321: 15 Transactions for Week 13

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Speaker 1: This is the Labor Podcast with your host JJ zacher Retha j.

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Speaker 2: Jake zacher reson What's up everyone.

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Speaker 1: It's JJ Zachariesen, the editor in chief at FanDuel and at Number five dot com. And this is episode three to two, one of the Late Round podcast, one of the many shows that are part of the FanDuel podcast network. Thanks for tuning in. So, like I said last week on the fifteen Transaction Show, this is about the time of year where things shift with the fifteen Transactions column and podcast. Since trade deadlines have passed, the waiver wire becomes more of a focus, as does whether or not you should drop certain players. But I do still talk through some buys and cells. I know you can't act on them, but they serve sort of as confidence ratings. If someone's a BUYE, then you should feel confident in that player, despite them maybe coming off a down game. If they're a cell, then you may need to be cautious in the Fantasy playoffs with that particular player. So hopefully that all makes sense now. Before digging into this this week's Transactions, I wanted to send another reminder about odds fire. I talked about this on last week's mailbag show, but odds Fire is a great resource for not just sports betting, but also fantasy football. You can quickly compare odds across bookmakers in the regulated US market if you're looking to shop odds, but you can also quickly get a look at line movement and where money is being bet, and that money information is courtesy of some first party FanDuel data. To check out the experience, head to oddsfire dot com. Gambling problem called one eight hundred gambler by Philip Lindsay. So the Broncos backfield has sort of been frustrating to read all season long. Philip Lindsay's been the consistent piece, but Royce Freeman's kind of gotten in his way. Royce Freeman's been usable at times this year too, but he's been someone who's really capped Philip Lindsay's upside. Now, fortunately for all of you, with Philip Lindsay, things have shifted in his favor quite a bit over the last two weeks.

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Speaker 2: Now.

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Speaker 1: His fantasy performances haven't really reflected this. He's ranked outside RB two territory in each of these two games, But you gotta look at his peripherals after seeing roughly fifty six percent at Denver's running back carries through their Week ten by Lindsey's averaged a seventy four percent running back rush share over his last two games. He had almost an eighty seven percent share in Week twelve. From week one through week ten, his highest single game snap share was just fifty six point two percent. Over his last two games, those numbers are sixty four percent and fifty four percent. Now, I've talked about this a lot over the last couple of weeks on this show, but the worry with the Broncos backfield is how involved they're going to be as pass catchers, because without Joe Flacco under center, they haven't been using Royce Freeman and Phillip Lindsay nearly as much as receivers. But the good news is this past week Philip Lindsay saw his target share at twelve and a half percent. That's by far as high as since Joe Flacco got hurt. So if all of this continues, I don't think that Philip Lindsay should have that much trouble producing in the Fantasy football playoffs, especially given their schedule. They get a struggling Houston defense in Week fourteen and then they get Kansas City in Detroit in weeks fifteen and sixteen. Each of those matchups are plus ones when you just for strength of opponent. Add Rashad Penny. Chris Carson has a fumbling problem, and that's opened things up quite a bit for Rashad Penny. The Seahawks featured Penny on Sunday. They gave him sixty three point six percent of the team's running back carries. That was easily a season high for him, and he looked good. He ran for one hundred and twenty nine yards in a touchdown. So I think that Rashad Penny is a priority off the waiver wire this week. Now things could shift very quickly back into Chris Carson's favor. All it takes is the coaching staff to say, we have faith in you, Chris Carson. But when it comes to the running back position in fantasy football, beggers can't be choosers. You got to just go for guys who look like they might see a path to some volume. Hold or sell James White. So hypothetically, the upcoming schedule for New England sets up pretty well for James White. They get Houston in Week thirteen they've given up the most running back receptions in the NFL this year, and then in Week fourteen they get Kansas City. The Chiefs are a ten team and running back receptions allowed, and they've given up the most fantasy points to running backs this season. So that's all good for James White. But Rex burke hads sort of been a problem since he returned from injury. Since Week eight, when he returned, White's seen his target share go from about twenty one percent to eleven percent. White's been below a ten percent target share in two of his four games played with Burkehead since burkeheads come back. Now, this could all mean nothing, because, as we know, Burkhead was healthy to start the season and during that time White's target share was fine. But if you're locked into a playoff spot, New England's games against Cincinnati and Buffalo in weeks fifteen and sixteen, they're not necessarily set up to be the best for James White. If this Burkhead correlation is real, then White could underperform when you need him the most, so you might want to find an alternative option. I really do think that the next couple of games are going to be very telling for James White hold Aaron Rodgers.

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Speaker 2: So it's really hard to believe.

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Speaker 1: But Aaron Rodgers has been a fringe QB one this year, and the way they he's accumulated these points has not been pretty at all. He has not been consistent whatsoever. He has eight performances where he's ranked nineteenth or worse in weekly Fantasy scoring. Really, the reason his points per game average is still in the top twelve is because he went off against Oakland. He had a near forty four point outing against the Raiders. Now I usually hate when analysts do this, but bear with me here. If you take away that game, Rodgers is averaging fifteen point three Fantasy points per game. That's worse than Daniel Jones. But I don't think it's time to just drop Aaron Rodgers. The Packers have faced a pretty tough schedule. Aaron Rodgers right now in points per game is QB eleven, but when you adjust that for strength of opponent, he's about QB ten, almost QB eight, so he's slightly better than his current ranking. And over the next two weeks they get the Giants and then they get Washington. Those are two teams that rank in the bottom half of the league and schedule adjusted points allowed to the quarterback position.

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Speaker 2: Now, with that being said, you might not want to buy into Aaron.

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Speaker 1: Rodgers because he does get Chicago and Minnesota during the final time two weeks of the fantasy season. Chicago's a tough matchup. Minnesota on paper isn't. But I'm always wary of divisional matchups. Drop Josh Gordon. I love Josh Gordon. I want Josh Gordon to succeed, but I don't think he's gonna help your fantasy football team right now, or at least the probability of him helping you win a fantasy championship is pretty low. He only played about a third of Seattle snaps on Sunday, and he's now seen fewer than ten percent of Seattle's targets in each of the last two games. Even if he has a big performance, and hopefully he does, but even if he has a big performance, from now until the end of the year, you're likely not gonna feel confident enough to even play him. So I think that you can drop him. Add Lashan McCoy and Darryl Williams. So at the time in this recording, we don't know a whole lot about what's going on with Damian Williams and his ribs. The last time we saw the Chiefs, Williams exited the game with an injury to his ribs. Because Damian Williams was playing over seventy percent of Kansas City snaps in the two games prior to this injury, Lashaw McCoy and Darryl Williams should be added off the waiver wire. So Sean McCoy might not be on your wire, but Daryl Williams probably is. I would prioritize McCoy, but don't be afraid of adding Daryl Williams either, because we know McCoy has struggled with injuries this year too.

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Speaker 2: Hold Jacob Hollister.

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Speaker 1: The Seahawks offense kind of sucked in Week twelve, and Jacob Hollister didn't really perform as a result either. But the tight end group for Seattle is banged up and Hollister was still able to get seventeen point four percent of the team's targets on Sunday. That gave him a double digit percentage share in his fifth straight game. That's tough to find at the tight end position, and all the while Seattle's targeting their tight ends at an above average rate across the league, and guys. In Week sixteen Fantasy Football Championship Week, the Seahawks get the Cardinals. As we know, no team is allowing more tight end fantasy points this year than the Arizona Cardinals, and it's not even close. So hold on to Jacob Hollister and Adam if he's still on your waiver wire, add aj Brown. So every time Davis has a good fantasy performance at least this season, I've sold him on this fifteen Transactions podcast. And it's because Tennessee's offense is a run heavy offense, so even a nice target share in that offense doesn't do.

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Speaker 2: A whole lot from a volume standpoint.

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Speaker 1: But I do think that adding AJ Brown right now isn't a terrible idea. He's actually seen a twenty two percent target share over his last five games, and those five games just happened to overlap with when Ryan Tannehill became the starter of this team, And across those five games, AJ Brown's actually gone below an eighteen point nine percent target share just once. And Tennessee has good matchups against Oakland and Houston in weeks fourteen and fifteen, team wide receivers against the Raiders have scored four point two points above their season long average, while wideouts against the Texans have scored three more points above their average. Those are some of the most favorable matchups in the league, so I think that AJ Brown could hypothetically be usable in those spots. Add Ryan Tannehill. So I just mentioned that AJ Brown has those favorable matchups, and naturally so does Ryan Tannehill. But here's something that's pretty crazy with Tannehill. Since Week seven, when he became starter, only one quarterback has averaged more Fantasy points per game than Ryan Tannehill. His name is Lamar Jackson.

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Speaker 2: That's it. Now. Some of this has to do with his rushing touchdowns.

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Speaker 1: Ryan Tannehill has three rushing touchdowns during this time, but we know that that's part of his game. We know that's part of how he's historically accumulated Fantasy points. Over his last three games, he has thirty eight, thirty seven and forty rushing yards. Ryan Tannehill is an athletic quarterback. I don't think he's gonna maintain a QB two pace from here on out, but I do think that Ryan Tannehill can be a top ten quarterback in these plus matchups entering the fantasy playoffs, so he should be on your radars and add.

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Speaker 2: This week by Josh Jacobs.

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Speaker 1: It was a really tough day for Josh Jacobs and really the entire Raiders offense against New York. We know that the Jets can stop the run, but even still, Jacob's underperformed. He only saw fifty two point six percent of the Raiders running back rushes and he only had a three percent target share. Across the season, he's seen seventy two point eight percent of the team's running back rushes in a seven and a half percent target share, and those numbers were trending in the right direction prior to that game against New York. Before Week twelve, he had seen at least ten percent of Oakland's targets and consecutive games to go along with an eighty one percent running back rush chare. He was seeing a lot of work in that offense. So once the Raiders' game scripts returned to normal, which would happened this week, which had happened moving forward, Josh Jacobs is going to be usable again in fantasy football, and they get matchups against the Chiefs, Titans, Jags, and Chargers to close out the fantasy season. Those are teams that are giving up bottom half of the league production to the running back position when adjusted for strength of opponent. So Josh Jacobs should put up really good numbers for year. Fantasy team down the stretch. Add Benny Snell. So the Steelers decided to feature Benny Snell on Sunday. He was returned from injury instead of Jalen Samuels. If you watch Jalen Samuels this year, then you would understand why I actually talked about this on my Facebook live on Sunday that you guys could catch over on the FanDuel Facebook page. I was worried that Benny Snell was going to dig into Jalen Samuel's workload, and Benny Snell essentially just took over that backfield. His running back rush share was sixty seven point seven percent. He had twenty one carries in that game versus the ten that went to all other Pittsburgh running backs. Considering James Connor hasn't been able to stay healthy, Benny Snell should be added off the waiver wire. Hold Noah Fan So Noah Fan didn't have a great performance on Sunday against Buffalo, but Buffalo has been a team that's been good against tight ends over the last couple of years. But he was held to just three catches for fourteen yards. But the good news is he still saw a large percentage of the team's targets, and that's been a trend, as I've talked about, since wide receiver Emmanuel Sanders left the team. Since Sanders went to San Francisco, Fans had a twenty five percent target share this Denver offense, and he's yet to finish a game with a target shair below twenty percent. It's impossible to find that number off the waiver wire, not just at the tight end position, but almost any position. So don't drop no offense after a bad game. Add Sam Donald. We've now seen Sam Donald put together three straight Top ten performances where he scored at least twenty one point seven Fantasy points in every single game. The matchups were good. Sure, he faced the Giants, he faced Washington, he faced Oakland. But things aren't gonna get that much tougher moving forward, at least over the next two weeks. In Week thirteen, they get the Bengals. In Week fourteen, they get the Dolphins. Those are two plus matchups for fantasy quarterbacks. Now you're gonna have a hard time trusting Donald in the Jets offense in weeks fifteen and sixteen because they're facing Baltimore and Pittsburgh. But until then, just ride Sam Donald. Add the Carolina Panthers defense. So if you need a defense specifically for Week thirteen, then Carolina is a very very easy choice. They're rostered in just thirty three percent of Yahoo leagues and they're getting Washington this week. In Carolina, they're nine and a half point favorites according to Fandals Sportsbook. And on the year, Washington's been sacked at the fourth highest rate in the league. As a starter, Dwayne Haskins is averaging over four sacks per game. And then all the while Carolina is generating pressure at an above average rate and they've sacked quarterbacks at the second highest rate in football. There could be a lot of sacks for this Carolina defense on Sunday.

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Speaker 2: Add the Green Bay Packers defense.

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Speaker 1: If you need a defense that's gonna be helpful for multiple weeks, then you could look at Green Bay. As I talked about with Aaron Rodgers earlier. They have a couple of cake matchups upcoming. They get New York, they get the Giants, and then they get Washington. Those are two of the top six best matchups for a fantasy defense when looking at schedule adjusted fantasy points allowed. The Packers only rostered in twenty four percent of Yahoo leagues. They should be available. The sixteenth transaction that you can't get in my fifteen transactions call him over on number fire dot com this week is to drop Kaylin Bilage. I talked about selling Bilage last week, and this is more or less the same transaction, except we have more data and information that tells us that he's really bad. Bilage is apparently going to remain the starter on that team, but he saw his running back rush share dip to just fifty percent this past week after it was well above eighty percent the previous two weeks, and he barely saw any work as a receiver on Sunday, and that all correlates with his snap rate. After hitting an eighty two percent and seventy seven percent snap rate over his previous two games, Bilage's snapshare was just thirty eight percent in Week twelve, so you've got a part time player in an undesirable situation, this is an easy drop, and if you want to add one of the other backs that are on Miami, feel free. I just don't feel good enough about that situation, so I'm not sure if they'll even be startworthy. But in a deep enough league, you can add another Miami back to see if they have more upside than Kaylin Bilage, who has literally the row upside.

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Speaker 2: That's going to do it for today's show, though. Thanks to all of you for listening.

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Speaker 1: If you've get to subscribe to the Late Round podcast, make sure you are by searching for it pretty much anywhere podcasts can be found, and don't forget to follow me on Twitter at Late Round QB. Thanks everyone, talk to you tomorrow with the weekly ten Trend Show.