918: 15 Transactions for Week 5

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Speaker 1: This is the Late Podcast with your host JJ Zachertha j J zacher Reason. What's up everyone, It's JJ Zacharyeson in this episode nine and eighteen 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 2: Up use promo code Late Round.

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Speaker 1: That'll get you a free pick, a nice deposit offer, and you'll also get my rest of season rankings. Those rankings are emailed to you from Underdog after you sign up, and they're updated every Tuesday. You get those update every single week through the end of the season. That's Underdog Fantasy dot Com promo code Late Round. Now let's get to these transactions. Add Dontavian Wicks. You know, over the offseason during the summer, you heard myself and other analysts talk about contingent upside.

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Speaker 2: Most players in.

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Speaker 1: Fantasy football just have won maybe two teammates who offer injury upside. If the teammate gets hurt, that player gets a bump in work. But in Green Bay, all of the wide receivers had multiple injury outs. If one player got hurt, the other guys would be more full time players in that offense. And that's what we're seeing right now at Dontavian Wicks. Christian Watson unfortunately suffered an ankle injury he could miss several weeks, and Watson's injury allowed Wicks to up his route participation to eighty percent after seeing rates around forty five percent in weeks one through three.

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Speaker 2: That led to more production.

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Speaker 1: He had a twenty four percent target share On Sunday, he had twenty four point eight PPR points. Dantavian Wicks had a really good rookie season. His yards per route run was above two. That's a number that was hit by just twenty six qualified rookie wide receivers since twenty eleven. Many of those year one whine outs who got to that number were very successful in the NFL throughout their career. So Dantavian Wicks is gonna have a bigger role in this offense with Christian Watson sidelined, and the Packers have a great schedule upcoming. They have matchups against the Rams, Cardinals, Texans, Jags, and Lions over their next five. At this moment in time, all of those teams ranking the top thirteen and ad justin Fantasy points allowed to wide receivers favorably. It wouldn't be surprising if Wicks performs well and given his age his early career numbers, he could just carve out a bigger role in this offense even when Christian Watson returns and then obviously, this Watson injury also good news for people who have Jaden Reid and Romeo Dobs ad Tucker Craft. So another Packer who absolutely needs to be roster right now in the majority of leagues is Tucker Craft. It's tough at tight end right now. It's tough to find a tight end with Tucker Craft's peripherals. He's now hit a fifteen percent target share in three consecutive games, and his route participation saw spike in Week four it was around that sixty percent seventy percent range with the first three weeks of the year. It was eighty six percent in week four. He is green Bay's tight end one and that matters because Jordan Love is back under center. Add Emmanuel Wilson. So apparently this week's fifteen Transactions episode is sponsored by the Green Bay Packers, but for real, Emmanuel Wilson, he deserves a shout this week. I talked about him a bit on last week's ten Trends episode. This is a little promotion to tell you to listen to that episode as well, not just the fifteen Transactions one, but I noted that he was digging into Josh Jacob's role a little bit more than we expected, and that continued in week four. Even with Jordan Love back, Wilson has seen running back rush years of forty one percent and forty seven percent over his last two games, and it got me thinking, everyone's really excited about Bucky Irving right now in his usage, which you should be, But Emmanuel Wilson's usage hasn't been that much different than Bucky Irvings. It's just that Irving's competition is easier to overcome. Josh Jacobs is better than Rashad White, but strictly from a current usage standpoint, like what we've seen over the last couple of weeks, Wilson's backfield share numbers haven't been that far off from Bucky Irvings. And why have we been targeting Bucky Irving Because he can be a flex play, but he also has that contingent upside. Wilson is the Packers number two running back right now with Marshan Lloyd on ir If Josh Jacobs were to go down, Emmanuel Wilson would become Green Bay's top running back. They'd probably make some moves and do a little bit more to that backfield, but he would be the RB one. Again, He's not as intriguing as someone like Bucky Irving because a backfield takeover is almost definitely not gonna happen in Wilson's case. That could happen in Irving's case. But Wilson's a backup running back who's getting work and that makes him roster worthy. Drop Mark andrews now Look, I said this at the beginning of the season, but I don't like taking wins and losses as the season's going forward, like it's only week four, We're only going into week five. We don't know if things are right or wrong just yet. But also who cares? Right now? We have all off season to talk about what went right and what went wrong. I'll do podcasts on both of those things because I care about my process and how I got to the conclusions that I got to. With that being said, Mark Andrews, He's an l, a massive, massive L. It's probably gonna go down as my biggest miss of this season because I thought Mark Andrews where he was being drafted, was a pretty good draft pick, and that was entirely wrong. There was some hope after Week one. The Ravens had a game plan where they took what they were given. They targeted their running backs at a really high rate, and Isaiah Likely was the one who benefited most from their two tight end sets. But Andrews' peripherals in that game. I talked about that on the show. I sent an email about this. His overall usage in that game still look better than Isaiah Likely's aside from targets, and because Baltimore lacks depth of pass catcher, it was reasonable to think that they were going to run a lot of twelve personnel this year. That would make both of those tight ends viable and fantasy football even that was wrong. I've gotten to the point where I just cannot predict this Todd munkin offense. It's very, very difficult to do. Andrews has seen pathetic rout participation over his last two games. He's been under the fifty percent mark in both of those outings. He's only fallen below that mark throughout his career when he's been injured. Now here's the thing. Gamescript has definitely played a role here. Look at their last two games. The Ravens faced the Cowboys in Week three and they were up twenty one to three in the second quarter. The Cowboys have also been beatable on the ground. Baltimore went with a run heavy approach. Then look at what happened on Sunday night. It was the exact same story. Second quarter, Baltimore's up twenty one to three. Buffalo is another team that you can run on. They're the third worst team and expected points added per rush alloud. So it was another Derek Henry focus plan that meant less Mark Andrews. So because of that, because of the game script stuff in deeper formats. I do think that Andrews is still someone that you won on your bench because the tight end landscape is really bad. I think that there are going to be games where Mark Andrews is fine. It's just a matter of predictability. We're not gonna know when Baltimore is gonna blow out their opponent. We're not gonna know when a game is gonna be close. We can predict it, or we can try to predict it, but it's not going.

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Speaker 2: To be easy.

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Speaker 1: And that's a huge, huge problem for both Mark Andrews and Isaiah Likely and Jay Flowers for that matter, because it's clear that this monk in offense is not going to be very predictable week over week. I mean, Justice Hill was on My Sleeper show last week. I mentioned him as a sleeper. I didn't think he was going to see a thirty three percent target share. That's crazy. But in a ten team league, some twelve team leagues, I do think at this point you can drop Mark Andrews because he's basically a streamer.

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Speaker 2: By AJ Brown.

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Speaker 1: There's a very real chance that whoever has AJ Brown in your fantasy league that they're struggling right now. He hasn't played since Week one, and the Eagles have their bye in Week five, so take advantage. Brown should be back after the bye. In Philadelphia wide receivers, their short term schedule isn't amazing, but they have the third best schedule by justin Fantasy points allowed. From now through the end of the fantasy season.

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Speaker 2: Your league mate with Brown might be in a bad spot.

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Speaker 1: So, like I said, now is the time to take advantage. Add Trey Sermon. Jonathan Taylor suffered a mild high ankle sprain on Sunday against the Steelers. His availability is now up in the air. Next man up for Indianapolis Trey Sermon. He carried the ball five times. He was not effective, but he did carry the ball five times against the Steelers in Week four. Now, Sermon is not some special running back and it's no guarantee that he'd see a Bellcow workload if Jonathan Taylor misses time. But the Colts do get a decent matchup in Week five against the Jags. They're the fourth best opponent for running backs by justin Fantasy points allowed, so at the very least we should be adding Sermon off the waiver wire. Sell Xavier Worthy With Rashid Rice out of the picture for Kansas City, someone's gonna need to step up, and that someone might be Xavier Worthy, right, he could hypothetically be that guy. Look at all the other wide receivers on that roster and tell me which one you're gonna get excited about. Worthy is the only one, and he scored well in my ZAP model. Now, I would anticipate his target share rising a bit with Rashee Rice sidelined. But this isn't some simple replacement of Rice being out and Worthy just slotting in and seeing a massive target share. Rice was playing over fifty percent of his snaps from the slot. According to PFF, his average at the target was just five point two yards. Patrick Mahomes on the season has the lowest a dot in the league. His rate of throwing at twenty plus air yards also the lowest in the league. Now, of course, this is partially driven by Rashie Rice himself. Having Rice out of the slot is going to lower that a DOT. But Worthy isn't all of a sudden going to play that role, And as a first year player who's been used vertically so far, he's probably not going to start commanding like a twenty five percent target share in this offense. Through the first month of the season, his target share has been about thirteen percent, and Andy Reid sort of hinted at this on Monday when asked about Worthy stepping up in Rashie Rice's absence, Reid said, quote, We'll see how he does. He doesn't have to be the only one. We've got a good group of guys there that we can utilize. We normally spread the ball around and that's what we'll continue to strive to do. And shout out to coach speak Index for that clip. Worthy's the kind of player who may actually benefit from having a teammate.

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Speaker 2: Like Rashi Rice.

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Speaker 1: It allows him to be freer down the field, and we need those down the field targets, those down the field shots for Xavier Worthy to be a great fantasy asset, at least at this point in his career. The Chiefs could also go out and trade for a wide receiver that was also reported on Monday. If that happens, the hope for a massive target share increase goes away a little bit for Xavier Worthy. The bottom line here is that Worthy's roles should probably get a little bit better, but there may be managers out there who think that it's going to get a lot better, and while that is in his range of outcomes, I don't think it's probable, So I'd be open to at least testing the market this pay week.

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Speaker 2: Add Kareem Hunt.

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Speaker 1: This Chiefs backfield, it's gonna be a headache all season more than likely. But in Week four, Kareem Hunt got a lot of work, so I got to call him out. Carson Steele fumbled early in that game. That probably played a role in Hunt seeing two thirds of the team's running back rushes, and look, Hunt wasn't that bad. He had a fifty percent success rate. He led the backfield and snaps as well, but not by that much over samaj p Ryan. And then, as I mentioned last week, cly Edwards Laire is eligible to return in week five, so we'll see if that happens. But regardless of that outcome, Hunt's Week four usage means that he likely should be rostered in most leagues. It's just I do think that projecting and forecasting forward things are gonna be pretty messy with this backfield from here on out drops a mere white. So look, I understand in some leagues letting a running back who saw seventeen rush attempts in Week four.

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Speaker 2: Letting him to the waiver wire.

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Speaker 1: Might be a poor idea, but in plenty of leagues, I do think that Zamir White can be dropped. White has seen a decent chunk of that backfield this year, but nothing's come of it. He's yet to score seven PPR points in a single game, and he's seen more than two targets just once. No modernly relevant running back in football has a worse success rate through four weeks than Zamir White does. So he's been bad, and Alexander Madison is likely going to see more work if this continues. Now, I understand that in your league, if it's deeper, if you can't afford it, then don't drop Zamir White.

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Speaker 2: I get it.

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Speaker 1: You know your league better than I do. But in a ten team format some twelve team formats, there are good upside stashes that are still sitting on the waiver wire. I would rather go in that direction, even though Zamir White might give me better production week in and week out. I'm looking at upside here. Zamir White's production probably not gonna be league winning, but he might just match a player like Braylan Allen. But Braylan Allen has way way more up than Zamir White does, so I'd much rather roster a player like that than Zamir White. Ad Xavier Legette. The Panthers offense has been completely different with Andy Dalton under center. Deontay Johnson is now living up to expectation. But in Week four Xavier Legett got some looks too. He had a pretty good performance. Now, I talked about this on last week's Sleeper Show. I thought Lagett was a decent play because he was likely going to play the perimeter across from Deontay Johnson and that was a matchup to exploit, and according to PFF Jonathan Mingo, he was the main slot guy for the Panthers. In Week four, Lagett took advantage of that matchup. He had a twenty five percent target share and almost twenty PPR points. Now, as I always say on this show, when a rookie has a big outing, you want to be more aggressive than not and getting that guy off the waiver wire. When a young unknown player does really well and he has a backbone of being a decent prospect, you want to get that player of what we're looking at was Xavier Legette. But I do want to keep in mind that this Week four matchup was a good.

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Speaker 2: One for him. Things won't necessarily be.

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Speaker 1: As good in Week five because they get Chicago and Chicago's been the third toughest matchup for wide receivers this year and adjust a Fantasy points allowed.

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Speaker 2: But regardless, you should be.

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Speaker 1: Adding Lagette ad Wandel Robinson. So another player on the Sleeper Show last week was Wandel Robinson. He had a good slot matchup against the Cowboys and he took advantage. He had a thirty six point eight percent target share. He scored eighteen point one PPERO points. Wandel Robinson is a top fifteen target share at wide receiver this year. Now, he's not gonna win you leagues with a four point eight average dep of target. He's not in an offense like Kansas City's where that's gonna fly. But with Malik Neighbors around, it's opening up a lot of space for Robinson to operate underneath and out of the slot, and that could help him maintain a strong target.

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Speaker 2: Share in that offense.

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Speaker 1: If he's gonna be well above the two twenty percent target share mark, then he should be rostered in almost every league, So go ad him this week. Add Josh Downs, So one more player from last week's sleeper show, Josh Downs. He had a great match up against Pittsburgh and he came through. He scored twenty two point two PPR points. He's now seen target shairs of twenty seven point eight percent and thirty two point one percent over his two games this year. He has that slot role on lock. The bigger problem is opposite of Michael Pittman. Alec Pierce is trying to hold off ad Ni Mitchell. But Downs's role is very real and he's a really good player. Anyone with that kind of target share, let alone a talented player with that kind of target share, should not be left on the waiver wire by Brian Thomas. Sometimes you have to buy high in fantasy football, and one of those instances might be with Brian Thomas. The Jags offense has not been great to start the year, but they've also faced a attom five schedule for quarterbacks by justin fantasy points allowed, and they've gone up against the third toughest wide receivers schedule. They faced Miami, Cleveland, Buffalo, and Houston pre Monday Night Football. Three of those four teams rank as bottom ten opponents for wide receivers. Again, that's by justin fantasy points allowed. Regardless of that, Brian Thomas has done quite well. He has a twenty one percent target share, that's solid, especially for a rookie wide receiver, and he's averaging fourteen and a half PPR points per game. Not only is he a rookie wide receiver, you guys, he's a young rookie wide receiver. Jacksonville's immediate schedule looks a lot better than what they faced the first month of the season, and they've got the eleventh best schedule for wide receivers rest of season. It just feels like Brian Thomas right now is kind of flying under the radar despite performing really really well and kind of a bad offense. Add justin fields, so the Steelers in Week four faced a serious negative game scrip for basically the first time all year, and justin fields the Fantasy football least. He ran the ball ten times for fifty five yards, and he scored twice on the ground. He currently ranks fourth in the league and adjusted completion percentage. He's now scored eighteen to thirty two standard Fantasy points over his last two games. This is why I was excited earlier this season when Justin Fields became starter. The problem was that game scripts just didn't really favor what Justin Fields can do in fantasy, but last week it definitely did, and he's performing a lot better as a passer too, which is huge now. Pittsburgh's upcoming schedule isn't overly friendly for quarterbacks, especially in a few weeks. They get the Jets, but there is some chance for some back and forth against the Cowboys here in Week five, so Fields could definitely work in the short term, but also the long term too. Add the Denver Broncos defense. The Broncos are at home this week, their favorites, and they get the Raiders in a game with a sub thirty seven point over under. Vegas has been the sixth best opponent for defense this year by justin Fantasy points allowed.

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Speaker 2: And guys.

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Speaker 1: Denver's playing really well defensively. They've been a top five team in EPA per play allowed, and they've been a top ten defense in three of four games this year in fantasy football, so Denver's a very easy streaming choice this week. That's it for today's show, though, thanks to all of you for listening. If you get subscribe to the Late Round Fantasy Football podcast, make sure you are bustarting for it pretty much anywhere podcasts can be found, and don't forget to follow me on Twitter at Late Round QB.

00:19:29
Speaker 2: Thanks for listening everyone.

00:19:30
Speaker 1: I'll be back in your ears tomorrow with the weekly ten Trends episode. Talk to you then,