802: 15 Transactions for Week 3

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Speaker 1: This is the lad Podcast with your host JJ zacher rethas j je Zacherson. What's up everyone, It's JJ zachar Esen in this episode eight hundred and two of the Late Round Fantasy Football podcast sponsored by FanDuel. Thanks for tuning in. Before we get into this week's transactions, remember to check out the Late Round Fantasy Football Patreon. When you're a patron, you get access to multiple livestream q and as with me. Each week you get weekly rankings, rest of season rankings, and tears and more. You can learn more about it over on lateround dot com. Now let's get to these transactions. Hold DeAndre Swift. So with this fifteen transactions list each week, I don't have conviction about every single transaction I'm talking about. Sometimes I just have to talk about the big storylines. And one of the big storylines right now has to do with DeAndre Swift. So I'm sure if I didn't talk about DeAndre Swift, a lot of you would become at me saying what's your take on Swift? So let's get to it. DeAndre Swiss a very polarizing player. After that game this past week, I said an objective tweet about his workload against Minnesota, and the response to that tweet was very divided. One group was really excited about his twenty seven point performance. The other group was skeptical. Now, it's easy to understand the anti DeAndre Swift movement. He's burned a lot of fantasy managers in the past. He's had a hard time staying healthy, and you have to wonder why Detroit did what they did with him. That's why recommending one direction or the other is tough for a player like Swift. Here's the thing, though, the team with Swift in your league probably is not in a hurry to sell. They drafted him because they liked him as a player. They probably like him even more now and in the leagues where I personally have him. The only way that I trade him away right now is if there's a one sided offer sitting on the table, because there's a lot of baggage with there Swift, and that brings down his trade value now. Against Minnesota in Week two, he ended up seeing about seventy eight percent of the team's running back rushes and a thirteen point six percent target share. For some context, Miles Sanders last season with Philadelphia, he hit a seventy percent running back rush share in a ten percent target share just once in just one game. And no, it's not because Philadelphia runs some unique backfield committee guys. Almost every backfield in the NFL as a committee at this point. What Philadelphia does with their running backs not necessarily super unique. In fact, last season, Miles Sanders had the sixth highest running back rush share per game rate in all of football. He was seventeenth in snapshare. The Eagles backfield really wasn't any more of a committee than another random backfield in the league. The Eagles backfield was just more mediocre in fantasy because number one Jalen Hurtsch was stealing some goal line work and he was scoring touchdowns, and number two they didn't target running backs out of the backfield that much. Those are the two big questions with DeAndre Swift. Still, that's what scares me the most moving forward. To me, if you want to look at this as a committee, I think DeAndre Swift and what he did in Week two, he's now the one A in that backfield. He's above Kenneth Gainwell. I understand Gainwell was hurt, but sometimes this happens. A good performance can knock off an injured player. You can't put a one hundred and seventy five yard rushing performance back in the garage on a competitive team. And it's not like Swift saw one hundred percent of the team's running back rushes. He can be in that sixty to eighty percent range moving forward, allowing Gainwell to still get some run. But again, will that thirteen point six percent target chair maintain? Will Jalen Hurt stop scoring so many goal line touchdowns? Those are big question marks for Swift and that's why Swift probably doesn't have a top ten ceiling rest of season as a result. You know, just last season, Miles Sanders scored eleven times on the ground. He was the RB twenty two and PPR points per game with eleven touchdowns. Now, Swift is a more dynamic player and pass catcher, but that just goes to show how this situation isn't necessarily ideal. This is what happens when you have an effective mobile quarterback. Now, with all that being said, I don't think anyone's expecting DeAndre Swift to be a top ten back rest of season. If someone's trying to sell him that way, then no, you should not be buying him that way. To me, he's looking like a solid RB two. So you just have to ask yourself, does the Swift manager in your league? Does the Swift manager see it that way, or does the Swift manager truly think that he's an RB one, Because I would be selling the idea of him being an RB one. I would be buying the idea of him being a solid RB two. And if you have Swift on your roster, unless you're getting a really really good deal, I'd probably just hold him. That's at least what I'm doing ad zachm So, I think it's important to recognize that all of the content that I produced sort of works off of one another. Before week one, Roshawn Johnson, he was an AD within this fifteen transactions list. Then he had a good performance that week, but there wasn't any need for me to recommend him in week two because I had already recommended him in week one. Now, every now and again, I'm gonna reemphasize a certain point, but I'm not gonna repeat transactions because I want to give you as much relevant information as I possibly can. Meanwhile, Zack Moss, he wasn't featured on last week's fifteen Transaction show. But he was featured on the Sleeper show, so hopefully you were still able to get him and get something out of him in week two. And yeah, I know that it sounds like I'm back padding right now, so I'll just say this. I said that Mike Evans was a cell last week. Your boy takes plenty of l's too. But let's talk about Zach Moss in week two. He didn't just see every single running back carry for Indianapolis. He saw every single running back snap. That is not normal, that's not normal usage. But that's what happens when you have as bad of a performance as Dion Jackson had in Week one that led to twenty point seven PPR points. Zach Moss was an RB one in week two. Now, I think we all expect Jonathan Taylor to be back at some point, I guess, but even still, Moss needs to be rostered everywhere. Given his usage in week two. Sell Jordan Love. Now, I totally understand if you can't trade away quarterbacks in your league, but I do feel this need to talk about Jordan Love in his start through Sunday Night's game. Love is Fantasy Football's QB two, only Kirk Cousins has scored more standard points than Jordan Freaking Love. The problem is the underlying metrics for Love are not nearly as good. According to next Gen Stats, only Justin Fields has a worst completion percentage ever expected to start the year. Love's expected points added per dropback. That's looking good, but especially in a small sample that can be driven by big plays, it can be skewed by big plays. His success rate, which measures the percentage of plays that are positive and expected points added, his success rates below average, and then all the while Green Bay has seven total touchdowns on offense to start the year. Six of those touchdowns against mediocre defenses have come through the air, which means only one has come on the ground. That's a ratio that's not gonna be sustained throughout the season. It's rarely sustained. Now. The Packers do have a pretty favorable passing schedule for the rest of the year, so Love might be okay enough in fantasy. I'm not saying that he's gonna just disappear and not be relevant. What I am saying is he's playing over his head right now, at least from a fantasy perspective, and I wanted to call that out add Matt Brida. So Saquon Barkley suffered an ankle injury and Sundays went over the Cardinals, and that ailment's gonna sideline them. Matt Brida is next in line for the Giants, or at least that's what we think truthful. I think this is going to be a committee like more so than the average backfield. We could see Brida get the most work, maybe be that one A in the offense, but Gary Brightwell and Eric Gray are there too. And it doesn't help that this week the Giants get San Francisco. It's not a great matchup, although it is a revenge game for Matt Brida. We'll have to see how long Saquon Barkley's out at the time of this recording. I'm not totally sure, but I wouldn't go nuts. Adding Breed off the wire this week by Josh Jacobs. Jacobs hasn't had the best start to a season. He's failed to score double digit PPR points in both of his contests this year. He hit double digit PPR points in twelve of seventeen games last year. Now, if the Jacobs manager isn't doing that well, it could be time to pounce because even though the production hasn't been stellar, the usage has been Only Jacobs, Saquon Barkley and Christian McCaffrey have been able to hit an eighty percent running back rush air in a fifteen percent target share through two games. And there's no nothing scary at all about the Raiders' upcoming schedule, So you've got to trust the volume and I would trade for Josh Jacobs as a result. Ad Tank Dell. So another player featured on The Sleeper Show this past week was rookie Tank Dell, and he delivered in Week two. Houston's been a lot more pass heavy to start the year than many expected, but that's gonna happen when you run the most plays while trailing in the entire league. And they get the Jags next week too, so we shouldn't expect things to change. They're nine and a half point underdogs now. Nico Collins has been the stud in that offense so far this year, but Dell took advantage of that Noah Brown injury in Week two. He had a twenty three percent target share. He ended up scoring over twenty PPR points And here's the thing that I was most impressed by. Tank Dell's a one hundred and sixty five pound wide receiver. A lot of people thought that he would just simply play the slot in the NFL. In Week two, he only played nineteen percent of his snaps from the slot. That's according to next Gen Stats, So he did well on the outside. That's a big, big win. As I've been saying already this year, when a rookie has a strong performance, you don't want to be conservative with your approach on the waiver wire. So go ahead and get Tank Dell sell Gus Edwards. So without JK. Dobbins in Week two, we got a glimpse of what this Ravens backfield is going to look like. And I'd say it was pretty predictable. Justice Hill and Gus Edwards predictably split that backfield. Edwards was the one who scored the touchdown, giving him the stronger day in fantasy. Now. The reason I'm not bullish on Edwards moving forward is because, in a pretty nice script for Baltimore, when they were leading by ten points in the third quarter, Justice Hill still ended up out snapping Edwards thirty eight to thirty two, and that's a big deal because if the Ravens hit a different script, if they're trailing in a game, we should probably expect Hill to be on the field then too. In Week two, Hill ran eighteen routes to Edwards eight. He saw retargets Gus Edwards had zero. If the strong game scripts or the decent game scripts are still gonna favor Justice Hill like we saw in week two, then he's clearly the back that you won out of this backfield, because when a negative game script hits, it's still gonna be Justice Hill, and it's gonna be more lopsided in Hill's favor, more than likely by Breesehall. So we saw this Jets offense without Aaron Rodgers once again in week two, and it was against the Cowboys, one of the toughest matchups you can find. As we all thought, the Jets offense, it wasn't very successful and the run game in particular was absolute trash. The team's running backs had ten carries for twenty four yards, and unfortunately they used three backs. They used Breeshall, Dalvin Cook, and Michael Carter. Each of those players played a similar number of snaps. Breeshall had fifteen Dalvin Cook had sixteen and Michael Carter had fifteen. So as a result of everything I just said, I totally understand if you want to skip the transaction. I understand if you don't want to go the direction of buying Breese Hall because it's definitely a risky move. But I want talent on my fantasy rosters. That's why I'm recommending him right now because Breese Hall undeniably has that talent. We saw what he did against the Bills in Week one and before getting injured. In twenty twenty two, Breese Hall led all relevant running backs in yard after contact per attempt. The dude was trending last year to be an absolute stud in fantasy. Now, of course, the usage side of things definitely scary. Here a three headed monster in a bad offense. That's not what you want to buy into. But rational coaching says that this backfield snap share is not going to stay this way for the rest of the season. If the Jets really want to win football games, they need to use Breese hallmore, period, and Hall's going to get healthier hopefully as the season moves forward. He's the best back in this backfield. You look at him versus Dalvin Cook. Not only with the eye test, but with metrics, there's a clear difference. There's already a sizeable gap and success rate between the two. So I would buy low after week two. Again, I understand there's a lot of risk in doing that. If you'd rather not take that on, totally understandable. There are some rosters where I'm not gonna want to take it on, But I do think that there's a possibility that this is the cheapest that Breese Hall is gonna be all year. Add Craig Reynolds. David Montgomery has what's being called a quad injury. It may take a couple of weeks for him to heal. That's gonna give rookie Jumior Gibbs a big, big boost. But as we know, the Lions like to divvy up that backfield, and Gibbs doesn't profile to be a workhorse back. He's a receiving threat. Craig Reynolds is next in line to get some reps. He was the only other running back outside of Gibson Montgomery to see a snap on Sunday for Detroit, and he carried the ball three times for seven yards. I don't think this is going to be a long term thing, though, so don't go over spending on Reynolds. He's just a five though for running back needy teams, and the Lions get the Falcons here in week three, add Josh Reynolds. Apparently, if your last name's Reynolds and you play for the Lions, you're gonna be added off the waiver wire this week. Josh Reynolds finished Week one with seven more routes run than teammate Marvin Jones, and he had a twenty one point nine percent target share. And week two against Seattle, Reynolds ran eight more routes than Marvin Jones and he had six targets to Jones zero. Reynolds is Detroit's number two wide receiver as long as Jamison Williams's sidelined, and with a game against a beatable Falcons defense this weekend, Josh Reynolds might be able to find your starting lineup by Jackson Smith and Jigba. So all these peripheral numbers that I'm citing each week on this show, they could be predictive, That's why I'm talking about them, but they're not always super static, especially with rookies like take Marvin Mims, for instance, Marvin Mims had this huge, huge Week two outing. He made some big plays, but his peripheral numbers were not nearly as good as you might think. He only ran five routes in that contest at this time, that kind of route run number that's not bankable week in and week out. But that doesn't mean that Marvin Mim should just be left alone. He's just not being featured today because I already talked about him before week one. But I'm bringing him up because the exact same thing, to a lesser degree, can be said about Jackson Smith and Jigba. Jsn's peripheral numbers are not amazing. He played just fifty four percent of Seattle snaps in week two. Tyler Lockett and DK Metcalf were over eighty two percent. But even with that limitation, Smith and Jigba has eleven targets on the year, Tyler Lockett has fourteen, and DK Metcalf also has eleven. Now we may not see JSN pass up DK Metcalf or Tyler Lockett on the depth chart this year. That might not happen. It's in his range of outcomes, but it's not a lock. This is not a situation like Jordan Addison versus KJSSN, where Osbourne's playing ahead of Addison right now. But that's almost definitely not going to maintain. This could actually maintain. But the thing that gets lost in these discussions is contingent upside. Smith and Jigba has standalone value right now. Like I said, he's seen eleven targets through two games, but he has plenty of outs. Not only can he just outplay expectation, but he can also see an uptick and work if there's an injury to Tyler Lockett or DK Metcalf. Not many talented wide receivers in the NFL are positioned like this where there's not just one injury out, but there's two of them. So because he does have that usable floor right now, because he is usable in some way, I would love to have that floor ceiling combo on my roster, and right now you can still buy him low ad Jerome Ford Nick Chubb hurt his knee in a really grewsome way on Monday night and that led to a big workload for Jerome Ford. He ended up running the ball sixteen times for over one hundred yards. Now we should assume that the Browns are going to go out this week and get another running back, but there aren't many options out there that are better than Ford unless they do something like trade for Cam Akers, which is always possible. But that does make me feel like Ford will at least be the top player in this backfield moving forward, and he showed up on Monday night. He had a reasonable forty four percent success rate. Now, I wouldn't bet on Ford being a full blown bell cow in that offense. He's not going to carry Nick Chubb's workload, but he should have plenty of fantasy value moving forward, add Tony Jones and Kendre Miller. Jamal Williams was also hurt on Monday night, but fortunately his injury wasn't as bad as Nick Chubbs, but he still didn't get a lot of playing time. Instead, it was Tony Jones, the team's four string running back, who ended up with a Jerome Bettis like line, carrying the ball twelve times for thirty four yards and two touchdowns. Now, at the time of this recording, there's not enough information for me to know whether or not Jamal Williams is going to go. If he doesn't go, Jones could see double digit touches once again. But also don't forget about rookie Kendre Miller. He's been sidelined, but he could suit up next week after dealing with his hamstring issue. This is just one of those situations where we have to keep up with the news sell James Connor. So as long as James Connor's healthy, the usage is probably gonna be there. But that's obviously a question mark. He's never played a full sixteen or seventeen game season in the NFL. His usage in Week one and Week two, though, has been strong. He's seen eighty two percent of Arizona' running back rushes and a ten point two percent target share, and according to Fantasy Life's Awesome Utilization Report, Connor's played all of Arizona's two minute snaps. Basically, what I'm saying here, he's in every down back for the Cardinals, and I think that he's destined to be a solid contributor for your fantasy team as long as he can stay off the injury report. Do I think he's gonna be a league winning player? No? Do I think he can be solid? Yes? The reason I'm calling him out this week though, as a cell is because Arizona gets Dallas in San Francisco over their next two games. Maybe you're sitting there with James Connor and your team's zero to two and you need a change. Maybe you're desperate for a win. Now might be the time to trade them away for a higher variance asset, because chances are you're not gonna get amazing production from him against two of the top defenses in the league over the next two weeks. Add the Jacksonville Jaguars defense. The Jags actually did an okay job at stopping the Chiefs in Week two, and their job is gonna be a lot easier this week against the Texans. The games in Jacksonville, and the Jags are nine and a half point favorites according to Fandels Sportsbook. Houston's now allowed opposing fantasy defenses to rank in the top ten in each of the first two weeks this season, and they've allowed a top five pressure rate, So the Jags are an easy streamer for me this week. That's it for today's show, though thanks to all thank you for listening. If you yet subscribe to the Late Round Fantasy Football podcast, make sure you are by searching for it. Pretty much anywhere podcasts can be found, you know, for to follow me on Twitter at late round QB. Thanks for listening everyone, I'll talk to you tomorrow with the weekly ten Trend Show.