Ekeler's Edge: Austin provides injury update + deep dive on De'Von Achane

It's Wednesday, September 27th, I'm Matt Harmon. Welcome to Eccler's Edge presented by Toyota part of the Yahoo Fantasy football show. It's a hell of a day to talk ball and obviously if it's Eccler's Edge, that means joining me to do just that is LHR is running back Austin Accler. Austin is going on buddy. What is going on man? Look, it was wild weekend. Again, what's new in the NFL? It's a wild weekend. But I get it now, you know, I've missed a couple gains, but I get why people are so invested even more so when I'm not playing because I see it and I go through the emotions. We'll get into that later, but man, it's going to be talking ball for sure. Yeah, it's a wild time every single Sunday. Almost to the point that especially after the 1pm and Chargers played in the 1pm Eastern slot. So, you know, was dialed into that game and then it gets to like the three games at 430 Eastern or, you know, 415, whatever Eastern. It's almost like a big like, like a come down effect to the point that it's hard to amp yourself back up. But hey, that's what it's all about. It is trying to amp yourself back up. For sure. I think I need to point out the giant trophy, man, the Eccluse invitation or championship. I think it's looking juicy behind you, man. That is good. I like it. I like it. Yeah, it looks great. Based on my team's performance, I'm not sure how much longer it's going to be residing here at my house. But if you are watching on YouTube, yeah, you can see the trophy brought out last episode from our friends from trophy smack. So it looks great. Awesome. Again, I'm not getting used to it. I made sure to keep all the packaging put it up in the attic for the time being because I've got a bad feeling with the way things are going for me. I'm going to be having to mail that bad boy out here in a few months. Yeah, you know, I mean, look, it's early. It's early. So, you know, hey, there's still a chance, you know, things happen in fantasy. We've had some crazy stuff happen before. So, hey, you never know. You never out until you're out, Matt. Right. Yeah. I'm just hoping my first round take at some point comes back. Yes. That guy would stop messing around and get back on the damn field. Then, yeah, you probably have a better shot. So, hopefully that's coming soon. What's up with that guy? I mean, how dare he like his co-host drafts him in a podcast league, you know, for the show. I get it, man. You don't want me to win. Again, you don't want me to win Austin, but at the same time, pal. I mean, come on. I know. I know. It's not just for you. I know. There's a lot of other people that myself included. Like, I got I can't afford to miss games, you know? And us as players, we do the most to make sure that, okay, hey, I'm doing everything to get back. So just know that that is going on behind the scenes. I'm doing everything I can to get back and be healthy and not have any major setbacks. So there's thing is there's a cadence to this thing. I can't go too fast too slow, but just know I'm efficiently moving towards getting my ass back on the field. Yeah. And of course, I'm giving you grief. If you have Austin on a fantasy team like I do, it's not on Austin. I mean, I know he's going to say it is, but it's on you. It's on me to step up and figure this thing out. Okay. The first round pick is out. That is not an excuse to go one and two. Like one of us jack asses is in the league right now. All right. It's you got to step up figure this thing out, make adjustments, make others start sit decisions that are going to work out for you. Yeah. I didn't do that this weekend. And that's on me, man. That's this is this is a personal accountability show. All right. So just keep that in mind. And I think you've been playing on that a little bit. I think team people like assume that, you know, I got my fantasy draft. These guys are going to be my guys the entire league. I'm just going to plug and play. I don't have to come back to this, you know, and no, if you're really serious about this and if you're actually, if you know anything about fantasy, you know, this is how it goes. There's injuries. There's ups and downs. It's the same thing we deal with on the field like our real team. Our real team is going through some ups and downs with injuries and not only our team, but every single team, the NFL goes through this every single year. So welcome to the game of football. We talk about this on the people's panic meter episode with Andy Barons every Tuesday. Austin, you know, people send in this submission like, oh, this guy drafted in the in the 10th round. Like I'm panicked about him. It's like, yo, buddy, if you took somebody past even the fifth round, like six round on, don't get attached. Okay. Because that person might not be on your roster for very long. You might you're going to be dropping guys picking them up the whole thing trade. So yes, you're you're you are correct. Good take by you that this is a this is a variable week to week thing. Yes. All right. So let's talk chargers Vikings. We've hinted at it a little bit. Austin, you know, I'm really curious. Just as an active player, you know, I know you said last week, it's tough to not be out there. But in a game like this, which classic chargers and frankly classic Vikings, I'm like, which this was a very stoppable force, movable object game where these two teams are just prone to weirdness at the end of games. I'll just put it put it that way. What is your emotion level like watching a game like this? Well, first off, we are not trying to make these games close. We are trying to blow everyone out of the water like Miami did. I know that's what we're trying to do. We're not trying to make it. Oh, it's a nail bider. And so, man, like I think that's the next step for us as a team is let's get over that. How can we get over that? How can we continue to put up some some points on these guys? Because we definitely have the talent to do it. And so as players, we got to make sure we come together, stay consistent and go get that done because we definitely have that talent, that capability. But yeah, guess what? It's the NFL. Here's going to be in some close games and this week for us was no different. And you know, you had to find a way to win the close ones too. And we found a way to win this one. But man, when you're not in the game, I've realized as a player, when I'm in the game, like I am so locked in and focused on offense, like, okay, what's the situation? What do I have to do? How can we move forward and be successful? That the emotion is really kind of taken out of it. And I'm really in this tunnel. And when I'm not in the game, I'm not in that tunnel. Like I'm not around the guys around the energy. And so I feel the emotion. And it's like, oh, like my mom always tells me she feels like she plays the game after, you know, I see her after the game. And I'm like, now I get it. Like I get it now because it's like, yeah, oh, and I'm up and down like a damn roller coaster. And I'm over here, you know, sweating. I'm doing push ups. I'm yelling at the screen. Like, I'm all over the place, man, because we have all this energy. It's usually put into the football field. But now it's like just there's no way to, there's no way to do it. Yes, yes, calling it producer calling the same push ups. Yeah. Sometimes I just get in the zone. I'm just like, okay, you know, like got to got a blow off some steam here or do something. So yeah, not not a fan of just watching the game right now. While I'm still on the team, maybe when I retire, like sure, then the motions will come down. So I won't be as attached. But I'm like fully committed to my team right now. So the emotions are ridiculous. I love the push up push up suggestion because I was going to ask you, how do you watch games like are you? You know, I'm sure you got a nice setup. The whole thing we did, we did that whole segment where we looked at people's setups and all that stuff. And, you know, I mean, I'm not really like one to just lay back on the couch. And I'm not nearly as emotionally invested in any of this as you are. And frankly, I'm not very emotionally invested in, I want like the guys I like to do well and stuff like that. I'm not really like a ride or die emotional guy with like my bets or my fantasy team. It's just, it's just not how I choose to live my life. But I'm very into the games and like I almost always stand up. And I almost always like even in this room here where I watch most of the games, there's a big couch, but like this, I got like a bar table back there. Like the high top, I prefer to even be up at that just so I can be on my feet often. But, you know, for the emotionally involved people out there, I love the suggestion because you know, you and I both want to encourage people to live healthy lives. You're starting to get stressed about your team. Maybe drop down and give us 10, all right? Your fantasy team's tilty a little bit. Yeah, they're going to do pushups through the commercial break. Like I was doing. But no, like at the end of the game, at the end of the quarter, I'm like, I'm like this close to the screen. I'm like, come on boys, come freaking on, man, like I am in there. Like I like, I mean, this is my life, right? Like this is what I do every day. And I'm not out there. And so I'm like, man, like, come on, I can't help but I'm sitting on a sideline and I'm not at the game. I'm like, ah. So yeah, it was, it's funny. But you talk about setups. I would have, I would have been embarrassed to send in my setup. Well, usually I don't have a setup because I'm at the game. So there's no point. But now I have, I just have like my TV, but I used to have like TV mounted onto the wall above like my fireplace. And I think it was like new years, like two years ago, I like pop the champagne bottle and I pop the cork and it drilled my TV right in the middle of the screen. And so I used it for a while with just shattered, but then eventually like half of the side was like green and blue. And it was like, okay, this is, this is not usable. And so I had to take that one down that I got my TV from upstairs were up in the studio up here. You should have like a little gaming setup. And I just put it, it's not a mounted TV. So it's just like a little mini TV that I put on top of my TV stand. So that's a, that's the news. Austin, Austin, yo, you're, you are an active NFL player. You, hey, hey, you can go and spend some of the money on like a nice TV, man. Okay. Like you're watching this thing for weeks and months afterwards with the screen all screwed up. It just showed you where my priorities are. All right. All right. It was not prioritized by TV setup. Like I said, I'm usually not even watching the game because I'm actually, you know, making the content out there on the field. So yeah, yeah, I definitely need to get an upgrade in that category, though, for sure. Yeah, when the playing days are done and you're just like us plebes out there watching the games, I'm sure you'll have a much better setup. But yeah, that's like something out of a cartoon or something you pop the champagne bottle or like in a movie, like really right into, like literally right in the middle of a TV. And it's just big shattered all over Spider Web. Yeah. And hey, it worked for a little bit. So still got a little bit of use that I still sent in my garage if anyone wants it. So, you know, oh, yeah, if anybody wants Austin's jacked up TV, make sure to, you know, go bang on his garage door. It's been there for a couple of years. I should probably do something with it. Yeah, maybe. All right. Well, you know, again, it was an intense game. I'm, you know, interested just sort of in the, what did you notice watching the game? I know we talked last night about the amount of blitting that was used by the Vikings defense, which is just absurd. That was insane. It was insane. I swear, I talked, I talked to the RVs after the game. I was like, you, you guys were doing like blocking simulator. Like it was, you were not playing running back. You're playing backfield offensive lineman. I think it was like 83 or 89% of the time was pressure, which is basically every play and steps like third and really long. And even then they were still, you know, bringing some type of, you know, look, like, oh, they're going to pressure. They're going to pressure. They had guys up in the A gaps, guys off the edges. And then they would play like, you know, 15 yards off of our receivers. And, and so I was like, hey, either you're going to get there or, you know, we're going to be able to, you know, keep chunking down the field if we can get the ball out on time. And obviously, you know, Jay heard went 40 for 40 set at a 47, which is incredible. Hem Ankeen had amazing days. And so that really put us in a position to, to, yeah, go out there and get ourselves some points, those two being hot. But yeah, they were basically saying, all right, you're pretty much not running the ball today because we have eight people on the line of scrimmage. So you're, if you're going to move the ball, it's going to be outside out wide. And that's exactly what the game was for us. So I've never seen that much pressure. But yeah, set it to the backs out there, picking up the, picking up the places. And it just, it goes to show, man, like there's so much more to the running back position than just running the ball, you know, that's like the typical thing. Like, oh, you just run, you're the runner, right? Well, no, actually we have to catch, also, we have to block. You know, it's a blocking. Obviously, it's important. You know, the offensive line doesn't, but we have to do it too. Like you see these quarterbacks getting hurt. And you know, we know what's on the line if your starting quarterback goes down, you know, that's probably, probably the season for you. Just because of, you know, how impactful these guys are, especially Jay heard, I'm not saying you don't have a chance, but we've seen that in the past. So everyone, when it comes to protection, like it's got to be premium because we got to keep these guys up, and that's going to give us the best chance to go forward. And so I'm so proud of our guys out there for, for handling the pressure man and keeping Jay herb up. And obviously you see what happens when you do that. Yeah. According to NFL next gen stats, the Vikings blitz Justin Herbert on 40 of his 50 dropbacks, the second highest blitz rate in a game 82% in the NGS era, which I think goes back to 2016. So that's 82% is a long time. Herbert averaged 2.26 seconds time to throw his first game under 2.4 seconds in his entire career. So incredible adjustment by you. And you mentioned the running backs pass protecting because I said to you, people are starting to give you some crap about, hey, you told me about Josh Kelly, like, and he's not giving me fantasy points. I went back and looked this up according to fantasy points data tool. And they're, I know these guys, they're very stringent about like, what is a route and what is not a route? Like just because you're on the field on a pass play, it's not just an automatic route. Like you have to really run around and be eligible to catch a pass. Josh Kelly ran a route only 16% of those 50 dropbacks for, for Justin Herbert. So you're right. This, this guy's in there like not eligible to get those little check down passes. It's no, be, be a pass protector here. And that is crucial for the team. Yeah, absolutely. And you know, I know people love fantasy, but you know, we have a bigger job to do that is win games. Right. You know, and then fantasy is a, is a byproduct of us going out there and doing that, hopefully. But yeah, you know, when you have 47 passing plays and, you know, he's only out on 16% of those. Then yeah, it's, it's a bloody day in the trenches. One of those days that you're like, after the game, how does my body feel? Probably really sore. Right. Not to mention too, from a run game perspective, if you know they're sending blitzes like that, you're not going to run into an advantageous front either. You're going to try to get quick passes out, which they did here. Unfortunately, wasn't all good news, despite the fact that the Chargers got their first win. Your guy, Mike Williams tears as ACL, he's going to miss the entire season. Just, what a bummer for a guy that, you know, provides a critical, critical role to the team as I would say the best vertical receiver on the roster. Yeah, man, before the season, you know, one of Mike's, his mad ratings, he had the highest rating on the team. And it was for, for an individual category anyway, for spectacular catch was like the highest rate in the jacks out. That is, that is Mike Williams. Like this dude makes insane catches. And that's what he does, like on a regular one handed, you know, jumping up over people, you know, diving past people like he made on on Sunday during the Vikings game. And yeah, man, like he's a special player. Obviously, you know, you never want to see anyone have, you know, injuries of that, that are that substantial. It's going to happen. We know, you don't know who was going to happen to or when. But we do know this game is violent. Yeah, so like it goes to other people that have to step up. But, you know, just as, as a person, as a player, as a teammate, like, man, like it's so hard to see that. Even though, you know, it's coming from somebody. You don't know what, like I said, don't, but it's just hard because, you know, especially Mike, you know, I have a pretty personal connection with him too. We came in together. So we've been here. He was my first round pick the year that I came in. We've, that's true. Yeah. We've been growing together. It's me, Mike Williams and Michael Davis are the last three from our, from our class still around with the Chargers, man. So I know he'll still be in good spirit around the building just because that's the type of person he is. But definitely hurts to see, hurts to see that really happened to anyone. And then especially, you know, someone that you know like that. So sucks, man, sucks. Definitely sucks. Was on his way. I think to a big season two, because this past offense is really good through the first three weeks. And obviously, we know the way he can, the way Justin Herbert can fit things in down the field, like it's such a big advantage to have that ball winner on the outside. You know, it's on Josh Palmer. It's on rookie Quentin Johnson to, to step up for sure. I am curious how Mike's absence might affect the way that you have been using Keenan Allen, right? Because I'll admit to see, like I think Keenan didn't look as best from a separation standpoint to the end of last year, right? When he's coming back from a damn hamstring injury, that's to be expected. I think Kellen's done a great job of getting him into space. Like I charted week two, week three for him for reception, perception, 60% of his routes are like curls and digs and slants and flats and screens. It's like, okay, the routes he's still running really well. We're only going to use them on those routes. Like that's what we're going to throw. And that's really good coaching. Even to the point Austin, like, and that Vikings game, you know, we talked about last night, they're just having Keenan run a slant into like wide ass open space against this Vikings defense. It's just got guys so far back. I don't know. It wasn't a fan of what the Vikings did defensively. I mean, good for you guys. But, you know, and he's just running a slant into that open space. So I'm interested to see, like, you know, if that you take the vertical throw out of the offense, what that changes for Keenan, but yeah, it's just a bummer for Mike overall. Yeah. It really is. Yeah. It is, man. It sucks. All right. Let's move on to a new segment here, Austin. We're calling this one trading secrets. This segment, we do a little deep dive into a trending NFL topic or performance. I'm going to provide the fantasy slash analyst angle where Austin shares, you know, his player perspective. And we're going to try to bring the best of both worlds this week's topic. How could it be anything else other than the dolphins put up 70 damn points, both of their running backs, historic numbers from a fantasy football perspective. Yes. Rookie, Devon, Achan has an incredible performance. So I don't know. Let's just start initial thoughts, Austin. After watching this game, what do you think? Initial thoughts are, wow, like, wow. Look, man, Matt, if you score 70 points in a high school game, that's ridiculous. In college, it's even ridiculous. That's even ridiculous. They did it at a professional level, man, where they're going against other professionals. And so shout out to Miami for absolutely popping off. I went back and watched that game. We can get into details later. But man, like, that, what a showing. What a showing by Miami. Because, uh, wow. And the thing, it wasn't just, it wasn't just Tyreek. Like, yeah, he was a part of it. It was all these guys that were popping off and making plays and, you know, moving the ball down the field. And so, yeah, they, they, uh, I don't even know how to describe it, man. It's, it's insane. It was actually insane. 70 points in a professional game. Yeah. Uh, 55.6% of Devon, Achan, the rookie running back his yards, his rushing yards came on five plus yard runs. Uh, Raheem Mostard, 53.8%. I'm sure you've seen the stat going around from the next end stats player tracking data that all of the, like, the top six speeds. I think the top five or six speeds this year, they all come from the Miami Dolphins at some point this year. The amount of stress that they put on a defense Austin, I don't, like, I don't know. Look, I think Vance, Vance Joseph probably could have come up with a slightly better plan. And like, let's leave the middle of the field wide open. Like, let's leave that open for this particular offense. Again, wasn't so thrilled about that. But as a defensive coordinator, I have no idea how you even stop it because it's just there's so much motion there. So like, when guys are moving around like that pre snap, it completely switches the rules that switches up the assignments at the very last minute for cornerbacks. And that's again, that's just in the past game, not in the run game. Yeah. Uh, well, I went back and watched the game and because I was like, okay, I got this course 70 points. I got to go see and we played Denver twice a year. So I'm like, let's see what this defense is doing. Uh, and Miami was getting connected on the edges, man. Like in the run game, they were tied in like just attacking Denver's edges with different types of motions with different sweet plays with just some straight up wide zone, some tosses, just all over the edges of these defense. And then, you know, we'll get into the rookie's performance in Rahim. But like, they were the old line was getting connected like bodies on bodies. And then they were db's were not we're not getting these guys on the ground. And when that happens, if you're forcing db's to tackle and they're not tackling, then you're going to be gashing them. And that's exactly what was happening. Um, they were just getting just chunks on the edges. Um, and then, you know, they have this kind of like, like unorthodox way of doing their wide zone, which it makes more sense now that I see it and how effective it is. But where, um, two, uh, goes turns backwards. And they hand, they turns backwards and they hand it off behind. Um, if you watch their wide zones, they hand it off behind. Like he turns backwards. Usually, you know, the quarterbacks goes steps back and then I hands it out in front. And they, when they go behind, it also opens up to a to this, this like a rollout package where now he can do that behind. You have no idea where the ball is, but you have to respect this wide zone going that way because you can't see the ball and they hand it off sometimes. Now you can't see the ball. He's keeping it and running out the other way, right? To do a play action rollout. And so wow, like, yeah, what they got going on there with their scheme and how they skiing dubbed Denver was was very impressive. And then how they actually executed it, um, with the old line, like I go went back, like, old line running, getting online backers, like their misdirections set up perfectly bodies on bodies and other runners. That's exactly what you want to see. And I would say the tight ends have been good blockers there too. Like that. And that matters a ton. And it, it's a big, like, Michael Seki was a former first round pick. He gets their, uh, Mike McDaniel gets there to, to Miami and like, doesn't really have a plan for this guy because he's not a blocker. He's more of like a receiver. And now you see a guy like Durham, Smife never leaves the field for Miami because he's really sound in the run game. And that's such a good point about to and the, and the deception that he, because this, it's a lot to process as a quarterback. People think of like, oh, you're stripping it down, you're simplifying it for him. But when you have to read whether you're going to hand the ball, you're going to keep it off. It's going to be that play action type of situation. The actual deception part of the play action is really crucial to, to getting the defense to bite in that way. Right. And so like, if you just do like a one in front, like, everyone else does, right, you can read that because you can see the ball the whole time. But when he turns his back, which I've been like, as a runner, like running wide zone like that. And I, if I have to cut back, it's pretty much impossible. So there's, there is some like wide zone, right? I'm aiming usually outside of the tackle's leg. You know, if everything starts washing by, now I'm going to cut back. Well, if I'm getting the ball behind the quarterback, now it's pretty hard for me to cut back, because I'm deeper in the backfield and my angle's going to be a lot different. And so there's some, there's a plus and minuses with it. But obviously they've dialed it up where they're trying to run on the edge and they have been running on the edge. And so it works for them. But yeah, man, just even that the smallest little thing like that, instead of handing it off the front, handed off behind the quarterback, so that there is some hidden ball action there. Then man, super effective. And it's creative. And it's pretty cool to see kind of teams that are being created with some stuff. You know, they had like the inside pitch that, you know, we see from some teams like stuff like that where it's created stuff. And I wouldn't be surprised if we start seeing a little bit more often. And they also have this thing that I was watching. And it's where they, they put like a two running backs in the game or like a receiver and they put them in motion. And they usually you don't put two people in the same spot, but they'll put a blocker in front of like a flat or like a swing and throw it to the swing and then have a lead blocker there. You're wasting the guy essentially with some space. But if you're effective enough, can block the flat blood defender. Now all you have to do is, you know, get the deep safety. And so super effective. I guarantee we're going to see that happening more throughout teams in the NFL because it's super effective because usually have one flat defender. But if we put two people over there, now we can block the flat defender. It's like a screen almost. And now the runner can, you know, get by that and get to the second level. So definitely like what they got going on over there. It creates a, yeah, a real problem again for defenses because, well, do you account for this guy or do you just treat him as a lead blocker? And you're so right. That's going to get stolen. The like full speed motion, that's already getting jacked everywhere. Like, you know, you guys even, you don't do like necessary full speed, speed motion with Keenan Allen, but he's been in motion a ton so far to start this year. But like in Green Bay, they've got it with Jayden Reed, rookie receiver there. They have that guy in like full speed motion at the snap, creates matchup problems and spacing for their offense. By the way, not a coincidence that Matt LaFloor comes from the same coaching tree of Mike Mutano. These guys are all just jacking from each other basically. So that's really cool to see makes offenses really fun. I'm sure, yeah, you use a running back watching this stuff like damn, that'd be great. Yeah, too too at well for the Rams score to touchdown or almost a touchdown or was it the touchdown he scored? I don't know. I can't remember. I'm not sure. Yeah, I'm not sure. Not 100%. But he's been doing that a ton of the full speed motion. Anyways, I guess the question here, spinning it forward, especially from like a fantasy angle, taking everything that you just told me, I mean, the question is people are going to ask is like, is this sustainable? And the answer is obviously, no, you're not going to score 70 points. You're not going to ring up every defense in the NFL. Like it's a freaking college football match up in week one or like it's a maddened operation. You're trying to kick the crap out of your friend that your little brother or something. Your little brother. Yeah, you're trying to run up through the stats and like the franchise mode and all that. So no, that part's not sustainable. But I would say awesome. The thing that makes it seem to me like I would buy into a guy like a H and the rookie. Obviously, most of it has become, I mean, like a freaking top 10 back in fantasy. But for H and the rookie, Devon H and from Texas A&M, he's kind of a, he's a smaller guy. He's definitely sub 200 pounds. People say he's like a 192 now. Okay. He was definitely like in the 180s in college. But the amount of speed that he brings to the table and the way that they scheme things up in an unorthodox way, I think from our perspective on the outside, we have to change the way we view this guy because yeah, okay, fine. He's 188 pounds or whatever. That's not going to work for every NFL team. Well, I don't care about if it's going to work for every NFL team. Does it work for this team? Right. And I think, you know, what I was talking about, you know, how they were attacking the edges kind of plays into, you know, the type of person that they have. If you have speed guys, yeah, you're probably going to want to attack the edges more. Why? Because you can't, it's hard to run full speed in between the tackles, but it's not harder on full speed off of the tackle, right? Or pitching you the ball. And I went back and watch him too. Just obviously, if anyone has 200 yards, I got to go back and watch that game. And this man, he has great contact balance. Like he would, he'd be getting bounced around like, yeah, I'm a light guy. So I know how it is out there. People see a light guy. They try to put a shoulder in you. They don't wrap you up. And they just try to kind of nudge you down to the ground. And then if you can sustain that, you're going to bounce off a lot of tackles. And that's what I saw him happen. That's what I saw him doing with all of the, the DBs out there where it was, it would, not one person would take him down. It would take multiple people that had to get to the ball. He wasn't just going down on first contact. Yeah. If you got speed, man, you know, and which is what their entire team's built off of, guess what? In the run game, you're probably going to be running off tackle throwing it. You know, there's going to be some up the middle stuff, too. You got to keep a defense on us, but there's going to be a lot of misdirection. There's going to be a lot of how can we get our guys up to full speed because that's what we feel like we have the advantage. So it makes sense, you know, for him to have success in that type of offense. Yeah, just looking at it right now, five point eight yards after contact per attempt for for a chance. So yeah, that's pretty impressive. Pretty impressive stuff for a guy. Look, when you run for 200 yards, you're going to break off long runs. That's going to boost your yards after contact averages and all that stuff. But yeah, he's, I think that's a really interesting way to put it like the way that you know that these guys are going to treat you that way as a smaller running back. And you can kind of lean into that a little bit. I'm really curious, I guess, to see if they do, if teams then start kind of trying to defend the edges or over-committing to that. Are you able to then run it up the gut? Or again, I keep talking about from a past game perspective. And you had great insight with the way that two is so great with those the fakes and everything. Again, that's going to leave that middle, middle of the field open from that perspective. If you're really over-committing to the edges. Yeah, man, they're a mashup nightmare, bro. It's a match of nightmare. You know, we played in week one and it was a flipping track meet out there. You know, like, who's going to score more points? That's what it came down to with those guys. Because they have so many ways that they can, you know, have success. And obviously they showed all of those ways during the Denver game. Well, it sounds like again, from player perspective, from my perspective as like an analyst, we're definitely buying into what the obviously we're buying into the Dolphin's offense. No kidding. You don't need to tell you that they scored 70 points in the game, but we're buying into maybe some sustainability for this rookie running backs performance just because again, the way he plays and the clarity that this team has with the way they're attacking things right now. So that's really good insight. Austin, we love to see that. We also love to see you, pal, our three know in our fantasy league. Let's go, baby. Oh, god. You know, Matt, Austin's, I think it brings me back to, you know, I'll let you go ahead. Let's go ahead. I'll put it. No, no, you're, you know, take it. I was going to say nothing except there was a lot of signs that pointed towards this, right? You know, we go back to the draft, you know, I get an A, you got to see, um, oh, she's, you know, so look, now it's just showing out, you know, I was more prepared. I had a better draft. My guys, you know, I, I foresaw more prepared. You, you didn't, you barely logged into the draft with you like four picks into the draft. You log in and you're more prepared. You know, I may have started someone who was out this week on accident. But when you have a good team, you don't have to depend on one player, you know, so, you know, we can spread out the love. Um, but, uh, yeah, anyways, I'll just give you the crap. Uh, you know, I've had some, I feel like every week I have someone who pops off, um, you know, it's, it's always been Herbert who's been holding the down and then it was, you know, it was Brandon, I used the first week. Then it was, um, swift the second week. Then it was Javante Adams last week. And so, uh, I've been very fortunate with the timing, uh, which is a lot of stuff. And there's a lot of timing that goes on as far as efficiency and, and deficiency and fantasy football. So timing has been on my side so far. Uh, yes. It's nice of you to call it timing and not luck. But no, uh, I, I also think too, yeah, right. You, you get a one point performance from the Dallas defense, which by the way, while we're giving you all your flowers for this, uh, fantasy league stuff, we do have to talk about the fact that you're like the kiss of death in our bold prediction segment because everybody you hype up has, you know, it got off a week. You hype up with Josh Jacobs coming into week two, negative two rushing yards. You hype up the Dallas defense as a memorable forms of Arnold. They lose the Josh dobs and the boys down there in Arizona and get you one fantasy point. So, um, maybe you need to have a conversation about that. But last, you get one point from the Dallas defense. And Deandra Swift again gives you a nice game with 14.3 points, 130 rushing yards. We don't need to do the full breakdown like we did with the dolphins, but I watched that Eagles offensive line. And I'm sure again, you as a running back, you're like, yo, get that, that looks pretty nice. That's a nice life right there. Look, there's a reason why they're unstoppable on all these damn QB sneaks, you know, and that, that alone, right, should show you what kind of offensive line these guys got. Like everyone knows the QB sneaks coming. It doesn't even matter. They still get the yard. And you can look at all of, you know, Swift's running yards and all these other backs running yards, but that alone right there is going to show me, okay, yeah, these guys are strong. They have good technique. They're getting low. They're getting push, you know, and that's like the most obvious run situation where they know they're running up the middle for one yard. And the fact that they can continue to do that because it's not it's not automatic. If you watch other teams, plenty of teams getting stuffed on quarterback sneaks. And so, you know, the fact that they have been doing it for two years just kind of shows, yeah, their online is a force. I love everybody. Like how come, how come not everyone does the, does the push push, you know, it's what people call well, because most everybody else doesn't have a quarterback that like can squat 600 pounds. And yeah, it doesn't have Jason Kelsey and all these monsters up front. If every, if it was so easy, everybody else would do it. Exactly. You know, so exactly less fun news again from our fantasy league. I'm one and two. I'm in seventh place now. I law literally I've played everybody the week after they play Austin played JJ Zacharyson from the late round football podcast, later on fantasy football podcast, he, he loses to Austin beats me the next week. Austin beats Josh Norris from underdog fantasy. He comes back and beats me next week. So that's great. Like, you know, everybody gives their bad performance to Austin. And then, oh, I've got, you know, damn, Josh Norris dropping 36 points from Keenan Allen on my face. Devo Samuel 22 points. AJ Brown always having a slow start to season. Not when he plays Harman's head. Yeah, then he's going to go ahead and go off. You know, meanwhile, got nice performances from Jalen Hertz. Zach Moss has been a great pickup for me. Alexander Madison, you know, I was correct on my bold prediction, sort of correct. Alexander Madison, a good game against the chargers, but you know, my receivers, Calvin Ridley, Tyler Lock and Nico Collins, all under seven points, you know, that hurts as the receiver guy. That that one hurts me. Yeah. And you need your first round pick back. So that, that'll definitely help when that happens. That doesn't, that doesn't, that doesn't help out. But yeah, I'm, I'm actually projected to lose this week. And I'm so, I'm playing Ray. So he's had a great run. He's also 3 and 0. You guys are both 3 and 0. So that will be a pretty sick match up here in week four. I've got Faraz's team who again, you just played last week and beat him to it. You dropped him to a 0 and 3 start. Yeah, you got it. You got it. Yeah, you got it. Sure, everybody comes in and beats the, beats the snott out of Harman's head right after Eckler takes care of him one week. So yeah, I'm not looking too good on that one. But anyways, I'm coming for that trophy behind you, man. Thank you. I need the first ever Eckler invitation on championship trophy. Well, it would be, frankly, it would be embarrassing if your name is on the trophy and you don't have it. So yeah, I'll be sure to get this one ready to come in the mail for you. And, you know, maybe I'll swing by and I'll, I'll take your broken ass TV and. Yeah, there you go. Yeah, it would be really appreciated. Today's podcast is sponsored by the first ever Toyota Grand Highlander, the midsize SUV for those in charge of rescue missions, road trips and just crushing it in life with three spacious rows to manage those crazy carpool adventures and available hybrid max power train delivering 362 horsepower and a 12.3 inch multimedia touchscreen to navigate even the most unexpected of adventures. Don't just go big. Go grand with the first ever Toyota Grand Highlander. Learn more at www.toyota.com slash grand highlander. All right, let's move on to the mailbag here. We asked you all for your early season trades in the Ask Austin mailbag. Again, the email is Ask Austin at Yahoo Sports dot com. You sure anything you want with us, honestly. Um, you should find us on Twitter too or X, whatever we're supposed to call it at Austin, Eckler at Madharm and underscore BYB. Again, we asked for your early season trades. Let's give out a couple grades here, Austin. Uh, with, again, we all, we know hindsight now how this happened. We'll see how these people did. Cooper C traded Josh Allen, Alexander Madison and Christian Kirk for Justin Fields and Tony Pollard. Cooper justifies this by saying, I have to Sean Watson on the bench, who I think will be solid. It fields ends up being a bust. What do you guys think? Um, hmm. Well, Fields is, is trending towards being a fantasy bust so far this year. Hey, all the good things we said about what the bear, or the dolphins offense are doing. It's schematically. The bears are doing the opposite of that. The bears, uh, the dolphins have the, the guy out there running in the same area. The field to be a lead blocker. The bears have just two guys running the same route in the same area of the field. So that's not going so well for the bears. But, um, I do like getting Tony Pollard back. Pollard has, uh, had a great start to the season. Um, I think he's getting great usage. The cowboys look good overall, despite the losing last week. So, um, I, I give this one, I give this one like a, a C. I see. Yeah. I don't like giving up Josh Allen, man. Right. Like, man, like this guy's like, oh, reliable. Man, you know, he's, he's got the runny potential, right? He's, he's always going to, you know, he's got a good receiving crew. Um, you know, and then, you know, down in the red zone, like I said, he's got that run potential to score touchdowns as well with his feet or with his arms. So I don't know. I don't know. Who did he get? We got Tony Pollard. Who else? Justin Fields. Yeah. I agree with you on the C, C minus. I think it's a C. I would compare that C minus two mats fantasy draft for like, C minus. Well, yeah, clearly, clearly somebody who has the jump on, uh, Austin Echo is going to miss like some games to start the season. I guess, I guess, hey, they, they, the probability like, hey, he's made it through two whole seasons. He's got us it out at least one game, right? Oh, I don't know. I'm just giving, I'm just giving a crap. All right. Yeah. I agree to that though. Okay. C minus. Yeah. We'll see what happens with Alexander Madison. Now that they traded for cam maker, although they traded, uh, Austin, they traded a 2026 conditional pick swap for, to get cam makers. So 2026. This is the year 2023. I mean, that's wild. Yeah. I didn't know you could do that. Oh, yeah. Are we even going to be round in 26? Is there even going to be like, uh, you know, what's the global warming situation? What's earth going to be doing in the 2026? We're taking a day by day, trying to take advantage, you know, 2026. You know, that's great for them with, with that, if we get to that moment, which I hope we all do. Um, but, uh, yeah, I didn't even know you could trade that far into the future. But I guess, hey, so be it. Uh, John F sends in our next trade just before week one. I traded Jamison Williams, Rashad White and Deandre Hopkins for Almond Ross St. Brown in a dynasty league. I was able to open a roster spot to pick up Marvin Mims and the preseason draft as well. What are your thoughts? Hey, John, I'll tell you what you nailed this trade, buddy. This is like an A plus. Okay. Uh, Austin, I know how, how, how familiar are you with dynasty fantasy football? Not familiar at all. Okay. So dynasty basically, uh, you just, there's a startup draft. Think of like the whole, the player pool is completely open. And you draft a team and you keep that team every year. So you get like, there's a rookie draft every year where there's four rounds and you draft like the incoming. Or so obviously this past year, rookie draft, Bijan Robinson goes first overall and basically every rookie draft because everybody newsy was going to be a stud. Right. Um, so yeah. And basically you kind of want to lean towards younger players. Um, receivers are really valuable because they can age a little more gracefully, uh, then, then, then running backs and then same with quarterbacks too. Like right. These guys are super valuable. But to get, I'm on Ross St. Brown, who is one of the most productive players in the league, who's really like, I think, if you're talking about like the big power slot archetype, there's Cooper Cup. And then there's like St. Brown might be the next guy there to get him for Jamison Williams, who's an unproven player. We haven't seen him really barely play at all yet. Rashad White, who, yeah, starting, but how long is he going to start? And then Deandre Hopkins, who's an aging player, in a dynasty league that you're keeping forever. I think this is an A plus trade. Nice. Well done. Well done. How do you trade? So you trade three people for one? So that person got to clear some bench space then, huh? Yeah. Hopefully they had, yeah, some, some guys that could just go ahead and park with it in a dynasty league. If you got people you're keeping for a long time, then I feel like that's brutal. You're just dropping people like that. But hey, okay. Let me tell you what, too. I'll say this is a general rule of thought. I think people, when they're trying to trade, they always try to overwhelm you with numbers. Like, I'm giving you three guys for one. And it's almost never as good of a deal as it seems, because there's probably a reason they're having to compile those three guys to get your one guy. Right. Yeah. Like one of my, one of my buddies sent me a trade, not, not to me, but just like, what do you think about this? Where it was CD Lamb and Jerome Ford, you know, the guy who's going to be starting out for Cleveland with Nick Chubb out for Justin Jefferson. I'm like, here's the deal. Like, this is Justin Jefferson. He's like, we've drafted first over on so many leagues. You got to really, like, blow my socks off again, Justin Jefferson. So those will always be careful with the two for one, the three for sure. For sure. I can see some merit in that. If though, if you're like, Hey, you have a running back that's like maybe out out, like for the rest of the season, you're like, Hey, maybe I have someone to supplement now a little bit. Maybe, maybe. Yeah. A plus for that one. Last one we'll talk about here. Craig R in a half point PPR league. And hey, on a half point PPR league says, I traded away David Montgomery and George Pickens to get back Jameer Gibbs. Well, again, this was probably made before we knew David Montgomery got hurt. So this looks like a pretty good, a pretty good trade for you. George Pickens have an, you know, decent year decent game against the Raiders, big game against the Browns. I do think Jameer Gibbs, you know, they gave him a lot of work. We, we talked about this on the last podcast, Austin, where we weren't sure, you know, from like a trust perspective, would they really give him the lion's share of the workload? They pickups on him at night. They have Craig Reynolds. They did give Jameer Gibbs a ton of work to move him closer to having you shave your eyebrows off. Oh, wow. Okay. I don't know about that. But yes, yes, he could still be in the top 15. Yeah. If he's going to get that type of workload every week, yeah. But the, hey, the dude was both of them have to be in the top 15. So that's all I'm saying. But yeah, no, if, you know, if, if they feel like he's the guy that confident in him, yeah, absolutely. And then, you know, sometimes with injuries, you don't have a choice. You know, like, right with me right now, you know, in my back field, like Josh, you're up. It doesn't matter if, you know, you're the guy or whatever, you're the guy now because you're next to line, you're next man up mentality. So, you know, this is how this would lead works too. You know, people will earn more reps throughout, can earn more reps throughout the season. And that's not uncommon. We start seeing more of some other guys that maybe you didn't see as much in the beginning or vice versa, where you start seeing less of some guys because someone else is, you know, earning more reps. That's what it comes down to in this league. And it comes back to impact. How much impact type you've been making? How much impact have you shown? And if so, then guess what, you're going to be on the field more. Yeah, there you go. I will give this trade a B. Because obviously, even when you made it, I might have given it a little lower, but with the hindsight. And that's the thing. If we've graded your trade here and you don't like the way we graded it, well, remember, you sent these to us a little while ago. And Austin and I now have the advantage of knowing the future and being able to say, hey, you know, this is, this is maybe the same age. So well, it's the age pretty well for you, Craig. So I'm going to give you a B on this. So we got one A plus one C minus and one B trade here, which I think covers a nice spectrum. At least we didn't give anybody an F. Yeah, for sure. For sure. Did does that get us? In the graph, buddy, people, I think people get F's. No, I wouldn't know. I'm just a C minus guy, but I don't get it. I don't know what kind of draft you have to get to get an F. Collins says he's seen it. Well, what kind of Collins says he's seen it. We get two D minuses in our league. So yeah, that's pretty low. Who's grading these? Some algorithm? Uh, no, Colin, it's a second job. He grades them all by hand. Where people think it was you. That was back at the, back at the NFL days. Yeah, I think I told that story. Dan Hansen said that to me. You know, when I was like the low level fantasy editor, it's like, yeah, that's how I justify my job is I just, I write every draft grade personally. Nice. Nice. Awesome. Yeah. Awesome. I'm sure it's chat GPT or whatever you do. All right. No mailbag next week, uh, because we're going to be doing a little quarter pole review on some of the rookies so far and maybe trying to project a little farther into the future. It'll be a big, maybe a big start for Quentin Johnson with the chargers. Now that we obviously, there's some injuries there. They may need him to step up. We will see. But before we go, all right, Austin, since we're teaming up this season with the first ever Toyota Grand Highlander, the perfect vehicle for making new memories. We're going to create some memories of our own. In this segment, we're calling future snapshots. Austin, make me a bold prediction who is going to have a memorable performance this weekend. And please try not to curse them to have the worst game of their career. Oh, you know, I almost don't want to even make a bold prediction now. Both of them might have been awful, but the heck. All right. Here we go. All right. So my bold prediction, I'm looking at the Seahawks and Giants game. And I am looking at Kenneth Walker, who when I've watched him play, man, has been an absolute beast. Just runs reckless, mad, fast, powerful. I'm thinking he's got a pop off. I'm saying he's going to go over 100 against dry and defense. And 130. All purpose yards. Okay. And one touchdown. That'll be one 30 and one touchdown. That'll be my bold prediction for the week. That's kind of bold. So I hope he breaks the curse. I hope he breaks the curse. I think he's going to pop off. Why do I think that? I just got a hunch. I just got a feeling we'll see. We'll see if it goes through. Well, he's been balling out lately. So hey, you heard, you heard it here first, people. Make sure you to get Kenneth Walker on all of your fantasy benches as he is now. You shouldn't be available. But what the heck? If he's out there, you damn it. No, no, no, no. I mean, you need to take him from your starting line up and you need to bench him this week. You can't play him because the, the Eccler curse has been a block. Oh, you're with that way. Okay. Hey, we'll see. If it happens, I don't know. I'm just saying, look, I'm not, I'm not going to say anything. I don't want to jinx it. All right. All right. Anyway, that's my bold prediction for the week. I think the Houston Texans, familiar with their work, Houston Texans. They got a young quarterback ball on out right now. CJ Straub's like breaking records in terms of passing attempts in a rookies first three starts. I think he's going over like 800 yards. Some crazy like that. I think the Houston Texans have two wide receivers go over 100 yards in week one. I think it's going to be Nico Collins. My guy love Nico Collins. He has played great so far as a big extra seaver running big boy routes over the middle of the field, getting yards after the catch. I think he's going over 100 yards and their rookie receiver, Tank Dell. We talked about small guys earlier. Austin, this dude is like 166 pounds. Who cares? Because he's been getting open on corner routes, getting open down the field, getting open on intermediate routes. I think both these guys go over 100 yards against the Pittsburgh Steelers who have a great defense, a little nervous about TJ Watt driving CJ Straub into the dirt, but they have given up big games to Devonte Adams, Brandon Ayyuk, big games to outside receivers, Tank Dell, outside guide Nico Collins, outside guy. So bold prediction to Texans go over 100 yards in this game. Wow. How have your bold prediction been doing? We know mine have been terrible. What's I give myself like a B minus on the bold predictions. You know, I said Alexander Madison over 80 yards, total yards and a touchdown. He had over 100 yards, but no touchdowns. The week before I said Lamar Jackson would have 300 yards passing and four or three touchdowns. He did not have three touchdowns, but he had a really good game. So again, I'll give myself a B minus. I'm not I'm not saying these guys are going to have big games are going for minus two yards. Let's put it that way. Yeah. That's my picks have been anomalies. Like what the heck? Like no one was ever predicting it to be that bad. All right. We love it. That's our memorable performance coming up. See, we're making memories here every day on Echozege. Those were our future snapshots. Thanks again to Toyota and the first ever Grand Highlander. All right, Austin, hell of a show. That's going to do it. Rocked it. Looking forward to next week, man. Yeah. Of course. Great breakdown of the dolphins and everything. That was awesome. Tomorrow's Thursday heading into a full slate of NFL action. You know what that means. It's Dal Dal Don join me for another episode of Statner Thursday where we look back at the most revealing stats that you need to know for all 32 teams as you head into week four. Until then, we're out.