934: 15 Transactions for Week 9

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Speaker 1: This is the Labor Podcast with your host JJ Zachertha JJ zacher reson What's up everyone. It's JJ zachar Esen in this episode nine and thirty four of the Late Round Fantasy Football podcast sponsored by Underdog. Thanks for tuning in. Before getting the transactions this week, I want to remind you that you can get my rest of season rankings for absolutely free. All you have to do is sign up on Underdog with promo code Late Round and you'll get a deposit bonus alongside my rest of season rankings. Just head to Underdog Fantasy dot Com or download the Underdog app, sign up, make a deposit, and start playing. Just make sure you use promo code Late Round when you sign up, and then you'll get those rankings again Underdog Fantasy dot Com or download the Underdog App. It's a fifteen transactions day. Let's get to it. By Alexander Matto. So if you were to tell me in August that I'd be saying to buy Alexander Madison after week eight, I'd call you crazy. I didn't like Zamir White entering the season, but I didn't think Alexander Madison would be in the position that he's currently in look, No one's expecting the world out of Madison. He was a huge disappointment last year. He's playing in a bad offense and that offense didn't start him to start the season. But given the last couple of weeks to me, it's clear that he's the RB one on that team. Zamir White missed a couple of games back in Week five and Week six. He's been back for the Raiders over their last two and in those games he's seen a grand total of five rush attempts. His running back rush shares have gone from about seventy two percent to start the season to twelve percent. Meanwhile, over Vegas's last two games, Madison has seen running back rush shares of eighty nine percent in eighty two percent. His backfield share has actually gotten better since Zamir White returned. He's getting plenty of receiving work. Against the Chiefs this past week, Alexander Madison's target share eighteen and a half percent. Now, when it comes to these non elite players, these non elite running backs, anything can change in an instant. It's not like Madison has this role on lock the same way that like a Derrick Henry does in his offense. We always have to be aware that when we're dealing with non elite players, a coach can change things up quickly. But if nothing changes in Vegas, if this really is Alexander Madison's backfield, then this is a solid by low moment because Vegas right now has the absolute best fantasy playoff schedule for running backs by adjusted Fantasy points allowed. In weeks fifteen, sixteen, and seventeen, they get the Falcons, Jags, and Saints. Atlanta has been kind of tough on running backs, but Jacksonville, New Orleans. Those are top five matchups and they're coming in weeks sixteen and seventeen. And because we know that this is kind of a volatile situation, like, yeah, we're seeing this work for Madison, but like I just said, because he's not an elite player, this workload can shift, it can change if you want to. If you don't have Madison and you can't get Madison, you could always try to add Zamir White because he's not a lot of waiver wires right now. You never know what can go down over the next handful of weeks. At least, what we know is that Madison looks like a bell Cow and the Raiders have a really good schedule, especially in the fantasy playoffs. It's not like Zamir White would be incapable of putting up decent numbers. But the transaction here by Alexander Madison adds Cedric Tillman. So I talked about Cedric Tillman on last week's show, and then he came out in Week eight and he was better than any of us thought he would be. He's now seen target shares of twenty five percent and twenty two percent over these two games. Without Amari Cooper, He's had forty seven PPR points. Now, we should keep in mind that the Browns face Cincinnati and Baltimore during this two game stretch. Those are two really easy matchups according to adjusted Fantasy points. And moving forward, Cleveland actually has the toughest wide receiver schedule from now through the end of the season. That's according to the same methodology. So there's a chance actually that Cedric Tillman is to sell high. I just doubt anyone in your league is really heavily buying. But yeah, given his last two performances, he needs to be rostered. Sell Kareem Hunt. So when you're training players away. Sometimes you just got to eat a couple of weeks, sometimes a short term production. You're just not gonna get it. And that might be the case for Kareem Hunt. Teams desperately needing a win right now in your league, they might be more inclined to get Kareem Hunt a trade or to want Kareem Hunt because since he joined Kansas City, he's largely operated as their workhorse. He's averaged over eighteen pper points per game over their last three But as most of us know, Isaiah Pacheco will likely be back this season. Friend of the show, doctor Edwin Pouloss believes it could be week twelve when isaih At Pacheco returns, But even if it's a little bit later, that means that Hunt won't be around for the Fantasy playoffs. And even if he is around the Chiefs that are pretty brutal schedule. In weeks fifteen, sixteen, and seventeen they get the Browns, Texans, and Steelers. Those are three bottom half matchups for running backs. Two of those matchups or bottom five ones. So this transaction goes out to all of you managers who have Kareem Hunt and you're sitting pretty for the playoffs. You may want to ship him right now before he loses a lot of value, because it's likely to happen each week as we get closer to Isaiah Pachecko's return hold Calvin Ridley. So I think the knee jerk reaction to Calvin Ridley's really big Week eight performance would be to trade them away to sell high. He had one hundred and forty three receiving yards when a season high prior to Week eight was seventy seven. His thirty nine and a half percent target chair that's not sustainable even without DeAndre Hopkins. I mean, if you can truly sell, I sure go for it. I'm just not sure that teams across your fantasy league are gonna be buying Calvin Ridley given how he's performed all season. But I've been talking about this a lot over the last month on the show. The Titans have had it rough to start the year. Their quarterbacks have faced the toughest schedule by justin fantasy points allowed. The wide receivers they faced the fifth toughest one that changes rest of season. The wide receivers have the sixth best schedule from now through the end of the year in the playoffs, it's the second best schedule. Ridley's gonna see high target shairs. Without DeAndre Hopkins on this team, He's not gonna be overly efficient, but as he showed in Week eight, there's upside in plus matchups. So I think right now Ridley's a hold and Parker Washington. Christian Kirk is now out for the season with a broken collarbone. Brian Thomas Junior he might miss some time too because he's a ribs injury. And then there's Gabe Davis, who left Sunday's game against the Packers early with a shoulder injury. Evan Ingram's going to gobble up a lot of targets for Jacksonville, but a wide receiver, Parker Washington looks like the next man up because of all these injuries. He ended up running the most wide receiver routes for Jacksonville in Week eight, and the majority of his routes came on the perimeter. He was an outside wide receiver. That's kind of noteworthy because during his rookie season last year, PFF had him at a seventy five percent slot rate. That tells me that as long as Brian Thomas Junior and Gabe Davis are out. Just one of those players, Parker Washington, would be an every down player, so he needs to be on your radar by rom A Doonza. Now, look, there's a very real chance that we don't see a lot of production from Romadonsay through the end of the year. We knew that risk existed back in July and August. He was playing alongside two very good wide receivers in dj Moore and Keenan Allen in an offense that's led by a rookie quarterback, and so far things have not looked good for a Donza. He scored more than ten PPR points in just one game that happened all the way back in Week three. He hasn't been very useful in fantasy football. There's a chance that the team that has a Dounesay in your league that they're tired of them. They probably have them sitting on their bench. So now might be the time to go after him, because not only is the contingent upside there, not only could DJ Moore or Keenan Allen get hurt, which would raise the target chair for a Doonsay, but we also know that rookie wide receivers tend to perform better during the second half of the season versus the first. But not only that. A Dounesay has seen better than a twenty percent target share in two of his last three. In Week eight, he had a twenty seven percent target share that only led to eight point four PPR points, but according to PFFS expected Fantasy points formula, he played three and a half PPR points below expectation. And the Bears have a decent rest of season schedule. It's second best for wide receivers when looking at justin fantasy points allowed. Their playoff schedule is first. For one, they get the Vikings, Lions, and Seahawks in weeks fifteen, sixteen, and seventeen. Like I said, this might just be what we get from Roma Dunze here in twenty twenty four, but there's also a lot of outs here. He's a talented wide receiver. He could get more work and the schedule's not bad. This could be a by low moment. Add Xavier Liget and Jalen Coker, so I'm big on pronunciations. I've learned that it's not Xavier Leget, it's Xavier League get and I didn't realize that Lagett was rostered in just fifteen percent of Yahoo leagues. That number should be a whole lot higher. In Week eight, without Deontay Johnson, Leguet saw twenty point six percent target chair. He scored thirteen point four PPR points. That was against one of the toughest opponents in football, and that was with Bryce Young throwing the rock. There are tons of rumors out there talking about how Deontay Johnson could be dealt at the deadline. If he leaves Carolina, then Legett will have op oportunity to take over the top spot in that Panthers wide receiver room. And for what it's worth, in the fantasy playoffs, the Panthers get the Cowboys, Cardinals, and Buccaneers. Those are three plus matchups for wide receivers, especially two of those. In all of this logic, it applies for Jalen Coker too. In fact, Coker might be the value add here. He saw a seventeen point six percent target share in Week eight and he scored almost eighteen PPR points. According to PFF, he has a top twenty receiving grade among all players in football. So don't ignore Coker off the waiver wire either, especially in deep formats, sell Kyle Pitts. So back in Week four, Kyle Pitts scored zero Fantasy points, but since then he's really turned things around. He hasn't dip below a fifteen percent target share over his last four games. He scored an average of sixteen point one PPR points per game during this stretch. But now might be the time to sell. During these four games, pits opponents have been the Buccaneers twice, the Panthers, and the Seahawks. Tampa Bay's a top ten favorable opponent for tight ends by justin points allowed. Carolina is the absolute best opponent. Seattle they're the fourth best one. To put that in another way, the Falcons have faced some cakewalk tight end matchups over the last month. There's no doubt that that has helped Kyle Pitts. It won't be as easy from now through the end of the year. Atlanta's wide receiver schedule that looks good. There's tight end schedule not as much, and it's a bottom five to one in the league. During the Fantasy playoffs, if Pitts were consistently seeing like twenty five percent target chairs, that'd be one thing. He wouldn't be a cell at all. But he's been well below the twenty percent mark and most of his games played this year. He's still going to be relevant, but this could still be a cell high moment. Add Taysom Hill. The Saints are banged up offensively and they're honestly just a mess offensively. That could really open up a larger role for Taysom Hill. He returned to action in Week eight. He played forty percent in New Orleans offensive snaps. That's a number that has a lot of room for growth. But on those snaps he ran a route on thirty eight percent of the Saints dropbacks. He was targeted on twenty one percent of those routes. That resulted in a solid eleven percent target share for Taysom Hill. That's pretty solid because we know that he's going to be efficient, and obviously New Orleans used him on the ground too. Kendre Miller heard his hamstring in Week eight. There's even more opportunity now on the ground for Taysom Hill. He could be used in every facet of this Saints offense. Because across the board, whether you're looking at the tight end position, the wide receiver two position or a backup running back position. There's weakness, there's a spot for Taysom Hill to fill. So I think with Derek Carr hopefully coming back this week, Taysom Hill's a nice ad off the waiver wire by Dak Prescott. Yes, this is a repeat transaction from a couple of weeks ago, and no, I'm not just doubling down on a bad take now since the last time I talked about Dak Prescott, he had a bye week and then he played one game, and in that game against the forty nine ers, he scored thirteen point six points. That's not great. That's not gonna cut it. But I think this schedule is good enough to still be optimistic, or at least relatively optimistic. Like right now you can buy Dak Prescott for an even lower price than you could before, because look at what he did in Week eight, and I think there are plenty of things wrong with this offense. This is not a transaction to me saying that the Cowboys are gonna be a top five offense rest of season. But look at the things that we like for fantasy. They're a top ten team in pass rate over expected he's got the lowest touchdown rate of his career, which is a regression alert, and two thirds of Dallas's opponents through the end of the fantasy season they're favorable opponents. According to my numbers, the Cowboys had the eighth best rest of season schedule for quarterbacks, and they have the absolute best schedule in the Fantasy playoffs. Now, this doesn't mean that you should just get rid of your starting quarterback and ride Dak Prescott. It's more so that I think he could work really well on a platoon, and if he shows up over the next few weeks, you're gonna feel a lot more confident using him against the Panthers and Buccaneers during the first two weeks in the fantasy playoffs. I'm not trying to frame this as a must target. It was never that way. I just expect Dak Prescott to play better in fantasy football moving forward. Add Blake Korum. So I think we kind of know now that Blake Korum is the handcuff in LA. He's seen running back rush shares of nineteen percent, thirteen percent, and fifteen percent over his last three games. Now stand alone, those aren't good numbers for a fantasy asset. You can't throw him in your flex, but he is getting sprinkled into this offense a little bit more, at least versus what was going on earlier this season. So if Kyron Williams were to go down, we would have more confidence that Blake Koram would see a decent workload. And I'm calling him out this week because we got to look at this schedule. The Rams have a really tough passing schedule moving forward, but their rushing matchups are great through the end of the year. So I think Kyron Williams could eat from now through the end of the season, but if he goes down, Korum might be a must start. By Trey McBride. I don't think people realize how good Trey McBride has actually been this year. He's yet to see a sub twenty five percent target share in a completed game this season. He scored fourteen and a half PPR points per game in games that he's finished, and he's done that without a touchdown. McBride currently has fifty six targets on the season without a score. Based on where he's seeing his looks, his expected touchdowns should be closer to two that may not seem like a big difference, but across those six relevant games, we're talking about potentially two more PPR points per game, which would be Elite sixteen and a half PPR points per game from a tight end is awesome. Now, McBride's coming off a really solid performance where he caught nine of eleven targets for one hundred and twenty four yards. But like I said, I'm not sure the market fully realizes how good Trey McBride has been this year. And guess what Arizona tight ends. They had the best rest of season schedule by justin fantasy points allowed, and their playoff schedule is third best. I talked about Kyle Pitts earlier. If you have Kyle Pitts, pair him up with someone on your bench and upgrade that tight end position up to Trey McBride because I like him quite a bit more than a player like Kyle Pitts. Rest of season. Add Matthew Stafford, so we saw different Matthew Stafford in Week eight, probably because Cooper Cup and Pooka and Akua were back in that lineup. He scored more than fifteen standard Fantasy points for the first time all year. Now, it was against a Vikings team that's actually been an ok matchup for quarterbacks this season, but it was good to see Stafford get it done, and having Cup and Nakua definitely helped. I think just because he has his weapons back, Stafford should be added. But as I said with Kyron Williams, there are some tough games moving forward. I wouldn't say that he's just a set and forget kind of quarterback right now, but in week nine his matchup against the Seahawks is not bad, so I think he's a streamer and then we'll just kind of take it from there by Nick Chubb. If you need more of a high variance move, start chatting with the Nick Chubb manager in your league. Now. Chubb obviously isn't up to full speed yet, but we did see the Browns give him more work in that backfield. In week eight. He went from a sixty nine percent running back rush here in week seven, it was seventy six percent this past week. Now, during his two games played, he's seen target shares of just six point three percent and four point nine percent. Those aren't special, but it was encouraging to see him with a forty two percent route participation in Week eight. That number was just nineteen percent the week prior. Honestly, from Nick Chubb. If you look at his career, a forty two percent route participation is actually pretty solid, So if that were to continue, we should expect to rise in his target shair. The brown schedule moving forward nothing special, but Nick Chubb's not gonna face Baltimore every week and it's nice to have a more competent quarterback under center for the Browns. I think there's a scenario where Chub's a legit RB two this season, just based on where things are trending. But there's obviously a lot of risk. So look at your team, see if you need to take on that variance, and then make your move. Add the New Orleans Saints defense. The Saints get the Panthers this week. They're seven point favorites depending on the book you're looking at the Panthers with a sub nineteen point imply team total Caroline has been the eighth best opponent for defense this season in fantasy. And if Bryce Young gets another start, I don't know either way at the moment, but if he gets another start, that's big because in his three starts this season, opposing defense is one of them actually being the Saints. They've averaged well for ten standard fantasy points per game against the Panthers, so I think New Orleans overall just a safe option. That's 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 podcast can be found. You hope to follow me on Twitter at Late Round QB. Thanks for listening everyone. I'll talk to you tomorrow with the weekly ten Trends episode.