323: Week 13 Matchups

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Speaker 1: This is the Late Podcast with your host JJ zacher Retha, j J zacher Resa, what's up everyone. It's JJ Zachariason, the editor in chief at fandel and at number fire dot com. And this is episode three hundred and twenty three of the Late Round Podcast, one of the many shows that are part of the FanDuel podcast network. Thanks for tuning in. Just as a reminder, this is the last Late Round podcast episode of the week, so there won't be a mailbag show this week, but be sure to tune into my weekly Facebook live on the FanDuel Facebook page at noon Eastern on Sunday. I'll be answering any last minute start sick questions. Now onto this show. Last week was a good one with this matchups episode. I was right to Devalue, Dak Prescott and Aaron Rodgers and Baker Mayfield outproduced both players. I got off of Carson Wentz with all the news about his wide receivers. I talked about that on my Facebook live, so that ended up being good. Bo Scarborough had a pretty good game all things considered. Latavius Murray was a nice deep option, Brian Hill and Royce Freeman sucked, and Alan Robinson bounced back wide receiver was easily the worst position, though I didn't expect the Colts to be as run heavy as they were against Houston and Zach Paskeal ended up as a bad deeper play and Golden Tate ended up finding the end zone late, which saved his day. But I do actually think that the process was okay with Golden Tate last week because he only had thirty three yards and then DK Metcalf underperformed in just an ugly, ugly game for fantasy purposes. But overall, given I'm talking about ify players on this show, is a pretty strong week on to week thirteen before looking at players that I'm higher in lower on versus consensus. This week, though, there's another weekly free role for all of you loyal FanDuel podcast network listeners. Head to fandle dot Com Slash League slash Number Fire, enter a lineup and have a shot to win free Number Fire premium to go along with a little bit of cash. That's fandle dot Com Slash League Slash Number Fire Quarterback is pretty fun this week. You can make the case for a lot of guys who are ranked his mid range QB twos to be QB ones and then vice versa. One of those mid to lower end QB twos this week who I think should be ranked higher is Jared Goff. Yes, that Jared Goff, the one who hasn't thrown a touchdown pass since October. He's in play. Like I talked about on the ten Trend show, Goff has faced a pretty tough schedule. Over his last three games. He's faced Pittsburgh, Chicago, and Baltimore. Each of those teams not only have been good against fantasy quarterbacks, but Chicago and Pittsburgh ranked really high in pressure rate and Baltimore is just playing lights out defensively since they got Marcus Peters. Realistically, Goff hasn't been all that bad and plus matchups this year. In fact, he's been pretty good in them. He's played six games against defenses that rank in the bottom half of the league and fantasy points allowed when adjusted for strength of opponent, so bad teams against fantasy quarterbacks. In those games, he's averaged twenty fantasy points per game. In his five games against good defenses or top half defenses, that number falls to four point eight. That's obviously a very massive difference, and he gets one of the best matchups on paper this week against the Cardinals, who are one of those bottom half teams. They've allowed fewer than fourteen fantasy points just once this season, so Jared Goff is most definitely in play this week after a really rough month of football. Carson Wentz is too. He's been pretty bad of late, averaging just eleven and a half fantasy points per game over his last five contests. Now, to be fair, he faced Dallas, Buffalo, Chicago, New England, and in this past week he didn't have his weapons, and that was a game against Seattle, so there is at least some reason for him not performing all that well. But when you watch Wentz, he has looked pretty bad. Now with that being said, a matchup against Miami should be able to fix things. The Dolphins are allowing the fourth most fantasy points to oppose in quarterbacks this year, and they've given up at least twelve and a half fantasy points in every single game, so Carson Wentz is a good floor for the first time in weeks. If you want a deeper play, I think Daniel Jones is really undervalued this week at QB twenty eight. It's true that Green Bay has allowed the ninth fewest fantasy points to oppose in quarterbacks this year, but they've also given up the ninth most pass They've actually allowed three hundred and six passing yards per game over their last seven games. They've been pretty fortunate to have only allowed fourteen passing touchdowns. Teams are giving up a passing touchdown on every one hundred and sixty four passing yards this year. Green Bay's allowed one for every two hundred and fifteen yards. That's the sixth best rate in football. So maybe we're looking at some regression for that Packers defense that would help Danny Dimes. I am less bullish on this game if Golden Tate does miss the contest. Now at quarterback this week, it's hard to really be a hater with a lot of plays, but I do think that we've got another situation where you don't absolutely have to play the stud who's facing New England. In this case, it's Deshaun Watson. Only Lamar Jackson has been able to rank higher than QB twenty and weekly scoring against the Patriots this year, and when adjusted for strength of opponent, they're giving up eight point three fewer points in their opponent's season long averages. If you want to just use that number and associated with Deshaun Watson, that would give you an expected Fantasy total this week of thirteen point three points. Now, I'm not saying that that's where he'll finish this week, but what I am saying is that locking him up as a for sure QB one this week isn't all that wise. Given what the Patriots have done this year. It's a tough matchup for Deshaun Watson. Jordan Howard has still been limited to non contact work in practice. That means Miles Sanders could be the lead back for Philly once again. Like I talked about on the ten Trend Show, Sanders hasn't produced in Fantasy without Howard, but the peripheral numbers are absolutely there. He's been playing about eighty five percent of the team snaps without Howard, and he's seen his running back rush share rise by about thirty percent against the Miami team that's well below average against opposing running backs. Sanders is a very solid start this week if Jordan Howard doesn't play. Ronald Jones is another guy who's kind of been a fringe starter, but I like him this week. As well. Jacksonville's defense has been pathetic against running backs. Over their last three games, they gave up an RB eleven and an RB twenty one performance to Duke Johnson and Carlos Hide, an RB twelve, fourteen and twenty three performance the trio of Colt's running backs, and then a big game last week to Derrick Henry. They've been a well below average team against opposing running backs this season, and Ronald Jones has had pretty good ground game usage basically since Week two, but over his last five games, he's also averaging a ten and a half percent target share. He's being used more as a receiver in a game that could be fairly high scoring. He makes for a good RB two. Now, thinking a little bit deeper, as Jamal Williams, Aaron Jones is the superior play to Jamal Williams. Don't take this the wrong way, but the gap between Jones to Williams is really big. Jones is the RB five in consensus rankings on Fantasy Pros, whereas Williams is RB thirty four. Williams has kind of been ridiculous since coming back from his concussion too. He's averaging fifteen point six PPR points per game over this time, and he's finished worse than RB thirteen and weekly scoring just once. During this time, He's seen roughly thirty seven percent of the team's running back rushes and thirteen point eight percent of green based targets. Across the same time period, Aaron Jones is a sixty percent running back rush share, so twenty three percentage points higher, and at time twelve percent target share, which is lower than Williams. Again, Aaron Jones is the superior play and Jones actually should be ranked as high as he is this week. The thing I don't understand is the lack of love for Williams, who's seeing the work, who should be in a positive game script, and who's facing a very average defense. Now even deeper than Jamal Williams is Daryl Williams. He should take on a bigger role if Damian Williams does indeed miss time. As of Wednesday, Damian Williams hasn't practiced this week, and that's a pretty big deal because, like I said on the fifteen Transaction show, Damien was seeing over seventy percent of Kansas City snaps pretty consistently over the last few weeks. Daryl Williams has been relevant this year and he'll likely play behind Lashaw McCoy if Damien can't go. But it's a plus matchup and the Chiefs are nine and a half point favorites, which means they might not overwork their veteran running back. So this is really less of a super quantitative recommendation and more of a Daryl Williams will be the RB two in a good offense that should score a lot of points. That's the type of play that he is. Kenyan Drake has listed at RB twenty five this week, and while that could easily hit, I do worry with both David Johnson and Chase Edmonds being back from injury. Cliff Kingsbury said on Wednesday that there is definitely a way to integrate three running backs into the game plan and that quote it's on us as an offensive staff to find different ways to get them involved. The ball can only go to so many players. There are only so many plays in a game. So even though the matchup is fine, I do think that we should temper expectations a little bit when it comes to Kenyan Drake and then workload issues could be there for Chris Carson this week too. Rashan Penny stole a sixty four percent running back rush share in that backfield last week because Chris Carson couldn't hold onto the football, but Carson's still ranked as the RB eighteen this week. I'd bump them lower and into the tier with someone like Miles Sanders or Ronald Jones only because we don't really know. This is how the running back position often works in fantasy. You've got to try and read a coaching staff before a game starts, and the read right now is that Chris Carson might not be as involved this week as he was earlier in the season. We saw them change things up last week, and it's like they've got this amazing matchup either. Minnesota's been a top ten team against opposing running backs this year when adjusted for strength of schedule. Robert Woods is undervalue this week. I really really like Cooper Cup to smash in this spot because the Cardinals have been awful against slot receivers. But Bobby Woods shouldn't be ranked at wide receiver thirty two. He's been a wide receiver two or better in three of his last four games, and he's dip below a seventeen percent target share just once since Week two. It's a plus matchup against Arizona, like I talked about with Jared Goff, and also, like I talked about with Goff, the Rams offense is clearly better in these good matchups. So Woods is a good play this week, and he also has some positive touchdown regression coming. I talked about Anthony Miller on the ten Trend show, and I also tease that I'd bring him up on this matchup show, and here we are, we're talking about Anthony Miller. There's nothing more powerful than an Anthony Miller tease. But Miller's seen a twenty four twenty two percent target shair over his last two games, and Taylor Gabriel's out he has a concussion on top of that. Ruler's got a really good matchup in the slot against Detroit. He's played seventy nine percent of his snaps from that area of the field this year and Detroit's allowed almost thirty five percent of the targets that they faced to go to the slot. That's a top five rate in football. So I like Miller this week. Chris Conley is also someone who I think is being undervalued this week. Over his last five games, he's averaged almost a twenty one percent target share, and since Nick Foles returned, he's out targeted d Ede Westbrooks seventeen to fifteen. And the difference between Westbrook and Conley is that Conley's average at the target is a lot better. On the year, Conley's seen a fourteen point nine to a dot Westbrooks is at six point six to me. All of this evidence points to Chris Conley being a better play than Deede Westbrook, but westbrook is ranked ahead of him. They both should be fine this week, though, because they get Tampa Bay. The Bucks are allowing twelve more points per game to opposing team wide receivers than those same wide receivers have scored per game across the entire season. That's by far the highest mark in the league, and it's not close. So all Jags wideouts are in play, but I wanted to give a special shout out to Chris Conley. Russell Gage is an even deeper play that you could look to this week. He's more of a floor player rather than a ceiling one, but he's continued to see work since Mohammed Sanu left for New England, He's averaged a sixteen and a half target share per game without Snow. He's played sixty percent of his snaps this year from the slot, and New Orleans leads the league in percentage of targets that have gone to that area of the field this year. That makes Gauge in a negative game script kind of an intriguing deeper option. Sammy Watkins is the wide receiver thirty this week on Fantasy pros now Everything points to that being a logical take, except for the fact that Sammy Watkins has been in this spot before. It's a plus matchup and I don't actually mind Wakins all that much this week, but it's hard to ignore his past performances. He's ranked higher than wide receiver thirty eight just once since Week one, and it's hard for me to put him ahead of someone like Robert Woods, who's actually ranked below him this week. So sure, Watkins is fine, but I don't have the most confidence in the world in him. Lastly, there's DeAndre Hopkins. You're not benching DeAndre Hopkins, but I need to show some for that New England secondary and how good they've been this year. The Patriots have allowed just three wide receiver two or better performances on the entire season. One was the Golden Tate who needed a sixty four yard touchdown to get there. One was the Steven Simms who needed a sixty five yard rush, and then Cole Beasley was the wide receiver twenty back in Week four and he needed thirteen targets. This is all while facing Jujus Smith Schuster with Ben Roethlisberger, Odell Beckham, John Brown, Jarvis Landry and Maari Cooper who had a goose egg last week, and the list goes on and on. It's a horrific matchup for Hopkins. I think Hopkins should be started, and it's really hard to rank him a lot lower than where he's being ranked, but I want to do at least set expectations for him this week because it could be rough. Mike Kasiki has now seen a sixteen point eight percent target share over his last three games, which have come without Preston Williams in that lineup. Last week, he ran more routes according to Pro Football Focus than any other tight end, and there's likely to be another negative game script for the Dolphins this week, even though the matchup against phil Adelphia is a little bit below average. I think that he's a pretty good tight end streamer. My deep deep tight end streamer this week, though, is Jaden Graham. He hasn't been very impactful for fantasy purposes with Austin Hooper sidelined. He has only three catches over those two games, but he actually ran the second most routes at the tight end position last week. He obviously has a floor of zero, but if you're really desperate, he could be your tight end streamer this week. The Panthers defense is still out there in forty five percent of Yahoo leagues, when you could easily argue that they're the best defense this week. Washington's allowed the fourth highest sack rate this year, and Dwayne Haskins has been sacked over four times per game since becoming starter. Carolina, a big home favorite, is second in the NFL in sack rate. The matchup is perfect. Now. There aren't a ton of defenses that are rostered at a really low rate that you could use this week, So I'll just rattle off some that may be on your waiver wire. Philadelphia against Miami that's an obvious play. Green Bay against New York that's another strong play, and even the Chargers against Denver are also in play, so hopefully one of those defenses are available for you. That's gonna do it for today's show, though, Thanks to all of you for listening. If you've guys 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, Happy Thanksgiving,