1048: 10 Trends for Week 10

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Speaker 1: This is the Lab podcast with your host JJ Zachertha, JJ Zacherson. What's up everyone, It's JJ zacharyesin in this episode ten eight of the Late Round Fantasy Football podcast. Thanks for tuning in. Before I get to the trends this week, I just want to remind you guys to subscribe to the Late Round newsletter.

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Speaker 2: It's absolutely free. It costs zero dollars.

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Speaker 1: All you gotta do sad to Lateround dot com, click newsletter and submit your email address.

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Speaker 2: That's it.

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Speaker 1: You won't get these trends in that newsletter. But each week during the season, you'll get the list of fifteen transactions from the fifteen Transactions episode, you'll get the weekly data dump that I publish on Twitter and on Blue Sky, and you'll get a nice recap of everything from David Kitchen.

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Speaker 2: At the end of the week. Out of season, I send out studies.

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Speaker 1: I do other research articles all the time. That's Lateround dot com. Then click newsletter. Okay, now let's get to these trends. Most quarterbacks are gonna play better indoors than outdoors most games. They're gonna see a little bit of a bump in scoring when they're in a dome. It's just a better environment when we obviously don't have to deal with outside factors like weather. I bring this up because the Lions are on the verge of playing a lot of games indoors. In fact, they only have two more outdoor games in the fantasy football season, with those games coming over the next couple of weeks. After they face the Eagles in Week eleven, they'll be at home against the Giants, at home against the Packers, at home against the Cowboys in LA to face the Rams in Detroit again against the Steelers, and then in Minnesota. All those games that I just mentioned are being played in a dome. So the trend here it's domes. It's a trend I've never talked about on the show before, But there are lots of indoor games for the Lions to finish up this fantasy football season, and that should hypothetically be a boost to that offense. So far this season, Lamarge Jackson has averaged twenty three point eight standard Fantasy points per game. That's the QB one overall by points per game. Joe Flacco has played four games of the Bengals. In those four games, he's averaged twenty five point zero points per game. In other words, Joe Flacco as a Cincinnati Bengal has been the best fantasy football quarterback so far in twenty twenty five. And here's the kicker. Cincinnati quarterbacks have a top five rest of season and playoff schedule according to my adjusted fantasy points allowed numbers. Now, surely he won't keep this up, but after doing my rest of season rankings, I'm a good seven quarterback spots higher than the market with Joe Flacco.

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Speaker 2: I don't see why you wouldn't be a quarterback.

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Speaker 1: You should always be aggressive with that position in fantasy football. Something else that caught my eye when doing rest of season rankings this week kind of has to do with a transaction from yesterday's show, But Aaron Jones is still being ranked below Jordan Mason consistently. I know he had that shoulder in but we're talking like six to ten running back spots here. But in games where Aaron Jones has been active this year, Jordan Mason has honestly been unusable. He's averaging just five point two PPR points per game. With Aaron Jones active, He's yet to score more than eight and a half PPR points. In one of those contests, and his target shairs have been added below five percent in three of those four games. That's just something to note iss you potentially go out and trade for Jones this week. The Panthers backfield did indeed shift this past week big time. Ricodowdell out snapped Huba Hubbard forty two to thirteen on Sunday against the Packers. He ran twelve routes. Hubbard ran four. That's according to PFF. Based on his usage. PFF's expected fantasy points formula had Dowble at twenty one and a half PPR points. He outperformed that, but a twenty one point baseline is still pretty wild. Dowdell has now seen more than sixty percent of the team's running back rushes and three games this year. In those games, he scored thirty to thirty four and twenty eight PPR points. To put that another way, Rico Dudele is to me in RB one discussions rest of season. Now, speaking of that Panthers backfield, someone in the late round discord yesterday was asking about my anti tubas stance over the summer, and so I went back and I looked at some of the stuff that I worked on when researching for drafts this year, one of those things being what I think is the most.

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Speaker 2: Important research piece of my year.

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Speaker 1: I'm not saying this to pat myself on the back, because trust me, guys, I know I'm far from flawless, Remember Trayvon Henderson. This is purely a research and process thing. It's also something that can be very helpful moving forward. But middle round running backs, which I defined as RB nineteen to RB forty two by ADP, middle round running backs who have had poor previous season yards per route run rates have historically underwhelmed the following season. So back in June, I wrote an email on that subject. Speaking of the newsletter, I also did a podcast episode episode nine ninety six. It was called a New Way to Spot Middle Round running Back Breakouts. That newsletter, though, it was on risky middle round running back profiles based on yards per rout run and here's the list of the risky running backs that I talked about, Tyrone, Tracy, Brian Robinson, Tony Pollard, Ramandre Stevenson, Jordan Mason, and Chewba Hubbard. Hubbard's point five to one yards per route run rate was worst among all middle round running backs. Now, we have no idea what the middle rounds of drafts are going to look like next year, and we still have just a limited sample this year. But players who have been very inefficient per route run this season Accorna PFF data include Tony Pollard once again, Tyrone Tracy once again, Jacory Krossky Merrick Camani, Vaidel, Alvin Kamara, JK Dobbins, Javonte Williams, Jordan Mason again, Zach Sharboney, and Isaiah Pacheco. Those are sort of the higher end players or the usable players who just haven't looked great this year and yards per out run. So if that continues and if we find ourselves drafting them in the middle rounds next year, we may want to think twice. And of course I'm going to talk about this during the off season. It was just top of mind, so I wanted to share. So I originally had a Rashid Shaheed and Chris Alave trend in the spot this week and how the Saints with Tyler Schuck gave Shahed a really high target share and a really high first read target share in Week nine and then he was traded. But I still kind of want to talk about Rashid Shaheed. Now, this trend is not super taky, don't get too excited, but the Seahawks, in my opinion, made this move for Shahed for versatility purposes. On the season, only the Steelers have run less eleven personnel than the Seahawks have. This isn't new for Clint Kubiak. Last year with the Saints, New Orleans also ranked thirty first in eleven personnel usage. That's three wide receiver sets, and you.

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Speaker 2: Can't ignore that.

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Speaker 1: Kubiak now in Seattle probably wanted Shaheed again because he knows how actual he can be. The Seahawks now have Jackson Smith and Jigba Shaheed, Tory Horton, and Cooper Cup. Maybe that Cup injury, maybe it's a little bit worse than what's being reported, but also he's just been kind of fine this year. Now.

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Speaker 2: Tory Horton, who I've been.

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Speaker 1: Excited about, he definitely takes a hit with this trade, but with Shahed, he's paired up with a quarterback who can hit him better down the field. Among relevant quarterbacks this year, Sam Darnold is first in the NFL and average depth of target Shahed had an a dot this year. Of just eleven point three. Last year with Kubiak it was eighteen point one. So to me, this move for Shahed it signals flexibility for the Seahawks. They get more depth at wide receiver, they get a guy who can really stretch the field to pair him with a quarterback who can get him the.

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Speaker 2: Ball down the field.

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Speaker 1: And from a trends to lookout for standpoint, maybe we see this offense run a little bit more eleven personnel, but I'd want Shahed behind JSN in that offense. From a fantasy standpoint, Tory Horton has a chance to develop into something that's better than Shaheed currently is. But there's no doubt in my mind this is a great real life fit. Now. I don't even know if that was a trend or not, but we're just rolling with it. Mark Andrews has just become such an insane fantasy asset. He hit just a fifteen point one percent target share per game rate last season, but he ended up scoring eleven touchdowns. Since twenty eleven, among the tight ends with ten or more touchdowns in a season, the average target share for those tight ends was over twenty percent. We rarely get fifteen percent target shaars and eleven touchdowns. But we know Andrews is a red zone threat and Lamar Jackson loves to look for him there. Last year, he was seventh in the NFL an end zone target share, which is the percentage of team targets that land in the end zone. Because the Ravens were good and they had a lot of those opportunities. He was second in end zone targets per game. This year, Andrews' is fifth among tight ends an end zone target share. Meanwhile, according to Fantasy Life data, Isaiah Likely hasn't seen a single end zone target. So I can sit here and tell you that Andrews doesn't have the most amazing target share, that he's basically running the same number of routes as Isaiah Likely, but he's a touchdown threat every week and that can carry him in fantasy football. Otherwise he'd be pretty irrelevant and mostly just a streamer.

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Speaker 2: Alec Pierce could have easily.

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Speaker 1: Been a fifteen transactions player, but I went against it because of that team's upcoming schedule. But he's been low key getting it done. He's seen target shares of thirty one percent, eighteen percent, and twenty seven percent over his last three He's had twenty eight targets over that timeframe, and he scored about fifteen nine and eighteen PPR points in those three games. Pierce is currently top of the league in air yards per game. That's if you exclude Malik Neighbors because he's out for the season. Like I said, I hate the upcoming schedule, but he's having a pretty underrated season and that's surprising.

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Speaker 2: Indianapolis offense.

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Speaker 1: The Arizona Cardinals Week nine backfield usage, it was a mes more of a mess than what most thought it would be. It definitely was not Bam Knight's backfield. Knight did play the most snaps at fifty eight percent, but he trailed to Mario Demarcado in rush share. He oddly then ran more routes than a Mario Demarcado did. That's a surprise to me given how the Cardinals have deployed De Marcado in the past. Knight had a solid fifty one percent route share, though. I think because of that, if you were to pick one back to roster until Trey Benson's back, it'd probably be Knight. Probably, but the answer is more than likely none of the above. It's just too unpredictable, and yes, I'm still way higher than the market on Trey Benson. I don't think he's a smash, but he'saione I'd be willing to take a chance on given the price that you might have to pay, which could, realistically right now, just be some bench assets. This last trend is about the Broncos wide receivers, specifically two of them. Over Denver's first five games, Courtland Sutton averaged sixteen point one PPR points game. He had a twenty two point nine percent target share per game rate. Over his last four games, Sutton's averaged an eighteen percent target share per game rate and just ten PPR points per game. Meanwhile, over Troy Franklin's first five games, he averaged a nineteen percent target chair per game rate. He had ten point six PPR points per game. Over his last four he's been at twelve point eight PPR points per game, so more than Sutton. While averaging almost twenty four percent of Denvers targets. Over the last four weeks, Troy Franklin has out targeted Courtland Sutton thirty two to twenty five. Now I dug into this with Fantasy Points data, and in that first stretch of five games, Courtland Sutton had a first red target share of about twenty eight percent. Troy Franklin was at nineteen percent over their last four It's Troy Franklin who's been closer to that twenty eight percent mark. Sutton is down to nineteen percent. Basically, they've just completely flipped. What we've been learning over the last month is a Shortland Sutton is seemingly as volatile as he's always been, and Troy Franklin is probably undervalued, and in my opinion, based on rankings, he is undervalued. We'll have to monitor to see if all of this continues, but it's definitely a major, major trend. That's it for today's show, though, thanks to all of you for listening. If you yet subscribe to the Late Round Fantasy Football podcast, make sure you are by searching for it pretty much anywhere podcasts can be found and difference to follow me on Twitter and on Blue Sky at Late Round QB.

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Speaker 2: Thanks for listening everyone.

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Speaker 1: I'll be back tomorrow with the weekly Sleeper Show.