950: 15 Transactions for Week 13

JJ Zachariason (0:11)

What's up, everyone? It's JJ Zachariason, and this is episode 950 of The Late-Round Fantasy Football Podcast, sponsored by Underdog. Thanks for tuning in. A couple of things before getting in the transactions this week. First, this is Thanksgiving week. And since it's Thanksgiving week, the Late-Round Podcast schedule, it's a little bit different. There's not going to be a mailbag episode or a Late-Round Perspectives episode this week. Today, on Tuesday, you're getting the 15 Transactions show. And then tomorrow, you'll get the 10 Trends episode as you usually do. But then later on in the day, hopefully by lunchtime, you'll get the Sleeper show for the week. So the Sleeper show is going to be released a day early in order to get everything you need before kickoff on Thanksgiving. Now, second, Underdog is a great place to play fantasy sports on Thanksgiving. Right now in the lobby, you can check out the Turkey. It's a $5 entry with $200,000 in prizes. All centered around one of the best slates of the year, the Thanksgiving Slate. You can check out that contest and more by heading to underdogfantasy.com or downloading the Underdog app. If you've never played there, make sure you sign up with promo code LATEROUND. That'll get you a nice deposit offer as well as my rest of season rankings, which I'm still updating every Tuesday. That's underdogfantasy.com, promo code LATEROUND. Let's get to these transactions.

Add Jeremy McNichols. So Brian Robinson got banged up in that game against Dallas. Meanwhile, at the end of that game, Austin Eckler was concussed. So what that means is here in week 13, we might not see Brian Robinson or Austin Eckler. If that's the case, Jeremy McNichols will probably be the 1A in that backfield. I think there is some chance that we see some Chris Rodriguez too. But it's a game against Tennessee, and we're just looking for volume in fantasy football, so go ahead and add Jeremy McNichols. It's as simple as that. Buy Taysom Hill. Now look, I should have said this earlier, but I know that trade deadlines have largely passed. But these buy and sell transactions, they can be confidence-driven transactions. They can tell you how you should generally feel about a player moving forward. So in this case, I think that you should feel more than okay with Taysom Hill on your roster. The last time we saw Hill, he had that monster monster game against Cleveland. Maybe that means that you're buying high here. But I don't think that the market is really locked into this idea that Taysom Hill could be like a top five tight end rest of season. Because it's Taysom Hill. People don't really take him seriously. New Orleans has now played two games without Dennis Allen. In those games, Hills had route participation rates of 60% and 63%. Every other game this season, Taysom Hill, his route share, under 50%. We know the Saints are lacking pass catching depth. More than likely, Taysom Hill is going to have a receiving role, some sort of receiving role in this offense. And for what it's worth, New Orleans tight ends have the second best fantasy playoff schedule by Adjusted Points Allowed. I know that Taysom Hill is not a traditional tight end, so you can take that with a grain of salt, but it's still something. It's very easy to argue that Taysom Hill has just as high of a ceiling as any other tight end in football. We literally just saw that. But with him running more routes, he's providing a higher floor than usual. He's seen at least an 18% target share in two of his last three. You pile on the rushing work, the potential goal line work, you've got yourself a good fantasy asset. And I'd be willing to bet on ceiling, because ceiling is largely what matters at tight end. It's largely what matters in fantasy football just in general. Add Dontavian Wicks. I know you guys don't want to hear this, but I've got to do it. Romeo Dobbs, he suffered a concussion on Sunday. The Packers are playing on Thanksgiving. He's unlikely to play in that game. Next man up, Dontavian Wicks. And I know he's burned you. In week five, the team didn't have Christian Watson. Everyone used Dontavian Wicks and he caught just two of his seven targets. But he did have a 25% target share. That's a strong share. So if you're in a pinch, I do think that Wicks kind of works in a Thursday night game that has an okay environment. Cell, Tua Tonga Vaialoa. Now, speaking of that Thursday night game, we're going to see Tua in it. And he's been a lot better of late. But I think his performances need a little bit of context. The Dolphins are coming off games against the Raiders and the Patriots. Those are two beatable defenses. They've scored a total of eight touchdowns in those games. Seven of those eight have come through the air. Tua has a 9% touchdown rate in those games. That's a number that's likely not sustainable from here on out. So there's going to be some regression. In the schedule moving forward, it's not as clean as what we've seen over the last couple of weeks. In fact, according to Adjusted Fantasy Points allowed, Miami only gets one opponent from here on out that ranks favorably for quarterbacks by Adjusted Points allowed. The matchups aren't that, like, brutal. It's not like he's playing Chicago every week or like Pittsburgh every week or something. But they're not amazing. They're not going to face New England every single week. So the point in this transaction is to simply say, I don't think Tuatunga Bayaloha is all of a sudden something you're going to plug into your lineup each week no matter what. I still think that Tuah is more of a platoon quarterback. Add Nick Westbrook-Akine. I've started to realize that the Late-Round Podcast Sleeper Show every week, it's sort of like the minor league. I call players out on that show, but I haven't talked about them all the time on the 15 Transactions show. And then sometimes they get called up to the bigs. That's what we've got with Nick Westbrook-Akine. Because over the last couple of weeks, I've talked about him as a sleeper, and he's come through because he's made these big plays. He's now scored a touchdown in six of his last seven. And those are games that have largely come without DeAndre Hopkins. Without Hopkins in the mix, Westbrook-Akine is averaging a target share per game rate of 17%, which is respectable. And his targets have been down the field. His average at the target is above 15 yards during this time. So yeah, he's going to be a volatile asset, and recently he's been hitting. But some rosters need that kind of variance. The touchdown streak is surely going to come to an end. But Tennessee, as I've talked about for weeks now, they continue to have an amazing schedule for the passing attack. They won't face a single bottom half opponent for wide receivers by adjusted points allowed through the end of the year. Not one. So there's a real chance that Westbrook Aquinas production won't totally, totally fade away. Add Amir Abdullah. So I talked about adding Abdullah last week, but I'm giving him another call out on this show because his usage was way better than I think any of us thought. On Sunday against the Broncos, Abdullah scored 17.5 PPR points that matched a season high for any Raiders running back. His 90% snap share was over 20 percentage points higher than any other Vegas back this year. He ran a route on 80% of the team's drop backs. That's bonkers. There's still a chance that both Amir White and Alexander Madison are out this week, especially because it's a shorter one. Vegas plays on Friday and they play Kansas City. It's a brutal matchup for Abdullah, but the usage could still make him usable.