910: 15 Transactions for Week 3

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Speaker 1: This is the Late Podcast with your host JJ zacher Retha JJ Zacher reson what's up everyone. It's JJ Zachary sin in this episode nine ten of the Late Round Fantasy Football podcast sponsored by Underdog Fantasy. Thanks for tuning in. Before we get into the transactions this week, I want to send another reminder about my offer with Underdog Fantasy. If you sign up on Underdog with promo code Late Round and then make a deposit, you'll get a deposit bonus as well as a free copy of my rest of season rankings. But it's not just a static copy. You get a link to those rest of season rankings, and those rankings they're updated for you each week through the end of the fantasy season. Underdog is the best and easiest place to play fantasy sports. There's a lot to play, there's a lot to have fun with on that platform. So check it out Underdog Fantasy dot com and make sure you use promo code Late Round when you sign up. By Jamar Chase, So we've had two weeks of Jamar Chase not really being Jamar Chase. In Week one, he went six for sixty two against the Patriots, and then this past week four for thirty five. Now, I can't really sit here and tell you that his peripherals have been unbelievable because they haven't. In Week one he had a twenty point seven percent target share. In Week two it was only fourteen point seven percent. But as we know, Jamar Chase didn't have a typical summer due to his contract situation, and as we know Jamar Chase, there's a lot of evidence that he's an elite wide receiver throughout his three years in the league. Is target share per game rate, It's been about twenty six percent. There's a chance that the Chase manager in your league is frustrated right now, and maybe they're nervous because T. Higgins could be coming back soon. But the thing is, historically that hasn't really been that big of a deal. Jamar Chase's target chhare per game with him without T. Higgins has been basically the same. The main reason to buy right now, aside from the fact that he's an extremely good player who's just kind of underperformed Cincinnati. In Week three, they get Washington. The Commanders have arguably the worst secondary in football, and it's been that way for about a year now. Early numbers showed that it's the most advantageous matchup for wide receivers. That's according to my adjustin Fantasy points allowed method. So if you're gonna buy Jamar Chase right now is probably the time to do so. Hold Chase Brown. So let's stick with Cincinnati. Let's just shift our focus to that backfield. As you guys know, I talk about ambiguous backfields all the time. I talked about it throughout the summer. I've talked about it for years, and this Cincinnati Bengals group was one that I highlighted. We saw Chase Brown get a lot of hype in July and August, and he was rising in rankings, but as usual, it was important to not get too hyped up about it. That's why Brown and Moss ended up in the same tier. For me. Now, some might see that as a cop out. I didn't take a strong enough stand because both guys were in the same tier. But running back has a lot of factors to it that are out of our control. Coaching decisions drive the volume of these running back sea and we're seeing that go down in Cincinnati right now. Zack Moss has dominated touches, he's dominated snaps through two games, He's seen three quarters of the team's running back rushes, Chase Brown just one quarter of them. Zach Moss is the one who's running more routes. So in shallower leagues, I can understand dropping Chase Brown, but in twelve team leagues with normal size benches, I would wait a couple of weeks. Cincinnati's offense has not been that great, and the underlying metrics between Zack Moss and Chase Brown, they've favored Brown. Moss has seen more stack boxes, yes, but Brown has been significantly better according to next Gen stats and expected points at it per rush success rate, rushing yards over expected per attempt, and ten plus yard run rate. Now, I get it. It's a tiny sample, but it has not been close. So at the very least, Chase Brown right now, he's a handcuff. He's someone that you can just stash on your bench, but there's still time for him to create a larger role for himself. Moss hasn't run away with that job, even if his peripherals are far far better. Add Carson Steel and samaj p Ryn. So Isaiah Pacheco fractured his fibula on Sunday. He's going to be out for an extended period of time. If you look at the Chiefs running back depth chart, it's really really lacking. And the question right now is which running backs we prioritize off the waiver wire. And I don't know if I have a clear cut answer. Let me just give you some information. So first off, I think the Chiefs could end up adding more to this backfield. It was reported that Kareem Hunt was visiting with the team on Monday, so who knows which direction that goes in. But Carson Steele got some short yardage work, he got some goal line work in week two. We should expect him to probably play that role with Isaiah Pacheco's sidelined. P Ran Meanwhile, he's played as the third down back, and we have years of data showing that pe RN's a reliable pass catching threat. Just last year he had a target chair above ten percent and he's seen a few targets in twenty twenty four. And remember he just joined the team. It hasn't been that long that he's been a Kansas City Chief So strictly from a projection standpoint, Steele's probably going to see more early down work. But pe RAN's going to still be sprinkled in, and I think p Ran is going to be the pass catcher. So it is a messy situation, but these two running backs do kind of compliment each other. A potential problem, though, is that Clyde Edwards Laire could return in a couple of weeks. We don't know either way right now, so if he does return, it's just going to make the situation even muddier. Now, one thing I do think is worth noting is that at the end of that game, when Isaiah Pacheco was already out, Carson Steel was in the lineup, he was seeing touches. He was trying to close things out or at least get them in field Goale. If that didn't happen, I think I'd more easily lean samajp Ryn off the waiver wire this week, and in PPR formats, I'd probably still go in that direction. Probably clearly, there's not much conviction here. I think both of them should probably go for a similar dollar value, just based on the information that we have right now. But I think it's important to not overstate this situation. Yes, it's the Kansas City Chiefs, but the value of a running back in that offense is when that running back sees all the touches. It's when that running back has a clear workhorse role. And I don't know if one of these running backs is going to emerge and be that guy by Chris A Lava. A lot of the Lave owners are probably discouraged right now. The Saints have been the best offense in football through two weeks and Chris A Lave has about sixteen PPR points. Rashid Shahed has been the wide receiver that you want out of that offense. Now, Shaheed is here to stay. I liked him a lot entering the year he was part of the Draft Guide, but don't let his big plays overshadow a Lave's talent. It's similar to what I talked about on last week's Mailbag episode. A Lave's been above a two point zero yards per route run rate in each of his first two seasons. As I talked about last week, only very good wide receivers typically get to those marks, and he's coming off a game against Dallas where he had a forty three percent target share. The Saints just didn't throw the ball a lot because of gamescript. They had these huge plays that converted to touchdowns and game script just didn't favor them, and Chris a Lave, by the way, was very very close to scoring. The Saints offense though. This is something I talked about last week on the ten Trends episode. It's completely different year over year. Clint Kopiak is offensive coordinator. Now they're running a ton more play action and a lot more motion. In fact, last year they were dead last in play action raid. Right now they're first. If someone's worried about Chris Olave's role in this offense, you need to take advantage because these game scripts are not going to happen every week. Add Derek Carr. Since we're talking about the Saints, since we're talking about the passing attack, let's just get it out of the way. Derek Carr should be added this week. Now he has a twelve point eight percent touchdown rate. That's not sustainable. But like I just mentioned with a Lave, there have been real changes this Saints offense year over year. It's not like it's the exact same offense and all of a sudden, Derek Carr is just thriving in it. It's a completely new system. The increase of motion, the increase of play action passing alongside pretty usable weapons. It's allowed car to thrive during these first two games. But yeah, we should expect regression. He's not going to finish the season with a twelve percent touchdown rate. That's absurd. But I do think there's a legit chance the Saints are one of the surprise offenses this year. I mean, they kind of already are, so why can't Derek Carr be one of the surprises, The surprise pocket passer quarterbacks that are relevant in fantasy football? Sell JK Dobbins. So this transaction, like most cell transactions, it needs a disclaimer. You're not forcing a trade with JK Dobbins this week. You're not aggressively looking to get rid of him. Okay, deal, We're good. The reason I'm listing Dobbins as a CELL is because a lot of fantasy managers just look at stat lines. They're not digging into the peripherals. They're not looking at context and Dobbins before Monday Night Football. Because I'm recording this before Monday Night Football. He's Fantasy Football's RB three and PPR formats, and he's doing that with a forty five point eight percent running back rush share and a nine point three percent target share. Since twenty eleven, we haven't had a single top ten running back finished from a running back who finished the year with a sub fifty percent running back rush share and a sub ten percent target share. That's on a per game basis, we haven't seen it. It's not surprising that according to PFFS Expected Fantasy Points formula, Dobbins is playing a lot seven point eight PPR points per game above expectation right now. That's because he's not seeing a bellcow workload, but he's getting a lot of fantasy production. He's scoring touchdowns from well outside the goal line. That's not that sustainable. As much as I want it to be sustainable, because I have JK. Dobbins too, I know that it's not sustainable. And the Charges have run it twice within their opponent's ten yard line through two games. Dobbins only has one of those two carries, Gus Edwards Hays the other one. So it's not even a lock that when they're at the goal line that JK. Dobbins is the goal line back. And let's be real, the Chargers have faced two very friendly game scripts to start the season. They got a Raiders team in Week one who did play better in Week two, but they still might not be amazing against the run. And then in Week two they face the Panthers. The Panthers might be the most oppressing football team that I've ever watched in my life. Things likely won't be that easy when they face the Steelers and the Chiefs and we three and four, And that's definitely the concern here. I talked about the Chargers early season schedule about a month and a half ago on this podcast. We knew that this was coming. Entering the year, we knew that the Chargers could get off to a hot start on the ground and that their defense could see some favorable matchups and be relevant in fantasy. Now that it's happened, we can't lose sight of that. Now. To me, there's zero doubt in my mind that JK. Dobbins is the better running back between himself and Gus Edwards. Hypothetically he should get more work as the season goes on. But my fear is will the Chargers actually do that. Will they lean on him knowing his injury history, Because how they're using him right now, it's very very efficient. It's very effective and shouldn't we be at least a little bit concerned about his injury history, at least to some degree. There are going to be league mates out there who understand all this context. But there's also going to be league mates who don't, who see how Dobbinson's performed and they think that this is the way he's going to perform for the rest of the season. And let me just give you an example. This is very unscientific, but it's at least something. I put a poll out on Monday asking who people preferred rest of season between JK. Dobbins and Jamier Gibbs, and I specified that it was a PPR format, and while Gibbs won the pole, which he should have won the pole, it was still an eighty twenty split. Despite the fact that Gibbs is younger, he's in the better offense, he has almost the exact same running back rush share, he has a better target share, and he's the more explosive player. Now you can sit here and say, well, David Montgomery is going to get all the gold line rushes number one. We don't know if that's totally true, but number two, Gus Edwards is there with JK. Dobbins as well, and the Lions offense projects to be better than the Chargers offense. Look, at the end of the day, you're not trading away JK. Dobbins for anything. I'm giving you this recommendation to see if you can massively profit right now, because there's still a chance and in my rest of season rankings that I like Dobbins more than consensus does. That was the case last week. The point here is that you're looking at JK. Dobbins off of two monstrous games. There's a chance you could massively profit from that. Ad Jalen Tolbert. The Cowboys have needed a secondary pass catcher to really step up. Jalen Tolbert kind of did that in week two. He saw his role participation go from sixty nine percent in week one to eighty nine percent in week two, and he got a target share bump. He had a six and a half percent target share in week one, it was twenty two and a half percent in week two. Now, the Cowboys did have a weird script against the Saints, but Tolbert still came out with six catches for eighty two yards. There's a chance they want to feature him more moving forward. Ad Bucky Irving. I mentioned Irving on last week's fifteen Transaction Show, but he wasn't specifically called out with his own transaction because there were just a ton of backup running backs that sort of crammed together in one transaction. But this week he gets his own special place on this list. He didn't see that big of an increase in usage week over week, his running back rush share increased by about four percentage points, but Rashad White continues to struggle on the ground. According to ext gen Stats, only Trey Benson, Javonte Williams, and DeAndre Swift have worse yards over expected per attempt rates. White ranks in the bottom six and success rate two. Irving on a per touch basis has been better than Rashad White on the ground this year, and this is kind of similar to what I talked about with Chase Brown earlier, where the backup running back is just running better than the starter on a per touch basis. The difference is that White's a good pass catcher and he has more talent than someone like Zach Moss. But we could slowly see a change happen in Tampa Bay. And Irving also has injury upside and right now Rashad White is dealing with a minor groin injury, so it makes all the sense in the world to add Bucky Irving Ad Jordan Whittington. So Pookaakua, He's out for an extended period of time, we know that. But now Cooper Cup is banged up. He suffered an ankle injury. He missed the second half of Sunday's game. Now, I mentioned last week that rookie Jordan Whittington was more of a slot guy. He's more of a one to one replacement with Cooper Cup. Before going down, Cup had run sixty nine percent of his routes from the slot on the season. Whittington stepped into that role when Cooper Cup was injured. He ran nine of his thirteen routes from the slot. He's the more direct replacement for Cooper Cup and that makes him a smart ad this week. And for the record, I mentioned to Marcus Robinson and Tyler Johnson last week that's why they're not getting a transaction. But those guys should still be rostered too by Brock Bowers. One of the few bright spots at tight end this season has been the rookie Brock Bowers, the dude has been a monster pre Monday Night Football. He's the only tight end with double DIGITPPR points in each of his first two games. He's seen a twenty five percent target chair that's the third highest in the league at the position. Now, Bowers is being called out here because he hasn't necessarily had this blow up game yet. The market probably isn't high enough on him because to me, he's easily a top five tight end. Like easily, there are plenty of valid arguments to be made that he's the tight end two, maybe even the tight end one in fantasy football. And we're saying that already as a rookie, as in he's only played two games in the NFL. Bowers was an elite prospect who had an elite score in my prospect model, and he's already showing up in a pretty mediocre offense. We should feel very excited about having Brock Bauers on our team. So there's a chance that people just haven't caught up yet. We see this a lot with young players. People are skeptical, they're concerned that it's just this blip, but usually the opposite is happening. If a talented player like Brock Bowers, or like what we saw with Elik Neighbors this past week, Marvin Harrison Junior. When they have those games, you buy into them, you don't run away from them. And with brock Bowers, he hasn't had this massive productive day. I'm talking like obvious tight end one performance. He's just been very, very steady with very very good peripherals and that's why he might be a nice buy. AD Hunter Henry. So I mentioned that brock Bowers is third in the NFL and tight end target share. You know who's number one? Yeah, it's clearly Hunter Henry. That's why I'm talking about him. In week two, Hunter Henry saw a fifty percent target share, He saw half of New England's targets. His role participation over the first two games eighty two eighty seven percent. Those are both elite numbers given the state of the tight end position. Hunter Henry needs to be added. AD Quinton Johnston. So, as we know, Quentin Johnson had a pretty miserable rookie season, but year two is different. He's got this new offensive system, he's got new coaches, He's playing a different role in this offense. He's seen target chairs in his first two games of twenty one percent and thirty two percent. Last season, he didn't have a single game with a target chair above twenty percent, and then in Week two he went off for five catches, fifty one yards and two touchdowns. Now, I will be honest, I don't think you should go absolutely nuts off the waiver wire for Quentin Johnston because typically how a wide receiver or really any player performs during his rookie season, that's predictive for what's to come. Not only that, but the Chargers have been a bottom ten team in neutral script pass ray through the first two weeks. We know they want to run the football. So these high target shairs that Quentin Johnson might see, they're high target chairs on less volume. That's not ideal. But regardless, he should be added this week. Maybe things finally clicked for him. Add Cam Akers and Damian Pierce. Joe Mixon suffered an ankle injury on Sunday night, and Houston's taking it quote day by day, Well, the Texans clearly don't understand that waivers run early Wednesday morning. In a lot of leagues, we can't just take things day by day. It's not very helpful. But anyway, if Mixon's out, cam Akers is a shot to see a lot of work and one of the best offenses in football. Damian Pierce was out with a hamstring injury in week two. He might not be available in week three, and Akers, who was active for the Texans, he stepped in. He got some early down work for Joe Mixon when Mixon was sidelined, and then Dara A. Gumbiwale was sprinkled in there as well because he's their pass catching back, he's their third down back. So basically, what I'm saying here is with Pierce's injury, you can still add cam Akers because Pierce might not be able to play in Week three. But if Pierce is active, I would expect him to be the number two back in this Texans offense or the number one back hypothetically if Joe Mixon were to miss time. But I don't think that Pierce would just see Joe Mixon's workload. It would probably end up being some sort of committee add Jawan Jennings. So on Monday evening on the East Coast, of course, Kyle Shanahan told reporters that Deebo Samuel has a calf strain. He's gonna be sidelined for a couple weeks. Why not? Why not have another injury to a top two, top three round guy? Why not? The next man up in that offense is Juwan Jennings. He's the only wide receiver outside of Brandon Ayuk and Deebo Samuel to have run more than five routes against the Vikings. When a player like Deebo Samuel leaves a lineup, it just means a higher concentration of targets are going to go to the established players in that lineup. So yeah, I guy like Brandon Ayuke George Kittle, They're gonna see an uptick in target chair. But Jawan Jennings will too. And if you want a deeper look, check out rookie Jacob Cowing. He had a really strong production profile. Does Za Model actually liked him a good bit. He'll only have to beat out Chris Conley and Ronnie Bell to get on the field in three wide receiver sets. Now, the one thing I will say is Cowing mostly played in the slot in college. That's where Jennings been lining up with Deebo Samuel and Brandon au Kealthy sixty three and a half percent of Jennings routes have come from the slot. But we could just see them move Jennings to the outside and then Cowing into the slot and he could work in this offense. He's a really shifty receiver. I think Kyle Shanahan could get a lot out of him. So in deep leagues keep Cowing's name in mind as well, but overall, I think the ad is probably Juwan Jennings. Add the Tampa Bay Buccaneers defense. The Buccaneers are at home this week and they get bo Nix in the Broncos. Their six and a half point favorites. The over under in that game, depending on the book, is under forty points. Denver's been pressured at the ninth highest rate in football to start the year. Tampa Bay has been a top half team in pressure rate, and the Broncos are a top ten favorable opponent thus far and adjusted points allowed to opposing defenses, so the Buccaneers are a pretty obvious play. That's it for today's show, though, thanks 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 podcast can be found and don't fred to follow me on Twitter at Late Round QB. Thanks for listening everyone, I'll be back in your ears tomorrow with the Weekly Ten Trends episode.