963: Week 16 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, 963 of The Late-Round Fantasy Football Podcast, sponsored by Underdog. Thanks for tuning in. The biggest hit for the Sleepers last week was Rashad Bateman. He was the wide receiver 10 with 23 PPR points. Aaron Rodgers was a great streamer, and Cooper Rush, he was a top 10 option as well. Quentin Johnson was able to find the end zone. He had a 31% target share in that game against the Bucks. And then Demario Douglas, he was usable because he found the end zone too. But there were a good number of misses last week, as there always are. Tyler Algier didn't see the game script I wanted him to see. Bryce Young and Jameis Winston were the opposite of good streaming choices, though I did downgrade Jameis later in the week because of the weather in that game. The deep plays at Running Back didn't hit though, and neither did Sincere McCormick because of his injury. So it was probably a below average week last week. This is the last Sleeper show of the season, given the holiday next week. So hopefully I go out on top. And just so you know, I do publish my rankings and tiers on Patreon, so you can see where I'm placing some lower rostered players in those rankings. I'll be doing them next week despite this episode not happening. Now, before we get to the Sleepers, I want to make sure that you're checking out Underdog. If your fantasy football season is over, or if you just want more action, head to Underdog right now. You can draft teams for playoff contests, and you don't need a huge bankroll to play. There's the Mitten, for instance, you can join that right now for $5. If you haven't played yet at Underdog, make sure you use promo code LATEROUND when you sign up. That'll get you a nice deposit offer once you get going. That's underdogfantasy.com promo code LATEROUND.

As usual, we'll kick things off with players rostered in 10% to 50% of Yahoo! Leagues, and we'll start at quarterback. And I'm going to go back to Aaron Rodgers. Now, I don't feel as good about Rodgers this week as I did last week, but he's not in a terrible spot. There's some back-and-forth potential with the Jets facing the Rams. The Jets have an okay enough implied team total as well, close to 22 points, and LA has been the 11th best matchup for quarterbacks this year by adjusted points allowed. The Rams have been pretty good at getting pressure on quarterbacks this year, but Rodgers is good at not allowing that pressure to hit him, which could be an advantage to their passing attack, so he's probably the top streaming choice. Now, the other one that I have in this tier definitely riskier, because he's facing a team that ranks as a bottom half opponent, but it's Drake May against Buffalo. This really comes down to hopefully having to keep pace with Josh Allen in this Bills offense. May has rushing juice, and if the Patriots hit a negative game script, there's going to be a higher chance for him to take off because he's going to have more drop backs. He's given us almost 40 rushing yards per game and completed starts this year. May's put together back to back usable weeks with 19.4 and 17.5 standard fantasy points scored. It's definitely not an easy play to make, but I could see a path to him getting some easy points in this one. Now, at running back with Sincere McCormick now on IR, the Raiders are going to go back to Amir Abdullah and Alexander Madison. That's their backfield. And they get Jacksonville this week, and the Jags are the third best match up for running backs by adjusted points allowed. Now, I said this in the 15 Transaction Show, but I'd imagine a lot of people are going to be more attracted to Abdullah this week because he ended up scoring more points in week 15 But a lot of that was due to a negative game script. That might not happen this week and against Jacksonville. They're actually home favorites against the Jags. Now, the game total is pretty low. We shouldn't expect a ton of scoring. With that being said, I do prefer Madison because I think he's going to see the early down work. It's not like we haven't seen this backfield duo in the past. Madison actually had a four game stretch earlier this year with a running back rush here per game rate of 80 percent. He's probably going to be the goal line back too. So both are in play, but Madison is who I'd prefer.