793: Mailbag 9/1/23

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Speaker 1: This is the lad podcast with your host JJ Zacher Retha j Shake Zacher reson. What's up everyone, It's JJ Zachareson in this episode seven ninety three of the Late Round Fantasy Football podcast sponsored by FanDuel. Thanks for tuning in before getting the mailbag questions. This week, I want to give another shout out to the good folks that Establish the Run. If you're looking for another podcast during football season, their podcast works as a nice compliment to mine. As you know, I've got short, bite sized episodes that usually focus on season long content, but they have longer episodes that get into some of the things that I might not get to on the show, like betting. You can check out the Established the Run podcast anywhere podcasts can be found. And finally, one last shout out, check out the Late Round Draft Guide. It's filled with strategy and philosophy, talk players to target players, to avoid rankings and tears, and more. You can buy it right now for your drafts this weekend on Lateround dot com. And if you're looking for just rankings and tears, you can always join the Late Round Fantasy Football Patreon as well. In season, I'm gonna have rest of season rankings, weekly rankings, Q and as and tons more. You can check everything out on lateround dot com. Okay, that's enough, let's get to these questions. The first question is an email, says hijj huge fan here. My question is about your Michael Pittman player to avoid designation. You acknowledge that he benefits from an RPO offense where the passing options are condensed, yet you're weary of them because you believe they're going to be in a run heavy offense. However, you have Drake London on your players to target, despite Arthur Smith's guaranteed run heavy approach and below average quarterback play. Also, according to Matt Harmon's reception perception, Pittman is arguably the better wide receiver. What gives, thanks, Eduardo. Okay, so I think the first thing to roll out there is that there was an update to Michael Pittman's blurb in the draft guide that happened at the beginning of August. His ADP has plummeted since I originally wrote that players to avoid recommendation because I wrote that in June, I actually don't think he's that much of a player to avoid anymore because his ADP has fallen quite a bit. Next, I think that we should sort of categorize what you're saying here, because what you're saying here is essentially situation based, aside from the Matt Harmon reception perception stuff. So Category one RPO offenses, Yes, both teams will likely be RPO heavy. Atlanta was first in the league last year and pass attempts that came from RPO plays. Philadelphia was second, and Philly's offensive coordinator is now coaching the Colts, So I bet that both teams are RPO heavy. Category two passing volume. The Falcons, as we know, are coming off a historically run heavy season. The Colts have a very mobile quarterback, and we generally see those offenses feature a run heavy approach. Even without Jonathan Taylor, we should probably expect them to run the ball a lot in terms of pass rate. Category three quarterback play. On one hand, you have Desmond Ritter, he's completely unproven. On the other it's Anthony Richardson, who's a rookie and also unproven. So the situations look pretty similar at that high of a level. So why are we betting on Drake London and not Michael Pittman? I think there's two reasons, because of talent and because of trends. Michael Pittman's not a bad wide receiver. I like him as a player, but in three years in the league, he's peaked at a one point nine to five yards per rout run rate, which got worse in year three. Last year, he peaked at a point two to three targets per run rate, which also dropped in year three. In twenty twenty two, Drake London as a rookie exceeded that yards per route run mark and far exceeded that targets per route run mark as a rookie. Combine that with my year two model, which projects how well a player is going to perform in year two and year three of his NFL career, and I feel pretty confident that London has a better path to being a true alpha elite wide receiver than Michael Pittman. London ranked well above the ninety fifth percentile in that year two model. Players in that bucket have had amazing hit rates since twenty eleven, and obviously Drake Lennon was a better prospect than Michael Pittman was. So the talent side of the equation favors Drake London, and trends do too. According to the market related analysis that I've done, year two wide receivers in the range that Drake Lennon gets drafted, they outperform expectation at a nice clip. It's the type of player that you want to target. Michael Pittman's a year four middle round wide receiver. That's the type of wide receiver that typically does not exceed ADP expectation. Pittman's also playing with a rookie quarterback, and we haven't I've seen a true breakout, which I define as beating ADP expectation by six or more PPR points per game. We haven't seen a true breakout from a wide receiver with a rookie quarterback dating back to at least twenty eleven. So I feel pretty confident that Michael Pittman's not going to be someone who absolutely burns me if I don't draft him, but Drake London, given the talent profile, still might be. This is why I always say to try your best to not look at things in a pretty binary black and white way. A black and white approach would say Michael Pittman's good. Drake London's good and they're in a similar situation, why not just draft Michael Pittman. But I'm saying that I think that London is a superior talent that he at least has a chance to be truly special at the position based on what he did as a rookie. Michael Pittman might end up being a really good wide receiver when it's all said and done. He has the tools. Like I said, I like Pittman the player, but he's not Drake London, and elite players can overcome bad environments more than good players can. Now similar to Christian Watson, I totally understand the downside case with Drake London. The Falcons are run heavy, Desmond Ridder might suck. I understand that London could end up just being a wide receiver three this year or something that's definitely in his range of outcomes. But as I've also said with Christian Watson, London's talent profile tells me that he's someone who has a real chance to hurt you if you don't draft him, And with there being enough wide receivers in the following rounds to fall back on, I'm fine with taking on that risk and going for ceiling because if Atlanta's even the twenty fourth, twenty fifth most pass heavy team this year, and if Desmond Ridder is just average, then Drake London could be something that we're talking about as a second round pick next year. This next question is from at FF doom Scroller. It says, how do you find edges in a draft room? Or most, if not all, of the league is drafting using similar projections slash strategies. We are all big fans. Thanks for all the work you put in. Thanks. I think one of the biggest mistakes a drafter can make is having just a small list of players to target when you went to a draft. You can have players that you generally want, but don't only go after those players. Your consideration set should be large, not small. You don't need to take players that you're really into at every single pick. Not only are you going to be wrong, but that's almost an impossible thing to happen in most drafts, to just get guys that you really really want in every single round. Now, I also think that questions like this are more hypothetical than real. I've played in leagues where literally half of the draft is using my rankings like from my draft guide. And even when that's the case, they're still not structurally drafting identically to me, and they're not necessarily getting every single player that I'd want, because again, I'm open to taking a lot of players a small number of players. To me, fantasy football is more often about the players that you're not taking than the players that you are taking. If others in your league are drafting just like you, then yeah, you may be fading similar guys, but it's on you to then be reactive and no one to take players who fall in drafts, and something like that doesn't even have to happen in leagues where everyone is drafting off of the same cheat sheet as you. I was in a draft this past weekend. I ended up drafting the aforementioned Michael Pittman. Now he's not someone that I've drafted a lot of this year, but the league seem to be on the same page as me, and Pittman fell a good bit past his ADP, which meant that I was cool with drafting him as he fell. So there's a lot of that too. The more prepared you are with your tiers with where you'd actually draft players if they fall, the better your outcome is gonna be. And like I said, open up your consideration set. Just because you really really like one player in round four doesn't mean that all hope is lost if that player doesn't fall into your lap. This next question is from at not in my Leagues. It says I drafted Dotson and Robinson of the Commanders last week out of panic. What are your thoughts about one or both being in line to take over the number one spot at their position. I am still a little scared of Sam Howe being really bad. Thanks and love your work. So with the Sam Howe stuff that's generally baked into these guys ADP. In my opinion, no Washington Commander has a super high average draft position, and it's for a reason. It's because of the ambiguity at quarterback. If Patrick Mahomes were their quarterback, Terry McLaurin and Johan Dotson would not be going in the middle rounds. And Terry McLaurin is obviously banged up right now, but McLaurin is a very very good player, and Johan Dotson looks like he's a very very good player too. And I'll be honest with you guys, as the offseason goes on. As the summer rolls on, I change my opinion on some players. One of those players Brian Robinson. I was mostly fading him earlier in the offseason, but I think that there's a chance that we see Washington sort of rotate their backs by drive, where Robinson would actually have a shot to see more volume as a receiver, And that was the biggest question mark for me, so I actually removed him as a player to avoid in the draft guide. I think he's fine at ADP for the most part after seeing his preseason usage, and I think that there is a chance that Robinson outplays Antonio Gibson this year. I'd be surprised if Dotson takes over mclauren when mclaurin's healthy, because mclaurin's so good. But I also don't think that he needs to. I don't think he needs to do that in order to be a value in drafts. So you can take both of these guys. You can take both Johan Dotson and Brian Robinson. And I've said this before, but Washington's one of those offenses that I think that we might look back on this year and see a lot of players were underdrafted in fantasy, and I feel similarly about potential breakout offenses like Pittsburgh and Green Bay. It's no walk, of course, they're being drafted later for a reason, but those are some of my surprise candidates this year. This last question is an email from Brian. It says, my question is about Cole Kmet. Your formula does not seem to like him much, but is it fair to use his entire twenty twenty two When calculating the Bears offense seemed to dramatically change last year between Week seven and eight, and they went to a very Ravens twenty nineteen type offense. Comet had four top six tight end weeks from then on in a Mark Andrews type role. I know breaking up stats and starting in a certain week is usually arbitrary, but with the Bears offense last season, it seemed like an actual paradigm shift. Is there a chance that you're too low on Cole Comet? I feel like the three options in this offense tend to be the wide receiver one, the tight end or the quarterback running, and we could easily see the second half twenty twenty two production continuing. I'll hang up and listen. Thanks. So in short, no, I don't think that I'm too low on cole Comet. According to my rankings, which you can find in the Draft Guide or in the Late Round Fantasy Football Patreon, four spots lower than consensus with cole Comet this year, and there are plenty of reasons for that. Let's look at where Comet started to play better or see better numbers last year. That was after Week eight. From Week one to eight, he averaged a target share per game rate of twelve point eight percent. From Week nine through the end of the season, that jumped to over twenty four percent. That's almost double the target share. The problem is that nothing really changed usage wise for him. His snap rate was very similar, his route participation was really similar. He just ended up seeing a higher target chair, which could have been on purpose or it could have just been natural variants. But this also did coincide loosely with Darnell Mooney getting injured. I actually don't think that it's a good thing that Cole Comet just went through the entire twenty twenty two season and he had a sub twenty percent target chair per game rate, because that was in an offense that saw players like Dante Pettison Economy of Saint Brown get a lot of run. Comet's target shair was almost expected given the alternatives in that offense. Now you add DJ Moore to the mix. Chase Claypool has more experience than that offense. I really like the rookie Tyler Scott Darnell Mooney's healthy. They add more to that backfield in what's going to be a run heavy offense. I just don't see the need to go with a player like Colkomet because there are a lot of high upside tight ends late this year. The last question this week is an email that says, greetings from a fellow JJ. I find that many fantasy analysts will routinely talk about their bold draft takes in prior years that ended up hitting, but few analysts ever talk about the takes that they got completely wrong. Maybe it's part of the nature of the business, since their job is also to attract readers and listeners, and it's easier to do that by showing off their winners. Can you share some of your takes in recent years that did not work out or did not work out as well as you'd hope. I am more interested in your lessons learned, and how you incorporated those results towards your evolution into an even better fantasy analyst. Love the show, JJ, well fellow, JJ. I wanted to close with this question because I want everyone to be on the same page before the season starts and before some of my takes end up being right and inevitably wrong. This is only loosely related to your question here, but in season. During the season, I don't care about w's and l's. My focus isn't to just sit back and analyze what went right and what went wrong while the season's going on. I do that at the top of every sleeper show, where I go through the hits and misses from the previous week as a quick recap. But to spend time and effort dissecting a win or a loss in season is a waste of time. We only have so much time during the fantasy season. I'd much rather spend that time on transactions and players to buy and sell to help your team. So understand that during the season, I might get excited about a player when he does well, I might quickly make fun of myself for getting something wrong, but actually analyzing those wins and losses that's not going to happen in season, and people ask about that every single year, so I want to get that out of the way now. At the end of the year. Every single season, I do an entire episode on the things that I got wrong, and then another episode on the things that I got right. I talk through the misses and the wins, and I explain if it was just luck or if there is bad process involved with that result. So if you want to hear one of those episodes, if you want to hear how I learn about my mistakes, you can just scroll back in the late Round Fantasy Football feed back to January and listen to that episode. And look, I have no idea how other analysts generally handle their business. I get questions every single week about why does this analyst do this, or why does this analyst do this. I have no idea, you guys, no idea. I can only speak for myself, but I've heard this kind of comment in the past, so I would imagine that plenty of analysts are only talking about the things that they got right, partially because that's human nature. When you're putting yourself out there, you don't want to admit flaws. But there's also this world where people just love when people get things wrong. When they screw up, they're ready to pounce when someone recommends the wrong thing. So I think it goes both ways, and it sort of perpetuates the cycle of industry people only care about when they get things right. They shouldn't be focused on the things that they get right. But at the same time, the listeners, the consumers, they want these people to be wrong, so it turns into this really awful cycle. My stance is to just approach the things that you get right the same way that you'd approach the things that you get wrong. It's gonna happen in this business. I'm gonna be wrong literally every single week on this show. As I always say, though, it's not about being perfect, it's about being better than your Competition's it today's show, though. Thanks to all of you for listening. If you get subscribed 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, and also remember to follow the Late Round Fantasy Football account on Instagram, which can be found there at Late round FF. Thanks for listening to everyone. We have Week one content starting next week. I can't wait. I'll talk to you then