NFL INJURIES: CMC, JORDAN LOVE, PUKA NACUA, KENNETH WALKER UPDATES | FANTASY FOOTBALL 2024 | 59

welcome back to the inpr fantasy podcast I'm fantasy points.com before we get started make sure you are going to Underdog fantasy you are using prome promo code injury prone you're going to get up to$ thousand dollar matching on there I know you like to play a little higher or lower I know you like to bet on some WNBA NFL I know you like to put that money to work so Underdog use promo code injury-prone that is your number one place to go number two make sure you just go to the show notes tap on the link for the injury-prone season long Playbook the draft guide is out you're going to get it as a courtesy but the season long Playbook you want to know how long your running back with the high ankle sprin is going to be out use a season long Playbook you want to know how you know your wide receiver off of a hamstring training will perform season long Playbook that is down in the show notes now listen week one it's a whirlwind there are a ton of injuries but today what I want to talk about who I want to talk about is Jordan Love Christian pukaa and of course a little Ken Walker we'll get right into it because uh it's been crazy right so we hear about this Jordan love injury initially there was some concern for ACL um if you go to my Twitter you would have seen that I was more so concerned for a high ankle which he's been cleared of at this point and a kneecap dislocation they never confirm that the Packers never confirm that I stand by that on video it's pretty clear that he has a kneecap uh subluxation where it goes in or goes out and comes back in that would also explain his pain response in addition to that they've confirmed the Packers have confirmed that he has an MCL strain so they haven't placed him on IR they probably don't plan on doing that that doesn't necessarily implicate uh that they he won't you know be out four weeks I don't think it's likely but they really just like to have that flexibility and they use that roster spot on him they have no problem using the roster spot on their quarterback what I would expect right now for Jordan love is he's going to miss the next two weeks I would anticipate he probably is not going to be back for another couple weeks I think at this point you can expect him to be back uh in week week 4ish week four is probably what I'm thinking right now um just to be as safe as possible there is a possibility that they bring him back in week three but I I I don't necessarily think that's the most likely scenario I wrote an article last year well it was really this spring at Fantasy points.com last year we had a historical amount of quarterbacks Miss six or more games or actually think it was seven or more games and what we found in that one sample that one year of a sample is that running back eight top wide receivers did not you're going to want to Target Jordan love specifically especially in superflex leagues and Target Josh Jacobs but at this point his his receivers are are unlikely to put up big numbers now maybe I buried the lead a little bit with this Christian mcaffrey News man this was uh this was wild I'll I'll admit that I I'll take the L here I did not anticipate this happening here's why I didn't anticipate it happening since 2018 there have been 25 NFL running backs on the injury report with quote cfer Achilles of those 25 running backs only two of the 25 ended up having another injury of the same kind what's more something north of 90% of NFL players in general return from a calf injury within 31 31 days those two statistics alone already make mcaffrey an outlier well if you needed to feel even better about your decision- making uh Adam Hutson I I don't remember his his Twitter handle I think it's _ theal adom or something like that um he has a good a good tool that matches up pretty well with my practice report statuses and he says that of all injuries in the NFL since 2017 71% of players who end the week as LP end up playing all of that is to make you feel better about the process all of that is to let you know we couldn't have necessarily anticipated this there's no way to really know without a report that he was go going to take the long the the the long route right so if you didn't get Jordan Mason you know at this point there's not much you can do now there's only been one player in my database who's had an Achilles CA injury one running back and it ended in an Achilles rupture it doesn't mean that that's going to happen I don't think that's going to happen that's a very very small percentage there actually has been some research studied and conducted in the NBA where they they see that there's actually not a correlation with uh calf injuries and an Achilles injury per se although it can happen right it's plausible we saw the whole thing with Kevin Durant now knock on wood we hope that doesn't happen to anybody including Christian mcaffry but that is a risk with that risk you know me at this point I would not say to take a big swing unless I thought it was worth it Christian mcaffry is a power law player this could be the year for Christian mcaffry to have one of his last big season the 49ers like I said and chrisan mcaffry himself they may just be waiting this out because they want him to be 100% before the start of the season because they know this is a long season to begin with he he has according to Adam schfer he has a chance to also miss week too but after that we know what he can do like maybe Jordan Mason showed something and he'll get a little bit more uh he'll take a little bit more volume off the top but realistically we know what Christian mcaffry can do I'm currently targeting Christian mcaffrey if it makes sense I have a super Flex League I uh shout out Ryan Heath fantasy points Ryan Heath he declined the trade because he hates me I sent him Caleb Williams for Christian mcaffrey he said no I also sent out another low some lowball offers right you got a lowball these guys right I sent out a Jaylen Warren for a Christian mcaffrey you want to catch some of your league mates you know maybe in some of these home leagues not necessarily the sharper leagues but you want to catch them in a vulnerable position where they're scared they don't know what's going on but I do think ultimately I stand by the fact that as long as he rehabs well as as long as there's not a setback I do think that Christian mcaffry is still going to be Christian mcaffry by the end of 2024 just understand there is some risk associated with taking that big swing but there's no point in taking a big swing or there's no point in taking a swing unless it's a big swing unless you get points per effort around here the money lies in taking the big swings and sometimes that involves taking risk I will also take the L onuka there was nothing that anything really any reporting other until that that Greg Rosenthal report at the very end of Camp just a week ago or so uh that would have implicated that pukan AA wouldn't have been ready my thought process was the injury happened August 4th or 5ifth or something like that week one was in you know September whatever what it was 7th or 7th or eth or whatever it was and even at that point if it was a PCL sprain based on the video uh I had this discussion with Jeff Mueller Dr Jeff Mueller another physical therapist even at that point having four or five weeks to come back from that would have been enough in theory so again another outlier scenario we can't always get him right you know I always say swing for Def fenses and that's exactly what I wanted to do with puka turns out the soft fade would have been correct I will take uh you know accountability for that doesn't help doesn't make anybody feel better uh but I did say before Adam shefer confirmed it was a PCL that it was probably going to be a PCL injury that's what we found so here's what I wrote wrot at Fantasy points.com about pukan AA because I think it explains it uh a little bit more concisely than I can say so I'll take the L my rationale was that four to five weeks was more than enough time for most injuries to recover but they clearly rushed puka back now he'll be placed on the IR and he can't return until week six at the soonest if I drafted puka I'm I'm looking to move him in the next week or two to a manager who starts hot just to stay alive reciprocally if you start hot you can and you can get puka at a discount he's worth worth the stash slash risk but there is risk once he returns there's no guarantee that this knee injury will respond well these pcls can respond very very well uh like they do in some scenarios they can respond very poorly like they did for Julio Jones so these injuries are you know probably to a certain degree close to the same amount of risk as you know McCaffrey's Achilles but again puka power law player obviously Cooper cut bags are heavy I just had to mention that there was no reason for me to mention that it's mainly because I want to take a Victory lap on Cooper cup but if you start hot Target puka deua last guy I wanted to mention here mainly because of his uh handcuff and he was a shout out in the injury-prone draft guide is of course Kenneth Walker Kenneth Walker left the game with with core soreness you know muscle abdominal soreness and it's it's it's not a big deal he'll probably play in week two I don't think that it's going to linger necessarily for him from a performance standpoint I do want to get across that Zack sharan is probably the pre after after Blake Corin played zero offensive snaps uh in week one Ken Walker or Zack sharpman excuse me is the Premier handcuff to have in fantasy football right now he should not be on on any Waiver Wires now I don't wish ill on Ken Walker and his family I don't wish ill that I don't wish any negativity on Ken Walker what I can tell you is that these core and core muscle and groin injuries they don't necessarily go away Ken Walker of course has been dealing with this groin core issue since last year where he missed a couple of games and then the year before that he had an actual hernia like an actual where you know not to get too graphic here but you know the intestines did do push up against the wall uh of of your of your trunk and he needed to have that repaired that's probably in a very similar area I don't know what the deal is with that but there is a at least an outside chance that this is this recurs for Ken Walker and in a worst case scenario world that ends in a Christian Kirk type injury similar to last year and if that does happen obviously Zack shanet becomes the target so he should not be on any Waiver Wires if you can get him for for cheap on the low in a throwi in deal of another deal that you're doing I would do it he's worth the upside so make sure you go to under underdog um fantasy again you get up to $1,000 matched make sure that you subscribe to the injury prone podcast YouTube right and in terms of The Listener League I do want to give you an update on the injury prone listener League very quickly before I get out of here because I am tilting my face off if there's no stat correction I will lose in The Listener League the injury prone listener League to to chillax shout out chillax I don't know what I should have looked at what your uh Twitter handle is but he is uh Chill exilla on sleeper now because I made a very poor decision to draft Chris I did not like Chris and I made a very poor decision to draft Terry McClaren did not like Terry mcen don't know what I was doing but because of those decisions I will lose 121.6 4 to 122 for those of you wondering how my compadre H is doing um I hadn't even looked so let's take a look George did you lose too because we're going to look really bad if we got two losses oh No George won oh he dominated George you dominated man absolutely and he had Jordan love and you had Tony Pard and you had Jaden Reed okay well georg's team is much better than mine uh I'm very jealous uh even though I'm not jealous of of Justin Herbert but hey he crushed um so hey host of this podcast we went one in one 500 we'll take it make sure you subscribe to the podcast make sure you are buying the injury-prone draft guide and Playbook I promise you you're not going to regret it you're gonna it's going to help you manage your season long injuries we'll talk soon