849: 10 Trends for Week 15

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Speaker 1: This is the Late Podcast with your host JAJ Zachera, j J. Zacherson. What's up everyone, It's JJ Zacharyeson in this episode eight hundred and forty nine of the Late Round Fantasy Football podcast sponsored by a FanDuel. Thanks for tuning in. The Fantasy football playoffs are here and the Late Round Fantasy Football Patreon. It's still going strong. Join the patreon and you can get rest of season rankings and tiers, weekly rankings and tiers, a data dump that includes fantasy football playoff strength of schedule, an awesome discord community, and more. This isn't all your thing for me. I'm not gonna stop when the fantasy season stops. I mean, I'm gonna take a little bit of a break, but we're getting right in a prospects season and more dynasty focused content right when the season ends. So check it all out by heading to Lateround dot com. Dawson Knox returned to action in Week fourteen. He likely didn't play the kind of snaw he's gonna play rest of season, and there were reports that he would be eased back in. But with that being said, I think it was a good week overall for Dalton Kincaid. He actually had his best route participation since Week ten, and he still had a twenty two percent target share. The bigger problem was that, according to Fantasy Life's utilization report, his average depth of target was the lowest that it's been in weeks. But I'd expect something like that to fluctuate. Even though Kincaid didn't perform, I'm not overly concerned about his rest of season outlook. Zay Flowers has now played three full games without Mark Andrews this season. Andrews missed Week one, Week twelve, and then Week fourteen. In those games, Flowers scored seventeen point seven, twenty three point two and twenty PPR points. His target shairs in those games forty eight percent, twenty seven percent, and twenty five percent. His route participation over his last two has been one hundred percent. He's run a route on all of Baltimore's dropbacks, and his usage isn't like what we saw back in Week one. If you remember, during his big breakout to start the year, Flowers had an averaged up the target of just two point six yards in that game. Over his last two, it's been six and twelve yards. He's in a very good spot for the fantasy playoffs. There was a rap sheet report before Week fourteen staying that Austin Eckler's usage was gonna change, that the Chargers were going to use their other running backs and have more of a rotation, and that kind of happened, but it also kind of didn't happen. Eckler did see his running back rush are dropped a fifty two point six percent in that game. That was his lowest mark since Week one, but his route participation was over seventy percent. That gave him his second highest participation of the season, and he played seventy two percent of their snaps. That was more than the majority of his games this year. So the Chargers may have tried to do more to get their other backs involved, but game script and Eckler's pass catching ability it kept him on the field. All players obviously get a downgrade with Justin Herbert now out, but that should also mean more negative game scripts, and that'll at least mean more Austin Eckler more than likely. Evan Ingram went off against the Browns this past week and I wasn't ready for it at all. Ingram hosts an eleven catch ninety five yard two touchdown line. Against Cleveland, he scored thirty two and a half PPR points. That's impressive enough, but it's even more impressive when you consider Ingram became just a second tight end the season to score more than eight PPR points against Cleveland. They've been absolutely dominant against tight ends this year. Ingram's target share, it's up a little bit. Without Christian Kirk. It was about twenty two point four percent per game to start the season, but then across his last two games it's been closer to twenty four percent, so there's a little bit of a bump. The real difference, though, is that his touchdown regression is hit. He's now scored three times over his last two He has a tough tight end schedule in the fantasy playoffs, but doesn't matter much for him. He's locked in right now. After Jalen Warren's first game without Matt Canada, I thought people were being a little bit over the top about his usage. He scored just seven PPR points, but his usage it was basically the same as what it's been throughout the season, So why not buy into him a little bit given the overall sentiment, Well, things haven't really gotten better without Canada. Warren has now scored no more than eight PPR points in his three games without Matt, Canada's offensive coordinator. His running back rush share, it's actually shrinking. During his four games before the Canada firing, his running back rush share was forty three percent per game. Over his last two that's been closer to thirty six percent. I do think better days are ahead versus what we've been seeing, but it doesn't look like the Steelers are going to make a dramatic change with Jalen Warren versus Najie Harris. I don't know if that was the expectation per se, but it was always a possibility without Matt Canada. Devon a Chan's usage in Week four team was pretty interesting. He only saw a quarter of Miami's running back rushes, but he hit a season high twenty seven percent target chair. According to Fantasy Life, a Chan played one hundred percent of the team's two minute snaps and he was on the field for sixty seven percent of their long down and distance snaps. Those were both season highs and they're a key reason that his target shair was as high as it was. That's a good sign though, Miami gets Dallas and Baltimore in the fantasy playoffs, and that's helpful to know that if this trend continues, a Chan could still be a viable option in those tougher matchups because if he's the receiving back, if the Dolphins lose a lead, which is possible if they have a negative game script, he's gonna be on the field. This week will likely be a little bit different though, against the Jets. Just when we think that we know how the Ravens backfield is going to project, things change. In Week fourteen, Justice Hill played forty two percent of Baltimore snaps. That was his highest mark since Week nine. He didn't carry the ball once, but he played a receiving role with a twenty nine percent rout participation. When looking at their previous game versus the one that we just watched, Keaton Mitchell saw a snapshare drop by thirteen percentage points. His route participation fell from thirty eight percent to sixteen percent. That's a pretty significant difference. He fortunately saw sixty percent of Baltimore's running back rushes in Week fourteen, but it does look like that there's still a cap ceiling to his receiving profile unless he breaks a big play, which is always possible, but that's something to keep in mind down the stretch. I don't hide from my misses in fantasy football. I'm gonna get stuff wrong, I'm gonna get stuff right. That's just how this goes. Calling Deebo Samuel more of a cell than a buy a couple of weeks ago, that was a huge miss on my end. Deebo's been the top wide receiver in fantasy football over the last two weeks. Even if he does regress, which I'm expecting to still happen to some degree. It was an l I won't get everything right, and I definitely did not get that right. The forty nine ers offense was interesting this past week. Week though, Deebo saw a thirty three percent target chair, one of his highest of the season, and that came at a price for Christian McCaffrey. CMC finished Week fourteen with just a three point seven percent target chair. His route participation, though, was on point. It was the exact same that has basically been all season long. That was the thesis as to why I expected Debo to not maintain his Week twelve pace. Then Week thirteen happened where he was just Deebo Samuel. He had probably his best game of his season. He did a whole lot with very little, and then this past week, Week fourteen, he took a lot of the Christian McCaffrey looks. So hand me the l on that recommendation. But I'm still expecting the forty nine ers pass catchers to be somewhat of a roller coaster rest of season. Basically, it's a give and take thing. If there's one word to describe the Carolina Panthers passing attack, it's probably depressing. They've thrown one passing touchdown since Week nine, but they've now played two games without Frank Reich and that coaching staff, or at least a lot of that coaching staff, and in those two games, according to Fantasy Life, Bryce Young's average depth of target is significantly higher than it was before the firing. His a dot has been eleven point three and thirteen point eight yards over his last two He never had an a dot above eight when Frank Reich was head coach, which is kind of crazy. Even though it hasn't really converted yet, that should at least give the passing attack a little bit more upside in fantasy football. The last trend this week is about my guy, Jaden Reid. Christian Watson has now missed four games this season, Weeks one through three, and then he was out this past week against the Giants. He didn't have huge snap shares here and there, but those were the games that he was out. In those contests, Jaden Reid has averaged a twenty three point three percent target share per game rate. He scored over fourteen PPR points per game, and two of those games he's been around twenty PPR points. Now, outside of those games, his target share is almost nine percentage points lower. His points per game output on almost three points lower. Reid has a legit opportunity down the stretch to help you win a fantasy title as long as Christian Watson's sideline. That's it for today's show, though, thanks to all of you for listening. If you yet subscribe to the Late Round Fantasy Football podcast, make sure you are by starting for it pretty much anywhere podcasts can be found, and don't for to follow me on Twitter at Late Round QB. Thanks for listening everyone. I'll talk to you tomorrow with the weekly Sleeper Show.