427: 15 Transactions for Week 6

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Speaker 1: This is the lad Podcast with your host JJ Zachersa Jay Chase zacher.

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Speaker 2: Reson What's up everyone.

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Speaker 1: It's JJ Zachares and the editor in chief at FanDuel and at number five dot com. And this is episode four hundred and twenty seven of the Late Round podcast. So many shows that are part of the FanDuel podcast network. Thanks for tuning in. The twenty twenty NFL season is in full swing, and there's no easier way to get in on the action than with FanDuel's Gridiron.

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Speaker 2: Pick Them contest.

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Speaker 1: All you have to do is pick the winner of each week's matchups correctly, and you'll take home a share of the five thousand dollars weekly jackpot. The best part, it's completely free to enter for free visit playfree dot FanDuel dot com slash Gridiron Eligibility restrictions apply. Now let's get to this week's transactions. Add Chase Claypool. My goodness, my goodness, Chase Claypole. Now, look, guys, Claypool's not going to keep this up. He's scoring a touchdown on every five targets. During this NFL season. With so much scoring, NFL wide receivers have average a touchdown on every twenty or so targets, and according to ESPN Mike Clay's opportunity to Adjusted Touchdown Metric or OTD, Claypool has been the most fortunate touchdown scorer in all of the NFL, in the entire league. But like I said in my fifteen Transactions column, that's not really the point. We know the regression is going to come for Claypool. The bigger picture here is that Claypool is going to become an every down player for this Steelers offense, even with a healthy Deontay Johnson. Because by the way, Deontay Johnson left Sunday's game early with a back injury. That probably had something to do with this Claypole breakout. Not everything. Claypole balled out. He showed off his talent. He's a very good wide receiver, clearly, but Deontay Johnson not being on the field helped Chase Claypole be on the field more. And we've started to see Claypole on the field more and more since those Week one and Week two games. In those contests, he played no more than thirty seven percent of Pittsburgh snaps, but over the team's last two games, he's played no fewer than sixty nine percent of the team snaps. I'm not gonna say it. And that's coincided with the target share spike. He saw eleven point four percent of the team's targets in Week three, and then this past week after their bye, he had a thirty two percent target share. Now keep in mind Deontay Johnson also left that Week three game early, so when back to back games, now, Johnson has not been able to play a large number of the team snaps.

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Speaker 2: He's been hurt.

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Speaker 1: So you can make the argument that the reason we're seeing this Chase Claypool breakout is because of that.

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Speaker 2: But the breakout.

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Speaker 1: Wouldn't be this amazing and this incredible if not for Claypool's talent. So we're now seeing this talent. Once we've seen this talent, the Steelers are't gonna put this back in the garage. They're not gonna put him back on the bench and have him be a part time player splitting time with James Washington. So you need to add Claypool this week. And I do think that overall, Deontay Johnson, if he's healthy, he's gonna be fine. I've already talked about my worries with Juju Smith Schuster on this show this year. And then James Washington is the one who really hurts from this Claypool breakout. That's the player who's going to see fewer snaps because of Chase Claypool. But of course if Deontay Johnson misses time, then James Washington is in place. So maybe you want to add Washington this week too. By Clyde Edwards Hilaire. So many people were frustrated with CEH's past Sunday. I understand why he finally gets his plus matchup and he doesn't do a whole lot. He scored eleven PPR points and it was in a game with a lot of scoring. But guys, I still think he's a bye, which is what I talked about on the Mailbag episode last week. He still saw ninety one percent of Kansas City's running back rushes. He had a nineteen percent target share, and on the season, his running back rush share is eighty one percent and his target share is fourteen ten percent.

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Speaker 2: There's only one other running back in the entire NFL with those marks. His name is Ezekiel Elliott.

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Speaker 1: Like I get that you're disappointed with Clyde Edwards a layer's start. I totally understand. I have him in leagues, I get it, But this is not the time to give up on him, especially considering he was a penalty away from scoring a touchdown on Sunday, and if he scores that touchdown, the narrative is completely shifted. So go ahead and get Clyde Edwards a laire sell Mike Evans. Now, look, I talked about Mike Evans as a cell on last week's show. He comes out, he scores a touchdown, he has five catches, but he's still a cell right now, and the same logic from last week applies to this week.

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Speaker 2: Now, I get it.

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Speaker 1: He's essentially being used as like the goal line back for Tampa Bay. He has four goal line targets a season that's tied for the league lead. But six touchdowns on thirty five targets is not sustainable, and neither is six touchdowns on two hundred and seventy one yards. Now, Evans is going to see more touchdowns than the average player, but a player with that many yards would be expected to score fewer than two touchdowns. Mike Evans has six, and then there's the Chris Godwin factor. He's missed three games for the Bucks this year, and in those contests, Evans has averaged almost a twenty three percent target shair per game. With Chris Godwin that number drops to eleven point four percent. Like I said last week, I'm still expecting Evans to produce without cost associated with it. I would love to have Mike Evans on my fantasy team, but he's not going to maintain this pace of scoring touchdowns at Alexander Madison and Mike Boone. So Dalvin Cook hurt his groin on Sunday night against Seattle and that allowed Alexander Madison and Mike Boone to get a little bit more action in that Vikings offense. Madison saw the biggest leap. He had eighteen carries in the second half without Dalvin Cook, and he ran the ball efficiently. He finished the day with over one hundred yards on the ground, and then Mike Boone and saw a pair of carries as well. Now, entering Week five, Minnesota was the most run heavy team in the entire NFL.

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Speaker 2: In neutral game.

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Speaker 1: Scripts, they utilize their running backs, So if Dalvin Cook misses time, Madison will be very, very usable in fantasy football. But I do think that you should still be adding Mike Boone to just see what happens.

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Speaker 2: Drop AJ Green. So there was some hope earlier this season.

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Speaker 1: You guys might remember me talking about it on this very show, but there was some hope earlier this season that AJ Green was just on the wrong side of variants. That's why he was a hold or a bye earlier this season because all the numbers added up. All the numbers showed that AJ Green should regress positively. But at the same time, he was a hold because AJ Green didn't look like the old AJ Green. He's very unlikely going to be a dominant force in fantasy football ever. Again, he's averaged just a little over five PPR points per game, and he scored just one point three points over the last two weeks, and now he has a hamstring injury. Maybe eventually a change of scenery will help AJ Green. Maybe him going to another team will help, But I think that seems like a stretch, So I think you can go ahead and drop him. By Matthew Stafford. So I'm sure a lot of you listening to this have Dak Prescott on your fantasy team and now you're looking for a replacement. In the short term, that replacement could be Matthew Stafford. Now he's not throwing it deep as frequently as we saw last season where he led the entire league in deep all rate. Hopefully that turns around though, hopefully they start to throw the ball down the field more. But he's been solid enough. He has multiple passing touchdowns in each of his last three games, and on top of that, he hasn't had Kenny Galladay for parts of the season. But the main reason I'm talking about Stafford this week is because he can buy you some time. The Lions get Jacksonville in Atlanta over the next two weeks. Those two teams rank as two of the three best matchups for opposing quarterbacks in terms of adjusted Fantasy points against this year. There's a chance that Stafford is going to have season long value from here on out. A lot of people were high on Stafford entering the year, but at the very least he should come through in Week six and seven, sell Todd Gurley. So the only running back now to not have a big day against Carolina has been Kenyan Drake, of course, and he struggled all year long. The Panthers have now been the most advantageous matchup for opposing running backs this year. They've allowed nearly ten fantasy points more than they should have per game to opposing runners. So, in other words, teams facing the Panthers have seen an uptick of ten fantasy points scored versus their season long average. And that's what Todd Gurley experienced. In Week five, he had twenty five PPR points. His season long average entering that game was a little over thirteen. He now has back to back good weeks in fantasy, but keeping this pace is going to be difficult. He has a sixty seven and a half percent running back rush share on the year, which is fine fourteenth best among all running backs, but his target share is only six and a half percent that ranks fortieth among running backs. He's really gotten by on rushing touchdowns. He's averaging one rushing touchdown per game, but that's in one of the most pass heavy offenses in all football. That's what scares me. Atlanta has thrown seven touchdowns this year versus six rushing touchdowns. They have a pass to rush touchdown ratio that's well below average for such a pass friendly team. We would expect that number to favor the throw a little bit more than it does now. The running back position is weak overall, so Gurley can be an RB two from here on out. He's just played like an RB one over the last couple of weeks, so this could be a selling opportunity by Jamison Crowder. So, guys, the only reason I'm bringing up Jamison Crowder on this week's fifteen Transactions episode is because I don't think the market is caught up. I don't think the market is realizing what Jamison Crowder has done so far in twenty twenty. The fear here by the market is probably driven by the fact that the Jets offense sucks and Adam Gase is the coach of that team, and that's totally understandable. I don't want Jets players really either, But within this crappy environment, Crowders come through with three top twenty performances in three games played. Over these three games, his target shares have been thirty nine point four percent, twenty three point three percent, and thirty two point three percent. He's missed two games, but his target share is still twenty percent on the season. There aren't that many players in football with that high of a target shair and he's missed two games. So this is all a little bit subjective because I don't know exactly what the Crowder manager in your league feels about Jamison Crowder. I'm just judging by how he's ranked each and every week, and I brought this up in the Matchup Show last week. I don't think the market has realized how good Crowder has been. Ad Travis Fulgham and John high Toower. So this Folgham game kind of came out of nowhere. He had ten catches one hundred and fifty two yards against Pittsburgh in a thirty six point one percent target chair. He actually has pretty decent measurables overall. He doesn't have that bad of a profile, So maybe he's able to continue this, Maybe he's able to build off of this performance. It's not like Eagles pass catchers are healthy right now, so I would add Fulghum this week. But don't forget about John high Tower either. High Tower actually played more snaps than Fulghum in Week five. He just was only able to bring in two of his six targets for eighteen yards. But among all players in Week five, high Tower led all of them in air yards. He's a deep threat, he's fast, so in deeper leagues I would be adding John high Tower too, but I prefer Folgham by Deebo Samuel. So Samuel's now been back for two games and he hasn't ranked higher than wide receiver sixty in those two contests. In upcoming for San Francisco, they get the Rams and the Patriots. Oh and by the way, Jimmy Garoppolo did not look one hundred percent on They have quarterback questions in San Francisco two. So why would we be buying Deebo Samuel. Well, I think, first off, you can use all of those things when you're negotiating to try to get Deebo Samuel. You can explain that the upcoming schedule is rough, that Jimmy g isn't healthy, and if the team that has Deebo Samuel, if they only have one win, let's say, they might need to win right now, and that's gonna make it easier for them to sell debo. But this is definitely a longer term play. What we saw in week four is that he had a thirty four point two percent snapshare. He didn't see the ball a lot. But then in Week five that snapshare jumped to eighty nine percent and his target shair is about twenty three percent. He only scored four point two PPR points, but the peripherals were there for debo. Again, I would not be spending up. I wouldn't be giving a whole lot to get debo right now. But given the way he's performed, it's not a bad idea to look at your bench and throw some of those bench players to the debo manager to try to get him. Now, hold hayden Hurst. All right, guys, as we know, the tight end position, it's a dumpster fire. It's a dumpster fire every year, and that's no different here in twenty twenty. Haydenhurst has definitely been somewhat of a disappointment, but he's still a higher end tight end two in season long, despite two games with fewer than ten receiving yards. And the good news here is that his target share has not been horrible. It's fourteen percent in that pass heavy Atlanta offense, and he's hit the fifteen percent mark in three of his five games played. It was a rough outing in Week five, but he actually had his second highest target share of the season against Carolina, and according to Pro Football Focus, he now ranks in the top five and routes run at the tight end position, so I would still be holding Hayden Hurst. The peripherals are fine, sell Darryl Henderson, So raise your hand. I don't care where you are. Raise your hand. If you started Darryl Henderson in week four and then benched him in week five, yeah, I'm tilting too. He had four point eight PPR points two weeks ago, and in this past week, cam Akers comes back and Darryl Henderson has almost twenty two PPR points. He's now finished as a top twelve running back in three of his last four games, and look, I'll be honest. According to number five is expected points model, Darryl Henderson has been the best running back in that Rams backfield this year. The issue is that there's still a backfield split and there's no sign of that changing. Henderson has yet to play a single game with a snapshare above fifty percent, and when Sean McVay talked about cam Akers on Sunday after the game, he said, quote, expect his workload to increase next week.

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Speaker 2: Guys.

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Speaker 1: It's just a messy backfield. So if you have an opportunity to sell high, it's not a bad idea.

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Speaker 2: To explore that.

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Speaker 1: Ad or hold Kirk Cousins. So Kirk Cousins was pretty mediocre on Sunday Night and a plus matchup against Seattle. But the good news is some people are probably gonna drop him as a result. But I think that's a mistake because in Week six he gets Atlanta and as I mentioned earlier, the Falcons are one of the worst teams and adjusted Fantasy points allowed to opposing quarterbacks. They've allowed over six more points per game than their opponent's averages this year, So in a game with a fifty six and a half point over under according to Fandals Sportsbook, I think that Cousin works this week as a streamer. Add Andy Dalton. You could also look to Andy Dalton. Now that Dak Prescott's out, He's going to be available in almost all of leagues, and even though he doesn't have the same type of upside that Prescott does, Dalton's walking into a situation with some of the best weapons in football, probably the best weapons in football, and Dallas's schedule over the next three weeks. They get games against Arizona, Washington and Philadelphia. Those are three teams that rank in the bottom half of the league and adjusted fantasy points allowed to the quarterback position. Add the New York Giants defense. So just like last week, this week's defensive streamers kind of suck, but New York gets Washington has three point favorites in the game with a forty three and a half point over under, So their favorites and there's a low over under. Those are two boxes to check. New York's defense isn't great, but they do rank in the top half of the league in pressure rate and Washington has surrendered the highest sack rate in the entire NFL. So no matter who's under center for Washington, I think that New York is a good streaming option. The sixteen transaction this week that you can't get in my fifteen Transactions column over on number five dot.

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Speaker 2: Com is to hold Michael Gallup.

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Speaker 1: There were a number of people in my mentions on Sunday telling me that they were gonna just drop Michael Gallup after another down performance, And like guys, I get it. His highest target share in the season is just sixteen percent. He's only got a twelve percent target share overall, Sometimes this is talent related. If someone's not good, they're not going to see a lot of targets. Sometimes a lower target share could be due to scheme and changes within an offense. That could be the case, but sometimes it's also quarterback related. We don't know exactly how Andy Dalton is going to target as wide receivers, and in our limited sample on Sunday, for what it's worth, Michael Gallup saw three of Dalton's eleven targets. Now, I don't expect the Cowboys offense to get better without Dak Prescott, but I also think there's still some chance that Gallup sees a higher target share with the quarterback change.

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Speaker 2: Because that can happen.

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Speaker 1: So I'm definitely not out here trying to buy Michael Gallup given the start of his season. That's not worthwhile.

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Speaker 2: Do not do that.

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Speaker 1: I do think, though, you should do your best to hold on to him, especially with the aforementioned week schedule for Dallas that's upcoming. That's gonna know for today's show, though. Thanks to all of you for listening. If you get subscribed to the Late Round podcast, make sure you are by searching for it pretty much anywhere podcasts can be found you not forget to follow me on Twitter at late round QB. Thanks everyone, I'll talk to you tomorrow