1061: Week 13 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 1061 of The Late-Round Fantasy Football Podcast, thanks for tuning in. Last week, sleeper results were a mixed bag. Brock Purdy made some really bad throws against the Panthers. Ramandre Stevenson didn't get much of his workload back. Rasheed Shaheed didn't make that big play that I was hoping for. Alec Pearce didn't do much. Neither did Bashal Tutin, and Kaishan Booty, and Bryce Young. They both disappointed too. But on the plus side, Sam Darnold and Jacoby Berset, they were both usable. Kareem Hunt and Emanuel Wilson posted 20 or more PPR points. Wondell Robinson went off. Michael Wilson had another big game. Kenneth Gainwell scored 18 Darnell Mooney made a big play to save his day. And the defensive streamers, they weren't too bad. It was a pretty average week overall. Now, with today's show, I wasn't able to pick players out after waivers ran, just because I did this episode earlier in the week than usual. But I did my best to give you guys reasonable options within each tier. Let's do it.

We'll kick things out by looking at players rostered in 50 to 80% of Yahoo! Leagues. We'll start with Jordan Love. Love only has one top 20 performance over his last four games, and those games are largely without Tucker Craft. That's definitely a problem. With that being said, he failed to reach 25 pass attempts in each of his last two. That probably won't be the case on Thanksgiving against the Lions. Detroit has a lot of top 15 performance in each of their last four. That may not sound like much, but listen to the quarterbacks they've faced during this stretch. JJ McCarthy, Marcus Mariota, Jalen Hurts, and Jameis Winston. They're the 10th best matchup for quarterbacks this year by Adjusted Fantasy Points allowed, and Green Bay has a solid 23.5 point total this week. It's a nice bounce back spot for Jordan Love. Jackson Dart is somehow under that 80% mark, and there's a reasonable chance that he plays this week against the Patriots. The Giants only have a 19.5 implied team total, but New England's a top 10 opponent for quarterbacks this year by Adjusted Fantasy Points allowed, and they've allowed 16 passing yards per game over expected. Dart has finished as a top 5 quarterback option in four of his last five games. He's averaging almost 23 standard fantasy points per game this year, or at least in his starts. I really don't understand why he's still out there in so many leagues. And then we're going to go back to Jacoby Brissette. He's now given us a QB1 performance in all six of his starts this year, and he gets a Tampa Bay Secondary this week that's given up the ninth most Adjusted Fantasy Points to quarterbacks. I know it's weird that he's still a sleeper, but I'm just going by what the percent roster numbers are telling me. He's a top 12 play this week. Moving on to running back, I know that Woody Marks was kind of whatever this past week, but the usage has now been pretty strong for three straight games, and in fantasy football, we have to follow usage. Houston gets Indianapolis this week, it's a below average matchup for running backs on paper, but Marks has seen a 77% running back rush air per game rate over his last three, and while his target shares have been sub 7% during this time, he's been above a 50% route share in two of those three games. My guess is that that target share will eventually regress a little bit based on that route share, and based on his skill set. He's not like a smash of a play, but he deserves to be called out on this show. At this moment, I don't know if Amari and Hampton is going to be back this week. If he's not, I'm going to go with Kamani Vidal once again. He was banged up a little bit the last time we saw him, but he's given us multiple games of a 90% running back rush air with Amari and Hampton sidelined this year. And the Chargers get a Raiders defense that ranks as the 8th best matchup for running backs by adjusted points allowed. So if Hampton is out, feel free to use Kamani Vidal. Kenneth Gainwell is a pretty interesting play this week. The Steelers get the Bills, and we know that Buffalo is bad against the run. They rank as the 4th best matchup for running backs by adjusted fantasy points allowed. And they've basically been a run funnel for opposing offenses. The Bills have allowed 36 passing yards below expected per game to quarterbacks, but they've given up 26 rushing yards to running backs above expected. That's the 3rd worst mark in football. The thing with Gainwell is that he's not seeing a ton of work on the ground. He's seen about a 36% running back rush share over the Steelers' last two games. However, we know the receiving work has been there. He's been at or above a 20% target share in each of his last two. And he's running a lot of routes. That could be big because number one, the Steelers may trail in this game. And then number two, the Bills are top half in the league and adjusted target share allowed to running backs. So I think Gainesville is a reasonable flex play in PPR formats. Now moving on to wide receiver, I'm going to call out Quinton Johnston here. Johnston's been consistently seeing high route shares in the Chargers offense, even during his slump since week four. His target shares have definitely been kind of all over the place, but he's been on an 18%, 30%, and 13% target share over his last three. Now the Chargers get the Raiders. They're not only the 11th best wide receiver matchup by Adjusted Fantasy Points Allowed, but they've given up top five fantasy points to perimeter wide receivers as well. And they're a below average team at stopping the deep ball. QJ has seen A dots of 14, 13, and 23 in three of his last four games with a target. So if you need a big play, if you need some volatility, Quinton Johnston could be your guy this week. One player I think you have to like is Troy Franklin. Denver has an implied team total of 25 points this week. They get a Washington team that ranks as the eighth best matchup for wide receivers by adjusted fantasy points allowed. Franklin has seen at least eight targets in each of his last five games. Against this defense, that should definitely make him fantasy relevant. Moving on to tight end, Arande Gatston is currently well below that 80% rostered mark for whatever reason. But I don't totally mind him this week. I know he's been outside the top 25 in each of his last two games, but he also saw target shares of 18% and 21% in those two contests. In week 11, the last time we saw the Chargers, he had a 91% route share. Now, the Raiders are not a fantastic matchup for tight ends on paper. Teams are looking at their wide receivers more when they face the Raiders, but Gatston's usage still makes him a worthwhile play on a team with a 25.5 point implied team total. Jawan Johnson has seen 16% target shares in every game with Tyler Shucks starting this year. He's now hit 10 plus PPR points in each of his last five. The Saints get the Dolphins this week. And Miami is the third best matchup for tight ends by just the fantasy points allowed. They've given up the fourth highest adjusted target share to the position. It's a great spot for Jawan Johnson. And then another Johnson you could go to in this tier, my guy Theo Johnson. He's averaging a 19% target share per game rate since Malik Neighbors went down. And Jackson Dart, like I just talked about, he could be back this week. Dart was consistently getting Johnson to that like 18% target share mark. The Giants get the Patriots. New England's the seventh best matchup for tight ends on paper by just the fantasy points allowed. They also are somewhat of a pass funnel. Teams see their pass rates jump by three percentage points when they face the Patriots. And New England's been far better against the run in the past this year compared to the league average. So overall, more volume could just be funneled to the Giants' pass catchers this week. That includes Theo Johnson.