Welcome to Week 10 of the 2024 Footballguys Roundtable. Our intrepid panel of fantasy pundits discusses and debates four topics every week. We split the conversation into separate features.
This week's roundtable features these four topics:
- The Cowboys Without Prescott
- Midseason Grab Bag (see below)
- Would You Rather, Dynasty Edition
- Dump, Bench, and Start
Let's roll.
Midseason Grab Bag
Matt Waldman: Here are the potential topics this week.
- For those of you in the subscriber contest, are you still alive?
- Who has vastly outperformed your preseason expectations?
- Is Patrick Mahomes II about to rebound in a big way, or was it the toothless Bucs pass defense?
- Who was your first "favorite player" as a budding football fan?
Pick two.
Gary Davenport: I certainly didn’t expect Chuba Hubbard of the Carolina Panthers to be a top-10 fantasy option better than halfway through the 2024 season. It’s been lost on a miserable team, but Hubbard has quietly had a solid season for both his team and fantasy ones—a season that has allowed the Panthers to slow-play things with rookie Jonathon Brooks.
I became a diehard football fan watching Bernie Kosar and the Cleveland Browns teams of the 80’s—and my favorite players on that team were the cornerback tandem of Hanford Dixon and Frank Minnifield. Not only were they both excellent defensive backs, but their penchant for barking at opposing receivers inspired fans in the bleachers at Cleveland Municipal Stadium to do the same—giving birth to the Dawg Pound.
Waldman: You're speaking my language with that cornerback tandem! Excellent man-to-man players.
Andy Hicks: Surprisingly, yes, my team is still alive in the subscriber contest. There is a brutal bye week schedule coming up, and at least 30% of teams are being eliminated every week. Wide receiver has been my problem all season; half of them are not playing this week. The rest of my roster is strong enough to survive but needs points from the receivers.
Waldman: Congratulations, Andy. I am also alive. My team had its best week in Week 9, scoring 182 points. It was not expected, especially when my best receiver, DK Metcalf, was out.
Hicks: I wasn’t anything more than a passive fan growing up, but the boom of fantasy football coincided with my strong interest in the 90s. As an adult loving this sport without any strong childhood ties is a different experience than most.
My favorite player was and always will be Randy Moss. He earned 9 double-digit touchdown seasons and 10 seasons with more than 1,000 yards.
A favorite season is difficult, but the 23-touchdown season in New England and his rookie season stand out. Let’s go with the rookie season.
The Vikings already had Cris Carter and Jake Reed, but the team and coach Dennis Green took a risk with the 21st overall pick of the 1998 draft. Moss had elite speed and freakish size, but his attitude was heavily questioned.
Green kept him under wraps during training camp and preseason but knew he was special. He burst out in his first game with two touchdowns against a strong Buccaneers defense. The highlight of the whole season was his three touchdowns of over 50 yards against the Cowboys on Thanksgiving. It was in the middle of a nine-game stretch with a touchdown in every game, with the culmination being the unfortunate Gary Anderson missed field goal. His only one all year. But in Moss, a star was born.
Waldman: I was living in Jamaica when Moss had that emergence in Dallas. I had Moss on my team, and it was my first time eating fried turkey. Fun day and a great player.
Hicks: Outside his freakish ability, the thing that attracted me to Moss was his attitude about his slide in the draft. The usual I will make them pay attitude was not the way Moss went. He essentially stated that my next contract would make things right.
Waldman: I still lament the Titans passed him up for Kevin Dyson. The late Steven McNair would have been a Hall of Famer and a Super Bowl winner if Moss was his primary option. That's my contention and I'm sticking with it.
Jeff Bell: For four seasons, from 1989 to 1992, Thurman Thomas led the NFL in scrimmage yards, averaging 1,973 yards. The consistency of that window is staggering: 1,913 yards with 12 touchdowns, 1,829 yards with 13 touchdowns, 2,038 yards with 12 touchdowns, 2,113 yards with 12 touchdowns, and one MVP award. Two AP first-team placements. And three AP second-team placements.
In my formative years, Barry Sanders was lightning in a bottle. Emmitt Smith was the front-runner in the perfect situation, grinding up yards but leaving every kid wondering if it was the offensive line or if he was that good.
Bo Jackson was a mythical figure born out of a video game. But Thomas was the underappreciated asset who excelled in the running and passing games. Thomas helped me appreciate well-rounded players who could affect winning in multiple ways.
Considering I thought he would be lucky to play meaningful snaps, Kareem Hunt coming off the street to produce as a Top-10 fantasy running back has floored me. Hunt rarely looked playable, let alone explosive, in Cleveland in 2023 despite finishing the year in a potent offense. The league seemed finished with him as he generated no off-season buzz.
Yet here he is. He is pacing toward a 1,200-yard season and re-writing the end of his career. The situation that led to his departure from Kansas City was disgusting. He seems to have learned from it. His immediate rookie production, the potency of playing his entire career with Patrick Mahomes II, and this closing leg leave us wondering if we lost a Hall of Fame career.
Sam Wagman: I believe that this could be the turning point for Mahomes' season. The Buccaneers' pass defense is very bad, but DeAndre Hopkins fit very seamlessly into the offense, seemingly playing the Rashee Rice role, and his pass-catching ability is still undeniable.
James Cook has vastly outperformed my preseason expectations. I did not believe he'd have this large of a role and underestimated the Bills' overall commitment to the run game. He is a locked-in RB1 for the rest of the season.
Justin Howe: Brian Thomas Jr had been lost in the mix of a half-dozen ultra-talented rookie wideouts. Regrettably, I didn’t value him on near the same level as the top-drafted guys. I liked Ladd McConkey better long-term, too, and I hardly saw a difference in value among Thomas, Keon Coleman, and Adonai Mitchell.
The jury remains way out on all of these guys. What we can see, though, is that Thomas’ deep-ball skills – which were not merely good at LSU but legendary – can translate instantly to the NFL field.
Thomas’ aDOT is a robust 11.8, right in line with the likes of Nico Collins and Darnell Mooney, but still indicative of a rounded receiver being used all over the place. The Jacksonville air attack is rarely pretty, but Trevor Lawrence posts a 116.2 rating when he looks Thomas’ way.
The first year I watched football as a Steelers fan (1990), I sat through the following start to the season:
- Week 1 – lost 13-3, 210 net offensive yards, 0 offensive TDs
- Week 2 – won 20-9, 123 net offensive yards, 0 offensive TDs
- Week 3 – lost 20-3, 208 net offensive yards, 0 offensive TDs
- Week 4 – lost 28-6, 160 net offensive yards, 0 offensive TDs
Then, first-round rookie Eric Green, who had just ended his holdout, started in Week 5 and things changed.
- Week 5 – won 36-14, 374 net offensive yards, 4 offensive TDs (2 by Green!)
- Week 6 – won 34-17, 451 net offensive yards, 5 offensive TDs (3 by Green!)
The massive (6-foot-5, 270-pound) Green, plucked by Chuck Noll from tiny Liberty just six months prior, had completely rerouted our season! From that point on, I was irrationally taken with Green and what he could conceivably add to our offense.
I waited year in, year out for a true breakout that finally came in 1993 (63 catches, 942 yards, 5 touchdowns)… then never repeated itself. He did, however, fool me into drafting him at a premium in my first fantasy draft in 1998.
Eric Green 1997 – 65 catches, 601 yards, 5 touchdowns
Eric Green 1998 – 34 catches, 422 yards, 1 touchdown
So it goes...
Jason Wood: I’m somehow still alive in the subscriber contest, having just squeaked through this week’s cut with a score of 153.3 points against the 145.6-point cutline. It’s likely only a matter of time before things fall apart, as my receiving corps is a mess. Outside of Malik Nabers and Khalil Shakir, I’m working with Rashee Rice, Jameson Williams, Adonai Mitchell, and Ja'Lynn Polk. With that receiving lineup and Ken Walker III on bye this week, I suspect I’ll be on the outside looking in by next week.
Waldman: Still a nice run.
Wood: My favorite player of all time isn’t exactly a fantasy star—unless you were playing IDP fantasy football in the mid-80s. Reggie White was the first NFL player I idolized, serving as both the on-field and off-field cornerstone of the Philadelphia Eagles during the era when I first started watching sports.
Born in 1974, I watched White's prime through my adolescence until he departed for Green Bay while I was in college. For younger readers unfamiliar with White, he was built like a defensive tackle but had the speed, finesse, and ferocity of an edge rusher.
He not only defined the value of the pass rush but also excelled as a run-stopper, unlike many of today’s top sack artists. White earned eight 1st-team All-Pro selections, was named Defensive Player of the Year twice, and ranked top three in DPOY voting seven times.
It’s hard to single out one season, but for the sake of this roundtable, I’ll highlight 1987. That was a strike-shortened, 12-game season, yet White tallied 21 sacks and 76 tackles, winning his first DPOY award. His 1988 follow-up season is a close contender—he led the league with 18 sacks and recorded 133 tackles. Yes, you read that right: the NFL’s best edge rusher also had over 130 tackles. That is otherworldly.
Waldman: No doubt one of the 20 best players ever, Wood. And I think I'm being too conservative with that assessment.
Thanks for reading. Check out the links below for all of this week's roundtable topics:
- The Cowboys Without Prescott
- Midseason Grab Bag
- Would You Rather, Dynasty Edition
- Dump, Bench, and Start
Good luck!