00:00Welcome back in everybody to pro football today. And today we have an interesting matchup here between the Raiders and
00:07the New England Patriots. Now, I'm sure going into this year, we weren't all thinking that the Raiders were going
00:12to be a team that we were going to be following as closely as we are, but they are three
00:15and one right now. And the Raiders are in a scenario where they could continue to surprise everybody. The Raiders
00:23have an opportunity to win this game on the road. They've played New England tight there before going back to
00:28last year.
00:28And they seem to have new life with Kirk Cousins now at quarterback. Fernando Mendoza was the big draft pick,
00:34but it's been old Coles Cash Kirk who's been taking the Raiders here to the promised land. And a big
00:39part of it has been the just incredible play of Brock Bowers. Now in this game today, rather than looking
00:44for a way or a line, I'm going right to Brock Bowers. And the reason is he is averaging, get
00:50this, 24 full point fantasy points in PPR leagues. Okay. Just for context, that's the fourth best of any player.
00:58Okay. Now we're talking about four tight ends. We're talking about any player. Brock Bowers is basically right now acting
01:05like a wide receiver one or a top five wide receiver at the tight end position. And just for context,
01:10understand just how good he is in terms of metrics for relative position value, where you can pair all of
01:16the tight end ones to each other.
01:18The fantasy league average at tight end settles in somewhere around, around 13 points per game. He is 86%
01:25better than the fantasy league average tight end in terms of productivity. That's like a player and a half at
01:30the position. So Brock Bowers is good enough that you could play him at your flex position.
01:35You could play him at tight end and have a huge advantage. But if you got lucky enough to pull
01:38a Kincaid off the waiver wire, when you had Brock Bowers or somebody else like a Jawan Johnson, and they're
01:43viable to Brock Bowers is a guy you're playing at flex positions and you're playing a Jawan Johnson or a
01:48Kincaid over some of these wide receivers, especially with all the injuries we've had.
01:51So looking at the 72 and a half, I'm going over there for him. I'm looking for a touchdown from
01:55Brock Bowers too. He is a difference maker. He is somebody you can't stop. And Craig, I have to say,
02:00I remember going back in the days of college there where he was playing and Nick Saban said, there's two
02:06guys I can't stop. No matter what I do, no matter what I scheme. And one of those guys he
02:10said was Brock Bowers. I just didn't have an answer for him. It seems like the NFL doesn't have an
02:14answer for him either at this stage in his career.
02:17I think right now for the Raiders, they've sort of proven, Joe, they're going to be better than they were
02:22a year before. But I'm not positive that they are as good as they've looked through the first four weeks
02:26of the season. But, you know, certainly I thought that what New England did last week coming out and really
02:30just, you know, taking it to Buffalo from start to finish gives you some hope. And the other thing with
02:34the New England Patriots is, you know, Joe, the Patriots are not a 4-13 team, you know, like they're
02:39going to be better than what they've shown in the first couple of weeks. So the hook is there at
02:44three and a half.
02:45And that's like the tough part about this game is, is you could see it a three-point game, but
02:49we'll see what happens with this one as they get underway here in about an hour and a half.
