443: 15 Transactions for Week 10

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Speaker 1: This is the lad Podcast with your host JJ zacher Retha jj zacher reson What's up Everyone. It's JJ Zachares and the editor in chief at FanDuel and at number fire dot com in this episode four hundred and forty three of the Late Round podcast with many shows that are part of the FanDuel podcast Network. Thanks for tuning in. Before getting into the transactions this week, I want to send another reminder about the FanDuel Podcast Network Listener League for the Masters. For just five dollars, you'll have a chance to build a team around the biggest names in golf and compete for your share of the one thousand dollars prize pool, including a one hundred and twenty five dollars first place prize. To enter, visit FanDuel dot com Slash League slash PGA Listener League. Eligibility restrictions apply. By Derrick Henry. So Henry didn't have the best game in the world against Chicago this past week where he rushed for sixty eight yards, he didn't the end zone, and he didn't see a single target. But now's the time to buy Derreck Henry. And here's why. This was just the second time this season where we've seen Henry finish outside the top fifteen in weekly running back scoring, and that's in PPR formats. It was also the first time that he didn't have a target in a game, and it feels like we haven't talked about this enough this year, but even after having zero targets this past week, he has a seven point four percent target show this year. Now that's not great, that's not an amazing target share for a running back, but his highest single season target share came last year and it was five point nine percent. Pro rated to sixteen games, it was six point three percent, So he's more involved in this offense as a receiver this year. Now here's the thing. We know that historically Derrick Henry has been a running back who really thrives in November and December. That narrative alone might make it a little bit difficult to trade for him, but his playoff schedule this year is unbelievable, and given the fact that he had this down game, I can't just ignore that. I can't ignore this transaction. You have to at least try to buy Derrick Henry this week, because listen to this Fantasy football playoff schedule. He gets the Jags, the Lions, and the Packers. Those three teams each rank is top six matchups for running backs according to adjusted Fantasy points allowed. Derrick Henry is probably gonna win some leagues this year. Do what you can to buy him now after this bad outing, Sell Ezekiel Elliott. Maybe this one seems kind of obvious. Maybe selling Zeke is an obvious transaction, but let's dig through this. Before Dak Prescott suffered his season ending injury, Elliott was averaging twenty two PPR points per game. He had a running back rush share per game of about eighty eight percent a target shair per game of thirteen and a half percent. He was an RB one in Fantasy Football. Since that injury, Elliott has watched his running back rush share go to sixty two percent. That's a massive dip, and his target chair per game has dropped by two and a half percent. But he also hasn't found the end zone, so he's only averaging eight point eight PPER points per game without Dak Prescott. You know, in most cases like this, I would just say ride it out, and honestly, at this point you might have to. But if you can find another league manager who's willing to buy into his name. To buy into Ezekiel Elliott, I think you should try to shop him because not only is his usage declining and not only are the scoring opportunities declining, but from now through the end of the fantasy season. Guess which team in the NFL has the worst schedule for running backs when we look at adjusted fantasy points allowed? The Cowboys. Now, some teams are close, but I'm pointing out here that the rest of the season is not a cake walk for this offense and for Zeke in particular. Maybe you can sell the fact that Garrett Gilbert looked competent and pretty good against the Steelers this past Sunday. Maybe you can just say the running back position sucks, and look, Zeke is getting some volume. It's hard to find volume at the running back position. I think there are at least ways to make Ezekiel Elliott look decent, so I would use that when I'm negotiating. But yes, overall as an idea, I don't really want Ezekiel Elliott on my fantasy football teams. By Tom Brady. So you guys know this, but I'm not typically someone who buys quarterbacks in fantasy football. I don't like trading for quarterbacks. It's a relatively replaceable position. There's guys on the waiver wire each week who are usable. There's no need to really go out and buy a quarterback. But with Tom Brady, after his performance against the Saints, you might not have to give up all that much to get him. I'm cool with sending some bench pieces for Tom Brady. He had two hundred and nine yards and he was picked three times against the Saints. It was his worst fantasy performance of the season, and it was the first time he scored single digit fantasy points since facing Carolina in Week two. But the reason that you're buying him right now, there's two reasons. The first is that we know that he has a supporting cast and a good supporting cast, and to Tonio Brown in his first game, he looked pretty good. He actually led that team in air yards too. But the main reason that you're buying Brady, you guessed it. It's the schedule. Specifically, it's the playoff schedule. In Week fourteen, Tampa Bay gets Minnesota. That's a neutral matchup in terms of adjusted fantasy points allowed. Week fifteen, they get Atlanta. We know Atlanta is awesome for quarterbacks, that's the most advantageous matchup when you look strictly at the last five weeks, and then across the entire season, they're the second best matchup. And then in Week sixteen, which is Championship week, they get the Lions. Detroit has been the fourth best matchup for quarterbacks and adjusted points allowed over the last five weeks when you only look at how they've performed over the last five weeks. So when you bring it all together, you're gonna want pieces of this Tampa Bay passing attack and the fantasy playoffs. The problem is we don't know how targets are going to be divvied up amongst their wide receivers and their tight end Rob Gronkowski. So instead of guessing which, I would argue Antonio Brown probably the best one to buy right now, just given where the market is on him. But instead of trying to guess, just get the quarterback. Capture all of that in one player, and that one player is Tom Brady. So after this bad game, I think he's an easy trade target this week. Hold or by Ronald Jones. Okay, so, speaking of the Buccaneers, Ronald Jones has not been playing all that much over the last two weeks. In Week eight, the Bucks had him on the field for just twenty four percent of the team snaps, that was the season low, and then on Sunday that number was thirty two percent, his second lowest snapshare of the year. But I don't look at data blindly. I watch games. I watch every single game. I like to give data context, and in this case, we need that context badly. In that Week eight game against the Giants, Ronald Jones was seeing the early game work. On the first drive, he out touched Leonard Fournette four to zero, and then at the start of the second Bucks drive, Jones got another carry. And then on the very next play, Ronald Jones got a target, he caught the ball and he quickly fumbled, and then it became a Leonard Fournette game. And then against the Saints on Sunday, we saw a similar type of trend. Jones opened the game as a starter, he played as the main running back, and he played as the main running back well into the second quarter, and then the game got out of hand, so the Bucks threw their pass catching back onto the field. That's Leonard Fournette. That's not Ronald Jones. Fournette then saw six targets. Now Fournette's now hit six targets in each of his last three games. So make no mistake, Leonard Fournette is the pass catching back on this team, and you guys know that I like targeting pass catchers more than non pass catchers at the running back position. I'm bringing all this up today, though, because plenty of fantasy managers are gonna look at the end result of these Buccaneers games and they're gonna assume that Leonard Fournette is the clear cut back in this Tampa Bay backfield. But that's not really the case. Evidence doesn't tell us that that's the case. What seems to be going on is that Ronald Jones is the early down starter. He's the guy that they're gonna feature in a friendlier game script. Fournette is probably the safer option. Don't get me wrong. These transactions, though, aren't just about liking one player better than the other. It's fine to like Leonard Fournette, but if the market is also liking Leonard Fournette, you're not extracting value. And to me, there's some value to be extracted right now with Ronald Jones. As I just talked about with Tom Brady, the Buccaneers playoff schedule looks pretty good that could end up helping Jones. If there's a positive game script, he's probably the running back that's going to benefit. And since he's had two straight down games, it shouldn't be that hard to acquire him. Hopefully you can just use assets that are on your bench to get Ronald Jones right now. But at the very least, just hold on to him. Don't be totally totally scared off from these last two weeks. And this is coming from someone who hasn't been a Ronald Jones guy. I think that he's a low key by candidate right now for very very cheap add Duke Johnson. So, David Johnson suffered a concussion during the first quarter of Houston's game against Jacksonville on Sunday that allowed Duke Johnson to grab hold of a huge workload in that backfield. Duke handled eighty nine percent of the Texans running back rushes. He had a thirteen point three percent target share that helped him finish with fifteen point three PPR points. He was a top ten running back in Week nine, so if David Johnson misses any time, Duke Johnson becomes a fantasy football starter by Dallas Goddard. So I've been talking about the Eagles passing attack for weeks now. I talked about adding Dallas Goddard when he was coming off IR I've been talking about Travis Fulgum and Jalen Rager, and a lot of that has to do with their upcoming schedule. They get the Giants, Brown, Seahawks, Packers, Saints, Cardinals, and Cowboys through the end of the fantasy football season. There's the potential for a lot of high scoring games there. But I'm bringing up Goddard specifically this week because number One, the tight end position sucks a lot of you guys need tight end. But number two, before the buye he had a game where he didn't do a whole lot production wise, so you're hypothetically buying Dallas Goddard low. In that game, he had a four percent target chair. He had one catch for fifteen yards. But let's not lose sight of what Goddard did earlier this season. The first two weeks of the season when he was healthy, he had about a twenty percent target chair. In that Eagles offense, he had one hundred and thirty one receiving yards in a touchdown. But in that Week eight game against Dallas, he still ran a route on over eighty percent of Carson Wentz his dropbacks. It's not as though Philadelphia was like holding him back. He just didn't put together a great game coming off an injury. That happens all the time. So given the schedule, given the tight end position as a whole, and given the fact that he's coming off of that game, I think Goddard is a good bye candidate ad or buy Austin Hooper. So, like I was just saying, the tight end position is a dumpster fire. A lot of you guys need help a tight end. So I figured that I would throw some recommends out there this week to give you that help. Austin Hooper, I think might be an ideal type of target at tight end to buy. Right now. He's coming off that appendicitis, which sucks. I got my appendix removed before TMI, but he's done with the appendicitis. He should be back here in week ten. And don't forget before that appendicitis, he was averaging almost a twenty percent target chair per game for Cleveland, and that's after seeing just five point seven percent of the team's targets in Week one. Now Obj is out, he's done for the year. That could open things up, and Cleveland has one of the best schedules for fantasy tight ends for the end of the fantasy season when looking at adjusted Fantasy points allowed. Austin Hooper is still available in sixty percent of Yahoo leagues. If he's out there, you should be adding him. He gets good usage in this offense. But even if he's not, throw a bench player in a trade and see if you can upgrade your tight end position. Add Caitlin Blage. This is the most twenty twenty thing of all time that Kaylan Bilage is being added to fantasy rosters. But after Justin Jackson left during the first drive of the Chargers Raiders game on Sunday, I'm still tilting over that. Kaylan Bilage carried the ball fifteen times for sixty nine yards in a touchdown, I'm not gonna say it. And he caught two of three targets for fifteen yards through the air, and he had sixty two and a half percent of the Chargers running back rushes when that game was over, he had pretty good usage, So depending on the severity of that Jackson injury, we could actually get usability from Kaylen Bilage. Again, I can't believe I'm saying that sell will Fuller. Look, if you drafted Fuller, you might not want to get rid of Fuller right now. I totally get it. He was a huge value and you've been benefiting all season long. He's now a top fifteen wide receiver in points per game, and he's been really consistent. He's finished as a top thirty wide receiver in six of eight games. So when I say sell will Fuller, I'm not saying sell will Fuller for anyone. I'm just saying that he has seen a slight target share dip over his last two games. He's averaged a sixteen point two percent target share over his last two During the four games before that, it was twenty three point four percent. And Guys, I would be shocked or at least very very surprised if will Fuller is able to maintain his touchdown scoring rate. He's now scored a touchdown in each of his last six games. If you look at how many yards it's taken an average wide receiver to score a touchdown over the last decade. And keep in mind, as I always say in this podcast, yards do correlate to touchdowns, but based on will Fuller's yardage total, he's been exceeding touchdown expectation by two point four touchdowns this year. That's one of the highest marks in the league. And it's not just that simple conversion. That's showing that Pro Football Focus has an expected touchdown model and it's showing the exact same thing. It's giving you almost identical results. But not only that, the Texans don't have the best schedule in the world moving forward. It's a bottom ten one for wide receivers and adjusted fantasy points allowed. And in the fantasy playoffs, Houston gets the Bears, coltson Bengals. That's nothing special. So I think right now might be the time to sell will Fuller, add Matt Brida and Savon Achmed. So the Dolphins had their first game without Miles gask In this past week, and I would say it went sort of as expected. They split the backfield. Jordan Howard saw the highest running back rush air at fifty five point six percent. But Jordan Howard is dust. He had ten carries for nineteen yards, and then Patrick Laird was the only one to have a target out of the backfield. But then there was rookie Savon Ackman. He actually led the backfield and snaps with a forty five point nine percent snapshare. He carried the ball seven times for thirty eight yards. According to number fires Expected Points model, he had the best success rate on that team. Or versus Jordan Howard, his success rate was forty three percent. Howard's was thirty percent. So Aukman might be more of a deep league, maybe a dynasty AD this week, but he should be on your radar. But if Matt Breida is able to return from this hamstring injury that he's dealing with, I would prefer him. I think he has the most intriguing workload upside because we've seen him be efficient in the past, and we've also seen him be effective as a receiver. He has that skill set. So just keep an eye on where things are at throughout the week. Ad JD. McKissick so on Sunday, McKissick saw thirty five point nine percent of Washington's targets. That was the second highest target share than any running back has seen this season, and naturally it came when Captain Checkdown entered the game, that being Alex Smith. Now, since Kyle Allen could be done for the year, Smith is probably going to keep quarterbacking this Washington team, and if that happens, McKissick really might benefit. He has his seventeen percent target chair across this season. That might be a little bit more sustainable with Alex Smith. So I think that he's a cheap PPR option who should give you a high floor each week by Sterling Shepherd. Since Sterling Shepard returned from injury, he's seen target shares of twenty seven point five percent, twenty four point four percent, and twenty four point two percent. He's turned that into fantasy performances of seventeen point nine, fifteen point four and eleven point seven PPR points. Sterling Shepherd is not a sexy fantasy asset, but he's getting the job done. That's what he does. So for anyone needing relatively cheap production at wide receiver in the short term, maybe for a playoff push, I think that Shephard is your guy. Because over the Giants' next four games they get the Eagles, Bengals, Seahawks, and Cardinals. Those are some pretty good matchups ad Baker Mayfield. I think the top quarterback streamer this week is Mayfield. Cleveland gets Houston in a game with a fifty three and a half point over under right now according to Fandels Sportsbook, and the Browns are favorites. They have a really high implied team total and Houston's secondary is beatable. They let Jake Lowton tear them up on Sunday and on the seat in their rank as a fringe top ten opponent and adjusted fantasy points allowed to quarterbacks. So I think Baker Mayfield is a very solid start. Add to a tongue of Iloa. We have an awesome, awesome matchup this week with the Chargers facing off against the Dolphins. Because we get Justin Herbert against Tua. That game is projected to be closer to a two and a half point spread. The over under is a pretty reasonable forty eight and a half and it was good to see Tua not in this crazy, crazy positive game script on Sunday. We saw that in his debut, the Dolphins went up early, they didn't need to rely on Tua to get things done, but against the Cardinals that wasn't the case. And he looked pretty good this week. Then he gets a Chargers secondary that's allowed the sixth most adjusted fantasy points per game to opposing fantasy quarterbacks. I think he's a decent fallback plan if you can't get Mayfield this week. Add the Minnesota Vikings defense, So look, you can go in a lot of different directions at defense this week in terms of streaming, Like if Philadelphia is sitting on your waiver wire, you can go for them. I would go with Philly over Minnesota, but Minnesota right now is rostered in just twenty three percent of Yahoo leagues, so I figured they would be usable for a lot of you listening to this. But they face Chicago this week. Chicago's been sort of an average matchup this year for opposing defenses, but they've been safe. They're a safe target since Week one only the Panthers defense was unable to finish in the top sixteen and weekly scoring against the Bears, and over the last three weeks we've seen three top eight performances from defenses going up against Chicago. Is that shocking? Not at all. The Chicago offense is not very good, so with this game having a pretty low over under, Minnesota is a favorite. I like the Vikings defense as a streamer. The sixteenth transaction this week that you can't get my weekly fifteen Transactions column over on number fire dot com is to buy Mark Andrews. Now. I don't feel amazingly confident in this one, but I wanted to give another end take on today's show because again, I know how awful the position is for a lot of you guys. Andrews has been really bad in Fantasy. He scored four to six and five PPR points over his last three games. He's scored fewer points per game since Week five than Tyler Croft, Adam Troutman, and Cole Kament, just to name a few. But Andrews's target share really hasn't been all that bad, even if you just look at straight targets, because we know Baltimore is a run heavy team. He's seen four to six and five targets over his last three games. No, that's not amazing, but it's not horrific a tight end either. Now, over this timeframe, the Ravens haven't targeted Andrews once in the end zone. He had seven end zone targets across his first five games. That's one of the key differences in why he's not producing. He's not getting it done in the touchdown column. But number one, the offense struggled against a good Steelers defense a couple of weeks ago, and they faced Indianapolis this past week, who ranks third best and adjusted points allowed to tight ends this year. So number one overall, well, the schedule has not been ideal. And then number two, this just goes back to what I talked about last week. Don't lose sight of the Ravens schedule. In the fantasy playoffs, They'll get Cleveland, Jacksonville, and the New York Giants. None of those matchups are crazy easy or crazy hard for tight ends, but there are matchups where Baltimore can score points. Now, don't get me wrong here. The reason I wanted to make this the sixteenth transaction this week is because, like I said, I don't feel amazingly confident about this transaction. I don't want it to be taken out of context for the headline readers out there. What I really think you should do is just see if you can get Mark Andrews for cheap. Don't give away a starter, don't give away a usable piece when it comes to players who are producing at this low of a level. You shouldn't just be buying the name, you need to be buying production too. But I do think that with the upcoming schedule, in the schedule that Baltimore just faced, it makes some sense to think that Andrews has a chance to bounce back a little bit. 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. No forget to follow me on Twitter at Late Round QB. Thanks everyone, I'll talk to you tomorrow.