847: Week 14 Sleepers

JJ Zachariason (0:11)

What's up, everyone? It's JJ Zachariason, and this episode, 847 of The Late-Round Fantasy Football Podcast, sponsored by FanDuel.

Thanks for tuning in. I went into last week's Sleeper Show with this feeling that it was gonna be a rough week, and it ended up being kind of a rough week. Derek Carr and Kenny Pickett got hurt, so they weren't good plays. Jeff Wilson didn't get that much run as a game script play, and all of the tight end streamers were pretty bad. And then with the deeper plays, Jaylen Guyton, Justin Watson, The Saints wide receivers, they weren't worth it. The best call of the week, though, definitely Jake Browning. He was the QB4, he scored almost 27 fantasy points. Jonathan Mingo wasn't bad, and Curtis Samuel hit double-digit PPR points. I also called out Ezekiel Elliott, but I didn't anticipate a Ramandre Stevenson injury. So the result was a win, but it happened because of an injury. I don't really want to take that W. Like I said, though, last week, I even mentioned that it was a tough week, and that ended up being the case. I'm ready to bounce back here in week 14

Now, as usual, we'll kick things off this week by looking at players rostered in 10-50% of Yahoo leagues who you could consider starting. And we'll look at quarterback and start with Gardner Mentshu. Mentshu is probably the safest quarterback streamer this week. He gets Cincinnati, and the Bengals are a top 10 matchup for quarterbacks by adjusted points allowed. The Bengals have faced some really good quarterbacks of late, but they've also allowed a top 10 performance in each of their last four. And three of those quarterbacks were top five. So Mentshu is okay.

I do think that Josh Dobbs still has more upside than Mentshu, though, assuming he starts. Dobbs will have a short leash after his performance last time that we saw Minnesota, but he's proven to have a good ceiling on a week-to-week basis in fantasy. Prior to that performance, he had ranked 13th, 8th, 4th, 3rd, and 13th in weekly scoring. That's because he was averaging 40 rushing yards per game during that stretch. He now gets Justin Jefferson back, and the Vikings get the Raiders. Vegas has actually been an okay team this year against quarterbacks by adjusted points allowed. They rank as the 21st most advantageous matchup. I'm not overly concerned about that though. It's not like they're facing the Jets. Dobbs has the most upside of any quarterback streamer this week.

And then you can look at Jake Browning too. His matchup this week against the Colts, it isn't as good as the one that he had last week against the Jags, but it's still not bad. Indy is the 11th best matchup for quarterbacks by adjusted fantasy points allowed. Browning's also shown off a little bit of rushing upside since taking over for Joe Burrow. He's been giving fantasy managers a couple points per game with his legs. The weapons are there, the environment's not bad, he could give you another serviceable performance.

Now moving on to running backs, I want to go back to Roshan Johnson. I feel like people forget the fact that the last time we saw Chicago, Roshan Johnson played 74% of the Bears offensive snaps, and it was a pretty neutral to positive game script. Now Deontay Foreman wasn't healthy for that game. You'll want to keep an eye on Foreman's practice reports. With that being said, if the Bears hit a negative game script against Detroit this week, I'd anticipate Johnson being on the field. According to FantasyLife.com's utilization report, Roshan has played 100% of the team's 2-minute snaps in 3 of their last 4 games.

Johnson's a pretty strong play if Foreman's out. If Foreman's in, he's more of a cross your fingers option in PPR formats. Now, I know that Derek Henry isn't in Concussion Protocol, but I do think that Tajay Spears is still kind of interesting this week.

The Titans are huge underdogs against Miami this week, and Spears has a 90% 2-minute offense snap rate this season, according to FantasyLife. When Tennessee's trailing, he's the back who's on the field. He's seen at least an 11% target share in each of his last 6 games, too. Now, Miami doesn't typically funnel targets to opposing running backs, but Spears could get a higher-than-normal snap count this week. That makes him flex-worthy in some leagues.

I don't mind Ty Chandler this week, either. He's seen at least a 31% snap share in each of his last 3, coinciding with Cam Maker's season-ending injury, and he scored double-digit PPR points in 2 of those 3 games. Alexander Madison, he's the 1A in that offense. But against the Vegas defense that ranks as the 7th best matchup for running backs by adjusted points allowed, both of these Vikings running backs have a chance to come through with decent days.