680: Mailbag 9/23/22

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Speaker 1: This is the Late Past with your host JAJ Zachera, j J. Zacherson. What's up everyone, It's JJ zacharieson and this is episode six hundred and eighty of the Late Round Fantasy Football podcast sponsored by FanDuel. Oh. Hey, thanks for tuning in. Hey, college football fans, The twenty twenty two season is officially underway, and Fandel and Exfinity have teamed up to give you a chance to put your college football knowledge to the test, introducing Exfinity Unbeatable Picks, a free to play contest centered around college football's biggest games. Here's how it works. You'll be given a list of ten game props to answer for college football's biggest matchups of Week four. Simply head to fandel dot com, slash Free slash Hub and look for the Exfinity Unbeatable Picks game to enter and submit your answers for each of the ten questions. If your picks prove to be unbeatable, you'll win a share of twenty thousand dollars in cash prizes courtesy of Exfinity. Exfinity Unbeatable Picks is set to begin on September twenty fourth at noon Eastern so make sure to head to FanDuel dot com slash Free slash Hub and look for the Exfinity Unbeatable picks to make your picks today, no purchase necessary. Now let's get to these mailbag questions. The first question this week comes from twitters from at flan man zero zero JJ, what are your thoughts on how the ambiguous backfield theories playing out so far this season? I know it's only two weeks, but thus far it seems as though some of the more probable ambiguous breakout candidates like Edmunds and Etn might not be hits. Thanks. Okay, So I think I need to just quickly remind people what the ambiguous backfield stuff is all about, because Travis Etn, for example, wasn't part of an ambiguous backfield entering the season. I started talking about ambiguous backfields years ago on this podcast, and I did so when analyzing running back breakouts. And these running back breakouts were drafted after round five or pick sixty, meaning any running back drafted before that was not part of an ambiguous backfield, and any running back drafted after that point who had a teammate in the early rounds or before round five also not an ambiguous backfield. Tony Pollard this year not an ambiguous backfield. Kareem Hunt not an ambiguous backfield. Chase Edmonds though, yes, absolutely he was in an ambiguous backfield. He was by far the highest drafted Dolphins running back, Yes, but we didn't feel that confident in him. If we did, he wouldn't have been like a seventh or eighth round pick. That's why I've called those types of backfields ambiguous, because they are, we're not confident in them. And traditionally there have been ADP trends that we've observed that tell us that drafting those types of players and not team RB twos with stud RB one teammates, that that's the way to go. I think people have made this way more complicated than it actually is. It's actually pretty binary in nature. It's either this middle or late roun running back as a teammate being drafted early or he doesn't. And keep in mind, I've also found that team RB twos in the middle rounds who have Team RB ones in the dead zone tend to do pretty well too. Clyde Edwards Hilaire is the RB five and he was part of an ambiguous backfield Antonio Gibson is the RB eleven, Miles Sanders is the RB twelve. Those players are doing just fine from the middle rounds, and none of them had teammates going before them. Ambiguous backfield is really just a way of saying you generally don't want to get players who have teammates with locked in roles in their offense. It's not that they can't exceed expectation, it's that it's historically been very difficult for them to be league winning players. So this year AJ Dillon technically fell into that bucket. Though I always talked about how Green Bay just might be a different beast this year. But Kareem Hunt, Melvin Gordon, Alexander Madison, Jamal Williams, Nahem Hines, Isaiah Spiller, Rashad White, those players all had early round teammates. Some of those guys went in the middle rounds, some of them went in the late rounds. Generally, speaking from a trend standpoint, those players tend to not exceed expectation at a league winning rate, very often, likely because they won't have a huge role without an injury to their stud teammate, they might have some role, which is why it's a different conversation in bestball leagues, but most of them aren't going to become plug and play players. And it's so obvious too, right, Like, it makes a ton of sense as to why that would be the case. For what it's worth, I don't really think two weeks is going to tell us all that much. I save these types of conclusions for the end of the season. It doesn't do us any good to say whether or not something's working, because we're not drafting anymore. We're just reacting to what's going on on a football field. I just wanted to point out what the idea of ambiguous backfield is and was all about. It's laid out in the Late Round Draft Guide. I talked about it in detail on episode six hundred and forty one two. The bottom line is, we rarely, and I mean rarely, get multiple high end running backs like top ten or top twenty running backs. We rarely get multiple top ten or top twenty running backs from the same team in a given season, like very very rarely. And since we know that early round running backs have a higher probability of finishing higher than middle and late round ones, that alone tells you that these nonambiguous backfields are generally bad bets, and I'm not talking about the early round guys. I'm talking about the late round ones from those nonambiguous backfields. But I would listen to episode six hundred and forty one. If this is still confusing, I know that it can be. You're listening to a quick hitting podcast. You're trying to absorb all this information. I get it, but hopefully this explanation helps. This last question is also from Twitter's from at more Paint. It says, will the Garrett Wilson hype last? Yes, the hype is probably gonna last until he retires. I may have to go on a rant about this because I've seen some weird reactions to last week's Garrett Wilson performance. Wilson played as the Jets' third wide receiver. This past week, Elijah Moore played sixty one snaps. Corey Davis was at fifty five, Wilson only at forty. I've seen that used against Garrett Wilson, as if that number is gonna be the same all season long. You really think the Jets tenth overall pick a guy who produced alongside legitimate studs in college, a wide receiver who ranked in the ninety seven percentile on my prospect model. You really think Corey Davis is gonna hold him off. I mean, maybe that happens, maybe the Jets coaching staff is just truly irrational. But guys, Garrett Wilson is for real. Like all he's done is shown us that he's for real. I freaking love Elijah Moore and I think Moore is insanely talented. After two games, that stance hasn't changed. What has changed is that it's now confirmed that Garrett Wilson is a baller. The chance of him being a baller was pretty high, at least higher than most wide receivers entering the league, but it's confirmed now, Like this isn't Noah Brown playing his fifth NFL season, coming through with one hundred and fifty nine yards to the first two games of the year. Noah Brown's doing great. I'm super happy for Noah. But Brown is not Garrett Wilson. No one's making that comparison. I get it. But what I'm saying is when an incredible prospect enters the NFL and then immediately does incredible things, it's very very likely that he's very very good at football. He's not Noah Brown doing great things. He's Garrett Wilson doing great things. This isn't to say that we should expect Week two to happen each week. What I am saying, though, is that we don't always get situations in fantasy football where a player this talented is sitting on waivers, A player who is talented entering the league and has done nothing but confirm that. Wilson was on a ton of waiver wires entering this week. And honestly, clearly you can hear by my voice, I still think that he's not getting enough love. I think when there's a waiverwire ad, people automatically sort of just assume that he can't be that good, and if he's coming off the waiver wire, how good could he possibly be? And because people think that way, Garrett Wilson might honestly be a Bye high candidate because he's very, very good at football. Again, I still love the hell out of Elijah Moore. I think he's probably a good by low candidate. Elijah Moore's a stud. Two games does not change my evaluation. But this is not hype for Garrett Wilson. This just is Garrett Wilson and the sooner you realize that the better off you're gonna be in fantasy football. This last questions from Patreon. It's from Bryden. It says, any thoughts on the Patriots backfield? Now? Stevenson played a ton but barely got the ball and no goal line work. Is he a bye? I think Stevenson's an interesting buye Yes. I contemplated calling him out on the fifteen Transactions episode this week because even though Damian Harris had the better line on Sunday, Stevenson had the peripherals. In Week one, Damian Harris had nine attempts, Stevenson had eight, and the target totals favored Harris three to two. Harris played eight more snaps too. Time. Montgomery saw a lot of snaps in that game, but he's currently on IR so in week two without Montgomery, the question was would Remandre Stevenson be used more as a pass catcher? I actually talked about that on this show last week against Pittsburgh, Harris out attempted Stevenson fifteen to nine and they both saw two targets. So you're probably sitting there thinking, well, this is a complete split backfield favoring Damien Harris, but not so fast. Stevenson played sixty two percent in New England snaps in week two, far more than Damien Harris. And it's because, according to four to four stat explorer, Stevenson went from playing zero third down snaps in week one to sixty one percent of them in week two. His route participation shot up too, week one fifteen percent, week two sixty one percent. The route's run difference between Harris and Stevenson was ten to five in week one in favor of Harris. In week two, it favored Stevenson twenty three to nine. Imagine a world where there's more of a negative game script for the New England Patriots. If this usage continues, Stevenson will absolutely see more work than Damian Harris, more valuable work. So yes, if you want to buy him low, I think you definitely can do that. Like I said, I contemplated making him a buy on the fifteen Transactions episode this week. This last question is from at Gunner's Stall. It says, what is the panic level with Derrick Henry? I can't imagine game scripts will favor the Titans giving their passing game thus far. There's a lot wrong with Tennessee and we know that Dereck Henry's usage is going to be largely as a two down back. We're seeing that already the season, with Dontrell Hilliard and Hassan Haskins running routes in that offense. Derrick Henry has twenty one routes run through two games. According to PFF, that rings fifty first in the league at running back. We know this though, we know he's not that much of a pass catcher. The problem is that when we get games like Week two against the Bills, he's toast. So yes, that's definitely a concern. I don't think he's a screaming buy for that reason. I think he's a hold. I know big games are likely coming, and he may even hit one of those big games this weekend. For that reason, I'd probably at least risk it for Week three, hold on to him and hope that he can have a big game before I trade him away. But when you combine an early down back with a mediocre passing attack and a bad offensive line, you run into this. So I'd probably hold, but know that things can get a lot worse with a bad game against the Raiders. The next question is from at djen Kyle. It says Kyle Pitt's rest of season outlook. Is there much optimism going forward or is the fantasy community overreacting to a two week sample size. I think there's a very real chance that he was overdrafted in fantasy this year, but I don't think now is the time to sell or just full blown panic. His route participation is identical to last year. He's playing about the same percentage of snaps from the slot as he did in twenty twenty one. He's playing a little less out wide. But the real difference from last year to this year is that according to PFF, he's pass blocked on ten snaps already this year. Last year the number was fifteen. Across the entire season, he's pass blocked on over fourteen percent of his passing snaps played. Last year, that number was just two point seven percent. So they're asking him to block a little bit more. But the good news is that his rapt participation it's still decently good. I don't think you need to totally totally panic, but I do think we're gonna look back and see Pitts as being overdrafted this year. The last question this week is from at Rightbeard, it says, can I drop Darnell Mooney? Yet? So I get these questions all the time with these underperforming players who you drafted relatively high, And the answer is dropping them depends on a whole lot of factors. How deep is your bench, how big is your league? Who are you actually dropping him for? Because if you're dropping Darnell Mooney for just some lottery ticket player, I would argue that Darnell Mooney is a better player to have because right now he's a lottery ticket player who's proven to be a pretty good fantasy asset in the past. I know that I talked bad on the Bears offense on the ten Trends episode, and I still stand by all that. So far this year, it's been atrociously bad for fantasy. But Week one was the Monsoon game. Week two was a good Packers defense with the Bears playing on the road. Technically, I think that you could easily argue that it's only going to get better. We won't see this low of passing totals. At least that's what I think is logical. So again, who are you adding for Darnell Mooney? Is it? Garrett Wilson? Sure you guys just heard me rant about Garrett Wilson. Of course I would take Wilson over Darnell Mooney. Is this some random tight end streamer or a backup quarterback. In that case, I'd probably rather hold on to Darnell Mooney. It's important to not let the frustration that you have towards a player sort of overshadow the bigger picture, because bigger picture, Mooney still does have more upside than most players on the waiver wire. We have a two week sample. In one of those two weeks that bears played in a swimming pool. I'm certainly not saying to buy Mooney, but don't let the annoyance of him being a bust at adp get in the way of the fact that he didn't just completely lose his ability to be a good football player. That's gonna do 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 don't fit to follow me on Twitter at LATEROUNDQB. Check out lateround dot com for everything I'm offering. Otherwise, enjoy your weekend. Everyone, good luck in week three. I'll talk to you next week.