360: Mailbag 3/27/20

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Speaker 1: This is the Label podcast with your host JJ zacher Resa JJ 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 sixty of the Late Round podcast. So many shows that are part of the FanDuel podcast network. Thanks for tuning in. Before getting the mailbag questions this week, I wanted to send you, guys another reminder that with most of the sports world on hold, horse racing is still live. FANDEL is doing its part to continue to bring sports fans excitement by offering users the chance to bet on horse racing. Use your existing FanDuel DFS login credentials to gain access to tutorials to learn more about the sport, including understanding how the odds work, the various types of bets, and most importantly, how you can win your bets. Watch all of the races live across over three hundred tracks and fill the void left in your sports fandom Today. For more details, visit Racing fandle dot com or download the FanDuel app today. Eligibility restrictions apply. This first question is an email. It says, hey, JJ, it seems that everyone is so low on Carrie on Johnson due to his injury history and inability to stay healthy, But they seem to forget that Dalvin and Fournette had similar first two years. Carry On played in sixteen games, Dalvin fifteen four, Nett twenty one. He's only twenty two, and with the Lions likely not adding a running back of consequence, that could change. Of course, is it crazy to think that he can have a third year breakout similar to the aforementioned guys, hope you and the fan are doing great during these crazy times. Keep up the great work, Ethan. Thanks Ethan. So Johnson was one of my cells earlier in the offseason because number one, I don't think that we can assume he's going to see an elite workload in that offense. But number two, I've said that I think Detroit is a lower key team to watch when it comes to taking a running back fairly early in the draft. I don't think probability on that side, but I do think it's possible. I've said it before though, I think carry On Johnson is good. If I was coaching the Lions, I would be using Carrie on Johnson, but he's been hurt and when they started giving him a bigger workload last year, he then got hurt. It's not unreasonable to think that the Lions aren't totally all in on Johnson. I also don't think that Dalvin Cook and Leonard Fournette comparisons are very fair. During Fournette's first two years, he had a pro rated rush share of sixty three percent and sixty four percent. That's a percentage of rushing attempts that he saw for his team. His target share pro rated over sixteen games was eleven point four percent and about ten percent. Dalvin Cook was on pace for a rushing share of fifty nine percent and fifty four percent and a target share of twelve percent over his first two seasons. Meanwhile, Carrie on Johnson's pro rated rushing shares over his first two years are forty seven percent and fifty five percent. His target shares are eleven percent and five and a half percent. I know that I just threw a lot of numbers at you, and this is a quick and dirty way of answering this. But compared to those other guys, we're looking at lower numbers in total from a pro rated rate for Carrie on Johnson and we're also comparing Johnson to a favorable outcome. If we get fixated on the favorable outcome, we can make bad decisions because we're ignoring the unfavorable ones, which is Johnson becoming a committee back. Now, I do think that in his range of outcomes as being a workhorse. I really like Johnson last year for that reason and for that potential. But there's still downside that we have to recognize. This as question is from at b Ball Club in a rookie draft with the influx of wide receiver talent this year, where are you starting to look at Burrow as an option and what do you see for his overall outlook? And then at Goat Waddles actually responded to that tweet and said, as a follow up to that, would you ever consider taking him at the end of round one in a single quarterback league? So I haven't done rankings yet, but I can easily answer that second questions say that no, I wouldn't be taking him at the end of round one right now. There's a lot of value in the late first and early second rounds of rookie drafts, especially a wide receiver. You should be able to get an impact player there, whether it's Denzel Mims, Justin Jefferson, or Laviska Chanlt, and we're likely going to have a little bit more clarity after the draft is over. Some of those good players may drop a bit if the landing spot isn't ideal, but since the wide receiver position that we're mostly talking about, we should be more focused on talent anyway. I generally am lower on rookie quarterbacks than most are in single quarterback leagues. I think the early to mid second round makes sense for Joe Burrow, which is basically where his ADP will be, but I'll likely be more inclined to get him in the mid second given the talent in this year's class. This best question is from at no freaking Clue. What are your thoughts on Deshaun Watson this year versus last year? How much does the loss of Hopkins and gain of David Johnson really affect him? If anything, I think it will make the Texans rely on Watson and his rushing ability more. Bill O'Brien be damned. I think it's gonna impact him in a big enough way to push him down rankings. I love Watson, but DeAndre Hopkins is arguably the best wide out in football. You take him off a team and that changes that team, and they can change in a lot of different ways. The team may not run as many plays because they're not as efficient, they may not throw the ball at the same rate, and they may just not be as efficient in general, which will hurt Watson's numbers. I'm also assuming that the question here is geared towards designed runs, because Douke keep in mind that according to PFF, Watson was second in scrambles last year, and he was first in scrambles two years ago. I'm not sure we're gonna see design runs jump to the point where it'll offset the loss of DeAndre Hopkins. In fact, we shouldn't bank on that whatsoever. My projections have Watson as more of a mid range QB one right now, when he was capable of having a higher end QB one season with DeAndre Hopkins. This move hurt him. This last questions. An email says, Hey, JJ, love the show, but I have to admit I listen to other fantasy football podcasts on the side. Sorry, it's okay. Anyway, I'm hearing that David Johnson is going to be a viable RB two with RB one upside based on the volume that he's walking into. I understand the argument, but watching his film over the last two years, it seems obvious he has lost his burst, and really it looks like it has been diminishing for two years. As a numbers driven analyst yourself, is there a point at which you say, I know the opportunity is there, but I just don't trust the player anymore based on what I'm seeing. Wishing you and your family good health you too, Nick. My basic philosophy with running back talent is that, yes, I do believe that the difference between one running back to the next is generally not that big because the position is replaceable. There are lots of good running backs. There's an excess supply. I care about running back talent, though, because teams are gonna care about running back talent. If David Johnson sucks, he can lose his job. And then I care about wide receiver and tight end talent because talent matters more at those positions to get targets and get production. One way of figuring out talent is by looking at data. Another way to see if a player is good or not is by watching that player play. I know that I'm a numbers driven analyst, and I think that's important because fantasy football is a game about numbers. But I still watch every single football game every single week. I have takes on players based on what I'm seeing, and I agree with you, David Johnson has looked slower and not nearly as dynamic over the last year and a half. My projections are going to reflect that in some way, whether it's worse efficiency or the projection weighing that Johnson may not be able to keep his job. Like it's not as though Johnson's being projected for three hundred carries. Part of that is because of what we've seen from him over the last two years. So I guess the direct answer to your question is that even though I'm analytical, I'm still ranking players based off what I'm seeing and how I'm thinking of player's floor and ceiling is based on that. This best questions from at J. C. Berner, one big fan of the Carolina receivers, big fan of Robbie Anderson, not a fan of them, combining how much will this hurt everyone involved receivers? CMC probably helps Teddy Bridgewater though, so lot's changing in Carolina. There's a new regime, there's a new quarterback. So using twenty nineteen and those numbers isn't going to tell us everything, but it can at least help make the point that I'm trying to make here. Last year, DJ Moore had a twenty two point four percent target share and Curtis Samuel was at seventeen point seven percent. The rest of the wide receivers on that team were at over fifteen and a half percent. Combined, eighteen point seven percent of their targets went to tight ends in twenty five point seven percent went to the running back position. Christian McCaffrey has seen between twenty two point seven and twenty three point seven percent of the Panthers targets and each of his three seasons in the league. We can probably keep him around that range next year, even with a new regime, or maybe a percentage point lower at most. I wouldn't expect Robby Anderson to drastically change our projection for Christian McCaffrey, but let's just focus on wide receiver share. In order for more and Samuel to maintain their target shares from last year, they would need Robby Anderson to come in and gobble up a lot of the remaining targets, not their target share. They need Robby Anderson to see the fifteen and a half percent target share that the other wide receivers in that offense we're seeing, and he'll likely take a lot of that on. But since DJ Moore is super talented and good, any additional target share that Robby Anderson gets is naturally likely to come from Curtis Samuel. That's especially true because Samuel was used as a deep ball guy last year. He led the team in air yards and almost thirty five percent of his targets came fifteen or more yards down the field. That's Robby Anderson's game. So to me, this hurts Samuel a bit. I still trust this coaching staff to use their players in the right way. Curtis Samuel is more than a deep ball thread, and I do think that there's a world where both Anderson and Samuel can be in that eighty to one hundred target range, depending on how that death chart sort of pans out. So Samuel got hurt the most, I think with this move. But I don't think that we should overstate what this all means. Given the change in coaching staff and the current Panthers death chart, and honestly, you could argue that Robbie Anderson's signing there is better for Curtis Samuel than them spending decent draft capital on a wide receiver. This last question is from at Run Game Truther. Do you adjust opportunity based on the previous season's efficiency? If so, how, for example, how should we project the volume of an efficient player like AJ Brown to increase going forward? Similarly, should we expect less volume from an inefficient player like Le'Veon Bell. Thanks. I think that we're oversimplifying things by simply saying Leayveon Bell was inefficient or AJ Brown was efficient last year, and if and when we see swings in volume, we may attribute those swings incorrectly and say that it's because of efficiency or lack of efficiency, when in reality we know there's a lot more going on there. The Jets are tied to Layveon Bell in a lot of ways. Financially, yes, but also the fact that there's not a lot of competition for looks in that backfield right now. Even though Bell was inefficient, it's highly unlikely the Jets are going to say, oh, leaveon Bell. Had a yards per carry that was below average last year, so we got to use him less. And then with AJ Brown just using that as an example, but with AJ Brown, he's a second year wide receiver who was also productive with a pretty high target share in year one. AJ Brown had a target share of almost twenty percent last year, and we know that that target share got better and better as the season went on. During the second half of the year, his target share per game was almost ten percentage points higher compared to the first half. So it's not the efficiency that I'm looking at when projecting his twenty twenty target share. It's just natural trajectory. It's competition, it's play calling tendencies. And remember volume is what correlates stronger to next season volume than any efficiency metric will by far. And also remember not every good player is efficient and not every bad player is inefficient. There's usually reason like average depth of target or general offensive effectiveness that helps explain things like yards per target or yards per carry. So I guess my answer to this question is that no, I don't heavily weigh efficiency metrics when projecting next season volume. There are so many other concrete factors that influence those numbers. That's gonna do it for today's show, though. Thanks to all of you for listening. If you've got to subscribe to the Late Round podcast, make sure you are by searching for it pretty much anywhere podcasts can be found, and if you're listening to the show on Apple Podcasts, do me a favor and leave a rating and review, and don't forget to follow me on Twitter at Late Round QB. Thanks everyone, Stay safe, stay inside, wash your hands, love on your family, and enjoy your weekend.