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No movie references or sarcasm this week. The fantasy football community lost someone truly beloved in Mike “Tags” Tagliere this week. As I sat on my bed and scrolled through my timeline on Saturday, I saw so many people thanking him for assisting them with their fantasy teams and how much he’ll be missed on podcasts. I also saw the messages from people in the fantasy sports industry who Tags helped get their start or was there to be a sounding board when needed. I never had the chance to meet him in person but I’ve heard from many people who knew and loved him well. The same people remembering and mourning are the ones who have encouraged, guided, and helped me. Tags never got to hear how much he was appreciated to the degree of what people are saying now. So let me encourage you, whatever you do in life, whether it be a stay-at-home dad, high school principal, or fantasy analyst: tell the people who have helped and encouraged you how much you love them and how much their help has meant to you. None of us know how long we have on this earth, but what we do know is how to say thank you. So while it might be too late, thank you Mike Tagliere for being a beacon in this industry and helping so many people. Thank you for your positivity which has rubbed off on so many of your listeners, colleagues, and fellow analysts. Your legacy is an everlasting ripple in this industry and you will be missed.

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We’re more than half of the way through the NFL season, and with more star players landing on the injury report, we’re forced to spend our waiver claims on backup players that have been forced into starting roles, like Ty Johnson in Detroit (more on that below).

Let’s talk about some of the players who landed on the injury report this week.

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B_Don and Donkey Teeth are joined by MB at the midway mark of the fantasy season (at least for those of us smart enough not to play week 17). 

MB_Donkey discuss the recent trades.  How to deal with the fallout of Mohamed Sanu to the Pats and Emmanuel Sanders to the 49ers. The guys give you an idea of what kind of FAAB bids their putting on some of this week’s hot pickups.

The trio also talk about the Chiefs and Falcons following significant injuries to Mahomes and Ryan. They also discuss how the Davante Adams injury may have shaken up the WR pecking order in Green Bay.

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There’s nothing more frustrating than a pickup recommendation that looks bad on the surface because of a bad performance in a tough matchup. I think you know where this is going. Let’s chat about Sam Darnold. I’ve been touting Sam Darnold since last Tuesday when I filled in for Boof and submitted the waiver wire column for you, my faithful readers. I even put Sam Darnold as my pickup of the week for the FantasyPros waiver wire blurb this week.

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A windy Thursday night in Foxboro with the 5-0 Patriots taking on the 2-3 Giants without Saquon Barkley, Evan Engram, Sterling Shepard, and Wayne Gallman? This game is cooked and is going to be boring as hell right? Wrong. It was actually pretty entertaining! Well, at least it was before the 4th quarter when the Patriots ran away with it. There were 3 touchdowns that happened on defense and special teams, which isn’t great for fantasy football but it kept the viewers engaged for most of the night.  

The under was looking like a great play from a gambling standpoint for a quarter and a half. Then of course, things got weird and the over ended up covering. Vegas took a beating with sharps and the public both leaning into the Patriots’ point spread. Even with 21 of the 49 points coming without offense, there are still a few things to cover from a fantasy standpoint.

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We are now at the quarter-mark of the NFL season, believe it or not! We’re now starting to get a better feel for who we should be starting and sitting on a week-to-week basis, and which matchups are actually ones to target, rather than matchups that look good because of a small sample size.

There are some very interesting matchups on deck for Week 5, so let’s talk about some.

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QB10 in fantasy scoring and QB2 in NFL passing yards through 4 weeks, Matt Ryan visits the Lone Star State in matchup carrying the tied-for-2nd highest point total in week 5. The 13th toughest fantasy defense against quarterbacks, the Houston D/ST unit look a lot tougher on paper than what I believe will be on display this Sunday. Two of Houston’s best defensive outings were against quarterbacks that entered the season as backups on their respective depth chart. Including 6th round rookie QB Gardner Minshew (JAC) in his first NFL start and 2nd year backup Kyle Allen (CAR) getting the 2nd start of his career. In Houston’s two matchups against top 10 NFL quarterbacks Drew Brees and Philip Rivers, the defense surrendered an average of 327.5 passing yards per game, QB12 (Brees) and QB13 (Rivers) fantasy finishes, and 4 total passing touchdowns. After nearly topping 400 yards passing (397) last week, Matt Ryan failed to pass for a TD against TEN. This is a prime bounce back spot for Matt Ryan to find the endzone through the air in a game where ATL are -4.5 underdogs and an implied score that includes 3 TDs for the Falcons. Rudy projects Ryan as the QB8 this weekend. 

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I’ll be honest… I haven’t paid much attention to rest of season rankings in my fantasy football playing time. So when MB asked me to rank the top 80 flex players the rest of the way it was a new adventure for me. Often times when you do something new it brings an entirely new perspective to the entire process. With that in mind when I finished my list the first thing I did was check to compare to the industry. The differences I found most significant are listed below and I will continue to call those major differences out with an explanation and blurb on a weekly basis. Hopefully you find these rest of season rankings useful and it can stir up some discussion. These rankings are without QBs and based on half PPR setting in a standard 1 QB/2 RB/2-3 WR/1 Flex league. The rankings shouldn’t necessarily be used for a trade value chart, they are a combination of past success and current situation to quantify a future value in my eyes. Use that mindset and apply that value to your team’s current context in terms of league standings and roster construction before making any transactions.

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There was a wide variety of projected outcomes for the early games on Sunday. Most of the games had a spread of less than a touchdown and then there were two games with home favorites of 20+ points. Nothing was really a surprise from the standpoint of the scoreboard, but there is always a lot of fantasy tidbits to break down. Going forward, I will be covering the early slate, while Donkey Teeth will be taking care of the later games. In this format, we both can focus on individual games instead of jumping around from player bullet point to player bullet point. We can start with one of the more exciting games for more than one position that took place in Minnesota.

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The real question, who do we not start in this AFC playoff preview? BAL @ KC carries the highest line heading into week 3. Both teams making their second appearance in the weekly Shootout vs Blowout preview, and now fans get the pleasure of viewing both teams on the same field. If you like money, please put a couple of cash DFS lineups together with BAL/KC players sprinkled throughout.

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