937: Mailbag 11/1/24

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Speaker 1: This is the Late Podcast with your host JJ Zacheratha j J zacher reson. What's up everyone. It's JJ zacharyesin in this episode nine and thirty seven of the Late Round Fantasy Football podcast sponsored by Underdog. Thanks for tuning in. Before we get into the mailbag questions this week, I want to remind you that even though you drafted your fantasy teams back in August, you can still do snake drafts right now over on Underdog said to underdog Fantasy dot com or download the app in the draft section click NFL and you'll see tons of drafts that you can participate in right now. And if you're new to Underdog, make sure you sign up with promo code Late Round. That'll get you a nice deposit bonus as well as my rest of season rankings. Those rankings are updated for you each Tuesday once you get the link to them, but to get that link, you have to sign up, use promo code Late Round, make a deposit, and start playing. The first question this week is from Patreon. It's from Matt. It says Hidra, I just wanted to know why you're so high on Deebo Samuel rest of season? So I wouldn't be surprised if this is a common question out there, not that all of you have my rest of season rankings, but I would imagine that people aren't high enough on Deebo right now. In my opinion, of course, Deebo's ranked high because Brandon Ayuk is no longer in the picture. It's as simple as that. There was some data tweeted by friend of the show Adam Levitan last week showing the plays run by San Francisco over the last two years when Ayuk was off the field. In those scenarios, Deebo Samuel had a thirty percent target chair in a forty eight percent targets per route run rate. That's with brock Pertia quarterback. Now, we don't have a massive sample of Deebo without Ayyuk in full games, but Ayuk missed Week three last year. I don't think it's a coincidence that Deebo saw a thirty five percent target shair in that game and he scored twenty five PPR points. You currently have a player who's and one of the better offenses in football, who could see well over a twenty five percent target share. A good player, and people will look at his Week eight game, and they're gonna be worried because it was his first one without iu CA. It wasn't an awesome game, but Diebo was coming off pneumonia. He ran a route on seventy four percent of San Francisco's dropbacks. He's going to be in the ninety percent range moving forward more than likely. And even still, he still saw a twenty eight percent target chair in that game. So if people are down on Deebo Samuel for whatever reason, I'd definitely be buying, and it might be easier to do that right now because they have their buy This has questions from twitters From at T Hurles ninety two. It says, is Jalen Wattle still going to be a viable mid to high wide receiver two with Devon Chan soaking up as many targets as he has been with Tua under center? Or should I look to sell on name value now? Look, I like Jalen Waddle quite a bit entering the season, and I do lean more or by than sell right now because the feeling around Waddle it's pretty negative. That's why I don't think that you can actually sell on name value. He hasn't been producing. He always seems to be hurt. This is the kind of player that fantasy managers absolutely despise. But when we look at individual performances, it's really important to look at the team performance too. Like if a players performing poorly and his team is dominating and we're seeing that happen week in and week out, that's a red flag, especially if the peripherals aren't there for that player. But last week, Tua had two hundred and thirty four passing yards in one touchdown. Tyreek Hill had seventy two receiving yards and a twenty four percent target chair. Jalen Waddle he had a sixteen percent target chair and forty five yards. It's not like Tyreek Hill was at the levels that we've come to expect either. The fact of the matter is we have two and a half games right now, two and a half game sample of the Dolphins with Tua. In Week one with Tua, Wattle had over one hundred receiving yards, the target chairs having exactly where we'd want them to be, And that's somewhat of a concern. But I really really don't want two and a half games to dictate my feelings about a talented wide receiver just objectively, and to your question, is this an a chan thing, I mean, maybe a little bit. But again, we have to remember that we're working in small samples and two US completed games this year, we're seeing the team's running backs gobble up about thirty percent of Miami's targets. Last year, their target share was twenty three percent. So let's just say that there's seven percentage points higher than their average last year. Jalen Waddle in those two games only has a fifteen percent target share, which is eight percentage points lower than where he was at in twenty twenty three. When we're looking at target shair per game, so you might be thinking, oh, wow, all of Waddle's targets are just going to the running backs. That's not really how it works, though. The target share wouldn't just be surrendered by Jalen Waddle and Jalen Waddle only. I mean it technically could in such a small sample, but long term that doesn't make that much sense. I just think we need to be patient. Now there's a real chance that Waddle maybe has a twenty percent target share from here on out instead of a twenty three percent one because of how they're using their running backs, assuming that that running back target share remains the same. But I think the bigger deal here is actually with the tight ends. Like tight end is where Waddle can gain some ground because john hus Smith is not as talented at his position as the von A Chan or Jalen Waddle are at theirs. Miami tight ends have seen about a twenty percent target chair in two IS completed games this year. That's more than double where they were last year. It's significantly higher than where this offense has been historically. So I'm still anticipating better days ahead for Jalen Waddle. Unfortunately, the matchup this week is not necessarily ideal, so maybe you want to wait to buy him, but I'm still cautiously optimistic. This has questions from Patreon. It's from mad Child. It says, how do you see Deontay Johnson performing for the rest of this with the Ravens. Do you think this trade values at its peak right now given the uncertainty? Or should I hold on to him expecting him to carve out a strong role. So there is a really interesting kind of weird tweet sent by Josina Anderson on Wednesday related to this trade. It's a long tweet, but here's a chunk of it. She wrote, while I'm told Johnson was brought to Baltimore for his speed, separation and punt returning abilities, especially with Deontay Hardy's listing on IR, it's been reinforced to Flowers and Bateman, even going back to last year when the team added additional weapons at wide, out that the organization not only believes in the aforementioned duo, but also has very high confidence in them. So I was told they quote are not messing with that. She then goes on to say that Bateman and Flowers are producing like top twenty wide receivers and that this move for Deontay Johnson could more so impact Nelson Aglore, basically saying that this isn't a big deal for Flowers and Bateman, but it is a big deal for Nelson Aglore. Now, I'm not saying that what she's report is false. I'm sure the Ravens told her this, but this just isn't how projections work. When you add a player like Deontay Johnson, He's gonna impact target shairs and I think Johnson is a better player than Rasha Bateman, who for the record, I think is an underrated player, but Johnson has more talent, and talent usually wins out, so there's a chance that we see a change with that deployment. But this move is kind of weird to me because the Ravens are cooking offensively, Like the offense has not been the problem if there is a problem, but this Ravens team has also used eleven personnel at the lowest rate in football this year. They're trotting out three wide receiver sets at a lower rate than any other team. You add Deontay Johnson and does that change. I think this is probably where you just seen as tweet is coming from and why the Ravens are saying what they're saying, because they don't want to change something that's already working. But that's easier said than done when you add a player like Deontay Johnson. So what this means is that there are some really interesting potential outcomes here. One of those outcomes is that this tweet is totally right that the Ravens almost made this move for special teams in depth reasons, which sure that could be the case, but that would be wasting Deontae Johnson's talents. The second outcome here is that they continue running the same offense, but Rashad Bateman's the one who takes a pretty big hit. Johnson steps in, he takes that role. Now. The third outcome is that they fundamentally change the offense. They run a lot more eleven personnel. What would happen then, Well, the wide receivers would see a decrease in target share because there's more competition at wide receiver, and then the tight ends would see a major decrease because all of a sudden, you're only rolling one of them out on the field at once rather than multiple. I think the most likely outcome is somewhere in the middle of all three of these things, that they do increase their eleven personnel usage, but not to the point where they're like a top ten team and eleven personnel. I do think that we might see a slow start for Deontae given he has to learn this offense, and they probably do like Bateman, remember he got a new contract. But as the season goes on, I just think Johnson is a better player than rasha Bateman, so he may see more work towards the end of the year. I think it's clear just given everything that I just outlined though that this is bad for fantasy football. A player like Johnson on Carolina, like, yeah, that offense is bad. We didn't have that much hope with Bryce Young, but Johnson could at least hit huge target shairs. We're now in a position where the Ravens, despite Lamar Jackson playing out of his mind, there's still a below average team in pass attempts per game. They're bottom four in the league right now and pass right over expected. This is not a team that has a ton of passing volume to spread around their pass catchers, So I'm not extremely bolish rest of season. There are some ways that this can work out. He takes over for Bateman, he gets better efficiency than he's had, But there are a lot of ways that this can go south. That's what's worrying me. The best questions for twitters from at scott sport au It says, can you break down George Pickens' usage so far this season? His snapshare is so crazy to me, eighty percent the last two weeks with Russ and below seventy percent most weeks with fields. Is this game script related, run heavy games? Or is there something I'm missing? So this isn't totally game script driven, because if it was, then pickens rout participation would still be really high, right because if he was just off the field for when they were grinding out the clock, then he would still have high route participation because he'd be on the field during passing downs or when they drop back to pass. That hasn't totally been the case right now. He's outside the top forty in route participation at wide receiver. The good news, though, to your point about his snapshares with Russ over his last two games, he's had pretty good route participation rates or better ones. He's been at ninety four percent in eighty Those are both above his season long average. Not to be fair, and this isn't dramatically different from someone who ranks like twentieth in ROUL participation. I'm not really that concerned about this, especially when you pair it up with his target shairs. He has a twenty eight percent target share in the season. He's been above thirty three percent in three of his last five games. He could have had a much bigger game against the Giants, too. Some things just didn't go his way. Conversion continues to be somewhat of a problem for him. According to PFF's expected Fantasy points formula, Pickens is playing about a point and a half per game below expectation, but in his two games with Russ, he's seen expected fantasy points per game rate that would put him firmly in wide receiver to territory if this continues. So, yes, it could be better. The usage could look a little bit better, but I'm not sure how much it would impact his bottom line. His peripherals look strong regardless. The last question this week is from Patreon. It is from Ballgame four. It says, in the past, you flag planted your favorite second half breakout, anyone you feel strongly about this year? Or should we continue to look for the archetypes that we know have historically hit, example rookie wide receivers. So I kind of feel like I already did this with Tyrone Tracy a handful of weeks ago, and I've had lad Mconke as a byekin that on fifteen Transactions. Roe madonsay he falls into his bucket now too. After calling him out this past week, I do try to call the players out on that show every week. I think going after a specific archetype is smart. Younger players who just haven't produced but have a good backbone of being a good player. Roe Maadonsay is the example of that right now. Mconkey was more of a peripherals thing when I called him out, but obviously he had a backbone of being a good prospect. Tracy was good and he was explosive. He just needed more reps, which he's now getting. But I'll give some more players who I think could improve during the second half. I think we have to focus on rookies, mostly because we know they perform better during the second half of the seas and versus the first. I'm still into Ricky Piersoll's potential in San Francisco. He hasn't given us a monster game in his two games this year, but we have to remember he's coming off getting shot and he's a rookie. You have to give him at least a little bit of time. Christian McCaffrey coming back may open up more down the field looks too. And then another player I wouldn't give up on yet, as Jayalen McMillan. Just give it a little bit of time. It may not come to fruition, but just be a little bit patient, and then I really hope that the Bengals give Eric All and Jermaine Burton a little bit more work down the stretch. I feel less bullish about that happening, though, but Burton did see his best route participation of the season last week by far with t Higgins sidelined. But unfortunately there hasn't been that much movement with Eric Hall's usage. But I do think towards the end of the year those guys might be more involved within that offense. And I think that we need to at least have eighty Mitchell on speed dial right now with Joe Flacco starting, I think he's a better player than Alec Pierce. But hilariously, one of eighty men Mitchell's Compson the Zapp model was Alec Pierce. Just continue to monitor his usage in that offense, and then at running back in deeper formats, you got COMMANI Bydell Marshaun Lloyd, Trey Benson, Jalen Wright, Ray Davis. I still think you should be stashing those players. But yeah, I think the difference right now is that I've made an attempt to be more aggressive in calling these players out on the fifteen Transaction Show each week. So the main ones that I care about I've talked about at length, but stashing rookies right now who may not have immediate opportunity but could have some down the line if things break a certain way. That's always a very smart thing to do this time of year. That's it for today's show, though thanks to allby for listening. If you yet subscribe to the Late Round Fantasy Football podcast, make sure you are by stretching for it pretty much anywhere podcast can be found, and to follow me on Twitter at Late Round QB. Thanks for listening everyone. Hope you enjoy your weekend, and I hope you enjoy a Late Round Perspectives episode that's dropping later today. I'll talk to you next week.