464: Week 15 Matchups

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Speaker 1: This is the lad Podcast with with your host JJ zacherathas J Shake zacher reson.

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Speaker 2: What's up everyone.

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Speaker 1: It's JJ Zacharyeson, the editor in chief at Fandle and at number fire dot com in this episode four hundred and sixty four of the Late Round Podcast with many shows that are part of the fand Podcast network.

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Speaker 2: Thanks for tuning in.

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Speaker 1: Let's start off this week's show by looking at what I got wrong last week. Mike Glennon definitely not a good deep quarterback streamer. Hopefully you didn't have to use them since he was such a deep play, but man did he suck. Miles Sanders was a bigger width though. I'll take a massive l for Miles Sanders. I recognized the high variance involved with playing Sanders last week, but like I said in the ten Trend show, he even exceeded those high end expectations in a really tough matchup at wide receiver. Mike Williams got hurt, so that was a bad play, and I thought we'd see more from Cole Beasley than we did against the Steelers. He did have ten targets, though, so I'm at least pleased with the process. And then the Carolina defense really really underperformed. That's another l that I will take. Not everything was bad though, Philip Rivers and Teddy Bridgewater worked as streamers, Darnell Mooney scored a touchdown, and the Arizona Cardinals defense was really strong. It was a pretty bad week though. I know I talk about fringe players on this show, but the results should be better than they were last week. That's gonna happen, but it can't happen consistently. Now, Before gett into week fifteens players that I like more and less than the consensus, I want to let you know that the FanDuel Podcast Network Listener League is back for week fifteen. Entered the Rake free weekly NFL contest made exclusively for you the Listener for just five dollars and compete for your shore the fifteen hundred dollars prize pool, including a one hundred and fifty dollars first place prize to enter, visit fandle dot Com Slash League. Slash Listener League Eligibility restrictions apply. Let's kick off this week's show with Jalen Hurts. I have a good bit of confidence with Jalen Hurts this week for a couple of reasons. The first one being that we know he has a baseline the ball eighteen times this past week against New Orleans, so we know the rushing upside is there. We're not going in blind. Second, Arizona as a matchup, They're not anything special. It's a completely average matchup when looking at justin Fantasy points allowed and number fires expected points model. But another interesting tidbit about the Arizona defense is that they play a lot of man. ESPNS might play tweeted this earlier in the week, but no defense has played more man this year than Arizona. That's a big boost for a mobile quarterback. We saw the impact that can have with Lamar Jackson on Monday Night against Cleveland. The only thing that scares me off a little bit with Hurts in this game is the low implied total for Philadelphia, But they can have a low total and Hurts still payoff in fantasy football given his rushing ability and the cheat code that can bring to a fantasy football quarterback. Philip Rivers was another guy that I mentioned on the fifteen Transactions episode, and once again for it feels like the fiftieth week in a row, I think he's a strong streaming option. As I've been talking about, He's averaged a solid floor since Week six. Since that point in time, he's had one performance that really could have sunk you, and that was against Baltimore. Otherwise, he scored at least sixteen fantasy points in every single game. And now he gets the Texans secondary. Like I said earlier in the week, this secondary has been bad all year, but they're even worse without Bradley Roby. Without Roby, they've given up big performances to Jake Luton, Mitch Trubisky, and just a couple of weeks ago, Rivers had a good game as well, with one of the highest implied totals this week, Rivers and the Colts shouldn't have that much trouble scoring now. In terms of traditional streamers, I think those two are the very clear options this week. I don't mind Jared Goff totally against the Jets, but I do worry that the Rams tendency to run the ball close to the end zone. With that tendency, Goff won't be able to capitalize on his potential few pass attempts. If gamescript really goes in the rams favor against the Jets, which It absolutely could, because they're huge favorites. If I knew for sure that Alex Smith was playing, he'd probably be the deeper play this week, and the same could go for someone like Chase Daniel. But I really really hope that you don't have to rely on one of those players unless it's a super flex league. I can talk about one guy on the other side of things, though, Russell Wilson. I don't think you're likely benching Wilson this week because he's still a decent enough play.

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Speaker 2: But let's just be objective about this.

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Speaker 1: Wilson's been a top ten weekly scorer at the position just once over his last six games, and it was last week against the Jets. This Washington defense is not the New York Jets defense. New York is the fourth most desirable matchup in adjusted Fantasy points allowed to quarterbacks, Washington ranks twentieth, and when looking at my pressure matchups chart, which looks at pressures allowed and pressures faced, this isn't the best matchup from that perspective for the Seahawks. Now, it's obviously going to be very tough to just straight up bench Russell Wilson this week, but I'm not totally in love with his matchup. You should have confidence in cam Akers this week. I mentioned this all on the ten Trend Show, but what Acers did last week wasn't something other Rams running backs have done this year, and now he gets the Jets in a game where the Rams are seventeen point favorites. That's according to Fandals sportsbook. We saw what a positive game script did for Acres last week, and the Jets have also been bad at stopping running backs as receivers out of the backfield this year. They've allowed the second most receptions to the position. That gives Acres even more upside. I would be starting Acres over a lot of running backs this week. I think given the matchup, you could easily argue Acres over Miles Sanders, Mike Davis, and even James Robinson, and they're all ranked higher than him as of this recording. Jeff Wilson was something that I didn't get to mention on the fifteen Transaction show because Moore came out about Raheem Mostert after the fact. But I should have mentioned Wilson on that show because he's in a good position this week.

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Speaker 2: Even if Moster can go.

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Speaker 1: The Cowboys have been atrocious against the run all year, having allowed the second most rushing yards in football. Wilson, meanwhile, has averaged a running back rush year per game about thirty eight percent over his last three, and he's seeing some looks through the air as well. He has eight targets over his last two, so he'd be a deeper play if moster it goes. But if Moster doesn't, Jeff Wilson's a solid RB two. Lynn Boden is running back eligible and basically every platform, even though he's been playing slot receiver, you can throw him in your running back spot, and I think that works this week in PPR formats. Not only is he coming off a game where he almost hit a twenty percent target share, but the Dolphins are banged up at pass catcher, and if there's one spot to beat New England through the air, it's via the slot. The Patriots ranked third and percentage of targets that have gone to the slot this year, and they rank in the top ten and yards per target allowed to that area of the field. I do hope that Devonte Parker can be somehow healthy for this game, because it makes that offense in general a little bit more attractive, but I think Boden's a lock for like six or seven targets in this contest that should give him a high floor in PPR formats, and Gus Edwards is a decent deeper play as well. Baltimore is a thirteen point favorite. It's an attractive match against the Jags. The Jacks have allowed the fourth most adjusted Fantasy points to running backs this year, and while mark Ingram wasn't involved in that game against Cleveland on Monday, Gus Edwards still was. He saw a third of the team's running back rushes, he carried the ball seven times, and he found the end zone twice. It's not crazy to think that a positive game script could lead to more Edwards in this game. James Connor is someone who worries me. I talked about this on yesterday's ten Trend show, but now he's apparently dealing with a quad injury. So even if he goes, my worries that Pittsburgh won't give him a true workhorse workload, which they haven't really been doing anyway, Hence the trend on yesterday's show. I didn't expect him to be ranked where he's being ranked right now, but I get it. The matchup is absolutely there, The ceiling technically is there, but there's a really low floor to James Connor each week these days, and I think that at least needs to be called out. Brandon Iyuk has been amazingly good if you follow me on Twitter, which by the way, you should at late round QB. But if you follow me on Twitter, you've probably seen my pro Ayuk tweets over the last few weeks. But over Ayuk's last five games, he's finished as a top twenty wide receiver in each contest. He's averaging over twenty Fantasy points per game over this time. But the crazy thing is, even if you look at all of his games this year, Ayuk is still averaging almost sixteen Fantasy points per game. That's better than Robbie Anderson and Terry McLaurin. He's averaging a ridiculous thirty percent target share per game over his last five. He's got a plus matchup against Dallas Deebo Samuel is banged up. It's a smash spot for Brandon Ayuk. Get him in your lineup, and t Y Hilton should be in your lineup this week as well. He's seen back to back games with at least a twenty five percent target share. He's now finished as a top fifteen wide out in three straight and he gets the Texans again, a team that he just beat for eight catches in one hundred and ten yards. But all the while, you could still look at Michael Pittman as sort of a deeper play. He really hasn't been very good over the last three weeks at all. He hasn't hit double digit PPR points in any contest. But the good news is that he's averaging a seventeen percent target share per game since becoming a thing again in this offense, and he's dipped below a fourteen percent share in just one game.

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Speaker 2: Over his last six.

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Speaker 1: So I do feel like volume will be there against this beatable secondary, making Pittman a deeper flex play.

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Speaker 2: Antonio Brown is ranked too low this week in my eyes.

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Speaker 1: I don't think he's this like smash play by any means, but he's had a twenty one percent target shareer better in three of his last four games and over this stretch, so from weeks ten through fourteen, he has just ten fewer air yards than Chris Godwin in a game against a beatable Atlanta secondary that's allowed the second most adjusted points to wideouts this year, even if that defense has been playing better, Brown is not a terrible play. If you need someone off the waiver wire, maybe off your bench, Antonio Brown kind of works. The Carolina Panthers have allowed the second most deep ball passes to be completed this season. We saw them get smoked last week on them. Drew Lock completed four of his five deep passes for one hundred and forty nine yards and two touchdowns. That's where Marquez Valdez Scantling comes in as a sleeper this week. He played about seventy percent of Green Bay snaps last week and he saw a nineteen percent target share, And even though he had a couple of down games before that, MVS is top twenty in the league and deep ball targets, and he's only a couple of fifteen plus air yard targets away from being in the top five. There are some question marks with how he'll be used versus Allen Lazard, but if you need a prayer a super high variance play, I do think MVS makes sense. He could have a big play in this game. Now, before moving to tight ends, let's talk a second about Tyler Lockett. I think a lot of people just sort of blindly plug and play Lockett every single week. But he's been a really bad fantasy asset recently, and honestly, he hasn't been very good since Week three, which is when the obvious Russell Wilson regression really started. He's averaging fourteen point four points per game during this time, so over his last ten games, that's fine, that's not bad, but it's not great. But he also has a fifty three point outing during this stretch. I'm not a person who just says take away his biggest run in his yards per carry drops because that run still happened. That game for Tyler Lockett still happened, but we also have to be realistic and understand how much that game may be skewing perception. Outside of that game, he's averaging just ten points per game. That's Waiver Wire esque. He's not a terrible play, but the reason I wanted to bring him up this week is to remind you guys to really really evaluate your players before blindly throwing them into your lineups, especially during the Fantasy Football playoffs. Jordan Reid has averaged about a fourteen percent target share per game since getting back into the swing of things, and he's finishes a tight end one in two of his last four games. Now he gets a Dallas defense that's beatable. San Francisco should be able to move the ball, and that's despite the fact that San Francisco is not very good on offense right now.

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Speaker 2: But this is just where we're kind of at with streamers.

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Speaker 1: I don't think Jordan Reid is that terrible of a play, and I'm gonna go back to cole Comet for the third straight week. He's now hit a twenty one percent target share in two straight games. He's seen seven targets and back to back games as well, and he's running more routes than Jimmy Graham. Getting cheap volume at tight end is not easy, but Cole Comet offers that. And keep an eye on the Kyle Rudolph injury if he doesn't go. Irv Smith is absolutely in play against Chicago and their defenses allow the sixth most adjusted Fantasy points to the position this year. Streaming defenses is tough this week because more and more teams are hoarding defenses. The roster percentages are all over the place, but I've got a couple of defenses that might be available. I talked about Minnesota in the fifty Transactions episodes, so I won't bring them up again, but I will bring up New England, a defense that's rostered in less than half of Yahoo leagues. Miami is really hurting offensively. I talked about that earlier. That could lead to a lower scoring game in general, and that would give the Patriots a decent floor. And that's what you're looking at. If you go to Fandels Sportsbook, you see that this game is a forty one and a half point over under. And two has also had some spiked games this year where he's been sacked a lot. He was sacked four times his past week and six times back in Week eleven. So overall, putting that all together, I think New England is a fairly safe option. And then you could go to Dallas too. San Francisco's offense, like I just said, they haven't been very good. They've been friendly for defenses. In fact, over their last six games only the Bills haven't ranked in the top ten and weekly defensive scoring over this stretch, the forty nine ers are allowing two sacks one point three interceptions and one and a half fumbles per game.

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Speaker 2: The Cowboys are at home.

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Speaker 1: While they're not favorites, they're not huge underdogs either, so the matchup is good enough to warrant a desperation start, at least I think so. But I do prefer a good number of defenses ahead of Dallas because that Dallas defense itself isn't very good. That's gonna do it for today's show, though. Thanks to all of you for listening. If you get subscribed to the Late Round podcasts, make sure you are by searching for it pretty much anywhere podcast can be found, and don't forget to follow me on Twitter at Late Round QB. Thanks everyone. One more show this week, the Mailbag episode. I'll talk to you then,