929: Mailbag 10/18/24

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Speaker 1: This is the l with your host JJ ZACHERAJJ zacher reson what's up everyone, It's JJ zachar Eson in this episode nine twenty nine of the Late Round Fantasy Football podcast sponsored by Underdog. Thank you for tuning in. Before we get into the mailbag questions this week, I want to let you know about a cool new game over on Underdog that you can play through October. Head to the promotions tab in the Underdog app and play Red Zone Rush. It's sort of like a dating app, but instead of swiping left or right on a potential significant other, you're swiping left or right on who you think we'll get in the end zone that week. And best of all, every Red Zone Rush entry will receive a boost. You can check out Red Zone Rush by heading to Underdog Fantasy dot com or downloading the app. And if you're new to Underdog, make sure you sign up with promo code Late Round. You'll get a nice deposit, but and you also get access to my rest of season rankings when you sign up with that promo code. Just sign up, use promo code Late Round, make a deposit, and start playing. The first question this week is from twitters from at not star Lord. It says, could the additions of a Mari Cooper and Davante Adams actually help Khalil Shakira and Garrett Wilson to see more success. So let's talk about the big trades that went down this week. Davante Adams he joined the Jets, Amari Cooper, he joins the Bills. I think anyone who builds projections they see this as they're building projections. Generally speaking, volume is more important than efficiency. Efficiency is not only less predictive and more volatile, but it's just less important to the game of fantasy football. If I get a player who averages fifty yards per target but he only sees one target per game, that player he's not nearly as meaningful as the player averaging five yards per target who sees fifteen targets per game. Now, I know that's an extreme example, but it helps wrap your head around this idea. Like guess having Davante Adams, having Amari Cooper. That's gonna make those offenses better hypothetically speaking, But when you add a twenty five percent target share player to an offense, that target share pie gets disrupted. And I think what gets kind of ruined most is the ceiling for a lot of these guys. Like think about why so many people were drafting Garrett Wilson in Round one this year. It's because he's a great player, yes, but he was also in a situation where there was no one else and we've seen that come to fruition so far this year. His target share is currently above thirty percent. He had twenty nine PPR points in Week five that was basically solely off a volume. He had a forty three percent target share. He had twenty two targets. Those types of games are just unbelievably unlikely with a player like Devonte Adams in the mix. It doesn't mean that Wilson's toast. I actually still think that he's a top eighteen wide receiver rest of season, but it does mean that those upside games may not exist anymore. The different is going to be when he inevitably would have seen a lower target shair Like Week four against Denver, he dip below a twenty percent target share. That was the first time that happened all year. He scored seven PPR points. Why did he underperform, Well, it was a bad weather game against one of the toughest matchups in football, when you get a player like DeVante Adams in the mix, you can move Wilson around and get him those more advantageous matchups. That's gonna ensure that he doesn't have a terrible game from a production standpoint, And because Wilson's a really good player, he's gonna earn a high target share. He just may not have a thirty percent target share anymore. So oddly the move with Adams, it could make Wilson a little bit more consistent while lowering his ceiling. I don't necessarily prefer that outcome, though, because ceilings win fantasy football matchups, but he should still be fine. Now. When it comes to Buffalo, it's sort of the same thing. Insert a twenty five percent target share wide receiver like Amari Cooper, it becomes more difficult for players to hit high target shairs in their offense. I actually, considering it's not like any of the Bill's wide receivers are nearly as good as someone like Garrett Wilson, there's no reason to believe that they're gonna command super high target shairs at least the way that Wilson would, So I definitely have concerns about guys like Kincaid and Shakir. Kincaid has seen twenty five percent target shairs over the last three weeks and he's still not been that productive. Now we can sit here and we can say that he's gonna be more efficient now, which is probably true, but his target share projection is gonna drop. And if he's not a lot more efficient, then what's the difference between Kincaid and like a Jake Ferguson. I think a lot of people probably already had Ferguson ahead of Kincaid or someone like Evan Ingram. We should probably just prefer Evan Ingram over Kincaid pretty easily rest of season. Now, we can't lose sight of the fact that this Buffalo team doesn't operate the same way that it did with Stefan Diggs that was the pre Joe Brady era. On the season, Buffalo ranks second lowest and pass attempts per game, and that's not just a game script thing. In neutral environments, the Bills are twenty first in pass rate. Now, that might increase a little bit with Amari Cooper, but by how much enough to offset his incoming target chair probably not look talent drives opportunity. You guys know that I'm a Khalil shakir Stan and I think Kincaid is a good tight end. But the difference between them maintaining high target chairs and Garrett Wilson maintaining a high target chair, the difference is talent, straight up. It's why Wilson can still be pretty usable while the Bills players and this is dictated by how the offense runs things too. But the Bills players, they're gonna now be less reliable week to week. This that's questions from at darn two three, four five. Why are fantasy football trades so hard to pull off? I always have to dramatically overpay to get anything done. So this is actually a bias called the endowment effect. This is a human thing, the endowment effects straight from Google. It's a behavioral economics and psychology principle that describes how people value items they own or they roster in this case, more than items they don't own. One explanation for this is what's called loss of version. I think we can all connect with this idea to some degree, but thanks to Google once again. Loss of version is a cognitive bias that describes a tendency to perceive losses as more significant than gains of the same magnitude. So if you view Bjeon Robinson and Breese Hall as identical players, and you have b Jeon Robinson, you're more likely to view Robinson as the better player, as the better asset, because the pain of losing Robinson is greater than the joy of gaining Breeze Hall. I mean, basically, humans are stupid. We're all stupid. We all have these biases that lead to a lot of difficulty when getting trades done. That's what this comes down to, which is exactly why I always say to find team needs instead of individual players when you're trading. Find a team in your league that's a desperate need of something and fill that need. Because when someone is desperate, it can sort of push these biases aside. They become less afraid of losing the asset that they value so highly. This last question is from friend of the Show Dave Klugy. It says, is there any reason to roster Patrick Mahomes in a standard twelve team redraft league? So? I think there are three reasons to still roster him. Number one is schedule. Mahomes and the Chiefs have a top five schedule over the next four weeks and a top seven schedule rest of season according to adjusted Fantasy points allowed. That could be one reason to hold on to him. Number two is regression. His three point eight percent touchdown rate right now is by far the lowest of his career. The Chiefs rank below average and passed to rush touchdown ratio, meaning a lot of their touchdowns have come via the ground. That's usually not the case for them. And then lastly, look, guys, he's talented. I know he hasn't been that good in fantasy football for some time now, but we also know that he's still a good quarterback. But look, I do think he's kind of in like that Gino Smith area, that Kirk Cousins area, maybe with a little bit more upside because of who he is. But it's tough to feel really bullish the way that that defense is playing and the weapons of the Chiefs currently have. I totally get that, but that tier of players, I don't really see them as drops at least in a lot of leagues, and a ten teamer your waiver wire pool is probably pretty robust at quarterback, so you might be able to let him go there but in a twelve teamer, I think he's one of those quarterbacks that you roster and you can play in plus matchups, all while getting streamers to play when things look a little bit tougher. So I would not drop Patrick Mahomes. This that's question is an email from Ryan. It says, JJ love the show. Thanks. I was surprised to see Joe Mixon as a sell for you this week. He's been getting a lot of volume and he seems like he's going to be an RB one in the Texans offense this year. Shouldn't we want that on our fantasy rosters? Thanks? Ryan. So I heard a few of these types of common this week regarding mixing, and I just want to use this time on this mailbag episode to clarify in actuality, I have mix in a little bit higher than where other rankers have him. I don't think that means that he's not a sell, because the idea behind the recommendation was to take how he's performed, recognize that it's not sustainable, and try to get an elite asset for him, like pair him up with someone to upgrade to an elite wide receiver, like a top five wide out. I still have Mixin ranked as an RB one rest of season. I said as much on the show. I'm just saying that this could still hypothetically be a high point depending on who you're trading with. But yeah, this is the downside of doing buys and sells every week on that show, I can't capture how everyone feels about a player. All I can do is talk about what's sustainable and what's not sustainable, and what could be upcoming for a player. Just know that you should absolutely not be trading away Joe Mixon for a ham sandwich. That wasn't the intent with that transaction. The last question is week It's from Patreon. It's from Andre. It says, hey, JJ, is the Lions offense almost too efficient? While aman Ross Saint Brown has been good, I think people expected more and Sam Laporta hasn't lived up to the tight end. One could Hutchinson's injury actually helped the Lions from a fantasy perspective. Thanks. I think a good way of answering a question like this is to ask what's different. At a baseline, we know that aman Ross Saint Brown and Sam Laporta were both great fantasy assets last year. What's changed to answer that, I generally look at the team level. First. Detroit, for example, is averaging thirty point six pass attempts per game this year. That was thirty five point six last year. In neutral environments, which I define as plays run in the first three quarters when games are within six points. This year, their pass rate is about forty six percent. Last year in the regular season, it was fifty four percent. So they've been a more run heavy team in these neutral environments, these neutral script environments, and so far this year they've generally played well and hit positive game scripts. So their passing volume is lower. Now, is that the result of efficiency? I mean, yeah, they've been more efficient. They have a plus point one point five EPA per play right right now. It's according to next Gen stats. Last year that number was plus point zero three, so they're five times as effective per play right now. But they're averaging more yards per game this year than last year. Efficiency may be hurting their passing volume, but they're actually averaging an identical number of passing yards per game year over year. So the offense has been more run heavy and they've been more efficient, but that's also led to a similar number of passing yards now let's focus on Amenros Saint Brown. What that means is that if Amanas Saint Brown had an identical target share a year over year, we might expect a similar number of yards but fewer receptions, right, because the passing volume isn't there, but the yardage total is well. Saint Brown is currently averaging five fifty eight yards per game. Last year he averaged ninety five. In other words, his share of receiving yards, regardless of how much passing volume that offense has, his share of receiving yards has dropped dramatically, So there's something more going on here. This year, aman Ross Saint Brown's average type of target is point seven yards lower than last year. He's being targeted on a similar number of his routes run, but his rout participation is down by about three percentage points. His target share, it's lower, but just slightly lower by like one percentage point. So those are all very small things that are slightly contributing. His route share not that different, his target share not dramatically different, but it is slightly slightly lower. But you have to look beyond just that usage. You have to look at what's going on once the ball is in aman Ross Saint Brown's hands, So his peripherals are just slightly worse. His route share, his average depth of target, his target share, they're just slightly worse. But why are we seeing such a matic difference in overall yards per game, especially if the Lions themselves have very similar passing yards numbers year over year. It's what's going on after the catch. Right now, according to next Gen Stats, aman Ross Saint Brown has ninety two yards after the catch. He has thirty one catches on the season, He's generating less than three yards after each reception. Last year, Saint Brown's YAK per catch was five point eight. It was almost double what he's generating right now. So Saint Brown currently has a lower average depth of target and he has a much lower yards after the catch profile. Combine the two and you've got a more inefficient receiver. And you can see that by looking at yards per reception, because yards per reception all that's telling you is how many yards a player gained before he caught the ball or as he caught the ball, and then what he did after the catch. If both of those numbers are lower than aman Ross Saint Brown's yards per reception is also going to be lower, and that's exactly what's going on. Last year it was twelve point seven. This year it's nine point three. So think of it this way. Let's pretend that Saint Brown maintained his twelve point seven yards per reception this year, that what he did last year just carried over into twenty twenty four. At thirty one receptions, that would equate to three hundred and ninety four yards. That's over one hundred more yards than he currently has. Three hundred and ninety four yards equals seventy nine yards per game. That would be the second highest rate of his career. So with Saint Brown, it's not that the Lions are efficient, it's that he's inefficient, at least compared to last season. And then if you look at Sam Laporta, I think the answer for Laporte is a little bit clearer. He's just not seeing the same type of usage. In terms of target share. He has a ten percent target share in the season, ten percent. He was at twenty two percent last year. His targets per route run have gone from twenty four percent to eleven percent. Whether it's injury related or not, the bottom line is they're not using Sam Laporta the same way year over year. So to wrap this all up, is efficiency hurting the overall passing volume in this offense, Yes, the passing volume, the overall attempts. Yes. Do I think the Lions can maintain that efficiency. I think they can. But if they do, they're gonna be like a top five, top ten offense of the last six or seven years. So keep that in mind. It's not gonna be easy and the defense getting worse, or if it does get worse, that's going to increase the passing volume just naturally in the offense. But make no mistake, this is not just some efficiency problem at the team level that's playing some role here, especially from like a reception standpoint, But the passing game itself is more efficient. The overall passing yardage totals in this offense, they're pretty identical year over year. What's going on is more so the fact that Sam Brown hasn't been the same wide receiver and Laporte is used to. Ignoring the context of how much they've thrown the ball, his usage is significantly worse right now. And I know some of you are rightfully thinking, right now, oh, it's just Jamison Williams and his emergence, but I don't think that's really the case. I think that might play some role, some role in target share, especially for Sam Laporta. But remember Saint Brown, his peripherals year over year are pretty similar. They're a little bit worse, but they're also a little bit worse because it was really difficult to maintain what he did in twenty twenty three. They're still very good in the context of every wide receiver in the NFL. He's getting targeted at a very high rate, and he's seeing targets on a high percentage of his routes run. What's really happening here with Saint Brown is that he's doing a lot less after the catch, and some of that is regression related. Like, again, it was gonna be hard to do what he did last year, But I also think this has gone too far in one direction. I would imagine he's going to perform better their rest of season. Remember our sample sizes here aren't very massive. And then with Sam laport like I've been saying, the lines just aren't using him the same way. You have to hope that would naturally change too. Like I would be shocked if Sam Laporta ends this year with a ten percent target share because he's an excellent player. I just don't think that we're gonna see twenty twenty three levels. 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 starting for it pretty much anywhere podcast can be found a difference. Follow me on Twitter at Late Round QB. Thanks for listening this week everyone, I greatly greatly appreciate it. I hope you stick around for later today because there is a Late Round Perspectives episode that drops, so I hope you enjoy that, and I hope you crush it here in week seven. I'll talk to you next week