543: Mailbag 9/10/21

00:00:02
Speaker 1: This is the Lab Podcast with your host JJ zacher Retha j J Zacherson. What's up everyone, It's JJ Zachares and the editor in chief at FANDL and at Number five dot com in this episode five hundred and forty three of the Late Round podcast. So many shows that are part of the FanDuel podcast network. Oh what's up? Thanks for tuning in. Hey, football fans, The NFL is finally back, and Fandal is giving you a free way to get in on the action. The Fandel NFL high Low is a free to play fantasy football contest. All you have to do is build your scorecard with the teams that you think will score highest or lowest in four stack categories. The closer you are to being spot on, the more points you'll get. Players with the most points each week split the prize pool, and a perfect scorecard will win the jackpot. Head over to fandel dot com today and play the FanDuel Highlight for free. Eligibility destrictions apply. Go to fandle dot com or download the Fandle app for more details. It's a mailbag episode, so let's get to it. The first question this week is from Attomer four eight six seven, nine, seven, four five. You've been really high on Emmanuel Sanders the last couple of episodes. Can you explain why you think he would be better than Gabriel Davis? Thanks? Love the show. Thanks, yes, this is a really good question. By now, the majority of you know how I play fantasy football and how I think about fantasy football. I don't think in terms of one singular outcome. I think in terms of possible outcomes. The reason I've been touting Sanders is because it's early in the season, and most everything that I've seen, read analyzed, it's said that Sanders is going to be a starter, and it's on a team with a good quarterback, and it's on a team that's pass friendly. So I prefer Sanders to Davis straight up. I wouldn't be surprised if Sanders and Davis swap at times. But a lot of smart Beat reporters are in on Sanders. This is an excerpt from The Athletic from August that was written by both Matthew Fairburn and Joe Biscalia. This particular portion was written by Joe. He said, as Matthew said, there's enough of a role for Davis to make an impact but I also wouldn't be shocked if his playtime percentage decreases from last season sixty eight percent because Davis filled in for injured John Brown for seven games in twenty twenty. I believe the Bills brought in Sanders to start and play a lot of snaps. With how they've talked and acted since his signing, it doesn't veer far from that line of thinking that's been a common thought by Beat reporters, and I think this is kind of an example of where listening to what local beats are saying can be helpful because we're talking about two players who have talent, but they're on opposite side to the age spectrum, so how many snaps are gonna play is definitely up in the air. I'm mostly leaning into the Emmanuel Sanders fit because I think he fits well with his offense combined with what people who cover that team seem to be saying. But again, this doesn't mean that I'm avoiding Davis. I just think Sanders is a safer option early in the season as Davis continues to develop. This is the kind of offense that you want to target, So having Davis on your bench, that's a good idea too. This next question is from at P Price Underscore is underscore right? What should you do if nearly everyone in your one quarterback league is holding two quarterbacks? Is streaming less viable with a smaller pool? Should I be looking to trade for a better quarterback? So I'm not trying to make this even tougher on you, but when you see this kind of thing happening in your draft, you have to adjust. You have to look at how people are drafting quarterbacks and say, look, I don't agree with this value, but this is the reality of my situation right now. The hope would be that these teams realize that they're better off holding running backs and wide receivers instead of a second quarterback, and then they drop that quarterback. But in instances where they're all holding two, you need to probably do the same. And yes, streaming becomes a lot more difficult because good quarterbacks aren't readily available on the waiver wire, and unfortunately, training for a quarterback at this point is probably a little bit difficult because these people clearly are not thinking rationally about positional scarcity. So you then overpay for one of those quarterbacks, but you're in two positions right now. You either have a good starter or you don't have a good starter. If you have a decent enough plug and play starter right now, just hold tight until you absolutely need a quarterback. Let things play out, let teams drop their backup quarterbacks. But if you don't have a good quarterback because you didn't adjust your strategy during the draft, then yeah, you might have to actually overpay in a trade because streaming is a lot more difficult to do. Everyone in every league has to adjust based on the behavior of other managers. That's part of the beauty of fantasy football. Not all leagues are the same, despite the fact that we're all playing the same game. This ask question is from at Bailey Griffins seventy five. What's your general strategy on trading and does it change throughout the season? Do you try to do two for ones to get studs or keep the number of players even on both sides? Do you swap running back for wide receiver or trade within the same position or does it all depend on team slash league? So here are my three general approaches to trades. Number One, you should almost always be trying to improve your starting lineup. There are some instances where you need to trade for depth, but the vast majority of the time you should be trying your best to make your starting lineup better. Number two, both sides should win. Nothing drives me more insane in fantasy football than when someone offers me a trade that looks decent enough on paper, but it does absolutely nothing for my team. If I'm good at running back, why would I trade a wide receiver for your running back. I don't need a running back. You should be approaching your trades by looking at what teams in your league needed and then fill those needs. This is no different than how you'd approach literally anything that you're trying to sell outside of fantasy football. Now to this point, and this is number three, don't do same position for same position trades. Again, this is sometimes fine, but I hate it when you just trade a running back for a running back because there's a clear loser in that deal. A lot of times, it's just not obvious as to who the better player is. Again, sometimes there are just two very different opinions on players, and it's fine to do that. It's fine to do a position for same position trade, and in dynasty there are more layers to something like this, like age and where a team is in terms of winning now, but in redraft I stay away from those same position for same position deals. Now, regarding two for one trades, yes, if you can pull them off, do it. You want the best player in any trade. And one thing that I try to do that's been helpful for me in the past is I do two for two trades, but in that two for two deal, I throw in a relatively worth player to make it seem like it's not obvious that I'm getting the best player in that deal. So try doing that as well, because managers often automatically declined two for one trades when they're getting rid of the one because they know that both parties look at that one player as the absolute best player in that deal. This as question is from at Casher nineteen. How do you foresee Marquez Valdez Scantling utilized this year? I read nothing but glowing reports from camp. Could this be the year he puts it all together and we get a solid wide receiver two slash three season. I just dropped Emmanuel Sanders for him, and I'm now having buyer's remorse after reading your fifteen transactions column. Thanks. Yeah, look, I mean I would clearly rather have Emmanuel Sanders given what I've been talking about on this show. Buffalo's passed friendly and they targeted their wide receivers at one of the highest rates we've seen over the last decade last year. To me, there's nothing wrong with latching onto the reports for MVS and saying, hey, maybe he got it together, because situationally, things are pretty good for him. He's got Aaron Rodgers throwing him the ball. He's a deep threat who should see a high average depth of target. Imagine a world where he sees more than a twelve or thirteen percent target share. If that bumps up to like eighteen percent, then yeah, we're talking wide receiver three type numbers for MVS. I always say with late round picks or players like Marquez Valdez Scantling, you need to find a narrative that you can tell yourself in order for that player to hit. I don't think latching onto the narrative that things clicked for MVS, given that there's some evidence out there from beat reporters, I don't think that's stupid. Late round picks or late round picks for a reason, I would still prefer Emmanuel Sanders but if you want to stash mvs and run with this idea with this story, go for it. I really don't think it's a terrible dart, given what they're saying out of Green Bay and given his situation. The questions from at Michael Ruckus eighty three. I absolutely hate streaming defenses, but like every year, it's what I do versus is capturing one of the top ones. What are a couple or few things that you take into consideration when streaming defenses? Thanks, man, So you should be streaming defenses. If you can luck into one of the two or three defenses per year that will beat a stream, then that's great. But those defenses are not nearly as predictable as people think when the season starts, and you really need that defense to be that good because streaming the position across the season is not terribly difficult. On my other podcast called Living the Stream, my co hosts and I have streamed defense three or four points per game. We do that annually. You can really go with a simple rule for defenses. You want defenses that are big favorites because then they have a positive game script and they're facing a lot of passes, and you ideally would have them at home, so home favorites, and if it's projected to be a low scoring game, that's even better. And then from there you can dig into the quarterback matchup, et cetera. Just keep in mind that points allowed in most leagues, it's not the biggest deal in the world for defensive scoring. It's more about saxon turnovers. That's why finding a defense is going to face a lot of passes and have that positive defensive game script. That's why that's important. But I'll talk about streamers each week on my Sleeper show to help you guys out. This X question is from at Craig zero zero zero seven six four to two six. On your bench, would you rather have proven vets like Marvin Jones, Curtis Samuel and Antonio Brown are young guys with upside like Darnell Mooney and Elijah Moore. So first off, I'm recording this episode before the Thursday night game where Antonio Brown is going to play. I just want to get that out of the way. But this all depends on a lot of factors. I use my bench to balance out my starting lineup, and what I mean by that is if my starting lineup has some bad wide receivers. I want my bench to have safer options at wide receiver guys who can provide production. I don't just want flyer types. And then the reverse is obviously true too. If my starting lineup has really the good wide receivers, my bench is gonna have dart throw wide receivers. Age is just one of the factors that we look at when we're evaluating players. Age really tells us two things. At number one, a player hasn't shown his potential. Number two, and to this point, age just brings more natural variants. When a player has been in the league for a long time, we generally know what to expect. When he hasn't, there's a more questionable ceiling. So age is just part of the equation when looking at a player's hypothetical ceiling. It's not the sole factor that I would use the term the type of player that should be on your bench. This comes from at j vic FF. With the recent comments from Vic Fangio and Teddy Bridgewater, plus all the things that have been discussed surrounding his ability throughout the whole offseason, do you find it reasonable to expect a Javante Williams takeover sooner rather than later. Yes, yes, yes, my model love Javonte Williams. The ambiguous RB one theory love Javonte Williams. I love Javonte Williams. He's one of my highest rostered players this year. He can do it all and most importantly, he's a good pass blocker. Being good at pass blocking can throw him on the field quicker. I'm expecting big things from him this year, especially during the second half of the season. The last question this week is from at justin underscore t underscore s it says week one performances are often not predictive of how a player will perform season long. What are some stats we should be looking for in players after week one to help determine their season long value. So I'll get into all this on the weekly fifteen Transaction show on Tuesday. But you want to follow volume and usage always clearly with just a one week sample, we can't and we shouldn't go all in, which is sort of what you're referring to here. Some players are going to have an outlier performance. Some good players they're going to have a down week where they didn't see a ton of volume. Looking at target share. I'm looking at backfield share, I'm looking at snapshare, I'm looking at volume related statistics. Those are the things that can help us predict future performance. Most that's going to do it for today's show. Thanks to all of you for listening. If you get subscribe to the Late Round podcast, make sure you are by searching for it pretty much anywhere podcast can be found, and no forgot to follow me on Twitter at Late Round QB. Thanks for listening. Everyone, enjoy the heck out of week one. I'll talk to you next week.