285: 15 Transactions for Week 4

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Speaker 1: This is the Labor Podcast with your host JJ zacher Retha j J zacher reson What's up everyone. It's JJ Zachariesen, the editor in chief at fandel and at Number five dot com. And this is episode two hundred and eighty five of the Late Round Podcast, one of the many shows that are part of the FanDuel podcast network. Thanks for tuning in. The best part about Sunday wasn't Mike Evans' big performance after being a bi low candidate on this show the last two weeks. It wasn't that. It was that I taught my fourteen month old daughter, who's just now starting to say words. I taught her how to say the word touchdown and I have proof. Listen to this. I swear she said touchdown. There. Before gett into this week's fifteen Transactions, where I talk about who to buy, sell, ad and drop in fantasy football, I wanted to send another reminder about FanDuel's World Fantasy Football Championship from now through December. First, you can enter a ton of different qualifiers at different prize points to earn your seat at the two and a half million dollar Live Final in Puerto Rico or the three and a half million dollar online Championship. For more info in the WFFC, go to Fandel dot com, slash WFFC, or download the app today. Eligibility restrictions apply sell Derrick Henry. So in week one the Titans beat the Browns pretty convincingly. Then in week two, Tennessee played a close game against Indianapolis, and then on Thursday they got beat down by Gardner Minshew and the Jags. The reason I'm bringing this up is because even though Derrick Henry's end of game production looked fine in those games, the peripheral numbers shifted just enough for me to be worried because in week one, Henry had a snapshare of fifty nine percent, in week two in a closer game that failed to fifty percent, and then in week three, Dion Lewis out snapped Derrick Henry in a game where the Titans were trailing. This is always the worry with someone like Derrick Henry. He's a very good early downrunner and he has touched on upside, but his lack of receiving a bil he means he's gonna be game scripted out of games, and by lack of receiving ability, I also mean how the coaches view him. Coaches have been using him this way throughout his three year career, so this is a little bit scary. There's a chance in any given game that Dereck Henry doesn't lead his own backfield in snaps. And it's not as though Tennessee's this really, really good team either. It's not like they're the Patriots, where they're locked into a positive game script week in and week out. But the real problem here is the touchdown upside that I talked about. Last year he had twelve touchdowns, but last year he rushed for ten hundred and fifty nine yards. We know that yards correlate strongly to touchdown score. The more yards a player has, the more likely it is for that player to score. From twenty fourteen through twenty eighteen, running backs scored a rushing touchdown for every one hundred and forty four point nine rushing yards. Last season, Henry scored on every eighty eight point three rushing yards. Now, he got better opportunities than other running backs did, but even according to ESPN analyst Mike Lay's opportunity he adjusted touchdown metric or OTD, Henry outperformed his touchdown tally last year by about three. That was one of the higher marks in the league. Now this season, Henry's got a rushing score for every seventy yards rushing and he has a receiving touchdown. Two. Regression is going to hit in the touchdown column for Derick Henry eventually, and those are two really big red flags. He could be game scripted out of games and he has touchdown regression coming. So I think that right now, given how this Tennessee Titans offense looks, and given the fact that Henry has already outperformed a bit in the touchdown column, this is the time to sell add Wayne Gallman. So the biggest injury in Week three was obviously Saquon Barkley. He's dealing with a high ankle sprain. Wayne Gallman came in and he replaced Barkley in the Giants win. He ran the ball five times while seeing one target. That usage doesn't sound that great, but Goalman was the only other New York running back to see touches in that game, and he played over sixty three percent of the team snaps. So he's the top waiver priority this week, and that's especially true if the Giants play things conservatively with this Saquon Barkley injury by Devonte Adams. So through three games, DeVante Adams has fewer Fantasy points than DeShawn Jackson. Deshaun Jackson has basically just played one game, you guys, But I do think that there's some reason for it. Week one saw the Packers go up against the Bears, Week two was the Vikings, and this past week was Denver, so he's faced really good cornerbacks, including this last week against Chris Harris. The good news is that Adams has still seen twenty three points six percent of Green Bayed targets, and he has almost thirty one percent of the team's receiving yards. It's not like he's been completely ineffective. He just hasn't found the end zone. But that happens in tough matchups, and those tough matchups are mostly out of the way. At least him back to back to back games the way that he saw it to start the season. If you guys recall, this is why I was selling Aaron Rodgers to start the year. But I do think that things are gonna turn around this Thursday against Philadelphia, a team that's allowed three top ten and four top fifteen performances to wide receivers across the first three games of the season. So DeVante Adams can't perform on Thursday, then we should be worried. But I think that he's going to be just fine. Sell Aaron Jones. This is tough for me to say. You guys know that I'm an Aaron Jones truther, but I think that he's a sell candidate. Through these first three games, Jones has seen sixty four percent of Green Bay's running back rushes and about nine percent of the team's targets. Those aren't bad numbers, but those numbers are being really skewed by his Week two performance, where he had seventy two percent of the team's running back attempts and almost eighteen percent of their looks through the air and week one. In week three, you're looking at a target shair that was below four percent. And I think what's really concerning about Jones was his snap rate in week three. Weeks one and two saw him in the fifty eight percent snapshare range, which is fine, but that plummeted in week three, where his snapshare was just thirty nine percent. And this is coming after a message from head coach Matt Lafleur last week where he said, according to the Green Bays pres Gazettes Ryan Wood, that he wanted to quote even up the touches between Jones and teammate Jamal Williams. That's exactly what happened. Williams outsnapped Aaron Jones thirty five to twenty two against the Broncos. Do I think that Aaron Jones is the better talent than Jamal Williams, Yes, of course I think he should see more work in this offense. But you have an opportunity right now because Jones is coming off a two touchdown game. That's why he's a sell candidate by Marquise Brown. I think now's the time to get Hollywood Brown if you couldn't get him during your draft, because the peripheral numbers are absolutely there. After three games, Brown has seen twenty six percent of Baltimore's targets. He's got thirty one percent of the team's receiving yards. He's third in the NFL and air yards, and he's tied with Mike Evans and Keenan Allen for the most targets that have traveled fifteen or more yards. Through the air this season. Huge performances are coming for Hollywood Brown, mark my words. So after his two catch forty nine yard game against Kansas City, now's the time to buy drop Corey Davis. I tweeted this out last week after the Thursday night game, But Corey Davis now ranked sixth on the Titans and receiving yards. Five other Titans have more receiving yards than Corey Davis through three games. Now, this is a combination of a lot of things. It's not just talent. Tennessee's passing attack hasn't been very effective and there are a lot of viable pass catchers in that offense. That's why I had Corey Davis as a player to avoid entering the season. They have more weapons. Delaney Walker's back, and they added Adam Humphries and AJ Brown is there. So that's led to just a thirteen point eight percent target chair for Corey Davis. That's significantly lower than what he saw last year. And that's in an offense that's projected to have one of the lowest pass to run ratios in football this year. So he's seeing a small portion of a small pie. So you can safely drop Corey Davis right now by Devonte Freeman. So I think if you watch DeVonta Freeman, you're not gonna see the same Freeman that we saw in like twenty fifth team. But that's not everything when it comes to fantasy football. Talent at running back is not everything. You need usage and you need a good situation, and DeVante Freeman kind of has those things. He only had forty one rushing yards through the first two weeks this season, but he also played Minnesota in Philadelphia. Those are two of the tougher matchups so you can find across the league, and then in Week three, Freeman ended up with eighty eight rushing yards. He looked a lot better in an easier matchup. Edo Smith had a concussion in that game that allowed DeVonta Freeman to see over ninety percent of Atlantas snaps on Sunday, So there's some upside if Smith does miss time. But regardless, Freeman's been sort of overlooked this season because of the idea that he doesn't play with the same burst, that he's not as good. That might be true, but he still has seen seventy six percent of the Falcons running back rushes and almost ten percent of the team's targets. There are only nine running backs across the league who have hit those marks this season. Volume alone makes him usable from here on out. I still think he can be an RB two. He just hasn't found the end zone yet, which is why he's a BI low candidate. AD Will Disley tight end, it's a dumpster fire. It's always a dumpster fire. So finding a player at that position who's seeing volume, that makes that player viable, and that's Will Disley. Over the last two weeks, Disley's seen about fifteen percent of Seattle's targets and according to Pro Football Focus, he ranks in the top fifteen and routes run over this time and he's been productive over these two games. He's found the end zone three times while hitting one hundred and twelve receiving yards, and that should continue in Week four against Arizona. Arizona has now surrendered five touchdowns and three hundred and forty eight receiving yards to tight ends during the first three games of the season, so Will Disley is the top streaming option at tight end this week by Rashad Penny and ad CJ. Prosize. Chris Carson has now fumbled four times in three games. That's pretty concerning. We watch Carson then get out snapped by CJ Prosise against the Saints on Sunday. Now, that could have been because of the fumbles. That's an narrative that could be true, but it could also be because of gamescript. But I think regardless, it's enough reason to make a speculative ad off the waiver wire for CJ. Process. That's mostly because Rashad Penny is banged up. But then at the same time, I would look at my bench, see who I don't need, and trade that bench asset for Rashad Penny because there is a chance it's part of the range of outcomes here that Seattle doesn't want to use Chris Carson the way they've used him to the first three weeks this season, that Rashad Penny ends up stealing more work because of these fumbling issues. Not saying it's likely, but it's in the range of outcomes. So I think trading Rashad Penny for someone that you don't even need on your roster is not a bad idea. Sell Adam Thelen. The only Minnesota Vikings player that I want right now is Dalvin cook I talked about it entering the year, but this is a run first offense. They want to run the football and it's hurting Adam Thelen and Stefan Diggs. Now, despite the fact that Thelan has about a seven percent bump and target share versus Diggs, the difference between the two wide receivers has been that Deelans found the end zone. He scored in Week one and then he scored twice in Week three, one of those being a fluky rushing touchdown. But that's two touchdowns on just one hundred and seventy three yards receiving. Over the last five years, we saw an average wide out score on every one hundred and sixty four receiving yards. And then you add in that fluky rushing touchdown, and it's clear that Adam Thielen's probably going to regress in the touchdown column. It's just tough to be into these Vikings wide receivers right now. But not only that, but they get Chicago, they get the Giants, and they get Washington in three of their next five games. That could lead to positive game scripts and more rushing. Add Darryl Williams. Damian Williams didn't play on Sunday because of a knee injury. Leshan McCoy did, but then he re injured his ankle, and those two injuries led to Daryl Williams leading that backfield in snaps. He saw more snaps than any other Kansas City running back on Sunday. We're only three games into the season, and the two running backs that are ahead of Williams right now are banged up, and he's a part of the objectively best offense in football. So even if Williams doesn't get any run because both Damian Williams and Lashawn McCoy are back, he's still worth an ad this week off the waiver wire because they're already banged up by or hold Nick Chubb. So over the first two weeks of this season, Nick Chubb failed to reach a seventy percent snap share in that Cleveland Browns offense, so he sort of had a cap target share in that offense because they were throwing other running backs in there and passing downs at times. He even had a goal line rush stolen from him in Week one by Dontrell Hilliard. Week three was totally different. Sunday Night's game was completely different because Chubb managed all of the work in the Browns backfield. He ended the game with twenty three carries and seven targets. He's now seen ninety two percent of Cleveland's running back attempts this season and over fourteen percent of the team's targets. Those numbers have only been hit by Christian McCaffrey and Leonard Fournette. So there's a buying opportunity here given the fact that he's found the end zone just once. He's yet to really have that breakout game. But the reason why he's not just a straight up by is because of Kareem Hunt. And I'm gonna let you guys decide here because you know as much about the situation as I do. If you're concerned about Kareem Hunt, then Nick Chubb is just a hold. You don't necessarily want to be aggressive in getting him. But if you don't see Hunt taking a big workload, then Chubb is an absolute buy, and you can use the reasoning of Kareem Hunt coming back to buy Nick Chubb. I don't know. I know I'm supposed to have a strong opinion on these things, but I don't have a strong opinion on how they're gonna use Kareem Hunt. I will say I don't think that he doesn't get used, and I think that he might steal some of Nick Chubb's receiving work, sort of what we saw in weeks one and two. But given what Nick Chubb could do until that point in time, I think right now is a decent time to buy him. Add Dawson Knocks, So, like I said earlier, tight end's a dumpster fire. If you can find a tight end who's seeing volume or will see volume, he's worthwhile off the waiver wire, and that's what we might have in Dawson Knocks. He actually ranks in the top twenty so far this season in routes run according to Pro Football Focus, and with Tyler Croft banged up, that type of usage could continue. Knox now has at least twelve percent of Buffalo's targets in each of the last two games, and the Bills get New England in Week four, where the team might be forced to throw more than usual. So I don't think that Knox is a bad streaming option, though I do like Disley more. Add Daniel Jones. All of you saw what Daniel Jones did against Tampa Bay on Sunday, and the beautiful part about that performance was what he did with his legs. That's what we love to see in fantasy football. He did a great job through the air, but on the ground he scored a couple of times that really put his fantasy total over the edge. So he's got to be the top quarterback streamer. In Week four against Washington, the Giants are three point favorites in that game. They're at home, and it's a lower scoring slate and Fandals Sportsbook has the contest at a decently high forty six and a half point over under, and without Sakuon Barkley, New York's gonna have to rely more on Daniel Jones. That could translate to more fantasy points. Add the Pittsburgh Steelers defense, So, like I say every week, the criteria for finding a worthwhile defense off the waiver wire is that they should be playing at home, they should be favorites, and they should be playing against an iffy quarterback who either turns the ball over or takes a lot of sacks. That's what the Steelers have. They're playing at Heinz Field on Monday night. Fandel's Sportsbook has them as four and a half point favorites, and Andy Dalton has been sacked the six most times in football through these first three weeks. So get the Steelers defense. The sixteenth transaction that you can't get in the fifteen transactions call him over on number fire dot com this week is to add Deontay Johnson. It's really hard to get excited about the Steelers offense now that Ben Roethlisberger is out for the year, but the rookie Johnson played the third most snatch for Pittsburgh on Sunday at wide receiver with Dante Moncreef scratched, and he hit a twenty three percent target share. He had just one few target than Juju Smith Schuster and now Vance McDonald's banged up, which frees up more targets in that offense. Now, I don't expect Deontay Johnson to be some difference maker right now, but in deeper formats, I do think that he's worth adding. That's going to do it for today's show. Thanks to all of you for listening. If you've got to subscribe to the Late Round podcast, make sure you are by searching for it pretty much anywhere podcasts can be found, and as always, make sure you're following me on Twitter at late Round QB. Thanks everyone, I'll talk to you tomorrow with a ten Trends episode.