892: Mailbag 7/19/24

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Speaker 1: This is the Late Podcast with your host JJ zacherathis Jay Jake zacher reson. What's up everyone? It's JJ zacharyesin in this episode eight hundred and ninety two of the Late Round Fantasy Football podcast sponsored by Underdog Fantasy. Thanks for tuning in. Before getting in the questions this week, I just want to remind you that you can get a late Round draft guide for absolutely free. Here's how it works. If you're new to Underdog Fantasy, go to Underdog Fantasy dot com and sign up. Use promo code late Round when you do sign up, and then make a deposit. After doing so, you'll get an email to your inbox from Underdog that has a link to the draft guide that's a twenty five dollars value for absolutely free. You can save money by doing this, all while playing some best ball. That draft guide has everything you need to crush your drafts this year. About eighty percent of it is game theory driven. The final twenty percent gets updated weekly. That twenty percent includes players to target, players to avoid late round dart throws, and my rankings and tiers. And those rankings and tiers now include auction values. You can purchase the guide for twenty four to ninety nine on late round dot com. But like I said, you can get it for free by heading to Underdog Fantasy dot com and using promo code late Round to sign up. That's promo code late Round. The first question this week is from Patreon. It's from at Gbpacfan three. It says, Hey, JJ, we know your prospect model is based on a player's breakout potential in their first three seasons, but have you looked at the historical data on a player with a high end year two score that didn't give us the elite production in that window, but was able to produce wide receiver two or better seasons later in year four or after. I'm holding on strong on Elijah Moore and hopes that he can find a better situation once he likely hits the open market next offseason. Thanks so for those of you who are unaware, the year two model looks at a player's prospect score, sees how well he performed as a rookie, takes some of those rookie season inputs, and then spits out a year two score. That year two score is looking to predict how well the guy's going to perform in year two and year three of his NFL career. Elijah Moore was some of the prospect Model liked, and then he had a really strong rookie season. Now, admittedly, with the newest iteration of the model, Moore's year two score wasn't as good as it was previously, but it was still ninety two point three, which is very very good. Throughout the model's history, which dates back to twenty eleven, a lot of great hits have come from that ninety to one hundred range, but there have been plenty of guys who hit that range who didn't give us great careers, Chase Claypool, Jerry Judy, which I guess we still don't fully know. Calvin Benjamin. Benjamin was some of the prospect Model didn't like as much as his draft capital, but then he had a really good rookie year, so his year two model looked pretty good regardless. When you look at wide receivers from twenty eleven to twenty twenty, there are fifteen wide receivers who had year two scores in the ninety to one hundred range who then failed to reach fourteen ppuro points per game or more in year two or year three, so ended up being bad projections by the model. I'll just read you those names. That way, you can judge for yourself if any of these guys ended up turning their careers around. Greg Little, who had a year two score of ninety after a one hundred and nineteen target rookie season. That's the first one. Tory Smith, Chris Gibbns, Justin Blackman, Kendall Wright, Terrence Williams, Calvin Benjamin, Tyler Lockett, Sterling Shepard, Christian Kirk, Darius Slayton, Brandon Ayuk, Chase Claypool, Jerry Judy, and Laviska Channault. To be perfectly clear, the only players on that list to had a year two score above ninety five, which is where the elite players sit. The only guys are Blackman, Benjamin and Ayuk. Now, clearly there were some hits in there post year three. Tyler Lockett didn't really get going until year four of his career when he scored ten touchdowns. Brandon Ayuk had that awesome rookie year, and then his year three that was fine too, But last year, his fourth season, that was really his breakout. Christian Kirk was always solid, but he hit more of a ceiling when he went to Jacksonville when he got that change of scenery. So it's certainly possible. But overall, even though it could happen, a late breakout from these guys is still pretty unlikely. And it seems like of the players who do break out late, they had more of a production backbone from year one to three. Tyler Lockett still had some production, Brandon Ayuk had some production, Christian Kirk had some production. It's not quite there for Elijah More at least not yet. That's question also from Patreon. It's from a money it says JJ. The Jordan Addison news looks to have hurt his ADP, dropping him more than half a round on underdock. We know uncertainty drives the market on players, and the league can hand out a one game suspension for this type of offense. Do you have any rules of thumb when evaluating non football football related news for a player when it affects their ADP. I'd be inclined to buy the dip since the prospect is the same, but with added information that he is not a good judge of character off the field. So I think it's first important to note that when I speak about uncertainty and embracing uncertainty and embracing other drafters conservative approaches. It's more so about unknown talent, right like rookies. Drafters generally hate drafting rookies early on because of the unknown. But for a rookie to be considered in the early parts of your draft, for him to have that kind of ADP or to be in your consideration set, he's probably pretty talented. When off the field stuff happens, there is uncertainty, But I feel like I have less of an edge because the uncertainty isn't about talent. It's not about their talent level. It's about what the league is gonna do or what the law is gonna do. And that's not my expertise. So I can't pretend to say one way or another that I'm gonna have an edge there. All I can really do is what everyone else does, and that's read the news on it. I don't have spreadsheets and formulas and experience watching it like I do. With talent. Now, as it relates to Addison, I haven't thought that he was like some amazing pick this year. I'm about at market with Jordan Addison. I'm in that seven percent exposure range on underdog. If I really liked the ceiling and really liked the year two outlook, that might be a little bit different. But we have a lot of data showing us that teams with rookie quarterbacks aren't good for pass catchers, and Addison himself is a pretty big regression candidate in the touchdown column. He was a good rookie, and my year two model liked him a little bit more than I subjectively do, but his numbers weren't screaming like Wow, this guy Jordan Addison is super special. I also have to admit that when a player makes questionable decisions off the field, and those questionable decisions happened multiple off seasons in a row, it's a red flag. I know last year he was supposedly driving one hundred and forty miles an hour because of his dog, but that might play into how the league or the Vikings themselves punished Jordan Addison. And there are so many reasons why anything DUI related is horrible, let alone when his teammate was literally killed by a suspected drunk driver just a week ago. It's just stupid. And when players make stupid decisions, there need to be consequences, and I think the league and I think the team understand that. So not only was I mostly at market with Addison to begin with and maybe even a little bit below, but I'm concerned. I'm concerned about his decision making, and I'm concerned about a suspension possibility. But again, this is not my expertise. I know it's part of the game, but I won't pretend to know exactly how the NFL is going to handle every situation because they're not football related situations, and me, as an analyst, I'm gonna stick to the stuff that I know, and that's analyzing football and analyzing fantasy football. The sess questions for twitters from at Shake, Underscore, and Underscore Jake. How do you adjust draft strategy for home leagues that are more running back heavy? For example, ESPN has fourteen running backs and their top twenty six players. Is it best to get one running back early, even if it's a slight reach according to your rankings, in order to pick up all the wide receiver values that will be available later. Yeah, I think that's fine as long as you understand the type of running back that you're drafting. If you're reaching for a dead zone type running back, or you're reaching for a back maybe doesn't have the best talent profile, then no, don't do that. But if you're drafting Breece Hall a few spots ahead of his normal cost, maybe ahead of like a Justin Jefferson or something, I think it's valid to do something like that. You get your anchor, you know you're set at a scarce position, and then you let the wide receiver value fall because you know the rest of your league will be pounding the running back position. That's a huge reason that I'm slightly higher on Bjeon Robinson and Breecee Hall and my overall rankings compared to the market because they're very scarce. After the big three at running back, we get into more workload question marks, and then eventually you get into talent question marks like a Rashad White type. Let's say so, yes, you have to adjust based on what your league is doing. Just keep the positional tiers in mind and understand that there's a reason for the gaps in my overall rankings. There's a reason there are these big gaps from one running back group to the next. It's because I want you guys to avoid parts of the draft that aren't optimal to take a running back. This question is an email from James. It says, jj I've loved the Becoming a Best Ball bro series. Keep up the great work. Thank you. You talk about the players you're drafting on the show each week, but who have you drafted most so far this year? Thanks for the content, James. So, I've said it at times on the show, and I've said it on other shows too, but I think Zach Sharbonay is really undervalued in Best Ball drafts right now. I think it's not as necessary in a managed season long league, but he's basically being drafted at his projection over at underdog. And when players with contingent upside are drafted at their projection, I tend to pounce. I go after them. For two years now, Kenneth Walker has been a boomer bust running back. I talked about this after his rookie season last year. I explained why that could have been the reason the Seahawks took Zach Sharboney in the first place, because they wanted a more consistent between the tackles grinder. Now, Walker was fine in twenty twenty three, but he's been seventh worst in the NFL among forty nine backs over the last two years with two hundred and more carries, He's been seventh worst in rate of gaining positive yardage. His rate of gaining two or more yards per rush is fourteenth worst, but he's been the twelfth best at gaining ten or more yards because he's a big play running back. He's a home run hitting running back. I just think people are making way too many assumptions about how this Seattle backfield might play out in twenty twenty four. Like, yes, I think straight up, Kenneth Walker is the better fantasy asset compared to Zach Sharboney. And while this isn't a total apples to apples comparison, Sharbonay actually had a better rate of gaining ten and twenty yards last year. He was better in success rate, and he was better at gaining positive yardage too. What if this new coaching staff comes in and see Sharbonay as the player that they want to give more touches to. Is that probable? Probably not? Is it possible for sure? It's not like Sharboney himself was some terrible prospect. It's just unfortunate that he fell to a spot where there was an established young runner. So there's this out for Zach Sharbonnay to see more work than what's being projected. But then if Walker goes down to an injury, sharbon A becomes like a fringe RB one. And I know Walker's not ranked that way right now. He's not ranked as a fringe RB one, but that's because he's sharing a backfield with Zach Sharbonay. If Kenneth Walker goes down, sure Seattle might do something to that backfield, but Sharbonay would see a lot of work. So overall, I just think the gap between these two running backs should be a little bit smaller, and as a result, Sharboney has been an easy click for me this year. The last question this week is from at USC Trojan nine. It says, is Christian Watson just a poor man's Gabe Davis? They seem like very similar players, Boom or bust. Who would you rather throw a dart at? This season? That was pretty extreme. I'm not gonna lie, and if anything, we probably want to flip that statement and say that Davis is a poor man's Christian Watson. But I think there's far far more upside with Watson than Gabe Davis like, yes, they'll probably run a similar route tree and score points in a similar way, but Watson is just better at it when he's healthy. Watson had a two point twenty six yards per route run rate as a rookie. That's one of the best numbers that you're gonna find at wide receiver over the last decade. Last year, that number fell to one point five to six during an injury filled season. His targets per route run rates twenty four percent twenty percent. Over his two years in the league. Gabe Davis has matched Christian Watson's twenty twenty three yards per route run once in his four year career, and he's matched his targets per rout run rate zero times. Like Christian Watson has largely looked at as a bust because last year he was drafted pretty high, but on a per route basis, his twenty twenty, the year where everyone hated Christian Watson, it was better than pretty much any other Gabe Davis season. And then we have to remember with Christian Watson, he's basically only played a year and a half of professional football, and he started to come on a little bit last season before getting hurt for a second time now. Underdog Average Draft Position says that Watson versus Davis it's not really a thing. It's not even close, and I agree. Davis is a big play threat that likely will never emerge as the team's top option, not with Christian Kirk, Evan Ingram, and Brian Thomas there now. I like Green Bay's pass catchers a lot, but would anyone be surprised if Christian Watson leads that group in targets this year. He was doing that last year when healthy, So I would much rather have Christian Watson than Gabe Davis straight up. I don't even think it's really close at cost that might be a little bit different of a story. That's it for 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 podcast can be found, and follow me on Twitter at Late Round QB. As I've been saying, make sure you're also subscribed to the Late Round Fantasy Football YouTube channel. You can find that at YouTube dot com slash at Late Round FF. Thanks for listening this week everyone, I greatly appreciate it. Enjoy your weekend, and I'll talk to you next week.