914: 15 Transactions for Week 4

JJ Zachariason (0:11)

What's up, everyone? It's JJ Zachariason in this episode 914 of The Late-Round Fantasy Football Podcast, sponsored by Underdog Fantasy. Thanks for tuning in. Before we get into the transactions this week, I want to remind you to check out Underdog Fantasy. Underdog is a great place to play fantasy sports with so many different offerings that will definitely fit what you're looking for. Right now, if you sign up on Underdog, you'll get a nice deposit offer, a free pick that will help you win some cash, and then also my rest of season rankings. And then on Tuesday, for what it's worth, there's a site-wide Patrick Mahomes free pick promo. So you can get that if you sign up. But those rest of season rankings, they're updated every Tuesday through the end of the season. You get access to all of those updates. So make sure to take advantage of the offers. Just head to underdogfantasy.com and sign up. And when you do, use promo code LATEROUND. Let's get to these 15 Transactions.

Add Ja'Wan Jennings. So keep in mind that with this 15 Transactions episode, and with the write-up that I do in the newsletter, I try to not repeat Transactions week after week. I've talked about Bucky Irving for a couple of weeks now. I'm not going to bring him up on today's show, because I want to try and stay one step ahead of the competition. I want to give you guys other recommendations. But sometimes things do need to be repeated. When you get a performance like what we saw with Ja'Wan Jennings in week three, I've got to talk about it again, because he scored 46.5 freaking PPR points this past week. Now, I talked about Jennings last week as an ad. I never thought that he was going to do this. I never thought that he was going to see a 40% target share for the 49ers. Now, obviously, Debo Samuel and George Kittle being sidelined helped Jennings' cause. Jennings and Brandon Iyuk combined for a 73.3% target share in week three. But at the moment, there's no telling when those guys might return. We might be able to get another usable week out of Jennings here in week four, so he needs to be rostered everywhere.

By Brandon Iyuk. So while Jawan Jennings dominated for the 49ers this past week, Brandon Iyuk not so much. Iyuk finished the game against the Rams with just 9.8 PPR points. He's now failed to hit a double-digit PPR point total in each of his first three games. Anyone who used a top three round pick or a top four round pick on Brandon Iyuk is not very happy right now. But I'm willing to cut him a little bit of a break. He had a weird ramp up to the season because of that contract dispute, and even on Sunday, despite his poor performance, he had a 33.3% target share. On the year, according to PFF's expected fantasy points model, Iyuk has played roughly four PPR points per game below expectation. Sometimes production just doesn't match the peripherals, and that's going to especially be true when you get the ramp up, like I said, like Brandon Iyuk had. Like at the end of the day, we have a lot of historical data that tells us that Brandon Iyuk is a good player. You might be able to buy his talent for a low price right now. Not only is he coming off this disappointing performance, but players like George Kittle and Deebo Samuel, they're not going to be out forever. Their eventual return is going to make Iyuk managers even more nervous. They're going to be more afraid that Iyuk is not going to see a high target share. But I'm willing to bet on the talent right now, so I'm willing to buy Brandon Iyuk for a lower price than we drafted him for. Add Braylon Allen. Braylon Allen is carving out a role in this Jets offense. He didn't see that much work in week one. He had a sub 6% running back rush share. But over his last two games, those rush shares have been 33% and 37%. And with the Jets playing in such a favorable script in week three, that meant that the running backs saw a lot of work. He ended that game with 11 rush attempts. Now, Braylon Allen is not about to take Brice Hall's job. As much as I like Allen, my ZAP model really liked Allen coming out. And he's definitely not a threat to take Brice Hall's receiving work. Hall ran 25 routes in week three. Braylon Allen only had eight. But the Jets ranked first right now in the NFL in running back target share. And Braylon Allen, at worst, is one of the best handcuffs in fantasy football. Keep in mind, among all running backs in this past year's draft class, Allen had the best breakout score. That's a metric that goes into the ZAP model. He should be rostered in way more than 36% of Yahoo! Leagues. Sell Garrett Wilson. Now, I would imagine that Garrett Wilson is going to be a popular buy candidate this week. And I can't blame anyone who wants to go out and buy him. If you were to show me Garrett Wilson's current profile on a vacuum, his production, his peripherals, his talent, I'd almost definitely call him a buy. And you can actually still do that depending on where your team is sitting. Now, let me explain. Wilson's definitely underperformed thus far. He's averaging 12.2 PPR points per game, which is not special, but he has a target share above 28%. That's not far off from what we saw last year. And with Aaron Rodgers at quarterback, especially the Aaron Rodgers that we saw this past Thursday, why wouldn't we buy? The reason is the schedule. Over the Jets' next four games, they get the Broncos, Vikings, Bills, and Steelers. According to my Adjusted Fantasy Points Allowed Method, no team-wide receivers have a tougher four-game stretch in the Jets. Garrett Wilson has already faced some tough cornerbacks, and there's some matchups over the next month that are going to be just as difficult. So this is one of those transactions that needs some context. If you're sitting at 3-0 and you've got Garrett Wilson, or if you're in a league where the Wilson manager, they're just over it, they're willing to trade him away for less than what he was drafted for, you actually could argue trading for him. I think we're going to see a lot of Garrett Wilson production during the second half of the season. This transaction, the sell transaction for Garrett Wilson, is for the teams out there, which might be a lot of Garrett Wilson teams, given how he's produced, but it's the teams out there who are 0-3 or 1-2, who are struggling a lot, who maybe could use the information that's out there by analysts who are saying, buy Garrett Wilson, to actually sell him at a reasonable price. As much as I want to say, go buy him, because the peripherals are there, and he's a really great wide receiver, I still have to ground myself and realize this schedule coming up is not very fun. If you can get past this schedule, he should be great though.