1125: 15 Transactions for Week 2

This is an "I Heart" podcast, guaranteed human. What's up everyone, it's JJ Zacharyson in this episode 1125 of the Late Round Fantasy Football Podcast. Thanks for tuning in. We've got week one in the books, hopefully you guys got some W's, but it's time to fix our rosters, because no roster is perfect right now. As usual, this shows all about who to add, drop, buy, and sell, and the transactions there are no particular orders, simply because your needs can be totally different than someone else's. But I'll try to give some context as to which players I'm prioritizing and not prioritizing on waivers. Now before we get to this week two transactions list, I do want to remind you guys to check out lateround.com. We've got brand new offerings this year for members, there's a much better interface for the weekly and rest of season rankings, there's new metrics in the data dump, and so much more. You can learn more about it over on lateround.com. Add K-Lon Black I think one of the most surprising things we saw from week one usage wise was how the 49ers backfield was divvied up. Not only was Jordan James a healthy scratch against the Rams, but K-Lon Black got a decent amount of work. To finish week one with a 44% snap rate and he saw 47% of the 49ers rushes. Christian McCaffrey had a 33% rush share. Now to be clear, the work that K-Lon Black saw on week one wasn't totally usable for fantasy football purposes. He scored eight PPR points, his expected points based on late-round fantasy football's expected fantasy points formula was 7.4. And that formula just looks at usage, it looks at where these players are getting their touches and how many points we'd expect in the score based on those touches. So K-Lon Black was at 7.4 expected fantasy points. That's nothing special. Not only that, but it was reported that CMC was dealing with cramps. That could have led to a slight uptick in work for K-Lon Black. But look, maybe once by week started hitting you could flex K-Lon Black, and at the very least he does look like the top handcuff in San Francisco. He would at least be the one A in that backfield if something were to happen at Christian McCaffrey. This is just a situation that you do want to invest in. San Francisco not only looked good in week one, but we know this offense has been good, especially with Brock Purdy under center. So it makes sense to add Black this week. Buy Colston Loveland. If you invest in Colston Loveland, you're probably not feeling that great after week one. Because you could have started any other tight end and probably gotten more points than what you got with Loveland. Because he gave you a giant goose egg. And that was a big surprise. The Bears posted 59 points against the Panthers. This scored 59 points and Colston Loveland scored zero fantasy points. I know no one wants to hear this after the Terrence Ferguson talk last week, but production and fantasy football can be very fluky. This is why we look at peripherals. Weird games can happen. But if the peripherals are there, good production will eventually follow. That's how this works. And in week one, Colston Loveland had an 87% route share. He ran 33 routes. I was 8 more routes than any other Bears player. Dating back to the beginning of last year, we found almost 180 tight end games where the player hit at least an 80% route share. Over half of those games, result in 10 or more PPR points. And zero in week one was just the fifth time over this time frame. So since the beginning of 2025, we're a tight end failed to score a point. Cardio K dotten has two of those five instances. Now beyond route share, Loveland did see a couple of targets. And Caleb Williams just missed him in the end zone. If that throw connects, there's a totally different narrative more than likely about Colston Loveland this week. And this really doesn't stem from some preseason take for me because that wasn't high or low on Loveland entering the season. I love them as a player, but from a game theory perspective, I often wait on tight end. But this could be a buying opportunity for one of the best up and coming tight end prospects that we've had in recent memory. If you can really buy low, I think you should really buy low. Hold the Los Angeles Chargers offense. I liked the Chargers offense entering the season. A lot of us liked the Chargers offense entering the season. And things could not have been that much worse in week one. They put up only 14 points against the Arizona Cardinals. It was really bad and we shouldn't spin it any other way. But I'm probably going to say this time and time again over the first month of the season. Being patient is the number one thing to be in fantasy football. It's not that uncommon to see teams with new offensive coordinators struggle out of the gate. And not only that, but Lad McConkey got hurt at the end of the third quarter in that game. That played a role here too. Before McConkey's injury, the Chargers had an EPA per play rate of 0.05. Their yards per play was 5.7. In the fourth quarter, after the McConkey injury, their EPA per play fell to minus 0.44. Their yards per play dropped to just 4.0. The offensive line was kind of a problem for the Chargers too, especially the interior offensive line. Their yards before contact per rush was third worst in the league in week one. But again, let's just give it a little bit of time for this line to click in for this offense to click. So as I'll just say, don't give up just yet. Don't forget, the Patriots last year, they lost week one to the Raiders. Drake May was like QB-18 in fantasy football. There's enough talent in LA to turn things around pretty quickly. Add Debo Samuel and DeMarcus Robinson. So Dejon's dribbling, he's going to miss a decent chunk of time with an ankle injury. And it's a big deal because before that injury happened, he was leading the 49ers in Rouse Run. Every pass catcher in this offense gets a hypothetical bump. But obviously Mike Evans is not sitting on your waiver wire, and chances are Debo Samuel's not either. But he is still available in over half of Yahoo leaks, so I've got to shout him out. In deeper formats though, you could look at DeMarcus Robinson. Prior to dribbling's injury, it was not a relatively small sample, but prior to that injury, Debo Samuel had a 42% Rouse share, DeMarcus Robinson was at 26%. After the injury, Robinson led all 49ers with a 77% Rouse share. Samuels was about 59%. It wouldn't surprise me if the 49ers were kind of resting Debo towards the end of that game, but regardless, I think all that's still noteworthy. Samuel finished week one with 13.3 expected PPR points. That would be really solid if he could maintain that throughout the season. Robinson wasn't quite as high at 8.7, but he did see a couple of end zone targets. And we know he's going to get more run without dribbling. And GameScript could easily favor a more pass-heavy approach for San Francisco moving forward. So I think both of them, they work off the waiver wire this week, I would prioritize Debo Samuel though, if he is out there. Well Chuba Hubbard So entering week one, the Panthers said there wouldn't be any limitations with Jonathan Brooks against the Bears. And maybe that was the case. Maybe there wasn't any limitation. Maybe we're just going to see this backfield dominated by Chuba Hubbard. To me that's probably not going to be the case though. But look, in week one, the backfield was mostly Chuba Hubbard's. He finished with a 69% snap share, Jonathan Brooks was just shy of 20%. He ran around on 51% of Carolina's dropbacks, Brooks had just a 12% route share. The thing is, even if that usage continues, we shouldn't expect what we saw in week one to just keep happening with Hubbard. According to our expected fantasy points formula, Hubbard outperformed expectation by 10 PPR points on Sunday. His expected fantasy total was 13.7 points, which is fine. That's a solid number if you maintain that all season long. And it was nowhere close to the 23.7 points that he actually posted. I'd imagine we're going to see more Jonathan Brooks's a season moves forward. And if 13.7 points is more or less the expectation in a backfield that leaned this heavily towards Chuba Hubbard, then I question what his ceiling would actually look like consistently. So with Hubbard coming off a big game, I think it's worth seeing if you can sell him. Add Devon Vale. So I try not to repeat transactions week over week, but there are a few this week that I have to repeat, and one of those is with Devon Vale. It was a really bad first half for the Saints' offense against the Lions. But thankfully, they came through, and they got that extra time, which really helped their fantasy production. They ran more plays than any other team in week one. Now the plays run thing that's not anything new. Kellen Moore's offense is they run at a fast pace. They were the fastest-paced offense in week one, and despite their inefficiency last season, the Saints still ranked 11th and plays run in total. But no, we can't look at week one, and just look at raw totals for this offense, and assume that's going to happen in week two, week three, and so on. Those numbers were definitely inflated. But we should note that New Orleans is going to be close to the top of the league in seconds per play this year. They're a fast-paced team. They run a lot of plays. But regardless of all that, let's just look at the rate stats, the usage within the context of this team. That's where Valle looks like a workable piece in fantasy football. In week one, he led the Saints and Routes run. He had a 17% target share. His expected fantasy total set at nearly 16 points. He exceeded that expectation by 4. The general usage was there. What if you cut the Saints Week 1 play volume by like 20% moving forward? And Velae's usage would still translate to roughly 13 peepier points per game. And then that could obviously change when Jordan Tyson's back. The Saints get a tough match up this week against the Ravens, but then it's the Raiders and Falcons in Weeks 3 and 4. So Devon Velae should be rostered. Add Don Tevian Wix. So like I said, there's going to be some repeat transactions week over week. We just talked about Devon Velae, now we're going to talk about Don Tevian Wix. Wix had a nice debut for the Eagles. He scored 15.3 peepier points. His peripherals weren't that bad either, 79% route share, 18% target share. He tied Devon Tevian Smith and Ariards. Now McIleman ran the same number of routes as Wix, but his average that the target was literally zero yards. Wix was closer to 20 yards. Lemon played more out of the slot, which was predictable. Wix was more of an outside threat. So to put that another way, this is exactly what we thought was going to happen with their deployment here in Week 1. Wix was a perimeter wide receiver and he was getting down the field. That kind of profile should probably be rostered in most 12 team leagues. We shouldn't expect Week 1 to happen each week. He outperformed expectation, but it's a type of usage that should be at least sitting on your bench. Buy Jamison Williams. Williams didn't come through with a big fantasy performance in Week 1. He actually made some bad plays. If you go back and you watch that Lions game, it wasn't pretty for Jamison Williams. He left a lot on the table. His actual PPR total set at 8.5 points. His expected number was 18.5. He was one of the biggest underachievers in Week 1. And that's part of the reason that we should be really bullish. Not only did he see a 23% target share, but he wasn't just out there running a bunch of go routes. In fact, over the last two seasons, he's had go route rates of 28% and 23%. In Week 1, that number was just 14%. Meanwhile, we want more of those intermediate crossing routes where Jamison Williams can just catch the ball and run. In Week 1, 22% of his routes were crossers. That number had been closer to 15% over the last two seasons. So yes, Jamison Williams had a bad Week 1. It was not a good outing for him. Both in real-an-fantasy football. But he still had a 23% target share, his route deployment, and might be shifting in a favorable direction, and he's got a really solid schedule moving forward. This is a really, really good by-low opportunity. Add Demario Douglas and Matt Collins. So with AJ Brown now sideline, the Patriots offense, honestly, it's probably going to look a lot like what we saw last year. And to be honest, that makes adding Demario Douglas and Matt Collins a lot less appetizing. It's not like we were super excited about starting them last year. Maybe we see a little bit of a change, though. One area where that might happen is with their heavy personnel deployment. In 2025, the Patriots ran out of 12 and 13 personnel at the 22nd highest rate in the league. That's despite the fact that they ran the most plays in the league by far with a lead. A situation where we might expect to see more heavy personnel usage for the run game. But with Eli Raredin now in the mix, the Patriots might go a little bit heavier this year. And that's why I think Matt Collins, he's probably my preferred target out of these two. Demario Douglas led the Patriots in routes run last week. By default, I think a lot of people are going to say go add Douglas, and he's fine to look at off the waiver wire. I'm not saying this is a 100-to-0 type thing. This is like a 55-45 situation. The thing with Douglas is that every single one of his routes run came out of 11 personnel. He's a slot player. We know this ceiling isn't crazy for Demario Douglas. Meanwhile, Matt Collins, he's a perimeter guy. He could be on the field with Romeo dobs if the Patriots do move to more heavy personnel. So I'm shouting both of these players out, I think they can be added this week. It's not the bulkiest waiver wire week that we've ever seen. But if there's one that I'm going to choose, I'm going to slightly lean towards Matt Collins. Add Caleb Douglas. So similar to that transaction I just talked about, it's tough for me to get really, really excited about Caleb Douglas. Mostly because of the situation. And honestly, I could talk about Malik Washington here, too. I'm going with Caleb Douglas, though, because he's more of an unknown commodity. He also outproduced Washington in week one, despite Washington having a 95% route share to Douglas's 84% Washington had eight targets and Douglas had seven. Chris Bell to me still has the most upside of any wide receiver on this Dolphin's team. He had the most complete age-adjusted collegiate production profile. The Zat model liked Chris Bell more than it liked Caleb Douglas. Bell is just coming off a serious knee injury. His route share in week one was only 49%. I would expect that to rise week over week. And let's just be real. Offends are more than likely not going to be incredibly fantasy relevant offensively this year, especially through the air. They lost the Raiders and they ran 84% their offends of plays while trailing in that game. Even with that game script, their pass attempt total ranked outside the top 20 in the league. Now, their pass rate was higher. But they weren't that efficient, so they didn't run a lot of plays. That could be a problem all season long. But if you need someone to take a chance on over the next few weeks from this wide receiver team, I think Caleb Douglas is the safest, most reasonable bet based on week one's usage. And then Chris Bell just continues to be that stash candidate. By Matthew Golden. Matthew Golden had a really solid week one. He scored 15 and a half PPR points. He had six catches for 95 yards. But when you look under the hood, it looks even better. Golden had awesome usage in week one. We knew this was possible given the lack of wide receiver depth in Green Bay. As I said on last week's sleepers episode, Golden was going to get every opportunity to prove himself and so far, so good. Christian Watson got all the glory from a production standpoint in week one. But Golden led the Packers with an 87% route share and a 30% target share. He also led the team in air yards. That led to an expected PPR point total of 23.3, which is not only the highest on the Packers, but it was the second highest among wide receivers through Sunday's games. Something that I talked about this summer was how the Packers could be more passive this year. They have a poor, run blocking offensive line. Josh Jacobs has the off the field stuff. And there's a potentially questionable defense. Jordan Love has also been one of the best quarterbacks by EPA per play over the last couple of seasons. In week one, Green Bay was more middle of the road and passed right over expected, which is honestly an improvement for them. But the way that that game played out, Jordan Love threw the ball 42 times. He's only hit 42 pass attempts, three other times in his NFL career. And I'm not sitting here saying, hey, look at me. I knew the Packers were going to throw the ball more. That's not what this is about at all. It's to say that there's at least some chance that this passing volume in week one was not fluky. Maybe they will be more passive this year and maybe this is just the start of that. I mean, all of that pass rate stuff was part of the reason I had Christian Watson as a buy last week. So if that's the case, if this really is a good passing offense this year, which we don't know for sure right now, we're just trying to forecast and look at range of outcomes. But if that's the case with Matthew Golden and his week one usage, we're talking about an 87% route share and a 30% target share. That could go a very, very long way. And even the managers who have Matthew Golden and fantasy, they may not be fully aware of that. And Kenyan's Cedique. So this is the last repeat transaction week over week, but I got a shout out Cedique. He continues to be undervalued by the fantasy community in my opinion, because the upside case is clearly there. And week one, he had a 46% route share against the Titans, he had a 13% target share. That's nothing special, nothing special on paper. He did find the end zone though on a rush. His athleticism is going to allow the Jessica creative close to the end zone. To me, week one was just a sign that things to get better for Kenyan's Cedique. He missed camp with a sport tournament issue, expecting him to go nuts in week one, no one should have expected that. No one should have expected Kenyan's Cedique to have amazing usage right away. The fact that he still got some work and he was still productive, that's a really good sign that better things could be coming. Because again, he didn't do anything in camp or the preseason as a 21 year old rookie. I've said this before, I'll say it again. He's an uber athlete at tight end who was drafted in the middle of the first round and he's still only 21 years old. With Kenyan's Cedique, sure, there might be a scary floor because of the Jets offense and maybe he doesn't hit, but you can't tell me there isn't an upside case here. And with tight ends, specifically tight ends off the waver wire, I really do want that upside case. It's kind of funny that I just talked about the upside case and now I'm talking about Pat Fryermuth. But honestly, his usage in week one was not that bad. He probably doesn't have the same kind of upside that Kenyan's Cedique has. But in week one, he had a 74% route share and a 14% target share. According to our numbers, Fryermuth was 6th among tight ends who played through Sunday and expected fantasy points. The Steelers also ran 58% of their offensive plays out of 11 personnel. Next year, the number was 38%. They pushed the ball down field too. Aaron Rogers had his highest average at the target as a Pittsburgh Steeler on Sunday. If those trends continue. It could open things up a little bit for Pat Freiremuth in this offense as the pass-catching tight end. He's not the most exciting ad this week, but his weak one usage was pretty great. Add Denzel Boston. So I'm not sure how reliable this Cleveland passing attack is going to be this year, probably not very reliable. But there should be some pass heavy scripts attached to this team. In weak one against Jacksonville, the Browns ran 90% of their offensive plays while trailing by seven or more points. They're already big underdogs in week two. Denzel Boston had a nice touchdown on his NFL debut. He led the Browns with an 84% route share. I still think Casey Concepcion is the preferred rookie there, but my general role of thumb early on in the season is to not leave a young, unknown player on the waiver wire who already showed us a little something, whether it be through production or through peripherals. And we saw something from Boston in weak one. He wasn't an amazing prospect in my eyes, but he definitely wasn't a bad one at all. Let's just hope the quarterback situation can get straightened out even just a little bit. Add the Tampa Bay Buccaneers defense. We're going to be targeting the Cleveland Browns a lot this year for our streaming defenses. Next up, we have Tampa Bay. The Bucks are eight and a half point favorites against Cleveland this week, and it's already been announced that the Sean Watson is going to start for the Browns. The Browns offense saw the fifth highest pressure rate in the league in week one, and Watson was second worst in pressure to sack ratio. The only quarterback who was worse was Cooper Rush. The Buccaneers defense is a very, very easy choice. I've got a bonus transaction for you this week. It's to add Pat Bryant. So for disclosure, I record this episode on Monday. And then the Monday night game happens, and sometimes I have to add a transaction, because something happens in that game. And in this case, that's something happening as Pat Bryant. He was actually an interesting pick this year. He was actually a late round dart throw in the draft guide. But he has some obvious competition on the Broncos. But in week one, he played a decent role in the offense. Through three quarters of play, when that game was competitive, Bryant had a 65% route share. He was only two or three routes behind Jalen Waddle and Cortland Sutton. And then he doubled them up in targets. He had a 29% target share against the chiefs. And you would think the Broncos offense would be better moving forward. They were absolutely horrible on Monday night. So if they are a little bit better moving forward, then Pat Bryant could actually be pretty usable. But that's it for today's show. Thanks to all of you for listening. If you had subscribed to the late round fantasy football podcast, make sure you are by searching for it pretty much anywhere podcasts can be found. And don't forget to follow me on Twitter and on blue sky at late round QB. Thanks for listening everyone. I'll be back in your ears tomorrow with the weekly 10 trends episode.