922: 15 Transactions for Week 6

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Speaker 1: This is the last with your host JJ Zachera, JJ Zacherson. What's up everyone, It's JJ Zachary saying in this episode nine and twenty two of the Late Round Fantasy Football podcast sponsored by Underdog, thanks for tuning in. Underdog is the best place to play fantasy sports. And during October, Underdog is running a different promo every single day with Boost Tober. If you sign up now, you don't only get access to those promos, but you also get a deposit bonus and a free copy of my rest of the season rankings. Those rankings are updated every Tuesday through the end of the fantasy season, and with a link that Underdog provides when you sign up, you get access to those updates. All you have to do is head to underdog Fantasy dot com and sign up with promo code Late Round, make a deposit and start playing, and you're good to go. That's promo code Late Round. It's a fifty transactions today. Let's get to it. Hold Dontavian Wicks. So every fantasy football analyst told you to add Dontavian Wicks last week, and what does he do? He gives you four PPR points. He had this great matchup against the Rams. The Rams were bad in terms of adjusted Fantasy points allowed, but they were also bad to perimeter wide receivers. He had this great matchup and he did nothing with it. He scored four points. And now all of you were sitting back and you're saying, why do I listen to fantasy analysts? They told me that Dontavian Wicks was a really good play this past week. All I ask is that people don't look only in small samples, especially when it comes to production, because this past week, Doantavian Wicks had a twenty eight percent target shair that was highest on the packers. Now, he had issues with drops, He's had issues like that throughout his brief career. But the thing that we always want to lead with is usage. When a player is consistently seeing looks, better production is going to eventually come. Now, you could argue that those looks aren't gonna go Wix's way anymore because he didn't have that great of a game, but again it's a one game sample. We have a larger sample of Wix being a really good wide receiver on a per route run basis. Christian Watson's probably gonna be out again in week six, Green Bay gets Arizona. The Cardinals have been an average opponent at best against wide receivers this year, and adjust the points allowed. The production wasn't there for Dontavian Wicks, but the peripherals were there. This is exactly why we look at things like target share and route participation. It doesn't guarantee production next week. We might not see a great performance from Wis, but we're playing probability here and Mac tells us that if Wix continues to see that kind of target share, he will eventually produce. Add Tyrone Tracy. So I didn't get to talk about Tyrone Tracy last week because we didn't have that much information about Devin Singletary's injury, but I did talk about him on the mailbag episode LAK And on that mailbag episode, I was asked which team RB two, who wasn't really part of a committee, had a chance to overtake his team's RB one through the end of the season. And my answer to that question was Tyrone Tracy. And I think we saw why in week five Devin Singletary missed Week five for the Giants, in turn, Tyrone Tracy, their rookie running back, he saw the majority of the backfield work. He had one hundred and twenty nine rushing yards. Now he only saw two targets, but he ran the most routes out of the backfield for the Giants, and he was also more effective than Eric Gray was in that backfield. He finished the day with a plus two point six rushing yards over expected per rush rate. Gray was at minus one point three, and Gray had a really costly fumble at the goal line. For those of you who weren't around during the offseason, during prospecting season, I liked Tracy as a Day three prospect because in the ZAP model, one of his comps was Tony Pollard. He had a good receiving profile coming out because he played wider in college. But then at the same time, he hit a really good speed score, which is wait adjusted forty times. That was a big reason that in my draft guide I listed Tyrone Tracy as a late round dart throw because if you look at that backfield, you have Devin Singletary and Eric Gray, neither player neither running back is very explosive. Tyrone Tracy brings that element to the offense. Now, the big question moving forward is what's this workload gonna look like after his good Week five? Is he gonna take Devin Singletary's job? And my answer to that is, I don't know. We don't have to necessarily know that. What we should understand is that it's possible. What we should understand is that Tyrone Tracy looks really good in Week five, regardless of matchup, regardless of circumstance, and when that's the case, if he's still on your waiver wire, you should probably be aggressive in getting him off your waiver wire. This week by the Minnesota Vikings passing attack, so we five I was the first time that Sam Darnald failed to have a multi touchdown game this season. He threw zero touchdowns against the Jets, but of course he played the Jets. It's a really tough matchup. It's one of the toughest matchups that he's gonna face all year. The good news, though, is that this could present a nice by low opportunity, not just for Sam Darnald, but the entire Minnesota offense. Minnesota has a bye this week, which means that you might be able to get these guys a little bit cheaper than usual, but out of the bye, they get the Lions, Rams, Colts, and Jacks over the next five weeks. According to justp Fantasy Points allowed, the Vikings of the second best quarterback schedule, the best running back schedule, and the best wide receiver schedule. And things aren't that bad long term either, So now might be the perfect time to buy those Vikings pieces, add Ty Chandler. So, speaking of the Vikings, Aaron Jones is a hip injury. He missed a lot of that game against the Jets. Now thankfully they have that by like I just said, in week six, but there's no guarantee that Jones is gonna be ready in week seven. Even if reports are optimistic. We can't just assume that he's gonna be good to go. If Aaron Jones is out, Ty Chandler could be a workhorse. According to my friend Dwayne McFarlane, a Fantasy Life, Chandler played eighty three percent of Minnesota snaps after Jones left. He had seventy nine percent of the rush attempts and eleven percent of their targets. In other words, he was a bell cow. And as I just noted, Minnesota's schedule is looking really good out of their buy it would be great if Aaron Jones was healthy enough and he could take advantage of it. But if he's not, Chandler should be able to do so. Sell Tank Bigsby now. A handful of weeks ago, I had Tank Bigsby as an ad and if he's still out there on your waiver wire, you should still be adding him. He played more snaps than Travis Etn in Week five. He's been more impressive on the ground than Etn. He leads the NFL and rushing yards over expected per attempt, which is wild considering what he did last season. But his arrow is pointing up. There's no doubt we're seeing him get more and more work. So you're probably listening to this and saying, then why are we selling Well, Look, at the end of the day, what a running back does on the ground, that's great. We need that production in fantasy football, but you can't ignore what's going on through the air. And through the air, Tank Bigsby has basically done nothing. His raw participation did rise in Week five to twenty four percent. That was up about ten percentage points from his previous games this year, but Bigsby has seen one target all season long. That's a problem. That's a huge problem, and maybe that's gonna change. Maybe Jacksonville will see Travis Etn as this expendable asset and just trade them away. That's in the range of outcomes here. There were some rumors about that maybe the Jags just feature biggs By more and more. I just have a hard time believing that Travis Etn as long as he's a Jag, I have a hard time believing that he won't be involved in this offense. We have a large sample of him being a pretty dynamic running back, both on the ground and through the air, and he still is running twice as many routes as Bigsby is. For some comparison, this is not really like the Rashad White Bucky Irving situation right now down in Tampa Bay. Irving's rout participation is ten to fifteen percentage points higher than Tank Bigsby's, and he's seen that type of usage in multiple games. Look at the end of the day, with Tank Bigsby, if you want to just ride this thing out, you know you got him off the waiver wire, you got him in the last round of your draft. If you want to just ride this out, that's totally fine. I'm just pointing out the fact that we can't ignore the receiving aspect with these running back profiles. It's unbelievably important, and it's why at this moment I see him more of a handcuff than a super usable flex option or a low end RB two. He does have upside of Travis etm where to get hurt, and maybe that's enough to hold on to him. But if someone in your league is really bullish, if someone in your league really does think that Tank Bigsby is going to take over this backfield, then how would trade Tang Bigsby to that manager by Bijon Robinson. So look, this is a pretty high variance move. And I say high variants because Robinson's usage has not exactly been promising. After the first two weeks of this season, everything was looking pretty good for Robinson. He had almost a twenty percent target chair in the Falcons offense, and he was running a route on over seventy five percent of their dropbacks. Like, regardless of what Tyler Aljier was going to do on the ground and how much work he was going to steal, those pass catching peripherals, those were allowing Robinson to be a high end RB one in fantasy. But over the last three weeks things have changed. His target shairs have dropped. He's averaged a target share per game rate of just eight point two percent, and unfortunately that's coincided with a poor raw participation. His raw participation has dropped by nearly twenty percentage points currently today. That's a problem. It might not be long last d but it is a problem. And that's why this is not a very clear cut situation. But if you need some volatility in your lineup, now might be the time to make a move because all those numbers that I just cited they can change. The Falcons can take a step back and they can say we need Bjeon Robinson to run more routes. But also, if you look at my adjustin fantasy points allowed numbers, Atlanta's had a bottom ten running back schedule to start the season. Moving forward, they don't have a bottom ten schedule. Over their next four games, they get the Panthers, Seahawks, Buccaneers, and Cowboys. Those are three plus matchups, including an awesome matchup here in Week six against the Panthers. If Robinson blows up in this game and they've been awful against running backs. If he blows up, then this potential buy window is going to close. So at the end of the day, this is not a slam dunk transaction. But if you want to invite more of a ceiling into your lineup, if you want to take on a little bit more risk and get that reward, then Bjeon Robinson might guy by Devon a Chan. If you want to get even crazier than Bejon Robinson, you could look at Devon a Chan. There are plenty of reasons to not do this. He's been one of the worst running backs in football from an efficiency standpoint, which is crazy considering what he did last year. It's like some freaky Friday stuff with Devon a Chan and Tank Bigsby. But a Chan's also in concussion protocol right now. He left Week five's game with a concussion, So you have a concussed running back who's underperformed. That's not exactly the kind of player you want to trade for. But here's the thing. The Dolphins running bye this week. That's good timing with this concussion. And while we all have our takes on tuatungue of Iolo's brain health, according to Adam Schefter, he could very easily be back in week eight. Again, I'm not gonna speculate whether that's a good thing or a bad thing. That's not my job. I'm not a doctor. We all hope for the best with Tua. The reporting though, is that he might be back, and that means that a Chan hypothetically has one more game to play until Tua is back, and that one game is against the Colts in Week seven, and that's a team that ranks as a top five matchup for running backs by justin fantasy points allowed. That's assuming that e Chan can get over this concussion. Now, there's obviously a much higher floor with someone like Bijean Robinson compared to von A Chan. But prior to Week five's injury, a Chan had a minimum fourteen percent target shair in every single game this season. He was averaging a fifty nine percent running back rush aare per game. Now, maybe that second number, maybe it drops a little bit with Raheem Moster back, And don't sleep on Jalen Wright either, who looked really good this past week and is a nice stash. But if we knew that Devon Achan would get that kind of usage to start the season like it's pre week one, and we knew that a Chan was gonna have a fifteen percent plus target share in this offense, and then he was gonna see almost sixty percent of the team's running back rushes. If we knew that, he would have been drafted easily in the first round. The reason that we're not feeling that way right now because of this toul injury. But if you want to buy into that, if you want to buy into Tua coming back, then Devon ah Chan could be the ultimate by low right now, add Jalen Tolbert Brandon Cooks's sideline with a knee infection. That's allowing Jalen Tolbert to be the number two wide receiver in this Cowboys offense. He ran the second most routes with the Cowboys in Week five and as a lot of you saw, actually a lot of you probably didn't see this because it happened after midnight on the East Coast, But Tolbert scored the game winning touchdown against the Steelers, and he did it after getting crushed in the man parts to play before. Now, I don't think Tolbert's going to see a twenty four percent target chair while Brandon cooks his sideline. That's what he saw in Week five, But could he be at the twenty percent mark? Definitely, That's why he should be added. Sell Michael Pittman. So I would assume there's probably wildly different valuations of Michael Pittman right now across fantasy leagues. My rest of season rankings haven't been compared yet to the market, so I don't even know where I stand necessarily with Michael Pittman versus other analysts and where they stand his peripherals. At the end of the day, they've been fine this year. He's got a good route participation, he has a target share over twenty six percent. He's also scored thirty two PPR points over his last two and as we know, one of those games was without Anthony Richardson. Those are the only two games where Indianapolis has hit a positive EPA per drop back this season, and their game in Week five came against one of the easiest matchups for wide receivers when they faced the Jags. Things are not going to be that easy moving forward. Indianapolis wide receivers has one of the toughest short term schedules. According to my numbers, they get the Titans, the Dolphins, the Texans, the Vikings, the Bills, and the Jets over their next six Only one of those matchups rates is a plus matchup according to adjusted Fantasy points allowed. There's not a ton of conviction here. I'm not gonna lie because I don't know exactly how people are valuing Michael Pittman. If you can get him close for his draft day cost, though, given the last couple of weeks, that would be pretty great ad Jalen Polk. So the Patriots are getting closer and closer to a change at quarterback, and that could be exactly what Jalen Polk needs for his fantasy performance. Polk has gradually seen his row participation increase in this New England offense. It got to one hundred percent in Week five. He's now seen a twenty percent target chair in back to back games, and he was so close to a touchdown against the Dolphins. We know that rookie pass catchers usually see an uptick in production during the second half of their rookie seasons. If things click with Drake May, that increase in production could happen for Jalen Polk. So right now he's a pretty interesting stash ad Trey Tucker. So at this moment, there's no telling what's gonna happen with Devonte Adams. It does sound like, though, that there's a possibility that he's totally done playing with the Raiders. Without Adam, Jacoby Myers, and Brock Bauers, they should see more consistent volume. But don't sleep on Trey Tucker. After two really strong performances in Week three and four, his production can crashing down to earth in a tough matchup in Week five against the Broncos, but he clearly ran as the team's number two wide receiver. Look coming out as a prospect, the Zap model didn't really love Tucker, but he does have some big playability. He's a pretty fun player to watch with the ball in his hands. So he's someone that you can roster in deeper formats. Buy Ladd McConkie. So I talked about McConkey a little bit on last week's Mailbag episode. Basically it comes down to this, we're buying into talent the Chargers upcoming schedule. It's not that great for wide receivers, but Ladd mcconkee has been low key impressive to start the season. The talent profiles there, He's seen a twenty seven point three percent target share this year. He's yet to fall below a twenty one percent target share in a single game, and his yards per route ranks just outside the top twenty across the league a wide receiver. That's pretty impressive for a rookie wide out. Like I just said with Jalen Polk, there's a lot of data that points to rookies having better second half of the season production versus first half. Mconkie is already hitting on the right peripherals. Why not take a chance by sending someone on your bench to get a player like mconkie Sell Kyler Murray. So, Kyler Murray was a target of mind entering the season, and he's just been kind of fine. He's sitting as a mid range QB one and he's proven that rushing upside is still there. Just look at what he did against the forty nine Ers this past week. Arizona's schedule, it's been pretty reasonable so far. It gets a lot more difficult over the next month or so. They get the Packers, Chargers, Dolphins, Bears, and Jets over the next five That lineup includes four bottom six matchups for quarterbacks by justin fantasy points allowed. He might be okay this this week against Green Bay, but if you'd rather not risk his value potentially dropping now might be a decent time to sell. And just to be clear here, I think trading away Murray makes a lot more sense in leagues where you can effectively stream, where the waiver wire has guys like Ginos Smith out there. It's also an easier move to make if you're in need of a win right now, like let's say that you're a one win team, because he does get the Panthers in the Rams in week sixteen and seventeen, those are the two most important fantasy weeks of the season. But I would be lying if I said that I wasn't nervous about this upcoming stretch of games. Add Daniel Jones. Danny Dives has been okay this year. He ranks twenty AETH and completion rate over expected. He's top fifteen and EPA per dropback. He's been better than where a lot of people thought he would be, and as usual, he's getting it done with his legs. He's averaging twenty one point six rushing yards per game, and he's fifth in quarterback rush attempts. He's now scored at least eighteen standard Fantasy points in three of his last four and next up for the Giants the Bengals. They've been the fifth best matchup for quarterbacks this year according to Justin Fantasy points allowed. If he has a good game, he might even be usable the week after in Week seven because they get Philadelphia. But at the very least, he's a pretty good streamer here in Week six, add the Philadelphia Eagles defense. So speaking of the Eagles, they had their buy in Week five, so their percent roster number over on Yahoo is pretty low. They're sitting on a lot of waiver wires and this week they get the Browns their eight and a half point favorites, and the Browns have been the best matchup for fantasy defenses this year by Justin points allowed. If they get to Shaun Watson, this is a very very easy play. But if the Browns do make a switch a quarterback, I still think Philadelphia is in play with Jamis Winston under center. They'd probably just be a better play with Deshaun Watson because he's terrible. I've got a bonus transaction for you this week, it's to add Juju Smith Schuster. Everything was all set with his podcast on Monday night until Juju Smith Shuster had himself a night. He had seven grabs for one hundred and thirty yards against New Orleans And if you look at this Kansas City pass catching room, it's not like there's a ton of competition. Yeah, you have Travis Kelcey, but the main wide receivers that he's competing with are Xavier Worthy and Justin Watson. Watson's an ivy leaguer who has two career games with a twenty percent target share. Xavier Worthy he's a smaller vertical threat and he's a rookie. Just because of that, there's a chance that Juju Smith Schuster is able to maintain this to some degree. He's not going to catch seven balls for one hundred and thirty yards every single week, but at this moment today, he's not a terrible ad off the waiver wire. That's it for today's show, though, thanks to all of you for listening. If you'd subscribe to the Late Round Fantasy Football podcast, make sure you are mestaching for it pretty much anywhere podcasts can be found you don't follow me on Twitter at Late Round QB. Thanks for listening everyone, I'll talk to you tomorrow with the weekly Ten Trends episode.