Week 2 Recap: Winners, Losers, and the Injury Epidemic

Smashville Fantasy Football Podcast - Week 2 Recap, Massive Injuries & Week 3 Predictions

Join Andrew Banta and analyst Will Ott in this episode of the Smashville Fantasy Football Podcast as they dive into the highs and lows of week two. From major player injuries and their impacts to the big winners and losers, get all the latest updates. They also discuss top waiver wire picks and drops, and debate controversial game strategies. Concluding with trade discussions and hot takes, this episode offers invaluable insights and a touch of humor. Don't miss out on the fantasy football fun!

Chapters

• 0:00 Welcome to Smashville Fantasy Football Podcast!
• 0:46 Week Two Recap: Winners and Losers
• 1:48 Injury Impact and Player Performances
• 3:00 Derek Carr and the Saints' Surge
• 10:40 Trade Talks and Player Strategies
• 16:35 Injury Updates and Fantasy Implications
• 25:44 Game Analysis and Key Takeaways
• 31:02 Raiders' Victory and Lamar Jackson's Performance
• 32:12 Gardner Minshew's Game and Fantasy Football Insights
• 33:07 Buccaneers vs. Lions and Eagles vs. Falcons Analysis
• 34:03 Eagles' Play Calls and Game Strategy
• 38:21 Falcons' Intentional Offsides and Game Outcome
• 46:15 Waiver Wire Wizards and Bench Blunders
• 51:16 Trade Strategies and Waiver Wire Moves
• 56:30 Hot Takes
• 58:32 Closing Remarks

Transcript

Welcome to the Smashville Fantasy Football Podcast! I'm your trade-addict host, Andrew Banta, joined by our analyst who swears he can predict the future, Will Ott.  Get ready for armchair analysis, friendly banter, and a whole lot of fantasy fun! 

We are all wrapped up on week two. The landscape of the league has already started to change. Some teams that may have felt good after the first week are feeling a little different this week.

Myself included injuries have been a major factor. It seems like star players left and right are going down injured reserve multi week absences. We're going to cover all that tonight along with recap of the winners and losers of the past week, predictions for week three matchups our weekly waiver wire wizard and bench blunder awards and give me hot takes that we have.

So looking at our league results, The winners of week two matchups were best eater around over myself. No fading on Jaden  Under the radar over crunchy leaves Wu Tang financial beating mixing it pretty good The almost highest scorer all time in week one. Meant very crunch be you chase me if you can volume two simple Jack beat Mitchie Mitch and no hard feelings was the big winner of the week with 175. 81 point performance. That nearly matched what Mixinit did last week in a huge margin of victory win over the Meg, who only scored 91.

32 points. Almost a doubling of the points from a winner to loser there.  At 2 0, we only have, Two teams there, Simple Jack and Wu Tang Financial. The vast majority of us are sitting at one and one. I think

Um,

feel, pretty good about that.

Oh yeah, There are a couple of you down there at O and two. Will Will and my wife, the Meg.  Do you have anything to say for yourself? 

I'm thoroughly disappointed in a lot of a things to a getting another concussion  be talking about Derek Cara, I believe, in the last week's podcast, and then starting to uh, that felt bad. although I will give myself a big pat on the back for starting JK Dobbins who did quite well.

I want to point that out. He was my 15th round pick. He was the last positional player that I picked. If people want to talk about taking a kicker or something else, I will point out, I did pick up  JK Dobbins when someone else could have picked out before me that's really the only bright spot of my team's performance.

I want to get to Dobbins here to see exactly  how he did. 22. 1 points. 

 My leading scorer for the

One touchdown each week. Over 130 yards each week. Add in a few receptions total, nothing big there, but he is involved in every way 

It would have been a lot nicer if Josh Jacobs didn't fumble the ball at the  half yard line and starting Derek Carr. That would have been the easy win. 

I don't even fault you not starting Car yet. We haven't seen this from Car. This is something totally different. I viewed Car as a startable guy in a pinch. If I did the super late round quarterback thing, I might wind up with car and make it work. But I never imagined he'd have anything like this sort of performance through two games, five touchdowns, one interception,  just a awesome statistical game, especially from a fantasy perspective, and the saints are just killing it.

Really high on all the Saints

it, how much of it do you think is Derek Carr? And how much of it is just the Saints offensive line  running game is huge. If you got to keep people honest with your running game, Alvin Kamara opens up things for your quarterback a lot.

And, Carr, a perfectly adequate quarterback can suddenly look like a superstar if the rest of the team is all jiving   

I did not have Alvin set to be I probably put him in that wide receiver, tight end flex or on the bench. 

You thought he was done 

yeah,  he had a suspension and then I think an injury in the last, few years. So having that on top of, Hey, he's turning what 31 or something like that. Getting to that point where a lot of running back start fading off.

And then you have Derek Carr who had a very bad year last year. Keeping them more on that single dimension rather than multi dimensional or being able to have a little spice or flavor in their game. I was pretty much down on almost every scene except for  Shaheed.

Was Alvin Kamara a receiving threat in years past? Because he's got a lot of work receiving this year and I don't recall

I think in this early few years with The Saints, he was a dual threat running back like that Austin Eckler feel, except maybe able to run a little bit more between the tackles, but not anything superb in terms of gritty you know, Josh Jacobs, not a Marshawn Lynch kind of a player, that's one of the reasons why I was down on him.  I feel bad about it now, especially because Derek Carr has shown that, hey, he can ball. First year, just bad year with the Saints. Don't know why they got rid of him in Vegas, got a chip on his shoulder, maybe. Don't know, but he's been balling out. I think all the Saints are really now a viable starter in fantasy football.

Part of me doesn't want to go like overboard because, okay, they beat the Panthers week one. Whoop dee doo. It was a blowout, but it's the Panthers

Then they

the Cowboys in a blowout. Okay, now I'm listening. Now I'm taking it a little more seriously. Show me what you do against the Eagles week three, even though the Eagles are one on one now.

Their schedule gets harder from here.

  Would pick the Saints right now to win that game.

now, I would too. Is it going to

The Eagles haven't really shown to be superb. The Packers when they lost to the Eagles, didn't do themselves any favors to win that game. And then you also had the last week where they showed, Hey, we're a pretty vulnerable team. So I'd be looking outside the Eagles. Although you look at Saquon Barkley and Jalen Hurts, they're up in the, I think the top 15 of all players in fantasy football for scoring so far this year, only through two games, but at the same time, that's not something to completely ignore,

Yeah. I liked Barkley this year  despite a costly fumble  in that game. He's still very much a centerpiece to that offense. I Want to see what the saints do with them. Alvin Kamara has  four touchdowns last game.  It's just insane. And that was, the biggest part to why no hard feelings  was the big winner of the week.

We had a different top scorer. Alvin Kamara was a real big part of that. Other players to highlight Nico Collins.

Rashid Rice, Calvin Ridley all did great. She finally got Jordan Mason in there for McCaffrey and it paid off with another very solid performance. It seems like either running back has you covered for the 49ers so that's a good time to have a handcuff for sure, probably more than any other player.

Make sure you have Mason if you're a McCaffrey owner. great performance from her team all around, Josh Allen letter down from a points basis this week, but you know the game was easily enhanced so  it wasn't like Josh Allen sucked. It's just wasn't a fulfilling fantasy performance.

He didn't crack 10 points that time, but fortunately no hard dealings didn't need it at all. It was a major blowout of like 85 ish points over the Meg who just couldn't seem to get anyone but Trey McBride to. Produce points for her team.

 Part of the whole reason why I think Josh Allen didn't really score a lot of fancy points is because they were out to a pretty early lead in the game  and then didn't really need to worry about throwing the ball down the field. They didn't have to take a lot of risk to win that game.

Uh, When you don't have to take risk, there's not typically going to be this big breakthrough from the quarterback in terms of fancy points.

Yeah. For your fancy team, you don't want your team to be too good or suddenly your players aren't playing the full four quarters because they don't need to the saints seem to be the exception  so far this year, where they're stomping everyone, but they're also producing fantasy points.

I don't know if that'll hold, or if they're going to start resting guys when they're up 44 to 10.

Yeah and speaking of the whole injury thing and not having to do a whole lot, that's where Josh Jacobs has really been a savior. Even though I've lost both my games, he's at least been the shining point in my team now that Jordan Love is out.

Green Bay Packers completely change their game plan.

It's centered around running the ball and Josh Jacobs did a great job running the ball.  Gave me some fancy points. I would have had more if he didn't fumble at the one yard line. I think It shows that he can run really well between the tackles, he can play anywhere and honestly having the Green Bay second running back is actually going to be pretty good for the next week too, because of how much they utilize three running backs through most of that game.    

well too. He could have started for you there. What was your reasoning for playing, uh, Zekiel Elliott over him?

I didn't think the New Orleans defense was going to be good enough to handle deck. And so it'll enable Zeke to get more carries than what he ended up with. I figured to be a little bit more grindy within it was. Honestly more of choosing J. K. Dobbins over Travis Etienne.

That was my bigger question going into that. And so I made the right

Yeah.

but I also made the wrong call.

So you knew you were starting Zeke, 

 yeah, I was pretty sad. I'm starting to Zeke. And then I switched out. I know that the projections had Dobbins at 9. 29 versus ETNs.  Almost 10. He scored a ton of points  last week. I look like the Chargers were interested in utilizing and more than what the experts predicted.

And  if he stays healthy, he might be able to put up the kind of numbers that he did in Baltimore before he got injured. And if that's the case, I'll start JK Dobbins every week until he gets injured.  I said something like that last week about starting Tua, and he got a concussion. Lightning please don't strike twice.

Yeah. I think you're just higher on Zeke than I am. I don't know how many seasons it's been since he's really had a super relevant season, as like a bell cow guy.  He just has to prove it to me first before I view him as that sort of player again.

Yeah, in 2022, he had 12 touchdowns 876 yards the year before that, 1, 000 yards, 10 touchdowns.

Last year was a off year and I was on the side of he'll return back to what he was. Zeke was with the New England Patriots for a year.

See, I even forgot that happened.

 And the Patriots were not good that year at all. 

We had talked a few trade options. I wasn't interested in Elliot. I was trying to also suss out who were your top running backs and take the one that you're lower on basically. So like you're higher on Jacobs and Dobbins right now.

So maybe I want to talk to you about.  If

Yeah, for.

guy,

For the record, we had discussed possibly making a trade so then I could upgrade my wet receiver. He could upgrade his running backs. He's not a fan of zeke so basically  He wants the one that is going to be sitting on the bench that is not zeke 

You had brought up the idea of, a Jacobs for Debo Samuel and then some other pieces in there. I just wasn't quite willing to buy it. I think especially with the other pieces, because I'm pretty high on Xavier worthy still right now.

That was another piece to it.

 That's fair.

 I don't like him for Elliot or Terry McLaurin.  injured now. So like that changes the math a little bit.

When is he coming back, do you know?

Maybe a two week absence.

So, today I'm more interested in, if he's going to be out three weeks, then that changes it a little bit, 

let's go and talk about your matchup how's Amari Cooper working for you? Yeah.

I didn't listen to my gut with Amari Cooper at all. Uh, I draft him end of the fourth, No, end of the fourth. So not too heinous. No, Demo Samuel is into the second. I feel much better about that. But yeah, into the fourth round. I'm not happy with it. I would trade him if I got an offer, he's not gonna fetch anything right now, so I'm waiting for him to string together, hopefully, a couple good games.

He's obviously, not someone I'd drop.  But what you had said in the past about the connection with Deshaun Watson, not being there, I think that was apt because Watson's throwing it in his direction a lot,  but they're not connecting at all and they're not on the same page.

So he's getting tons of targets, but they're not worth much. His only saving grace right now. It's at least he's not ignored. He's getting the targets and I'm hoping some of them find his way into his hands.

Or at least into the 

maybe train him.

So

in him right now

you're saying there's a chance we just traded Ezekiel Elliot for Amari Cooper?

with other pieces in there, not on its own, but,

 Oh, so you like him more than Ezekiel Elliot.

I don't know, I just don't want Ezekiel Elliot right now, it's not that I like him more if that was a piece to a, Travis Etienne trade or something, Amari Cooper plus, a different guy, but  yeah, I don't know. I just feel  pretty bad about Deandre Swift right now.

Just because of the bears offensive line.

I'm more likely to Hold out on, on Swift and Cooper. If I was trading a guy away, because I feel like Swift has better days to come. I look at his schedule. He just faced Houston. He's pretty good defense. Face Tennessee before that, whatever. But coming up, you got the Colts, not a scary defense against the run at all. You have the Rams, you have the Panthers. He's got to do something in those weeks. If he can't do something then.

When I think Deandre Swift, I don't think of him as a running back. I think him as a receiving back. And,

done any receiving.

No, but, maybe it's the coaching, maybe it's the offense flying. You have a rookie quarterback who is struggling, who are the two positions on that field that are going to be his go tos in terms of receiving fantasy points? 

your got your tight end and you got your running back who's receiving running back he can run the ball. But he's also very good with his hands  he still has enough potential to actually be good And have a productive season and be a useful starter on your fantasy football team I agree I'm not throwing Swift out. For rookie quarterback or a struggling quarterback receiving running back and your tight end should be two players that you're looking for on your fantasy football team.

In our league, the tight end is a little bit less influential.  Just having the receiving running back is perfectly fine.  he's got brighter days ahead, even if the bears suck for the rest of the year, he's still going to be good enough on your flex spot. 

Yeah. That's what I'm hoping. And right now, unfortunately he's my working RV one because Kenneth Walker's injured. 

Yeah.

Yeah.  Walker's going to miss another week, which sucks, I'm not feeling too great about this week.  I'm just having to make do at running back right now.

Hope for the best. I keep picking the wrong guys though. I'm picking statistically the guy that's supposed to have the better week, like I'm picking the starter, but their points have been so low that my backup running backs  that don't start for their teams outscoring them by a little. Chubba Hubbard outscored my starters Tyler Algier did, and Alexander Madison did,  it shows how bad my running backs are right now, especially concerning Kenneth Walker's out injured. 

Having  Higgins injury stretch into week two Walker out that was tough for me. And now week three is looking worse where I might still have them out. We got CD lamb now questionable. This late in the week, he popped up with an ankle injury worried about that.

I got Debo Samuel. Who's probably not playing this week. He's probably going to be out for a couple of weeks due to his calf strain there. I don't know who I'm going to start anymore. I'm trying to patch

Trade! Trade! Sorry.

 We got to patch some holes here and I'm trying to balance short term gain with a season long view.

I got to make sure I don't fall too far below 500. So that the playoffs would be out of reach down the line. But I'm still looking at guys that might be  injured or expected to up their production in the second half of the season.

Do we want to go ahead and transition to injuries?

 I know Joe Mixon, got injured. Allegedly it's not severe. I don't know if he's projected to miss any time, but he  had that drop tackle against him.

A tackler wraps him up around his waist, lifts his legs up, brings them forward around the front of his legs and then twists his ankle.  I don't know exactly how much time he's going to miss if any.

But allegedly it's not something that's going to be like, Hey, he's going to be out four weeks, five weeks.  It's going to be, Hey, you might miss a week. He might just be limited on playing time. But Jordan Love, my guy was initially quoted to be probably four to six weeks.

There's some discussion that he actually might be available for the Titans game,

Yeah, I heard. So that's a bit of a positive surprise for you.

I'm planning on not starting him.

Yeah, but at least you can see him get some time. I would start Derek Carr so far too. Until you see love back out there and see what he does. 

Yep.

The big kind of  shocking injury was to a tag of Viola.

Hey, you know what?   It was an A plus effort. It's an A plus effort.

Regardless, I don't, I can't.

I can't, so I won't.

In the game this week,  he led with his helmet first,  snapped his neck against Oh, who was the defender?

Jamar Hamlin.

And yeah, it was a rough hit  and just seeing how he tried to get up. And then, his hands seized and crunched up on him, which is a telltale sign of concussion. And then he fell back to the ground after trying to right himself a little bit. It was really scary and I just felt terrible for him and was like, he just got a concussion there.

Knowing his history and the symptoms he exhibited immediately. I'm like, if the dolphins put him back out there like they did in years past, there needs to be a whole investigation because that would just be terrible for his.  health and longevity is, 

A person, a human, not, yeah, as a human being, not like talking

not as a player anymore.

But McDaniel has been very supportive of to his health. And, 

even 

Taking care of yourself first. Don't worry about, this job because it's not the most important thing you have a family to think about.

They got to do something differently. He should not be running those sort of  plays where he should never be leading with his helmet. Like slide you're a quarterback you got to protect yourself

he could have done almost the exact same thing, except change the way his head's going into the forward head dive kind of scenario. And he probably would have been perfectly fine. But the fact that he changed the way his helmet was, and then when DeMar Hamlin came up, it just hit him at the right angle.

 It was 

the reaction. 

did nothing wrong at all.

And I feel bad for the guy because he was also the guy that got carted off the field in the Bill's Cincinnati Bengals game that determined our championship winner two years ago 

so it was weird that, Hey, he was on one end of the stick one time. So I can only imagine how he's feeling right now because he now has done that to someone else. It's already rough to handle as a player involved in that kind of incident.  But the fact that you were on both sides.

I feel sorry for him. I feel sorry for Tua. I feel sorry for Demar it's not either of their faults, 

it was really great when I saw,  uh, McDaniel's, said, you're the starting quarterback of your family. He's a different kind of coach. When Flores was in Miami, Tua was looked down upon. He was like, you're just what I have to work with. You're not anything great. He was put down a lot his first year, which is one of the reasons why I've been very down on Tua in fans football until.

Last year,  but then you have Mike McDaniel come in and be like, we're going to win games. You're going to be good. Trust me, you're going to crush it. Just the difference in support level is insane.

You can tell from the feedback that  the players have gotten from him that he is a good coach, but he's a really great person.

 They would rather have Tua out there when he's healthy, then Skylar Thompson, they are not rushing him back.  But publicly, like they're saying, we're not even talking about it.

that's not our concern. Yeah.

he's coming back on the field this season

 

Nick Chubb who's on my IR list. I picked him up later in the draft.  He was initially forecasted to be, I think, week Four ish return. And then I saw some projections saying, he might be out till week eight or nine Yahoo fantasy sports, they are having some projections for him to score points in week five.

So who knows when he's coming back? Still don't 

Yeah.

Yeah. 

And he went out, I believe, I think it said week two with an  MCL tear last year. So it's been over 12 months. And he's still going to be out, which I've had an ACL injury and I've heard MCL injuries can be even worse than ACL injuries.

 I feel sorry for him, but at the same time, the expectation is he is going to play at least the second half of the season. 

 Another big name player that is going to be on IR is Isaiah Pacheco.  He has a fractured fibula on his right ankle. That's, a pretty big loss for the Chiefs, but I feel like the Chiefs will be okay. They can hold it down. 

But from a fantasy standpoint. That's a huge blow to the Megs team. She has B. Joan Robinson, so she has a solid RB1, but without Pacheco she really doesn't have a big number two guy. I think she needs to look to pick up an RB. Because who knows how long Pacheco is going to be out.

I actually am  a little interested in Pacheco. If I was 2 0 and not 1 1, I would probably put a trade offer out for him, hoping, that I get him back in time for the playoffs. But I'm just not confident enough in my team.  right now to know I'll be okay down  another starter for so long. And whoever I might trade to get them 

they're saying six to eight weeks, but I've heard as many as 12 weeks. That's a huge difference. If he comes back in six weeks, yeah, I should make a trade. But if it's 12 weeks. That comes out to fantasy playoffs, and I'd have to make the playoffs, and I probably wouldn't at that point, so it wouldn't do me any good.

If anyone's interested in injured players loading up the second half of the season, I think it pays to wait on some of them, because teams that have a lot of injured players are only going to grow more desperate, so we don't need to jump the gun on  trading for them, I think. Just to have them sit on IR spot or sit on your bench for five weeks until you feel like you can't handle it anymore. 

Speaking of another IR I did offer Chris, who's got Marshawn Lloyd. He was actually Green Bay's second running back I was talking about. Placed on IR eight hours ago.

I didn't know anything about that.

I knew he had a little ding, but from what I heard, he was questionable going into week three.

Apparently he's enough to be on IR. So  yeah, I'm glad I did not trade for him. Thank you, Chris, our commissioner. 

Wait. So he, did do a formal offer and it was rejected.

Oh yeah, I straight up offered him. I 

offered him. 

rejected it. So 

knowing that Josh Jacobs is prone to injury, I get a handcuff. And then also I think Josh Jacobs was questionable week one, the fact that he might miss time eventually at some point in the season, I would like to have that handcuff. And he said, no. And now I'm like, thank you. You

be injured reserve worthy, but I guess those things can just linger and you need a lot of rehab for it.

that's gonna be tough to manage not having him in my lineup for a few weeks. It looks like few not as severe injuries, but big name guys, Justin Jefferson's day to day with a right quad contusion.

I'm on Ross ain't Brown is day to day. Cooper cup though, likely to be placed on injured reserve with a high ankle. We got McCaffrey Kenneth Walker.

T Higgins. Keenan Allen has been out two weeks. 

He got injured in week one. He did not participate in practices leading up to week two. He was listed as questionable and then ruled out before kickoff.

He is still questionable. there's a lot of injuries out there.

not looking like he's going to be able to play week three due to his non participation in practices.

Oh, and one more big one. Can't believe I haven't mentioned them already. AJ Brown for the Eagles.  He was out week two. It's going to be out week three now, almost certainly with hamstring issue. So a lot of top tier guys  with injuries and that makes it hard to manage our rosters especially for me. I'm someone who likes always.

Keep a backup quarterback and defense. I like to have the optionality, so I don't scramble at the last minute if there is a quarterback injury. I'm in the habit of going to the waiver wire every week and swapping out my backup defense.

I just swap it based on matchup and who I think is going to do better on a given week and kind of stream that. think that covers injuries. 

The games we saw. This week. Do you have any takeaways? I know we talked about Bill's dolphins a little bit. Devon to Shane is solidifying himself as the lead back there with Raheem mustard out  Shane's continuing to look awesome. And it just makes me think, man, most it's getting schemed out of it while he's sitting injured.

 

it's not going to be a 1 A 1 B  running back situation this year like it was last year. Shane is the clear lead now.  He's shown what he can do the first two weeks. Colts Packers game, we both watched that one, so  I'm looking at more from the Colts perspective. 

Um,   

until the last two minutes and then  they turned it on and showed that they actually, care about the game and want to win, but like, where was that the whole game?

I was confused because the game plan for the Green Bay Packers seemed fairly obvious is that they're going to be more reliant on the run.  So it took them until halftime to really make adjustments to  stuff the box.

I think they started running more like five down or at least five going in to stop the run. Whereas in the first half, They played more of a traditional style defense  and Josh Jacobs put up like 150 yards in the first half or something like that?

Malik Willis was, six of seven in the first half for 70  yards and a touchdown.

 I think for the first half of the game green Bay had.

Another 15 plays over Indianapolis and their time position was ridiculously long. So it didn't really give Indianapolis a lot of time to do anything with the ball when they did have the ball. Didn't they try to run with Anthony Richardson on fourth down or maybe there was a third down short kind of scenario and they got stopped.

 we tried that instead of actually just letting him be a quarterback instead of a running back it Just didn't really make sense to me and green base defense didn't really have to worry about being on the field for super long because, they knew that their offense was going to be able to Give them time to chill and relax and  try to figure out, Hey what did we do wrong in the last drive?

Or what can we do better? What adjustments can we make? Give them plenty of time to re strategize, almost give them the mini halftime. That's how long it felt like the game  he was. 3 40 or so PM Eastern time when they hit the two minute warning and a lot of games recently have been going to between four, four 15, which is close to the kickoff of the second afternoon games before they actually finished off the game.

I think some of the other games were  almost a full quarter behind, that just showed the style of play that Green Bay came out to play and how successful they were because the clock kept running because the ball stayed in bounds and it didn't touch the ground and they were able to move the chains.

I think they did a great job of executing. I don't really expect week three to  be similar if Jordan Love doesn't play, if Jordan Love plays, then you now have a true multi dimensional offense. Which actually might favor  a lot more play action or a lot more running the ball. Because then all of a sudden  you have Reed and you also have Watson just say, Hey, you know what go long or do this on a play action.

And it really opens up their playbook. I think to have that game, was more meaningful for them in terms of long term outlook. I think for the Colts, it was poorly strategized on defense, knowing this is what they're going to be doing. I would not be a fan of the Indianapolis Colts defense right now on fantasy perspective, Anthony Richardson, I'd be so so on. He's going to have the ball more often in a game that's not running the ball so often,  but at the same time, looking at their Divisional opponents.

The Texans with Joe Mixon can easily run the ball.  Travis and ETN and Jacksonville can also revert to that style of play. Tennessee Titans, you have Tony Pollard with Will Levis as the quarterback. So you're most likely going to be leaning more on their running back.

i'd be looking to drop Indianapolis defense if you have them

 The one player that I love on the Colts is Jonathan Taylor. He's going to be solid this fantasy season. He could be even better, but I think his ceiling is a little capped by the fact that Anthony Richardson is going to run it. The fact that Colts are going to be playing from behind, probably a good amount this season.

That's going to cap Jonathan Taylor's attempts. So he's going to have to do a lot with less volume. He's probably gonna get low to mid teen carries rather than high teen and not in the 20s, I don't think, for carries per game. And he can be perfectly fine with that he can be an RB1 with that, but,  hurts his upside a little bit especially when Richardson's just gonna be so streaky. You look at his passing and completions for the season. He's under 50 percent completion rate, 

That's bad

I don't want that from my quarterback drafted in the fifth round, which was the case in our league this season. What other games were big for you?

The Raiders Ravens game was weird for me. Derek Henry  18 carries for 84 yards.

It's better. 

 I only saw the end where  the Raiders were able to pull out that win. It was not really something I would enjoy being a fancy. owner of Derrick Henry or any of the Baltimore receiving players. Week one, we saw more Lamar Jackson scrambling and running the ball. This week we saw Lamar Jackson giving him the ball off their Henry more. Lamar only had five carries for 45 yards.

He doesn't feel like a winner. I know a lot of people love Tim Tebow for some reason when he was in Denver he, cause he's a winner. He knows how to win.  

I never had that as my reason. I didn't put my stock in the Oh, he's a winner, but I did love to watch it because crazy stuff kept happening 

and that wasn't necessarily because of Tim Tebow 

it was cause Mike Tomlin need a guy running along the sideline and got a penalty giving Tebow a chance to win one game.

And it's because Tebow threw a touchdown first play of overtime, another game. Random stuff kept happening. I was there for it

I 

was. I was. It made me sick. I like Tim Tebow as a person, but not as a football player.

So Lamar Jackson, I don't really think I can get behind one way or the other. I don't think he knows how to win.  Gardner Minshew had a pretty good time 30 of 38, 276 yards, one touchdown, one interception, he had a fumble, but it was not lost,  zamir White did terrible. The focal point was pretty much behind Gardner Minshew in the defense. And so there he'll squeak out a 26 to 23 win. Daniel Carlson also had four field goals I 

 going to be this year? I 

was expecting him to do better.

I wanted to offer for Zemir White So when he replaced Josh Jacobs last year, from what I remember,  he did not show a significant difference between him and Josh Jacobs. In terms of,  Fantasy production. I really was hoping and thinking that he was going to be better, made the offer. You said no. And I said, okay. And right now, I'm pretty happy with not getting that offer. So I'm over two in terms of trades and I'm two for two for avoiding injuries from those trades.

Otherwise it'd be a pretty sad camper. We didn't talk about the Buccaneers lions, but I saw the end of that game. 

I saw the end of that game. Cause the Packers Colts game ended early. That was tragic.

The Lions really, looked a little disjointed on offense. Baker Mayfield looked pretty decent. Like dare I say, kind of Kyle Orton esque where he can make some throws when he needs to, but he doesn't lose the game for you, which is really great for Tampa.  so great for fantasy football.

I want to make sure we get to talk about Eagles Falcons. I don't think it's like Five Alarm Fire for the Eagles or anything, are they as good as they were last year? Probably not. But  I thought they did fine that game. Not amazing, but they were moving the ball okay. They were getting down the field. It kept stalling out, but it wasn't like a disaster. It wasn't like watching the Bears try to get a first down.

But  there were some debatable play calls. I think it was noteworthy that the Eagles chose to go for it on fourth down pretty early in the game.

And I might have the yardage wrong, but it felt like it was the 10 yard line or so.

Fourth and four or something like that. 

they went for it early in the game, didn't get it. Near the end of the game they're trying to kill clock.

They're up by three. I think they're fourth and three at this point. near the end zone,  they settle for the field goal  like going for the  almost definite win, quote unquote, definite win. If you got that touchdown rather than saying, Oh, we're up by six instead of three now, we're still giving cousins a chance to throw a touchdown with plenty of time.

You would have eaten some more seconds off the clock, which were pretty precious at that point. You have a really good running back. I feel like you could probably get that first down with Saquon Barkley. But yeah they chose the field goal then. I didn't love that.

and also they had been running the ball. I think in that situation, when you're getting the clock under two minutes, you just run, even though they  know you're going to run it, especially if you have Barkley but hurts through a pass to Barkley and Barkley ended up dropping it. 

It was a good pass. There was nothing wrong with it. Barkley shouldn't have dropped it.

But you put him in that position by passing it when you're trying to eat up clock and close out a game. It was third and three with the Eagles leading 18 to 15 at that point. 

So Atlanta had no timeouts, a minute 46 to go. If they got a first down conversion, they could just kneel it out and be done with it. Instead of running it and giving yourself that opportunity, you did a pass play and Barkley dropped it.

Now you set up fourth down, they chose to do the field goal, I think statistically you might disagree and say it was the right call. But it just wasn't what I wanted to see. I wanted to see a more aggressive move by then.

I didn't watch the game, but I agree with the  field goal attempt. I disagree with passing the ball to take one Barkley. It makes sense to go ahead and eight o'clock force the timeout. I don't know if there's any more timeouts left in the game.

If there were then, you're making them burn a time out your milk or you're getting clock, you're draining clock. So it plays into the hands of kicking the field goal with the idea of if you're going to go ahead and try to pass the sake on Barkley and he drops it.

 Then I feel like you have to be going more on,  we need to close out the game on this drive, whereas kicking the field goal, you're saying, we're not giving them enough time to really come back, so we don't really care by dropping the pass  and then kicking the field goal, you've done the opposite of those two things.

You're giving them more time and letting them stay in the game.  So I see your point but  what I would have done was hand it off to Saquon Barkley, run it up the middle, or even do the famous tush push,  the Eagles were the ones that really utilize it the most from what it sounded like.

So if you go something like that and then, 

okay, cool. We're 

tush push successfully earlier in the game  

even if it's three yards out, then it gets you down to fourth and one or something like that, you're looking for yards per play to be over three yards for four downs. That's 12 yards. So it's first down, right? So  you gotta be able to average that. That's old fashioned football math, I think the Eagles are capable of doing that.

I don't like the idea of possibly getting zero yards or getting stuff in the backfield from a busted block from outlet pass again. I didn't see the game, so I don't know what kind of pass it was to Saquon Barkley. No offense to Saquon Barkley, but he is known to be more of a smash mouth kind of player compared to, let's say, like an Austin Eckler, DeAndre Swift receiving back kind of player, more like Josh Jacobs rather than Aaron Jones.

Aaron Jones is good with his hands, but also can run the ball a bit more. Alvin Kamara, good receiving and also decent running. I see him more of a running back rather than a receiving back. With the personnel, with the situation,  I would just run the ball. If you were like, hey, it's fourth and one now.

Do we want to go for it? If you want to run the ball fourth and one I get it. But you can't pass the ball on the third down like 

Yeah. 

This game had so much, so many random things that just, I found funny to it.  I actually agree with this one, but it's not something you see every day. The Falcons did an intentional offsides. It was in that same drive where, um, the Eagles were looking to increase their lead.

Beyond three points earlier in that drive the Falcons did intentional offsides because it was Third down so they wanted to reset the Chains because they felt like the Eagles were very close to a first down and they were just gonna get that first down and with That extra down run out the whole game clock.

So they wanted to go ahead Let's make it a new set of downs get three in out and get a chance at the ball back So they were hoping that the Eagles would accept the penalty you make it first down, give them the yardage. That's fine. The yardage isn't the problem there. It's the time, but no, the Eagles caught onto that and declined the penalty.

So it's just funny to see a team voluntarily say, no, we don't want to first down, 

 Yeah,

we'll take our chances and hope we get the first down. But yeah, when you're trying to run the clock out, that makes sense. 

I

Honestly would have probably taken the penalty. I'll take that. And then go for, Hey, we're going to be successful on gaining enough yards for victory.

And then so Falcons get the ball back Kirk Cousin goes 70 yards in six plays

Drake London catches the touchdown pass. He's the hero of the day Hooray Falcons essentially win. There's a tiny bit of time on the clock.

London thinks the appropriate way to celebrate this. is to mime, shooting a machine gun into the stands of the Eagles fans. What in the world is he doing?

That's in bad taste. Look at the political climate, Shootings all the time and everything and yeah, I'm not trying to be a snowflake here I know he's just doing a touchdown dance, but it was

just Or taste.

Yeah.  And, of course, the ref's right in front of him. And he throws the flag.

You can say he was doing the sprinkler dance, but he wasn't. I don't want to, I don't want to, Take it too far and get carried away saying he was pointing directly at fans and intimidating them.

No, it was more in the air But it's just a bad look and of course you're gonna get that penalty You put your team in the chance to potentially lose that game because you're tied now you get the penalty Young hoku now has to make a 48 yard extra point 

He 

Fortunately, he does. 

We could have a completely different conversation and that could be the story of the week. If Ku had missed that shot and it goes to overtime, who knows what would happen at that point, but don't put them in that position. 

Yeah. Drake London. Next time. Do a little basic floss dance, as your touchdown dance don't do machine guns. Just floss. Trust me. I don't think an NFL referee would flag you for flossing as your touchdown dance.

No, he wouldn't.

what else around the league. The Vikings 49ers game was surprising to see the Vikings win that one. Even with Christian McCaffrey out I was not expecting the Vikings to be two and oh, at this point in time.

Jordan Mason is rock solid as a backup.  I've seen him back up McCaffrey before and he's been great at it.

Commander's Giants I could probably start watching that football game and really desiring to  pay 50 to not watch the game anymore. I grew up in the commanders network growing up in Maryland that was one of the banes of my existence is watching NFC East football especially Giants commanders. My dad being a Giants fan. Like he was pretty miserable about it I've got PTSD.

 The poor performance, I'm not worried from a fantasy perspective about Jane Daniels yet. 44 fantasy points, 226 passing yards, which is actually more passing yards than his big fantasy scoring week one. 10 rushing attempts for 44 yards. Really the story of it was no rushing or passing touchdowns.

In a game that was  21 to 18, the commanders did not score a single touchdown. So that was just a fluky thing. No touchdowns. At all.

I didn't even realize that it's seeing a 21. I 

seven field goals, you would think. Um, that's not gonna happen every week. If he got even one touchdown, I'd be like, hey, that was an awesome fantasy performance.

I think that was just a one off thing. I expect better weeks ahead.

Chargers Panthers, Bryce Young looked terrible. I had looked up an ESPN article discussing how historically bad he is and that he should be benched. And he actually, I think was benched. One of the problems with him is his height. 

With players under six foot, there's only really four that's actually made themselves  good or great  and  what he has shown his pocket skills and his ability to  mentally step into his throws. It's just not there.

I don't expect anything from him. I'm hoping that JK Dobbins can actually continue his success. Brown's Jaguars kind of expected Jacksonville to. Do better  Watson  got small touchdown run.

And that was pretty mediocre. Raiders Ravens was really surprising to me. I expected more from either Derrick Henry or Lamar Jackson. I'm still hesitant on.  owning Derek Henry or Lamar Jackson on my fans team. 

I'm pretty happy that I didn't get a say a likely this week. 

That was one I thought it was just going to be chasing points

Mark Andrews did pretty good.  

Yeah I just think it's going to be a crapshoot picking the tight end. I see so many people on waivers, chasing points and they have one boom week  picking the guy up and starting them.

And then suddenly back to what you expected.

Yeah. I think it's worthwhile though. If you have this no name person, or I picked up someone just because I didn't know who else to pick up. That gives you at least an option to go with. Cause Darius Layton, for instance, is  my pick where I, I was really like, I don't know, is he going to perform at all?

Is he going to be terrible? I don't know. I don't really know the name that well, but  it does ring a bell and it's someone that is on a team. So I picked them. So for me, I would love to drop Darius Layton at some point in time. Let's see. So then we also had the Rams Cardinals. That game was crazy because Marvin Harrison jr.

Catches two touchdowns.

He also had 130 yards and we had talked about him week one saying, Hey, he might be a bust, but  then again, week two showing that maybe. Arizona is a good fit for him.  Kyler Murray showed up to play. 

I want to give out before we go a couple of awards. One you might want to earn the other one you don't want to earn. Start off with our waiver wire wizard award. A couple ones that stood out to me was Chris Cookley  picking up. Alec Pierce, who, looks like the go to option so far on the Colts when you thought it was going to be Michael Pittman Jr. Who's on the Meigs team, but Pittman hasn't done much and Pierce,  he's got two touchdowns through two games. 125 yards game one, 56 yards game two, but with more targets. you know, It looks like maybe he's gonna have the chemistry with Anthony Richardson there more than Pittman. So I like that pickup. I'm not convinced it's going to last, but it's interesting.

 And then I've really liked your pick up of Derek Carr. I think it's too much to be a fluke. The absolute domination of the saints is not a fluke at this point.  They're not going to win that easily every week, but I think Derek Carr is going to be a good option now. I am going to give you my waiver wire wizard pick up  for Derek Carr.

 And I know, I know Chris wanted it too.

 I would feel a lot better if I actually started him this week.

I would have said them too. That's what you do with a lot of waiver pickups. You see how they're going to fare.

You make sure you have them in case they go off again and then you can draw conclusions from that point.

the bench blunder of the week. There were a lot of nominees this week.  I really debated on what would constitute a true bench blunder. Do you have to lose your game? Does the questionable call on who to start and who to leave on the bench, have to be the difference maker?

Crunchy Leaves, Chris Cookley chose to start Stafford over Joe Burrow.

I like Stafford.  I would start Borough, generally, so that was a little questionable for me. Wu Tang Financial benched Austin Eckler for Tyler Lockett. It's not that I'm that high on Eckler this year. 

It's just that you're not very

he's still solid. I'm not high on locket at all. And Will, I do have you as a nominee, but not the ultimate quote unquote winner of

Yes. I'll take 

for, for benching Travis Etienne for, 

Ezekiel Elliott.

And also, maybe surprises me even more, you benched Kittle for Pitts at tight end.

So I was thinking Kyle Pitts Kirk Cousins is going to need Kyle Pitts more than Brock Purdy is going to need George Kittle to succeed.  And also Kyle Pitts age is younger. So he's more likely to have the energy or athleticism that he is required. 

It wouldn't have made the difference in your game because you had a 20 point deficit there, but

 For the record, George Kittle 6'4, Kyle Pitts is 6'6. And I value that 6'6 a lot. 

Okay. 

For end zone, you can just toss it up and he's going to be like, Hey, I'm above the screen. I'm going to catch it. 

And then, even though he had a blowout win I at least thought it was strange that Simple Jack started Jared Goff over Kyler Murray. What do you think about 

Oh, I like Jared Goffmore and Kyler

You, You like Jared Goff more?

Oh yeah. Kyler His new contract last was at the beginning before last year started was ridiculous. Ridiculously high. And then they added a stipulation of studying your playbook or spending a certain number of hours studying your playbook.

And then they added a stipulation of studying your playbook or spending a certain number of hours studying your  playbook. Basically we don't trust you to actually study your playbook. So we're going to incorporate this  thing to incentivize   you to study and desire to win the game.

I think there's a lot of background stuff. Also, he is 5'10 or something like that. He's not very tall. He's a little athletic. His wide receivers other than Marvin Harrison Jr. Are a little bit unproven or have a lot to be desired. I'm not confident in his support staff.

I'm not confident in him. I will.  Be down on Kyler Murray. So I would have started Jarek off a hundred percent. I would not touch Kyler Murray at all.

This week, he would have done 20 points better almost with Murray over golf, but seems like that one's maybe not as clear cut. However, the one that really had me scratching my head was under the radar.

He handily, 114 to a seven, but I just don't get benching Devante Adams.  Even though he's not the Adams from Green Bay, like he's still a very good player and should be starting every week in my opinion. And I look at the guys that he chose to start instead

and I just can't get behind it. Yeah. I love Taysom Hill as a pickup, but not over Devante Adams, not Brock Bowers over him, not Christian Watson over him.

I think there were three guys for sure that I would have put. Adams in front of on all of them. So with that and the optionality and in my opinion, getting it wrong three times with three different options. Mike's going to get my bench plunder of the week.

It didn't hurt him in the outcome, but nevertheless, put Devante Adams in next week, give him a chance. All right.

For real. When you put Taysom Hill in that wide receiver, running back tight end flex is really that you're hoping that Derek Carr gets injured, and that's where it pays off big time, because if he gets injured in the first quarter and Tyson Hill comes in and throws for 200 yards and two touchdowns, guess what?

Now you're like the miracle worker of the whole league, but  the odds of that happening on any specific weekend are low. So leave Tyson Hill on your bench.  Until Derek Carr gets injured. Once Derek Carr gets injured, then you can put him in that wide receiver tight end flex, and let him be your second quarterback.

Absolutely. I even like him.  In some cases, without Kar being injured, cause there's so many weeks where I just have to fill the last player on my starting lineup with whoever I can grab because of injuries. Then I'll take the chance, I'll roll the dice with Hill. Because he's going to either have a one point performance or an 18 point performance.

I feel like he gives me the better opportunity than some random waver wire fodder guy. That I need to fill that last active roster spot with.  I view him as a wild card and that could pay off with the upside he provides if he's gonna throw a touchdown . 

We should probably wrap up pretty soon, but I did want to say, by the time this posts we have the first trade of the season. I made a trade offer to the mag. Which she accepted. So I wanted to highlight that. I like to do several trades in the year if I can get it.

I really started worrying with my roster this week with injuries. Especially having Higgins questionable again for this week and a Monday night game. I did not have any good options if I had to wait until Monday to figure out if he was going to play.

He's a guy that I can still get value from because he has not played this season. So the possibilities are endless on what he could provide. But if I waited for him to come back from injury and he had one bad game, I felt like his value was going to tank because people would see the zeros.

Of the games he didn't even participate in. And then they'd say even when you came back, you were crap. Even if it's just a one off bad game. So I feel like that really hurt his value and if I waited too long, I wouldn't be able to move them.  So I cut my losses on that with his injury extending a bit and got Chris Olave from the Meg.

Silence.

Tyler Algier knowing that she's had so many running back injuries, she can't afford another one. So now at least she has the backup to the top player on her team. So she can suffer that loss. If another injury happens I had looked at options to come to her with Other running backs because she's really suffering at running backs with injuries with a Pacheco out and mustard out  And really no one else beyond Robinson,  but the problem is my running back suck, too so  I had to wait for hopefully DeAndre Swift to  string together a couple good games 

so I wasn't able to directly address my need at running back, but I feel like hopefully I got a little more certainty at wide receiver and shored up an injury real quick because they are starting to mount up and that was before a CD lamb even got injured. So it was only getting worse there.

Are there any areas you're looking to target  with trades in the coming

I would love to upgrade my wide receiver and that's what I'm doing, trying to push out with my waiver wire. I'm just straight up dropping too well. I honestly don't think he's going to be the same player if he comes back from IR. There's a chance that he doesn't come back for the whole regular season because he needs to evaluate his life and go through a thorough concussion analysis.  Uh, and I'm hoping to pick up Tank Dell not necessarily that I need wire receivers, but just having that as an option. I think Houston Texans are  very strong in terms of. Just straight up offense. Like you have Joe Mixon,  you have Stefan Diggs, you have Nico Collins, you have tank Dell.

I think those are all solid options when it comes to offense. 

That was what I was hesitant on. I'm like, you're a higher waiver priority than me. Do I say I want tank Dell,  but you already want them. So I'm not going to get them. someone else is probably going to get them anyway, even if you didn't. But yeah, I did not get, commissioner, Chris dropping tank Dell.

That'd be, I felt like that'd be like, if I dropped a Mari Cooper right now yeah, 

yeah,

Too much potential. Maybe it'll never get fulfilled, but I'm not dropping him. What draft pick did he use up on Del and he's dropping him after two games? It just seems too early.

Round five. I'm not dropping a round five pick yet. 

If you pick them around five, you believe in them around five. So you have to at least give them a couple more weeks or they're on IR where they're likely to miss 

over half the season, 

I feel like that was too early of a drop. And yeah, someone's picking him up.

 I'm 

I didn't think it was likely I would. I would, I definitely, I already had the claim in, but it won't get done unless you don't get them with your first 

I have waiver two,  so the Meg is one

I think you'll get them. She's not paying too much attention to the waiver. She made a note and she can't hear me now for too far away. Don't worry. But she did make a note that she's like, Oh, I should probably check out the waiver wire.

And I said nothing.  I feel like you probably going to get them. So good for you. There's potential there.  I think Chris made a mistake.

I like the Texas to go to the AFC championship game, honestly. So if they're that good of a team, I feel like almost any player on there will be enough to bolster your team as  even a flex spot. I might not necessarily start him. He's available to me if I decide I want to start him or let's say Nico Collins goes down with an injury.

I don't want to start in week one that I get them either, but, that's the guy that I like want 

to have if he goes off. And look who crunchy leaves got. By dropping him. He got Braylon Allen. That's another instance of, I think you're just chasing production. 

Yeah.

Next week it's likely to be very different. He's the backup  to Brees Hall. He's not a starter. I think you're just running around chasing production. Dropping one player  that didn't have a good week for a player that just had a good week. I wouldn't have dropped Tankdale for him.

And then I think the last segment that we have is our hot takes. 

Oof, okay.

I already have my hot take.

I am going to win week three. That is my hot take. I'm going to win my first game of the year. Right now I'm projected to lose one Oh two nine, five to 100. 32. Me being the 100. 32. 

I'm going to win my first game of the season. 

Okay 

after failing my week one hot take of  mixing it pretty good we'll score 150 points in week two. 



And be the leading scorer through week five. I've already lost that one. So 

Average out 180

points  With 94 points and you get, no longer the top score.

 What was your hot take for this week? 

What is my hot take? I predicted Mixon  would fall off a bit I said I would win week two.

That was wrong. That was before some injuries came in. So that was pre Kenneth Walker injury. That was a big difference for me. 

I do think DeAndre Swift is gonna

course,

shine for the next two out of the next three weeks, I'll give them double digit fantasy point production to the next three weeks. I think his schedule gets a lot better.

That's a hot take. That qualifies a hot take to get Getting the double digits

I'll take it. I'll take it double digits for the next two of the three weeks.

So we have to wait a little bit to see the result. 

If he fails this week, then we know that he's on the hot seat 

and 

Yeah. If I'm on the wrong track on this, my season is on the wrong track too. 

Do we have anything else to cover? 

No, nothing else. I think we can close it up here with the hot takes.  Are you feeling better than week two, at least? You think you're gonna win, no, it's just a hot take. Okay.

no. 

I'm feeling pretty bad. I needed to avoid some of the injuries.

In that case I guess that means we're done until next week and hopefully the odds forever be in your favor, right?

Yep, put your waiver wire requests in, get Tankdel profit. The end.

That's it for this episode of the Smashville Fantasy Football Podcast! As always, we have aspirations of adequacy, so come back and we'll try to do a bit better next time. Who knows? We may even reveal that one sneaky trick guaranteed to win your fantasy league. But until then, keep those trades rolling and get your lineups set before kickoff. 

See you next week!