1054: Mailbag - Brock Purdy's Return, RJ Harvey's Outlook, and More

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Speaker 1: This is the Late Podcast with your host JJ zachera J J Zacheron. What's up everyone. It's JJ Zachary saying in this episode ten fifty four of the Late Round Fantasy Football podcast a classic mailbag pause, thanks for tuning in. Before I get to the mailbag questions this week, I've got a favor to ask you. If you check out the description for this episode, you'll see there's a link to a survey. That survey shouldn't take that long to fill out, but it's really really helpful for myself and David Kitchen, my COO, to get honest feedback from you guys. Like I said earlier this week, I want Late Round Fantasy Football, this podcast, the content that I'm doing. I want those things to be as helpful and entertaining as they possibly can be. And the best way to do that is through listening to what's working for you guys and what's not. So if you could fill it out, I would greatly greatly appreciate it. Now let's get to these mailbag questions. The first question is an email. It says, hey, JJ love the podcast got a couple of hits from you this year. Awesome. Can you explain your adjusted fantasy points allowed stat I don't understand it, but you bring it up every week when talking about matchups. Thanks Isaac. Yeah, I think this is a good thing to bring up because people come and go with this show and don't automatically know exactly what I'm talking about. I adjust a lot of different metrics, target share, points allowed, rushing yards allowed, the list goes on. All the adjusting is is adjusting for strength of opponent, for strength of schedule. So let's just take the Cowboys against wide receivers this year. They've allowed over three hundred and sixty p PIER points to wide receivers in nine games played. But technically, according to my numbers, the Steelers have actually allowed more points to wide receivers, like one more point. So we might conclude, based on the fact that both teams have had their bye, so on a points per game basis, the Steelers are technically allowing more points to wide receivers than the Cowboys are. We might conclude that the Steelers are a better matchup for wide receivers in terms of fantasy points allowed because they've technically allowed one more PPR point across the season to the position at the very least they're really comparable. But what I do is look at who they've actually faced and how many fantasy points those teams generally score as a wide receiver room. So Pittsburgh when you look at that, they're still bad against wide receivers, but wide receiver rooms generally, you're scoring seven point six PPR points per game above their average when they face Pittsburgh wide receiver rooms. When they face Dallas, they're scoring eleven points six PPR points per game above that season long average. That's a pretty significant difference. So I do that for a lot of metrics to kind of give us a better sense of who's actually been good and who's actually been bad. And fantasy points allowed or some other metric right like target share. A lot of times there's going to be overlap, like the raw numbers are going to look a whole lot like the adjusted numbers. But this gives you a true raw number when thinking about how well a team might perform above or below expectation based on how things have gone during a season. And for the record, all these numbers they're on the late round Fantasy Football Patreon. This next question is from that patreon is from Ball Game four, it says, Hi, JJ, what are your thoughts on Jaden Reid's role when he returns and an offense lacking of yards after the catch option in Tuckercraft's absence. I'm curious if you believe there's a chance for an increased role despite the wide receiver snapcarousel we typically see from Green Bay. The schedule looks strong down the stretch. Thanks for all your thoughtful analysis. Look, I love Jayden Reid. I've been a truther since he came out of college. I think he's an awesome player. But the Packers deploy their wide receivers and deployed Jaden Reid in particular in a really specific way, which is via the slot, and that leads to fewer routes run than the other wider. Just to give you some data with that. Over the offseason, I did some research on this type of player and Josh Downs is included in this mix too. They're wide receivers who look the part, who have great metrics to back it up, but their teams refuse to give them bigger roles. They're slot guys. I wrote a newsletter back in early August that was titled says Jaden Reid's slot only role matter, And what I found was that it's pretty rare for players with lower route participation rates like under eighty percent and then high slot rates above sixty percent to give a significant production in fantasy football. In fact, we've only had five seasons, five instances since twenty eleven where a wide receiver was within those parameters who then finished as a wide receiver two or better in Fantasy football in points per game. And when you look at those successes Victor Cruz in twenty eleven, Keenan Allen in twenty twenty two, Percy Harvin in twenty eleven, Randall Cobb in twenty twelve, and Hunter Renfro in twenty twenty one, four of those players scored at least eight TOUCHDOW. The only one who didn't was Keenan Allen, but he only played ten games and he scored four times in those ten games. Their median target share was also twenty three percent. That's been really hard to achieve in this current Packers offense, at least across a large stretch of games. So I guess what I'm getting at here is that, yes, hypothetically, Tucker Craft being out the wide receiver room looking like it does. Yes, Jaden Reid would be a great asset to have, like potentially top twenty rest of season, that kind of ceiling hypothetically speaking, and I do think that he's something that you can stash right now. I almost had him as an ad on fifteen transactions earlier this week, and to be fair to read who again, I think he's very talented. He has an outlier type of profile. He's been so efficient per route run to start his career. If there's someone who can kind of buck this trend, I think he'd be on the short list. But if we're strictly looking at this from a probability driven lens, in order for to be a consistent player across a large stretch, the Packers need to change up his role period. Maybe they do that post injury. I just wouldn't bet on that, and that lowers the type of ceiling that I was just talking about. But look, we know he's capable of having spiked weeks and generating big plays. Maybe it all comes together and he's just super efficient down the stretch while facing what my numbers say is the third best wide receiver schedule rest of season. Again, you can add him, especially in deeper leagues. I'm just pointing out that he does have a cap ceiling in this offense because of the way they deploy him, and it's unfortunate because he's a really awesome player. This last question is from Blue Skies from at zombie Token. It says which teams have your favorite rest of season schedules for each fantasy position. So with a question like this, I'm not gonna give individual player takes. I'm just gonna share what my numbers show right now. And this is all available in the late Round Fantasy Football Patreon. Just go to Lateround dot com Clickpatreon if you're in interested. I even split up by playoff weeks if you're interested in that. But this is pre Thursday Night Football adjusted fantasy points allowed schedules from weeks eleven through seventeen. None of these are going to be flawless schedules. Each player is bound to have a bad matchup or two. But here goes at quarterback right now, the top three they look like Baltimore, Miami, and New England. And just to reiterate, this is not just the fantasy playoffs, this is rest of season. At running back, we've got New England again, and then a three way tie between the Browns, Packers, and Steelers at wide receiver, Cincinnati's number one, Miami's number two, and then there are a few teams at number three, Detroit, Green Bay, and Minnesota. And the reason there are ties here is because I'm looking at a median opponent during this timeframe. At tight end, it's Indianapolis, and then Baltimore and then the New York Jets. So there you have it. You can see all of the details with these adjusted Fantasy points allowed numbers on Patreon, like I said, which includes how many points above or below expectation each team allows. But that's where we're at rest of season. This last question is from Patreon. It's from Florian. It says, hi, JJ brock Purdy looks to have a chance to play this week. How bullish are you with him rest of season? So at the time this recording, I don't know if he's enter out this week, but let's talk about brock perty After sitting down and thinking about this, I think Perdy is actually a pretty interesting buy right now for teams looking at the playoffs. We know he can work in this system. I mean, there's a reason he was like a low end QB one, high end QB two in fantasy drafts this year, Ricky Piersoll's getting healthier, George Kittle is back, Jwan Jennings is starting to look more like his twenty twenty four self, Christian McCaffrey's active, and maybe we even see Brandon Ayuk eventually, and then Kyle Shanahan. This week, he said that when Brock Purdy is back, he won't have to change his mobility. He said, quote, I think if you go tell a guy to not be mobile and to stay out of situations, it's kind of hard to be successful. And that was really big for Party last year. He went from one point seven points per game via rushing in twenty twenty three to four point two points per game in twenty twenty four. It gave him a better floor, even with regression coming. And then you take all that and you layer on the schedule in the Fantasy football playoffs. Perdy, if he's back and ready to rock, he'll face the Titans, Colts, and Bears. The Titans and Bears those games are in San Francisco. The Colts game is in Indianapolis, but that's a dome game. Honestly, guys, whether we see Perdy this weekend or not, it wouldn't surprise me if I'm talking about him as a buy candidate on next week's fifteen Transactions show. The last question this week is from at the curR Life. It says, what's the upside of RJ Harvey if JK. Dobbins misses time? Do you see him having league winning upside? With Sean Payton's offense? How similar of a player is he to Alvin Kamara. So you'll hear a lot of RJ. Harvey talk on this week's Perspectives episode, which drops later today, but I thought it could add some additional commentary right now or give my specific take before you hear what's said on that episode. I liked Harvey as a prospect, but not quite as much as some others, because there were people out there who were serious, serious truthers. They loved RJ. Harvey. But he does check some of the boxes that I care about for fantasy purposes. He's a capable enough pass catcher, he's got enough size, and he's insanely explosive. Now, I will say this, I never really understood the Alvin Kamara comps I talked about that a bit after he was drafted to Denver. As prospects, they were pretty different, at least in my opinion, just analytically via the Zap model. Alvin Kamara entered the league before turning twenty two years old. RJ. Harvey was past his twenty fourth birthday. Alvin Kamara had nine pounds on him, and he's a little bit taller. Harvey has that stockier build and people forget this, but Kamara didn't have crazy speed. With his forty Harvey ran a four to four flat, Kamara was at a four five six. More importantly, most importantly from a production standpoint, Kamara had a breakout score of ninety two, which is amazing. It's great. That's based on age adjusted receiving yards per team pass attempt. Harvey's was about fifty one. And then Kamara's best season in pro rated reception CHARE was almost twenty percent. Harvey's was eleven percent. According to my stuff, Kamara was the better prospect. We could say that in hindsight, sure, but I'm staring at the Zapp model right now, and Alvin Kamara has a Zapp score of about ninety three. Harvey was at eighty four, despite Harvey having slightly better draft capital, Alvin Kamara was an incredible pass catching prospect. I don't think Harvey's that. Harvey's just a different type of player all around, And I don't think we'd be making this comparison if he wasn't playing for Sean Payton. Now, with that being said, I don't think he needs to be out Kamara for us to feel bullish. Dobbins has been seeing running back rush shares of eighty three percent and eighty one percent over the last couple of games. I mean, on the season, his running back rush are per game right is about seventy five percent. He's seeing like three quarters of the team's running back rushes. Now, I think we're gonna see Julil McLoughlin now sprinkled him with some ground game stuff, and like I said in the Sleeper Show, you've got Tyler Biday to do some of that two minute some of that hurry up stuff. He's gonna keep stealing some routes. But I don't see why Harvey can't be like a fifty to sixty percent running back rush air player in this offense, which could yield like thirteen to fifteen carries on the ground per game, and then the problem with Dobbins this year was the pass catching stuff, but that's less of a problem for RJ. Harvey. So on top of that work on the ground, maybe he could be like a ten to twelve percent target share player. So let's just run through this real quick. Let's widen our parameters here to forty five to sixty five percent running back rushares and a nine to thirteen percent target share. We've had twenty five of those types of outings from running backs this season. RJ. Harvey actually got there in Week four. When you average out those players PPR points in those twenty five instances, you get thirteen point seven PPR points per game, which I think intuitively that's not a horrible median outcome outlook for RJ. Harvey, and then you can kind of work off of that for the upside of more work for him being really efficient if those types of things really come together. The only downside is they get the Chiefs this week and then the Packers a little bit later in the season with the Chiefs again coming on Christmas, and that just depends on how long JK. Dobbins is going to be out for but it doesn't seem like a short term injury right now for JK. Dobbins. And there are some good matchups in there too against the Commanders and Raiders after this Chiefs game. So yeah, look, I wouldn't expect like a full blown bellcow type role. I don't think he's gonna see that kind of production, but I think fourteen PPR points per game is well within reach and there's upside with that type of outlook too. That's it for today's show, though, thanks to all of you for listening. If you get subscribe to the Late Round Fantasy Football podcast, make sure you are bestwarching for it pretty much anywhere podcasts can be found, and follow me on Twitter and on Blue Sky at Late Round QB. Later today you get another episode of Late Round Perspectives. I'm excited for you guys to hear that one, and then also at one pm Eastern on the YouTube channel that's YouTube dot com slash at LATEROUNDFF, I'll be live with David Kitchen to do the Late Round Fantasy Football Show. If you can't watch that on YouTube, if you can't join us, it will drop in this podcast feed tomorrow morning. Thanks for listening everyone, Good luck and Week eleven. I'll catch you next week.