376: Mailbag 5/22/20

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Speaker 1: This is the lad Podcast with your host JJ zacher Retha j J zacher reson.

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Speaker 2: What's up everyone?

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Speaker 1: It's JJ Zachares and the editor in chief at FanDuel and at number fire dot com. And this is episode three hundred and seventy six of the Late Round Podcast, all of the many shows that are part of the FanDuel podcast network.

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Speaker 2: Thanks for tuning in.

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Speaker 1: Before diving into today's questions, I want to let you guys know that for this Sunday's Champions for Charity golf match featuring Tiger Woods and Tom Brady on one team and Phil Mickelson and Peyton Manning on the other, Fandel Sportsbook has you covered. For new users, Fandel is running an incredible odds boost on the match. If you sign up for Fandel Sportsbook right now, you can bet either duo at an insane ten to one odds that's one hundred dollars payout on a max bet of ten dollars. If you're ready to claim your ten to one odds boosts and you're located in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, or Indiana, just download the Fandel Sportsbook app and be sure to sign up with my promo code. Match that's Fandel's sportsbook promo code match. Must be twenty one years or older and president of New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Indiana. First online wager only, must wager and designated to offer market ten dollars minimum first deposit required, one hundred dollars max bonus gambling problem called one hundred gambler and in Indiana call one hundred and nine with it. The first question this week, as an email, says JJ, hope all is well. I hope all is well with you too. Have you identified any groups of players that are being highly overvalued or undervalued based on early average draft position data. This is basically just asking who your models have identified as busts and breakouts for this upcoming season based on people's perceived value of these players. Looking forward to hearing what you think. Thanks, Jimmy D.

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Speaker 2: So.

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Speaker 1: I went over some of these players on Monday show on Insights that I discovered when I was building projections, So some of this will sound familiar, But I'm looking at best Ball adp here and I'm looking at just the month of May, so this is post draft adp But I'll give you five of each, five underrated and five overrated players, and I'll focus on the early rounds since most late round picks are tough to be overvalued. I won't go deep into the analysis side, but I'll at least give you an answer here, and this answer can absolutely change as we move forward through this summer. By the way, now, from an undervalued standpoint, the first player that caught my eye in the early rounds was Miles Sanders. You've got Austin Eckler, Aaron Jones, Josh Jacobs, and Kenyan Drake all going ahead of Miles Sanders, when I'd probably put Sanders above each of those players, mostly because we saw the upside last year. If you're a believer like I am at the Eagles, backfield won't be split like we've traditionally seen under Doug Peterson, and we're more in store for what happened at the end of last year when Sanders balled out and had three top ten performances across his final five games. Then you've got to think that Sanders is undervalued. Juju Smith Schuster is a pretty big value to me as well. I'm prepared for a bounce back season for Juju. With Ben Roethlisberger back under center. I'm also on Alvin Ridley for reasons that I talked about on the show earlier this week, So I think that he's a nice value. So that's three guys, Miles Sanders, Juju, and Calvin Ridley. Robert Woods at pick forty nine is pretty wild to me, especially when compared to Cooper Cup, who's going twenty picks ahead of him. Cooper Cup is one of my overrated picks here, so I'll talk about him for a second. You have to be a little bit nervous about the fact that Cup's production dipped when the RAMS shifted to more twelve personnel last year, and that included a snap share that dropped by about ten percent. And then the last guy that I'll say who's undervalued is Devonte Parker. He looked pretty good in my projections, as did Preston Williams, so I think that he's undervalued at his current cost. People aren't buying into what he did during the second half of last year. But I'm looking for upside now on the overvalued end, I've got to start with Lamar Jackson. I'll be doing a show for Monday on Jackson's value in fantasy football after his record breaking year last season. But here's a spoiler. He's overvalued Austin Eckle. There's overvalue two. In my opinion based on the stuff that I talked about earlier in the week. I already talked about Cooper Cup. That's number three. And here are two more names for you, Darren Waller and AJ Brown. I love AJ Brown. I talked about that earlier in the week. Consensus rankings on Fantasy Pros have AJ Brown at wide receiver seventeen, but the best ball data that I'm looking at here over on bestballtens dot Com has AJ Brown at wide receiver fourteen, right after DJ Moore and right before Juju Smith Schuster. Brown's an awesome dynasty asset who you should be targeting, but you have to worry about the type of volume that he's going to see in the Titans offense. You have to also worry about the offense's overall regression and then his own regression in yards per target. And then with Darren Waller, I do have some volume concerns. So those are my picks with the early round guys or the earlier round players. Again, these can change, but that's where my head's at right now. This does questions from at Jojo Lewis five six seven JJ. On your recent podcast, you mentioned that you were concerned about Leonard Fournett's volume next year because Jacksonville tried to trade him this offseason. Question why would this fact potentially limit his touches next season? Same player, same opportunity. Thanks, Yeah, I think this is a very fair call out. I wasn't super detailed when I said that, so I'm glad that you're bringing this up. Jay Gruden is the offensive coordinator in Jacksonville. Now we don't know exactly how he's going to deploy Leonard Fournette this year. And let's be honest here, it's gonna be hard for Leonard Fournette to simply maintain the type of market share numbers that he had last year. He had almost eighty six percent of Jacksonville's running back rushes in fifteen games, with about an eighteen percent target chair. So of course, if he sees similar volume this year, he'd be a really good fantasy asset. Anyone with that type of volume, and with the positive touchdown regression that's coming for him, anyone would be a good fantasy asset. But there's a new offensive coordinator, volume could be distributed differently, and to the point about them wanting to trade him, it doesn't exactly give you a ton of confidence that he's going to see tons and tons of volume if the team was looking to get rid of that player. Yes, it's a business like I think that you could easily argue that the market is overreacting about Leonard Fournette, that he's almost a value, but there are plenty of questions about his volume this season, especially since the workload last year was so so dramatic and so so good.

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Speaker 2: This last question is from at.

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Speaker 1: Kyle B nine to ninety nine love the Rewind episode last week.

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Speaker 2: Thanks.

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Speaker 1: How does being in a fourteen team league change late round quarterback strategy still worth it? Yeah, it's still worth it. You could argue it's a more effective strategy in a fourteen team league. People seem to get fixated on the fact that two more quarterbacks are being started across leagues like this each week. But you've got more running backs and more wide receivers too, if anything, Shallower leagues is where you'd get away with going early round quarterback more like if you're in an eight team league, then that means that your team has to be really good in order for you to win. Every single team in that league is going to be good, so there's more of a need to win at every position. Of course, that also means that replaceability is higher. It's easier to find guys off the waiver wire, and you can wait forever at the position during your draft, so the opportunity cost equation changes too. But I think the argument is stronger for going early round tight end and quarterback in shallower leagues than it is in deeper ones because of those reasons, mostly supply and demand related reasons. Don't change the strategy if you've got two extra teams. This next question says, hey, JJ, thank you by the way for always being so accessible.

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Speaker 2: You're welcome. Thanks, you are really awesome. Wow, thank you.

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Speaker 1: You talked on the Wednesday rewind episode about how that top tier might be worth it at the right value, but then the middle tier tight ends not really being worth it. I'd like to apply this concept this season. What would you say is that top tier this year? I know you're a little down on Ertz, so is he included in that tier? Is Mark Andrews? Anyone else?

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Speaker 2: Matt? Yeah?

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Speaker 1: So historically for any of you who didn't listen to the rewind episode this week, but historically, middle round tight ends suck. I did buy into some of them last year in some leagues, and I totally regretted it. The data screams at us that middle round tight ends aren't very good. And what I really mean when I say middle round tight ends, I'm mostly referring to the guys after the elite tier that seems to get formed every single year. So basically this season, my projections have Kelsey and Kittle in that tier.

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Speaker 2: That's it.

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Speaker 1: I wouldn't really consider Andrews, who's my tight end three, a part of that tier. And as you mentioned, I'm not super high on zach Ertz, but getting an elite tight end typically isn't my approach in fantasy football drafts. I almost always go late round tight end, and I like a lot of the later round tight end options this year, so that's gonna be my go to strategy once again. This as questions from at Tyler Strong ninety five. We know Baltimore is due for regression, but do any of their tertiary receiving options project out as surprising producers? In spite of that, the only pass catch is in Baltimore, who I'm interested in rafting in a normal fantasy league, so not a Best ball league. The only pass catchers I want are Hollywood Brown and Mark Andrews. It's really really hard to find volume for the secondary options in that offense, even if you're a believer like I am that the Ravens are going to be a little bit more pass heavy this season. It's not that I think a player like Devin DuVernay can't emerge and be relevant in fantasy. It's just that I think that it might not be evident right away, and that's the type of player that you can usually find on the waiver wire. I'm down with Marcus Brown. I've got Mark Andrews as my tight end three. But outside of that, it's hard to buy into Miles Boyken or DuVernay or anyone else in that passing attack when we're likely looking at fewer than five hundred pass attempts on offense this season. This has questions from at uncle Jeff Colts head coach Frank Reich's comments about a one to two punch with Mac and Taylor, plus saying Hines will get ten plus catches a game. Has to be all coach speak, right or do the numbers support this three headed running back hydra. Okay, so let's first look at history here. Since eleven, we've had twenty four running backs selected in the second round of the NFL Draft. This does not include this year's draft because we don't have any data on this year's running back since the season hasn't happened yet. Among those twenty four, the average rush attempts per season is one hundred and twelve and that includes three players who didn't even play their rookie season because of injury. Take them out, and then average jumps to one hundred and twenty nine rush attempts, and then with targets, they've averaged twenty five per season with those guys in twenty eight without them, their running back rush share is thirty five percent, and this is without the three players that were injured, while their target share is five percent. Basically, this just says what we already know, and that's that Jonathan Taylor is likely to be involved in some way. Second round running backs are usually involved in some way, shape or form. The majority of running backs drafted in the second round have seen at least one hundred carries during their rookie season. We may think that running back talent isn't that big of a deal. Running Backs in the NFL are relatively replaceable, so it's easy to just push aside talent and not worry about it much in face fantasy football. But talent is still going to drive opportunity at the position, and opportunity means everything. Even if the difference between Jonathan Taylor and Marlon Mack for the Colts won't be that significant for the Colts team itself, a coach can see talent discrepancy and say, we can't take Jonathan Taylor off the field. And if they can't take Jonathan Taylor off the field, he's gonna score a lot of fantasy points. And I think that's a very real possibility here. Marlon Mack is good, but he's not Jonathan Taylor good. Jonathan Taylor is one of the best running back prospects, at least analytically.

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Speaker 2: That we've seen over the last decade.

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Speaker 1: It's unfair to say that Marlon Mack is just as good, or I should say it would be unfair to at least not recognize the crazy amount of talent upside with Jonathan Taylor. Maybe the intent is to split the backfield on early downs, But my expectation is that Jonathan Taylor will eventually emerge. But I should be clear, historically, the numbers aren't totally on his side to be a workhorse in year one. Among Round two and Round three running backs over the last nine seasons, only five of them had two hundred or more carries during their rookie year. That's five of fifty or ten percent of the players. I just see Taylor as that elite of a prospect where it's reasonable to think that he can be in that ten percent. Now, the thing about Nahim Hines, I don't want the quote that was said in that I read to be twisted. He didn't say that Hines would see ten plus catches per game. He said quote, it wouldn't surprise me if there's a game this season that Naim Hines has ten catches. He's not projecting Hines for one hundred and sixty catches. He's saying there could be a game where Hines catches ten balls. Because of Philip rivers tendency to throw to the running back position, which is something that I've outlined a few times on this show. Rivers teams have ranked in the top six and running back target share in six of the last nine seasons, and they've been in the top three and five of them. Personnel can dictate this, though, and Rivers has had some really good pass catchers to throw to in the backfield, so this is likely not all on Philip Rivers, but I do think that we see a bump and target share to the running backs in the Colts offense. What I do think Reich's comments about Hines tell us, though, is that Jonathan Taylor's year one pass catching ceiling might be capped. We can go back and forth talking about Taylor's pass catching ability, but if the Colts use Hines, that inherently limits Jonathan Taylor's upside period. So those are my takes on this backfield. I think Taylor's talent will be undeniable for early down work, but I do worry a little bit about what his pass catching ceiling might look like. This last question is from at FFMZ one two three four. Kevin Stefanski moving to coach the Browns has huge implications for Nick Chubb, should he now be considered a top tier RB one in the Derrick Henry range. Does Dalvin Cook take a slight blow to his usage because of Stefanski leaving. I think this is a very good example of probably overstating offensive coordinator data. First off, our sample size for Kevin Stefanski is small. I think he's gonna want to run an offense that's schematically similar to what we saw in Minnesota.

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Speaker 2: But to take that to the next level and.

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Speaker 1: Say that Nick Chubb is going to have Dalvin Cook like numbers, I think that's a little bit extreme. I mean, realistically, this question is asking whether or not Nick Chubb can see a target share like Dalvin Cook's. Because Chubb's rushing share last year was one of the best in football, It's hard to really get any better than the fourth best running back rush share in the league. So this is about target share. Chubb had a sub ten percent target share in sixteen games, and that number was worse when Kareem Hunt was back in the mix. Dalvin Cook played fourteen games and he had a fourteen point three percent target share. But this is where I think that we can overstate the Stefanski effect. I'm not saying it's impossible for Chubb to get more work as a receiver but Dalvin Cook wasn't competing for targets with a Kareem Hunt level running back last year. You have to factor in personnel when you're looking at this stuff, and just in general, the Vikings saw game scripts last year that the Browns are unlikely to face this year.

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Speaker 2: The scheme may look.

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Speaker 1: Simil similar, but who's accumulating points and how they're accumulating points, that's where things can look different. Like it's fine if you want to put Nick Chubb and Derreck Henry's tier. The way those two guys can pile points in fantasy football is likely going to be similar this year, but I don't think it's because of Kevin Stefanski. Nick Chubb was already getting a lot of work on the ground even when Kareem Hunt came back last season. Maybe not to the degree that we saw pre Hunt, but it was still strong. And actually Chubb's per game running back rush share with Kareem Hunt last year was seventy percent. Dalvin Cooks in games where he finished was sixty three percent. Now, some of this has to do with game script and the Vikings resting Dalvin Cook all of that short, but let's not pretend that Dalvin Cook's rush share was so dramatically different than Nick Chubb's even with Kareem Hunt.

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Speaker 2: So again, this comes down to.

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Speaker 1: Receiving, and to me, the bigger deal is that Nick Chubb has Kareem Hunt in that backfield for the entire season. Dalvin Cook never had a Kareem Hunt type running back Chubb Seymour receiving volume even with Hunt. Sure, am I gonna dramatically bump him up because of Kevin Stefanski being the Browns head coach. No personnel should be driving those decisions more than a small sample coaching tendency. That's gonna do it for today's show. Thanks to all of you for listening. If you've got to subscribed to the Late Round podcast, make sure you are by searching for it pretty much anywhere podcasts can be found, and don't forget to follow me on Twitter at Late Round QB.

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Speaker 2: Thanks everyone. I hope that you're all staying safe and I'll talk to you next week