551: Mailbag 9/24/21

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Speaker 1: This is the Label Podcast with your host JJ Zachersa JJ zacher reson What's up everyone. It's JJ Zacharyeson, the editor in chief at fandle and at number fire dot com in this episode five hundred and fifty one of the Late Round podcast. So many shows that are part of the FanDuel podcast Network. Thanks for tuning in. We've got another FanDuel Podcast Network Listener League this week. Check out fandel dot com Slash League slash Listener League to join. It's a rake free contest that costs five dollars to enter and has fifteen hundred dollars in prizes. You can enter upt the three lineups in the contest. Again, that's FanDuel dot Com Slash League Slash Listener League. To join, Eligibility restrictions apply. Go to fandel dot com or download the fandle app for more details. The first question this week is from at fun Truffle, JJ, can we get your thoughts on the current forty nine ers backfield mess who will survive Slasher Merge? Okay, so this is one of the top questions this week that I got from listeners. Some listeners were mad at Kyle Shanahan and some were calling this backfield totally unpredictable. So let's just talk this through because I think people may be over complicating this situation. Let's just breathe for a minute. Just think about what's happened. Trey Sermon's inactive week one where Heem Moster gets hurt and it's the Elijah Mitchell Show. So after week one, here's what we knew. The forty nine ers don't think Trey Sermon is ready and there was an injury to their starter, so the backup stepped in and saw a lot of work. In week two, Sermon was active because of that Mostered injury, the original backup, Elijah Mitchell, was now the starter, and then literally everyone got hurt. That's really what created this mess. Really, the only thing that's surprising is still the Trey Sermon stuff that we all discussed a week ago. Nothing major change aside from injuries. How this all shakes out depends entirely on those injuries. I only have so much information as I record this, but my guess is still that Elijah Mitchell will get the most touches if he's healthy. If he's not, then it's probably gonna be Trey Sermon if Trey Sermon's not healthy, then that's when you get into this mess of it's anyone's guess. Sometimes that's the case with fantasy football. I threw some darts at Jacques Patrick and Dynasty leagues, and you can add him if you have bench space. He's just a dart throw at this point, though, the bottom line is that this backfield has become a mess because of two things, Trey Sermon not being ready and injuries. And this is all in a backfield that has historically been split under Kyle Shanahan. That makes things even more difficult. This naxt question is from at Wayne's Underscore rant. Is it time to give up on Ryan Tannehill yet? This was another topic that I got multiple questions about this week, and the short answer is no, it's not time to give up on Tannehill. We've had two games. We have a two week sample right now that's not even close to significant. In that sample for Tennessee. We've seen them get smoked in Week one and then bounce back in week two. You may not see the Tannehill game in Week two is a bounce back because he only scored fourteen point six Fantasy points, but he threw for three hundred and forty seven yards. He had an eight point seven yards per attempt rate. The Titans use more play action, and he ran the ball for twenty seven yards. I see it as a great sign considering he didn't score a touchdown in that game. He didn't throw for a touchdown. I mentioned this with the aj Brown transaction this week, but how teams score touchdowns that fluctuates. It just so happens that Tennessee has scored five times this year, and four of those five touchdowns have come on the ground. And I know someone is sitting in their car right now and they're yelling, yeah, well they have Derrick Henry. Of course they're gonna skew more towards the run, sure, but not to this degree. They have a point twenty five pass to rush touchdown ratio right now. The lowest ratio that we've seen since twenty eleven from any NFL team is point five to nine. The Titans. Over the last two years during Derrick Henry's dominance, they've been at one point twenty seven and one point three eight. And remember Ryan Tannehill gets some of those rushing touchdowns too. Small samples can really get you into trouble in fantasy football. It's a small sample game to begin with, but two games is nothing. If this happened in the middle of the season, after reasonable performances from Ryan Tannehill, no one would say a thing. You've got to look beyond point scored right now after two weeks. Touchdowns can skew things tremendously, and if a team in general is still scoring touchdowns, that's good news. Tennessee showed us last week that they may not be totally lost offensively this year. That's good for Ryan Tannehill. Now, I don't think he's some smash play for this week, but he absolutely should still be rostered. This last question is from at since Underscore Valentine, could you talk about your current expectations for this year's rookie trajectories e g. Javante Carter, Davante Field, Sermon, et cetera. Okay, so if I went through every single rookie it would take me forever, but I want to make a blanket statement about how everyone should be viewing rookies right now. In general, be patient. I say this every single year. You have to be patient and let these guys develop. It's only been two weeks after two weeks last year, Justin Jefferson had six total targets and seventy receiving yards. Like I had questions from people this week asking about what they should do with Trey Lance, Like, folks, why are you drafting Trey Lance in the first place if you're just gonna drop them after week two? This was all completely foreseeable. This was predictable. I talked on my show a lot this offseason about the forty nine ers schedule, and specifically their early season schedule. With an easier schedule, Jimmy Roppolo is naturally just gonna play better. It's gonna be harder for them to bench him. It's two weeks. I know it's easy to overreact, but it's not time to do that. It's just time to react. It's always time to react, and reacting with rookies is recognizing that they're not gonna just blow up the instant that they step on a football field, So be patient. I'm feeling a little bit of fire today. This next question is from at Nick Underscore. It'll It says, are you concerned with Josh Allen's performance so far? Tough game against Pittsburgh and up big early on Miami, but hasn't looked sharp throwing the ball downfield. I think concerned is a little too strong of a word. I talked about this with Emmanuel Sanders this week on the show. But Allen's deep ball completion percentage is twenty five percentage points lower than it was last year. That's not gonna continue again small sample sizes. Buffalo faced a healthy Pittsburgh defense in Week one and that didn't help things. And then, as you noted last week, there was a crazy positive game script for the Bills. He didn't really have to air it out. But the good news is that he's still running the football. He's averaging almost forty rushing yards per game so far this year. So not only will the deep ball connect better, maybe not to the degree of last year's numbers, but he's still gonna be better there, but he'll also find the end zone on the ground soon enough. I would lean more by than sell with Josh Allen. I think there's some concern that the defense is pretty good and there might not be as many shootouts. I just doubt the team who drafted Josh Allen is gonna give him up this easily. And I typically don't trade for quarterbacks, but there's at least some things that you can latch onto and say, Josh Allen's gonna be fine. The best question is from at Steve Park twenty eight. I have a question. I feel like all the analysts missed on Rob Gronkowski this year. What in the process broke down that everyone thought Gronk was done for fantasy? I think it was the idea that he would be at better the fourth option in that offense. From a target share perspective, things have obviously gone really well for Gronk so far this year, and he has a sixteen percent target share. I went back and looked at my projections because I was curious about this question, and my projections had him at a twelve and a half percent target share this year. So that's been the bigger miss for me so far this year for Rob Gronkowski is that I was not expecting this kind of target share in the offense. And I don't think it's crazy to think that he's going to be in like the fourteen to fifteen percent range once the season's over, and there's also zero chance he's going to score two touchdowns per game. Try to be level headed about that aspect of things, especially with all the weapons that the Bucks have, and especially given how they've scored touchdowns to start the year. Remember they haven't had a single rushing touchdown, like I talked about on Tuesday's episode. So so far, Again, this is just through week two, but so far, I was just lower on him from a target share perspective, and then obviously he's just exceeding anyone's expectation in the touchdown column. He's a tight end one this season though, there's no doubt this as questions from at Woco Kanwan four three six. So Pittman Junior was on waivers and I picked him up, do you think we could see future production from him later, possibly when Wentz comes back. His targets looked great this past week, and I haven't seen many people talk about him this year. I talked about Pittman a lot this offseason because he was someone who fit a lot of the criteria for a breakout wide receiver. So I'm using this question to say, yes, I like Michael Pittman. You should win a roster Michael Pittman, anyone who checks a lot of boxes for my process, combined with having a twenty three percent target share to start the season. That's someone you at least won on your fantasy football bench. This ask questions from at JJ underscore Shoot for Last. After watching the Chiefs offseason moves, I believe their run game would be so much stronger after a two game sample. Is there a path to Cech success or should we bail now for pennies on the dollar? Edwards Zelaire is not an elite player. It's very clear, at least to me. I think he's fine. I think he has some good moments, but he's not a DeAndre Swift or a Jonathan Taylor type talent other players from that class. He's not going to freak out opposing defenses. But I do think people are sort of taking this narrative of Cech to the extreme, shocking that he's bad and that he doesn't provide fantasy value. One of the things that I mentioned on this week's ten Trend show is how the Chiefs have targeted their running backs to the lowest rate in the league to start the year. That's not going to continue, not at this pace, because if it did, it would be record breaking, at least compared to how teams have utilized their backs as receivers over the last decade. The Chiefs have also now faced two fairly tough defenses in Cleveland and Baltimore, and they haven't had a really clean positive game script yet. When we know that's bound to happen, that happens when Patrick Mahomes is your quarterback. You're gonna see some positive game scripts. So I wouldn't be bailing on Cech right now. I didn't get a ton of them this year, but I do have him in a couple of spots, and in those spots, I'm holding tight because things should get better. We just shouldn't expect a super high ceiling because he hasn't shown to be a super talented running back and he's not seeing all the goal line work. But I do think he can still be a serviceable RB two. I've got two questions next that are related to Justin Fields taking over the Bears offense. The first one is from at mister Davey Ross that says how much of a hit does Montgomery take with Fields as the starter tempted to sell before Week three based on the foreseeable loss of goal line carries. There was also another one from at Promo Code ZJ that says, how does fields taking over affect Mooney given deep ball ability? Ie? Can Mooney be Marquise Brown and Montgomery given scrambling ability i e. Is Montgomery touch ceiling capped? Or thoughts on the Bears main guys in general. Over the offseason I did two studies on quarterbacks that are very, very very relevant to this discussion. One of them was how rookie quarterbacks impact their pass catchers. The other one was how mobile quarterbacks impact their pass catchers and the players around them in fantasy football. If you want the TLDR, rookie quarterbacks are bad for their pass catchers, and so are mobile quarterbacks. And mobile quarterbacks are actually bad for their running backs too. To some that may seem counterintuitive, since a running backs efficiency can increase with mobile quarterbacks. But volume is the name of the game here. Mobile quarterbacks generally target their running backs a little bit less. And here's the bigger picture reason that may help with all of this. There are only so many plays and offense can run in a game. The speed in which an offense operates that can change the number of plays run, as can the efficiency and the effectiveness of the offense. But mobile quarterbacks just take on a larger share of plays in their offense that lowers the volume for other players in that offense. The problem is, we can't just leave that and say this is bad for the playmakers in the Bears offense, because in comparison, justin fields is very likely to be a better option for their pass catchers than Andy Dalton has been. Dalton has barely pushed the ball down the field and the Bears only have three offensive touchdowns in two games. So please, please, please, do not walk away from listening to this episode with the idea that this is a down grade for players in the Bears offense. It's an upgrade because with Dalton, we've seen Darnell Mooney finishes the wide receiver seventy and wide receiver forty three, with Alan Robinson wide receiver sixty two and wide receiver forty nine, they've been completely worthless. In fantasy football, Almost anything would be better than Andy Dalton, even if that anything which is justin fields is going to take away volume from that offense. In other words, mobile and rookie quarterbacks are bad for skilled players, but Andy Dalton he's worse. So I would still upgrade all players in this If there are some people out there who think that a player like Darnell Mooney can be a top twenty five guy now because they've justin Fields under center, that's where I draw the line. We don't see multiple pass catchers be relevant with rookie quarterbacks basically, ever, it just doesn't happen. And I'd rather bet on Alan Robinson being that guy than Darnell Mooney. So Mooney gets a bump, but let's not take that bump to a level that it shouldn't be taken to. All the while, I'd say it's a pretty lateral move for David Montgomery. The offense should move the ball better, but Fields is going to take away some looks and at the goal line too. I may lean more sell than buy with Montgomery, but it's more like a fifty five percent to forty five percent thing rather than a ninety to ten thing. I hope that all came together and made sense. Historically, this is not necessarily good for the playmakers for the Bears, But if we're relating it to the Bears with Andy Dalton, yeah, this is good because Andy Dalton has not been good. The last question this week from at Cooper underscore DFF and I'm gonna peel back the curtain a little bit with my answer, while also talking about how my brain processes new information. It says, are there any players you've already accepted your wrong on or do you need more than two weeks to update priors? For basically everyone, So no one is surprised to hear this, but I get messages from people almost every single day making fun of a take that I had that appears to be wrong, as if number one, I'm not aware, but number two they like seeing analysts be wrong. That's all part of the gig. I really enjoy being right, and I want to be right. I'm not an analyst that just brushes off wrong predictions saying to myself, oh, well I got that wrong, No big deal. I mean it is kind of a big deal. My job is to give you guys good advice. It won't be perfect, but my job is to make it good enough to keep you coming back and wanting more. I'm a content creator and I want people consuming my content. Saying that I don't care if I'm wrong would just mean that I'm not passionate about what I do and that I don't care about your success in fantasy football. But here's my honest, honest take to this question of accepting what I've been wrong on. I think analysts focus way too much of their energy on that aspect of things in season. After the season, sure, I think it's a great idea to reflect on your process and where things went right and where things went wrong once the full season is over. I do that every single year on this show. I do an entire podcast on things I got right and an entire podcast on things I got wrong. But why do it after two weeks? Like I can sit here and pick off name after name of players who I think I'm probably gonna be wrong on this season, and I can do the opposite too, But humans just like to focus on the negatives. But really, what does that matter? Shouldn't I be more focused on analyzing each player and giving good advice around those players, regardless of how I felt about them entering the season, Because what good does it do me saying I got this right or I got this wrong in the middle of a football season, let alone after week two. That's not actually bringing utility to listeners. Like I got this question this week from at vote Mask twenty twenty, it said in retrospect, was fading King Henry the right move? Thanks? JJ? In what world could I sit on my podcast after Derrick Henry scored forty eight PPR points and say, hey, guys, remember when I said that Derek Henry's ADP was a little bit too high this year? Yeah, I was definitely right, Like clearly in retrospect after week two it does not look like the right move. But why not phrase the question to be about his uptick and receiving or the sustainability of the performance in week two? And where was the question after week one? And I got to be as clear as possible here, guys. I'm not saying all this because I'm angry or trying to hide from my mistakes. People have said some actual hurtful things to me on the internet, like about my family. This is nothing. This is part of the gig. But like I said at the top, I want to just peel back the curtain here and reveal what goes through my head when I get questions about being right and wrong in the middle of the season, because I think this can be helpful for anyone going through the journey of a fantasy football season. All of us have takes entering a year. Sometimes those takes end up being right. Sometimes they end up being wrong. That's what happens. But instead of focusing so much energy on was I right before week one? Focus that energy on what is this player going to do from here on out? How should I value him? Who cares how you valued him three weeks ago? We have new information. I think that same approach is beneficial at work too. When a problem arises in the workplace, the vast majority of people immediately spend time trying to assign blame, Whose fault was it, who did something wrong? What good does that do? To immediately think that way? You have to figure out how to solve the problem first before you start figuring out who's screwed it up. That's no different to how I approach fantasy football, and it took some time for me to get here. I started doing this like ten years ago. I was young. Then I can have a general idea of what went right and what went wrong. Sure, just like the Rob Gronkowski question earlier, and honestly enough people just point this out naturally to me on Twitter. But I'd much rather figure out any problems first before as signing blame. I'd rather react to what's happening on a football field, analyze players, and wait for the season to unfold before I place any blame. Before I say this process was wrong, this process was right. I got this wrong. I got this right, because again, what good does it do? What utility does it bring? It's wasting time pointing out where you're right and where you're wrong before there's a conclusion that's irrelevant. That's gonna do it for today's show. Thanks to all of you for listening. If you get subscribed to the Late Round podcast, make sure you are by searching for it pretty much anywhere podcast can be found. Enough to follow me on Twitter at Late Round QB. Thanks for listening this week everyone, I really really appreciate it. I hope you enjoyed the passion and that last question. Have a great weekend, Enjoy Week three.