671: Week 1 Sleepers

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Speaker 1: This is the Labor Podcast with your host JJ Zacher Retha Jay.

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Speaker 2: Jake Zacher reson.

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Speaker 1: What's up everyone, It's JJ Zacharyeson in this episode six hundred and seventy one of the Late Round Fantasy Football podcast sponsored by FanDuel.

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Speaker 2: Thanks for tuning in.

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Speaker 1: I started doing this Sleeper show last year after doing more of a start sit format for years, and I think it ended up being the right call. People seem to get more use out of it, at least because it really could be used for more than just season long formats. The premise of this show, though, is pretty simple. Each week, I look at three buckets, players who are rostered in twenty six to fifty percent of Yahoo Leagues, players who are rostered in eleven percent to twenty five percent of Yahoo leagues, and then players who are rostered in ten percent or less. So we go from moderately deep sleepers to super deep sleepers throughout the show. These players are guys who are hanging out in your waiver wire right now.

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Speaker 2: Now.

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Speaker 1: I want to be about something too. Since this is the first Sleepers episode of the season, I'm not saying that you should start these players over proven starters. If you want weekly rankings for me, you can check them out on Patreon. Just at the Late Round dot com. There's a Patreon link. Go there you can check out those weekly rankings. But just because I'm calling someone out as a sleeper, it doesn't mean I think that you should definitely be in your lineup. We're talking about lower probability hits on this show. We're not talking about Jamar Chase, We're not talking about even Chase Edmonds. We're digging a little bit deeper because I think that's how you get the most out of a show like this. Another thing to call out is that things should get better as the season goes on. Week one is always the hardest week for this kind of thing because we have such little information. With more information comes better decision making, so we be all cool. We got it awesome before getting the sleepers. This week, I want to remind you that the twenty twenty two NFL season is nearly underway and Fandle and GMC are back to bring you the gmccerra Mountain Climber Pick them of to Play contest series. It gives you a chance to win a share of ten thousand dollars in Fandle's site credit every Sunday courtesy of GMC.

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Speaker 2: Here's how it works.

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Speaker 1: Every Sunday during the NFL season, you'll have a chance to answer questions based on the day's non primetime games. The more questions you answer correctly, the higher up the mountain you'll move. If during any week you answer every question correctly for a perfect score, you'll reach the summit and win your share of ten thousand dollars in site credit. The contest series is now live, so head to fandel dot com Slash Free, Slash Contest slash GMC today to start climbing the mountain. Let's kick things off with a quarterback who's rostered in fewer than fifty percent of Yahoo leagues who I like this week, Matt Ryan. According to Fandals Sportsbook, the Colts have one of the higher team totals on the week at twenty seven points. That's because they're facing Houston as seven and a half point favorites. Fantasy managers sometimes get turned off by situations like this that if a team blows out their opponent, then the winning team will be right the ball a lot that wouldn't benefit the quarterback, and yet you'd ideally want a back and forth contest to keep teams throwing, but keep in mind that in order to get to a point where the Colts are blowing out the Texans, their quarterback will likely have to do something about that. And that's especially true for Ryan because Houston enters the season with PFF's last ranked secondary. The Colts have some natural regression coming their way this year when it comes to pass rate, but they're also probably going to just throw the ball a little bit more because they upgraded the quarterback position. So I think Ryan's in store for a big Week one. I have Jamis Winston ranked right next to Matt Ryan and my rankings and tiers this week, and he's in somewhat of a similar spot. The Saints have a slightly lower team total than the Colts do, and Atlanta, on paper, might have a slightly better secondary than Houston has. Jamis is also coming off his ACL injury, and there are more question marks about how this offense might operate this year. That doesn't mean he's a bad player, though Atlanta's beatable. I just foresee the Texans Colts game having more scoring potential than this one, and that's what separates Winston from Matt Ryan. In my opinion, I've got four more guys in this tier. One of them is technically a little bit above that fifty percent market fifty two percent, but I think he deserves a shout, and that's Isaiah McKenzie. McKenzie will be the Bill's top slot guy to start this year, and we saw him go absolutely nuts in a game last year without slot receiver Cole Beasley. He saw almost twenty eight percent of Buffalo's targets and he scored almost thirty PPR points. And in this matchup against the Rams this week, he'll face thirty one year old slot corner Troy Hill. Last year, Hill allowed the eighth most yards in the slot in the NFL, and he was bottom ten in yards allowed per snap in that area of the field. Those stats are thanks to Pro Football Focus. In a game that could be high scoring, I love Isaiah McKenzie this week. Another potential high scoring game this week is between the Chiefs and the Cardinals. That game's got a fifty three and a half point over under according to Fandles Sportsbook, and you've got two sort of second mary wide receivers who are rostered in fifty percent or fewer leagues in that game who could find your lineup in a pinch. The first is Marquez Valdez Scantling. The second Rondell Moore. Let's start with MVS. The logic with him pretty simple. He's a starting wide receiver who can stretch the field and at Patrick Mahomes led offense, no Tyreek Hill is probably going to force Mahomes to spread the ball around, and MVS has big playability that's sometimes all you need in a potential shootout. But Rondell is someone that I've liked a little bit more than the market this offseason. He's banged ups. You have to watch that, But so is zach Ertz. That area of the field, the slot, the middle of the field that could end up being wide open if Moore ends up starting and if zach Ertz is sidelined. But I'm intrigued by more this year because he's probably gonna take on that Christian Kirk slot role, Cliff Kingsbury said as much as offseason. Kirk played almost seventy nine percent of his snaps from the slot last year, and it's more of a natural fit for Rondell Moore, who had just the one point two average depth of target last year, So keep an eye on the injury report out of Arizona because there's a chance that more plays and zach Ertz doesn't. And then the last player I want to talk about in this tier is someone I mentioned in the fifteen Transactions episode earlier this week, and it's Mike Davis. The Ravens are pretty big favorites against the Jets this week, and JK. Dobbins seems to still not be one hundred percent ready to take on a full workload in that offense. The Ravens did get Kenyan Drake last week, but Mike Davis has been the constant piece in that backfield throughout the offseason.

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Speaker 2: That is, so if they.

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Speaker 1: Get out to a lead, that positive game script could lead Davis to seeing twelve to maybe fifteen rush attempts and that might be enough to warrann a flex start. We're now onto players rostered in eleven to twenty five percent of Yahoo League, so we're digging a little bit deeper, and we'll start with probably my favorite tight end streamer this week, Gerald Everett. I mentioned on the fifteen Transactions episode that we've seen breakout tight ends come from teams with quarterbacks who are ranked high by ADP. Dawson Knox and Dalton Schultz were those players last year. I think Gerald Evert could be that guy this year, and in Week one he's part of a game where the Chargers have a twenty eight point team total. If you're streaming the tight end position, you want these players associated with good offenses and in good scoring environments because touchdowns can really drive tight end scoring. So Everett's my top streaming choice this week, and in that same game as Josh Palmer, we're likely going to see him run consistently As the team's number three wide receiver this year, and in twenty twenty one, the Chargers ran eleven Personneller had three wide receivers on the field on sixty four percent of their offensive snaps. The average across the league last year sixty one percent. So again, in an environment that could include a lot of scoring, I think Palmer's interesting. That's especially true against a Vegas secondary that enters the season ranked twenty ninth in the league according to PFF. John Dotson is another player I talked about on the fifty Transaction Show, and he's part of this bucket.

00:07:57
Speaker 2: I fully expected to play starter.

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Speaker 1: Snap this week, and he'll face at Jacksonville Secondary that's probably gonna be bottom half of the league this year. The Commanders also have a pretty decent twenty three and a half point implied team total. I wouldn't be surprised if he's able to hit a twenty percent target chair immediately and that could pay off in this matchup. And then I'm gonna go back to that Chargers Raiders game and go as a mere White out of the Raiders backfield. You could also consider Amer Abdulla in PPR formats too. The Raiders seem like they're gonna go with the committee in that backfield, and with these running backs, you're getting cheap exposure to a high scoring game. We don't have the data to know exactly how this backfield's going to be split, but I think it's very possible we see White with ten to twelve touches, and if the game gets out of hand, which is always possible, we could see some cheap targets for a Mire Abdulla. Both are pretty risky options in Week one, though. This is my favorite section each week because we're talking about the players that no one wants on their rosters, they're rostered and fewer than ten percent of Yahoo leagues. Ameer Abdullah was one of the players I was gonna talk about, but I already talked about him. So let's shift things over to Eno Benjamin. It seems as though Eno is the number two back in Arizona and this could change, but let's just run with that assumption. He's a pretty good pass catcher out of the backfield, and he shares some Chase Edmunds traits. And keep in mind, before Edmonds was hurt last year for Arizona in Week nine, he was seeing a decent amount of work in that Cardinals offense. Through the first eight weeks of the season, Edmonds averaged a running back rush share of almost forty four percent per game. He was averaging over twelve PPR points per game during that time. James Connor, meanwhile, was basically seeing the remaining running back rushes. He had a fifty three percent running back rush air during that time span. He was actually averaging fewer PPR points per game than Chase Edmonds at the halfway point last year. This doesn't mean that I believe Connor is going to go back to that role, but there's some chance that the Cardinals implement a player like Eno more than expected to keep James Connor fresh and in a high scoring affair against the Chiefs. That makes Benjamin intriguing enough as a super super deep sleeper. I fully realize you won't have to play Eno Benjamin this week. If you have to play EEno Benjamin, you're either in an incredibly deep league or you.

00:10:11
Speaker 2: Just drafted really poorly.

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Speaker 1: But this is the kind of player that comes out of this percent rostered tier on this show each week, and at least you can hear a process to why a player like that could emerge. Now, similar to a Mira Abdullah for Vegas, we could see Rex Burkehead as Houston's hurry up and third down back. I like Damian Pierce, and I've talked about him enough on this show over the last couple of weeks, but we have to be open to the idea that Houston might use Rex Burkehead in that pass catching role this year. And the Texans are big underdogs this week, so Burkehead could give you some cheap PPR points. Now. The name of the game this week and most weeks is attacking games that could be high scoring that's what we could get with Dallas and Tampa Bay, and Noah Brown is currently slotted to be the number two wide receiver for that Cowboys offense. It's an offense it's didn't pass heavy since Kellen Moore took over as offensive coordinator and his three years as oh see, the Cowboys have ranked the top half of the league in neutral script pass rate each season and they've been sixth, second, and eleventh and pass attempts during those three seasons. So Brown is a cheap way to get exposure to that game. And then lastly is another tight end streamer, Moali Cox. Moali Cox has been effective in the past. Just two years ago, he ranked fifth out of forty four tight ends with thirty or more targets and yards per route run. He's athletic, and there aren't many locked in alternatives in that offense. And as I've been saying, the Colts could post some points this weekend against the Texans, so getting a tight end in that environment that's a plus. Now, at the end of these episodes, I also like throwing out some defensive streaming recommendations, So here's a couple. The first one Cincinnati I talked about them on the fifteen Transactions episode earlier this week.

00:11:53
Speaker 2: But the Bengals are big home favorites.

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Speaker 1: Against the Steelers this week, and the Steelers have a bad offensive line. I think with a non Ben Roethlisberger quarterback under center for Pittsburgh, the Steelers can end up giving up more sacks this year. Because Ben loved to get rid of the ball so quick. It's a good situation for the Bengals to score points in fantasy on that side of the ball. And then Carolina is another one that you could use, and they're only rostered in three percent of Yahoo leagues. They're at home, they're facing Jacobe Brissett, They're one and a half point favorites, and the over under in that game is just forty one and a half points. That's the lowest on this week's slate. So Carolina works. I think they're way undervalued right now by rankers. That's gonna do it for today's show, though. Thanks to all of you for listening. If you've yet subscribed 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 again. If you want to check out my rankings and tiers this week, head to lateround dot com and click the Patreon page to become a patron. Otherwise, one more show this week, the Mailbag episode I'll talk to You Tomorrow