 This is covering the spread part of the fan dual podcast network Pretty fun week eight coming up on tap where it may not be the most thrilling games But still some fun story lines of tracks and fun players We get to see in fun situations and that could lead to some good prop betting We're now JJ Zacharyson of late round calm on to break down his favorite props for week number eight over at fandals sports Book this is covering the spread right here on the fan dual podcast network and number fire calm My name is Jim Sonnis I am a senior writer and analyst for number fire calm join you once again by JJ Zacharyson Find him on Twitter at late round QV check out late round calm for all his work and also the late round fantasy football podcast JJ we are on to week eight. How you doing today? I'm good I I'm still hoping that Thursday night football will be abolished at some point in our future But I don't think that's gonna happen. It's just been bad football on Thursday nights, and it's uh, it's just been It's been tough to watch. Yeah, I agree given that I had the buck's money line So I'm not really opposed to this this edict by any means also I have the Bengals money line before the Jamar Chase news So we're off to just a roaring it was a great four-hour stretch to go from the Jamar Chase news to the bucks losing in Disappointing fashion even with Mark Andersen or shot Bateman not playing was that game? Yeah It feels like every time I publish rankings each week There's a huge news item that breaks literally 15 minutes after I get everything done And that was the Jamar Chase news this week and it's not even like you can just like okay Take out Jamar Chase you have to like alter every single player on the Bengals to account for it, which is just a true delight I am happy. I don't have that job. I don't deal with weekly rankings for sure We'll dive into week eight with JJ get his thoughts on some process this week in situations to monitor But first a reminder to make sure you are subscribed to covering the spread our week eight NFL money line Spreads and totals podcast is up with Ryan Williams breaking down our favorite bets for this week Outside of the Bucks Hopefully they go better than those and also our college football week 9 podcast with Ed Feng and also Austin Swain It's one by from number fire to talk with us about college football Get those up on the the covering the spread podcast feed and on the Fandall YouTube page The week 8 NFL Sunday million for daily fantasy is officially live on Fandall Showcase your NFL knowledge and construct your best nine-player roster while staying under the salary cap then follow along Using Fandall's live scoring feature to compete for your share of one point four million dollars in cash prizes including a $250,000 to first place all for just a five dollar entry fee with superstars like Cooper Cup Jalen Hurts and Saquon Barkley all scheduled to take the field on this Sunday There is no shortage of big names for you to build your lineups around NFL season is approaching It's already here. Anyway, the NFL week number eight is approaching quickly So head to Fandall commets admit your lineups today and let's ability restrictions apply go to Fandall comm or download the Fandall app For more details and I'll stick in here to week number 8 JJ And I think one of the storylines that we can take and kind of make more broad is Sam Elinger Becoming the starting quarterback here for the Colts and you know, that's whatever it is It's a one-week thing is it's his first career star But I think the broader point is rushing quarterbacks because Elinger is far more mobile than that ride You've done research in the past on the impact that has on fantasy football and what that does But obviously a lot of that research can translate to betting props too So what did you learn there and how do you think that applies to betting props in a situation like this? Yeah, look, I think it's kind of obvious But I don't think people think about it enough if that makes sense But you know mobile quarterbacks are generally bad for both their running backs and their past catchers now I should say with the running back thing Running backs are typically a little bit more efficient when they have these mobile quarterbacks Which makes total sense because defenses have to be you know, they're they're kept honest Based on the threat of the quarterback And so, you know, we've seen you know crazy yards per carry averages for instance at a Baltimore since Lamar Jackson took over That's a perfect example You've even seen it, you know the efficiency on the ground with like a team like Atlanta or Chicago Even though, you know, those quarterbacks aren't that great through the air They haven't been that efficient through the air You can still see good efficiency on the ground because of that threat The issue with running backs from the standpoint of fantasy football and how that might affect even prop bets is that those types of Quarterbacks generally don't check down as much but it's sort of this compounding effect where you know Teams only have a certain number of plays that they're gonna run in a single game, right? Like just generally speaking and so if those plays if some of those plays if a chunk of those plays are going to quarterback rushes Then that means the other personnel on that team are no longer seeing those plays That's really what this comes down to and so what that means is, you know receivers and pass catchers They also don't benefit as much from these mobile quarterbacks You know pocket passers are better for wide receivers for instance from a yardage standpoint, etc Because you know these these quarterbacks are those those pocket quarterbacks are standing back in the pocket These mobile quarterbacks are taking off and using one of those plays for themselves essentially The other thing to keep in mind too is touchdown equity, you know closer to the end zone running backs won't get as many as much love close to the end zone as They would with with a more pocket passer. So that's something to keep in mind as well the one thing I will say with ellinger with ellinger and and the the Colts offense is that you know I do think this is a little bit different of a situation because the replacement The player that he's replacing wasn't pushing the ball down the field at all He had like a 7% 15 plus air yard rate, which was the lowest in the league And so you know part of the reason they're making the shift is because they want more explosive plays And so I do think it's more of a moot point from the standpoint of like yardage and looking at that because you're hoping that You know ellinger will push it down the field more than Matt Ryan did so, you know most cases And I still think that generally speaking like this is probably a lot worse for a guy like Jonathan Taylor Who's coming off his highest target share of his career and having you know one of the highest target totals of his career You know that that's that's a big deal going to a a mobile quarterback who might not check down as much But someone like Michael Pittman who's not seeing deep balls to begin with it probably doesn't matter that much because what if he Start seeing these deep balls now that Matt Ryan, you know is no longer under center But that's generally the gist of it is that these mobile quarterbacks They take away plays in the in their teams offense for themselves And that can hurt the rest of the the personnel in that that offense and the check down element You mentioned is important here too because when we saw Ellinger in the preseason he had a 9.4 yard a dot He was throwing the ball downfield is cross like 24 or 26 throws and not a huge sample But that would impact the check downs for JT impact the check downs for not he minds but then also potentially Wind up being a washer guys like Pittman because I might get more downfield work But less volume overall so maybe like a catch prop it could be downgraded there But the yard is prop may wind up being a wash other thing That's important entering week number eight is I feel like there are a lot of really super rush heavy offenses this year like we got Atlanta you mentioned you mentioned Chicago as well the Jets have kind of been this way recently too and They're almost outliers least the the Falcons and the Bears are in terms of how run heavy They are relatively seen here recently and when you're making projections you take it from a top-down approach Do you expect some sort of regression towards like a quote-unquote normal approach with those teams or Is a sample of six or seven games now big enough where we can say they're gonna be an outlier going forward as well I think some teams there's expected regression You know I would even consider the Jets to some degree Some expected regression because you can see how these teams are performing in more neutral game scripts And yeah, you know, they are a more run heavy team But nothing nothing Jim is like Atlanta and Chicago like I've never seen this in my decade of analyzing this stuff as my job We just have we haven't seen this We have samples of both the Bears and the Falcons When trailing this year by trailing by a lot of points 10 plus points just to give you some context Atlanta has run 111 plays this year while trailing by ten or more points and on those plays if you're looking at pass rate from the Perspective of past attempts divided by total pass and rush attempts instead of drop-backs So you're just looking at a total attempts here They have a 45 percent pass rate while trailing Ten or more points which is absolutely insane the crazier part is the Bears while trailing by ten or more points They've run 54 plays their pass rate is 38 percent Wow only the Falcons Bears and Eagles have a total pass rate under 45 percent this season from an overall perspective So basically what's going on here is that the Bears and the Falcons are still the most run heavy teams in football When they've been trailing by ten or more points this season, which I mean moving forward you just have to expect That's the case. I think for Atlanta in particular last week was really sort of like this litmus test for us to see right Okay, they're likely gonna trail against Cincinnati. They're on the road They're facing an offense has been throwing the ball a lot and they have all these weapons And you know Atlanta's secondary has been suspect and what did we see we saw this negative game script immediately in that game And then what do we see we saw a run heavy script from Atlanta? I mean, it's just it's one of those things where they clearly don't trust Marcus Mariota You know We're seeing that the Bears at least open it up a little bit more And so I'm looking at those kinds of trends because offenses do evolve as the season goes on I mean, you know, Chicago was a lot more conservative to start the year now They're opening things up a little bit more of Justin Fields and they're realizing too that when you drop back to pass that also Opens things up for fields to scramble. He's had more scrambles to not just design runs You know over the last month or so and so, you know, that's good from Chicago standpoint But overall, I mean both of these teams are very very run heavy and at this point even when you factor in game script You have to assume that they're still going to be run heavy And you know Atlanta in particular is really interesting because they have a really easy schedule You know from here on out, especially in the short term and you know, even this week They're they're decent favorites against Carolina So we should expect them to just run run run because that's what they've been doing Yeah, and I think that if they show you what they want to do you should believe them and the question is you know Will sportsbooks react enough to account for the fact they are projected to continue being an outlier You know, you have to judge that for yourself, you know open up the props for those teams see what you see and you know Kind of bank on them still being what they've been because it's been a long enough sample now to know This is exactly what they want to do and as long as they can they're gonna keep on doing it Yeah, and the other thing too is I know that it's frustrating if you play fantasy football Or if you like Drake London or Kyle Pitts, but entering that game last week in Cincinnati Atlanta's offense had not been that bad Especially when you consider the personnel that they have just from like a expected points added standpoint per play Etc. Etc. There's a lot of people screaming. Oh Arthur Smith's got to go But they're sitting in a pretty decent position Division and they're not gonna change things up a game up on second place if they win on Sunday Exactly exactly like they're like this is not a situation where they're a one-win team and they're not competitive I mean, they've been competitive this year by running this offense And so even if it's because of this, I mean, we know how coaches think in the NFL We know how front offices think they don't necessarily understand correlation and causality And so if this continues to work and it has been working way better than people want to admit I mean, yeah, it's been a decent enough offense So I just don't see why they would just switch things up all of a sudden If you just look like early down like EPA per play Atlanta's like They're top five right now once you're just for schedule like they've been efficient It might not have been like the way you'd want it to go But they've been efficient. They're laid down success rate is also pretty good. Like they're not a bad offense It's the defense being an outlier like just doggy do like that's the reason they're losing football games The defense is not the rush heavy approach and that's why we should expect that to continue going forward as well Yep. So projecting like 15 past tense for Mariota at most this week as four-point favorites against Carolina Now let's take it as situations you are targeting forward this week again If you haven't listened to the show before just kind of running through with situations Maybe fluid right now where you may think even the props may be not posted yet You may find some value once they are up. Which situations are you keying in on for week eight? I think there's three backfields that are interesting. I mean usually these these situations are backfield related You can look at the Jets first I mean breeze hall obviously out for the earth at torn ACL James Robinson just got there, but he's had some knee soreness and and it sounds like they're gonna take it slow regardless Robert Sala said so I'm expecting to see Michael Carter as the main back in that backfield But don't sleep on a guy like Ty Johnson because you know clearly the Jets don't see Michael Carter as a bell cow every down back Otherwise, they wouldn't have gone and traded for James Robinson in the first place if they did see that So I do think Michael Carter is the one a in that offense But I would Assume that this week we're gonna see more Ty Johnson than we typically will once James Robinson is fully You know into this offense and ready to go. So that's one backfield another one Dallas doesn't sound good for Zeke at this point The last time that he missed a game because he just plays all the time even if he's injured But the last time that he missed a game the same coaching staff in 2020 Tony they gave Tony Pollard a 75% running back rush share. He had a 28% target share in that game It was the best game of his career against the 49ers in that contest and fantasy managers might remember that he was the RB one Overall that we can PPR formats. So I do think that that even though Tony Pollard isn't built like a bell cow You know, they might not give him like 20 plus carries But you know, he's gonna be on the field a lot when he's on the field a lot He's gonna see a higher target share as a result of that So that's something to to keep an eye on in that backfield and then the last one is the Denver one I think this Mike Boone going on IR thing is sort of slipping under the radar I don't think enough people are really like factoring that in because you know last week He didn't play a full snap share because he got it hurt But in week six, he played just eight fewer snaps in Latavius Murray That was that game where Melvin Gordon didn't play a whole lot. They're facing the chargers They went to overtime all that stuff, but Mike Boone also ran 12 routes in that game He's he had been running as a passcatcher for that offense. So I'm very intrigued by both Latavius Murray and Melvin Gordon I think Gordon's probably gonna take on a lot more receiving work So that's at least something to keep an eye on here against Jacksonville It's like a bad cop because it's gonna say like oh this team is like this team But it is reminiscent in a way of the 2017 Saints where you had Alvin Camara in the backfield. He was look no, it wasn't the TV Mark Ingram in Asia Peterson as the other two guys and like yeah, it's a frustrating situation But you move one piece from a three-headed backfield. That's a pretty major change So I think that that is important, especially with Boone getting all the the late-down work in that offense That actually does change things quite a bit So I'd agree Melvin Gordon most likely to be the past catching guy as a result of that change and it is In a situation like that it is actually very important when one guy is taken out of that fold Okay, let's turn our attention over to yardage props. What are you seeing on the board entering week number eight in that regard? Yeah, so I got three bets for you the first one David Montgomery's line across books right now is seven and a half receiving yards I'm gonna hit the over there, you know, obviously, you know over the last couple of games He's only seen one target, but he's still run a decent number of routes in that offense He played more third downs in Colil Herbert last week and in games where both guys have played this year Montgomery's played about 60% of their third down snaps So he's been on the field on third down which is good to see He still ran more routes in Colil Herbert last week despite only seeing despite not seeing a target He's now hit the over of the seven and a half receiving yards and four of five full games played this season You know the last week was the first time that that he didn't reach it You could see a negative game script against Dallas that should force more passing But I should know there is one thing I want to say here and this is why I think the line is where it's at Dallas obviously a good front and they've been really good against limiting running back targets this season They're actually third best or worse. However, you want to look at it In adjusted target share allowed to the running back position, but I do still think I mean This is a one reception type situation for David Montgomery if he's able to catch the ball once He should be able to hit the over there Another one this is going back to a player I talked about last week and fortunately got the W with it But it's Robert Tanya, you know last week he got that that garbage last reception and he got like 21 yards on it But he was still under that half a yard half mark and once again across books He's at 32 and a half yards and I like the under once again The bills have been very very good against tight ends this year They rank as the eighth toughest opponent and adjusted target share allowed to the position the tight ends that have hit this number Against the bills Zach Gentry was one of them because the Steelers dropped back 52 times 352 passes against Buffalo the other two or Tyler Higbee and Travis Kelsey both of whom had double-digit targets against the bills I don't know if we're gonna see that You know for Robert Tanya and obviously Gentry was able to hit that mark because they threw a lot So that was a very much a volume type play Tanya is at the over on this three times this season. So, you know, he's been there for sure But I really think that That this matchup Dictates them number one not being able to throw the ball very well General and this offense just not moving the ball very well similar to what we saw last week But I just don't think that it's a great matchup overall So I'm gonna hit the under with Robert Tanya in at 32 and a half yards and then the last one Again, you can get this line in a lot of spots But AJ Brown his line is at 66 and a half receiving yards and I like the over for AJ Brown You know despite being a bad football team the Steelers have actually faced a pretty average pass rate against this season So I'm not really that that concerned about Philly just going with this like insane insane Run scripts Offensively, you know, the Steelers have a below average pass defense in terms of success rate allowed AJ Brown has seen at least 21% of Philadelphia's targets in every single game this year So that's a floor form so far this year is a 21% target share 54% of wide receivers this season that have had a 21% target share if hit the over with this mark if hit that 66 and a half number and That's his low. That's his minimum. Oh and by the way, it's AJ Brown, you know, we're not We're talking about one of the best wide receivers in the game. Who's one of the most efficient per target historically So I really like the over at 66 and a half I think you could probably bet that up to like 70 yards or so And that's simply excited with the target shares include some of the like the Falcons teams and the Barrett teams we discuss like it's not adjusting and like the Eagles are run heavy when they're ahead, but That you know, they're not that bad. They're not that run heavy right by any means I think that that one definitely makes a lot of sense there for AJ Brown other thing too with that is They've had some pretty Conservative approaches recently with a low eight on approach but part of that might have been weather Jordan My Lada missed a game in a half Lane Johnson this half a game now both my Lada and Johnson are healthy That could allow them to potentially open things back up I'm not sure if I really want to bank on that be probably don't need to for AJ Brown at 66 and a half for sure Let's shift our attention now to the touchdown props four week number eight We're seeing value at Fandall sportsbook in the touchdown market. Yeah So the last time I talked about this guy, he scored a touchdown It was one of the few, you know touchdown props that have really got my way this year on this on this show at least But I do like Cortland Sutton over on Fandall. He's plus 220 as an any time touchdown scorer He's what he's still one of the biggest touchdown regression candidates in the league right now He has one touchdown this year, but he has over 450 receiving yards and he's tied for first in the NFL and end zone targets He's had about a 25% target share in this Denver offense. Russell Wilson's back We know that he's favored Cortland Sutton within this offense Jacksonville has the 11th worst success rate against quarterbacks this year So I think it's a decent enough spot where this juice makes sense to to go after Sutton at plus 220 So I like Cortland Sutton over on Fandall plus 220 and then Justin Fields I'm gonna hit the under 0.5 passing touchdowns for Justin Fields. You're getting some juice there It's at plus 145 over on DK fields is playing better But this matchup on paper is just absolutely brutal for the Chicago Bears. They've struggled up front as we know You know, they're not great at protecting the quarterback Dallas has the best pressure rate in the NFL I mean, they can get to the quarterback the Cowboys have allowed less than one passing touchdown per game this year So they're at least getting close to that half a touchdown mark fields himself has hit the under in three of seven games this season You know Chicago's been the most run heavy team in football Even in negative game scripts as I talked about they're implied total is just 16 and a half points So I think that that is very very possible that that Justin Fields is under here I would I would look at this more as like a 50-50 Type scenario for fields as opposed to what the odds that you're getting right now are a lot more favorable than that Yeah, plus 145 as you mentioned the under for Justin Fields at point five passing touchdowns And the key is there is passing touchdowns. He can run for one and it doesn't matter and like they have Herbert They've got Montgomery like there are a lot of paths to unders here like they could just not score as well So there are paths to unders there going back to Sutton Do the Russ high knees in the in the plane Factor into your projections for a Coralins on any time touchdown. Yeah, look everything Russ factors into my projections including that including his Horrific play on the field this season. You know, it's it's all of that Jim And I am I am look look put it placing a bet on anything Denver offense is frightening But I do think that that plus 220 number is pretty attractive So if he scores a touchdown you've got extra cash to burn because you have the plus 220 Will you pledge right now on air to eat a danger which if Cortland Sutton scores an anytime touchdown on Sunday? Never never. Okay. I might do that for you. I might I might hold up your the subway guy I'm not the subway. We don't talk about that in public. You know, it's we keep that under wraps Especially with the rust rust things, you know, sometimes I gotta keep my cancelable Cancellable takes to myself and I think that's getting pretty dang close Maybe I'll get a danger which on air if we hit the sudden prop for a second time already through week number eight That is JJ Zacharyson checking out on Twitter at late round QB You can find his work at late round common also on the late round fantasy football podcast JJ Delight to have you on as always happy Halloween to you and good luck to you in week eight any plans for you For Halloween dress up this year. Yeah, of course Always my family and I are dressing up as in Kanto characters So I will be Bruno and there will be pictures of it on Twitter on Twitter I'm sure okay at late round QB to get the Bruno pictures JJ have fun and we will talk to you again next week Thanks, Jim. Alrighty. Do not forget to check out our other podcasts from this week our NFL week eight breakdown and Our college football week nine preview both up on the covering the spread podcast feed and over on the fan duel youtube page I am on twitter at jim sonnis j i m s a n n e s You can also follow the fan duel podcast network at fan duel podcast big Thank you to everyone for tuning in throughout this week. Good luck with your bets We'll talk to you once again Monday to get you set for Monday night football This has been covering the spread right here on the fan duel podcast network