936: Week 9 Sleepers

JJ Zachariason (0:11)

What's up, everyone? It's JJ Zachariason. In this episode 936 of The Late-Round Fantasy Football Podcast, sponsored by Underdog, thanks for tuning in. We saw a little bit of week-over-week improvement with last week's Sleeper episode, but there were still some big misses. The Tampa Bay wide receivers weren't nearly as good as I thought they would be. Dontavian Wicks was a flop. Jalen Tolbert was too. And Tyler Boyd didn't take advantage of a good matchup. But I did call out Jameis Winston, and I called out Cedric Tillman too. Bo Nix was an awesome streamer. Braylon Allen found the end zone, and so did Jaleel McLaughlin. It was another below average week, but it was at least better than that crappy one that I had in week 7 Now, before getting into the week 9 Sleepers, I wanted to remind you that even though you drafted your fantasy teams back in August, you can still do snake drafts right now over on Underdog. Just head to underdogfantasy.com or download the Underdog app. In the draft section, click NFL, and you'll see tons of drafts that you can participate in right now. And if you're new to Underdog, make sure to sign up with promo code LATEROUND. That'll get you a nice deposit bonus as well as my rest of season rankings. Those rankings are updated for you each Tuesday once you get the link to them. But to get them, you have to sign up, use promo code LATEROUND, make a deposit, and start playing.

We'll kick things off with players rostered in fewer than 50% of Yahoo! Leagues, but more than 10% of them. And as usual, we'll start with some quarterback streamers. Bo Nix has been on fire, at least in fantasy football. He's averaged almost 22 standard fantasy points per game over his last four. And two of those games came against opponents who ranked in the bottom half of the league and adjusted fantasy points allowed to quarterbacks. Denver gets Baltimore this week. The Ravens have been thrown on this year. Only the Buccaneers have seen a higher pass rate against them in neutral script environments. And the Ravens are allowing an extra 71 passing yards to be thrown against them versus their opponents season long average. Meaning we should expect Bo Nix to throw more passing yards than he typically throws for. There's some concern about Denver's low team total this week. But as a fantasy asset, Nix is not in a bad spot. Derek Carr should be back this week and the Saints get the Panthers. We know that's a plus matchup. Carolina has been putrid defensively this year. They've given up the third most adjusted fantasy points to quarterbacks and they've got a bottom tier pressure rate. They've given up a QB1 performance in four of their last five games. And the last time that Derek Carr faced them back in week one, he completed 19 of 23 passes and threw for three touchdowns. The Saints have almost a 26-point implied team total this week. That makes Carr an OK play. Now moving on to running back as usual, it's tough to find reliable players of the position off the waiver wire. But Tyler Algiers rostered in 37% of leagues. I don't mind him against Dallas this week. The game between Atlanta and Dallas looks like it's going to be one of the fastest paced ones on the slate. We may see a lot of back and forth action and more plays run. That's going to favor all of the players involved in the game. Dallas has faced a bottom five pass rate against them this year in neutral game script environments, because they've been bad against the run. Team running backs have seen 16 more rushing yards per game against Dallas versus their season long averages. The Cowboys are the seventh best matchup for running backs by just the fantasy points allowed. Now, Algiers has been flip-flopping between lower running back rush shares and higher ones over the last five weeks. But last week, he did see 48% of Atlanta's running back rushes. If they go with a ground-heavy approach, he could see double-digit touches in this game. Another running back who may have some appeal in deeper formats is Zach Charbonneau. He's seen at least a 25% running back rush share in every game over his last four. He's actually hit a double-digit percentage target share in two of those games. Seattle gets a Rams team that's been pretty average for running backs when looking at adjusted fantasy points allowed. But they've been a bottom 10 team at preventing running back rushing yards. So in a pinch, maybe you get like 10 touches from Charbonneau in the game that could end up being high scoring. And then I'm going to shout out Ray Davis here too. Look, all these running back plays, they're shaky because people roster all the usable running backs. But Davis has seen running back rush shares of 29% and 25% over his last two games. And he's been efficient with his touches basically since his week six breakout against the Jets. The Bills get Miami this week. It's a game where they're at home as six and a half point favorites. The game has a high over under, giving Buffalo a massive team total of almost 28 And Miami's been a team that struggled against the run way more than the pass this year. They're actually the best team and adjusted points allowed to quarterbacks according to my numbers and their eighth worst against running backs. In neutral scripts, they faced a bottom five pass rate. Teams are running the ball against Miami. This is more of a desperation play, there's no doubt. Definitely more so than a player like Tyler Algier. But that's where we're at this year with these waver wire running backs. And there surprisingly aren't that many injuries across the league at the position. Now moving on to wide receiver, let's just talk about the Carolina guys. Xavier Ligette is rostered in about 21% of Yahoo leagues, Jalen Coker only 2% of them. Now I think Ligette is the preferred choice, but I don't have their projections massively far apart this week, assuming they run out the same guys as they did last week. They get the Saints, as I just talked about. New Orleans has been the 11th best matchup for wide receivers and adjusted points allowed this year, so the matchup isn't anything that we should be overly worried about. A higher percentage of wide receiver targets have gone to the slot against New Orleans than most teams. They rank just outside the top 10 and slot target share allowed. That's adjusted for strength of opponent. And they've been well below average in slot targets, receptions, yards, and touchdowns allowed, which is why Coker is kind of interesting. He's been operating as Carolina's primary slot guy. He was at an 80% slot rate last week according to PFF, and he led the team in week 7 too.