953: 15 Transactions for Week 14

JJ Zachariason (0:11)

What's up, everyone? It's JJ Zachariason. In this episode, 953 of The Late-Round Fantasy Football Podcast, sponsored by Underdog. Thanks for tuning in. Before getting into the transactions this week, I want to remind you that even though you drafted your fantasy teams all the way 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 you can participate in right now. And if you're new to Underdog, make sure you sign up with promo code LATEROUND. That'll get you a nice deposit bonus as well as my rest of season rankings, which I know those rankings aren't as important these days, but they can still be helpful. Those rankings are updated for you each 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. Add Isaac Garendo. Christian McCaffrey suffered a PCL injury on Sunday night against the Bills. He was placed on IR on Monday. Now it was looking like Jordan Mason then would be a big fantasy football winner, but he has a high ankle sprain. He's on IR too. So it's time for Isaac Garendo to be the number one back for the San Francisco 49ers. Now we haven't seen a ton of Garendo this year, but we have seen his big playability on full display. He's had a comparable success rate to Mason this season, and his rushing yards over expected per attempt has actually been better. Now Garendo was a prospect who didn't have really great collegiate production, but the size speed profile was absolutely there. That's what got him an Isaiah Pacheco comp in the ZAP model. Now there's some worry about his receiving upside, and we might see Patrick Taylor steal some work there, but I think that Garendo is going to be the primary early down back for San Francisco at the very least. There's a lot of upside here. The 49ers have a pretty good running back schedule rest of season as well according to Adjusted Fantasy Points Allowed. This is the last month of the fantasy season. You can't take your waiver budget into 2025, so whatever you have left, unload it on Isaac Garendo.

By George Kittle. So no one's like upset if they have George Kittle in their tight end spot in fantasy football, but he's coming off a game where he scored fewer than two PPR points. He had a 12% target share. Maybe there's some concern, but this transaction exists because the Christian McCaffrey injury, it may be pretty beneficial to George Kittle down the stretch. With CMC in the lineup this year, Kittle's average about a 15% target share per game rate. That rises by over 8% points without McCaffrey. And that's because the 49ers throw to their running backs more when Christian McCaffrey is healthy. It's that simple. Their target share per game rate with CMC this year is 24%. That's to the running back position. It's 15.5% without him. That volume has to go somewhere, and it's going to be littered throughout the offense. Someone like Kittle or maybe even someone like Joann Jennings, they're going to benefit. So don't lose sight of that with this CMC injury. Drop Kyle Pitts. Look, we've gotten to the point where we have to ask, is there any real difference between Kyle Pitts and any other streamer that you get off the waiver wire? He's been beyond disappointing this year. He had a nice four game stretch in the middle of the season, but as I noted on a previous 15 Transactions episode, the Falcons during that stretch, they had a cakewalk schedule for tight ends. Since then, Kyle Pitts has been horrible. Over his last four games, he's averaged 3.4 PPR points per game. It's not like he's seeing targets and just not converting. His target share per game is 8.4% during that time frame. He ran around on 65% of Atlanta's drop backs on Sunday. That was his second lowest mark of the season. Maybe the Falcons look at how bad their offense looked in week 13, and they say to themselves, we gotta get Kyle Pitts more involved. I would just be really hesitant to use Kyle Pitts in the fantasy playoffs. Especially considering in week 16 and 17, the two most important weeks of the fantasy season, he gets the Giants and the Commanders. Those are two bottom half matchups for tight ends, especially when they face the Giants. Add Jawan Johnson. So since I'm talking about some tight ends, let's continue with the theme and talk about Jawan Johnson. Taysom Hill is out for the year. He suffered a knee injury on Sunday. Now Hill isn't this like traditional tight end, but his absence could make Jawan Johnson a little bit more viable moving forward. Johnson ran around on 79% of New Orleans drop backs in week 13 That was a season high. His 14% target share, nothing special, but that could rise just given the competition in this offense. New Orleans tight ends also get the Packers and the Raiders in week 16 and 17 Green Bay has been the 6th best matchup for tight ends this year by adjusted points allowed. Vegas the 3rd best one. So at the very least, Jawan Johnson might be a decent streamer towards the end of the year. Hold Baker Mayfield. It was not a good outing for Baker Mayfield in week 13 He was hurt in the middle of that game against the Panthers, but he still didn't come through. He scored 10.2 standard points. He's been at or below that mark now in two of his last three. I just don't think it's time to bail. We've seen a ceiling with Baker Mayfield this year. Now typically that was coming with Chris Godwin, so take that with a grain of salt. But we have seen that ceiling. In the Tampa Bay quarterback schedule rest of season, it's strong. Now a couple of weeks ago, we talked about what that schedule meant for Bucky Irving. So far, so good. But the same can be said for Baker. The Bucks get the Raiders, Chargers, Cowboys, and Panthers over their final four games of the fantasy season. Only the Chargers rank outside the top ten as a favorable opponent for quarterbacks by adjusted points allowed. We can sit here and say they're going to run the snot out of the football, which they're probably going to try to do. It's exactly why Bucky Irving was a bye a couple of weeks ago. But the team in general should be able to score points. And if that's happening, some of those touchdowns could come through the air versus on the ground. That's obviously going to benefit Baker Mayfield. So even if you're not going to use him every week, you probably don't want your opponents to have them either. Add Sean Tucker. So we've been talking about handcuffs over the last month or so on the show. This transaction is just serve as a reminder that your handcuff doesn't need to only be some obvious second string running back. Sean Tucker is clearly the number three back for the Buccaneers. But he also has two outs to playing time. He could have a Bucky Irving injury or a Rashad White injury. If one of those two goes down, then Tucker would leap into being a potential flex play with upside. And I say upside because of what I just talked about with their schedule. We're in love with Bucky Irving's potential down the stretch. Because number one, he's been great this year. But also, we love who the Buccaneers are facing. Sean Tucker would take advantage of those matchups as well. In this theoretical situation where one of Bucky Irving or Rashad White goes down. Now this is probably more of a deeper league option. But we're at the point in the season where these types of recommendations can make this list. The waiver wire continues to be pretty thin anyway. Add Braylon Allen. Now if Braylon Allen is on your waiver wire, and you're thinking about getting him instead of Sean Tucker, or Sean Tucker over him, go with Braylon Allen. He has more upside and not only that, Breece Hall is dealing with his knee injury. And yes, Hall did play in week 13 But his workload did change. He had a season low 2.6% target share. He ran a route on just 52% of New York's drop backs. Now with that being said, Braylon Allen's numbers in week 13, they didn't really improve. We saw more Isaiah Davis instead. But with Hall already banged up, it would make sense to prioritize Allen as a handcuff over some of the other higher end handcuffs. And keep in mind, no team has a better running back playoff schedule by Adjusted Fantasy Points allowed than the New York Jets.