453: Week 12 Matchups

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Speaker 1: This is the Late Podcast with your host JJ Zacher Retha, j J Zacher Reason. What's up everyone. It's JJ Zacharyeson, the editor in chief at fandled in at number fire dot com, and this is episode four hundred and fifty three of the Late Round podcast on many shows that are part of the FanDuel podcast network. Thanks for tuning in. I said that I liked Jamis Winston last week, but Jamis Winston didn't start for the Saints, so hopefully you didn't just blindly throw him into your lineup. But at quarterback last week, things looked pretty good for this matchup show. I loved Kirk Cousins as a streamer he came through, and I liked Philip Rivers as well. He had a nice game. Running back, though, was a different story. I made note that Jonathan Taylor was too tough to trust, which I don't think was wrong, but the Colts finally fed him, so that was wrong. My deep plays didn't really work out, and Duke Johnson sucked. I'll be talking about him more in a second. And I was below average with the wide receiver picks last week too. I generally go with some deeper options at the position, but even Christian Kirk didn't come through with a big game like I expected against Seattle. Taysom Hill did come through though, for all of you espnrs who were able to use him at tight end, and the Cleveland Browns defense was a great streamer last week as well. So overall, I'm not a huge fan of how Week eleven went down. The quarterback recommendations have been really good recently, but running back has specifically been tough. I think that's sort of to be expected though, because the position is just so shallow. But before getting to players that I like more and less than the consensus this week, I want to send one more reminder about Fandels Thanksgiving Million. 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. For more details was at fandle dot com or download the Fandel app today. Eligibility restricts apply Taysom Hill. Taysom Hill is in play at quarterback. Like I said in the fifteen Transaction show, if you didn't play Hill at quarterback last week because there was so much ambiguity there. I totally get it. It was a high risk, high reward play. But now we know what that offense looks like with Hill under center, and now you should be able to confidently play him. The matchup against Denver is decent on paper, and the Saints have a decent enough twenty four and a half point implied team total according to fandals Sportsbooks numbers. Hill carried the ball ten times in Week eleven, and he got it done in the ground for fifty one yards in a couple of scores. Even though he'll likely continue to make conservative throws, his ground game ability, his rushing ability is why you're starting him. It's no different than why we started Tim Tebow back in the day, and even someone like Cam Newton earlier this season when he was running more. I mean, consider this. In twenty twenty, there have been twenty two games where a quarterback ran the ball ten or more times, which is what Taysom Hill did last week. Among those games, the lowest scoring performance was sixteen and a half Fantasy points. Now, maybe you think that sample size is too small because the quarterbacks that are running a lot this year are also good passers. So let's look at twenty eleven through twenty nineteen. We had one hundred and nineteen instances from twenty eleven through twenty nineteen where a quarterback ran the ball ten or more times in the game. Among those instances, all but three scored double digit fantasy points, and about eighty percent of them scored at least fifteen points. It's an arbitrary cutoff. Sure, This is just to show that having a quarterback that has the opportunity to get numbers through the air and on the ground, it's a cheat code in fantasy football. That's why Taysom Hill works. I mentioned Derek Carr is a top streamer on the fifteen Transaction Show, and the point still stands. He's a very good play. Despite the fact that both of his good performances this year have come against the same team, which is Kansas City, and he's not facing Kansas City this week. It's just tough to not love this spot against Atlanta. The Falcons are the worst team and adjusted points allowed to quarterbacks, having allowed at least eighteen fantasy points to opposing team quarterbacks in all but one game this year. The over under has said at fifty five and a half points. That's the highest of the week, and that gives the Raiders the third highest implied team total of the week, So you should be able to start car with confidence. Now on the other side of the matchup is Matt Ryan. I know I talked about the split with Ryan and Julio and the ten Trend show and how Ryan has averages nine points per game without Julio Jones this year, and Julio is not a lock to play as I'm recording this, but even if he doesn't go, I still think that Ryan is fine. Again, the game against the Raiders is a really high over under and the Falcons have a high implied team total as a result of that. And keep in mind, like I said on the show, Ryan hasn't faced the easiest defenses in the world without Julio Jones this year. Even though that split is a really interesting statistic, which is why I brought it up in the first place, you always got to dig in a little bit more. So I think that he should still be at least serviceable if Julio Jones doesn't play, And if Julio goes, then you should be starting Matt Ryan and then The last sort of QB two type player that you could stream or play this week is Philip Rivers. I'm gonna go back to Rivers. He's been low key pretty good over the last month. Over his last five games, he's averaged eighteen Fantasy points per game, and that includes a really down performance against Baltimore. Now he gets Tennessee, a top ten matchup in adjusted points allowed, and the Colts have a high implied team total, so it sets up well for him. I think that he's ranked way too low this week, So Carson Wentz gets the Seahawks. I think he can be played if there aren't a ton of options for you. I'm actually playing him in a league this week myself. But I do want to note that this is not the same Seahawks defense that was constantly torched at the beginning of the season. Since adding Carlo's Dunlap, Seattle's averaging four point three sacks per game versus the one point seven sacks per game that they had without Dunlap. There's still beating through the air, but Jared Goff and Kyler Murray came through over the last two weeks with just average performances, so keep that in mind, keep in mind that Seattle's defense is getting better or at least playing better when you're starting Carson Wentz. Wayne Galman has averaged a running back rush share for the Giants north of sixty percent since DeVante Freeman went down, and over this time, only four running backs have more carries from within the ten yard line than Goalman does. Now, the Giants are pretty big favorites against the burrowless Bengals, which we don't always get to see, and that could lead to a nice positive script for the Giants and Goalman, So I really don't mind him this week, and I'm going to go back to Duke Johnson. He's been very, very mediocre since David Johnson went down, and I understand if you've lost all confidence, but the peripherals are strong. His last three week running back rush shares have been eighty nine percent and seventy seven percent, and this past week we saw him with a thirteen and a half percent target share. I'm also intrigued by his receiving usage potential. With Randall Cobb out of the lineup, Kiki Hut stands to benefit the most, but Duke could get more love in the passing game as a result, and he gets at Detroit defense on Thanksgiving that's been the absolute friendliest to running backs this year when looking at adjusted points allowed. So I think that Duke Johnson is ranked too low this week, and I think it's a reflection of how he's burned people over the last couple of weeks. Zach Moss is barely ranked ahead of Devin Singletary this week. I still don't really get it. I brought this up on the show plenty, but the difference between Moss and Singletary shouldn't just be a couple of spots. Moss has averaged a running back rush share of seventy three percent over the team's last two games. Singletary has been the remaining twenty seven percent. Singletary has eight targets to Moss's four, but Moss is the one who's getting goal line looks. And it's not like Moss isn't being targeted out of the backfield. Buffalo's in the game this week. It's the Chargers in LA has been a plus matchup for running backs this year. I like Moss given the way this script could go, and I think he should be ranked a lot higher in general, and especially versus Singletary. Now on the other side is Geo Bernard. Fantasy Pros rankers have Bernard as the RB twenty two this week in PPR formats, but I would have a hard time starting him given the Cincinnati offensive situation. Not only did the Bengals of the lowest implied team total this week, but Bernard's market share numbers haven't been that impressive. Ofly, he's essentially seeing similar backfield share numbers as Wayne Galman has, but the two are very close in ranking this week. Meanwhile, Gallman's in the offense that didn't lose their starting quarterback, and he's in an offense that should see the positive script that's at least what we're predicting. So Bernard is just a really big risk this week. He can get by on volume, but that only gets a player so far. Antonio Brown is ranked well below Mike Evans and Chris Godwin this week, and it's just another example of I don't really get it. Like I talked about on the ten Trends episode, Brown has essentially done exactly what god and Evans have done volume wise since entering the picture in Tampa Bay. He's actually seen more work than Chris Godwin. So I just wanted to make note of this. I think it's fine to still like Godwin and Evans more straight up, but not ten plus spots in wide receiver rankings. You can play ab this week just like you would those guys. Marvin Jones should have a pretty decent Thanksgiving. He's averaged a twenty percent target share since Kenny Galladay's injury, and the matchup against Houston is a beautiful one. The Texans are the sixth best matchup when looking at justin points allowed, and given where Jones lines up, he should avoid Bradley Roby for what it's worth for at least seventy percent or so of the game. I like him and what could end up being a higher scoring matchup. Sterling Shepard always flies under the radar. Since coming back from his injury, Shepherd's averaged a twenty four percent target share per game, and his lowest target share in a single game has been twenty one percent. So think of it this way. Even if the Giants get ahead in this game and they go super super conservative throwing something like thirty he targeted throws, that's still a baseline of over six targets for Sterling Shepard, and the matchup is good too. The Bengals are the second best matchup when looking at adjusted points allowed to wide receivers. I love Sheppard, especially in PPR formats where you don't have to worry as much about touchdowns now. I like Derek Carr, and I also like Nelson Agalore is a deeper play at wide receiver this week too. The Falcons secondary is bad. I already talked about that, and they've been bad against wide receivers, allowing the fourth most adjusted fantasy points per game to that position. Like I talked about on the fifteen Transaction Show, Agalore played the most snaps at wide receiver this past week for the Raiders and he had a season high thirty one percent target share, and that's after seeing eighteen percent of the team's targets the week prior. So he's not a terrible option at all off the waiver wire this week. Willie Snead is also something that you could look to in a PPR format as a higher floor option. Like I said in the ten Trends episode, he's been out targeting Marquise Brown over the last month and on the season, he's played about eighty two percent of his snaps from the slot. According to Pro Football Focus, that's where the Steelers are usually beat I talk about that on the show almost every week, but they've allowed the highest percentage of targets to go to that area of the field, and the last time these teams faced each other sneaed tied a season high seven targets. He finishes the weekly wide receiver twenty two. Now on the other side of things, I just wanted to make note that I can't really trust Cincinnati wide receivers this week. Are you sensing a theme? If you can bench them, I would try, because there are just too many question marks with that offense without Joe Burrow. And it's not like the Giants are this absolute must have matchup. They're totally average and adjusted points allowed to wide receivers. And then someone you may be considering this week is Cole Beasley if John Brown doesn't play. So far, at the time of this recording, John Brown is not practiced this week. I think it's fine to get some exposure to a high scoring game, which is what this could be. So Cole Beasley does make sense in theory, but I do want you to keep in mind that The Chargers have been one of the best teams in football this year at covering the slot. They've given up a lot of slot touchdowns, but only twenty four percent of the targets that they've faced have gone to that area of the field this year. That's the lowest mark in football. So while Beasley's fine without Brown, I have a feeling that I would be lower on him versus the consensus. If Brown is out instead, you could always look at someone like Gabriel Davis as a sleeper. Jordan Reid saw over fifteen percent of San Francisco's targets the last time that we saw him, and according to Pro Football Focus, he ran more routes than Ross Dwelly in that game. He's their tight end one, and I think he's in play this week against a Rams defense that has seen twenty three percent of their receiving yards allowed go to tight ends this year. That's a top five number in the league. And then the other tight end streamer that you could look to is the guy that I mentioned the fifteen Transactions episode, Jacob Hollister. The Eagles are one of the friendliest matchups for tight ends, and Hollister is my pickover will Disley now that Greg Olsen is out because he's been seeing more targets and running more routes over the last few weeks. He's a dart throw The tight end position is not very good, so you have to throw darts sometimes many times. And I think Hollister does work. I think he's logical in a good offense. Now, I think the New York Giants are an obvious defense to play this week. I alluded to that on the fifteen Transaction Show. I've been talking down on the Cincinnati offense throughout this entire show. You should be playing the New York Giants offense. You've got a backup, but you can consider now a third string quarterback under center for Cincinnati. Their offensive line is beatable and the Giants have an above average pressure rate this year, so this is a good spot for the Giants. You may not be thinking about the Seattle Seahawks, though, And I'll be honest, the reason I'm bringing this up on today's show is because I wasn't able to do it on the fifteen Transaction Show. But this is almost my seventeenth transaction. I mentioned earlier how Seattle's been a lot better defensively with Carlos Dunlap. Some of that may just be general regression too, and they're just coming together and playing better. Whatever the case, there's at least some reason this defense has been better, and they get Philly this week. Philly's a top five matchup for opposing defenses, and it's a team that's allowed by far the highest sack rate in the league. So the Seahawks are a good play this week. But here's why they're a transaction. Over their three games after this one, they get the Giants, Jets, and then the football team, So you could realistically just play this defense for four straight weeks, So add them, play them and profit. Hopefully that's going to do it for today's show, though. Thanks to all of you for listening. If you've got subscribed to the Late Round podcast, make sure you are by searching for it pretty much anywhere podcast can be found, and no forget to follow me on Twitter at Late Round QB. Thanks everyone. Like I said, this is the last show of the week because of the holiday, so I want to wish you all happy Thanksgiving. Please stay safe and I'll talk to you next week.