926: 15 Transactions for Week 7

JJ Zachariason (0:02)

This is The Late-Round Podcast with your host, JJ Zachariason.

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So, Jalen Warren returned for the Steelers in Week 6, and then obviously, Najee Harris goes out and he has his best performance of the season. You gotta love fantasy football. But this is why we look at peripherals. This is why we look at more than just fantasy points scored. Harris gave us an RB1 performance for the first time all year, but his running back rush share was just 58.3%. That was a season low. He ran a route on 39% of Pittsburgh's drop backs. That number was hovering the 60 to 65% range without Jalen Warren. Harris also played less than half of Pittsburgh snaps against Vegas. To me, there's no doubt that this matchup against the Raiders, that's what helped Harris do what he did in week 6 It was a favorable matchup, and he came through. He looked good. Things just won't be that easy moving forward. Not only do the Steelers get the Jets in week 7, but they have the 3rd toughest schedule for running backs from here on out according to adjusted fantasy points allowed. We should be worried about Jalen Warren, and we should be worried about some of these upcoming matchups. So to me, Najee Harris a pretty clear sell. Add Isaac Guerendo. I'm going to assume that a lot of waiver wire columns are going to be pretty bullish on Guerendo this week. And while I do think that you should try to add him, I would hesitate to spend a lot of my budget on him this week, or my top waiver priority. First off, Jordan Mason, who's got this shoulder issue, he might not be out very long. He's considered day to day right now. And even if he can't go in week 7, the 49ers, they get the Chiefs. Kansas City's been the toughest matchup for running backs this year. And then on top of that, Guerendo wouldn't just take on Jordan Mason's role. In week 6, Patrick Taylor ended up running more than twice the number of routes as Guerendo, and we'd likely see more work out of that backfield in that area of the field out of Kyle Juszczyk and Debo Samuel if Jordan Mason misses time. So yeah, go ahead and go get Isaac Guerendo. He's a freakishly athletic running back. He kind of comped to Isaiah Pacheco in my prospect model. He's in one of the best situations imaginable, but I think it's very, very important to temper expectations.

Add Romeo Dobbs. So a few weeks ago, you guys might remember that I talked about Romeo Dobbs as a buy candidate, because Jordan Love was coming back. The entire passing attack for the Packers was going to get a bump. Everyone was rightfully on Jaden Reed. I was on Jaden Reed too. But Dobbs is kind of like a low key buy, because he was running the most routes on that team. He was going to give you the most consistent opportunity outside of Jaden Reed. And then Dobbs had his off the field issues in week five, but he came through in week six. He had a multi-touchdown day. His target share was only 13%, but he once again ran the most routes at wide receiver for the Packers. No Green Bay player right now has a 20% target share better on the season. They're spreading things out. But Dontavian Wicks is now banged up, and Green Bay gets the Texans, the Jags and the Lions over their next three. Those are three top ten favorable matchups for wide receivers, according to Adjusted Fantasy Points allowed. Romeo Dobbs needs to be rostered in way more than 35% of Yahoo! Leagues. And hopefully, because I talked about him on last week's Sleepers episode, hopefully he's already on your roster. By DK Metcalf. So it's been a rough couple of weeks for DK Metcalf. In week five, he had a four catch 55 yard line against the Giants, but he only scored seven and a half PPR points because he fumbled. In week six, he had 11 targets, which is great, but he only had three catches. That was his lowest reception total of his career in a game where he saw double digit targets. The thing is, though, this Seattle environment is really good for fantasy purposes. Depending on how you measure it, the Seahawks right now have the highest pass rate over expected in the entire NFL. Geno Smith has 27 more pass attempts than any other quarterback in football. Even if DK Metcalf hovers at like 22 percent target share range, that's going to come from a really big pie. He's already had three games this year with 10 plus targets. He's averaged 3.4 of those games per year since entering the league. And I know that no one really wants to hear this, but DK Metcalf does have contingent upside. You guys are just sick of that phrase. But an injury to Tyler Lockett, an injury to Jackson Smith and Jigba, that could force more targets DK Metcalf's way. So I think overall, things should normalize a bit for DK Metcalf moving forward. Add Kamani Vidal. So as a lot of you know, I like Kamani Vidal. I liked him a lot as a prospect. So it was really good to see him get some run in this Chargers offense now that Gus Edwards is on IR. It just would have been nicer for him to see a bigger backfield share than what he saw on week six. JK. Dobbins ended up playing about 3.4 of the Chargers snaps. And because of this run-heavy script, he had 25 rush attempts. Vidal only had four. Now, Vidal did have a nice touchdown reception that could earn more playing time. Hopefully, they see that, hopefully, they look at the tape, and they like what they see. He ran around on about 26% of L.A.'s drop backs. He is a do-it-all back. That's part of the intrigue here. And we know that JK. Dobbins hasn't been the healthiest running back throughout his career. So there is a chance here that as Vidal gets more reps, he will steal more and more of his backfield. JK. Dobbins can't see 25 rush attempts every single game. That can't be good for his body. So maybe Vidal gets a flex-worthy role in deeper formats, all while having that injury upside. Add De'Ernest Johnson. So last week, I talked about Tank Bigsby being a sell. And honestly, I think he might be even a better sell now, because Travis Etienne is banged up with a hamstring injury. He left Sunday's game in London with that injury. He's now week to week. Now Tank Bigsby is going to see more work without Travis Etienne. But what's that workload really going to look like? Because Etienne missed a lot of that game in London, and Bigsby was out snapped by De'Ernest Johnson by a lot. Now that was definitely game script related, but that's kind of the point. There was this negative game script, and Jacksonville deployed Johnson as their pass catching back. Johnson ran around on 56% of the team's drop backs, Bigsby was at 16%. Now, we can't assume that Jacksonville is going to split their backfield identically to how they split it in week 6 And we also can't assume that they're going to see this ultra negative game script again. But we can recognize the possibilities here, the range of outcomes. And a very real outcome here is that Tank Bigsby is just the early down back for Jacksonville. He could be game scripted out. He has one target this season. And that's where De'Ernest Johnson becomes more attractive as a fantasy option. Maybe not in week 7, because they get the Patriots, they could see a positive game script. But week 8 and week 9, the Jags get the Packers and the Eagles. Those are two teams that they could easily trail against. And again, if they're trailing, if they're in these negative game scripts, that's going to probably benefit De'Ernest Johnson more than Tank Bigsby. Johnson's going to be out there on a lot of waiver wires. I think in PPR formats especially, he's worth a look.