1139: Week 5 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 1139 of The Late-Round Fantasy Football Podcast, thanks for tuning in. Finally, I finally had a good week on this Sleepers episode. Weeks one and two, they were averaged below average. Week three was bad, but week four, week four was great. Now, there were some misses in there. Dalton Schultz didn't do much. Kaleef Raymond didn't get the usage that I thought he might get. Marcus Mariota got hurt. Jacoby Brissette wasn't a great streaming option, and neither was Daniel Jones, who looked awful. But man, there were some good ones this past week. Bryce Young and CJ Straub both scored over 21 points. Calling RJ Harvey's pass catching matchup out, that was a great call. He got 10 balls against the 49ers. Devon Vellay scored over 17 PPR points. Ollie Gordon scored 18 Alvin Camara scored almost 23 TJ Hockinson scored almost 25 Bretton Strange had a big day. Malachi Field scored over 13 Marvin Harrison, he wasn't even totally unusable. And then everything was topped off on Monday Night Football when Bryan Robinson posted nearly 26 PPR points. He found the end zone three times.

That's more like it. Let's carry that momentum into week five.

Now, before getting to the sleepers this week, I want to remind you about becoming a Late-Round Fantasy Football member. As a member, you get weekly rankings, which include top 100 flex rankings. There's a live stream Q&A with yours truly every Tuesday night for over an hour. There's rest of season rankings, monthly dynasty rankings, and incredibly awesome and active Discord community, and more. To learn more about becoming a Late-Round Fantasy Football member, just head to lateround.com.

We'll kick things off with players rostered in 50-80% of Yahoo! Leagues, and we'll start with Jordan Love. Brandon Gadula noted this in his matchups newsletter this week, but Love has actually not faced a single team this year that ranks as a top half matchup for quarterbacks by adjusted points allowed. Some of the teams look like they should, like the Jets and Bucks, like they would be easy matchups. But they actually haven't been great matchups for quarterbacks so far. That changes this week. The Packers get the Bears, the Bears are a team that ranks as the 6th best matchup by adjusted points allowed. Now, I'm not in love with Love, because Green Bay doesn't have an incredible implied team total. And of course, after last week's performance, Chicago now ranks as the top defense and plays allowed per game. But there aren't many players in this tier to go to, and I think that he could be serviceable.

Sam Darnold is also kind of interesting. On paper, this San Francisco matchup, it doesn't look great. They've been a bottom 10 matchup for quarterbacks this year by adjusted fantasy points allowed. But that game in week one against the Rams, it's doing some of the heavy lifting here. The 49ers are actually 26th in the league in pressure rate defensively, and they're more average in past defense success rate. Given the fact that the 49ers offense has moved the ball so well this year, Seattle may be forced to not play it so conservatively offensively, though Brock Purdy has had some struggles against them. But look, overall, Seattle has a decent implied team total. I think Darnold can be okay.

At running back in this group, you could look at Oli Gordon again this week. He had a 50% rush share and a 60% snap share in week four, and he saw the most high-value touches in that Miami offense. He had a red zone snap share of 75% and his route share was 45%.

You've always got to worry about this offense, but Cincinnati's not a bad matchup for running backs. They're the 13th best one according to adjusted points allowed so far this year, and they continue to rank high in yards before contact. Only Indianapolis and Detroit have been worse there. So the Dolphins line might be able to get some push for Olly Gordon this week. That can make them usable.

Now, Braylon Allen was a disappointment for the Jets last week because that offense was just so bad. It lacks so much play volume. But he should be able to see more volume this week against the Browns. Now, to be fair, Cleveland ranks as the third toughest matchup for opposing running backs this year by adjusted fantasy points allowed. But they're not like the Houston Texans, who's a really tough matchup across the board. The Browns have actually given up the third highest success rate on the ground, and their expected rushing yards allowed per rush, it actually ranks fourth worst.