Week 7 Pickups: Target the Chargers offense
Andy Behrens and Scott Pianowski implore you to go pick up Mike Williams and Justin Jackson already on the latest Yahoo Fantasy Football Forecast. Tune in 5 times a week wherever you listen to podcasts.
Video Transcript
ANDY BEHRENS: A theme is gonna come up here where I keep talking about various Chargers, and I couldn't help but notice this when I was writing the pickups piece. There were a whole bunch of Chargers who really popped in week five, but they were going into their bye. Nobody picked them up.
So a bunch of guys that in a normal week I would have said, well, OK, there's gonna be this huge surge in roster percentage. They're gonna go from like 40% to 65%, 70%. Didn't really happen. They went from 40% to like 44% or 45%, right?
So I want to talk about Justin Jackson, I think, separately from the other running backs that we're gonna get into. Because a lot of the other running back names are sort of plug them in for a week. Couple of exceptions here. And this is something that we'd previewed, I think, a couple of weeks ago.
Josh Kelley has had some ball security issues. So they go into the Monday Night game. We didn't exactly know what the distribution of touches was going to be. It turns out Justin Jackson out-snapped Kelley by a ton. I think it was 42 to 25, he out-touched him 20 to 12 I want to say, and he out-gained him by a pretty substantial margin, almost 60 yards.
SCOTT PIANOWSKI: Yeah, he's out of his bye. All we've seen since Herbert took over is an offense that moves the ball, that gets into scoring position. They've been in a lot of high-scoring games. And Jackson got the majority of whatever you want to go by. Snaps, touches, opportunities, he was getting the majority of them over Kelley the last time we saw these guys on Monday night.
And Jacksonville is a defense that can't really do anything right right now. They just pushed D'Andre Swift into fantasy relevance after a really slow-- he had the drop in week one.
ANDY BEHRENS: Yeah.
SCOTT PIANOWSKI: Why are the Lions playing Adrian Peterson? Peterson did get the early touchdown in that game, but it looked like a coming out party for Swift. And maybe this will be a full coming out for Jackson. I mean, he's been in the league for a few years, so he's somebody we're a little bit familiar with. But I think the Chargers can be a plus offense, and Herbert hasn't had any growing pains.
He doesn't have a win yet, but it's because of who they've played. He's played Patrick Mahomes, he's played Drew Brees, he was in a high-scoring game against Brady. So I see nothing wrong with this offense. And Jacksonville's a really good-- if you want to think shorter term, Jacksonville is a really good matchup. If you want to think longer term, there's gonna be some high-scoring games, I think, on the horizon for the Chargers.
And Jackson should be the heavier-rostered guy of these two, of him and Kelley. I don't understand that either. I think Jackson right now probably has about 70% to 75% of the market share likely for him in week seven.
ANDY BEHRENS: Let's talk about receiver, where again I think we have to talk about a Charger separate and apart from the rest of them. And that's Mike Williams. Mike Williams is still lurking out there in like 55%, 56% of Yahoo leagues. I get it, not your league. Probably if you're in a 14-teamer or anything like that, certainly a lot of the leagues that Scott and I share, he's not available.
And yet I look at the player tab in all my leagues, and it shows that he's available in about 55% of Yahoo leagues. So many of you can go out and grab Mike Williams. He needs to be rostered, in my opinion. And it's not even related to whether Keenan Allen's back issue is still a thing going forward
Look at the quarterback he's tied to. Justin Herbert is playing phenomenally well. Herbert is also a guy who's like-- I know he's been locked in on Keenan Allen to a certain extent. But every time you look at a box score, he's connected with nine, 10 different receivers.
We've seen Williams make highlight catches now. Two touchdowns against New Orleans. He was just brilliant in that game. So I assume you're not leaving Williams out there on the wire in any leagues in which he's available.
SCOTT PIANOWSKI: No, I'm not. And one particular thing about Herbert and Williams that I really like is Herbert's comfortable throwing Williams the ball when he's essentially covered and saying, look, here's some air under the ball. You can high-point it. You can win in a close-- whether it's on the sideline, whether it's in double coverage. We saw the athletic ability of Williams in the Monday night game.
So, again, I think the Charger offense-- I can't guarantee you they're gonna win these games. I'm not the biggest Anthony Lynn fan. But this is an offense and specifically a passing game that I'm very comfortable investing in.
ANDY BEHRENS: That's a good point about Herbert and Williams, and it reminds me of-- not during the regular seasons when they were at Clemson. But when Williams would get in a game with like Alabama, when he'd get on the field with elite defensive backs, Deshaun Watson had no issue throwing it to him when he was covered, letting him use leverage.
He's good when he's got a body on him, and you can just kind of throw it out to an open hand, back shoulder, whatever. Watson had that ability, obviously, as a college player. And it's huge that Herbert has it, too, and that confidence.