It takes a lot to prepare for game day as a dedicated fan, and preparing the perfect tailgate meal might be the most important of all. That's why Best Foods Real Manace is the MVP! Best Foods Manace is the secret to bring out the rich and creamy taste to all your game day dishes from Buffalo Chicken Dip to your favorite sub sandwich and everything in between. So give it a try! And Mayo Game Day be delicious with Best Foods Real Manace! Stop by your local Walmart, Kroger, or grocery store and add some extra deliciousness to your game day dishes this football season! Plug in a Hyundai EV and the extraordinary happens. It's not just the ultra-fast charging capability and long range in the Ionic 5 and Ionic 6, or the adventure-seeking spirit of the Kona Electric, or the groundbreaking 601 horsepower Ionic 5N. And it's not just the comfort in knowing that every Hyundai EV is backed by a 10-year, 100,000-mile limited electric battery warranty. Hyundai's EVs transform a low hum into a loud adventure. They bring color to your journey and turn energy into main character energy. So forget everything you thought you knew about EVs and turn the extraordinary into something truly electrifying. There's joy in every journey! When you're worried about underarm sweat and odor, it can be distracting. Like this. Or this. Or even this. It's time to silence those distractions with a spray of powerful Dove Men Plus Care Antiperspring. Featuring our 72-hour protection and soothing one-quarter moisturizing cream. Because when you forget about your underarms, you can focus on being unforgettable. Dove Men. Forgettable underarms. Unforgettable you. We've got our Taycan is loaded and ready. Absolutely dominant on deep routes. Absolutely dominant on short routes. Oh, it's our back back. Excellent separation against man coverage. This is Reception, Reception, The Show. Yo, it's cracking everybody. James Cole, Matt Harmon here with you. You're listening to Reception, Perception, The Show. All right, Matt. Here we are recording on a Wednesday afternoon. We are approaching week number three. I want to get right into it. I want you to put your GM/coaching hat on. And I want you to talk about how you would fix certain offenses. Offences that are, and of course, we're talking about their past games, but offenses that seem to have some difficulty with the forward pass here. And I want to start out there with Tennessee, the sixth fewest passing yards in the NFL. That's a little bit surprising, wouldn't you think? Given Brian Callahan, they've got a strong arm quarterback. They add Calvin Ridley to go along with a new copy and sixth fewest passing yards in the NFL. How do you go about fixing that passing game? I've got a lot to say here, a very complicated one off the top. Although I say it's complicated, it also feels very simple. You've just got to get Will Levis to chill out a little bit. What does that mean? I don't know if that's possible, by the way. Have you seen the clip of one Brian Callahan in the middle of the game? I'm sure you've seen this one of him after Will Levis' second, you know, outrageous fumble. I mean, the guy leads the league in terms of insane screenshots on turnovers. Yeah, well, not even just the insane turnovers in and of itself, but the screenshots afterwards, you know, it's the surrender Cobra on the week one, him like, I don't even know what to say about almost like spread eagle, flipping the ball back on the second one in week two. You know, Brian Callahan says like, what the F are you doing on the sideline? I mean, the most easy to see what the F are you doing by any coach ever. And then in the press conference says, yeah, I was pissed at him because, you know, I'm paraphrasing, but yeah, I was pissed at him because that was a game where we needed three points. He cost us three points and he's an adult and he should be able to take that. But I'm cool with that, by the way, him coaching Brian Callahan, coaching him hard. Your Brian Callahan's the guy who's been around Peyton Manning, who was certainly used to being coached hard, probably encouraged being coached hard, certainly was coaching other players on the field. Exactly hard. You know, so I'm okay with him setting that standard with Will Levis because you just absolutely can't do that kind of stuff because I think I wouldn't say he's a consistent down to down quarterback. Will Levis, but I do think he has very tantalizing moments. I've always compared him to, or at least I have been this whole off season. It's kind of grinding my gears now that I see everybody making this comparison, but I have always compared him to this generation's James Winston. I've been doing that basically since I've seen Will Levis play football in the NFL. So how do we get the biggest question, I think, for Tennessee is how do we get the best of Will and try to erase some of these really, really low moments? I think that's a easier question to handle in theory than it is in practice. I do think past protection has to get a little bit better here. You know, they're breaking in a lot of young offensive linemen. J.C. Latham's a rookie. Peter Scorazzi is in his second season. So hopefully that gets better and better as the year goes on. I think a lot of this just comes down to experience and getting more time on task. How much of it is Nuke just not being 100%? It's a good point because they've used Calvin Ridley as a deep threat. I don't know. Calvin really has a 23.4 average depth of target right now. He leads the NFL in air yards if I'm not mistaken. He has 60% of the Titans' air yards, which is the number one figure in the NFL for all past catches. And that's a crazy thing. That's a crazy thing too because Calvin really is a good receiver, but he's not a deep threat necessarily. He's not certainly not like Will Fuller or something like that. 23 average depth of target. I think getting more base layups in there are going to be critical for a guy like Will Levis, which is what I thought that Ridley would provide for this team. I think Ridley's had, he's kind of a volatile player at this point. He's going to have some mind numbing drops, but he's going to make the fantastic catch too. His touchdown reception with Sauce Gardener in coverage was great. The other one where he probably should have had a second touchdown in week two where he drops the ball. That's just part of the Calvin Ridley experience at this point apparently. So there's a little bit of a roller coaster going on there. I feel like if you have another pass catch or emerge, which probably would be a healthy new Hopkins. Dude, I don't know when Hopkins is going to be healthy at this point. He's playing on a torn MCL or some type of MCL injury. I don't really know when that's going to get itself right, but that would certainly help. You're right about that. How much of this is that Calvin, they're not utilizing Calvin Ridley to his fullest potential here. And I know you pointed this out in Jacksonville last year. I kind of sort of feel the same about Tennessee. And by the way, I also wonder, okay, is this is this coordinator or is it quarterback? And I think it's fair to wonder that because Godly, you know, our guy, Will Levis, Billy James has just been all over the map here. Maybe he's just look, it's in his DNA to go big game hunting when we're talking about Will Levis. Right. So if the dig route is available, does his eyes just gloss over and not look at that? But certainly with Calvin Ridley, the out route and dig route were two really strong routes for Calvin Ridley in 2023. You would think that they would try to utilize a little bit more of that in 2024. What I would say too, is that they're a little bit, I always come back to our buddy, Derek class, and talking about Aaron Rodgers being touched down to check down or maybe vice versa, different points. I feel like that this Titans offense is a little bit like that at this point. Cause if you look at their target distribution, it is Calvin Ridley, 21.7% of the targets. Number two is Tyler Boyd, who I don't think Tyler Boyd's been a needle moving wide receiver for several seasons. I think he's he's a solid slot, you know, but he's nothing more than that. And then number three and four in terms of target share, are there two running backs? Tony Pollard and Tajay Spears, you know, they just, it's unfortunate. You know, I was never the biggest trailing Burke's guy, but it's just unfortunate that I just don't think he can really give them anything, give them anything at this point. I don't ever think he was going to work as an outside receiver. He's obviously dealt with injuries at times in his career, but right, he's just, and because of that, I don't think he was, he was always behind the eight ball in terms of developing as an outside guy, because he always needed that development. And he's just their third receiver at this point, you know, with Hopkins not being ready to rock. He's run 37 routes to 25 on the year for DeAndre Hopkins. So you're right. I think when they get Hopkins in there to be more of that vertical X receiver, he's not a, he certainly wasn't a separator prior to this injury necessarily, at least from like a, that's not the strength of his game. The strength of his game is being a high pointer, having him able to do that stuff and then Ridley being more maximized off the line of scrimmage, maybe on this intermediate route, so we can get a little bit more meat and potatoes in this passing game as opposed to just the touchdowns and checkdowns. All right, we move on here. Okay, so that's tennis seat. What about New England? New England's got the fourth fewest passing yards in the NFL right now. Put on that GM coaching hat. How do we go about fixing New England's passing attack? I mean, I don't know. Wow. Damn dude. Well, just, just because I actually talk emoji. What's up, dude? Because I think a couple of things are true here. The first of which is I've actually been kind of impressed with, you know, relative to expectations been impressed with what we've gotten from a concept and design standpoint in New England because, you know, Alex Van Peltz been a guy who's been around the NFL for a long time. He, he's never been a true play caller, right? But he spent a lot of time in the West Coast offense. He spent a lot of years now in Cleveland. And I think a lot of what they've done in New England so far has been very sound. I think they, from a conceptual standpoint, they've been, they've been what you want, you know, they want to run, especially in today's game right now, right where I think you have to be tough. You have to be physical. They play like a tough physical team, especially in the run game. I think everybody who, you know, kind of took shots on their offensive line in preseason has to eat about 50% of Crow right now. And what I mean by that is that they're offensive line in the run game. I think it's been great. I think their mom shoot. Dude, they're mauling guys. Antonio Gibson is getting yards on the edge. I have my eye on him Thursday night against the Jets defense that already was struggling to defend outside runs, runs on the perimeter outside zone stuff. And then they lost Jermaine Johnson to a torn Achilles. So keep an eye on Antonio Gibson on Thursday night's game tonight's game. But I say they have the 50% of Crow because I still think from a past protection standpoint, that's where I kind of have the shrug emoji because I don't know how much they're going to be able to improve over the course of the season because the past protection has still been a pretty significant issue to me. I mean, Jacobi reset has been under pressure on 44.3% of his dropbacks, according to pro football focus and, you know, 4.7 yards per attempt when he's under pressure, they're not going to be able to run a functional past game. If they're under pressure on almost 50% of their snaps, they have a statue quarterback in Jacobi percent. No, he's not total statue. You know, he's got something he's actually he actually made a pretty decent play under pressure and with his legs and week one, but still that's not the strength of his game. And you're averaging under five yards per attempt when you're under pressure. That's not a good mix for offense success. When you look at what Jacobi percent does well versus how this team is constructed, I see a real oil and water problem when we're talking about the past catchers versus the actual thrower of the football, right? What Jacobi percent does well is to be statuesque in that pocket, eat some hits and just fire deep shots down the field. Like that is where he excels, right? But when you take a look at how this team is constructed, I just don't think they've got those guys. First of all, I don't think they've got the past catchers A, but to your point, they also just don't have the offensive line that can hold up for more than two and a half seconds, right? So you're going to get your two and a half. Can you get 2.7 will be tough? Can you get three? That's going to be real tough. And when we start talking about deep passing, Matt, you got to get three seconds. And I just don't know if this new England offensive line can give him that time. But I do want to talk about the talent level in regards to the wide receivers, because man, you take a look here. Let me just read off who is leading this team in receiving yards. It's Hunter Henry one. He's got 127. That's based off of just one game, right? Austin Hooper is number two. He's got 36 yards received. Yeah, yeah, 36. 36 KJ Osborne is number three with 28 yards receiving. The guy that they drafted out of Washington and Jalen Polk, man, he's got 18 yards total on just three catches. There's got to be a way, Matt, to activate Jalen Polk a little bit more than they have. I mean, dude, I watched the Seahawks Patriots game one. I watched it live. And then I watched it back on film, but watching it live for you was that's a game I could I could not watch that game. It was so bad. Yeah. Number one, let me be clear about two things. One, it's there were 10 games on, you know, in the one o'clock Eastern we know on Sunday. What are we doing out here? And also, I'm a sick freak about the Seahawks passing offense right now. We'll talk about them a little bit later. So when I say that I watched it live, I was mostly there for the Seahawks. And definitely when I watched it back on film, I was only watching the Seahawks. I did not didn't really take like, let me get a deep dive on what's going on in England right now. But I say that to say that the second thing when I was watching it live, it's insane that Hunter Henry had 109 yards on Sunday in week two. Jalen Polk was the second leading receiver with 12. That's 12 is 18. And then the rest, Stevenson, nine, Gibson, seven, KJ Osborne, seven Austin, super five. I mean, just go over said 149 yards 109 of them went to hunt Hunter Henry. And the Seahawks did a great job shutting Hunter Henry down later in the game. Cause I think Mike McDonald has done a great job so far as the defensive play calling head coach there in Seattle, like they just stuck Julian Love kind of on Hunter Henry's like, all right, this is the only guy who's hurting us. We're gonna take him out of the game. And then New England really didn't have an answer later on in this contest. So yeah, I'm with you. Jalen Polk is definitely somebody to keep an eye on here too. And I love your point about it being oil and water here because, you know, you've got tomorrow Douglas is their second leading receiver in terms of routes run 46 behind Hunter Henry's 53. And you know, tomorrow Douglas, I've talked about him for a reception perception. He's kind of an odd player because he's a man beating slot receiver. He is definitely not a downfield threat. And he's not really a threat in the intermediate area of the field. He's kind of like a slant flat merchant. And because of that, you know, he has a 3.0 average depth of target this year. I'm with you that in this offense, you want to go over set under center. You've got a good run game. This run game's been awesome this year. We want to take play action shots. Totally. Yes. We are not doing that with tomorrow Douglas as our leading receiver here. So Taekwon Thornton's the deep threat with 7.7 average at the target. And he's no disrespect, but he's Taekwon Thornton. So it's just like, I'm with you that I think more Jalen Polk is the answer. I know this is sort of the cop out, but I just want to I just want to see Drake May at this point. I like to cover set. I think he's a good quarterback and he's a good caretaker. He's probably like the best backup quarterback, maybe one of the better bridge quarterbacks in the league. But if we're going to get big plays off of play action, dude, if we're going to boot a quarterback out of the pocket, it's going to be Drake. So I think I think we need to see a what was last time we seen Jacobi Versa with the naked boot. I can't I can't even remember, golly. I feel okay saying this because Gerard Mayo said it, but did you hear what he said after week one when he said, yeah, he made it paraphrasing again, but Gerard Mayo said Jacober said, yeah, he made a pretty good play on the move, which is surprising because he's one of the least mobile black quarterbacks in the league. That's that's the guy that's your starting quarterback right now, he is not a mobile threat. Like, no, he's not going to read it out as well as Jacober said he's not going to get to the right answers. As much as Jacober said, he's going to make a lot more mistakes than than Jacobi is at this point. But he's going to activate that downfield play action game. He's going to activate the boot level boot game. And I think that will be interesting because I do think this Patriots team is a little bit better than people expected. It's not a fun watch. I mean, not just not a fun watch. It's just the offense doesn't look all that functional outside of the run game. Yeah, I'm looking at it right now. Jacober said on play action, he number one has a 5.4 average depth of target, and he has a 3.6 time to throw. That is nice. Yeah, it's not bad, but you just want more deep throws to be available. And I mean, the reality is with this receiver room, it's just they don't got that guy. They don't got that guy. Yeah, I mean, I'm trying to find like a nicer way to say it, but you're right. They don't have that guy right now. With your top two wide outs in terms of routes run being tomorrow, Douglas and type one Thornton, you do not have that guy. I think it's time to get more Jalen Polk on the field. I think Polk was a good prospect. I think he is picture perfect for this scheme that wants to take shots in the intermediate area off play action. So more Jalen Polk. And I do think eventually we're just going to get to a point where when we want to get that boot game activated, it's just going to be Drake made time. I mean, again, I know I'm in the bag here, but I mean, can we get a little, can we actually see Jevon Baker on the football field? I knew I was like, when is James Coe going to get to the fact that Jevon Baker has run one route this year as a play, dude? Like, oh, man, okay, look, I get it. Like he had a couple drops, bro. Like it's all good. You and I have talked about whether, you know, some of these should even be considered drops. It's fine. Whatever. But let's say he had those drops, you know, can we can we at least complete that sentence by saying he had drops? Why? Because he is open. Yeah. And if you're getting open, that's 50% of the equation here. Okay. I don't feel to open downfield. I don't see dudes in a New England Patriots uniform getting open downfield. I mean, this, this whole idea that the, the, the beat reporters are feeding us of Taekwon Thornton. Like, you know, come on, guys, we've seen him play. We've seen him play. Stop it. You know, like I know the coaching staff is telling you this and I, you know, maybe he's, maybe he's had a good couple practices or whatever scrimmages in shorts, but come on. When the lights turn on, we've seen Taekwon Thornton play, man. We're good. We're good with Taekwon Thornton, bro. Like, I mean, again, I think you can even drop some plays for him if you want to. That's all good. But every down, come on, can we get you on Baker and then just see what you got? Just see what you got in New England. That's what I would like to see. Anyways, all right, we move on. Pittsburgh, third few is passing yards in the NFL. A lot of this obviously is going to be a pace of play. It's the quarterback Justin Fields has been playing. You know, you're not going to get all that much out of the passing game. And quite frankly, other than George Pickens, they just don't have that many answers. They don't have that many bodies in the wide receiver room. So, Matt, this is probably the most difficult one, but you are the only person on earth that is a little bit of a Arthur Smith, a little bit of an Arthur Smith apologist, not a full, not a full apologist, but just a little bit. How does Matt Harmon go about fixing this Pittsburgh passing attack? I mean, get better players. That's obviously not going to happen at this point get better players. Step one would be to get better players, but we are probably past that point. We're going to just be rocking with Van Jefferson and the boys there from wide receiver two on the depth chart, which is just, you know, there's only so much you're going to do at that point. But I would note that their passing game is very interesting because it's, I think, makes sense from adjusted fields, Arthur Smith, George Pickens perspective. They're 25th in dropback success rate, but they're 15th in dropback EPA. Some of that is some scrambles and stuff, although I don't know that they've totally made use of Justin Fields as a just designed rusher just yet, you know, so from a scramble perspective, that's going to be part of, I think you'd get more of him like, I think you should have more freedom to take off and go. So that's going to boost the EPA there. But also, I think they've hit some big plays, especially in week one against the Falcons. I thought they hit some big plays there. I got to tell you, man, you know, let's talk about this on a sicko show. Is that last week that I think George Pickens has looked great this year. I think this has been the best George Pickens has looked on film since his college RP profile. You know, I think that he's a player that we've talked a lot on the show because I've always said you can't really have a normal conversation about George Pickens. I'm ready to have a conversation about George Pickens and how good he looks. All right, let's go. And I think he looks at this point like a guy that should be getting 28% of this passing game. And he's at 25% in terms of targets. He's 53% in terms of ariards. I'd like to see those numbers kicked up. I'd like to see him never leave the field. You know, he's at about in terms of routes run. He's actually second on the team behind Van Jefferson. I know they want Van out there to, you know, not break tendencies because he's a he's a decent blocker is kind of the idea. And like, all right, we're in 13 personnel with all of our tight ends on the field. You know, my cold Peru and Darnell, Washington and Pat Firemuth and okay, we have maybe Van Jefferson and some single receiver looks there. But okay, I don't need any of that anymore. Tendency break, whatever. I think Pickens has played this isn't been the thing with Pickens is I think he's had, I think he's just had some effort issues. We talked about the show. Tom has talked about it. The coaching staff has talked about it. It's been in national media talking point at times. I think he's had some effort issues. So far this year, I think he looks locked the FN, which is really cool to see because when he is, he is popping off, especially against press made coverage and especially on outside breaking routes. And you know, he's a guy that you look at the box score. Yeah, 29 yards in week two. That was a much better game than that. That was another game that after the 10 game on slot in week one, or excuse me, in the 1 p.m. window in week two, you know, you only have three games in the late windows. So you're forced to have Bronco Steelers on one of the screens. Totally. And I thought he was running some great routes, especially, and this has always been where Pickens has been the strongest is off the line of scrimmage. I think he has great pacing and footwork against press coverage. And he's going against Pat Sertan against the Broncos on the vast majority of these routes, but he's getting off the line really well. And he had a couple of plays called back due to penalty. Broderick Jones, who they can't even figure out if they want to play right now, he's rotating with their first round pick from this past year. Like, I think that's about enough already of that. But he kind of, you know, there was a great beautiful play where fields rolls out, flicks it downfield on a go route to George Pickens, who just just has just the slightest bit of separation, wins the ball on Pat Sertan, his day would look much better if that was in the box score. So I think Pickens is playing great. I'd like to see just more and more of Pickens. And I think the longer that they are just committed to Justin Fields, I think the more they'll start to put on his plate. I mean, that throw by fields was outrageous, crazy, crazy. It's it's it really is a shame that it didn't count. Like, they should have just counted it just because it was so cool. Come on. Did Project Jones hold really matter? I don't know. I don't know what I heard. On the cool points, man. It looked awesome, dude. Come on, man. That was a great throw. Great throw. Great catch. And okay, so let me ask you this about Pickens. What an interesting player he is, because when you take a look at some of the the the charting data from 2023, right? We're talking about a guy that was 50th percentile versus man coverage. That's not going to get the job done. He was 17th percentile versus zone. And I get it. 23% of his routes were on the nine route hard to beat zone coverage when you're running a bunch of nine routes. I get it. But that being said, look, he had a, you know, pretty high slant percentage, curl percentage, dig percentage as well. And when you're talking about 17th percentile versus zone, that that's an alarming score to me, right? Okay. How much of that, again, do you think effort played into some of these into some of these scores? Oh, I think there's no question that effort is a part of it. You know, again, this is a guy who's his coaching staff is previously like challenged him right on the effort stuff and things like that. I think that I think Mike Tomlin is the perfect guy to have George Pickens on his team. You know, I think that's going to be great. It's, you know, it's not it's not that it's not that I think it's always effort. I think some of it is technique lapses too. Yeah, yeah, because and this is the frustrating thing with Pickens, man, is because I think when you go back and you look at his prospect profile, like, forget the stuff in the NFL for a second. I thought he was a really good route runner in the short and underneath area in his prospect profile. You know, obviously, again, the press coverage success rate is the is the best part. 86th percentile success rate versus press is a prospect, but he's right south of 80% success rate versus zone 79.7%. And wow, honestly, it wasn't even the it wasn't even the downfield routes. Again, revisiting the prospect profile, slight route success rate, 82.4% curl route success rate, 81.6% comeback route success rate, 88.9%, which is a great score. And he's running all these routes at least within or above the prospect average. So I thought he was a good route runner for his size and his type of player arc type. In college, we just haven't seen it consistently in the NFL yet. And look, it's only two weeks. I'm totally willing to, you know, this, maybe this changes or whatever. I just think he might be one of these guys that is a little bit, you know, if I could give a comparison, I think maybe he's like a DJ more type of player where route running year one. And look, they actually are not, I mean, in terms of player similarity, I don't think they're similar at all, but okay, okay, journey. Okay, okay. I heard your skepticism there. I was about to bring up something, but okay, okay, good. But I'm talking about journey comparables in perception, perception, because if you look back at DJ Moore's RP profile from his rookie year, kind of a mess as a route runner, 52.7% success rate versus man actually worse than Pickens was. And then he gets a little bit better in year two. He jumps up from 47% success rate versus press to 68%. And then 2020 to 2022, he was just, you know, really locked in over 70% success rate versus man, you know, in really good rates against zone and press and stuff like that. So I think he could be one of those guys that maybe is like a year three RP breakout type of player. You could be in that bucket. I love it. By the way, it should be mentioned to you that this team did trade away Deontay Johnson. You have to think, and again, this is pure speculation. You've got to think at some point, they talked to George Pickens though and said, Hey, listen, we got rid of DJ, we need you to step up. Totally. You don't know. Totally. And I was it. I don't know if it was on this show or another show because, you know, I do too many podcasts, but I also kind of think that, you know, Pickens, look, he's a, he's an interesting dude. Okay, we all we've all seen for sure. We followed his NFL career. We saw him the day was drafted, you know, in that little get up that he had there looking at the TV. He's an interesting guy. He clearly is an emotional player. That's okay. I'm totally for that. I'm not anti any of that stuff. But, you know, sometimes those type of dudes when you're able to come in there and say like, you're, you're the dog, you're the, you're the alpha dog here. Okay. This is all about you. We're going to run this thing through you. They take that and they go. That is totally a guess by me. I have no idea. But I think that part of the calculus of, okay, look, we're going to get worse in the wide receiver room as a whole by trading Deontay Johnson. That is just a fact. No matter what you think about Deontay Johnson, where he ranks in the league, whatever, they are worse in the receiver room without Deontay Johnson. But, but do you get a better version of George Pickens clearly telling him, you're the guy, you know, you are the guy here. I wonder if that's true. I think also just from a talent evaluation standpoint, I think it's smart, right? Because you trade away Deontay Johnson, obviously it hurts your team overall. But from a talent evaluation standpoint, you now know what you have for sure 100% in George Pickens. And, and to be honest with you, the reason people can't have a normal, normal conversation about Pickens is the defenders look at the highlight plays and they see the highs. And the people who don't think that Pickens can play looks at a large chunk of plays that he takes off, a large chunk of plays where he there's no effort, a large chunk of plays where you're like, man, this is not, this is not professional behavior, you know? And so that is why there's that juxtaposition. That's why there's that conflict, man. But for the, for the, for the front office for the Pittsburgh Steelers, now they get a very clear picture. Do they not? They get a very clear picture of, okay, this is the player. If he doesn't step up, we know he's a problem and we probably should not extend him. If he does step up, maybe we can build around him. I don't know. In this crazy, you know, wide receiver, happy NFL that we've got right now, you need those answers, you need those answers. Yeah. And I mean, he's a guy who's a, he was a day to draft pick that he's going into it. He's in his third season. This will be time after this year to talk extension for sure, because it's the last year of his deal. So, yeah, based on the way he's played through two weeks, it's tough. Like you just hope you continue to get this over 17 games and the whole deal. If you do, he would be a guy to have no problem. Like let's lock it in and let's build this offense through him. So yeah, when we're talking about the Pittsburgh Steelers, it's, I do think the answer is more George Pickens. I also think sneakily, you know, I know we're talking about the passing game. I think the run game has been okay. Like I said, I don't think it's been totally passable. I mean, from an efficiency standpoint, they're 29th and rushing EPA. They're 29th and rushing success rate. I think some of that is the Justin Fields design run play is like, let's also, let's be real about this. I know, I know that the Russell Wilson aspect of this all is a little tough because he's, you know, lurking literally and figuratively behind Justin Fields. But at the same time, like in uniform, dude, like you're not active, dog, like you're not going to play. Why are you putting the shoulder pads on, dude? Like what's going on? I don't know. I don't know. But you know, this team probably thought for a long time, like, yeah, we're going to start Justin. We're going to start Russell for however long and we'll just see how it goes. We're going to run a very safe little kind of cookie cutter pass game. Totally. You know, I think that the more, I think that the more they have fields around as the starter, I think that they can maybe do more with him as a design rusher. I think right now it's mostly been just purely design quarterback run game, not so much option. I'd love to see more option with these two guys, especially Jalen Warren in the back that I think would be sick. And then also just, I think the pass game designs have been good under Arthur Smith this year in terms of, let's get pickens, the type of throws that he wants, and let's get fields, the type of throws that he wants. And those happen to overlap pretty perfectly together. But once they figure out more about fields, the rusher and like how we can exploit this quarterback run game, I think the whole offense will get better both run game and pass game. My dad works in B2B marketing. He came by my school for career day and said he was a big row as man. Then he told everyone how much he loved calculating his return on ad spend. My friends still laughing me to this day. Not everyone gets B2B. But with LinkedIn, you'll be able to reach people who do. Get $100 credit on your next ad campaign. Go to linkedin.com/results to claim your credit. That's linkedin.com/results. Terms and conditions apply. Linkedin, the place to be, to be. What's better than watching your team win? Winning money while you do it. I'm Jim Costa and I cash the ticket. Mike Villetti and I give you the edge to make every game playable. College football, NFL, we're breaking it all down game by game. Your podcast feed is going to be filled and you're going to love it. You can click on the games you care about. We do it all. With our analysis, we're fighting games that other people aren't talking about. We're turning every Saturday and every Sunday in the days where you got a chance to win. Don't just sit on the sidelines. Cash the ticket with us. Follow Cash the ticket in the free Odyssey app or wherever you get your podcasts. This episode is brought to you by Microsoft Azure. Turn your ideas into reality with an Azure free account. Get everything you need to develop apps across cloud and hybrid environments, scale workloads, create cloud-connected mobile experiences and so much more. Discover what you can create with popular services free for 12 months. Learn more at azure.com. That's A-Z-U-R-E.com and sign up for a free account to start building in the cloud today. All right. Let's play a little game of buy or sell, shall we Matt? Let's talk about some surprising receiver production, both good and bad. You got to start this conversation with Rashid Shahid. Buy or sell, Rashid Shahid, look, he's not going to stay on this pace because this pace is just absolutely ridiculous. Buy or sell the idea of Rashid Shahid entering this conversation of potentially a top 25 wide receiver in the NFL. I mean, top 25 is tough just because the league is really crowded, but I am buying. I'm not buying that he's going to catch a post-route touchdown every single game. I'm not buying that. I am buying the performance so far this year for a litany of reasons. One, I think Shahid's a good player. You go back and look at the RP profile from this past year from 2023. Really good results there. I thought he was a player who shined obviously on the deep routes. I mean, that was going to be obvious. Just watching him, you could tell he's got the juice. That post-route I mentioned, he ran a post-round of 15% of his charted routes in 2023. It was an 80% success rate, which is pretty bonkers. But also, look at the rest of the in-breaking route success rates. Dig route, curl route, slant routes, all this stuff. He didn't break that well to the outside. By the way, for any of our subscribers, if you go and look at Rashid Shahid's route chart, it's the funniest thing, man. Everything that's either straight or in-breaking is green and everything out-breaking is red. Even the flat route, even the flat route is red for Rashid. I know. It's the funniest route chart, man. It's got to be. Obviously, it gets the Ben Stiller, he can't turn left thing. He gets the Zoo Lander treatment. Of course, just because the route chart is designed this way, there are also out-breaking routes that turn right. He can indeed turn left. A couple of those banger post routes have been breaking to the left. He can turn left. Can Rashid Shahid? Let's just dispel that notion right now. Man, number one, good player. He's a solid route runner. He's got so much juice. He is just perfectly deployed in this offense, man. He is exactly. When you saw a Clint Kubiak get hired by the Saints, you just had to think, "Dude, Rashid Shahid in motion, Rashid Shahid doing this type of stuff." It's just picture perfect. It was picture perfect in theory. It has been just about picture perfect practice so far. I am buying to a certain degree. Obviously, he's not going to keep at this pace like he said, but he's a real player. He's going to continue to be a really productive and positive player for the Saints. I'm buying on that. One of his most impressive reception perception metrics that I found was, we're talking about this dude who is 180 pounds, 74th percentile versus press coverage on 18.5% of his routes, man. That's impressive. That is pretty good. Given his skill set and given his size, that was really surprising. I certainly was not expecting to see that in regards to his press success rates. Okay. Well, and this is critical too, James, because they're playing a lot of heavy personnel. They have a lot of tight ends. They have a Taysom Hill. They've got running backs they want to get on the field. They're not slot receiver, B.S. doing the things with Rashid Jeed. He's got to play some outside receiver. His press success rate is pretty critical. By the way, I have to say this on the pod. The audacity of Derek Carr to throw that ball to Rashid Jeed to touch down against the Cowboys. Have you seen this throw on film yet, man? It is. I mean, live, it looks crazy. But on film, it is absurd. It's not quite. It's not quite the Anthony Richardson, Alec Pierce touchdown in week one, because Richardson did not even like have his feet. He was getting in pressure. He's like barely set, but still, I mean, it's not, I mean, it's open, but it's not. It's not week one Panthers. What are you doing? JC Horn open. It's, it's, it's a keyhole. He fits that thing through. I mean, Carr is feeling it right now. And that's why I'm buying the Rashid Jeed stuff too, because Carr is feeling it. The whole offense is feeling it. I love what I'm seeing in New Orleans right now. We move on buyer's cell. Alec Pierce. This is a guy that's got, you know, eight targets, excuse me, eight receptions on 10 targets. He's got an 80% catch rate, 181 receiving yards and two touchdowns. Alec Pierce is going absolutely banana pants right now. Buy yourself this, not maybe again, not this level of production. I can't imagine he's going to see, you know, 90 plus receiving yards per game. But godly, he is an absolute splash play merchant right now. Buy or sell Alec Pierce. Yeah. I mean, I'm selling Alec Pierce as the sixth leading receiver in the league in terms of receiving yards. I don't think he will finish among the top six, top 10 receivers in the league. I don't think he will be the Colts leading receiver by the end of the year, although I don't know by this point. Shoot. I don't know, man. I don't know, man. I don't know with the way the Colts passing off ends looks right now. So I'm selling in that regard. But I do think that the, I think the fantasy community kind of just like completely through Pierce to the side, you know, and we didn't talk about, I'm not saying everybody's stupid and we're so smart. Like that's not what I'm saying here because I don't think we talked enough about Pierce's potential impact in this receiver room too. But if you go back and you look at his 2022 reception, perception profile, he doesn't profile as a useless player. Okay. He is not a zone beater, 9th percentile success rate versus zone. So that's limited. But 72.4% against press and 69.6% against man. Now I've always said with Alec Pierce that he is very, again, very, very limited. You're getting nothing in terms of the middle of the intermediate and the middle of the field. But, you know, nine routes, post routes, slant routes, he can run those. Okay. So he can stretch out the defense. And now he's got a lunatic quarterback who will just do it. I mean, Anthony Richardson is truly like he's an insane player. I know he I know people are kind of down on what we've seen so far. You know, I get that. He's a guy that people have a lot of feelings about, you know, and like there's hyper analysis and things like that. I totally I totally understand like he's he's a frustrating player. I would say he's a he's a developmental player. He's not going to be perfect. You know, there's no question about that. He is he's going to have his moments. It's going to be kind of frustrating. But he has a 12.8 average depth of target against zone coverage. That's wild. Okay. In week one, it was like 17 average depth of target against zone coverage, Anthony Richardson. So what I mean by saying he's a lunatic of a quarterback is that anyone almost any other quarterback on plan earth is seeing Alec Pierce run these nine routes and these post routes that are, you know, open if you're charting it against zone coverage. But they're like, yeah, I'm I'm not taking that. I'm going to take the normal throw. And Anthony Richardson is like, I'm Anthony Richardson, bro, I'm going to take that thing. I when I my pro day, I bumped the frigging football off the ceiling so I can hit Alec Pierce down there and he's doing it. So that mesh of style is pretty real. So no, I'm not buying Alec Pierce is like one of the best receiver on this roster. I think if everybody is everybody hits their ceiling, he's the fourth best receiver on the roster. But you know, Downs hasn't been healthy yet. Mitchell is kind of work in progress. He's had some rookie mistakes, some flashes, but rookie mistakes. A long term, I think he'd be the fourth best receiver. But you know, I am buying that he's going to be a part of this passing game. Okay, so addendum to this, buy or sell what we are seeing right now from Michael Pittman. I think Michael Pittman will go down as a disappointing pick and fantasy this year, because of several reasons. One, the developments we're talking about with Richard's into the passing game. Yeah, it's not going to be consistent. It's not going to be clean. That just is what it is. But the second thing is like, yeah, this is a really crowded room. And this is why, as much as I like Michael Pittman, I didn't take a lot of Michael Pittman and fantasy this year. I certainly have them on some teams, didn't like totally avoid him or anything. But he was kind of the last guy that I had in my third tier of fantasy receivers this year, because there was always this risk that Pittman that Richardson would be a developmental player. And you've got now three other dudes when Downs is back, that are competing for the football here. And so it's just like from a fantasy perspective, I think it's going to be tough. But I'm like, Pittman's a good player. I'm not worried about him as an individual talent. So my thought on Michael Pittman was, and I was completely wrong on this, but it is actually true. This thought process was right. I picked the wrong player. And by the way, if you guys go back and listen to any show, I'll the lone Alec Pierce defender. Okay, like, yes, I like Alec, of course, I of all people, I'm going to like Alec Pierce, a big bodied athletic X receiver that can like run down the side of course, of course, I'm going to like this player guys, of course, I get it. Okay, but that being said, my process was he's Anthony Richardson is a developmental player, and young quarterbacks love to lock in on one guy. Who's he going to lock in on? He's going to lock in on the guy that's probably the most open the most. And so my thought is he's going to lock in on Michael Pittman. I did not account for the lunacy, as Matt Harman said, not account for the lunacy of Anthony Richardson, locking into a player. And that player right now is Alec Pierce. That's what's so interesting about this. Matt, Matt, I know we got done with this whole GM coaching thing, but how do you put that toothpaste back in the tube? I just don't see how that's possible. How do you take Alec Pierce off of the football field, knowing that Pierce and Anthony Richardson have now developed this, you know, unbelievable chemistry, especially downfield? Well, you're not. That's the thing is you're just definitely not going to do it. And I think you can't take Michael Pittman off. Okay. And and when Josh Downs comes back and he plays in the slot, you can't take him out. So this is a third addendum. But like, well, so what are we doing with that? And I Mitchell, then? Yeah, Mitchell's tough, because I think he's just a guy that I think he's he's flashed really well. You know, I know, like other separation metrics really like what they've seen out of him in terms of his is his performance for two weeks. I think there have been some mistakes, which is fine. He's a rookie. I think he's swimming a little bit, you know, and you know, just overall, I'm with you that you can't take my equipment off the field. I think Pierce plays a critical role, stretching the defense out. Yeah. So I think, and but I know for a fact, this staff is so high on Mitchell. So they're not just going to take him away. But dude, I look at this team right now and I'm like, this team needs Josh Downs. When Anthony Richardson is pressure, pressured, he throws to his first read only 33% of his passes. That is a bottom half of the league figure. And that to me is the Josh Downs role. Why they have Josh Downs, and you actually saw proof of concept of this and his first, you know, then obviously barely played as a rookie. Anthony Richardson. But when when he was playing as a rookie, he liked to get Josh Downs on those second read plays when he's under pressure when he's in trouble. So I think that down like they need Josh Downs. I watched this cold team like this cold team needs Josh Downs. So it's tough. I don't really know what you do because you're not going to take off Michael Pittman. You're not going to take off Alec Pierce fully. But I think they will still have to rotate and 80 Mitchell in there because he is very, very talented. And I know the team really likes him by your cell in Detroit, Jamison Williams, this resurgence that we have seen for two weeks in a row now. Yeah, I'm buying, not not buying that like he's going to be the most productive receiver on the team. I think obviously Saint Brown will take that back. You know, he's he has 200 receiving yards on the season does Jamison Williams. But he's legit, man. I really think he's legit. You know, when we talked about him extensively in the off season, my take was, you know, for all of the the kind of some of the negative indicators in his profile, some of the positive indicators in his profile. I basically said like, I don't have a strong take about how this one is going to go. I don't the one thing I felt though was that he would he would not crack the top five or he would be the fifth option, you know, in the options where they have two good backs. They have another back in Jamier Gibbs that they want to throw the ball to, you know, and he actually has the exact same target share, first free target share, this year's last year. So that role has remained consistent. And then they have sample for it and they have on our Saint Brown. So that left J. Mo is the fifth option in the offense when you account for the running backs and the run game and the whole thing. That's the thing that I'm I'm like, I'm taking the L on that take because I think he is at this point clearly been ahead of Sam Laporta. And you know, same. Yeah, obviously anybody. Hey, did you draft breaking news? Did you draft Sam Laporta on your fantasy team? You definitely hate Jamies and Williams totally. You for sure hate Jamies and Williams. I mean, when you look right now at their first read targets and from fantasy points data in 2023, I'm on Ross Saint Brown, 34.9% Sam Laporta, 19.9%. Jamies and Williams and Josh Reynolds were both 11.5%. Obviously Williams didn't play the full season. Jamier Gibbs at 10.3%. Like I mentioned, this year, it's Jamies and Williams team high 34.5%. I'm on Ross Saint Brown, 31%. Jamier Gibbs, like I said, identical 10.3%. Sam Laporta, 8.6. Wow. Cent. Wow. That is a big, big drop off. It's more than 50% lost in terms of first read targets. Now, I say that this has happened. I do wonder if it is going to continue to happen, James, because I don't think the Lions offense has been great through two weeks. I think they've actually been a little prophecy-turvy a little bit inconsistent. I wonder if Sam Laporta being minimized has actually not been good for this offense. Certainly in week one, Saint Brown was not, what do you have? 19 targets last week, so that's going to obviously boost the whole season total. But obviously in week one, he was not a big factor. I wonder if Ben Johnson and Jared Goff go back to the film and they say, "Hey, look at all these layups like Sam Laporta here, maybe we need to get back to those and not be so J.M.O. obsessed." Although clearly, he's a good player and will continue to be involved in the offense and he should be. That was the point that I wanted to bring up was the fact that this offense is actually worse for wear because they have fed Jameson Williams 20 targets through two games. Despite the fact that he's been extremely productive from a counting stats standpoint, his 50% catch rate is very indicative of why some of these drives are stalling. I think to me when Detroit is clicking and when Detroit is playing good football, it is not because they're making splash plays. As a matter of fact, that's never, I don't want to say never, but the splash plays are different is what I should say. In terms of, okay, it's Amman Raw giving you 15 yards on the catch and then maybe 10 yards on the after catch or Sam Laporta giving you 7 or 8 yards on the initial catch and then picking up an extra 10 with his legs. These are the kind of splash plays that I think Dan Campbell and Ben Johnson and the Detroit Lions, when they are running hot and they're running good, that's the kind of drives that they want. Not these deep overs and Jameson Williams connecting on a 40 yard bomb. First of all, that's not Jared Goff's game. We know that. And I just don't think, I think there's been a little bit of a disconnect through two games where again, maybe you see this guy streaking open super deep down the field, but I just wonder because again, that 50% catch rate, I just wonder if this team is now worse for wear because of it, because maybe they are sitting back there looking for deeper shots when they really shouldn't be. Well, I think a couple of things can be true at once, which I do, you know, this is a team in Detroit that it's similar. We give teams like San Francisco a pass at this point in the year because, okay, what really matters for them is December is January and obviously hopefully for them in February. I think we got to talk about the lines in the same way. I think they were my pick to win the Super Bowl this year. I think they're a Super Bowl team contender for sure. You know, and I think a lot of what they're doing right now is a continuation to build on what they did in the off season, which was hype Jameson Williams to the moon and get this guy engaged with the program. Again, total guesswork. But I like that though. I like that though. I like that though. I come back to the week one game against the Sunday football against the Rams and the post game interview with James Williams really stuck out to me where, I mean, he is like, he's bopping up and down. He's hyped up. He's really amped. He's like kind of dancing around. He talked about this. He said to the sideline reporter, you know, he talked about the faith that Dan Campbell and Jared Goff showed in him and how much that meant to him and how much that, you know, kind of assuming he got him to buy in. This is a guy that has been a little aloof. The gambling suspension hasn't been really locked in because of injuries and all these other things at times. And then they started feeding him at the end of last year. They hype him up all off season. And so what do you do? You come out in week one and week two and you're like, dude, yeah, this isn't this isn't BS. This isn't nonsense. We're feeding you the ball. Like you're a part of this thing. You're going to be a big part of our offense. And so I think that's been a concerted effort. And again, like this is September. This is not the, these are not the most important games for the Detroit lines. Like, but you shouldn't have lost that game against Tampa Bay. You don't want to be messing around. You're losing now at this point, especially home. Right. Right. Right. Let's be clear. Like this isn't, I'm not saying this is a perfect strategy. You got to win the football games, but you know, I think that's part of it. I think they're, they're kind of keeping him engaged. You're kind of keeping him locked in. So maybe as the season goes on, we cut, you know, Jared Goff, 7.5 average Jeff the target this year. He was at 7.0 last year. Maybe we bring that back a little bit. I do think when you look at dropback success rate, James, the lions are 22nd. The two teams that they are sandwiched between are the Jaguars and the Colts. We just talked about the Colts and the very boom bus nature of their past game. And Trevor Lawrence leads all quarterbacks in deep throw percentage. And it's nothing but like less Chuckyton, Gabe Davis and Brian, those guys are down there somewhere. You know, that's their past game right now. That's not the lions. That's not the lion. So I wonder if by the end of the season, they get back to what their, their kind of bread and butter it is, as we're saying here. All right. What's next at Moss Adams? That question inspires us to help people and their businesses strategically define and claim their future. As one of America's leading accounting consulting and wealth management firms, our collaborative approach creates solutions for your unique business needs. We leverage industry focus insights with the collective technical resources of our firm to elevate your performance, uncover opportunity and move upward at Moss Adams dot com. All right. Let's talk about Seattle here. Buy yourself the week two performance from Jackson Smith and Jigba, the week two performance where JSN saw 16 targets pulled in 12 for 117. Again, is he going to see 16 targets weekend? And we get no, that's not what I'm talking about. But just really, this is more of just a which, which version are we buying here? The week one version where he saw two targets and got 19 yards or the week two version where he gets 16 targets for 117. I don't know. What version of Jackson Smith and Jigba, are we buying? Well, allow me to be mega boring and say truth is probably somewhere in the middle. Yeah. Yeah. Those two performance sure. But I am certainly buying much more of what I saw in week two than week one because interesting, you know, we talked about in week one where Tyler Lockett had these big plays kind of on third downs and when Gino is in chaos mode, he's like, all right, I know my guy Lockett's on the field when he's on the field, I'm looking for him, you know, and like Lockett's not going away. Lockett is not going to suddenly just be a zero in this offense. He's a declining player, but he's still too good for that. Okay. But man, again, I mentioned watching back this offense on film. I think we talked a little bit about this when we talked about the bears in the previous episode and just juxtaposing Seattle's offense this year to Seattle's offense last year. What I loved about watching the Seahawks back on film is one, the answers to pressure for sure. The other thing is just the route combinations in Ryan Grub's offense right now. I mean, they've got DK working on these in-breaking routes, like we've never seen. DK has pretty much been an ISO route player. You're on the boundary, you're the extra seaver and you're running kind of goes and curls and things like that and, you know, occasionally an over route, but they've got DK working routes over the middle of the field. And then they've got JSN kind of being that guy that's on the short out routes, occasionally routes deep and intermediate and things like that. But I just love the way these guys are working in concert together because something is opening up something else. So if you've got DK working over the middle, you're taking safeties that way, you're clearing out space here for JSN on this side of the field. Okay. And I love that. I think that really works well together because you think about this, like in the previous iterations of Seattle's offense, it's been DK is that ISO route player. I love Tyler Lockett. You know, I am, I am Tyler Lockett's number one fan, but he's not an over the middle player. You know, he's not a guy that's going to take those routes over the middle of the field. They've got not only DK doing that, but JSN, that's like his natural area of the field. Geno right now is sixth in terms of pass attempts over the middle of the field. His, his deep throw rate has been dramatically cut back. So there's just so many more layups in this offense. And I think JSN is a natural layup receiver. So I'm buying him continuing to be a huge factor here for Seattle by your cell, Chris Godwin, having a better statistical season than Mike Evans by herself. I push. I'm a push on this one because come on. Can't push bro. Come on. Well, all right. Fine. I'll sell on him having a better, we'll call it a better fantasy season than, than Mike Evans, just because I think Mike's going to continue to have the touchdowns and things like that. I think it'll come back his way. But dude, Chris Godwin is balling right now. He played, he's playing great. The role they've got him in is great. And Baker is throwing to his first read at a really high rate right now. And they're making Godwin the first read on those plays because of where he wins on the field. And they've done exactly what I thought, which is they're going to have Godwin line up in the slot, but they're going to design him out breaking routes. So I love that one. I'm buying, I'm buying Godwin's role, but I'll still buy Mike Evans, the best, most productive receiver on the team. Call me shocked. But do you get Chris Godwin lined up inside and he's productive? I know that's shocking. But but here we go. Buy yourself Courtland Sutton's struggles here in Denver. Well, I'm selling on anything Broncos related rest of season. I don't feel good about Denver James, not just because of bow nicks. But I just I watch Sean Payton's offense right now. And I just don't see it. I don't see this working in today's league. I think it's, I don't think they have real answers to how to push the ball downfield. I think they're getting like they're very heavy. They're very slow. They're not explosive. And I think Sutton, it, you know, I've always been kind of, I'm not like I'm, I think he's fine. I think he's fine. I don't think he's a true one. He's fine. So I'll just like sell the whole thing here. Okay, there you go. Jamar Chase. And again, you know, he's been very inconsistent, very up and down, but bottom line is Jamar Chase has not played up to the standard that he has set earlier in his career. Jamar Chase, buy or sell. I'm buying him rest of season, you know, kind of, kind of back and forth on the Bengals offense. I like that they've got some other guys emerging there. Yo Shavos, you boy, it looks pretty good on those couple of touches. The one, especially was a big time. Hey, we trust you, Andre Yoshavos type of play. That was pretty cool to see. You know, I like that Mike Gasecki's got a role here. Eric Ali, the other, the other tight end has had a couple plays, especially off motion, things like that. And Jermaine Burton had a nice long catch. So I like that other guys are emerging, especially as T Higgins is not playing. That's going to help Jamar Chase. But I would say the biggest reason I'm not, I'm not surprising to have the biggest week to is we've talked so much about this James Jamar Chase lining up more in the slot. He has lined up more in the slot this year. That has been proven correct. The worst team you can do that against is the Kansas City Chiefs, whose best corner Trent McDuffie is a natural slot player. So not surprising. You didn't have a big week to. They play the commanders in week three, it'll be all right. Yeah, he's going to go off. He's going to go off for sure. Amari Cooper buyer sell these early season struggles. My guy has caught five receptions on 17 targets, a 29% catch rate for Amari Cooper. He has 27 yards on the season. My God, buy or sell Amari Cooper here in Cleveland. I don't have a great read. I don't have a, let me just put it this way. I don't have a strong take on this one yet because, you know, he said, he said three drops this year, a 17.6% drop rate. My guy Elijah Moore also has three drops to 23.1% drop rate, not great. Meanwhile, Mr. Reliable, Jerry Judy has not dropped any passes yet. But that's sort of my point here is that actually these receivers are all kind of similar in terms of volume right now. Amari Cooper is still the lead guy in terms of first read targets from fantasy points. But Judy and Elijah Moore are very close little neck and neck there. Those guys are both solid players. They're not stars. They both have flaws in their game, especially, you know, Elijah Moore from a role perspective is weird. He's not the most reliable player. Judy is not a reliable separate against zone. So, you know, yeah, kind of odd players. But at the same time, they've carved out legit roles on this team. I wonder if that kind of makes Cooper not like a true alpha alpha receiver. And bottom line is he's left players on the field. So, I'm kind of I'm mixed on this one. I don't really have a strong take. I mean, at the end of the day, it just comes down to the quarterback to Sean Watson has well, and that's all another thing who cares like who cares about any of these Cleveland receivers because I think this is an interesting room. But until Watson can show you can play above average quarterback for a consistent stretch, they're not going to have a normal passing game here. They're 31st and drop back success rate this year. Can he can he show even functional forget average or above average? Can he just be functional? Can he be an actual NFL thrower of the football? Got a Lee. It has been a disaster. It's been an absolute mess with Deshawn Watson. It's just mentally. I don't think he's got it. And and we've talked about this too. The Stefanzki, you know, system requires a quarterback under center. Deshawn Watson can't play from under center. It's just the coach quarterback, it's shocking that they made this move to begin with. And if you're going to make this move, okay, you make it try to work for a season. If it doesn't work, you got to pick the quarterback or the head coach. Since you already invested all this money in the quarterback, you got to let the head coach go. It just doesn't make sense. It really just well, I mean, it's going to be good to pick the quarter. Yeah, you're going to pick the quarter back over the two time coach of the year. Listen, I get it. I get it. The quarterback is back in the news for not great reasons. The wrong all the wrong reasons. I understand. But just you got to do something because so long as you got both of those guys in the building, it's never going to work. I mean, for God's sakes, Joe Flacko was balling in this Stefanzki system because again, he can play under center. This is it's just maddening. Last one, Tank Dell by or sell my doo Tank Dell. One catch for negative three yards last week in week number two against the Chicago Bears. One catch for negative three yards. Ouch. Buy yourself Tank Dell. I'm going to buy him long term. The thing that's on my radar about this tank Dell stuff, one, let's be clear. Like if he had just caught the pass in week two, where he might have scored like a long touchdown, you know, C.J. Stroud puts it on him. That's a play Tank Dell should make. He didn't make it. It's maybe could have been a slightly I mean, the fact even C.J. Stroud got it there is crazy. Like it's not going to be a perfect pass when he's on the move like that. Yeah. But regardless, like he catches that pass, we could be having a totally different conversation right now. But he's not been a he's not been a consistent factor in this offense for a variety of reasons. Obviously, the biggest one is that Nico Collins is an alpha like a top 10 receiver in the NFL. Like he's going to be the dog here. That's just going to happen. That's going to be the way it goes. They're working in Steph Diggs. And like it is on my radar a little bit with Tank Dell that, you know, he's coming back from a serious injury in his rookie year. You know, such a great point. Everybody wants to do this bullshit every every year. Okay. Where they just and even during the season, why isn't this guy producing? Why isn't he playing? Well, he's dealing with an injury. He's either sometimes they're coming back from injuries, sometimes they're currently dealing with injuries, whether it's known or not. And when it's something we know, we shouldn't just like forget about it. You know, like, Oh, Tank Dell's running routes on Instagram. Okay. That's that's different than playing football. Not only did he come back from an injury that is a little bit similar to the Tony Pollard injury where Tony Pollard told me at the Super Bowl, I didn't feel like myself until week 11. Wow. Okay. And like you can you can look at the stats and all this stuff and it wasn't even that good after week 11. That's not the point. I'm talking about like how the player feels from both a physical and a mental perspective number one. And then number two, let's also forget Tank Dell got shot in the off season. Oh my God. I forgot about that. That is correct. Yeah. Wow. So like, let's give it a second with the Tank Dell stuff. I didn't think he was going to be the best receiver on this roster anyways, because I think Nico is just that far ahead. Yeah. But Tank Dell was great as a rookie. And then he got injured and then he got shot. That's crazy. Let's give it. Let's give it a beat. Forgot about that. Wow. Yeah. Yeah. You're right. You're right. Yeah. Let's give it a beat with the Tank Dell stuff. Maybe he ends up being, you know, I wouldn't be shocked if at the end of the year, you know, Tank Dell starts piling up numbers and then in the off season, he's like, yeah, I really didn't feel like myself until week 11. Okay. That that stuff happens all the time. These guys are not right. They're not numbers on a spreadsheet. They're human beings, you know, and not video game sprites. Yeah, you're right. You know, we talk, we talk about this all the time. Like, uh, oh, this guy's got an MCL injury, but he's active. He went through a full, full, three full practices. Go tear your MCL and tell me how you feel afterwards. Okay. Give it a break with this stuff. So yeah, I'm buying Tank Dell long term. No, no concerns long term, but like, okay, let's give it a beat. Let's get, show some patience here for this guy. There you go. A show is running just a little bit long. That's okay. Plenty of good information here. Yeah, I know. Great. A lot of great takes here as well. Great conversation as always, Matt, but we got to go. We got to let the listeners go, man. For Matt Harmon, I'm James Coe. We'll see you and remember, it's never too late to change your dreams. Peace. When you need meal time inspiration, it's worth shopping King supers for thousands of appetizing ingredients that inspire countless mouthwatering meals. And no matter what tasty choice you make, you'll enjoy our everyday low prices, plus extra ways to save, like digital coupons worth over $600 each week and up to $1 off per gallon at the pump with points so you can get big flavors and big savings King supers fresh for everyone. Fuel restrictions apply.
Matt and James dive into a jam-packed episode ahead of Week 3 as they share their thoughts on what they would do to fix the struggling offenses of the Titans, Patriots and Steelers. Then, they play a little buy or sell on early season WR surprises and struggles, including Rashid Shaheed, Alec Pierce, Jameson Williams, Chris Godwin, Amari Cooper and more.
Whether it's the biggest stars in the league or new rookies bursting on the scene, you won't get better wideout information anywhere else. Along the way, they'll break down the biggest stories in the NFL and offer up a few big-picture fantasy football thoughts.
Follow the guys on Twitter @JamesDKoh and @MattHarmon_BYB. Follow Reception Perception @RecepPerception. Download and Subscribe to the Reception Perception Show anywhere you get your podcasts.
Watch segments of the show on YouTube at Matt Harmon!!
To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices
