1017: Week 2 Sleepers

JJ Zachariason (0:02)

This is The Late-Round Podcast with your host, JJ Zachariason.

What's up, everyone? It's JJ Zachariason, and this is episode 1017 of The Late-Round Fantasy Football Podcast, sponsored by DraftKings. Thanks for tuning in. There's no better way to get closer to the action than with DraftKings Daily Fantasy, the ultimate destination for football fans. New customers can play free for their share of millions and prizes with their first deposit of $5 or more. Download the DraftKings Daily Fantasy app and enter promo code LATEROUND to play free for your share of millions. The crown is yours. Gambling problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER. In New York, call 8778-HOPE-NY. In Connecticut, call 888-789-7777. 18 plus in most states. Eligible and restrictions apply. Ends December 31st. See terms at draftkings.com/promotions.

Week 1 is always a hard sleeper show to do, because we have such little information. But we did have some hits from last week. Gervonta Williams was a big W from that opening game, though he was even better than I expected. Kyle Pitts had a good outing. Cedric Tillman was really solid. Michael Pennex was great. I called out both Browns running max and liked Jerome Ford more, so that was an L, but I at least had Dylan Sampson as a shout. And probably the biggest hit was Daniel Jones, who wasn't on many rosters at all entering week one. But with the hits, there were definitely misses. Tank Bigsby, Josh Downs, Trevor Lawrence, they all disappointed. Ollie Gordon did nothing. Xavier LeGette was a bust, and we didn't get anything from Cade Otten either. Definitely not my best week, but with more data comes more accuracy. So let's hope that we can turn things around. Now, before I get going with this week's show, I do want to make a quick statement. As you know, I switched up the show this year, and I'm featuring players who have rostership percentages in the following buckets. 50 to 80%, 20 to 50%, and then less than 20%.

I received some feedback about this, both good and bad. The good feedback was that people really liked that I'm looking at the 50 to 80% players. The bad feedback was that people wanted more deep sleepers. So I'm going to do all of the above. We're keeping the format the same, but I'll do my best to shout out a few deep sleepers each and every week. Guys rostered in fewer than 10% of leagues, often fewer than 5% of them. So hopefully, that's going to help everyone. So without further ado, let's get to the sleepers this week.

We'll kick things off with the players rostered in 50 to 80% of Yahoo! leagues, and we'll start at quarterback with Jordan Love. Now this might look bad early on because they play on Thursday night, but that game against Washington is projected to be a high scoring one with a 48.5 point total, and the Packers team total currently sits as the 5th highest on the week across the league. Green Bay was run heavy in week 1 because they had such a positive game script, and that might happen again this week. But what was good to see was that their pass rate over expected according to NF Elo was pretty neutral at minus 0.5% last week. Last year, that number was minus 8%. The Packers defense played great in week 1 and maybe that does limit this Packers offense, but we know that Washington has firepower, so it could result in a back and forth contest. Next up at quarterback in this tier is JJ McCarthy. He really came alive in the second half of that game against the Bears in week 1 This week, he's in a dome environment against the Falcons, and Minnesota has a 25-point implied total. One thing to love about McCarthy's week 1 was that he showed off his athleticism. He ended up with 25 rushing yards and a rushing score. Now, he may not give you as many scrambles as someone like even Caleb Williams, but we at least know it's there. Against the Falcons, like I said, at home in Minnesota, you have to like the upside. Now, running back in this tier, I've got Dylan Sampson. I think you have to look his way after what he did last week against Cincinnati. Cleveland's going to face the Ravens this week. It's a much tougher matchup. And while Sampson probably won't be able to maintain that 19% target share that he saw last week on a 31% route share, I do think we're going to see his route participation increase here in week two, because he looked good. And last week, he already saw over half of Cleveland's running back rushes, even if he wasn't that efficient. Now, one thing I will say about this play, and this was kind of the thesis for Jerome Ford last week, but Ford did play 86% of the Browns long down and distance snaps. That's according to Fantasy Life data. He played 100% of the team's two minute snaps. They kept things relatively close against Cincinnati, but I don't think we're going to feel that confident that they can keep things close against Baltimore. So do be aware that this play of Dylan Sampson could go south. And at this moment, I'm not overly concerned about Quinshawn Judkins here in week two. Longer term, definitely concerned. Now another player from this tier to call out is my guy, Bashall Tutin. There's no Tank Bigsby for Jacksonville, which means they're going to be trotting out Travis Etienne, Bashall Tutin, and LeQuint Allen against the Bengals. Etienne is going to get the most work, but he's coming off a game where he saw 64% of Jacksonville's running back rushes. Would it be that surprising if Tutin gets around a 30% running back rush air in this game? With maybe a few targets. And there's obviously room for more there if Jacksonville wants to get Tutin the ball more. Now I don't think it's a smash play at all, but the Jags get the Bengals and what could end up being a shootout this week? It's got the highest total on this week's slate. So Tutin might be able to find the flex in some of your deeper lineups. And Austin Eckler might be able to find the flex too. Green Bay is a tough matchup, but we did see last week, Jameer Gibbs hit the second highest target share of his career. And we know that pass catching and that role, that's Austin Eckler's. In week one, Eckler ran around on 51% of Washington's drop backs. Bill Kroski Merritt and Jerry McNichols were under the 20% mark. And with the Packers being home favorites, there's always a possibility that Washington is not playing with a favorable game script. That would help out Eckler. Jackson Smith and Jigba had a monster game in week one on the usage front. And I talked about that on yesterday's 10 Trends episode. Cooper Cupp though did run more routes. So it's not like he was completely forgotten about. Though his 14% target share wasn't something that we loved to see. With that being said, Cupp ran 50% of his routes out of the slot for Seattle. And the Seahawks get Pittsburgh this week. That's a team that notoriously has been awful against slot receivers during the Mike Tomlin era. Now I won't be bold and rank him as a top 36 wide receiver, but don't be surprised if Cooper Cupp is more involved this week. And then Hollywood Brown is still under that 80% mark. This one's pretty straightforward. Yes, it may not be the best matchup in the world, and I'm actually a little bit worried about how many points this Chiefs-Eagles game sees. But Xavier Worthy is iffy, Rashid Rice is already out, and Brown is coming off a game where he had a 42% target share. He's a wide receiver three for me in my early rankings this week.