924: Week 6 Sleepers

JJ Zachariason (0:11)

What's up, everyone? It's JJ Zachariason. In this episode, 924 of The Late-Round Fantasy Football Podcast, sponsored by Underdog. Thanks for tuning in. Last week's Sleeper Show results, they weren't terrible, but they weren't great. Romeo Dobbs didn't even end up playing. And we all know how Dontavian Wicks' week went. deshaun Watson was pathetic in a plus matchup, and that resulted in a poor Jerry-Judy game. Gabe Davis and Emanuel Wilson did nothing, too. But Trevor Lawrence had a good game against the Colts, and Joe Flacco had a good game against the Jags. Trey Sermon was fine. Wondell Robinson had a good game. Keon Coleman thankfully caught a long one. Josh Downs was solid. Rochon Johnson scored twice. And Tucker Kraft had a monster day. So overall, like I said, definitely not terrible.

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This first tier includes players rostered in 10-50% of Yahoo leagues who you might want to start this week. We've got a lot of injuries, we got a lot of bye weeks, you may need some help. At quarterback, I really like Daniel jones. I mentioned him on the 15 Transaction show earlier this week because he's been playing really well. He's hit 18-plus fantasy points in three of his last four. He's fifth in the NFL in quarterback rushes. And he gets a Bengals defense as being the fifth most desirable matchup for quarterbacks this year. The Giants actually have the 11th best implied team total on this week's slate. Sportsbooks know that this Bengals defense has been struggling. That makes him a fun play this week. You could also look at Andy Dalton in this tier. He's rostered in just over 10% of leagues. And while I don't feel as good about him as I do Danny dimes, I do think he's okay as a streamer. Just okay. The Panthers get the Falcons in the game with a decent 47.5 point over-under. And the Falcons have been an above average matchup for quarterbacks this year. Now I know Andy Dalton wasn't great last week, but he also played the Bears. The Bears have been the toughest matchup for quarterbacks this season. This one's a little bit better. So he could come away with a score or two. Now Jonathan Taylor didn't practice on wednesday, so he might be out again this week. If he is, then we should expect a combination of Trey Sermon and Tyler Goodson once again. Sermon is the preferred choice here, but keep in mind, he's also banged up. In week five, though, Sermon had the snap share advantage. He handled more work on the ground, too. Goodson, though, did run more routes, even if Sermon had a better target share. According to Fantasy Life data, they split long down in distance snaps. Basically, what I'm getting at is that this is a split backfield with Trey Sermon basically being the 1A in that backfield, as long as he's healthy. But the matchup's kind of mid. tennessee's been below average for running backs this year and adjusted points allowed. However, they do rank third in adjusted target share allowed. That could elevate the floors for both of these players in PPR formats. Ramondre Stevenson is banged up right now, and at this moment, no one knows if he's going to play this weekend. Obviously, that means that Antonio Gibson could then see a big workload. Here's the thing though, Houston's been a really tough matchup for running backs this year. They've allowed the second fewest adjusted points on the season to the position. And they're actually a top two team and adjusted target share allowed to the position. In a bad way. So Gibson works strictly on volume, but do keep in mind that the matchup is not ideal. On the flip side, you have Tyler Algier who may not see a ton of volume, but the Falcons get the Panthers this week. And the Panthers have not been great against running backs. They've been fine on a per-rush basis. Mostly average in yards over expected allowed per rush, and EPA allowed per rush. But teams are running the ball against them, which isn't that surprising. This defense, the Carolina Panthers defense, has faced the second lowest pass rate against them this season. That's largely due to game script and matchup. That's great, though, for someone like Tyler Algier. The Falcons are 6-point favorites, and Algier has averaged a 43% running back rush share over his last two. He should be fine. That logic is pretty similar for Roshan Johnson, too. He was able to take advantage of that Carolina matchup last week. He's consistently been seeing running back rush share rates of about 31% over his last three games, and he's seen four goal line attempts during this stretch. De'Andre Swift has seen five, but Swift has only scored once on those five. Roshan Johnson has scored three times. Swift has minus seven yards on those attempts. Johnson has four. Johnson has been the better goal line back, and this is something that we've seen with De'Andre Swift throughout his career. He's not a great back at the goal line. So we might see that again this week, because the Bears get the Jags. The Jags have been really bad against the Pass, but they've also been bad against the run. They've surrendered the third most adjusted fantasy point to the running back position. So I think you could do worse than Roshan Johnson this week. Now, wide receiver Josh Downs, for whatever reason, he's still below the 50% roster mark over on Yahoo.