960: Mailbag 12/13/24

00:00:02
Speaker 1: This is the Late Podcast with your host JJ Zachera, JJ Zacherson. What's up everyone, It's JJ zacharyesin in this episode nine hundred and sixty of the Late Round Fantasy Football podcast sponsored by Underdog.

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

00:00:22
Speaker 1: Before we get into the mailbag questions this week, I want to remind you to check out Underdog right now. Over on Underdog you can enter into Snake draft for this week's slate of games, but there are playoff contests available for you too. If you think that you have a better grasp on the league's playoff picture than others right now, then you can have a serious edge in those contests. To check them out more, head to Underdog Fantasy dot Com or download the Underdog app, and when you sign up, of course, use promo code Late Round. That'll get you a really nice deposit offer as well as my rest of season rankings if you still want those again Underdog Fantasy dot Com promo code late The first question this week is from Patreon. It's from Isaac. It says, can you speak more about Jaden Reid? Was this a one game wonder with zero catches? Or is this past week showing in line with the peripherals moving forward, Can someone trust him in their lineup, especially after the team put up thirty one points and didn't use Reid. So I got a couple of questions about Jaden Reid and.

00:01:24
Speaker 2: His goose egg.

00:01:25
Speaker 1: Let's talk about him now. I brought up Reeds peripherals multiple times on the show over the last couple of months. How there seems to be an anchoring bias going on with him given how hot he started the season. But make no mistake, he has not been that strong of a fantasy asset reads averaging ten Ppier points per game since Week four. He's seen more than six targets in a game just once. Because the Packers have found their run game, They've been way below zero and pass raid over expected over their last six games, every single game according to Fantasy Life data. They've been above average and password over expected just three times this year. So that's playing a role, but so is their deployment of Reed. The hope was that he'd get more run after starting the season off so strong, but he hasn't. They like to use him in the slot. He's run over seventy seven percent of his routes from the slot this year, according to PFF. Meanwhile, Green Bay's twelfth in the NFL and eleven personnel usage, so not using Jaden red on every down like they would a perimeter receiver. And we saw that in Week fourteen against the Lions, where they went pretty run heavy overall. Christian Watson ran around on twenty two of a possible twenty four dropbacks. Jaden Reid was at fifteen of a possible twenty four. So there are two things sort of comeing together here for Reid. Number one, the Packers are run heavy. Only two teams have a lower pass rate than the Packers this year, the Steelers in the Eagles. Green Bay has actually been dead last in pass rate in neutral gamescript environments. Other pass rate over expected formulas have the Packers easily in the bottom five. They are a run heavy team. That obviously means if fewer targets are going to go around. But then you layer on the fact that Reed isn't a full time player because they use him in the slot, you've got a recipe for really inconsistent production. This isn't new, though, the zero that he took in a very good matchup for slot receivers, that was kind of new. And that was pretty bad. But Reed has been largely big play and touchdown dependent all year long, which can make him still viable because he's a really good player, and good players can make those things happen more often, but it also makes them extremely volatile. This is why I went from being higher than the market on Reid around weeks three or four, and then I've been way lower than the market ever since because they didn't change his usage and the Packers started to really make it clear that they wanted to run the ball this year. It's torpedo Jaden Reed's fantasy value. He's definitely tough to trust. I do expect them to use a little bit more this week. They'll probably force the issue a little bit too, But overall, Jaden Reid is not a must start in fantasy football.

00:04:08
Speaker 2: It's been that way for a while.

00:04:11
Speaker 1: The next question from Twitter, it's from at Billy's Scrimshot says, how did Sincere McCormick look in your prospect model both pre and post draft? I thought he was going to be a good dynasty sleeper, but didn't expect it to take quite so long for him to get a shot. Your thoughts for twenty twenty five and beyond. So when sincere McCormick started to get more work, I think it was easy to brush it off as nothing of significance. But look at my prospect model in more detail. He went undrafted, so that hurts his score, but he had some really good marks. Now, some of that's because he went to a smaller program. His production at that program is going to naturally be better than someone who played at like Ohio State. But I've also found that draft capital largely captures that side of things.

00:04:55
Speaker 2: We don't need to heavily adjust the problem.

00:04:57
Speaker 1: Though McCormick didn't get draft capital, that makes it a tougher situation to navigate. But as you guys know, I introduced breakout score this past year in the model, and McCormick had a ninety four point five breakout score. That's really really good. His top season in yards per team play was over two. He had a top pro rated reception chair season of eleven point three percent. Now, the nice part about having my prospect guides is I can now look back and see how I felt about a prospect when they were coming out. Because McCormick wasn't drafted, I didn't have any sort of post draft update with him. But I did profile him in the guide pre draft because he did go to the NFL Combine, and his profile's really brief because he wasn't a high end player. But this is from the Prospect Guide. This is the first prospect guy that I ever produced. It says McCormick is another smaller school back who had solid production marks in the z Prospect Model, which is now the ZAP Model. The one spot to knock him maybe on the athleticism side, since he turned in a speed scorer of just ninety one point six that's awfully close to not hitting the model's threshold of ninety, which, by the way, I don't calculate it the exact.

00:06:07
Speaker 2: Same way these days.

00:06:09
Speaker 1: And then the blurb finishes by saying, but he got there, and the model likes him at least compared to projected draft capital as a result, so my numbers actually liked McCormick. It's just that him not doing anything until twenty twenty four made it kind of difficult to be overly bullish. But we and I, because I didn't talk about this until now, we should have been more excited than the market when McCormick started to see a little bit more work, and that's my bad.

00:06:35
Speaker 2: That's on me.

00:06:37
Speaker 1: Regardless, I actually think he's a decent player. This next question is also from Twitter. It says, besides brock Bauers, are there any other twenty twenty four draft class tight ends that are making an impact and carving a role on his team moving forward? So again, this is where I love having the prospect model to sort of see where I was at entering the season versus where things are at right now. Had a Zap Model score of ninety nine point three. He was an elite prospect and there was a pretty decent gap to Ben Sinnett, who was at eighty three point nine. Now, I wouldn't give up on Senate just yet, but I also didn't like him the same way that others did back in the draft process. To me, there wasn't a big enough delta between him and someone like Theo Johnson, who had a score of seventy three point four. I actually like what I saw from Johnson too. His yards per route run isn't very good, but he was starting to come on before his injury, and you could just see his athleticism beginning to translate. That's why he looked okay in the ZAP model. He's a freak athlete and that matters more at tight end than other positions.

00:07:43
Speaker 2: But I don't know.

00:07:44
Speaker 1: I saw this class as sort of being Brock Bauers as this elite player, and then some role players in there, like tight end two types like eric Al. I think he could have a bright future if he could stay healthy. Maybe Jatavian Sanders, but I wasn't overly optimistic about any of them. I didn't think we'd necessarily see elite tight end one production outside of Bowers. And then one player to also maybe stash would be jeheiem Bell. The model really liked him versus where he was drafted. He hasn't gotten that much run this year, but he was an interesting prospect who's attached to a very good up and coming quarterback in Drake May, So I think you should be stashing jaheem Bell.

00:08:24
Speaker 2: The last question this week is an email. It says love the work you do. Thanks.

00:08:30
Speaker 1: My question is around if we should rethink the thought process that rushing quarterbacks are bad for their team's running backs. Is this true or have rushing quarterbacks historically just had subpar talent on their team at the running back position this year in PPR points per game, Sakwan Barkley's the RB one, Derek Henry's the RB three, James Cook is the RB twelve. We've also seen RB two level production from Jonathan Taylor, James Connor, and Brian Robinson Junior. Should we change our approach in valuing running back that have a rushing quarterback?

00:09:03
Speaker 2: Thanks Taylor.

00:09:05
Speaker 1: So I think this is just one of those topics that I've talked about over the years that's been taken just too far, because it's one of those things that gets brought up in discussions pretty frequently. Like I'll see random back and forth on Twitter, on Reddit or something, and someone will be like, well, JJ Zach reason says that you shouldn't draft running backs on teams with mobile quarterbacks. But that's really not true. Something that's really important to remember is that I share these studies, I do research, I share the results, but I'm trying to constantly evolve. I don't see something published in twenty nineteen or twenty twenty or even twenty twenty one as necessarily relevant today, especially if I've done more work on the topic. But some people only hear and remember those original studies, so they continue to say the things from those studies over and over again, which I totally understand. No one's at fault here. This is just how this relationship kind of works. Not ever, everyone is gonna hear and consume every single thing that I'm publishing. You might listen to this podcast and not read the draft Guide. You might not listen to this podcast and you do read the draft Guide, or maybe you just see the things that I tweet or put on social media. I understand that that's how this works. My job is just be as clear as possible across all of those platforms, across all of those pieces of content. A good example of this is actually the ambiguous RB one theory. For anyone who remembers that I've said time and time again that I was wrong to publish that study and there were some flaws in that study, which is gonna happen. This to me, is all part of this game. What we think is true five or six years ago is not necessarily true now. This goes for anything in life. But not everyone is being reached. When I talk about those topics. Again, not everyone hears what I'm talking about, And I understand that's going to happen, But I still try to be open and transparent when my opinion on things change.

00:11:04
Speaker 2: So let me reframe all of this.

00:11:06
Speaker 1: In the Draft guide this year, I wrote the following when talking about this exact topic. When talking about mobile quarterbacks with running backs, I said, we generally see slightly lower running back target shairs on teams with mobile quarterbacks. We also see those running passers take some goal line work, lowering a back's touchdown total. These numbers aren't super dramatic, so don't take them too far, but they do contradict what you've likely heard before. Mobile quarterbacks are not good for running backs. They are at best neutral. In other words, the stuff that I've talked about with mobile quarterbacks, it's not so much an avoid thing, but more so that people take this in the opposite direction, thinking that since mobile quarterbacks create better efficiency, that their running backs will be better in fantasy because they'll be more efficient. But just take a look at the examples that you shared in this question. Saquon Barkley is breaking fantasy football right now, but Philadelphia is also pacing to score well over fifty touchdowns this year, and they've also seen an incredibly high proportion of their touchdowns come via the ground.

00:12:17
Speaker 2: They have a thirty nine percent pass.

00:12:19
Speaker 1: To rush touchdown rate that's trending to be the third lowest that we've seen since twenty eleven. Barkley's doing great in this environment. But what's wild is that he could actually be even better if not for the touch push, if not for the fact that Jalen Hurts has stolen touchdowns from Saquon Barkley. Now I'm not saying that Hurts hasn't helped Barkley's efficiency. I'm more so saying that there's actually more of a ceiling here, and he's not hitting that ceiling because Jalen.

00:12:47
Speaker 2: Hurts is mobile.

00:12:49
Speaker 1: And I think it's okay to recognize that the Eagles are one of the run heaviest teams that we've seen in some time. They're scoring a ton of touchdowns on the ground. Situationally, this is kind of an outlier, genuinely, and then you add on the talent factor, which is Saquon Barkley being an excellent running back, you.

00:13:07
Speaker 2: Get this result.

00:13:09
Speaker 1: It's really easy to say this all in hindsight, of course, but we can't assume that the mobile quarterback is the reason that Saquon Barkley is having such a good year. It goes way beyond that. And then Dereck Henry's another one. He's never been like any other running back that we've ever seen. He doesn't need high target shairs to be relevant, even in PPR formats. And then Jonathan Taylor. You mentioned Jonathan Taylor. In my eyes, he's actually a pretty good example of mobile quarterbacks being bad for running backs. His target share splits with and without Anthony Richardson are pretty crazy. I talked about that in a recent ten Trends episode. He's been a general disappointment this year versus where people drafted him. Now, I could go on and on about the individual players that are being mentioned here, but I don't think those individual players necessary screw up the general idea. That general idea being that historically, mobile quarterbacks have technically been more bad than good for running backs, and that we shouldn't assume efficiency running the ball means better fantasy numbers. A crazy season from the Eagles offense, just in terms of how that offense is operating, shouldn't derail that thought, Because look, I could go in the opposite direction too. Naji Harris was way worse with Justin Fields Jonathan Taylor, as I already noted, he's seeing better peripherals with Joe Flacco. I mean, if we want to, we could even talk about Josh Jacobs with Malik Willis, even just his peripherals. Jacobs saw one total target in Willis's two starts. Like, of course his numbers are gonna be worse because the offense is gonna be worse, but you could just peep the peripherals and see how things change. I think oftentimes though people lead with the trend and then they dig into the players afterwards. Even I'm guilty of that sometimes, but it needs to go in the opposite direction, lean into the player, his situation, all that comes with his fantasy value. That's going to be more important than the trends that I talk about. The trends are high level. Using singular examples doesn't disprove the trend. The trends is just generally telling you what direction these things go in. But also, like a trend like this helps you, guys not have to build out projections for players. You can sort of do some of that work on your own. A lot of this stuff does show up in projections. If a quarterback is taking away plays, if he's scoring touchdowns on the ground, that's going to show up in a player's projection. And if you use projections as a general guide, then there's a chance that you'll then be lower on that player just naturally.

00:15:52
Speaker 2: But I don't know.

00:15:52
Speaker 1: I think it's okay to say that Sakwon Barkley ended up seeing an almost ideal situation for fantasy purposes this year, and that not all of the was even projectable. It's okay to recognize that Dereck Henry is a different back. I don't think that necessarily tells us that we now should be ignoring what, honestly, at its core, is pretty intuitive. There are only so many plays that a team can run in a game. If eight to fifteen of those plays are going to go to a quarterback and the quarterback only, it's going to naturally impact the rest of the team unless that team is just very very good, which is what we're seeing with Baltimore in Philadelphia. For a running back to combat all of this, To beat all of this, that running back would need to be in a favorable situation. He'd need to be on a team that's scoring well above average in the touchdown column on a team that's really leaning on that player, which is exactly what's going on with Derrick Henry and Saquon Barkley. So hopefully that answers your question. That whole mobile quarterback thing, it was a small edge more than anything else, but it was designed to tell people to not inflate running backs on teams with mobile quarterbacks like some do. That's a pretty common narrative out there. People get excited about what that uptick in efficiency might do, but there's often a lack of recognition of the downtick and touchdowns and oftentimes targets. Also, I can't wait to dig into this stuff more in the off season. I think you guys are going to be shocked by how different the running back position was this year compared to most years. And it's gonna be the biggest thing that we all have to analyze before the twenty twenty five season. And I can't wait. But that's it for today's show. 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 forget to follow me on Twitter and Blue Sky at Late Round QB. Thanks for listening everyone. I got a Late Round Perspectives episode dropping later today. Hope you give that a listen. Otherwise, good luck in the first week of the playoffs. I'll talk to you next week.