576: 15 Transactions for Week 10

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Speaker 1: This is the Labor Podcast with your host JJ zacher Retha, j J Zacherresa, what's up everyone, It's JJ Zacharyesen, the editor in chief at Fandel and at Number five dot com, in this episode five hundred and seventy six of the Late Round podcast. So many shows that are part of the FanDuel podcast network. Thanks for tuning in, Hey, football fans. Fandel and Simple Mobile have partnered up to add an extra layer of excitement to one of the biggest free to play contests on the market, introducing the Fandel Free to Play Gridiron Pickham Contest presented by Simple Mobile. It's a completely free to play contest that gives you a chance to win big on Sundays. Here's how it works. Simply answer Pickham questions for the week's slate of NFL games and compete for a chance to win your share of ten thousand dollars in cash prizes. If you're one of the highest scoring users on the day, you'll be eligible to win some cold hard cash. Kickoff will be here before you know it, so head Tofandel dot com, slash free Slash Contest, slash Gridiron Pickham and make your picks today. And skip the contracts with high speed data, talk and text on a powerful nationwide network with Simple Mobile. For more details as at fandle dot com or download the Fandle Fantasy App. Eligibility restrictions apply. It's a fifteen transactions day. Let's get to it, sell Alvin Kamara. So there's a couple of things that have changed in Alvin Kamara's environment recently. The first is that Jamis Winston tore his ACL. He's now done for the year. The Saints used Trevor Simeon this past week, and while the performance could have been worse, Taysom Hill is still sitting there. He's still looming. And Sean Payton was asked about his quarterback situation on Monday and he was noncommittal. It's not a lock that Trevor Simeon is going to be the starter this week. Let's pretend that it's Taysom Hill. As I said on the Mailbag Show last week. During Hill's four starts last season, Kamara watched his target share per game dropped to just thirteen percent. It was below ten percent in two of his games. So far this year, Kamara's target share per game average is over twenty percent, So it would take a hit with Taysom Hill under center. Not only that, but as I talked about on this show in the offseason, rushing quarterbacks can help running backs be more efficient, but they generally hurt the personnel on their teams. They hurt the skill players. They hurt the running backs, the wide receivers, and the tight ends. And the basic reason as to why this happens is that they just gobble up more work in their offense. Think about it, if the Saints are close to their opponent's end zone, if Taysom Hill is under center, he has a chance to steal that touchdown. That hurts the other players on that team, at least from a fantasy perspective. So if the Saints end up going with Taysom Hill, it's gonna hurt Alvin Kamara. So that's one thing to watch. The other issue is that Mark Ingram is now a Saint. The Saints traded for Ingram a couple of weeks ago. He's now played two games for them. In those two contests, Kamara's running back rush here per game has been about sixty five percent, his target share per game has been fourteen percent, and he had snap shares of sixty seven percent and sixty eight percent with mark ingraman Town. Before this Ingram deal, Kamara's running back rush share per game was eighty three point five percent. That's significantly higher than what he's seen over the last couple of weeks. His target share per game average was twenty two point three percent, and his lowest snap share in a single game before mark Ingram got to New Orleans was seventy two point six percent. It's been lower than that in the two games with Ingram. Now, Kamara's coming off a pretty big Week nine. He was a rock solid RB one in Fantasy. Given the circumstances around him, it seems like now's the perfect time to sell, as long as you can sell at a premium because his environment has changed and not for the better by Dallas Goddard, so Philadelphia hasn't really seen a negative game script over the last couple of weeks. Two weeks ago, they could completely destroyed the Lions. Jalen Hurts only had fourteen pass attempts. This past week, Hurts had seventeen pass attempts and it was in a game that was fairly close. So Hurts has now averaged fifteen and a half pass attempts per game over his last two contests. That number was thirty four point six from weeks one through seven. Now, I do think that we should expect the Eagles to keep this ground heavy approach moving forward because the results have been pretty good. They're playing better than they had from weeks one through seven. But how possible is it to keep this up to this degree? Like can they really sustain fifteen pass attempts per game through the rest of the season. And the answer to that is probably not. I mean, you look at what's happened over the last decade across the NFL. No team has come close to that. So then let's talk about Dallas Goddard. The Eagles have now played three games this season without zach Ertz. Goddard has averaged a target share per game in those contests of thirty two and a half percent. That number was eleven percent with zach Ertz, and that's a continuation of a trend from last year. Goddard was much more consistent and much more productive when zachers was out of the lineup. Now, I'm not assuming that Goddard's gonna keep up this kind of target chair, but he's clearly going to be heavily involved in this offense, and when that offense inevitably becomes a little bit more pass heavy, and when the offense starts to score more touchdowns through the air, that's gonna benefit Dallas Goddard hold Elijah Mitchell. So a couple of weeks ago on this show, I talked about Elijah Mitchell being a cell candidate. It wasn't that I didn't believe in the talent. You guys know that I like Mitchell as a player, or that he wouldn't be able to provide RB two production in fantasy football. I thought it would be more low end RB two production, but I at least said he was an RB two. It's just that a lot of people were viewing him as a high end RB two or even a low end RB one at the time, and it was tough for me to back that stance, mostly because he just wasn't seeing passing down work that limits a running backs upside. Mitchell went Week seven to eight without a target. His teammate Jamichael Hasey had eight targets during that time. On Sunday, though, things changed, Mitchell had a twelve point eight percent target chair that was easily the highest of his season, and he also ran more routes than Hasty did. He did that for the first time all year long with both of those guys being active. Now there's a chance, and this really hasn't been reported, but there's a chance that Hasty was banged up in that game, but he was still seeing touches late in the contest. So this seems like it could have been a conscious shift by the forty nine Ers coaching staff that they wanted Elijah Mitchell to be more involved as a receiver, and that bodes really, really well for his rest of season outlook. So I think now he should be viewed as a mid to high end RB two. I got new information, so I'm shifting my opinion a little bit, and I wanted to call him out on this show because I talked about Mitchell a lot over the last few weeks. Add Elijah Moore, So we go from one Elijah rookie to another in Elijah Moore. If you listen to this show through the offseason, you know that I like more a lot as a prospect. In my prospect model, only Jamar Chase and DeVante Smith looked better. Rashat Bateman was right there with Elijah Moore as a ninety six percentile wide receiver, and Moore finally had his big breakout performance in Week nine. He got seven of his eight targets and he had eighty four yards and two touchdowns. That's great. Hopefully this is what we're going to see moving forward, But do keep this in mind. Corey Davis was out for a second straight game against the Colts and Elijah Moore's peripherals still weren't amazing in that contest. He had a fifteen point four percent target chhare. That's kind of average, nothing special, and he played fewer than sixty percent of the Jet snaps. But one thing I will add is that he did see the majority of his snaps from the perimeter. You know, that was a big question mark with Elijah Moore entering the league. Was he just going to be a slot guy or could he play on the outside. And that was especially important because Jamison Crowder is a New York Jet and he's a slot guy. So it's great to see Elijah Moore have a big game while playing on the perimeter. But essentially you want to add more this week because he's talented and there's a chance that he builds off this performance by Jerry Judy. So the Broncos seemed to be taking it a little slow with Jerry Judy, who's coming off that ankle injury. But it's really hard for me to not get excited about this. He's now played fewer snaps than both Courtland Sutton and Tim Patrick in his two games since returning from injury, but Judy has twelve targets in those contests. Tim Patrick has eight and Courtland Sutton has six. Judy had a thirty two percent target share against the Cowboys on Sunday. Courtland Sutton hasn't had that high of a single game target share since Week two. The fact that Judy isn't playing a full set of snaps and he's still seeing this kind of target shair that shows you that his ceiling is pretty high. So right now is the time to buy hold Melvin Gordon. So a couple of weeks ago I talked about Javonte Williams being a BYE candidate and there were a few reasons for it. One of them is that he's good. He's been really impressive this year. Another reason is because he had a shot at least some shot to take over that backfield as the season went on. And then there was the schedule. The Broncos of a very enticing schedule during the Fantasy football playoffs, at least for running backs. Now. To be honest, a lot of that same logic could have applied to Melvin Gordon. The biggest difference is that usually when one back ends up emerging out of a backfield, it's usually not the veteran back. It's usually the rookie, the younger guy, the one who's getting more experience, and then he just takes over. But we know that Melvin Gordon's a solid running back, and Melvin Gordon is sharing a backfield with Javonte Williams, which means he has the same schedule as Javonte Williams and the fantasy playoffs. Gordon has now scored four touchdowns over his last three games, and I think the immediate thought for fantasy managers is to sell him, is to try to trade him away, but I'm not sure that's the route to go. I've talked about this before on the show, but I think the most likely outcome for this backfield is that it's going to be split through the rest of the season. Now, Williams has more upside to take over the backfield without an injury. That's still part of his allure, But we can't assume that's a lock to happen. And that's especially true because Melvin Gordon's producing. So there is still some intrigue with Melvin Gordon. And when looking at weeks fourteen through seventeen, no team has a more favorable running back schedule than the Denver Broncos. When looking at adjusted points allowed to the position, each of their opponents ranks in the top half of the league in points allowed to running backs. Now it's tough to actively go out and try to trade for Melvin Gordon. I wouldn't be doing that, But if I had him, I wouldn't be looking to sell just because he's outperforming in the touchdown column. I think there's a legitimate chance that he could be an RB two during the Fantasy playoffs. By Jarvis Landry. So before everything went down with Odell Beckham last week, I actually had Jarvis Landry as a by candidate in the fifteen Transaction Show and then he went out against Cincinnati and he had eleven total yards. So good job, JJ. But I do think they still says that Landry's a bye. The Browns played in an amazingly good game script against Cincinnati, and it's one that we just can't count on week in and week out. Within the context of the offense, Landry was still heavily involved. He finished the day with a twenty six point three percent target share. That's the third straight game that he's had where he's seen a quarter or more of Cleveland's targets. We know the ceiling is generally capped for a player like Jarvis Landry in a run heavy offense. I'm not trying to sell Landry as like a wide receiver one or having that kind of upside, but that doesn't make him unusable. I think better days are ahead. Add Donovan People's Jones. So in that same offense, look at Donovan People's Jones off the waiver buyer this week. People's Jones hadn't played since Week six before his Week nine game against the Bengals, but he came back on Sunday. He got two of his three targets for eighty six yards in a touchdown. He had that big sixty yard touchdown, and the peripheral numbers really don't look that bad. He ran as a starting wide receiver on that team, whether you look at snapshot or routes run, and his target share was about sixteen percent. And like I just said with Jarvis Landry, we can't expect the Browns to play in this kind of environment week in and week out, so that type of target share should yield more volume moving forward. I would just grab Donovan People's jones off the waiver wire just to see if he could develop as like a wide receiver. Three. In fantasy football, sell Damien Harris. Over thirty eight percent of Damian Harris's fantasy points have come from touchdowns this year. Among the more than fifty running backs with forty or more carries this season, that's the third highest rate. James Connor and Latavius Murray are the only two who have relied more on touchdowns. If you guys have been listening to the show for a while, you know that Damien Harris is not the kind of running back that I invest in in fantasy football. He needs to find the end zone to be usable to have any sort of ceiling. In his three games this year without a rushing touchdown, He's ranked as the RB twenty seven the RB fifty seven and the RB fifty and weekly scoring heeing plenty of goal line work. Sure, he's gonna continue to score some touchdowns. It's not like he's never gonna score again. It's just that for him to maintain this RB two status, he absolutely has to continue scoring touchdowns because there's absolutely zero evidence right now that shows us that the Patriots want to utilize him as a pass catching back. His highest targets here in a single game this year came back in Week one. He had a seven point nine percent share, and something else changed in Week nine. New England used Ramandre Stevenson a little bit more on the ground. Both Harris and Stevenson left Sunday's game against the Panthers with fourth quarter injuries, but Stevenson finished with his highest running back rush here since Week five, which was a game where Harris suffered a chest injury and Stevenson looked good on the ground. He actually had a sixty percent success rate against the Panthers. Damian Harris's was twenty seven percent. That's according to number Fire's expected points model. I just would rather not have to bank on touchdowns in a very average Patriots offense and I'd rather not have to worry about how the Patriots coaching staff is gonna split that backfield up moving forward. That's why Harris makes sense to trade away right now if you can get a good return. Add EEno Benjamin. It sounds like Chase Edmonds is gonna miss multiple weeks because of a high ankle spring that's gonna allow James Connor to be a potential RB one in fantasy football. He's gonna take on a bigger role. In Week nine, he had a sixty seven point seven percent running back rush share and a nineteen point two percent target share. Those are some awesome, awesome numbers, But I still think we're gonna see another running back in that backfield get some work, and that's gonna be EEno Benjamin. He's the next man up, and he's a player that my prospect model actually liked quite a bit coming out of school, and it's because of his ability to catch passes out of the backfield. He had a best season reception share of over eighteen percent in college. That's one of the parameters that my model looks at, and it's a number hit by just six percent of the running backs in my model's database. I don't think EO Benjamin this totally unlike Chase Edmonds. So, like I wrote in my fifteen Transactions column, I think we can expect some sort of like diet Chase Edmonds role moving forward by or add Van Jefferson. So, Deshaun Jackson's last game for the Rams came in Week seven, but even in that game, he only ran three routes according to Pro Football Focus. Now, unsurprisingly that's coincided with Van Jefferson seeing more work in this offense. In Week seven to eight, Jefferson had target shairs of seventeen point one percent and seventeen point six percent, and in those games he finished his Fantasy Football's twenty second and thirty third ranked wide receiver. He ran a similar number of routes as Cooper Cup and Robert Woods. Now, on Sunday Night, LA couldn't do anything offensively against Tennessee. They had a bad game. Sometimes that happens, but Jefferson once again ran a similar number of routes as Robert Woods and Cooper Cup. They ran fifty five and he ran fifty three. His target share was about fifteen percent, and he actually led the team in air yards. He has just eleven fewer air yards than Cooper Cup over the last three weeks, and he's led the LA rams and end zone targets during this time. Jefferson is going to be more productive than most realized from now through the end of the season. Sell Devonte Freeman. Look anytime a Raven's running back has a stretch of really good performances, he's a cell. Devontae Freeman has had three straight weeks where he's ranked as an RB two in Fantasy Football Top twenty four running back, but it's because of touchdowns. Like straight up, his running back rush share per game over this stretch is just forty one point seven percent. His target share is a little over seven percent. Week nine was the first time that DeVonta Freeman saw double digit touches in a single game this season. There's nothing unique about DeVonta Freeman. Nothing, and Latavius Murray's going to be back eventually two So I'm using this as a reminder with these types of situations, sell the player. If you have Freeman, throw him in a trade and see if you can upgrade a spot in your lineup. Ad Rashod Bateman, Okay, I know I've talked about Bateman so much on this show. I just have to bring him up one more time. This is the last time, I promise. His percent roster number is still way too low over on Yahoo. That's why I'm bringing him up. He's now played three games in the NFL. In those games, he's seen target shaars of twenty two point two percent, fourteen point six percent, and nineteen point five percent. That's equated to six, six and eight targets now. Baltimore has been more pass heavy this year than in previous seasons, but they still rank twenty seventh in pass rate. What's really helped their pass catchers is their seventy plays run per game. That's the highest mark in the league. That's where the volume's coming from. They have a slightly different mentality. They are throwing more, probably because they don't have any running backs and the defense isn't playing as well. But the reason that so many of these pass catchers can be relevant in this offense because they're running so many plays, it's really really helpful. I don't think we should still see this as this like super super advantageous situation. It's not like Tampa Bay or anything. And Sammy Watkins could be back soon too. That could hurt Bateman's projected target share. But you can't just wait around and see how things unfold. Talented players who are seeing good work in a high end offense, they need to be rostered, period. So if Bateman is out there, and this is the last time I'm saying this, if Rashod Bateman is out there, please add him. Add Dan Arnold. So I talked about Dan Arnold back in week six on this show. His percent roster number on Yahoo has increased, but not nearly enough. Arnold joined Jacksonville back in Week four. He ended up splitting time with other Jags tight ends in that game against Cincinnati, but since then he's been the obvious number one tight end on that team. He's been the primary pass catching tight end from Week five through Week nine, Arnold's run nearly one hundred more routes than any other tight end on that team. He's also seen a target share per game average of twenty point five percent. That's not easy to find at the tight end position, and that's also generated fantasy points in PPR formats. He's been a top ten tight end in three of his last four games since dj Shuk's season ending injury, which coincides with Arnold's rival in Jacksonville. Arnold has seen thirty targets. That's more than Marvin Jones and Laviska Chanault. It's only one fewer than the team leader, Jamal Agnew, who has thirty one. Finding volume is difficult at the tight end position. Dan Arnold is getting that volume. You need to add him. Add the Philadelphia Eagles defense. I gotta be honest with you, guys. Week ten might be the most difficult streaming week of all time. That's not even hyperbole. There are no good quarterback or defensive options that are rostered in a low number of leagues. So I guess, I guess you could go to Philadelphia. The Eagles face the Broncos in the game with a low forty four point over under. That's according to a Fandals sportsbook, and Denver has been a pretty advantageous matchup this year for opposing defenses. They rank us the eighth best matchup in a justin points allowed. So I guess you could do worse. The sixteen transaction this week that you can't get my fifteen transactions column over on number five dot com is to add Taysom Hill. I know this sounds backwards. I know it seems weird, But here's the deal. Quarterback streaming, like I just alluded to, it's absolute trash this week. Like, I don't think I've ever seen a span of two weeks with worse quarterback streaming options. Now, there are some reasons for it, but I don't want to get to that right now. Instead, let's focus on this game theory move. I talked about Taysom Hill last week being a cheat code in Fantasy football, and that hasn't changed with Trevor Simeon being the starter in Week nine. If Taysom Hill is the starter, he's gonna bring that extra element with his legs that's gonna give him a nice floor ceiling combo each week. And here's the deal. I'd be more willing to take a chance on Hill being named starter later this week than I would be on adding a subpar streaming option. Like I'll be honest with you guys, the top streamer I would have named would have probably been Teddy Bridgewater. His spot this week isn't even that good. It's just that he's a player who's not facing an elite defense. He has good weapons, he probably won't completely sink your team. Teddy's fine, but look across your league and ask yourself how many people need a player like Bridgewater. If the answer is zero or maybe one team, then risk it and pick up Tasum and hope that he's named the starter. And this is merely speculation and game theory. I wouldn't be shocked at all if Trevor Simmon has named the starter for New Orleans. Once again, I have no idea at this point. I'm just saying that the opportunity cost in for going a player like Teddy Bridgewater it's not significant even if he's one of the top streamers this week. So I figured I'd make this the sixteenth transaction so you can sort of get a different view of how I handle the waiver wire. It's not always just about the information that we have when we make our moves. It's sometimes about predicting the information that's gonna come days later. That's gonna do it for today's show, though. Thanks to all of you for listening. If you've got subscribe to the Late Round podcast, make sure you are by searching for it pretty much anywhere podcasts can be found, you know, for it to follow me on Twitter at late round QB. Thanks for listening everyone, I'll talk to you tomorrow