303: Week 8 Matchups

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Speaker 1: This is the Labor Podcast with your host JJ zacher Resa, JJ zacher Reason. What's up everyone. It's JJ Zachereson, the editor in chief at Fandel and at Number five dot com. And this is episode three hundred and three of the Late Round podcast on many shows that are part of the FanDuel podcast network. Thanks for tuning in. Last week started off so strong. I talked up the Kansas City Defense on the show. I talked up Royce Freeman, I talked down Damian Williams. We were cooking after Thursday's game, and then everything bad happened. The picks on this show weren't necessarily all that bad, but if you tuned into my Facebook live on Sunday morning, you heard some bad takes. I had a bad Week seven. Here's to hoping the process corrects things in week eight. Before looking at players that I'm higher and lower on versus the consensus for week eight, I wanted to let you guys know that Fandel's Thursday NFL Rush is back, which the contest with one hundred thousand dollars in prizes up for grabs. Build your lineup of players from Minnesota and Washington, turn on the game and take your shot at the ten thousand dollars first place prize, all for just four dollars. For more details, visit fandle dot com or download the Fandle app today. Eligibility restrictions apply. Quarterback is kind of a mess this week. I think there are like seven guys who should be locked in as qb ones, and there's just a bunch of question marks. So I'll start today with the seventh guy, and that's Matthew Stafford. He gets the Giants this week in Detroit and New York's defense is what I would consider not great. There are eleventh in Fantasy points allowed to quarterbacks, but they've allowed five top ten performances this year. A big reason they haven't allowed more fantasy points is because they faced Washington when case Keenum was benched, and then Kyler Murray didn't have a whole lot to do through the air this past week because they were so successful on the ground. On a per attempt basis, only Miami and Oakland are allowing more yards than the New York Giants. The only semi fear that I have with Stafford is that the Giants haven't been horrifically bad at getting to the quarterback, but their pressure rate is a lot lower than their sack rate, so Stafford should be fine there. Digging deeper, I think Ryan Tannehill is probably the top streaming option this week. I talked about him on the fifteen Transactions episode earlier this week, but Tampa Bay has been horrendous at stopping the pass this year. They faced one of the easiest quarterback schedules imaginable, but they still ranked twelfth in yards per attempt allout, and they've allowed two or more touchdown passes in each of their last four games. Tannehill's at home Tennessee's a two and a half point favorite according to FANDLS Sportsbook, so he should be fine this week. Lastly, I wouldn't be shocked if Mitch Trubisky has somewhat of a bounce back game. I mean, he was fine for fantasy purposes last week, but the majority of his production came in garbage time. But this matchup against the Chargers isn't as tough as what he saw last week, and last week was also a game where he was coming off an injury. The Chargers are pretty much averaged defensively across the board, including their pass rush, so if you're in a pinch, I think a contrarian moves to go Trubisky when no one else is going to be on him. This week, you should easily be able to get him off the waiver wire. Some other options too, would be Mason Rudolph and Derek Carr. I actually would like Carr a lot if he had better wide receivers because that's a matchup to exploit against Houston. Now on the flip side, two players who I think may give you trouble this week, at least compared to where they're ranked, are Jacoby Brissett and Kyler Murray. Both of them are fine, They're just not great. They're fine. With Persett, a big fear of mine is just general regression. He has a six point eight percent touchdown rate this year, and that's likely not going to hold. He's been pretty fortunate in the touchdown column. Nine of his touchdowns have come from within the ten, and actually all of those touchdowns will come within the five. The player in second place in touchdowns from the five yard line is Carson Wentz, who has five. That's four or fewer than Jacoby Brissett. That'll eventually even out and in a game where the Colts may be able to deploy a run heavy game plan. Given that their touchdown favorites at home, the matchup isn't ideal with Kyler Murray. I just worry about the matchup straight up. The Saints can get to the quarterback. They have the fourth best pressure rate in the tenth best sack rate in football. The Cardinals have the seventh highest sack rate allowed in football. I know Murray's done reasonably well over the last few weeks, at least in real football, but that also goes back to why he was a fifteen transactions by candidate a few weeks back. It's because they face the Bengals, the Falcons, and the Giants over their last three games. Those are three teams that rank in the bottom half of the league in pressure rate, and the Bengals and Falcons are bottom five in sack rate. I just worry about what New Orleans could do to Murray while playing at home. Now. I just talked about how the Colts could have a more run heavy game plan this week to go along with Jacobe Brissett's incoming regression, and that should all benefit Marlon Mack. He's been fine, but I like him a good bit in this contest. He's seen seventy four percent or more of Indies's running back carries in all but one game this year, and Denver's just been slightly above average at stopping the run according to number fires expected points model. Basically, they're not a matchup, especially since they're on the roads. Since Denver's on the road that I would actively avoid. So I like Mac a little bit more than where he's being ranked. This week, Ty Johnson should be started as well. At the time of this recording, Detroit hasn't done anything to add to their running back depth chart, so we should assume Johnson at least this week is going to see a bit of work. Last week without carry on Johnson for a chunk of that game, Ti Johnson ended up seeing half of Detroit's running back rushes in about a nine percent target share, and he was also used as the red zone and goal line back against a Giants team that could easily allow the Lions to see a positive game script. He's a strong RB two option if you want to dig really deep, though, I think that you can look at Benny Snell. The Steelers are two touchdown plus favorites against Miami on Monday night, and Jalen Samuels is doubtful for that game, so it'll be James Connor back there sure, but Benny Snell will get looks as well. The last time we saw Pittsburgh, which was in a game where they had a very strong positive game script, Snell had a fifty one percent running back rush share with James Connor sort of banged up throughout that game. He may not reach that high of a share in this game, but a thing get out of hand, which is always possible against Miami. Pittsburgh may not go nuts utilizing Connor given that he's been injured this year. Now, on the flip side, Derek Henry is some of that I'm pretty low on this week. Usually he's a decent enough RB two, But Tampa Bay has been awesome against the run this year. According to number fires expected points model, they rank first and expected points per rush allowed, and they're first and success rate allowed. And that's while facing Christian McCaffrey, Alvin Kamara, the forty nine ers running backs, the ghost of Todd Gurley, and eight carries from Saquon Barkley. Considering Henry's not used a whole lot as a receiver. He has a six point eight percent target share this year. I can understand if he's on your bench, if you've got a team with a lot of good running backs, and then I'm gonna bring up Joe Mixon once again this week. He's being ranked as a fringe RB two, but he's ranked higher than RB twenty eight just once this season. Over the last three weeks, he's seen two point seven percent of Cincinnati's targets, then eight percent, and then four point eight percent. That's not great. That's actually not very good at all. And his highest snap share this season is just sixty three percent. He's really just an RB three right now in fantasy football. Now. At wide receiver this week, I think you should like every wide out for Houston with them going up against Oakland, but I want to talk specifically about Kiki Qt. He's gonna play the majority of his snaps from the slot. That's where he's been lined up on over seventy percent of his snaps this year, and Oakland's been pretty bad against slot guys this season. According to data compiled from Pro Football Focus, over thirty five percent of targets against Oakland have gone to pass catchers who are lined up in the slot, and they've allowed six slot touchdowns. That touchdown total is tied for the second most in the NFL. QT has seen about fifteen percent of Houston's targets over the last two weeks, and he makes for a nice PPR fill in in Week eight. DK Metcalf is also very much in play this week. Atlanta has been awful on defense, both in terms of pass rush and in the secondary, and they've now given up the fifth most fantasy points per game to opposing wide receivers. They've also seen seventy one percent of their receiving yards allowed go to opposing wider receivers despite allowing just a sixty percent target share to that position. Now, the lack of target share isn't that big of a concern for me because the Seahawks don't have a ton of alternatives in that offense, especially with Will Disley out for the year. But Metcalf also has over an eighteen percent target share this season, so if he hits that mark again in Week eight, he should be able to take advantage of this matchup. Now, I mentioned Corey Davis as a cell candidate on this week's fifteen transaction show, but I did note that his matchup against Tampa Bay this week is pretty good. Just to reiterate, the Buccaneers haven't faced unbelievable offenses this year, but they've given up five top six performances to wide receivers in six games played. Davis has seen about twenty four percent of Tennessee's targets go his way with Ryan Tannehill under center, and this is a matchup where the Titans may be forced to pass given how well the Bucks have stopped the run. So while I do think that Davis is someone that'll be tough to trust through the end of the year, and while I do think that you should still use this matchup to your advantage of your trading him away, I still feel pretty good that he can give you a wide receiver three floor this week. A deeper play this week is Ted Gin. Now, I don't love the fact that Teddy Bridgewater is throwing at fifteen or more air yards on just eleven point eight percent of his passes. It's a clear downgrade if Teddy Bridgewater is his quarterback again here in Week eight. But Gin has seen about a fifteen percent target share over the team's last five games, and he's in a great spot. Against Arizona. He'll likely avoid Patrick Peterson, who could shadow Michael Thomas, so he'll see a lot of Byron Murphy. According to PFF, Murphy's allowed three touchdowns and three hundred and thirty six yards receiving this year, which are pretty bad marks. Arizona's been gashed by tight ends this year, but Gin does have some sleeper potential now on the other side of things. Alshon Jeffrey was someone who was featured on yesterday's ten Trend Show because he's seeing lots of volume. He is a really high target share, but he's seeing crappy production. He has an eight yard average depth of target, which is really not what you like to see out of your wide receiver. Against Buffalo this week, one of the better teams at defending wideouts. You may have a better option. He's a high floor guy more than likely, but I do worry about that ceiling and then you've got to bump down Curtis Samuel and DJ Moore this week. San Francisco's allowing the fifth fewest Fantasy points per game to opposing wideouts. They're playing at home. They have the best pressure rate in football, and the Panthers have the fourth lowest implied team total on this week's slate, so both Samuel and Moore are fringe starters in most leagues. Dawson Knox has seen his target share at seventeen percent and twenty percent over his last two games. He's averaged twenty two routes run per contest during this time, and he's on a team without a ton of alternatives a pass catcher. I really think he could be a lower end tight end one from here on out. Now that's not saying much, but I do think it's true. He has that chance, and he gets Philly this week, a team that continues to stop the run well but not the pass, even though most of their receiving production has gone to wide receivers. So John Brown is a very good play this week. Knock should be involved enough to be a relevant streamer here in Week eight now on Thursday Night. I also kind of like both Minnesota tight ends Kyle Rudo and Irv Smith are decent enough dart throws in the game where Minnesota has an implied team total of twenty nine, but Smith and Rudolph each had an eighteen percent target share last week, and Washington's a team that's been beat more against tight ends and running backs than wide receivers this season. Twenty three percent of their targets against have gone to tight ends, it's one of the higher marks in the league, while just fifty two percent of them have gone to wide receivers, which is one of the lowest. Now receivers have done well, so don't bench Stefan Diggs, but this could end up being a matchup to exploit on defense this week. I love the Detroit Lions as a streamer. I talked about this on my fifteen Transaction show, and their seven point favorites according to Fandels Sportsbook, and they're facing Danny Dimes and Daniel Jones's four starts since his big game against Tampa Bay, he's thrown seven interceptions to four touchdowns and he's been sacked thirteen times. Defenses are now averaging three point six sacks per game against Daniel Jones. So I love Detroit in this matchup, and I also like the Colts. Indie now has the ninth best sack rate this season and Denver ranks fifth worst. And saccharate aloud, the Colts are at home, They're big favorites, and the Broncos no longer have Emmanuel Sanders, so for a second week in a row, you can stream against Joe Flacco. That's gonna do it for today's show, Thanks to all of you for listening. If you've got to subscribe to the Late Round podcast, make sure you are by searching for it pretty much anywhere podcasts can be found, and you can search for me on Twitter. I'm at Late Round QB. Hit me with the follow. Thanks for listening everyone, I'll talk to you tomorrow with the weekly Mailbag show.