558: Week 5 Sleepers

00:00:02
Speaker 1: This is the Late Podcast with your host JJ zacher Retha j J. Zacher reson What's up everyone? It's JJ Zacharyesen, the editor in chief at Fandle and at Number five dot com, in this episode five hundred and fifty eight of the Late Round Podcast, the mini shows that are part of the FanDuel podcast Network. Thanks for tuning in. So I start off this show each week with a recap of last week. As you guys know, after week one it wasn't great. Week two was a little bit better, but still not the best, and then week three was fine. Week four though, if I could duplicate week four's results over and over and over again, I'd be a very very happy man. Last week I talked up Sam Darnold, he was the QB two and weekly scoring, I talked up Taylor Heineke, he was the QB five. I continued to be into Emmanuel Sanders and Dawson Knox. Sanders scored thirteen PPR points. Knox was a tight end two. Kenneth Gainwell was a top ten running back. Dalton Schultz was a top five tight end. AJ Green was a top twenty wide receiver. Van freaking Jefferson was a top ten play. Even Kadarius Tony wasn't a bad play with six catches for seventy eight yards. And the fades were good too. I was fading the Raiders passing attack and Derek Carr had by far his worst performance this season. I was fading Damian Harris and he didn't do much at all. I was fading Tyson Williams and he wasn't even active. There were a few misses like Terras Marshall and Jalen Riger, But considering the players I'm talking about on this show, I'll take those results all day long. I won't expect those results each week, but man, it was fun to see those results in week four. Let's hope that it can continue. Before getting into the picks that will almost certainly be worse this week, I want to remind you guys about the FanDuel NFL High Low, which is a free to play fantasy football contest. All you to do is build your scorecard with the teams that you think will score highest or lowest in four stack categories. The closer yard to being spot on, the more points you'll get. Players with the most points each week's with the prize pool and a perfect scorecard will win the jackpot. Head over to fandle dot com today and play the Fandel High Low for free. Eligibility restrictions apply. Go to fandle dot com or download the fandle app for more details. I like Sam Darnold yet again this week within this first tier of players who are rostered in twenty five to fifty percent of Yahoo leagues. I mentioned on yesterday's ten Trend Show that while his rushing touchdowns are bound to regress, his passing touchdowns are gonna rebound. He's going to do better through the air. In other words, it's not like he's doing what he's doing in fantasy football strictly because of his rushing touchdowns. They're helping, but they're also resulting in a below average number in the passing touchdown category. Carolina has eleven offensive scores this year that's above average, but their passing touchdown number of five is below average. As those rushing touchdowns regress, the passing touchdowns will get better if we assume the offense performs the same way. Donald gets Philadelphia this week in a game where the Panthers have a reasonable twenty four four point team total according to Fandals sportsbook, he should be fine as a streamer, and the same goes for Daniel Jones. I feel like people are a little bit more down on Daniel Jones after that Week three game where he was the chok and he didn't come through with this like monster performance against the Falcons. But he's now scored twenty one or more fantasy points in three of four games, and he's coming off a contest without two of his starting wide receivers where he threw for over four hundred yards. The Giants get Dallas this week and they're gonna have to keep pace with that Cowboys offense. Dallas has been a middle of the road team in terms of adjusted Fantasy points allow of quarterbacks, and this game between the Giants and Cowboys is one of the higher over unders on this Week five slate, so Jones is a strong option. Now. Moving away from quarterbacks, let's look at Michael Carter at running back in this tier. I haven't talked about Michael Carter that much on the show this year because the Jets offense has been so bad. But against Atlanta, maybe we see a little bit more life to this unit, especially after last week's performance against Tennessee. The Jets haven't implied team to close to twenty two points this week. That's not bad for the Jets, and Carter has led the Jets over the last two weeks with a seventy percent running back rush air per game to go along with about a nine percent target shair. Those are good numbers, but he hasn't produced anything spectacular because again, he's in the Jets offense. So maybe this matchup against Atlanta will help them get going. The Falcons currently rank in the bottom ten and adjusted points allowed to quarterbacks, wide receivers and running backs. Carter has sneaky flex appeal this week. I don't mind DeVante Parker this week either. He's not someone I typically target or care for, but Miami gets Tampa Bay. Tampa Bay is the team that's allowing the most adjusted fantasy points to wide receivers this year. But more importantly than the matchup, Parker's been seeing volume in this Miami offense. He's had at least a twenty one percent target chair in three or four games played this year, and his total target share in the season is over twenty two percent. With a negative game script likely coming and with a Tampa Bay defense doing so well against the run, Miami's going to be forced to throw a lot. With the last player in this tier, I was gonna talk about Hunter Renfro, but I'm gonna go with Darnell Mooney. Mooney now has a twenty six percent target chair on the season, and the Bear's name Justin Field's a starter on Wednesday. That's good news for Mooney's deep threat ability. In last week's game, Fields threw at fifteen or more air yards on over thirty five percent of his throws. He connected on five of those six passes. If the Bears aren't able to play with a lead against the Raiders, they'll be forced to air it out more than they typically do. That might mean more scrambles for Fields. That would be great, but it also means more volume for the pass catchers, and that's been a problem all season long. Let's move on to the ten to twenty five percent rostered tier and start with Zach Pascal. Pascal started the season hot with unsustainable touchdown production, but he's seen at least five targets in every game this year and has about a seventeen percent target chair. That's not like super special. Given the Colts offense isn't great, but he's still involved. He's also played the second most now said wide receiver for Indy by a pretty wide margin. Now, the Colts get the Ravens this week and they're seven point underdogs. That means that we're probably gonna see someone of a pass heavy script for them, and Pascal, who's played more snaps from the slot than any other player in football this year, has a somewhat advantageous matchup. Baltimore has been the third best team and adjusted points allowed to wide receivers this year, but they rank first and slot yards allowed, second in slot receptions allowed, and third and percentage of targets that go to the slot. So Pascal's kind of a sneaky play this week. Another wide receiver in this tier that you could look to is kJ Osborne. Like Pascal, Osbourne had a hot start to the season, but he's cooled down over the last two weeks with two sub seven PPR point performances. But he's seen at least eighteen percent of Minnesota's targets in three or four games this year. And he gets Detroit this week, a team that's beatable through the air. I think volume is somewhat of a concern here because Minnesota could just see a positive game script throughout this contest, but he's still an interesting option. You could go back to Van Jefferson this week as well. I hate to bring up the same names on this show, like I was doing with Kenneth Gainwell week in and week out, but as I mentioned on the fifteen Transaction show this week, the peripherals are generally there for Van. He's been playing a similar number of snaps as Robert Woods and running a similar number of routes. His target shair just isn't super high because of Number one, the offense he's in, but number two, he's still inexperience and not the best wide receiver in the world. Targets are commanded by good players. Van is fine. He's a great route runner, but he's still not on Robert Woods's level. That doesn't mean he's a bad sleeper. The Rams could be involved in a high scoring game on Thursday night, and once again, Jefferson is a cheap way to get exposure to that contest. The last player in this year that I want to shout out is zach ertz Ertz has seen more volume than Dallas Goddard this season while running a similar number of routes. It's not easy to just find tight ends off the waiver wire who have a role, and zach Ertz has a role. He's a fourteen percent target share this year, and he has back to back weeks where he's seen at least eighteen percent of philadelph his targets. Caroline is an above average matchup when looking at adjusted fantasy points allowed to tight ends, and Philly could face another negative game script, which should force more passing so zach Ertz can work. It's time to dig deep. With this tier. We're talking players that no one cares about in fantasy football. Khalif Raymond has target shaars of thirty six percent and sixteen percent over his last two games. He's played seventy five percent of Detroit snaps in both of these contests. This week, he's facing a Minnesota secondary that's been beatable this year. Before last week's game against Cleveland, where Baker Mayfield played like hot trash, they'd given up a top fifteen performance in all three games and two additional top thirty performances. They face some good wide receivers, but they're still an average team. And fantasy points allowed to the position. If the script is negative for Detroit, which it's projected to be, they could throw a lot, which is what we've seen outside of neutral game scripts from the Lions this year. Deontay Harris has seen a fifteen percent target chair and a thirty three percent target chair over his last two games. The Saints are averaging the fewest targets per game as a team, so their skill position players need high target shairs in order to see meaningful volume through the air, but a thirty three percent share will do it. That yielded eight targets against the Giants. This week, New Orleans faces Washington. The football team, despite running the second most plays this season. While trailing, they faced a slightly above average pass rate. Defensively, because the secondary has not been good, teams are attacking that secondary. No team has been better for opposing quarterbacks and adjusted points allowed, and only three teams have been better for wide receivers than the football team. There's a chance that we see maybe a little bit more volume from New Orleans this week because of the matchup. I would expect Jamis Winston to try to take advantage. Now, I can't imagine that you're in a twelve team league and you need to start Harris, but in deeper formats he should be on your radar. And then lastly, I'm gonna go back to Kadarius Tony. He saw a quarter of the Giants targets last week, and there's still a chance that we don't see Sterling Shepard and Darius Slayton this week. If Sheppard in particular is out, I would expect Tony to have a full time slot role in this offense. Dallas has been average against the slot so far this year, but we could see New York with a negative game script in this one, which would lead to more Daniel Jones passes. Now, I doubt Tony reaches another twenty five percent target chair, but this is the right kind of game environment to target. Also watch the injury reports for aj Brown and Julio Jones. The Titans wide receivers are in a great spot against Jacksonville this week, so you could get waiver wire juice from Nick Westbrook Akine or Josh Reynolds. They both played similar snaps last week and they both had similar target shares. Now we get into a handful of players rostered and a lot of leagues who I think are scary starts in Week five. Odell Beckham is one of them. I mentioned on the fifteen Transactions episode that I love his peripherals, and I do. He's been utilized exactly how you'd want him to be utilized since he's come back from his injury. He just has a tough task against the Chargers this week. Listen to this LA right now. They rank best and adjusted quarterback points allowed and best and adjusted wide receiver points allowed. They're even sixth best against tight ends. I understand if you can't bench OBJ, but at least temper expectations. I feel similarly about Juju Smith Schuster. We'll see what the status of Chase Claypool is this weekend. But Juju's got just a sixteen percent target share so far this year, and he's given you just one PPR performance better than wide receiver sixty four. I know that some of this is on Ben Roethlisberger. Juju could have actually had a nice game against Green Bay had been not missed a couple of throws. But they get Denver this week. It's a secondary that's been above average against wide receivers this year, and one that has been really, really good against slot guys. Juju's played over seventy six percent of his snaps from the slot this year, and Denver is one of just a handful of teams that hasn't allowed a slot touchdown. They also rank fourth best in the league and slot receptions allowed and best in the league in slot yards allowed. Now in that same game on the other side is Melvin Gordon. Pittsburgh's defense hasn't been strong this year or as strong as it was last year, but they've been good at stopping opposing running backs. Only three teams have been better and adjusted fantasy points allowed. Melvin Gordon is splitting his backfield up completely with Javonte Williams, So we've got a scenario we're in a good matchup, you can get away with using Melvin Gordon. In a bad matchup where the backfield's not likely going to score a lot of points, it's a tougher thing to do. And then the other running back that you could consider benching is Miles Sanders. I talked about him in the ten Trend Show and how the Eagles use of Kenneth Gainwell, it's just torpedoing sanders value because Philadelphia is often in negative game scripts. Well, this weekend they're in Charlotte and they're underdogs. If a negative game script hits, that's bad news. But Caroline has also been really good against running backs this season. They've allowed the fifth fewest points in the position, but they actually rank first when you adjust that for schedule. Why because they faced Dallas and New Orleans and they really held the Saints. Zeke was good against them last weekend, but the Cowboys actually had fewer points scored against the Panthers as a running back unit versus what they've seen per game this year. So Miles Sanders is tough to trust. And very quickly, let's talk defensive streamers. I mentioned Minnesota earlier this week, and they're in play. I also don't mind Arizona against San Francisco. The thing is those two defenses are now rostered in more leagues after waivers have run. So let's dig a little bit deeper. Let's go with Vegas. The Raiders are five and a half point favorites against the Bears in a game with a forty four and a half point over under. They're likely a fairly safe option considering Chicago's score just six offensive touchdowns. This year. That's the second fewest in football. Chicago's also the third best matchup for opposing defenses when looking at adjusted fantasy points allowed. 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 podcasts can be found, and to follow me on Twitter at Late Round QB. Thanks for listening, everyone, talk to you tomorrow with the Mail Back Show.