828: Week 9 Sleepers

JJ Zachariason (0:02)

This is the Late Round Podcast with your host, JJ.

What's up, everyone? It's JJ Zachariason, and in this episode, 828 of The Late-Round Fantasy Football Podcast, sponsored by FanDuel. Thanks for tuning in. Last week's Sleeper Show had some good parts and some bad parts. Derek Carr was a respectable streamer, and I called out Trey McBride, Jake Ferguson, and Taysom Hill, who were all really strong plays. And I briefly talked about Rashid Shahid, too. But a lot of the wide receivers and running max were just pretty average at best overall. Whether we're talking about Devon Singletary, Amari Demarcado, or Jawan Jennings, who gave us a goose egg. There were some good from week 8, but I definitely want to be better than that. Hopefully, things do look better here in week 9

I can't talk about Derek Carr this week because he's now officially over the 50% rostered mark over on Yahoo. So he doesn't fit in this bucket of players who are rostered in 10-50% of leagues who you might be able to play. I do have a few quarterback streamers for you though. One of them is Gardner Minshew. Minshew gets the Panthers. Carolina's actually been a below average opponent for quarterbacks this season. They rank as the 23rd best opponent in adjusted fantasy points allowed to the position. So it's not like some ideal matchup. A lot of that has to do with the fact that teams are running the ball so much against the Panthers. Carolina's actually allowed the most offensive touchdowns in football, but fewer than 42% of those touchdowns have come through the air. That's the third lowest rate in the league. Their last in rushing yards over expected allowed per rush, and they're middle of the road in passing EPA per drop back allowed. So I do think there's some risk that Indianapolis just runs all day against Carolina.

I also think there's a possibility that when Indy scores, variance takes over a little bit. Those touchdowns come from Min Choo's arm. That's always a possibility in a one game sample.

I think there's risk involved with any of these streamers. Indianapolis, though, has the 7th best implied team total on this week's slate, according to Fandel's Sportsbook.

Min Choo's not a terrible bet.

In that same game, too, is Bryce Young. I like Min Choo more than Young, but I do think that Young works. The Colts defense is not very good. They've given up the third most offensive touchdowns this year, and like Carolina, a lot of those touchdowns have come via the ground. I think both teams are ready to regress in that category. But Indy ranks as the second best matchup for quarterbacks in Adjusted Fantasy Points Allowed, and Bryce Young is starting to look the part a little bit more. After scoring 9.4 points per game over his first three, he's averaged 15.2 over his last three. And Colts games, for the record, these Indianapolis games this year, they've been shooting out. According to my buddy Rich Rebar from Sharp Football Analysis, at Lord Reeves on Twitter, Colts games are averaging a league high 136.6 combined snaps per game. They're averaging a combined 54.3 points per game. That's the second highest in the league behind only Miami. Basically, don't sleep on the quarterbacks in this matchup.

And you could also look at Baker Mayfield if you want. I'm not super high on him, but he does work. Mayfield gets Houston, and the Bucs have just an 18.5 point implied team total. That's not great. Houston, though, is the 12th best matchup by Adjusted Fantasy Points allowed. And they've been below average against the pass, according to EPA per drop back. So I think Mayfield's fine enough among a pretty bad quarterback landscape.

Now, moving on to running back, everyone's understandably excited about Gus Edwards after the last couple of weeks and how he's performed. But Justice Hill just last week played 26 offensive snaps. Gus Edwards was at 34 Baltimore's just playing in these super positive game scripts, and that's always going to favor a guy like Gus Edwards. But Justice Hill had a 15.4% target share last week. Over the last two games, his route participation has been around 56%, Gus Edwards 30%. Now they get Seattle in week nine. Not only is there a chance that we see a closer game here for Baltimore, and that might favor Hill a little bit more than what we've seen over the last two weeks, but Seattle ranks fifth in adjusted target share allowed to running backs, meaning teams are throwing the ball to their running backs at a higher rate when they face Seattle. So off the waiver wire, there are definitely worse choices.