578: Week 10 Sleepers

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Speaker 1: This is the Lab Podcast with your host JJ zacher Retha j J. Zacher reson What's up everyone? It's JJ zachar Eason, the editor in chief at fandle and at Number five dot com in this episode five hundred and seventy eight of the Late Round Podcast. So many shows that are part of the FanDuel podcast network, thanks for tuning in. We get a couple of weeks like Week nine each season where very few things make sense, like Josh Allen and the Bill is failing to score a touchdown against the Jags, or how the Cowboys just fell flat on their face against Denver, or how the Rams couldn't do anything offensively against the Titans. Those are just a few examples of a really, really tough week in fantasy football, and that trickled into the Sleeper Show from last week a little bit too. Neither quarterback streamer even played this past week. News broke later in the week that Tua wasn't gonna go and that Taysom Hill wouldn't be starter, but things were just really really average with the picks. Jeremy McNichols didn't get the negative script that I thought that he'd get, so he didn't get as much work as I expected. And not only that, but even though the Titans won, their offense just didn't do a whole lot for fantasy. I also wasn't high on James Connor, which in hindsight was horrible. It was horrific. But I also didn't expect Chase Edmonds to get hurt, so that was at least a little bit of a weird one. Tommy Sweeney didn't work out as a deep sleeper, but he did run a ton of routes, so I'm not super super mad about the process there. Jamal Agnew didn't work out either, with a game script that wasn't easy to forecast at all. And even though Van Jefferson got the right kind of looks and the right kind of work, he had a disappointing seven point outing in PPR formats. Not everything was horrible, though. I liked Hunter Renfro's matchup and he had a nice game. I called out Pat Fryarmouth and he obviously came through as well. And then Miami was my top streamer on the show and they crushed Tyrod Taylor in the Texans. What last week really showed, in my opinion, was how game level projections can really hurt player level ones. On a show like this one, we have to make assumptions. We have to tell stories about how a game might unfold in order to buy into a player who no one has rostered in fantasy football. When so many of those assumptions are wrong on multiple levels, the Bills, the Rams, the Cowboys, and so on. When that all hits in one week, it's tough. Fortunately, there were some good results in there that we can build off of here in week ten. Now, before we get into the sleepers this week, I want to remind you that each week FANDL is offering fans the chance to win prizes by participating in daily Fantasy Football. The prize pool for the Sunday Million this week is a whopping one point seventy five million dollars. First place is taking home three hundred thousand dollars. All you have to do is head over to fandel dot com today and click on the NFL Sunday Million Contest. Draft your lineup of players, sit back, and enjoy Sunday NFL football. Eligibility restrictions apply. Go to fandle dot com or download the Fandle lap for more details. The first tier includes players who are ross twenty five to fifty percent of Yahoo leagues who you could consider starting. I wanted to kick things off this week with Michael Gallup. It sounds like he's gonna come off ir this week for the Cowboys against the Falcons. That's good, and even though I try to avoid using players coming off of injury, I think he's at least intriguing. The Falcons are a top half team and adjusted points allowed to wide receivers, and Gallup was pacing towards like a fifteen to twenty percent target share in Dallas's Week one matchup against Tampa Bay before he got hurt. If he can see a fifteen or so percent target share in this game given the matchup in Dallas's implied team total of thirty two points, I don't see why he doesn't have a shot to be a wide receiver three or a flex play. And this is also a reminder to add Michael Gallup if he's on your waiver wire. I have to go back to Van Jefferson this week. The peripheral numbers are absolutely there. I talked about this on the fifteen Transaction Show earlier this week, but since Deshan Jackson was phased out of this offense and then released. Jefferson has essentially ran the same number of routes as Robert Woods and Cooper Cup, and like I said on that show, he has just eleven fewer air yards than Cooper Cup over the last three weeks, and he's led the team in end zone targets during that time. Look, you never know. Maybe it doesn't hit for Jefferson, but process wise, he's the type of player to take a risk on because his offense can be so good. Another player in this tier who I think that you can take a risk on is Rashod Bateman. I said I'd stop bringing him up on the fifteen Transaction Show, but not this show. Bateman's not a bad play this week. Baltimore's got a twenty seven point implying team total against Miami, and Miami's been the fourth best matchup for wide receivers this year according to my adjusted Fantasy Points allowed method, and Bateman continues to see favorable target shairs in this offense. He's averaged about a nineteen percent target shair per game since coming back from his injury and making his NFL debut. He could have a nice Thursday night, and then I've got one more player in this tier, mark Ingram. Ingram should be rostered in far more leagues, giving the uncertainty a round Alvin Samara right now. Beat writer Nick Underhill reported that there were whispers that Kamara might have gotten a little bit banged up in week nine, and physical therapist Adam Hutchinson, who's at Real Adam Underscore h on Twitter Adam in front of the show Doctor Edwin Porras were speculating that there could be an ankle injury going on with Alvin Kamara. Now, none of this is set in stone as of this recording. Sometimes I just have to work off of speculation because we want to be ahead of the game. If something is going on there, then Kamara's in jeopardy of at least losing some work, and Ingram would be the one to see that work, given he's seen a thirty one percent running back rush are and a nine percent target share per game since rejoining the Saints. Definitely, definitely, definitely keep an eye on this situation. It could be huge for fantasy football. This next tier of players are guys who are rostered in ten to twenty five percent of Yahoo League, So we're getting a little bit deeper here. I think Ben Roethlisberger and Teddy Bridgewater are fine safe streaming options this week. Fine enough, it's a really tough week for streaming. But if you're chasing ceiling and you're really hurting, I actually don't totally mind Taylor Heineke. Yes, he's been bad at times this year, and yes he has just three touchdown passes over his last four games, but we've seen Washington lose by more than a touchdown in four games this year. Week three against Buffalo, Week five against New Orleans, Week six against Kansas City, in Week seven against Green Bay. In two of those four games, Heinecke had eight rush attempts and ten rush attempts. He had five against New Orleans two, but he finishes a QB one option in both of those contests with eight or more rush attempts. This week against Tampa Bay, the football team is a big underdog, and Tampa Bay has been a team that's forced opponents to throw the ball out this year. As we know, they're also the twelfth best opponent for quarterbacks and adjustin points allowed. Heineke is risky. There's no doubt about it, but he's shown a ceiling because of what he can do with his legs, and I'm intrigued by that. This week, in that same game and on that same team is Ricky Seals Jones. I'll be brief with this recommendation because there's a chance that Logan Thomas plays, but at the time of this recording, Thomas is trending downward rather than upward. So if he doesn't go, RSJ does make sense because he's seen a target share of almost seventeen percent without Logan Thomas this year and Washington, like I just said, they could have a pass heavy game script. Now I think a safer tight end streaming option this week is Dan Arnold. Now, for the record, Pat Fryermuth has rostered in too many leagues now to even mention him on the show, but Arnold's percent roster number hasn't changed enough over the last handful of weeks. Arnold is second on the Jaguars and targets since DJ Shark's season ending injury, and he faces a Colts defense that's seventh and raw points per game allowed the tight ends, but first when you adjust that for strength of opponent, So Dan Arnold is seeing a lot of volume, and he has a great matchup to me. He's in low end tight end one territory now. Eno Benjamin was another player featured in the fifteen Transactions column and podcast this week, and while he's a super risky play, I can understand if someone would need to throw him into like an RB two spot or something because of bye week problems, or maybe you have Nick Chubb. Benjamin's snap rate wasn't very good against San Francisco, but he saw twenty nine percent of the Cardinals running back rushes in that game and he ended up finding the end zone on a really, really good run, a really impressive run. James Connor had a nineteen percent target chair in that game. But Benjamin's a capable pass catcher. I think They're gonna utilize him in the passing game as well, especially because they may not want to run James Connor into the ground given his injury history. And now they're thin at the running back position and Arizona's a ten and a half point home favorite this week. If they pull out to a nice positive game script, it should benefit the running backs. Now, I've got one more guy in this tier, and it's someone I talked about last week, and that's Jamison Crowder. Crowder didn't do anything special in last week's matchup, and it wasn't really a plus matchup or anything. It was more of a play on his target chair above all else. Now, of course, he ended up seeing his lowest target chair of the season last week, but on a per game basis, Crowder's seen eighteen and a half percent of New York's targets this year. This week's matchup is not great against Buffalo, especially at first glance, but number one Buffalo's a thirteen point favorite according to Fandals Sportsbook. That means the Jets could see a pass heavy script and number two Crowder's played eighty four percent of his snaps from the slot this year and Buffalo ranks fourth in the league and percentage of targets that go to that area of the field. It's a bit of a desperation play, but Crowder is my favorite Jets pass catcher this week, for what that's worth. I love talking about this last tier of players. They're guys that no one wants in fantasy football. They're players who are rostered in fewer than ten percent of Yahoo leagues. Now I've talked about him a lot recently, but Jamal Agnew is still under that ten percent mark. The Jags get the Colts this week in Indianapolis. Is eighth in the league this year in slot yards allowed. Agnew has played a team high seventy four percent of his snaps from that area of the field, according to Football Focus, and he's also leading the team in targets. Since DJ sharks season ending injury, he seems relatively safe in PPR formats this week to at least give you something now, I don't have the luxury of knowing every injury when I record this show every week. One injury I'm following, though, is with Chase Claypole. He has a toe injury and he could miss this week. If he does, James Washington gets a big, big bump. Claypole has been playing the second most snaps at wide receiver for Pittsburgh now that Juju Smith Schuster is out of the picture and Washington's played as the wide receiver three. But if Claypole's out, Washington will slip into that role and the Steelers get the Lions in a game where they have a twenty six point implied team total. The Lions have actually been decent against wide receivers this year, ranking twenty fifth and adjusted points allowed. But Washington would probably be in store for five plus targets if Claypole doesn't play. That makes him a deep sleeper, especially with his big playability. Now in that same game, I'm kind of interested in Amen Ross Saint Brown. He's not some of that you want to play in like DFS or anything because he has a limited ceiling. But Saint Brown played seventy three percent of Detroit snaps the last time that we saw them, and he's primarily operated out of the slot this year. The Steelers traditionally get crushed by slock guys. This season, over thirty five percent of the targets that they've faced have gone to that area. That's the third highest rate in the league. So Saint Brown works in deep PPR formats. Now, it's understandable if you don't want to dig that deep. A better option than Saint Brown is Tyler Johnson. Antonio Brown is still banged up and Chris Godwin apparently has an issue with his foot. Now. The Bucks have now played three games without ab this year. In those games, Tyler Johnson ran very clearly as the number three guy in that offense. He averaged a ten point four percent target chair per game. Now that's nothing to write home about. But they get Washington this week. That's a team that ranks first and adjusted points allowed to wide receivers. Johnson would have been a reasonable sleeper even without this Chris Godwin injury, but with this popping up, he's an even more intriguing option, especially if he can see more slot snaps. And then the last player in this tier. I've got a lot of players in this tier this week, but the last guy in this tier is Zach Pascal. Pascal has operated as Indianapolis's slot guy this year, and his target share numbers are actually pretty good. He has a seventeen percent target share in the season, and his target share per game over the team's last three is twenty one point six percent. Now he gets the Jags. The Colts have a high imply team total in this game of twenty nine, and Jacksonville's not only ranked as the eleventh best matchup for wide receivers when looking at adjustin points allowed, but they also rank seventh in slot yards allowed and ninth in target share allowed to the slot. Pascal's another pretty good floor option this week. The players the sit section has been hit or miss over the last few weeks. It started off really really strong this year, but it's gotten more difficult as the season's gone on. And for those of you who don't know, this section of the show is dedicated to players who are rostered in seventy five percent or more of Yahoo leagues, who you could consider benching. And I can't believe I'm saying this, but Patrick Mahomes is not a lock. Like, yeah, if you have him, you're probably starting him. I get it, but this matchup against Vegas is really really interesting. A huge problem for the Chiefs is their inability to generate explosive plays. Mahomes has thrown at fifteen or more air yards on fifteen and a half percent of his passes this year, and he's completing just thirty nine percent of those throws. Over his three seasons as starter with Kansas City. Before this year, he was throwing it at that distance on over twenty percent of his throws and he was completing closer to forty six percent of those attempts. So he's been dramatically worse on fifteen plus airyard throws this year. Not just in frequency, but in completion rate as well. Meanwhile, Vegas has actually been the top team in the league at preventing big play throws. Quarterbacks have completed just twenty eight percent of those fifteen plus airyard throws against the Raiders. That's tops in the league. Mahomes hasn't been good in fantasy football. Let's not pretend he's been a stud. And I'm saying this out of nowhere. He's combined to score thirty two Fantasy points over his last three games, justin Herbert almost hit that in Week nine alone. Again, I understand if you have to start him, but I think he is actually pretty risky. Let's move on to Courtland Sutton. We've now seen Sutton struggle a bit to see volume with Jerry Judy in the picture. Sutton scored fewer than ten combined PPR points over his last two games while seeing a target chare per game of only twelve percent, and Philadelphia his opponent this week. They actually rank thirty first in the league and adjusted points allowed to wide receivers. I would much rather start Jerry Judy over Courtland Sutton. You can definitely temper expectations with Julio Jones as well. The dude's highest target share in a single game this year is twenty and a half percent. He's hit double digit PPR points just once this year, and it was in that game. New Orleans is the second best matchup and adjusted points allowed. But fantasy football is more than just matchups. You need better volume than what Julio's generating, so you can bench him in most cases this week. And then how about Antonio Gibson. The Buccaneers are great against the run. They ran twenty third this season and adjusted points allowed to running backs, but they've allowed the second fewest rushing yards to the position. I mentioned this earlier, but Washington has lost four games by more than a touchdown this year, and remember they're nine and a half point underdogs this week. In those games, Antonio Gibson averaged just forty six and a half rushing yards per game, and he saw just two point three targets per contest outside of that split, So in the four other games that they've played this year, Gibson's averaged almost twenty more rushing yards per game, and that includes a Week eight contest where he barely played. He's been banged up, and the matchup is tough. I know most of you may not have a better option because running back is thin, but he's generally tough to trust this week. Now. As for defensive streamers, I think there are two main ones this week. I talked about Philadelphia on the fifteen Transaction Show and they still work. But don't sleep on Tennessee either. The Titans are a three point home favorite in a game with a forty four and a half point over under. And for as bad as the Titans defense has been at times this year, they've at least been able to generate some pressure. They're average across the league in sac rate, but they're eleventh and pressure rate. Hopefully they can use that to their advantage against a backup starter for New Orleans. That's going to do it for today's show, though. Thanks to all of you for listening. If you get subscribed to Late Round podcast, make sure you are by searching forward pretty much anywhere podcast can be found, you know if its follow me on Twitter at Late Round QB. Thanks for listening. Everyone really appreciate it. We got one more show this week, the Mailbag episode that drops tomorrow