1125: 15 Transactions for Week 2

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 episode 1125 of The Late-Round Fantasy Football Podcast. Thanks for tuning in.

We've got week one in the books. Hopefully, you guys got some Ws, but it's time to fix our rosters, because no roster is perfect right now. As usual, this show is all about who to add, drop, buy, and sell. And the transactions, they're in no particular order, simply because your needs could be totally different than someone else's. But I'll try to give some context as to which players I'm prioritizing and not prioritizing on waivers. Now, before we get to this week two transactions list, I do want to remind you guys to check out lateraound.com. We've got brand new offerings this year for members. There's a much better interface for the weekly and rest of season rankings. There's new metrics in the data dump and so much more. You can learn more about it over on lateraound.com.

Add Kaelon Black. I think one of the most surprising things we saw from week one usage-wise, was how the 49ers backfield was divvied up. Not only was Jordan James a healthy scratch against the Rams, but Kaelon Black got a decent amount of work. He finished week one with a 44 percent snap rate, and he saw 47 percent of the 49ers rushes. Christian McCaffrey had a 33 percent rush share. To be clear, the work that Kaelon Black saw in week one wasn't totally usable for fantasy football purposes. He scored 8 PPR points. His expected points based on Late-Round Fantasy Football's expected fantasy points formula was 7.4. And that formula just looks at usage. It looks at where these players are getting their touches and how many points we'd expect them to score based on those touches. So Kaelon Black was at 7.4 expected fantasy points. That's nothing special.

Not only that, but it was reported that CMC was dealing with cramps. That could have led to a slight uptick in work for Kaelon Black. But look, maybe once bi-weeks start hitting, you could flex Kaelon Black. And at the very least, he does look like the top handcuff in San Francisco. He would at least be the 1A in that backfield if something were to happen to Christian McCaffrey. This is just a situation that you do want to invest in. San Francisco not only looked good in week one, but we know this offense has been good, especially with Brock Purdy under center. So it makes sense to add Black this week.

Buy Colston Loveland. If you invested in Colston Loveland, you're probably not feeling that great after week one. Because you could have started any other tight end and probably gotten more points than what you got with Loveland. Because he gave you a giant goose egg.

And that was a big surprise. The Bears posted 59 points against the Panthers. This scored 59 points and Colston Loveland scored zero fantasy points. I know no one wants to hear this after the Terence Ferguson talk last week, but production in fantasy football can be very fluky. This is why we look at peripherals. Weird games can happen. But if the peripherals are there, good production will eventually follow. That's how this works. And in week one, Colston Loveland had an 87% route share. He ran 33 routes. That was eight more routes than any other Bears player.

Dating back to the beginning of last year, we've had almost 180 tight end games where the player hit at least an 80% route share. Over half of those games resulted in 10 or more PPR points. Loveland in week one was just the fifth time over this timeframe. So since the beginning of 2025, where a tight end failed to score a point. Cardio Kate Otton has two of those five instances.

Now, beyond route share, Loveland did see a couple of targets, and Caleb Williams just missed them in the end zone. If that throw connects, there's a totally different narrative more than likely about Colston Loveland this week. And this really doesn't stem from some preseason take from me because I wasn't high or low on Loveland entering the season. I love them as a player, but from a game theory perspective, I often wait on tight end. But this could be a buying opportunity for one of the best up and coming tight end prospects we've had in recent memory. If you can really buy low, I think you should really buy low.

Hold the Los Angeles Chargers offense. I liked the Chargers offense entering the season. A lot of us liked the Chargers offense entering the season. And things could not have been that much worse in week one. They put up only 14 points against the Arizona Cardinals. It was really bad, and we shouldn't spin it any other way. But I'm probably going to say this time and time again over the first month of the season. Being patient is the number one thing to be in fantasy football. It's not that uncommon to see teams with new offensive coordinators struggle out of the gate. And not only that, but Lad McConkie got hurt at the end of the third quarter in that game. That played a role here too. Before McConkie's injury, the Chargers had an EPA per play rate of .05. Their yards per play was 5.7. In the fourth quarter, after the McConkie injury, their EPA per play fell to minus .44. Their yards per play dropped to just 4.0.