991: Mailbag - RJ Harvey's Outlook, George Pickens' New Home, and More

00:00:02
Speaker 1: This is the Late Podcast with your host JJ Zachertha, j J Zacherson, Jesus, what's up everyone, It's JJ zacharyesin in this episode nine ninety one of the Late Round Fantasy Football podcast sponsored by DraftKings.

00:00:22
Speaker 2: Thanks for tuning in. You heard that right.

00:00:24
Speaker 1: DraftKings is now sponsoring the Late Round Podcast, and there's a lot of news that comes with that. One is that becoming a Best Ball bro is officially back. Rich Ryan and I are gonna sit down and do another season at the show where I talk to some of the greatest best ball players on Earth about how to tackle the game. And this year, of course, it'll focus on DraftKings Best Ball, which I'm really excited to get into because it's a full PPR platform. That first episode is gonna drop on Monday. It's usually gonna be on Wednesdays, but for this one, it's on Monday, so get ready for that second. As you guys know, I hired on David Kitchen to be Late Round Fantasy Football coo back at the beginning of the year, and Kitchen and I've been working behind the scenes on a whole lot of cool stuff. One of those things is the Late Round Fantasy Football Show coming soon to the Late Round Fantasy Football YouTube channel will be a live weekly show with Kitchen and me. We're gonna dig into all things fantasy football. So it's another outlet for you and I to interact, and it's another place for me to throw my takes out there. And then lastly, the Late Round Draft Guide. It's officially available for pre order. You can still get the Late Round Prospect Guide and all that comes with it over on lateround dot com, but the Draft Guide that's.

00:01:37
Speaker 2: Available for pre order too.

00:01:39
Speaker 1: For those who don't know, the Late Round Draft Guide is where I lay out as much game theory as I can possibly lay out for the upcoming season. And then in that guide you also get my rankings and tiers, my players a target and avoid, and my Late Round dart throws and those rankings and tiers and those players a target and avoid. Those are all updated weekly once the guide launches. Both guides can be found on lateround dot com. The pre order price for the Draft Guide is twenty four to ninety nine. That's gonna increase by five bucks on July first when it launches. Then, like I said, each week through August, you'll get weekly updates to that guide. So yeah, there's a lot of stuff going on with Late Round Fantasy Football becoming a Best Ball bro season two, the Late Round Fantasy Football flagship show on YouTube, and then the Late Round Draft Guide. All of those things are coming very very soon. But yeah, that's all the news for now. It's a mail bag day. Let's get to these questions. The first question this week is from Patreon.

00:02:38
Speaker 2: It's from Noah.

00:02:39
Speaker 1: It says, I'm eager to hear your breakdown on the Pickens trade. In the ripple effect of the trade, how much do you expect this to affect the skill players of the team dak dk Metcalf, but even deeper guys like Roman Wilson. So I think this was a trade that really helped fantasy football just in general all around. Let's start with Dallas Ceedee. Lamb is gonna be locked in a high target share regardless of his competition, so adding Pickens really won't impact him dramatically. Now there's the classic argument of does having a player like Pickens open things up more for Lamb or does it hurt Lamb because he's now having to share more looks with a capable wide receiver, and I think in this case, there was so much target share up for grabs in Dallas because of their lack of depth. You could argue this won't really impact Lamb at all, or that it's a good thing for him, even I see it as mostly neutral. Pickens, though, goes from a run heavy offense, which I'll get to in a second, to one that's more than likely going to be pass friendly. Brian Schottenneimer was Dallas' offensive coordinator in twenty twenty three and twenty twenty four, and now obviously he's the head coach. But as OC in Dallas, the Cowboys had neutral script pass rates that ranked fifth and sixth in the league.

00:03:51
Speaker 2: And remember last year they saw Cooper Rush start eight games for them.

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Speaker 1: This is likely going to be a pass heavy team, especially when you look at the running backs they have, so Pickens I think goes from kind of an undesirable situation to a pretty good one. I think it was a win for his fantasy value, especially with a quarterback upgrade. Now, speaking of that quarterback, when it comes to someone like Dak I'm not going to be aggressive with almost any sort of pocket passer type unless they're super cheap. We know that passing touchdowns are going to drive a quarterback scoring. A pocket passer quarterback scoring and touchdowns bring variants. This is what the pocket passer trap episode was all about. But there are obviously are going to be some quarterbacks that we feel more confident can provide that touchdown upside versus others, especially when they have a pass friendly coordinator and decent weapons. So I think Dak is kind of like a high end QB two where he has a shot to give you true mid to low end QB one upside if things really hit. Now Pittsburgh, they don't have the most desirable passing situation. They were twenty second in neutral script pass rate last year, they were twenty ninth in overall pass rate. And Arthur smith offense is when he was in Atlanta as head coach, they were twenty sixth thirtieth and ninth in neutral script pass rate. Then in Tennessee they were thirtieth and twenty fifth, and at each stop his team's overall pass rates were even lower. It's just not a fantasy friendly offense for receivers because of the lack of passing volume. But what can help in these situations? Is a high target share. When George Pickens and DK Metcalf were both in Pittsburgh together. Now they didn't play together obviously, but from a projection standpoint, the projection was more split. But now Metcalf has an opportunity at least a shot to reach like that twenty seven percent target share mark. We don't project that kind of thing to happen, but that could lead to one hundred and thirty one hundred and forty targets if things really break his way again. I don't think we should project that, but at least gives Metcalf more room to breathe. That wasn't really the case when Pickens was in the mix, and it's the same deal with someone like Pas Friarmuth.

00:06:01
Speaker 2: Now. I don't think Friarmuth is ever going to be like a.

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Speaker 1: High ceiling fantasy tight end, but Smith's offenses are usually tight end heavy, and without Pickens that could lead to more looks for Friarmuth. The other wide receivers, to me, they're more waiver wire guys. Roman Wilson was a solid slot prospect, but they also have Calvin Austen. He ran sixty two percent of his routes from the slot last year. They've got Robert Woods now and he's probably gonna play opposite of DK Metcalf at the.

00:06:26
Speaker 2: Time of this recording.

00:06:28
Speaker 1: But overall, I'm not gonna be super excited about the number two wide out and an Arthur Smith offense. And it's an Arthur Smith offense that right now doesn't even have a quarterback, or at least a legit quarterback. And it's not like the number two wide receiver in that offense is some obvious stud. So that's how I see it. Overall, I think it was a win for fantasy football. The next question is also from Patreon, is from Eric. It says, hey, JJ, at what point do we not allow for draft capital to matter for wide receiver prospects. It's such a skilled position and the opportunity is usually plentiful when you consider it's mostly three wide receiver sets in the NFL. I feel like we should not let high draft capital sway us in rookie drafts, but I don't know that breaking point. If the production profile is underwhelming in college, then I think it's safe to say draft capital won't net them a strong target share in the NFL. They still need to get open. I get it with running backs and draft capital. That makes sense to me. But I'm starting to just let the college production profile dictate things over the draft capital. It's like an eighty twenty split for me right now. But I don't know if that's too harsh or not.

00:07:37
Speaker 2: Well.

00:07:37
Speaker 1: First off, this is exactly why I have the ZAP model, because it's factoring in draft capital and production metrics in a rational way.

00:07:44
Speaker 2: It's sort of answering this question.

00:07:47
Speaker 1: I don't think there's some hard split for every single player across the entirety of the position. But here are some general thoughts on draft capital, why it matters, and why I wouldn't only lean on a production profile, at least as heavily as you seem to be leaning on it. Production profile is still a pretty vague term. We have to make sure we're looking at the right kind of production that's actually predictive, not just like raw yardage totals and such. Not to say that that's what you're doing, but it's important to give that context. Then you should look at things like program and schedule strength, competition strength, and so on. Production itself is a pretty complex thing to wrap your head around because there are so many different ways to measure production. Some players will undeniably have great production, but the vast majority of players will have weird profiles that you have to kind of sift through and figure out why certain things look the way that they do. Luthor Burden was a perfect example of that this year. When you say you're gonna rely so heavily on a production profile, how are you actually rating and grading that production profile?

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Speaker 2: Like to you?

00:08:52
Speaker 1: Does luth Burden have an elite production profile? Is it better than Teed McMillan's. Now, I obviously have certain metrics like breakout score, then I'm gonna rely on.

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Speaker 2: But that's not the end all. We still need context.

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Speaker 1: Meanwhile, there are gonna be a lot of players who sort of just sit in the middle when it comes to production profiles, and there are plenty of successful NFL wide receivers who had average profiles in college. You need more to differentiate from one player to the next to see who's really good and who isn't.

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Speaker 2: I've always looked.

00:09:23
Speaker 1: At production profiles sort of from the perspective of are they really really good or are they really really bad? Are they green flags or red flags? And then I'll kind of go from there and elevating or downgrading a player. But draft capital is unbelievably important at all positions. Inherently, it's a film evaluation for a player because picks are not just made via analytics, but it's also giving us some sort of ranking for a player just naturally. Those rankings are just coming from teams, And if you test draft capital versus almost any production metric out there, capital is going to be more predictive than that production metric. But like the ZAP model does, when you bring it all together, it's way more predictive than those standalone values. So I would advise anyone listening to this to not toss out draft capital. There will be players where the draft capitol just doesn't match up to their production profile, and you can say to yourself, hey, I may be higher or lower on that player based on this information. But if you went with some like eighty twenty split like you're referring to, you'd be drafting a whole lot of random day three wide receivers who will never hit, and you'd miss out on some players in the early rounds who maybe just had slightly below average production profiles, but they end up hitting that happens a lot. But like I said, the mix that you're referring to here, that's what the ZAP model is for. This is why I built that model, because it helps properly weigh all of these inputs. The nice questions from Twitter is from that's the underscore Tonian. It says, last year, your opinion on Chase Brown and Dynasty changed during the summer post NFL Draft. Are there any players you're thinking differently about can be a rookie or veteran player.

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Speaker 2: Yeah? So last year I started in January thinking that.

00:11:15
Speaker 1: Chase Brown was actually a cell, and then I did some research on it in March and April, I realized that I probably should have the opposite stance, at least in redraft. So I pivoted and it ended up being a good pivot. Look, guys, that's how I operate. I will gladly change my opinion on something with new information. That information in this case was just more research. Now, I don't think I have a player this year where I've done like a complete one point eighty like I did with Chase Brown last year. Like Brown went from someone that I thought was a cell to someone I aggressively targeted. But one player who might count for this is Ricky Pearsall. Now, not to bring up Roma dounsay again, but players like a Duneesa, players like Pearsall, they have those kind of media yocre first year peripherals. They tend to not give us high end fantasy production throughout their careers. That's just based on history, like that's factual. It's rare for wide receivers to become stars in the league after poor peripherals during their rookie seasons. DeVante Adams will happen, DeAndre Hopkins will happen.

00:12:20
Speaker 2: But we can't say that that's the norm.

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Speaker 1: So if we don't consider cost at all, it's easy to say you should probably lean more cell than by with those players, because there's a greater than fifty percent chance, way greater than fifty percent chance that those players are not going to burn you in the long run if you do trade them away once things are all said and done.

00:12:42
Speaker 2: Now, that's also more of a dynasty take.

00:12:44
Speaker 1: And as I've already said with a Dunesa earlier this week, I think you can make strong arguments either way for Romadunze, and I think you can do the same for Ricky Pearson. I know that some of you aren't gonna believe me when I say this, but I really don't have super strong stances for those second year wideouts on the Dynasty front.

00:13:03
Speaker 2: Now.

00:13:03
Speaker 1: Since his question was Chase Brown focused, I figured i'd answer this from a season long redraft perspective, because that's where my mind really changed for Brown. I didn't really flip my stance that aggressively in Dynasty because there was a shot that he'd be a one year wonder if things hit. Turns out that wasn't the right read a year ago, but it was the right read to aggressively draft him in redraft now. With Piersaw and not so much a Donsay because I saw more favorable outcomes for a DOUNSA when I did my year two wide receiver research this offseason. But with Ricky Pearsall, I was a little bit more concerned when writing up his year two profile, and you could find that in the Prospect Guide, partially because man, he had a stretch last year that was absolutely brutal. At one point last season weeks eleven, twelve, and thirteen, Ricky Pearsall ran sixty three routes. He had zero catches on those routes, he didn't register a yards per rout run rate. On top of that, he was an older prospect coming out. But from a redraft perspective, when you look at the cost of this kind of player and I'll throw a Dunza in there too, because I apparently can't stop talking about him, I'm gonna buy into that profile all day long. Second year wide receivers are typically pretty good bets, and both Pearsaw and a dounsay they have a clear path to upside when that price tag is into wide receiver for territory, I care very very little about a player's floor when I'm looking at their range of outcomes. If they bust, it's not gonna sink my fantasy team. But it's hard to find many wide outs that deep into a season long draft with the kind of upside that someone like Ricky Pearsall has or Roma Dunza has. Both are more than likely going to be targets for me this year. Dynasty's a different game with different price points and different risk profiles. My assumption when writing about Pearsall's profile when knowing that Deebo Samuel was exiting San Francisco. My assumption was that Pearsall would be pretty expensive, but he's not. Everything has to do with cost, So from that perspective, he's someone that I've kind of changed my opinion on kind of.

00:15:13
Speaker 2: I just don't think there's gonna.

00:15:14
Speaker 1: Be a situation that's quite like the Chase Brown one where a player was a clear sell for me and that player then became a clear buy because I didn't see Pearsall quite that way to start the offseason.

00:15:28
Speaker 2: This, of course, is from Jamie Cardy.

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Speaker 1: It says, Hey, JJ, my question is a general look at running backs and rookie drafts. Do you find that competition or lack thereof in the backfield moves a player's ADP more than it should? Does the ambiguous backfield theory apply to rookie drafts RJ. Harvey and Caleb Johnson versus players like base Shall Tutan and Jarquest Hunter come to mind?

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Speaker 2: Is the gap in talent as big as the gap in ADP?

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Speaker 1: Or do the later guys present better value with the assumption that if they're good, they'll earn a strong share. So you have to go back to my basic way of looking at dynasty. With any team build, you're really looking at two things. You're looking at the value of the team and you're looking at the production of the team. On the value side, you have to consider what the market is paying for a player, even if that player is not as usable as you think the market believes. Like I could have some painting that I really don't like, but if it's worth a million dollars, I would love to have that painting. Then there's the production side. What can a player give me right now in my starting lineup? What kind of points per game output can that player provide. There's also value in that, and you'll see it reflected in the Dynasty market. Like let's just use those four running backs that you threw out there as our example.

00:16:43
Speaker 2: RJ.

00:16:43
Speaker 1: Harvey, Caleb Johnson, base Shall Tuton, and Jarques Hunter. Harvey and Johnson have more immediate opportunity right now in their backfields. Of course, injuries can happen and players can be traded, but Harvey and Johnson are going to project better in twenty twenty five in bay Shall, Tutant and jarquesst.

00:17:01
Speaker 2: Hunter.

00:17:02
Speaker 1: That not only gives them an edge on the production side, but it does make them more valuable assets as well. Because Dynasty managers aren't gonna want to wait around for you. You're hoping that Bashall Tutin becomes Jacksonville's Bell Cower, that Jarquest Hunter takes over for Kyron Williams. They're not going to pay a premium for that, because those things aren't locks to happen. We're working with better information today than we will a year from now because we have a better grasp on the backfield competition and the overall team makeup. Not only that, but Harvey and Johnson are just better prospects, and at least Jarquest Hunter. In my opinion, you guys know that I love Hunter. He's been a frequent target of mine in rookie drafts. I probably have drafted him more than any other player. I loved him as a sleeper in this year's draft, well before he happened to get drafted by LA. But when you factor in all the things that ZAP model factors in, which includes draft capital, Hunter did not score nearly as well at least as well as the other three running backs, and that talent profile the ZAPP score, it's predictive. Otherwise why would I be using it? Meanwhile, Johnson, Harvey and Tutin yes, even Tutin. They all had similar scores. But I think it's totally rational to not place Tuton in that same tier as the other two backs because there's a much greater probability of him having to overcome more in order to be relevant right away. Not only that, but a player like Johnson has a shot to be the sole belcow next year. With Jalen Warren being a free agent, tank Bigsby could easily still be there in twenty twenty six. In fact, we should expect him to be there. So to your question, does the landing spot the competition in that landing spot matter, Absolutely yes, on both the value and production front. You asking if someone's a better value are not in rookie drafts, that's a different story. I think in the example that you provided, there are some drafts where I definitely think a player like Teuton is a big value because his talent profile is really good. In my eye, it's what we want in fantasy football. But I think overall they're average draft positions. Of all of these running backs, they're all pretty fair. I wouldn't say one is some screaming value over the other, because gamers are properly weighing the short term versus the long term. Well, look, if I were to answer the general question of do fantasy managers overrate backfield competition when it comes to prospects, I think my answer to that would be yes. Very often we see talent profiles ignored in favor of short term situation, and that's never a good thing to do. It just so happens that your example includes four very talented running backs in my eyes, And look, this isn't totally a one to one comparison to what you're asking, But I did that study on Day three picks earlier in the offseason where I found that there's been zero correlation between where a Day three running back was selected in rookie drafts and how well that player performed during his first three years in the NFL. And I know that Tooton and Hunter they're both Day three but I loosely talk about Day three players to just make it easier to communicate. The individual draft pick is what matters most in the ZAP model, regardless of there's no correlation between Day three selections at running back and rookie drafts and how well those backs end up performing. Some of the biggest Day three hits at running back over the last five or so years, they've been from backs who were afterthoughts and rookie drafts, like Hyan Williams and Isaiah Pacheco. You'd think there'd be more correlation here, though, because we'd naturally elevate players who seem to be in good positions post draft, and if they're in good positions, they're going to produce more. But oftentimes that just gets you into trouble because instead of leaning on talent evaluation, you're leaning on strictly immediate opportunity. Now that only partially answers the question, because I didn't look at Day one and Day two backs, But like most things in fantasy football, this is going to be a mix. You have to lean into talent profiles first and foremost. That's the most important. A player needs to be good, generally speaking in order to produce in fantasy football. But you also can't ignore competition. Like we know that b Jean Robinson is a very very good running back, but imagine that he shared a backfield with Devon ah Chan and Jamier Gibbs.

00:21:18
Speaker 2: What would his backfield share look like. It wouldn't be.

00:21:21
Speaker 1: Nearly as good as it is right now in Atlanta, that's for sure. So competition does matter, and you can think of those extreme hypotheticals to help you wrap your head around it. But in the real world, realistically, I'm definitely someone who believes that talent is more important than that competition side. In Dynasty, let's just not ignore the competition side altogether. The last question this week is from twitters from at FFB Underscore Fraud. It says, I get that the best comp for RJ. Harvey and a Sean Payton offense might be Pierre Thomas, But in Denver's Running back Room last year, Javonte Williams saw seventy targets. Harvey is the direct replacement for j will Is there any reason we shouldn't see seventy targets as a floor for RJ.

00:22:06
Speaker 2: Harvey? I mean as a floor.

00:22:08
Speaker 1: I don't think a seventy target outcome should be his floor, but seventy targets is definitely in his range of outcomes in general. Now I mentioned the Pierre Thomas comp. I want to be clear about something. I don't actually think that's some super obvious prospect comp for RJ.

00:22:22
Speaker 2: Harvey.

00:22:23
Speaker 1: I'm just pointing out that if you take a very limited sample of Sean Payton running backs, he's one who at least loosely compares to Harvey. Basically, I don't think RJ. Harvey is an Alvin Kamara type running back or a Darren Sproles type running back. He's more like Pierre Thomas.

00:22:40
Speaker 2: Now.

00:22:40
Speaker 1: I talked about this a lot last year. I'm gonna bring it up again. Sean Payton offenses love the target the running back. I always look at data to twenty eleven, so I'll reference his time as head coach in New Orleans from twenty eleven to twenty twenty one. He technically didn't coach in twenty twelve. Let me read you where the Saints rankedon running back target share during those seasons across the league. So this is comparing them to every team in the NFL. Ready for this, first, third, second, fourth, sixth, second, first, second, third, second, and sixth, and sure some of this is personnel driven, but since Peyton left, the Saints have been ninth, seventh, and first and running back target share, so they've in some not thrown into running backs as much without Sean Payton, which does kind of signal that This could be a Sean Payton thing and not just a personnel thing. And obviously the Saints have had Alvin Kamara during that time without Peyton. Peyton didn't always have Alvin Kamara. Now, he's been coaching in Denver now for two seasons. In those two seasons, his offenses have ranked first and fifth. And running back target share, I mean we're talking thirteen seasons where he's ranked no lower than sixth and running back target shair that's absolutely wild. You look at the backfield right now, it's Julia McLaughlin Audrick Estimate and now urg Harvey. Mcloffin's a fun player who can be a good change of pace back, but he hasn't seen a target share per game rate above seven point six percent during his two years in the league. And that's in an offense that loves the target running backs. Odrick Estimate, meanwhile, wasn't a pass catcher in college and he saw just five targets last year. The weird thing, though, is that I didn't find RJ. Harvey's pass catching profile to be like amazing. I wouldn't have pegged him as someone who would walk into seventy targets in the NFL. I don't think there were like huge red flags who his receiving profile, but it definitely wasn't an elite receiving profile. Wasn't like Jamior Gibbs or something like that. Now I wouldn't call Javonte Williams receiving profile elite either, but it was a little bit better according to the Zapp model. That's why I still think the long lasting value of RJ. Harvey is still somewhat up in the air because Denver could just make backfield changes into twenty twenty six. But this year and twenty twenty five, I am in like I want to be higher than the market on RJ.

00:25:02
Speaker 2: Harvey. I will have a lot of RJ. Harvey on my fantasy teams.

00:25:07
Speaker 1: I can't sit here and preach about the importance of past catching at running back and then say that I won't be aggressive with this kind of situation. So while I don't think that seventy targets is a fair floor assumption for almost any rookie running back in general, I definitely think that people should be targeting RJ. Harvey in season long.

00:25:25
Speaker 2: Drafts this year. That's it for today's show, though, thanks to all of you for listening.

00:25:29
Speaker 1: If you get subscribe to the Late Round Fantasy Football podcast, make sure you are by searching for it pretty much anywhere podcast can be found, and know for it to follow me on Twitter and on Blue Sky at Late Round QB. Thanks for listening this week everyone, I greatly appreciate it. Enjoy your weekend. I'll catch you next week