Welcome everyone to the score fantasy football podcast.

I'm your host Justin Boone, the lead fantasy analyst at The Score.

Thank you so much for listening today. My goal with these Friday episodes is to get you caught up on all the injury news. There's a lot to go over today. But first, I'm going to get my quick takeaways from the Thursday nighter. The Browns get the win. They move to two and one. Easily could be 3 in 0 if they didn't let the Jets make that crazy comeback against them last week. And it's an awesome story for them, even if it's going to be pretty awful, having to watch Deshaun Watson take over and suit up for them later this year. Because if they keep playing this well, they might be a playoff team. So you're going to have Watson's dark cloud just looming over what could be a pretty cool story. They're winning like they have in recent years, though.

It's cool to see you with Jacoby Berset under center.

They have the strong defense.

They have an excellent run game behind one of the best offensive lines in the league.

Nick Chubb is just amazing.

I mean, we talk about him being arguably the best pure runner in the league.

He has really showing it early

in the season 113 yards and a touchdown in this win that's after posting 143 yards from

scrimmage in the opener and last week it was 113 yards and three scores just such a strong

rb1 plan fantasy i think he might be taking that mantle from Derek Henry in terms of a running

back that's just or at least seems unstoppable, really no matter what the situation is.

Kareem Hunt in this game, he got 15 touches of his own, only 61 yards on them, did have

several goal line attempts. He really could have got a touchdown there, but he couldn't convert.

It was weird. They kept kind of stretching things out instead of just running him north-south at the goal line. It seemed a little odd because then Chubb came in and immediately that's what they did and he got the touchdown. But Hunt remains a fringe RB2 most weeks. I mean, 15 touches. That's a pretty quality workload for most running backs, even starters. So you're still going to get him in your lineup depending on your options. At quarterback, like I said, Brissette's playing well, not really a fantasy option, but he's keeping this offense moving. And most importantly, he's getting the ball to Amari Cooper, and he's getting the ball to David Njoku starting this week. Cooper, his second straight 100-yard game, he went for 101 and a score. Injoku finally came alive here. Nine catches, 89 yards and a touchdown.

Kevin Stefansky, he said that Injoku's involvement, it's going to be dependent on what the defense

has given them. And in this game, the Steelers were really susceptible to the big tight end up

the middle. They got gashed there. So he had a really nice day on the inside. And I'm not expecting that in Joku's all of a sudden going to become this volume hog like he was in this game. But this is why we talked about him as a potential tight end one before the season, that he was a good late round option because if this offense gets going, Brissette starts targeting him a lot. We could see him put up good stats. We saw it a few years back. He had a 600-yard season. We could see him well on his way with this. And then when Watson comes back, the passing attack will only go up to another level. So that'll be good for Injoku as well. On the Steelers side, Mitch Trubisky, he didn't play that poorly. I mean, he's not great. He's not really unlocking this offense, but it's not all his fault. I think Matt Canada's system, Matt Canada's play calling, that's really got to take some of the blame. The offensive line too is also at fault. But my guess is it's really a combination of all three of those things. That's what's really holding this group back because they have such outstanding skill position talent and they really aren't making the most of it. In the backfield, he got Najee Harris. He gets his usual volume. He finds the end zone so sort of saves his fantasy day. But we saw Jalen Warren. He worked in a little more. I think that's likely

because it was a short week. You see some teams not want to load up on guys when they're playing four days after having just played a big game. And Najee, he's the unquestioned Belkow, but he's still, he's more of a high-end RB2 due to the state of this offense. And then at receiver, Deontay Johnson, he's phenomenal.

Eight catches, 84 yards.

He's still trying to overcome everything that's happened in there, but he could just be so much more. I mean, if he had a better quarterback, this guy could be right up inside the top 10. I mean, he could even be a potential top five receiver if you put him with one of the best quarterbacks in the league. everybody after this game is going to talk about that George Pickens catch. I mean, what a highlight real grab. I'm happy that he got seven targets in this game. That's what I want to focus on more, that they're going to try to get him the ball. He finished with three for 39. That's more than we saw him doing in the first couple weeks. I mean, he's getting the playing time. He's getting the snaps. He just hasn't been getting the targets. I think there's still a lot more to come from him, but that catches another sign that he can be special. He just needs the volume. And then Chase Claypool, he might be a notch below Pickens in terms of my fantasy outlooks for the rest of the season, but all three of these wide outs, they could be fantasy stars in the right environment.

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