544: 15 Transactions for Week 2

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Speaker 1: This is the Labor Podcast with your host JJ zacher Retha j Jake Zacher reson what's up everyone? It's JJ Zacharyeson, the editor in chief at Fandel and at Number five dot com in this episode five hundred and forty four of the Late Round podcast. So many shows that are part of the FanDuel podcast network. Thanks for tuning in. Fandel is giving new users an exclusive offer to play NFL Daily Fantasy for free all season long. All you have to do is sign up for FanDuel Daily Fantasy and you'll receive one free voucher for each remaining week of the NFL season. You'll receive your voucher upon sign up to Fandle Daily Fantasy, and vouchers will automatically apply to each weekly entry. Head over to fandel dot com and sign up to play daily Fantasy football. Eligibility restrictions apply new users only. Go to fandel dot com or download the Fandel app for more details. It's fifteen transactions day, so let's get to these transactions. Hold or by Ezekiel Elliott. So in the NFL's opening night, Ezekiel Elliott did not look very good. He didn't produce all that well, he ran for just thirty three yards, he had eleven carries, and he only added two catches through the air. You were hoping for way more out of a first round pick. The good news is there were some positives. Elliott had seventy eight point six percent of the team's running back rushes. That's right in line with his twenty twenty average of seventy three point five percent per game. And it wasn't far off from his twenty nineteen share too, that was eighty percent. And we have to keep the opponent in mind as well. Tampa Bay is arguably the toughest opponent that any running back can face in the NFL. They were top five in the league last year and adjusted fantasy points allowed, and upcoming for the Cowboys is a much much better schedule. We obviously want positive game scripts for Zeke to thrive, and from Week two through the middle of November, this week's game against the Chargers might be the only time that the Cowboys are underdogs. That's easy. The schedule is and LA is only favored by two and a half points this week, and according to Fandles Sportsbook, So why not go all in? Why not go out and just buy Zeke everywhere. Well, there is some concern over his receiving numbers, even though he ran a solid forty four routes according to Pro Football Focus. We can't overlook the fact that Zeke only had a three point five percent target share in that game against Tampa Bay. That was the lowest that he's seen since twenty nineteen, and it was the fourth lowest in a single game that he's had across his entire career. The hope is that that was sort of due to matchup, but the Cowboys were also manufacturing touches for Tony Pollard. Pollard ended up seeing more targets than Ezekiel Elliott did against the Bucks. He had four, Zeke had two. So I think that we should treat Zeke as an RB one, but no longer a mid range RB one, more of a lower end one. So if you can get him cheaper for that, which you might be able to after his Week one performance, then go for it. Ad Cedric Wilson, so in that same game against the Buccaneers, Michael Gallup, who looks really good in that game, he ended up getting hurt. He's going to be out three to five weeks, and the player who's gonna benefit the most in this Cowboys offense is probably Cedric Wilson. He played the fourth most snaps on that team at wide receiver in that game. Now, in most cases, a team's number three wide receiver wouldn't be that big of a deal for fantasy football purposes, but in Dallas's case, it's a little bit different. They've been a very pass heavy team over the last year plus with Dak Prescott under center, and that was very evident in Week one. No team had more targets overall than the Dallas Cowboys, So Cedric Wilson could be relevant. Sell Robbie Anderson. The Carolina Panthers offense is a lot different this year than it was last year. You now have Sam Darnold under center, Christian McCaffrey's back, Curtis Samuel's gone, and then rookie Terris Marshall is there. It seemed like Robby Anderson would still have a pretty steady role in this Carolina offense even with all these changes, but in Week one we didn't see that. He did find the end zone on a fifty seven yard reception, but that was his only catch of the game. He finished with just three targets and a target chair below ten percent, and he's a sell candidate this week because clearly, I think this is sort of time to panic. Anderson's a lore season ago was his reliability. His lowest target share in a single game last year was fourteen point seven percent. He was well below that mark in just Week one, and again it was with all these changes in the Carolina offense. Now, don't get me wrong, I would expect Anderson to see more looks moving forward. And that's especially true because he still tied Dj Moore for the team lead in wide receiver snaps. He played nineteen more snaps in terras Marshall, My issue is, I think we might end up seeing more variants week to week with Robby Anderson's target share, and we just can't bank on a fifty seven yard touchdown happening every week. And because that play happened, you may be able to sell Robby Anderson for a wide receiver three price tag still and Elijah Mitchell, So let's talk about what happened with San Francisco this weekend. I've been analyzing fantasy football for about a decade now. I've been playing the game since the early two thousands. I cannot remember a more surprising out of nowhere week one inactive than what we saw with Trey Sermon this past Sunday. And maybe that's a slight exaggeration, it just feels like that's the case. Trey Sermon played with the starters in the preseason, he ran well and there weren't any major reports of him being behind both Elijah Mitchell and Jamichael Hasty on that depth chart. Then out of the blue, he's inactive. Now, this is gonna be a shameless plug, but every Sunday at noon on Fandel's YouTube channel, I do a start sit show. On that show, this week I made reference to Elijah Mitchell being my favorite ad off the waiver wire between himself and Jamichael Hasty, And this was after the Tray Sermon news had dropped. And the reason was is because Mitchell was sort of a Raheemoster clone. He's five foot ten, he's two hundred one pounds, when Mosterart's NFL measurables are five to ten two hundred and five pounds. Elijah Mitchell ran a four to three five forty at his pro day. Moster ran a four to three, four to forty at the combine. Neither player had amazing college production, but because of their speed, they were incredibly efficient. Kyle Shanahan has a type, and with Moster going down early in Week one against Detroit, Moster two point zero stepped in and he ran the ball nineteen times for one hundred and four yards in a touchdown. Now there was a positive script for San Francisco and Elijah Mitchell didn't see a target partially as a result of that, but he did have over eighty six percent of the team's running back rushes and now Raheem Mostered is out for an extended period of time, so that's good news for Elijah Mitchell. Now here's the thing, don't go dropping Trey Sermon. He's going to be active now. So Hiss backfield could still be somewhat of a mess, But that doesn't mean that you shouldn't go out and still add Elijah Mitchell because who knows, he may really end up being the one in this offense. Ad Kenneth Gainwell, so yeah, I'm gonna take a big l on Boston Scott in that recommendation last week, but I will say the process clearly wasn't that bad because instead of Boston Scott being the guy that I thought was gonna play that role, it ended up being Kenneth Gainwell in that Philadelphia backfield. I just didn't think that we were gonna see Gainwell so fast. But I like Gainwell the prospect. I think that Gainwoell is a better running back than Boston Scott. I was just predicting how they were gonna use those running backs right away and early in the season, and I was wrong. Gainwell got run a lot earlier than I thought. He's going to play the pass catching role in this Eagles offense, and it makes sense because he was a good receiver in college. Among relevant backs in this year's draft class, he had the highest best season reception chair. Philadelphia had a positive game stripped against Atlanta, and that's even more reason though, to be bullish on Gainwell. He finished the game with a nine point four percent target chair and he had thirty seven and a half percent of the running back rushes in that back that turned into nine carries and three targets. If and when the Eagles are in a worse game script game, Moo could really benefit. So he has some flex appeal, but he also has handcuff appeal as well sell Melvin Gordon. So Melvin Gordon gave us a top ten running back performance this week, and that was even with rookie Javonte Williams in the mix. And by in the mix, I mean that backfield was completely split in half. Both players played thirty three snaps. Williams out attempted Gordon fourteen to eleven, but Gordon saw three targets to Williams one. The difference in fantasy football came down to a seventy yard touchdown from Melvin Gordon. Period. Now I should add that Gordon was the better runner in that game against the Giants. According to Number five's expected points model, Gordon had a forty five and a half percent success rate, or the percentage of runs that went for positive expected points. That was far better than William's twenty one point four percent rate. But I'm still selling Melvin Gordon because there's a higher likelihood that the rookie that Denver traded up in the second round for the one who ranked as a ninety second percentile prospect in my model, that he ends up taking over the backfield this season versus the veteran versus the alternative, And because Gordon had a big day in fantasy, you might be able to sell high add Carlos Hide. This is what I've been talking about all off season. I don't think urban Meyer and this staff, I don't think they're very sharp. Look at everything they've done up into this point. They draft Travis Etn in the first round despite being a rebuilding team. You don't do that. They signed Tim Tebow, they introduced that circus. They acted like Gardner Minshew had a shot to beat Trevor Lawrence for the QB one job, just to trade him for a meaningless draft pick, and then Sunday happened. You have James Robinson, who was great last year as an undrafted rookie, and you're gonna let Carlos Hide dig into James Robinson's role. I mean, look, Robinson isn't Christian McCaffrey, but he's still pretty good. It's a that James Robinson lost that much work to Carlos Hide. This past week, Hide out attempt at James Robinson nine to five. So because of that, sure, I guess we're adding Carlos Hide this week. Clearly, I'm not that excited about it, but we have to do it because Urban Meyer is doing these crazy things. Here's the thing, though, Jacksonville was in a negative game script for the majority of that game against Houston, which is crazy to begin with. If they couldn't come close to getting it done against the Texans, what's that saying about how they're gonna perform against other teams in the league. That means we're gonna see a lot of negative game scripts, which means we're gonna see more James Robinson than Carlos Hide because in that game, Robinson saw six targets to Hides two, and he also played more snaps. Now I know I'm pooping on Carlos Hide right now, but he's still worth an ad because running backs are scarce. It's tough to have running backs who are getting volume, and we can't think rationally when it comes to this Jacksonville offense. Ad Marquez Valdez scantling. So Week one was one to forget for Green Bay. They didn't find the end zone. Aaron Rodgers posted the lowest Fantasy total of his career, So naturally, when we're going to add a player like MVS, we're not doing it because he had great production. We're doing it for the peripherals. MVS only had three catches for seventeen yards on Sunday, but he saw about a twenty two percent target share in that offense and he ended up being top twenty in air yards across the league, and all of those targets came from Aaron Rodgers. They weren't using MVS in garbage time when Jordan Love stepped into the game. When the Packers offense inevitably starts clicking, probably this weekend against Detroit, MVS could really benefit by Naji Harris. So look, the situation for Harris is not all butterflies and rainbows. The Steelers did not look good offensively in Week one and because of that ineffectiveness, they only ran fifty five offensive plays and that offensive line was just as bad as advertised, and Harris's first game in the NFL, he had only four forty five rushing yards on sixteen carries. But let's focus on the positives here. The Steelers should see more plays run because they averaged over sixty five last year. Let's just assume they see a little bit more volume. That's a plus. But more importantly, Harris's peripheral numbers were actually amazing. We knew that he was going to own the Pittsburgh backfield, and he did that. He played every single offensive snap and saw every single running back rush in that Week one game against Buffalo, and his nine point four percent target share is pretty good too. Yes, the Pittsburgh offensive line is not good, and yes the offense in general is probably not going to be very good this season either, But we want volume in fantasy football. Remember what I talked about in the preseason. Among the thirty nine running back since twenty eleven with at least a seventy percent running back rush here and a ten percent target share, thirty three of them finished with seventeen or more PPR points per game. Just be patient with Naji Harris. Add Tim Patrick. So, as most of you know Jerry Judy, he has a high ankle sprain and he's gonna be out four to six weeks. Not great, but that is going to allow Tim Patrick to get more run in this offense. He played the second most snaps at wide receiver for the Broncos in Week one against the Giants, and he has a history of being a fairly productive wide receiver. He was sort of like this unsung hero in fantasy football last year off the waiver wire, he averaged a seventeen point two percent target chair per game to go along with a ten point seven PPR points per game average. And the offense this year looks like it's gonna be a little bit more efficient than it was last year. So if he can maintain that type of target share with Jerry Judy sidelined, he could have flex appeal in deeper formats ad Jared Cook. Most of you need tight end help in fantasy football, and Jared Cook is available in about three quarters of Yahoo leagues, so you can go after him because in Week one he was a top ten tight end in routes run and he finished that game with a seventeen point four percent target chair that was also a top ten number at the position. He has a good quarterback throwing him the ball. I think he has a genuine shot to be a tight end one this season by Kyle Pits. Now, if you want to go for a higher upside tight end, you could go after Kyle Pits. He had a pretty mediocre performance in Week one. He had four catches thirty one yards, not great, but the usage was there. According to Pro Football Focus, he was top ten in routes run at tight end, and he lined up in the slot on over half of his snaps, ranking the top fifteen within that category. He also was out wide on twenty seven percent of his snaps, a number that ranked in the top ten at tight end, and he was targeted a good bit too. He finished the day with eight targets, which gave him a twenty four point two percent target share through Sunday's games. Only Adam Trautman had a higher Week one share at the tight end position. So sure, it wasn't the best outing in the world for the rookie tight end, but there was a lot to like from a fantasy perspective. Ad mark Ingram, I guess we're adding mark Ingram this week. Ingram's usage was somewhat of a surprise for two reasons. The first reason was that he was by far the best early down runner for Houston on Sunday, he had over seventy percent of the team's running back rushes. But also who saw this result coming. Houston played with a positive game script, so they were able to feed their running backs. So not only was Ingram's backfield share impressive, but because the Texans weren't completely incompetent offensively. He ended the day with the second most carries across the league. On Sunday, only Joe Mixon had more. But yeah, it does feel a little bit fluky. Are the Texans likely going to be leading in games the way that they were in Week one? Probably not. I would be shocked if they were. And that's going to hurt Ingram in fantasy because David Johnson had a twelve and a half percent target share in Week one, mark Ingram's was three point one percent. When they're in those negative game scripts, David Johnson is going to be the running back that you won. But regardless, I think that you can add mark Ingram because he saw lots and lots of volume in Week one. Add Teddy Bridgewater. So I thought I was going to talk about Jamis Winston being the top streamer this week, and then I looked over on Yahoo and he was already rostered in forty four percent of leagues. But regardless, I think Teddy Bridgewater just might be the better Week two streaming option. The Broncos are in Jacksonville this week. According to Fandals Sportsbook, they're six point favorites in a game with a forty five and a half point over under. That gives them a high imply team total of almost twenty six points. And this makes a lot of sense too. According to Sharp Football Analysis is rich Reebar, Jacksonville has allowed twenty four or more points in sixteen straight games. That's the longest streak ever. Jacksonville's defense was atrocious in Week one. Tyrod Taylor actually had the third highest passing total of his entire career here in Week one. Even without Jerry Judy in that offense, Bridgewater has enough passing weapons to take advantage of this really good matchup. Add or hold the Green Bay Packers defense. So let's talk about el's last week. I liked the Packers defense as a streamer. That was clearly a terrible call. It was a big, big whiff. They were torched by Jamis Winston and the Saints. But this week I'm expecting a different outcome. The Packers are going to face the Lions and there in Green Bay. According to Fandels Sportsbook, the Packers are eleven and a half point favorites. That could cause the Lions to be pass heavy like they were in Week one against San Francisco. And even though the forty nine Ers surrendered a lot of points. They were able to sack Jared Goff three times, and they also had to pick six. This is not a scary offense. So if you had the Packers in week one, hold on to them. If you didn't have them, you can still add them because they're available in almost eighty percent of Yahoo leagues. The sixteenth transaction this week that you can't get in my fifteen transactions callum over on number five dot com is to add some tight ends. Seriously, there are a lot of tight ends out there who had decent usage that you may want a roster depending on your tight end situation. But there are four who stand out to me. They're Adam Troutman, Dalton Schultz, Tyler Conklin, and James O'Shaughnessy. Some may be confused as to why I'm advocating for Troutman and not Juwan Johnson because Juwan Johnson scored twice. It's because Adam Troutman saw a thirty percent target chair in that Saints offense in Week one. He had twice as many targets as Johnson had, and he ran twice as many routes. Johnson's gonna be a red zone threat. But it's not like Troutman can't score. It's not like he'll never be targeted in the red zone, so he's still a good option. Tyler Conklin ran as the top tight end for the Vikings. He had thirty two routes run according to Pro Football Focus, Chris Herndon had seven. Conklin only had an eight and a half percent target chair, but the routes run numbers at least a positive. Dalton Schultz and Blake Jarwin really had similar peripherals, with a slight edge to Schultz. With the offense now missing Michael Gallup and the fact that it's pass heavy, I think that Schultz is a really good ad. And then finally there's James O'Shaughnessy. Like I said earlier, Jacksonville is probably gonna face a lot of negative game scripts this year. That means they'll be forced to throw. In Week one, O'Shaughnessy saw eight targets and had a sixteen percent target share Because the Jags were so pass heavy, O'Shaughnessey ran the second most routes a tight end through Sunday's games. The peripherals are at least there for him and that situation. Because of those negative scripts, it's not all that bad. He can walk into some volume. So those are the four options to choose from. I'd say that Schultz is the most attractive given the quarterback in the situation that he's in. Troutman's probably number two. Then O'Shaughnessy, and then Conklin And by the way, one more thing before I let you guys go, I mentioned some wide receivers on today's show that have very very low percent rostered numbers over on Yahoo. I did that because I wanted to give everyone an opportunity to grab those lower rostered players. You're gonna have a better chance of getting those guys. But if someone like Sterling Shepherd is availed on your waiver wire, I would take him over the wide receivers that I talked about. Nelson Agilore probably too. So I want to just throw that out there before I let you guys go. That's gonna do it for today's show, though, thanks to all of you for listening. If you get subscribed to the Late Round podcast, make sure you are by searching for it pretty much anywhere podcasts can be found. You know, if it's to follow me on Twitter at late Round QB. Thanks for listening everyone, I'll talk to you tomorrow with the weekly ten Trend Show