944: Week 11 Sleepers

JJ Zachariason (0:11)

What's up, everyone? It's JJ Zachariason. In this episode 944 of The Late-Round Fantasy Football Podcast, sponsored by Underdog, thanks for tuning in. On last week's Sleeper episode, I called out Aaron Rodgers and Daniel Jones as streamers, and that didn't work out. Andre Josiváš didn't do much in a great matchup either. I got the Saints wide receivers wrong, and Ray Davis only saw three touches. Russell Wilson and Jalen Warren worked out, though. Ricky Pearsall was a strong play, and Rashad Bateman was a good player to call out. Now, the last month of this show hasn't been fantastic, but there were at least some good picks in there last week. We're now on to week 11 Now, before I get to the Sleepers this week, I just want to remind you to check out Underdog. Over on Underdog, you can play Pick'em and Champions mode, and of course, you can do snake drafts each week too. Just looking at the lobby, there are literally over 20 drafts that 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'll get you a nice deposit offer, and it'll 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 Sleepers.

We'll kick things off as usual with players rostered in 10% to 50% of Yahoo! Leagues, who you might want to start this week. I've got 4 quarterback streamers in this tier. I think all of them are actually pretty strong. BoNix is one of them. He's averaged over 20 points per game over his last 6, and he's hit 36 or more rushing yards in 3 of his last 5 He gets Atlanta this week. The Falcons are a top 10 matchup for quarterbacks when looking at adjusted fantasy points allowed. The Broncos also have the best matchup in the league this week when looking at how much pressure defenses generate against them versus how much pressure the Falcons generate. It's not surprising to see Denver with a strong 23-point total. They're in a good spot. I talked about Russell Wilson on the 50 Transaction Show, so naturally, he's going to get a shout out here as well. The Steelers get the Ravens. Baltimore has been the third best matchup for quarterbacks this season by adjusted points allowed, and quarterbacks against Baltimore have thrown for 77 more yards in their season-long averages. That's by far the highest adjusted passing yards allowed mark in the league. The Steelers have a totally fine 22.5-point team total too. Baltimore is a team that teams are throwing on. I'd expect the same for Pittsburgh this weekend. I think you could even look at Drake May this week. He's got a Rams team that's just a little bit above average as a matchup when looking at adjusted fantasy points allowed. And there's definitely some fear that the Rams are going to be able to get to him. They actually ranked second this year in pressure rate generated. The Patriots, they haven't been great at limiting that pressure. That could allow May, though, to run a little bit more than usual. And we know that he can escape the pocket and run. He's averaging 44 rushing yards per game in games that he started and finished this year. That baseline has allowed him to score between 12 and 21 points in each of his four starts. His only real bad game was last week, but last week, he faced Chicago. That's a team that ranks as the toughest opponent for quarterbacks this year. I think Wilson and Nix are better plays, but May works as a deeper one. And then people probably won't trust this recommendation as much, but Aaron Rodgers, you guys, he's still out there in 53% of Yahoo! leagues, and he gets the Colts. I know that he didn't come through in what looked like a decent matchup last week against Arizona, but Indianapolis is an even better one on paper. They rank as the seventh best matchup for quarterbacks by adjusted fantasy points allowed. Rodgers had been averaging 17 points per game across the last month before his Week 10 poop fest against Arizona, so it's not like he's incapable of making some noise in fantasy. With a near 24-point implied team total, I think we might need to have a short memory and look at Rodgers as an OK streamer this week. Now moving on to running back, let's start with another 15-transactions player, that's Audrick Estimé. Now I'm not sure how much receiving work Estimé is going to get after a 21% route share in Week 10, but Estimé had a Broncos season-high 82% running back rush share against the Chiefs. And while he didn't produce a ton, we have to recognize that Kansas City is by far the toughest matchup in football for running backs. Atlanta is actually pretty good against running backs too, at least by adjusted fantasy points allowed. But they're a better matchup. And like I said with Bo Nix, there are reasons to be optimistic about the Broncos this week. The bottom line is that if Estimé continues seeing this kind of workload, more fantasy points are going to be scored. Tajay Spears is kind of interesting this week. He finally returned to the Titans in Week 10 He had a few weeks off. He saw 44% of the team's running back rushes and a pretty solid 13% target share. He ran a route on 42% of their drop backs. It's not a bad number, especially for sort of the 1B in his offense. We've seen the Titans at times this year deploy Tajay Spears as their negative game script back. That could hit this week. They get the Vikings, and Minnesota is about a six point favorite. The Vikings have also allowed the sixth highest adjusted target share this season to running backs. That plays right into what Spears has done best so far in the NFL. Now, you should definitely prefer Tony Pollard. But Tajay Spears isn't seeing a horrible workload himself. The last time we saw the Browns, Jerome Ford was coming off an injury. He ended up seeing a six and a half percent target share and about 10% of the team's running back rushes. But his route participation wasn't that bad in that game. He ran a route on 54% of Cleveland's drop backs. Now, I'm not sure that we can assume some massive negative game script this week against the Saints, but New Orleans have been gashed on the ground this year. They've allowed the fifth most adjusted points to the position and they rank well below average in adjusted rushing yards allowed to running backs. I think clear negative game scripts may benefit Ford more than a matchup like this, but we're not going to bat a thousand when it comes to predicting how games are going to unfold. If you're desperate, the matchup is at least there and his usage is not a total zero. The last running back in this tier is Gus Edwards. He's sort of similar to Audrick Estimé and then he's not going to see that much work through the air, more than likely. Except with Estimé, we at least have some unknown upside. With Edwards, we know it won't be the case. We have years of data pointing to Gus Edwards not being a receiving threat. Regardless, the Chargers get the Bengals this week. Cincinnati, they've been more vulnerable through the air than on the ground this season, and it is projected to be a decently high scoring game. The Chargers have a decent implied team total. So if you need a body, Edwards could be that body. He should see 10 or so touches. Moving to wide receiver, Jerry Judy is still under that 50% mark, so let's talk about him. In Jameis Winston's two starts, so over Jerry Judy's last two games, he's seen target shares of 20% and 24%. That's led to PPR totals of 13 and 14 He's run a route on every single Cleveland Browns drop back during that time. So we're getting a player who's seeing above average target shares, getting above average usage, and he's in an above average to average matchup against the Saints team that ranks 15th in adjusted points allowed to wide receivers. If that doesn't define this sleeper show, I don't know what does. Now, I didn't think that we would see Ricky Pearsall be eligible for this show anymore, but at the time in this recording, he's still not above that 50% mark. So you should use him. Pearsall has now seen target shares of 16%, 16%, and 18% in his three games this year. And we can project him to see like a 70 to 80% route share this week for San Francisco. The 49ers get the Seahawks. Seattle's defense has been kind of rough across the board this year. They're well below average in both adjusted passing yards and running back rushing yards allowed. And they rank as almost a top 10 matchup for wide receivers and adjusted fantasy points allowed. So Pearsall is fine on a team with a high implied team total. Quinton Johnson's target shares haven't been fantastic. He actually hasn't seen a target share of 20% since week 2 But this past week, he saw a RAL participation of 96%. He's getting run. And like I said with Gus Edwards, this doesn't profile as a super low scoring game given you've got Justin Herbert and Joe Burrow going up against one another. And Cincinnati is a good matchup. They're the eighth best matchup for wide receivers by adjusted points allowed, and teams are throwing to wide receivers at an above average rate when they face the Bengals. So Johnson's an okay play. DeMario Douglas is a high floor option as long as Drake May is under center. We now had three games of May and Douglas, where May finished the game and Douglas wasn't sick, aka where Douglas played his typical role. In those games, Douglas is averaging almost a 25% target share per game rate, and he hasn't fallen below the 20% mark.