441: Week 9 Matchups

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Speaker 1: This is the Late Podcast with your host JJ Zacherretha j J zacher reson What's up everyone? It's JJ Zachares and the editor in chief at Fandel and at number fire dot com. And this is episode four hundred and forty one of the Late Round podcasts. So with many shows that are part of the FanDuel podcast network, thanks for tuning in. So, as you guys know, I like to quickly recap the previous week's matchup show to see what went wrong and what went right this week. I don't really want to do that because my picks were pretty bad, but here goes. Jimmy Garoppolo was bad and he got hurt. That's a huge l. I backed off of the car and Mayfield picks last week because of the wind. And if you listen to my weekly start sit show over on Fandel's YouTube page on Sunday morning, you heard me say that. But it was still not great at the quarterback position in general. At running back, Le'Veon Bell didn't do a whole lot, Michael p Ran didn't see as much receiving work as I expected, but I did get the Rojo versus four net split that Rojo fumble definitely helped, though I was wrong to be lower than the consensus on JK. Dobbins, who continues to look awesome. Hollywood Brown was really disappointing. Mike Williams ended up with a big day. It just was not a good week for me. That's gonna happen, hopefully not to that degree very often, but it's gonna happen. Before get into this week's matchups and players that I'm highering lower on versus the consensus, though, I want to let you know that the eighty fourth edition of The Masters is set to begin on November twelfth, and Fandel is giving you a chance to enter an exclusive fantasy contest to celebrate the occasion, introducing the FanDuel Podcast Network Listener League, a rake free PGA contest made exclusively for you the Listener. For just five dollars, you have a chance to build a team around the biggest names in golf for your share of the one thousand dollars prize pool, including one hundred and twenty five dollars to first place. The contest is sure to fill up fast, so make sure to enter today and to do that, visit fandle dot com Slash League slash PGA listener league eligibility shtrictions apply. The streaming quarterback that I talked about on the fifteen Transaction Show this week was Kirk Cousins. I don't mind him against Detroit this week. The matchup is pretty average when you look at adjusted Fantasy points against. But one thing that I'm intrigued by in this matchup is the big play potential. On the year, the Lions ranked fourth and deep ball completions allowed, Kirk Cousins, among all quarterbacks in the NFL, has the highest deep ball rate, and by deep ball i'm talking about fifteen plus air yard throws. With that game sitting at a fifty two point over under and the Vikings with a really high twenty eight point imply team total, Cousins is a safe bet. Now. Looking at the rankings over on Fantasy Pros, I'm a little bit surprised to see Drew Brees ranked where he's being ranked. Now. I'm not like incredibly high on him, Don't get me wrong, but I think this is the case of looking at a tough matchup and bumping a player down as a result. The reason I'm not as down on him though, is because number one. That game has a reasonably high over under this week at fifty one and a half. Number two Michael Thomas should be back, and then number three. One of the reasons the Buccaneers have been successful defensively this year is because they can generate pressure. They're second in the NFL and pressure rate, behind only Pittsburgh. But the Saints are really good at protecting Drew Brees. In fact, they have the lowest pressure rate allowed this season. That could cool down the Bucks defense a bit, making Breeze a decent enough play. But if you want to dig deeper and you need a deep streamer, Drew Lock is in play this week. Similar to Kirk Cousins, Locke has been throwing it deep at a high rate this season, the second highest rate in the NFL behind Kirk Cousins. Atlanta, meanwhile, has allowed by far the most deep ball completions in football. They're also the second worst team or the second most favorable matchup when looking at adjusted fantasy points allowed to quarterbacks. So I don't really mind Drew Lock. Now, on the other side of things, I don't love Ryan Tannehill this week, and I'm a little bit surprised that these ranked as a QB won by the consensus. Chicago's defense is good, and I generally hate offenses facing the Bears because their games are so low scoring. They're so boring. The Bears haven't scored more than twenty three points in each of their last five games. Tannehill still has some regression coming, and the Bears are a top five unit that you want to avoid according to adjusted Fantasy points allowed, So he's more of a mid range QB two in my eyes. Le'Veon Bell didn't come through this past week, but I think he's fine enough this week one, with some question marks of the running back position, I think he's fine enough as a lower end RB two. The Chiefs get the Panthers, and we know the Panthers are beatable on the ground. They're the fifth best matchup according to adjusted Fantasy points allowed. Like I said on the ten Trend show, Bell is seeing decent work in that Chiefs offense. He essentially split the backfield to work with, though CEH did have the better snap share. Now, I'm not saying start Bell over Clyde Edwards Hilaire. I'm just noting that his workload is enough to warrant a start in a super plus matchup, plus the running back position is kind of a dumpster fire. Damian Harris could follow up his big performance with a strong one this week against the Jets. I called him a cell in the fifteen Transactions episode because I hate running backs who don't see receiving volume. And by the way, Sony Michelle might be back soon too. But this week against the Jets, the Patriots are seven point favorites, so we may see that positive game script and Harris would be the guy who would benefit from that. He's averaged over sixty nine percent. I'm not going to say it of the team's running back rushes over the last two weeks. Now. I was going to talk about the green Bay backfield today, but there are so many question marks at the time of this recording, so I'll just say this. I think the gap between Dexter Williams and Tyler Irvin is probably a little bit too big. I do prefer Irvin in PPR formats. I think Williams can end up being the early down and goal line guy for them, though, and with Green Bay his favorites, he's in play. If Aaron Jones doesn't go but one deeper play this week is JD. McKissick. It's kind of a weird one. McKissick, though, has averaged almost an eighteen percent target chair for Washington per game over the last month, and the Giants haven't been great against running backs out of the backfield as receivers. They ranks seventh in receptions allowed and third in receiving yards allowed to running backs, and teams have targeted running backs against the Giants this year at a much higher than average rate. So McKissick is a decent high floor option in PPR formats. Now. I miss JK. Dobbins last week, not because I think he's bad. I think he's amazing, but because I questioned if the Ravens could run the ball on the Steelers this week. I like Dobbins. He should probably be in your lineup. I just don't know if the gap between him and Gus Edwards should be as large as what I'm seeing. Edwards keeps seeing more looks on the ground than JK. Dobbins, albeit slightly more, and he saw the lone goal line work against Pittsburgh on Sunday. So Dobbins is the efficient backfield runner who's also got upside as a receiver, but the ceiling is slightly capped because of Gus Edwards, and I just wanted to make note of that that the two seem too far apart in the rankings this week. And then finally, at running back there's Ezekiel Elliott. Even though last week happened, Pittsburgh still ranks as one of the tougher matchups against running backs. Zeke now gets a new quarterback. The Cowboys are massive underdogs. They have a low implied team total, and Zeke's seen his backfield share drop over the last few weeks. His running back rush share has been sixty percent over his last three games. That was eighty eight percent across his first five. That's because Tony Pollard is getting more run so truthfully, guys, if you have a relatively decent option, you might want to consider starting him over Zeke. As I alluded to on yesterday's show, Marvin Jones has seen better target shars without Kenny Galladay this year. I know, totally shocking, but in weeks one and two, Jones's target shair was about twenty percent. It's been about fourteen percent since Baby Tron is out this week, though, that means I like Jones. The Vikings are also beatable in the secondary, which was another thing that I talked about on yesterday's show, having allowed the fifth most adjusted Fantasy points to wide receivers this year per game. Now I'm recording this before knowing exactly what's going on with Matthew Stafford's COVID situation, so Jones would get a downgrade if Matthew Stafford is out. Just an FYI. I like Drew Locke as a deeper play, and I think Jerry Judy could benefit from the matchup this week. I mentioned earlier that Atlanta has given up the most big plays in football this year, the most deep ball completions, and Judy's actually top twenty this year in air yards and he has a twenty percent target share in the season as well. All of that kind of makes him an intriguing play. But a deeper play is Randall Cobb. He gets the Jags and Jacksonville's seen a high percentage of their targets this year go to slot receivers. Over thirty three percent of their targets that they face have gone to the slot. That's one of the higher marks in the league. Cobb's seen a double digit percentage target share in every single game since Week one, and he now has a sixteen point three percent share in the season. That's not bad, so I think that he's a cheap and easy way to get a part of that offense that has a very high projected team total this week, and the matchup is there, so I don't mind Cobb at all as a deeper play at wide receiver. And then another slot guy that you could look at is Cole Beasley. I mentioned yesterday how Seattle's secondary has been awful against wide receivers, so he's got that going for him. They're terrible in fantasy points and adjusted fantasy points allowed, but they, just like Jacksonville, they've seen a high percentage of targets go to the slot. That's where Cole Beasley has played almost ninety percent of his snaps this year. I know he didn't come through last week in a bad weather game, but he had seen a twenty eight percent and twenty nine percent target share in each of his two games prior to last week, and his target share is inching to nineteen percent on the season. John Brown was back last week, but I still think the matchup is fine enough for Beasley to be a flex play since Sterling Shepard returned. Darius Slayton has seen a target share south of eighteen percent in the Giants offense. From weeks one through six, that number was almost twenty four percent. Now he gets a Washington defense, it's actually been the absolute best in football and adjusted fantasy points allowed per game to wide receivers. So I'm not super high on Slaton this week, and then the same could be said for career Houston Kirk. He's sort of a regression candidate in the touchdown column. But the one thing I always look for with Kirk is his potential to make a big play against Miami this week. That might be tough because on the season, Miami's allowed the fourth few is long completions fifteen plus are yard completions in the entire league. Kirk still hasn't seen a target share above twenty percent this year, so he's a boom er bust option in general. I just worry about the boom here in Week nine. I feel like Noah Fan is undervalued this week. He's seeing lots of volumes coming off a twenty four percent target share game. Drew Locke is in a good spot and Atlanta against tight ends ranks is the most advantageous matchup in the league, so I would be playing Fans as a top five option, but of course we need more of a streamer. That's what I usually do on this show, and Jordan Aikins is my deeper tight end play this week because the tight end position sucks, so we're throwing darts here. He should be back finally though, here in week nine after an ankle injury and a concussion, and he gets Jacksonville, a top ten match for a tight end. Keep in mind, before Aikens went down, so across the first four weeks of this season, he ranked in the top fifteen in routes run a tight end while averaging a twelve percent target share. He's a deeper play, of course, but I don't mind his spot. I talked about the Washington football team on the fifteen Transaction show this week, and I still like them a lot. The Giants have been bad at protecting Daniel Jones. He's been a turnover machine, and Washington is one of the better teams in the league at pressuring the quarterback with a low over under. In this game, they're in a good spot. But if you want a super deep play, you could look at Atlanta. Now hear me out. I know that I talked about a lot of Denver players on today's show, but Denver is a good matchup. They've been the best matchup in terms of adjusted points allowed. They've also allowed a pretty high pressure rate, and since coming back from injury, Locke has been sacked more than two times per game while throwing five picks across these three games. So I think that you could maybe do worse than Atlanta, even though they are a deeper play. That's gonna do it for today's show, though. Thanks to all of you for listening. If you've got subscribe to the Late Round podcast, make sure you are by searching for it pretty much anywhere podcasts can be found. Don't forget to follow me on Twitter at Late Round QB. Thanks everyone. One more show this week, the Mailbag episode that'll drop tomorrow