731: Mailbag 12/23/22

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Speaker 1: This is the lad Podcast with your host JJ Zachera J Zacherson. What's up everyone, It's JJ Zacharyesen in this episode seven hundred and thirty one of the Late Round Fantasy Football podcast sponsored by FanDuel. Thanks for tuning in. Before we get into the mailbag questions this week, I want to remind you about FanDuel Faceoff. FANDEL face Off is where you compete in quick, fun games against other real people for real cash. It is all sorts of games that you're familiar with, like Home Run, Derby, Wheel of Fortune, puzzle and strategy games, and there's more on the way. Contests or action packed and lasts between two to five minutes, so you can play on your couch, waiting in line, during a commercial break, wherever, and on your schedule. Plus you can practice for free anytime, whether it be head to head, multiplayer or larger tournaments. FanDuel Faceoff has something for you. Plus, in most contests, you'll be matched against players of similar skill level, so you're never totally overmatched, even as a beginner. Face Off is also tied to your Fandel accounting wallet, so you can easily use your daily fantasy funds or sportsbook winnings in the app. Visitfandle dot com slash Faceoff or download the Fandle Faceoff app and the Apple App Store today to get in the game. Agent location restrictions apply. Voidware prohibited Seefandle dot Com slash faceoff iphe in terms for terms and conditions. The first question this week is from Patreon. It's from Andrea. It says, HEYJJ, as someone who got burned by the Chiefs defense last week, are the Texans still a team that you must start a defense against? So with my starting late round Fantasy football this year, I've been able to have more interaction with fantasy managers because I do live streams with patrons each week, but I'm also just chatting with people all day long in the Late Round Fantasy Football discord, and I've learned a lot about the type of content people enjoy and the kind of information that they want. And one thing that's been surprising to me is how much people care about defenses, the defense and special teams spot in their roster. People love to plan ahead and they definitely like to think about which defense is to use, not just in the current week, but future weeks as well. So I've done my best to provide that content for patrons this year, but I think one of the things that's still not totally clear to fantasy managers is just how much variance is involved with that defense spot in your fantasy lineup. Because defenses score points on saxon turnovers. Points allowed matters too, but a large chunk of points are coming from saxon turnovers, and turnovers especially can be pretty luck driven, and turnovers that are what create those huge spike weeks for defenses where they end up scoring touchdowns. So there's just inherently a lot of variants involved. Now, this up and down nature to defenses doesn't mean that streaming is not a viable strategy. It's absolutely worthwhile to do because while there is variance, there's even more variance if you're just using the same defense each week regardless of matchup, unless that defense is just one of the very few that you can just plug into your lineup each week. So just because there's variance doesn't mean that you can't stream. But in a given week, there's plenty of variants. Teams can have bad games, Teams may not be able to generate turnovers, and when they can't do that, they're less likely to have those big weeks. I don't think the Texans are a bad matchup all of a sudden because of what happened last week against the Chiefs or even the Cowboys the week before where Dallas scored just four standard points. We still have a larger sample of the Texans being an attractive team to target. Now. Do I think the Titans are locked in as a top defense this week? Not necessarily because there are a ton of good defenses to choose fro them. But I'm not looking at one or two weeks and saying a team isn't worth targeting, especially when that team is using Davis Mills and Jeff Driscoll at quarterback. I basically don't think any streaming defense is a must start because there's too much volatility with defensive scoring. We just have to look at this with the probability lens instead. Defenses against the Texans are still objectively not bad plays. They've just had mediocre results over the last two weeks. This says questions from at CGM Chris thirty three. It says curious how draft prep changes for six point per touchdown pass leagues. Does that make getting an elite quarterback more of a priority. I had Kyler this year, and it seems like almost every week I was getting outscored at that position by twenty plus points. So part of the problem for you probably this year is that Kyler Murray just didn't separate himself enough from the pack this season. Statistically, you realistically could have gotten Jalen Hurts with a similarist draft pick, and you probably wouldn't feel nearly as bad at the quarterback position if that was the case. So the pick itself is part of the problem. Now, I did do a study on six point per passing touchdown leagues in the past. It was a handful of years ago, and the game has changed a bit since then, but the gist of it was that it did make sense to lean into more pocket passers than the mobile guys, at least compared to how we usually do it, because pocket passers tend to throw more touchdowns than the more mobile quarterbacks do. Now I'm not necessarily talking about like Josh Allen here, and some mobile quarterbacks can have big passing touchdown seasons, but it makes players like twenty twenty two Justin Fields a little bit less valuable this season in particular is a little bit different too, which is why you're seeing the numbers that you're seeing. I'll talk about this a lot more in the off season, but offense is kind of sucked this year, and that's given us fewer usable quarterbacks, which has made the elite quarterbacks even more valuable. Now, I've been talking about the death of the late round quarterback strategy for years now on this show, and it was in my draft guide how getting higher end quarterbacks makes a lot more sense nowadays than it did in like twenty eighteen or twenty nineteen. But then on top of that, this year we're seeing worse base lines, which means if you have those quarterbacks, if you have a Jalen Hurtz or a Patrick Mahomes or a Josh Allen, your edge is more significant than it would have been in a different season, even if they had scored the same number of points. Now. I'm absolutely going to dig more in to this during the offseason. For now, just know that the quarterback position as a whole, it doesn't necessarily gain immense value with six points per touchdown pass. It does gain some, but people generally overstate that side of things. They end up taking Josh Allen. First, overall, what's more important is the type of quarterback that gains value. This best question is from Patreon. It's from Rico. It says, Hey, JJ, thanks to all your advice and your process, I was able to make the playoffs this year. How does your process change when picking up players and your decision making for your lineups during the playoffs? Now? I got another question from Twitter from at Fantasy Burners zero two that says, in the fantasy playoffs, are you still more likely to roll with your studs even if they have been massively underperforming? Or do you take a chance with a lower ranked player who's been hot or expecting an increased workload due to an injury. So, look, this whole idea of start your studs is absolute garbage. It's a really annoying saying in the fantasy world because even in this question that you're asking, you're saying, are you still more than likely to roll with your studs even if they have been massively underperforming? Doesn't that tell you that they're not actually studs? I mean, there are some guys out there who are going to have a down game or two, like Davante Adams. You're not gonna bench Devonte Adams, But you're not benching Devonte Adams because he's in a good matchup, he's likely going to see a high target share, and he's been a stud for the majority of the season. How are we defining studs? I think that's my problem with this idea. Is a stud just a name? Because a lot of times I think that's the case, and that's a problem. That's a huge problem. Your process should not dramatically change just because it's the Fantasy playoffs. It's still the same game that you've been playing all year. If anything changes, it's how you're managing your bench. You don't need flyers anymore. You don't need to fill your bench with players who may do well later in the season because we're in that part of the season. So you can roster multiple quarterbacks, you can roster multiple defenses. So how you manage your bench definitely changes. How you set your lineup, though. In your standard, non tournament style fantasy league, just do the same thing. Do what got you there, and please don't start players just because they have a big name if they're not actual studs, if they haven't performed for most of the season. You don't have to play them. The sast question is from at B. Burtonier. It says, what would you call the strategy of my opponent who picked up all of the free agent quarterbacks after I lost Jalen Hurts, I'm gonna end up starting brock Purdy because he picked up Minshew Wilson and Rogers. Now, look, I'm not saying you're getting upset here, but I've seen other fantasy managers on Twitter on social media get really upset when other fantasy managers do this. But it's just smart strategy. It's not breaking the rules, it's playing the game. You should always be looking to block your opponent, especially during the playoffs. Now you still it came away with a decent enough quarterback. I would have potentially even taken that a step further. I would have probably tried to get brock Purty. But what do I call this strategy? I call it smart. This nice question is from at Ruth the Goat. It says, when you're making start sit decisions, what are the most important weather aspects you're looking at? And does it matter per position? Yes, it definitely matters per position. Generally speaking, you want to pay attention to wind win can obviously impact kicking, but it can impact a team's passing game dramatically. And while win does impact running backs a little bit less, you have to keep in mind that when passing games are impacted, the whole game is impacted. Teams score fewer points, which means running backs have less of a likelihood to find the end zone. But high wins, if you're seeing over twenty mile an hour wins, that's bad news for that game from a fantasy standpoint, And that's why we're seeing these over unders this week. Look the way that they look because a lot of these spots are going to have snow and rain, yes, but there's also the potential for high wins. When it comes to rain and snow. You should be really concerned when there's a lot of it, like huge downpours, huge snowstorms. But even with the snow, you have to remember that defenses are playing in it too. When an offense knows where they're moving, a wide receiver knows which route they're running. When they know where they're moving, then they have an advantage over the defense because the defense has bad footing and that results in offensive players getting open. But yeah, I mean if snow is blasting you in the face and you can't move. That can impact things as well. But FanDuel Sportsbook can be your friend. Throughout all of this, watch the line movement, see where things are trending because sharp people are placing bets, and these sharp people have studied the impact that weather has on these games. When a line doesn't dramatically move, I'm less concerned about how weather's going to impact that game. If a game opens at like forty five points and it falls to thirty eight, then yeah, we should be a little bit worried about that situation. The last question this week is from at Babzel one seventy nine. It says I wanted to ask how your seasons have been so far? How are you doing in your leagues? How would you rate your draft rankings in hindsight? Did your view on specific things or players changed throughout the season. Thanks as always, have a great Christmas, bro you too. So you guys know that I really care about being objective with my takes on this podcast. If they were good, I'll talk about it. If they were bad, I'll talk about it. The goal here is to get better, not to just sit here and pretend like things are perfect or that I don't get anything wrong. I'm a fantasy en list. I'm gonna get things wrong all the time. It's silly to pretend otherwise. Now, in January, I'll be doing my yearly shows on the things that I got right and the things that I got wrong. On those shows, I walked through my biggest hits and misses of the year, and I talk about my process that led me to those decisions. So please just understand that I will be getting to all this very very soon. But to answer your question, I'd say I'm having a pretty average year in my lee It was really looking strong in like week five or week six, and then that Breesee Hall injury hit. I had him in so many spots this year, and then Cooper Cup getting hurt. That wasn't very funny either, But overall, a pretty average year in my leagues. Now, as for how my pre draft rankings went, I'd say those were pretty average too. I had some hits, I had some misses. I hopefully gave people an edge, but I don't think the edge was so amazingly significant on the rankings front. I am proud about the game theory stuff, though, I think the strategy side was still pretty strong this year, But the rankings themselves, yeah, they were pretty average. But where I think I did pretty well this year as an analyst was the n season management being a week ahead on players like Justin Fields and Christian Watson. To me, those moves go a little bit more unnoticed because we put such a huge emphasis on the draft, although I did like drafting Justin Fields this year, but in season management is so important, and I think, for the most part that went pretty well this year. So I'd say it was average on the rank though if you throw the prospect work into it, I think the prospect work that I did this year was some of my best, and I'm really proud of that. I'm really excited to do that Prospect guide again. But it was average on the season long ranking side. It was average regarding how my individual teams are doing, and then I think there were some good hits when it came to end season management. Now maybe some of you disagree. That's the thing, like, you may only have gone with one or two of my recommendations this year, and if both of those recommendations ended up sucking, then you probably think I had a bad year. You probably don't like me. You probably went on Reddit and said that JJ zach Reason is a terrible fantasy analyst. But if you took my advice about Christian Watson, let's say, then you probably think I had an amazing year. That's just kind of how this goes. I'm just trying to look at this at a higher level. That's my general assessment right now. We still got two more weeks, though, Let's see how things finish up. That's going to do it for today's show, though. Thanks to all of you for listening. If you get subscrib to the Late Round Fantasy Football podcast, make sure you are by searching for it pretty much anywhere podcasts can be found, and know to follow me on Twitter at Late Round QB. Thanks for listening this week. Everyone, have a great holiday weekend, enjoy some football, enjoy some family time. I'll be back in your ears next week