Fantasy FaceOff - Week 11

Andy Behrens and Matt Harmon compare Kansas City's Isiah Pacheco to similarly ranked running backs.

Video transcript

MATT HARMON: All right, let's jump into our Fantasy Face-Off here. This is where we take one of the buzziest names, the hottest pickups on Yahoo, and we PUT them against some more established players. Andy, let's do this thing here with Isaiah Pacheco this week, who is obviously a real red hot name as it looks like the Chiefs have whittled their backfield down from three guys to two guys, which is exactly what we want in fantasy, though. I'm sure Andy Reid won't break our heart with a bunch of CEH usage.

Tonight, that's got to be just keeping in the back of our mind there, a little ghost. But let's put Isaiah Pacheco up against Devin Singletary here to get this thing started. Which one of these two backs, from great offenses, are you going to go with?

ANDY BEHRENS: Yeah, this feels so much like a trap with Pacheco. They've been apologetic to CEH throughout the week. They haven't completely written him off, maybe. But come on, he's coming off a game with four snaps.

And Pacheco was great. Didn't catch a pass, so not any kind of PPR bump there. But he was so good on the ground.

Singletary, interestingly, had not found the end zone until I talked him down last week. And that led to a two-touchdown game. That was great to see.

He also-- you look back at these last three games. He doesn't have more than 15 touches in any of them. So I don't think he really has some sort of huge workload advantage over Pacheco.

They both have very nice matchups-- Singletary against the Browns and, of course, Pacheco against the Chargers. I'm going to lean Pacheco here. I think they're going to roll with him right out of the gate. I think he's probably looking at another 16, 17 carries in this one. Even if he doesn't catch a pass, I think he's the better bet to find the end zone.

MATT HARMON: Yeah, this one's tough. I think I'm probably going to go with Devin Singletary, just because that Browns run defense hasn't just been bad. It's been historically bad in terms of EPA allowed. So I'm going to go ahead here and stick with Devin Singletary, who I do think has a little bit more passing game equity than Isaiah Pacheco, who has just about none.

Let's go on to our next one here. We've got Isaiah Pacheco versus Antonio Gibson. Antonio Gibson has a lot of passing down equity for the Washington Commanders, who are thankfully, Andy, going to stick with ODU's finest, who's certainly been checking the ball down to Antonio Gibson a lot.

ANDY BEHRENS: Oh, yeah, huge win in terms of fantasy value for any other player in Washington's offense-- the idea that Heinicke is actually going to be at the controls. That's good to see. Gibson's a weird player because he's actually played fewer than 50% of the snaps in, like, seven of his last eight games.

He's now in tandem with Brian Robinson. But he did see 17 touches a week ago. Of course, that was because they ran the ball 45 times against Philly, which worked out nicely for them.

This is one of those cases where I'm actually going to give you the hedgiest possible fantasy expert take. And I'm going to say that if you're in a full PPR league, I'm going to go with Antonio Gibson because we've talked about it. Isaiah Pacheco is just not going to catch a thing. So full PPR, I'm going to go Antonio Gibson. I think probably anywhere else, though, I'm going to go Pacheco.

MATT HARMON: That's a veteran response right there, Andy. That's why you're one of the long time GOATs of the industry here. The hedge of the hedgiest response there-- really like it.

Let's move on to our next one here, and our final one. Isaiah Pacheco, who was a hot pick in the summer at one point, but we're talking about him versus Najee Harris, who is a first round pick in just about every fantasy draft. Listen, Najee Harris managers, maybe just mute the broadcast here for a little bit. Come back after we discuss this one because this has got to be painful. But Andy, this one, while it is painful, kind of feels obvious in terms of which guy we should go with here.

ANDY BEHRENS: I know. I am looking for any reason to pivot away from Najee Harris. His ADP was, like, seven or eight back in August. This is wild.

But that is such a painful offense to watch. He's actually coming off as good a game as I think Najee Harris can possibly have. Finally saw 20 carries, nearly 100 rushing yards last week-- they run some pointless direct snaps to him without any misdirection, and he just plows into the line. That's a little bit weird.

The playcalling is always weird for Pittsburgh. I don't know that he can do any better than he did a week ago. I think Pacheco, tied to a much better offense-- much more dynamic offense-- has a greater chance of finding the end zone in this one. So that is where I'm going. I'm definitely leaning Pacheco here.

MATT HARMON: Andy Reid offense, the Steelers high school offense. Andy Reid's offense, the Steelers high school offense-- I think we know where we can go, and I think we can go ahead. Hey, Najee Harris managers, you can put the broadcast sound back on.