1027: 15 Transactions for Week 5

JJ Zachariason (0:02)

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

What's up, everyone? It's JJ Zachariason in this episode 1027 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. New York? Call 8778-HOPE-NY. And Connecticut? Call 888-789-77777. 18 plus in most states. Eligibility restrictions apply, ends December 31st. See terms at draftkings.com/promotions. It's a 15 transactions day. Let's get to it. Add Woody Marks. This is now the fourth time that Woody Marks has been featured on this 15 transaction show. If you haven't made a move yet, that's on you. You've had your chance. Marks broke out in a big way against the Titans in Week 4 He scored 27.9 PPR points. He's now seen his snap share, his running back rush share, his route participation rate, and his target share rise each week of the season. In Week 4, he had a 57% running back rush share and an 18% target share. I was talking to subscribers on the Late-Round Fantasy Football Discord channel on Monday morning, and I was talking about how Woody Marks is kind of a perfect process example, or at least the process that I like to follow. You've got an excellent pass catching back who's in an ambiguous backfield and is competing with a veteran who's passed his age apex. As I've said over the last month, why would we not try to take a chance to see if Marks can do something on the ground too? That was a big question mark with him. And with so little to overcome, why would we have not thrown that dart? Which hopefully you already have thrown that dart, and hopefully I'm just talking to people who already have Woody Marks on their rosters. But look guys, you don't need to be precise to answer questions in fantasy football. You just need to ask the questions. And then hopefully when those questions are answered, which is now Woody Marks getting more and more work on the ground, hopefully those players are already on your roster. And there's still a chance that nothing significant comes from Week 4, that Woody Marks isn't able to be like an RB2 in fantasy football. But I think given his workload and what we saw this past week, there's definitely a chance that he can be an RB2 this season. And that's why he's someone that you need to aggressively go after off the waiver wire.

Sell DK Metcalf. So Week 4 was good for DK Metcalf on the production front, but his peripherals are still not amazing. Metcalf still hasn't hit a 25% target share in a single game this year. He's a 21% target share per game this season. Meanwhile, the Steelers offense is just this dink and dunk offense. Aaron Rodgers has the lowest average depth of target in football right now. When offenses are this conservative through the air, the way a wide receiver sort of combats that is through a lot of volume. They just need to pile up catches. That's not happening for DK Metcalf. And I don't think there's any reason to believe that's just going to flip out of their week five buy. So if you can trade them away after this big performance, probably not a bad idea. Add Wondell Robinson, Darius Slayton and Theo Johnson. The fact that we have to talk about three Giants pass catchers because Malik Neighbors is now done for the year says everything you need to know about how freaking good Malik Neighbors is. And it's so unfortunate that we're not going to be able to watch and play football until 2026 But we have to move on. We have to react to what's going on. Without Neighbors in the mix, Darius Slayton and Wondell Robinson, they're going to see an uptick in target share more than likely. I think Robinson's kind of more intriguing because he could play more two wide receiver sets. That's something that he traditionally does not do. And that did happen a little bit in week four. But Slayton's a really solid player too. He's more the traditional waiver wire ad because a lot of people already have Robinson. Slayton's been above a 15% target share in more seasons than not throughout his career. He can stretch the field. And that's something that we're going to see from him versus someone like Wondell Robinson. You just don't have to go like absolutely nuts. I don't think Darius Slayton is going to be a league winning player this year. But I think he's fine to have rostered. The player that I'm kind of intrigued by, though, is Theo Johnson. A new quarterback, Jackson Dart, means new tendencies. And the Giants ran a different kind of offense in Week 4 versus what they had been doing with Russell Wilson. Theo Johnson finished the day with a season-high 25% target share. He's a young, athletic tight end, which is exactly what we want from our fantasy tight ends. And he has a chance now to be one of the top options in his passing attack. That's the exact kind of dart that you want to throw at the tight end position. Add Jackson Dart. Now, speaking of darts, let's talk about these pass catchers' quarterback, Jackson Dart. I wrote this in the 15 Transactions newsletter this week, but I said the only type of rookie quarterback that I'm generally interested in is a mobile one. And Jackson Dart is a mobile quarterback. He had 10 rush attempts in Week 4, and after I rewatched those games, I counted 6 design runs and 3 scrambles. That resulted in 54 rushing yards and a rushing touchdown. Now, I wasn't able to call out Dart last week because that move happened after the 15 Transactions show. They decided to bench Russell Wilson on Tuesday last week. But Dart should be added in most leagues because of this rushing upside. We know how important that is for fantasy quarterbacks, and at the very least, he's a streaming option this week because they're in New Orleans in a plus matchup.