Welcome everyone to the score fantasy football podcast. I'm your host, Justin Boone.

Appreciate you tuning in today. And I'm hoping we can get through the show without any issues, because as you could probably tell, I lost my voice over the weekend, and I took a trip to Pittsburgh with some buddies, had a great time, we had a pirates game. They got a nice little area down there on the North Shore. They got the stadiums and pretty good bar scene, and sadly, the Steelers weren't in town, but I assure you we had a ton of fun.

The only casualty was my voice here.

So I'm going to try to take the Joe Burrow approach. I'm going to try to play through it. And if you're hearing this, it means that I made it through the whole episode and we published it. So it's going to be the usual Monday show. we're going to be talking about the top waiverware ads heading into week five.

And I can't believe we're already a month into this season here.

I mean, we have the Monday night games to go tonight. But we're basically four weeks in. That is wild. And before we get to the priority pickups for the week, let's swing around. Let's go over the injuries and get caught up on that from Sunday's action. And as always, we've got a bunch of players to discuss, and we'll start with a couple quarterbacks. The Chargers' bad injury luck, it continues. Justin Herbert, he suffered a fractured finger. At least it was on his non-throwing hand, not his actual throwing hand. They also said that he had a gruesome nail injury, and that's probably why there was some blood on the broadcast there there if you saw it. I'm not really sure I need to know any more about that part of the injury, but either way, Herbert played through it and he got the win and the charges are on buying week five. So he's not expected to miss any time, thankfully. No worries for fantasy managers there. We can't say the same for Kenny Pickett. He got knocked out of Sunday's game with a knee injury. The good news is that it's not believed to be an ACL, so it's not season ending, but it does sound like he's going to miss a couple weeks at least, and they'll know more after they do the MRI today. The Steelers have a buying week six. So I would say that week seven is probably the earliest that I would expect to see Pickett back, which means Mitch Trubisky is going to be under center for the Steelers in week five. And that's not a massive downgrade, just considering the way this offense has been playing so far. But Trubisky, he's struggled as the Steelers starter in the past. And George Pick and stock, it's going to take a temporary hit here. He's going to need to make it up with volume, which might be possible, considering all the other past catchers are getting hurt in Pittsburgh, right? Deonté Johnson, he's still sidelined. Pat Friermouth, he injured his hamstring this week. I believe it's going to be a hamstring strain. That could keep him out for a couple weeks. Not totally sure on the severity of that one, but likely going to miss some time. So Bickens might be the last man standing in that offense, but he'll still be more of a wide receiver three with Chubisky under center. And that whole offense is going to take a hit with Chubisky going against the Ravens defense, which is a pretty decent squad this year. Matthew Stafford, he suffered a hip injury on Sunday. He played through it. Says he's going to be fine for week five, but I'd just like to mention that stuff when it's notable names like him. Not so much that you're playing him for fantasy, but a lot of pieces in that offense that have become big time fantasy starters this year. and Baker Mayfield. he's heading into his buy week and it's coming at the right time because he got crushed by a couple Saints defenders on one play yesterday and his legs sort of bent back underneath them. We've seen this happen to other quarterbacks this year too. And I'm not sure if it was his ankle or his knee that got hurt, but certainly something to monitor when the bucks are coming out of the buy in week six, and hopefully we'll get an update about it this week. We'll also be watching for an update on Mike Evans, and hopefully we get that today. Sometimes when players are going on the buy week, we don't get that diagnosis right away. And Evans, he suffered a hamstring injury. The buy might give him enough time to rest up, but it's possible that he could

miss some time. So a lot going on with the three and one division leading buccaneers. I'm not sure

we thought we'd be saying that after four weeks, but let's hope that they can get healthy and they can

keep this going. The other big receiver injury from Sunday was T. Higgins on the Bengals. He fractured

a rib. He said today that it's very painful, that he can't lay on one side. So it seems like he's going to miss some time with that. And the buys are always a factor this time of year. That's why I keep mentioning it. The fact that the Bengals have a buy in week seven, that could come into play. So we'll watch for a timeline from the team.

I know Higgins is saying that he's going to be all right, but that's not really telling us when he's going to come back. It's just kind of suggesting that, you know, overall he's okay here. But right now I would guess that Higgins is going to miss a game or two. And if it's two, then you're not going to see him until after that buy, which would be week eight. and since he's offense, I mean, they've been struggling already.

You know, Burroughs playing banged up. then you're not going to see him until after that buy, which would be week eight. And since he's offense, I mean, they've been struggling already.

You know, Burroughs playing banged up.

Tight end Irv Smith.

He's been sidelined for a couple games.

And now Higgins potentially out this week.

And Jamar Chase, he'll continue to be a volume hog.

Tyler Boyd's going to move up in the rankings.

He'll get up into that wide receiver three flex range.

And then the sneaky pickup here is Trenton Irwin.

And that's just for deep leagues.

But Irwin, he had some usable fantasy weeks last year when he was asked to start.

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