451: 15 Transactions for Week 12

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Speaker 1: This is the Lady Podcast with your host JJ Zaperreasa Jay Jake zacher reson what's up everyone. It's JJ Zacharyesen, the editor in chief at Fandel and at number fire dot com. And this is episode four hundred and fifty one of the Late Round Podcast, the many shows that are part of the FanDuel podcast network. As always, thanks for tuning in. Thanksgiving is upon us, and Fandel is giving you the opportunity to win big this holiday season. For just five dollars and fifty five cents, you can enter the NFL Thanksgiving Million and compete for your share of the one point five million dollar prize pool, including a five hundred thousand dollars first place prize. Turkey Days just a few days away, so download the Fandel mobile app and submit your lineups now. For more details, vis at fandle dot com or download the Fandal app today. Eligibility restrictions apply add Taysom Hill. So I can understand if you had Taysom Hill and you didn't start him this past week, because there was a lot of question marks entering that game. Even though they said that Taysom Hill was going to start, we didn't know what that was going to look like. We knew there was a lot of upside and a lot of potential because of what Taysom Hill can do with his legs, but we didn't know exactly how many times he would touch the ball. But he delivered. He had a great game. It was a plus matchup. He had the best matchup possible in terms of ad justed Fantasy points allow when he faced the Falcons, but he still exceeded expectations. He scored twenty four point four points. That was a top five number at the quarterback position in Week eleven, and he did it in sort of like a Drew Brees plus kind of way. He was very methodical with his passing. He threw a lot of high percentage throws. He had the fewest air yards of any starter in the NFL on Sunday, but I will say he threw the ball deep three times. He had three fifteen plus air yard throws and he completed all of them. But most importantly from a fantasy perspective, he got it done on the ground. We always talk about the cheat code that rushing quarterbacks bring to fantasy football, and Taysom Hill brought that in Week eleven. He ran the ball ten times, he had fifty one rushing yards, and he had two rushing touchdowns. That's the reason that Taysom Hill is very viable moving forward, and Breeze is gonna be out for at least two more weeks because he's on IR and over those games, Hill's gonna get Denver and then Atlanta again, those are two matchups that he can exploit. So I like Taysom Hill as a plug and play starter moving forward. By Alan Robinson. The Bears are a disaster offensively at the time of this recording. I don't even know who's gonna start for them this week, but it's really really tough to ignore their rest of season's schedule, and that's gonna benefit Alan Robinson. And Robinson always sort of flies under the radar and fantasy football because he's in this bad offense. But he's seen almost twenty five percent of Chicago's targets this year. Now that's a good target share. It's not the best target share in the league, but it's a good target shair, especially considering like I talked about on the show last week, Chicago's been a very pass heavy team. They have the third most pass attempts in football, and they had the highest pass to rush ratio in football. So Robinson seeing this twenty five percent target share in a pass heavy offense, that means lots and lots of volume. And for what it's worth, he does have a little bit of touchdown regression coming as well. In the positive end, he scored only three times this year. When some models, like Pro Football Focuses model, they say that he should have three and a half touchdowns. But this is really about the schedule. Now. The Bears do get a tougher matchup this week against Green Bay, but I wouldn't want to wait and see if Robinson has a down game because Chicago's coming off their by what if Chicago comes out and they look decent? So I would pounce right now because after the Packers, the Bears get the Lions, Texans, Vikings, and Jags. Through the end of the fantasy season, those are all top half matchups for wide receivers when looking at adjusted fantasy points allowed to the position. Sell Melvin Gordon. Melvin Gordon had his first top ten performance since Week four on Sunday. But when you dig in and you look at his numbers and you look at his usage, It really wasn't that impressive. Yes, he found the end zone a couple of times, that's great. He averaged almost six yards per carry, that's great too, But he also handled only forty eight point four percent of Denver's running back rushes and he didn't see a single target. Since Philip Lindsay came back from his injury, Melvin Gordon has averaged a running back rush share per game of fifty four point three percent Without Lindsay. This year, that numbers eighty percent. Melvin Gordon's usage is not very good, and that's on top of being in an offense that's not very good. So you have an opportunity to sell Melvin Gordon off of this big game, Go ahead and do it. Add James White. So I want to preface and say that the waiver wires sucks this week. It's probably the worst waiver wire week of the entire season. So if you need some help, I'm sorry, this is not the best week to get some help. I do think though, that if James White is on your waiver wire, you should be adding him this week. He's probably the top priority. He's still out there in about sixty percent of Yahoo leagues, and on Sunday he had a twenty three point seven percent target share that was his highest mark since Week six, and he played his highest snapshare of the season at fifty six point five percent. This is the result of a Rex Burkhead injury. At the time of this recording, they're fearing that Rex burke Head towards ACL and we know that anytime there's a fear that there's a torn ACL, there's usually a torn ACL. So if he's done for the year, then White is going to walk into a bigger pass catching role, the role that he essentially lost to Rex Burkhead. I don't think that we can probably count on James White week in and week out, but he's fine enough as a flex play moving forward. In PPR formats, sell Damien Harris. So this might seem counterintuitive. Rex Burkehead's now probably out for the year, and I'm telling you to sell Damien Harris one of his backfield mates. This Burkehead news probably does help Damian Harris in some way. Anytime you remove a piece of a backfield, it helps the other running backs in that backfield, at least from a fantasy standpoint. And I mean before Sunday's game, Burkehead was seeing a running back rush share per game of about thirty one percent. His target share per game was twelve point six percent. So those numbers leaving the backfield is good for every other running back in that backfield. But there's two problems. The first one is what I just talked about, James White. White is probably going to be the guy who just kind of slots in and becomes the pass catching back once again in this offense. Damian Harris has four targets this season, it's not like he's been used as a receiver. But then on top of that, number two, the other problem is that Sony Michelle should be back. Remember that guy. He was activated off of ir this past week, but he didn't play against the Texans. But guys, we've done this before. We know how New England utilizes their running backs. They have these early down guys and they have these pass catchings. And Sony Michelle is an early down guy. That's how he's been used in New England. That could dig into Damian Harris's workload. Now, with all that being said, I still expect Harris to be the one A in that backfield. It's just that he's coming off of some strong performances and then this Rex Burkhead injury happened, so you have an opportunity to sell him pretty high right now. I don't mind the schedule for New England moving forward, but I would still shop Harris because I generally like shopping New England Patriot running backs. And to me and you guys know this is my philosophy, but it's generally smart to not buy into players or running backs who don't see significant receiving volume unless that guy is Derrick Henry by Jamal Williams. So last week I talked about Aaron Jones as being a bye. He came through with a top ten performance at the running back position. Now I'm not patting myself on the back there because the reason for buying Jones was not about his Week eleven matchup. I mean, sure I expected him to be decent, but it wasn't for that match up against the Colts. It was for what's coming. The Packers have a great playoff schedule and Aaron Jones was coming off some down games, so that combined with the schedule made him a goodbye. Now enter Jamal Williams. Williams has had about one third of Green Bay's running back rushes over the last two weeks after playing really well while Aaron Jones was sidelined, and Williams also scored on a goal line target, which shows us that the red zone is not just Aaron Jones's area of the field. They're gonna use Jamal Williams there too. And again, one of the main reasons I liked Aaron Jones last week was because of who they're facing in the Fantasy football playoffs. Green Bay gets Detroit, Carolina and Tennessee in weeks fourteen, fifteen, and sixteen. If that's good for Aaron Jones, then it's good for Jamal Williams two. So I think that Williams has flex appeal, But then he also has a lot of upside too if something were to happen to Aaron Jones. Add Russell Gage. Julio Jones only played twenty two snaps against the Saints on Sunday because he had a hamster issue, and that allowed Russell Gage to do his typical, high volume, low upside thing. That's what I wrote in my column, and I think it's very appropriate. Like here's the thing, Russell Gage is fine that's the best way to describe Russell Gage. He's fine, but if Jones misses time, you should probably look to add Russell Gage because on Sunday he had twelve targets. But just do know that when he's had targets in the past, he hasn't done a whole lot. In Week one against Seattle feels like forever ago. But in Week one against Seattle he did score twenty point four PPR points on twelve targets. But since then he's averages eight PPR points per game, and that includes two games without Julio Jones. In those two games, Russell Gage had an eleven point one percent target share and he combined to score eight point two points. That's why this is not an automatic lock. You don't absolutely have to get Russell Gage off the waiver wire this week. Like I said, I think Russell Gauge is fine, especially in a PPR league, but if Julio Jones missed time, it's not an automatic win for Russell Gage hold or by Jonathan Taylor. All right, here goes, here goes. I'm sure people wanted me to talk about Jonathan Taylor this week, so I'm gonna talk about Jonathan Taylor this week. So coming out of the bye, Indianapolis decided to not use Jonathan Taylor a lot. From weeks eight through ten. The three games after the Colts bye, Taylor averaged a running back rush are per game of just twenty nine point four percent. Across his five games prior to that, that number was sixty seven percent. Now on Sunday that shot back up to about sixty nine percent, I'm not gonna say it, and he had a double digit percentage target share for the first time since Week one. Jonathan Taylor had awesome usage in Week eleven. Finally, so the question is what do we do now? And the answer is, I don't really know. I like to be transparent about the way that I view fantasy football. I think it's very very important. And the thing that I talk about with the running back position all the time is that coaches drive their value so much in fantasy football. If a coach doesn't want a running back on the field, that running back is not going to be fantasy football relevant. You could sort of make the same argument for wide receivers, but there's a difference. There are a lot of wide receivers on the field at once. And not only that, but a wide receiver needs to get open in order to see a target, so his volume is sort of driven more so by skill, whereas a running back volume is driven by a coach's choice. Now, you would hope that talent drives that coaching decision. If a running back is good, we hope the coach throws him on the field. And for what it's worth. Even though Jonathan Taylor has not lived up to the hype, he's been the best running back in that backfield this year, at least from an analytical perspective. If you look at success rate, which measures the percentage of positive expected points runs made by a back, and that's all according to number fire's expected points model, Jonathan Taylor has a very similar success rate to Naim Hines. It's actually little bit better, and his success rate is five percentage points better than Jordan Wilkins. And from a per rush efficiency standpoint, so we're talking about expected points added per rush, Jonathan Taylor is easily the best runner in that Colts backfield. It's not close. Maybe on Sunday the Colts coaching staff finally realized this and they said, we need to feature Jonathan Taylor and not so much Jordan Wilkins. We're gonna make this a two headed backfield instead of a three headed backfield because Wilkins only played ten percent of the Colt snaps on Sunday, that number had been significantly higher over the three previous games, and that showed up in the stat sheet. Wilkins had just four carries, when his three game average before this game was thirteen. So again, I don't really know where this puts us, because the Colts could very easily decide to not feature Jonathan Taylor anymore. They've done that in the past, but the Colts really should be featuring him. Like I know that he hasn't lived up to expectation since people like me were sitting behind our microphones telling you guys that he was going to be an RB one this year. I know he hasn't lived up to that expectation, but he's still been the best running back in that team's backfield. And I know that people who have Jonathan Taylor and Redraft right now are not very happy he's burned them so many times this year. So while this is mostly a hold transaction, I do think that you could send an offerer to those managers, those frustrated managers, and see if you can still buy low, and if you can't, no problem. I don't think you should be the biggest priority in the world because of how this coaching staff has operated this year, but at the very least I would try to buy low this week. Add Jacob Hollister. So a lot of you need tight end help, and there's a chance. It's not a big chance, but there's a chance that Jacob Hollister could help you. Greg Olsen is going to be out for an extended period of time and that leaves Seattle's tight end situation to Hollister and Will Disley. I guess both are sort of play as ads, but I would prefer Hollister over Disley because of their recent numbers. Hollister has run more routes and he's seen more targets than Disley over the team's last three games. Add Gus Edwards. So I was writing my fifteen Transactions column on Monday, and I saw a tweet that JK. Dobbins and mark Ingram tested positive for coronavirus. So number one, I wish them a speedy recovery. But also this means that Gus Edwards is very much in play. I don't love the matchup this week against Pittsburgh. They're a top five team when looking at adjusted fantasy points allowed to running backs, so they're a bad matchup. But it's tough to find volume at the running back position on the waiver wire. So it would add Gus Edwards, maybe get a start out of them, maybe get RB twoter production and kind of go from there. And in deeper leagues you could also add Justice Hill by Robbie Anderson. So, Anderson currently has a twenty seven percent target share in the Carolina Panthers offense and he has one one touchdown. Since twenty eleven, we've only had one wide receiver with at least a twenty five percent target shair and one touchdown across the season. That was Brian Hartline, remember that guy. In twenty twelve. Now, there were a couple of guys who had two touchdowns with that target share, but only one had one touchdown. So, in other words, I would be shocked if Robby Anderson doesn't find the end zone again this season. Now, I should say that it's not like Anderson's not scoring touchdowns while seeing so many red zone targets and a ton of end zone targets. He's tied for thirtieth among wide receivers in red zone targets. He's seen just three targets from within the ten yard line. It's not like he's Devonte Adams, but even still, most models show that he should have closer to three or four touchdowns than the one touchdown that he has. I mean, consider this, he has eight hundred and eighteen receiving yards right now. He's scoring one touchdown for every eight hundred and eighteen yards. The average this season at wide receiver has been a touchdown on every one hundred and sixty two point nine yards. Now, the Panthers still do have their bye. Keep that in mind if you're going to trade for Robbie Anderson. I'm just here to note that this current rate, considering his high target shair, is not very sustainable. Maybe he doesn't score from here on out, but I'm just playing math here. Ad Nelson Agalore. So we've seen spiked weeks from Agalore this season, but they've been nothing like what we saw on Sunday night. Prior to Week eleven, Agaloori had hit a double digit percentage target shair in just three games this season, but on Sunday that target share was twenty nine percent. That was his highest share of the year. He turned those targets in the six catches for eighty eight yards in a score, and he led the team in wide receiver snaps. So I think that he's worth an ad off the wire this week by Miles Sanders. A lot of fantasy managers are going to be turned off by this Philadelphia Eagles offense, and it's hard to blame them. Carson Wentz has played horrifically, so that's going to turn people away from Miles Sanders. But I also think that creates a buying opportunity. Since Sanders returned from injuries, we have two games worth in the sample size, he's handled about seventy eight percent of Philadelphia's running back rushes and he's had about a fourteen percent target share. Those are very very good numbers. He's ranked as the RB nineteen and the RB twenty seven and weekly scoring in PPR formats, but a lot of that has to do with the fact that he hasn't found the end zone. Now. Of course, we need Phillies offense to be better in order for those opportunities to come up, but they really only have one tough game left on their schedule. They get New Orleans in Week fourteen, the first week of the fantasy playoffs. So with that being said, I think he's a great by low pick for a team that's likely to see a first round by where you can avoid that New Orleans matchup because in weeks fifteen and sixteen, the Eagles get the Cardinals and the Cowboys. Those are two decent matchups for Miles Sanders to exploit. Add Derek Carr, So Derek Carr, for the second time this season, look good against Kansas City. He has two top ten performances this year. They were both against the Chiefs. That might force people to move away from car but don't because he has a great matchup this weekend. I already mentioned earlier that Atlanta's the best matchup and adjusted fantasy points allowed to quarterbacks this game, according to FANDLS Sportsbook, has a fifty five and a half point over under, so it's a good matchup. It should be high scoring. That makes Derek Carr this week's top streamer. Add the New York Giants defense. So the Giants had their buy in Week eleven and as a result, they're available in eighty five percent of Yahoo leagues right now, and in Week twelve they get the Bengals, who no longer have Joe Burrow. Ryan Finley's gonna start. That's why the Giants are four and a half point favorites in a game with a forty two and a half point over under. That alone, without looking at anything else, makes the Giants a viable defensive streamer. But then if you look at Ryan Finley's three starts last season, he was sacked eleven times and he was paid twice and he's still playing behind this Bengals offensive line that has not been very good. They've allowed the fifth highest sack rate in football this year. So because of all that, the New York Giants are a very good streaming defense. The sixteen transaction this week that you can't get my fifteen transactions call him over on number fire dot com, is to add Denzel Mims. Mims' is rostered in just five percent of Yahoo leagues right now, so he's probably available on yours. And yes, I know he hasn't done a whole lot because he's in this Jets offense, and this Jets offense is a complete dumpster fire. I would rather watch a Keeping Up with the Kardashians marathon than watch a team coach by Adam Gase, But I can't deny what Denzel mims peripherals are showing since he's been healthy. So since week seven, Mims has seen thirty two percent, eleven percent, thirty three percent, and twenty nine percent of the Jets targets. Those are his target shaars per game, so if you're able to just stash someone, he's not a terrible option. But again, a lot of this has to do with the fact that the waiver wire is not very good this week. 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 podcast, make sure you are by searching for it pretty much anywhere podcasts can be found. You know't forget to follow me on Twitter at Late Round QB. Thanks everyone, talk to you tomorrow.