930: 15 Transactions for Week 8

JJ Zachariason (0:02)

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

What's up, everyone? It's JJ Zachariason, and this is episode 930 of The Late-Round Fantasy Football Podcast, sponsored by Underdog. Thanks for tuning in. Before getting into the transactions this week, I want to let you know about a cool new game over on Underdog that you can play through October. Head to the Promotions tab in the Underdog app and play Red Zone Rush. It's sort of like a dating app, but instead of swiping left or right on a potential significant other, you're swiping left or right on who you think is going to get in the end zone that week. And best of all, every Red Zone entry will receive a boost. You can check out Red Zone Rush by heading to underdogfantasy.com or downloading the Underdog app. And if you're new to Underdog, make sure you sign up with promo code LATEROUND. You'll get a nice deposit bonus, and you'll get access to my rest of season rankings for absolutely free. Just sign up, use promo code LATEROUND, make a deposit, and start playing. Buy Devonta Smith. I think one of the easier transactions this week is to buy Devonta Smith. He only had two targets against the Giants. It was one target, depending on your source. That was just the second time in his career where he saw fewer than three targets in a game. It's not like the Eagles just stopped using Smith. He had a 91% Rao participation. That's right in line with his season-long average. The Eagles, according to what JJP allowed, they have the third easiest schedule for wide receivers over the next four weeks. They get the Bengals, Jags, Cowboys, and Commanders. Their rest of season schedule, the absolute best in the league. Things are set up very well for a Devonta Smith bounce back.

Add Juwan Jennings and Ricky Pearsall. So Brandon Iyuk is now out for the year, and Deebo Samuels hospitalized with pneumonia. The 49ers need Juwan Jennings and Ricky Pearsall. Now Jennings was out in week seven, but we saw what Jennings did earlier this season. He's had a really good year to date. Even with Iyuk in the mix, Jennings has hit at least an 11% target share in every single game this season. And we all remember what happened in week three against the Rams. He scored 46.5 PPR points. So to me, I think Jennings is the top priority this week. But keep in mind, he's dealing with a hip injury. And that's where Ricky Pearsall comes in. Pearsall made his debut in week seven. He led the 49ers in routes run. Now he only caught three balls for 21 yards, but he had a 16% target share. That's not too bad. Pearsall was an older prospect, but what the ZAP model liked about him is that he showed off a lot of versatility in college. Kyle Shanahan can do a lot with Ricky Pearsall. And anytime there's a good rookie like Pearsall is, who's walking into a really good opportunity, you should give them a serious look off the waiver wire. Now again, Jennings is probably the preferred choice here just because of how he's performed this year. But I think that Pearsall actually has more upside than what the market currently believes. So I think being aggressive with both of those wide receivers this week makes a lot of sense. And then for deeper formats, don't forget about Jacob Cowing either. He was a highly productive wide receiver in college. He might get more opportunities without Ayuk. So I'd rank them Jennings, Pearsall, and then Cowing, but I think all of them, especially Jennings and Pearsall, need to be added relatively aggressively, especially during a week where there's not great waiver wire options.

Sell Najee Harris. It's not very common for me to repeat a transaction week over week, but in this case, I think I have to. Because I do think that even after Najee Harris is good week seven, he's still a sell candidate. He's now had two great games in a row, but there's still a lot working against him. Number one, unsurprisingly, his Snapshare has fallen with Jalen Warren back in the lineup. It was 48% in week six. His Snapshare was 50% in week seven. Those numbers were closer to 70% without Warren. He's also losing work as a receiver. That's the second thing. Over the last two weeks, Harris' RAL participation, 36% and 32%. Again, those are with Jalen Warren. He was well above the 60% mark without Warren. That's led to two straight games with target shares below 10%. And then lastly, schedule is not everything, but it's definitely something. And I talked about this before with Harris, but in the Fantasy Playoffs in Week 16 and 17, the Steelers get the Ravens and the Chiefs. Those are two of the toughest matchups that you could possibly find across the league. Now look, calling Harris a cell last week, that wasn't a good idea because he had a decent outing in Week 7 He scored 16 PPR points. So I'll take the L there. But I would not expect this to be the norm moving forward. And even if it is the norm, good luck using Najee Harris in the Fantasy Playoffs. I think there's going to be a lot of volatility there. Add Jalen Wright. Jalen Wright has been brought up in this podcast in the past, but with Tuatanga Wailoa potentially coming back from his head injury in Week 8, there's more reason to be into Wright. Now he is the number 3 back in that backfield, but he probably has the best per rush numbers of the three running backs this season. That's him, Devon Achan, and Raheem Mostert. He leads Achan and Mostert in yards after contact per attempt, rushing yards over expected per attempt, EPA per rush, and success rate. It could only be a matter of time before his workload increases, especially with Achan and Mostert just being ineffective this year. And if that happens, if Wright does get more work, it's going to be in an offense that's hypothetically more efficient than what this offense has been without Tuatanga. And it doesn't hurt that Miami has the best schedule for running backs over their next four games. So yeah, I'd rather have Achan, I'd probably rather have Mostert still. But those guys aren't available in a lot of leagues. Jalen Wright is. By Tyrone Tracy. So we saw Tyrone Tracy for two weeks without Devon Singletary. He played as a bell cow for the Giants. With Singletary back in week seven, we weren't totally sure what that backfield was going to look like. And honestly, it was kind of awesome for Tyrone Tracy. He didn't put up monster numbers against the Eagles. He only had 6.2 PPR points. But he handled half of New York's running back rushes. More importantly, he ran 27 routes according to PFF. Devon Singletary had six. Now the Giants game script against Philadelphia. It was a little bit wonky. And it's definitely concerning that they didn't have Andrew Thomas this past week, and all of a sudden, their line got destroyed. So I think there is a lot of risk with this transaction. Don't get me wrong. But this could just be the start for Tyrone Tracy. This is evidence that they're going to use Tracy more than Devon Singletary. Maybe they didn't use Singletary because he was coming off that injury. But Tyrone Tracy has been the better running back this season. And at the very least, if he's the receiving back, which makes total sense given his skill set, these potential negative game scripts that the Giants are going to face, that's a good thing for Tyrone Tracy. Or at least, it's not a terrible thing. Had Tracy posted awesome numbers, this wouldn't be an easy recommendation. But he didn't. So there's going to be plenty of non-believers out there. Don't be one of them. This is the right kind of bet to make at this point in the season.