848: 15 Transactions for Week 15

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Speaker 1: This is the Lady Podcast with your host JJ zacher Retha j Jake Zacher reson. What's up everyone, It's jj zacher Esen in this episode eight hundred and forty eight of the Late Round Fantasy Football podcast sponsored by FanDuel. Thanks for tuning in. The Fantasy football playoffs are here and I've heard the feedback. I've talked to you guys. You want this show to be structured a little differently. I usually wait one more week to do this, but starting this week, I'll only be talking about ads and drops on the show. That's just for the rest of the season. There might be a whole transaction in there every once in a while too, but no more buys and sells because your trade deadlines have passed. Today's show actually only features ads players to get off the waiver wire, and there are fifteen of them. As usual, some are more important than others, and I'll do my best to guide you through. Let's do it. Ty Chandler, So, ty Chandler was a preseason favorite of mine. Hopefully he's finally gonna get a shot because Alexander Madison went down with an ankle injury in Week fourteen. His week fifteen status is very much up in the air. Without Madison, ty Chandler ended up playing all but three backfield snaps for Minnesota. Now, if Madison is out, Minnesota is gonna bring up a running back from their practice squad, But I would definitely expect Chandler to lead that backfield in touches. He might see fifteen plus touches a game without Madison in their matchup this week Week fifteen, It's not bad they get the Bengals. The Bengals rush defense is below average and rushing yards over expected allowed per Kerry, and they're an average team and adjustin fantasy points allowed to running backs ad Chase Brown. So, speaking of the Bengals, what about Chase Brown Man, He's now seen running back rush airs of thirty two twenty eight percent over his last two games, and after failing to see a target in Week thirteen, he had a twelve percent target share in Week fourteen. Now, some of you were around over the offseason, you might remember how my model felt about Chase Brown. It didn't mind him. He had a best season reception share close to ten percent, his top season in total yards per team play was above two, and he had a strong waight to Justin forty times. Those are all big pluses. His biggest analytical negative was his age, but overall the profile was there. He might have some flex appeal in deeper formats moving forward at the very least, though, He's a nice handcuff to Joe Mixon adds Zamir White. So Josh Jacobs hurt his knee on Sunday against the Vikings. That left the Raiders backfield to Zamir White and Amir Abdullah. Abdullah actually out snapped Zamir White in that game fifteen to five, but the Raiders only played six offensive snaps after Josh Jacobs's injury. Abdullah played the passing down snaps. White was the early down guy. Now, if Jacobs missus time, I'd expect White to see more work than Abdullah. Abdullah would catch more passes out of the backfield. Zamir White more of the early down player. But a big reason to like Zamir White is because this week on Thursday, they get the Chargers, and the Chargers are gonna be without Justin Herbert. Vegas in that game right now is currently favored, and if they're favored, a neutral a positive game script that's gonna favor Zamir White more than a mere Abdullah. So I think of those two players, White's the one that I would add add Jeric McKinnon and Clyde Edwards a laire So Isaiah Pachiko's shoulder injury. It popped up after last week's fifteen Transactions episode, so I didn't get to really talk about that backfield on the podcast. Now, fortunately we have this game without Pacheco under our belts to do a little analysis. Unfortunately, things weren't very clear cut in that game. The Chiefs really split that backfield up. In Week fourteen against the Bills, Clyde Edwards Alaiir had the best usage. He carried the ball seven times. Jerick McKinnon had four carries. Cech had four targets, McKinnon had three, But in the red zone McKinnon out snapped Cech seven to two. And that's why McKinnon outscored Cech in that game from a fantasy perspective, because he scored a touchdown. Now, if pa check goes out again, we should probably expect more of the same. Edwards Hilaire's the early down back. Maybe he has a little bit of receiving upside, but McKinnon has a little bit more receiving upside than that, and then he'll see the more important touches, the touches closer to the end zone, and that kind of leaves us with a mess. But if we were to choose for Week fifteen only, I might choose Clyde Edwards Hilaire. I don't think it's an obvious choice, but I do lean that way because Kansas City is a huge favorite against New England this week. That makes me think that Cech would be in store for a bigger workload. Both Cech and McKinnon, though, should be rostered. Ad Zay Jones without Christian Kirk in this J's offense, the player who benefits most it's Parker Washington. He's now a borderline starter. He's playing the slot for this offense. Jay Jones, though, he's definitely seen an uptick and work over the last couple of weeks. In week thirteen, he had a twenty and a half percent target share. This past week it was twenty eight point six percent. Now he hasn't been overly effective, and he gets the Ravens this week, You're probably not gonna feel that confident starting Jay Jones in that matchup. But next week he gets the Bucks, and the Bucks have been a very favorable matchup for wide receivers this year. You can't leave a twenty eight percent target chair on the waiver wire. Add Deontay Foreman. So we have a three headed backfield in Chicago. You have Deontay Foreman, Roshawn Johnson, and Khalil Herbert. But after last week, Foreman looks like the one A. During his return in Week fourteen, he led the Bears backfield with a fifty six percent snaphare. He saw the most carries out of any running back in that backfield, and he even saw by far the best route participation. We don't always see that with Deontay Foreman. Now, you might have a hard time trusting him this week against the Browns, but in Week sixteen he gets the Cardinals. That's the third best matchup for running backs this season by justin fantasy points allowed. Add Matthew Stafford. Yeah, I know Matthew Stafford's not available in your league, but Yahoo says that Stafford's rostered in just fifty six percent of leaks. There's a chance that he's out there in yours and if that's the case, and if you need a streaming option this week, he makes a ton of sense. The Rams get the Commanders and Washington is the second best matchup for quarterbacks by justin fantasy points allowed. Now, Stafford himself has been a lot better of lighton fantasy. He's given us three straight top eight fantasy performances. Two of those came against tough defenses in Cleveland and Baltimore. As I talked about on the ten Trend Show a lot this year, the Rams started their season off with a really low pass to rush touchdown ratio, meaning they were scoring way more touchdowns on the ground than they should have. That started to regress. That's partially the reason why we're seeing Matthew Stafford as a better fantasy As said, he's a great great play here in Week fifteen, add John Metchi and Xavier Hutchinson. So last week on the show, I talked about both John Metchi and Xavier Hutchinson. Obviously the ad out of that group is Noah Brown, but I said to watch out for these two other players, these secondary options in this Houston passing attack. And that's because Tank Dell was hurt. But in week fourteen, Nico Collins was injured two. He has a calf injury and now he might miss time. At the time of this recording, I don't know how long he's gonna be out, but that's big news for these secondary wide receivers on this team. Now, looking at the way Houston used their wide receivers against the Jets, it's looking like these players have semi defined roles. Robert Woods and Noah Brown ran the most routes for that team. Brown ran seventy seven percent of his routes from the outside. Woods ran fifty six percent of his routes from the slot. Nico Collins is a perimeter wide receiver, and Xavier Hutchinson, who ran eight more routes than John Metchi in that game against New York. He played the majority of his snaps from the outside. Mechi had some outside work, but he moved into the slot more than Xavier Hutchinson did. So what does this all mean? Well, when Houston runs eleven personnel, when they have three wide receivers out on the field, assuming Nico Collins is out, it's mostly gonna be Noah Brown, Robert Woods, and then some combination of Hutchinson and Mechi. There's gonna be a rotation though, and that makes us even more frustrating for fantasy football. These guys are not gonna have ninety five percent route participation. But I do think that Hutchinson has the upper hand over Mechi because he ran more routes in Week fourteen. They used him more on the perimeter. He's more of the one to one replacement for Nico Collins. But I do think that both of those wide receivers are decent ads in deeper formats and then obvious see Noah Brown who's running a lot of routes, Robert Woods two to some degree, those guys should be prioritized over Metchian Hutchinson. Overall, this Houston passing attack all of a sudden got pretty messy. And Odell Beckham, I've said this before on the podcast, and I'll say it again. Odell Beckham is having a very underrated season. He hasn't been this Fantasy football league winning player or anything. He's just been good on the field, at least when he's on the field. He leads Baltimore and yards per route run in among whindouts with two hundred and more routes this year. Across the entire league, OBJ is in the eighty six percent tile. Within that statistic, Beckham saw a jump and route participation from week twelve, which is the last time that we saw Baltimore, to week fourteen. It rose by about twenty three percentage points, and his target share that moved up too, and went from sixteen point seven percent to twenty five percent. With a pretty decent schedule from here on out, Beckham can definitely be helpful for your fantasy squad. Ad Davis Allen. Now, I know that half of you have never even heard of Davis Allen before. That's totally fine. We're throwing darts here. The Rams are down to like their seventeenth tight end after an injury to Hunter Long against Baltimore, Tyler Higby was already out with a neck injury. Rookie Davis Allen had a thirteen percent target share and he scored fifteen PPR points. He ran a route on about sixty three percent of Matthew Stafford's dropbacks. That's a pretty decent number at tight end. Now, maybe Tyler Higby's back next week, but a lot of you are hurting at that position. In a plus matchup against the Commanders. You could do worse than throwing that dart at Davis Allen and Kenneth Gainwell. So Kenneth Gainwell was more than likely just a handcuff for you. He's seen running back rush heares of twenty two percent in each of his last two and that's giving him a few carries per game, and thanks to some negative game scripts, his route participation has been in the forty three percent range. That's not bad for a back up running back, but again, more than likely you're not gonna just start him, not with DeAndre Swift healthy. But here's the thing. The Eagles get the Seahawks, Giants, and Cardinals during the Fantasy playoffs. That's why I was calling DeAndre Swift to buy earlier this season. These three weeks are why you have DeAndre Swift. I know that he hasn't been that great, but chances are the Eagles aren't going to see negative game scripts in these matchups. They're not facing San Francisco in Dallas. But that's also why we should be prioritizing a handcuff like Kenneth Gainwell. Not only would he see an uptick if DeAndre Swift got hurt, but it's an uptick in these favorable matchups. So if Kenneth Gainwell is out there, you should add him. Add Jake Browning. So Browning has now had back to back QB one performances. He scored twenty six point seven and twenty three point seven standard points over his last two games. Now he's needed rushing touchdowns to get his totals that high, but even still, he's been on fire. He's been great now. To be fair, the Bengals face the Jags and the Colts over those two games. Those are two top ten advantageous matchups by adjusted points allowed to quarterbacks. Cincinnati's schedule is not as favorable moving forward. They get Minnesota, Pittsburgh and Kansas City and the fantasy playoffs. But even still, Browning's playing well enough to overcome some tougher matchups. The quarterback landscape right now is pretty rough, so he's an obvious pickup to make. Add Gardner Minshew. Now, look, I don't think that Gardner Minshew is gonna be some league winning quarterback for you. He scored more than nineteen standard fantasy points just once this year. He just doesn't have this impossible stretch of games during the fantasy playoffs. He has matchups against the Steelers, the Falcons, and the Raiders. The Steelers and Raiders they are below average matchups by Justin Fantasy points allowed, but we're not talking the Jets here, and Atlanta has been a top ten opponent for quarterbacks. So at the very least Week sixteen decent week for Gardner Minshew. Like I said, it's hard to imagine that Gardner Minshew's gonna win you leagues, but he can at least be serviceable down the stretch. Add the Las Vegas Raiders defense. With Justin Herbert out this week, the Raiders actually have a pretty attractive fantasy football defense. FanDuel's sportsbook right now has the Chargers Raiders game at just a thirty three and a half point over under, and the Raiders are three and a half point favorites. Vegas also has not been a bad fantasy option defensively, at least of late. They've ranked as a top ten defense in five of their last six games against East and Stick they could finish there again. Add the Los Angeles Rams defense. So I brought this up a couple of weeks ago on the show, but the Rams have arguably the best playoff schedule in fantasy football from a fantasy defense perspective, in Week fifteen, they get a plus matchup against the Commanders, then it's the Saints, who have been more neutral, and then they'll close out the season against the Giants that gives them another favorable opponent. So if you're an elite that doesn't allow for transactions, everything's locked for whatever reason. The Rams aren't a bad defense to just ride through the rest of the season, and they're still out there in eighty three percent of Yahoo leagues. That's it for today's show, though, thanks to all of you for listening. If you get subscribed to the Late Round Fantasy Football podcast, make sure you are bustting for it pretty much anywhere podcasts can be found, and do fit to follow me on Twitter at Late Round QB and follow the Late Round Fantasy Football Instagram account at Late Round deff and then check out YouTube as well YouTube dot com slash at laterounddeff. Thanks everyone, I'll talk to you tomorrow with the weekly ten Trend Show.