953: 15 Transactions for Week 14

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Speaker 1: This is the last with your host, JJ Zacheratha J zacher Reef. What's up everyone, It's JJ Zachary send in this episode nine hundred and fifty three of the Late Round Fantasy Football podcast sponsored by Underdog.

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Speaker 2: Thanks for tuning in.

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Speaker 1: Before getting the transactions this week, I want to remind you that even though you drafted your fantasy teams all the way back in August, you can still do snake drafts.

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Speaker 2: Right now over on Underdog.

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Speaker 1: Just said to Underdog Fantasy dot com or download the Underdog app in the draft section, click NFL and you'll see tons of drafts you can participate in right now. And if you're new to Underdog, make sure you sign up with promo code Late Round. That'll get you a nice deposit bonus as well as my rest of season rankings, which I know those rankings aren't as important these days, but they can still be helpful. Those rankings are updated for you each Tuesday once you get the link to them, but to get them you have to sign use promo code Late Round, make a deposit, and start playing. Ad Isaac Garendo Christian McCaffrey suffered a PCL injury on Sunday night against the Bills. He was placed on IR on Monday. Now it is looking like Jordan Mason then would be a big fantasy football winner, but he has a high ankle sprain he's on IR too, So it's time for Isaac Garendo to be the number one back for the San Francisco forty nine ers. Now, we haven't seen a ton of Greendo this year, but we have seen his big playability on full display. He's had a comparable success rate to Mason this season, and his rushing yards over expected per attempt has actually been better. Now, Grenda was a prospect who didn't have really great collegiate production, but the SI speed profile was absolutely there. That's what got him and Isaiah Pacheco comp in the ZAP model. Now there's some worry about his receiving upside, and we might see Patrick Taylor steal some work there, but I think that Girndo's going to be the primary early down back for San Francisco at the very least. Like there's a lot of upside here. The forty nine ers have a pretty good running back schedule rest of season as well, according to adjusted Fantasy Points Allowed, this is the last month of the fantasy season. You can't take your waiver budget into twenty twenty five. So whatever you have left unloaded on Isaac Grendo by George Kittle. So no one's like upset if they have George Kittle in their tight end spot in fantasy football. But he's coming off a game where he scored fewer than two PPR points. He had a twelve percent target share. Maybe there's some concern, but this transaction exists because the Christian McCaffrey injury. It may be pretty beneficial to George Kittle down the stretch. With CMC in the lineup. This year, Kittle has averaged about a fifteen percent target chair per game rate that rises by over eight percentage points without McCaffrey. And that's because the forty nine ers throw to their running backs more when Christian McCaffrey is healthy. It's that simple. Their targets year per game rate with CMC this year is twenty four percent. That's to the running back position. It's fifteen and a half percent without him. That volume has to go somewhere, and it's gonna be littered throughout the offense. Someone like Kittle or maybe even someone like Juwan Jennings. They're gonna benefit, So don't lose sight of that with this CMC injury drop Kyle Pits. Look, we've gotten to the point where we have to ask, is there any real difference between Kyle Pitts and any other streamer that you get off the waiver wire. He's been beyond disappointing this year. He had a nice four game stretch in the middle of the season, but as I noted on a previous fifteen Transactions episode, the Falcons during that stretch they had a cake walk schedule for tight ends. Since then, Kyle Pitts has been horrible. Over his last four games. He's averaged three point four PPR points per game, and it's not like he's seeing targets not converting. His target share per game is eight point four percent. During that timeframe, he ran around on sixty five percent of Atlanta's dropbacks on Sunday, that was his second lowest mark of the season. Now, maybe the Falcons look at how bad their offense looked in Week thirteen and they say to themselves, we gotta get Kyle Pitts more involved. I would just be really hesitant to use Kyle Pitts in the fantasy playoffs, especially considering in Week sixteen and seventeen, the two most important weeks of the fantasy season, he gets the Giants and the Commanders. Those are two bottom half matchups for tight ends, especially when they face the Giants a Jawan Johnson. So since I'm talking about some tight ends, let's continue with the theme and talk about Jawan Johnson. Taysom Hill is out for the year. He suffered a knee injury on Sunday. Now Hill is in this like traditional tight end, but his absence could make Jawan Johnson a little bit more viable moving forward. Johnson ran around seventy nine percent of New Orleans dropbacks in Week thirteen. That was a season high. His fourteen percent target share nothing special, but that could rise just given the competition in this offense. New Orleans tight ends also get the Packers and the Raiders in Week sixteen and seventeen. Green Bay's been the sixth best matchup for tight ends this year by justin points allowed. Vegas the third best one. So at the very least, Juwan Johnson might be a decent streamer towards the end of the year. Hold Baker Mayfield. It was not a good outing for Baker Mayfield in Week thirteen. He was hurt in the middle of that game against the Panthers, but he still didn't come through. He scored ten point two standard points. He's been ad or below that mark now in two of his last three. I just don't think it's time to bail. We've seen a ceiling with Baker Mayfield this year. Now, typically that was coming with Chris Godwin, so take that with a grain of salt, but we have seen that ceiling in the Tampa Bay quarterback schedule rest of season.

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Speaker 2: It's strong now.

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Speaker 1: A couple of weeks ago we talked about what that schedule meant for Bucky Irving. So far, so good, but the same could be said for Baker. The Bucks get the Raiders, Chargers, Cowboys, and Panthers over their final four games in the fantasy season. Only the Chargers rank outside the top ten as a favorable opponent for quarterbacks by justin points allowed. We can sit here and say they're going to run the snot out of the football, which they're probably gonna try to do. It's exactly why Bucky Irving was a buye a couple of weeks ago, but the team in general should be able to score points, and if that's happening, some of those touchdowns could come through the air versus on the ground. That's obviously going to benefit Baker Mayfield. So even if you're not gonna use him every week, you probably don't want your opponents to have him either. Ad Sean Tucker. So we've been talking about handcuffs over the last month or so on the show. This transaction is just serve as a reminder that your handcuff doesn't need to only be some obvious second string running back. Sean Tucker is clearly the number three back for the Buccaneers, but he also has two outs to playing time. He could have a Bucky Irving injury or a Rashad White injury. If one of those two goes down, then Tucker would leap into being a potential flex play with upside. And I say upside because of what I just talked about. With their schedule. We're in love with Bucky Irving's potential down the stretch because number one, he's been great this year, but also we love who the Buccaneers are facing. Sean Tucker would take advantage of those matchups as well in this theoretical situation where one of Bucky Irving or Rashad White goes down. Now, this is probably more of a deeper league option, but we're at the point in the season where these types of recommendations can make this list. The waiver wire continues to be pretty thin. Anyway, add Braylan Allen. Now, if Braylan Allen is on your wave and you're thinking about getting him instead of Sean Tucker or Sean Tucker over him, go with Braylan Allen. He has more upside. And not only that, Breeze Hall's dealing with his knee injury. And yes, Hall did play in Week thirteen, but his workload did change. He had a season low two point six percent target share. He ran a route on just fifty two percent in New York's dropbacks. Now that being said, Braylan Allen's numbers in week thirteen, they didn't really improve. We saw more Isaiah Davis instead. But with Hall already banged up, it would make sense to prioritize Allen as a handcuff over some of the other higher end handcuffs. And keep in mind, no team has a better running back playoff schedule by justin fantasy points allowed than the New York Jets by Tony Pollard. So Tajay Spears returning the Titans in Week thirteen, it didn't really change Tony Pollard's workload though. In fact, Pollard saw an eighty nine percent running back rush share that was his second highest mark of the season within that statistic, but he only posted eight point eight PPR points. That was his second performance over the last three weeks with fewer than ten PPR points, and it wasn't a terrible matchup either, so that's probably making fantasy managers a little bit nervous. Eileen on the side of him bouncing back, though, Pollard hasn't dip below an eleven percent target share in a single game this year, and his remaining matchups this year they're against the Jags, Bengals, Colts, and then the Jags once again. That gives Tennessee running backs, specifically Tony Pollard, the best final stretch of opponents in the NFL, according to adjusted Fantasy points allowed. I know your trade deadlines are likely passed, but this is a by recommendation to tell you that you can be confident with Tony Pollard ad Adam Thielen. So, Adam Thielen was featured on the show a couple of weeks ago as an ad but he's getting the nod once again because he had a huge game against the Buccaneers. And yes it was Tampa Bay, but Adam Thielen hit a twenty four percent target share in that game. That was by far his highest share of the season. In his week over week rout participation, it jumped up by about ten percentage points. That's cording to PFF data. Bryce Young is playing better football and Carolina wide receivers have a top ten playoff schedule according to adjusted Fantasy points allowed, So Adam Thielen probably needs to be rostered in most twelve team leagues.

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Speaker 2: By Kyler Murray.

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Speaker 1: So, according to my adjusted Fantasy points allowed numbers, Kyler Murray has faced just three plus matchups this year, meaning he's faced three teams that rank his top sixteen favorable opponents for quarterbacks. Those teams currently rank as the fourteenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth best matchups. It's been a roller coaster of a season for Murray, at least from a fantasy perspective. He's shown off that ceiling at times he has multiple twenty eight point performances, but as we know, the floor has been kind of rough. Part of that, though, is because Arizona quarterbacks have faced the second toughest schedule in football by justin fantasy points allowed. Their four remaining games of this season aren't nearly as bad. They get Seattle, that's the fourteenth ranked team that I was referring to earlier, New England. They're the ninth best matchup Carolina, the sixth best matchup in LA. The Rams, they're the fifteenth best matchup. Now, those divisional games, they might be a little bit scary, but this is objectively an easier path than Murray's faced all year long. So I'd be more optimistic than pessimistic about Murray's December. It doesn't mean that you have to start him no matter what, but it definitely means you shouldn't be giving him up to another fantasy manager. Hold Roe ma Adonzay. The Bears offense has looked a lot better without Shane Waldron. Unfortunately, roem Adunza is not really benefiting. Over the three games without Waldron. DJ Moore has thirty targets and two hundred and sixty five receiving yards. Keenan Allen thirty one targets and two hundred receiving yards. Ramadunza is at twenty six targets and just one hundred and twenty nine receiving yards. So the good news here is that a Dounzay's target total really isn't that far off from.

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Speaker 2: DJ Moore and Keenan Allen's.

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Speaker 1: He's just been used a little bit more down the field and his catchuple target numbers they're a little bit lower. That's led to him playing over five PPR points per game below expectation during this non Shane Waldron timeframe. That's according to PFF's expected Fantasy points model. But look, guys, it's a small sample and things can change. And not only do the Bears have a solid rest of season schedule, but we know there's contingent upside here with multiple injuries. If one of DJ Moore Keenan Allen go down, Romadunza will get a projection bump, a good projection bump. So this is all to say, don't drop Roma Donza. He scored single digit PPR points in three of his last four, but he's the exact kind a player that you won on your bench this time of year, ad Parker Washington, So Christian Kirkin Gabe Davis are done for the year. Back in week nine, we saw this Jacksonville Jaguars offense without those wideouts, but it was against Philadelphia. The Eagles defense has been playing lights out. Week thirteen was the second time that both of these wide receivers were sidelined together, and Parker Washington was great. He saw twenty eight point six percent target share against the Texans this past weekend. He got six to twelve targets for one hundred and three yards in a score. It was a second time this season that he hit a twenty percent target share. The first was back in Week nine when they faced Philadelphia without Christian Kirkin Gabe Davis. You see the theme here. There's a chance that we get a lot of Washington down the stretch, even if Mac Jones is the one who's quarterbacking. The Jags don't have an amazing schedule, but he's worth a look this week, at least in deeps add Kendre Miller. So there's a chance that we see Kendra Miller return this weekend. And former head coach Dennis Allen who seemed to just not like Kendre Miller at all. He's no longer in the picture. Interim head coach Darren Rizzy said, quote, I don't have a doghouse. My doghouse is empty at the moment. I don't have a dog. That was when he was referring to Kendra Miller. He also said that he's a quote talented player who can produce for the team. No one knows where this is gonna lead, but Alvin Kamara is a twenty nine year old running back who's gotten a ton of work this year. Maybe they don't want to overwork Kamara and they give Miller a decent chunk of work down the stretch, especially with Taysom Hills sidelined. So again, in deeper formats, that's kind of what the waiver wires like this week. I do think that Kendre Miller could work add the New Orleans Saints defense. So, speaking of the Saints, they get the Giants this week, and the Giants offense is bad. Defenses against New York have ranked as a top ten weekly Fantasy scorer and seven of the giants last eight games. Over the giants last six games, they're averaging four point three sacks per game allowed. New Orleans is a four and a half point road favorite. That game has a low total two. They're an obvious pick for a streaming defense. Add the Arizona Cardinals defense. So normally you only get one defense out of me on this fifteen transaction show. But it's the end of the season, or at least we're inching closer to the end of the year. I want to just provide as much utility as possible. You don't need another buy or sell recommendation when your trade deadlines have passed. The Cardinals defense has been strong over the last month in fantasy football. I don't know if people realize it. They're coming off a fringe top ten performance against the Vikings and they ranked as a top six option in They're three games prior. They've been good in fantasy, and over their next two they get Seattle in New England. Seattle's been the sixth best opponent for defenses this year by justin fantasy points allowed New England, they've been the fifth best opponent since Arizona recommendation. It's actually for two weeks, not just one.

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Speaker 2: That's it for today's show, though, thanks all of you for listening.

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Speaker 1: If you had subscribed to the Late Round Fantasy Football podcast, make sure you are by swarting for it pretty much anywhere podcast can be found, and don't follow me on Twitter at Late Round QB and also follow me on Blue Sky, same exact handle. Oh and one last thing some of you guys may not know, but Late Round Fantasy Football is coming up on its third birthday. I started this company in January of twenty twenty two and it's.

00:16:42
Speaker 2: Been a blast.

00:16:43
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00:16:52
Speaker 2: Genuinely.

00:16:53
Speaker 1: Now, I've been doing nearly everything with this business on my own. The podcast episodes that you hear, the content that's pret the guides, all that stuff that's just for me. I edit everything, I do it all. I get some help with my friends at edel Made, which is a small branding shop at a Cincinnati You guys should check them out. And then, of course my buddy Rich Ryan, who co hosted Becoming a Best Ball bro with me. He's been really helpful with video content, but overall, with the growth of Late Round Fantasy football. I've been stretched thinner and thinner, so I decided to make a move. It was announced on social media last week, but David Kitchen, who a lot of you guys know from the fantasy industry, David Kitchen is going to be joining Late Round Fantasy Football as chief operating officer after the holidays. He's gonna help me create a better content experience for all of you. He's going to allow me to really focus on the things that I love doing and the things that I think I should be doing. So I wanted to shout that out today because number one, it's a big deal. This is my first real hire. I'm excited about it, and I wanted to share it because it's big news to me. But number two, everyone check out Kitchen on Twitter at David kitchen X. Give him some virtual high fives and fist bumps. Look, my plan is to not make Late Round Fantasy Football something so massive that my job turns into me managing a team of analysts. That's not it at all. That's the last thing that I want to do. I don't want some huge media company here. I'm just trying to balance my workload and I'm trying to make sure that things are always getting better for the people who support my work, because at the end of the day, that's what's most important here.

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Speaker 2: Thanks for listening everyone

00:18:30
Speaker 1: I'll talk to you tomorrow with a ten Trends episode.