293: 15 Transactions for Week 6

00:00:02
Speaker 1: This is the Label podcast with your host JJ Zacher Resa, jj zacher Reason. What's up everyone. It's jj Zacharieson, the editor in chief at fandel and at number five dot com. And this is episode two hundred and ninety three of the Late Round podcast, one of the many shows that are part of the FanDuel podcast network. Thanks for tuning in. I've gotten a few emails this season about this fifteen transaction show and specifically adding to it. They're positive emails, and I really appreciate them, But the gist of each one is that the listener would like to hear the transaction, but then with each transaction they want me to list players i'd be selling a particular player for. So if I say sell Julio Jones, which by the way, don't do that, but if I say sell Julio Jones, they want to know who I'd sell Julio Jones for. In theory, not a bad idea. The issue I have with it, and why I've never done things that way is because I don't think that's the way that you should trade. You're considering nation set for who you should buy should be huge, not small. You should be willing to take on a lot of players, because a lot of players can help you win in fantasy football. When you trade, you should find teams who complement your team. If you're loaded at wide receiver and one of those receivers is sell candidate on this show, then find a team who needs wide receivers and go from there. I try my best to say how I'm viewing each of these players every single week, so you guys know that I'm not just giving them up for peanuts. But that's the reason I haven't added that element to fifteen transactions, And to be honest, the other reason is that I want the content that I produce to be educational more than just a list that you can work off of when win your league. With like, I can read you a list of players to buy and sell each week and just be done with it. That would save me a hell of a lot of time, but that wouldn't enable any of you to understand the meaning behind those buys and sells. I'd also probably get fired because that's not how you produce good content. But without that meaning and that background as to why I'm buying and selling particular players, it does you no good when trying to win your Fantasy League in the long run, in overtime. So that's my reasoning. Like I said, I appreciate all the emails about the topic, but I figured that I address it so everyone's aware. This is a fifteen transactions day though. But before I get into the transactions, I wanted to remind you guys about odds Fire. Whether you're playing DFS or betting on sports, odds Fire is a key tool for your research. I can tell you guys that it's been a key tool for my research. Shop for the best lines in each market and see which side is getting the most bets and money. Odds Fire is the premier odds comparison experience across major bookmakers and the regulated US market. Check out the experience for free now on number fire or at oddsfire dot com. Gambling problem call one eight hundred Gambler sell Austin Eckler. So, heading into Week five, Chargers head coach Anthony Lynn said, quote, we have a plan for Melvin Gordon. I don't want to put him in there and play him too much, and I really don't have to. I like what Austin Eckler has been doing in the back. Whenever he's ready to go, he will be the number one guy and get the bulk of the snaps, but obviously he's not there right now. Against the Broncos, we watched Melvin Gordon play about forty six percent of the Chargers snaps. Austin Eckler was at roughly sixty six percent. Now, Melvin Gordon out rushed Eckler twelve to three, but Eckler saw sixteen targets in that negative game script that they faced against Denver sixteen, he had fifteen receptions. He was a top ten running back in PPR formats this week. Now, aside from this outlier game that we saw from Austin Eckler, this does seem right in line with what Anthony Lynn told reporters before this game that Melvin Gordon wasn't going to see a full workload this week. But given Eckler's performance, I think this is an opportunity to sell because when Gordon was active last year, Eckler averaged around nine touches per game. Now, Eckler's performed well to start the season, so that number probably will increase just a bit. But we shouldn't expect Eckler to just continue to outsnap Melvin Gordon, and we definitely shouldn't assume that Austin Eckler is capable of maintaining a thirty four point eight percent target share. That's what he saw on Sunday. Now, Eckler can be a lower end RB two in PPR formats. I've talked about that on this show in the past, but we've got more than five games worth of data showing us that Melvin Gordon is the unquestioned workhorse in the Chargers backfield. And it does seem like Anthony Lynn agrees by Kyler Murray. I typically don't buy quarterbacks in fantasy football, but I'm not sure that people realize how good or how decent at least Kyler Murray has been in fantasy football to start the season. He's one of three quarterbacks, along with Patrick Mahomes and Gardner Minshew, to have scored sixteen or more standard Fantasy points in each of his first five games. Now, the big statistical difference between Kyler Murray and those quarterbacks is touchdown rate. Mahomes and Minshew are twelfth and thirteenth and touchdown rate respectively, and touchdown right, I'm referring to touchdowns divided by attempts, Kyler Murray only rings better than the Miami quarterbacks and Luke Falk among relevant quarterbacks, and touchdown rate and touchdown rate generally regresses to the mean. Now, really good quarterbacks are gonna have higher than average touchdown rates generally, that's what we see for players like Russell Wilson each and every year. But Kyler Murray's two point zero percent rate is very, very low. Just to give you some context, no two hundred plus attempt quarterback had a touchdown rate below two point eight last season. Kyler Murray is at two right now, but what's really kept him going in fantasy football is his legs. Only Lamar Jackson has more rushing yards at quarterback than Kyler Murray, and Kyler Murray's found the end zone twice as a runner, so imagine what his numbers could look like with a normal touchdown rate. And not only that, but Arizona over the next two weeks they get the Falcons and the Giants. Those are two plus matchups. So Kyler Murray is a fantastic buy candidate, especially given the perception around him and that Arizona Cardinals offense by Larry Fitzgerald. So it only makes sense to buy Kyler Murray's top target as well, and that's Larry Fitzgerald. He now has a twenty two point nine percent target share. That's a top twenty one in the league, and that's in an offense that's now thrown the ball over two hundred times. The Cardinals are just one of four teams with two hundred or more pass attempts this year. A twenty three percent piece of a large pie is a lot of targets for a guy like Larry Fitzgerald. So Fitzgerald's an incredibly safe option from a volume standpoint. And like I just talked about, Kyler Murray is a positive regression candidate in the touchdown column in that passing attack. So with those plus matchups coming, I think Larry Fitzgerald is also a goodbye candidate. Drop Oj Howard. I liked OJ Howard entering the season. If you listen to the show, you know that I don't hide for my bad takes. I'm gonna have bad takes. I'm not gonna predict everything right. I was wrong with OJ Howard, and I think that you can drop him at this point. Howard does rank twelfth in routes run at the tight end position according to Pro Football Focus, So I'm a little bit worried about outright dropping him in every single format no matter what. But he's seen just eight point eight percent of Tampa Bay's targets this season. He's ranked no higher than fifteenth and weekly tight end scoring after five games. It's just tough to trust Oj Howard without that consistent volume. Add Edo Smith. Devontae Freeman finally found the end zone last week, which is great because I was talking about Freeman a lot on the show last week. But Edo Smith ended up playing forty seven point three percent of Atlanta's snaps. That's his highest snap rate since Week one. Now, Freeman still saw pretty good usage. He had about sixty nine percent nights of the team's running back rushes and over eleven percent of Atlanta's targets. Those are pretty good numbers. But Edosmith saw season high thirteen point six percent target share to go along with his five carries. Now, I don't know how predictable this usage is going to be. I think if Atlanta's in a crazy negative game script, it could be an Edosmith game, or he could be usable and with by week's upcoming you might need some running back depth, you might need a random fill in running back. So I think that Edosmith is worthwhile for that purpose. But then also, if something were to happen to DeVonta Freeman, Edosmith's workload would increase, but we would still probably see a committee in that backfield sell mark Ingram. So I try to be clear with this fifteen transaction show that when I say to sell someone, it doesn't mean that I think that they're worthless in fantasy football. Mark Ingram is not worthless in fantasy football, you guys. I'm just playing the market, and the market is probably pretty high on mark Ingram because through five weeks he's essentially been a high end RB one in fantasy football. But he's found the end zone six times this year, when based on his rushing and receiving yardage total, he should have about half of that. Now, I'm looking at the last five years worth of data and seeing how running backs have scored given their rushing and receiving yardage totals. Now, even if you give mark Ingram a little bit of a bump because he handles goal line work, he has seven carries within the five this year, which is tied for the second most in football. He's still over performing in the touchdown column. It's really hard to sell it any other way, and it's not as though Ingram has really great peripheral numbers. Over twenty running backs have a higher running back rushing show than mark Ingram has, and his five point five percent target share ranks outside the top forty five at the position. Like I said, I think he's gonna be a very usable piece in fantasy football moving forward, but I also don't think that it's likely that he's gonna be this usable. So if you can get something significant for mark Ingram right now, I'm all for it. By Travis Kelcey. Travis Kelcey has been one of the biggest touchdown underachievers to begin the twenty nineteen season. He has four hundred and thirty nine receiving yards. He should have two point three more touchdowns than he currently has as a result of that, and if he'd matched that number, there wouldn't be a question as to who the tight end one in fantasy football is. But there is right now because Travis Kelcey is underperforming, and it ties into how Patrick Mahomes is performing. Patrick Mahomes even though he's still twelfth in the NFL in touchdown rate, his touchdown rate should be higher because it's Patrick Mahomes. Mahomes should realistically have a couple more touchdowns and that would help Travis kelcey and we should just feel confident about Kelsey. He's production moving forward anyway. He's got a twenty two point six percent target share in that Kansas City offense and he's yet to finish a single week with a target share lower than twenty percent. That's awesome at the tight end position. So if you can buy low on Travis kelce go for it. Add Chase Edmonds. So, David Johnson was apparently dealing with back problems on Sunday and that allowed Chase Edmonds to see the field for thirty five percent of Arizona snaps. He saw season high eight rushes and four targets, and he also found the end zone. So if David Johnson misses time, Edmonds would be a huge help off the waiver wire. He's one of the best running back handcuffs in fantasy football. So add him now. Don't wait and see if David Johnson is healthy or not. Just add Edmonds off the waiver wire as soon as you can by Josh Gordon. Josh Gordon has yet to rank better than wide receiver twenty nine in any week in PPR formats this year, but I like his peripheral numbers. Over the last three weeks, He's seen at least twenty percent of New England's targets in every single game. According to airyards dot Com, he's number one on the Patriots in air yards and with just one touchdown. He's been a little bit underwhelming in the touchdown column. So there's enough there for me to think that Josh Gordon can rebound. So I would send a by low offer hold or sell will Fuller. So the immediate reaction to will Fuller's insane performance on Sunday is probably to sell him. But the reason that performance happened, and the reason it wasn't totally unpredictable, Remember I talked about it on last week's Matchup show, But the reason it wasn't totally unpredictable was because of his peripheral numbers. Entering Week five, he had three consecutive games of strong target share numbers and he ranked twelfth in the NFL and air yards. A big game from will Fuller, who's a big play wide receiver, was bound to happen. But with that being said, let's take a step back. Kenny Stills didn't play on Sunday. Stills had seen the second highest average depth of target on the Texans before Sunday's game happened, So if they're throwing the ball down the field, it'll benefit will Fuller Moore with Kenny still sidelined. But from weeks one through week four, Fuller had nine targets that traveled fifteen or more air yards. Kenny still has had five. On Sunday, will Fuller had four of those targets, and in that game on Sunday, will Fuller also saw over forty eight percent of Houston's targets. That's absolutely unheard of. So from the perspective of will Fuller maintaining this pace, yeah, you can sell will Fuller. There's zero chance he's gonna see that high of a target share week in and week out. He might not see that high of a target share. He probably won't again in his entire career. But don't mistake this big will Fuller game as a complete and total fluke. Now, to some degree it was, He's not gonna repeat this performance, but plenty of numbers pointed to Will Fuller breaking out and having this game. He'll still be usable in fantasy football from here on out. By Royce Freeman. Philip Lindsay has outscored Royce Freeman so far this year by about thirty Fantasy points. That's in PPR four, and really it's mostly because of touchdowns. Lindsay's got six goal line rushes Royce Freeman has won. Philip Lindsay has scored all three of his touchdowns from that area of the field. But don't let this overshadow the fact that the usage between Lindsay and Freeman hasn't been drastically different. Freeman's now seen forty four point four percent of Denver's running back carries. He's seen about thirteen percent of the team's targets. Lindsay's had fifty five point seven percent of the running back rushes and about fourteen percent of the team's targets. So, just to reiterate, the big difference here is touchdowns, and again Lindsey does have more goal line rushes than Royce Freeman does by a pretty significant margin, but he only has three more rushes from within the ten, so things could swing in the other direction, or at least more than it has to start the year. Don't get me wrong, I still like Philip Lindsay more than Royce Freeman, but because of the lack of touchdowns, Royce Freeman right now is one of Fantasy Football's biggest positive touchdown regression candidate. And you only have to trade away bench players to get someone like Royce Freeman who could be a good bye week philler. And if something were to happen to Phillip Lindsay all of a sudden, he's a weekly starter. Add Gerald Everett. So back on Thursday night, Gerald Everett went nuts. He caught seven of eleven targets. He had one hundred and thirty six yards against that Seattle defense. He's now had back to back top six tight end performances and he's tallied nineteen targets over those two games. And he's also now seen a double digit target share in three of five games played this year. So with tight end being a disaster, Gerald Everett's not a bad ad. Off the waiver Wire by John Brown. I like buying players who are entering their bye week, especially if my team is set up well. If my team's sitting at four to one or five and zero right now. I'm buying players who are on the buy. They're usually easier to trade for. And John Brown has been low key, pretty freaking good this year. He's seen at least fifteen percent of Buffalo's targets in each game, and he ranks ninth in the NFL at wide receiver and receiving yard share, meaning only eight wide receivers have accounted for a higher percentage of their team's receiving yards than John Brown has. And after this week's by Buffalo has an amazing schedule. They get Miami in Week seven, then Philadelphia, Washington, Cleveland, and then Miami again. That means four matchups in five games against teams who rank in the top eight and fantasy points allowed to wide receivers. So sign me up for John Brown. Add Kyle Allen if you're streaming quarterbacks. It's a pretty rough week for quarterback streamers. But Kyle Allen isn't in a terrible spot against Tampa Bay because Tampa Bay is now given up a top eight fantasy performance in each of their last three games, and two of those quarterbacks played way above their norm. Daniel Jones and Teddy Bridgewater were both top five options against the Buccaneers, so maybe Tampa Bay's secondary really is as bad as we thought it was entering the season. Add the Washington and Miami defenses, so like quarterback, defensive streamers aren't very easy to spot this week, So your best path to success might be to target that Washington Miami game. As gross as it is to hear that, but Washington's a three and a half point favorite over Miami according to Fanduels Sportsbook, and the over under in that game is set at just forty one points. It's gonna be a sloppy game, but that gives both defenses a pretty high floor. Now, I would prefer Washington because they're the better defensive unit in general. They actually have scored fantasy points this year, but Miami's actually a reasonable deep option if you're very, very desperate. The sixteenth transaction this week that you can't get in the fifteen transactions column over on number fire dot com is to sell Juju Smith Schuster. The peripheral numbers aren't that bad for Juju. He's seen over twenty percent of Pittsburgh's targets. He ranks in the top ten and receiving yard share. He hasn't been that bad all things considered, but all things considered, the quarterback situation there is awful and the fact that he's coming off a game with a touchdown now is probably the time to just sell off Juju Smith Schuster and not have to deal with the Steelers offensive headache. It really could be a rough season for that offense. That's gonna do it for today's show, though. Thanks to all of you for listening. As always, if you've got to subscribe to the Late Round podcast, make sure you are by searching for it pretty much anywhere podcasts can be found, and don't forget to follow me on Twitter at Late Round QB. Thanks everyone, I'll talk to you tomorrow with the weekly ten Trend Show.