1059: 15 Transactions for Week 13

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 1059 of The Late-Round Fantasy Football Podcast, thanks for tuning in. Two announcements before we get started this week. First, it's Thanksgiving week, which means a different content schedule. You're getting this 15 Transactions episode at its normal time. And then tomorrow you get the 10 Trends episode at its normal time too. But with this Thanksgiving slate and with my own schedule, I'll be publishing The Sleeper Show on Wednesday as well. And then that's it for the week. Late-Round subscribers will get the standard rankings and rankings updates on Patreon. All that stuff will still be there. It's just you're only going to get three shows in this podcast feed this week. Next week, we'll be back on schedule. And there's one more announcement that I want to make before I talk about these transactions. I made another hire, and I'm very excited about it. Last year around this time, I announced that I was bringing on David Kitchin to be Late-Round Fantasy Football's Chief Operating Officer. That was to help grow the business and allow me to focus more on creating content. This hire is to help enhance Late-Round's content. I'm bringing on one of my old co-workers from Numberfire and Fandle. He was my right-hand man for years there, Brandon Gadula. Brandon's going to be joining the Late-Round team in January as a senior analyst. He's going to be helping me out with research projects, with enhancing my prospecting work, with the newsletter, with the guides, with offerings for subscribers. There's so much to get done. He's 100 percent the right person to help, because he understands how to research and he understands the type of content that I do each day with this business. Now, from your perspective, nothing's really going to change. You're still going to hear my annoying voice on this show. You're going to get the same analysis that you've always gotten. This is a hire that will simply enhance that existing content. It's going to allow me to work on projects that I haven't been able to get to through the years. There's more to come there. I just want to shout it out and let everyone know that the team is expanding and that we can all look forward to an awesome 2026 With Thanksgiving being on Thursday, I'm really, really thankful for that. Now let's get to these transactions.

Add Devin Neal and Taysom Hill. So Alvin Camaro suffered an MCL injury against the Falcons on Sunday. It's not a long-term injury more than likely, but we could see him sidelined for a couple of weeks. Currently, though, there's no timetable for how long he's going to be out. But with Kendre Miller already out for the season, rookie Devin Neal, he's going to have to step up and be the Saints' top running back. And honestly, I've said this in the past, but Devin Neal looked really good in the ZAP model, especially for a day three pick. He has a three down skill set. Now, with that being said, there are two major things working against Neal. The offense is one of them, because it's not very good. That's going to limit scoring opportunities. The other big problem is Taysom Hill. According to PFF, Neal played a solid 57 of a possible 66 snaps after Camara's injury on Sunday. Taysom Hill was at 21, and 13 of those 21 came in the backfield. Despite that fact, Hill ended up out attempting Neal on the ground 10 to 7 Now, when you look at these snap rates, I'm not sure that's going to maintain and keep up. I don't think we can assume that Taysom Hill is going to have more rush attempts week in and week out without Alvin Camara than Devon Neal. But we know Taysom Hill is going to get some usage, and we know that that usage will often come in the red zone. That's going to cap Neal's upside. So you can add both of these players. I think Neal is the more valuable piece because he's a running back, and he's going to see more work overall. But Hill can work as a touchdown bet in your tight end spot. Just know that Hill's not seeing a lot of work through the air. He's getting less than a target per game. So there's far less PPR appeal with Taysom Hill. Buy Jalen Waddle. The last time we saw the Dolphins offense, Jalen Waddle finished in a plus matchup with three catches for 52 yards. Then the Dolphins had their buy. Now I understand that in a lot of leagues, trade deadlines have already passed. I get it. When you hear these buy and sell recommendations from here on out through the end of the fantasy season, it's also a confidence thing. You can know whether or not you should feel good about a certain player. And with Jalen Waddle, I would at least feel good. Since Tyreek Hill went down with his season-ending injury, Waddle's averaged about a 26% target share per game rate. That's really strong. Even with that down week 11 outing, he's just shy of 15 PPR points per game without Tyreek Hill. So you're getting really good usage and really strong production from Waddle right now. But that could look even better given their matchups down the stretch. Waddle gets the Saints, Jets, Steelers, Bengals and Buccaneers to close out the fantasy season. None of those teams rank as bottom 10 teams for wide receivers by just the fantasy points allowed. In his playoff schedule, it's Pittsburgh, Cincinnati and Tampa Bay. Those are all top half matchups for wide outs by just the points allowed. So the usage is there, the production is mostly there, and the schedule is great. That's why you should be buying Jalen Waddle. And Colston Loveland. We're going to talk about a lot of tight ends today. One of the tight ends that we're not going to talk about is Darren Waller because I mentioned him last week. So if Waller is still on your waiver wire, you can add him too. I figured I'd bring that up because I just talked about his teammate Jalen Waddle. But let's move on to Colston Loveland. In week 12, Loveland had a route share of 68%. That was his highest in a game with Col Comet this year. And that resulted in about a 17% target share. Loveland currently has a 1.76 yards per route run rate. Not only is that a whole lot better than Comet's.97 rate, but according to PFF, it's a top 10 rate among qualified tight ends this year. And remember, Colston Loveland is a rookie. This is just like Luther Burden, and it's in the same offense. Both of those players have been really, really good per route run. And maybe we don't see everything come together this season. But the talent is clearly there. And we want talented players on our rosters.