some swipes at these stacks. So did I sway you at all on Russ? Probably not on Russ. But like, I think from an eye test perspective, because we love the eye test here in the heat check. Big, big film, guys. He's looked better the past two weeks, not just last week, past two weeks. I thought he looked fine in the Washington game, just like he and DK were on a weird vibe. So like, I'm okay with them. The problem I have is that they're by everyone in the games I want to stack. And like, that's where my lineup start is. Okay, I'm putting Tom Brady with Mike Evans and Stefan Diggs. Realistically, will I get back up to DK and Lockett for that third receiver slot? Probably not. In a game I don't want to stack, because they are right by Mike Evans in a game I want to stack. They are just below Chris Godwin. They are above Jamar Chase in a game I will stack, at least with Minis. They are right by, and I could skip over McClearn. Hollywood I don't think is the best matchup given the Brown's speed. I think it's more of an Andrews game there, so I'm okay with that. But Mike Williams, he's a better one-off, I think. If he plays, T Hagan, 68, game I want to stack, Mario game I want to stack. So although I think they are good plays, if I'm being realistic, I think I'll be underweight on them. Like, realistically, I think they're good plays. I want to say that. But like, with the way I play things and the games I want to stack, I don't know if I'll get there just to do the way things work. And that could be a mistake, for sure. No, that's the thing is I want to talk myself into this being like a really sneaky stack, which I think it is, but there is not a whole lot of confidence on the other side of this game at all. And that's what's really the problem. But again, we know who the best offenses on this slate are. Like, we get that. And it comes down to like, are you willing to look at other offenses? I think that with how concentrated and how efficient Russell Wilson and DK Metcalf and Tyler Lockett can be, we don't really need a back and forth, you know, 60 point game for them to pay off. That's the one thing keeping me on them. But again, factoring in game stacks, that's kind of why I have Joe Burrow and Jamar Chase or T Higgins a little bit higher because I'm more likely to bring it back and find that game competitive. But it's just kind of just like a PSA where keep an eye on Russ. Things are probably better than a lot of people realize. And it's funny you say underweight on like DK and Lockett because they're probably won't be very popular based on how- That's true. Zeroes underweight on everyone. Yeah. I'd like to get there. I want to say that I'd like to, if we get value and I can have a one-off receiver in the 7,000 range, I think that they grade out really well there. But realistically, I'm not sure if that'll be the case. Okay. Let's talk about the Saints here with Taysum and Alvin Camara because I'd love to ignore them because Taysum is a broken finger. Seems bad for a weird mallet finger. Alvin Camara is returning here. It's just hard to like know what to do here with the Jets on the other side. So let's dig in and, you know, it's hard to ignore them. The Jets being the opposing team. So I want to look at them here. Last week in the first half, Taysum Hill was a 0.10, passing net expected points per dropback. That's not bad. A little bit below the league average. Successor is 43%. And the second half things went totally off the rails. It's hard to know if it went off the rails because of game script or because his finger injury, because if it's the finger injury, that is a big red flag because that puppy ain't going to heal in seven days, 10 days I guess I should say. They also lost Deontae Harris who will be suspended in the next three games. Taren Armstead is limited in practice on Wednesday. Ryan Ranczak was out. So they're not a full health. It's a bad situation. Getting Camara back could help, but Camara hasn't had a dramatic impact on the passing offense this year. Even with Camara on the field, they're at negative 0.02 EPA per dropback according to next gen stats. And a lot of that was with James Winston who was playing much better than Trevor Simeon did and then Taysum Hill was expected to. So I'm not sure if Camara boosts the offense. As a result, we should project Taysum to be a really poor quarterback from an efficiency perspective. On the season, there have been 66 quarterbacks who scored at least 25 handle points. Basically, that's what you need out of Hill at $7,700. Seven of those 66 got that mark on less than 200 yards passing. So 59 out of 66 had 200 plus yards passing. Five of those seven who didn't get there had double-digit rush attempts. Three of the seven had multiple rushing touchdowns. The player who made it without 10 rush attempts, the two guys who made it there, both threw for four plus passing touchdowns and we should not expect that from Taysum Hill. So a two touchdown day is something Hill can do on the ground. You just have to ask yourself, what are the odds he does it? And that can help dictate your exposure levels to him. As for Camara, he does get a big boost with Mark Ingram on the COVID list. Camara's average 19 carries five and a half targets per game in those without Ingram this year. He's at 110.5 yards per game with a 43% red zone share. That is potentially the best workload on the slate depending on Melvin Gordon status. So although I have a tough time getting to Hill, I can live with Camara. Hill did not target him last year, but that was with Michael Thomas. They don't have him now. I think they're gonna need Camara in the passing game. So the question is whether I can, it's good enough to justify getting to 9,000 given we are so strapped for value. I think the answer could well be yes, especially with Melvin maybe JD McKessick being back, but it's a lot of moving parts and like 9,000 is a lot on this slate. So that's the tough thing here. So what's your view of Camara with Ingram likely out? And do you see enough to get to Taysum Hill? So I like Camara from like in a vacuum. Yeah. Added to the context of the slate, I don't quite see myself getting there. If I'm going to allocate salary to a high-end running back, I do think it's going to be Austin Eckler because I feel way more confident in the passing work being there. Taysum Hill might just check down to Camara like 10 times and then I feel goofy, but the offensive expectations are still better with Eckler. Again, Justin Herbert has been kind of unfazed without Mike Williams on the field, still good without Keenan Allen on the field. I know there's a little bit more that goes into it than just that, but I'd rather play a running back tied to Justin Herbert than Taysum Hill. So that's probably going to lead me toward going Eckler over Camara if I'm choosing between the two. And then as for Hill, we talked about this on Monday as well, but Hill at 77 and then Lamarr at 79. I know we're looking for every dollar we can get. I don't really care how bad that game sets up for Lamarr just in terms of pace and points. I think it's potentially getting a little bit too cute to go with Taysum Hill over Lamarr. And this would be very different. If Taysum Hill did not have a hand injury, I would say he's going to be able to throw the ball efficiently enough against the Jets who are awful against everything. The Jets actually, just surprisingly have been decent against quarterback rushes. They're actually first in success rate a lot, but they haven't really played any quarterbacks who were on the ball. So I'm going to throw that in there. But yeah, again, like with Lamarr, 200 more rusts, even 200 less Cam. If you have to kind of sew yourself on a run heavy quarterback, getting to some passing efficiency and a really, really good matchup, I think I'm higher on Cam than I am on Taysum Hill this week. Yeah, I'd agree to that. I think Cam's better play than Taysum. I think that Burrow's better play than Taysum. And I think that that's enough where I just, I'm not going to get there. Again, there are reasons to like him. But I think there are more reasons to like others. I think you need a very specific set of things to go well. A narrow set of circumstances.  I mean, again, that's what sets apart, like the Collar Murray to nobody's healthy is because he throws for this, like the same passing stats as other stud quarterbacks, but also runs just rushing quarterbacks don't really get you there. So yeah, it's the injury that's just, I would say it's possible. Taysum gives me the middle finger, but I don't know if he can cause I think his fingers like kind of like jammed. So maybe he can't, we'll see. Weather for this week, there are some spots with some wind. I'm just noting them for right now cause it could change by Sunday, but 14 mile per hour winds for the Bravins and the Browns, 17 for the Chiefs and Raiders, and then 11 for Cowboys Washington. Chiefs Raiders actually is high enough where I would be downgrading my home's benefits sticks. I'd be okay with that, especially given there are some concerns of that wind in that game. So check back on it on Sunday. That would be another tiebreaker for Diggs versus Hill for me. So check back on that wind on Sunday. Let's move now to our positional plays for week number 14, starting off a quarterback, Brandon, what you got there? All right, I'm going to say mine, then you can say yours, but I want to ask you a follow up about quarterbacks this week as we're done. I'm going to start with Patrick Mahomes. We've actually haven't talked about him much. All things considered, 8,500 this week. He's been great this season, despite a lack of like huge games. I know that there's still that concern, but the Raiders, 27th and adjusted past defense. He has played only four games against opponents, worse than 17th in adjusted past defense. He's had a really tough schedule this year. In those four games, 356 yards per game, 3.8 touchdowns, just shy of 30 fandal points per game. So I'm good with that. Tom Brady, 8,200 is my second love. Could get a little bit forgotten relative to Josh Allen within this game just because Josh Allen has that rushing potential, but played two top four adjusted past defenses this year, 324 yards, two touchdowns per game. Actually is like navigated high pressure rate teams really well too, 23 and a half fandal points per game. His time to throw is actually like a smidge higher against high pressure teams than it is outside that split, which is crazy. So I think they kind of figure out what they got to do against certain defenses. What was the question you wanted to ask? I was going to let you go, but I was going to say, you know, we're talking spoiler, you're talking about Josh Allen in Mahomes. So talk about them and then I'll ask. So I think something will happen when we get value before Sunday. That's why I think Josh Allen works at $8,800. If we don't, I will go Brady and Mahomes first. Yeah, Brady and Mahomes as the top two just because I will need that value. I think we'll probably get something to happen to open up some stuff before Sunday, which is why I think Allen makes a lot of sense here because the bucks direct eighth against the pass and that's like a good matchup, but like you can beat their secondary and Josh Allen out of just 6.3 rushes per game, 35 yards per game. He has just three rushing touchdowns so far this year, which means he could be due for some progression there.  Also some bad vibes around the bills given like the press conference stuff. Like that's not on them. That's on the reporters for asking weird questions, but like that might drive down popularity. So if we get value, I want Josh Allen. Otherwise I do like Mahomes slide edge over Tom Brady. I'm curious how popular he will be.  I'm hoping Mahomes is less popular due to the offense's weirdness. They've shown they still have a ceiling. It's the floor that stinks. And I care about ceiling. So if we get wind, I'll go Brady over Mahomes. If we don't get value, I will go Mahomes and Brady over Allen. There are some conditionals in here. What was the question you wanted to ask? Given the whole slate, and I know we want these third quarterbacks, realistically, how many quarterbacks do you see yourself playing, including the value guys? Four. I think it'll be Brady, Mahomes, and Burrow. Okay. I think it'll be four for me as well. I don't think I can actually get to Russ, which I might regret just because I like him so much, but I think Burrow or Cam would be my differentiation plays, not differentiation in terms of popularity, but in terms of roster construction. So, okay. I do think that you can better justify spreading out quarterback this week, but I know the downsides of that are still in play, and that's why I don't think I want to do it. I think I want to stick with four still. Okay. Let's go to running back. What do you have there? I'm going to go with Austin Eckler just because I think that process-wise, he is an amazing play regardless of what happens. It's either a really efficient offense with Keenan and or Mike Williams, or if not, he could be set up for like a nodgy Harris level target game just because of what he can do. Facing a team with 26 and rushing net, expected points per carry allowed to running backs. The Giants are 28th and adjusted, Vandal points per target allowed to running backs as well. There is some fear of a blowout still with the nine and a half points spread, but even with that, like if you take Keenan and Mike Williams out of the equation or even just Keenan, the offense is going to flow heavily through Eckler. So I think that he is the running back worth his salary at the top if I have to pick one. My second love is going to be Josh Jacobs at 71. He has set career highs and targets in two of his past three games. He had seven, three games ago, and then last game had nine. He has been really involved as a receiver this year. 84% snap rate. Darren Waller may be back, but there are still volume gaps in this offense without Henry Ruggs. I think that just makes them under salaried in a game that I like a lot. And then my third love, I don't know honestly, it's hard with like the uncertainty with Zeke and Givante. So I don't want to say them specifically, but I think Givante Freeman is a little bit under, like maybe not under salaried, but in play on a week where we're really strapped for value. You know, Freeman's had a good, like a good role, good situation. 68% of the snaps last week, which is about as high as the Ravens ever led are running back. Get 57% of the routes with eight targets that worked out to 30 adjusted opportunities. That's phenomenal for 6,300 in an offense that can run the ball efficiently. And I'm pretty sure last week, I deemed that as being like a legitimate role change. So when I look at like, quote unquote, most relevant samples, which is like a hoity-toity term. When I do that, I think that his most relevant sample is now just week 13. Do you agree for Givante? I think so because that snap rate went up. They don't like, I think since 2016, they've let a running back get to a 70% snap rate one time. And like from an efficiency perspective, Givante has actually been good. Like his success rate is 48%. Part of that's inflated because Lamar draws attention. So keep that for it is, but Lamar's playing so. Yeah, and Latavius is at 47%. But Latavius at negative 0.04, rushing net expected points per carry, whereas Givante's at 0.09. Oh yeah, that's pretty good. So I think it probably sticks. Do you prefer Givante or CEH? Givante. I think it's very close. I would probably lean CEH, but that could change by Sunday. That's where I'm at right now. My first love is Leonard Fournette because he is an under salaried work, or you know the feature back. He gets me access to the best game on the slate for $7,600. My hope is that people don't view the bills as being a great rushing matchup because they're not, like they're still a good defense. And like they are more susceptible to like big hulking dudes like Trent Brown or Quentin Nelson than they are to the Bucks for more like a finesse team. But like with this workload, I don't really care about matchup. He's not a snap rate in the 80s and back to back games. Fournette has 29 plus adjust opportunities in both those games for $7,600. That's really hard for me to turn down. My second love is Antonio Gibson. I think that McKissick could play this week, but I think the Gibson is still a quality option. Because you look at the three games with McKissick since they're by, Gibson is still at 30 adjust opportunities per game, 106 yards per game, a 53% red zone share, $7,400. The Cowboys are beatable on the ground. I would lower exposure to him if McKissick plays because it means he could get scripted out, but I'd still use him a pretty decent amount. Again, like 60 versus 30, that's probably where I'm at with Gibson. I do want to talk about Josh Jacobs too. I want to be very receptive to value if it opens up. And I think that CEH, Devonte Freeman both work, but Jacobs is like the lowest salary guy I know will have a good role because he set a career high in snap rate last week. He had 30 adjust opportunities in two straight games. He had 90 plus yards in both those. No Kenny and Drake jail in a shard, still not back at practice yet this week. So it could just be Jacobs as an every downback, which would be pretty fun. Despite the fact that he struggled, I think that that is hard to turn down. So receptive to Zika, there's no Pollard. I'm receptive to CEH, receptive to Devonte Freeman, but Jacobs is where the dropoff occurs to me. Unless there are changes and again, Devonte Williams will be in my player pool, but will not be like a focal point. Assuming Melvin plays. Let's go to wide receiver. What you got there? I'm gonna go with Jamar Chase at 72. I also like DK, what's that face? I thought you were a full on T guy. No, I like Jamar. I mean, I like the Buccaneers guys, but I think Jamar Chase is in a great spot. I mean, second guess on myself, man. You know, I'm just shocked. Usually you're bullying me about T Higgins. This is a C change. Well, this could be like the squeaky wheel thing. Jamar Chase has said like teams are double teaming him, playing some bracket coverage and that he wants to move around more like he did in college. Did the bracket coverage make him drop that touchdown that killed my lineups last week? Hey, hey, hey, hey. Mad, I'm mad. I love him. I love Jamar Chase. Like it's like, he's like, he's not my, I don't know, my cousin. I'm allowed to be mad at him. But like I still love him. Your cousin? Well, I didn't want to say son cause he's like 10 years younger, I don't know, nine years younger than me, eight. And that seems like kind of condescending. And I didn't want to say like he's my brother cause like he's a little bit young to be my brother too. It's like, I don't know. It's weird. I just figured cousin was the best like analog. Okay. Well, I'm going to talk about his like numbers and move on from there. Chase is underperformed lately and his expected Fandal points output according to my model DK Metcalf actually the biggest underperformers just why I still like him. But a 23% target share over the past four games with 2.3 downfield targets per game, 0.8 red zone targets per game. 49ers just average against receivers. Their 18th and eight odd allowed, 22nd yards per target on downfield passes allowed. Just kind of seems, I don't want to say do for Jamar Chase but a lot of regression but also potentially moving him around more fits this week.  No. Okay. Sorry. You really looked like you wanted to say something. I liked what you said, so I smiled. Okay. My second love is Brandon Iuk in that same game 6400. Don't really care if Debo's back because I actually probably help keep this game more intriguing from an over-understand point but last week without Debo, I ran 97% of the routes, had six targets with the 9.2 yard eight odd, two downfield targets. Checks the box as the lower salaried receivers we discussed last week, bottom half past defense, high over under. You need those sort of narrower checklists for these lower salaried receivers but honestly Iuk's probably under salaried all things considered. And my third love, it's weird because I might not even play this guy but with no certain value that I can feel great about, I think Jalen Guyton really helps this week because he's playing with an awesome quarterback still that's proven with how good Herbert's been with him without his top two receivers. He's been targeted on only 10% of his routes but has been the clear number three this season, 64% route rate. He's gonna be on the field in a spot where his quarterback should be efficient. He's got all those 12 yard eight odd. It's two yards higher than the receiver average for the Chargers, 0.7 downfield targets per game. Again, before even adjusting for anything, not unrealistic that he gets two or three downfield looks this week, which are worth about twice as much as a regular target for receivers. Can you get to 85 in a touchdown, which is the usual checklist? I think he can, he did that last week. That's not really to say that he's gonna just like copy and paste that into the game log this week but the opportunity's still there and he's playing with a really, really good quarterback. Yeah, I'm not gonna go there. I have seen some concern around Joe Burrow's finger in chat which is fine, because like it was again, huge last week but last week he did in the second half. So after the pinky injury occurred, he did go deep three times, completed two of those actually. So I think he can still go deep in a week to rest it. So I'm not super concerned about the pinky personally like maybe a slight downgrade but not enough where I'm concerned about Higgins or Chase. I like both, I think they're both very good. My top love is Stefan Diggs. He's $8,200. If we look at the games since Dawson Knox returned, Diggs is at a 29% target share with 33% of the deep targets and 32% in the red zone. This Buccaneer secondary is super banged up. Diggs is top 20 points this once this year but the again, building blocks for a blow up game are there. So I'll go back to Stefan Diggs this week. My number two is Michael Gallup just because the salary relative to his role is very good. He had a good role even when he was playing alongside of Marion Gallup with a 40% deep target share, 19% of the overall targets. They are outdoors, so that's a downgrade for sure but it's still hard to pass up. A guy tied to this offense who gets deep work from a very good quarterback for $6,200, I will take that. My third love, I guess, I tried really hard not to talk about this person today. I like look through a lot of stuff, try to talk myself and other guys. I think he's actually better than the Chargers guy that's though and it's Donovan Peoples-Jones. He has a 15% target share in the games he has played since Odell left the team. David and Joku has a 14% target share in those games and he's now in the COVID list. Harrison Bryant is not going to play this week. He should be on the field for every play as a result. Anthony Schwartz still not back at practice. There's now no Marlon Humphrey for the Ravens. John Harbusser, they didn't want to go to OT because they had no corners left. He's $53, DPJ can have big games. Am I ashamed of this? Absolutely. Am I going to use Donovan Peoples-Jones at times on Sunday? Most likely, yes. Do I feel good about it? No, but here we are. Do you want to do a DPJ versus Guyton bet? Yeah, I'll take that on the sole principle of you said he's going to be on the field for every play. You could probably say the same exact thing for Guyton and the level of quarterback discrepancy is quite massive here. I was going to be cheeky, but I like Herbert's. I can't do that. OK, tight end. Go ahead. Gronk. I think it's Gronk. Actually, I didn't even think about this at first, but he's from Buffalo and it's always a big Buffalo narrative thing. That's true. So nothing about that. It's not in Buffalo, it's just kind of disappointing. But yeah, you're right. Hey, I think that's going to work for Gronk just fine. But the more detailed case is that the bills are really good against receivers, tops, and adjusted fandal points per target allowed to receivers, 18th against tight ends. And Gronk, in his past two games with the snap rate back up, has a 21% target share, 32% air yard share, 40% of the end zone targets. You're expecting touchdowns here. Could very easily go to Gronk. And my second love, I prefer Jared Cook to this guy, but Gerald Everett, I think, is still in play going along with that Russell Wilson bounce back narrative. He has a slightly better target share in these relevant games than Tyler Lockett, which I don't think will stick. But they've wanted to give him the ball. I know he had that costly drop turnover last week, but Houston's really bad against tight ends as well, 26th and adjusted fandal points per target. If that's salary with Russ, I think you could, you know. If a lineup that I love requires me to use Gerald Everett, that's not quite the same as saying, like I'm using someone I don't really want to, not that I want to use him, not that I want to use him, but like, I think you know what I mean. You can get benched. Like, the odds he gets benched are high, I think. The odds he has a 20% target share with Russ and a great spot is also. It's hard to get targets when you're benched. Anyway, we have bets on Gerald Everett versus Foster Marot and Donovan Peoples Jones versus Jalen Guyton. This is a depraved podcast that deserves to burn. Just burn. It's awful. Anyway, my first love is Dawson Knox. We hadn't talked about him yet. I think that I want to get to Andrews. I want to get to Gronkh, Kittle, Kelsey. But do you think that Knox works? Because since fraternity has a 16% target share with 19% of the deep targets and 24% of the red zone, I don't know the value. I thought I'd have a running back on Monday in terms of like getting to those top tight ends. So I think 6,000 is very fair for his current role. So I do think Knox is the number two option on the bills after Saphon digs. My number two is Jared Cook. He has doubled the number of targets as Guyton this year. He has four more deep targets in Guyton, 11 versus seven. The role is already at least good enough to consider him, even before you take out Keenan Allen. Cook has topped 11 FanDuel points once this year, but again, building blocks. He's got them to do it again, especially with Keenan likely out here. So you mentioned Cook over Everett, I agree. And I think that Cook is the best one here. Let's say for sure we know Mike Williams plays and there's no Keenan. How high are you on him? Is he like love potential or just don't know? Mike Williams? Yeah. Oh yeah, for sure. He had a 26% target share last year and the game's Keenan missed. Okay. So I think that that's there. Okay, other lower salary tight ends just quickly. Austin Hooper, I don't know. Like he's gonna be on the field a lot. I just would rather take a gamble on deep. Oh, I don't know, maybe. The Washington guys. We got four to five studs depending on where you landed with Dawson-Ox. We got three with potentially Foster Moreau, Jared Cook. Even just Jared, I don't think you need to have, I don't think you need to make your tight end pull deeper, but you can't- I would also say with the Washington guys, Ricky Seales-Jones has been out long enough where I'm concerned about snap rate coming back and also John Bates I think is a good blocker and I think that they'll value that. So that's why I'm not on those guys. To me, the value guys are Cook, Moreau. Let's move to defense. What do you have there? I'm gonna say the chief's second time around matchup, second best defensive line matchup in terms of pass blocking, according to pro football focus on the main slate behind only the Panthers. I won games with high totals. Their car has a league average sack rate, kind of has the, what's the word I'm looking for? Reputation of not taking sacks like, but he's been sacked like a league average rate. So I'll take that. Yeah. I think the chiefs work for sure. They've been great. This Raiders offense has looked- Limited rugs. Yeah, limited is good. The limit is generous. So I think they work. I also don't mind the Falcons. They're facing Cam. It's mostly about that because like DPs will cook up some blitzes. They might not work, but he's gonna try to do it. Could get some Panthers some issues given their offensive line. They held the Panthers to 19 points in their first meeting. That wasn't a dome. Now they're facing them for a second time. They're $3,500. You mentioned the Jets. I would not be entirely opposed to that at 3000. I think the chiefs work. There was one of the team that I wanted to mention. No. No. Huh. Where was that team? Oh, the Browns could work at 41. Coming off by just faced the Ravens two weeks ago. Lamar is kind of weird right now. The offensive line stinks for Baltimore. I think that could work. Also the Chargers are 43. Broncos 44. I would like to say that but those two teams are objectively under salaried relative to other defenses. So I think that's there. Anyway, that's all I got. Anything else from you there Brandon before we close up shop for this week? No, I think this one ran long but there's a lot of uncertainty and a lot of conditionals that I think we went over. So we'll learn a lot and we'll touch on this on tomorrow's Nature F Show with whatever we learn between now and then. Yeah. Just be receptive to value if it's actual good value. Just dig in deep and decide if that's the case. I think you can, I trust all of you to have the wherewithal to do that. If you have questions, you can feel free to tweet us. I will be pretty busy Sunday just with the WFBC stuff. But like in general, I'm on Twitter at Jim Sonnis J-I-M-S-A-N-N-E-F's Brandon. People have questions for you there. Where can they find you on Twitter? I'm at Godula13, G-D-U-L-A-1-3. Also do not forget to follow the FanDuel Podcast Network at FanDuel Podcast. If you are not already subscribed to the FanDuel YouTube page see a lot of you watching over there hit subscribe right now. Smash that like button. Gently hover over the like button, consider it.  Give us a little tap there. We appreciate those of you watching and being active in chat as well. Also subscribe to the Number Fire Daily Fantasy Podcast wherever you get your podcasts for NDA, NHL, NFL and UFC podcasts and PGA after the new year as well. Big thank you to everyone for tuning in for this week. Good luck to you with your lineups and we'll talk to you once again on Monday to wrap it all up. This has been the Heat Check Fantasy Podcast powered by Number Fire.