738: Buy Candidates

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Speaker 1: This is the lad Podcast with your host JJ zach Jake Zachers. What's up everyone, It's JJ Zacharyesen in this episode seven and thirty eight of the Late Round Fantasy Football Podcast sponsored by FanDuel. Thanks for tuning in. If you couldn't tell by the title of this episode. Today, I'm gonna be talking about by candidates in your dynasty leagues. It's that simple. I've got a list of players who I think the market is undervaluing right now. I'm gonna explain why I think that's the case. Then next week I'll do the same thing, but for players to sell. Now, before I get to the buy candidates, I want to send another reminder about the Late Round Prospect Guy, which you can pre order right now over on lateround dot com. In the guide, I break down what goes into my running back and wide receiver prospect models. I then profile every running back and wide receiver who will be at the NFL combine, and my model spits out a pre draft percentile score for each player. Then, when the draft is over, I'll set an updated version of the guide with post draft scores and post draft breakdowns. I also have an entire section of the guide dedicated to my Year two model. The year two model helps predict how well a player is gonna perform in fantasy football in year two and year three of his NFL career. So I profile all relevant running backs and wide receivers from last year's draft class, and I'll let you know what to do with them in Dynasty. You can pre order it right now on lateround dot com for just eleven ninety nine. It's a PDF, and it'll get email do you when it launches on March thirteenth. Once March thirteenth hits, that price will rise to fourteen ninety nine. So again, head to lateround dot com and get ready for another fun prospect season. I'm gonna go in a totally random order today, but I will say I don't have any clear cut by candidates at quarterback this offseason, so I won't be talking quarterback. Instead, I'm gonna kick things off with a weird one, and that's Cooper Cup. Obviously, you're only gonna go after Cup if you've got more of a win now team. He's gonna be thirty years old in June. This isn't really the type of player that I typically would call out on a show like this. I like to build my dynasty rosters around young wide receivers, young wide receivers who could see their value increase and stay high year after year after year after year. With Cup, you're likely not going to see that appreciation in the market from twenty twenty three to twenty twenty four and into twenty twenty five because he's going to be thirty years old. But let's look at the facts. Cup had a historical year in twenty twenty one, when he scored sixteen touchdowns and had almost twenty six PPR points per game. He wasn't gonna repeat that, But in nine games in twenty twenty two, Cup averaged twenty two point four PPR points per game. He averaged the most points per game of any wide receiver in fantasy football this past year. His target share per game in twenty twenty one was thirty one point seven percent, incredibly high, and twenty twenty two thirty point seven percent. He just wasn't as absurd efficiency wise as he was in twenty twenty one. His yards per route run, for example, fell from three point one two to two point four. But it's not like two point four is a bad number, and it's not like other wide receivers in that offense. We're thriving while Cooper Cup wasn't. Basically, yeah, the injuries there, Yeah, there's a lot up in the air in this Rams offense, but that's sort of pushing his costs down in some places. His average draft position in startups according to Dynasty League Football, was wide receiver twenty six in the month of January, which is absolutely wild to me. DeVante Adams, who's older and hasn't been as good as Cup over the last two seasons, is wide receiver thirteen. Not that I think it's weird to have Adams over Cup, I just don't see the reason for that kind of gap. I think Cup is more of a mid range wide receiver two in Dynasty, and that's coming from someone who likes younger wide receivers. Wide receiver twenty six is insane to me. Now, keep trade cut dot Com does seem to agree with me, but the fact that some places have him so low tells me there are plenty of people out there who think Cooper Cup is done, who are ignoring what he did in twenty twenty two, But his per game numbers this past season tell a different story. So Cooper Cup is a higher profile by candidate. Let's go to a lower profile one chig, A Conquo. Some sites have him around where I have him at tight end fifteen, but over on DLF his ADP in January was tight end twenty two. So there are people out there who aren't believers. But a Conquo had a really underrated rookie season. I know we were all streaming him down the stretch, but I don't think people realize how good he was as a first year tight end. Even just his volume numbers, he averaged an eleven point four percent target chair per game. That's not a high number stand alone, but it is with some context since twenty eleven, among rookie tight ends with eight or more games played that ranked in the ninety first percentile, tight Ends generally don't see a lot of work as rookies. What's even more impressive is how efficient a Conquo was on that volume all thirty plus target tight end since twenty eleven, a Conquo's yards per target was third best, his yards per reception was fifth best, and the players ahead of him and around him are mostly solid players. Mark Andrews Gerald Everett, Kyle Pitts, Noah Fant, Dawson Knox. The only guy who really didn't pan out was OJ Howard. But the one number that's most impressive about a Conquo is his yards per route run rate. We know the Titans aren't a very past friendly team, so Conquo wasn't running the same number of routes as a tight end in a pass heavy offense. But on a per route basis no rookie tight end since twenty eleven and possibly beyond. I just didn't look further, but no rookie tight end had a better yards per route run rate than Chickakonquo, and it wasn't even close. His two point six to two yards per route run, which is courtesy of Pro Football Focus, was significantly better than Jordan Reed, who previously was at the top after his twenty thirteen rookie season. But two point six to two is insane. You guys like Among rookie wider receiver since twenty eleven with fifty or more targets, the only wide receivers to hit that mark are Odell Beckham, AJ Brown and Justin Jefferson. So my question is, why would you not want to buy into this. Why would you not want to buy in when it doesn't cost you that much at all. Now, let's apply this exact same logic but for a wide receiver and he guesses as to who Rashid Shahed Shaheed was a rookie in twenty twenty two. He was undrafted. Last year, he didn't go to the combine, so he's not in my prospect model, but he was a beast in limited action this past year. He only had thirty four targets, and we have to keep in mind that's what matters most here. Volume is a sign of talent, so if a player is seeing low target totals, he likely is not super super talented. But on a per game basis, Shaheed had a twelve and a half percent target share. That's not horrible for a rookie wide receiver, especially one who wasn't even drafted, and his yards per route run rate was two point six, which was the best in this class. Now, again, he only had thirty four targets. I usually look at fifty targets as a baseline there, so number like that can absolutely be skewed with a small sample. He's not as locked in as someone like a Conquo. In my opinion, with a Conquo, you had legitimately good numbers across the board for a rookie tight end, and a Conquo was a fourth round pick. That's a lot different. But Shaheed can be had for next to nothing. And when you look historically at rookie wide receivers who had similar volume in a similar yards per route run rate, you get a mixed bag with some interesting hits. Marteves Bryant is in there, for instance, and Chris Godwin, who had a lower target share per game rate as a rookie, he's in there too. Now, I do think the likely scenario here. The most likely scenario is that Shaheed ends up being like a Robert Foster type or JJ Nelson. But it's not a bad idea to buy now in case the Saints don't do a whole lot at wide receiver this offseason. Jerry Judy had an underrated season, and there's a chance that you can still into it now. Obviously, the Broncos recently added Sean Payton, so there's a chance the person in your league with Judy no longer wants to sell. There's also a chance that someone with Judy will think that you're trying to trade for him because of that Peyton deal. And while the coaching change definitely helps, it's not the focus here. Judy himself has shown signs that he's a very good wide receiver and that he can be a great Fantasy wide receiver. Now, first of all, it should be known that my prospect model like Judy. He was a ninety seventh percentile wide out in that model, and then he was a ninety fifth to ninety six percentile player in the year two model. Anything above the ninety fifth percentile in either case is very very good. It leads to favorable outcomes. Now, those models are trying to predict how well a player is going to perform during his first three years of his career, and Judy's now done with year three and he's reached double digit pper points per game just once, which happened this past season. But let's talk about his development. For a second. Year one, he had a one point six to six yards per route run rate, which is solid for a rookie wide receiver. Year two, he gets hurt, but he still had a one point eighty five yards per route run rate. Then this past year was two point one five. Judy's yard per route run was twelve best among fifty plus target wide receivers in twenty twenty two. That's out of well over eighty wideouts that resulted in a top twenty ranking and PPR points per game. I don't think people realize that he was technically a top twenty wide receiver in points per game this year. Judy averaged more Fantasy points per game than Mike Williams, Michael Pittman, Terry McLaurin, and DK metcalf. Now, I know the market changed with even more really solid wide receivers from that twenty twenty two class, but I find this interesting. Judy's ADP on Dynasty League Football last year was wide receiver twenty two at this time, so a year ago. Now it's wide receiver thirty one. But all he did was show is that he's a super solid wide receiver. Maybe people took that as him just being above average, but I'd argue some of his numbers in twenty twenty three were better than that, and that was in a really pathetic offense. There will undoubt be people out there who are ready to sell Jerry Judy because he hasn't lived up to expectation. Yet I think that's why the Dynasty League Football ADP has him where it has him. With that being said, other sites have him where I do, which is more in that lower end wide receiver two range. But I'm intrigued by a healthy Jerry Judy moving forward and what should be an offense. It's only going to get better year over year. I think it's worth setting a low ball offer to the Judy manager and seeing if anything can come of it. Now. I have a hard time buying running backs in Dynasty, especially higher end running backs, but if I had to pick one this offseason, it's got to be DeAndre Swift. I answered this a bit on last week's Mailbag episode, so some of this isn't new, But Swift had a twenty eight percent running back rush here per game last year. That was beyond fiftieth in the league at running back. You can't tell me over fifty running backs deserve a higher proportion of their team's running back rushes than DeAndre Swift. That's crazy. He was banged up all year, and if he wasn't, he'd probably be ranked a little bit higher in Dynasty. Not only that, but even though I think that Jamal Williams is likely back in Detroit next season. Jamal Williams might not be back in Detroit, so that could free up some goal line work. Swift likely won't be a Saquon Barkley type player volume wise, but the Lions offense is set up really well. His environment is great, he plays in a dome, and in the short term, you don't really fear his division rivals. This recommendation really just stems from the fact that I don't think Swift is going to have another year like he had this past year if he's healthy, period, and he's a top eight dynasty back for me as a result. Now I got one more running back for you today, and he's someone that I mentioned last year. I think it's Khalil Herbert. Herbert is good. He's shown every step of the way from college to pros to his second year in the league that he's undervalued. For example, in my prospect model, he was a fifty first percentile running back that's to be expected as a later round pick, but he had a six and a half percent draft capital delta, which means my model liked him a lot more than the NFL drafted He was underdrafted. Fast forward to his first year in the league, which was in twenty twenty one. He had arguably better production metrics across the board compared to David Montgomery, and when he got opportunity, he was good. As a rookie, he had four games with double digit carries. In two of those games he finishes an RB one and weekly PPR scoring. Then fast forward to twenty twenty two. Herbert was banged up, but so was Montgomery. Herbert ended up with a better success rate than Montgomery on the ground, and he outpaced his running back teammates in yards per carry by one point eight three yards. Only Breisee Hall had a better delta between his yards per carry and his teammate running backs yards per carry in twenty twenty two. So we have two years now of Khalil Herbert essentially being just as effective, if not more effective, than David Montgomery on the ground, and Montgomery is now a free agent. I do think there's some concern about Herbert's pass catching potential. He barely broke one hundred routes last year and he's yet to have a target chare per game rate across the season above five percent. That's a concern, but he at least has a path to be Chicago's lead back next year, and at the very least he'll be an effective part of a committee. I wouldn't overspend to get Herbert, but I do think that he's still a little bit undervalued. In twenty nineteen, his second year in the league, Mike Gaseiki had a target share per game rate of almost fifteen percent. The next year almost seventeen percent, then almost nineteen percent. He was rolling. In twenty twenty two, it was nine point one percent. Everything got worse for Gaseki this past year, and it's largely because the Dolphins just didn't use him that much as a receiver. Over his three previous seasons, Kaseki averaged over thirty one routes run per game. This past year, that was a little over twenty one, and that had a profound impact on his fantasy scoring. He saw his worst season in yards since his rookie year, and he scored his fewest fantasy points per game since then. Too. We can legitimately point to this profile and say his usage was stupid, which is why I'm intrigued. He's still just twenty seven years old. He's now a free agent. What if he goes somewhere that features him more as a receiver. That would make sense because he spent a lot of his time during his career in the slot. Among all fifty plus target tight end seasons since twenty eleven, Gaseki owns two top twenty five seasons in slot rate at the position. He's an athlete who has a decent track record of being fantasy relevant. I'd go trade for him now in case he does switch teams. I think he's a mid range tight end two, but the market seems to have him as a lower end one. I've got one more for you today. My prospect model really liked Wandel Robinson. He had a pretty incredible production profile, and then the Giants took him in the second round. Since wide receiver sizes in everything, Robinson looked good objectively. Now. He unfortunately suffered a season ending injury during his rookie season, but he was really starting to get going before that happened. After returning to the field in Week six, Robinson played five games. In those five games, he averaged a target share per game rate of nineteen and a half percent, and he had three double digit PPR point games. My prospect model saw him as a ninety second percentile prospect last season. The year two model now has him as a ninety first percentile wide receiver. If you look at what wide outs have done in that ninetieth to ninety fifth percentile and year two and year three since twenty eleven, it's pretty good. It's solid. At the very least, nearly half of them have given us a season with fourteen or more PPR points per game. That's in just year two or year three. So I'm cool with getting Robinson right now at a wide receiver for a price tag. Now, before I let you go, I do want to add that I don't think that this is really the way that you should trade in fantasy football. What I mean by that is it's totally fine to go to the Wandel Robinson manager, the Cooper Cup manager and see if you can get a discount. But the best way to get a deal done is by finding teams in your league who need the assets that you have and that you're willing to give away. If you have a ton of running backs and there's a running back needy team, then you should be able to find something on that team's roster that you can take on. Your consideration set should be large, not small. So while exercises like this can be helpful, it's not totally the way that I approach trading, and that's important to know as you look for trade partners. That's it for today's show, though thanks to all of you for listening. If you yet subscribe 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 LATEROUNDQB. I'm gonna check out lateround dot com to pre order the Prospect Guide, but thanks for listening everyone, I'll talk to you later in the week.