1025: Week 4 Sleepers

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Speaker 1: This is the Lab podcast with your host JJ Zacher Retha j J Zacher refon What's up everyone. It's JJ Zacharyeson in this episode ten twenty five of the Late Round Fantasy Football podcast sponsored by DraftKings. Thanks for tuning in. There's no better way 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 en why, and Connecticut called eight eight eight seven eight nine seven seven seven seven eighteen plus most states. Eligibility restrictions apply ends December thirty first see terms at DraftKings dot com slash promotions. I said last week that I'd get back on track with the quarterback streamers, and that was mostly the case in week three. I say mostly because CJ. Stroud kind of s the b If you get what I'm saying he scored just a little over ten points, and Aaron Rodgers he wasn't nearly as good as I thought he would be either, but kaylab Williams was a shallower sleeper that was a spot on call. Danny Dimes and Sam Darnold were fine, and Marcus Mariota he saved a ton of my teams last week. I hope that was the case for you guys too. Elsewhere, Keenan Allen came through with another great day. Calvin Austen was a solid deep sleeper, and then there were solid plays like Kyle Pitts and Juwan Johnson, and then the defensive streamers. They were pretty good overall too. But I won't lie. There was plenty of disappointment. Wandell Robinson didn't have an encore. Troy Franklin he had the usage, but not the production. Josh Palmer saw his route participation rate drop, and the Packers' wide receivers didn't do anything against Cleveland. Honestly, last week I give it a three out of ten. It's been an up and down start to the year, which is to be expected because we have such little information. I'm ready for a big Week four, so let's get to these sleeper picks. We'll kick off the show by looking at players rostered in fifty to eighty percent of Yahoo leagues, and I've got one quarterback in this tier, and it's Justin Fields. This is, of course, assuming that Fields clear's concussion protocol, which hasn't happened at the time of this recording. But Fields gets a Miami secondary this week that has not been good this year, and they've now allowed the ninth most adjusted points the quarterback position. Now, as we know, Fields has a lot of upside. Every single time he sees significant plays since his rookie season and games where he's thrown the ball at least fifteen times, Fields is averaging almost twenty standard Fantasy points per game. And for the record, if Fields is back this week, and if he looks good after Miami, the Jets get Dallas, Denver, Carolina, and Cincinnati. So that's a possible four really solid matchups in five games for Justin Fields at running back. There's just one for you this week. He's at eighty percent and it's Trey Benn. The Cardinals play on Thursday night against the Seahawks this week, and if I'm being totally honest, I don't really love this game on paper. For fantasy purposes, the Cardinals have a twenty one point team total. The pace of this game projects to be kind of slow, and Seattle they have a pretty good defense, but the Seahawks have been better against the pass this year than the run for fantasy purposes, and I fully believe that the Cardinals are going to use Trey Benson as their bellcal That volume alone should make him an RB two Packers wide receivers disappointed last week, but get ready, I'm gonna be talking about a ton of them this week. Matthew Golden is the first one. We saw him run around on eighty four percent of Green Bay's dropbacks last week, by far, a season high. That route participation rate has gotten larger and larger each week so far this year. That turned into a season high sixteen percent target share. The Packers get the early favorite as the best matchup for passing attacks in Dallas. I talked about this on the ten Trends episode, but Dallas is giving up far the most adjusted passing yards in the league at the moment. No team has allowed more adjusted fantasy points to wide receivers either, and only two teams are giving up a higher completion percentage on deep balls. I think Golden should have his best outing of the season this week. Quentin Johnston still isn't over that eighty percent mark, and it's hard to leave him off this list. His route participation rates have been well over ninety percent over the last two weeks. He's seen at least a twenty percent target share in all three games this season, and that's in an offense at number one is good and number two has been first and pass rate over expected to start the year. This matchup against the Giants is a good one too. LA has an implied total over twenty five points and the Giants are the six best matchup for wide receivers and early adjusted points allowed numbers. So QJ is good to go. Keon Coleman came out hot in Week one and he's done very little since. That's sort of what we get with his Buffalo offense. Unfortunately, he's probably a better and best ball type player With said, I like him against the Saints this week. New Orleans has seen the second highest percentage of wide receiver targets against them go to the perimeter this year, meaning teams have attacked the outside against New Orleans. So far, Keyon Coleman is a perimeter player. He's run about twelve percent of his routes from the slot this year. Meanwhile, the Bills have a ridiculous thirty two and a half point implied team total and the Saints have been a top ten matchup for wide receivers so far this year and adjusted points allowed. Now, Coleman may not see the eleven targets that he had in Week one, but he's not a bad play if you're in a pinch. It wouldn't surprise me if he finds the end zone this week now on the other side of the field in that same game as Juwan Johnson, something I'm gonna keep bringing up on this show until his percent roster number gets over eighty percent. Johnson has seen eleven nine to eight targets in his first three games. He's had a target share per game rate of twenty four percent, and he gets a Bills team this week that should force the Saints into anothers heavy script, so he's an easy volume play hunter. Henry's coming off a really strong game against Pittsburgh where he found the end zone twice, and I like him again this week. His route share could be higher. Admittedly, he's maxed out at a seventy six percent rout participation rate this year, when we really want our tight ends to be consistently over the eighty percent mark. But he's had target shares of eighteen percent, thirteen percent, and thirty one percent over his three games. And the Patriots gonna Panthers defense that's had trouble against the position over the last year. New England has a decent twenty four and a half point imply team total, and Hunter Henry could help him get there this next year. Players consists of guys rostern in twenty to fifty percent of leagues and will kick things off at quarterback with the always inconsistent and frustrating Gino Smith. I mean, hopefully he has a predictable performance this week because the Raiders get the Bears, and that game is giving the Raiders a really good twenty four and a half point team total. Vegas hasn't been the best at protecting Smith this year, one of the highest pressure rates in the league, but according to PFF data, Chicago's been not very good at generating those pressures, so it gives the Raiders a better matchup up front, and Chicago's been the second best matchup for quarterbacks this year by adjusted points allowed, So on paper, things look good for Gino. I like Matthew Stafford this week too. He hasn't given us the most impactful fantasy performances this season, but he's also faced some really tough opponents in Philly and Houston and even Tennessee, the team Mourrey drops seventeen fantasy points. They haven't been an unbelievable opponent for quarterbacks this year in fantasy. Stafford and the Rams, they're at home, they're in a domed environment, and they get Indianapolis, a more neutral opponent, and that game is giving them a very very solid twenty six point implied team total. Stafford should have more time in the pocket to score some fantasy points this week. Running back starts to get very difficult in this tier. So the names that I'll be shouting out from here on out, they're pretty tough starts. But you guys have told me in the past that you won some of these deeper plays. The first one's Jerome Ford and this is entirely a game script thing. Detroit is a big favorite against Cleveland this week, and that game is in Detroit. I've talked about this plenty, but the Browns are still deploying Ford as their pass catching back, their hurry up back. He's seen target shares of fourteen point six percent and twelve point five percent in back to back games that's resulted in ten total targets. So in a game where the Browns could really trail, he might work in PPR formats. And then Ali Gordon is sort of the opposite of Jerome Ford, where Ford's only relevant due to his pass catching. Gordon's relevant because it'll be mixed in that Miami backfield and he could see goal line work. In Week three, he saw every short down and distance snap. And now Miami gets the Jets in a game where they're actually favorites. That probably won't happen very often this year, and that type of script could help Allie Gordon out. After seeing a forty three percent running back rush share last week at wide receiver in this tier, I think you have to go back to Trey, a guy that I talked about in the fifteen Transaction show. We're looking at a twenty percent target share per game rate, and like I said earlier with Gino Smith, the Bears haven't been a tough matchup so far this year. They've allowed about twenty two passing yards over expected per game, and they've been a top five team and adjusted points allowed to wide receivers. We also know that Tucker can get down the field, and they've been a bottom ten team at defending deep passes this year too. I'm not expecting anywhere close to last week's performance, but with strong peripherals, Tucker makes plenty of sense and a potentially high scoring game this week. I'm gonna go back to Troy Franklin this week. I think people just assume that Week two was some kind of outlier, but that's really not the case. Franklin still saw a ninety four percent routchhare in Week three, which is actually higher than what he saw in Week two, and his target share against Indianapolis was still a solid seventeen percent. He just didn't produce on an average depth of target that was south of zero. Now he gets a really good matchup against a beatable Sincey defense in Week four, and Denver has over a twenty five points applied team total. So I like Troy Franklin as a sleeper this week. I mentioned on the Browns could trail against the Lions, and that may force more pass attempts for Cleveland. That could help Cedric Tillman, who still isn't rostered in nearly enough leagues. Tilman had a rough outing last week with just a nine point four percent target chair. He only had three targets, but he started the season with fifteen targets over his first two games. I don't want to look too far into a matchup against a good Packers defense too. This one's against Detroit, it's in a dome. It's not nearly as bad. If he hits a seventeen to eighteen percent target chair, which is what we've seen from him consistently since Amari Cooper was traded out of Cleveland, then he should pay off as a sleeper because there's a chance that we see a lot of passing from Cleveland. I won't spend a ton of time on Romeo Dobbs because you heard the logic for Matthew Golden earlier. Dobbs is just less enticing because he doesn't have the rookie appeal in the upside, But don't mistake that for him being a bad play. Dobbs had an impressive ninety four percent participation rate last week, and he's now been playing as their top receiver in all three games this year. So against that Dallas secondary that I talked about earlier, you can look his way. I think Darnell Mooney is kind of a bye in fantasy football, so naturally I'm going to talk about him here. In two games this year, he said target shares of nineteen percent and twenty seven percent. He's running routes at a very high rate. He's coming off a game where he had eleven targets. The Falcons have been brutal through the air over the last couple of weeks, and I mentioned on yesterday's show how Michael Pennix has been horrible in a clean pocket this year. That usually tells us which quarterbacks are playing well. With that being said, it's still a small sample for Pennis and the Falcons are back at home this week against Washington. The Commanders have been an above average opponent for passing attacks in fantasy this year, so that makes Mooney a decent sleeper. Now it's everyone's favorite part of the show. We're looking at players rostered in fewer than twenty percent of Yahoo leagues, who you might be able to start this week, and Wentz is one of them. He's obviously not something that you should trust over some of the other streamers that I've already talked about. But Pittsburgh has not been a tough opponent for quarterbacks this year. The rank is the sixth best opponent by adjusted points allowed. They've also allowed forty two passing yards over expected per game. Now, I do worry a bit about how slow this game might be given how each offense operates, but Wentz is getting Jordan Adison back this week on top of the weapons that he already has in that offense. With the way that Pittsburgh has been playing, I think there are worst desperation plays now. Running Back Woody Mark's a pretty obvious one in this tier. He's seen a snapshare increase every single week so far this year, and Houston has a solid enough twenty three point imply team total against Tennessee this week. And that's a Tennessee team that ranks fifth and adjusted points allowed to running backs and they've been sixth and adjusted target share allowed to the position. Obviously, that's what Woody Marx can provide pass catching upside, so there could be something there Now, I would start to Corey Kroskey Marhor above the other Washington Commanders running backs this week, but Chris Rodriguez did see a forty eight percent running back rush are in Week three. If that continues, then he could see like eight to twelve carries this week against the Falcons that can make them usable. The problem is that he only had a thirteen percent route share last week, so if this game script goes south for Washington, Rodriguez could really be a zero. I still don't know exactly how the Panthers w going to ideally deploy their running backs, but I do know that Rico Dowdell has seen all of their goal line work over the last two weeks according to Fantasy Life, and in Week three, he saw his short down and distance snapshare rise from about thirty five percent to sixty seven percent, which included a goal line touchdown. He's seen thirty seven percent of Carolina's running back rushes over the last two games. His share in Week one was only twelve percent, so it does seem like they want to get him more involved and in a game against the New England defense has allowed the six most adjusted fantasy points of running backs this year, maybe there's some usability. Now at the time this recording, I'm not sure if Alec Pierce is gonna play this week because of a head injury. But if he's out, I think eighty Mitchell is kind of a sneaky play. Mitchell would likely slot into Pierce's role. We saw him do that last year when Pierce was out and he ended up running around on ninety three percent of Indianapolis's dropbacks. He's a talented, albeit raw player who could be in a relatively high scoring game against the Rams this week. And LA has not been amazing at stopping wide receivers so far this year. In Fantasy, they wring us the third best matchup by adjusted points allowed. Now those numbers are not everything, but it can at least make us feel a little bit better about throwing these darts. So if Pierce is out, Mitchell becomes someone to watch. Dantavian Wicks is the third Packers wide receiver that I'm gonna call out today, and it's because of all this stuff that I've already talked about. Wicks has seen target shairs of twenty two percent and sixteen percent over the last two weeks, mostly without Jayden Reid, and he's been playing a slot role pretty heavily. He ran seventy seven percent of his routes last week from that area of the field on a sixty eight percent route participation rate. Because he's playing a little bit less than Golden and Dobbs, you have to put the other two wide receivers ahead of him. But like Jayden Reid, when Wicks has been on the field, he's seen targets, he's getting looks. That's why he's a deep sleeper in a great matchup this week. We've got Mike Evans sidelined. Chris Godwin may return, but probably not to a normal snap rate, and that leaves us with a mechag Buca and Sterling Shepherd, and Agbuka obviously is not the deep sleeper here. Shepard has seen ron participation rates of seventy three percent, eighty nine percent, and seventy seven percent over his three games this year. That's not bad, he said. Targetshares of twenty percent, eleven percent, and eighteen percent also not bad. The Buccaneers are not a lock to see a positive game script this week against Philadelphia. They're home underdocks and Shepherd should be out on the field in more than just three wide receiver sets, so I actually think he has an okay floor in this matchup. Diami Brown is banged up, Travis Hunter isn't playing a full snapshare on offense, so enter Parker Washington. Washington only scored seven point four PPR points last week, but he had a twenty nine percent target share and that coincided with a seventy five percent rout participation rate. He still ran about fifty percent of his routes from the slot, but that's not a bad thing this week because they're facing the forty nine ers. San Francisco this year ranks fourth an adjusted slot target share allowed. All that means is that when adjusted for personnel, teams have attacked San Francisco via the slot. So Parker Washington makes sense. And then I don't know if Terry McLaurin plays this week or not, but I'm currently leaning no, which opens things up a lot for different wide receivers in that offense to get work. The one that I'm most intrigued by, just because he was a fun prospect. We haven't seen him do a ton in the NFL yet is Jalen Lane. Lane is one of those wideouts where you just want to get him the ball and see what he can do after the catch. He's a super athletic player. He's only seen eight targets this year, but his route participation rates have been about fifty percent over the last two weeks. There's a chance that we see some increase there with mclaurin's injury. Now, I do think if Noah Brown ends up playing which is up in the air, then Brown would be sort of the default wide receiver too in that offense. He could play alongside Deebo Samuel and then Chris Moore also ran a lot of routes last week, and Luke McCaffrey's been involved too. I'm mostly saying that if we see sort of this spread out distribution in this offense without McLaurin, give me the guy who profiles as a gadgety, shifty player who can do stuff after the catch, and maybe there's even more to him once he gets that opportunity at tight end in this tier, I'm just gonna go with one of them, and it's Kate Otton. We saw him give us a lot of usability last year when the team suffered through a bunch of wide receiver injuries, and he's in a similar spot this week with his Mike Evans injury. He's run around on eighty nine percent of Tampa Bay's dropbacks this year, though his seven percent target share is pretty weak. You're just hoping that more targets are funneled his way because the lack of pass catchers in that offense now at defensive streamers. This week, I'm looking at New England against Carolina, like I talked about earlier this week on the fifteen Transaction Show, and then Washington against Atlanta given how poorly that Falcons offense has been performing, and I actually don't mind the Rams against the Colts. LA can get to the quarterback. They generated a higher than average pressure rate this year, and even though Danny Dimes has been great and he's been awesome when it comes to pressure to sack ratio, that hasn't always been the case, and we're working off of a small sample size. In fact, it was the opposite the last time we saw him as a starter. It's a different situation, of course, but it'll be interesting to see him in this matchup this week. I just think the Rams as a unit are underrated and that makes them a deeper streaming choice. I think they're very, very volatile, but they are kind of interesting. That's it for today's sho though. Thanks toll Ofvy for listening. If you get subscribed to the Late Round Fantasy Football podcast, make sure you are by starting for it pretty much anywhere podcast can be found. You know to follow me on Twitter and on Blue Sky at Late Round QB. Thanks for listening everyone. I'll talk to you tomorrow morning with the weekly Mailbag episode.