946: 15 Transactions for Week 12

JJ Zachariason (0:11)

What's up, everyone? It's JJ Zachariason in this episode 946 of The Late-Round Fantasy Football Podcast, sponsored by Underdog. Thanks for tuning in. Now, I know that your trade deadline might be up, but up until the final couple of weeks on this 15 Transactions show, I still talk about buys and sells. You may not always get to use those Transactions, but it can be helpful knowing where a player generally stands, if he's going to continue his production or if people are too high on him. But as the season gets closer to the end, there are more and more add-and-drop Transactions that make this list. And as wild as it seems, we're only a few weeks away from the fantasy playoffs. I just wanted to open up today's show with that little caveat. Now, before getting into the Transactions, I want 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 as usual, 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 every 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. By Bucky Irving. Now, I understand that most of the fantasy football world already recognizes that Bucky Irving has been an efficient back without this huge, huge ceiling because of the presence of Rashad White. If Rashad White wasn't in Tampa Bay, everyone would be very high on Bucky Irving. But I think there's a chance for some high upside games down the stretch for Irving. Now, Irving's coming off a game in week 10 because they had a buy in week 11, where he ranked as a top 10 running back in PPR formats. I'm not trying to sell this as some buy low moment. It's just that we haven't seen a massive game from Irving this year. He's maxed out at 18.5 PPR points. And again, that's largely because of a split backfield. He hasn't had a 50% snap share since week 6 But I talked about this in the Mailbag episode last week. Tampa Bay Running Max, they play certain roles in this offense. Irving's kind of a do-it-all back. He can do everything for them. Rashad White, though, takes more of the pass catching duties. On the season, according to Fantasy Life data, White's seen about 77% of the team's long down and distant snaps. That's led to about a 14% target share per game rate. That's 6 percentage points higher than Bucky Irving's. So, if you believe the Bucks are going to see negative game scripts, then Rashad White would be your preferred running back in that backfield. But that might not happen down the stretch. The Buccaneers' remaining opponents through the end of the fantasy season, the Giants, Panthers, Raiders, Chargers, Cowboys, and Panthers. Not only does that give them the best remaining schedule by Adjusted Fantasy Points allowed for running backs, but they'll likely be favorites and all but one of those games. And because that schedule looks so good, the guy who could benefit in that backfield is Bucky Irving, at least more so than what we might see from Rashad White. That's why I think right now, Irving's a buy. Add Jalen McMillan. So once again, the waiver wire is not that strong. Anecdotally, I feel like waiver wires this season have been the worst that I've ever seen as a fantasy analyst. So with that being said, you know, I've talked about Jalen McMillan in the past. I don't think this is like a smash ad. Like you absolutely need to go after McMillan. But I do think that fantasy managers have given up on him too soon. I want to give him at least one or two more weeks. We have to remember he suffered a hamstring injury before week nine. He missed that game. And then in week 10, he didn't get any run. Now, was it because the Buccaneers all of a sudden want to use Ryan Miller instead? Probably not. Just look at McMillan's usage throughout the season. Look at his skill set. Look at his prospect profile. It's pretty unlikely that they want to use those wide receivers over McMillan. It was probably because of his injury. Now, Mike Evans is set to be back soon, and that could limit McMillan's ceiling. But this might be a case where McMillan just needs a player like Evans on the field to take some of the pressure off. Because the fact is, McMillan was a pretty good prospect. He is playing in a pretty decent offense. And his schedule down the stretch is also pretty good. And we can't forget that we often see rookie wide receivers close out that first season better than how they started. Their second half numbers are usually way better than their front half numbers. So this may amount to nothing. I totally understand that. It's not like Jalen McMillan has dominated since Chris Godwin got hurt. But I'm still anticipating that he runs a lot of routes in this Bucks offense. And it's an offense with a pretty strong rest of season schedule.