826: 15 Transactions for Week 9

00:00:02
Speaker 1: This is the lad Podcast with your host JJ zacher Retha Jay Jake Zacher reson. What's up everyone. It's JJ Zacharyeson in this episode eight hundred and twenty six of the Late Round Fantasy Football podcast sponsored by FanDuel. Thanks for tuning in. Before we getting the transactions this week, I want to send another reminder about the Late Round Fantasy Football Patreon. I know I talk about buys and sells on this show every week, but sometimes you might not know exactly where I'm placing these guys rest of season. Well, with the Patreon, you can get my rest of season rankings and tears. I think there's more to it than just looking at a set of rankings, but it's at least a good starting point. There's also live Q and A's weekly rankings and tears and more on the Patreon. You can learn more over on Lateround dot com. Add Will Levis. So. Will Levis made his debut for the Titans on Sunday and it went really, really well. He ended up throwing four touchdown passes on twenty nine attempts. Now, I don't do a lot of quarterback prospecting because it's really really hard. I don't have a model for it. I have some takes on who I think is going to be good and who I think is not going to be good, but those takes are not nearly as strong as they are running back, wide receiver, and even tight end. If you talk to analysts around the draft community, the majority of analysts pre draft did not like will Levis. But we have to keep an open mind. We're wrong all the time, not just me, not just other analysts, but fans are too. What if Will Levis is just a lot better than people thought. What if his physical tools really do translate. We still don't have an answer to that. We don't know for sure if Levis is gonna be good. We've only seen him play in one game, and in that one game he had a really unsustainable touchdown rate. I can guarantee you right now that he's not going to finish with a thirteen or fourteen percent touchdown rate rest of season. That's just not gonna happen, and I would be pretty surprised if he ends up being this week in and week out starter for your fantasy team. Rookie quarterbacks generally aren't reaching that status, but the quarterback position is kind of rough right now in fantasy football, and Will Levis is sitting on your waiver wire. He's not costing a lot to acquire, so why not why not see if there's more to this. You probably don't need to add Levis in shallower leagues, but if you're in a twelve fourteen team league, I think that he's worth rostering just to see what this is all about. And it doesn't hurt that Tennessee has the sixth best quarterback schedule from here on out according to my adjusted Fantasy points allowed numbers, hold or sell DeAndre Hopkins. So the biggest winner from Will Levis's big Week eight performance definitely DeAndre Hopkins. He finally found the end zone for Tennessee. And he didn't do it once, he didn't do it twice, he did it three times. He had thirty four point eight PPR points. That was his best outing of the year by far. But here's the thing. His target share just twenty two point two percent. That was actually his second lowest target share of the season. If there's anyone in your league who right now is willing to buy into this Tennessee passing attack, I'm talking like, really buy into it, then Hopkins is an obvious cell to that team. A twenty two percent target share in this Tennessee offense is not going to lead to a lot of opportunity. We even saw that against Atlanta, Hopkins only had six targets. This is a run heavy offense, and even though we liked what we saw out of Levis in Week eight, we can't assume that the Titans are going to stray away from their ground and pound approach. They had a forty seven percent pass rate against Atlanta. That's not high at all. The thing is, chances are the managers in your league they're not ready to just buy into Will Levis. They not ready to buy into this passing attack. That's I think Hopkins is probably more of a hold than a cell. The Titans also have a top ten wide receiver schedule from here on out, But just keep all of this context in mind, Tennessee still was not pass heavy this past week. DeAndre Hopkins didn't see like a thirty five to forty percent target share. It could be an upgrade. This could be a good thing for Hopkins down the line, but let's not assume that he can be a wide receiver one from here on out. By Brandon Ayuk. The forty nine Ers have now lost three straight games. There are some bad vibes surrounding that San Francisco passing attack and Brandon Ayuk, the team's top receiver. He's been good, but not great during this time. He really hasn't had a monster game since Week four, and that's despite the fact that Deebo Samuel's been sidelined. That could be a frustrating thing for fantasy managers. And now the forty nine ers have a bye, So those same Iyuk managers, the ones who have been a little bit frustrated with how he's performed without Deebo Samuel, they might be trying to win right now. They need a win in Week nine. There are instances where players are easier to acquire when they're on their bye, and I would be willing to take on Ayuk. He's sitting with a twenty four percent target share in the season, and he's been at or above a twenty five percent target share in all but one game this year. And after the bye, the forty nine Ers have an awesome wide receiver schedule. It's the second easiest schedule by justin fantasy points allowed. From here on, out and in the Fantasy Football playoffs weeks fifteen through seventeen, they get the Cardinals, Ravens, and Commanders. Now, Baltimore is not a great matchup, but Arizona is a plus one and Washington is the best one for wide receivers and adjusted points allowed. AD Trey McBride. So I talked about McBride on a couple of episodes last week on the podcast. Hopefully you were able to get him rostered, but we need to talk about his workload in week because it was amazing Without Zach Ertz in that lineup. McBride played eighty three percent of Arizona's offensive snaps. His previous season high was fifty eight percent. More importantly, he had a thirty eight point nine percent target chair thirty eight point nine percent pre Monday Night Football. So Sam Laporta might get there, maybe Michael Meyer gets there. I have no idea. I'm recording this before Monday Night Football, but pre Monday Night Football that thirty eight point nine percent target chair that's the highest from any tight end a single game this season. Trey McBride needs to be rostered in one hundred percent of leagues. Ad Khalil Shakir. So, for those of you who have listened to this podcast for about a year and a half now maybe two years, you know that my prospect model and me that we like Khalil Shakier, and so far that hasn't looked that great. He hasn't been a consistent contributor in the NFL yet, But over the last two weeks he started seeing more work this Buffalo offense. Back in Week seven, he had a season high en route participation at forty two point nine percent that was far far higher than his previous high seventeen point nine percent. And then in Week eight that number went up again to seventy three point eight percent. That resulted in a fifteen percent target chair and ninety two receiving yards on six catches. Remember, Dawson Knox is out of the lineup for Buffalo. That should force a lot more eleven personnel for this Bill's offense or three wide receiver sets. In that type of personnel, Khalil Shakier can be their slot guy and in such a high powered passing attack that can be usable in fantasy football. Sell Gabe Davis. So, just because Khalil Shakiro makes sense off the waiver wire doesn't mean that we've got to love every Bills player or every Bill's wide receiver. Gabe Davis is coming off a huge game against Tampa Bay. He scored twenty three point seven PPR points. He had a thirty one percent target chair. The thing is both of those numbers season highs. His target share has actually been above fourteen percent just three times this year. That's the obvious reason to sell. He's not giving you consistent production. Nothing's really changed with Davis. He's a big play receiver who's capable of these spiked weeks, but the consistency is unlikely to be there, and that's a big turnoff for fantasy managers. It's frustrating on my end too. It's hard to project a player like this. But on top of that, Buffalo's wide receiver schedule is fifth worse by justin fantasy points allowed from now through the end of the year. So I think right now you can sell Gabe Davis. Add Quinton Johnston. Like I said earlier with Will Levis, don't be overconfident in your own ability to prospect players. This is a game about probability. We can sit here and say that Quinton Johnson is a volatile prospect. That's what I said this offseason. I had a take on Quentin john I thought there was a lot of volatility to his profile. So we can sit here and say that we like Johnston a little bit less than consensus. Just don't let those thoughts take over. Understand that they're still an out here for Quentin Johnson to be usable in fantasy football. Look at the offense that he's in. When young players, especially first round wide receivers, when they see an uptick in usage in production, you need to react. And in Week eight, Johnson had a season high fifteen point eight percent target chair. He played a season high sixty nine percent of LA's snaps. Now, some of this might just be the result of Josh Palmer being banged up. He wasn't one hundred percent healthy in that game, but this could also be natural progression. Historically, rookie wide receivers they do a lot better during the second half of their rookie season than the first. And he's in one of the better passing attacks in football. Why not throw a dart at Quinton Johnson right now? By Chris Alavae. This is one of those on paper, recommendations. It's probably little bit riskier than it seems, because on paper, Chris A Lave is a very, very obvious by candidate. He's currently underperforming and expected Fantasy points per game by roughly four point five PPR points. He's seen a twenty six point six percent target shair per game rate, and he's been north of a thirty percent target share and four games this year, only Aj Brown has more air yards this season than Chris A Lave, and he's leading him by two yards. Like I said, on paper, Chris A Lave is a very obvious by candidate. He just isn't converting right now. Now. If you're a believer that it's the offense or that a Lave himself just isn't that good of a player, then you can ignore this transaction. But my model saw Chris A Lave as not only an elite prospect, but an elite player entering year two. His year two model score was very very good, and I'm almost always gonna lean into that. Sell Gus Edwards, So selling Gus Edwards this week not as straightforward as you might think. Over his last two games, Edwards has seen his highest running back rush share rates of the entire season. Against Detroit two weeks ago, he had a seventy eight percent running back rush share. This past week against Arizona eighty three percent. That's what makes this a little bit tough. But with that being said, Edwards hasn't seen huge spikes and snapshare. He was at fifty seven percent in Week eight. That's right in line with where he's been at throughout the season. And his target share, it's still really low. He hasn't been a pass catcher. He's had a target share per game of just three point seven percent over his last four But Edwards has scored twenty one to twenty nine pper points over his last two games respectively. That's really come down to touchdowns and unsustainable plays. Though Week seven he had that eighty yard reception, he had one target and he had eighty yards on that target, and then Week eight he had three rushing touchdowns. You know, maybe moving forward he sees a higher proportion of those gold line looks. He's already starting to see that. But you guys know my process, it's really hard for me to buy into early down players, non pass catching running backs who aren't even hitting a sixty percent snap rate. Those are just not the type of running backs that I want to invest in. So I do think that Gus Edwards is a cell ad Michael Wilson. So, Michael Wilson hasn't done anything really great since his big Week four blow up against the forty nine ers, but he's playing a lot of snaps and he's running a lot of routes. And yeah, we could say that about a lot of players. There's a lot of wide receivers out there just getting cardio every week, but not all those players are rookies, and not all those players are seeing a potential upgrade at quarterback like Michael Wilson might see. We don't know exactly when Kyler Murray is going to be back in under center for Arizona. What we do know is that he's been an effective quarterback in the past, and like I said with Quentin Johnston, you want these rookie wide receivers during the second half of the rookie year. So I do think that Michael Wilson, as a result, is a reasonable stash hold. James Cook. So, Leonard Fournette signed with the Bills on Monday, and I got a lot of questions about Fournette and his impact on this backfield, so I figured i'd talk about it on this fifteen transaction show. The natural reaction to something like this is that we want nothing to do with this team's existing starter. In this case, that's James Cook. And why I do think that this signing does have a chance to impact Cook, I would not be selling low. Damian Harris is on IR. He's been on IR for two full games. During those two games, James Cook has seen running back rush years of seventy six point five percent and seventy three point seven percent. He was more in that fifty percent to sixty percent range pre injury. So hypothetically, if Leonard Fournette is able to take on Damian Harris's role where he sort of splits that RB two role with Latavius Murray, that could lower James Cook's rush attempts maybe by two or three rushes. That's not nothing, but his biggest issue. James Cook's biggest issue has been his target share. He's averaged a three point four percent target share per game over his last three. That number was ten point three percent during his first five. That's a problem. The good news, though, his route participation has not changed that much, so to me, that might just be variants more than anything else. We're probably in store for James Cook to see some regression in his target share number. I think in the end that Latavius Murray is the bigger loser with this move of signing Leonard Fournette. He's averaged a running back rush share of thirty one percent over his last three games, but he's had very little to show for it during this time. He's failed to convert his six rushes within the opponent's ten yard line into a single touchdown. Latavius Murray has not been very good over the last month, so to me, Cook may end up seeing a little bit of a dip in his backfield chair. That's if Fournette surpasses Murray on the depth chart, which is very possible. Cook, though, should still be the team's top running back and fantasy producer. There's no need to pan exel. It's gonna probably take some time for Fournette to ramp up anyway, and I guess if you're in a deep enough league, you could add Leonard Fournette this week too. By DK Metcalf, we haven't seen a really huge week from DK Metcalf all season long. He's played six games, and the highest of these ranked and weekly scoring is wide receiver eighteen. That's in PPR formats. He's had a really nice PPR floor. He scored no fewer than ten point nine points in a game, but his ceiling has been seventeen point two. Now. A problem that Metcalf had last year was that he couldn't find the end zone. He scored six times. When Pro Football Focuses Expected touchdowns model had him listen at ten point five. He underperformed the touchdown column by a pretty wide margin, and here in twenty twenty three, the same exact thing is happening. Metcalf has scored twice in six games. His expected touchdown total is four. He's also coming off a pretty mediocre performance within the context of how that team performed. Tyler Locke and Jackson Smith and Jigba both scored touchdowns against the Browns. DK Metcalf didn't, but he did have a thirty eight point nine percent target share, and that was by far his highest of the season. That's really good news for his future production. Regression should hit for DK Metcalf, and that's a really good thing when you consider his fantasy playoff schedule. Listen to this, guys. During weeks fifteen through seventeen, Seattle gets the Eagles the second best matchup and the justin fantasy points the wide receivers the Titans, who are the fourth best matchup, and the Steelers, who are currently the third best matchup. It is by far the best stretch of matchups during the fantasy playoffs for wide receivers. Now might be the perfect time to buy DK Metcalf add Jaden Reid. So in Week eight, Reed ran a route on eighty nine percent of Jordan Love's dropbacks. Not only was that his highest route participation of the season, his previous high was seventy five point six percent, but it was the highest on the Packers. That's noteworthy. Reid finished the day against Minnesota with a fifteen percent target chair and twelve point three PPR points. Now, I know the Packers have been horrible offensively of late, but they do have a very favorable passing schedule upcoming. So Jaden Reid should be rostered by T Higgins. It's been a really strange season for this Bengals offense, and it's been even weirder for T Higgins. Higgins was healthy earlier this season, during a stretch of time where Joe Burrow wasn't, the entire Bengals offense could not get going because Joe Burrow was not one hundred percent. They scored three offensive touchdowns across their first four games of the season, and that led to some miserable performances from T. Higgins. Higgins then missed Week five, and in Cincinnati's Week six games, he split time with Trenton Irwin. During that two game stretch, the Bengals offense started to come alive. They scored five touchdowns. They looked more like the Bengals that we expected to start the year. So essentially, T. Higgins is healthy to start the year, but Joe Burrow wasn't. Joe Burrow starts to get healthy and T. Higgins hasn't been healthy. Now after a Week seven by Higgins got a more legitimate shot to produce. In Week eight, he got the good Bengals offense, but he likely wasn't yet one hundred percent because he still played behind Tyler Boyd. But Higgins did play more snaps than the last time that we saw him, and it was in a game where Cincinnati played with a decent positive game script that could explain some of this, That could explain why he played behind Tyler Boyd. They didn't want to risk anything. But even still, Higgins finished with a respectable eighteen point eight percent target chair. He ranked second on the team in targets. I just don't think that Higgins has really had a fair shot this year, and he's one of the biggest underachievers and expected fantasy points scored. That's a clear sign of regression. And the Bengals also have one of the better wide receiver schedules from here on now according to adjusted Fantasy points allowed. So, just like DK Metcalf, I think right now could be the perfect time to buy T Higgins at the Atlanta Falcons defense. Now, I know the Falcons did not come through last week. It's Will Levis. He tore them apart, But I think the process for the Atlanta defense was still right, it was still fair, and it's a similar process this week. Kirk Cousins tore his achilles. He's done for the year. It's looking like fifth rounder Jaren Hall is going to start for Minnesota this week. Nick Mullens, another option for them, is currently on ir That's why FanDuel's Sportsbook has this Vikings Falcons game with a thirty seven and a half point over under and the Falcons are four and a half point favorites. Now, I know that Atlanta got burned by one rookie quarterback last week. Surely it's not gonna happen to an inferior option this week, right right? I do think process wise, this Atlanta defense makes sense in week nine. That's it for today's show, though, Thanks to all of you for listening. If you yet subscribe to the Late Round Fantasy Football podcast, make sure you are by searching for you pretty much anywhere podcasts can be found. Andel friend to follow me on Twitter at Late Round QB. Thanks for listening to everyone. I'll talk to you tomorrow with the weekly ten Trend Show