1043: 15 Transactions for Week 9

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Speaker 1: This is the lad Podcast with your host JJ Zachertha j J zacher reson What's up everyone, It's JJ Zacharyeson in this episode ten forty three of the Late Round Fantasy football podcasts sponsored by DraftKings Thanks maturnynag. There's no better way to get closer to the action than with DraftKings Daily Fantasy, the ultimate destination for football fans. New customers can play free for their share of millions and prizes with their first depositive five dollars or more. Download the DraftKings Daily Fantasy app and enter promo code Late Round to play free for your share of millions. The crown is yours. Gambling problem called one hundred gambler in New York call eight seven to seven eight hope n Why in Connecticut called eighty eight seventy eight nine seven seven seventy seven eighteen plus and most states. Eligibility restrictions apply ends December thirty first see terms at DraftKings dot com. Slash promotions. It's a fifteen transactions day. Let's get to it. Add Tyrone Tracy and Devin Singletary. So chances are if you're in a competitive league or a semi competitive league, Tyrone Tracy's not available, But if I didn't talk about Tracy on this week's Transaction Show, people would be wondering why he's still out there in over half of Yahoo leagues. And that's a big deal because Camp Scataboo, he's done for the year after that horrific injury against the Eagles, Tracy's in line to see a lot more work. He saw most of the team's backfield snaps after that Skataboo injury, and he ran seventeen routes against the Eagles. Devin Singletary, the other running back in that backfield, had four, that's accord to PFF data. Now, maybe that split isn't so one sided in the coming weeks. Maybe they use Devin Singletary more than we expect. That's why in deeper formats you can also add Devin Singletary. But don't forget from Week five onward. Last season, Tyrone Tracy had a really good seventy two percent running back rush air per game rate and eleven percent target share. He was averaging over thirteen PPR points per game, and that was in an offense that didn't have the upside that this one does. With Jackson Dart. Considering Skataboo is like a high end RB two rest of season, I think it makes sense to view Tyrone Tracy as a lower end one sell JK Dobbins so RJ Harvey had three touchdowns against the Cowboys on Sunday. JK Dobbins He didn't have any, but Dobbins still rushed for one hundred and eleven yards and he had fourteen point one PPR points. He's still operating as the team's lead back. He even saw his highest route share in five games. Now Harvey's outlier performance, that's not the reason that you should be selling Dobbins this week. I mean, Harvey himself does matter to this equation. There's a chance that he sees more and more work as this season goes on during the second half of the year. He's an explosive rookie. He has a shot to take on more work, even if his snapshare has been mostly the same over the last few weeks. The main reason that JK. Dobbins is a sell candidate for me is the team's schedule so far this season. According to my adjusted Fantasy points allowed numbers, no team running backs have had an easier schedule than the Denver Broncos. They faced the Titans, Colts, Chargers, Bengals, Eagles, Jets, Giants, and Cowboys. When looking at justin fantasy points allowed, the Colts are the toughest matchup among that group. They rank as the twenty first easiest matchup for running backs. The Chargers are second toughest, ranking seventeenth. Every other matchup that they've faced has been a top half matchup for running backs, and the Bengals, Cowboys, Titans, and Giants their top five matchups for running backs. They faced four of the top five matchups for running backs this year. Rest of season things are not that friendly. In fact, before Monday Night Football, because I'm recording this before Monday Night Football, Denver running backs have one of the toughest schedules across the entire league, if not the toughest, and in the fantasy playoffs they get not so easy games against the Packers and the Chiefs. Look. JK. Dobbins has been a great fantasy value this year, but right now it might be the ideal time to sell them, and as we know, he hasn't had the healthiest career. There's that downside too, ad Bam Knight so the Cardinals are coming off of their bye. They get a juicy matchup in week nine against the Cowboys. The last time we saw Arizona, Bam Knight had a sixty four percent running back rush share in a twelve percent target share against Dallas. You do have to fear a potential negative game script that could force the Cardinals to use their other backs. According to Fantasy Life data, Knight's not playing long down and distance snaps and he's not playing two minute snaps either. Though. I do think you can feel a little bit better about night because the Cardinals release Michael Carter on Monday. With that being said, he projects best in this backfield in week nine and he's still out there in eighty two percent of Yahoo leagues. Even if Trey Benson could be back soon. You might get some usability from No here in Week nine by Travis Hunter and ad Parker Washington. So some moves in fantasy football, you know going in that their higher variance moves, and I think this is one of those higher variance moves. Travis Hunter had his best outing as a pro in week seven, the last time when we saw the Jacks. Maybe this is a by high transaction because of that, but it was also just one game. A lot of fantasy managers, they don't look at one game and think that's a trend. It doesn't just catapult a player up their rest of season rankings. They want more, They want consistency, and for that reason, Travis Hunter could still be a bye. He's now seen rout cheers of eighty six percent and eighty nine percent over his last two games. Prior to that, his route participation rate per game was sixty nine percent. His Week seven target share was almost thirty percent. Brian Thomas entered the Jacksonville by a little bit banged up with what appeared to be a shoulder injury, and the Jags they clearly need a spark offensively. What if this Hunter usage just continues down the stretch. What if Hunter falls a standard rookie trajectory of seeing an uptick and production during the second half of the season. Would it be that surprising if we see the Jags offense focus a little bit more on Travis Hunter through the end of the season. Now, the Jags schedule isn't special or anything like that. That's not the focus here. Instead, this is about targeting a talented player who's seeing more work as an offensive starter. He's a full time starter in that offense, or at least that's how it's been over the last couple of games. There's risk, but there's a lot of reward here too. Meanwhile, don't forget about Parker Washington as an AD this week. Like I said, Brian Thomas may not be totally healthy coming out of the by. We just don't have all the information that we need right now because they had that buy. So it's not a bad idea to just get ahead of things and snag Washington off the waiver wire. Ad Dylan Sampson quin shown. Judkins has a shoulder injury. The Browns have a bye this week, and it doesn't sound like it's a super serious injury, but you never know, so it might not be a bad idea to at least add in stash Dylan Sampson. After judkins injury against the Patriots, Sampson played about three quarters of Cleveland's backfield snaps. He ended up running seven more routes than Jerome Ford. Judkins hasn't been deployed as a pass catcher that much this year, but the Browns have used Sampson in that role, so There could be some value here if Judkins were to miss any time. Not only that, though Jerome Ford he's been a rumored trade candidate, So if that happens. If Judkins is fine but they do trade Jerome Ford, then Dylan Sampson could have some standalone value in fantasy, even with Quinn shown Judkins being healthy. Drop Jerry Judy. Jerry Judy has been awful this year, at least from a fantasy perspective. He hasn't hit double digit PPR points in a game since Week one. He's averaging fewer than six PPR points per cup, and that's despite the fact that he's run the second most routes in football this year. He's playing largely without Cedric Tillman, who's expected to be back after the bye, and the Browns, according to my adjusted Fantasy points allowed numbers, they face the easiest wide receiver schedule in all of football this year. The Browns rest of season opponents still aren't that bad. I wouldn't worry about that, but Judy has become impossible to trust at this point. Maybe a quarterback move would help things. Maybe, but do we really want to bank on that? Just kind of falling into place. If things start treading in the right direction, you can try to pick them back up. But at this point, a higher end running back handcuff is going to bring more value to your roster than Jerry Judy. He's probably just rotting away on your bench. There might be some spiked weeks down the stretch. I just don't know how predictable those weeks are going to actually be. It's a really tough situation right now for Jerry Judy ad Chim Ray DK. So the Tennessee Titans took two wide receivers in the twenty twenty five NFL draft. Chim Ray DK was the first one selected. Now, the ZAP model preferred Elk Eomanner to Chim Ray DK, and a lot of that had to deal with the fact that when you compare his actual draft capital to his projected draft capital, DK was a reach, and historically reaches have not fared well in the ZAP model. But DK did actually have some interesting marks to his profile, like, for instance, his breakout score was seventy two. That was close to a top ten number in this year's class. For those of you who don't know what breakout score is, it's my schedule adjusted receiving yards per team pass attempt Metric, a score of fifty is mostly average, so DK was well above the norm. And then DK also has a lot of athleticism. That's why the Titans have used him as a return man. We're talking DK today though, because he saw by far his best route participation of the season in Week eight. He ran a route on ninety one percent of Tennessee's dropbacks. His previous season high was sixty si seven percent. That higher route share led to a really solid twenty two percent target share. He cut seven of eight targets for ninety three yards. Now, one problem with elic Iamaner is that the Titans are using him down the field pretty frequently. That brings a lot of volatility week to week. But DK's average up the target has been about four yard shallower than I amanners. That gives cam Ward easier throws to make, and that might help DK be a little bit more consistent as a fantasy producer. You don't have to go nuts adding Chim Ray DK this week, but Calvin Ridley's banged up, and he's also the target of trade rumors. He might be moved at the deadline too. Regardless, I think DK warrants a look off the waiver wire this week by a Mecha Abuka. It's actually been a rough few weeks for a Mecha Abuka in fantasy football. Back in Week six, he heard his hamstring. He missed a large chunk of the Bucks game against the forty nine Ers. It seemed like he wasn't going to play in Week seven and Tampa Bay likely was gonna have him on a snap count, but Mike Evans was in against the Lions that forced Abuka onto the field more and in this past week he ran as Tampa Bay's top wide out, but in those three games he had just four point four, nine point eight, and six point five PPR points. They're the three worst outings of his entire season. The good news, though, things should get better. Abuka's output was lacking in Week eight, There's no doubt, but he hit his highest target share of the season at thirty seven and a half percent. He saw twelve targets against the Lions. The previous week two, Baker Mayfield Andbuka just haven't been able to connect. His catchuple targets rate has been just forty two percent over his last two games. According to Fantasy life data that rate was seventy four percent from Week one through Week six. It shouldn't be this bad all season long. It should regress. And it's clear that the Buccaneers want and need to get Abuka involved in that offense because the wide receiver injuries. I'd expect that to be the case from here on out. After the Week nine by and considering they have that buy, you might have an opportunity to get a Buka at a decreased price. Ad Jalen Knowle look, opportunities drive this game of fantasy football, but talent that's the driving force for opportunity, at least for rational coaches. Who knows if the Texans are going to be rational with Jalen Nole moving forward. They certainly haven't seemed very eager to use their rookie wide receivers this year. Nole still hasn't hit a fifty percent routes here. Jayden Higgins, their other rookie wide out, he's gotten over that mark just twice. Nol in particular, has just looked the part over the last couple of weeks. He's now hit a sixteen percent target share over his last two and his targets per out run rate is twenty nine percent pre Monday Night Football among wide receivers with thirty or more routes in weeks seven to eight, Nole's targets per out run rate ranks seventh best, and on his thirteen targets, he's totaled one hundred and forty receiving yards. Now as a Slayer, Christian Kirk and Braxton Barrios, they're both in the way of Jalen Nole, just to be clear, but Christian Kirk has missed the last two games. Barrios he's now dealing with a chest injury. The Zap model really liked Jalen Nole, so I think he should be rostered because of that talent profile and because of what he's already shown us. Add Christian Watson. I said this in the fifteen Transactions newsletter, which you can sign up for and get in your email inbox every Tuesday morning. Just go to late Round dot com. It's absolutely free. But this game of fantasy football can really humble you. Christian Watson was obviously on my radar for weeks with his ACL recovery, but my expectation was that there was going to be more of a ramp up period than there actually was. I didn't think he was going to be usable in fantasy football for weeks, and look, it's the Packers wide receiver room that we're talking about. They're not the most predictable bunch in the world. But even still, I was borderline shocked with how usable he was. In Week eight. He ran around on sixty five percent of Green Bay's dropbacks, which is not bad at all. He finished the day with twelve and a half PPR points. He only had an eleven percent target share, but clearly there's room to grow there. So yes, Christian Watson should be rostered in more leagues, and it's on me for not being more on top of that by Rico Dowdell. There's a very real chance that we start to see a shift in the Panthers backfield in the coming weeks. Trupa Hubbard's now played two games since returning from that calf injury, two games with a true split backfield alongside Rico Dowdell. In those games, Hubbard has twenty six carries, Dawdell has twenty five. Hubbard has four targets, Dawdell has two. Hubbard's played seventy four snaps dowdele fifty four. Hubbard has eighty nine total yards, Dowdell has one hundred and fifty and advanced numbers don't look any better for tr Cuba Hubbard. According to exten Stats, Dawdall's success rate over the last two games has been forty four percent. Hubbard's has been twenty three percent. While dadaass had rushing yards over expected totals of plus sixteen and plus fifteen yards over the last two Hubbard has been a minus twenty one and minus sixteen. To put that another way, during this two week stretch, Dadallas had plus one point two rushing yards over expected per rush. Hubbard has been a minus one point four. Now, whether that's due to injury or not, Rico Dowdell has been the better running back for Carolina and head coach Dave Canalis he knows this. On Monday, Joe Person, who covers the Panthers for the Athletic He reported that Canalis said, quote, Chuba Hubbard has meant a lot to this team wanted to give him an opportunity following his calf injury. Canallas later added, quote, we cannot ignore the fact that Rico has been exceptional person. Then sent a tweet and he said, quote, it seems pretty clear Dave Canalis is going to give Rico Dowdle the lion's share of Carrey's while he understands the dynamic of reducing role of a popular player like ju but Hubbard, Canalis says, quote, the heart of it is winning games and putting our best foot forward. It seems like this clearly is moving in ric o'doddell's direction as it should, and you may be able to take advantage of that this week, especially because Hubbard's coming off a game where he found the end zone and he out touched Rico Dowdle. Just do be aware that they don't have the easiest spot in the world this week against Green Bay. After that, though, the schedule isn't terribly hard. Add Darius Slayton. Darius Slayton returned to the Giants on Sunday, and while his output was pretty mid, he did see a twenty three percent target share if you count the game where Malik Neighbors went down for the Giants. Slayton has now seen target shares of twenty percent, fifteen percent, and twenty three percent without Neighbors that's pretty solid, especially since he continues to be used down the field. He's had averaged up the targets of sixteen point five, seventeen point seven, and fourteen point six during that time frame. Giants wide receivers have a top five rest of season schedule according to my numbers. So Slayton is worth a roster spot. And since I'm talking about the Giants here, don't forget about THEO Johnson. You guys. He's now seen route shares of ninety seven percent in back to back games. His target share has been about twenty percent. That's not easy to find, and he's still out there in a ton of leagues. Hold Caleb Williams. Caleb Williams has not been good in fantasy football of late. After promising start to the season where he scored twenty four seventeen to twenty nine standard fantasy points, Williams is averaging just twelve point one points per game over his last four He's given us one usable performance during that timeframe. Williams has now thrown nine touchdown passes this year. Four of those nine touchdowns came against the Dallas Cowboys. You may be tempted to drop him, and I totally understand. But the Bears get the Bengals, Giants, Vikings, and Steelers over their next four games. Cincinnati and Pittsburgh. They're both top five matchups or quarterbacks by justin fantasy points allowed New York they're the twelfth easiest matchup. There may still be some worthwhile performances there for kayleb Williams, though I will say if he can't get it done against the Bengals, then yeah, it's time to drop him. Add Tank Bigsby. Reports are suggesting that it's no big deal, that it's just mild, but Saquon Barkley did suffer a groin injury on Sunday against the Giants. The Eagles have a buying Week nine, so he gets extra rest time. But you never know with any injury, you never know how it's gonna end up. So in the meantime, if you have a roster spot, you could pick up Tank Bigsby. The game script was favorable for the Eagles in Week eight, so it was Bigsby who saw more work and relief of Saquon Barkley. Realistically, though, if Saque's out, we'd probably see a split between Bigsby and pass catcher Will Shipley. We know that Bigsby isn't much of a receiver, but you can look Bigsby's way this week for just a dollar or so, just in case Barkley does miss time. Like I said, you never know. Add the Los Angeles Rams defense. So because of their bye week, a lot of fantasy managers drop the Rams this past week, and that's understandable. We're all streaming defenses out here, but they're now available in over sixty percent of Yahoo leagues and they get a Saints team this week that ranks comfortably as a top ten opponent for fantasy defenses. That's by justin fantasy points allowed, and the quarterback situation for the Saints is totally up in the air right now. LA is a home favorite by thirteen and a half points. They're a legit top defense here in Week nine. That's it for today's show, though, thanks to all of you for listening. If you had subscribe to the Late Round Fantasy Football podcast, make sure you are by shirting for it pretty much anywhere podcast can be, and don't fit to follow me on Twitter and on Blue Sky at Late Round QB. Thanks for listening. Everyone greatly appreciate you. I'll talk to you tomorrow with the Weekly Ten Trends episode