930: 15 Transactions for Week 8

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Speaker 1: This is the l with your host JJ zach Zachers.

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Speaker 2: What's up everyone, It's JJ zachar Esen in this episode nine and thirty of the Late Round Fantasy Football podcast sponsored by Underdog.

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Speaker 1: Thanks for tuning in.

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Speaker 2: Before getting into the transactions this week, I want to let you know about a cool new game over on Underdog that you can play through October. Head to the Promotions tab in the Underdog app and play Red Zone Rush. It's sort of like a dating app, but instead of swiping left or right on a potential significant other, you're swiping left or right on who you think is going to get into the end zone that week.

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Speaker 1: And best of.

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Speaker 2: All, every red Zone entry will receive a boost. You can check out Red Zone Rush by heading to Underdog Fantasy dot com or downloading the Underdog app. And if you're new to Underdog, make sure you sign up with promo code Late Round. You'll get a nice deposit bonus and you'll get access to my rest of season rankings for absolutely free. Just sign up, use promo code Late Round, make a deposit, and start playing. Buy DeVante Smith. I think one of the easier transactions this week is to buy DeVante Smith. He only had two targets against the Giants it was one target depending on your source. That was just the second time in his career where he saw fewer than three targets in a game. It's not like the Eagles just stopped using Smith. He had a ninety one percent rout participation that's right in line with his season long average. The Eagles, according to what j justph Fantasy Points allowed, they have the third easiest schedule for wide receivers. Over the next four weeks, they get the Bengals, Jags, Cowboys, and Commanders. The rest of season schedule the absolute best in the league. Things are set up very well for Devonte Smith bounce back. Add Juwan Jennings and Ricky Pierson. So Brandon Ayuka is now out for the year and Deebo Samuel hospitalized with pneumonia, the forty nine ers need Juwan Jennings and Ricky pearsall now. Jennings was out in Week seven, but we saw what Jennings did earlier this season. He's had a really good year to date, even with Ayuk in the mix. Jennings said at least an eleven percent target chair in every single game this season, and we all remember what happened in Week three against the Rams. He scored forty six and a half PPR points. So to me, I think Jennings is the top priority this week, but keep in mind he's dealing with a hip injury, and that's where Ricky Pearsall comes in. Pearsall made his debut in Week seven. He led the forty nine ers in routes run. Now, he only caught three balls for twenty one yards, but he had a sixteen percent target chair that's not too bad. Pearsall was an older prospect, but what the Zap model liked about him is that he showed off a lot of versatility in college. Kyle Shanahan can do a lot with Ricky Pearsall, and anytime there's a good rookie like Pearsall is who's walking into a really good opportunity, you should give them a serious look off the waiver wire. Now, again, Jennings is probably the preferred choice here just because of how he's performed this year, but I think that Pearsaw actually has more upside than what the market currently believes. So I think being aggressive with both of those wide receivers this week makes a lot of sense and then for deeper formats. Don't forget about Jacob Cowing either. He was a highly productive wide receiver in college. He might get more opportunities without Ayuk. So I'd rank them Jennings, pearsall and than Cowing. But I think all of them, especially Jennings and pearsall need to be added relatively aggressively, especially during a week where there's not great waiver wire options sell Naji Harris. It's not very common for me to repeat a transaction week over week, but in this case, I think I have to because I do think that even after Naji Harris's good Week seven, he's still a cell candidate. He's now had two great games in a row, but there's still a lot working against him.

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Speaker 1: Number One.

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Speaker 2: Unsurprisingly, his snapshare has fallen with Jalen Warren back in the lineup. It was forty eight percent in week six. His snaphare was fifty percent in Week seven. Those numbers were closer to seventy percent without Warren. He's also losing work as a receiver. That's the second thing. Over the last two weeks, Harris's route participation thirty six percent and thirty two percent. Again, those are with Jalen Warren. He was well above the sixty percent mark. Without Warren, that's led to two straight games with target chairs below ten percent, and then lastly, schedules. Not everything, but it's definitely something. And I've talked about this before with Harris, but in the Fantasy playoffs in Week sixteen and seventeen, the Steelers get the Ravens and the Chiefs. Those are two of the toughest matchups that you could possibly find across the league. Now, look, calling Harris is cell last week, that wasn't a good idea because he had a decent outing in Week seventy scored sixteen PPR points. So I'll take the l there, but I would not expect this to be the norm moving forward. And even if it is the norm, good luck using Najie Harris in the Fantasy playoffs. I think there's gonna be a lot of volatility there at Jalen Wright. Jalen Wright's been brought up in this podcast in the past, but with tow a tongue of Yoloa potentially coming back from his head injury in Week eight, there's more reason to be in to write now he is the number three back in that backfield, but he probably has the best per rush numbers of the three running backs this season. That's him, Devon h Chan and Raheem Mostert. He leads a Chan and Mostart and yards after contact per attempt, rushing yards over expected per attempt EPA per rush and success rate. It could only be a matter of time before his workload increases, especially with a Chan and Moster just being ineffective this year. And if that happens, if Wright does get more work, it's gonna be in an offense, it's hypothetically more efficient than what this offense has been would without two. And it doesn't hurt that Miami has the best schedule for running backs over their next four games. So yeah, I'd rather have eight Chan. I'd probably rather have Mostert still, but those guys aren't available in a lot of leagues. Jalen Wright is by Tyrone Tracy. So we saw Tyrone Tracy for two weeks without Devin Singletary. He played as a bellcow for the Giants. With Singletary back in Week seven, we weren't totally sure what that backfield was going to look like, and honestly, it was kind of awesome for Tyrone Tracy. He didn't put up monster numbers against the Eagles. He only had six point two PPR points, but he handled half of New York's running back rushes. More importantly, he ran twenty seven routes according to PFF. Devin Singletary had six. Now, the Giants game scripped against Philadelphia. It was a little bit wonky, and it's definitely concerning that they didn't have Andrew Thomas this past week and all of a sudden their line got destroyed. So I think there is a lot of risk with this transaction. Don't get me wrong, but this could just be the start for Tyrone Tracy. This is evidence that they're going to use Tracy more than Devin Singletary. Maybe they didn't use Singletary because he's coming off that injury, but Tyrone Tracy has been the better running back this season, and at the very least if he's the receiving back, which makes total sense given his skill set. These potential negative game scripts that the Giants are going to face, that's a good thing for Tyrone Tracy, or at least it's not a terrible thing. Had Tracy posted awesome numbers, this wouldn't be an easy recommendation.

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Speaker 1: But he didn't.

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Speaker 2: So there's gonna be plenty of non believers out there. Don't be one of them. This is the right kind of bet to make at this point in the season. Add Keon Coleman. So the Bells added Amari Cooper last week, and then Keon Coleman. He goes out and scores a season high sixteen and a half PPR points. This is why we love fantasy football. Coleman had a season best twenty one point nine percent target share on Sunday that led to his strong performance against the Titans. Look, he's a solid rookie wide receiver in a good offense. There's nothing wrong with adding that kind of player or having that kind of player on your roster. But after just one week, the narrative has largely changed, or at least for some people, it's changed. The narrative went from Keon Coleman is dust with Amari Cooper in town to Amari Cooper can help open things up for Keon Coleman. His presence can help Keon Coleman. And I'm not buying that. I mean, I'm buying the idea that Coleman can be more efficient. I'm just not buying the idea that Amari Cooper is gonna make him a better fantasy asset, especially from a ceiling perspective. The fact is, guys, Amari Cooper, he ran around on just thirty four percent of Buffalo's dropbacks on Sunday. That's not the usage that we're gonna see from Cooper week in and week out. He's their number one wide receiver. You think they're gonna have a thirty four percent role participation for a MARII Cooper all season long?

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Speaker 1: Of course not.

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Speaker 2: Keon Coleman saw seven targets, and after watching that game and looking at the film, none of those targets came with a Mari Cooper on the field unless the Titans secondary was distracted by Cooper hanging out on the sidelines. Cooper had absolutely nothing to do with Keon Coleman on Sunday and that explosion that we saw. If anything, you guys, we could use this as evidence against Keon Coleman because he was only targeted when Amari Cooper wasn't on the field, which means when Amari Cooper was on the field, Keon Coleman didn't see a single target.

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Speaker 1: Look.

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Speaker 2: I think that you should add Coleman and he should be rostered. As I always talk about on the show, rookie wide receivers, rookie players in general, they tend to do a lot better during the second half of the season versus the first half. But don't start creating narratives. There's absolutely nothing to the idea that Amari Cooper because of this one game, is good for Keon Coleman. If anything, we could use that in the reverse and say that he was bad for Coleman. If someone in your league is believing that idea, believing that narrative, then you could add Coleman this week and hypothetically trade him. Hold Braylan Allen so Breeze Hall has seen an uptick and backfield share ever since the Jets made their coaching changes. That's hurt Braylan Allen. After four straight games with at least one third of the Jets running back rushes, Allan's been around the fourteen percent running back rush share range over his last two He's not startable. You can't even throw him in your flex. But don't drop him. We're in the thick of it right now, guys. Injuries are inevitable. Allen is still one of the best handcuffs in the game, and the Jets have arguably the best rest of season schedule for running backs. So if Hall were to go down, not only should we feel confident in Braylan Allen's talent and what he could do in that backfield, but that's against a really good schedule too. Just because he's not a flex option anymore doesn't mean that he's droppable. Ads Cedric Tillman the waiver wire this week. It's not that great, So you're gonna get a transaction like this one to add Cedric Tillman. I'm telling you to add a second year wide receiver who had a historically bad yards per route run rate as a rookie. But look, DeShawn Watson, he's out for the season. Amari Cooper, he's in Buffalo, and without Cooper. In Week seven, Tillman saw a twenty five percent target share. He caught eight balls for eighty one yards. The Browns are gonna be rolling out Jerry Judy, Elijah Moore, and Tillman in three wide receiver sets. Judy has not shown anything special. Elijah Moore has underperformed since his rookie year. Maybe Tillman will carve out a role in this to Shawn Watson less offense, so you can add him this week. I just wouldn't spend more than a couple of bucks unless you're in a really really deep league. Sell Tank Bigsby and hold Dearnest Johnson. So look, a couple of weeks ago, I had Tank Bigsby as a cell and that looks kind of rough today. To be fair, though, that recommendation that was made before Travis Etn's injury, I didn't know that ETM was gonna miss time. Had I known that, of course I wouldn't have made Bigsby a sell, but regardless, it was a bad result. Now considering the Jags backfield just looks completely different these days. I thought that I would talk about Bigsby once again because after a strong Week seven, I think he's a pretty clear sell. The Jags upcoming schedule, they get the Packers, Eagles, Vikings, Lions, and Texans. They're more than likely gonna be pretty big underdogs in each one of those games. And that's a big problem for Tank Bigsby because he's still not being used as the team's primary pass catching back. Even without Travis Etn. He did see a season high thirty eight percent role participation in Week seven, but that's still not an elite number for an RB one for a top back on his team, Dearness Johnson. For a second straight week he ran more routes than Tank Bigsby. Jacksonville was just fortunate to face New England. They had a nice positive game script against them, and that really favored.

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Speaker 1: Tank Bigsby's skill set.

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Speaker 2: That's not gonna happen each week, especially with this Jacksonville team and especially with those upcoming matchups. So if you can flip him at a high I think it makes a lot of sense to do that and then don't drop Deerness Johnson. At the time of this recording, I don't know how long Travis CTN is going to be out, but as long as he is out, Johnson could be a cheap PPR play by CD Lamb. It's been kind of a disappointing year for Lamb. He's averaging fifteen point four PPR points per game. That's down over eight points per game year over year. He's scored twenty PPR points in just one game this year, but I wouldn't be overly concerned his output hasn't really been there. The last couple of games. In particular, he scored eleven point four and sixteen point one PPR points, but in those games sell target shares of twenty two percent and thirty three percent. According to PFFS Expected Fantasy Points formula, Lamb underperformed the last time that we saw him by ten PPR points. He should have had a much much better game, as I talked about last week with Dak Prescott. The Cowboys have a pretty nice rest of season schedule. They're the fifth best one for wide receivers by adjusted fantasy points allowed, and in the fantasy playoffs in weeks fifteen and sixteen, Dallas gets the Panthers and the Buccaneers. Those are two plus matchups before an okay enough matchup in week seventeen against the Eagles. Seedy, Lamb's bye week is already up.

00:14:39
Speaker 1: You don't have to.

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Speaker 2: Deal with that moving forward. I think there's a lot of value here with Lamb add Hunter Henry. We've now had two Drake may starts, and in those two games, Hunter Henry has seen target shares of sixteen percent and twenty five percent. His PPR output thirteen point one and seventeen point two points. New England's short term schedule. It is a little bit concerning. They get the Jets, Titans, and Bears over their next three. But this might be a legit connection between May and Henry, and considering the tight end landscape, Henry should be rostered in way. More than thirty one percent of Yahoo leagues sell Tucker Craft, So if you're like me, you've just been riding this Tucker Craft wave. He's scored four touchdowns over his last four games, and he's ranked as a top ten tight end in three of those four contests. Now, there's nothing wrong with his route participation, but the Packers are more than likely never gonna give this guy a really high target share in this offense. They like to spread things around. He's coming off back to back games with sub thirteen percent target chairs. He has forty six yards in those two games. According to PFF's expected Fantasy points formula, Craft has outperformed expectations so far this year by three point four PPR points per game. I think that he should still be a viable option each week. We're talking about the tight end position here, but if you compare him with someone else on your roster to upgrade one of those positions. Now might be the time to do it. This touchdown production not totally sustainable, but I get it. There's a real chance that the market isn't that bullish. If that's the case, then you could just hold him and ride this thing out. Buy Xavier Worthy. So when Rashid Rice went down with a season ending injury just a few weeks ago, many thought that Xavier Worthy would see a big uptick in usage, and that led to me making Xavier Worthy a sell within this podcast, within this fifteen transactions list. Now, the market sentiment, it's probably changed a little bit that flips them to more of a buy.

00:16:45
Speaker 1: Remember this podcast.

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Speaker 2: In these recommendations, it's based on what the market is saying more than anything else.

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Speaker 1: My stance Unworthy.

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Speaker 2: Hasn't dramatically changed, but the market stance might have because he really had hasn't done that much without Rashi Rice and his two games played without him, he totaled forty four receiving yards, but Worthy had a thirty two percent target share in Week seven that was a season I guess career high. He had a fifty six percent air yard share that was another high based on his usage. In Week seven, he underperformed versus his points per game expectation by roughly ten PPR points. Worthy has now seen his target totals at least stay the same or increase every week this season, and there's a lot up in the air a wide receiver in Kansas City right now, so it would be surprising to me if things trended in the wrong direction moving forward.

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Speaker 1: For the rookie Worthy. Add bow Nicks.

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Speaker 2: Bo Nix has averaged nineteen point three standard fantasy points per game over his last three games, but he's only thrown four touchdowns. How's this happening? Well, because he's getting it done on the ground. Over his last two games, he's rushed for one hundred and thirty six yards this season, He's giving fantasy managers six point two fantasy points per game with his legs here. In Week eight, the Broncos get the Panthers. The Panthers are the second best matchup for quarterbacks by justin fantasy points allowed the Broncos. They surprisingly have a team total north of twenty five points this week, so Bonnicks is a great streaming choice. Add the Detroit Lions defense. The Lions are at home this week. They're ten and a half point favorites against the Titans. Tennessee has been the fifth most advantageous matchup for opposing defenses this year when looking at justin fantasy points allowed, and only the Patriots have given up a higher pressure rate. All of that makes the Lions a great streaming defense. I've got two bonus transactions for you this week because we had a doubleheader on Monday night and some stuff went down. The first one is to add Rashad Bateman. He's had decent peripherals for a handful of weeks now, it's just been kind of tough to pull the trigger. But after Week seven where he got four balls for one hundred and twenty one yards in a score against the Bucks, he has to be on your radar. He's seen at least four targets in all but one game this year. He said double DIGPPR points in four of his last five. Now, it might be tough to rely on him given Baltimore's tendency to go run heavy in certain game scripts, but he needs to be part of your consideration set this week off the waiver wire. And then, unfortunately, we do have one more bonus transaction and I say unfortunately because it's due to an injury. It's due to multiple injuries. In that same Ravens Bucks game, Mike Evans left the game early after reaggravating his hamstring injury that could end up sidelining him for multiple games. But more importantly, at the end of that game, and I'm recording this soon after this happened, but at the end of the game, Chris Godwin suffered what appeared to be a season ending ankle injury. Again, I'm recording this just moments after that happened, So I can't say that he's out for the season for sure, but plenty of Twitter doctors, like Jeff Mueller, they're saying that this looks like a season ending injury for Chris Godwin. So Mike Evans is hurt, Chris Godwin's hurt. What now, Well, someone like Kate Otton, he could get a natural boost in this offense without Evans and Godwin. But the player that I'm most interested in is Jalen McMillan. He had a really good collegiate profile after playing alongside Roma Dunsay and Jalen Polk at Washington. One of his top comps in the ZAP model was Aman Ross Saint Brown. Now it's going to be really interesting to see how the Bucks end up deploying McMillan. We know that Chris Godwin role, that slot role, it's a really great role in this offense. Jalen McMillan hasn't really played that role so far this year because Godwin's been playing it, but he lived in the slot in college. That's the role that he played, so it's a natural fit in my opinion, if they want to put McMillan there. But regardless, he definitely the most intriguing wide receiver on that team who has a chance to really step up. He's the player that I would be adding this week off the waiver wire. 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 measuring for it pretty much anywhere podcast can be found, and to follow me on Twitter at Late Round QB. Thanks for listening everyone, I greatly appreciate it. I'll talk to you tomorrow with the weekly ten Trends episode.