674: 10 Trends for Week 2

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Speaker 1: This is the Labor Podcast with your host JJ zacherasas Jay Jay Zacher. Reason. What's up everyone, It's JJ Zacharyeson in this episode six hundred and seventy four of the Late Round Fantasy Football podcast sponsored by FanDuel. Thanks for tuning in. The twenty twenty two NFL season is now underway and Fandel and GMC are back to bring you the GMC Sierra Mountain Climber Pick Them, a free to play contest series that gives you a chance to win a share of ten thousand dollars in FanDuel site credit every Sunday courtesy of GMC. Here's how it works. Every Sunday during the NFL season, you'll have a chance to answer questions based on the day's non primetime games. The more questions you answer correctly, the higher up the mountain you'll move. If during any week you answer every question correctly for a perfect score, you'll reach the summit and when your share of ten thousand dollars in site credit. The contest series is now live, so head Tofandel dot com slash slash contest slash GMC today to start climbing the mountain. The first trend this week is that in Week one, Austin Eckler had a fifty three point eight percent running back rush share. He played forty nine percent of the Chargers snaps. In twenty twenty one. Eckler hit that low of a snapshare only twice, and he hit that low of a running back rush share just three times. Maybe this will just end up being one of those down usage games for him this year, but it's definitely something to monitor. With the Chargers mixing in some other running backs and they also hinted at this during the offseason, he should be fine from here on out given the offense that he's in. This is just something to monitor at this point. Damien Harris had a double digit percentage target share in Week one. He's only done that twice in his career. The other occurrence came in Week eighteen last year. When it comes to the Patriots backfield, we basically saw in Week one what was being reported this offseason, that we'd see some rotation and that maybe we'd see less of the whole James White roll thing. I still prefer Ramandre Stevenson to Damian Harris rest of season, but not by much after seeing what happen in Week one. They're back to back in my rest of season rankings. I just think that Stevenson is the better player, that he has more upside, but it's clear Harris maybe used more in the passing game this year and that would make him a lot more valuable. Saquon Barkley is back. He had a thirty three point three percent target share in Week one, which not only was the highest of any running back this past week, but it was the second highest single game share of his entire career. After his performance in Week one, we should all be excited about his potential in twenty twenty two. He was a player to target in my draft gude this year, but I've even moved him up in my own rankings after what we saw in Week one, and now he's sitting behind only Jonathan Taylor and Christian McCaffrey in my rest of season rankings. At running back, Saquon Barkley is once again elite. We all probably remember the fact that Miles Sanders didn't score single touchdown last year. He wasn't used super heavily at the goal line, but he did have six goal line attempts. He just didn't score on any of them. In Week one, he found the end zone against the Lions, and he also saw three goal line attempts, so he saw fifty percent of his twenty twenty one total and just week one alone. Sanders had okay enough usage in Week one that should make you also feel okay enough to have him as your RB two right now. The Eagles offense look good and their schedule is set up really nicely for positive game scripts, so it was a favorable opening weekend for Sanders overall. Against the forty nine ers, David Montgomery saw sixty five point four percent of Chicago's running back rushes. That's not like a horrible number for most players. Only twenty one running backs hit that mark in Week one, but it's not a usual occurrence for Montgomery. That was his lowest share of running back rushes in a single game since Week one of the twenty twenty season. We heard some talk over the offseason about how the Bears may split this backfield up, and that's a exactly what they did. Khalil Herbert not only was awesome his rookie year, but he looked good in Week one two and he saw two goal line carries to Montgomery zero. Montgomery has a chance to see his stock drop a lot over the next couple of weeks if this continues. Speaking of the Bears in the pouring down rain, Justin Fields still ended up leading the NFL in deep ball rate. He threw at fifteen or more air yards in Week one on over forty one percent of his passes. This is a continuation of last year he ranked fourth in the NFL and fifteen plus air yard rate. Darnel Mooney had a pretty horrendous Week one, but better days are ahead. Christian Kirk had probably the most underrated Week one of any wide receiver in fantasy. He had a thirty one point six percent targeter. He saw twelve targets, and he had one hundred and seventeen yards. He didn't find the end zones. He was the wide receiver nineteen and PPR points scored. But according to Pro Football Focuses Expected Fantasy points formula, Kirk was ninth in expected points this past week at the wide receiver position. And you want to know the crazy part, Zay Jones was actually ranked ahead of him in expected points. He didn't quite have the same peripherals, but don't sleep on Zay. Off the Waiver Wire this week as well, and by Christian Kirk. I didn't bring him up on the fifteen Transactions episode, but I think the market's perception of Kirk is a little bit off. Trend eight this week is that Antonio Gibson ranked fifth and running back target share in Week one. That's a huge win for him because his target share was over ten percent and just two games last year with Jad McKissick active. What's interesting is that Gibson started off last season with a really high target share as well. It was almost twenty four percent in Week one last year, and then he didn't hit a double digit percentage target share again until Week twelve. Now, I'm not saying that's going to happen again here in twenty twenty two, but I do you think that we should be cautious about what happened. Regardless, it's a very good sign for Antonio Gibson and he looked good against the Jags. Let's talk about aman Ross Saint Brown. The man just commands targets. People were nervous about him because of his splits with him without TJ. Hockinson and DeAndre Swift last year, but it was strange that we couldn't just realize that Saint Brown was better. He's a good player himself and it makes more sense for the offense to run through him. Well. In Week one, the offense ran through him. Saint Brown had a thirty two point four percent target chare, and he was one of four wide receivers with ten or more targets to also have a yards per route run rate of point three to three or higher. The other three last week justin Jefferson, Davonte Adams, and Tyreek Hill. That's not bad company. I actually think there's a chance the market is still too low on Aman Ross Saint Brown. It might not be a bad idea to see if you can trade for him because he's going to get a lot of looks in this offense. The final trend this week is that there were just two running backs with ten or more targets in Week one. One was rookie Breece Hall. The thing with Hall, though, is that Michael Carter was just one target behind him with nine. It's just that the Jets throw the ball a lot, and they targeted their backfield at a high rate. Post Week one. They're third in the NFL and running back target share, but It was definitely good to see Breece Hall get a lot of looks through the air. We just would have rather seen him dominate those backfield looks that way, it would be a little bit more sustainable. But that's what Javonte Williams did. He was the other back with ten or more targets in week one, and he hit twelve targets while teammate Melvin Gordon had two. That's a fantastic sign for his potential moving forward. They were using him consistently in hurry up. So while we can't expect quite as high of a target share week in and week out, we at least have some comfort with Williams. He's going to keep seeing looks through the air in this offense, and if he just takes over the backfield eventually, that's when his true RB one ceiling can be fully unlocked. That's going to do it for today's show, though. Thanks to all of you for listening. If you've got subscribed to the Late Round Fantasy Football podcast, make sure you are by searching for it pretty much anywhere podcasts can be found. It for to follow me on Twitter at Late Round QB. Remember to check out the Late Round fantasy football Patreon. I posted my rest of season rankings yesterday, and I also did a live stream waiver wire Q and A with patrons. It's honestly just a really great community. But thanks for listening. Everyone really appreciate it. I'll talk to you tomorrow.