562: Week 6 Sleepers

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Speaker 1: This is the Lab podcast with your host JJ zacher Retha, j Jake Zacher Resa. What's up everyone. It's JJ Zacharyes and the editor in chief at fandel and at number fire dot com in this episode five hundred and sixty two of the Late Round podcast. So many shows that are part of the FanDuel podcast network. Thanks for tuning in. I told you guys that was gonna be hard to top Week four sleeper show, and I definitely didn't top it in week five. It wasn't a bad week, but it wasn't amazing. I missed on Sam Darnold, Daniel Jones got hurt, and Van Jefferson didn't do a whole lot, and a game that had a chance to be a high scoring one, kJ Osborne and Zach Pascal didn't really come through either. But I did hype up Kadarius Tony for the second straight week, and that was huge. I also mentioned Deontay Harris as a deep play and he caught a seventy two yard touchdown. Michael Carter scored almost fifteen PPR points, and the players the bench were we're all on point two, so it wasn't awful. There were some good hits in there. I'd like to be better each week, though, so I hope I can crush it in Week six. Now, before we get into the Sleepers this week, I want to remind you about the Fandels Sunday Million. The prize pool is a whopping two point five million dollars this week, with first place taking home one million dollars. All you have to do is head over to Fandle today and click on the NFL Sunday Million Contest. Draft your lineup of players, sit back and enjoy Sunday NFL football. Eligibility restrictions apply. Go to fandel dot com or download the Fandel app for more details. For those of you who have listened to the Sleeper Show this year, you know how this goes. You know how the first tier works. I look at players who are rostered in twenty five to fifty percent of Yahoo leagues, and I talk about players you could play this week. I've got two players this week in this tier that come from the Eagles offense. The first is zach Ertz. Dallas Goddard was placed on the COVID nineteen list, which means zach Ertz is a chance to see even more volume in this EGA offense. He already was outpacing Goddard this year in targets, but that target share should get a bump if Goddard's out and the Eagles offense is probably going to be more pass heavy than usual against Tampa Bay. That's what happens against the Bucks this season. Teams have a two point eight to two pass to rush of temp ratio against the Buccaneers. That's a pass rate of almost seventy four percent. The team next on that list is the Cowboys, and their pass rate against is six percentage points lower. So if the Eagles throw the ball more and zach Ertz captures a larger target share, that means he's got a chance to have a decent outing. The other Eagle that I think that you could start or has sneaky appeal is Kenneth Gainwell. The reason teams are throwing on Tampa Bay like they are is because number one, they have to keep pace with the offense, but also number two, the Buccaneers are good up front. They can stop the run. Teams have realized this, especially over the last couple of weeks. We saw Miles Gaskin basically serve as the team's running game last week by catching a ton of passes out of the backfield. So it's no surprise that the Buccaneers are a top ten team and adjusted target chair allowed to running backs. All that number does is that it just takes the target chair that the Bucks have faced against the position and it adjusts it for the opponents that they faced. So their opponents are targeting running backs quite a bit. And Gainwell has served as a pass catching back in this Eagles offense this year, so it would make sense for them to utilize him, not only because of the matchup, but because they're likely going to face a negative game script. If that negative gamescript hits, we could see more Kenneth Gainwell, so I don't mind him this week now, speaking of running backs in a negative game script, I think JD. McKissick works this week as well. I mentioned on the ten Trends episode yesterday how Antonio Gibson wasn't seeing the receiving work that we ideally want him to see in this offense, and it's because of mackissick. Since Week one, Makissic has out targeted Gibson seventeen to eight, and according to Pro Football Focus, he's also run eleven more routes. You obviously still want to play Antonio Gibson, but the football team gets care. It's a city. This week, the Chiefs rank seventh and adjusted target chair allowed to running backs, and they're seventh and adjusted points allowed to the position. Kansas City is also a seven point favorite in a game that currently has a fifty five and a half point over under according to Fandals Sportsbook. So if a negative game script hits, I think the mckiss it can work out as a flex. Darnell Mooney has a twenty six percent target chair this season in the Bears offense. That's great. Unfortunately, like I talked about on yesterday's episode, that's twenty six percent of a really small pie. The Bears are averaging just nineteen team targets per game over Justin Fields's three starts. Here's the thing though, In Fields' first start, that game plan was a disaster and the Browns just destroyed the Bears offensive line. There was no creativity on offense. Over his last two starts, the Bears have played with a positive game script. I'm curious what happens this week against Green Bay. With Chicago as a four and a half point underdog. I'd expect Chicago have to throw more and that could help Mooney turn the tip five to seven target game with justin fields into maybe more of an eight or nine target game, So he's interesting this week as a flex. Now. The last player in this tier that I want to bring up is me Cole Hardman. Hardman had his best game in the season last week against the Bills. He brought in nine of twelve targets for seventy six yards. Tyreek Hill has run by far the most routes for the Chiefs this season at wide receiver, but Hardman's in second, with DeMarcus Robinson as a close third. I want pieces of the Chiefs passing attack, which is why I'm calling Hardman out. Washington has been atrocious in the secondary to start the year. They rank third and adjusted Fantasy points allowed to wide receivers and their first and adjusted target share allowed. With an insanely high implied team total, the Chiefs offense could absolutely blow up this week, and Hardman is an easy way to get a piece of that, especially with Tyreek Hill banged up. This next tier includes players rostered in ten to twenty five percent of Yahoo leagues and I've got two quarterback streamers in this tier and then two tight ends streamers. But let's start with the quarterbacks. I keep referencing that Kansas City Washington game in the high over under, and I think Taylor Heinike is a good streamer this week. The Chiefs are one of the friendliest teams for quarterbacks when looking at adjusted points allowed, and Taylor Heineck has been low key good in fantasy. Last week was his first non QB one performance since becoming starter, and it came against a defense that's been good against quarterbacks. Heinick. He's also been giving us some fantasy points with his legs. He's averaged twenty seven and a half rushing yards per game as the starter and five and a half rush attempts per game. So I dig this matchup and I think Heinike is a strong play. The other streamers, Carson Wentz. Wentz looked pretty good against Baltimore on Monday night, and the Colts have an implied team total this week of twenty six points against Houston. Now, unsurprisingly, teams against the Texans this year have had below average pass rates, and that's likely what's led to the Texans ranking as just a barely above average quarterback matchup and adjusted points allowed, but that also just makes Wentz a safe option with not a super high ceiling. He's fine. I think Heinike's the better play, but I think Wentz is okay given the team's implied team total on how he performed in Week five. Now at tight end, I'm gonna bring up the guy that I talked about in the fifteen Transactions episode, and that's Ricky Seals Jones. RSJ ran more routes than everyone not named Terry McLaurin in that Washington offense in Week five, and he ran just one fewer route than McLaurin. He had a twenty percent target chair, which is actually higher than the single game high for Logan Thomas this year, and Washington's banged up a pass catcher. I'll get to that more in a second, but it's another reason to like RSJ. It doesn't hurt that the Chiefs ranked sixth and adjusted points allowed to tight ends this year. The other tight end streamer that's a little bit more of a reach is Tyler Conklin. Carolina is pretty average when you look at fantasy points allowed to tight ends this year, but this season, they've actually given up the highest adjusted target chair to tight ends. Now you can't just go off of that data to make a decision for you. But it's not like Tyler Conklin isn't involved in the Minnesota offense. He hasn't done that much over the last two weeks, partially because the Vikings offense hasn't done a lot the last two weeks. But he still has almost a fourteen percent target share in the season, and he's run the fourth most routes on that team, behind Jefferson, Theland and Osbourne. I don't think he's some like slam dunk play. I'd play RSJ over him this week, and probably Dan Arnold as well, who I also talked about on the fifteen Transaction Show. But I think Conklin's got some potential this week. Now. Lastly, in this tier, I'm gonna look at Randall Cobb. This is a little bit of a desperation play, but hear me out. Over the last two weeks without Marquez Valdez Scantling, Cobb has seen target shares of seventeen percent and nine percent. Nothing special, but that seventeen percent share was against Pittsburgh and Pittsburgh's a team that's traditionally not been able to stop slot receivers, and Cobb has played eighty one percent of his snaps this year from the slot. This week he gets Chicago. The Bears have allowed the fourth highest percentage of targets to go to the slot this season, and they've allowed above average totals in slot targets, slot receptions, and slot touchdowns. Cobb makes some sense if you're a little bit desperate looking at players roster in fewer than ten percent of leagues. I'm gonna go back to this Eagles offense and I'm gonna look at Quees Watkins. Watkins only ran two fewer routes than Jalen Reagor in Week five, after seeing larger discrepancies in prior weeks. Over the last two weeks, Watkins's out targeted Reger ten to six. He scored more fantasy points in each game. Now, I know it's not like Jalen Reger's DeVante Adams, but the pass catchers for the Eagles get a boost in this matchup against the Buccaneers. So don't sleep on Quez. And I'm gonna go back to yet another game that I keep talking about this week, which is that Kansas City and Washington game. I've talked up Heinike, I talked up RSJ, I talked up j D. McKissick. And there are injuries to this wide receiver group that opens things up a little bit for these deep sleepers. I mean, we could end up seeing DeAndre Carter continue to see snaps because of these injuries, and Carter should be on your radar if Diami Brown doesn't play. If Brown does play, he gets a no as a deep sleeper. But if you want to just play it completely safe, you could just look at Adam Humphries. Humphreys has just a twelve percent target share this year, but he should be on the field as the team's primary slot guy. I do think the perimeter guys have more upside, but I do think that Humphries could work in PPR formats against the Chiefs. And then the last player in this tier is Chris Evans, samaj p Ryan's on the COVID list, and Joe Mixon. While he's expected to be healthy this week, he's not necessarily one hundred percent. Even if he was one hundred percent, we could still see Chris Evans steal some work in the passing game. Last week with a BEng Mixon, samaj p Ryan ran twenty five routes to Joe Mixon's eight and Chris Evans six. But the Bengals haven't used Mixon's a true belkow over the last handful of weeks, and with that injury, we could see some Chris Evans in a plus matchup against Detroit. Now, I know I mentioned a lot of players from the Eagles and a lot of players from the football team this week. That sort of happens when teams that have lower rostered players run into good matchups, and there are bye weeks this week. But these players are lower rostered because they're in unattractive offenses and don't always have a great workload. They don't always see a lot of targets, they don't always see a lot of carries on the ground. But when those offenses are in better game environments and when injuries hit, like we're seeing with the Washington pass catchers, that elevates those other players. That's why I mentioned so many players from the Eagles and the football team. There are a lot of eggs in a couple of baskets, But I think the recommendations are logical. Let's get into some players who are rostered in at least seventy five percent of Yahoo leagues, but you could consider benching. Kirk Cousins is one of them. I talked in the ten trend show how the Vikings have been pretty bad offensively over the last couple of weeks, and to go along with that, they're playing over their heads from a passing standpoint. On the season, ten of their eleven touchdowns have come through the air. When that regresses, Cousins numbers are going to look even worse. And against a Panthers team that ranks relatively good against quarterbacks, I think Cousins a risky play. We can't expect James Connor to score touchdowns every week. He's been a relevant fantasy asset over the last three weeks, but his target share per game is still under five percent, and his running back rush share per game, despite good game scripts, is about fifty eight percent. Now, those numbers aren't terrible. I'm not trying to sell it that way. They're just not great, and honestly, they're actually a little bit worse than what Connor saw in weeks one and two. In weeks one, and two he was the RB forty eight and the RB sixty one. What's the difference in production touchdowns? Can we bank on that happening against Cleveland? I'm not super bowlish the Browns. Even after giving up a huge performance to Austin Eckler, They've been good against running backs this year. They're top five and adjusted points allowed, and Eckler was the first running back to score on the ground against him this season. This is just your reminder to not let Connor's fantasy points score number drive your start sit choice. Damian Harris is another guy that I don't love this week. Anytime there's a possible negative game script for New England, I'm scared about Harris. Not only is there some risk because of his fumbling issues, but Harris's average of four percent target share per game this year. He hasn't seen more than a five percent share since Week one against Dallas, a tough opponent for running backs where the Patriots could easily be in a negative game script. Harris is tough to trust. This week, let's talk about Tyler Boyd. With T Higgins back last week, Boyd was still able to run a lot of routes. That's good but he saw his target share dip. Higgins had a nineteen percent target share. Boyd's share was thirteen and a half percent, which, for the record, is the lowest of his season. I don't think it's reasonable to expect Boyd to have these thirty percent target shairs like he had in weeks three and four when t Higgins is in the lineup. I mean, they may happen here or there, but it's not easily bankable. And while Detroit isn't a terrible matchup from a fantasy points allowed standpoint, they've actually allowed the fewest targets to slot this season, so that could hurt Tyler Boyd. Now for the last player here, I'm gonna piggyback off of one of the trans actions from earlier this week and talk about the Buffalo backfield. The Bills use Zach Moss a lot more in Week five against Kansas City, and that worries me about Devin Singletary in Week six. The Titans have been totally average against running backs this year. The matchup is fine, but they've been far worse against the pass. They give up chunk plays more than any other team in football, So you have to love the Bill's passing attack this week, and even though a positive game script might hit, given their usage of Zach Moss recently, I'd be a little scared about using Devin Singletary now. As for the streaming defenses, I already talked about Cincinnati earlier this week, but I also think you can go to Miami, who's facing Jacksonville. The Jacks are the second best matchup in AJU justin fantasy points allow the defenses this year, and they've alloted a top ten defensive performance to four of their five opponents this season. Asking to do 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 podcast can be found, and for it to follow me on Twitter at Late Round QB. Thanks everyone, we got one more show this week. I'll talk to you tomorrow