952: Week 13 Sleepers

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, 952 of The Late-Round Fantasy Football Podcast, sponsored by Underdog. Thanks for tuning in. I'm not going to lie, the results from last week, they weren't necessarily the best overall results of the season. I've had bigger hits, but given what I was working with, I think Week 12 was the best sleeper show of the season. There were, of course, some misses. Drake May was pretty mid. Jerome Ford didn't see the targets that I thought he might see. Audrick Estimé's usage was completely unpredictable once again. And Jalen McMillan was a dud too. But I think one of the best calls of the season came last week with Noah Gray. There was also Zach Ertz, Luke Schoonmaker, DeVon Valle had a good day, Nick Westbrook-Akine scored again, Amir Abdullah dominated that Raiders backfield, Rashad Bateman scored a long one, Justice Hill scored a long one, and even Will Levis had a usable week. I thought things were going to go very poorly last week, but fortunately, things were just fine. Let's keep that going into week 13 Now, before getting to the Sleepers this week, I want to remind you one more time to check out Underdog this Thanksgiving. Right now in the lobby, you can check out the Turkey. It's a $5 entry with $200,000 in prizes. It's all centered around one of the best slates of the year, the Thanksgiving Slate. You can check that out and more by heading to underdogfantasy.com or downloading the 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. That's underdogfantasy.com promo code LATEROUND.

So, I'm doing a lot of this before waivers run in order to get this episode out in a timely fashion. So, the percent roster numbers for some of these players might be just a little bit off. Not that that's going to dramatically change the integrity of this show. I just want to be transparent. Now, as usual, we're going to kick things off by looking at players rostered in 10 to 50% of Yahoo! Leagues, and we'll start with quarterbacks. The streamers this week are better than last week, or we should at least feel better about them heading into their games. The first is the guy that I talked about in the 50 transactions episode, and that's Russell Wilson. Russ gets a Bengals team that ranks in the top 5 in adjusted points allowed for quarterbacks. And the Steelers have an okay enough 22 point implied team total. On paper, it looks like a fine matchup. I will say though, I have some concern that the Steelers will just try to force the run in this game. Teams have been doing that against Cincinnati this year. The Bengals rank last in neutral script pass rate allowed. And we know the Steelers want to establish it. Regardless, Russ has had good yards per attempt numbers in the majority of his starts this year, so if the Steelers let him loose a little bit, he should have a nice game. Even if they don't, I think he's gonna be okay. Trevor Lawrence could be back this week from injury, and if he is, I like him against Houston, or I like him enough. The Texans are the 12th best matchup for quarterbacks by adjusted points allowed, and they face an above average pass rate in neutral game scripts. They're also coming off of games where over their last four weeks, Aaron Rodgers, Cooper Rush, and Will Levesse each posted at least 16 fantasy points against them. I think there's way more risk than what you'll get with Russell Wilson, with Trevor Lawrence, but I'm anticipating a lot of passing from Jacksonville in this one. I'm going to go back to Drake May too. Last week was kind of forced because the streaming options were so limited, but this week, he at least gets a decent matchup when he faces the Colts. New England's allowed a lot of pressure this year, but Indianapolis is pretty average at creating that pressure. So there's not a massive mismatch there. And on paper, the Colts have been a plus matchup for quarterbacks this season. And May continues to give us 25 plus rushing yards per game, so he's not a bad option. Now moving on to running max, if Alexander Madison is the mere whiter out again, even in the toughest matchup that you can find on paper, I think Amir Abdullah can be started. I have him as a high-end RB3 this week if he ends up getting the start. That's because his workload was insane last week. Like I said in the 50 Transaction Show, he had an 80% route share. He saw the highest snap share by far of any Raiders running back this year. Now like I said, the Chiefs are a very difficult matchup, but you at least see a lot of work, which means he could pay off. Now I don't know the status of JK Dobbins at this time, but if he's out, you can obviously go to Gus Edwards, and Kamani Vidal works as a deeper play too. The Chargers get the Falcons, and while Atlanta has been below average as a matchup for running backs this year, LA has a solid 24-point implied team total. It's a game that could just be generally high scoring. For Vidal's sake, the Falcons have also been an above average team for running backs and adjusted target share allowed, and I think that's the kind of role that he might be able to play without JK Dobbins. But Edwards would likely be the goal linebacker in a scenario where Dobbins is out, and then if that negative game script does hit, which is always possible, Vidal could find the field more. So I've got Edwards a good bit ahead of Vidal, but Vidal is technically a deep sleeper. Now this is more of a volatile pick, but Antonio Gibson's usage last week was kind of interesting. The Patriots were blown out, so it's not surprising that Gibson was used a little bit more than usual, because Gibson's the negative game script back that New England sometimes deploys. With that being said, New England used it more in the early parts of that game, when the game was close. Ramandre Stevenson saw a snap share that was about 20 percentage points lower than normal in the first quarter of that game. And in that first quarter, Gibson had four touches. Stevenson also had four, and then he had this additional target that was incomplete. Now, maybe it's nothing, but Gibson finished the day with a 40% running back rush share. That was by far his highest mark since week six. There's a very real chance that this was just a one-off thing. But I want to at least call him out if it wasn't, because New England backs have a decent matchup this week against Indianapolis. Now at wide receiver, I'm going to look at Carolina. The Panthers get the Bucks, and the Buccaneers are a great defense to target through the air. They've faced by far the highest neutral script pass rate this year, and they're a top ten opponent for wide receivers in Adjusted Fantasy Points Aloud. I think this could be a Xavier LeGate game. Tampa Bay has seen the fourth highest adjusted target share go to outside receivers this year, and LeGate has run just a third of his routes from the slot this season. That number was even lower in week 12 with Adam Thielen back. Now, Thielen's probably fine in this game too, but I think LeGate is a better play. I just hope that he can get a slightly higher target share than usual. He's only been in a 16% and 18% share over his last two games. Now, Josh Downs is unlikely to play this week, which means we're probably going to see a trio of Adonai Mitchell, Alec Pearce, and Michael Pittman at wide receiver for the Colts. When Downs was out earlier this year, Mitchell was the one who played that slot role. I would anticipate that being the case once again. And New England, their opponent, ranks 10th in adjusted slot target share allowed this season. They've also been a bottom five team, and yards per outrun allowed to the slot. So I'm throwing these Colts wide receivers in this tier because of Alec Pearce, who I think might be fine, but technically the deep sleeper here is Adonai Mitchell, who's still out there in about 95% of Yahoo leagues right now. He's in a low-key great spot. I think Lad McConkey might go nuts against Atlanta this week, but Josh Palmer is an okay sleeper. He's seen round shares of 81% and 84% over his last two games. Those are significantly higher than the 65% and 63% shares that he saw the two weeks prior. And he hit a 22% target share in week 12 That was a season high. Now, he gets an Atlanta team that's given up the fourth most adjusted points to wide receivers this season. Now, I didn't think that Palmer looked great against Baltimore, so I don't think this is a smash play by any means, but he should at least have some opportunities. Look, Marquez Valdez-Skantling has seen just 14% target shares over his last two games for the Saints, but he's playing a big play role. He's had average depth of targets of 30.7 and 23.5 in those contests. It's according to PFF, which is hilarious and insane at the same time. And his route shares, they've been increasing. They've gone up each week as a Saint, including an 87% route participation rate in week 11, the last time we saw New Orleans. This week, the Saints get the Rams. LA has allowed the 10th most adjusted points to wider receivers this year, and they've allowed the 8th highest completion percentage on 15-plus area yard throws. So maybe MVS could do it again. Now, speaking of big plays, let's go back to Nick Westbrook-Akine. I mean, he can't score another touchdown this week, right? Right? Tennessee gets Washington. That's a team that's turned into a pretty average matchup on paper for wide receivers. Westbrook-Akine, though, has now hit a 20% target share in three of his last four games. And we know that big playability is there. So if you need some of that volatility in your lineup, you could look his direction. And then finally, there's Dontavian Wicks. The matchup this week against Miami is not special, but the last time we saw Wicks without one of the other three main wide receivers for Green Bay, he finished the day with a 28% target share. We haven't seen him run a route on at least half of Green Bay's drop backs since week five, but I would imagine that changes this week. The Packers have a team total north of 25 points at the moment, and this is a way to get a piece of that offense. Now Hunter Henry is the only tight end that I have for you in this tier. But in games with Drake May under center this year, Hunter Henry has a 21% target share per game rate. He gets Indianapolis this week, and that's the third best matchup for tight ends by Adjusted Fantasy Points Allowed. So he's in a great spot to produce.