932: Week 8 Sleepers

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Speaker 1: This is the Late Podcast with your host JJ Zacherath JJ zacher reefon What's up everyone. It's JJ Zachary sin in this episode nine and thirty two of the Late Round Fantasy Football podcast sponsored by Underdog. Thanks for tuning in. Last week's sleeper episode was probably the worst one of the season. It was a lower scoring week across the league and that definitely had an impact on the picks. But the picks were bad. Drake May was a good streamer, Romeo Dobbs had a good game, and the tight end streamers were actually solid across the board, but there wasn't a whole lot of good. Meanwhile, pretty much every deep sleeper flopped. Matthew Stafford was a huge disappointment. Jordan Whittington didn't run a single route. Christian Watson had a six percent target share. It was a really bad week. I'm hoping it's going to be the worst week of the season now before we go and turn things around this week. Look, I know that a lot of you are football fans, but I'll also know a lot of your basketball fans too, And the NBA is back to celebrate Underdog's offering a boosts on all NBA only pick amentaries through October twenty seventh. That's on top of the boost Hober promotion that's been running throughout the month. Go check it out, and if you're on the site and you're ready to join, make sure you use promo code Late Round when you're signing up. That'll get you a nice deposit bonus and you also get access to my rest of season rankings their email to you after you sign up, Deposit and play. That's on Underdog Fantasy dot Com or through the Underdog app, and that's promo code late Round when you sign up. As usual, we'll kick things off with players rostered in ten to fifty percent of Yahoo leagues, and we'll go with the one quarterback that I have in this tier this week. That's Bo Nix. Like I said in the fifteen Transactions episode, this week, Nix gets the Panthers, and the Panthers have been a plus matchup this year. They rank as the second best matchup for quarterbacks by justin points allowed. Nix's at over nineteen points per game over his last three and that's driven largely by the fact that he's given fantasy managers over six points per game this season. With his legs. The Broncos haven't implied total over twenty five points this week. That's something that we're not gonna see very often. That should make us feel even more confident about bo Knicks. Running back is kind of tough this week, But I've got a couple of options for you in this tier. I'll stick with that Broncos offense. I'll go with Jalil McLoughlin. He's only been playing about a quarter of Denver snaps of late, but this could be a game script that they don't typically see. Carolina is the best matchup for running backs by justin fantasy points allowed. And get this, Carolina has played seven games this year, and four of those seven games we're talking about more than half of their opponents. And four of those seven games we saw multiple running backs score ten plus PPR points against them. So backup running backs are consistently putting up decent fantasy days. Maybe this week it's gonna be Javonte Williams and Jalil McLoughlin. The Saints have struggled a lot against the run recently. They've seen running backs against them in each of the last three weeks. Rank has top five running backs in fantasy scoring, and that's also been the case in four of their last five that's resulted in New Orleans rank has the sixth best opponent for running backs by justin fantasy points allowed. The Chargers get them this week, so of course you're gonna fire up JK. Dobbins, but there's some chance that we see a little bit of COMMANDI Videll too. Fidelle saw a week over week rise from week six to week seven and snapshare backfield touches and route participation. The Chargers are currently seven and a half point home favorites, so if this game script favors them, maybe Viadelle gets a little bit of a bump in terms of touches. It's not easy to find backs who have locked in workloads in this tier, but I do think that Videll can work in deeper formats. You just have to hope that game script goes the way that we think that it will. And then, speaking of game script, there's some chance that the Jets face a positive game script this week because they get New England and their seven point favorites. New England's been the third most advantageous matchup for running backs this year. Putting Braylan Allen out there as a desperation play. I know his usage has dropped with the coaching changes that we've seen in New York, but the Jets also haven't seen great game scripts with this new coaching staff or without Robert sala. I should say that could change this week, and that's why Braylen Allen once again is kind of a desperation play. Moving on to wide receiver. I know I talked a little bit about Jayalen McMillan on the fifteen Transaction Show, but he's still well under that fifty percent rostered mark. I think he's interesting this week against Atlanta because obviously Mike Evans and Chris Godwin they're sidelined, and they're Sterling Shepard too. Shepherd's technically a deep sleeper, but since we're talking Buccaneers wide receivers right now, let's just address him. I'm not sure how exactly the Bucks are going to deploy these wide receivers, and it's important. It's important to know that information because right now, when you look at this trio of wide receivers and Sterling Shepherd, Jalen McMillan, and Trey Palmer, all of them are probably gonna thrive the most out of the slot, and we've seen that role be really valuable this year. Chris Godwin was basically having a career year. We just don't know exactly who's gonna play that role. There might even be a rotation, but after more thinking, I think it might go to Sterling Shepherd and again this week they get the Falcons. The Falcons have allowed the fourth highest adjusted slot rate in the league, meaning teams are really focusing in on their slot wide receivers when they go up against the Falcons. They're targeting them at a high rate. So I wouldn't be surprised if that's Sterling Shepherd this week. It doesn't mean that Jalen McMillan has less subside or wasn't the guy to get off the waiver wire. There's a lot of unknown with McMillan as a prospect, and to me he was a good prospect. You always want to throw that dart when you're talking waivers. I'm a believer in the talent. All I'm saying here is, don't be surprised if Sterling Shepherd has a decent outing and is usable too. The only Packers wide receiver who gets a reasonable number of snaps who's available right now in this tier is Dontevian Wicks. All the other wide receivers are now over that fifty percent mark. Green Bay gets Jacksonville this week, and the Jags secondary is terrible. The whole defense is, but Jacksonville ranks is the easiest opponent for wide receivers by justin fantasy points allowed, and teams are averaging seventy seven more passing yards against the Jags compared to their season long averages. Wicks essentially split time with Christian Watson last week, and we should expect mostly the same here in Week eight. But even on limited snaps, Wicks had an eighteen percent target share thanks to an absurd targets per route run rate. He has by far the best targets per route run rate of all Packers wide receivers, which is a sign that he's getting open. He's in a good spot this week now. Jerry Judy didn't have a good game without Amari Cooper last week. It was the Cedric Tillman Show, but Judy ran a route on ninety eight percent of Cleveland's dropbacks. He's gonna be running a ton of routes for the Browns, and he's gonna be doing it mostly as an outside receiver. He ran about thirty one percent of his routes last week from the slot. That's according to PFF Well Baltimore their opponent this week. That's a team that's been attacked on the outside this year at the second highest rate in football. They've also faced the second highest neutral script pass rate. Teams are throwing the ball against the Ravens and Judy, and this also applies to Cedric Tillman, who I was going to talk about later, but again I'll just talk about him now. Judy and Tillman. They're also getting what could be a quarterback upgrade. I think a lot of us think it will be a quarterback upgrade with Jamis Winston starting. So I think both of those Browns receivers, just on volume alone, work as sleepers. Ricky Piersoll is still under that fifty percent mark, and Jacob Cowing he obviously is too. This is another situation where we're going to talk about two wide receivers from the same team because there is some intrigue here. Deebo Samuel has pneumonia. Brandon Ayuk now out for the year, I would imagine that in this matchup against Dallas, a team that's been pretty bad against the run, I would imagine the forty nine ers are gonna go pretty run heavy. But with Deebo likely out Naiyuk definitely out, we're gonna see a good number of routes run for both of these rookie wide receivers. And keep in mind we don't know about Juwan Jennings yet. Pearsall led all forty nine ers last week in routes run. We should feel good about his usage, but with all these injuries, we're likely going to see Jacob Cowing as well. And Cowing had a really, really interesting production profile in college one of his objective comps in the Zap Model spit Out Tank Dell, So keep an eye on both of these rookies this week and a matchup that's actually a top ten one for wide receivers when looking at justin Fantasy points allowed. And then in that same game on the other side of the ball, as Jalen Tolbert. The Cowboys had their bye last week, so we didn't see him play, but since Week one, Tolbert's average a route participation rate of eighty seven percent his target share per game rate, it's been respectable. It's been at sixteen percent. There's nothing wrong with that in an offense that ranks second highest in neutral script pass rate. Now San Francisco is not the best matchup, but his participation in this offense makes Tolbert usable at tight end. I'm gonna go back to Hunter Henry. It's not a terrible matchup against the Jets. This week, New York ranks fifth and adjusted tight end target share allowed, meaning teams are forcing it to tight ends at a higher rate than normal when they face the Jets. And as I said earlier, this week, Henry's had target chairs of sixteen percent and twenty five percent with Drake May under center, So he's an okay play. And then before we get to the deep sleepers, I do want to call out Taysom Hill. There's a chance that he plays this week, and with Derek Carr banged up, that could mean a whole lot of Taysom Hill in the Saints offense, So keep an eye on his injury. We're now onto players rostered in fewer than ten percent of Yahoo leagues, or are deep sleepers of the week. I'll throw out Jamis wins in the start, even though I doubt many of you need to go in his direction this week, at least in single quarterback formats. Like I said with Judy and Tillman, the Ravens have been thrown on this year almost more than any other team, and that's resulted in them ranking as the fourth best opponent for quarterbacks by justin fantasy points allowed. I hope you don't have to use Jameis Winston, but he is in my top twenty five right now. Now running back, I'm gonna go back to Deernest Johnson as long as Travis Etn is out. This week's spot against the Packers looks a lot better for Johnson than last week's matchup did because we want negative game scripts for him. That's very possible with the Jags as home underdogs. The Packers have also allowed the fifth highest adjusted targets here to running backs. As we know, Johnson is the receiving back without Travis Etn, He's been running more routes than Tank Bigsby. So if this game script goes south, it's going to become a Deernest Johnson game. Now. I already talked about Cedric Tillman, Sterling Shepard, and Jacob Cowing as three deep sleepers from this group. But I have more for you. First off, keep an eye on DK Metcalf's injury. If he doesn't go, we're likely going to see more of Jake Bobo. That's really all I got for him. But there is Tyler Boyd. That's another deep sleeper. This one's a deep cut for sure, but with DeAndre Hopkins now out of Tennessee, there may be more targets funneled Boyd's way. And Detroit is their opponent this week. Not only are the Lions massive favorites, so there could be a negative game script which forces more passing, but Detroit has been by far the worst team this year against slot receivers, and Boyd has run eighty one percent of his routes from the slot this season, so he's a deep target. And then lastly, there's Troy Franklin. He's been playing about two thirds of Denver snaps over their last two He hit a twenty five percent target chair in Week seven. Now he gets that great match up against the Panthers, the one that I've been talking about all episode long. It's actually a low key, great spot for him. Now. I was gonna talk about Jatavian Sanders in this section, but with Bryce young now Ston, it's tough to get overly excited. So there's no deep tight end sleeper this week at defense. Though I talked about Detroit on the fifteen Transaction Show. They're now rostered in way too many leagues to say that they're a streamer. If you didn't get them, you could look at the Chargers against the Saints, and then maybe as a deeper play the Falcons against the Bucks, just considering the bucks injuries. But it's actually a really, really tough week, probably the worst week so far this season for streaming defenses. Now, as usual, I want to give you a couple of pick Um choices to use over on Underdog. Unfortunately, at the time of this recording, though, we can only really make touchdown picks because of how deep these plays are. We're not talking justin Jefferson here. So here are my two touchdown picks. You ready for this Sterling Shepherd Tyler Boyd. It feels like it's like twenty eighteen with those picks, but we're doing it. Let's ride with what George Pickens would call our slot merchants. That's it for today's show, though thanks Tolby for listening. If you get 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 follow me on Twitter at Late Round QB. Thanks for listening everyone. Tomorrow we got a mailbag episode in the morning, and just a couple of hours after that we got another episode of Late Round Perspectives. I'll talk to you then,