455: 10 Trends for Week 13

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Speaker 1: This is the lad podcast with your host JJ Zacker reatha, j J Zacher Reason. What's up everyone? It's JJ Zacharyesen, the editor in chief at FANDEL and at number five dot com. And this is episode four hundred and fifty five of the Late Round podcast, the many shows that are part of the FANDEL podcast network. Oh, thanks for tuning in. Fandel Sportsbook is giving new users an opportunity to win big on this Sunday's matchup between the Titans and the Browns. Right now, you have a chance to bet five dollars on either team at plus twenty five hundred odds, and if you win, you'll make one hundred and twenty five dollars. You heard that correctly. Bet five dollars win one hundred and twenty five dollars. The offers for this Sunday's game only, So download the Fandal Sportsbook mobile app, sign up, and make your first deposit to see your enhanced odds today. Must be twenty one years or older and president in Indiana, Illinois, or Tennessee. New users only must wageerund designated boost market deposit aquired max bonus one hundred and twenty five dollars See full terms at sportsbook dot fanl dot com, gambling problem called one hundred gambler and Indiana call one hundred nine with it or in Tennessee called Tennessee redline one hundred eight eight nine ninety seven eighty nine. So we all know Austin Eckler came back this past week and he was featured in that Chargers offense. He had a thirty one point three percent target chair. Now, that won't keep up, but it still shows us that Justin Herbert is not afraid to dump it off like we saw with Tyrod Taylor to start the year. That's a great sign. But what we saw in that game was Keenan Allen dropping below a twenty percent target chair for the first time this season in a completed game. And I say completed game because he left that one game earlier this season against the Saints. I'm not putting a ton of stock into this, but I do think that it's at least worth monitoring that we may not see as high of a ceiling for Allen in terms of target share. The good news is that the Chargers have a pretty good schedule down the stretch, so hopefully none of this actually matters. James Robinson just keeps getting absurd volume in that Jacksonville offense. He's now handled ninety six and a half percent of Jacksonville's running back rushes this year, which is easily the highest running back rush share in the league. I mentioned this on a previous episode earlier in the season, but the high from any running back dating back to twenty eleven, which is where I go back to with my data, the high was Christian McCaffrey last year at a ninety one point one percent running back rush share. James Robinson is at ninety six and a half percent. That's the main reason that Robinson, even with a tough schedule down the stretch, he should still be fine. As I mentioned on yesterday's fifteen Transactions episode, I wouldn't expect him to maintain his season long average, but that doesn't mean that you won't be valuable. Volume equals fantasy points. The third trend this week is one that everyone's talking about, but it's about Alvin Kamara. Since Taysom Hill's taken over that offense. So two games worth of data, Kamara has three targets, one catch, and minus two yards receiving. He's ranked twenty fifth or worse and weekly scoring at the running back position in both of those games, after giving us zero performances up to that point of the season where he ranked outside the top ten and weekly PPR scoring. Maybe this is partially a foot injury that he's dealing with, but I definitely don't think it's only that. Because the Saints are targeting their running backs at about half the rate that they were when Drew Brees was under center, it's hard to trust Kamara as anything more than an RB two until Drew Brees gets back. It's been three weeks since Nick Chubb returned from injury, and he's been his typical self. One weird thing that was emerging in weeks ten and eleven, his first two games after coming back from injury was that Kareem Hunt was seeing a lot of work in the red zone and close to the goal line. Now, some of those numbers were apparently being accumulated by Hunt because Nick Chubb had a contact lens issue that was against Philadelphia, so Hunt just kept getting work at the goal line while Chubb was sidelined. But the good news is that on Sunday against Jacksonville, Chubb had four red zone attempts to Hunt one, he had two goal line carries, and Hunt had won Kareem Hunt is still on the field more than we'd like, or at least more than a manager with Nick Chubb would like, but at least the trend is reversing a bit. Oh and by the way, Nick Chubb saw a season high eleven percent target share against Jacksonville. That's pretty fun too. Travis Fulgham saw just a four point eight percent target share in Week twelve against Seattle. He played just fifty two percent of the team snaps, when Greg Ward played sixty seven percent and Jalen Ragers sixty one percent. Al Seon Jeffrey was at forty nine percent. But that was Fulghum's worst game and worst usage since becoming a thing for the Eagles. Now, he had a twenty one percent target share in Week eleven, So I don't know if he's droppable in normal leagues, but I do think that he can be dropped in shallower leagues. And I'll be honest, I didn't see this type of implosion coming for Philadelphia. I was into them as a by low given their schedule was so nice during the second half of the year and guys would be getting healthier, but that offensive line can buy with poor play from their quarterback that just torpedoed everyone in an offense not named Dallas Goddard and maybe not named Miles Sanders. I had Jarvis Landry as a by low and a fifteen transactions episode a couple of weeks ago, and he finally came through with a big performance in a plus matchup against Jacksonville, And I mean, let's get this passing attack for Cleveland a little bit of a break given the weather that they've been playing in. They finally had a good weather game and they looked competent, relatively competent. I understand it was against Jacksonville, but it was still good to see since Odell Beckham's season ending injury and including the game OBJ got hurt since it happened early in that game. Landry's averaging almost a twenty nine percent target share per game with matchups against Tennessee and then both New York teams upcoming and the Ravens sandwiched in between, He's still someone that I would won on my roster. Antonio Gibson saw a twenty nine point two percent target shair on Thanksgiving that was easily his season high. He also tied a season high with a sixty five point two percent snapshare in that contest, and he dominated. Hopefully it's a sign of things to come, I will say, or I should point out that Washington doesn't have the best schedule in the world moving forward. They get the Steelers in Week thirteen, then the forty nine Ers, who looked better in week twelve, and then Seattle where they could see a negative game script, and then Carolina and the Fantasy Championship. You've got to keep riding Gibson because he's a beast, but it'll be interesting to see his usage if and when Washington's not in a positive or a neutral games script. This season, the top weekly tight end in PPR formats has averaged a little over twenty four Fantasy points. So, in other words, if you look at all the tight end one performances, and I'm talking about the tight end one, they've averaged twenty four PPR points per game. If you felt like the position has sucked this year, this is one indication that it has, because dating back to twenty eleven, that's the lowest tight end one average that we've seen. Now, I will say, if you look at the tight end five averages or the tight end ten averages, or really any other position, the results aren't as drastic, which tells us that the weekly scoring spread from tight end one to the rest of the position isn't as significant as what we've seen in the past. That doesn't mean that Travis Kelcey hasn't been really, really valuable. He's been one of the most valuable players in fantasy football this year. It just means that with something like DFS, let's say, punting the position seems to make sense. And again this is just exploratory stuff, but it could make sense since the spread of points has been smaller than normal. Clyde Edwards Zilaire has averaged a three point four percent target share over the last two weeks. He's been maintaining a decent enough running back rush air, but the lack of targets is really concerning. Since Le'Veon Bell entered the picture, CEH has a target share per game average just a little over eight percent. Before Bell that number was fourteen percent. The last trend this week is about Deshaun Watson and Will Fuller. As you know by now, Will Fuller was suspended for ped use and he's out for the year. He's done. Obviously, that hurts any of you who have Fuller, but it hurts to Sean Watson a lot too. Watson splits with and without Fuller or skewed a little bit because of DeAndre Hopkins being in the picture. But Watson has been so much better with Fuller during his career than without him. Without Fuller, Watson's passing yards per game drop well below over fifty yards, his passing touchdowns per game by almost a full touchdown, and his points per game by about four fantasy points. With a tough upcoming schedule for Houston, we can't assume that Watson is a plug and play option. He's a big, big loser from this suspension too. 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 don't forget to follow me on Twitter at Late Round QB. Thanks everyone, I'll talk to you tomorrow with the weekly matchup show.