848: 15 Transactions for Week 15

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 episode, 848 of The Late-Round Fantasy Football Podcast, sponsored by FanDuel. Thanks for tuning in. The Fantasy Football Playoffs are here, and I've heard the feedback. I've talked to you guys. You want this show to be structured a little differently. I usually wait one more week to do this, but starting this week, I'll only be talking about ads and drops on the show. That's just for the rest of this season. There might be a whole transaction in there every once in a while, too. But no more buys and sells, because your trade deadlines have passed.

Today's show actually only features ads, players to get off the waiver wire. And there are 15 of them, as usual. Some are more important than others, and I'll do my best to guide you through. Let's do it.

Ad Ty Chandler. So Ty Chandler was a preseason favorite of mine. Hopefully, he's finally gonna get a shot. Because Alexander Madison went down with an ankle injury in Week 14 His Week 15 status is very much up in the air. Without Madison, Ty Chandler ended up playing all but three backfield snaps for Minnesota. Now if Madison is out, Minnesota is gonna bring up a running back from their practice squad. But I would definitely expect Chandler to lead that backfield in touches. He might see 15 plus touches a game without Madison. In their matchup this week, Week 15, it's not bad. They get the Bengals. The Bengals' rush defense is below average in rushing yards over expected allowed per carry, and they're an average team in adjusted fantasy points allowed to running backs.

Ad Chase Brown. So speaking of the Bengals, what about Chase Brown, man? He's now seen running back rush shares of 32% and 28% over his last two games, and after failing to see a target in Week 13, he had a 12% target share in Week 14 Now, some of you were around over the offseason, you might remember how my model felt about Chase Brown. It didn't mind him. He had a best season reception share close to 10%, his top season in total yards per team play was above 2, and he had a strong weight-adjusted 40 time. Those are all big pluses. His biggest analytical negative was his age, but overall, the profile was there. He might have some flex appeal in deeper formats moving forward. At the very least, though, he's a nice handcuff to Joe Mixon.

Add Zameer White. So Josh Jacobs hurt his knee on Sunday against the Vikings. That left the Raiders backfield to Zameer White and Amir Abdullah. Abdullah actually out-snaps Zameer White in that game 15-5. But the Raiders only played 6 offensive snaps after Josh Jacobs' injury. Abdullah played the passing down snaps, White was the early down guy. Now if Jacobs misses time, I'd expect White to see more work than Abdullah. Abdullah would catch more passes out of the backfield, Zameer White more of the early down player.

But a big reason to like Zameer White is because this week, on Thursday, they get the Chargers. And the Chargers are going to be without Justin Herbert. Vegas, in that game right now, is currently favored. And if they're favored, a neutral, a positive game script that's going to favor Zameer White more than Amir Abdullah. So I think of those two players, White's the one that I would add.

Add Jarek McKinnon and Clyde Edwards-Alaire.

So Isaiah Pacheco's shoulder injury, it popped up after last week's 15 Transactions episode. So I didn't get to really talk about that backfield on the podcast. Now fortunately, we have this game without Pacheco under our belts to do a little analysis. Unfortunately, things weren't very clear cut in that game. The Chiefs really split that backfield up in week 14 against the Bills. Clyde Edwards-Alaire had the best usage, he carried the ball 11 times, Jarek McKinnon had 4 carries, CEH had 4 targets, McKinnon had 3 But in the red zone, McKinnon out-snaps CEH 7-2.

And that's why McKinnon out-scored CEH in that game from a fantasy perspective, because he scored a touchdown. Now if Pacheco's out again, we should probably expect more of the same. Edwards-Alaire's the early down back, maybe he has a little bit of receiving upside, but McKinnon has a little bit more receiving upside than that, and then he'll see the more important touches, the touches closer to the end zone. And that kind of leaves us with a mess.

But if we were to choose for week 15 only, I might choose Clyde Edwards-Alaire. I don't think it's an obvious choice, but I do lean that way, because Kansas City is a huge favorite against New England this week. That makes me think that CEH would be in store for a bigger workload. Both CEH and McKinnon, though, should be rostered.