597: Week 15 Sleepers

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Speaker 1: This is the Labor Podcast with your host JJ zacher Retha j J. Zacher reson What's up everyone? It's JJ Zachares and the editor in chief at fandle and at Number five dot com in this episode five hundred and ninety seven of the Late Round podcast of the many shows that are part of the FanDuel podcast network. Thanks for tuning in. We had some decent hits on last week's sleeper show. Taysom Hill was a strong play, kJ Osborne had that big play to save his day. Deontay Foreman was a top fifteen running back, Gerald Everett scored, Ben Roethlis was at QB one, and Austin Hooper had a good day. Now on the bad side, Tyler Conklin didn't do a whole lot, Jamison Crowder stunk, and each of the deep sleepers ended up not hitting. But there was more good than bad on last week's show. That's always a win with this type of format. Now that the stakes are higher with it being the Fantasy Football playoffs, let's keep it rolling. Before getting this this week, I've got a question for you. 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Let's kick things off with a few players in this new tier that I started last week, or players rostered in fifty to seventy percent of Yahoo leagues. The Steelers' rush defense has been bad, and that's being nice They've given up the third most rushing yards to running backs this season, and they're first in rushing yards allowed over the last five weeks. They get Tennessee this week. Tennessee's a team that continues to run the football despite Derek Henry being sidelined. Their fifth lowest in the league in neutral script pass rate, and they've had more pass attempts than rush attempts and just one of their last four games. That means Deonta Foreman, who's seen nineteen and thirteen rush attempts over his last two that means it eas in play this week. I'll give you a two for one with this next one, and that's Christian Kirk and aj Green. Green is technically rostered in fewer than fifty percent of leagues, but Kirk is rostered in sixty five percent. DeAndre Hopkins is banged up and it's been reported that he could miss the rest of the regular season. Both Green and Kirk are really solid plays moving forward as a result. They get Detroit this week and the Lions is a matchup for wide receivers hasn't really been a cakewalk, but we could very easily see twenty percent plus target shairers for both wide receivers. Kirk in particular could see a nice bump because in two of his three games without Hopkins this year, he saw his two highest snap rates of the season. Both guys need to be rostered moving forward, and you could consider starting them this week. And then another player who didn't practice on Wednesday was Devonte Parker, but it was evidently a veteran rest day. I don't mind Parker this week. He's got a plus matchup against the Jets, who ranked fourteenth and adjusted points allowed to wide receivers. And Parker's average over sixty seven receiving yards per game this year in games where two a Tongue of Ioloa has started, he set a twenty one percent target share in three of those four games. That's enough for me to see him as a worthy flex option if you need it moving on. This year is all about players rostered in twenty five to fifty percent of Yahoo leagues. And let's just get right back to the guy that I just talked about, and that's to a Tongue of Ioloa. The Jets ranked third and adjusted fantasy points allowed to quarterbacks this season. Tua has played two and a half games against teams ranked in the top five and adjusted fantasy points allowed. He scored twenty six and a half points against Atlanta. He came in against Baltimore, he played one half against him and scored twelve fantasy points, and then he scored seventeen and a half against the same Jets team in Week eleven. It's a good matchup for him, and he's been solid enough this year, especially in these plus matchups. Now. I brought up Jimmy Garoppolo in the fifteen Transaction Show, and I obviously like him this week as well. I think I preferre Jimmy G to Tua. He scored fifteen or more fantasy points than six of his last seven. The forty nine ers have a huge implied team total over twenty seven points according to fandals Sportsbook, and Atlanta is the top opponent for a quarterback and adjusted fantasy points allowed. That means that Jimmy G makes a ton of sense. Moving on, let's talk about kJ Osbourne. He ended up with one hundred and twenty five air yards last week, and he had a twenty nine percent target share in this Minnesota offense. The Vikings get the Bears this week in Chicago's been average against wide receivers in terms of adjusted Fantasy points allowed, but they continue to rank in the top five and fifteen plus airyard completion rate allowed, so maybe Osborne's able to get another big play this week. Jamison Crowder burned some of us last week, both in season long and in DFS, but as I alluded to on the fifteen Transaction Show, he's in a good spot here in Week fifteen. He didn't see the most targets among Jets receivers last week, with Braxton Barrios taking that award home, but according to PFF, Crowder ran twice as many rounds as Barrios did, and he played eighty two percent of his snaps from his typical slot location. That's good for this matchup because Miami has been bad against slot guys all season long. They rank first in the league in target share allowed to that area of the field, and they're one of the worst teams in raw targets, receptions in yards allowed to the slot as well. So I like Crowder in Week fifteen. We'll have to see if JD. McKissick ends up going this week, but I don't mind him if he does. At least in PPR formats, He's seen a double digit percentage target share in all but two games this year. That's nine out of eleven games. He's averaging a target share per game of about fourteen percent. Philadelphia his opponent. They're not a bad opponent. They ring twelfth and adjusted Fantasy points allowed running backs and they're all so ninth and adjusted target share allowed to the position. So if he goes, I think that McKissick is a nice high floor PPR option. And then it sounds like the Texans backfield is gonna come down to David Johnson and Royce Freeman this weekend. Johnson is part of this tier from a percent roster standpoint, where Freeman is more of a deeper sleeper because of his roster number. It's tough to typically trust a Texans backfield, but I'm sure some of you are in desperate need of running back help. And they're only three and a half point underdogs this week against Jacksonville, and Jacksonville's a team that ranks is an above average matchup. Now, I will say a lot of that with Jacksonville has to do with game script. So for a guy like Royce Freeman to hit. I'd argue that you need Houston to jump out to a lead, and that's a little bit risky. I mean, using a Texans running back is risky to begin with. But I'm saying this because I think that I would trust Johnson more than Freeman because of his pass catching potential In this next tier of players rostered in ten to twenty five percent of Yahoo leagues. I've got my top streaming choice this week at quarterback, and that's Justin Fields. The Vikings are a good opponent for quarterbacks. They've allowed the fifth most adjusted fantasy points of the position. But more importantly, Justin Fields is running more. That's the key here. Fields is averaging nine rush attempts in seventy four rushing yards per game over his last three That's almost two additional passing touchdowns per game from a fantasy standpoint, and that doesn't even account for potential rushing touchdowns. That's allowed him to score eighteen plus fantasy points in each one of those games. The matchup, the rushing, it's all coming together for Justin Fields this week. Gabriel Davis should get a lot more run now that Emmanuel Sanders is looking unlikely to play in Week fifteen. Davis saw about sixteen percent of Buffalo's targets in Week fourteen while playing a season high eighty three percent snap rate. He's also tied for the league lead in red zone targets over the last two weeks. Now, Carolina is not the best matchup in the world, but if he can get to a fifteen to twenty percent target share in this Buffalo offense, I think that he should be in good shape. Now. I'll be honest, there really weren't a ton of players in this tier to go to this week, especially with me not having the ability to know how injuries are gonna just shake out. But I do have one more for you in this tier, and that's Donovan People's Jones. Austin Hooper and Jarvis Landry landed on the COVID list, and that's on top of having a thin depth chart and Baker tested positive too. The matchup for DPJ is not great, but the Browns at least shouldn't see a massive drop off at the quarterback position with case Keenum and People's Jones could be fed simply due to lack of alternatives. This really isn't a too many mouths defeed type argument. Either People's Jones is good, he can earn targets, but the Browns really lack alternatives in that offense right now. So People's Jones should be able to walk away from Week fifteen with a lot of looks, a lot of targets, and that's all we can really ask for in fantasy football now. This final tier consists of player's roster and fewer than ten percent of leagues that you could consider starting, and Alan Lazard is one of them. I actually think that of the three players that I'm talking about in this tier this week, Lazard makes the most sense. I like him the most Without Randall Cobb and his nine to ten percent target share. In Week fourteen, Lazard saw a twenty percent target share that was his second highest single game share of the season, and he also scored twenty point nine PPR points, his highest output of the year. According to pff Randal, Cobb has played about seventy seven percent of his snaps from the slot this season. In Week fourteen, Lazard led the Packers with a fifty three percent slot snap rate. That number was thirty seven percent for Lazard prior to Week fourteen. He saw four of his seven targets against Chicago from that area of the field, and he had fifty eight yards in a touchdown. Now, the Packers get Baltimore this week, a team with a struggling secondary. So yes, Marquez Valdez scantling, he makes sense too. But Lazard is the guy who has very very low percent roster numbers right now, He's out there in a ton of leagues. I'm gonna call out Jordan Howard in this tier as well, and I'm doing what I sort of did last week with Sony Michelle. I think we should expect Miles Sanders to be the lead back for Philadelphia, but number one, he's having ankle issues. Number Two, the Eagles were giving Jordan Howard a decent number of touches before his own knee injury. He even hit a fifty nine percent running back rush are in Week nine against the Chargers, running the ball seventeen times. Now, I doubt that Howard just takes over this backfield. So it's not totally like Sony Michelle from that perspective, because I think that Michelle could still do that. But the Eagles have been extremely run heavy since Week eight. They're averaging a pass rate of about thirty five percent per game since that point in time. So even in a part time role in a game where the Eagles are favorites, Howard could work as a deep sleeper. And lastly, I'm gonna go to James O'Shaughnessy. Full disclosure, tight end streaming is beyond terrible this week. It's awful. But even though the Jags passing attack is miserable, O'Shaughnessy may be able to give you some cheap PPR points. He's seen a nineteen percent target share per game over his last two and he's tied for the team lead in targets during this time. Jacksonville's opponent Houston, they rank as the fourth best matchup for the position and adjusted Fantasy points allowed. Again, just to reiterate, it's really tough for tight ends this week, O'Shaughnessy could pay off though. Now, as for the defensive streamers, I talked about Philly earlier this week, and they definitely work. And I also don't mind Cincinnati against Denver or Minnesota against Chicago, but they're not in ideal spots, and honestly, I think that you could go for the Jags their home favorites against the Texans, and according to Fandals Sportsbook, that game has just a thirty nine and a half point over under, So you could get a floor from the Jags defense just in the points allowed department. But the Jaguars defense isn't like an abomination, at least their front isn't. They actually rank in the top half of the league in pressure rate this year. It's one of the few matchups where you could consider them. That's going to do it for today's show, though. Thanks to all of you for listening. If you've got subscrip ride to the Late Round podcast, make sure you are by searching forward pretty much anywhere podcast can be found. You know, to follow me on Twitter at Late Round QB. Thanks for listening to everyone. I'll talk to you tomorrow.