1039: 15 Transactions for Week 8

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Speaker 1: This is the lad Podcast with your host JJ Zackeratha j J zacher reson what's up everyone. It's JJ Zacharyeson in this episode ten thirty nine of the Late Round Fantasy Football podcast sponsored by DraftKings. Thanks for tuning in. There's no better way to get closer to the action than with DraftKings Daily Fantasy, the ultimate destination for football fans. New customers can play free for their share of millions and prizes with their first to positive five dollars or more. Download the DraftKings Daily Fantasy app and enter promo code Late Round to play free for your share of millions. The crown is yours. Gambling problem called one hundred Gambler New York Call eight seven seven eight hope n Why in Connecticut call eight eight eight seventy nine seven seven seveny seven eighteen plus most states. Eligibillion restrictions apply ends December thirty first. See terms at DraftKings dot com. Slash promotions. It's a fifteen transactions day. Let's do this thing. Add Arondez gadstcond So I've talked about Ronde Gadston a lot on this show this year. He's been on this fifteen transactions list multiple times, including last week, but after a seven catch, one hundred and sixty four yard one touchdown performance against the Colts and also on my benches across my leagues, I'd be hearing from a lot of you if it didn't call him out again. Gadsden needs to be rostered. He's a first year tight end and he's already putting up these kinds of numbers, and he did it this past week with a healthy wide receiver room. Quentin Johnston was active and Will Disley has now been back in back to back games for two weeks. Despite that, Gadson has hit a seventy seven percent raw participation rate in both of those contests. He had twenty nine point four PPR points on a seventeen percent target show this past week. Now, we're obviously not gonna expect thirty PPR points every single week, but consider this. Gadsden now has three hundred and eight receiving yards in five career games since two thousand. The only tight ends so have hit three hundred and more receiving yards in their first five games of their career have been Brock Bauers, Kyle Pitts, Tyler Warren, and Aaron Hernandez. There have only been eight tight ends to do that since nineteen seventy. When rookies show us something, we want to be aggressive in act, we want to add them off the waiver wire, which is why I did that earlier in the season with Gatson. But he's still out there in the majority of leagues. You gotta get them this week add Bershard Smith. Another player I've talked about on the show quite a bit this year is Bershard Smith. You guys know him a sucker for receiving running back and one who has a lot of juice. And that's exactly what we have with Bershard Smith. Against the Raiders, he saw season high thirty six percent snaphare. That's really why I'm calling him out. He got more work this past week. He handled forty two percent of the team's running back rushes. That was another season high. He had a fourteen point seven percent target share, also a season high. Now, some of you will rightfully point the game script as a reason why charge Smith saw the workload that he saw. He did see ten of his fourteen rush attempts in the fourth quarter against the Raiders. That was when the game was well out of reach. But four of his five targets came in the first half. He saw some work on the Chiefs first drive. I think Smith should be rostered in way more leagues. He's a great stash, and he's on a team that doesn't have a running back quite like him on the roster aside from him, of course, by Roma Doonzay. Roma Dunsay started the season averaging nineteen point nine PPR points per game over his first four. Across his last two, he's scored five point two and five point one PPR points. Now, I talked about a Douonsay had been on last week's ten Trends episode, I mentioned that his catchable targets rate had been slipping. According to Fantasy Life data, eighty three percent of Adunza's targets were deemed catchable in weeks one to two. That's when he had fifteen point seven and thirty one point eight PPR points. Since then, his catchable targets rate has been forty two percent. In Week seven it was thirty three percent, So you might be wondering how bad is that number? Well, pre Monday Night Football. Among one hundred and fourteen qualified wide receivers from weeks three through seven, A Dunday's catchable targets rate is one hundred and twelfth out of one hundred and fourteen. Now, a metric like that isn't everything. There's still some subjectivity to it. There's also necessary context that's needed, like the fact that a Dunsay has a fourteen point seven averaged up the target during this time down the field looks are going to be more difficult on the accuracy front. Still, Marvin Harrison Junior has the exact same aid Dot during that period of time. His catchable target rate is seventy two percent. Keep in mind roma Dunsays is forty two percent. We can't sell this as a good thing now. I do think that we can look at this and say it'll probably regress. In twenty twenty four, for example, not a single wide receiver with one hundred and more routes run had a catchable target rate below Remember, Adunzay's has been below that since week two, and generally speaking, the volume is still there for a Dounzay post week two. If we want to continue with that split, he's had a solid enough twenty two percent target share. Now his first read target share has dropped post by According to CBS Sports Jacob Gibbs, that could explain the slight dip in target share overall, but it's not like he's not getting any volume. It's not like his target share is all of a sudden fifteen percent. He's still seeing an okay piece of the pie. So in my opinion, a Dounsay's a good wide receiver and he should see better targets moving forward. Even if this is a Caleb Williams problem, it likely won't be this bad rest of season, and Chicago wide receivers have one of the best short term schedules in all of fantasy football. They get the Ravens, Bengals, and Giants over their next three So I think right now is probably the time to buy Romadunza add Kyle Manungai. So let's stick with the Bears, and let's look at Kyle Mnungui out of that backfield. Now, DeAndre Swift, he's playing solid football right now. He's got a plus point four rushing yards over expected per attempt rate. That's corning to Next Gen stats. That's about average, that's right next to Kyrian Williams within that metric. His success rate, it's top fifteen in the league. He ranks right next to Jonathan Taylor, and he's second in the NFL and ten plus yard runs. This transaction is not really anti DeAndre Swift at all. He's been fine. It's just that Kyle mnung Guy saw his best workload of the season in Week seven. He had a thirty nine percent running back rush share and a twelve percent target share. And yeah, game flow, game script that played a role. He saw four of his thirteen carries on the final drive of that game. But he was getting touches throughout that contest against New Orleans, not just at the end. And he's been okay this year all things considered. I don't think he's like a stud, but he's a solid running back. The Bears in general have a top ten rushing success rate in football. They can get it going at times on the ground with Ben Johnson calling plays. So with favorable matchups upcoming against Baltimore and Cincinnati, Manunguy might be a worthwhile Bye week villain. At the very least, he's a DeAndre Swift handcuff hold Chase Brown. I'd say, so far, so good for Joe Flacco in this Bengals offense. Honestly, everything's been better than I expected. As I talked about on last week's Late Round Fantasy Football show. He's getting rid of the ball quickly. That's mitigating that poor offensive line play. He's been mostly accurate throwing to those wide receivers, and the Bengals offense even got the run game going against the Steelers on Thursday night. Chase Brown finally looked the part in Week seven. He ran eleven times for one hundred and eight yards. Now, he didn't find the end zone, but he did play three of three snaps within the Pittsburgh five yard line. There are some things to look forward to with Chase Brown and fantasy football. Cincinnati looks far more competent offensively with Joe Flacco versus Jake Browning. Chase Brown has arguably had his two most efficient days on the ground over the last two weeks, and the Bengals have a top five rest of season schedule for running backs according to my numbers, just two of Cincinnati's final nine opponents ranking the bottom half of the league and adjust the points allowed to running backs. But we have to look at this pessimistically too. Not everything is butterflies and rainbows for Chase Brown. As we know, he hasn't seen the workload over the last couple of weeks that we'd ideally want him to see. Across his first four games this year, Brown was averaging a running back rush are per game rate of eighty six percent. Over his last three it's been sixty three percent. Without Flacco, Brown had a target share per game of fourteen point six percent, and his two games with Flacco he's had target shares of five percent and nine percent, and that's on a similar route share. Now, this is the case for any buy or sell transaction, but what you do with Chase Brown this week really depends on what the market in your league is saying. Brown's evaluation is going to be all over the place. If you can sell high, like mid to high end RB two prices, I would do that. But if you can buy low like RB three prices, I would also do that. He's just someone that a lot of people were asking me about this week, and since the weird waiver wire week, with not that many obvious choices, I figured I'd throw him in on this fifteen transaction show. My general guess is that not many people are gonna buy Chase Brown, So I probably lean more by than Sell, but I do think overall he's just a hold ad Joe Flacco. So, speaking of the Bengals and Joe Flacco, he made this list last week, and after his performance in Week seven, I gotta shout him out again. That's sort of the theme of this week's fifteen Transaction Show. According to my numbers, over the next four weeks, no team has a better quarterback schedule than the Cincinnati Bengals, and they've got the third best rest of season schedule. They also get the Ravens, Dolphins, and Cardinals in the Fantasy playoffs, three teams that rank his favorable opponents by justin fantasy points allowed to quarterbacks. Now, maybe Joe Flacco isn't available in the playoffs, maybe Joe Burrow's back, but even still, it's good to have in the back of your mind. The rest of season's schedule for Cincinnati is really really good for this passing attack, and with the weapons that they have there, Joe Flacco could be very usable. Add Devin Neil So Sadly, Kendre Miller tore his ACL in Week seven against the Bears. He's now out for the season. Alvin Kamara in turn, ended up seeing eighty five percent of the team's running back rushes. But moving forward, don't sleep on rookie Devin Neil getting more work in this backfield. Neil was a prospect that the ZAP model really liked. He was actually labeled with a low risk profile. That's something we see from only about fifteen percent of running back prospects. That tells us. That tells me that the model liked Neil a whole lot more than where he was actually drafted in the NFL Draft, And for Neil does because he had a well rounded production profile. He's at the most explosive back in the world, but he can do it all. He's won of five running backs from this year's class with a best season reception share of at least thirteen percent and a breakout scorer above eighty five. For those of you who have no idea what that means, he cut a high percentage of his team's passes and he produces a receiver at a younger age. The only two backs from this year's class who also had a higher best season total yards per team play rate. Along with those other metrics, that's another relatively predictive metric for running backs. But the only other two running backs who match Devin Neil within those three metrics reception share, breakout score and best season total yards per team play were Ashton Gente and Cam Skataboo. Now this isn't to say that Alvin Kamara should watch his back and that Devin Neil's gonna take his job. He's just an intriguing Day three player and Kamara is thirty years old. There's some inherent injury risk there, so I think you could look Devin Neil's way during a weaker waiver wire week. Ramandre Stevenson. Now, look, I know I've talked a lot about this New England backfield, and this is not a Traveon Henderson focused transaction. I promise you Stevenson's clearly in that early down role for New England and that was on full display in Week seven against the Titans, where he hit a season high seventy two percent running back rush are. The number would have been even higher had the Patriots not run out the clock with Terrell Jennings. Stevenson has had three games this season, though with ten or more PPR points scored. One was his past week against the Titans, where he scored sixteen point eight PPR points. One was in Week two against the Dolphins, where he scored twenty one point two. The other happened in Buffalo. In that game, Stevenson ran the ball seven times for fourteen yards. He just happened to find the end zone twice. So to put that another way, Stevenson has had two sustainable performances this year and they came against Miami and Tennessee. Those are two top five opponents for running backs by justin points allowed. So yeah, I would really like Ramandre Stevenson if the Patriots the Dolphins and the Titans every single week, but that's not the case moving forward. The Patriots don't have the kindest schedule in the world. This week, for example, they had the toughest matchup on paper as they face the Browns. So I think overall, if you can sell high, you probably should add Colston Loveland. Cole Comet suffered a back injury in Week seven against the Saints that allowed Colston Loveland to capture a season high sixty three percent route share and a sixteen percent target chair. Loveland's now seen double digit percentage target shairs in three consecutive games and in Week eight, the Bears get a beatable defense in the Ravens. If Cole Comet misses that game, Loveland could become usable, and if he performs, maybe he carves out a bigger role. Finally, by George Kittle. George Kittle returned to the field on Sunday and he caught exactly zero passes. That was the first time in his entire career where George Kittle failed to record a catch in a game. I highly doubt that keeps up. Not only that, but we have to give this Atlanta defense some props. There's all this talk that George Kittle being back it was just for the run game, that he opened things up so much more for that San Francisco run game, And that's totally true. That's where the focus has been, though the focus has not really been on the Atlanta defense. Atlanta's defense has been really, really good against tight ends this year. Not only are they the toughest matchup by justin Fantasy points allowed, but they're the toughest matchup by a really wide margin. Opposing team tight ends have scored seven point four fewer PPR points per game against Atlanta compared to their season long averages. No tight end this year against the Falcons has ranked in the top twenty in PPR formats. That's crazy, So I think George Kittle should bounce back. Add Darnell Mooney another week, another Darnell Mooney transaction. Maybe I'm just a truth at this point, but Mooney played his third full game of the season on Sunday night. He tallied nine point eight PPAR points. He had a fourteen percent target share. It was fine. It wasn't a great outing, but it was fine. It was at least rosterworthy, especially because Kyle Pitts saw his highest target share since Week thirteen of the twenty twenty three season. Chances are that's not going to keep up and those looks have to go somewhere else. They'll probably go to Drake London and Darnell Mooney. And Mooney saw his standard down the field targets against the forty nine ers. In his three finish games this year, He's ended with no fewer than thirty seven percent of the team's air yards in every single game. His air yard share is essentially a top ten to one in the league when he's active. Better days should be ahead for Darnell Mooney and it could start this weekend because Atlanta gets Miami ads Sterling Shepherd, Tez Johnson, and Cadotton. Hey look, it's another repeat transaction from last week. This one was pretty unexpected though. Last week, when the status is of a Mechaic Bucha and Mike Evans were up in the air, it made sense to add the Buccaneers pass catchers, to add Sterling Shepherd, to add Test Johnson. If one of the two wideouts didn't play this week, then both Shepherd and Johnson could see more work. Well, as we know, Egbuka and Evans played in that game against Detroit, but unfortunately, Mike Evans broke his collar bone. He's now out for the year. That means that three wide receiver sets for Tampa Bay in the short term will be at Mecha Buca, Sterling Shepherd, and Tess Johnson because Chris Godwin's status is still up in the air. Now. If you look at what happened on Monday night against Detroit, Johnson and Shepherd they each ran forty routes and according to PFF, they both had seven targets too. A metic Buka he ran forty four routes. It seemed pretty clear that their plans weren't to use a mechaic Buka as much as they did on Monday night. It's just that when Mike Evans went down, they had no other choice. This is a good passing offense. There's a chance that Tes Johnson and Sterling Shepherd have some usability. And then on top of that, don't forget about Kate otton Oughten actually ran the most routes for Tampa Bay on Monday night. He's just rostered in more leagues, so he might not be available on yours. But you really should be looking at all three of these players by Justin Jefferson. So I've seen it on social media. I've seen it in the late round Fantasy football discord. Fantasy managers are not pleased with Justin Jefferson, and I kind of get it. Kind of you spend a first round pick to get Jefferson. He's not given us some like league winning season. He hasn't been Beejehn Robinson or Christian McCaffrey, at least not yet. But I'm still relatively optimistic. First off, let's not pretend that he's been like bad. He's averaging fifteen and a half PPERO points per game. Right now. That's easily a top fifteen number at wide receiver. He's in a twenty nine point four percent target chair per game rate. His two point three nine yards per rout run, while slightly lower than his norm, it's not that far off from what we typically see from him, and it's still a really good number. Honestly, if you look at his year over year numbers, they're not that different. He had ninety point two yards per game last year. This year he's had eighty eight. His target chair is nearly identical his yards per rout run. It was two point five zero a season ago, now it's two point three to nine. He's seeing a target on twenty four percent of his routes run this year. It was twenty five percent last season. And his receptions per game number is lower, but it's only lower by point three receptions per contest. The key difference here is touchdowns, plain and simple. He's only scored once this year. He found the end zone ten times. Last season, Jefferson scored on every five hundred and twenty eight receiving yards in twenty twenty five. His career average entering the season was a touchdown on roughly every one hundred and eighty six receiving yards. Now, of course, scoring more touchdowns is not a lock. The Vikings aren't as good offensively year over. They were scoring two point five to nine touchdowns per game a year ago this year two point one seven. But according to PFFS Expected Touchdowns model, no wide receiver in football should have more touchdowns than they currently have than Justin Jefferson. His expected touchdowns is three point three. He's only scored one. Think of it this way. Imagine a world where Justin Jefferson has twelve more fantasy points, just two more touchdowns, and that's across six games. Just like that, you're looking at seventeen and a half p Piero points per game. That's an easy top eight number at the position. And if that's happening, no one's complaining at all about Justin Jefferson. That's all it takes. So if the Jefferson manager once off this ride for whatever reason, you should be willing to buy into it, especially because the Vikings have already had their buy and no team has a better wide receiver schedule rest of season according to my Justin Fantasy points allowed numbers add Jack Besh. Look, it's really hard to get excited about anyone on the Raiders right now, and they're about to hit their bye week. So if you don't want to add Besh, I totally understand. Like I've said all show, it's just a weaker waiver wire week. With that being said, trade rumors are swirling about Jacoby Myers and Besh, who was a decent prospect, has had back to back games with an eighty percent route participation rate. If Jacoby Myers gets dealt, Besh could be a usable fantasy option, at least in deeper formats. Add the Atlanta Falcons defense, so the Colts are the more obvious streaming choice this week if they're out there in your league. They're fourteen and a half point home favorites against the Titans. But since they're rostered in more leagues, let's pivot to Atlanta. They're out there in over ninety percent of them. The Falcons have been pretty good defensively this year. I talked about this last week on the ten Trends episode. Now, their fantasy performances have been just okay, but pre Monday Night Football only Cleveland has a lot fewer yards per game than Atlanta and Atlanta's also top ten and EPA per play allowed. They get the Dolphins this week and Miami is struggling. The Falcons are strong seven and a half point home favorites. Miami is a firm top ten opponent for opposing defenses by adjusted Fantasy points allowed, so I do like this Falcons defense as a streaming choice. That's it for today's show, though, thanks to all of you for listening. If you subscribe to the Late Round Fantasy Football podcast, make sure you are restarting for it pretty much anywhere podcasts can be found, and to follow me on Twitter and on Blue Sky at Late Round QB. Thanks for listening everyone. I'll talk to you tomorrow with the weekly ten Trends episode.