842: 10 Trends for Week 13

JJ Zachariason (0:02)

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

What's up, everyone? It's JJ Zachariason, and this is episode 842 of The Late-Round Fantasy Football Podcast, sponsored by FanDuel.

Thanks for tuning in. Before we get into the trends this week, I wanted to send a reminder about The Late-Round Fantasy Football Patreon. I know the season is getting closer to finishing up, but the Patreon includes things like weekly rankings and tiers, monthly dynasty rankings and tiers, which include single quarterback and superflex leagues, livestream Q&As, data dumps, and more. You can learn more about it over on lateraound.com. Now let's get to these 10 trends.

Luke Musgrave is on IR, so the Packers are on to their other rookie tight end in Tucker Kraft. In week 12, Kraft ran a route on 81% of Green Bay's drop backs. That was the third highest route participation by a Packers tight end this season. Now it only resulted in a 6.7% target share, but it does look like Tucker Kraft is going to be used just like Luke Musgrave was, which means he'll probably be referenced on the Sleeper Show each week just to get you 5.5 PPR points.

One very obvious trend to talk about this week is with the Ravens' backfield. Keaton Mitchell ended up leading that backfield with a 46% snap share in week 12 He played 32 offensive snaps, Justice Hill was at 20, Gus Edwards 18 That resulted in Mitchell having a 41% running back rush share, which was his highest of the season. And he also ran a route on 38% of Baltimore's drop backs, also a season high. Things are for sure trending up for Keaton Mitchell.

I'm still very bullish on Josh Downs. He only scored 9.3 PPR points this past week, and you might look at his last three games and not be very motivated to trade for him or start him in your fantasy lineup. But he didn't play his normal snap rate in two of those contests, and this past week, he had a 32.5% target share.

I think Downs is still hugely underrated in redraft, probably in dynasty too. The Colts rest of season schedule is pretty average at this point for wide receivers, but he should be able to produce.

Now speaking of the Colts, you guys know that I like talking about how teams score their touchdowns, because how teams score touchdowns generally regresses. I've talked about this with Denver and Baltimore this season. Those are two teams who have been scoring touchdowns a little bit differently than they should. Denver has too many passing touchdowns, Baltimore has too many rushing touchdowns, and those numbers have started to regress over the last handful of weeks. One team that I haven't talked about, though, is Indianapolis. They currently have scored 41% of their touchdowns through the air. Based on their pass rate, we'd expect that number to be closer to 63%. Now, obviously, personnel plays a role here, but I would still expect at least a little bit more from that passing attack in fantasy football moving forward.

Terry McLaurin's not having that great of a season. He's averaging 12.3 PPR points per game. He's a low-end wide receiver three. Considering where a lot of people drafted him, he's not totally living up to expectation. But get this, in McLaurin's two games against Philadelphia this year, he's averaged 20 PPR points per game. In games not against the Eagles, that falls to 10.8. He hasn't ranked higher than wide receiver 20 in weekly scoring against a non-Eagles team this season.

Washington Windouts have a bottom 10 playoff schedule by Adjusted Fantasy Points allowed. It's really tough to buy into Terry McLaurin right now.

Here's another wide receiver split for you. Justin Fields missed four games this year, he's played eight. In those four games missed, DJ Moore averaged 9.8 PPR points per game. His target share per game, 23.9%.

With Justin Fields, things have been completely different. His target share per game is 30.4%. His PPR points per game output, it goes from 9.8 without Fields to 20.7 with him. To give you some context, 20.7 PPR points per game at wide receiver is better than AJ Brown's season-long average. Now I know what you're thinking, but JJ, he had that performance earlier this year against Washington where he scored 49 PPR points. Take that away, he's not nearly as good. And that's not wrong. I'm just not one to just take a performance away though. Especially when you're not doing that for other wide receivers. But even with that removed, Moore's averaging 16.6 PPR points per game with Justin Fields. That's still a low-end wide receiver one season. Moore has been really strong this year, and all the peripherals are there. Like I said, his target share per game with Justin Fields, it's an awesome 30%. And according to Fantasy Life's utilization report, which you can check out yourself over on fantasylife.com, DJ Moore is third in the NFL this year in area yard share. It's been a roller coaster, but Moore really has lived up to expectation this year.