823: 10 Trends for Week 8

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Speaker 1: This is the Lady Podcast with your host JJ zacher Retha j je Zacherson. What's up everyone, It's JJ Zacharyesen in this episode eight hundred and twenty three of the Late Round Fantasy Football podcast sponsored by FanDuel. Thanks for tuning in. Before we getting into the trends this week, I want to shout out the Late Round Fantasy Football newsletter. If you want my written content aside from my draft guide, my prospect guide, that's where you can find it. And it's totally free. Just had the Lateround dot com. Click newsletter and subscribe. Now let's get to these ten trends. Trend one this week is that Alexander Madison saw decline in usage. I had cam akers as a dart throw by candidate a couple of weeks back, but then Alexander Madison saw jumpin usage in Week six against Chicago, but that jump came back down in Week sevens and saw a snapshare go from seventy nine percent to fifty three percent. He's now been below the fifty five percent snap rate mark in two of his last three, and in Week seven he saw his lowest running back rush are of the season at forty four percent. Cam Akers had more rushes than Alexander Madison had. If Akers is still on your waiver wire, he should be added. He just was rostered in too many leagues for me to recommend that. On the fifteen Transaction Show this week, speaking of the Vikings, I talked about this before, but the trend just keeps continuing. The Vikings currently have sixteen offensive touchdowns and all sixteen of those scores have come via the pass. It's absolutely wild that type of number regresses. That's not going to keep up, and when it does regress, it'll make Kirk Cousins a slightly less viable fantasy option. Now. Fortunately, the Vikings are a pass heavy team, so their rate of scoring passing touchdowns is going to be higher than the league average. It's just not going to be this high. Okay, I've got one more Vikings trend for you this week, justin Jefferson's now been sidelined for two games. In those two games, TJ. Hoginson has averaged a target chair per game rate of twenty seven point three percent. Before that Jefferson injury, his target chair per game was nineteen point two percent. I made the comparison the other night on Twitter, But Hawkinson's essentially the tight end version of Alvin Kamara. Right now, he gets low average at the target dumpoffs, which are basically a cheat code in PPR formats. As long as Jefferson's out, those are going to continue coming his way at a high rate. During the Chicago Bears' first four games this year, they ranked second in total touchdowns allowed. Defensively, they were thirty second in sack rate, and they were dead last and passing epa per drop back allowed. But that Bears defense isn't the cakewalk matchup that it once was. Over their last three games, their twentieth in offensive touchdow allowed and their tenth best in passing EPA per dropback allowed. Now, they faced relatively easy competition against the Commanders, Vikings, and Raiders, but it's something to keep in mind when you're using players against the Bears. The matchup probably isn't as easy as it looks on paper. The Saints are using Taysom hill Moore as a traditional tight end. He saw a seventeen percent target share in Week six. He followed that up this past week with a nine point four percent target share. His route participation over his last two games have been sixty two percent and seventy one percent. His previous season high was forty three percent. That's making him very viable in fantasy football because not only does he have some reception viability now, but we know the touchdown upside is there given how they've used him historically at the goal line. According to fantasylife dot COM's data, And I say this each time that I reference that site, but this is absolutely free you guys, you should check it out. But according to Fantasy Life, Christian McCaffrey has tied for the league lead right now in rout participation with one other running back. That one other running back is not Bejon Robinson. It's not Travis etn it's not Kyron Williams. It's Rashad White. Now, White hasn't had the best season in the world from a fantasy perspective, He's kind of just been fine. But he's seen a double digit percentage target share in each of his last five games, and Tampa Bay running backs have faced the toughest schedule in the league thus far, and adjusted fantasy points allowed, the schedule does open up for him moving forward, So I'm optimistic. Now, another player that I liked pre draft Drake London. He saw one target, he didn't catch a pass in Week one. Since then, though, he's averaged a twenty four point three percent target chair per game rate, he's averaged thirteen point nine PPR points per game. That PPR points per game rate since week one. It ranks as a low end wide receiver too high end wide receiver three and he's done that with just two receives touchdowns. He's not doing anything special in the touchdown department. Considering their schedule. I'd look at London more as a buy than a cell right now. A player who's really bawling out recently is Darren Waller. He started the year with PPR finishes at tight end of tight end eighteen, tight end four, tight end twenty five, and tight end twenty six. Over his last three he's been tight end seven, thirteen and two. He's average almost a thirty percent target share over his last three games. That's really keeping him elevated because the Giants offense is not good, but because of those target shairs and the way that Darren Waller's trending, he's a must start moving forward. It's been a rough year for Devonte Smith. He's seen a target share of twenty two percent, which really isn't that bad, but he's just not converting. He's now scored fewer than ten pper points and four of his seven games this year in twenty twenty two, that happened five to times in seventeen games. You likely have to start him, and he's got a great matchup this week against Washington, but it has not been easy. The last trend this week is about the really obnoxious Arizona Cardinals backfield. Everyone's spent up on Amari de Mercado a couple of weeks back, and then we all watched a split backfield for Arizona. But in week seven, De Marcado had the role that a lot of people thought that he might have when James Connor went down. He ended up playing seventy eight percent of Arizona snaps and he had a bellcow workload. He saw ninety three percent of their running back rushes, and he had a fifteen percent target chair. If that continues, there's gonna be plenty of usability. Just be aware they can change things in an instant. After all, that's what they did from week six to week seven. That's it for today's show, though, thanks to all of you for listening. If you had subscribe to the Late Round Fantasy Football podcast, make sure you are by searching for it pretty much anywhere podcast can be found, and to follow me on Twitter at Late Round QB. Also remember there is a Late Round Fantasy Football Instagram account. You can check that out at Late Round FF. Thanks for listening to everyone, I'll talk to you tomorrow with the Weekly Sleeper Show