865: Mailbag 2/23/24

00:00:02
Speaker 1: This is the Late Round Podcast with your host JJ zacherathas j J zacher reefon.

00:00:11
Speaker 2: What's up everyone.

00:00:12
Speaker 1: It's JJ zacher Esen in this episode eight hundred and sixty five of the Late Round Fantasy Football Podcast.

00:00:20
Speaker 2: Thanks for tuning in.

00:00:22
Speaker 1: Before getting ino this week's mailbag questions, I want to send another reminder about the Late Round Prospect Guide. The guide will be dropping in just a couple of weeks, so make sure you take advantage of the pre order price. It's currently eleven ninety nine. It'll go up to fourteen ninety nine on March eleventh. The guide gives you everything you need to dominate your rookie drafts. You get information on my prospect models, you get prospect profiles, prospect scores, profiles for year two players, and so much more. It's almost one hundred and fifty pages of content. You can pre order now by heading to Lateround dot com. The first question this week is an email. It says, hey, JJ, I was curious as to how the top ranked prospects per throughout their career relative to their dynasty Rookie Draft ADP. Looking at each top positional rookie from the past eleven years, highest drafted quarterback, running back, wide receiver, tight end, and rookie draft ADP. I was very surprised at the results. Turns out, the highest correlation was at running back, at which six of the eleven running backs reached RB six or higher in at least one season and ten out of eleven hit a top twenty four season. Tight End was alright two, with nine out of eleven having a top twelve season, but only one out of eleven had a top three season. Quarterback was hit or miss, with six out of eleven having a top twelve season. The biggest surprise of all, though, was wide receivers. Only two of the top ranked wide receiver prospects since twenty thirteen according to Dynasty ADP at least ever had at least one top twelve wide receiver season, and five never even reached the top thirty six. With all this information, what do you think we should do with highly rated rookie wide receivers. It seems foolish to fade great prospects simply because of history, but with such a low hit rate, it makes me hesitate more on a guy like Marvin Harrison Junior, because for as great as he might be, the past number one wide receiver prospects also include Nikhil Harry, Corey Davis, Corey Coleman, and Tavon Austin. Is it smarter to trade back and just take more chances on later round wide receiver picks and rookie drafts as opposed to trading up for a high end wide receiver?

00:02:24
Speaker 2: Thanks as always.

00:02:25
Speaker 1: Can't wait to hear what you have to say about all of this mess, Jacob, So, I don't think these results are all that shocking.

00:02:32
Speaker 2: Let me explain why.

00:02:33
Speaker 1: The first thing to note with something like this is that sample sizes aren't very big. We're only analyzing eleven running backs and eleven wide receivers here, and I'll keep things simple and just answer by focusing on those two positions.

00:02:44
Speaker 2: But eleven players, isn't that many players.

00:02:47
Speaker 1: Funky things can happen, But even still, I don't think the results are that crazy. And it goes back to something that I've talked about a lot on this show. Running back talent. It matters, and that we want our running backs to carve out roles for them, and hopefully a running back does that through talent. If he's good, a coach puts him on the field, he starts to see more volume. When he sees more volume, he scores more Fantasy points. When you're talking about the top running backs in a given class by ADP, you're generally talking about round one running backs, guys who are drafted in the first round or at least the early second round. Right from twenty thirteen to twenty twenty three, which is what you're dating this back to. Eight of the eleven drafts you're looking at had a first round running back selection, and I would assume that the vast majority of rookie drafts then saw those running backs as the RB one in their class. Well, when a running back gets drafted in the first round, he's almost guaranteed some production.

00:03:42
Speaker 2: It's extremely rare for a.

00:03:44
Speaker 1: First round running back, especially in today's NFL, to not get production over the first couple of years of his career. He usually sees a lot of work right away because at the end of the day, a coach can simply say this guy's talented, I'm gonna put him on the field. Even if he's not that talented, like let's just say Nause Harris, then that player can still be fantasy relevant. Essentially, a first round running back is telling us that a coach is more likely going to give him volume. Whether that's true or not, that's the correlation, right, That's not the case at wide receiver. Wide receivers need to get open. They need to be good in order to see the rock. The talent profile it needs to be there more than it does at running back, and that can cause some natural volatility because instead of it being pretty obvious as to which players are going to get volume, like it is a running back, it becomes slightly less obvious. Now, not only that, but wide receiver it's a more competitive position in fantasy football. You're comparing top twenty four, Top twelve, top three seasons, but there are more wide receivers competing for those spots than there are a running back. And if we're basically only talking about first round running backs here, or mostly first round running backs, then we know that they're going to be high in carries and targets compared to the rest of the league.

00:04:58
Speaker 2: Let me put it this way. They're thirty twos teams the NFL.

00:05:01
Speaker 1: All of them have a backfield, and all of them have some group of wide receivers. If a running back gets drafted, in the first round, he'll have a very high likelihood of owning his backfield. There are only thirty two backfields in the league, and many of those backfields don't have a single running back owning it the way that a first round running back would. So that means that a first round running back or one pick very highly. He's likely to come through and perform well relative to his position. Now look at wide receiver. Not only will it take a minute for a wide receiver to post numbers like you have twenty twenty two and twenty twenty three data in here, which includes Drake London and Jackson Smith and Jigba. That's probably not fair, but it's just not as easy for these wide receivers to see that production. So let's just look at how actionable all this is. That's really what matters here. I do think that what this means is that we should rank first round running backs generally ahead of most wide receivers. I say most because every once in a while you're gonna get a Jamar Chase level prospect where there can't miss. In that case, it's totally reasonable to put a wide receiver like Jamar Chase over a running back. If you want, even if that running back went in the first round. But here's the thing.

00:06:07
Speaker 2: I think we're already generally doing this. Last season.

00:06:09
Speaker 1: I had Bijon Robinson and Jamier Gibbs ranked ahead of Jackson Smith and Jigba because first round running backs are just generally very good in safe investments. Now, if you want to shift your focus to this year's draft class, I wouldn't approach.

00:06:22
Speaker 2: Things this way.

00:06:23
Speaker 1: I wouldn't just take the RB one in this year's draft class and rank them ahead of Marvin Harrison Junior or Malik Neighbors. I don't think that you can blanket this approach across all rookie drafts. Objectively, we have at least one blue chip wide receiver prospect in this class in Marvin Harrison Junior. I think there's multiple because Malik Neighbors looks really good too, and this year's running back class is really not that good at the top.

00:06:47
Speaker 2: Like I said on the show earlier this.

00:06:48
Speaker 1: Week, there's even a chance that we don't have a consensus RB one once the draft is over. So what I think you've realized with this exercise is imperfect as it is, given the sample sizes and such, and Look, there's a lot of variants involved with something like this, but what you realized more than anything isn't so much that wide receiver is terrible. Yes, the top wide receivers haven't been great over the last eleven years, but there's noise to something like that. What you realized more so, in my opinion, is the safety of a top running back, of a first round running back. Those guys dominate and they should always be considered over wide receivers. We just don't have that kind of back in the twenty twenty four class. The next question is from Twitter. It's from at Kyle Morris KC. It says, how does your breakout score look at a guy like Cody Schrader? He put up big numbers at D two Truman State before transferring to Missouri before he kind of broke out again in the SEC. So, if you didn't listen to the show earlier this week, pause this episode and go listen to it. I talked about this year's running back class on the show. I mentioned my new metric called breakout score. Instead of looking at breakout age, which is a pretty binary metric, I'm using a score that helped to determine how strong. A player's breakout really was at running back, that scores based on different yards per team play thresholds. At wide receiver, as you'll learn about next week, it's about yards per team pass attempt. Running back doesn't adjust based on program strength. So someone who went to Alabama he'll be scored the same way as someone who went to Truman State. So Schrader, for example, has a higher breakout score because he played weaker competition. Basically, that might seem unfair, and if I was only working off a breakout score, it would be unfair. But at running back, my guess is the reason the adjustments don't work as well in the model is because draft capital probably captures any small school production variants. In other words, we're not going to see a running back who played at Truman State for four years, or someone like Isaiah Davis who went to South Dakota State. We're not going to see those players get drafted very high. And if they do get drafted high, then that's signaling to us that there's talent there. They'll look really good in the model, and if you go look at history at running back versus wide receiver, smaller school running backs end up performing better than smaller school wide receivers, and it probably has to do with the talent profiles and what I talked about with the last question. So Schrader, who's got a crazy collegiate journey. He had a total yards per team play rate in twenty twenty one that was out of control at Truman State. He's a little bit older, though, so his breakout score actually didn't end up being elite even with that huge season. They only played four games in twenty twenty and that's not enough games for a player's season to be eligible for breakout score, and his numbers weren't strong enough in twenty nineteen. He's been around for a while. Basically, for smaller school players, there are other factors that would hypothetically mitigate an inflated breakout score, like, for example, most smaller school players, most small school running backs, they're older. We're not going to see many small school running backs declare early for the NFL draft, and if they end up transferring like Shrader did, we usually won't see an immediate declaration for the draft from players like that either. So it all kind of works together. But to answer your question, uestion, Schrader's breakout score is indeed a top five breakout score in this year's class. But he also had a really good final season that would have given him some semblance of a breakout score too, and that final season was not at Truman State. This last question from Twitter from at Golden Knights, it says just how bad was Jackson Smith and Jigba's rookie year. His A dot was garbage, yards per catch was trash, drop rate was sky high. He feels like a massive cell. So I would say the only concern with the stats that you mentioned was a dot of all of them, because when an average depth of target is low, yards per catch is going to be naturally low too, because he's catching passes closer to.

00:10:39
Speaker 2: The line of scrimmage.

00:10:41
Speaker 1: It's why deep threats are players with higher A dots. They have high yards per reception rates too. But let's talk about JSN. He did indeed have a really rough average depth of target. That's because the Seahawks gave him a ton of targets behind the line of scrimmage. According to PFFS data, JSN led all thirty plus target receivers last season in percentage of targets that came behind the line of scrimmage. I think if we take a step back and we look at this rationally, we can say that jsnz a dot. It was so low, not necessarily because he was this pathetic wide receiver who can't play, but rather because they had guys like DK Metcalf and Tyler Lockett on the roster getting those higher A dot looks. They were getting the looks down the field, and those two players only missed one game last year.

00:11:25
Speaker 2: But guess what in that game.

00:11:26
Speaker 1: It was a game in Week seven against the Cardinals when dk Metcalf was out. JSN saw his highest target share, receiving yard total, and fantasy point total of the season, and he also played his fewest snaps out of the slot. Now, I'm not trying to sell this as you should buy JSN. I'm merely giving context to his numbers. He was in an objectively unique situation last year. I can sit here and say that wide receivers earn their playing time, which they do, but Seattle also played a style offensively that didn't always involve their slot receiver. That was ultimately the demise of Jsn's rookie season, But even still, he still had a seventeen percent target share. We can't discount his prospect score either. That's one thing that's really important to remember. Rookie season numbers alone, they're not as predictive as rookie season numbers alongside a player's prospect score. That's why my year two model exists in the first place. JSN in that model currently has a score of ninety two point six, which, based on history, tells me and us that he's not really a bye or a sell.

00:12:28
Speaker 2: He's more of a hold.

00:12:30
Speaker 1: And that's what I'd be doing if I had Jackson Smith and Jigba unless you can get rid of him and get another higher end wide out from last year's class plus something extra.

00:12:41
Speaker 2: This last question is from Twitter.

00:12:42
Speaker 1: It says hi jj I enjoyed the running back Prospect episode.

00:12:45
Speaker 2: Thanks.

00:12:46
Speaker 1: Can you provide some historical context for your zapp rankings, like who in the last few draft classes scored in the eighties and nineties and how does this class compared to the one with Damian Harris a few years ago?

00:12:58
Speaker 2: So in terms of how this class.

00:12:59
Speaker 1: Compares to the one with Damien Harris a few years ago, which was twenty nineteen, I'd say this one has a chance to be deeper. But that one also had Josh Jacobs. I don't know why we're talking about it being Damien Harris's class. It was Josh Jacobs class. There are no Josh Jacobs level prospects in this year's class, So just depends on how you look at things. It might be deeper, but there's not high end talent. But just to reiterate some of the things that I've said on the show this week, I revament my prospect models this offseason, and I name them the ZAP Model. Now in the Prospect Guide, there's a table that's going to show you historical results of the model, not the individual players, but the probability of players hitting certain points per game thresholds and fantasy at different Zapp score levels. But to answer your question directly, let's just look at the last three draft classes, So twenty twenty one, twenty twenty two, and twenty twenty three. There were eight running backs with scores over ninety during this time period, and this is in order. B Jon Robinson, Jamiir Gibbs, Breise Hall, Travis etn Naji Harris, and Javonte Williams all received scores over ninety five, and they were ranked in that order, like I said, and then Kenneth Walker was next, and then Zach Sharpiney actually got in there too. Next on the list is guys in the eighties, and again this is in order. The next player is Devon a Chan, then Rashad White, then Tank Bigsby, and then James Cook. Taj Spears was just outside eighty. So the big miss of this group definitely Tank Bigsby. But it's done a pretty good job in recent history. And remember for last year's class, you can read about their profiles in the Year two Model section of the Prospect Guide. I think some of you will get a lot from that portion of the guide. The last question this week is an email from Sean and it's about this year's wide receiver draft class. It says, Hey, Jja, I'm curious to know which wide receivers you're nervous about from this year's class. People are saying it's an awesome class, but are there any at the top You might be fading? So I'll be doing my wide receiver primer next week. It'll be just like the running back one that you heard earlier. This this week, I'm profiling all thirty nine wideouts who will be at this year's combine. In the prospect guide, so far, I've profiled all the higher end players. All that's left is digging into the later round guys, which honestly is the most fun for me because I think that's where rookie drafts are won. But one wide out I just can't understand the hype four one of two. I'm going to talk about two of them. Here is eighty Mitchell out of Texas. I prospect through data as we all know, and one of the main metrics used in the ZAP model is receiving yards per team pass attempt. It drives breakout score, and Mitchell's best season in yards per team pass attempt is bottom five in the class. And then on top of that, he has the worst best season yards per rout run rate two. It's very rare for wide receivers to succeed with numbers that poor. He's currently projected to go in round two and since twenty eleven, here's a list of wide receivers from round two who had a yards per team pass attempt in their best season as low as Mitchell's. Aaron Dobson, mikel Hardman, and Van Jeff expand that to top one hundred players and you add TJ. Graham, Marquise Goodwin, Braxton Miller, Josh Palmer, and Terry McLaurin. And Terry McLaurin is dubbed as an outlier every single season when people talk about his prospect profile. Now I understand that there are traits in some competition related factors that favor Mitchell, something that's actually still captured in his overall score in the ZAP model. His score is currently eighty two point nine in that model, which gives him a higher risk profile if he gets selected in rookie drafts, where his draft capital suggests I'm probably gonna be out. I actually don't think he's the best wide receiver coming out of Texas. I think Xavier Worthy is. And then another wide receiver who I'm probably going to be a little bit lower on the consensus. At least that's what it looks like right now. It's Keon Coleman. His production numbers really aren't that strong, and his statistical comps are absolutely brutal. His top one is Breshad Perriman, and then Cordero Patterson and Kelvin Benjamin also pop up. So if he ends up being like the wide receiver four or the wide receiver five in this class, I'm probably gonna be out.

00:17:07
Speaker 2: That's it for today's show, though, thanks to all of you for listening.

00:17:09
Speaker 1: If you yet subscribe to the Late Round Fantasy Football podcast, make sure you are by searching for it pretty much anywhere podcasts can be found, and don't fit to follow me on Twitter at Late Round QB. Thanks for listening this week everyone, I greatly appreciate it. Enjoy your weekend. I'll talk to you next week