437: Week 8 Matchups

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Speaker 1: This is the Late Round Podcast with with your host JJ zacher Retha j J zacher reson What's up everyone. It's JJ Zacharyes and the editor in chief at fandel and at number fire dot com. And this is episode four hundred and thirty seven of the Late Round podcast on the many shows that are part of the FanDuel podcast Network. Thanks for tuning in. Quarterback was strong on last week's show. I talked up Joe Burrow and Baker Mayfield and both came through with strong performances. Teddy Bridgewater was fine too. I really liked Antonio Gibson he balled out, but I did miss on Joshua Kelly as sort of a deeper player of flex play. And then at wide receiver, I was right to like t Higgins. Christian Kirk came through, but I missed on Juju Smith Schuster. That was one of those scenarios where would be great if he did well, but he was too tough to trust given the evidence from this season. At least if you've got Juju, you know that he's not dead yet. So a solid week. Let's move on Week eight. Before doing so, though, I wanted to remind you guys, to check out this week's FanDuel Podcast Network Listener League. Like every week, it's a five dollars three max entry contest that's completely rake free, so you can spend up to fifteen dollars on three lineups and not have to pay any rake. This week there's fifteen hundred dollars up for grabs. For more, visit FanDuel dot Com Slash League Slash Listener League. Eligibility restrictions apply. One streaming option this week is a guy that I talked about on the fifteen Transaction Show earlier in the week, but that's Jimmy Garoppolo. The Seahawks have been the second best matchup for opposing quarterbacks this year when looking at adjusted Fantasy points allowed, and they've now allowed a top twelve QB one performance in all but one matchup this season. That one matchup was Kirk Cousins in Week five. He's the only quarterback who scored fewer points against the Seahawks than his season long average, and it was by less than a point. This game is a pretty high fifty three point over under two. Jimmy seems to be undervalued right now, according to the consensus. You could also look at two quarterbacks from the same game this week, and that game is the Raiders and Browns. Of course, I like the quarterbacks and like the Titans and Bengals game more, but Derek Carr and Baker Mayfield are reasonable streaming options, reason one being that it's projected to be a fairly high scoring game. There's a fifty two and a half point over under over on Fandaled sportsbook. But let's look specifically at Carr. Like I mentioned in the fifteen Transaction Show, Carr's probably been better than you realize this year. He's a high end QB two in points per game, and his range of points scored has been thirteen point six in Week one to about twenty four and Week five, so he's had a decent floor ceiling combo. He's scored an average of twenty points per game since facing the Panthers in that Week one contest. Now he gets the Browns. I already mentioned that the game's over under is fairly high, but Cleveland's also been the third most advantageous matchup for quarterbacks in terms of adjusted Fantasy points allowed. So Carr absolutely worked this week and then with Mayfield, as I noted on the ten trend show there is regression coming. It'll come across the rest of the season. He won't maintain his seven point six percent touchdown rate more than likely. That alone doesn't make him a bad play this week, though, the game environment and the scoring environment should be favorable and light. Carr Mayfield's got a good matchup against Vegas because they rank as the eighth best matchup for opposing quarterbacks, so I like both of those guys as streamers. Now, on the flip side of things, I'm really worried about Ben Roethlisberger this week. The Ravens have been pretty average against quarterbacks this year when adjusted for strength of opponent, but they're also coming off of their by that's a little bit scary. The Steelers have been good at limiting pressure this year on Ben Roethlisberger, but they haven't been tested like Baltimore can test them. Baltimore has been pressuring quarterbacks at the second highest rate in the league. Pittsburgh is the only team with a higher pressure rate, so there is some worry there. I would be fine playing the streamers over Big Ben this week. We've got a revenge game, folks. Le'Veon Bell is facing his old Jets team, and I'm here for it. I'm here to throw out all the numbers driven analysis and say that Bell is going to go ham against his old team this week. In all seriousness, though it's a good spot for Bell. The Chiefs were almost twenty point favorites against the Jets right now according to Fandals Sportsbook, so we'll see a positive game script more than likely for this Chiefs offense. The Jets are a favorable matchup, and with Bell and Ceh not having extremely different peripheral numbers last week where Bell had just two fewer carries and ran just four fewer routes, I don't think he's a bad play this week as an RB two type now in that same game as Lemichael p Ryan. P Ryan saw a fifty percent running back rush share this past week to go along with a thirteen point seven percent target share. That was an increase of about seventeen percent in running back rush share and six percent in target share week over week. Considering Frank Gore didn't even see a single target last week, he Ryan is likely to be on the field a lot in a negative game script against Kansas City. He's gonna be the team's primary pass catching back. I think that aspect of his game makes him an intriguing play. I want to take a second to day and talk about Ronald Jones versus Leonard Fournette. Right now, they're both top twenty five options on Fantasy Pros, but Fournett is almost ten spots below Rojo. But I don't think there should be that big of a difference in PPR formats. Like I said on the ten Trend show, Fournette was used as the receiving back this past week. The Bucks should have a positive game script against the Giants, sure, but the difference in ground game work wasn't that significant between Jones and Fournette this past week, with a fifty four percent to forty six percent running back rushher split. I'm also nervous that this game gets out of hand and that Fournett will be the closer. We've seen that this season already, so I'd have the two closer. I'm a little bit higher on Fournette and lower on Rojo this week. Now. Another player that I'm a little bit lower on versus the consensus is Jake Dobbins. I know mark Ingram is banged up, and I'm excited for Dobbins too. We should be excited for Dobbins. He's a really good prospect. My hesitation is at number one. Gus Edwards saw a lot of work. The last time that we saw the Ravens. He had half of the team's running back rushes, and Dobbins had a thirty two percent share. Dobbins is the pass catcher between these two guys, but Pittsburgh's been pretty good at limiting running back receptions. They've allowed the least receptions to that position all season long in the NFL. We know the Steelers can stop the run well too, so I view him Moore as a lower end RB three rather than the higher end one or a mid range one that people are currently ranking him as. Chris Godwin is out this week, which means Mike Evans is definitely in play. I mentioned the splits earlier this week with and without Godwin, but without Godwin this year, Evans has averaged over twenty one PPR points per game and a twenty two point eight percent target share per game. With Godwin, it's a fourteen pe You're a point per game drop. He gets the Giants this week, which means James Bradbury and James Bradbury's been great this year, but what I'm intrigued by is that Evans played over sixty percent of his snaps from the slot against Vegas this past week. Bradbury's only played twenty two snaps from that area of the field this year, according to Pro Football Focus. So I would start Evans this week despite these recent performances. I don't know if any of you were on the fence, but I figured I would mention it. I wouldn't be spooked by Marquis Brown this week either. You see what I did there. This is apparently a Halloween theme show. But Brown has a twenty six percent target share on the season. That's great, and we know he's a big play threat. He's seen seventeen targets of fifteen or more air yards this year, which is the sixth highest in the league, and he's already had his buy well. Not only are the Steelers a better matchup than most would think, having allowed the third most adjusted fantasy points to the wide receiver position, but they've also given up the third most receptions on balls that traveled fifteen or more air yards. So to me, is actually a pretty good option. I also like Rishard Higgins a lot this week, who I talked up on the fifteen Transactions episode. He had six catches for one hundred and ten yards in a relief of Obi Jane as torn acl and he accounted for twenty one percent of Cleveland's targets. Now he gets a plus matchup against Vegas in a game with a strong over under. So I like Higgins a lot, and I still think he's gonna surprise some people with how productive he can be without OBJ. No team has seen a higher percentage of the targets that they face go to the slot this year than the New England Patriots. So enter Cole Beasley, who's seen twenty eight percent and twenty nine point three percent of Buffalo's targets over the last two weeks. John Brown's being banged up can't help, but don't sleep on Beasley just because New England's a super tough matchup. The matchup within the matchup shows that Beasley should give you a decent floor this week. Now, on the other side of things, Mike Williams is a decent enough matchup this week, and we know he's got the ability to make a splash player two, so he has decent upside every single week, but that doesn't mean that he should be ranked as a locked in wide receiver three, which he currently is. The only game where Williams actually did anything in fantasy this year was in that Week five game against the Saints, where he saw twenty five percent of the team's targets and he had one hundred and nine receiving yards and two touchdowns. Otherwise, he's been the wide receiver thirty eight, the wide receiver one oh four, ninety nine, and ninety five in weekly scoring. And keep in mind in that Saints game, Keenan Allen left early. I just don't know how you can confidently play him ahead of someone like Hollywood Brown. That doesn't make that much sense to me. Anything can happen, but Brown is a much better play in my eyes. And then there's Darius Slayton. The matchup against Tampa Bay is below average, and I've got a little bit of fear with Slayton given Sterling Shepherds back in the mix. Last week, Slayton saw his target share drop below fourteen percent for the first time all season. During the four weeks without Sterling Shepherd, Slayton averaged the target share of twenty five and a half percent with Shepard this year. That year has been under eighteen percent. I know Slayton's matchup wasn't great last week, but I'm not all that in love with the situation right now. Richard Rodgers is absolutely in play this week once again. He saw nineteen and a half percent of Phillies targets last week with both Zachertz and Dallas Goddard out of the lineup, and he ran thirty one routes. He saw all but one of the team's tight end targets in a plus matchup this week. He's a super solid streamer, as is Harris and Bryant. Bryant ran ahead of David and Joku in Week seven with a routes run total of seventeen to twelve, and he played more snaps too. He had a seventeen point nine percent target share As a result. It sounds like Austin Hooper could be out again this week, and if that happens, Bryant is a strong option. I'm only gonna mention the Chargers is a defense this week because they're still available in a whole bunch of Yahoo leagues, but they're facing the Broncos a team with number one, one of the lower implied team totals of the week, and number two the team that's allowed the second most adjusted Fantasy points to opposing defenses. They've been pressured at a much higher than average rate this year, too, so I would expect there to be a nice floor for sacks from the Chargers D and the defense that I mentioned in the fifteen Transaction show is the Tennessee Titans, and they definitely work as a streamer this week. I know the over under in that game against Cincinnati is high or relatively high, but the Bengals have allowed one of the highest sack rates in the league and they're tied with Philly for having allowed the most sacks. Tennessee hasn't been that great at getting to opposing quarterbacks this year, but they should be able to get to Joe Burrow a couple of times in this matchup. If they end up seeing the positive game script that they're projected to see defensively, that's going to do it for today's show, though. Thanks to all of you for listening. If you've get subscribed to the Late Round podcast, make sure you are by searching for it pretty much anywhere. Podcasts can be found you know forgets. Follow me on Twitter at late round QB. Thanks everyone, I'll talk to you tomorrow with the Weekly Mailback Show