331: Mailbag 12/13/19

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Speaker 1: This is the Label podcast with your host JJ Zacher, Retha j Jake Zacher Reason. What's up everyone.

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Speaker 2: It's JJ Zacharyesen, the editor in chief at fandel and at number five dot com.

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Speaker 1: And this is episode three hundred and thirty one of.

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Speaker 2: The Late Round podcast on many shows that are part of the Fan Duel podcast network. Thanks for tuning in the most common type of questions that I got for this week's mailbag show or about how your approach changes when you're making start sit choices in the Fantasy football playoffs. I understand the reason for the questions, but guys, let's not make this complicated. You're still playing the exact same game that you played in week twelve and week thirteen. Your goal is the exact same The only difference that if you lose, you're not playing anymore.

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Speaker 1: That's it.

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Speaker 2: So the way I go about making start sit decisions isn't really any different than it normally. Is.

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Speaker 1: The idea that you have to play the.

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Speaker 2: Guys who got you there doesn't really make any sense, Like Tevin Coleman helped get you there. Tevin Coleman was great for a big stretch of the season. Are you confidently playing him this week with the season on the line, of course not Don't overthink things, do what you'd normally do, because what got you to this point isn't just an individual player. It's a process. It's your process. You've made good decisions so far, so don't go changing your decision making process just because there's.

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Speaker 1: More on the line.

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Speaker 2: Now, before get into this week's questions, we've got another free role for you Fandel Podcast network listeners. Just head to fandle dot com slash League slash Jim.

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Speaker 1: That's the name, Jim.

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Speaker 2: Make a lineup and enter for a chance to win a number five premium subscription in a little bit of cash. That's fandle dot Com Slash League slash Jim. The first question this week is a good example of what I was talking about in the intro, so I thought that it would be helpful to give you guys some context. It's from at Robert jan Hijj, bigfan from Brazil here regarding recent Raheem Mostert overshadowing Tevin Coleman. I would like to know how to deal with decisions of benching former home runners when it's playoff time. Those guys showed high ceilings so it bugs me to remove them from my squad ps. Love the pod, so thanks for the love, and I always love hearing from listeners outside the United States.

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Speaker 1: It's really cool to me.

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Speaker 2: But to your question, this sort of relates back to the players who got me here, a thing that I just talked about.

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Speaker 1: I actually used Tevin Coleman.

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Speaker 2: As my example before knowing that I was going to talk about this question on the show, so it worked out pretty well. But you've got to look at everything objectively. I mean, think of it this way. If a player tours ACL in week fourteen, you obviously wouldn't use him in week fifteen, even if that player got you there. Tevin Coleman's performed really poorly over the last couple of weeks because the forty nine ers started featuring Raheem Mosterd. You have to adjust the way that you view Coleman and that backfield. As a result, Moster it's logically the most reliable, and then Brita and then Tevin Coleman. That makes Coleman someone that you can't trust and something that you've got to keep on your bench, even though he helped you throughout the season. This last question is from at zip code. Do your opponent's top players influence your choice of defense at all? The only place it might influence my defensive choice is at quarterback only because they control so much of the game and they're the ones who turn the ball over the most, and that's what matters at defense most. But if you think about it, the instances where this would actually happen, they're pretty slam. Quarterbacks who are usable in fantasy football generally don't have an opposing defense that's also usable because those quarterbacks are good. There are instances like Jamis Winston, but I'm just saying that most of the time you won't run into this problem. But then on top of that, that defense has to be available, and then you also have to weigh whether or.

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Speaker 1: Not you need that type of upside.

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Speaker 2: The only way I'd purposely play a defense that's facing my opponent's quarterback is if I'm a huge underdog, because where every interception or fumble it's a four point gain rather than a.

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Speaker 1: Two point one.

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Speaker 2: So I'd say overall, no, I don't really think about it that much. This best question is from at dakovoc DFS. In my season long league. Next year, I'm considering awarding the top four spots based on record, the fifth to most points, and the final spot to whichever remaining team has the most regular season wins against the first five teams in the playoffs. Ridiculous. I do think it's a little bit ridiculous and unnecessary. Yeah, not the spot for most points, but the final spot. You have to assume that there would be ties, meaning the six team that's not in had an equal number of wins against the other five teams. That would happen to multiple teams, And then if you're in a twelve team league, you're not facing every team in your league once, so the schedule would screw things up too. My advice would be to give spots to the top four teams and then have the next two spots for the most points that aren't currently in, or just make that the sixth spot. This next question says suggestions on how to make a change in playoff structure to account for teams that have been great all year and then lose due to some weird occurrences in the first round. What's the best way to account for the random results that can occur and ruin a good team in a given week. Look, this is sort of what fantasy football is. There's a luck element to it, and that's partially what makes it fun. Now, don't take this the wrong way. Fantasy football is far from all luck, and I want the objectively best teams to win the championship.

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Speaker 1: But the only way around something.

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Speaker 2: Like this is to give that better team entering the playoffs some sort of advantage, like a five point advantage or something, or have a multi week playoff. Maybe the fairest way to decide the playoffs for your league would be an all play format. Or in round one, the two best scorers move on, there's no matchup. In round two, the two best scorers move on, and then there's one championship. But look, I've been on the wrong side of that variance plenty of times, especially in my home league. I'm legitimately cursed in my home league. But that's sort of the fun. For a league with a bunch of old friends who love to use fantasy football as a vehicle to stay in touch. It's the one on one, win and move on format. There are ways to make it fairer and to reward teams that were better over a longer period of time. And I just gave some examples of how to do that, but I do think it's still important in some leagues, probably most leagues, since most leagues aren't ultra competitive for tons of money, But it's important to not lose sort of that charm of fantasy football. This last question is from at Tree underscore Nerd. This year, you've been using points above average a lot when describing, for instance, a defense that allows a quarterback to score five and a half points more than their average. Don't recall this being a metric that used in past seasons. What do you like about it? Why the shift towards using it so much. One of the things that I push myself to do every year is find ways to make fantasy football data more interesting and consumable. I don't think I'm the best data person in the fantasy football space at all. I know for a fact that i'm not. But what I do know is that I can still work with data. Things that have to do with numbers I'm generally good with. But to me, my goal with what I do is to sort of be a bridge for you guys, to connect you to a more complex way of looking at fantasy football. My job is very much about being a good communicator and then taking ideas that the average person may not be able to easily comprehend, and taking those ideas and making them consumable. Now, I've been tracking fantasy points versus expectation for a few years now, but it didn't really click for me until this year to make that a bigger part of this podcast and how I present this data, because honestly, with each year, the audience gets smarter and smarter in the fantasy football space. Like ten years ago, not only was the data just not available, but people didn't have the same passion for this game as they do.

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Speaker 1: Now.

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Speaker 2: With that passion and more readily available data, everyone's become smarter and better. So basically what I'm saying is, with every season, I can sort of introduce new ways of looking at the game. That was just one of those things this year. At some point, I did the same thing with yards versus touchdowns when speaking about touchdown regression. Back in the day, like years ago, I used to always talk about usable performances, top twelve and twenty four performances.

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Speaker 1: So to answer your.

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Speaker 2: Question more directly, I'm using it more because I'm trying to communicate the right information at the right time. You guys all get better each year, and my goal is to also get better each year with what I produce and how I communicate that information. This NAXT question is from at ross Verba. When will you begin to dive into the twenty twenty class? Yeah, so I usually start digging in during the middle of January. I'll be doing the Late Round podcast four times a week for just one more week, So next week's the last week for four times per week, and then I'll get on the schedule of twice a week, with one of those being a mailbag episode. But this is also me saying that when the season's over, I'm not done and you guys should stick around, because really, I think the most intriguing podcasts come out during the off season. During the off season, I get some time to think and breathe. In season, it's a lot more process oriented and the same type of content over and over again. There's nothing wrong with that, and it's fun to produce. It's just that I like to take a step back and look at bigger trends and figure out interesting strategies. So don't leave me when the season's over. And if you're into the NFL Draft, and rookie drafts for dynasty leagues. I'll be getting into prospect work in about a month. This ask questions from at Crypto Crutches. I get all the hype about Evans replacement options in Tampa Bay, but Ridley out, and nobody really hyping Gage because Hooper is back. Maybe I would say it's partially Hooper, It's partially that Gage has shown to be more of a high floor play and not a high ceiling play given his slot role in that offense. And then, probably most importantly, it's the matchup. Tampa Bay gets Detroit this week, Atlanta gets San Francisco. But I honestly would probably just avoid the secondary receivers on both of these teams this week if I could.

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Speaker 1: There's just a lot of ambiguity there.

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Speaker 2: This ask questions from at Nolan Underscore Hughes twenty four. Why are handcuff running backs so heavily hyped and promoted pre draft, not necessarily by you, when they're often immediately dropped? Darwin Thompson, Justice Hill, Darryl Henderson come to mind. So I did a study on handcuffing running backs a couple of years ago, and I found that number one We don't always get the handcuff right. We don't always know who the handcuff's going to be. Number Two, when a handcuff emerges, he often doesn't even produce. And number three, to your point, Nolan, injuries to running backs generally happen later in the season, at least among the subset that I analyzed. This is why I advocate to not draft handcuffs, but to pick them up later in the season instead, though I think with your examples it was a little bit different. The hope for those rookie running backs was that they'd simply emerge. You were making high upside dart throws. But this offseason I do plan on refreshing that handcuff running backs article on podcasts.

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Speaker 1: I think it might be helpful.

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Speaker 2: This last question is from at Chris ev nine four to two six seven eight six. Who is your twenty twenty DJ chark that wide receiver no one was talking about this time last year that could explode to be a great dynasty asset we can acquire cheaply in the off season.

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Speaker 1: Love the thanks.

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Speaker 2: Yes, I think that you just had to look at players in this year's class who underperformed and haven't had a huge chance yet, and the two that I liked coming out who haven't performed yet are jj R Sega Whiteside and Andy Isabella. I'm not that surprised that neither guy had big rookie seasons, but their profiles do tell us that they should be good players in the NFL, and we've seen glimpses of it, especially with Isabella.

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Speaker 1: So those are two players that I'd.

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Speaker 2: Buy low on this offseason who could make a big impact next year. That's going to do it for today's show, though, Thanks to all of you for listening. If you get subscribed to the Late Round podcasts, make sure you are by searching for it pretty much anywhere podcasts can be found, and don't forget to follow me on Twitter at Late Round QB. And like I've been saying, if you listen to this show on Apple Podcasts, do me a.

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Speaker 1: Favor and leave a rating interview.

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Speaker 2: Thanks everyone, enjoy your weekend and good luck in your playoff matchups.