1141: 15 Transactions for Week 6

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 1141 of The Late-Round Fantasy Football Podcast, thanks for tuning in. Before I get to the transactions this week, I just want to remind you guys about the new data dump show on The Late-Round Fantasy Football YouTube channel. Every Monday morning at 11 a.m. Eastern, Brandon Gadula and David Kitchen, they're live on the channel talking about the week's major injuries, usage trends, and more. It's exclusively on YouTube, so make sure you subscribe, youtube.com/atlate-roundff.

Add Woody Marks. Woody Marks has been a staple on The Sleeper Show this year because he usually gets some work each week, but it's not enough work for a lot of people to pick him up off the waiver wire. So he's available for that show, but more work could be coming his way because David Montgomery left week five's matchup against the Titans with a groin injury. Marks ended up playing every offensive snap after David Montgomery left that game. Well, all but one. He didn't play the quarterback Neal's snap. And say what you want about Marks as a talent. He's been the better running back in this backfield this year. Marks and Montgomery have identical yards before contact per attempt rates, but Marks has outperformed Montgomery and yards after contact per attempt. 3.07 to 2.27. Marks also has a 35% success rate, Montgomery's 25%.

If Montgomery is sidelined, I'm expecting Marks to see close to a Belkow workload in this offense. Now, it's not the best offensive situation in the world. In upcoming, they get Jacksonville. But opportunity is opportunity, especially at running back.

Right now, Marks is still available in 47% of Yahoo! Leagues. So you gotta add them this week off the wire.

Sell Jacori Kroski Merritt. Sometimes transactions like this one are necessary. Fantasy managers, they understandably get excited when a player that they liked in the preseason, back in August, when that player finally has a decent game. And Jacori Kroski Merritt, he scored 14.2 PPR points on Sunday. The problem is that the usage still wasn't there. Rashad White was the one who led that backfield with 36 snaps against the Giants. Kroski Merritt, he was at 21 Friend of the show Austin Echler, he was at 6

Based on his workload, Kroski Merritt had an expected PPR point total of just 5.2 points. He just happened to outperform that by 9 points, because he had that nice touchdown run. The bottom line is that this is not a profile of a reliable fantasy running back. The only game where Kroski Merritt saw more than one target was when Rashad White was sidelined. Washington wants to split up this backfield, and now they have Austin Echler. He's just making it even more convoluted. In the upcoming schedule, that's not doing him any favors either. Over the next four weeks, the commanders get the 49ers, a bye week, the Eagles and then the Rams. All three of those opponents rank as bottom ten matchups for running backs by just at Fantasy Points Allowed. It's just really hard to buy this as a reliable performance.

Add Keenan Allen. So Alec Pearce has been out since week two. He left that week two game against the Chiefs early. Since then, Keenan Allen has seen a 21.3% target share in this Colts offense. And in two games where Pearce has been completely sidelined with Allen active, so weeks three and five, Allen's target share has been 23%.

His expected PPR points per game average is 16.3%.

For the record, Josh Downs has seen a 22% target share in those two games. He's averaged 16.9 expected PPR points per game. That's in week three and week five. Allen's averaging 13.9 PPR points per game over those two contests, actual points per game. And yet no one's really talking about him. Instead, a lot of the conversation has been hovered around Josh Downs and how he's performed over the last two games. But the truth is there's been some value in this passing game. And according to our numbers, Indianapolis wide receivers have an above average schedule rest of season. So Allen needs to be rostered in more leagues, and Josh Downs does not need to be dropped. I'm seeing a lot of people talk about that. I understand he didn't perform this past week, but like I talked about last week, his matchup against the Steelers wasn't that great. The fantasy football season is going to be all over the place. Most players in fantasy are not going to give you great production week in and week out. That doesn't make them drop worthy though. So add Keenan Allen and hold on to Josh Downs.