817: Mailbag 10/13/23

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Speaker 1: This is the Late Podcast with with your host JJ zacherathas j je Zacherson. What's up everyone, It's JJ Zacharyeson in this episode eight hundred and seventeen of the Late Round Fantasy Football podcast sponsored by FanDuel. Thanks for tuning in. Before we get into the mail bag questions this week, I want to send a reminder about the Late Round Fantasy Football newsletter in season. The newsletter houses the fifteen Transactions column each week, so on Tuesday mornings, not only can you fire up the fifteen Transactions podcast episode, but you can get the written form of it as well. Write to your inbox, and then I send out other newsletters too. It's where I essentially publish my articles these days, and it's totally free. Just head to Lateround dot com, click newsletter and subscribe. It's a mailbag show, let's get to it. The first question this week is from a jph Underscore GSG. It says, what do you make of Bjon Robinson so far and how do you view him going forward? He's having a good fantasy season, but it feels like it could be so much better. So I've seen some wild Bijon Robinson trades this week, or at least trade offers that people are asking me about. Robinson's currently third and running back target share behind Josh Jacobs and Christian McCaffrey. He's an RB one and PPR points per game. That's despite the fact that he's seen a running back rush share per game rate that ranks outside the top thirtieth the position among running backs with two or more games played for real Gus Edwards, Rashad White, Jamal Williams when he was active, AJ Dillon. They all have higher running back rush share per game rates. Robinson's doing what he's doing with plenty of room for growth. Imagine the Falcons just giving him a normal belcow workload, or imagine the upside he'd have if Tyler Aljeer got hurt. Now, I said this with David Montgomery last week before the Jamiir Gibbs injury happened. I almost feel like I jinx things. But people often only think about contingent upside with the lower end running back in a tandem, so people think, oh, I've got a roster Tyler Aljeer, Because if Bjeon Robinson goes down, he could be someone who has a massive spike in production. Which is valid. Hold on to your tyler Algier shares, but what happens if Algier gets hurt? Don't ignore what that could do for Bjeon Robinson when you're thinking about his overall value. I'd actually expect Bijon to likely see a bigger rush attempt workload through the rest of the season. I think it's going to increase, and we know that even if that doesn't happen, he can be in RB one in fantasy. That's what he is right now, but there's still that room for growth, and there's another out with an Algier injury. So for whatever reason, if someone in your league is willing to trade away Bjeon Robinson, go ahead and get him. This that's question is from Patreon. It's from rob It says during your Late Round Perspectives versation with Danny Kelly, you all talked about how zach Sharbonay's value would obviously skyrocket with a Kenneth Walker injury, but likely not until that. Who are your top five running backs in that category where currently the value is low but could ultimately be league winners with an opportunity. Thanks? Yeah, so we're really talking about handcuffs here, right The high end handcuffs some player who's buried on his depth chart right now, but if things break his way, if an injury occurs, he could really go to the moon. I don't think this is a situation where we're just talking about ordinary handcuffs, like what we just saw with Joshua Kelly. With Austin Eckler sidelined, the talent profile still needs to be there. You can often look at rookies for this sort of answer. Sharbonet's one, but Taj Spears is another. I said this on The Sleeper Show, but it's shocking to see how few leagues he's rostered in. The acceleration, the speed, the efficiency, it's clearly there. If Derrick Henry goes down, Spears could be a league winning play. And I think the guy that I just talked about in Tyler Algier, that's another one. I don't think his upside would be the exact same as someone like Zach Sharbonnay with an injury, but Algier is one of the most efficient backs in football last year. He's a good player. He's in a running back friendly offense, so he's still worth stashing because of that. Now you're gonna hear this episode after the Chiefs play on Thursday Night. But I almost feel the same way about someone like Jerck McKinnon. He's probably one of the more forgotten players here. He's a guy who's been a legit RB one when given the opportunity in this offense, and honestly, Zach Moss has proven to us that not only could he have short term value, but if Jonathan Taylor got hurt five six weeks down the line, Moss, in the way that he's run this season and the way that they've used him, he's very intriguing. Anyone in Miami is interesting. Maybe Eli Mitchell or Jordan Mason, maybe that type of player in San Francisco where the situation looks really, really good. And as much as I want to say Antonio Gibson, I still think think Washington would find a way to misuse him if Brian Robinson got hurt. But those are some names to throw out there as stashes. They're talented running backs who either have that talent profile or they're guys who have proven it in the past and they're in decent enough situations. This has questions from twitters from at Burner of Davy. It says is brock perty Legit is this type of efficiency sustainable? Now, I'm not surprised by this, but a lot of people just have take lock with brock Purty. If you liked him last year and you decided to buy into the hype, then you love him even more right now. If you didn't like him, then you're finding reasons to not like him now. I was skeptical last year about Purdy and even this summer in entering the season, to some degree, I didn't think the forty nine ers could maintain their rate of scoring. I still had Purdy as a late round dart throw in the draft guide because that was obviously a possibility and he was going so late in drafts, but I'd definitely didn't think that this was gonna happen, not to this degree. But look, guys, with new information, you should ad just how you view the world. If my daughter's favorite TV show is Bluey, but then she decides that this is Gabby's Dollhouse. When I turn on the TV, I'm not gonna put Bluey on first because it's not her favorite TV show anymore. It's time for some Gabby's dollhouse. I got some new information. I'm gonna use that new information, and we have new information on brock Party because he's playing more and more football. It's okay to say, hey, maybe I should have been more aggressive and open minded about brock Purty last season. Anyway, is brock Purty legit? It's very hard for me to look at what he's done this year and say that he's not legit. On the year, Party's top ten and completion percentage over expected, He's first an EPA per dropback. He's second in yards per attempt. I don't care what system you're in. That doesn't just happen now. I do think that we're down for regression. So the question about the efficiency being sustainable probably not. PERTY currently has a nine point three yards per attempt rate on one hundred and thirty six attempts. We've only seen that number get hit among three hundred plus attempt quarterbacks three times since the merger. The forty nine ers are currently averaging four offensive touchdowns per game. That's a number that's been hit just three times since twenty eleven. I think the offense is good enough to maybe maintain that, but I would be very surprised if brock Party keeps up this yards per attempt rate. So to say that those things will definitely happen this year, that's probably unfair. I wouldn't expect this to continue, but I'm fully expecting the forty nine ers to continue being one of the best offenses in football. And I think that brock Party is going to be in the MVP conversation all season long. His decision making is really, really strong. He can be a very very accurate quarterback at times. The system helps him, for sure, but you work with what you've got, and he's working. This last question from Patreon, it's from David. It says, Hey, JJ, what specifically about Sam Laporta's profile and usage has allowed him to buck the trend for rookie tight ends? Do you think he can maintain this rest of season? So, something that I wrote about in the Late Round Draft Guide this offseason was how, yes, rookie tight ends they're not great bets and redraft leagues. Historically it's been rough, but not every single rookie tight end has been bad. I wrote up Laporta as a player to target in that draft guide. I know it sounds like a victory lap here, but the write up on Laporta sort of answers this question. In the guide, I wrote the following, Rookie tight ends are usually pretty awful bets and redraft leagues. Since twenty eleven, only one first year tight end finishes a moderate breakout. Evan Ingram did it in twenty seventeen. After being drafted as a tight end seventeen, only Ingram and Jordan Reid were able to finish his top ten options in points per game as rookies. Kyle Pitts was tight end eleven. So why Laporta Rookie tight ends just don't see a ton of opportunity. It's no coincidence that the top two rookie tight end seasons and routes runs since twenty eleven came from Pitts and Ingram, players who own two of the best point per game averages from a rookie tight end over this time. Laporta, per my tight end Prospect model that's currently in beta mode, comps far more favorably to those guys than he does some ordinary tight end. In fact, only eight tight ends in that model, which dates back to twenty sixteen, ranked higher than Laporta, and two of those players were Ingram and Pitts. If you're a believer that Laporta can find the field right away and will run a good number of routes. I am, then he's not an awful dart to throw given the tight end alternatives in his range. It doesn't hurt that he's getting incredible reviews out of Lions Camp. So yeah, rookie tight ends have been bad, but rookie tight ends rarely get opportunity in the first place to showcase their talent. The assumption with the rookie tight ends are bad idea is that rookie tight ends just simply won't run routes. But what if one does. That's what we're seeing with Laporta. Not only is he a very very good player, which is gonna help things, but he's eighteenth in the NFL and tight end routes run according to Fantasy Life's utilization report, which again that's absolutely free over on fantasylife dot com. But according to Fantasy Life, Laporta's tenth in rout participation. What allowed him to buck this trend is twofold. Number one, the talent profile was there. He was a really good prospect. My tight end model loved him. Number Two, he was able to actually run routes, something that we don't always get with first year tight ends. Now there is some regression coming. He's been outrageously efficient and he's scored about double the number of touchdowns that we'd expect him to score. But because the talent and opportunity is there, he's here to stay. This Tess question says, what's the confidence level and Brian Robinson rest of season? The Commanders are giving up thirty plus points a game on defense? How often will they even be in a run heavy game? Script? Thanks? Yeah, Washington's been a really pass heavy team to start the year, and their seventh in offensive plays run while trailing, their third in offensive plays run while trailing by ten or more points, beyond only the Patriots and the Giants. That's a problem for Brian Robinson because he's run a route on thirty one percent of Washington's dropbacks of corn. To Fantasy Life data, that's a totally replacement level number. It's where Kenneth Gainwell's at. On the year. Robinson has yet to hit higher than a nine percent target share in a single game. I think if things looked okay schedule wise, and he was in a really good offense, I'd be fine with that low participation, in that low target share because these other things were making up for it. That would be okay to maybe be an RB two in some environments. The problem is that Washington's running back schedule is absolutely brutal moving forward, they had the second toughest schedule from here on out, and up until this point, they've had the absolute easiest. They faced the Cardinals, which is a top five matchup for running backs. They faced the Broncos, which before Thursday Night Football, they've been the best matchup for running backs. They faced the Bears, that's a second best matchup for running backs. Three of their five games thus far have been against bad opponents, and in those games, Robinson scored thirteen point six twenty eight point nine to eight point three PPR points, and his tougher matchups against Buffalo and Philly, he scored seven to thirteen, and that thirteen number was boosted by a touchdown. He averaged three point two yards per carry in that game. He had six receiving yards. I think that Robinson's role and his situation probably a little bit overrated right now, so I lean more towards cell than by the last question, this week is from Twitter. It says, if you were looking to upgrade a wide receiver with an eye on the playoffs, who are players that have the potential to pay off big time late in the season. So each week in the late round Fantasy Football Patreon, I posted data dump where I share my adjusted fantasy points allowed numbers and I'm gonna use those numbers to look at specifically weeks fifteen to seventeen and let you know who has the juiciest schedules. All right, According to those numbers, the team with the best schedule in the Fantasy playoffs for wide receivers the Seattle Seahawks. They get Philadelphia, Tennessee, and Pittsburgh. Not bad, so you can look at DK Metcalf or the guy that I talked about on the fifteen Transaction show, Tyler Lockett. Another team is Cincinnati. They get Minnesota, Pittsburgh, and Kansas City. So that's not a bad stretch. And I actually am kind of intrigued by T Higgins right now as a by candidate, only because people are so annoyed by him this year. We at least know the upside is there. Next then on this list is Philadelphia and San Francisco. We just happen to have really really good schedules for teams with really really good wheide receivers. But the Eagles get the Seahawks, Giants, and Cardinals. That's very juicy, so you could buy aj Brown or DeVante Smith. The only reason that schedule doesn't rank higher is because the Giants have been surprisingly okay against wide receivers and adjusted Fantasy points allowed. But that's also largely because they've had some really weird game scripts to start the year and they faced a bottom five pass rate. And by the way, I use these numbers as a guide more than anything else. I'm not just blindly following these numbers as you just saw. I'm investigating further, but it gives me a nice baseline. But with San Francisco they get Arizona, Baltimore and Washington. The Cardinals are the sixth best matchup for wide receivers right now. Washington is fifth. So overall, there are actually a lot of high end wide receivers to choose from right now if you're looking at the playoffs. That's it for today's show, though thanks to all of you for listening. If you get subscribed to the late Round fantasy football podcast. Make sure you are bestarting for it pretty much anywhere podcasts can be found, and know for it to follow me on on Twitter at Late Round QB. Thanks for listening everyone. I hope you enjoyed the Late Round Perspectives episode that drops later today. Otherwise, good luck in week six. I'll talk to you next week