1050: Mailbag - Rome Odunze's Struggles, Stashing Defenses, and More

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Speaker 1: This is the Late with your host JJ ZACHERAJJ zacheron. What's up everyone. It's JJ zachar Esen in this episode ten fifty of the Late Round Fantasy Football podcast. Thanks for tuning in. Before I get to the mailbag questions this week, I just want to remind you guys to subscribe to the Late Round newsletter. It's absolutely free. All you gotta do is head to Lateround dot com, click newsletter, and submit your email address. That's it. In that newsletter. During the season, you get the fifteen transactions email, you'll get the weekly data dump that I publish on Twitter and Blue Sky, and you'll get a nice recap of everything from David Kitchen. At the end of the week. Out of season, I send out studies. I do other research articles that I send out in that newsletter all the time. That's Lateround dot com. And then click newsletter. Okay, now let's get to these mailbag questions. The first question this week is from card on Patreon. It says, I saw you still have a Donsay ranked as a wide receiver one this week feels tough to just send him back out there after a bagel against Cincinnati's defense. It feels like he just hasn't been a priority for that offense since the bye, But I would love to believe he's coming back. What's giving you that confidence to keep him ranked up there. There's actually a lot to unpack here. Let's first just start with a Dunzay and what's been going on with him. The Bears had a week five by, so they played weeks one through four, they had a buy and then they played since then. That gives us a really nice and clean four games split, four games pre by, four games post by. In the pre by games, a Dounday was averaging a twenty seven percent target chair per game rate and nineteen point nine PPR points per game post by. Those numbers have fallen to twenty percent and seven point two. That's a pretty dramatic shift. Now, it should be noted that a dounsay, has been playing through a heel injury. I don't want to completely dismiss that, but there are some secondary numbers here that don't paint the most favorable picture. For one, I've talked about this before, but he's seen a fifty seven percent catchable targets rate over his last four That was sixty seven percent during his first four but also Fantasy Points data, it shows that Adunesay's first red target share it's fallen from thirty two percent to just eighteen percent in these four game splits. And on top of that, the Bears have just been more run heavy. From weeks one to four they ranked tenth, and drop backs over expected rate they've been twenty seventh over their last four. Now, to be fair, last week a Dunday had a first read target share of just ten and a half percent. That's bringing down these numbers quite a bit. Now they're still lower than the first four weeks, but maybe not quite as low as they initially sound like. In week eight, his first red target share was still a solid twenty eight percent. But people keep talking about that Cincinnati matchup like he should have gone off, and yes, he should have had a much much better game. I'm not really defending his poor performance, which included a pair of drops. But DJ Turner has been really good for Cincinnati this year. I talked about that in the fifty Transaction Show earlier this week. It's not as good of a matchup, especially in hindsight, as people generally think. But look, this is all not really that good for Romadunza, But I'm willing to guess the truth it lies somewhere in the middle that the first four weeks they were a little bit fluky, even though I do think he's a good player, And in the last four they just really had some lows that are gonna be tough to repeat. I have a DOUNSA right in line with consensus this week at wide receiver eleven, but I could rank them all the way down to like wide receiver thirteen to like the wide receiver fifteen range. Just give them the way my tears are set up. It's really just the fact that we've got teams on by teams with really good wide receivers, and the Bears have a good matchup. They have a really good team total too. But yeah, these are all things to be concerned about with Romadunze right now. And remember Luther Burden was signedlined last week with a concussion. I still think there's a legitimate chance that we see him gain a larger role as the season goes on. That's gonna hurt a Domide's a key as most but any talented player seeing more work will impact everyone else in that offense. So the trend is concerning, but I don't think Week nine is a lock to happen every single week. It was a tough matchup, and just the week prior things looked fine for Romadounze. I just think we're staring at more volatility now than we were at the beginning of the year because the offense is just prioritizing other players more, and it also doesn't help that they've leaned more on the run. This next question is also from Patreon's from Andre. It says, Hey, JJ, for those of us likely to make the playoffs, is it too early to stash defenses? If not, are there any you would recommend? Thanks? So, I answer a question like this one once a year, and this is my once per year time answering it. My stance is that I believe people overrate the whole stashing defenses thing for a few reasons. Number One, defenses are volatile. Not only could that defense just not be in as good of a spot once the playoffs actually hit, but the way defenses score, they're not amazingly predictable. You can stream and you can come away with a really strong defensive performance in fantasy through streaming. I'm talking like defense two in points per game defense three in points per game. We do that every year over on Living the Stream. That's not what I'm talking about here. Part of the reason you can do that is because even good defenses have bad fantasy performances, So it's not that hard to just make up for that by using defenses against bad offenses. And there's obviously some luck involved here. Like a defense gets an interception, they just happen to return that for a touchdown. That's a huge turnaround for your fantasy team, or a special teams unit returning a kick. There's luck involved with turnovers in general. We know that defensive performances can be volatile, so even if you love the matchup, it's not like it's a guarantee that that defense is going to score a ton of points. Number two, there's a cost in holding that defense on your bench. If you're stashing a random defense, that means you're not stashing something else, like a running back handcuff, and the upside of that handcuff far out weighs the upside of that defense in a given week. And then number three, don't underestimate your ability to find a defense on the waiver wire, maybe just like a week before the playoffs or even during the playoffs. Remember that things change in the NFL, and what looks like a mediocre matchup right now could actually be a good matchup later in the season, like if there's a quarterback injury. And also, don't forget that in most leagues, when the playoffs hit, you're competing with fewer teams in your league on the waiver wire. That makes it easier to get a streaming defense. So I think week ten is way way too early to stash a defense. Week thirteen, week fourteen, fine, but We've got a long way to go still, and I'd rather use that bench spot on a more valuable position with a whole lot more upside. This best question is from Patreon is from Axel. It says, what do you think about Marvin Harrison Junior now that Jacoby Brissett seems to be the Cardinals starter for the rest of the season. I've seen a lot of pro Marvin Harrison Junior talk of my timeline this week after his performance against the Cowboys, and it really was an awesome performance. I think Marvin Harrison Junior is a good wide receiver, but I also think that we have to remember that Dallas. It's quite literally the best matchup imaginable for wide receivers, specifically perimeter wide receivers. Harrison finished Week nine with a thirty four point five percent target share that was by far the highest of his season. He scored twenty two point six PPR points that was the best of his season. Two. He played with Jacoby Brissett the game prior when they faced the Packers, and maybe his concussion from the previous week maybe it played a role there, but he had just an eighteen percent target share and fewer than eight PPR points. So like, for as good as he was in Week nine, I'm not just ready to say, Okay, this is his team now. He's just gonna dominate rest of season. According to Fantasy Points Data, Marv had a first red target share of fifty six percent against the Cowboys fifty six percent in Week seven. The previous game that he played, that number was about twenty seven percent, which for the record with Kyler this year, Harrison Junior was at like a twenty percent first read target shair. So things are getting better, I would say in this small sample, this is an upgrade overall for sure, Like even when you adjust for the context of that Dallas game. Yeah, I highly doubt that we see that week in and week out, but it's good that we have multiple games now where he's getting looked at first and where his target shairs have been usable. The nice question is what about rest of season? What about moving forward? And according to my numbers, Arizona has a very average rest of season schedule in the Fantasy playoffs, though they get the Texans in Week fifteen, that's a tough matchup. They get the Falcons in Week sixteen, which has not been the best matchup in the world for wide receivers this year, and then Cincinnati in Week seventeen. I just talked about how wide receivers don't automatically dominate against the Bengals. So I don't know. I'm excited because I do think Persett is an upgrade for this offense right now, but I'm tempering my expectations if people think that like last week is gonna happen again each and every week. If he was at twelve and a half PPR points per game with Kyler, maybe we see that jump up by like a point, maybe a point and a half with Jacoby Brissett. That seems reasonable. To me. The best question from Joe on Patreon. It says is Luke Musgrave trash. I just traded Gaston last week because I already had Craft scrambling for a tight end. First off, that is some terrible luck. Second, No, he's not trash. He's just not Tucker Craft. We haven't really seen Luke Musgrave in a significant role since his rookie season. This year, he has just one game with a fifty percent route share, and it was at fifty percent. He saw nine percent target share in that game. Last year, he had one game with a fifty percent route share, it was at fifty two percent. He hit a five percent target shair in that game. His rookie year, though he played frequently as Green Bay's main pass catching tight end, he was a rookie, so we have to take all this with a grain of salt. But he had eight games with at least a seventy percent route share. He was often in the teens with his target share, and he hit a twenty percent target share just once again. He was a rookie that year, and I don't think that he was a bad prospect coming out at all. He just is clearly a downgrade from Tucker Craft, because most tight ends would be a downgrade from Tucker Craft. Like Craft was good in fantasy football because of what he can do after the catch. He's got that George Kittle ability in him. He's the current tight end leader and yards after catch over expected, and he ranked behind only George Kittle last year within that metric. And that's really key because it means he's going to be really efficient per catch, and he has been. But that also means that he can get away with some lower target share games and still be fantasy viable. I don't think people realize that Tucker Craft only has three games this year with a twenty percent target chair, which honestly should be a crime. But he's a twenty percent target chair per game rate when you exclude last week when he was hurt. Luke Musgrave is not as good of a player. I don't think we can assume that he sees the same kind of target heare that Tucker Craft was seeing, especially as the Packers' wide receivers get healthier. And if you're not getting the same yak profile, how can we be so confident that Luke Muskrave is going to be like a week in week out tight end one, someone who can give you spiked weeks, who can find the end zone for sure. I just think he's part of that high end tight end two streaming group right now, and there's a lot of those players. You can add him, you can see what he's about, But that should be more of the expectation like a high end tight end two, even a mid range tight end two. And if he exceeds those expectations, great, But I don't think that you should be sitting here with Luke Muskgrave today thinking that you have your answer at tight end because very few tight ends can do what Tucker Craft can do, and Craft while he was an answer, it took a lot for him to be that answer. This esquorse is from at XL nine px on Twitter. It says, hey, JJ, I'm currently six and three and in second place. I was just offered to Marion Hampton for my Jalen Warren. Should I accept? Hampton is rumored back week thirteen. I'm afraid he gets shut down. Though I won't lie. The quotes surrounding of Mariy and Hampton this week, they're not exactly getting me excited. When you look at the reporting on this every news site is saying that Jim Harbass said that he doesn't expect Hampton to return until after their week twelve by, which is true. But I think the way that people interpret that, they seem to think it means Hampton is just going to be back in week thirteen. But what Harbass said was that he doesn't expect Hampton's activation window to be opened until after the week twelve by. That doesn't I mean week thirteen. It just means after the bye. It doesn't mean that Hampton will absolutely be back after that buye. Could he be, yeah, of course, but that's adding more risk to your team if you're solely buying into a week thirteen return. And when he's back, he's coming back to a banged up offensive line and the potential for a little bit more of a split than what we were seeing before he got injured. Look, you guys know, I love Amar and Hampton, and if you can send off some bench players to get him, fine, But I would imagine Jalen Warren is starting for your team. And just because you're in second place now does not mean that you're a lock for a first round by in your league. And those byes are very very important. Not only that, even when Hampton's back, Warren could just outscore him. He's seeing a great workload. So in my rest of season rankings, which are available on Patreon, I've got Warren well ahead of Hampton. There's some concern about Warren, which I'll get to in a second, but I don't think this is a move that I would currently make. The last question this week is an email from Magic mike Ff on Twitter. I know that's confusing, but he signed the email with his Twitter handle. It says hijj longtime fan, first time question. In the past, I've heard you talk about introducing variants if your team is bad or if you lost starters. I've lost Hampton, neighbors and craft on a myriad of rosters that were good. If you were in that situation, who are some high variants, affordable guys you may target this week, assuming you were on the playoff bubble, and how would you approach it as a concept considering we're still aiming to get first, not just fifth. Magic mike Ff, I think one thing to keep in mind here is that you don't need to like find players who are super super volatile, who are either zeros or their twenties. You don't need to do that. If you're in this kind of situation, you can do that, but you don't have to. Instead, you might want to find players who have good schedules upcoming, but maybe worst schedules in the fantasy playoffs, and you can even mention that to the people that you're negotiating with. I said, I'd talk about Jalen Warren again, he's a perfect example of this. The Steelers get the Chargers, Bengals, Bears, Bills, Ravens, and Dolphins over their next six games. That's a great schedule for Jalen Warren. But then it's the Lions and the Browns to close out the fantasy season. So someone with Warren, maybe they're a one lost team. Hypothetically, they might want to think more deeply about those weeks sixteen and seventeen matchups, maybe even sell high. But someone who's more of a fringe team, more of a fringe playoff team, Warren could smash over the next month and a half. And generally speaking, I don't think Jalen Warren is a cell. I think he's more of a by than a cell. And then there's also injury stuff. Aaron Jones is a great example of this. Jones isn't getting in practices, but he said that he's going to play on Sunday at the time of this recording. That's my general expectation. So that injury that he has, it can make him more approachable when trying to trade for him, And honestly, most managers just don't really care about Aaron Jones right now. And then on the flip side, you can lean into injuries that are currently happening that are giving players a more short term boost. Now I'm recording this on Thursday, I have no idea if m Andre Stevenson's going to play this weekend or not. But Trayvon Henderson, the Patriots actually have the best schedule over the next four weeks for running backs according to my numbers. They get the Bucks, Jets, Bengals, and Giants before thereby Kamani Videll, maybe you want to lean into last week of just being a bad game and that Hampton is more injured than what's being reported, So maybe Kamani Viadell is something that you want to target right now too. At wide receiver. Here are some teams with good short term schedules that might have affordable pass catchers. Now I'm talking median opponent by adjusted Fantasy points allowed over the next four weeks, So it could be three games if one of those teams is a bye in that four week stretch. But we've got the Giants, the Eagles, if you could buy low on Devonte Smith and aj Brown for whatever reason. Denver's another one, but they do play on Thursday night and you won't hear this until Friday, and then maybe even Tampa Bay like a Tesz Johnson type, their schedule isn't amazing, but it's slightly above average. So those are just some names to think about. But like I said, you can obviously lean into the profiles that are more boom bust, maybe guys who haven't worked out this year but have gotten it done in the past, like Jamison Williams. Detroit actually has a pretty good short term schedule too, but he obviously is a high variance player, but maybe some of that favorable variants hits more often. That's how I generally look at this stuff, though. It's a great exercise to go through. You evaluate your own team, you see where it's at, you see what you might need, and then you think through situations that may be better now or maybe better later, but hopefully some of those names will get you headed in the right direction. 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 best streeting for it pretty much anywhere podcast can be found, and to follow me on Twitter and on Blue Sky at Late Round QB. Thanks for listening to everyone. As usual, I got a Late Round Perspectives episode dropping later today, hope you give that a listen, and then I'll be live on YouTube YouTube dot com slash at LATEROUNDFF. I'll be live at one pm Eastern with David Kitchen to do the Late Round Fantasy Football Show, and if you miss that show, it'll drop in this podcast feed tomorrow morning. Have a great weekend everyone, I'll catch you next week.