1022: Mailbag - Rookie Running Backs, Joe Burrow's Injury, and More

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Speaker 1: This is the Late Podcast with your host JJ zacher Retha j J Zacher Refa, what's up everyone, It's JJ Zacharyeson in this episode oney twenty two of the Late Round Fantasy football podcast sponsored by DraftKings.

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Speaker 2: Thanks for tuning in.

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Speaker 2: The crown is yours.

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Speaker 1: Gambling problem called one hundred Gambler In New York call eight seven to seven eight Hope, NY, and Connecticut call eight eight eight seven eight nine seven seven seventy seven eighteen plus and most states. Eligibility restrictions apply ends December thirty first see terms at DraftKings dot com slash promotions. It's a metilbag episode. Let's get to these questions. The first question from Patreon it's from Definitely Human. It says, hi, JJ, love your work. What do you make of the underwhelming starts? By some of the rookie running backs that were widely hyped prior to the start of the season, Gent Hampton, and Henderson. Should we be concerned with the slow start to their seasons? Or is this typical for rookie running backs? Which ones do you feel can ramp up production versus ones that we should be worried about. So after Monday Night's game between the Chargers and Raiders, rookie running back takes were flying everywhere. People all over Twitter were calling Amri and Hampton trash. They were saying ash and Gent's a bust, and some were saying things like this is why you don't take rookies and fantasy football drafts. Even the late round Fantasy Football discord people were panicking in there. And look, I don't think we should feel the same way about these rookie running backs as we did entering the year. We've gotten new information and we should act on that information. They've all fallen in my rest of season rankings versus where I had them entering the year. With that being said, we've got to relax a little bit. We've got to chill out. The first thing I want to say with this is that rookies are not bad draft picks in fantasy football.

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Speaker 2: Stop with this narrative. There is no data that backs this up.

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Speaker 1: In fact, data says the opposite, especially at wide receiver. Now, if you go back and listen to episode one thousand, I did talk about how running back seem to be the position that we should be less interested in based on recent trends. And that's related to rookies, and that's based on how they've performed against average draft position expectation and how rookie running backs have been getting selected earlier and earlier through the years. But that doesn't mean that we should just avoid rookie running backs. That's not what that episode was about. There's still this notion out there that's spending up for rookie running backs is a terrible idea because Clyde Edwards, Hilaire, Okay, well, there's also Ezekiel Elliott and Saquon Barkley.

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Speaker 2: You can play this exact same game with veterans too.

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Speaker 1: Anyway, I don't I want to get into all that today because I think it's less important that's draft strategy related.

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Speaker 2: We're in the middle of the season.

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Speaker 1: I wanted to see if all of this was normal if historically we saw rookie running backs get drafted high end reed draft, and then we watched them do very little to start the season, specifically over the first two weeks of the season. So I took an arbitrary running back ranking by ADP and I started there. I looked at rookie running backs since twenty fourteen, which is as far back as the ADP data goes, and I looked at rookie running backs who were selecting the top thirty at the position. I then filtered out all of the running backs who didn't play weeks one and two. That left me with a clean twenty five running back sample twenty five rookie running backs who were draft in the top thirty at the position and who played weeks one and two. Right now, Marion Hampton is averaging five point eight PPR points per game ASH and genty nine point seven, Trayvon Henderson eight point six, and RJ. Harvey just to throw him in there, two five point seven. Those are all not great scorers through two weeks. Well, if we look at our twenty five rookie running back sample, top thirty rookie running backs by EIGHTYP since twenty fourteen, eighteen of them were averaging fewer than fourteen PPER points per game. After two weeks, the average points per game across the entire sample was twelve point four. Ten of the twenty five were averaging fewer than ten PPR points per game, which is where our running backs this year are currently sitting.

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Speaker 2: So this has definitely happened in the past.

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Speaker 1: A bigger question we should be asking, though, is if players really bounced back, because what if all the players who started slow just finished slow and they never developed in anything. This is where I do think there's maybe, and I stressed the word maybe, some concern. Going back to our twenty five rookie running backs since twenty fourteen who were drafted in the top thirty in season long leagues, there were twenty three who then after week two went on to play at least eight more games.

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Speaker 2: I want a large enough.

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Speaker 1: Sample size to work off of to see how these players performed rest of season. Of those twenty three, we had twelve with fourteen or more PPR points per game rest of season. That is, after week two, they played at least eight games, and they averaged fourteen or more PPR points per game. And of those twelve running backs who had rest of season averages of fourteen or more pper points per game. Three of them were from the group who averaged less than ten PPR points per game in weeks one and two. You following what I'm saying here, let me just put it this way. When we look at top thirty rookie running backs who played weeks one and two and then played at least eight games after that, we can split those twenty three running backs into two groups, players who had ten or more PPR points per game in weeks one and two and players who didn't. And yes, I totally recognize that these are arbitrary cutoffs. Thirteen of the twenty three had ten or more PPR points per game in weeks one and two. We'll call them the start of the season off hot group, or just the hot group. Ten of the twenty three did not score ten or more PPR points per game. They're the cold group. They're the guys that we have this year. Nine of the thirteen players from the hot group went on to score fourteen or more PPR points per game rest of season. That's a rate of sixty nine percent. Three of the ten players from the cold group ended up scoring fourteen or more PPR points per game. That's a rate of thirty percent. So a running back who starts a season off relatively well a rookie running back, and I say relatively well, as if ten PPR points is like awesome, But a rookie running back who started well generally has a little over double the odds of giving us an RB two season or better after week two. To put that another way, let's just say ash and Gent was averaging eleven PPR points per game right now instead of where he's actually at based on history, his bucket would hit fourteen PPR points per game from week three onward, at more than twice the rate as someone who is scoring under ten PPR points per game. Now, that sounds like terrible news for all of these running backs, and look, it's certainly not great news.

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Speaker 2: However, the correlation.

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Speaker 1: Between average points per game in weeks one and two with these running backs versus their rest of season points per game is roughly point two toy six. That's the R squared. One way to interpret this is that weeks one and two points per game for rookie running backs explain about a quarter of how they'll perform rest of season. It's something, but it's not everything, and we've seen some hits from running backs who have started slow. Sometimes just hearing examples can help you out. In twenty nineteen, Miles Sanders RB twenty nine by ADP. He started the year with five point two PPR points per game. His rest of season average was almost fifteen. Joe Mixon started his career really slow. He had seventeen carries for forty five yards in his first two games. His rookie season wasn't fantastic in fantasy football, but obviously he's had a fine career Very recently. Jamiir Gibbs was at ten point three PPO points per game after two games. He finished the season after Week two with over seventeen PPERO points per games in freaking McCaffrey average fewer than ten PERO points per game at the start of his career. His rest of season number was fourteen point nine. This is why I've been saying it's fine to react. It's fine to push these guys down rankings because clearly we're not gonna get tons of production from them in the short term.

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Speaker 2: But this isn't totally abnormal.

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Speaker 1: I think what's abnormal is that it's all compounding and happening at the same time. But it's a sample size of just a few players here, Like we may get a season where the opposite of this happens and all three guys are dominating after two weeks.

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Speaker 2: But you still have to look at this at the individual level.

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Speaker 1: Amari and Hampton and Ash and Genty, in my opinion, do not look the part yet, but their offensive lines have also been horrific. I do have some concern about Gent's usage and him not being like a full blown bell cow, and then Hampton, he'll probably have Naji Harris.

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Speaker 2: To deal with.

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Speaker 1: It doesn't bury those guys, but they're honest concerns at the moment. Trayvon Henderson I talked about on Tuesday show. I actually feel more confident that he's gonna get going soon because we've seen his speed and we've seen his ability on display this year. We've seen it at least flash and you can listen to Tuesday's episode to see what happened this past week. Look, I think it's fine, it's normal, and it's smart to be concerned. It would be crazy to not be concerned. What I don't think you should do is panic, call them all bus and say that it's over. When you draft rookies, you know that there can be growing pains, and you know that the second half of the year is generally when they're going to thrive for your fantasy team. The nice part about this happening right now is that we have no bye weeks and injuries haven't piled up yet, so hopefully some of you might have Jalen Warren or JK. Dobbins, that kind of replacement that you can use for an Amari and Hampton right now. Until you see some production from these rookie running backs, you just might have to wait a little bit for everything to come to fruition. Patience is so important and fantasy football though. It's something I talk about every single year on the show, and right now with those players, you have to at least be patient. The sess questions from Twitter is from at FFB Underscore Fraud. It says Brandon Thorne was on the Cowboys interior O line this offseason. Everyone wants to make excuses why we shouldn't trust Javonte Williams, but I can see a world where he keeps this job all year, even if Blue comes in to take receiving work.

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Speaker 2: Could Javonte end up as a top ten running back?

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Speaker 1: Who says no, So I think top ten is probably a little bit ambitious, but yes, if you go back and you listen to this show. Last week, I talked about Javonte Williams being a hold, not a cell. One thing I've learned in fantasy football is that having a knee jerk reaction based on your priors is rarely the right process. As in the vast majority of analysts myself included, we weren't very high on Javonte Williams entering the year. I mean, I go to Canton for the Fantasy Football Expo every year, and I do drafts for the King's Classic I Draft in the Hall of Fame. I talked about this last week with Jeff Radcliffe, But I'm looking to defend my title in the Snake Draft League. In the King's Classic Snake Draft League, it's a fourteen teamer, super deep lineups, and as someone who wasn't aggressively targeting Javonte Williams this year, I was on the clock in that draft. I went with a hero running back approach with Christian McCaffrey as my RB. One, and I literally said before I picked Javonte Williams, I said, I might puke, but Javonte Williams. That's where we were at earlier in August with Williams, and people laughed and they bowed and they made fun of the pick. The sentiment around Williams was very bad entering the season because we hadn't seen anything from him over the last couple of years. And look, I've watched him this year. Do I think he's got crazy amounts of juice? No, That's why I don't think he's going to finish in.

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Speaker 2: The top ten.

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Speaker 1: But when the masses clearly feel some way about a player and then that player over performs, the masses then decide that that player is a cell candidate. Go look at any buyers column from last week. I guarantee you you're gonna see a lot of Javonte Williams as a cell. The problem is that in those situations, who's buying it? Was one game he looked fine, and he had good usage. His peripherals look good. That's why he was a hold for me. But he's clearly not going to score a touchdown each week. The good news, though, is that almost an eighty percent running back rush share does not grow on trees or thirteen and a half percent target share, which is what he had last week. He's been a bell cow, and if you're not adjusting your priors, you're losing. You can't have an ego in fantasy football. I'm just curious to see how he's gonna hold up and what happens if and when Jayden Blue is active. Blue hasn't been ready yet, which isn't a massive surprise given he's a Day three pick who missed time during camp. But I'd like to see him as their change of pace because I think realistically, Javonte Williams and Jayden Blue they compliment each other really well. This a's questions from Jonathan on Patreon. It says, my question to you is, why do you seem to be so down on Jake Browning given his production in twenty twenty three and his output this past Sunday. I follow your rest of season in weekly rankings religiously, and I'm struggling to put quarterbacks like Sam Darnold or Trevor Lawrence over him. So when it comes to my rest of season rankings over on Patreon, I rank the top one fifty players overall each Tuesday morning, and I won't rank a lot of QB two options because a lot of QB two options that're replaceable in most leagues. I'd rather take shots on backup running backs and up and coming wide receivers. So a player like Browning, he's just not going to be ranked there right now. Meanwhile, when it comes to the weekly rankings, I just don't love Browning this week. I'm worried about this offensive line against Minnesota, and Cincinnati has an implied team total below twenty points. Anything is obviously possible, but let's not get carried away about this matchup. So the two pieces of content that I produced will look like that. I'm not super high on Jake Browning realistically, though I don't totally mind him. I just think that right now, if you want to call out Donald and Lawrence, I like Donald Moore this week, and Donald wasn't in my top one fifty, but I do think he's in a better spot in week three, and then with Trevor Lawrence, I'm not going to give up hope after two games. He definitely not looked super comfortable yet in this offense. But I think all that stuff about patience that I talked about with rookie running backs. It applies the players in new offenses as well. Not only that, but I don't think Lawrence was just like completely awful in Week two, especially in Fantasy.

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Speaker 2: He still scored nineteen standard points.

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Speaker 1: Browning, to me, is likely going to be a streaming type with stretches where he can be usable given the weapons around him. When he started for Cincinnati a couple of years ago, he averaged solid nineteen points per game in standard leagues, but he also turned the ball over quite a bit, and more importantly, he boosted some of those totals with three rushing touchdowns in seven games. I don't think we can bank on that happening again, and I really do worry about this offensive line.

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Speaker 2: And for the.

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Speaker 1: Record, I got a lot of questions this week about the weapons in Cincinnati. I'm lower than the market with Jamar Chase and T Higgins at the moment. T Higgins averages a fourteen percent target share per game with Browning in twenty twenty three and thirteen PPR points per game. Jamar Chase his target share was only twenty one percent. He averaged twelve PPR points per game and then includes a blow up game against Jacksonville. Meanwhile, Joe Mixon that season they're bellcal back, he actually saw better production with Browning. Ryan Heath of Fantasy Points at Ryan Jay Underscore Heath on Twitter, he sent a tweet out this week that showed each player's expected Fantasy points per game with Browning in twenty twenty three. Mixon was at eighteen, Jamar Chase only eleven point five, and T Higgins eleven point seven, but he did note that the offense was still higher than average and pass right over expected. That doesn't make me feel warm and fuzzy. Now, it's a small sample and things can change, and I'd expect them to be better than that with Browning this year, especially Jamar Chase. It's not like I ranked Chase as the thirtieth overall player in my rest of season rankings. But I have my concerns with any backup quarterback, even if this backup quarterback has been okay in the past. So that's where I'm at. I wouldn't say I'm really low on Browning. It's just the way that rankings work for rest of season and for this week, and then I do think we have to be a little bit cautious with how things are going to go down for the pass catchers. Fortunately, though Browning's probably a better option than most backup quarterbacks for fantasy purposes. This has questions from Grits on Patreon. It says, Hey, JJ, I'm owing two in a league and I'm trying to remain patient, but at the same time aggressive towards making sure I don't dig myself into a hole. Would you pay above market value for a short term boost like Jordan Mason. I think this is the right player to buy into.

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Speaker 2: Yes.

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Speaker 1: Now, I've questioned Mason's pass catching upside, but that was also with Aaron Jones being healthy, and we kind of have seen that come to fruition. So far, Mason hasn't hit above a four forty percent role participation rate through two games, and obviously Aaron Jones was banged up in last week's game. But they have absolutely no depth behind Jordan Mason, like as a default, he's probably gonna get some work as a bell cow. He had a fourteen percent target chair last week, which was the highest of his entire career, and it was just a second time that he was over a ten percent share now. I had talked about the pass catching upside of tank bigsby Brian Robinson and Jordan Mason over the summer and how I didn't see them as high upside players without an injury. But Mason was always the player who you could tell a story about. He played with Jamir Gibbs in college and there was some competition for targets in San Francisco. I don't think he's like a natural pass catcher like Aaron Jones, but he can fill that void and be a bell cow over the next month. And even though JJ McCarthy's out, the Vikings get Cincinnati, Pittsburgh, and Cleveland over their next three games. That should allow Jordan Mason to be plenty fantasy relevant. So yes, things broke right for Jordan Mason with this Aaron Jones injury. He's now someone that I think that you can be aggressive with if you need to win right now. Honestly, that's probably the case even if you don't need to win right now. The last question this week is from twitters from at zcants ff. It says, Hi, JJ, I'm not sure if it's just me, but there seemed to be an excessive amount of data dumps this year. While I appreciate the layers of context, it feels like many of the shared stats are nitpicky and mostly excessive noise that lack interpretation. There's so many sites pumping out advanced metrics now, all of which claim they have the next great predictive metric. It's enough to make somebody's head spin. What is your advice for people who are navigating and consuming all of these stats?

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Speaker 2: Thanks?

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Speaker 1: I think this is a really important thing to talk about, which is why I want to close the show with this question. It also got a lot of likes on Twitter, which means people probably want me to talk about it. In today's fantasy landscape, you can get crushed by information. It's everywhere, and people are loud about it because they're trying to get their name out there. They're trying to get their brand out there, and they want to get noticed, which is totally on understandable. The problem that we can run into is that the average person will just make the assumption that what's being pushed is predictive and useful, when realistically the majority of metrics actually are not predictive. They're descriptive. They help tell a story that already happened. Now, I can only really explain this from my perspective because I'm the one creating this content. I don't know the intent of other analysts. I don't think they're looking to hurt your fantasy teams. But I also have no idea how much they're testing their metrics, or whether they even care to do that. I can only speak about my own process and what goes through my head when I use data and when I talk about data. So let me give you that breakdown. If you listen to my content you tune in for most episodes, you'll notice one thing. I lean so so heavily on usage, target share, running back, rush share, raut participation. Those are all metrics with predictive value. When a team uses a player a lot, they tend to use that player a lot the following week, the following year, and so on. Most usage related numbers will have some predictive value. Nothing will be amazingly predictive just two weeks in. But usage stuff is by far the most helpful, which is why my data dumps center around usage first and foremost. And look, I'll talk about things on this show that don't necessarily have the most predictive value in the world, but I try to provide that context. I'll say things like this may not matter, like I did with yesterday's Sleeper Show when I talked about some of the adjusted numbers that I threw your way. I think transparency is really what this comes down to. If you see a tweet, if you see numbers, I think it's fair to just respond to that tweet and ask the analyst if they think the numbers that they're providing are actually predictive, start a conversation and start to learn more instead of just taking the numbers that face value and assuming that they're useful. Realistically, though, at this point in the season, you should just assume regression. Like even for some usage metrics, if a player has a crazy target right now, like a forty percent target share through two weeks, and someone's touting that and saying how historic that player season is gonna be, I would pretty much guarantee that that player is not going to maintain that high of a target. Chair regression will hit because in one or two games we can see some wild stuff. You should assume regression or yards per out run. That's always been one of the gold standard metrics. For predictiveness. Right now, yards per out run is completely skewed. It does not matter. I mean, I'm sure the best players will generally be leading the category right now, but it's not gonna tell us a whole lot. Look, I know I'm kind of rambling here, but this is what this all comes down to. Transparency, usage, and regression. You should assume that most numbers are going to regress because they do. This is not me saying that we shouldn't lean into players who are doing special things analytically. This is me saying that if you see something really funky within data after two weeks, ninety five times out of one hundred, it is funky.

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Speaker 2: It won't maintain. Now, when it.

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Speaker 1: Comes to usage, just really focus your attention on metrics that rely on usage first and foremost. If they don't, then go to the third thing, which is transparency. Every analyst should be transparent about what they're doing. If someone says they have a model, they should be able to share the inputs of that model. They should be able to talk through each data point within that model. They don't need to share how they're calculating everything, but at the very least they should be telling you what's driving the output. If they have a metric that they claim can solve all fantasy football problems, ask them to explain how and why and what they're testing that metric against, especially if it's not volume related, so usage and regression and then transparency. That's what this is about.

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Speaker 2: Now.

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Speaker 1: I know I went in a lot of different directions there. It's not an easy thing to be really concise about. I could have probably talked about this for an hour, but hopefully something stuck. That's it for today's show, though, Thanks to all of you for listening. If you had subscribed to the Late Round Fantasy Football podcast, make sure you are by shooting for it pretty much anywhere podcast can be found, and to follow me on Twitter and on Blue Sky at Late Round QB. Thanks for listening everyone. I got a Late Round Perspectives episode dropping later today. I hope you listen to that, and also make sure you're tuning in to the Late Round Fantasy Football Show with me and David Kitchen at one pm Eastern over on the YouTube channel that's YouTube dot com slash at LATEROUNDFF. If you miss it, though, it'll drop in the podcast feed tomorrow morning. Thanks for listening, to everyone, have a great weekend. I'll talk to you next week.