992: Insights From Building Projections

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Speaker 1: This is the Lab podcast with your host JJ Zachertha j J zacher refa. What's up everyone, It's JJ Zacharyeson in this episode nine ninety two of the Late Round Fantasy Football podcast sponsored by DraftKings.

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In Connecticut, help is available for problem gambling called eight eight eight seven eight nine seven seven seven seven or visit CCPG dot org eighteen plus and most eligible states, but age varies by jurisdiction. Eligibility restrictions apply void where prohibited. One per customer enter the Best Ball fifteen million dollars Headliner contest by nine to four to twenty five to get one bonus entry. Twenty dollars Entry fee required, Reward expl in thirty days. See terms at DraftKings dot com. Slash NFL dash Best dash Ball sponsored by dk SO. Today's episode is what I do every year every April I build out my player projections, and no, for the record, I don't publish those projections. They're not out there for all of you to consume. I talk about this at length and the draft guy that I do each year, But projections, to me are more about getting a good grasp on the fantasy landscape, not to have some precise number that I'm forced to draft off of. The truth is, projections take a lot of maintenance for them to be super accurate. When I worked at Number Fire back in the day, we actually had a projection czar shout out Sam House. He would go in there and it would make sure that all eyes were dotted and t's were crossed every single day, like a person dedicated to doing that daily. Considering the variance of fantasy football, that's just not how I personally am gonna spend my time. So while I do feel good about my projections and the process I go through and building them, I don't publish them because it just takes a lot a lot of time to stay on top of them. Instead, I kind of want to just go in there and make changes whenever I have free time to do so. But like I said, I still build out projections mostly because the process of doing so can uncover some really interesting things about the fantasy football landscape, and as usual, it did that for me once again this year. So on today's episode, I'll be talking about ten things that I found while building projections this year. Some of them are more surprising than others, but there were sort of my biggest takeaways from building them. So that being said, let's get to item number one. One of the things I've gone on and on about over the last six years or so is how the quarterback landscape has totally changed since I originally wrote the Late Round Quarterback Ebook back in twenty twelve. Man, I'm old there are more mobile quarterbacks than ever before. That raises the floor for so many quarterbacks in fantasy. But those mobile quarterbacks are also great passers. That elevates players like Josh Allen, Jalen Hurts, and Lamar Jackson every single year, and now probably Jayden Daniels too. That makes them both predictable. We know who the top quarterbacks are generally gonna be, but also valuable because they're at least giving you some sort of points per game edge. The only way something like this will change, the only way we go back to an obvious late round quarterback strategy is if we see an influx of these dual threat passers, because hypothetically, if we had twelve Lamar Jackson's, there'd be no reason to take Lamar Jackson in round three. You can just wait to get him. We're not there yet. But I bring all this up because I think the twenty twenty four quarterback class, the one that we just saw for the first time last season. I think there's a chance we see a couple of those quarterbacks give us really strong fantasy seasons here in twenty twenty five. Caleb Williams is the one who stood out most in my projections. You heard about this if you listen to this week's episode of Becoming a Best Ball bro But mytions love Caleb Williams. Like, if you'd rather not take a shot on one of the pass catchers in Chicago because you feel like it's a crowded room, at least throw a pick at Williams this year, because he's gonna be capturing all of that receiving production anyway. Williams gets the offensive scheme upgrade they've invested in the offensive line, he's gonna be throwing to Roman Dunsay, DJ Moore, Luther Burden, Colston Lovelin, and Cole Koment. Now, admittedly, just like I've talked about with a Doonsay, I think we need to at least have an open mind about where things could go with Williams. He had a yards per attempt rate of six point three as a rookie. Let me just read you the three hundred plus attempt rooie quarterback since twenty eleven who finished their rookie season with a rate below six point five. So it's a good bit higher than where Williams was at. Bryce Young, Aidan O'Connell, Kenny Pickett, Trevor Lawrence, Zach Wilson, Josh Allen, who is at six point four to eight yards per attempt, Josh Rosen, Deshaun Kaiser, Carson and Wentz, Blake Bortles, Derek Carr, ej Manuel Mike Lennon, and Blaine Gabbert. Like most things in football, how a quarterback performs during his rookie season, it's usually predictive of how things are gonna go throughout their career.

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Speaker 2: Usually, but exactly like that.

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Speaker 1: Gray Area Fantasy Football episode that I was talking about last week, cost has to be a factor here too. Williams right now is being ranked at QB thirteen over on Fantasy Pros, DraftKings, Bestball Leagues. Watch them fall off draft boards at QB eleven close to pick one hundred. That's not some insane investment when you look at the upside, because, just like his young wide receiver his potential top target this year, we know that things weren't all butterflies and rainbows for that offense in twenty twenty four, and we know Williams has a lot of talent. That's why he went first overall last year. And most importantly, in the fantasy discussion, you're gonna be looking at Williams among other quarterbacks who don't have the same rushing prof Williams is going after Jared Goff and Justin Herbert according to Fantasy Pros rankers, which, by the way, Jared Goff has to be the most overrated quarterback in every format right now. But I'll save that take for another day. But just last year, Caleb Williams finished ninth in the NFL in rushing yards per game at quarterback, even without a rushing touchdown, he had almost three points per game with his legs. Combine that with the passing potential with Ben Johnson. I'm gonna chase that ceiling outcome all day long with him, especially when his projection his median outcome puts him firmly in the top ten for me. But I'm also going to be in on the other more dual threat second year quarterbacks as well, Drake may He didn't project as well as Kayleb Williams did, but he averaged more rushing yards and more rushing points per game than Williams last year, and he gets the hopeful coaching upgrade with way better weapons year over year. Now, bo Knicks was already a good fantasy asset last year, and quarterbacks who scores seventeen or more points per game as rookies since twenty eleven, they've given us really good hit rates through the years. Bo Nix was at eighteen point seven and Knicks almost gave us four points per game with his legs. And then another second year quarterback, JJ McCarthy. Now, aside from having an elite first name, he looks really good in my projections too. I think he's undervalued right now in redraft when you consider Kevin O'Connell he's been in Minnesota for three years now. In those three seasons, the Vikings have ranked ninth, fifteenth, and eighth in offensive touchdowns per game, and that includes a season where Minnesota started Nick Mullins, Josh Dobbs, and Jaren Hall, and nine of their seventeen regular season games they've had multiple quarterbacks tons of different quarterbacks during that time. That's why McCarthy's projection looks good because it stems from the fact that the numbers expect Minnesota to still be pretty good offensively overall. I'm just in on these second year low end QB ones into that QB two range. I'm into those second year quarterbacks. They're the right kind of bets to make. Thankfully, my projections generally see that too. No one probably wants to hear this because of how he burned people last year, but my projections they love Christian McCaffrey. But then again, why wouldn't they. CMC's problem isn't what he can do when he's healthy, it's that he just hasn't been healthy.

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Speaker 2: Last year was a roller coaster with how.

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Speaker 1: Things started and ended, but it does feel like people are just burying him right now that he's done for because of last year, when in twenty twenty three he not only stayed healthy all year, but he completely broke Fantasy football CMC only trails b Jean Robinson in my initial projections for twenty twenty five.

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Speaker 2: That's it. Now.

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Speaker 1: I'm not ranking it that way, but that's mostly because again there's injury worry, and there's the potential age cliff too. But with San Francisco being weak defensively, it wouldn't shock me if we see more pass heavy scripts with the forty nine ers in twenty twenty five. And if that happens, give them the fact that Brandon Ayu could start slow to to his injury, Deebo Samuel's now gone MC could realistically go nuts like consistent target sharers in the twenty to twenty five percent range. So I think there's just so much upside there to warrant his current cost over on DraftKings, which is often into round two late round one. I actually think that's kind of a value, but of course I would understand if you would just rather not.

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Speaker 2: I have a prediction. I think by the.

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Speaker 1: Time August rolls around, Xavier Worthy is going to be one of the more controversial wide receivers in fantasy football. His season sort of had two parts. From Week one to ten, according to PFF, his yards per route run rate was just point eight nine. That's abysmal. But after that point and through the playoffs, that yards per route run rose to one point nine to six, which is really really strong for a rookie wide receiver. Now, sometimes variance is the reason for something like that, or a player just gets better, especially when that player is a rookie. Sometimes it's both. I don't think this is just variance, but I do think Worthy got better at the position during the second half of the season, but he also was used differently. The Chiefs went from giving Worthy and average at the target close to twelve yards during that first split that fell to seven point eight after Week ten.

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Speaker 2: His deep ball rate was cut nearly in half.

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Speaker 1: Now, a lot of us figure that Worthy would play a field stretching role for the Chiefs, but they started using him closer to the line of scrimmage down the stretch last year, and that scares me a little bit because those lower A dot targets are the ones that Rashi Rice usually gets. Now, Rice played a little over half of his time out of the slot when Worthy was at thirty five percent last year. But the odds that Worthy sees a higher a DOT this year versus last year, at least during the second half of last year, it seems pretty likely. As long as Rashi Rice is healthy and playing, and my projections just start in love with that, they've got Worthy more in wide receiver three range. Now I've bumped him up a little more subjectively and manually in my actual rankings, and those rankings they can be found over on my Patreon. Just go to lateround dot com and click Patreon. There's obvious contingent upside with Worthy, and he's a second year player, so I'll subjectively bump him up a little bit.

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Speaker 2: But I think.

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Speaker 1: Worthy is a pretty vaatile asset in all formats. Right now, the projections weren't in love, and I was kind of surprised by that. Something that needs to be said about projections is that you don't just click a button and everything's all of a sudden done for you. Like I said at the top, there's a lot of maintenance involved in keeping things up to date. There's a lot of research that needs to go into properly projecting things like target share, and rush share for all of these players. It's why, though sometimes see wildly different projections from one source to another. It's a difference in opinion on how a team might divvy up their touches. And one spot where I'm once again interested in is in la. I probably wasn't high enough on Kyron Williams last year, but I'll tell you what, when you're building out projection, you really do see how fragile his situation is. I talked about this on the Becoming a Best ball bro episode that dropped yesterday, But Sean mcvay's teams have ranked thirty second, thirty second, thirty first, thirty second, thirtieth, and thirty second in running back target share over the last six seasons. Williams has been great in fantasy over his last two, but there's no doubt that his receiving upsides capped. And it kind of was last season too. He only had a seven point nine percent target share, and that was on a Rams team that lost Cooper Cup and Puka Akua for an extended period of time last year. What happens with Devonte Adams in the mix? Williams is one of those cases where his projection it does look fine, but it would be hard for me to sit here and say his projection isn't fragile when he's projected to see one of the highest rush shares in football. Shore He's gonna look fine in a spreadsheet. But what happens if the Rams decided to mix things up a little bit more than they did last year when there's not easily projectable receiving work that makes the running back asset super super volatile.

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Speaker 2: So Williams projection does look.

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Speaker 1: Fine, but it looks fine with the assumption that the Rams keep feeding him the way they fed him, and with Blake Korham being there and the addition of Jarques Hunter. You guys know, I like a lot. There's at least some path here where his rush share slips by say ten percentage points. That's not a substantial amount, but that would be more than enough to drop him a tier or two in fantasy. This is where building projections can really open your eyes to a player's range of outcomes. Now, I'm gonna stick with the Rams theme here and talk about newcomer DeVante Adams. Phukanakua naturally looks good in my projections, but Adams looks really really good too. Now I've been doing Best Ball drafts over on draftings, he's often getting drafted in that wide receiver seventeen to wide receiver twenty range.

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Speaker 2: I have him ranked right now.

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Speaker 1: At wide receiver fifteen, but his projection it's actually higher than that. For me, it's up to wide receiver ten, and to be honest, after looking into this more, I should move him up my rankings. This all plays into what I just talked about with the Rams running back usage. When target share isn't going to one position, that means it's going to another position. Not only that, but because LA doesn't have a mobile quarterback, that means more plays are going to be run where the result is either a target for a pass catcher or a rush for a running back. And considering the Rams have been an above average team in pass rate during the time Matthew Stafford's been in LA, it's no surprise that there's a decent amount of targets to go around. And just look at their pass catchers. Like I said, Cooper Cup is gone, it's Pookin Akua, Deavante Adams, and then two two Atwell or Jordan Whittington. I mean they're players that were not going to be super afraid of digging into the target chairs of Adams and Nakua. There's also contingent upside for DeVante Adams. If Nikua got hurt, Adams would walk into a situation where we would probably be projecting like a thirty percent target share each week. I know he's thirty two years old. That's why my ranking will be a little bit lower than his projection, But right now I'm pretty well above the market with DeVante Adams. The projections see a very clear big three at tight end, not a big two, And after looking these over again, I need to bump up one of those three in my redraft rankings that I recently dropped on Patreon. But brock Bauers he's the projection's tight end one. That's no surprise. He should be in a tier of his own. But they actually preferred George Kittle over Trey McBride by point one points per game. Now, I think McBride should probably get the edge from a rankings perspective because of his age and all that stuff, but Kittle is also in a great position to just crush this year. I mean, Kittle's coming off a season where he was the tight end one and PPR points per game. It shouldn't really be contrab to think that he could be ranked really high this year now that the aforementioned Brandon Ayuka is banged up and Deebo Samuel's gone. We had a lot of ambiguity at tight end last year where you could have gotten a lot of different directions early on. This year, it's a lot clearer, which we knew would happened. We figured a couple of tight ends would separate themselves from the pack last year. That was the entire point to throwing dart to some of those round five, round six guys in your draft. But this year, I think we're approaching a season just based on these projections, where you either get one of these three guys or you just kind of wait for your favorite tight end to fall. My projections don't love Sam Laporta as much as the market seems to, so maybe you see him as part of this group in some way, but to me, it's a big three or just wait a little bit, which is kind of how we've approached tight end historically. The commander's backfield. That's when that people are gonna want to invest in because of the Jaden Daniels factor, Washington should be strong offensively in that backfield. Last year it ranked eleventh in PPR scoring, and that was with a rookie quarterback. What's been surprising for me to see is the difference between Brian Robinson and Austin Eckler in current rankings and ADP. If you look at DraftKings ADP right now, Robinson will get drafted before RB thirty. Eckler is around RB forty seven. That's a pretty significant gap over on Fantasy pros and half PPR rankings. It's RB thirty for b rob RB forty five for Eckler, and that's kind of crazy to me. Last season, Robinson Neckler essentially played eight games together.

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Speaker 2: They were both hurt throughout the season.

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Speaker 1: In those games, Robinson averages sixty six percent running back rush share per game rate. Eckler was at twenty three percent, So a huge edge there for Brian Robinson. But Robinson's target share per game rate in those games was just five percent, Eckler's was twelve percent. The gap between the two and PPR points per game was one point seve Robinson was at eleven point nine, Eckler ten point two. Now, maybe this is telling us that neither player is likely a great bet in twenty twenty five, but I at least think the gap between the two should be closer. My projections actually have the two very close, but Eckler should be ranked slightly higher, Robinson slightly lower. In my opinion, I said it on becoming a Best ball bro I'll say it again. I'm gonna have a hard time investing a solid RB three pick and a dude like Robinson who just doesn't have that receiving upside. Now, this isn't some hot take, but I'm mega, mega concerned about everyone on the Colts this year. I mean, if we knew that we'd get seventeen games from Anthony Richardson, I probably wouldn't mind him as a later round quarterback because of that rushing upside. But man, this is a really tough team to get behind on the projections front. First off, the best asset on that team Jonathan Taylor. Even Taylor scares me versus cost. My projections have met eleven in PPR formats DraftKings Bestball ADP which is also full PPR, they have him around RB eight. I have him ranked RB ten, but even two or three spots in positional ranked difference that high end drafts can be significant. Meanwhile, the pass catchers Michael Pittman, ad Ni Mitchell, Josh Downs, Alec Pierce stand alone, they all can bring something to the table. Like I think Josh Downs in particular is awesome. I love him as a football player. I just have no idea how you project anything of substance from that group. With Anthony Richardson and Daniel Jones under center. In my projections right now, Michael Pittman is wide receiver fifty one, Josh Downs is wide receiver fifty seven. Alec Pearson ad Andi Mitchell are in the seventies. But I'm not sure how we don't get that without projecting some massive turnaround from Daniel Jones or Anthony Richardson. And that might happen, But from a median outcome standpoint, just know that there's not a whole lot of hope for the Indianapolis Colts offense. You don't always need projections to show this, but when you build them out, you have a more obvious view of where completely out of nowhere players might actually have a role. The Chicago backfield. That's it for me.

00:21:13
Speaker 2: At the moment.

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Speaker 1: I've talked about this before, including on becoming a best ball bro but like DeAndre Swift is projecting out to be a fringe RB two for me at the moment, Roshan Johnson is a solid RB four. And you might hear those names and you're like, how how is that possible? But then you remember that Kyle Manungai was Chicago's only running back pick in the draft. They're definitely a candidate to sign someone, maybe even trade for someone, but it's crazy to see such an opening in a backfield. Like if the Bears do go into the season with just those backs, then Roshan Johnson is a massive value right now. Even DeAndre Swift isn't a bad value if you assume the backfield stays the same. That's just something away as you draft beastball teams over the next couple of months. Now, I've got one more thing to note for you, and it's about Alvin Kamara. I'm always shocked when Kamara looks the way that he does in my projections. I shouldn't be, but i am. I know the Saints are probably gonna be pretty bad offensively. I know Kamaras season could easily go south as a result. But just purely looking at his target share projection, he looks good overall. I mean, just consider this for a second. Kamara has never had a target share per game rate in a given season in the NFL below seventeen point nine percent. We'll just round that up to eighteen percent. Considering every other season, including his rookie year, he got to a nineteen percent target share. If you look at all running backs since twenty eleven who played at least eight games and had a target share per game rate of eighteen percent or better, Kamara's floor. Only three of those players ranked outside RB one territory and PPR points per game. One of them was CMC his rookie year, who was RB thirteen, so he was just outside RB one territory. One was Tarik Cohen in twenty nineteen, One was JD. McKissick in twenty twenty. All three of those dudes fail to reach a twenty five percent rush are per game rate on their own teams. That's a number that a healthy Kamara is almost definitely gonna exceed. Like, look, I do think there's a chance that Kamara could be somewhat of an outlier in a bad way this year, where he sees all sorts of volume, but the situation around him is just putrid. It's just wild though, how much is receiving numbers can really elevate him. I'm not ready to just back off of Kamara this year because of his age. It doesn't seem worth it to me. When his projection looks as solid as it does. If he's healthy, he's gonna probably outperform his ADP. Now, those are just some of the things that I noticed this year when building out projections. You can see where I've got things ranked over in the Late Round Fantasy Football Patreon, which can be found on lateround dot com. And while you're there, make sure to pre order the Late Round Raft Guide it's for sale right now and subscribe to the free newsletter too. But that's it for today's show. Thanks to all of you for listening. If you get subscribed to the Late Round Fantasy Football podcast, make sure you are by starting for it pretty much anywhere podcast can be found, and follow me on Twitter and on Blue Sky at Late Round QB. I've got an awesome Late Round Perspective episode coming for you.

00:24:20
Speaker 2: Later this week. I'll talk to you guys.

00:24:22
Speaker 1: Then