970: Buy Candidates

00:00:02
Speaker 1: This is the last with your host JJ zacherathas J J. Zacher reson what's up everyone, It's JJ zach or Esen in this episode nine and seventy of the Late Round Fantasy Football podcast sponsored by Underdog. Thanks for tuning in. I do this series of episodes each year where I go through some of my favorite buy and sell candidates and dynasty by candidates being players you might want to consider trading for and sell candidates being players you might want to trade away. It's pretty straightforward now. As usual, my goal is to just hand you a list of guys and just say, hey, go trade for these guys. I want to explain the why. I also don't think about my trade strictly from that kind of perspective. I've talked about this for years and years now, but getting a deal done in fantasy football involves looking at your trade partner and filling their needs with something that you have. It's not about having this really small considerations set of seven or eight players and saying I won't trade unless it's for this particular guy. You'll never get a trade done that way. Nevertheless, I want to at least share a handful of players that I'll be scoping out in my leagues over the next handful of months. And since this is a bi candidate's episode, a lot of these players they're on the cheaper side. It's not that I'm against trading for a big name player, quite the opposite. It's just that if I'm trying to call out players who are most accessible for you to trade for, those guys are naturally going to be on the cheaper side. So some of the players on today's list they are in dart throw territory, but often those players can be the difference in winning and losing in Dynasty. Anyway, enough with my rambling, we'll get to those by candidates in just a second. First, the Big Game is this weekend, and Underdog has you covered. Underdog is celebrating the Big Game by giving everyone a no sweat entry, which means you either cash in or you get your entry feedback and bonus credit under before the Big Game kicks off on Sunday by signing up with promo code Late Round to get up to one thousand dollars in bonus cash when you make your first deposit and you get a free pick and you get the no Sweat entry check it all out today underdog Fantasy dot Com. Also, remember that the Late Round Prospect Guide is available for pre order. There's some cool enhancements that I'm making to the guide this year, but aside from those, you get profiles of every running back and wide receiver who are going to be at the combine. You get year two profiles of all relevant NFL sophomores. You get to know what goes into these models, and so much more. Head to Lateround dot com right now and pre order the guide for fourteen ninety nine. When it launches on March tenth, that price will jump up by five bucks. And yes, you get an updated version of that guide within twenty four hours of the NFL Draft ending. I usually have that updated version out the night of the final day of the draft. Again, that's Late Round dot Com. Pre order the Prospect Guide and make sure it's the twenty five Prospect Guide today. So the way I went about this was that I looked at my Dynasty rankings, which I did update for February, and I compared those rankings to what we see over at keeptrade cut dot com. It's not perfect, but it at least tells me some players who I'm higher or lower on versus the market, and then from there I chose a handful to talk about today. Now I'm gonna jump around from player to player on this episode, So the guys that I mentioned, they are in no particular order. Just for the record, we'll kick things off with probably the least surprising player on this list, Jalen Wattle. The sentiment around Wattle, it's naturally pretty negative. He had a bad year. He was one of the worst picks at ADP this past year in redraft, and he can't ever seem to stay healthy. That's all driving his price down in my eyes. But I said it before, I'll say it again. Wattle is a very talented wide receiver and it's not like he hasn't shown up in fantasy football. Prior to twenty four, Wattle had back to back seasons with the yards per route run rate above two point five. He was an elite prospect who had a really, really good rookie year that led to a strong year two score. Now the Year two model for anyone who's unaware, it's a model of mine that looks at a player's prospect score and his rookie season numbers to try and predict how well he's going to perform in year two and year three of his NFL career. Now. I talked about Wattle on My Things I Got Wrong episode a couple of weeks back, and on that show, I mentioned how the Dolphins switch up their offense and force more looks to both John hus Smith and Devon a. Chan. Wattle wasn't the one who benefited from Tuatungua Bayoloa's lower average depth of target this past year, but when Wattle and Tua were both healthy together, his PPR points per game it was close to thirteen. It's not fantastic, but it's not nearly as bad as the ten PPR points that he actually averaged per game. And that's after three years of fifteen point four, fifteen point three, and four teen point two PPR points per game. No one should be selling Waddle as a cornerstone piece in Dynasty, but he's had a really underrated start to his career. I'm not gonna let this past season completely derail things, which is why I'm a few wide receiver spots ahead of the market with Jalen Wattle. I expect to bounce back in twenty twenty five, just given what we've seen from him through the first four years of his career, and that could look even better and be even easier if there's some unforeseen movement with Tyreek Hill, which doesn't seem out of the question right now. There's kind of a similar story for Chris Alave. I'm also higher on a Lave versus the market right now. Alave's had good peripherals to start his NFL career. Maybe he's not in alpha, but he's a really good wide receiver. He just had trouble staying healthy in twenty twenty four, and let's be honest, guys, situationally, he hasn't been in the best spot in the world. I think those factors make him a more volatile pick on today's show than someone like Jalen Waddle. A Lave has a concussion problem that can obviously go south. That's risky. We should probably also feel better about Jalen Waddle's short term potential than Chris A Laves just given the situation. But I'm in the business of trying to accumulate talent in Dynasty, and to me, Chris A Lave very talented wide receiver. Did you know that a Lave's never finished the season with a yards per route run rate below two. Yards per route run is a pretty predictive metric. It's obviously not everything. I like to pair it up with like points per game to get a more comprehensive look at how good or bad a player was in a given year. I like to use the metric a lot, but of course it's not flawless. No metric is. But get this. Over his first three years, a Lave's had yards per rout run rates according to PFF data, of two point four to two, two point zero seven, and two point one three. Some of you may have no idea what that means, but typically an anything above two is a really strong yards per out run rate. And get this. Among wide receivers who started their NFL career in twenty eleven onward, there's been just thirteen to hit a yards per rout run rate of two point zero in each of their first three seasons, and that's with the minimum one hundred routes run each season. One of them is Chris Alave, like I just said. The others, though, are Randall Cobb, AJ Green, Julio Jones, Mike Evans, Odell Beckham, Tyreek Hill, Michael Thomas, Cooper Cup, Deebo, Samuel AJ Brown, Justin Jefferson, and Jamar Chase. A Lave's prospect score was excellent. His year two score was excellent. He maybe hasn't given us a huge season yet. He's basically been like a low end wide receiver two at best. But to me, the potential is still there, and I don't think the risk is that insane when the market is pricing him at wide receiver twenty three. But there is some risk given those concussions, and given a situation in New Orleans. Some of you may not want to take that on, which is under standable. I'm just willing to. I always have a hard time with quarterbacks when it comes to these lists because to me, the market does a pretty good job of properly valuing the position. The one player I seem to be highest on versus the market right now, though, is Dak Prescott. It's only a two spot positional difference, but it's enough to call it out to give you guys a little variety on today's show. There's no doubt that Dak's twenty twenty four was weaker than what we'd seen him provide in the season prior, and then he got hurt, so it wasn't even an opportunity for a bounce back. I just don't think it's necessary to take the twenty twenty four season and assume that's what he is now. He finished with his lowest completion percentage of his career, his yards per attempt was second lowest, and then his touchdown rate that was lowest two and that's a number that typically does regress. That's all while having an average at the target that was more or less in line with what we've seen in recent history from Dak Scott. Now, maybe people are turned off by this. Brian Schottenheimer higher. I think there's some validity to that, But if it makes you feel any better, and hopefully it does, Schottenheimer was also Dallas's offensive coordinator in twenty twenty three, when Dak averaged over twenty standard Fantasy points per game. Now, granted, Mike McCarthy did a lot of that play calling, but it's still not nothing. And I'm by no means a Shottenheimer's stand. But during his time in Seattle, which came before Dallas, the Seahawks offenses ranked sixth, seventh, and sixth in offensive touchdowns per game, regardless of personnel. That's pretty solid. Now. I know it's easy to talk junk about that higher. I'm with you. I don't think it was a good higher. I just don't think it's necessary to automatically take it in the other direction, at least as it pertains to fantasy football. There was a great rookie quarterback class that came out last year, but getting Dak Prescott past QB twenty right now comfortably has that point that feels like a really good idea. He could still have a handful of strong years left in the tank. The scary part about running backs and trading for them this time of year is that we're looking at a pretty good running back class, actually a really good running back class. So if there's any fragile piece to a current running backs profile, there's a chance that we see that running back get ruined by the NFL Draft. This, to me, is a reason the Steelers could be done with Najie Harris more officially, he's a free agent, but there's always a chance the Steelers just re sign him. I think they'd want to see what they can do in the NFL draft, though, Before they would want to do that all while getting Jalen Warren back, who's currently a restricted free agent, And that leads me to Jalen Warren. He's the kind of player who can help fantasy teams out on limited touches. His highest rush are per game rate during his three year career is just thirty point six percent, But the pass catching that's what gets us. Despite having more of a down year in twenty twenty four, and some of that was definitely due to injury, Warren still hit a near twelve percent target chair per game rate. He was at fifteen point three percent the year prior. He's not giving us monster numbers, but he's capable of giving us serviceable ones. At a price tag of RB thirty seven, I have met RB thirty three. This is one of those scenarios where I'm willing to give something small just to see how the team ends up managing their backfield in March and April, because there's a chance that Jalen Warren ends up being a winner through those two months. Because again, Najee Harris is a free agent, and maybe the Steelers don't spend that much draft capital on a running back in this year's draft, and the nice part with that is that if the Steelers do go that route in the draft, we at least know that Warren is a capable pass catcher who's probably going to be using the tandem, so his value likely won't get dramatically lower unless Pittsburgh repeats their mistakes and gets another running back in round one. That just doesn't seem very likely right now. I'm kind of surprised that John Hus Smith isn't getting more love in the dynasty world right now. I think people might just be assuming that what he did in twenty twenty four was a complete fluke, that during the second half of the season, when he was getting more love than any other pass catcher in that Miami offense, that that was something that was like out of necessity or something. But on keep trade cut, he's the tight end sixteen. He's behind Jake Ferguson and Pat Fryarmouth for reference, I think that you could argue John Hus Smith in the top twelve or so. Smith definitely benefited from a lower a dot role in that Dolphins offense this past year. His average at the target was just five yards among the tight ends with one hundred and more targets Since twenty eleven that a dot ranks in the fourth percentile. It was by no means normal. Now I think that we'll see some regression from that number. It's similar to what we had with Evan Ingram in twenty twenty three. Ingram's target share, his total targets, they were a little bit higher than John News in twenty twenty four, but his targets per route run was nearly identical. His a dot was also five yards. Ingram's had seasons more in that five point five to six point five a dot range outside of that year. That's what we should probably expect from John HW. Smith in this Miami offense, maybe in twenty twenty five. The difference, though, between him and Evan Ingram is that Smith is honestly more efficient per route run. Like, say what you want about his season being manufactured, he got it done. His yards per route run was higher than both Tyreek Hill and Jalen Waddles at one point nine to five. He's now had three seasons in his career with at least one hundred routes run and a yards per rout run rate of one point eight or higher. They're only fourteen tight ends since twenty eleven who have been able to do that, and nearly all of them were incredibly relevant fantasy football. This past year was the only season where John new Smith was a big fantasy contributor, and people are usually more inclined to sell those seasons than by them. But I really think that John new Smith has just been an undervalued player in football for some time now. We have the benefit of hindsight to say that. Sure, but it's true he deserved to steal work from Kyle Pitts. And while he didn't do a lot in New England during his two years there, his per route run numbers were always really, really strong, especially within context. So my thoughts with John new Smith are simply this, what if Miami runs a similar offense in twenty twenty five, we could still see more looks go to Jalen Waddle and Wattle have a better season in twenty twenty five With John hus Smith paying off and being worthwhile in fantasy, both of those things can happen. And yeah, John who is going to be thirty years old next year, But where he's being drafted, where he's being ranked, you're really only looking for short term production anyway. That's if you're truly getting him at that tight end sixteen price tag. Now, I'm not necessarily higher or lower than the market with Jalen Coker, but I did want to call him out on today's show because this is what the kind of player that fantasy managers tend to ignore. He's an undrafted guy from a small school, and trust me, the ZAP model, my process, it's gonna ding that kind of player. His low prospect scorer is hurting his year two score, So that year two score isn't anything overly special. But in that year two model, I have what I call journey comparables. You guys can read all about this in the Prospect Guide. Those journey comparables, they look at players in history who sort of match the same journey as the player that we're analyzing from ZAP score to year two score. Jalen Coker's top journey comparable is Jacoby Myers, and funny enough, Matt Harmon, who charts these guys with reception perception, He's made the exact same film based comp which, by the way, bonus by candidate Jacoby Myers is always underrated in Dynasty anyway. Coker finished twenty twenty four with the yards barole run rate of one point seven to two that was significantly better than xavierly gets one point one nine rate in the exact same offense. The two guys play vastly different positions, but it just goes to show how strong coker season was, or maybe how bad Xavier leg gets was. But when we're talking about wide receivers in the wide receiver five, wide receiver six, wide receiver seven range, if there's an obvious path for that player to go in, I'm willing to buy that path. A Jacobe Meyers like slot direction for Coker makes plenty of sense, and then as he develops, he can be more of that inside out guy. He's not a screaming buy for me, but a lot of people sleep on this kind of player because he's not a household name. Now, because of this incoming running back draft class, I'd be pretty hesitant to be aggressive with higher end running backs because they're more costly, there's more risk. So within this portion of the podcast, I'm gonna throw two cheap running backs your way that you might want to have at the end of your roster, just to see what happens. One of them's Ray Davis maybe he's not at the end of your roster, but he's definitely on the bench. Chances are with James Cook, the Bills won't be spending significant draft capital on a running back in this year's draft, and I don't know why they wouldn't like Ray Davis. I mentioned on last week's Mailbag episode, but Davis is a decent year two model score compared to the rest of the running backs in last year's draft class, and at least compared to perception, it's actually the third best in the class, behind Bucky Irving and Tyrone Tracy. And because the Bills are a team who probably won't be aggressive at running back in the draft, Ray Davis's role is probably pretty safe and he'll be a year two guy. I'll be at an older year two guy who has a shot to carve out a more substantial role. Don't forget for as good as James Cook was this past year, he still only saw a sixty percent running back rush year per game rate. At a minimum, Ray Davis is a handcuff and a high powered offense. Now, the other guy to throw a dart at even more of a dart is Roshawan Johnson. This is just an off chance at Chicago doesn't want to add that much to that backfield, all while getting Ben Johnson and hopefully upgrading the offense in general. We saw what he did to the run game in Detroit, and the hope is obviously him bring those same creative and deep dynamics to Chicago. Eric Bienemy was just hired as the running backs coach too, But Rochan compliments DeAndre Swift fairly well, and he can play all three downs. He's not David Montgomery. I'm not saying that Roshan Johnson can just be David Montgomery. No one should sell him that way, but there's a non zero chance for him to play that kind of role in the Ben Johnson backfield. Now, I'm not expecting either player to really hit. I'm just playing probability here, but since they're both dart throws, they seem to fit well together. In a general shout out today, Okay, So I recorded this episode on Monday, and then on Monday night, Cooper Cup posted a tweet that said the following, I was informed that the team will be seeking a trade immediately and will be working with me and my family to find the right place to continue competing for championships. I don't agree with the decision and always believed it was going to begin and end in LA. Now I won't spoil things, but that just makes his final by candidate that much more interesting. Okay, let's get back to it. I'm gonna close the show with one more dart throw type player to me, this is where things are fun in Dynasty. We're gonna get these guys wrong a ton, but when you hit, there is nothing better. There's a lot of chatter that Cooper Cup's time in LA could be over. We saw a huge decline from him during the final stretch of the season and into the playoffs, and the Rams have been out with his contract here in twenty twenty five. It's been reported that Cup wants to play, but he's unsure if it's gonna be for the Rams. Now, obviously that's good for Pooka and Aakua, but Nakua was gonna get volume in production regardless. The dude's a stud. The player who has a chance, and I stressed the frame a chance here is Jordan Whittington. Whittington didn't look terrible all things considered. In the ZAP model. He brought a lot of versatility to the table as sort of a hybrid player to start his collegiate career, and then he was a full blown wide receiver by the end of it. But he had a pretty underrated rookie season for the Rams. He didn't get as much playing time as we won him when pookin Akua and Cooper Cup were out. But are you guys aware that he saw a target on twenty four percent of his routes run and he had a two point five zero yards perrou run rate. For context, among rookie wide receivers with one hundred and more routes since twenty eleven, only pukin Akua, Rashid Shiheed, Jamar Chase, Justin, Jefferson, AJ Brown, Odell Beckham, and Marteves Bryant got to that high of a yards perah run rate. But yeah, obviously not running a ton of routes a few plays can impact that number. But the interesting thing with Whittington is that the other lower volume players on these lists were almost all deep threats. They had higher A dots. Since let's look at the wideouts who had a yards per roun run rate as rookies above two point two, so lower than Whittington's. But instead of just a minimum one hundred routes run, let's look at one hundred to two hundred routes run. So we're not gonna look at Puka Akua or Jamar Chase or Justin Jefferson. We're looking at lower volume players. That gives us Whittington, Shaheed Marteves Bryant, and then Donovan Peoples, Jones and Jerrus Wright. While all of those non Whittington wide receivers had a dots above ten point four yards, Whittington's was at five point five. He may have benefited from some manufactured plays in that McVeigh offense, as do other wideouts in that offense, but he had to do something with those touches to raise that yards per route run rate. The closest routes run a dot in yards per route run comp to Whittington is honestly Randall Cobb Kadarius Tony is a close second. But both of those guys were looked at a whole lot more favorably after year one than Jordan Whittington is. And it's because both of them were looked at more favorably as prospects. But since when does Sean McVeigh care if his skill players are first round picks. Look at Pukinakua and Kyen Williams. If a dude can play, he can play, and with there being a potential opening in that offense, specifically in the slot where I think Whittington can thrive, to me, he's the perfect trade throw in. It could amount to absolutely nothing, but there's enough logic behind this to really go for it. But yeah, that's the list today. I had some others that I thought about talking about, like Deontay Johnson, Noah Gray, even Brian Thomas, who I think will be undervalued by some managers. But the guys that I talked about were the ones that I felt most strongly about, and that's what you guys deserve to hear. Next week we'll look at some sell candidates. That's it for today's show, though, thanks to all of you for listening. If you had subscribed to the Late Round Fantasy Football podcast, make sure you are by searching for it pretty much anywhere podcasts can be found, and know for to follow me on Twitter and on Blue Sky at Late Round QB. Remember you can pre order that Prospect guide right now over on the site lateround dot com. Otherwise, I've got a late Round Perspectives episode hitting your feeds on Friday with a great guest. I'll talk to you then