408: 10 Trends for Week 1

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Speaker 1: This is the Late Podcast with your host JJ zacher Retha Jay Jake zacher reson What's up everyone. It's JJ Zacharesen, the editor in chief at fandel and at number five dot com. And this is episode four hundred and eight of the Late Round podcast so many shows that are part of the FanDuel podcast network. Thanks for tuning in. This ten trend show is the shortest Late Round podcast episode that you're going to hear each week. The idea of each episode is super straightforward. I find a data trend, state what that trend is, and then I talk about it, and I do it ten times and that's the show. Week one is going to be a little bit different than most since there's nothing to dig into for the current season. So today I'll use some historic data, but moving forward, I'll mostly be using data from the current season. Now before get into the trends this week. Week one is finally upon us and FANDL is back in twenty twenty with a Sunday Million contest for just a four dollars entry fee, compete to win over three million dollars in prizes, including one million dollars for first place, plus if you roster the player to score the first touchdown on the slate, you can split a jackpot of two hundred and fifty thousand dollars. For more details was at fandul dot com or download the FanDuel app Today eligibility restrictions apply. The first trend this week is that the Baltimore Ravens tight ends last season had almost a forty three percent target share. It was by far the highest tight end target share that a team has had since twenty eleven. This is significant because Hayden Hurst is no longer in the picture for them. That may not seem like that big of a deal since Hurst wasn't super fantasy relevant in Baltimore, but he actually saw nine point four percent of the team's targets last season. He ran two hundred and seven routes according to Pro Football Focus, while Mark Andrews ran two hundred and ninety five. Andrews was just targeted on almost thirty three percent of his routes run, giving him the highest targets per route run rate among relevant tight ends last year. This is where Mark Andrews ceiling can come from if he ends up playing more and running more routes, which is possible now that Hayden Hurst has gone. He can end up getting into that top tier of tight ends. It's not the easiest ask in the world, but it's certainly possible. When Kenyan Drake got to Arizona last season, he averaged a running back rush share per game of about eighty five percent and a target share of almost fourteen percent. He dipped below a ten percent target share in just one game. I've talked about Drake's upside on the show throughout the summer, and it's because it's there. These numbers tell us that it's there. Just for some context, that eighty five percent running back rush share mark was only hit by Christian McCaffrey and Leonard Fournette last year, and the fourteen percent target share was only hit by eight different running backs. I expect Chase Edmonds to be plenty involved in this offense, but Drake absolutely has top five upside in twenty twenty within an offense that could be explosive. Derrick Henry has seen more than three targets in a game just once in his career outside the playoffs. That's the trend, and this trend has a chance to be meaningful for two reasons. The Titans only have two running backs on the roster, and Henry and rookie Darrington Evans. It's not like they're not going to pass the ball to the running back position. So it means either number one Darrnton Evans is going to have a decent role to where he could end up being usable in PPR formats even without a Derrick Henry injury, but number two Dererick Henry may finally take a step forward and see more looks as a pass catcher. That's the main reason I've been cool with drafting Derrick Henry this year. Despite the regression that's going to hit this Titans offense, Henry has more upside than I think that some people realize. This season, the Washington football team not only ran the fewest plays in the league last year, but they ran the second fewest plays from any team since twenty eleven. You may look at Terry mclaurin's target total from last year and not be that impressed, but his target share, which is always important to give things context, his target shair was just fine. If Washington had just run an average number of plays. We're looking at a target total for mclauren that's twenty targets higher than where he finished last year. I've been into the pieces of this offense all off season because they're a little bit ambiguous and they're cheap. As a result, McLaurin has a chance to be a stud. Antonio Gibson had a ton of upside even before the Adrian Peterson release. And then there's Logan Thomas too, who I talked about on yesterday's episode. This plays run regression will happen and help those guys in twenty twenty, at least in fantasy football. In his four years as offensive coordinator for the Falcons, Dirt Cutter's offenses have ranked in the top four in neutral script pass rate during each one of those seasons. I use this stat a good bit over the summer, but it's an important one because Atlanta is basically a lock to see a lot of passing volume this year, and then all the while they've got a pretty shallow target tree. It's why it's so easy to buy into Calvin Ridley having a big year and taking a step forward, and why Hayden Hurst is an easy tight end breakout candidate. Before tearing his ACL last year, Preston Williams had more targets than Devonte Parker. Williams has been way undervalue this season, considering there's not a whole lot of competition in Miami. He appears to be healthy, and as a rookie last year, he actually was leading that team in targets before going down with his season ending injury. This trend is just to say don't sleep on Preston Williams. Aaron Jones scored eighty nine percent of Green Bay's rushing touchdowns last year despite seeing just two thirds of the team's overall running back rushes and a fifty seven percent total rushing share. Only Leonard Fournette saw a higher percentage of his team's rushing touchdowns last season. This is just another statistic to show that Aaron Jones has touched on regression coming here in twenty twenty. He did see a lot of work at the goal line and that explains a lot of his number. But according to most touchdown regression related metrics like Mike Clay's opportunity adjusted touchdown or the one that I made that I've never named, Aaron Jones should have had closer to eleven touchdowns last year instead of nineteen. With aj Dillon now in the picture. I'm a little bit worried about Jones and fantasy football here in twenty twenty. Since twenty eleven, so nine seasons worth of data, Andy Reid's offenses have produced five RB one top twelve seasons. Now, Reid has worked with good running backs like Jamal Charles l Shan McCoy and Kareem Hunt. But this is just one of the many reasons to be bullish on rookie Clyde Edwards Hilaier this year. I fully expect him to become the next great Andy Reid running back. The Saints were fourth in the NFL last year and passed a rush touchdown ratio, and Drew Brees had the highest touchdown rate of his entire career. I'm fully expecting a bounce back year from Alvin Kamara as a result of this. Kamara's numbers in the red zone and close to the goal line last year looked a lot like his rookie season, except he saw fifty one more rushes last year versus that rook sas, so we really should have expected a little bit more love close to the end zone. But I'm not concerned because historically things like touchdown rate and pass to rush touchdown ratio. Those numbers regress Alvin Kamara is in store for a big season. The last trend this week is that Philip Rivers running back groups have finished in the top six in target share in six to the last nine seasons. Now, I use this statistic a lot throughout the offseason two because it's one of the few players specific personnel usage trends that I think does matter. There's a lot of noise when looking at how quarterbacks target certain positions, since a lot of times they're targeting those positions because players at those positions are good. But even though the Chargers have had good running backs, for Rivers to be this consistent at throwing the ball to that position, and then for the Colts to come out this offseason and say that their running backs are being used more in the passing game, there's definitely something there. A lot of people have elevated Nihim Hines as a result, and while I do think that he does get a little bit of a bump, I still worry about how frequently he's going to be on the field. I think this should just make you like all of the running backs in that backfield a little bit more and it's a big reason I see a path Toway seriously high ceiling for Jonathan Taylor as early as this year. That's going to do it. For today's show, thanks to all of you for listening. If you've get subscribed to the Late Round podcast, make sure you are by searching for it pretty much anywhere podcast can be found, you know, forget to follow me on Twitter at Late Round QB. Thanks everyone. I'm back tomorrow with the weekly matchup show.