Why It's Wise to Roster Cedric Tillman | Stats With Sam: The Top 5 Things You NEED to Know for Week 8 (Ep. 1410)

Sam Hoppen discusses why Mark Andrews is at peak sell value, Braelon Allen's lost role in the Jets' backfield, and De'Von Achane's boost with Tua’s return. We also cover Cedric Tillman's uptick in work and the potential hidden value of Grant Calcaterra. Stay ahead with our in-depth analysis for Week 8 of the fantasy football season!

Timestamps (may be off due to ads):

Intro - 0:00:00
Justin Jefferson Pristine Auction Giveaway - 0:00:34
Braelon Allen has lost his role - 0:01:21
Tua Tagovailoa's return will boost De'Von Achane - 0:02:48
Cedric Tillman is seeing a lot of work - 0:04:09
Grant Calcaterra is still worth rostering - 0:05:52
Mark Andrews is a sell-high - 0:07:01

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:06):
Hello, and welcome to the Week eight edition of Stats
with Sam. This is a microcast where I Sam Hoppin
am going to go over five key stats that stood
out to me from a fantasy football perspective from the
last week or so to help you make your starter, sit,
your waiver or your trade decisions, hoping to get you
to the championship in your league and crown you the

(00:30):
winner of everything. But first, want to talk about a
giveaway we have going on. If you want a chance
to win a signed Justin Jefferson Viking summet for free
courtesy of our friends at Pristine Auction dot com, all
you need to do is head to Fantasypros dot com
slash contest, complete the form and either download the Fantasy

(00:51):
Pros My Playbook app, leave a review for the podcast,
or follow us on x, Instagram or TikTok at Fantasy Pros.
More actions you complete, the more entries you will receive,
and we will be announcing a winner right here on
the podcast. So if you are watching on YouTube, be
sure to subscribe and turn on those notifications so that

(01:13):
you can be alerted when new episodes are up and
you can claim your prize. All right, So, with that,
I will get into the stats starting off here with
the New York Jets, and obviously there's a lot of
focus on their past catchers, but want to focus on
the backfield. Unfortunately, Brailn Allen's role has been severely diminished

(01:40):
with the new coaching staff, with Jeff Ulbrich at head
coach or interim head coach and Todd Downing calling plays.
Over the past two games, Allen has been given just
five carries and three targets combined, and has played on
just fourteen percent of the team's snaps. This is down

(02:03):
dramatically from his eight point six opportunities per game and
thirty percent snap rate that he had in the first
five games of the season. I still think Alan is
a hold. You shouldn't drop him because he is one
of the more valuable running back handcuffs right now. And

(02:23):
in fact, if I was a team that had, you know,
five to six seven wins in my league right now
and lacked depth at running back, Alan is someone I
would consider trading for given how much upside he would
have if Breize Hall were to get injured, and knowing
that I'm really planning for the fantasy football playoffs at

(02:46):
this point. So one of the bigger storylines in the
NFL this upcoming week is the potential return of t
Attagovailoa playing quarterback for the Miami Dolphins. He still has
to cut a concussion protocol and get some practices under
his belt, but it sounds like the team is optimistic

(03:08):
that he could play this week, and I think the
one player for the Dolphins that I'd consider buying the
most is actually Devon ah Chan. His efficiency has obviously
gone down a bit with the Dolphins struggling the last
couple of weeks and every other piece of the Dolphins
offense struggling, but he's still averaged nearly sixteen opportunities per

(03:32):
game in the three full games that he played while
Tua was out. He also had eight and ten high
value touches in the two games that Tua did play,
so I expect him to get closer to that level
of usage with to his return. Jalen Wright is an
interesting piece too, and I think he's definitely worth an
AD at this point. He's currently the third running back

(03:56):
on the team, but he still has two out to
hitting his upside of either eight Chan or most get injured.
I think he would slot in perfectly for either of
those players. With Amari Cooper off of the brown Cedric
Tillman stepped up in a big way. He ended up
leading all players in Week seven with twelve total targets.

(04:18):
He also ran a route on a season high eighty
two percent of the team's dropbacks, which was second on
the team behind only Jerry Judy. He seemed to have
been used in the intermediate part of the field with
a ten point six yard average depth of target, which
I think would be good for his long term value

(04:39):
if he has continued to be used in that way.
The Browns have also been a pretty pass heavy team
so far this year, which is a departure from where
they've been in the past couple of seasons. Their year
to date passedwaight over expectation of two point one percent
ranks sixth in the NFL, and they only have two

(05:00):
two games throwing less than expected. Now maybe that changes
with Nick Chubb back. He was obviously in the game
this past week, but Cleveland's sixty eight percent expected past
rate also ranks sixth so far this year, so they
should continue to pass the ball at a pretty high rate.

Speaker 2 (05:21):
I would really only consider playing Tillman if Jameis Winston
is the quarterback. In the sample of games that we
have of Dorian Thompson Robinson dating back to last year,
he's been about as as poor of a quarterback as
Deshaun Watson has been. We haven't seen Jamis play a

(05:42):
ton in quite some time, but I am confident that
the ceiling that his receivers would have would be much
higher than with dtr want to wrap up talking with
a couple of tight end situations, and the first one
is talking about grand Count Coutear, the tight end for
the Philadelphia Eagles. Obviously, Dallas Gotter was out this past

(06:06):
week and he stepped in to the tight end one
role in Philadelphia had a poor outing against the Eagles.
He had just one catch for five yards, but he
did run a route on nineteen of Philadelphia's twenty three dropbacks.
The game against the Giants was really just a bit
of a homecoming for Saquon Barkley. They leaned on him

(06:29):
throughout the game with a very run heavy approach, and
over the last four games, Philadelphia has actually been very
run heavy, with a pass rate below fifty percent, but
that also includes some games in which they were missing
aj Brown and DeVante Smith. They do play the Bengals
this week, and I think they'll force the Eagles into

(06:52):
more passing situations. So if Dallas Godder is out once again,
then I think cal Kata is a solid streaming option
this week. And then finally, I feel like I should
talk about Mark Andrews because he's now scored three touchdowns
in the last two weeks. He scored two on Monday
Night Football. But I do think this is a tremendous

(07:14):
sell high opportunity because the production is far out pacing
the workload. First, he still hasn't run a route on
more than fifty percent of the team's dropbacks since Week two,
and he has been behind Isaiah Likely in routes run
in every game in that stretch as well. Second, he

(07:34):
doesn't have a single game this year with more than
five targets in a game, and that's really just not
going to do it from a sustainability standpoint for the
tight end position. The Ravens do have one of the
most explosive passing attacks in the league, and Lamar Jackson
is playing at an MVP level, which would make trading

(07:58):
Mark Andrews away a little bit scary, but I really
don't see many scenarios in which the volume goes up
for Andrews or for this passing game. Overall, their pass
rate over expectation is the second lowest in the league
this year.

Speaker 3 (08:13):
So on top of not having to pass the ball
a ton because they've been in favorable game scripts, they're
also not passing the ball, you know, necessarily when they're
supposed to. So I think the lack of volume and
you know, target competition with the Ravens is really going
to make it much less likely that Andrews continues on

(08:36):
the street going forward. So that'll do it for this
episode of Stats with Sam. Would really appreciate anyone's feedback
and reviews on the podcast throughout the season so we
can continue to make this even better.

Speaker 2 (08:49):
But until next time, good luck in week eight.

Speaker 4 (08:53):
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