414: Mailbag 9/18/20

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Speaker 1: This is the lad Podcast with your host JJ zacher Retha j J zacher reson What's up everyone. It's JJ Zacharyas and the editor in chief at FanDuel and at number fire dot com in this episode four hundred and fourteen of the Late Round podcast the many shows that are part of the FanDuel podcast network. Thanks for tuning in. The biggest Fantasy football story of week one was the Marlon Mack injury and what that does to the Indianapolis Colts backfield. Because Jonathan Taylor and ultra productive, ultra athletic running back who was drafted at the start of the second round. He's getting his opportunities sooner rather than later, and that's a huge deal because the man has serious upside. I sent a tweet out earlier this week that said the following quote, after all the Jonathan Taylor talk, maybe this will help show where my head's at running backs. I'd take over Jonathan Taylor right now. In season long Fantasy football, Christian McCaffrey, Sekwon Barkley, Ezekiel Elliott, Alvin Kamara, Dalvin Cook, Derrick, Henry Clyde, Edwards Hilaire, maybe, Josh Jacobs, maybe Miles Sanders. That's it played to win. I then amended the tweet to say that I'd probably take Jacobs over him too, but that's the list. Jonathan Taylor is a top ten running back in fantasy football moving forward. I like him more than Austin Eckler, more than Kenyan Drake. I'm recording this before Thursday Night's game, but I like him more than Joe Mixon and Nick Chubb too. He's running behind one of the better offensive lines in the league. He has a quarterback who has historically dumped the ball off to his running backs at a high rate, including doing so on thirty seven percent of his targeted attempts on Sunday, and the Colts have a soft schedule too. Now, a lot of people agreed with my take, but some people saw it as premature, that it was a hot take that doesn't make sense to go all in on a rookie running back who wasn't even all that effective on the ground in his limited week. One sample example of people questioning where my head's at came from at blitz from six, who asked the following question for this week's mailbag show. It says, Hey, JJ, how do you compare the situations of Jonathan Taylor and David Johnson. Why are you higher on Taylor despite Nahim Hines and Philip Rivers. That's where a lot of the questions went regarding Taylor this week. If I'm this high on Taylor, does that mean I'm not very high on Nahim Hines? And the answer is that I actually still like Nahim Hines as a high floor play in PPR formats. We have a history, and it was just reinforced in Week one, but we have a history of Philip Rivers heavily targeting his running backs out of the backfield. Both of those players can be viable in their own way in fantasy football. The difference is that Taylor is likely to be the goal line back, and Taylor himself still saw a high target share in Week one despite not seeing work until the second quarter when Marlon Mack was hurt. We can't just assume that a player in a backfield that appears to be split is gonna automatically be worse than a player in a backfield that appears to be all his. So let's just go back to that David Johnson versus Jonathan Taylor question as our example. Dj has a worse offensive line, so we know that there's going to be more trouble being efficient on the ground. But then even in Week one, because of the way that Rivers targeted his running backs, Jonathan Taylor actually had a higher target share than David Johnson had. Historically, since DeShawn Watson got to Houston, he hasn't really targeted his running backs that heavily out of the backfield. Now, I'm sure that number increases a bit this year with David Johnson there and no DeAndre Hopkins, but Houston's single season high target share to the running back position since Watson entered the league is under seventeen percent. It's sixteen point seven percent. Philip Rivers backfield since twenty eleven have averaged a twenty five point eight percent target share, and that's been twenty seven point eight percent over the last three years. Again, personnel dictates some of this, but I think it's encouraging at least if you have one of the Colt's running backs. But it's encouraging to see how he used Hines and Taylor in Week one, and that just plays off of what we heard from Indianapolis's coaches during the offseason. This is a very good situation for Jonathan Taylor. He's got a quarterback who will feed him the ball in the passing game, and he's in a run friendly environment. Overall, it's not hard to see the upside, and I want to buy into that upside. I truly believe that if we drafted today, he would be a first round pick, or at least it would be reasonable to take him in the first round behind some of the running backs that I talked about earlier. And remember, things aren't as simple as he's sharing a backfield and this guy isn't. Therefore, I'm gonna get this guy. There's more to every situation, and Jonathan Taylor's situation is pretty awesome. Now, before we get into the questions this week, because this is a mailbag show, I wanted to send another reminder about the FanDuel Podcast Network Listener League. It's a rake free weekly NFL contest made exclusive for you the Listener. For just five dollars, you can enter the Listener League and compete for your share of the two thousand dollars prize pool, including a two hundred dollars first place prize, and you can enter up to three separate lineups, so it's five dollars to enter, it's rake free and you can get fifteen dollars worth of lineups in. There are limited entries, so enter as soon as you can at fandel dot com slash League slash listener League Eligibility restrictions apply. The first question this week is from at Texas Blue Moon. From what you saw in week one, which one or two players are looking like the most likely late round league winners? Late round is tough to say because there weren't many late round guys that were like amazingly amazingly productive and saw crazy, crazy usage in week one. I think Nahim Heinz is going to end up paying off, obviously, but I still have my concerns about his weekly upside. He had two scores in week one, but that's not going to be very sustainable. But he is looking good so far. And then on that same team, one player that I'm really intrigued by his Paris Campbell. He had a bad rookie year and that's generally not a good sign for future production, but he was also hurt of the rookies that didn't perform and went on to do well in their fantasy careers. Injury was a big reason why they didn't perform during their rookie season. He played ninety five percent of his snaps from the slot in Week one, so we should see some soft matchups this year, and he had about a twenty percent target shair. I think he can build on that and be a very viable option moving forward. But I don't think Week one told us who exactly the late round league winner is going to be this year. There aren't a ton of late round league winners to begin with, and my guess is someone's going to emerge eventually, like an Antonio Gibson or JK. Dobbins or something like that. This ask questions from at Slinky Pudding looking for depth for possible flex players. Is Christian Kirkworth holding on to or would you prefer a speculative running back ad like Barber Gaskin's blage PPR format. I already have Slayton, Preston Williams and Tony Miller for receiver depth. Thanks. I just don't see the upside with those running backs. I can't imagine you're ever going to confidently start a running back for Miami at this current rate, And then I can't imagine starting a running back for the Jets with Le'Veon Bell out and then Barbara was really ineffective. Despite his two scores in Week one, we know Christian Kirk is at least good. He had a tough matchup, but he still ran the second most routes on that team. Anytime a player DeAndre Hopkins in this case, but anytime a player sees forty four percent of their team's targets, other players on that team are going to suffer. I think Christian Kirk is fine, and I would even consider him a potential by low candidate. This last questions from at Trent Rye. If you have Jonathan Taylor and Nahim Hines, does it limit your upside too much to start both in a ten team two flex PPR league? So I got this question a few times this week, and not just regarding the Colts backfield, but the Chargers backfield too. The answer is at number one, both of those backs can be usable. The same goes for Kelly and Eckler in the Chargers backfield. But yes, number two, it does limit your upside. Instead of potentially capturing the majority of points in two backfields on your team, you're capturing all the points in one. There are going to be weeks where both players are viable, but it's not going to be easy to predict which weeks those are. It reminds me of Devonte Freeman and Tevin Coleman back when they both played for Atlanta. Both players were usable long term and fantasy football. They looked fine by the end of the season, but when you dug into their weekly numbers, it was almost always one of them giving you a top twenty performance and not the other one, not both, which means you're automatically walking into a given week knowing that one of your running back spots isn't going to give you a top twenty performance. So yes, it limits your upside, but they're both still valuable assets to have. I would consider trading nim Hines for something, though, if you have Jonathan Taylor. This naxt question is from at a Troubled Mind rant request fantasy quote experts throwing around to players average percent rostered when discussing free agent budget slash waiver without clarifying that the data is watered down by the abundance of ten team public leagues. Okay, so I've got some issues with this question. Slash comment. There's really no question here. It's just a request for a rant. I feel like it's coming from a place of my league is more competitive and better than your league, and I'm not a big fan of that. I don't think some fantasy players out there realize the percentage of casual leagues that there are out there. My podcast is most definitely catered to an audience that's more into fantasy football than the average manager, but so many leagues are casual, So when an analyst is recommending a waiver wire move, the analyst is still catering to people in those leagues. But then on top of that, we're working with the resources that we have. I use Yahoo as my resource because I think that they're more realistic than ESPN, But I don't know how we would otherwise work this as an Do we ignore talking about a player who's rostered in thirty percent of leagues because there's this inherent inflation, Because if we do that, people are going to hit us up asking why we didn't talk about a certain player that happened with me this past week multiple times after my fifteen Transactions podcast. My main point is, it's the information we've got, and I think it's important for people to understand that their more hardcore Fantasy league isn't necessarily the norm, and as analysts, we're trying to be as reasonable as we can for everyone. This last question is from at shiz Nice. What are your thoughts on Trey Quon Smith now that Michael Thomas is out. I know Emmanuel Sanders will get more targets, but is there any upside with Smith? Thanks? I'm not sure we can just bank on Manny Sanders getting more targets. I mean, I think it's a probable outcome. That's what we should predict, especially given their target share splits from week one, because Sanders did have a target share that was fourteen percent higher than tray Kwon Smith. Smith actually ran more routes than Emmanuel Sanders last week, and he played eleven more snaps. I don't think that we should assume that he's a better bet than Emmanuel Sanders, but he's absolutely worth an ad right now. This that's questions from at David Chill twenty three Rest of season, Joshua Kelly or Boston Scott. To me, it's Josh Kelly. If Miles Sanders is healthy, I can't see Boston Scott with the same type of workload as Josh Kelly. I can maybe understand it more in PPR formats. But Kelly's coming off a game, and mind you, it's his first NFL game, but he handled all the goal line work and he saw over thirty six percent of his team's running back rushes. Boston Scott saw fifty six percent of his team running back rushes, and that was without Miles Sanders. So I am in on Josh Kelly here. I think his role is going to continue to grow and he'll have flex value throughout the season. This that's questions from at errors Underscore Oceans. NFL teams are clearly moving towards running back by committee. Assuming you don't have the ABI to secure someone getting the bulk of touches, what's the best way to approach the position? I would say that you should largely punt it. The difference between how people view someone like Devin Singletary versus a player who emerges as his team's pass catching and third down back. The way people view them is that they're drastically different fantasy assets, but they shouldn't be. In the end. With a running back, you of course want a workhorse in a bellcow. But if you were to split up how those players score points and what's most important. They're seeing rush attempts, they're seeing goal line work, and they're seeing targets their volume through the air. There's a huge, huge focus on rush attempts in the fantasy football world because that generally comes with some combination of passing, game work and goal line work. But really the highest value touches in fantasy football for running backs are in the form of targets and goal line rushes. This is why I was concerned about Austin Eckler's Week one usage. It was solely based on rush attempts, not targets, not goal line work. That's at the very least, so i'mat of a concern. I'm hopeful that it turns around, but it's at least a red flag. And it's why running backs in bad offenses who don't catch passes are running backs to avoid in fantasy football. David Montgomery comes to mind here. His past catching ceiling is going to be capped because of Tarik Cohen, and even though he does see goal line work, it's goal line work and what's probably a bad offense. I mean Sony Michelle is a peak example of this. So the best way to approach the position if you don't have a bell cow is to make sure that you're beefed up elsewhere and you try to find cheap volume at the running back position. Don't go chasing players who are on the fringe, because usually those guys aren't as valuable as you think, and they're not as valuable as the market things. There's a pretty big drop off usually at the running back position after like the first ten or so running backs, once the season's over. This last question is from at Kyle's Underscore Money. How do you feel about blowing ninety to one hundred percent free agent budget on Malcolm Brown? Saw it happen in two big money leagues. I think for a player who saw just fifty one percent of his team's running back rushes, that feels like a lot, like a whole lot. I like Malcolm Brown. I think he should absolutely have been added this week. I thought he should have been added last week. But it's not like he's the emerging second round running back in that offense. Like if Cam Akers were the one to do what Brown did in Week one, I would be telling people probably to go pretty hard to get cam akers. What I think Brown's performance did was hold off that cam Akers breakout a little bit. That is, if there's gonna be one. And keep in mind Darryl Henderson wasn't totally one hundred percent, or I should say he hadn't been one hundred percent leading up to that game. Now, I like Brown Brown should be rostered, and you can even start Brown here in the short term as the backfield sort of gets figured out. And look, he may continue to be the one A in that backfield all season long. But even if you were guaranteed that, I'm not sure ninety to one hundred percent of budget is worth it. This last question says, what do we do with James Connor? Yeah, good question. I think the only thing that you can do with Connor right now is hold him. No one is going to want to give up a whole lot to get him right now unless they've got a loaded roster and can take on that risk, and getting rid of him right now will be selling very, very low. I think the concerns are very real here, though he didn't look good on his limited sample, and I thought Benny Snell looked much quicker than he did during his rookie year, and that plays into the storyline this offseason that he lost some weight. Pittsburgh I would think is gonna give James Connor another chance. But the reason you added Snell this week, or the reason that people should have tried to, is because there's a chance that he just straight up plays better and becomes the lead guy by season's end. I think that can absolutely happen. That's gonna do it for today's show, though. Thanks to all of you for listening. If you've got subscribe to the Late Round podcast, make sure you are by searching for it pretty much anywhere podcasts can be found. Don't forget to follow me on Twitter at Late Round QB. Thanks everyone, enjoy Week two, have a great weekend, and I will talk to you next week.