1023: 15 Transactions for Week 4

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Speaker 1: This is the lad podcast with your host JJ Zacherretha, JJ Zacherson. What's up everyone, It's JJ Zacharyeson in this episode ten twenty three of the Late Round Fantasy football podcast sponsored by DraftKings.

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Speaker 2: Thanks for tuning in.

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Speaker 1: There's no better wait to get closer to the action than with DraftKings Daily Fantasy, the ultimate destination for football fans. New customers can play free for their share of millions and prizes with their first a positive five dollars or more. Download the DraftKings Daily Fantasy app and enter promo code Late Round to play free for your share of millions. The crown is yours. Gambling problem called one hundred gambler, New York call eight seven to seven eight Hope, NY, and Connecticut called eight eight eight seven eight nine seven seven seven seven eighteen plus and most states. Eligibility to shirts and supply ends December thirty first see terms at DraftKings dot com. Slash promotions. It's a fifteen transactions day. Let's get to it. Add Trey Benson. So look, I know Trey Benson probably not available in your league. People who listen to this show, you play in a little bit more hardcore leagues than the casual office league. So Trey Benson probably not available. But if I didn't talk about Benson, who's available in about half of Yahoo leagues, a lot of people will be hitting my email inbox. So let's just talk about Benson really quick. James Connor is unfortunately out for the season. It's really unfortunate because he's a player that everyone can kind of root for. He also went to my alma mater at pitt He's one of my favorite players of all time. I hope he gets well soon, but unfortunately, as a fantasy analyst, I have to talk about what this injury means, and what it means is that Trey Benson is about to see a lot of volume. My friend Dwayne McFarlane over at Fantasy Life. He shared on Twitter that after James Connor's injury against the forty nine Ers.

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Speaker 2: Benson stepped in.

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Speaker 1: He played eighty seven percent of Arizona's offensive snaps and his route share was fifty percent. Now, Mari de Mercado, he's gonna play a factor and play some role in this offense. He might steal some pass catching work from Benson, But guys, this type of volume is not easy to find off the waiver wire at all, and it's a good bit of volume for a player who's not that bad. I mean, I had some questions about Trey Benson coming out, but at the very least, he's got a lot of burst. He's a really athletic running back and he's gonna see a lot of work. He's the kind of player that you take that free agent budget and you spend all of it on Trey Benson. So right now, I think he's like a mid range RB two, maybe even high end RB two. I haven't done my rest of the season rankings just yet, but I can at least tell you I'm gonna have him ahead of Kenneth Walker and Chuba Hubbard just to give you some idea of where I'm ranking Trey Benson rest of season. So again, he's an RB two who should be in store for a lot of volume in that Arizona offense. By Tedaroah McMillan. Look, I'm gonna say this every single week until the end of the season. Probably patience is everything with rookies and fantasy football. I'd argue that patience is just everything in general, but it's especially true with really good rookies with strong early season peripherals, and that's tedt Roe McMillan. On the season, he's seen target shares of twenty six and a half percent, eighteen point nine percent, and thirty three point three percent. That's a twenty six point two percent target chair per game rate right now for Tetroae McMillan. And consider this, since twenty eleven, among rookie wide receivers who played each game through Week three, we've only had ten of them reach a twenty five percent target share. Those players averaged thirteen point nine pper points per game during their rookie seasons and forty percent of them ended up as top twenty wide receivers in fantasy football. We should expect McMillan to post better numbers as the season goes on, and it doesn't hurt that the Panthers get the Patriots and the Dolphins over the next two weeks. Those are two teams who have not been great against wide receivers to start the season. And by the way, since i'm talking about Panthers wide receivers, you can also add Jalen Cocher off the waiver wire this week too. That's an extra transaction for you. He could be coming off ir pretty soon. Add Luther Burden. So once again I'm gonna plug the Late Round Fantasy Football show because last week on that show, when I did the look Ahead Waiver Wire Targets, I talked about Luther Burden, and he had a productive Week three. He caught all three of his targets for one hundred and one yards in a touchdown. Now, his target share was only ten point seven percent, his route participation rate was only thirty one percent. Those aren't very good numbers. If he sustained that for the rest of the season, he would not be relevant in fantasy football. But they were higher than his previous outings this season, and he's a rookie who missed time during camp because of injury, and he's also a first year player who had a very good ZAP score. Does Zap Model love Luther Burden. I think we could see a bigger role being carved out by Burton as the season moves forward. We should see that. And there's always a possibility that the Bears decided to move on from DJ Moore at the trade deadline. That's been rumored for weeks now. So I think Luther Burton's good and we're now seeing that he might be good. He's an obvious add off the waiver wire in case these numbers do get better.

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Speaker 2: Add Woody Marks.

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Speaker 1: Now, I don't always repeat transactions, but I think the Woody Mark stuff is kind of interesting, So let's talk about him again. Marx has now seen this snapchare rise from twelve percent in week one to twenty eight percent in week two, and then in week three it was forty nine percent. And his routehare has gotten better too. It was nine percent during the first week, twenty three percent in week two, and then forty four percent this past weekend. The Texans have real problems with their offensive line, but Woody Marx can make his living in fantasy football as a pass catcher. That's his bread and butter, and that might be something that Houston almost needs to lean on given that poor play up front. And look, Nick Chubb has been fine, that's the best way to describe him in my opinion, but he's the only player that's in front of what he marks right now. That's just another reason to roster Marks in most leagues. Sell Dalton Kincaid. Now, look, Dalton kin Kate is off to a hot start. He's currently averaging thirteen point four PPR points per game after three weeks. He's found the end zone twice. He only did that twice last year. His target shares over the last two games twenty four percent, twenty two percent. All of those numbers sound really, really good, So why are we selling him well, you shouldn't be trading him away at his draft day value. The entire point here is to sell high, and this could be a high point. Kincaid's route participation rate is still not very good. Pre Monday Night Football. There are twenty seven tight ends with better route participation rates than Dalton Kinkaid, and that's on a team that's probably not going to be super pass heavy. Kincaid's routes run per game right now is twenty three point seven. Since twenty eleven, we've only seen three tight ends finish in the top six of the position while finishing the season with fewer than twenty five routes run per game. Two of those three Robert Tunnan and Mark Andrews. They needed double digit touchdowns to get there. The other player was George Kittle. That year, George Kittle had a yard per rout run rate of three point one to two. The Bills are a team that like to spread things around, and it's likely that that distribution variance has just been on Kincaid's side over the last two games, or at least in two of the three games this season. So if things remain the same, and I don't see why they wouldn't remain the same, then we probably won't see this maintain for Dalton Kinkaid, even though I do think he is playing better here in twenty twenty five than he was in twenty twenty four. Ad Trey Tucker. If we were to remove Trey Tucker's name and just look at his peripherals, we would definitely be adding him this week. After three games. He has a target chair of about twenty percent. He's run a route on ninety three percent of the Raiders' dropbacks. Now he's coming off of forty point outing in PPR leagues, so that's gonna skew his points per game number, But he had fifty four yards in a touchdown in Week one as well. No, I don't think this is going to continue through the end of the year. Tucker wasn't a special prospect. He didn't give us a ton of production during his first two years in the league, so it's doubtful that this continues. But this is a new offense, there is a new quarterback and the Raiders. They're currently third in the NFL and pass rate over expected, and look at the very least, I think Tucker works as a sleeper here. In Week four, Vegas gets Chicago. That's a top ten favorable matchup for wide receivers right now by adjusted Fantasy points allowed. Ad Olie Gordon. So if you watch Thursday night's game between the Dolphins and the Bills, then you saw a pretty nice compliment to Devon h Chan in that Dolphins backfield, and that compliment was Olie Gordon. Now I've talked about Gordon quite a bit on this show already, but he was a solid prospect. The Zap model liked him versus where he was actually drafted. He's a bigger bodied player who really pairs well with Devon ah Chan and he played a short yardage role for the Dolphins. In Week three. According to Fantasy Life data, it was Olie Gordon who had all the short down and distance snaps for the Dolphins, and that wasn't the case in weeks one. And two, and in Week three he hit a season high forty three percent running back rush share. Now, admittedly, I don't know how usable Ollie Gordon's really gonna be in most twelve team leagues without a Devon ah Chan injury, but bye weeks are coming and injuries are starting to pile up. Gordon should at least have some opportunity to find the end zone each week, and I think he passed the eye tests so far. And then obviously if von ah Chan were to get hurt, then Ollie Gordon could be in store for a lot of volume in that Miami backfield. So I think right now he should definitely be rostered by Josh Jacobs. Now, look, I don't know exactly how the market is feeling right now about Josh Jacobs, but I can tell you that he hasn't been performing to expectation. I just wouldn't panic. In fact, i'd try to buy into him. He's averaging thirteen point six pper points per game, there's nothing wrong with that, but he hasn't given fantasy managers anything to get excited about. Like he's yet to average four yards per carry in any game this season, and in Week three he only got by because he had a thirty six percent target share against the Browns, his yards per carry was below two. Now, I though that's totally descriptive, but that's the entire point. His performance thus far has not been very good. If there is any sort of by window right now is definitely the time to buy, because technically, if you look at adjusted Fantasy points allowed, which is not perfect this time of year, but if you look at the numbers, Green Bay running backs have seen one of the toughest schedules in the league thus far. Moving forward, they have one of the easiest schedules and it starts quickly because this week they get the Cowboys. In the next week they get the Bengals. Those are two very very good matchups for running backs. So if there is a window here, I would be buying Josh Jacobs by Matthew Golden. Jacobs is not the only Packers player that I'm gonna buy this week. Matthew Golden is a goodbye candidate as well. Now, I know he's been a big disappointment so far this season, but despite a poor Week three showing by that Packers passing attack, there were still some good to take away. The Packers finally consolidated a lot of their targets. Jaden Reid being out meant the Packers were down to three primary pass catchers at wide receiver. You had Golden, Romeo Dobbs, and Dantevian Wicks. Aside from those three wideouts, no Packers wide receiver ran more than five routes. Golden saw a routchchare for about sixty three percent in weeks one and two. In week three that number was eighty four, and it led to his highest target share of the season at sixteen percent. Now, I don't think that this is one of those transactions where you just do whatever it takes to get this player. The Packers have a very real chance of being frustrating with wide receivers this year. That's exactly what we saw last year, and that could make Golden a really frustrating fantasy asset. But if you need some variants, maybe you're zero and three right now and you need to take a shot on something. Golden's the archetype of player who you should be throwing a dart at, who you should be trading for. He's a rookie wide receiver who's starting to get more and more work and it doesn't hurt that they get Dallas, Cincinnati, Arizona, Pittsburgh, and Carolina over their next five games. Add Tory Horton. So, speaking of buying into rookies who are getting more run, what about Tory Horton. Horton ran just as many routes as Cooper Cup and Jackson Smith and Jigba and Seattle's Week three blowout against the Saints that resulted in a really good twenty percent target share. Horton's now had nearly the exact same stat line in back to back weeks, four targets, thirty two yards in a touchdown. He got two of his four targets in one game, three of the four in the other. Now, look, it's definitely hard to imagine the Seattle Seahawks maintaining and elevating three pass catchers in that offense, Jackson Smith and Jig but he's gonna get his.

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Speaker 2: You basically need Horton to overtake Cooper Cup. Is that possible? Yes? Is it probable?

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Speaker 1: Probably not in the short term, But I think Horton was a legit prospect. I even had in my bold predictions. I said that Tory Horton would outscore Cooper Cup during the second half of the season, because I think he's a very good player. So if you have room to stash him, I think you should add Christian Kirk. I was surprised to see that Christian Kirk is available in sixty five percent of Yahoo leagues. That's despite returning from injury in Week three, and his game against the Jags wasn't all that bad at least on the periffers front. He hitted up with a twenty two percent target share. He ran around on seventy seven percent of the Texans dropbacks. He saw a target on twenty four percent of his routes run. That's a solid number now according to PFF. Unsurprisingly, Christian Kirk was the Texans slot guy in Week three. He ran about two thirds of his routes from the slot. And they need a presence there. They don't have any tight ends who can line up there very well, and they don't have a slot receiver who's reliable right now. Really, they don't have a number two receiver who's reliable right now. We know the Texans have these offensive line issues, but it's also Week three. Things can still get better, things can improve, and if that happens in Houston. A lot of their assets are going to get better in fantasy football. So given the peripherals that we saw from Kirk, he should be rostered. Add Arondez Gats in the second so weill Disley was sidelined. In Week three, Rondez Gatson made his debut for the Charger and it was a really good one. Hing up with a twenty eight percent route participation rate, which is nothing special, but he saw target on half of his routes run. He cut five of seven balls for forty six yards. Gatson had a really strong production profile in college. He's a versatle tight end who started as a wide receiver and there was a lot of hype surrounding him during the summer. And I'm pretty intrigued because this is the first time that we saw him on an NFL field in the regular season. Now, I don't know if you have to be aggressive in getting him in a ten team a twelve team league this week, but you should at least have Gatson on your radar. By Jalen Warren, sort of an underrated storyline right now in fantasy football is that Jalen Warren is Pittsburgh's bell coow he's their bellcow back. He's seen running back rush years of seventy and eighty one percent over his last two games. Those are really good numbers and those are the two highest marks of his entire Meanwhile, in Week three, Warren had a twenty seven percent target share. He ran a route on sixty percent of Aaron Rodgers dropbacks. Now, maybe this doesn't continue through the rest of the season, but anyone who watched that Steelers Patriots game, you saw Jalen Warren as the most explosive player in that Steelers offense. And based on his usage so far this year, according to PFF's expected touchdowns formula, Warren should currently have two point four rushing touchdowns. Instead he has zero. So the volume is there and regression should be coming. Now, Pittsburgh's schedule isn't amazing for running backs, but Warren's work in the passing game should be able to keep him afloat. And just based on sentiment and how people were talking about Jalen Warren in this Pittsburgh offense, he might be a decent buy candidate this week at Geno Smith. So in week two we got bad Gino. In week three, we got good Gino. This is what happens with Geno's Smith, but Smith's a really fun option. In Week four, the Raiders are hosting the Bears. That game is a really healthy forty seven and a half point total and the Raiders are slight favorites Chicago. Right now, they're allowing the third most adjusted fantasy points to quarterbacks this year, So I think if you need a quarterback streamer, Gino Smith is your guy. Add the New England Patriots defense. This is not an easy week for defensive streaming, but I don't mind New England.

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Speaker 2: They've been eleventh so far this year in pressure rate. That's not that bad. That's according to next Gen stats.

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Speaker 1: They're playing at home and they're facing the Panthers as five and a half point favorites Carolina. Thus far, they've been a top half matchup for defenses and adjusted fantasy points allowed. That's it for today's show, though, thanks to all of you for listening. If you get subscribed to the Late Round Fantasy Football podcast, make sure you are by searching for it pretty much anywhere podcast can be found, and don't forget to follow me on Twitter and on Blue Sky at Late Round QB.

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Speaker 2: Thanks for listening

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Speaker 1: Everyone, I'll talk to you tomorrow with the Weekly Ten Trends episode