410: Mailbag 9/11/20

00:00:02
Speaker 1: This is the Late Podcast with with your host JJ zacher Retha JJ zacher reson What's up everyone? It's JJ Zacharesen, the editor in chief at fandel and at number fire dot com in this episode four hundred and ten of the Late Round podcast. So many shows that are part of the FanDuel Podcast Network. Thanks for tuning in. The Number Fire Listener League is back and this year we're awarding fandal bonus cash in addition to one free Number Fire Premium subscription during every week of the twenty twenty NFL season. All you have to do is enter the FanDuel Podcast Network Listener League for free and finish in the top ten to win bonus cash. First place wins a premium subscription to Number Fire, a one hundred and twenty dollars value. So what are you waiting for? Don't miss your chance to become a premium member at no cost. To enter for free, visit FanDuel dot com Slash League Slash Podcast Eligibile. The restrictions apply. The first question this week is from at Mix Salmon Beer. When you do fifteen transactions my favorite pot of the week. Thank you. Can you give some guidance on the buys, I e. If it's a short term, by rest of season, by end of bench stash, immediate starter, et cetera. Thanks, So, I wanted to start off today's show with this one to say that, yes, I will absolutely try to be more cognizant of this. Of course, I thought I already did this, like the Daniel Jones transaction from Tuesday, where I noted that he was a sell not because of his season long value but because of the first three games of the season for the Giants, or how Malcolm Brown wasn't something that you should be adding over the other players on this week's list. But yes, I will try to be very clear with each player if it's not obvious moving forward. The next question is from at at that hat, how long are you willing to wait on ambiguous backfields to turn out a breakout before you chalk them up to being regular old committees? What are you looking for besides player exes, snaps and touches increasing week to week and how much does it change team to team. This is one of those questions where you're not going to get a very clear cut answer, but I'll at least try. You have to look at factors like backfield competition, trends and snaps and touches like you said, and the player itself. If a player is rising, like if a player is a rookie and his competition is a veteran who we know is nothing but an average running back, then there's always a chance that rookie emerges, especially if that rookie has been more effective as a runner than his veteran counterpart, and that he's been getting positive love from the team, that he's seeing more and more snaps. All of those things matter, and guys, use your eyes. I know I'm a data oriented analyst, but I don't just ignore what my eyes tell me. If a player is clearly the best running back in his backfield through the eye test, then you have that going for him too. We may not see a player emerge from some teams, but a lot of times players and committees can still be useful in fantasy football. And you know there's upside with a player and a good committee. If one of his teammates gets hurt, he's got that handcuff upside. So there's not a go to answer for this. I get questions like this a lot, though it's going to be case by case, but hopefully that overall framework helps in some way. This has questions from at Brandon Underscore Warren, who is this year's Week one revelation? A la Philip Lindsay, So I got this question last year, maybe it was from you, Brandon, And I'm gonna backpat myself for a second because one of the players that I called out in my answer was Raheem Moster. I don't like doing that very often, but I at least want to call that out. That I got very, very lucky last year, and that means that I'm gonna regress this year. But I do think that James Robinson is a logical choice since he's an undrafted guy and he's gonna get a shot here in Week one. He's someone that my prospect model liked because of his crazy production at Illinois State. It's not as fun of an answer this year, but because of the way the the offseason went, we don't have as many undrafted choices as we typically might. The next question is from at the Real get at me. It says, talk me into cam Akers, he's my best RB two And then I also got one that says my RB two is split between two upside rookies and Gibson and Acres. Is it worth trying to trade for a low end RB two or have faith that some combo of these two can be viable as RB two season long, A lot of people are starting to get scared off of cam Akers because of all the chatter out of the Rams camp saying that there's going to be a split backfield, and like, I get it, but two things about this. Number One, we should expect a lot of split backfields early in the season. All of these rookie running backs were drafted the teams that had some semblance of a backfield there was someone in their way. That's no different for cam Akers. He has Darryl Henderson and Malcolm Brown there. And then number two, you didn't draft these guys or shouldn't have drafted these guys strictly for the early season. I also think it needs to be said that getting low end RB two production isn't very significant or meaningful in fantasy football. A player like cam Akers is going to be able to give you that type of production even in a split backfield, or at least have the opportunity to. You don't need to replace an Acres or a Gibson because of their early season backfield split. Just to get low end RB two production or just general RB two production, we should always be striving for RB one production. Just because you're starting two running backs doesn't mean you can't have two RB ones. Because RB two production is where things start to get flatter and less meaningful, you're getting way less of an advantage with those players. Just hold tight. I know everyone's excited for Week one, but patience often wins fantasy football championships. This next question is from at jc Berner one. I'm stuck in a league with transaction limits. How would you approach the balance between picking up a streaming option versus the cost of using a transaction. My initial thinking is to go for streaming options that I could see turning into a permanent roster spot. I mean, I would argue that you should be doing that regardless, But yes, you have to adjust if you were planning on streaming, and you'll likely have to look ahead more than you typically would. For a defense, you might have to look at their three week four week outlook more than you would in a normal league with unlimited transactions, or you look like a week or two ahead and when you look, three or four weeks out, you're really saying this matchup might not be ideal, But I don't want to use a transaction, so I'm just gonna keep this team rostered, even if it's just an average matchup versus an ideal matchup. But guys, with streaming, your goal realistically should be to get a plug and play starter. You shouldn't strive to stream. Streaming should be your worst case scenario. This last questions from at Saint Stephen twenty JJ. Been a fan of the show for a few seasons, now, thank you. I'm curios there is what Week one matchup you're most interested in for fantasy purposes? What's the most burning question that might be solved when we have a week of tape to dissect. Now, I'm sure there's a better answer to this, because there are a lot of great matchups for fantasy, like the Seahawks, Falcons, the Cowboys Rams. But I'm really interested to see the Chargers Bengals game. We'll get to see Austin Eckler's usage and that could be big for fantasy football this year. And we'll also see what that Chargers offense looks like with Tyrod Taylor under center. But then most importantly, we get to see Joe Burrow. I think of all players across the league, I'm most interested to watch Joe Burrow this weekend. This last question says JJ love the podcast, Thank you. I feel like there's too much hype around rookies this year. With COVID changing training camps, most rookies have difficulty adjusting to the league. Wouldn't this make it even more difficult for them to break out? Shouldn't we temper our expectations? And then there was another one that said, do you find yourself carrying a lot more rookies this year than in year's past? It feels like every team of mine has multiple rookie running backs or wide receivers. Yeah. I mean I said this throughout July and August, but I didn't treat rookies drastically different this year because their average draft positions largely reflected are concerns about them not getting a lot of reps. I'm fine with taking a chance on rookies in the later rounds, especially because this was a really, really good draft class. I think that's often lost with these discussions. The wide receiver class this year was awesome and the running back class was really good too. This isn't the same vibe that we had last year, even though last year we saw the wide receiver class overperform and really come through with some studs. So my answer to this is that I'm not really that concerned about having rookies rostered since they weren't all that costly. If I was concerned, I'd be more concerned about wide receivers. But some wide receivers are going to be starters and see work right away. And I'm a believer that we're going to see high scoring games to start the year this year because offenses have the advantage in this particular environment. They know what they're doing. Defenses have to react and be cohesive as a unit. That's a reason that we saw a lot of overs hit back in twenty eleven when there was almost a lockout. That's the closest comp that we have to this season. This last question says, based on favorable week one matchups, who do you predict will overreact to after Week one? Yeah, I'm gonna go with Marlon mack here. I talked about this on the Matchup show, But the Colts should be able to run all over the Jags this weekend and Mac is currently the starter. I could see a scenario where he's very effective, he sees more work than Jonathan Taylor, and everyone in the fantasy football world freaks out as a result. I could also see a scenario where Taylor does really well too, So don't think that I'm saying to sit Jonathan Taylor. I'm just noting that I'm expecting Mac to see a lot of work in that back this weekend, and that's definitely going to force people to overreact heading into week two. This ast course is from at dota veteran. What do you use your last spots on your bench for rostering lotto tickets? Like other managers handcuffs, preemptively rostering defenses that have favorable upcoming matchups, holding players in unclear situations in your positions of need. I mean, it depends on what my roster looks like. I can at least tell you that I rarely try to use those last spots on my bench for what I perceive as low ceiling players. I like having players who I can easily throw on the waiver wire and not even remotely second guess that move. There's just a constant rotation of a couple of guys on my bench usually and then the rest are actual depth pieces. But it also depends. If my team is competitive and I'm in a great spot, I'll handcuff my own running backs. Usually that happens later in the season. If I need a miracle, I'll go with the more higher variance approach of handcuffing someone else's running back. Basically, what I'm saying here is I don't think it's good to manage your bench without it reflecting what's going on with your starting roster. This next question is from at year thirteen. How concerning is Antonio Gibson being listed as the number two running back on the Washington depth chart. I'm not concerned at all. I'm not really concerned about any depth chart that comes out before week one. This sort of plays into what I talked about earlier. But we should be expecting a lot of committees here in week one, and Antonio Gibson is going to be in a committee. The reason I was into him this summer and the reason that people started drafting him higher and higher is because of potential. At the very least, he'll get some early down work while seeing a decent target share. But if this athleticism hits, if his crazy crazy athleticism ends up translating, then he's got a really high ceiling too. There's more of that backfield that he can grab. This next question says, hey, hey, JJ, how confident are you that JK Dobbins will actually take over the Ravens backfield? And if he does, how many carries do you think he'll get per game? It seems unlikely that they would just completely bench Ingram, so couldn't there be a scenario where both get low touches? Yeah? Absolutely, I think the most likely scenario for the Ravens backfield this year is that there's a full blown committee where Ingram leads that committee to start the year, and Dobbins slowly takes over as the one A in that backfield as the season moves on. But yeah, I think Dobbins needs an Ingram injury for him to be really really fantasy relevant, like RB one fantasy relevant. He'll probably be fine as a flex, but that's part of the reason I was drafting Antonio Gibson over JK Dobbins even before the Adrian Peterson news. I just saw a much more usable player without an injury. Now, I don't mind Dobbins in redraft per se, because there is upside there and maybe he does end up owning that backfield. I don't know for sure. I just think he's a much much better day Ynisty asset right now because he could absolutely run away with that backfield after this season. This last question is another one about my boy, James Robinson. How excited should people get about James Robinson being the starting running back in Jacksonville? Is his projection any better than Leonard Fournette's was? Okay, So I'm a James Robinson truther. I guess he was someone that my model liked. I talked about him on this show pre and post draft. He's a very intriguing prospect because his production profile was awesome at a small school. But I do think that we need to be realistic here in temper expectations. I would be shocked in the best way, but I would be shocked if James Robinson has anything close to a Leonard Fournette workload in Jacksonville this year. It seems like they're gonna use Laviska Chanould a bit and get creative with him, and then Chris Thompson is there as a pass catcher. Do I think James Robinson is a three down skill set? I do, at least his profile tells me that he went undrafted, so the odds are already really stacked against him, and he's not the best athlete in the world. Even though I don't get overly concerned with measurables, I do think it could end up limiting James Robinson's ceiling. Robinson is the right guy to have on your bench right now, especially because he's gonna get some run here in week one and we can see the type of workload that he gets and how effective he is with that workload. Definitely stash him, see how he does and hope that he surprises all of us, because I do think he's a good prospect, and I did think that he should have been drafted, But just don't set the bar too high. Be realistic. It's very important to be realistic in fantasy football, and realistically, he's an undrafted guy with a satellite back in his backfield on a really bad team. That's not the best recipe for success, but that's going to do it. For today's show, Thanks to all of you for listening. If you've got subscribed to the Late Round podcast, make sure you are by searching for it pretty much anywhere podcasts can be found, you know. Forget to follow me on Twitter at Late Round QB. Thanks everyone, I hope you enjoyed the shows this week, Enjoy all the football this weekend, and I will talk to you next week