368: Mailbag 4/23/20

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Speaker 1: This is the Late Podcast with your host JJ zacher Retha j J zacher reson What's up everyone. It's JJ Zachares and the editor in chief at fandel and at number fire dot com. And this is episode three hundred and sixty eight of the Late Round Podcast, the many shows that are part of the FanDuel podcast network. Thanks for tuning in. You'll notice that this Mailbag episode is out on a Thursday, and that's because of the NFL Draft. I usually record Thursday afternoon for this Mailbag episode, but with so much likely changing in Round one, it wouldn't make sense to publish a podcast on Friday that then didn't talk about the draft. If you want some takes for me as things happen during the draft, though, then you're in luck because this year I'm gonna be streaming live on YouTube while the draft is happening. I'll be on YouTube with my colleagues Jim Sonis and Brandon Gadoula. We'll be hanging out talking prop bets, fantasy implications, and I'll be giving instant projections for the offensive skill players who are drafted. So when Jerry Judy gets picked, I'll talk about his projection and the process to get that projection. Immediately after, you can check out the stream at YouTube dot com slash FanDuel Videos. Make sure you subscribe now so you don't miss it. We'll be streaming live about fifteen minutes before Round one starts, and we'll be doing both Day one and Day two. Day two should actually be pretty wild with running back and wide receiver picks, but definitely come hang out with us at YouTube dot com slash FanDuel Videos. The first question this week is from at Stairway to Evans seventeen. What are some things that you watch for during the draft other than something like an RB needy team drafting one in the first round. One of the key things that I've learned through the years is to not think so short term with each pick that's made. I know that sounds obvious, but a good example of that is actually with the running back position. We're gonna see teams like Pittsburgh, for example, potentially get a running back with a higher than expected pick in this draft, and some people are gonna be like, what are they doing? They have James Connor, they have running backs on that team. But teams are savvy enough to know that paying a running back. A lucrative second contract is a bad idea, so they're planning ahead. Connor's a free agent next year, so the Steelers need someone to be able to step in and carry the workload. Basically, don't always think about the following season when these picks are made. Don't think only in the current calendar year. I know the majority of us think that way, but there's a lot more to a pick than simply that player versus what a team currently has rostered. This naxt question is from at two to two Jay Bright. How does one decide what's more important think Tampa Bay play calling, quarterback tendencies, or player talent. This is to say, how do you think Gronk will do in Tampa Bay in twenty twenty? But one in more of a broad question for helping other situations. Okay, so I feel like I answer these types of questions all the time, and the general answer is that there's not one thing that's necessarily trumping another. Maybe that sounds like a cop out answer, but it's true. Everything works together. Some coordinators have very specific schemes, others will tailor what they do to personnel, and then obviously the quarterback position dictates so much, so how he plays is important too. But I do want to take this time to talk about Rob Gronkowski. The return of Gronk is awesome. It's fun, it's entertaining, it's all the above. I'm here for it. I'm also here to be as level headed of an analyst as I can be, and I can tell you guys that I was kind of shocked by some of the analysis surrounding Gronk when the trade initially went down. Some of the things that I saw stem from how Gronk really really hurts Godwin and Evans to taking Gronk in the fifth round of drafts. Like, I get it, We're all pumped for this. I'm pumped to see Rob Gronkowski on a football field again. But let's be realistic. The last time we saw Gronk, he wasn't that dominant of a fantasy asset. He finishes a fringe top ten tight end in points per game, and we've now seen Gronk fail to play a full season in every single year since twenty eleven, So there are obvious red flags for a guy who's coming off of misseason. So again, let's just be reasonable. We know the upside, But there's some downside too. When I plug things in and created a projection, Gronk was a fringe tight end one. He was tight end fourteen. Now keep in mind projections generate an average. I could make the argument that from a rankings perspective, Gronk should be a top ten tight end because of the upside that comes with Rob Gronkowski. What if he comes back healthier, what if we get the old Gronk. But entering the season, tight end doesn't look as bad as did last year. I'd argue Tyler Higbee is rising, Jack Doyle's usable, Blake Jarwin has potential. There's Noah fan in, TJ Hockinson, Mikeasicki hayden Hurst. And that's on top of every early round tight end lock. So it's not that I hate Gronk next season. I think he's fine. I just think there was a pretty big overreaction to all the news. This as questions from at Bethany LP, and it kind of stems from the previous one. It says, regarding episode three hundred and fifty nine on Brady Throwing Deep in twenty twenty, you mentioned Bruce arians offenses love intermedia to deep ball throws. Is this line of logic assuming Brady is adaptable. He hasn't been forced to adapt in quite some time. So in twenty nineteen, Jamis Winston threw at fifteen or more air yards on twenty four point three percent of his throws, as the second highest in the league. Only Matthew Stafford was throwing it intermediate and deep at a higher rate. Brady was on the other end of the spectrum at sixteen point two percent, so it's a pretty significant difference. In twenty eighteen, for Brady that number was seventeen point two percent, so a little bit higher in twenty seventeen, though his rate of throwing it deep was twenty and a half percent. I don't think we need to expect Jameis Winston type aggressiveness from Tom Brady, but I think expecting a twenty seventeen type season is pretty reasonable. And all the while, like I said on the show, in the past, Brady's had good completion rates on those throws, so I'm not worried about his ability to be accurate down the field. And look, quarterbacks can dictate a lot, but the weapons around those quarterbacks are just as if not more important. We saw that with Alex Smith in Kansas City. He became a completely different quarterback at times when they added those vertical elements. And Tom Brady has not played with weapons like this, at least not in a long time. I don't think there's enough evidence to show that he's washed and not able to adapt or at least in the middle with Bruce Arian's offense and what he likes to do. This last question says Yo, my quarantine pod schedule is a bit off, but I haven't heard you break down Lynn Boden yet. Curious how your model thinks his game translates to the next level and what type of offense and scheme he would benefit from the most. When would you consider him in Dynasty Draft? Stay safe, Jake, So straight up, just so everyone knows, my model isn't going to pick up on guys like Boden very well. Boden's rushing production doesn't get picked up in them, and that was a source of a lot of what he did last year as a junior. I sort of view rushing similarly to kick and punt return production. It's great to have because it shows versatility for a player, but my model doesn't recognize it because over a larger sample, it doesn't help things. It doesn't make the model more predictive. But it's good to know that going in. I don't just take my model and say these are my rankings because of situations just like this. The same goes for Antonio Gibson. Those hybrid players are tough to scout via metrics. I'm not going to hide from that fact. I like Boden though, and you shouldn't have to spend anything significant to get him in rookie drafts. I think he's the right risk reward after round two. We'll just have to see what his landing spot is and where he gets drafted. To be more precise with that, This last question says, what's up everyone, It's a late round podcast listener here. Thanks for tuning in to this email. How do you view the Arizona Cardinals wide receivers, particularly in a dynasty lens? Last year, Hakeem Butler was hyped by as maybe the top rookie wide receiver on the board. We obviously didn't get a chance to see him with the injury. Isabella flashed a couple of times, and even Keishawn Johnson gets some occasional hype with Hopkins, Fits and Kirk also firmly in place as one, two three, but Fits set to retire after this year. How do you view this depth chart, particularly Hakeem Butler, who has no longer owned my Dynasty League. There are so many rookie wideouts everyone is excited about. I'm curious where you'd grade Butler's value. Now, thanks for the content. Pod is great. Thanks. Okay, So let's look at this from a probability lens, as we usually do. There are rumors that Christian Kirk is going to be moved, but let's assume that doesn't happen. I don't think it should happen either, given how many wide receivers are on the field at once for that Arizona Cardinals offense. Like I talked about on episode three hundred and forty three on bailing on unproductive rookies, I'd argue that things don't look great for Andy Isabella. And I loved Andy Isabella coming out, his lack of production just doesn't give him great odds moving forward. With Butler, he had flaws as a prospect or, his profile did, he broke out late, and his draft capital wasn't super strong. He was a seventy fourth percentile wide out in my model, which is fine, but it's definitely not a lock. It's not unbelievable. Now, I don't mind throwing darts at those guys necessarily, but with this loaded wide receiver class, I wouldn't be surprised if we see those two players get pushed down their depth chart even more, especially if Christian Kirk isn't dealt This last question says Hey, JJ, this question relates to how draft capital affects your prospect model. When you refer to draft capital, is it solely in terms of which pick the player was taken in the NFL draft or is it in terms of when they were taken relative to the rest of their position group. I keep seeing mocks with wide receivers flying off the board, but in a wide receiver draft class this deep, I could see teams waiting on wide receiver, picking scarcer positions early, knowing they'll get wide receiver value in the later rounds rather than reaching early. If all wide receivers are pushed later in the draft, how does that affect how you look at them? Thanks? JJ, love the show. Anthony from Boston. Yeah, so this is a super valid question. I'm inputting overall picks, so it doesn't put into context how good the NFL draft class is. Part of it is because it's subjective to do it that way. It's subjective to do it the way that you're describing, Like, we definitely believe that this is a good draft class. I love this wide receiver draft class. But do we number one know that as a fact, and number two know that teams are going to act differently as a result. And if teams do act differently and they wait a little bit longer at wide receiver because the position is so deep, how do we get confirmation of that? How do we know that's true? But then, in addition to that, the majority of the work that I do within my model is through the lens of that particular draft class. I'll randomly reference percentiles like I just did with Hakeem Butler, but I'm not doing it in a way where I'm comparing Hakeem Butler to another wide receiver in like this class. I'm mostly just saying Hakeem Butler was fine in my model, nothing special after he was drafted, but he wasn't bad. Whereas if I'm analyzing things in that particular season. I'm comparing Butler to other wideouts from that class because of rookie drafts, So hopefully that all makes sense. It would just be really, really tough to measure something like this. This ask question says, hey, JJ, you have quickly become one of my favorite fantasy football analysts due to your analytical and common sense approach. Thank you. One player we really differ on, though, is AJ Brown. You seem much more bullish, So I'm hoping to find out what I am missing in my analysis of aj Only four wide receivers the past five years averaged over twelve yards per target. The next year, their yards per target fell by thirty four percent. This would mean AJ Brown twelve point five to one, and twenty nineteen could be closer to eight point twenty five yards per target, and twenty twenty if his targets bump up to one hundred and twenty that's only nine hundred and ninety yards. His current ADP is wide Receiver thirteen, which produced fifteen point nine points per game last year. That means AJ Brown has to go eighty twelve hundred and nine or some variation of just to get what you paid for. Couple this with the macro trends in the NFL causing the spread between wide receiver twelve and wide receiver thirty to be fairly tight, and he is not someone I want to touch this year at his current ADP. What do you think? Thanks for making me a better fantasy football player, Mike, thank you for the kind words. So to be clear, I'm much more bullish on AJ Brown in Dynasty than I am AJ Brown in Redraft. My projections for the twenty twenty season actually have Brown as a firm wide receiver two, not a wide receiver one. He's not really far from wide receiver one numbers, but I don't disagree with a greater point being made here. I do disagree with how you came to the numbers that you did, though, I'm actually not seeing the same thing that you're seeing because I don't know what type of parameters you set. But I see five wide receiver seasons since twenty ten where a wide receiver has seen a twelve and a half yards per target rate while maintaining at least fifty ten targets. Jordan Nelson in twenty eleven, Mike Wallace in twenty ten, AJ Brown last year, Tyler Lockett in twenty eighteen, Kenny Stills in twenty thirteen. Each of those players with next season data of seeing significant volumes so fifty plus targets again the following season did see their yards per target rate drop. That's to be expected. No one's going to maintain that. But the average dip was just under twenty one percent, not thirty four percent. So if we go by that number, then AJ Brown's going to have a yards per target rate that's closer to nine point nine. At that rate, he's very close to twelve hundred yards on one hundred and twenty targets. But this is a good example of why I don't just set semi random parameters and project that way, especially within a small sample. Like if you extend the sample size and you look at players with an eleven yards per target rate or better than have next season data of fifty or more targets. So two seasons with fifty plus targets back to back, the average decrease is actually higher. It's twenty four percent. It's higher than the four why receivers I just talked about who had significantly higher yards per target rates in that year one season? Now, how is that the case, Well, there are some really big splits for some players. Some players saw dips of up to thirty six or thirty seven percent in yards per target year over year. That skews things. And by the way, I would be shocked if AJ Brown saw just an eight point twenty five yards per target rate next year. Since twenty eleven, we've had almost fifty wide receiver seasons where the white out had a yards per target rate of ten while also seeing fifty or more targets the following season. So fifty targets in back to back years with that first year having a ten plus yards per target rate. Of those players, seventy percent of them had a yards per target rate higher than that eight point twenty five mark the following year. And those players were not all ascending talents that had a super high twelve and a half yards per target rate during their rookie year. Now, of course AJ Brown could flop, but I would be surprised if he's as bad as you're making him out to be. Here this last question, said JJ Newer. Listen, but enjoy the show, thanks. How do you value rookie draft picks with trading up or back? Specifically, what should it cost to move up a few spots in the first round of a rookie draft, say one O eight to one oh four. Thanks, Okay, so let's not complicate this. Let's just look at this in a really simplistic way. The easiest way to evaluate trades that deal with picks is to look at what type of players will be drafted with those picks. So let's say that you're in a non superflex league and you're trying to get from the one O eight to the one oh four. The one O four is likely to have a potential stud running back, whereas the one O eight sees a drop into that big tier of wide receivers that I talked about on the show earlier this week. So you may be talking Clyde Edwards, Hilaire or maybe even Jerry Judy or CD Lamb with that one oh four pick, and at one O eight you're talking Justin Jefferson or Jalen Reger or something. Now, I don't want to answer this specific question for you, but you then have to figure out, Okay, if I have a Justin Jefferson type player and I really want to get Jerry Judy r CD, what in addition to my one, oh waight should I be adding to make this a fair deal? And honestly, one way to exploit trades like this is by having a really good grasp on where the tiers are likely to form in dynasty drafts pre draft, and give yourself a slight buffer right now. I'd argue that the top seven picks are a strong place to be in rookie drafts right now in single quarterback leagues, but it may be smarter to try to trade into the top six just to ensure one of the top wide outs in one of the top running backs, because one of those running backs might not go to the best spot in the world. But that's the general thought process that I think a lot of people can go with when trying to evaluate these types of things. The same goes for any sort of draft, and honestly, it goes for keeper decisions as well. If you're struggling with a keeper choice, ask yourself who you'd be taking at that price instead of the player that you'd be keeping. It helps put things into perspective in a very simple way. And of course you can always just use trade calculators to help you out as well. If you do the exercise that I just talked about, and then you plug it all into a trade calculator and it all matches up. Then you probably have a decent deal that's going to do it. For today's show, Thanks to all of you for listening. If you've yet subscribed to the Late Round podcast, make sure you are by searching for it pretty much anywhere podcast can be found. Don't forget to follow me on Twitter at Late Round QB. I really hope you guys join in and watch our live stream on Thursday and Friday. Remember just head to YouTube dot com slash FanDuel videos, subscribe and have some fun. It should be a good time. Enjoy your weekend, enjoy the draft. I'll talk to you guys next week.