459: 10 Trends for Week 14

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Speaker 1: This is the lad Podcast with your host JJ zachersa j Shake Zacher reson What's up everyone. It's JJ Zachares and the editor in chief at Fandel and at number five dot com in this episode four hundred and fifty nine of the Late Round Podcast. With many shows that are part of the FanDuel podcast Network. Thanks for tuning in. Think You've got what it takes to be the Goat. Every football fan dreams of meeting the greatest NFL players of all time, and starting this week, Fandel and Goat Fuel have teamed up to make those dreams of reality, and Fandel's Goat Gauntlet series, powered by Goat Fuel, fans will put their fantasy knowledge to the test by competing for a chance to take on the NFL's greatest of all time. Here's how it works. Over the course of the next three weeks, there will be three qualifier contests highlighting a specific position. The qualifying contests will award seventy five thousand dollars in cash prizes, goat Fuel products in the Seat, and the Goat Gauntlet Final to take home the ultimate prize. Those who win the qualifier contests or roster the highest scoring player of that week's highlighted position will be automatically entered into the finals, where they'll have their chance to play against three NFL Goats, Jerry Rice, Emmett Smith, and Warren Moon, and they'll compete to win their share of ten thousand dollars in cash prizes, goat Fuel products, and an exclusive virtual meet and greet with the NFL Hall of Famers. For more details was at fandle dot com, slash goat Fuel or download the fandle app today. Eligibility restrictions apply. Trend won this week is that Marvin Jones has averaged a twenty seven point three percent target chair per game over the last four weeks. Now, of course, Kenny Galladay hasn't been playing, and Kenny Galladay has influenced Marvin Jones's target chair in the past, but Jones is averaging over seventeen PPR points per game over this time, and over his last six games that number is roughly the same, just a few tents of a point lower. As I alluded to on yesterday's fifteen Transaction Show, the Lions look like they're going to open things up a bit down the stretch, so Jones definitely has some appeal, especially if Kenny Galladay continues to sit. Darren Waller scored forty five PPR points on Sunday. He had an insane outing with two hundred receiving yards and multiple touchdowns. He's been the second most valuable tight end this year in fantasy football without a doubt. But those two hundred yards that he had in Week thirteen, that was actually more than what he'd seen in his five games prior. Combined, over his five previous games, he had one hundred and ninety eight receiving yards. For as strong as he's been at times this year, he's definitely not been as consistent as we'd ideally like from the tight end two. But big props to him on a monster monster game. Cam Aker saw seventy seven point eight percent of the rams running back rushes on Sunday. That was his biggest mark of the season by far. His previous high was a forty four percent share. He turned his big workload into twenty one carries. He had seventy two yards, and he's now got two straight top twenty performances in PPR formats. The problems that he's still not seeing much love through the air, and that's gonna cap his ceiling. It's going to be very, very hard for him to give you RB one output if he's seeing less than a target per game. But things are at least trending way up for cam Akers as long as he can stay healthy. Since Week nine or over the last five weeks, Russell Wilson has averaged a little over sixteen fantasy points per game. Over the first eight weeks this season, that average was over twenty nine. But since Week nine, and yes, this is an arbitrary cutoff, I'm just trying to have some fun here. Since week nine, Russell Wilson is the QB fourteen in points per game. You still probably have to start him during the fantasy playoffs, but if you haven't tempered expectations yet, let this trend be a reminder to do so. In games where Deontay Johnson didn't leave early this year, he's averaged a target share per contest of twenty six percent over his last four games. He's been really really consistent in target share twenty two, twenty four percent, twenty five percent, and twenty three percent. Meanwhile, the Steelers the second highest pass to rush ratio in neutral game scripts this year and they've had the most pass attempts in the league. Now I'm recording this Tuesday afternoon, so there's a chance the Cowboys pass them. But Pittsburgh's been a super pass friendly team this year, and Deontay Johnson is seeing a good target share on that team, even if he's not amazingly efficient per target, even if his average that the target is low. Volume is what's important for fantasy purposes, and volume is earned. If Deontay Johnson was bad, he wouldn't get the ball as much as he does. This is all to say that Johnson is good and shou continue being started in your fantasy lineup. Jonathan Taylor now has back to back games where he's ranked as an RB one in Fantasy Football. They came in plus matchups against Green Bay in Houston, but it's still good to see. The problem is that his workload from Week eleven, which was his last game because remember he missed Week twelve because of COVID. But his workload from that Week eleven game saw him with a sixty eight point eight percent running back rush share to go along with an eleven point eight percent target share, And the thought was, oh, oh man, what if they unleash Jonathan Taylor down the stretch well. In Week thirteen, they didn't. His peripherals got worse. He saw a snapshare go from fifty six percent to forty eight percent, his running back rush share drop by about fifteen percentage points, and his target share by over three percentage points. So while the result was stronger for Taylor, and while it's good to see him be so efficient as a pass catcher, he's still not really capturing the backfield chair that we'd ideally want him to capture. One of the biggest touchdown regression candidates a quarterback is Aaron Rodgers, and it's not close. He has an eight point seven percent touchdown rate that's pacing to be one of the best touchdown rates of all time. That's a number that tends to regress even if good quarterbacks generally see good touchdown rates. And then you can see this regression when looking at yards versus touchdowns too. Yards correlate to touchdowns. I talk about this all the time. More yards generally means more touchdowns. Aaron Rodgers this year, based on his Yardage showtal on how quarterbacks have scored touchdowns since twenty he should have over fifteen fewer touchdown passes than he currently has. Now, Again, this is a good example, but there's a lot more analysis that goes into something like this. It's no different than that running back. If a player is seeing touches in the right areas of the field, then nay should expect to see more touchdowns than usual. But even when you account for all of this, Rogers is still outperforming expectation. According to Pro Football Focuses Expected Touchdowns model, he should have eight fewer scores. Now, don't get me wrong, you're not moving Rogers from your lineup. The Packers have a great schedule over the fantasy playoffs, but their past to rush touchdown ratio this year is three point six. That's the second highest in the league. We should expect in the lean a little bit more run heavy with their touchdowns scoring down the stretch, which should help Aaron Jones. The Pittsburgh Steelers defense has dominated this year in fantasy. We know this, they can get to the quarterback, but since the end of Week two, the best defense in fantasy football has been the Miami Dolphins. Over this time, they've averaged one point three interceptions per game, two point eight sacks per game, and they've scored three touchdowns on defense and special teams. On a weekly basis, the Dolphins have finished as a top eight defense in seven of the last ten contests. Now, they've faced a reasonably easy schedule so as Pittsburgh, though, and without some defensive touchdowns in their tough matchups, this stat wouldn't look as favorable. So no, I'm not playing them against the Chiefs this week, but the Dolphins have been a really cool story this year. Alex Smith took over as Washington's quarterback in Week nine. He didn't start that game, but he played a lot, so we'll include that in the sample. Over these five games where he's played the majority of the team snaps, JD. McKissick has averaged a ridiculous twenty two point four percent target share per game. Now. I know that part of his big game on Monday Night against Pittsburgh was related to Antonio Gibson getting hurt and a negative game script, but to be fair, we've only seen Gibson as a primary pass catcher out of the backfield for that offense once, it was against Dallas on Thanksgiving. If Gibson misses time, Kissick is definitely in play in PPR formats. The last trend this week is that in Brandon Nyuk's last four games, he's averaged a target share per game of twenty eight point six percent. That's incredibly good, and he's produced too. He's been the wide receiver nineteen, six, thirteen, and twelve over this span. Deebo Samuel has played in half of those games, so definitely take this with a grain of salt. But the man is crushing it. Brandon Nyuk is crushing it and he should definitely be on your radar as a starter during the fantasy playoffs. 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 podcast can be found, and of course don't forget to follow me on Twitter at Late Round QB. Thanks everyone, I'll talk to you tomorrow with the weekly matchup show.