942: 15 Transactions for Week 11

JJ Zachariason (0:02)

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

What's up, everyone? It's JJ Zachariason. In this episode, 942 of The Late-Round Fantasy Football Podcast, sponsored by Underdog. Thanks for tuning in. Before I get to the Transactions this week, I want to remind you to check out Underdog. Over on Underdog, you can play Pick'em in Champions Mode, and of course, you can do Snake Drafts every single week. Just look at the lobby. There are literally over 20 drafts you can join right now for this week's slate. To check it all out, head to underdogfantasy.com and sign up with promo code LATEROUND. That will get you a deposit offer, and it will also get you a link to my rest of season rankings. That's if you sign up with promo code LATEROUND, make a deposit, and start playing. Now, let's get to these Transactions.

Add Audrick Estimé. The Broncos in total, their running max have not been very effective on the ground this year. You can look at their team rushing EPA, and it ranks just below average compared to the rest of the league. But don't forget, they have a mobile quarterback. Gervonta Williams and Julio McLaughlin have been below average in rushing yards over expected per rush, and neither of them are giving us that much in terms of EPA. So I don't think it's that surprising to see how the Broncos deployed Adric Estime in Week 10 Against the Chiefs, he played 45% of the team's offensive snaps. His previous high in snapshare was 10%. He had a running back rush share of about 82%. That was actually a season high for the entire team, for any running back all year. It was clear that the Broncos just wanted to get Estime more involved. Now, Estime as a prospect, if you didn't listen to me during the offseason, he profiled as an early down bruiser. The Zapp model didn't love him though, because he wasn't that much of a pass catcher. He was on the younger side though. He's a younger prospect. Now, we should anticipate Denver using him in that way. We even saw that in week 10 Despite seeing the snap share, despite seeing the running back rush share, he still trailed Javontae Williams and Routes Run. But when usage trends up like this for a rookie running back, you have to try to get them off the waiver wire. I do have to say though, Denver's running back schedule rest of season, it's kind of rough when looking at Adjusted Fantasy Points allowed by Debo Samuel. So we don't have a huge sample size of Debo Samuel without Brandon Iyuk in this Brock Purdy era. But we do have something. In Iyuk's single miss game last year, Samuel saw a 35 percent target share and he scored 25 PPR points. Prior to Week 10 and since it started 2023, this is according to Adam Levitan over at Establish the Run, Samuel had a 30 percent target share and a 48 percent targets per outrun rate on plays where Iyuk was off the field. Now, Samuel didn't hit those marks against the Buccaneers on Sunday. Instead, he only had an 18 percent target share and a 17 percent targets per outrun rate. But I don't think that one game tells us the entire story. Look at his historical splits. Look at what his numbers have been even when Iyuk has been healthy. So I'd be willing to trade for Deebo Samuel this week. The ceiling is still pretty massive. And San Francisco doesn't have the worst fantasy playoff schedule. In the playoffs, they get the Rams, Dolphins and Lions. So I do think that Samuel is a buy. Add Ricky Pearsall. Now, at the very least, if you don't want to trade for Samuel, you can just add Ricky Pearsall off the waiver wire if he's out there. Now I talked about Pearsall in last week's Sleepers episode, and he came through with 17 PPR points. He saw just as many targets as Deebo Samuel did. He ran a route on 71% of San Francisco's drop backs. That's not great, but it's really solid. Now, last week, I talked about Jawan Jennings as a buy. I would still rather have Jennings than Pearsall rest of season. His usage was better and he's been balling out this year. But Pearsall should have plenty of usability in this high-powered offense. I highly doubt he's going to be sleeper eligible here in week 11

Sell Mark Andrews. It's been a wild year for Mark Andrews. As you guys know, he got off to a really, really slow start. Through his first four games, he totaled 12.5 PPR points combined. And then as a result on this show, I said in shallower formats, Mark Andrews was a drop candidate. And then naturally, right after that, he kind of goes on a heater. He's averaged 13.9 PPR points per game over his last six. And in week 10, he scored 18.8 PPR points. He had a season high 22% target share. He's been a tight end one ever since everyone gave up on him. Now production is always what we want. We need our fantasy assets to score points. But we can't just ignore how they're scoring points. Andrews has been running hot, but he's been running hot mostly through finding the end zone. He scored five touchdowns over his last five games. That's not going to be easy to sustain. And he's done that while only getting to a 20% target share one time. And that one time was last week. And last week, Isaiah Leikley was sidelined. Now if Isaiah Leikley continues to miss games, then Mark Andrews does have a shot to produce. In week 10, he ran a route on 94% of Baltimore's drop backs. That was by far a season high. His route participation this year has been between 50% and 70% most weeks. He was at 94% without Isaiah Leikley. We were seeing old Mark Andrews. So with this recommendation, I think that you could just wait to hear about Isaiah Leikley. Because that is a very big deal. But if we do see that Leikley's back, I'm anticipating Mark Andrews usage to go back to what we've seen all season long. And his production has sort of outpaced that usage since Week 4 So right now, if you're sitting here, and you can get something from Mark Andrews that's equal to where he was drafted in your fantasy drafts this year, I don't think that's a bad idea at all. Especially as you look at the fantasy playoffs, Raven's tight ends have the third toughest schedule in the league according to Adjusted Fantasy Points Allowed. Now look, I don't think you absolutely have to do this transaction, but I do think there's a very real chance, as long as Isaiah likely ends up being healthy, that this is a high point for Mark Andrews from a usage perspective.