729: 10 Trends for Week 16

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Speaker 1: This is the lad podcast with your host JJ Zacher Retha j Shake Zacher reson. What's up everyone, It's JJ zachar Esen in this episode seven and twenty nine of the Late Round Fantasy Football podcast sponsored by FanDuel. Thanks for tuning in. Before we get int the trends this week, I want to remind you about FanDuel Faceoff. Fandel face Off is where you compete in quick fun games against other real people for real cash and as all sorts of games that you're familiar with like Homer and Derby, Wheel of Fortune, puzzle and strategy games, and there's more on the way. Contests are action packed and lasts between two to five minutes, so you can play on your couch, waiting in line during a commercial break, wherever, and on your schedule. Plus, you can practice for free anytime, whether it be head to head, multiplayer or larger tournaments. Fandel Faceoff has something for you. Plus, in most contests, you'll be matched against players of a similar skill level. She never totally overmatched even as a beginner. Face Off is also tied to your Fandel account and wallet, so you can easey used your daily fantasy funds or sportsbook winnings in the app. Visit fandle dot com slash Faceoff or download the Fandle Faceoff app in the Apple App Store today to get in the game. Agent location restrictions apply, VOIDWAAR prohibited seefandle dot Com slash Faceoff iife in terms for terms and conditions. Juju smith Schuster has been really good in fantasy football since about Week five. Post Week five, he has four top ten performances. He's been a top twenty wide receiver and five of seven completed games. I say completed because he had that concussion against Jacksonville in the middle of the second quarter back in Week ten. But since Week five, Juju has been a very firm wide receiver two in fantasy football, and that includes the game where he was concussed. It just feels like a season is sort of flying under the radar because it hasn't been very consistent, but he's been good. If you were curious, No, the Falcons didn't get any more pass heavy with Desmond Ridder this week. They ended up running sixty nine plays while trailing this past weekend. In fifty five of those plays came all trailing by ten or more points. They still had despite all that, just about a forty four percent pass rate that was lower than their two previous games. I'm not optimistic about things with Ritter over the next two weeks, even with the matchup against the Cardinals in Week seventeen. Romeo Dobbs returned to the Packers lineup in Week fifteen. He played for the first time since Week nine. He ended up seeing an eighteen percent target share on just ten routes run. Now, fortunately for anyone with Christian Watson, he still ran a lot of routes for the Packers. He ran around on thirty one of a possible thirty three Aaron Rodgers dropbacks, and his target share was over twenty one percent. That's right in line with where he's been over the last month. We know the way that Watson scores fantasy points is going to be volatile, but he's still someone that you want in your fantasy lineup, not just because of his upside, but because the Packers get the Dolphins and the Vikings over their next two games. Now, I don't want to hurt a guy when he's down, but I thought this next trend was kind of funny back in Week eight. So about halfway through the season, I had a trend about Jacoby Myers and now he had seen double digit PPR performances in all of his games up until that point. Well, since talking about him on this show and giving him love for his consistency, he's completely gone in the opposite direction. He had six straight games of ten plus points to start the year. He's now had five straight games where he's failed to get ten PPR points. He's been someone that I've noticed has stayed high end rankings week in and week out, but it just hasn't been justified. Hopefully he turns things around, especially after his mistake at the end of that Week fifteen game. You always want someone to turn things around after something like that and Darren Waller's return last week. He actually played fewer snaps in Foster Moro and he only saw a nine percent target chair, but he was out there running routes. He ran twenty seven routes, which was third highest on the team, him in nine more than Moro. I'd expect both his snapshare and route participation to rise week over week as he gets back into things, but it's important to know that his fantasy day was absolutely saved by a touchdown. In week fifteen. We had seen Austin Hooper play more than chickacon Quo in that Tennessee offense, but that flipped in Week fifteen. A Conquo led the Titans tight end group and snap rate, and he ran one more route than Austin Hooper. With Traylon Burks out, they've been able to deploy their tight ends more as pass catchers. We'll have to see if that continues when Burks is healthy, but a Concuo has now seen an eighteen percent target share per game over his last three and he continues to lead tight ends in yards per route run. He's legit. You can't bench Jeric McKinnon at this point. It's hard to predict gamescript which is what was happening last week, and liking Isaiah Pacheco more than McKinnon, and then the Texans stayed close with Kansas City. That allowed the Chiefs to continue throwing and a benefits Jerck McKinnon. He had a nineteen and a half percent target chair and he's now seen a fifteen percent target chair per game rate over his last six. He's seen eight or more targets in four of his last seven games. Austin Eckler leads all running backs with eight games of eight or more targets. Christian McCaffrey has six of those games, but then it's McKinnon and Ramandre Stevenson. They're next on the list, and it's insanely impressive because McKinnon's done that over his last seven it's obvious at this point, but you have to start him. I haven't set an update on this in a while, but the Bears currently have a thirty eight percent pass rate, and I'm defining that simply by pass attempts divided by total pass attempts and rush attempts. Since twenty eleven, the lowest pass rate in the NFL has been forty two point three percent from the twenty twenty Ravens, which means this Bears team, despite being a losing team which we'd expect him to throw a little bit more, this Bears team is by far the most run heavy team that we've seen over the last eleven years. A really good sign for Kenneth Walker last Thursday, coming off an injury was the fact that he was involved as a receiver. That's been an on and off thing for him this year, and with him being hurt, it was unclear if they would use him or Travis Homer more in the passing game, but it was him. He ran thirty routes, which tied Marquis Goodwin for third most on Seattle, and Travis Homer was at twelve. Walker had a twelve percent target yeare, it was a tough matchup against the forty nine ers, but you can fire him up confidently here in Week sixteen. The last trend this week is about Trevor Lawrence. He's been amazing in fantasy football over the last month and a half, and as I've talked about on past fifteen Transaction shows, the Jags have a tough fantasy playoff schedule. They faced Dallas last week and then they get the Jets and Texans over their final two games. Those are bottom five matchups and adjusted points allowed to quarterbacks. But Trevor Lawrence came through in Week fifteen. He was a top five quarterback against Dallas, and he's now I'll hit a top six quarterback performance and four of his last five. He's averaging over twenty one fantasy points per game since Week six. With the quarterback position a hot mess right now, even in these tough matchups, it can still make plenty of sense to start Trevor Lawrence. 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 Fantasy Football podcast, make sure you are by searching for it pretty much anywhere podcasts can be found, and hope it to follow me on Twitter at LATEROUNDQB. I'm gonna check out lateround dot com. Otherwise, appreciate you listening. I'll talk to you tomorrow with the Weekly Sleeper Show