841: 15 Transactions for Week 13

JJ Zachariason (0:02)

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

What's up, everyone? It's JJ Zachariason, and this is episode 841 of The Late-Round Fantasy Football Podcast, sponsored by FanDuel.

Thanks for tuning in. I know a lot of you are on different social media platforms, so do me a favor and give Late-Round Fantasy Football a follow. You can check out the Late-Round Fantasy Football Instagram account at Late-RoundFF, and there's a YouTube channel too, which can be found at youtube.com/ at Late-RoundFF. I'm posting content daily, so you can get even more than what you hear on the podcast. Now today's a 15 Transactions show. I know a lot of your trade deadlines have passed, though. As we get closer to the end of the season, these transactions are going to become more ad and drop transactions. But for now, I still have buys and sells listed. At the very least, you can get an idea of who to feel more or less confident about moving forward. It doesn't hurt to just have more information. So with that being said, let's dig in.

By Jaylen Warren. So as all of us know, offensive coordinator Matt Canada was fired last week. And then this week, the Steelers got over that 400 total yard mark in a single game. They hadn't done that once under Matt Canada. Now, fantasy managers are definitely going to take whatever happened in week 12 against Cincinnati and assume that that's the way this Pittsburgh offense is going to look from here on out, especially as it relates to the backfield.

Jaylen Warren has been a better running back than Najee Harris this year. He's been better than him in rushing yards over expected per carry, expected points added per rush, and success rate. And he's not just been a little bit better, he's been a lot better. So with the change in coordinator, the hope was that Jaylen Warren was going to see more work in that Pittsburgh backfield. Rational coaching would say to give the ball more to Jaylen Warren. So far this season, his running back rush air per game, it's been around that 45% mark. Well, guess what? In week 12 without Matt Canada, Warren had his worst fantasy outing since week one in PPR formats. He had just 7.2 points. That was his second game since week three below 10 PPR points.

I really don't think it's time to panic though. Warren's peripherals in that game against the Bengals, they were really no different than what we'd typically seen from him this season. His target share was maybe slightly lower than normal at 9.4%, but his route participation was right in line with how the Steelers had used him this year. Now you might remember this, but a couple of weeks back, I called Najee Harris a cell. That had to do with three main reasons. Number one, he was scoring touchdowns at an unsustainable rate. Number two, he had not been as efficient as Jaylen Warren. And number three, Najee Harris was seeing targets at a really unsustainable rate.

In the two games since that callout, Harris has seen target shares of 8% and 0%, so that part was right. But he did find the end zone this past week. The difference between Harris and Warren, though, to me, is that you're getting a better baseline with Warren. He's more efficient per touch, and he's seeing more targets through the air. He's running more routes, and his target share per game rate this year is about 14%.

So Harris might be a better bet to score a touchdown, but Jaylen Warren is more efficient, and he has a better receiving profile. That's the kind of player that I like to target more in fantasy football. Now, I actually think that both players can be fine in the fantasy playoffs. Pittsburgh gets Indianapolis, Cincinnati, and Seattle in weeks 15 through 17 That gives them the top three playoff schedule for running backs this year by adjusted fantasy points allowed. So to recap, Warren's peripherals were basically the same. Nothing really changed from a usage standpoint, but he's been the more efficient back between himself and Najee Harris. If one of these Pittsburgh running backs is gonna see more work just naturally, it's gonna be Warren because he's been the better player. So considering he's coming off this down game, despite his peripherals being exactly the same and a really nice playoff schedule upcoming, I think Jaylen Warren's a nice buy.

Hold Pat Fryermuth. So speaking of the Steelers, we finally got that big Pat Fryermuth performance. We've been waiting all year for it. Now Fryermuth was featured as an ad a couple of weeks ago. If he's on your waiver wire, you should absolutely be adding him this week. But he crushed Cincinnati, he had a nine catch, 120 yard performance. His target share was 34.4%. That was by far a season high for a Steelers tight end. Pittsburgh actually entered that game against the Bengals with 228 tight end receiving yards this year. They had 141 against the Bengals in week 12 alone.