862: Mailbag 2/9/24

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Speaker 1: This is the Late Podcast with your host JJ Zachertha j J zacher reson. What's up everyone, It's JJ zachar Esen in this episode eight hundred and sixty two of the Late Round Fantasy Football Podcast. Thanks for tuning in. Before we get into the mailbag questions this week, I want to send another reminder about the Late Round Prospect Guide. The guide is filled with all the information that you need to crush your rookie drafts this year. You get a breakdown of what goes into my prospect models, and then I profile every running back and wide receiver who will be at this year's NFL Combine. There's also an entire section about my year two model with profiles of over thirty players who are entering year two of their NFL career, so I'll help you out with what to do with players like Zay Flowers or Jackson Smith and Jigba. The guide is available for pre order right now over on Lateround dot com, so check it out. That's Lateround dot com. The first mailback question this week is from Jerry on Patreon. It says, Hey, JJ, how do you think the Chargers hiring Greg Roman affects Justin Herbert's dynasty outlook. Is a probable run heavy offense a net positive if they're passing efficiency increases. How do we weigh efficiency versus raw volume for pocket passers. Yeah, so look on the volume front, this is not a good thing for Justin Herbert. It's easy to overstate the impact of passing volume on a weekly basis in fantasy football. I will say that, but generally speaking, I'd still rather have my quarterback thrown around fifty times per game than twenty five times per game. Volume matters a lot more a wide receiver and running back since most quarterbacks are getting twenty five thirty pass attempts per game. But I'd still rather have a quarterback get like fifty five pass attempts per game. And we know that Greg Roman, as you noted, comes with a run heavy offense, and that's a little bit scary for Justin Herbert. Roman's been an offensive coordinator for three NFL teams. He was won from twenty eleven to twenty fourteen with the forty nine ers. He then was with Buffalo in twenty fifteen before being fired early in twenty sixteen, and then he was Baltimore ZOC from twenty nineteen to twenty twenty two. That's basically nine years that we can go back look at and analyze. During that timeframe, Romans offenses never ranked higher than twenty third an overall pass rate. They were over twenty seventh just once, and they finished in the bottom three and pass rate and seven of nine seasons. Some of his teams were good, so gamescript dictated some of that. But even when you just look at his offense his pass rates when games were within six points, his neutral script pass rates worlding at a pretty similar story. His highest rank in neutral script pass rate was twenty first. He ranked higher than twenty seventh just twice. His average rank and neutral script pass rate through the years twenty eighth. In other words, his offenses averaged. They averaged being the fifth run heaviest team in football. Combine that with Jim Harbaugh and yes, the Chargers are going to one to establish the run. Now can Justin Herbert be more efficient? Of course? Lamar Jackson won an MVP with Greg Roman as his offensive coordinator. Now I know he's gonna win another one this year. At least it seems like he's going to without Greg Roman. The first year without Greg Roman but even still he got an MVP with Roman as his offensive coordinator. It's possible for a quarterback to be efficient under Greg Roman. I think the better cases are with what Greg Roman did with Colin Kaepernick and Torod Taylor. Is it ty Rod er Torod? I don't even know these days. Taylor had the best season of his entire career under Greg Roman in twenty fifteen. Colin Kaepernick he thrived under Roman. So yeah, it's a very run heavy offense, but it's one that's generally been fined for quarterbacks. In that offense, He's gotten at least something out of his passers, and a main reason for that is because Roman's offenses pushed the ball down the field. And that's where I think this could really impact Justin Herbert. In twenty twelve and twenty thirteen, Colin Kaepernick had average depth of targets above ten yards. Those were the highest marks of his career. Taylor in twenty fifteen had an a DOT of ten point seven during seasons where he threw the ball three hundred more times. That was also the highest mark of his career. Now, Lamar Jackson had a pretty similar a DOT with and without Greg Roman. But in twenty twenty three, his only season without Roman, he also had far better weapons to throw to. Throughout Justin Herbert's career, he hasn't been a high average depth of target thrower. It's been a critique that many have had of Justin Herbert. He's been above an eight to a DOT just once and it came this past year. And for the record, his a DOT of eight point three and twenty twenty three, it's still ranked just nineteenth in the NFL. That's where I think we could see improvement for Herbert. So if the overall market is about to shift dramatically with Justin Herbert, which I think might happen, that I may lean in the opposite direction because Herbert might finally have a shot to finally unlock the deep ball and that might offset the lack of volume in that offense. And let's face it, guys, if you're comparing all this to twenty twenty three, Herbert wasn't that great in twenty twenty three. And this is from a fantasy perspective, but his pro rated touchdown pass number this year, had he played every game was at twenty six. He had twenty five passing touchdowns. The year prior. That's not going to cut it when you're not running the ball that much. And hey, maybe Grey Roman tries to unlock Justin Herbert's mobility a little bit. I don't expect that to happen. That shouldn't be the expectation. But Herbert's a big dude who ran a sub four seven forty. He's not Lamar Jackson, he's not Tyrod Taylor, he's not Colin Kaepernick. But there's at least some interesting upside there. So I'm remaining neutral with Justin Herbert for the most part. If the market does shift, then that would mean that I like him a little bit more than the market. I don't think this Roman hire was only bad. This next question is also from Patreon. It's from Dylan. It says, is James Cook a positive regression candidate in terms of rushing touchdowns generally? What are your thoughts on him moving forward in Dynasty? So technically, yes, Cook should have had a couple more touchdowns than he actually had in twenty twenty three. I don't think it's enough to dramatically move the needle, but yes, you could consider him a regression candidate. My thoughts on him in dynasty is that I think he'll be around for a decent number of years, at least for a running back. But it goes back to what I talked about earlier this week with smaller backs, I don't foresee James Cook ever being a true bell coow back. And when I say true bellcow I'm not talking about how he was being used when they made the coordinator switch in Buffalo this year. I mean like the elite usage that we see from a guy like Saquon Barkley. But James Cook has now seen more than seventy percent of his team's running back rushes in just five games over his two year career. He was getting more work down the stretches past year, but when it comes to backfield share, that backfield share wasn't dramatically changing on the ground. Buffalo in general just became more run heavy. Now he was being used more as a receiver, which is the key that unlocks everything for James Cook and for running backs in general. They made a real effort during the final parts of twenty twenty three to get James Cook the ball through the air. His target share rose by four percentage points. With Joe Brady as offensive coordinator. It was a fifty percent increase. Then the final layer to all of this is how Josh Allen is used at the goal line. We know that he's going to steal rushing scores. That's gonna cap Cooks upside as long as he's in Buffalo. So he's an RB two. There's nothing wrong with that. He's not a buy and he's not a sell in my opinion. He's someone who's capable of big games, of making big plays, and if they keep the offense the way it was in late twenty twenty five, then cook will have a shot at maybe like a low end RB one season in twenty twenty four. Now, if you look at keeptradecut dot com, he's the RB ten right now. That seems pricey at face value, but that's also just where the running back position currently sits. Rich Reibar and I talked about that on last week's Late Round Perspectives episode. If you can flip a running back in that general tier for a really solid wide receiver, go for it. I'm always gonna lean wide receiver in that case. In a case where the running back, in my eyes, is not necessarily an elite running back, there's only a few of them in the NFL at any given moment. But there's nothing wrong with James Cook. I think within his position, he's priced about where he should be priced. This ask question is an email and says hi JJ. First of all, thanks for all the great advice in twenty twenty three. Nice to still have some episodes during the offseason and already looking forward to the Prospect Guide. Thanks. I joined a dynasty league in twenty twenty two through an expansion draft and basically only focused on wide receivers over the past two years. My wide receivers, mostly acquired through trades, now include Jefferson Amanas, Saint Brown, Drake London, Johan Dotson, and Elijah Moore. I have Jordan Love at quarterback, but literally have no startable running back or tight end. I have the one oh one, one oh four, and one oh nine and the upcoming rookie draft one quarterback league. If logic is followed, the one oh one and one oh four will be wide receivers again unless Bowers falls into my lap at one oh four. Would you just draft best player available with all picks and figure out a way later to deal one of my star wide receivers for a package which includes running backs and tight ends. Or would you rather trade back in the rookie draft and take as many shots as possible on rookie running backs coming into the league with the hope that one or two, maybe even three of them hit. Of course it's early in the process, but guys like Devon Ai, Chen, Kendre Miller, Taj Spears all weren't great prospects either, and they gained value in their first year in the NFL even as backups. Something this might be a better way of lucking out at running back without having to give up one of Jefferson, Amen, Ros Saint Brown, Marvin Harrison, Junior Drake London, who all have a much longer value span in dynasty than running backs. Your view on both approaches would be much appreciated. Keep up the good work, greetings out of Belgium, Robin. So a few things about this question. I personally don't think that I would consider Devon Ah, Chan, Kendre Miller, and Taj Spears as not great prospects. I mean, it depends on your perspective here, but each of them were solid, especially a Chan. Second, I think it's important to not have selection bias. When you're going back and looking at historical rookie drafts, you mentioned a Chan, Miller, and Spears as guys who gained value year over year, but you're ignoring the running backs who didn't gain value after Jon Robinson and Jamier Gibbs. Last season, in rookie drafts you had Zach Sharbinay Devon Chan, Kendre Miller, Taj Spears, Roshan Johnson, and Tank Bigsby. When looking at Dynasty League Football startup ADP, the only running backs of that group to have a significant year over year ADP change are eight Hannon, Spears, Sharpenney is basically in the same spot, so is Roshan. Tank Bigsby fell almost twenty spots. Miller actually fell too. And keep in mind we see rookies usually appreciate in value because older players fall backwards. Younger players just generally see an uptick in year over year ADP. I think this is a really important idea to get across. It's so so easy to look at last year's rookie draft and say, look at these players, they all gain value, But you have to look at the bigger picture, and the bigger picture even just from last year. It wasn't as favorable as you're making it seem. Now. The bigger question here is essentially if you should draft for value or for need. And look, I'm all for trading back if you're getting a good deal. I think anything should be on the table. But my philosophy is always that you should be drafting for value and trading for need because at the end of the when you're drafting, there are limited players to choose from. When you're trading, you have the entire player poll. It's much easier to find a true fit for your particular roster than it is when you're picking out of a rookie draft. You have strong wide receivers, but I don't think there's a problem with adding more value to that roster by getting more wide receivers and then you can decide where to go from there. You have this fear of trading away one of those stud guys, like a Marvin Harrison junior, But if you were to either pick a non wide receiver or if you were to trade back, you're doing the same thing. You're effectively trading away a Marvin Harrison junior or maybe a Molik Neighbors or whoever the wide receiver is that you get the bottom line here though, Draft for value, trade for need. The last question this week is kind of a two for the first one is from at Justin white VA on Twitter. It says you did a podcast on it a while back. But where is the bar for where you generally throw in the towel on a rookie wide receiver after one year of not producing and what rookies from twenty twenty three would qualify? So years and years ago, I did a study showing that when rookies at both wide receiver and running back, when they don't produce well as rookies, they generally don't produce well throughout their fantasy careers. I use some random thresholds. I talk through how important that first year of production is because good players generally emerge and they're able to do something as rookies. Just something I'm not even asking for the world. I'm just saying something to help me answer that question. Though, I ended up developing my year two models, so that's how I'm gonna answer this question. It's not so much that you should just look at a player's points per game as a rookie and say he's gonna be good, or he's gonna be bad, or I should trade them away or I should keep them Instead, you've got to look at the full body of work, and in my case, I look at the full body of work analytically and plug it into my year two model. It looks at route run numbers, points per game numbers, something like yards per team pass attempt, and it also looks at a player's pro score, because that's still predictive as we enter year two, and as I've been saying, you can see what the year two model is saying about these guys in the Prospect Guide, and in the guide you get probabilities to show you what a certain score has meant historically. I'll give you an example, and this example will be an answer to your question of what rookies from twenty twenty three would qualify. This also plays into a question that I got on Patreon this week from Jacob. Jacob wrote, where are you with Jonathan Mingo? What does your year two model say? I see you're low on him in your Dynasty rankings, but according to Player Profiler, half of his targets were unctchable, so he actually caught forty three of his forty seven catchable targets, should I sell for whatever I can get, like a late second or an early third, or hold in case his quarterback or offense turn around. So, as you'd probably guess, Jonathan Mingo is one of those players where the chances that he becomes something big in fantasy football they're just pretty low at this point. Now, I can't speak to his catchable target rate because I'm not worthy with that data. What I can tell you about Mingo is the following. According to next Gen Stats, he was bottom five in the entire NFL last year and catch right over expected. This is looking at one hundred and eighteen wide receivers who ran two hundred or more routes. He was even in the red and yards after catchover expected, something he was supposed to be very good at. Mingo had a yards per route run rate in twenty twenty three of point seven eight. That's according to PFF data of all rookie wide receivers since twenty eleven who hit thirty or more targets, that yards per route run rate ranks in the seventh percentile. We can take this a step further too. In the year two model database, I have every wide receiver since twenty eleven who either went at the NFL Combine or who was drafted. Sometimes you get players who were drafted who didn't go to the combine. Well over four hundred wide receivers in that database failed to hit a yards per route run rate as a rookie of point eight. So Jonathan Mingo, he's in that group. Now, clearly a lot of those guys are undrafted wide receivers or players who didn't get a lot of run as rookies. But only four of those wide receivers. Four of them ended up giving us a season of twelve plus PPR points per game and either year two or year three, and none of those wide receivers ended up being like long term solutions. It was Cecil Shortz, he had a decent career, Alan Hearns, Willie Snead, and Nelson Agalore. Now you're probably wondering what this looks like for players with strong draft capital like Mingo had, which is very very fair. Since twenty eleven, we've had forty one top one hundred draft selections failed to reach point eight yards per route run as rookies. Let's scale that back and only look at players drafted from twenty eleven to twenty twenty one. Though, that way, we're giving every wide receiver here three seasons of experience in the league. That leaves us with thirty one wide receivers. Of those thirty one, the highest PPR points per game output in either year two or year three was twelve point one. And that's what a minimum eight games played for the record. That's not a very usable season at all in fantasy football. That was from Nelson Agalore. Now, of course, is a pretty arbitrary cutoff, but it's an exercise to show you the probability of these bad seasons really turning into something meaningful down the line in fantasy football. Right now, Mingo has a year two score of seventy nine point two. We've seen some players with scores like that have okay enough careers. But the odds are slim that if you trade away Jonathan Mingo that you're gonna have regrets, because chances are he's not gonna be some wide receiver one or even a wide receiver two in fantasy football throughout his career. Now, should you get rid of him? I mean, look, the market isn't stupid. The market has Mingo price down because people know that he wasn't good as a rookie. If you'd rather wait it out and see if this new coaching staff can make Bryce Young a star, go for it. Just wait it out. It's not gonna make or break your dynasty roster. I don't think this is a big enough transaction to lose sleepover. I just know that Jonathan Mingo has very small odds to be a true difference maker in fantasy football. That's it for today's show, though, thanks to all of you for listening. If you get subscribe to the Late Round Fantasy Football podcast, make sure you are by searching for it pretty much anywhere podcast can be found inter to follow me on Twitter at Late Round QB and follow the Late Round Fantasy Football Instagram account at laterounddeff and check it out on YouTube YouTube dot com slash at lateroundff. Thanks for listening, everyone, enjoy your weekend, enjoy the super Bowl. I'll talk to you next week