Ekeler's Edge: Ekeler provides update on injury and reacts to other major RB injuries

It's Wednesday September 20th. I'm Matt Harmon. Welcome to Eccler's Edge presented by Toyota. Part of the Yahoo fantasy football show. It is a hell of a day to talk ball and join me to do just that is Los Angeles charges running back Austin Eccler. Austin is going on, buddy. What a do what a do man. We're back for some more. It's a it's week three. The season progresses on man and every week I'm never like I said last week like it's just it never ceases to amaze me like the NFL like it's it's everything in one. It's good. It's bad. It's ugly. It's beautiful. Sad happy all at the same time. And so man like I can can be any happier peeing in this league and really enjoy it, man. It's it's a blessing. Yeah. Football is a roller coaster of emotions, especially like the first few weeks of the season, right? You you see all of your like off-season hypothesis sort of tested, right? And sometimes it's like, all right, was that a week one blip? Or oh, man, are the Steelers offense? Really? This is just not good, right? Like after first two weeks of seeing it, stuff like that. So you get to kind of see and and test those. Oh, man, I feel like I feel like any of it for talking about the Steelers offense with Matt Canada's offensive corners offensive coordinator, so much of soft season. But that's topic for another time. The emotional roller coaster goes on of the NFL. Austin, for you, particularly, I know just right off the top here, I just wanted to check in with you. Obviously you miss week two deal with an ankle injury right now. So I know that the people out there want a status report. And I know that it's it's not like a you're going to come on here and just like tell everybody what's about to happen because that's not how the human body works people. Yeah. Yeah. Obviously miss week two. Hate missing games. It's just detrimental in multiple ways, right? For me, myself, for the team, you know, for the fantasy, for the organization, for just just football in general, right? We want to see our best players out there on the field because that's what is entertaining, right? When we see these amazing plays and see consistency. So it sucks. But you know, something that, you know, is part of the NFL. And you know, we see it weekend and week out. Like it's going to happen. We know it's going to happen. That's why we have depth on our rosters. And then that's where the you know, the next man mentality steps up. But as far as far as me, yeah, dealing with the ankle and I've dealt with ankles in the past. And so you just got to get it to a point where you feel good where it's taped up and you can actually feel like, okay, if I get tackled, it's not going to be right re aggravated and set me back to where I was before where I could barely walk on it. And so it's like, okay, we're making progress. And you know, as long as that progress continues to happen, like, you know, that it's not and that's going to be like, ah, like he's out for, you know, several months type of thing. It's, you know, it's a day to day week to week type of situation. And I like the progress that I've made so far. So hopefully back sooner than later. Hey, that's what we all want. We all want to see you out there. And like I said, this thing is anybody is dealt with any sort of injury, whether you're a professional athlete or not. But certainly if you're a professional athlete, it's like you said, it's a moving target. Like I had people hitting me up on Tuesday. Like you think, Austin's going to play on Sunday. I'm like, well, I don't, number one, I don't know period. But number two, we don't know on Tuesday how you're going to feel on Sunday. So this is a day to day type of situation. Exactly. And it's for me too. And just for all players, man, it's so annoying, especially when it's like nagging things like an ankle. It's like, I can still go in there and crush like a leg workout, but I can't run right now. You know, something like that, you know, when it's like, dang, like, my butt, like it's annoying. Like I got to put some tape on it. You know, see if it works. It feels good then. But it's like, okay, let's continue to keep working. You got to stay patient because you can't, you can't speed it up by wanting it to be better. You know, that's not how the body works like you said. Like you have to make sure you don't skip steps, get the proper treatment and, you know, make sure you're kind of easier way back into it so that you can be in a position where you can at least save yourself. Because if you didn't know football is a violent sport. And when you're dealing with injuries, it's not the best because you tend to try to, you know, you try to like, you know, stay away from that area. But, you know, guys don't care if you're hurt or not. If you're on the field, it's full go. And so you got to keep that in mind when we're going through these and coming back and deciding when to come back. I thought one of the best quotes from a coach recently about an injury was Sean McVeigh with the Rams when they talked about Cooper Cup leading into the season. We don't want Cooper Cup, like I'm paraphrasing, but we don't want him to just return to play. We want him to return to performance. Like there's a difference between return to play and return to performance. And I thought that's good for people like me on the outside who don't really understand the day to day part of it. So I appreciate that update. Austin, you know, like I said, I know people, if we don't talk about it, like on, on your podcast, people are going to be, what the hell, man? Like we want to hear something from Austin. It's good to hear from you about this. We'll make it progress, man. I'll just say that. I'll just say that. I know for all the fantasy owners out there, I know you need me back. Look, I have me on a team too. It's like, okay, come on Austin. Like there's a, there's a lot of reasons why I'm trying to make sure that I'm getting back, you know, and your fantasy team is one of them, but there's a lot of other ones that become before that, but you all get clumped into one. Speaking of fantasy, Josh Kelly starts in place. If you on Sunday, it doesn't have like the biggest fantasy game or game or anything like that. But hey, if you don't end up playing this week, Austin against the Vikings, that's a pretty nice bounce back spot for your guy, Josh Kelly, who we talked about on the show last week, the Vikings. We'll talk about them. They let up a big game to a certain running back on somebody on this podcast, fantasy team a little bit later. But you know, what did you think just charges Titans overall real quick before you move on to the rest of the show like how that game went? Well, I think the Titans again proved themselves that, hey, you know, they're the number one rush defense right now. You know, we saw that from them last year. That's where they stood and they got a lot of their guys back and they're still good. If not even a little bit better than I thought, we played them last year. And so they stood out and, you know, we got into some, some third and longs on offense. And, you know, we were able to convert, I think we're like two of 14 on third down. So I think that's where we really kind of separated ourselves. But I was proud of the way our guys played. I thought, you know, we played hard and, you know, watching from the sideline, watching from home, it's, it really does suck. It sucks so bad because, you know, you're around the guys all week and you're not there to feel the emotions with them. Even though we lost, like it's still I feel like I'm like, I want to be there to be in the trenches to be there with these guys. And so like I said, I am proud of them, proud of the way, you know, JK, even Elijah Dottson stepped up and played, you know, had some good, good past protections. It was shows with flashes here and there when they had opportunities. But man, yeah, it was, it was a tough day. It was one of those NFL games where it's, it's bloody. It's bloody in the run game. And I've seen those. I've been through those and there's a couple games, especially as a running back. We've been through a lot of those where it's like, you know what, like today's one of those days where it's going to be, you know, it's going to be three, four, or five-yard gains or those are what we're looking for now. You know, if maybe you'll get a one in the pot, but this is one of those games where you're going to have to get your nose bloody and run in there and have to probably run in through bodies. And, you know, it came down to the end over time, obviously trying to get it done, ended up short. But like I said, man, I'm so proud of our team. I think we still have a lot more to go. I think we're definitely better than 0 and 2. But, you know, we got to go out there and prove it. And so we got another week to do. We got a lot of ball left to play and hopefully I can be out there and help contribute this week. Well, we do hope to see you out there as soon as possible, man. But injuries are like just a theme at the running back position right now. Injuries, and I'll say injuries and chaos because some of these are not injury situations. But there's a couple of, um, couple of situations where, you know, again, the sad part is that maybe one guy's banged up or there's something going on with the team, but there's an opportunity for another player, right? I mean, you're a guy who rose up from the undrafted ranks because you eventually got those opportunities and you capitalized on this opportunity. So I want to talk about a few of those guys here. I mean, look, we, I talked about it on like a little solo hit after Monday at football last night for yesterday's episode, but man, Nick Chubb going down, uh, talk about like emotions of football. That was rough to watch. Uh, can you just like speak on Nick Chubb and like just what type of player he is? And I don't know, he just feels like such a, when that happened, dude, I was like, I was like broken-hearted for the guy because this is a, a knee issue that he had had in college and he's come all the way back from and it's such a special player. Yeah, I mean, when you just talk about like just the human in general, and just humans in general, you know, on the football field, like, yeah, we all are human, you know, so, you know, it's unfortunate that it happened to Nick and, you know, like, you know, you've heard nothing but great things about the person that he is. We haven't come across each other, cross paths, you know, too many times, um, but just, I know there's been around, you know, people that have been around him or he's like, seems like he's just down to earth, like just wants to show up, just wants to work hard. But anyway, you don't, you don't want to see anyone get hurt, you know, especially those type of injuries where it's like, it's ugly, and you know, and it's something that, you know, it's going to take a while to come back from. And yeah, it sucks, it sucks for the game, you know, like, that's what I said, you know, early in this podcast, like, we want to see our best play, like, you know, Aaron Rogers, Nick Chubb, like, there's some others out there too, like, we want to see these guys on the field because that's what makes the game exciting, right, where we have guys that are making these amazing plays. Nick Chubb's running through your defense, right, dragging people, stiff ironing people, you know, squatting with, you know, the bungee bar and seven plates on it, you know, like, we want to see those guys on the damn field, man. Um, and yeah, it's the worst part about, you know, athletics is the injury part. Um, but I think that's also one of the parts that, you know, gives other people, like you said, opportunities where it's like, even for me, you know, it's, there's, I'm not going to say there's a blessing in it, but it is a next man up mentality. So now someone else is going to be able to get to tape and get film out there and see if they can play in this league. Um, you know, for me, my rookie year, it was Melbourne Gordon in front of me, then Brandon Oliver in front of me. I was like, the third string running back with, um, special teams and then Brandon Oliver ended up, you know, tweaking his hamstring. And so I was getting more offensive reps and then I started scoring touchdowns and it was an opportunity like, oh, maybe this guy can play. And so even though it's a terrible part of the game, it also plays, you know, some type of benefit to the guys that are deeper on the depth chart to get more opportunities to, to show what they have and maybe potentially step into a role where, you know, making start getting more reps or more, more film out there. Um, but yeah, man, it's, it's, it's one of those words like it sucks to talk about, but you know, it's part of the game. Sometimes it helps people, you know, most of the time as far as individuals, obviously, it's terrible. Um, and so it's, it's, it's part of sports and it's, it's, it's ugly. It's ugly and beautiful. It's all those things I was saying at the beginning. It's everything. All of these emotions, all at one at the same time, right now, week to week, you know, yeah. That really is what it is. I mean, even moment to moment in the, in the game on Monday, it's like, God, you know, watching Nick Chubby a car off the field. And like, I'm, I'm with you, man, that he's such a great like representative of the sport because he seems like such as a hard worker and a grinder. And I, I mean, I love watching him play. Like there's very few running backs. Like I could probably count on one hand that are as exciting as Nick Chubby, you know, he's probably one of, if not the very best, like, runners in the league. But at the same time, then you see a guy like Jerome Ford out there, you know, catch the touchdown pass from the Sean Watson. I'm kind of like a scramble drill. Uh, he carries the ball 16 times for a hundred and six yards. He rips off a 69 yard run. And like this dude now has a huge opportunity. Uh, I'll tell you what Austin, I remember we talked about Jerome Ford actually. And like, you know, this just sucks. But I remember saying that I drafted him with the last pick in our draft, being like, well, what if something happens to Nick Chubby and, you know, whatever, I ended up dropping him for a stupid defense. So, uh, there, there, there you go. Someone else, someone else will, someone else will pick him up. Yeah, right. But that, but that's something like this guy now is in such a huge opportunity. You know, they move on from a veteran, like Karim hunting the Aussies and don't even like bring him back. Um, but yeah, I feel like a producer Collins in the chat, like I'm putting in my request now. Tell you what though, Colin, buddy, you better be ready to drop like a hundred percent of your free agent, you know, if you, I don't know, we don't have free agent budgets on our league. But if you do, like he's a guy that's going to go for all of it because just a great rushing system. They, they clearly liked the player. Like he had an offseason injury and he's still the backup running back and he's kind of improving players. So big opportunity for a guy like Jerome for sure. Uh, next one, you know, say one Barclay apparently, he's set to miss some time. Maybe, maybe bro, I don't know if you saw this right before you, uh, we got tape, but uh, Brian Dable calls this guy like a special healer, uh, and he might play on Thursday night. So dude, say one, by the way, hell of a game. Yeah, on, on week two. Like this is what's so funny about the running back values discussion. Austin, it's like all, all off seasons, like, yeah, we don't want to, we'll pay it to Andrew Jones, you don't want to pay a say-quan Barclay. And then like, it gets to crunch time. We need to, we've been getting our butts kicked for six quarters. And then say-quan Barclay looks like out there dragging the team around, you know, Daniel Jones had some nice moments too. He's out there dragging the team around, scoring touchdowns. And like, yeah, it's just, if he's not out there, I know Matt breed is like, he's, he's on the death chart, but there's a totally different team. For sure. And we knew that. That's why, you know, we made the argument, like, that was BS that they were trying to franchise him. Like, this guy's a pivotal role in your offense. Like, give us man a contract. Like, you should want this guy to be around for a while, in my opinion. And in our opinion, says running backs like that, like, like, yeah, why would you not try to sign this guy? But yeah, that's, that's a whole other conversation. But, you know, it goes back to this, like, this conversation around injuries and like the injury report. I know we were gonna get into this or, you know, talk about it, but it's like, what is the injury report, right? Who, like, really, as teams, we try to keep it as secretive as possible. Just because, like, we don't want people knowing what's going on with our guys, because that's their personal matter, right? It's, hey, it's your body, like, you don't need outside pressure from, you know, you know, reporters, or you don't want people, like, building these narratives that aren't true. And so, with the injury report, it really is super, like, secretive. It's like something that we keep close to us for, for personal reasons. And to make sure that it's not this, this media coverage of how someone's ankle recoveries going and everywhere, like, we got media talking about as like, no, let's just, we'll give you the update, you know, for us, it's like, we take it the same way. It's like week to week day to day. Obviously, if it's a known injury, that's a little bit more serious than, you know, obviously, you know, there's going to be more time, but especially like ankles and stuff, like, they can range for something that you could tape up. I've played a whole season on sprain ankles. And they can range for something that you miss, you know, weeks for, you know, you know, even sometimes months, depending on, you know, how severe it is, you know, if it's high, is it low, you know, what's the severity of it? Is it possibly even surgery? You know, so like, yeah, what's they want? You know, coming back Thursday, I don't know that no one knows, you know, we'll see. We'll hear, I guess, what the scouting report says. And, you know, really would have seen, I think, I think the best thing is, you know, that Thursday before kickoff, you got it and making sure that you're up to date. What do you do with that? When you have people that are like, you know, game day decisions, like, how are you keeping up with that? Just like, you know, that time, like, you before the game, like, you call, you call on someone on the sideline or like, who's at the game? Hey, is he warming up? You know, like, what do you do? Yeah, right. I mean, just like I was on the phone with you all weekend, like, yo, what's the deal, man? You're on my fantasy team, bro. No, I don't have inside sources like that, but I think the big thing is, it's really tough with Thursday, because the early games like that, you don't have as much time to sort of prepare a plan. I mean, just like, you know, like teams do. You guys got the short turnaround. For me, I would make sure I have like another option. Now, if it's, if I have sake one, I don't think I have him only teams this year, not intentionally, just just an end up drafting him anywhere. I would be making sure like, I've got somebody in my running back spot ahead of say, Juan Barkley. Even, even if, and this is one thing too, like, I almost never want to play a flex play, like a player in the flex on Thursday, because then if the, if a late injury crops up, let's say like in practice, somebody tweaks something and then I've burned that flex spot, like, I don't have a backup running back. I feel good about I have a backup wide receiver. I feel good about, but I can't play the wide receiver in the running back spot, right? So leave that, that is one advice I have for all you people out there. Do not be playing your flex players on Thursday. Leave yourself that flex, literally flex, flex ability for, for the games afterwards. So I'm, but you got to keep up with it. You got to be like, having the alerts on for like a team beat rider. You got to be having the shifter alerts on, you know, like there are plenty of accounts out there that are going to be providing sort of those updates, like minute by minute, but for Thursday, especially like, you should be making, we're recording this on Tuesday, we're hearing this on Wednesday. You should, I would be making plans right now on like Tuesday afternoon as to like, he's not going to play. And then all right, well, then if he does, that's a pleasant surprise. Yeah, for sure. All right, good. There you go. I love it. I love the advice. There you go. Yeah, exactly. And if it's, if it's a guy that's playing on Sunday, like really be following these practice reports, like if a guy doesn't practice on Friday, again, injury report isn't everything. But, you know, if he's not practicing on Friday, then you need, again, you've got a few days now to come up with what am I going to do with this running back spot or this wide receiver spot if this guy's not going to play, right? I wanted to ask you about Jamir Gibbs, mostly because, you know, the Lions in your, your eyebrow bet, Dave Montgomery is set to miss maybe a potentially a couple of weeks here with an injured thigh. So you're off the hook pal. Maybe he won't end up as a top 15 back, although that dude was off to a nice start to the season. Hey, it's not, look, I started, you know, not scoring any touchdowns for the first three weeks last year. So, you know, he can still come back and make it, make up some ground. So let's not get him to count him out yet. Oh, yeah, I'm not counting him out. He's on like actually a lot of my teams, Dave Montgomery. So I'm trying to come up with my plan as to what I'm doing without Dave Montgomery, but I think yeah, eyebrows are still on alert for sure. Shave eyebrows are still alert, but the actually the part of this bet that hasn't necessarily, it's not a bet, you know, you made this bet with yourself. You did this completely to yourself. I'm completely not culpable in any of this. The part of this that hasn't gone so well for the Lions so far, Jamir Gibbs from like a fantasy perspective, they seemingly haven't kind of like, I would almost say they haven't like figured out what to do with him necessarily. They've gotten him in some passing situations. It hasn't necessarily provided a bunch of explosive plays. Like I would have thought that week two against the lion or week two against the Seahawks in Detroit, in the lion's home field. That'd be a great spot to get him going. And then Dave Montgomery leaves and people are surprised, Austin, that this guy Craig Reynolds, who has given him some burn before is like a two down early down back actually gets more playing time than Jamir Gibbs. So my question to you Austin is like, can we tell, can we explain to people like the different roles within a running back room? And maybe not with these guys specifically, but sometimes I think folks on the outside look at it as, oh, Dave Montgomery's out, Jamir Gibbs immediately steps up. But maybe he doesn't do the same things at the running back position as a guy like Dave Montgomery and maybe even Craig Reynolds does. Yeah. Just speaking, speaking general pure roles, what I've seen and it's kind of changed over the years now. And now that I've gotten older, I kind of understand different roles in different places, where it's like first and second down back, you usually see like, okay, this is like my better runner who's on it with the runs. And it depends on the downed distances too. Because if it's first and 10, sure, let's keep our maybe our better runner back in the game. But it's like, okay, what about third down? Okay, well, if it's third and short, you probably still want your better runner in the game, right? Where it's like, hey, like this is a bigger body, more downhill. But if it's third and long, now we're going to want our better blocker potentially more in the game, right? The third mediums where you can have, okay, maybe we put our better pass catcher in, third and third mediums that like sweet spot was like, I feel like it really doesn't matter, because you can still run it potentially. You still put, oh, but when you get into third and long situations, there's there's a lot of like designer blitzes is what we call them where now these defensive are getting into like, you know, three downed looks overloading one side, you know, they got people walking around. They're just, they're trying to design some type of blitz that drops people, but keeps the back in trying to get you. So you want might want a better blocker in a third mom, because you probably check downs, like check downs, I can get you the first down, I'm probably trying to push this down the field. But then a lot of the rules also get created on what the coach trusts you on. Like, this coach trusts you on third down to go and block, because if he doesn't and you might be a better blocker, but this guy actually knows who to block him is going to be in the right position. Like, we might put the guy that we trust in that, even though he might not be as capable. So there's a lot of internal stuff that can be playing a factor into your role as well. And that's just not just at the running back, but that's just, you know, trust in general. Like, you know, I see it in our room where it's like, coach really trust me. Like, if I could, I play every day, every damn down, but it's like, that's not realistic. So, okay, here we go. We've got JK, who's been building up his trust as well. So he can come in and also kind of leave. And it's fortunate for us because we got two, we got two backs that we're like, feel comfortable, that can play every single down. But it's not always like that for, for teams. And so we might be seeing that here. I obviously don't know what the heck's going on over there. It might be a trust thing. It might be someone just not getting the plays. Like, if you just have a hard time understanding the playbook or you're making mistakes in practice, or you don't look as, as good running these plays, then guess what? Someone else might get him. It's like, okay, well, you didn't look good, but this guy ran it really well. He had good time and good rhythm. And so we're going to give him that play in the game. There's certain plays in the game that are scripted for certain people. And they'll have a tag like, we'll have Eccler 11. And that's like, this is Austin's play. He's going in. So there's a lot of different factors of why I play. And especially when you have younger players, I feel like there's more things that can play into why someone's not getting that time. It might, it might just be they need more time to continue to learn and build that trust and build that experience. So yeah, we'll see. We'll see because I know there's a lot of hype and a lot of anticipation for Jermior Gibbs to go out there and and you know, do some things, you know. Yeah, that's what I think is interesting hearing it from your perspective, because Craig Reynolds, like we talked about that trust factor. He's been on the roster. He's actually played for injured guys before. So he might just, again, Jermior Gibbs was drafted really high in fantasy, but for a guy like Craig Reynolds, who's been around there, maybe there is more of that trust factor. I mean, you and I, this is this is the part of up Austin, you're experiencing what it's like as a fantasy analyst right now, because really, sometimes the right answer is I don't know. I don't know what's going on in that building, but you still have to sort of try to guess at it anyways. Yeah, which it's just tough, man. It's kind of, you're kind of set up for failure, honestly. I think that's why, you know, we see a lot of like the, just the mainstream things that are being said kind of just repurposed because we're trying, we're trying to give you something, but we really have nothing. That's on purpose, right? Like they're not going to come tell us like, hey, this is why we played. You know, these people, it was funny. I was watching Bill Bella checks press conference. That guy, man, he gave you nothing ever. No, that's just been like, you know, stereotypical, you know, Bill Bella check, but man, is it straight up dry? It is like, it's like, you're not getting anything out of these teams, which is how we like to keep it because like our problems or our situation is what we want to keep internal. And you know, you guys can just comment on what you see on the outside. Yeah, that actually leads in great to cam acres. Last thing we'll cover here before we move on. This is, this is the sometimes you can't believe what these guys say. I mean, Sean McBei all off season talks about, oh, cam acres is really fitting in well with us is really fitting in what we're, we're loving cam acres, you know, cam acres finishes 2022 very strong after they tried to trade them in the middle of the year. We're really liking what cam acres is giving us right now. Week two, healthy scratch. You were here on Tuesday. We're talking about trade rumors. Kyron Williams is the start. He's getting 10 targets in the last game. He looks like great fit. So if there, if there's just ever any time to for us to say like, don't always believe what's going on. Cause as Austin says, they're trying to, you know, maybe sometimes pull some games, whatever, I don't know. It's my thing later that with, and I've been experienced this recently, actually, with media, you like, everyone has to be careful what they say. You know, like coaches have to be careful players. We have to be careful because there's, there's certain people out there that will try to just make a headline out of you or, you know, call you like a liar now because you were saying this or they'll take, you know, something, you know, out of what you said, and that make that the headline, but has there's no context. So you kind of, it seems bad. So I think we're also in a situation in the world and in athletics where it's like, we have to be reserved. And sometimes things come out where it's like, they don't end up holding up true. And then people get, you know, exploited and then they people get pissed off. And it's like, kind of, it's like a slap on the wrist. Like, okay, again, I got to watch what I say again. I've had it happen several times. And so it's, we're always continuing to learn, but yeah, we have to, that's what we speak in general terms a lot of the times because we can't give you stuff because you're not, it's going to get twisted. It's going to be. And so I don't know what's going on with canned makers there. You know, none of us do, you know, even if, you know, they're talking about, hey, he's a good fit and things like that. It's like, we've got to see what plays out because until we see you on Sunday, that's what actually matters. And if it's not on Sunday, then it's really hard to judge from anything before that. So, man, yeah, it's, that it feels wild that it's a wild time. But yeah, that's what makes it so great. It really does. It is a shame. I hate when, you know, you guys get painted in a bad light and then like the, the walls go up, right? Because I would love to, you know, get the most out of everybody and like learn as much about the sport and like the inner workings as much as possible. But, you know, there are definitely bad actors out there that want to, you know, put like half the quote in a quote and leave out the context. And then everybody's, yeah, it's, it sucks, man. I know. I know. I know. I know. Hey, what's not a bummer, Austin? What's that? Our fantasy football league. The Eccler's invitation. The Eccler invitation. No, baby. Let's go. Two and a baby. Two and oh, Austin is currently two and oh, two sexy for this league, taking down Josh Norris in a pretty close one, 116.4 to 100. Oh, nine point five. Austin got typical big performances from Justin Herbert. You got a nice performance from Devont Adams. This Cowboys defense pick continues to look like a pretty damn good one. I, I, apparently the Cowboys have more sacks than points allowed or the same amount of sacks as points to allowed so far this year. So, yeah, not a bad little start there for your pal. That's, that's a good one. I also want to give it up to like my seventh round pick, you know, Justin Tucker coming through with 11 points, coming through strong, you know, I got to get the give crit to him too. I'm proud of, I'm proud of that pick, even though it was a little high. For sure. But, uh, yeah, Dallas, man, that defense been going crazy. Josh Jacob still pulled out seven points, even though he had negative two yards rushing, which is incredible, which kind of gets into my bowl prediction, which was, yeah, you missed, you missed your bowl prediction by just a little bit when you predicted 75 yards and two touchdowns. I would have bet all my money. I would have bet literally every single dollar if I would have been able to, if Josh Jacob wouldn't finish the game with plus more than one yard. And I'm like, like, wow, wow. Well, as, as the, as the ad say, only, only bet where you can afford to lose. I'm not allowed to bet on anything like this. So, keep my money in my pocket. Yeah, Devonte showed up, Herbert showed up. Yeah, but yeah, Swift, my man, Deandre Swift, that's what we got to talk about because we were actually talking about this last week, where I was like, hey, like don't give up on these guys because Swift was getting kind of, you know, kind of the back end of reps last week. And we were talking about, hey, like, you know, make sure, like, you don't just give up on people. And then, you know, sure enough, there were some injuries in that room. And all of a sudden, you know, Deandre Swift finds himself in a position where he's, he's in the spot now. And so my thing is, how long, like, if you have like that backup player, how long do you keep that person? You know, even if they're not getting, you know, a lot of carries or things like that, like, do you keep that person on your bench for precautionary reasons or, like, is it somewhere, like, when do you let him go, I guess? This is the whole theme of the show really is that injuries can create opportunity here for a guy like Deandre Swift, right? You imagine Kenny Gainwell, who they back to the trust word, they trust the hell out of that guy. Uh, he gets banged up in, uh, week two and, and Deandre Swift has an opportunity. That's where it's tough. And I think you got to pick your spots with these. And I wouldn't even know, I don't even know if I'd call Swift a backup running back, but he's part of a committee. And he got the one A part of the committee. And we'll see what I have no, I have no idea what's going to happen going forward. By the way, Austin, that was some people came back at because on our Thursday show, I was like, you know, Deandre Swift is like, it's tough. I can't sit here and tell you that I know what his workload is going to be. I have no idea. And people pissed at me about that. But I'm like, literally, that is the truth. Right. Like Nick Seriani doesn't get on the phone with every fantasy analyst and be like, hey, just so you know, so we're going to get Swift. I'm going to give it, I'm going to give it 28 carries. Yeah, we think 28 carries and three catches. That was what it'll be. Like, we are guessing that we don't have inside information there, especially when it comes to a committee that we don't have a lot of history with. So there was, you always want to keep, you know, there was a little luck that played into it. I will say, you know, there was some anticipation with the injuries, you know, in the running back room that, okay, this guy's going to get some more playing time because I actually did have him on my bench and then I looked at the report and I looked at what was going on in the running back room. I'm like, oh, he's going to have more opportunities. I'm going to move them up. Right. We're playing with probability. That's what we're playing with. We're playing with probabilities. We don't have any for sure. And then in that game, you know, they ended up getting into a situation where throwing the ball wasn't happening for them, but running was. And then, you know, Deandre Sophe was the one that was towing that thing. And then, you know, Boston Scott ended up getting like a, you know, a concussion or he was ruled out. And so now Deandre's just even getting more. And then Rashad Penny came in and it was kind of like his kind of back up at the point at that point. And then they kept just chunking down the field. And so really, that's what we're playing here in the game of a fantasy. What are the probabilities? What factors do you play into those probabilities? And what do you think to see, you know, as the most advantageous? You know, so there's this risk reward. There's this. What's the upside? You know, because there's some players too that I feel like, you know, are like these guys that, you know, maybe don't get a lot of touches, but when they do, it's like 70 yard bombs down the field. You know, and so you got to play these probability game. And in the running back room right now, especially with some of these injuries playing out, it's like, okay, probability's going up. They're going to have more opportunities. And so I think it's something to even look at, even if you're going, even if you had like, you know, Nick Chubb, like who's next after? Who's this backup for for Nick Chubb right now? What Jerome for? Who's next on that depth chart? Start looking to see, oh, is there's another solid player there? Those are those things you can look at, especially because injuries are going to keep happening. And so it's a great way for you to kind of get a system of like, okay, I'm kind of looking at these other running back rooms, looking at these receiver rooms. Who are the number two's here? Is there anyone that could be potential potential good ad right now before any type of thing comes out to kind of foreshadow foreshadow that, you know? And talk about playing the probabilities, which is so true fantasy football is a game of probability. The way to increase the probability that you're going to hit on this is one, these like good ecosystems. I always talk about when we're talking about fantasy, like ecosystems and environments. And the Eagles run game has been one of the best ecosystems, like over the last, especially since Jalen Hertz has been there. I mean, Miles Sanders had an incredible year there last year. And that's another thing. When the backfield can get whittled down to like two guys, that increases the probability. And sometimes when it's three, then it can be really messy. You mentioned Boston, Scott going out like that certainly helped. And that was something we wouldn't have known going into the game. So, you know, that's the type of thing I would say if you're trying to pick these like, how long do I hold on to this guy who's not getting a ton of work? Maybe he's the third guy. But then an injury happens like, yeah, a dude on the Eagles, I want to try to hold on to that guy as long as possible. A dude on the Browns, you know, their offense has been shaky. Dishonel Watson has been shaky. But their run game has been extremely fruitful. A lot of that probably has to do with they have one of the best backs and football, Nick Chubb. But I still like the way that Kevin's to fancy is designed like the overall concepts of the run game. So yeah, maybe Jerome Ford is a guy that that steps up because of that. So that's one thing when I'm trying to play the probabilities. Like, let's look for the right ecosystems there. If it's a team that's, you know, going to go foreign, you know, what's the math? Like four and four and 12, four and five, whatever. Who cares? Any, yeah, four and 13, whatever, four and 12. I don't know, four and 13. I forget that the damn like 17 games. Like I'm still working on that. Damn it. Yeah, I know right. All right. Yeah. So anyways, four and 13. Yeah, maybe I'm not trying to have like the third string running back on that team. So that's just again, trying to play those probabilities. But hey, you won this week. So we got our tell people this kind of a little bit of a special thing here. You know, maybe we'll not, we won't talk about my team because who cares? That's, that's not, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. I think we need to recognize that Matt is no longer to our undefeated. He is, he is one in one. Okay, cool. We said it. Let's move on. Okay. Okay. All right. No, I'm kidding. Yeah, I lost a close one. You know, didn't have my first round pick in that, in that game. But you know what? That's not, yeah. That's not on, that's not on this anonymous players problem. That's not his problem. This anonymous player, that's not his problem. He didn't play for me this weekend. Look, as I always tell people to play fantasy football, this is about personal accountability. Don't be, don't be bitching and complaining because a player didn't play or you read somebody's advice and it didn't work out. You make the choices for your team. Austin's going to miss this game on Sunday. It's on me. Okay, to come up with a better plan. Yeah, at that backup spot. Let me, let me say this too. Like, we have to deal with it too. Like, guess what? Like, I'm not playing. Okay. Who's going to step up? Who's the backup? Like, we put our team together to go and try to make a run. And also we're 0 and 2 as a charge. We're 0 and 2. And are we giving up? Like, oh, it's over. Let me get rid of my team. Like, these guys all suck. No, like, no, we're still pushing forward. We still got everything in front of us. So don't get, don't get too anxious here just because maybe you're not doing the best. And if you're doing great, keep it going. But, just realize it's a long season. There's ups and downs through this season, even though it's super emotional, because it is with media and this happening and the, and you know, this upset, or this player didn't play as well. Or, you know, this team isn't starting out hot. This team is like, ooh, like, it's such a ball. Your friends in your group chat or talking crap. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Go to my DMs and see all the trash talking. You guys are doing to me and all this stuff. But like, not listeners of this podcast, the other people. But like, it's like, everyone like, okay, let's keep it, let's keep them mentality, where it's like, we can continue to push forward through the ups and the downs. Like, you got to find a way. And so if you got to do a little extra research and find someone to come in or make a, make a savvy trade, then you got to do that. Like, you got to put it a little bit of time here, just like we do. So like, yeah. Well, at the end of this long emotional season, somebody from this league will win. Got to share this with the people that are watching this. Dude, it's so damn big. I can't really even get it in the, I can move my, it's in my back. Yeah, you definitely got to keep that in the back dirt. I could have said, yes, yes, yes. Well done. Well done, Matt. Well done. Well, listen, I had, I had nothing to do with this. Oh, really? This is, I know, yeah, I'm nothing to do with. I mean, it's shipped to my house. But Colin and the folks from Yahoo worked with the folks, our friends at trophy smack to get this thing made here. trophy smack does great stuff. They do trophies like rings and belts. I know, I think you've done some, some stuff with them before. So they're the ones who put this thing together. Got shipped to me. So honestly, it's like, really, it's really on me to win this league because like, if I have to get, if I have to put this back in the box and like, ship it to Austin, I'm going to just be an emotional wreck. Okay. Or God forbid, I have to ship it to JJ who beat me last week. You know, Ray Garvin. I mean, yo, Ray, Ray, shout out to Ray. He's currently in first. Nick or Colano, if I have to, if I have to ship this thing to any of these guys, Lindsey Rhodes, I mean, I'm never going to forgive myself. Okay. So it's really on me to win to keep this thing staying right here. Yeah. I love it. That's epic, man. That's epic. Good stuff. Good stuff. All right. Hey, we'll, we'll move on here to our last couple of seconds. But before we do, let's take a quick break before we jump back into it. 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 powertrain delivering 362 horsepower and a 12.3 inch multimedia touch screen 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, we're back. Unfortunately, we got to skip the mailbag this week. We will keep sending in your trades. Keep sending in trades for us to grade. Again, it's just ask Austin at Yahoo Sports.com. We had some good ones. We'll we'll we can still get to those. We can save those. I know Cooper Craig Dylan, you guys send in some good ones. Maybe we can get to those next week if we have some time. But for you out there that haven't sent any yet, if you're making some trades, send them in to our ask Austin Yahoo Sports.com mailbag and we will grade those next week. But before we get out of here, before we officially head into week three. 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. So Austin, make me a bold prediction. Who is going to have a memorable performance this weekend? Ooh, memorable performance. So maybe a little bias on this one. But I think even though that's already been memorable and it's not it's not a ball. I can't even say this is bold. It's more so memorable. But I think the Cowboys defense is going to absolutely shred the Cardinals. And I'm hoping they continue to put up some points this week. I don't even know who I'm playing. Who am I playing this week? Am I playing? I don't I'm not playing Matt. I know I'm not playing you. But whoever it is, I'm hoping the Cardinal or the Cowboys defense continues to pop off. It's not an individual. But you know, I just just the match up. It's just a mismatch. It really is. It's it's going to be ugly. And yeah, I think the Cowboys are going to get out of Cardinals. I think that's going to be memorable. You are playing Faraz, Sadiki of a underhand fan or upper hand fantasy. Excuse me. And he is currently Owen too. So I'm glad to see that you're taking a taking it easy on a team that's off to a slow start. Unbelievable. Not not only is the Cowboys defense going to be great this year in Austin, hell of a draft pick by you. Shout out, shout out. But they get Zach Wilson a week too. And now they get the Cardinals. Hey, the Cardinals have looked a little bit better than expected. But they're still entered this year with the worst projected records. So hell of a draft pick by you and probably a hell of a start by the Arizona Cardinals. I think it is going to be another memorable performance for that defense that like I said, has more sacks or the same amount of sacks as they have points allowed. That's just like stupid for a defense. I'll give you one. I'll give you one here, a memorable performance, I think in week three. And I'm sorry to say Austin, this is this is going to be biased as well because it is against your Los Angeles chargers. And it also is a guy who's on my fantasy team as well in the Echoes edge league. Alexander Madison is going to give a memorable performance. He's going to go for over 80 yards and score a touchdown, 80 total yards and score a touchdown in week three against the chargers whose defense. I think we can all admit we're all friends here. This is the trust tree is not been great so far defensive performance for the L.A. Chargers. We'll see. But let me tell you what it also hasn't been great for my dude, Alexander Madison, who hell of a guy has was on the podcasting off season such such a nice fellow. But is averaging 2.1 yards per target 3.3 yards per touch this year. It hasn't been a great start for Madison. But I think he gets it going here in week three. I think the the look maybe the chargers still win the game. But I think the Vikings are going to be able to run over that defense with my guy, Alexander Madison. Two in one. Two in one. No way. I'm a let him know. I got to let I mean, you're giving more fuel for my defense. That's what we need. So we need more fuel. All right. Cool. All right. That's fair. It's fair. You're entitled to your own bowl prediction. I just crushed me that we're playing them. So a defense defense defense is going to step up this week. They got another opportunity to come out and prove ourselves. We got to get a fricking win. But yeah, it takes all of us. It takes all of us. We're going to keep scoring points. And obviously, you know, get some stops, get some turnovers. But all right. I think it's a fair a fair bowl prediction. Well, hopefully my bowl prediction goes a little bit better than yours last week. That's all. Okay. I mean, that's not even saying much. I mean, oh, yeah. Yeah. Josh Jacobs, man, what the heck? That yeah. Oh, yeah. I'm speechless. I'm how bad that turned out. What the heck? I saw a saw some stat was like, never has a rushing leader ever had like a negative yardage game. I was like, I feel like 99% of people haven't had a negative yardage game. I got I haven't gone back and watched that game. But I got to revisit that. I guess what the heck happened? Because I'm like, there's those you comprehended my mind. Like, how does it? What? What do you mean negative two? But man, man, all right. Before we bring Austin to tears about his running back one of this fantasy team on that. See, we're making memories here every day on Echo's Edge. Those were our future snapshots. Thanks again to Toyota and the first ever Grand Highlander. All right. Awesome. Hell of a show here. I feel like we really did ride the emotional rollercoaster in this show. We had some low lows talking about some sad injuries. But, you know, we had some high, highs me telling you that your defense is going to blow it against Alexander Madison. And, and you know, giving you giving you shit about the negative two rushing yards all while you're actually dominating our fantasy league. So, you know, what can I say? Yeah. It's a love-hate relationship. All right. Fantasy football. It's a love-hate relationship. I love to play it. Hate when it gets injured. Hate when it's bad. Love when it's good. And the thing is it happens so fast too. Because it's just week to week and there's so many games and so man, hope you guys haven't an amazing time with fantasy as we are looking forward to that week. Three, man. Let's get it, man. Absolutely. Well, I'm having a great time. That's for sure. But that is going to do it for us today. Folks, tomorrow is Thursday heading into a full slate of NFL action. Your buddy, my guy, Dalton Daldon, joining me for another episode of Stat Nerds Thursday, where we look at the most revealing stats that you need to know for all 32 teams until then we're out.