1053: Week 11 Sleepers

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 1053 of The Late-Round Fantasy Football Podcast, thanks for tuning in. I've been running really hot with this sleeper show heading into last week. I'm talking like four straight awesome weeks. And I knew that last week was going to be tough. And so, there were a few more misses than I've had over the last month. But I'm still pretty happy overall with how things went. On the bad side, Sam Darnold was a horrible pick. Romeo Dobbs was too. Kyle Pitts couldn't get going. And then a lot of the deep sleepers, they didn't do that much at all either. I'm talking Jaylen Lane, Xavier LeGette, Jerry McNichols, and AJ Barner. But Jackson Dart was great. Aaron Jones came through with almost 16 PPR points. Troy Franklin had 15 Wondell Robinson and Darius Slayton were both over 12 Alec Pearce had a big game. Parker Washington was solid. And the mid-tier tight ends, my goodness, every single one of them scored at least 9.5 PPR points. But four of the five hit 14.5 PPR points. Those four being Theo Johnson, Jawan Johnson, K.Dotten, and Dalton Schultz. Marcus Mariota and Jacoby Bursett, they were good deep quarterback plays too. And Kyle Williams, he saved his day with that big touchdown. So no, it wasn't as good as some of the other recent weeks, but with what I was working with, I'm happy with those results. And by the way, I went to Twitter and I asked if people wanted to keep hearing about these hits and misses to open up The Sleeper Show. And 80% of you said to keep the recap. So I'm keeping the recap. The people have spoken. Now let's move on to week 11

We'll start as usual by looking at players rostered in 50-80% of Yahoo leagues, and at quarterback, I have two for you in this tier. One of them is Joe Flacco. Flacco has been the QB1 in fantasy football since he was traded to Cincinnati. He's averaging about 25 standard fantasy points per game. That alone is tough to bench, but he's also facing Pittsburgh, a team he destroyed back in week 7 I'd expect the Steelers defense to have better answers in this game, and it's in Pittsburgh too. But there are top 10 matchup for quarterbacks by adjusted fantasy points allowed. So, Flacco can find your lineup. Now, if you want a high variance option, JJ McCarthy on paper, he's in a good spot. The Vikings get the Bears this week. They have a team total over 25 points, and they're at home. And Chicago is the fourth best matchup this season by adjusted points allowed to quarterbacks. They've allowed about 27 passing yards over expected per game this year. I know McCarthy hasn't gotten it done, but it could be a get right game for him. At Running Back, I've got one player in this tier for you, and it's Woody Marks. I think people should be excited about what Marks did last week on the usage front, but one week, that's not a trend yet, and this week will be a good test for that. The Texans are seven point favorites against a Titans team that's allowed the fourth most adjusted fantasy points to running backs this year. We saw Marks give us an RB6 performance against Tennessee the last time these two teams met, but I do think there's at least some risk that we see more Nick Chubb this weekend than we did last week. But more optimistically, if Marks gets the same workload week over week, he could smash. We're talking about a 74% running back rush share, a 55% route share, and one of the best matchups in the league for running backs. So he's a good option. At wide receiver in this group, I'm going to cheat just a little bit and go to Quentin Johnston, just because he's slightly slightly above that 80% mark. QJ has been kind of disappointing after what he did during the first four weeks of the season, but he's coming off a game against Pittsburgh where he hit a 30% target share. It was only a five catch 42 yard performance, but the matchup this week, it's pretty juicy. The Chargers get the Jags. Jacksonville is completely average when it comes to adjusted fantasy points allowed to wide receivers, but they've been specifically bad against perimeter wideouts. Against the Slot, they've given up actually the fewest wide receiver points per game this year. Against outside wideouts, they're third worst. And Johnston, he's run the vast majority of his routes from the outside. The other guys in LA are fine too. But I think Quinton Johnston has a better game this week than what we've seen over the last month or so. Jameis Winston is starting for the Giants. I think this at least keeps the wide receivers neutral. But it could help Darius Slayton a little bit more than Wondell Robinson, because Winston has this tendency to throw the ball down the field. He's aggressive. In the matchup, it's better for Slayton this week too. They get Green Bay, and the Packers have been below average at stopping perimeter wide receivers, while above average at stopping slot guys. So that's a bump for Slayton and a slight downgrade for Wondell Robinson. I think they're closer this week than many would expect. Just do be aware that Slayton didn't practice on Wednesday. If he can't go this week, Wondell Robinson is going to play more in the outside, and he could just get peppered with targets. Now last in this tier at tight end is Zach Ertz. I know they don't have Jaden Daniels, but the commanders get the Dolphins this week. Miami is the fourth best matchup for tight ends by Adjusted Fantasy Points allowed. Ertz is also averaging a strong 22% target share per game rate over his last five. It could come together for a nice outing for Zach Ertz.