413: Week 2 Matchups

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Speaker 1: This is the last with your host, JJ Zachera, JJ Zacherson.

00:00:12
Speaker 2: What's up everyone.

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Speaker 1: It's JJ Zacharyas and the editor in chief at fandel and at number fire dot com in this episode four hundred and thirteen of the Late Round podcast with many shows that are part of the FanDuel podcast Network. Thank you for tuning in. Last week went about as expected. There were some really big hits like Malcolm Brown, and there were some really big misses like Tyrod Taylor. As we get more and more data and more and more information, we should get better and better at dissecting matchups. That's the goal at least now, before getting into players that I like more and less than the consensus. This week, I want to let you guys know about something that's pretty cool that we're doing within the FanDuel podcast Network. I'm here to introduce the FanDuel Podcast Network Listener League. It's a rake free weekly NFL contest made exclusive for you the listener. For just five dollars, you can enter the Listener League and compete for your share of the two thousand dollars prize pool, including a two hundred dollars first place prize. And you can enter up to three separate lineups, so it's five dollars to enter. It's rake free and you can enter fifteen dollars worth of lineups. There are limited entries, though, so get on it as soon as you can at FanDuel dot Com Slash League Slash listener League. Eligibility restrictions apply. I really like Philip Rivers this week. He wasn't super strong in last week's outing against Jacksonville. I get it, and I think we'll see Jacksonville as a plus matchup this year. But I'm intrigued by the matchup against Minnesota. The Vikings have a completely new secondary this year and daneil Hunter is out. In Week one, we watched Aaron Rodgers shred this defense as a result, and the Vikings created pressure at the lowest rate in the league in Week one. Indianapolis was pretty good at protecting Philip Rivers last week because the offensive line is a good offense line, so Rivers could have all day to throw in this contest with an implied team total close to twenty six points, Rivers is a solid play this week, and the other quarterback I like is Ryan Tannehill. One thing that I loved seeing in Week one was that Tennessee ran at the sixth fastest pace in football, which allowed them to run seventy eight plays, one of the highest marks in the league.

00:02:23
Speaker 2: That also gave.

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Speaker 1: Ryan Tannehill forty four pass attempts, by far the highest total that he's seen as a Tennessee Titan. Now he gets Jacksonville, it's a plus matchup despite Philip Rivers' performance last week, and Tennessee has an implied team total that's over twenty five points.

00:02:39
Speaker 2: It's one of the highest in the league this week.

00:02:42
Speaker 1: I think Tannehill's a great streamer, and I think he's a way better play than someone who's being ranked ahead of him this week, and that's Gardner Minshew. Minshew was super efficient in week one, throwing just one incompletion, and that translated to number five's expected points model, where he was seventh and success rate, and he ranked high in expected points per dropback. I'm not convinced that he's able to keep that up. I don't think any of us should be, and we shouldn't expect him to maintain his touchdown rate. He threw three touchdowns on twenty pass attempts last week, and he had just one hundred and seventy three yards.

00:03:14
Speaker 2: Now. I love Gardner Minshew. He's super fun, he's easy to root for. I get it.

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Speaker 1: But with the lowest implied team total on the entire slate this week, Jacksonville's offense might be in trouble. And then lastly, there's Tyrod Taylor. He burned me last week. I got it wrong, but he also just didn't look very good against a beatable defense and he only had seven yards rushing. I fully recognized that Taylor's a highly volatile play this week. One of my main worries, though, is how this Chargers line is going to hold up against Kansas City and the way they generated pressure in Week one, they got to Deshaun Watson four times and they had the highest pressure rate in the league. Meanwhile, the Chargers last week against a Bengals defense that was without Geno Atkins, they allowed an above average pressure rate. There's likely going to be a negative game script for Taylor and this Chargers offense that could lead to not only more passes, but more scrambles. And that's good. I'm just really worried about the offense being effective at all. That's why I think that he's only a desperation streaming play this week, not a locked in one. So this week at running back, rather than just going through players that I like and then players that I don't like, I'm going to talk about three separate backfields and how to handle them. First, though, I've got one standalone pick of someone that you could play this week, and that's David Montgomery. I mean, I'm not the biggest Montgomery guy on the planet, and I wasn't advocating that you draft him this year, but if you've got him, this would be a decent week to use him in terms of success rate allowed. The Giants weren't bad against the run last week, but what I'm more looking at with this matchup is that the Bears could see a positive game script, which could lead to a run friendlier offense and run friendlier play calling close to the end zone. Montgomery was coming off that injury last week, but he still saw sixty five percent of the team's running back rushes and a respectable enough eight point three percent target share. If you've got him, I think he should be fine this week. Now let's talk about those backfields that I mentioned. I like Ronald Jones a lot against Carolina this week. We didn't see Leonard Fournette used all that heavily in Week one, with just a twenty three percent running back rush share in a nearly non existent target share. Meanwhile, Rojo had over seventy seven percent of the team's running back rushes and almost nine percent of the team's targets. I'm still expecting Fournette to dig into the Jones workload more and more as the season moves forward, but it would be surprising if we see a jump to like a fifty to fifty split this week. And Jones gets a super plus matchup against Carolina, a team that we just watched Josh Jacobs have a big fantasy day against, so I wouldn't be throwing Fournette into my lineup despite the matchup, and I think that Jones could have a nice week. And then there's the Lions backfield. I have no idea why DeAndre Swift and carry On Johnson are being ranked right next to each other in PPR formats over on Fantasy Pros. Maybe I'm just a moron, but in Week one, Swift played fourteen more snaps than Johnson and he was the clear pass catching back in that backfield with a twelve point two percent target share, carry On didn't have a single target. Now they get Green Bay and according to Fandels Sportsbook they're six point underdogs. That could lead to a more pass heavy game script, which favors DeAndre Swift more than Carrie On Johnson. The two shouldn't be close in my opinion, given the emergence of Adrian Peterson. And then I'm gonna go back to the Buffalo backfield once again. Hopefully this is the last time I'm gonna talk about them on this podcast. But Devin Singletary is being ranked ahead of Zach Moss right now when this matchup against Miami could lead to the Bills having a really positive game script, and if that's the case, there's going to be more opportunity for rushing touchdowns, and that favors Zack Moss. Moss saw the goal line work in Week one. Both Singletary and Moss will get touches, but I trust Moss a lot more to find the end zone in this game. He should be ranked ahead of Devin Singletarian. Contest where the game script sets up like this, Tyler Boyd plays on Thursday night, so by the time that you listen to this. He might have already played and maybe he played like crap, making me.

00:07:20
Speaker 2: Look like an idiot.

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Speaker 1: That wouldn't be the first time, because I do like Tyler Boyd to bounce back this week. He saw eighty two percent of his snaps come from the slot in Week one, and he faced off against Chris Harris, which is a big reason for his down game. This week should be different. The Browns allowed the highest rate of targets to go to the slot in week one, which yes was partially Mark Andrews related, but even Willie Sneed saw three slot targets, catching three of them for fifty five yards in a touchdown. I would keep Tyler Boyd in my lineup this week. And speaking of the slot, I already mentioned how I like Philip Rivers this week, and I really like Paris Campbell too. He came out in Week one and he had about a twenty percent target sha which was great to see, and he played ninety five percent of his snaps from the slot in week one. Minnesota ranked first and receptions allowed to that area of the field and third in yards allowed. I'm expecting a big day from Campbell in an offense that's projected to score over twenty five points. The game with the highest over under this week is the Falcons and Cowboys, so you're gonna want a piece of that game, and one way to do so is with Cedee lambho I think is a little bit undervalued this week and Week one, Lamb hauled in five of six targets for fifty nine yards that accounted for a reasonable enough sixteen percent target share.

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Speaker 2: He played ninety two and a half percent.

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Speaker 1: Of his snaps from the slot in that game, and I'm intrigued by what his volume will look like now that Blake Jarwin is out of the picture. So I would find a way to get Ceedee Lamb into my lineup. My deep play of the week is Scotty Miller. He was actually gonna be my deep play of the week before the news about Chris Godwin being in concussion protocol. But I think if you need a waiver wire guy, especially in a PPR format, Miller could be it. He ended up playing the third most snaps of wide receiver for Tampa Bay in Week one, and he actually saw almost eighteen percent of Tampa Bay's targets. Now, the Buccaneers going to a softer matchup against Carolina, so I do think that you could do worse. I don't mind Scotty Miller as a desperation play. Now, on the other side of things, I only have one wide receiver who I'm not very into this week. I mentioned Devontae Parker as a sit last week, and I think he's a sit again this week. That's if he goes he's injured, but if he does play, he's gonna get a lot of Trdavius White. He's one of the best cornerbacks in football. And it's not like the Dolphins have a high implied team total this week, it's only seventeen and a half. That's the only higher end wide receiver that I'm really scared of this week, though. I've got two tight end streamers this week for you. One's more obvious, the other one's not, and they both have the same last name. Let's start with the obvious one. It's my guy, Logan Thomas. He was top ten in points scored at the position last week. He was top ten in routes run, he was top three in target share, he scored a touchdown and was targeted within the ten yard line. And now he gets an Arizona team that was putrid against the tight end position last year. Maybe that matchup won't matter. Who cares about the matchup. The fact of the matter is Logan Thomas is going to see volume and be involved in this offense more than likely, So he should be at the very least rostered in your fantasy league. And like I said in the fifteen Transaction Show, I would not be shocked at all if he's a top ten tight end this year considering I said the other tight end has the same last name. That other tight end is none other than Ian Thomas. This is definitely more of a deeper play after Thomas's Week one performance where he only had a six percent target chair but he still ranked sixteenth in routes run and Tampa Bay's coming off a game where Jared Cook saw a twenty four percent target chair, which was one of the higher marks in the league. So if you're in a pinch, I don't totally mind Ian Thomas as another desperation play. Another Thursday Night pick for this week is the Cleveland Browns defense. Again, you may be listening to this after that games conclusion, and this may sound absolutely idiotic. That's gonna happen. When you're a fantasy football analyst, you sound stupid a lot. But here's the logic with the Browns. They had an above average pressure rate against Baltimore in Week one, and then Cincinnati allowed a.

00:11:15
Speaker 2: Below average pressure rate.

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Speaker 1: Now matchups clearly clearly dictate this, but the Bengals offensive line entered the year ranking thirty first according to Pro Football Focus. As numbers, it's a beatable offensive line, and the Browns are five plus point favorites two. I think that they can get it done as a streamer, and I don't mind the Arizona Cardinals defense either. They're six and a half point favorites against Washington and Washington has a fairly low twenty and a half point team total. What you're really hoping for here is a positive game script for Arizona, which so many of us hope for with Philadelphia last week, and then you get Haskins in this negative game script and he's forcing the pass first mode. In Week one, Washington was able to keep it close, so their pass rate was one of the lowest in the league, and that low pass rate meant a lower sack total. But they were actually fifth worst in the league in sack rate allowed in week one, they just didn't drop back to pass that much, so I don't mind Arizona this week as one of your streaming choices. That's gonna do it for today's show, though. Thanks to all of you for listening. If you've get subscribed to the Late Round podcast, make sure you are by searching for it pretty much anywhere podcasts can be found, and of course don't forget to follow me on Twitter at Late Round QB.

00:12:29
Speaker 2: Thanks everyone.

00:12:29
Speaker 1: One more show this week and that's the Mailbag one that drops tomorrow