Injury Woes: Justin Fields to Start Over Russ?

Intro good morning welcome to the fantasy forecast on fantasy football advice Network this is the injury special with our very special guest Marcus Daly how you doing Marcus pretty good bigs how are you I'm good uh gayy I I man we've been working together for months and I got your name wrong uh we're we're here we're here to discuss some injuries uh that will affect your football season uh it's 5:30 in the morning and I'm walking my dog so I'm a little bit unprepared I don't have a show sheet or anything like that uh so Mike why why don't you go ahead and lead us into what we're doing okay we'll start with our intro let's go [Music] good morning everybody Welcome to the fantasy forast with grinberg and bigs and we got special guest Marcus gayy here for the injury news uh we've got three different time zone folks so that's what we're doing right now for everybody uh we got Marcus on the East Coast me in the Central and then bigs finally in the Pacific coast so like we've got you covered here and uh special shout out to bigs for making this happen uh 5:30 in the morning where he is so uh yeah that's what we do for you all on Saturday morning headed in to the first weekend and we got a lot of news Marcus tell everybody where they can find your work what you do for a living because that's super important to this injury show and uh yeah let's get it started yeah so uh as bigs and grinberg said my name is Marcus I'm a physical therapist I'm out in uh the Pittsburgh Pittsburgh area so Pennsylvania um I've been a PT for about three years now I'm also a former Collegiate football player so um you know my past life and my current life you know what better two ways to to blend those fields than to do some injury analysis in the fantasy football space so I've been working with the undroppables now for a little over a year it's how I met YouTube and got to link up with you guys in Canton at the Expo which was amazing um so I do have a show with the undroppables right now it's called unavailable it's my own little Sim to this like an injury segment show like what we're going to do today um then also I do help run the Steelers uncovered show via the undroppables network as well yeah man that's awesome um thanks for coming on and uh we should have you on here every week as much as we can uh to get the injuries for everybody leading into the weekend uh so the first one we're going to talk about uh and uh we're we're going to final we're going to end it with the Jordan love because out it's still fresh in our minds but we're going to let that one incubate a Russell Wilson Analysis bit here so we're going to talk about the Pittsburgh Steelers Russell Wilson listed as questionable for week one he aggravated his calf injury in practice potentially Paving the way for Justin fields to start against the Falcons you're a Steeler you know Insider here Marcus so this is a you know probably one that's got you drooling at the you know mouth to kind of figure out and dissect so cath injuries he's been dealing with it for most of the training camp from what it sounds like so how do you assess the impact of this injury Wilson's fantasy value and the potential for Justin field stepping into this role right so as you mentioned he tweaked his calf back at the early stages of Camp I think actually like he didn't even practice the first few days because he had calf tightness this is what they're calling it um they're keeping it very much Under Wraps you're not getting a lot out of Steelers practices on what's actually going on um for reference van Jefferson the wide receiver on I think it was Thursday he said he's like I didn't even know Russ was limited today in practice so there's not a lot of clarity moving forward um I do think though if he's not at 100% which he does not sound like he is they will probably lean Justin Fields I think that's the reason that they acquired someone of his caliber to be a backup because there's not a huge drop off between the two so if you can you know put Russ on the shelf for a few weeks you know these soft tissue injuries can be a little bit tricky they can can get reag grav rather easily if they're not given the proper time to heal um you know so without further information on what his injury actually is you know based on the calf tightness and the fact that he's Limited at practice we'll probably guesstimate that it's somewhat of a of a calf strain um but there was one report yesterday per Ian rap report who's pretty good um that believes that Russ will not start on Sunday so if that's the case and you have Justin Fields I'd throw him in there um we know he may not be the best actual football quarterback but when he does play he scores fantasy points so there you go yeah bigs you got something to add to that you got any probing questions do you have something to add about the quarterback situation there now what what's your initial reaction to that it's absolutely something to Monitor and uh if you are one of the Savvy people that drafted Justin Fields as your Russell Wilson handcuff uh then be ready to to throw him in there as soon as uh there's a designation from the Steelers team and an announcement uh yeah I Justin Fields with his rushing upside is gonna he'll he'll be okay for you in fantasy um so be ready to start him if if you got him rostered so what are your what's your thoughts on if Justin Fields has a really good game here bigs um if he does start uh do you think that threatens uh Russell Wilson's role right off the initial or do you think Wilson if if he's fully healthy no matter how Fields plays will be the starter that that's a great question because it's something that's been debated all offseason and I've been on the side of uh Russell Wilson's job is not in jeopardy because of play but it could be because of injury we could have a Wall-E pip situation where he has to sit out for a couple weeks Justin field comes in the Steelers do enough defensively to win and then it doesn't make any sense to go back to Wilson but I think Wilson is their their money guy and uh and they're GNA ride with him as long as they can um I think it's a it would be a temporary setback if Wilson is able to like if if Wilson sits out this week and he's able to come back next week I don't think it's gonna affect him very much but if it if it's a lingering thing or if Justin Fields just absolutely Wows people in Wilson's absence I think uh I think Justin Fields could steal the job what do your do do you have anything to add to that Marcus before we move on to the next one are are you on the same page as that yeah um I think they're leaning they were leaning Russ off the rip because he basically can be an upgraded version of what Kenny picket was asked to do the last two years and that's not turn the ball over um you know Kenny picket was almost doing that to a fault because he wasn't throwing touchdowns either so it was just a whole lot of nothingness but the defense was so good and opportunistic that it kept them in games so I think you know they're looking at it as hey we got the defense that's pretty good at taking the ball away so long as we don't turn the ball over you know we should be in pretty good shape come the fourth quarter and you know when you're looking at turnover margins you know Russ the the proof is there he takes care of the ball a lot better than Fields has the last three years or so since fields entered the league so I think that's what gave Russ the edge off the bat but he's injured and field steps in and they're playing well I mean I agree with bigs it's going to be hard to try to turn back to Russ at that point yeah Cincinnati Bengals Overview okay so now the Cincinnati Bengals they face some critical uncertainties that could impact your lineup quarterback Joe burrow is making his return but there's some concerns over the ability the availability of T Higgins and Jamar Chase T Higgins is listed as doubtful due to a hamstring injury can you break down the hamstring injury for us what's the typical recovery timeline for such an injury and how it might affect his performance if that does manage to not play in week one additionally how did fantasy Gamers uh set their expectations for their lineups with you know Chase uncertain and Higgins are we really going to be in on uh you know Andre yovich and and Germaine Burton at this point yeah so to talk about Higgins first um you know they interviewed him I think I saw that it was on Thursday he said he felt really good near 100% And then the next day he was downgraded in practice and then it turns out that he's going to be doubtful for the game um he has dealt with hamstring injuries in the past what's super irritating as a player is they can just nag for weeks almost at a time so you can feel completely fine walking getting up doing everything lifting weights and then the second you go to Sprint or break down and get out of a cut um you know it just grabs you and you know this is not ideal because it seems like this is almost getting worse as the season approaches and you know what you risk of is him trying to get back on the field too soon reinjuring it and then this progressing through a full season I know last year he was a little bit plagued by injury as well he has hurt the same hamstring before which makes me think it's a little more of a chronic issue um but you know since it's so early if I were them I would try to just hold him out as long as possible if he's going to miss game one really until it is fully healthy but but if not you know he scares me a little bit because you know these injuries can be tricky we saw it with Keenan Allen a couple years ago pull his hamstring in week one he was out I think eight weeks tried to come back Hur it again two weeks later so really if you don't give these soft tissue injuries enough time to heal you know you're looking at a season long issue if that makes sense yeah so uh what's your what's your uh you your first instinct here do you think he plays are the Bengals going to be safe I mean they they they have a a match up versus the Patriots that you know that that might be a game that they might decide you know especially the the situation with Jamar Chase what are be looking at here do you think he think he plays I don't think he plays week one the doubtful tag you know looking back over the years I think there's something less than a 25% chance that the player actually plays when they're listed as doubtful on the injury report um so I don't expect to see T Higgins on Sunday um Jamar Chase I do think will end up playing so then looking at any combination of him Yos shabos Trent nwin and maybe Burton but you you've seen all these reports that he's supposedly in the dogghouse um but I do like Yoshi this week without Higgins playing um you know they've they've been impressed with him in Camp I think last year he proved he can play a little bit so um you know I expect him to to pick up the majority of you know the targets that Higgins would have gotten had he been fully Bengals Performance Review healthy so bigs I got a question for you there I mean piggybacking off the the Yosi comment there are you high on him as well and what's your breakdown on the back field now if Higgins doesn't play do you think that leads to more uh opportunity for a guy like Chase Brown who's a pass catching back uh what What's your initial thought on the breakdown of that Cincinnati offense now that if you know Bengals wide receiver tgin isn't playing I I don't think it changes the game plan as far as like Rush pass ratio uh I think they they go into the game feeling like they have a solid wide receiver core and they're just going to go business as usual the real question is how much Jamar Chase is going to play it's been reported that he's going to be limited just because he hasn't been practicing with the team and everything that moves Andre yosias up even more Germaine Burton has been talked about in Bengals Camp as not quite ready yet so I think we see a little bit more Charlie Jones than we do uh Germaine Burton so Charlie Jones is a guy especially if if you're in a league that counts punt returns Charlie Jones is a guy that she want to absolutely go out there and grab um the T Higgins thing is worrying just because it was uh such a quick doubtful designation I mean it it was like literally a day that it happened from his press conference uh where he said that he felt better than he ever has and having been an athlete dealing with the hamstring issue that uh lasted an entire summer and then uh lingered for years later every time I would get a hit and come out of the box I I would feel it twinge and then I'd be dealing with it for the whole rest of the game uh and that happened for a decade so um sometimes it was manageable sometimes it wasn't but it it never never really fully went away so if uh if it is a pro a chronic problem for Higgins uh it's gonna plague him for the rest of his career so that's that's not a good thing yeah fair enough and uh so we talk about Jamar chase you say he might have a limited role you know as fantasy drafters we drafted him in the first round no matter what uh in my opinion I'm just if he's playing I have to play him like are you I mean is is there any other options are you playing him or is unless you have a stack lineup uh what what what's your feel on that bigs are are we starting Jamar Chase no matter what I think you kind of have to because you know a a snapshare of 15 or 20 snaps in a game for Jamar Chase is a a little bit different than you know a full game for for other lesser wide receivers so um you you kind of have to take the chance that he's at least going to get you a touchdown upside uh you know catch five or six targets I mean he's he's poised in position to to score it's just are those those opportunities are going to be a little bit more limited than they usually are but we deal with that so you know you you spend the draft capital on him it's week one play him yeah absolutely you got anything to add to that Marcus before we get into the next one no I agree I think you got to put him in there he's you know he's proven he's one of the best in the league so if he's healthy and he is going to be on the field you got to put him in your lineup all right we are here we are here fantasysports advice.com offering the best fantasy sports social media platform why join endless Discord communities or the trolls of Reddit fantasy sports advice is a community designed to help you win with 24/7 support go to fantasy sports advv and become a pro member for unlimited access again go to fantasysports advice.com today that's right it's your One-Stop shop for everything uh fantasy sports okay now let's get into the last injury Jordan Love Insights that just happened last night and we don't know much about it but the Packers kicked off their season with a challenging game in Brazil they fell short 34 to 29 against the Eagles the loss was compounded by an injury to the starting quarterback Jordan love the situation is uncertain given the details of the injury the fact that mattler Flur has been vague about his status Marcus what are your initial thoughts on how this might impact his value moving forward and his status headed into week two yeah so as a Jordan love shareholder in quite a few leagues obviously this is less than ideal um so I'm not going to sit here and and try to guess exactly the injury that happened but I'll give you a few options just based on the video and everything I've been seeing from other injury experts in the space so by the mechanism of injury which is the fancy word for how the injury happened you know someone kind of landing and a lot of pressure on the outside of his knee kind of caving it inwards you're looking at a few possibilities so the first one was the high ankle sprain a lot of the weight was down through the lower part of his leg if that's the case you're looking at about AA solid four to five weeks like give or take those ones typically take longer to heal than your common like lateral ankle sprain just if you to roll your ankle doing something these ones are a little more severe so that would be first case scenario next case scenario um what happened to Patrick Mahomes a few years ago the knee dislocation or subluxation um I know you guys might have seen that zoomed in video it looked like his kneecap almost kind of shifted or popped typically when that occurs your kneecap will go outwards or towards the outside part of your body um and then quickly come back in if that's the case if there's minimal damage you're looking at like a two to four week absence um which is probably best case scenario um judging by the third potential with this um you know his mechanism of injury and that would be an ACL MCL complete tear um kind of that pressure on the outside part of the knee caving it down and inwards is your very standard way to tear your ACL can happen either non- contct or with contact and you know if that's the case and he does have a complete ACL and MCL tear he's going to be out for the rest of the season and that's worst case scenario so is there a lot of Rumblings of that being like a like a strong possibility um or or it's just too too early to know that had to plug my mic back in real quick uh it is too early to tell I'm sure they'll be fairly quick about you know getting their test because they're going to have to make some moves as well I would imagine is going to be out for the season um I'm just saying my hunch is that he tore his ACL watching the replay about a 100 times so if I had to if you put a gun in my head and made me pick one that's what I would guess um but there is light at the end of the tunnel that it could be one of the two previously mentioned injuries I was discussing so I'm hoping for those but I don't know it's not looking it's not looking fantastic so bigs what's your initial thought here obviously it's not great news uh what do you have any advice for Fantasy managers that are dealing with the Jordan love situation at this stage what do you got to say to them well I'm not a professional athlete or a physical therapist but I have sprayed my ankle before and uh that's all it is it's going to be fine he's just going to tape it up next week and he'll be out there um but if there is some Imaging that comes back and shows structural damage to either of those major leg joints you're gonna want to do something to uh not only deal with missing Jordan love for a while but you're going to want to not carry any of the Packers wide receivers because Malik Willis isn't that dude uh so that downgrades Jaden Reed and Christian Watson and Romeo dos and all these guys that we had high expectations for in a perfect world where Jordan love finishes the season with 17 games played um but there are some nice waiver wire pickups on some of the leagues that I've seen uh and the one that I have have Jordan love as my QB as one of three quarterbacks Derek Carr is out there on the waiver wire and I'm I'm prepared as soon as sleeper lets me to uh move Jordan love into the IR spot and grab Derek Carr um if you're GNA be picking up somebody on Fab just remember 30% is about what you're going to want to use and uh yeah be prepared because it didn't look good um but we won't know anything I mean he's a professional athlete he he deals with flexibility all season long and the more flexible he is the easier it is to come back from the injury uh if he's somebody who sprained his ankles a bunch of times what looked worse to me was the ankle uh that was my initial thought it's it's not until you like really slow the tape down that you start seeing knee buckle but uh with an ankle injury if he's somebody that's sprained his ankles a bunch of times before his recovery could be pretty quick and and the injury could be not that serious so um professional athletes tape it up stabilize and get out there um it also was on his his lead foot not his plant foot so uh if it is if there is nothing wrong with his knee if it's just his ankle that's going to be the best case scenario and uh and he should be okay but we have to we have to wait and see for the Imaging to come back and and see if there's any structural damage so I'm going to lay a name out Packers QB Strategy without Love there because I know if it is a long-term thing and he has out for the season here I mean there is one free agent quarterback that you know he's a veteran Ryan tanah Hills floating around is that think maybe an option for the Packers do you think they actually go into this season with Malik Willis as they're starting quarterback if this is long term I don't know what their what their plans were with Malik Willis because they had some guys in house that knew the system that they let go so I would imagine one of them comes back um before Ryan tanah Hill does uh but yeah I uh and you know don't rule the trade out like you know if I'm GM of the Packers I'm calling the Chiefs right now and being like hey what's going on with Carson and you know so yeah it's just uh the the timing of our Show versus when the injury happened uh there's you know we're still in in a lot of limbo mode so we need to wait to react but you know be prepared is is the message yeah Final Thoughts and Summary awesome uh anything to add to that Marcus no I mean I I think if he's going to miss extended time you know I don't know what their answer is going to be a quarterback and like big said that's really going to hurt any shares you have of any of those uh receivers or tight ends because you know love is really good at spreading the ball around he's a good downfield thrower as you saw last night um so no matter who they can get to replace him if he's out for the season is not going to be able to do it at the capacity that he was yeah okay Where to Find Marcus Online cool man thanks thanks for that uh you want to give our viewers uh another quick snip pip of uh you know where they could find you and all your stuff and uh you know tell them that you'll be back next week before bigs brings us home yeah absolutely so uh follow me on Twitter at MDG g l i e um I'm part of the undroppables team as I mentioned so if you go to their YouTube page that's where you'll see my videos of both unavailable my injury show and then also the Steelers uncovered podcast that I do with another member over there so that's where I'm at find me on Twitter or YouTube and then I'll be guest appearing here as grimberg mentioned with uh with these boys for more fantasy injury advice for y'all yeah and look for uh us at the Raiders uncovered and uh and the Steelers uncovered oh I guess that's on the undroppables but we're going to be doing a head-to-head show when the Raiders and the Steelers play and that that's be fun do you know what week that is I don't I think it's I did on Tuesday yeah okay I'll look it up but last year it was early I don't think it's that early in the season again this year I think season like week eight week n something like that okay all right Thanks for Watching and Subscribe nice well that's our show everybody thank you for watching the fantasy forecast with Granberg and bigs and Marcus uh stay tuned on fantasy football advice Network for all of our shows in the fantasy forecast Spectrum we've got starts and sits coming on Sunday we've have waiver wire pickups we have injury shows uh we're we're telling you how to build Champion so uh Thanks for liking and subscribing and hitting the bell and following us get over to FS start your account and uh and come talk to us uh we we'd love to have you and uh we hope you win hope you win thanks Marcus see you next week