661: Players to Target

00:00:02
Speaker 1: This is the Labor Podcast with your host JJ Zacher Retha j J Zacher reson.

00:00:11
Speaker 2: What's up everyone.

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Speaker 3: It's JJ zachar Eason and this is episode six hundred and sixty one of the Late Round Fantasy Football podcast sponsored by FanDuel. Thanks for tuning in. As you all know, this is a solo podcast. The majority of the Late Round Fantasy Football podcast episodes are just me behind a microphone talking about some topic and giving fantasy football takes. I keep things tightly edited and to the point so you can just get in and out very quickly while getting bombarded with fantasy football information. That's the goal, to just crush you guys with info. But I know that you probably get sick and tired of hearing just my takes. Sometimes you probably want a little variety, So I'm trying something new this year. Every season, I do this Players to Target episode, where I talk through ten or so players that I'm targeting in fantasy football drafts. Then I talk about players I'm avoiding. I've been doing this for years. This year, I'm gonna do that exact same thing, but with guests. Today's guest is a good friend of mine and one of the sharpest fantasy football analysts on the planet. It makes sense that he rits and does work for sharp football analysis. It's my pal rich reebar Rich has been a guest on here in the past, and you know he brings the heat. We each talk through five players that were targeting in fantasy football drafts this year. Instead of me just asking all the questions, this episode is set up like a conversation, like more of a typical podcast, but I think it's the right kind of topic to have that sort of environment. Now, before we get into the players to target, I want to remind you about the established The Run Draft Kit established runners rankings for any fantasy format you may be playing in, and they continuously update as news breaks. You also get access to Evan Silva's top one fifty and along with it a change log that you can read to see why players are moving up and down his draft board. It's a great way to make sure that you understand why players are being ranked where they are. The goal is to help you make better decisions, not tell you who to pick. And if you're into best ball drafting, their strategy, rankings and insight can help you out a ton with roster construction. I know that I've learned a lot from their analysis myself. Establistrong gives you a different perspective on fantasy football than I do. I think the combination of my work in THEIRS can help make this draft season a successful one. So head over to establish the Run dot com and purchase their draft kit, and when you do, use promo code JJ for a ten percent discount. That's promo code Jay J. Also, don't forget to sign up for Fandle Fantasy. For users who've got to make a deposit on Fandle Fantasy, you can deposit today to receive two free entries. All you have to do is deposit a minimum of ten dollars into your Fandle DFS account and you'll be instantly rewarded with two free vouchers. Be sure to deposit now and play for free. Head over to fandle dot com or download the Fandle Fantasy app today. Eligibility restrictions apply. Go to fandle dot com or download the fandel app for more details. Now here's me and Rich talking about play year. Is that we're targeting in twenty twenty two fantasy drafts. So Rich things are pretty basic here. What we're gonna do is we each have five players that don't overlap either, even though we might agree on a lot of these guys, but we have five players that we will talk through who we are targeting in fantasy drafts this year.

00:03:19
Speaker 2: This is based obviously.

00:03:20
Speaker 3: On ADP and where they generally go, and we have players who sort of range from the beginning of the draft all the way to the end of the draft. Let's have you kick things off, Rich, who is the first player that you're targeting?

00:03:30
Speaker 1: Well, since you are the late round quarterback still by name, I mean I'll start with the kind of quarterback I'm targeting. And you know, if you've read the Late Round QB Fantasy Guide, I mean, we still don't want to be the first to the room. We don't rush to the quarterback room. Still. You know, late round quarterbacks shifted the last couple of years, but we've been pretty lucky at navigating the system or really good at it, depending how you want to interpret that. So we're going to go like late late round QB one. So I mean, to me, the most palatable guy at ADP right now, now that I've been getting the most often, is Russell Wilson. You look at Russell Wilson last year kind of left a lot of people wondering, like, are his days of an elite fantasy quarterback over? You know, he missed games for the first time in his career. He had just one top six scoring week on the season two. But when you go under the hood, definitely still a lot of positives to Russell Wilson. He had a six point three percent touchdown rate. That's his fifth straight season with a touchdown rate over six percent percent. That led to him being kind of, you know, fourth in the league in passing points per attempt. Only Aaron Rodgers, Joe Burn Matthew Stafford more passing points per attempt than Russell Wilson. And obviously he's not going to be on an offense that's gonna run the fewest plays in the NFL anymore, which is you know, definitely a positive. And you look at Denver two mediate offensive line upgrade. He goes from a Seattle team that was thirtieth in pressure rate allowed to the Broncos were sixteenth in ESPN's pass black win rate. So I mean he's gonna absolutely go from a bottom dwelling offensive line to a solid offensive line, which is going to make a massive difference. And although the Denver doesn't have a top heavy talent like DK Metcalf, for Tyn to Lockett, the wide receiver room, the tight end room, in the running back room paired from receiving stands is a lot deeper than what he had in Seattle. He also has at Sharp Football Analysis our top print passing schedule for the twenty twenty two season. I mean, the first month absolutely looks glorious. He starts, you know, with a revenge game immediately narrative at Seattle le HEAs Houston, the forty nine Ers, who he's familiar with, then the Raiders. He gets the Jackson Jets prior to his Week nine by in the Fantasy playoffs, the money Zone Weeks fourteen through eighteen, Chiefs, Cardinals, Rams Chiefs. Again, that's major firework potential, back and forth game, back and forth games. And you look at him against bottom ten pass defense. Even last year when people were kind of out at him, he ha aed eight point four yards or pass attempt two point three passing touchdowns per game against those teams, opposed to six point nine yards for pass attempt and one point seven passing scores per game against those non bottom dwelling teams. The one thing with Russell Wilson what's hard to vault him into like that top six tier is that in turning thirty four, how much of the rushing can we really kind of count on? You know, last year was the lowest rushing production we had of his career, and can we really kind of vault him over at jail and Hurts. Probably not, but he's the first guy I start the monitor, like when those elite quarterbacks start to come off the board.

00:06:12
Speaker 2: Yeah.

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Speaker 3: The other thing too, you know, if you're doing a lot of Best Ball drafts right now, is very stackable offense. You know, you can get Sutton or Judy early and if you get them then you can obviously know to target Russ, but there's also options later. Now you know Tim Patrick obviously has a season ending injury, but kJ Hamler hopefully he stays healthy, Fingers crossed, and then Alberto also, you know at tight end you can still you can still group those guys together, you know, if you do miss out on a Judy or Sutton or if you only get one of those two guys. So I'm totally with you. I love Russ this year definitely one of my targets. Since you started with quarterback, I'm going to go to quarterback. I'm gonna talk about another guy.

00:06:46
Speaker 2: This is more.

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Speaker 3: This is more the Rich Reebar Special, the guy who started the Konami code revolution back on Number Fire in like twenty thirteen, writing an article about why mobility at the quarterback is a cheat code, talking about Terrell Pryor and Tim Tebow back then, who are no longer in the league, but one guy who I think just fits the mold perfectly, and it's sort of like to me, especially in like home leagues. Obviously, in Best ball leagues and probably sharper drafts, you're going to see this guy go a lot earlier, but in home leagues, and if you look at like aggregate ADP right now across bigger platforms, he's like QB fourteen, which is crazy to me. So he's like the quintessential go to late round quarterback in my opinion, this year. We've seen it happen with Patrick Mahomes a few years ago, Lamar Jackson a couple of years ago, Jalen Hurts last year. This year's guy seems to be Trey Lance. If you look at what happened last year when he got his his starts, he scored fourteen point six and nineteen point one Fantasy points in those two games.

00:07:46
Speaker 2: And as a lot of you.

00:07:47
Speaker 3: Guys remember, unfortunately he was an inch away from scoring that one rushing touchdown in that game I think against Arizona, So those numbers could have looked way way better. But in those two games, he ran the ball twenty four times. You know, not all of them were obviously designed, but he ran the ball a whole lot, and for some context, that's more rush attempts those two obviously a very small sample, but that's more rush attempts per game than what Lamar Jackson has averaged over his last three seasons. I'm not saying that that's the direction that Trey Lance is necessarily going to go. I'm just saying there's a lot of jews from a volume perspective on the ground for Trey Lance in this offense. And speaking of this offense, the system's pretty good there in San Francisco. Not only do they have great weapons. You know, Brandon Ayuk, I think is going to get a little bit of a boost just from the standpoint of being able to get more vertical in the O. But they obviously have George Kittle and Deebo Samuel got extended decent running backs back there. You know, I think that they should be strong offensively, but the system is clearly good because Jimmy Garoppolo was second in the NFL last year in yards per attempt and teams still don't really care about Jimmy Garoppolo across the league despite the efficiency that he had last year. You know, I think the downside that people see with Lance there's this no of like he you know, questioning his arm, questioning if he's going to be a long term answer at quarterback for them. Is he going to be good just as a passer, as a pure passer, And we don't have that answer yet. I think it's fine that we don't have that answer yet, but it's crazy because that's the reason why he's being drafted later is because of this ambiguity. But here's my response to that. Look at Jalen Hurts last year. Literally last season, Jalen Hurts got everything done on the ground. I mean, he did have someone of an outlier season in terms of rushing touchdowns. Hurts did last year, but it's not like Hurts was lightened it up through the air, and he was still a very very viable fantasy option week in and week out because of what he can do with his legs, and compared to Hurts, Lance has the situation, he has the draft capital, and he has the talent around him. So I think that his ceiling is even higher than what we saw from Jalen Hurts entering last season. So Trey Lance, I think is the quintessential late round quarterback this year.

00:09:52
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean he's the Konami Special this year. Like he said, there's a lot of overlap to what Jalen Hurts had. You know, a lot of people thought, well is he good enough and not get benched? Last year with Jalen Hurts, they brought in Gardner Minshew remember in this time, right around this time after they traded for him, and you know we kind of still have that uneasiness. Well, Garoppolo is still on the roster. Well, we'll see if he makes it the these next three weeks. I mean the thing about Lance is I mean versus Jalen Hurts. I mean, the guy was a top three pick. There's a lot of insulation here that they have to see this thing through. And to me, like you hit the nail on the head when you just talk about when you look at this situation compared to recent situations, it's it reminds me a lot like the Baltimore situation Lamar Jackson, where you have this top down infrastructure where you know that he's in good hands right the way Baltimore handles things, and the talent here, the surrounding talent here is way better than Jalen Hurts had last year. And then what Lamar Jackson had as a passer in the twenty nineteen breakout, you know, with Deebo Samuel, with Brandon I, with George Kittle, with the with the running scheme that they have, and you look at last year, I mean he only took eighty six dropbacks, but only Taysom Hill, another economic special average more Fantasy points for dropback than Trey Lance. He threw two fewer touchdown passes than Justin Fields did, who threw two or more passes. He threw four fewer touchdown passes than Zach Wilson, who threw one hundred and forty two more passes than him too, So there is like a floor and upside here with Trey Lance. He's just right there at that pot of ADP and someone in your home league is gonna be like, now he's not a good quarterback. I'm not gonna take him.

00:11:22
Speaker 3: Yeah, Yeah, there's there's gonna be a lot of people, and there are a lot of people out there who are hesitant to put Trey Lance in their top ten, even at the quarterback position, when really the mobility factor is more about a floor thing than a ceiling thing. The ceiling really comes for these guys when their arm connects right. And that's what we saw with Lamar Jackson a couple of years ago when he had that MVP season. He was the QB one one of the best quarterback seasons we've ever seen in fantasy football. It was because he had a crazy, crazy season with his arm in terms of touchdown rate and the things that he was able to do, you know, with his weapons there. So that's really where the upside comes into play. The floor is very, very safe with a guy like Lance just because of that mobility.

00:11:58
Speaker 2: So keep that in mind as well. All right, Rich, second guy, let's hear it.

00:12:02
Speaker 1: My second guy is Dalvin Cook. You know, he's he's really kind of fall into like the back of the round one this season. You know, after being kind of like a disappointment. He was basically the consensus pick two last year, and he still had almost fourteen hundred yards last season. But you know, you look at last year's fifth in the league, still in touches per game. You know, everyone wants to talk about what Kevin O'Connell brings playing a lot more eleven personnel with the Rams over to the Minnesota Vikings. They talk about it in the context of like, well, kJ Osbourn, now it's going to be a full time player, But I mean, look at what it's gonna do for Dalvin Cook. I mean, he's now going to get a run to run out of a lot more eleven personnel and the offensive line's not good, but it's gonna help alleviate, you know, box counts and make this offensive line a little bit better. Since he entered the NFL, he's twenty ninth and I'm all running backs and carries out of eleven personnel. Just twenty seven and a half percent of his carries are from eleven personnel. But his efficiency when having more wideouts on the field and seeing you know, subsequent lighter boxes just absolutely smashes for an already efficient player. I mean, he ranked seventh in career yards per carry from eleven personnel, just under five and a half yards. It's like Nick Chubb levels of production. He's fourth and EPA per run out of eleven personnel the past three years. Some more recent sample, he's fifth, seventh and first in EPA per rush out of eleven personnel. Then when you look at what we could see some creativity, you know for Dalvin Cook. You know we've seen last year Darryl Henderson run one hundred and four pass routes in the slot and out wide, Sony Michelle another seventy nine. Those two guys one hundred eighty three combined. If you're gonna do the math on that, Dalvin Cook thirty five pass routes lined up out wide or outside last season. So that's how you take a guy like Dalvin Cook who's coming off of a career low receiving season just two point six receptions per game, six point six yards per catch, and kind of boosts that up while he's gonna get more efficient runs there as well. Then when you look at it from like a top down perspectivecause I know you like this kind of stuff doing you know, projections. The Vikings were second in the NFL rate of passing touchdowns. Seventy seven percent of their passing touchdowns on offense came through the air. Historically, teams over seventy five percent of touchdowns come via passing. Eighty percent of those teams see an increase in rushing scores the next season, with an average spike of six touchdowns on the ground per those teams. And Dalvin Cook himself is just you know, due natural aggression. He scored in just ten point nine percent of his red zone opportunities. His career rate prior to that was twenty one point three percent. He converted just three of twelve carries inside the five yard line his career, it's forty four percent higher. And then as a cherry on top, the Minnesota has our top ranked rushing schedule for the season. So I think Dalvin Cook should be the RB four after you know, Jonathan Taylor, Christian McCaffrey, Austin Eckler, and you can typically get him you know, one oh seven one await much later. So I'm looking for a big bounce back.

00:14:49
Speaker 3: I'm one hundred percent with you. I have him in the exact same spot in my rankings. I'm taking him over a guy like Derrick Henry, especially in non standard leagues.

00:14:57
Speaker 2: So I'm with you.

00:14:58
Speaker 3: I'm very bullish on the Minnesota offense just in general this year. I think there's a lot of fireworks that can be had. I'm gonna go from one running back who's being drafted early in Dalvin Cook, to one that's being drafted in the middle rounds who is kind of polarizing, sort of a play on words, there's Tony Pollard.

00:15:17
Speaker 2: That was pretty bad. That was bad.

00:15:18
Speaker 3: So here's the thing with Tony Pollard. I have not been on this guy in redraft until this year, and I feel.

00:15:25
Speaker 1: Like, very player.

00:15:27
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's a very unjj player, but I feel like people who, you know, people listen to analysts who like Pollard, they assume that they have been on Pollard, you know, this entire time, that they're one of those guys that's like, oh, Tony Pollard so much better than Ezekiel Elliott, and he's got to be on the field over Zeke and Zeke is done and blah blah blah.

00:15:45
Speaker 2: I don't really feel that way.

00:15:46
Speaker 3: I actually think that Zeke is fine where he's being drafted, but I also think that Tony Pollard is just a really good value where he's being drafted as well, because I'm thinking in range of outcomes here, I'm thinking in terms of what happens if isekil Elliott does indeed get hurt. And so you know, whenever you look at where Tony Pollard is getting drafted right now, Fantasy Pro's half PPR ADP has him at RB thirty two. When I look at my projections, that's actually a little bit below my projections where I have him overall. So basically, let's just say that he's being drafted at his projection right, which is fine, Like I think that we see that a lot with a lot of guys, especially in the middle rounds. But the difference between those players and someone like Tony Pollard, and you know, let's just look at like Tony Pollard versus Hunter Renfro or a lot of other wide receivers that just go sort of in the middle rounds. The difference is that he has insane upside if something happens to a guy sitting in front of him on that depth chart at Ezekiel Elliott. If Ezekiel Elliott goes down. You know, if we were to walk into the season and assume that Zeke wasn't gonna play and that Tony Pollard was the team's RB one, he'd be a second round pick in fantasy. He might even be a late first to some people, because people love Tony Pollard, and so we know that the upside at least is there for Pollard if something were to happen to Zeke. But at the very least you're drafting him at projection, you're drafting him you know where he could still retain value and be fine enough sort of as like a flex play, maybe even as an RB two in a full PPR league and more of like a hero RB or zero RB type build. But I talked about this also in the in the Breakout Running Back episode that I did. But Team RB twos by ADP who have Team RB ones that get drafted in the dead zone, which is where Zeke has been going for the most part. Uh, those guys have been unbelievable bets. To make you know, the easy go to is when Austin Eckler was in that range with Melvin Gordon, when Melvin Gordon was suspended for the first four games this season or.

00:17:35
Speaker 2: Was holding out.

00:17:36
Speaker 3: I should say he was not suspended, it was during his holdout. And then there's also Tarik Cohen during his big breakout year. He was a middle round pick when Jordan Howard was going in the dead zone, because you have these guys in the dead zone that just don't have necessarily this full profile. But these RB twos are talented. I mean, Tony Pollard is a talented running back no matter really how you look at it. And obviously he's a pass catcher, which is another great thing that we'd look for and breakout running backs. And then on top of that, he's also not past his fifth year in the league, which is another really big milestone for middle round running backs in terms of just general hit rate. So I do think that there's an absolute chance that Tony Pollard is more of like a high end RB three this year. Like that's that's that's his probable outcome. If we're being honest, it's like low end RB two, high end RB three PPR full PPR. Maybe give him a little bit of a bump if they really do use him more in the slot and more at receiver, which I do think that they will end up doing almost by necessity at this point because there's really not much else there. But the upside is just so crazy if something were to happen to Zeke. So I think taking that chance in the middle round just makes a ton of sense in formats, especially where you're getting some points per reception.

00:18:43
Speaker 1: Yeah, you brought up a player that when I look at this situation, Austin Eckler, and you're looking for a situation like that. And also if you just follow Pollard the trajectory of his career, I mean more touches every NFL season yards were touchco through the roof Dallas. Dallas averaged just under seven yards per play when he was in the field Lafe year, which would have by far led the NFL. You talked about their their passing game situation. Of all the players they lost, he has the inline to views there. No running back was targeted at a higher rate per route run when split out in the slaughter out. Why then Tony Poward last season. Now a lot of those targets are still behind line of scrimmage, are quick hitters and screens like that, But that gets it just that shows that he's a guy that they value getting out in space. I mean, Dallas should totally when you look at this thing from a top down perspective, especially given their roster, this should be a Melvin Gore and Austin Eckler situation or an AJ Dillon Aaron Jones situation, like that's how they should use these backs in unison. They're also going to maximize Ezekiel Oh using these guys this way too. And then you brought up the contingent value. It's one thing to say, all right, I'm not going to take Tony Power because all right, I'm drafting basically a floor based player. But I mean the contingent value is through the roof if anything. Where it happened to Ezekla. We've only seen him play one game without a TKLA and he was the RB one in weekly scoring, and that was on a team that you know, Andy Dalton was quarterbacking as well. So definitely a lot of contingent upside there. While you're getting a player that already had ten weeks as an RB three or better last year and seven as an RB two or better. So yeah, I like that a lot.

00:20:09
Speaker 2: All Right, Rachel's here your third.

00:20:12
Speaker 1: My third is probably gonna get some eye rolls. But I mean a lot of fantasy analysts like this guy, and it's it's Alan Robinson. You know, I know another guy that hurt a lot of people last year, right, And this is how you play fantas football. I mean, listen, man, you strike when people are living in that recency bias. You know, everything was a disaster Robinson last year. I can't shirk. The dude had COVID, he had ankle injury and a hamstring injury. He had a Matt Naggi injury. He played at justin fields. He seemingly just didn't even want to be in Chicago, so like all that, like, and I don't want to give him a Hall pass either. But he's going from a guy that now is eighty percent of his career targets from Blake Bortles and Mitchell Trubisky to playing with unequivalently the best quarterback of his career. Papa's a little he's watching this Matthew Stafford. Who's though, or to keep an eye on this Matthew Stafford obo elbow stuff throughout camp though, But if you look at the Rams historically, they have one of the best medical staff in all of the NFL especial when you look at like their injured player right the past two years. They're running a tight ship there, so I have a little bit of faith. But when you look at how Robinson was impacted last year from the Matt Nag gang, forty percent of his routes last season were just slants and curls. I mean, the Bears built the whole offense on the slants and curls. So if usually you look at Moody too, that's how I used him. It was just an absolute joke. Forty percent of his routes came on on those two routes, and those routes created just a five point nine to a dot average depth of target, which played a large role in the just the disaster of the season. He had twenty one percent of all the routes the Rams ran as an offense last year, as we're just slants and curls. So like big time difference in terms of offense. No team had more air yards last season on Digg's post go and deep crossing routes than the Rams. They had almost one thousand more yards than the Bears on those routes who were dead last in the NFL on aera yards in those routes. He's going from a system now that's gonna give him a lot of fantasy rich types of targets, even though he's probably not gonna push, you know, being one hundred and forty target player. Again, you look at his terms of in the paint. We saw little Beckham Scurelos touchdowns. The back half last season. The Rams were second the NFL pass rate inside the ten, They led the NFL pass rate inside the five. And then also another player like Tony Powllard. There's massive contingent value here with Alan Robinson if anything were to happen to Cooper Cup, Ben Skowurnick Van Jefferson, Like, these are the names that are like next in line in a system that we believe in, a quarterback that we believe in. So I mean, I think Alan Robinson is actually he's actually being drafted I think below his floor right now, and then it's massive upside.

00:22:35
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm with you on Robinson, man. This has been someone that you and I have talked about a lot this offseason. When we first built projections, he sort of popped him and Michael Pittman were two guys who just like looked really good in projections whenever you know, first run through. I agree though, I mean, if you look at Sean mcvay's offenses since he's got to LA, his offense is his wide receiver two, which granted, you know, they've had pretty good wide receiver twos in there, whether it was like Brandon.

00:22:58
Speaker 2: Cooks or Robert Woods.

00:22:59
Speaker 3: I mean, good players have been there, but those wide receiver twos in terms of adjusted target share, so it's really just target share per game times the number of games in that season, so sixteen or seventeen. You know, this past year, the lowest that they've had by their wide receiver two has been twenty one percent. So if you got a twenty one percent target share from Alan Robinson in this offense, I think that you would easily easily be drafting him in the fourth round, where he's been going in a lot of you know, more casual leagues and like these, you know, these bigger platforms like an ESPN or Yahoo. You're gonna be able to get Alan Robinson in like the sixth round and some of your home leagues this.

00:23:32
Speaker 1: Year, oh, the general population leagues you're gonna take him, and some immediately he's I had that dude last year.

00:23:39
Speaker 3: Yeah, right, right, exactly, Yeah, he's it's it's the recency biased thing. It's that he burned me so bad last year thing, and he did, like I mean, he was he was probably the worst early round pick last year of a guy who didn't really get hurt in the traditional way. I mean, he was just a really really bad pick last year. But there's a lot of reason to be bullish on him and that situation in general. I'll go from from one wide receiver to another. Let's go to Drake London. I'm really really into to London obviously as a prospect. I mean, he was a ninety eighth to ninety ninth percentile prospect in my model. Players with that high of a rating give us an eighteen plus ppuro point per game season across their first three at a thirty five percent clip since twenty eleven, which is a I mean, eighteen plus is like a top six season at wide receiver, and they're hitting that at about a thirty five percent rate. Now, granted that's the first three years in the league. I'm just showing and explaining that to show you that he's a very good player, and he's with very very good company overall within this model. But the other thing too, and one of the reasons to be pretty bullish on London if you look, and I've talked about this in the Breakout Wide Receiver episode, I talked about this in the Draft Guide as well, but top one hundred redraft rookie wide receivers have been unbelievable bets historically. So when we're talking top one hundred players, especially rookie wide receivers, we're talking like the best of the best wide receivers that get drafted in the actual NFL draft. We're talking like Amari Cooper, Mike Evans, like these top ten guys, which is what Drake London obviously was. But seventy nine percent of those players that have been drafted in the top one hundred overall in fantasy drafts as a rookie wide receiver have exceeded ADP expectation just by by more than zero. So they've just been better than ADP expectation since twenty eleven. That's a seventy nine percent rate. And then on top of that, they've they've become breakouts for their exceeding ADP expectation by three or more points or six or more points at a really really good rate too, way better rate than what we see generally from middle round wide receivers. Drake London he's locked into that spot obviously, like I said, as a top one hundred player, after going so high in the NFL draft and being, you know, the top wide receiver off the board. I think right now you sort of look at the rookie wide receiver landscape and you know, there's some guys that in like re like home leagues and stuff. You could see Treylon Burk's getting in there and Chris Alave getting in there and some players like that, but they're not as much of a lock as Drake London is in terms of just being a top one hundred pick.

00:26:02
Speaker 2: You know, there's a lack of competition in Atlanta.

00:26:05
Speaker 3: Obviously, target share is earned, but but Drake London is, aside from Kyle Pitts, easily the most talented. He's at least the most talented wide receiver that they have. With like Zakias there and Audent Tate there and Brian Edwards, there are just a lot of guys who haven't really gotten it done historically. He might not completely completely blow up this year, but guys with his profile and I understand that people are a little bit turned off by rookie wide receivers in redraft, but rookie wide receivers and redraft have been unbelievable values compared to the market historically.

00:26:33
Speaker 2: So I'm going to buy into Drake London.

00:26:35
Speaker 1: Yeah, you'll get Lana's wide receiver layout. I mean, demer Berg is the most career receiving yards currently on the roster. I think that that's gonna be no hurdle for him to really kind of push the target the target tree. The other thing you like about London, and I think London and Burkes in particular this season, is that you we don't see big guys like them like kind of work the way they did in college. They can win, you know, downfield as well, but like both of those guys got so many targets on screens and produced after the catch, and it kind of alleviates some of the concerns you might have, like a little bit about the situation in terms of and you know, like the last two years, I mean, justin Jefferson and Jamar Chase have kind of like really blown this thing up. But you seem like that hasn't really impacted ADP front of these guys either, Like it's not like London's going with wide receiver twenty right, Like it hasn't ruined it. Like those two guys, the explosions they've had haven't ruined the bag that take upside. You can easily get London in a wide receiver heavy build as your wide receiver four plus or a wide receiver three plus, you know, with with going aggressively with running backs early, so he fits basically all structures like a lot of these rookie wide receivers, Dow.

00:27:42
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think you have another rookie wide receiver that you'd like to talk about.

00:27:45
Speaker 1: Yeah. One of the guys, like I've been frequently just grabbing is Chris Olave. I mean, he's a guy that was just an absolute touchdown machine at Ohio. So he actually set the career you know, record for receiving touchdowns at Ohio State. Now granted he was you know, one of those you know for your players, they usually push him out, you know before highest they usually pushed those guys out pro like Garrett Wilson. But he bet on himself. I mean by all counts. Last year, he was told he was gonna be a second round pick, and he bet himself. I guess what he got that bag. We went twelve overall, he's second in this class in converting contested catches, you know at sixty three percent. He's got a great physical profile. You know, like a lot of these other guys in this draft class. You know, one hundred and ninety pounds, so under four four forty. But then you also look at like where he went and you look at what the Saints did last year. They were just an an uninspiring aggressive offense. But you you asked why this happened, and it's because while Jamis Winston was the quarterback, his leading target was Alvin Kamara thirty four targets, and he targeted Marcus Callaway was his next highest target, and no other player had more than sixteen targets. There's a reason, like the Saints at what was what it was outside of the structure of scheme, it's because they were throwing to just vagabonds. Now you look at this system. They've got Michael Thomas on the field, they had Ras Landry at Chris Lave there is an opportunity here now for this team to be a lot more aggressive offensively. We know Jamis will be willing to be aggressive, and we saw that Jamis when he did want to push the ball downfield last year to a guy like Deontay Harder, he was hyper efficient. So I look at a lave and contexts this offense and these wide receivers, and there is target competition here more so than a guy like Drake London. But he does something different than what Jarvis Landry and what Michael Thomas provide for the offense. And then another guy that has baked in contingent upside, so he can equally, he can easily just walk into having a solid target chair because of the investment in the talent level. And then if Michael Thomas isn't fully one hundred percent, Jarvis Landry has been a player that's been declining the last two years. There there's a definite like path for him to even have a lot more on an offense that I believe is just significantly undervalued. I think the Saints are an undervalued fantasy team in general.

00:29:55
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm totally with you, man, And as as you know and as a lot of listeners know, a Lave ranked second in my prospect model at wide receiver this year in a really really good wide receiver class. I did rank him third in my rookie rankings behind Burks also just because I think Burk's build and such is just the ceilings a little bit higher. But a Lave, you know, Matt Harmon with reception perception, saw him as the best route runner in this class as well. I just think there's a lot to like about a Lave and pairing him up with Jamis right away could be a lot of fun. Speaking of fun wide receivers, I got another guy, Kadarius Tony, another player who three or four years ago, I feel like I wouldn't be as in on as I am now, just that my process has been refined a little bit and I'm looking for these guys a little bit more. But you know, with Tony last year, there was a lot to like about what he did on the field. He averaged a target chair per game of twenty point seven percent in games where he had fifty percent or more of the team snaps last year. The only fifty plus target players who saw more targets per route run last year where Antonio Brown, Cooper Cup, Davante Adams, and aj Brown than Kadarius Tony. Ten rookie wide receivers who have had fifty or more targets and a yards per route run rate of one point seven or more and a fifty percent slot snap race since twenty eleven.

00:31:14
Speaker 2: The other ten players are sorry.

00:31:16
Speaker 3: The other nine players are Cooper Cup, Jarvis Landry, Cedee Lamb, Doug Baldwin, Jordan Matthews who you know he was fine for the first few years of his career, Juju Smith, Schuster, Hunter Renfro, Jalen Waddle, Aman Ross Saint Brown, and Kadarius Tony. And obviously I mentioned Jalen Waddle and aman Ross Saint Brown there, but those guys are going a lot earlier than where Kadarius Tony is generally going in drafts. Tony last year was second since twenty eleven among rookie wide receivers and targets per route run. The guy who was in first, this guy named Tyreek Hill. He's a pretty good football player. He's a second year player. That's what we should be targeting, especially in the middle rounds. We've seen second year wide receivers in those middle rounds exceed ADP expectation by three plus points per game at a forty two percent clip since twenty eleven, which is far the best subset. I mean, the average among middle round wide receivers is about twenty four percent, exceeding ADP expectation by three plus points. Second year wide receivers it's forty two percent. So you're you're getting a demographic that you like to target. You're getting a guy who is obscenely efficient and really with a lot of good players historically that have done the things that Canarius Tony did last year. Yes, it's a smaller sample. You know, we would have liked to see him play a little bit more last season, but at the same time, you know, it was in a pretty poor situation as well. So my thinking with this is if this offense clicks with Dable, which it's gonna be better than what it's been the last two It's almost impossible for the Giants offense to be worse than it has been the last couple of years. But if things do click with with Dable, you know, I think Tony's gonna play a little bit more on the outside this year too. With with Wanda Robinson, in the slot. But those those three guys that they have are all pretty good complimentary pieces. I think I think Tony could just be the guy that they rely on most within this offense.

00:32:57
Speaker 1: He's been a guy that I've been above market on, you know, pretty continuously. He is getting a push now, especially now we got some camp clips of him winning outside and you know, people love that, but you have to nail on the head, like I just really want to invest in as many of these year two wide receivers as possible. I mean, we have that grouping of Bateman, I'm on, Rod, DeVante, Smith, Elijah More, Kadarius, Tony all go as wide receiver three plus. As Tony is the has the lowest ADP of those guys. Ron noll Moore also is a little bit further down. He takes a little bit more stuff of faith. But add him to at his cost to But that's really I want to leave every draft with at least two of those guys, you know, and where you can get him in drafts. And you know it doesn't always happen in kind of our drafts, but I mean the way that's spread out, those guys are just kind of you he said, it's the subset of guys to bet on, be aggressed with those guys. Get as many of those guys in your roster. I hope you, hopefully you get the breakouts, but those are that grouping of receivers is by far the most exciting tier of wide receivers that I am excited for in drafts this year.

00:33:57
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm totally with you, and you don't usually see this many second year wide receivers in the middle rounds. The way that we're seeing. It's credit to how good last year's draft class was a wide receiver. And the other thing too, I know that a lot of these guys, even Kadarius Tony to some degree, but Elijah Moore is one, amanas Saint Brown's another. Even Rashaan Bateman to some degree. You're gonna look at it and say, I don't like their situation. I don't want to draft them for their situation. But at the wide receiver position especially, you got to be drafting for talent and you got to be drafting for the profile, and a lot of those second year wide receivers check a lot of boxes. So all right, we have tight ends to talk about. You have one and I have one. Why don't you kick things off?

00:34:35
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, listen, I'm still going to the Big Chief David and Joku. You know, this year especially, I feel like I'm not a huge early tight end guy anyways, but I feel like this year especially, it's very suspect at the top. I think that as good as that tiers are talent level, there's a lot of red flags and all of the top tier of tight ends. I mean, You've got Kelsey, He's thirty three years old. If you were to be the tight end one, he'd the oldest tight end in NFL history for fantasy football. You've got Darren Waller. Now, how much does he share with you know, Devonte Adams, how much does that impact him? You know, Kyle Pitts potentially playing on the worst offense in the NFL, George Kaitle has to deal with Trey Lance and he's already been a volatile player. And then Mark Andrews with like his thirty two points of regression that people have brought up all offseason. I don't think any of those guys are bad players. And if any of those guys fall a little bit lower than adp I'm definitely interested in them. But I do think that there are some red flags here, so I'm not gonna get invested into that tier. We know that like the typical tight end dead zone exists. We really want to I really want to jump in and grab guys like Dalton Schultz and Zach Ertz. Like those guys are uninspiring as well. So if we're gonna go to these like later round tight ends, what do we want. We want a guy that still is on the age spectrum for a breakout, David jo who just turned twenty six years old. Can he compete to be a lead target on his team? Absolutely? I mean we really only have Amari Cooper in the way. The rest of the Browns depth chart is wide open. I mean, you've David Bell, You've got down on Peoples Jones getting up of a Schwartz. It's wide open. He's coming off a career high thirteen point two yards per catch, nine yards per target. He only played sixty four percent of the offensive snaps last year. He'll only been three hundred five pass routes, which was fewer than Foster morele those are going to just massively expand now that he's a guy that has secured that bag from the organization. Austin Hooper's out of there, we don't still really know if Deshaun Watson's gonna play it. Obviously Deshaun Watson play, it'd be a massive upgrade, but even if Jacoby Brissette is the quarterback, I love this for David and Joke. I mean, only Lamar Jackson and Carson Wentz have targeted tight ends at a higher rate so far over the careers than Jacoby Brissett. It's a tight end friendly system, and if Deshaun Watson doesn't play, it's only going to put the Browns in a situation where they are probably going to be losing more games than they would have been. So, I mean where he's going in terms of draft costs, He's just a guy. I think that just fits a lot of team builds. He fits as your tight end two in these builds, as an upside swing in bestball leagues. And then also if you're just down right find yourself having to pump the position, I think the opportunity is there for him and take a shot on because if you fail, you're just going to be doing what half of your league is going to be doing and chasing the tight end position.

00:37:09
Speaker 3: I'm very much in on Ndjoku. He's actually one of the players to target in the draft guide. You look at the system too, as you as you mentioned the system hasn't had like unbelievable tight ends. You know, Austin Hooper's fine, but hasn't with Stefanski. They haven't had these like unreal tight end talents. But despite that in a run heavy scheme, they've been seventh in the NFL and tight end targets over the last two years. So it's definitely a scheme that should be favorable for in Djoku. And then you know you nailed it with the rest of his profile and that that perset nugget is is a great one as well. I will go from Njoku to col Comet co Comet's just like sort of like just a safer option. I think at this point, you know, I don't know if he has true, true, like top three tight end, a top three tight end season in him, but at the very least, I do think he's probably the safest later round tight end that you can find this year. Last year, on ninety three targets, he didn't score a touchdown. He was the first tight end since twenty eleven with more than eighty five targets to not score a touchdown. He got to hope that like that new offensive scheme and Justin Fields being a sophomore instead of a freshman's gonna help things out there a little bit. Jimmy Graham's gone. The only other established pass catcher in this offense is Darnell Mooney, So I think that from a projection standpoint, you could project pretty comfortably Colecomet getting into that like eighteen nineteen percent target share range, which means he's not that far away from a twenty percent share, which isn't that shocking me. They don't have anything else to really throw it to in.

00:38:38
Speaker 2: That offense right now.

00:38:39
Speaker 3: And when you look at the sixty seven tight ends since twenty eleven who played eight or more games with an adjusted target chair of at least twenty percent, so that's a per game target share, sixty three of the sixty seven ended up scoring double digit PPR points per game. And I know that sounds like a very low number, and it is. Double double digit points per game in PPR leagues is not a lot of points, but at the tight end position, that alone is a low end tight end one season because the tight end position is so bad, which means Cole Comett is effectively being drafted around his floor right now, I think, I mean realistically, you know, just giving the fact that that he should walk into a target chair like that. Again, I don't know if his ceiling is obscene. I don't know if he's going to really get there. But you know, if you're gonna be drafting some other tight ends based on volume and situation, I think I would just wait a little bit more and just get Cole Comet instead, who can give you a similar ish season.

00:39:30
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think when you look at it from a range of outcomes perspective, When I look at Cole Kmet, he looks like very much arbitrage on the median and floor outcomes for guys like Dalton Schultz and TJ. Hockinson and maybe even zach Ertz because you're probably not gonna get like a super amount of touchdowns here from this Bears offense. But these full PPR leagues and these tight end premium leagues, the targets and the kind of like safe floor you're gonna get out, all these catches are definitely there. Maybe run hot in some touchdowns. We don't know the ghost of Jimmy g Like you said, it's gone. He had eight red zone targets and six end zone targets as well. Is there And when you just look at Comet too, we look at the tight end spectrum, right, we know it's a slow burn process. This guy was a round two draft pick. He's still young, and you should be kind of encouraged in year two earning ninety three targets, yeah, and then getting more playing time across the board, like that should be an encouraging thing. I mean, I think there's even some like low KEI like not to circle back to the Saints thing like Adam Troutman's like being left for dead. But like in year two he played eighty percent of the snaps and like we know it's a slow burn position. The Saints traded like their entire draft that year to trade back up for Troutman. We know it's a slow burn. Like, don't forget about these guys just because, as you know, year one, year two, they didn't really pop, because we inherently know it takes a little bit for these these tight ends that to get going.

00:40:47
Speaker 3: Yep, And that's one of the reasons why they emerge every single year in fantasy football where we get these very very late tight ends, so no one was talking about no one was in on who ended up being lower end tight end ones. But Rich appreciate your time as always, thanks for hopping on and dropping some knowledge. For anyone not following Rich in his work, head to Twitter follow him at Lord Reeves That's Lord r e e b s. And make sure you check out everything going on at Sharp footballanalysis dot com. That's going to do 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 by searching forward pretty much anywhere podcasts can be found, and to follow me on Twitter at LATEROUNDQB.

00:41:27
Speaker 2: Thanks everyone.

00:41:28
Speaker 3: Remember to head to Lateround dot com to purchase this year's Late Round Draft Guide, join the Patreon, subscribe to the free.

00:41:33
Speaker 2: Newsletter all that good stuff. I'll talk to you later in the week.