658: Mailbag 7/29/22

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Speaker 1: This is the lad podcast with your host JJ zacher Resa. J J zacher Resa, what's up everyone. It's JJ Zacharyeson in this episode six hundred and fifty eight of the Late Round Fantasy Football podcast sponsored by FanDuel. Oh sorry, sorry, thanks for tuning in. Before digging in, I want to give a shout to the Established the Run podcast. The podcast is free and it's hosted by two legends in the fantasy space, Adam Levitan and Evan Silva. You probably remember them from their time at roode World. Established the Run episodes are quick, fun and packed with analysis. They cover fantasy news and reactions, rankings, how to bet, player props, best ball, and more. I think it's a great compliment to the Late Round Fantasy Football podcast because it's more conversational in nature and they cover topics that I might not cover. I'm a longtime listener and I can vouch that they know what they're talking about. So check out the Established the Run podcast anywhere you listen to podcasts, and don't forget to sign up for Fandle Fantasy. For users, you've got to make a deposit on Fandle Fantasy. You can deposit today to receive two free entries. All I have to do is deposit a minimum of ten dollars in your Fandle DFS account. You'll be instantly rewarded with two free vouchers. Be sure to deposit now and play for free. Head over to fandle dot com or download the Fandle Fantasy App today. Eligibility restrictions apply. Go to fandle dot com or download the Fandle app for more details. And then one last thing before we get going. Last week I talked about how a generous listener named Sam donated four late round Draft guides to be handed out to people who may not be in the best spot to purchase the guide. This year, after listening to that episode, another listener named Tristan wanted to do the exact same thing, So Tristan purchased four guides to be given to folks who may be in a rough spot right now. Last time, I had you Guys email podcast at lateround dot com to get the guides, and the first four people who emailed me got those guides. But that turned into a crazy influx of emails into my inbox. People were emailing me like five days after that episode launched trying to get a guide, but the guides were gone almost instantly. This time, I'm gonna do something a little bit different. I'm gonna provide a promo code to use it checkout. So go to lateround dot com right now, go to buy the draft guide, and when you check out, use promo code Tristan FTW. That's trs t an FTW. Once four people successfully use that promo code, no one else can use it. And again, this is an honor system deal. Please don't use this code if you plan on purchasing the guide or you have the means to do so. Tristan's trying to give back, and I'm thankful for his kindness. The first question this week is from Robert and it's from Patreon. It says Buccaneer's wide receiver room changed quite a bit the last couple of days. What's your reaction. My reaction is that there's a lot up in the air, but I can at least talk about what's going on in my head right now. First off, Chris Godwin somehow avoided the past the pupp List. That was a shock. But Rick Stroud, who covers the bucks for the Tampa Bay Times, he said on the Rich Eisend Show this week that the Bucks are more wishful than hopeful that Godwin is ready for Week one, and that the reason Godwin was activated was because they wanted him doing drills and doing walkthroughs instead of working with a trainer. Friend of the show, doctor Edwin Porros of Fantasy Points, He's talked about how Godwin could be back closer to early October than early September, so this all makes sense based on that timeline. But I do think the fact that Godwin isn't on the pup list that's a good thing for him. He's moving up in my rankings. I also think Mike Evans takes a slight hit with this Julio Jones signing, but he's still fine in the second round. I just would prefer him in the mid or the late second round rather than the early second round. And people are gonna think that this move with Julio Jones going to Tampa Bay, that this move is gonna make Russell Gage irrelevant. I'm not really in that boat. I do think Gage started to become a little bit overdrafted in Best Ball drafts over the last month or so, but he can play a role for the Bucks even when Godwin is healthier and Julio Jones is there. To me, I think Julio is going to be less of than every down player since we know that he's getting up there in age and he hasn't been able to stay healthy. I would expect Russell Gage to play more snaps than Julio Jones this year as long as Russell Gage is healthy. In turn, I'm expecting more volume for Gauge and with Godwin, who knows when that recovery is fully finished, who knows if he'll be himself even in November. The Julio Jones signing is sort of insurance to that too. So where I stand is that Evans is still a second rounder, but hopefully his ADP drops more into the late second round. Russell Gage, for me, is now ranked in the high forties at wide receiver, so he's a wide receiver four, maybe even a wide receiver five. Julio is about ten spots later than that. Not because of projections though. My projections like Gauge a good bit more than Julio, But at that point in your draft, you're shooting for upset and Julio Jones peripherals they haven't been that bad considering he's getting up there in age. Basically, I don't think Julio Jones is completely washed. So he's ranked lower than Russell Gage for me, but at the same time he does still have upside. And then as for Godwin, we'll just kind of see how his recovery goes. This last questions from twitters from at one two three Fantasy JK It says, morning, JJ, Welcome to hype season. How do you parse through camp reports? Ignore it all? Or are there certain things you pay more attention to in the news around training camp? So I don't think it's like wrong to get excited when beat reporters are excited about a player, it is wrong to then react strongly to that when you're actually drafting. Like if a player is getting a ton of hype but his adp rises as a result of that hype, then it's likely that the player is becoming a little bit overvalued. I say likely because that's not always the case when it's just a good player. When you're analysis is leading with talent first, that's one thing. But if it's some dude who you weren't really high on to begin with, and then all of a sudden, you change your mind strictly because a beat reporter is saying something favorable about him. That's not good process. You often can find edges when you fade small news items too, like that report about Leonard Fournette came out about his weight and everyone overreacted. His ADP then fell a little bit. I gobbled him up at that new ADP and Bestball Draft because it wasn't likely that big of a story. We weren't talking about him playing with a second team or anything. What's important is when you figure out in more detail the kind of role that players might be playing, like Isaiah McKenzie. I've been bullish on McKenzie and redraft to the point where I rode him up as a late round dart throw in the Late Round Draft Guide. He was a last round pick in Best Ball drafts who had a shot to be the Bill's top slot guy this year, and that's been a good position in fantasy. Now. There are reports that he's doing well in camp, yes, but more importantly he's been running with the ones with Jamison Crowder's sidelined, so he's getting that work in and also reportedly doing well, and that matches up pretty well with how he did last year when Cole Beasley was out, So you're just sort of putting pieces together like that. And it's a lot easier to get a player like Mackenzie a round or two earlier than usual since he's a late round pick versus like a second or third rounder. Like if there is a lot of hype around a second round pick and he went into the first round, that's a whole lot of draft capital, a whole lot of value that that player is increasing by simply because of hype. A couple of rounds at the end of your draft doesn't really matter. So I'm fine with buying into that kind of hype because it doesn't really matter. If Mackenzie doesn't actually grab hold of that slot role, it's not the end of the world. So cost does play a role in how you should react to this news as well, But overall, my overall sentiment is to continue to lead with your evaluation. Remember that beat reporters have their own biases too. It's just that if there are objective items that are being reported, like a player playing with the first team, those are the things to pay attention to. This next question is from Patreon is from Richard It says, I was thinking about the Washington backfield. Gibson sits at that running back dead zone, but does he have receiving chops to be relevant? Will machissick majorly cut into those receiving opportunities? And does Brian Robinson become a decent rotational player this year? So I looked at Fantasy Pro's consensus average draft position day of this week, and I was absolutely shocked, seriously, just completely out of my mind shocked to see that Antonio Gibson was a third round pick in half PPR formats, like he's being drafted six spots ahead of Michael Pittman. It doesn't make any sense at all. JD. McKissick absolutely caps Antonio Gibson's ceiling. His pro rated target share last year was over fifteen percent, and Gibson hasn't seen more than ten percent of Washington's targets in his two seasons in the league. Now they get Brian Robinson's a Day two pick who was a good but not great prospect, but he's definitely a well rounded back. He can steal work from Gibb and reports are out there saying that he could even steal goal line work in short yardage work from Gibson. So there's definitely a lot of concern with Antonio Gibson. He's fallen in Best Ball drafts dramatically over the last month and a half or so, so he's fine where he's being drafted there, but in home leagues it looks like he's still a pretty early round pick, and at those costs, I'm absolutely avoiding him, even though I really like him as a player. This last question from at David Toombs twenty seven, it says Zeke is currently going as RB seventeen on Underdog. In six years in the league, he has never not been in RB one. He was RB six last year even with Tony Pollard. Why isn't Zeke a mid to late second round pick. Shouldn't the offense be even more Zeke heavy with Noah Mari Cooper or Michael Gallup. I also got an email from Patrick that says, why is Ezekiel Elliott being drafted where he is? I don't understand why he's a dead zone running back? Okay, so Elliott did rank sixth overall at running back in half PPR league last year. That's what Underdog runs under and that's what a place like Fandel runs under with their best ball drafts, their half PPR drafts. But we've got to get out of this habit of looking at season long numbers, especially at running back, where that tells you more about who was healthy rather than who was good. Zeke was the RB six and half PPR scoring last year, yes, but he also played seventeen games. He was the RB sixteen. When you look at things on a points per game basis, he was Damian Harris on a points per game basis. Since twenty sixteen, when he entered the league, he's ranked second, third, seventh, fifth, fifteenth, and sixteenth and half PPR points per game. So we can sit here and say that last year only happened because he was injured, that he finished sixteenth and half PPR scoring because of that injury. And I do think the injury absolutely played a role for Zeke last year. That's definitely part of the reason he wasn't better. But he also wasn't that great in fantasy in twenty twenty either. Maybe that had to do with COVID, who knows, But you see how we're starting to make these excuses. I mean, get this over Zeke's first three years in the league. Here are his percentage of rushes that went twenty plus yards. It was four point four percent as a rookie, than two point one percent, then three point six percent. Those are all good numbers. Over the last three years, those numbers have been one point three percent, one point two percent, and one point three percent. You can see this while watching him. He's not a bad running back by any means, and he's still gaining positive yards at a decent rate. He just lacks the explosion that we once saw when he was younger. Now I don't mind Zeke as a dead zone back. I don't think in a best ball format he's a terrible pick. But I do question the upside a little bit when we're talking about a player who hasn't been as effective per game in Fantasy over the last two years, and who's now twenty seven years old, and who has a dynamic running back playing behind him. On the death chart and for the record, the argument for Tony Pollard is not necessarily an argument against Zeke. It's a wreck ignition that Pollard will have a role in the offense, and if Zeke does get hurt, the upside is absolutely there for Pollard, but with Zeke, I think people are really paying way too much attention to his floor and not his ceiling, like that's the bottom line. Yes, he probably has a good chance to meet ADP expectation, but if you're spending a second round pick on him, like this question is alluding to, then you're drafting him over who Leonard Fournette, Saquon Barkley. I mean, I wouldn't even want to take him over Nick Chubb, who has ceiling questions himself. I think Elliott's going about where he should be going. As a result, I definitely haven't faded him in Best Ball, and I would bet he goes a lot higher in your home league draft than where he's going in Best Ball drafts. I just don't think that we should be viewing him as an elite fantasy asset at this point in time. The last question this week is from at the Real p It says, how do you evaluate the Chief's wide receiver situation? Seems like people are fading Juju, hyping Sky and not talking about MVS now. Look, I really don't mind if you draft any of them at their current cost. Honestly, I love Sky, Moore as a prospect. I think he's got a lot going for him entering the NFL. Obviously, MVS is coming from a pretty good situation with Aaron Rodgers, but his skill set matches up well with Patrick Mahomes. And then there's Juju Smith Schuster. I think Juju is misunderstood in the fantasy community. I've become more and more interested in drafting him over the last month or two, and spoiler alert, I actually made him a player to target in this week's Late Round Draft Guide update. Juju Smith Schuster has fallen victim the last couple of seasons the Steelers miserable passing offense. I say miserable because it was an offense that focused on Ben Roethlisberger getting the ball out quick in order to not be pressured and to mask their awful offensive line. So Juju had this really low average depth of target over the last couple of seasons that's then resulted in poor efficiency. Since twenty eleven, there have been fifty five wide receiver seasons where the wide out had fifty or more targets and an average depth of target under seven yards. In twenty twenty, which was Juju's last full season in Pittsburgh. His efficiency numbers, like his yards per route run and his yards per target, they were just a little bit below average among that group. And for the record, his a dot was a lot lower than seven. So yeah, he wasn't dominant. But it's important to give efficiency metrics some context, and a lot of people rail against that efficiency. That's the reason they're not drafting him. He barely was seeing targets down the field. That's not just his fault. In twenty twenty, just nine point four percent of his targets went fifteen or more air yards. That's less than half of what he'd been seeing during the previous three seasons in the league. The Steelers just didn't use him down the field because that's not what the Steelers offense did, and it was infuriating. But Juju's catch rate on those throws has been pretty identical year after year. At the very least, though we know he's a touchdown threat. He scored nine of them in twenty twenty while ranking twentieth and end zone targets in seventh in red zone targets. What I'm trying to paint here is a picture of someone who, yeah, he has han't been perfect but he hasn't been that bad given his circumstances either. And as Mark has vowed as scantling perfect, are we to automatically trust a rookie in sky Moore? Is Miko Hardman going to be a thing after years of little production? Juju has by far the best resume of any of the wide receivers in Kansas City. I don't think that's debatable. Like I love sky Moore, I hope sky Moore balls out, but he's still a rookie. We have to recognize that he hasn't had the age adjusted production that Juju smith Schuster's had. The Chiefs are still projected to throw the ball good amount, especially in that division. Even if Juju smith Schuster takes on the exact same role that he had towards his tail end in Pittsburgh, you could be looking at a twenty percent target chair out of the slot in a far better offense with a far better quarterback. Oh and by the way, Juju's a sixth year player. Now he's only twenty five years old, but this is his sixth year. And if you remember from the wide receiver breakout episode, we see those players in the middle rounds hit at a really good rate. Now, I do think that there's some downside here. You have to wonder why he hasn't been in higher demand over the last couple of years as a free agent. You have to wonder why he shifted so heavily into the slot the last couple of years in Pittsburgh. Can he really be a versatile weapon? That's the question. The reason I'm bullish is because he has some of the best age adjusted production that we've ever seen at wide receiver, seriously, and he's now being placed in one of the best offenses in the league among players who aren't solidified themselves. So I don't mind taking stabs at each of those players, at each of those wide receivers. I just think Jujus Smith Schuster has the most potential in this offense, the most league winning potential. There's definitely some downside, but I want to take on that risk. That's going to do it for today's show, though. Thanks to all of you for listening. If you've got subscribed to the Late Round Fantasy Football 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. Remember to check out everything going on over on lateround dot com. Check out the draft GUYE, check out the Patreon, join the newsletter, et cetera, et cetera. Thanks for listening to everyone. Have a great weekend. I'll talk to you next week