Walter's Sunday Nuggets 🤖

These are Walter’s Sunday Nuggets featuring:

• A compilation of recommended reading for the serious football fan/fantasy player

• A summary of important news from this week to be aware of

• A non-football thing to fixate on as the wait for the NFL season continues

📚 Recommended Reading 

@walterpicks

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🏈 The Newsroom

The Big Stuff

Jonnu Smith to the Steelers

This trade is a disaster for Jonnu Smith's fantasy value. In Weeks 8-16 last year (when Tua returned), he had a 20.0% target share and was the TE5 in PPG. We project Pittsburgh to be a lower volume passing offense to begin with, and he will now have to compete with Pat Freiermuth for tight end targets.

He has gone from being projected as our TE8 (just ahead of Travis Kelce) to the TE15 (just behind Zach Ertz and Tucker Kraft).

This trade also affected the rankings for DK Metcalf 📉 and Pat Freiermuth 📉 who both now project for fewer targets, as well as Jaylen Waddle 📈 and De'Von Achane 📈 who project to benefit the most from Jonnu's departure.

Darren Waller to the Dolphins

In a surprise follow move, Darren Waller came out of retirement and was traded to the Dolphins in a first attempt to fill their tight end void. Waller averaged 9.4 PPR points per game in his last season in 2023 and was the TE13 in average weekly scoring.

There is certainly opportunity within this Miami offense but Waller was also a significantly diminished version of himself in an injury-riddled 2023. We do not currently project him to be a fantasy significant contributor this season, but this is a unique situation.

Waller has an opportunity to rise in the rankings quickly and we will be closely monitoring his reports in training camp.

A Non-Football Something

This is section where I plan on highlighting something non-football related each week. It could be a movie, a podcast, a story from another sport, a book, a concept etc. Its an experiment really in an effort to add more personality to the piece and expand my repertoire as a writer (personally).

US Gambling is in Danger?!

I know, I know an article about congressional legislation passing is probably not the most exciting thing to be sharing in an effort to pass time as we wait for NFL football to fill our Sundays.

But do not worry!

The article I am sharing is about a specific tax provision! (that’s much better, right?)

In this article, Jeff Edelstein lays out how a specific tax provision in the recently passed ‘Big Beautiful Bill’ will essentially kill professional gambling in the United States. In short, gamblers can now only write off 90% of their losses - meaning that they will now owe money in taxes if they break even. The gamblers this will affect are extremely high volume players and if their interest in participating is to dry up, the entire sports betting ecosystem in the US could collapse.

As more states have legalized sportsbooks, it has felt like the culture war over sports gambling has gotten hotter and hotter. Just this week, other stories such as the DFS bans in California and a Cleveland Guardians pitcher being suspended for suspicious pitch results have garnered high levels of national attention.

This cultural battle is unlikely to end anytime soon but the tax provision in this new bill feels like a significant blow for the time being.