695: Week 7 Sleepers

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Speaker 1: This is the Late Podcast with your host jaj zacheras j J zacher reson. What's up everyone, It's JJ Zacharyeson in this episode six hundred and ninety five of the Late Round Fantasy Football podcast sponsored by FanDuel. Thanks for tuning in. Bye weeks make this show tougher, and that definitely showed in Week six because not a whole lot went right last week. Alec Pierce fortunately found the end zone. Eno Benjamin was RB twenty one, but the fact that I'm even calling out, you know, Benjamin as a semi win, tells you that it was a bad week. Daniel Jones total mediocre streamer. Isaiah mackenzie trash mvs trash Jay Jones a twenty three percent target share, but still just nine point two PPR points. The deep plays either got hurt or they disappointed. I mean, in all honesty, last week was probably the worst week of this sleeper show ever. Bad weeks will happen and it's tough to choose players, but I need to be better than that performance. I was like Isaiah McKenzie last week. On to Week seven. Let's turn things around. Before getting to this week's sleepers, I want to remind everyone that Twisted Tea and Fandle of joined forces to bring you one of a kind contest series that gives you a chance to compete for your share of thousands of dollars in cite credit. Introducing Twisted Tea's College Football Picks, a sports betting focused contest series is entirely free to play. The contest is simple. Each college football game will be assigned money lines spread in total markets, with assigned points to each market. All you have to do is make six selections based on those three markets and earn points for each correct selection you made. If at the end of the day your score ranks among the best in the contest, you'll be eligible for your share of site credit. Head over to fandle dot com slash Twisted Tea Picks and make your picks, and remember please drink responsibly. In this first section of the show, I talk about players rostered in more than ten percent of Yahoo leagues but less fifty percent of them, and you might be able to start them this week. And it's a rough week for buys, so some of these players may have to find your lineup. Let's kick things off with a quarterback streamer. I've got three quarterback streamers in this tier, and I'm talking about four of them today because we've got Josh Allen and Jalen Hurts on buy. We'll start with Jimmy Garoppolo. Jimmy G gets Kansas City. They're a team that ranks is the fourth best opponent for quarterbacks and adjusted fantasy points allowed to the position. He's been a top ten fantasy quarterback in consecutive weeks, including a negative game script last week against Atlanta where he threw the ball forty one times while scoring seventeen fantasy points. Garoppolo hasn't been amazing, but he's actually scored fourteen plus fantasy points in four of five games. That one down game came against Denver, and Denver's been strong against quarterbacks this year. This game against the Chiefs could see the forty nine ers in another negative game script, but even if it doesn't, it's likely going to be pretty competitive and Fandel sportsbook has this game with a forty eight and a half point over un So I think Garoppolo is okay if you need a by week fillin. Matt Ryan to me is in the same tier as Jimmy G. We saw a turnaround last week with Ryan, where he threw for three hundred and eighty nine yards and three touchdowns. The question is was it fluky not necessarily. This was discussed on my other podcast, Living the Stream this week by my co host Denny Carter of NBC Sports Edge. He noted that Matt Ryan's time to throw in that game last week was two point three seven seconds. That's what PFF had him at. I then looked at what that was from weeks one through five, and he was holding onto the ball for point three seconds longer during those games. His average up to target from weeks one through five was six point nine. In week six, it dropped a five point seven. In other words, he was getting rid of the ball quicker. Maybe they operate similarly this week. Maybe they don't. Maybe they saw a particular matchup that they wanted to exploit last week. But there was at least something that changed, something that can make you feel a little bit more confident in Ryan. The Colts get Tennessee in weeks and when it's a little scary because the Titans are coming off of bye. The secondary has been bad this year. They rank as the sixth best matchup for opposing quarterbacks according to ad Justin Fantasy points allowed. So Matt Ryan, like I said, right there with Jimmy g As is Daniel Jones. In my opinion, the Giants get the Jags. It's not a special matchup or anything on paper per se. But Jacksonville is the team who just got destroyed by Matt Ryan. And there are also a team that's allowed the fifth highest adjusted target shair to running backs this season, the Giants in Saquon Barkley. Meanwhile, they rank well above average and running back target share. We saw Dion Jackson do work against the Jags just last week that could favor a Giants team that's lacking wide receiver weapons. But Danny Dimes continues to get opportunity on the ground too. He's averaging almost eight rush attempts per game, and even after a six yard performance on the ground last week, he's still almost at forty rushing yards per game this season. He probably still has more upside than the other two quarterbacks that I just talked about, but the other two are probably safer options on a running back. As usual, there aren't a ton to choose from. I'm gonna go back to Rashad White this week, though I know, I know Leonard Fournette saw a workhorse snap rate last week. He saw a lot of work again Rashad White then took a hit. White was inching towards that forty percent snapshare mark, and then it was just twenty two percent last week against Pittsburgh. To be fair, I don't think anyone saw that game against the Steelers going down the way it went down. The Bucks now get Carolina and their ten and a half point road favorites. Caroline has been average against running backs and adjusted fantasy points allowed, so if the Buccaneers do get out to that lead, I'd imagine that we would see more Rashad White than we did last week. Latavius Murray is also an interesting choice from this tier, but I don't think he's a smash play by any means. Murray dominated running back rushes for Denver on Monday. He saw almost eighty percent of the team's running back rushes against the Chargers. But there's a lot of issues with Murray. Number one, we only have a one game sample on him with Denver. What if Denver just decides to get Melvin Gordon more work again. Nathaniel Hacken actually came out and said yesterday that Melvin Gordon is going to be the starter this week. That's a huge issue. Number two murray snapshare in week six still wasn't that amazing. He played fewer than half of the Bronco snaps and he played just six more snaps than teammate Mike Boone. Number three Russell Wilson is banged up. Evidently his hamstring issue is more day to day than the initial report that said that he could be out for a while. But that's still a problem. Even though Wilson's not being good, he's still the best option for Denver. And then number four, the Jets defense is playing well. That's who the Broncos get this week. They rank is the eighth toughest match up against running backs and justin fantasy points allowed, and they've been great over their last three games. In particular, Murray's fine as a fill in this week because if last week's usage continues, he has a shot to be an RB two with a touchdown. I'm just not overly optimistic because I think it's rational to be a little bit cautious. Kenyan Drake is another running back that you could target this week. From this tier. At the time of this recording, there's still not a ton of information about JK. Dobbins. He didn't practice on Wednesday after his knee tightened up in Week six in the second half of that game, though, there was an article on Baltimore Ravens dot com about how MetLife Stadium turf could have contributed to that, and they might have just been cautious with him. Maybe that's the case, maybe it's not. Even if Dobbins goes this week, we don't know if he's going to be one hundred percent. So in comes Kenyan Drake, who gets a dream matchup against a Browns defense that's the third best matchup for running backs at least in terms of adjusted fantasy points allowed. If Dobbins doesn't go, Drake is a very good playoff the waiver wire. Next wide receivers, we'll start with Alec Pierce. Paris Campbell's still playing ahead of him, but Pierce has back to back top twenty five performances in PPR formats, and he's averaged a seventeen percent target share over his last four and he gets Tennessee. The Titans have been smoked at times this year by perimeter wide receivers. Stefan Digs in week two, number one wide out on the week, Mac Collins in Week three, Number two wide receiver on the week, Diami Brown in Week five, number six wide receiver on the week. The last time we saw these two teams face off, Pierce had four catches for eighty yards and that was on just a forty four percent snapshare. The Titans are the second best matchup and adjusted fantasy points allowed to wide receivers, and Pierce has a chance to take advantage now. As is the case each week, I'm going to talk up Zay Jones. Last week's matchup was not ideal. That's something that I had talked about on the show. But this week's it's a little bit better. The Giants have been pretty average against wide receivers this season, but according to PFF's expected points model, Jones is now seventeenth and expected PPR points per game this year, and that's at the wide receiver position. He's averaging a target share per game of over twenty one percent. He'll keep getting mentioned on this show as a bye week fill in as long as that continues. Rondell Moore is still out there in more than half of Yahoo League's two, so I've got to bring him up on the show again. No, Hollywood Brown might shift some more looks towards Rondell Moore, but we do have to keep in mind that DeAndre Hopkins is back this week, though both Hopkins and newcomer Robbie Anderson might not be fully ready. One of them hasn't played all year, the other one's coming from another team, so we could see a lot of Rondel Moore, who's now seen target shares of sixteen percent, twenty one percent, and twenty eight percent over his three games this year. He's a nice high floor option once again. Now if we go a little bit deeper. I also think Donovan Peoples Jones is kind of interesting this week. The Browns haven't faced the Ravens yet this year, but DPJ has three consecutive games of oka enough production, averaging sixty five yards per game and a twenty percent target share per game during this stretch. Baltimore Secondary probably isn't as bad as a number show because of how they performed against Miami earlier this year, but on paper, they're an above average matchup. People's Jones hasn't been bad. I do think he deserves a look. And then the only tight end in this tier to talk about is Evan Ingram, who gets a revenge game against the Giants. Ingram has a twenty five percent target shair over his last two games. He just can't find the end zone, so he hasn't been super fantasy relevant, But now he gets the Giants, who rank as a top ten option for tight ends and justin fantasy points allowed. I think he makes a ton of sense this week looking at players rostered in fewer than ten percent of Yahoo leagues. I've got one more quarterback streamer for you, and his name is Davis Mills. The Raiders have played five games this year, and in those five games, they've allowed five top ten quarterback performances, including one to Russell Wilson, including one to Ryan Tannehill. As I said on the ten Trends episode, they're the worst team in a justin fantasy points allowed to quarterbacks. That doesn't mean that anyone can do well, and we'll be tested this week with Davis Mills, but purely from a matchup standpoint, it's there. At running back, Caleb Huntley is looking good as a player. I talked about him too on the ten Trends episode, and I noted how he's tied with the second best success rate at running back across the entire league so far this season. The Falcons offensive line is playing well, and the Falcons have a top ten offense by expected points added. We can hate on what they're doing all we want, but they've been effective as long as they don't fall into a negative game script. Of course, that's very possible against Cincinnati as six and a half point road underdogs, and that presents a problem for Huntley. He hasn't seen a single target this season. A negative game script would be very bad for him. But Huntley saw forty seven percent of Atlanta's running back rushes this past week, and there really aren't many running backs in this sub ten percent tier that are seeing any work at all. We're not perfect at predicting game script, so Huntley at least makes some sense as an extremely, extremely deep play. I think Sony Michelle makes more sense than Caleb Huntley. The Chargers have a huge twenty nine point implied team total according to fandals Sportsbook. They get the Seahawks. The Seahawks are a top five matchup for running backs and adjusted fantasy points allowed, and Joshua Kelly is banged up and likely out for at least a couple of weeks. Michelle played over thirty two percent of LAS snaps in Week six as a result of that injury, and he saw eight carries in three targets. The matchup is better in this one, and there's always the off chance that the Chargers just get out to a big lead, So I actually don't mind Michelle this week if you're desperate at running back. Now. I've talked about Matt Ryan, I talked about Alec Pierce, but Paris Campbell makes sense as a deep play too. He's been playing starter snaps with Michael Pittman this year and he had eleven targets last week. It was by far his biggest performance of the season with eighteen point seven PPO points score. Tennessee can be beat through the air, and while I do like the outside matchup there, Tennessee hasn't been especially strong in the slot this year either, So Campbell was also in play for this Colts offense. And then there are a few tight ends to talk about here. Daniel Bellinger is someone that I mentioned on the ten Trends episode because this route's run number has increased week over week. He led that team in routes run in week six. Jacksonville's not a great matchup, but that kind of usage deserves a shot. Kate Oughton is someone that I like a little bit more as a streamer. Though Cameron Braid's not officially out, but I would be shocked if he plays this weekend. After his injury in week six, when Brad missed Week five, Aughton saw a fourteen percent target share and he ran forty nine routes on fifty two Tom Brady dropbacks. That's amazing usage. So Kate Aughton needs to be on your streaming radar. And then finally, Juwan Johnson. He's going on Thursday night this week against the Cardinals in Arizona. Is the second best matchup for tight ends and adjusted fantasy points allowed. Adam Troutman has already been ruled out for that game. Though Troutman hasn't been hugely effective himself for fantasy purposes, he can take looks away from Juwan Johnson. Michael Thomas and Jarvis Langery are out this week too, so given the matchup, given the injuries, people might be sleeping on Juwan Johnson this week now. As for the streaming defense this week, I think there's three of them to look at. I know that I've talked up Indianapolis players on today's show, but there's a very real chance they just revert back to how they were playing before Week six, and that would make Tennessee, who's coming off of bye, a viable play. Miami gets the Steelers as big home favorites, and they were the fifteen transactions defense, so a lot of you probably already have them. But the last one, don't sleep on the Jets. Denver has been the sixth best matchup for opposing defenses this year. Russell Wilson has banged up, and the Jets have been very good defensively over their last three, ranking fourth, eighth and second and weekly scoring against the Steelers, Dolphins, and Packers. They've averaged three sacks per game over that time. I have these defenses currently ranked as the Dolphins, Jets, then the Titans, but they're all reasonable streamers here in Week seven. That's gonna do it for today's show, though, Thanks to all of you for listening. If you get to subscribe to the Late Round Fantasy Football podcast, make sure you are by searching for it pretty much anywhere podcasts can be found, and don't forget to follow me on Twitter at late round QB. Remember to check out late round dot com, join the Patreon, all that good stuffppreciate you guys listening. I'll talk to you tomorrow