566: Week 7 Sleepers

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Speaker 1: This is the Late Podcast with your host JJ zacher Retha j J. Zacher reson What's up everyone. It's JJ Zacharyeson, the editor in chief at fandel and at Number five dot com in this episode five hundred and sixty six of the Late Round podcast. So many shows that are part of the FanDuel podcast network. Thanks for tuning in. Last week was the first week this season where the players, the potentially bench part of this podcast was not great. I hit on a couple of Alan Robinson and Tyler Boyd, but I missed big time on Kirk Cousins and I missed on Damian Harris as well. The hit ray with that section has been really good this year, but those were two really big l's. As for sleepers, I'd say it was an average week. Kenneth Gainwell was the wrong read now that the Eagles are finally utilizing Miles Sanders more. You can hear more about that on Tuesday's fifteen Transaction Show. But I hit on the other four players in that first tier of sleepers, Ricky Seals, Joane Good, Carson Wentz worked out as a streamer, Chris Evans hit as a super deep play. There were hits in there. I'm still having a tough time for giving Taylor Heineke, though I really thought that he was a slam dunk streamer last week. Overall pretty average week before getting too this week sleepers, though, I've got two things that I want to mention. The first is that I want to be clear that on this show, when I talk about a sleeper versus a player to sit, I'm not saying that you should start that sleeper over that player to sit. For instance, last week, I didn't like Damian Harris. That was wrong advice, but I didn't really like Damien Harris. I thought Chris Evans was a deep sleeper. That doesn't mean that I would start Chris Evans over Damian Harris. I'm just mentioning players in that sit section that I'm substantially down on for that given week. You don't need to bench those players no matter what. Though. You shouldn't bench those players no matter what because they're rostered in a high percentage of leagues for a reason. Now that that's out of the way, let's talk about the second thing. Don't forget about the fandle NFL High Low, which is a free to play fantasy football contest. All you have to do is build your scorecard with the teams that you think will score highest or lowest in four stack categories. The closer you are to being spot on, the more points that you'll get. Players with the most points each week split the prize pool, and a perfect scorecard will win the jackpot. Head over to fandle dot com today and play the FanDuel High Low for free. Eligibility restrictions apply. Go to fandle dot com or download the fandle app for more details. Admittedly, by weeks are tougher for this show because there are just fewer players to choose from, but I'll do my best here, starting with players who are rostered in twenty five to fifty percent of Yahoo leagues. Let's kick things off with the streamer that I talked about on Tuesday's fifteen Transaction Show, and that's to a tongue of Ioloa. The Dolphins have been a lot more pass heavy than most realized this season. They not only had the highest pass rate overall, but their neutral script pass rate has been the second highest in the league. Against Atlanta, I'd expect them to attack through the air. Atlanta has been the fifth friendliest team to opposing quarterbacks when looking at a justin fantasy points allowed, and if you look at tuas season, he's really only had one plus matchup after facing New England and Buffalo in weeks one and two, and he obviously didn't play that much against Buffalo. But in that plus matchup this past week and against Jacksonville, he played well. He finishes a QB one. So I like Tua as a streamer this week. If you want another streamer who I think is a high variance one, you could look at Justin Fields. I know this seems like a bad recommendation at the surface. Fields has now had four starts, and in those starts he's been QB thirty three, QB thirty three, QB twenty eight, and QB eighteen. Not great, But as I keep saying on the show, this past week was the first time that he actually dropped back to pass a reasonable number of times because the Bears were in a negative game script and it just so happens that he finishes the QB eighteen where he ran the ball six times for forty three yards. He wasn't great, but it was at least a reasonable outing. That's what happens with mobile quarterbacks. When they drop back to pass more, they'll naturally have more opportunities to scramble. Well. In Week seven, Fields gets the Buccaneers. Tampa Bay's facing by far the highest pass rate this season defensively, so we should expect Chicago to throw more. Of course, there's a scary floor with Fields. We've seen that in three of his four starts. But this is a game where Chicago more than likely won't be able to play things conservatively, and that's what makes Justin Fields intriguing. And the same goes for his pass catcher, Darnell Mooney. The Buccaneers are the eighth best matchup for quarterbacks and a justin points allowed, and they're also the third best matchup for wide receivers. Mooney has seen almost a thirty percent target chair per game since Justin Fields became starter. It's only logical to think that he's a decent play this week too, And I do think there's a real chance we finally see Alan Robinson have a usable performance. He's a lot harder to trust than Mooney, but we're in bye week hell this week, so I can understand needing to go to someone like Robinson on the list. I'm gonna go back to the Washington football team as I did last week, and I'm talking two players that I talked about last week as well, in Jad McKissick and Ricky Seals Jones. As I mentioned on the fifteen Transactions episode earlier this week, McKissick is just generally undervalued right now in the fantasy football world. He's seen about fifteen percent of Washington's targets since Week one, and he's produced three top fifteen running back performances in PPR leagues. In a game more, Washington's an eight and a half point underdog, and with Antonio Gibson banged up, McKissick is a strong option. With Ricky Seals Jones, it's pretty simple. He's taken on Logan Thomas's role. In two games without Thomas, he's seen a twenty percent and a fifteen percent target chair and he's only run three fewer routes during this time than Terry McLaurin. Green Bay has been the fifth worst team at stopping tight ends this season when looking at the justin fantasy points allowed, So I like RSJ in this matchup. The next tier of players who are rostered in ten to twenty five percent of leagues. It's pretty thin. So I only have three players in this tier for you this week. I don't want to force anything and give you guys plays that I don't actually believe in. The first is Rashad Bateman, who I talked about earlier this week. He's coming off a game where he had a twenty two percent target chair in the Ravens offense, and that was in a game where he didn't run a full number of routes. At the time of this recording, Sammy Watkins still is not practicing for Baltimore. That means we could see even more Bateman this week, and it's in a plus matchup against the Bengals, who rank eleventh worst and adjusted points allowed to wide receivers. Next in this tier is another fifteen transactions player, and that's Ramandre Stevenson. I think we have to expect Damien Harris to continue seeing early down work, but Stevenson's interesting because of the receiving work that he saw in Week six. He had fifteen percent of the Patriots targets while running the most routes at running back for the team, and now he gets a matchup against the Jets. When you adjust target share allowed to running backs, the Jets ranked first in the league. They're allowing the highest adjusted target shair to running backs this year. When the Patriots faced them back in Week two, James White had a twenty one one percent target chair for New England. But so far this year, every team that's faced the Jets has had at least one running back hit a sixteen point seven percent target chair. It's a tough week in general, so I can understand why some of you could use someone like Stevenson. I don't think he's a slam dunk play at all, but there are worse moves to make tight end streaming is tough this week. I want to shout out cj Uzama in this tier, but I don't feel super confident about it. I'll be honest. Chances are Uzama's going to be at best the number four option for Cincinnati's passing attack here in Week seven. But here's the thing. Over the last three weeks, he's run almost the same number of routes as Tyler Boyd. He's also hit a double digit percentage target share in two of those three games, and he's also facing Baltimore a defense that's eighth worst against tight ends and adjustin fantasy points allowed while allowing the fourth highest adjusted target chair to the position. So I don't love Uzama, but it's a tough week. I've got three players for you who are rostered in very few leagues over on Yahoo who could work potentially in Week seven. Let's start with Nick Westbrook Akine. He ended up running the most routes for Tennessee against Buffalo this past week, and that was in a game where Julio Jones basically missed the fourth quarter. According to Next Gen Stats, Westbrook a Kine ran the second most routes on the Titans without Julio in that quarter, and he saw three targets. If Julio's out, I would expect Westbrook Akine to take on a larger role in that offense. And that offense is facing Kansas City this week in a game with the biggest over under on the slate by far. Whether it's a neutral or negative game script for Tennessee, it's gonna be hard for them to be super run heavy against the Chiefs, so Westbrook a Kine could benefit. Ross Dwelly is another tight end streamer who you could target this week. George Kittle is still out and the last time we saw San Francisco, Dwelly ran the third most routes on the team, behind Deebo Samuel and Brandon Ayuk, and he had just one fewer route than Ayuk. Jimmy Garoppolo should be back this week, and that's probably good news for the Pasca there just because the forty nine ers have a better chance to throw the ball. Indianapolis their opponent this week. They rank six and adjusted tight end target share allowed and they've been the third worst team and adjusted Fantasy points allowed to the position, So I think Dwelly makes some sense as a streamer this week. And then the last player this is another deep one. It's Nico Collins. Collins return from injury in Week six and he ended up seeing fourteen percent of Houston's targets. He ran just one fewer route than Chris Moore, who was second on the team in wide receiver routes run. We could just naturally see collins playing time increase as he gets acclimated. And this week Houston's a huge, huge underdog against Arizona, like a massive one. A cording of Fantals Sportsbook to spread in that game is seventeen and a half. They'll force the Texans to throw the ball a lot in a negative game script, and that may benefit Collins, who's not just a sleeper, but a super deep sleeper. This week, I've got four players who are usually starters or borderline starters, who I think that you might be able to sit here in Week seven. Let's start a quarterback and let's look at Derek Carr. Carr has been playing really well this year. He's given us a top ten performance in four of his six games played. He gets Philly this week, which may seem like a fine enough matchup, but it's kind of not. And it's partially because the Eagles have faced the second lowest pass rate this year, and that's turned into them ranking third best and adjusted fantasy points allowed to quarterbacks. I wouldn't be surprised if we see the ground game do work for Vegas this weekend. After all, Philly's fourth worst and success rate versus the running back position this year. Now at running back, are we trusting Miles Gaskin. I know the matchup isn't bad against Atlanta, but Gaskin went back to his old workload in Week six, he handled just twenty nine percent of Miami's running back rushes. He did have a thirteen percent target chair, and that's gonna come in handy to give him a decent enough floor. But are we really getting super excited about Miles Gaskin? Now? I can understand if you don't have another option. I mean, I'm in the same boat in that one league that I talked about a couple of weeks ago, where I have Miles Gaskin. I have him been one league this year, but I'm not an expect the world from him. Melvin Gordon's a little banged up with a foot injury, and he gets a Browns defense this week that ranks fifth best against running backs and adjusted fantasy points allowed to the position. With it being a short week, you have to wonder if they lean on Javonte Williams a little bit more. The nice part with Gordon is that he's pretty predictable. This season. He's seen between forty four percent and fifty six percent in Denver's running back rushes in every single game, and he's s in a double digit percentage target chair just once. Given the matchup and given the injury, I'm not expecting him to give us a big performance, but you never know with Thursday night football. And then the fourth player that I want to bring up here is Tyler Lockett. It's painful for me to say this, but we have to be real about what's going on. He's not the same type of fantasy asset without Russell Wilson at all. Lockett thrives on the deep ball. Despite not doing much at all from a production standpoint over his last four games, Lockett still has six in the league in yards on fifteen plus air yard throws. The problem is that Gino Smith has barely pushed the ball deep since step in for Russell Wilson. Just eight percent of his passes have gone that distance. Russell Wilson's rate of throwing it deep was twenty three percent. Now New Orleans their opponent this week. They've actually allowed the highest rate of deep ball passes against them in the league this year, but they've been sixth best at defending them in terms of completion percentage. I'm just mostly looking at this offense and I'm seeing that I don't want to invest in it. I don't want pieces of the Seattle offense very much. It could be a tough season for them if Russell Wilson doesn't return now. As for the streaming defenses, this week, I talked up the Giants on the fifteen Transaction Show, and I still think they're the most traditional option. As for a deeper play, I think Vegas kind of works from the standpoint that they're at home. Philly's an average matchup and adjusted points allowed, and the Raiders are favorites with so many by weeks. It's genuinely hard to find a reasonable streamer because a lot of teams are streaming in your league and that's risen the percent roster numbers. But the Giants are my top streamer, and then Vegas would be more of a desperation play. That's gonna know for today's show, though. Thanks to all of you for listening. If you've got subscribed to Late Round podcasts, make sure you are by searching forward pretty much anywhere podcasts can be found, and no forget to follow me on Twitter at Late Round QB. Thanks everyone. We got one more show this week, the Mailbag episode that drops tomorrow. I'll talk to you then,