702: 10 Trends for Week 9

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Speaker 1: This is the last with your host JJ zach j zacher reson What's up everyone. It's JJ Zacharyeson in this episode seven hundred and two of the Late Round Fantasy Football podcast sponsored by FanDuel. Thanks for tuning in. Before getting the trends this week, I want to remind you about FanDuel Faceoff. Fandal Faceoff is where you compete in quick, fun games against other real people for real cash. It has all sorts of games that you're familiar with, like Homer on Derby, Wheel of Fortune, puzzle and strategy games, and there's more on the way. Contests are action packed and last between two to five minutes, so you can plan on your couch, waiting in line during commercial break wherever, and on your schedule. Plus, you can practice for free anytime, whether it be head to head, multiplayer or larger tournaments. Fandel Faceoff has something for you. Plus, at most contests, you'll be matched against other players of similar skill level, you never totally overmatched even as a beginner. Face Off is also tied to your FanDuel accountant wallet, so you can easily use your daily fantasy funds or sportsbook winnings in the app. Visit fandle dot com Slash Faceoff or download the Fandle Faceoff app in the Apple App Store today to get in the game. Agent location restrictions apply void where prohibited. Seefandle dot Com slash faceoff ife in terms for terms and conditions. On the fifteen Transaction Show last week, I talked about holding Rondell Moore. He had a down game, but the Cardinals used him in a really stupid way. They used him almost exclusively as a perimeter receiver against the Saints. Then this past week that thankfully changed. Moore played fifty two percent of his snaps from the slot in Week eight. That was up from thirteen percent the previous week. That resulted in a seven catch ninety two yard performance. Moore continues to be someone that you won on your roster. He's a good bye week villain. We finally saw DeAndre Swift on the football field again this past week for the first time since Week three, but his usage wasn't what Swift managers were hoping for. He played just even more snaps than Jamal Williams, and he trailed Williams in total touches thirteen to ten, and then Williams saw both goal line attempts from Detroit. My guess is that we're going to see more work from Swift moving forward. That he wasn't actually one hundred percent. The good news that Swift at least saw fourteen percent target shair, so the receiving role hasn't changed now. I tend to talk about team pass to rush touchdown ratio on this show, specifically this episode, and I want to do that again this week. At this time, the Browns have the most lopsided pass to rush touchdown ratio in the NFL. They've rushed for fifteen of their twenty two touchdowns. They've done that with a pass attempt rate of about forty nine percent, meaning forty nine percent of their pass and rush attempts have been passes. Based on that number, we would expect their pass to rush touchdown ratio to be a lot higher, meaning they should have more passing touchdowns than they do right now. I'm sure we're bound to see that start to flip once Deshaun Watson takes over. Gabe Davis is a boomer bust fantasy asset. We know this. So far this season, he's given us three games of sixteen plus PPR points. And he's given us three games where he failed to reach seven points, quite literally the definition of boomer bust. He had a down game in Week eight against the Packers, but the thing is when he's had those down games in the past this season, it's come with a low target share. His other two bad games saw target shares of ten and a half percent and nine percent. This past week it was twenty eight percent. That was actually by far his highest target share of the season. So hold tight with Davis. Better performances are ahead. Brian Robinson has played four games this year. Let's throw that first game out the window because he was returning from that injury. That means we've got a three game sample size of him being a real part of this offense. Back in Week six, he led the Commander's backfield with a snapshare of forty seven percent. It was the same story in Week seven with the exact same snap share. In Week eight, though his snap share dropped, it was twenty five percent. Antonio Gibson was playing a similar number of snaps. JD. McKissick was the one who saw a bump. I still think that Gibson is the best running back in this backfield and analytics back that up. On the season, according to Number five's expected points model, Gibson has a forty two percent success rate on the ground, Brian Robinson's at thirty five percent. This backfield is still a mess overall for fantasy purposes, though. I've gotten this question a lot over the last couple of weeks, and the answer to aj Dillon is yes, He's just a higher end handcuff at this point that can be used in deeper leagues as a flex play if you're in a pinch, That's the answer. Dylan hasn't scored double digit PPR points since Week one, he's seen just one target over his last two, and he's seeing just one third of his team's running back rushes. Until those backfield share numbers change, he can't be trusted. I think it would have been easy for me to call Kyle Pitts a cell candidate on this week's fifteen Transactions episode, but his route participation over the falcons last two games it's been better. It's gotten close to ninety percent. During the first six weeks of the season, it was just under seventy percent, and it's no surprise that Pitts has seen target shaars of forty two percent and thirty two percent over his last two games. The Falcons are doing everything in their power to not have to throw the ball out. But this is at least some good news. Finally, some good news for Kyle Pitts. Ramandre Stevenson is having an awesome, awesome year. He finishes a top fifteen running back in PPR formats in each of his last four and since Week two ended, he's averaged over twenty PPR points per game. Obviously, Damien Harris was out for a chunk of that. Two weeks ago. When Harris returned, the Patriots were in a negative gamescrypt and Stevenson he's the team's pass catcher, so he saw a lot of work there. He had a twenty nine percent target chair and he caught eight passes. That continued into Week eight, Stevenson saw twenty five percent target share. This past week he had another seven catches for seventy two yards. The one thing that I think is kind of interesting here is that in week seven Stevenson had twenty two routes run, Harris had five. That's according to PFF. In Week eight, Stevenson had twenty three and Harris had seventeen. Again, some of that had to do with game script and Stevenson being the pass catcher there, but I don't love the fact that Harris was still running a good number of routes this past week. I don't think this is anything more than something to just understand and have in your head. You don't need to trade away Rimandre Stevenson. Stevenson, according to four for four Static Explorer, he still played eighty three percent of New England's third down snaps this past week. He's going to be a nice play each week. This is a great role. I just want to monitor and see if this shifts the target shair numbers at all and more neutral game scripts moving forward. Joe Mixon continues to get by in PPR formats through receiving. He only has two rushing touchdowns this year, but he scored eleven or more PPR points in all but one game, and it's because his target share per game rate is almost fifteen percent. He's never been higher than twelve and a half percent across his career. If the Bengals can get their run game going, which I know we've said that all year, but if they can do that, mixing can really see that full mid range RB one potential. He's just not there because of the lack of effectiveness on the ground. That doesn't mean that he's not playing a really valuable role, though. The list of wide receivers with a twenty five percent target share per game or higher, it's pretty unsurprising. Chris Alave is on there. Maybe you didn't realize that he was seeing that hig of a target share, but you probably were. DJ Moore is on there, Drake London, Deontay Johnson, Darnell Mooney. Those are players who are kind of underperforming and they're still on this list. But one player who may be surprised by is Jacoby Myers. Myers is getting it done this year. He has a twenty five percent target share per game for New England. He's coming off a game where that target share was almost thirty eight percent. He's now scored double digit PPR points and every single game played this year. Here's a list of players who have also done that at wide receiver, Cooper Cup, Jamar Chase, Stefan Diggs, Hollywood Brown, DeAndre Hopkins, who's only played two games, and Jacoby Myers. If you need a high floor option, he is absolutely the easiest way to achieve that goal. 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 podcasts can be found, and don't forget to follow me on Twitter at LATEROUNDQB. Remember to check out Late Round dot com, join the Patreon, subscribe to the newsletter. I can't tell you guys enough how awesome the Late Round Fantasy Football discord is. That community has been amazing, so definitely check it out lateround dot com. Otherwise, thanks for listening everyone. I will talk to you tomorrow with the weekly Sleeper Show