1135: Week 4 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 1135 of The Late-Round Fantasy Football Podcast, thanks for tuning in. Straight up, I'm not a big fan of how last week's Sleepers episode went. It was one of the worst of this short season. And the first two were just fine, not fantastic. But it was rough out there for week three. I'm not going to hide from it. Kyler Murray lost Justin Jefferson. He scored only about 11 points. Kaelan Black and Emmett Johnson didn't get the game scripts that I wanted. Casey Concepcion, I like the process, given all the volume that he saw, he just couldn't convert. Dalton Schultz wasn't great. Devon Veyley, Xavier Worthy, Rashid Shahid, Dontavian Wicks, Jalen Noll, who I liked as a deep play. It just didn't come together for them.

The defensive streamers this year have been pretty brutal too. I didn't miss everything though. Fortunately, my guy Kenyon Siddiq, he had a monster 23.5 PPR point performance. Tyler Shuck continued to get it done. Jordan Love was fine for fantasy purposes. Geno Smith smashed. AJ Barner was usable. And the Keaton Mitchell call was a good one. So overall this year, having a good start to the season from a draft perspective, having a rough start with these sleepers. I'm gonna do my best to be better here in week four. Now before we get to those sleepers, I just want to send another reminder to check out the late-round newsletter. The newsletter is absolutely free. Just head to lateround.com and sign up. You get the data dump in your email inbox every Monday morning, the 15 transactions list on Tuesday morning, an awesome matchups column from Brandon Gadula every Wednesday. There's a wrap-up email from David Kitchen at the end of the week. It's a really good email newsletter. I'm obviously biased, but I do think it's good. Check it out, lateround.com.

We'll kick things off with players rostered in 50 to 80 percent of Yahoo! Leagues, and of course, we'll start with quarterbacks first. Bryce Young was disappointing in week three, but he's in a good spot in week four against the Lions. Detroit ranks 28th in the league in pass defense success rates so far this year, and only four teams are allowing a higher fantasy points per drop back rate. This game in Carolina on Sunday has a 50.5 point total. Carolina still is a top five team in pass rate over expected this year. We also have Detroit as the 11th fastest paced team. Carolina is still first. That means there could be a lot of plays in this matchup. So it's a good spot for Bryce Young, though that injury to Jalen Coker makes things a little bit less appealing.

The other quarterback I like in this tier is CJ Stroud. Houston gets Dallas this week, so it's a game and a dome, and the Texans have a 25 point in play team total. The Cowboys are below average in pressure rate this year defensively, and they rank as the sixth best matchup for quarterbacks by adjusted fantasy points allowed. Most importantly for Houston, it sounds like Nico Collins is going to be back. That's going to be a nice boost for that passing game. So it's an interesting matchup where we know the opposing team has a strong offense. That's why I think Stroud's a good sleeper.

Moving to running back, I think RJ Harvey is kind of interesting this week. The Broncos get the 49ers. San Francisco is allowed the second highest adjusted target share to running backs this year. That's RJ Harvey's role. Harvey's at the 18th highest route share of any running back this season. He's seen the 5th highest target share. He's at a 19% target share. I do worry that we're going to see more Tyler Bade if the 49ers keep playing like they've been playing and they get off to a big lead. But I think RJ Harvey has really sneaky appeal in week 4

I'll throw Woody Marks out there again too. He did see his snap share drop to 35% in week 3, but it's a matchup against Dallas that's a good one on paper. Dallas' bottom 10 in rush success rate allowed this season, and our numbers showed them as the 5th best matchup for the adjusted rushing yards allowed to running backs. And I'll just toss this out there too. Early on in the season, Marks has a better yards per rush, a better success rate, and a better yards after contact per attempt than David Montgomery does. So maybe he'll be able to get it done against this defense. At wide receiver, we currently don't know if Justin Jefferson's gonna play this weekend, but I think regardless, you can at least consider Jordan Addison. Minnesota has a 24.5 point total against Miami, and the Dolphins are a middle of the road matchup for wide receivers by adjusted fantasy points allowed. Part of the reason for that, though, is just straight up volume. Miami's faced the fewest pass attempts per game against them this year because of game script. Don't mistake that for being a decent secondary. They've allowed by far the highest catch rate over expected this year, and no team is allowing a higher yards per outrun to opposing wide receivers. That means that even if Jordan Addison isn't peppered with looks, he can still be usable off just a handful of plays.