882: Mailbag 5/17/24

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Speaker 1: This is the lad podcast with your host JJ Zacherthis jj Zacher Reason. What's up everyone? It's jj zachar Esen in this episode eight hundred and eighty two of the Late Round Fantasy Football podcast sponsored by Underdog Fantasy. Thank you for tuning in. I'm literally giving you a free Late Round Draft guide to try out Underdog Fantasy right now. The guides available for pre order over on lateround dot com. But if you've never signed up on Underdog, you can head to Underdog Fantasy dot com or download the app, sign up using promo code Late Round, make a deposit and you'll get the guide. That guide will be emailed to you on July first when it launches, and you should be checking out Underdog regardless. There are tons of bestball contests happening right now at different entries, and there are other game types too. You don't need to have a huge bankroll to play, and you don't need to max enter every contest to win. There are literally contests for everyone. Check it all out at Underdog Fantasy dot com or download the Underdog app, and like I said, when you use promo code Late Round to sign up, and when you make a deposit you'll get a free Late Round Draft Guide along with a deposit offer. That draft guide's currently for sale for nineteen ninety nine, it's going to be twenty four to ninety nine when it does launch on July first, so you're getting it for absolutely free to help out your season long drafts, and it can help out with your best ball drafts too, So one more time Underdog Fantasy dot Com or download the Underdog app and use promo code Late Round. Now let's get to these mailbag questions. The first question this week is from Patreon. It's from Jack says, Hey, JJ loved the work last year about first reads in RPO offenses. Based on that is Terry McLaurin being slept on. This obviously is assuming Cliff Kingsbury calls a heavy RPO system, but scary Terry strikes me as this year's Michael pitt Men. Thanks so last summer I did a little work on the RPO the run pass option, and it was sort of a piggyback off of some of Ben Gretch's work, and the TLDR was that there seemed to be some signal around heavy RPO teams and those teams having one or two pass catchers with really high target chairs, and intuitively, it kind of makes sense. When running an RPO, you're either running or you're getting a pass off fairly quickly. You're not dropping back and typically going through progressions as a quarterback. That means the designed throw is going to a specific player, and it would make sense for that player to be the same guy over and over again, the best weapon on your team. Just last year, we saw this come to fruition once again. According to Pro Football Reference, the top five teams in RPO pass rate, which is the percentage of passes that came from RPO plays. The top five teams were the Dolphins, Ravens, Colts, Eagles, and Falcons. Three of those teams had a wide receiver with a twenty five percent target chair per game rate. Three of those offense also had multiple twenty percent target share players, which plays into the idea that an RPO heavy team is just heavily targeting a couple of guys in an offense. For context, eleven of the remaining twenty seven teams in the NFL, they were able to have two twenty percent target share pass catchers. So the difference between the top five group and the rest of the league is sixty percent versus forty one percent. But yeah, that's a pretty small sample size. It might be meaningless. Honestly, this RPO stuff, it's all still pretty new. There's not a ton of data on it in general. With that being said, the data does date back to twenty nineteen, and since twenty nineteen, we've had eighteen teams at an RPO pass rate of fifteen percent or more. Again, that means that at least fifteen percent of their pass attempts came from RPO plays. Of those eighteen teams, fifty six percent of them had more than one player with a twenty percent target share. That was about thirty percent for the other NFL teams. And if you look at the teams who had a player with a twenty five percent target chair, the high RPO teams see an increase of more than twenty percentage points compared to teams with RPO rates below fifteen percent. To put that all another way, yes, personnel is definitely dictating some of this, but there's a little bit of signal here showing us that RPO heavy offenses seem to come with players with high target chairs. That leads me to Washington. I think people assume teams with mobile quarterbacks run more RPOs, and while you'll see a trend in that direction, it's not a necessity. Look at Miami last year, or even Atlanta or Indianapolis, who didn't have Anthony Richardson for most of the year. It's not like those teams were using ultramobile quarterbacks, but they finished in the top five and RPO rate last year. I think, if anything, that may show us that individual coordinator and coaches either like RPOs or they don't. Miami has had Mike McDaniel for two seasons now, they've been fifth and first in RPO rate. Shane Steiken was in Philly as their offensive coordinator in twenty twenty one. In twenty twenty two, those two seasons, the Eagles were first and second in RPO rate. This past year in Indianapolis, despite losing Anthony Richardson, Indianapolis was third. Cliff Kingsbury coached the Cardinals from twenty nineteen to twenty twenty two. During those seasons, Arizona ranked third, first, second, and sixth in RPO rate. Last year, without Kingsbury, Arizona fell to seventeenth. I think it's safe to say that we'll probably see a good bit of RPO action in Washington this year, which could help their top options and potentially hurt their secondary options. Now, will McLaurin be this year as Michael Pittman, I think it's definitely possible. But keep this in mind. The Colts thought they would have a mobile quarterback last year, but then Anthony Richardson got hurt. In turn, Indy was just below average and pass rate instead of well below average, and they ran at a pace that we can't totally guarantee will happen in Washington. There's also plenty of data that suggests that rookie quarterbacks are not good for their pass catchers. That's the con side, that's the bad side. The pro side is that mclaurin's a good player who's probably playing in an RPO heavy scheme, and Jayden Daniels is a good enough prospect to potentially break the mold. When you even it all out, I think he's basically being drafted where he should be drafted. But it's definitely a good thought. Overall. We shouldn't write him off. Shouldn't write Terry McLaurin off simply because he's playing with a rookie quarterback in my opinion. This last question from Twitter's from at justin two three one four, four three two five. Does the MVS signing fill the Gabe Davis role, making key On Coleman more of a viable fantasy target or is it more of a sign that they think Coleman won't be producing and they needed a warm body se Yeah. Marquez Valdez Scantling signed with the Bills this week. Before this signing, the Bill's wide receiver depth chart consisted of Keon Coleman, Curtis Samuel Khalil Shakir, and Mac Hollins at the top. It's not the prettiest wide receiver group in football. They need bodies who can play on the outside in particular, and that's what MVS is. He can probably be like eighty percent of what Gabe Davis was for them, if not more. If them signing MVS means something bad for Keon Coleman, then key On Coleman is in a whole lot of trouble. What I think this does is just give them more versatility at the line of scrimmage and where they can line guys up. Nothing more. MVS can be a last round dart throw if you want, because he's got Josh Allen as his quarterback and he's in a wide receiver room that's not very proven. If you want to throw that dart and best ball be my guest. I've done that this week. But if MVS pushes Coleman off the field consistently, Keon Coleman has bigger issues. But this does give the Bills more flexibility with their wide receiver sets. This sess one's from Patreon, it's from Lance. It says, among the second year wide receivers, who do you believe will make a big leap in year two? And how do you try to identify which of the undervalued options would be wise to try to add in dynasty? This group of players seems to be overlooked this offseason more than ever because of the twenty twenty four wide receiver draft class. Yeah, so in terms of identifying someone that you might want to add or trade for, I'd say the top thing that I do with year two players is look at the year two model. All of the relevant scores of the year two model are in the Late Round Prospect Guide that's over on lateround dot com. If you haven't gotten it. In the year two model, it attempts to predict how well a player is going to perform in year two and year three of their career. Generally speaking, anything above a score of ninety five in the year two model is really really good. Like elite, forty percent of wide receivers since twenty eleven who got into that tier have scored at eighteen or more PPR points per game in either year two or year three. This year, that's Puka Nakua, Ze Flowers, Rashi Rice, and then right on the cusp is Jordan Addison. Now I'm not really a fan of buying into Addison right now because his peripherals weren't fantastic last year, and the chance of him being a true alpha in the league, I don't think they're high. He's probably gonna be a great secondary option for years, so he's fine to have on your roster, but I doubt he's someone who's gonna break Fantasy football. Now that's probably the same for Jay Flowers, but Flowers is a little bit more intriguing to me, and the model agrees. He had a twenty four percent target chair per game rate last year, and Baltimore really didn't do much this offseason to their wide receiver room. So I bought more and more into Flowers. Puka's pretty self explanatory. And then there's Rashi Rice. I went from being down on Rice because I had some concerns about him developing into a more well rounded wide receiver. The Chiefs really used him as a yards after catch machine last year on the lower aid Dot throws. We didn't see him as a true well rounded wide out, and he can still thrive in fantasy as that type of receiver in that offense. I just questioned the ceiling, and then I looked at the market and people were already pricing him very, very high. That was earlier this offseason, and then all this off the field stuff went down, and I'm now to the point where, yeah, he's likely going to be suspended, and yeah, you have to question his off the field decision making, but he's kind of become a value in Dynasty, So I'm okay buying into him given his year two scores strong. I understand the risk though, and if you don't want to take that on, you don't have to take that on. But Jaden Reid, Tank Dell, they were over the ninety mark as was JSN Dell in particular. That's someone whose peripherals were just out of control last year, and he has some of the best journey comparables that you're going to find in the year two model. They were Amen Ross, Saint Brown, Cooper Cup, and Terry McLaurin. Those are in history who had a similar Prospects Scorer and then Year two model score. They're guys who went on a similar journey as the player that we're analyzing, in this case Tank Dell, and that got me very into Tank Dell this offseason. Unfortunately, Stefan Diggs hurt that, but I still like Dell. I think the most surprising player over that ninety mark is Josh Downs. Now. I talked a decent bit about Downs this offseason. I think he's a classic case of being a good player in a bad situation in fantasy. He's in an offense with a mobile quarterback who has decent competition throughout. You have Michael Pittman, now, you have Adnai Mitchell, and you have a good backfield too. But I think he's a very good slot player. And I'm always fine with buying into talent, and obviously if there's an injury in the offense, his stock can rise, So I'm gonna still consider him a bye because a situation has him at a discount. Now, outside of those players over the ninety mark, the one player I'm into is Dontavian Wick, so I talked about earlier this week. I won't get into all that. You can look listen to the episodes from earlier this week to see why I've talked about him multiple times. But Wicks scored an eighty six in the model. Typically that means not the best things from a ceiling perspective. Since twenty eleven players under a score of ninety in the wide receiver year two model, they almost never give you wide receiver one seasons. But Wicks has about a twenty percent chance to be in that wide receiver two discussion, So I'm cool with throwing that dart. I think of all those players who have a shot to make the jump in year two. If I were looking at best ball adp and to pinpoint which players I might be targeting in redraft this year, I'd probably say Flowers, Tank Dell, and Dontavian Wicks. Those would be my value picks right now. The last question this week is from Twitter, and it is a very direct question, but also a process one to some degree too. It's from at Lim Lenning. It says, listen to you talking about McLoughlin earlier this week, who I love, but have seen Blake Watson get some buzz as he's got a similar profile as Jaliel and was given a lot of guaranteed money as a UDFA. How would Watson look in your model if he went to the combine? Is he a threat? Like I said, this is a very direct question because we're talking about the Broncos backfield, but I do think it's kind of a process question too. My prospect model includes all players since twenty eleven who were either at the NFL Combine or who were drafted, and Blake Watson wasn't at the Combine and he didn't get drafted. That's despite the fact that he had a best season pro rated reception chair above seventeen percent in college, which is a really good number. It's looking like he would have scored about a fifty two in the prospect model, which seems bad, but that's an undrafted player. That's a whole lot better than most of the undrafted guys. In fact, it's a top ten score for an undrafted player since twenty eleven. Now, we don't see many hits in that group of ten because we don't see many hits from undrafted players to begin with, but James Robinson is one of them. Watson's definitely the type of prospect that I'm always intrigued by. He's a pass catcher and he could hypothetically duplicate and dig into what McLoughlin does. That would be the fear for McLoughlin, and Sean Payton's already out there comparing Watson very loosely to Alvin Kamara. So my stance here, something that you can take action on, is that Watson should be rostered in all dynasty leagues at this moment. Now keep that in mind as I get to the cons of all this. In situations like this, you also have to think about this from a team building perspective. The Broncos have a lot of good, but not great backs on that team right now. There's Javonte Williams, samaj p Ryan, Jelil McLoughlin, Blake Watson, and also the guy they actually drafted in Audric Estimee. Now, most teams will carry three running backs on game day. So three of those guys would probably be active, maybe four, depending on special teams and such. And considering how much Sean Payton uses his running backs as pass catchers, like I talked about earlier this week, it wouldn't surprise me if they do dress four. But that does mean that one of these guys might be practice squatted or just cut. They can still cut samaj p Ryan later in the summer and save some on the cap, So let's assume that he's one of them. Let's assume that Pee Ryan's gone. That would lead them with Williams and Estimate as sort of the bigger bodied bruisers, and then McLaughlin and Watson as the pass catchers. And I know that Javonte Williams can catch passes. Two we're just looking at this from a high level and from a team building perspective, and how the team might be viewing things of all those players, of all four of them, if we're just being objective right now about this, and clearly anything can change, but of those players, you have to think that Watson would be the odd man out. They drafted Estimate over him, and I think they need insurance for Williams, who's on the last year of his rookie deal. I think they need that more than insurance for Jalil McLoughlin. Like as exciting as Watson is as a prospect, at least for me. Again, I'm a sucker for pass catching backs. But as excited as we might be, Watson wasn't at the Combine. He wasn't draft. History says that players like that don't come out and give us much very often, and I know, I know that's literally Joel McLaughlin. He also wasn't at the Combine. He also wasn't drafted. But just because McLoughlin happened doesn't change the overall idea here. Strictly from a probability standpoint, running backs who weren't at the Combine and who weren't drafted don't work out in fantasy football at a high rate. We remember the mcloughlins and the Ecklers, but we forget about the other guys, even if we're just talking about undrafted players who were at the Combine like Sean Tucker, and wouldn't we agree Whether you're looking at this from the team perspective or from a fantasy perspective, wouldn't we agree that the hope for someone like Watson would basically be what Jelil McLoughlin actually showed us last year. Like Jeeil McLaughlin is like the realized version of Blake Watson. Like I said, I think rostering Watson right now is a very good idea in Dynasty. I've done that this week. I threw that stat out earlier this week about and how Sean Payton's teams own eight of the top twenty running back target share season since twenty eleven, which is absolutely insane. These running backs can be relevant in fantasy football even if this offense is not gonna be very good or projected to not be very good. I'm just trying to be rational about this, and I think McLaughlin is good. I think that he's talented, and I think that he's ready for a decent role in that offense. Watson, meanwhile, is just someone that you can stash. That's it for today's show, though, thanks to all of you for listening. If you get 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 follow me on Twitter. At late round QB, thanks for listening everyone, Enjoy your weekend. I'll talk to you next week.