665: Bold Predictions

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Speaker 1: This is the Labor Podcast with your host JJ Zacher Reason. J J Zacher Reason. What's up everyone, It's JJ zach or Eason in this episode six hundred and sixty five of the Late Round Fantasy Football podcast sponsored by FanDuel. Thanks for tuning in. As you can tell from the title of this episode, I'm gonna be talking about bold predictions today. Every year, I really try my best to be reasonable with these bold takes. I don't want to just fire something off that doesn't really make any sense just to say I told you so if that thing comes to fruition by the end of the season. These bold predictions are, at least to me, I think they're logical, they're reasonable. They're looking at the range of outcomes of players and saying this realistically could happen if certain things go a certain way. So, in turn, some of the predictions that I talk about today aren't gonna see him as bold as some predictions that you read or listen to elsewhere. That's just not my style, but they still will hopefully make you think about some players a little bit differently. Now I'm going to talk through ten predictions on today's show, but if you subscribe to the Late Round Fantasy Football newsletter. You'll get an additional five of them into your inbox on Tuesday morning, and that newsletter is totally free To subscribe, just go to Lateround dot com and click newsletter. Now. Before getting to these predictions, I want to remind you about the Established the Run Draft Kid. Established Run has rankings for any fantasy format you might be playing in, and they continuously update as news breaks. You also get access to Evan Silva's Top one fifty and along with it a change log that you can read to see why players are moving up and down his draft board. It's a great way to make sure you understand why players are ranked where they are. The goals to help you make better decisions, not tell you who to pick, and if you're into bestball drafting, their strategy, rankings and insight can help you out a ton with roster construction. Established Run gives you a different perspective on fantasy football than I do, and I think the combination of my work in THEIRS can help make this draft season a successful one. Head over to Establish the Run dot com purchase their Draft Kick. When you do, use promo code JJ for a ten percent discount. That's promo code JJ. Also just a reminder that the Week one NFL Sunday Million is officially live on fandle. Showcase your NFL knowledge and construct your best nine player roster while staying under the salary cap. Then follow along using Fandel's live scoring feature to compete for your share of three million dollars in cash prizes. That includes a cool one million dollars to first place, all for just four dollars. The first Sunday of the NFL season is approaching quickly, so head to fandel and submit your lineups today. Eligibility restrictions apply. Go to fandle dot com or download the fandal app for more details. The first bold prediction is that Remandre Stevenson will score forty more PPR points than Damian Harris. This one's bold because Stevenson often gets drafted after Damien Harris, though that's been flipping a little bit over the last couple of weeks. But here's why this will happen. If there's one high ceiling player in this New England backfield, it's Romandre Stevenson. It's not Damien Harris. We saw Damien Harris find the end zone fifteen times last year. He still finishes the RB twenty and PPR points per game. That's because he had a target share of three point six percent. Even when we pro rate for games missed, Harris's target share was still below five percent. That was a number exceeded by sixty running backs with eight or more games played last year. Ramandre Stevenson is a bigger body back who can catch passes. We saw him do that at Oklahoma and there's already hype surrounding his pass catching ability in camp. Now there's a chance that we see Ty Montgomery take on the pass catching running back role in this new England offense this year. And we know that that's been a role that can be fantasy relevant. We saw that with James White for years. But what if a large chunk of those targets go Remandre Stevenson's way. And what if Stevenson, who's a bigger body guy like I just said, sees more early down work too, Then all of a sudden, we have a really good fantasy season for Ramandre Stevenson. Wandel Robinson will outscore Kenny Galladay. This one's bold because according to Fantasy Pro's aggregate ADP Robinson is going twenty two wide receiver spots below Kenny Golladay. I think this could happen, though Kenny Galladay has not done anything substantial in the NFL since twenty nineteen. He's going to start on the perimeter for the Giants this year. Wandel Robinson's going to be their slot guy. Robinson was a top three slot receiver in college football last year according to PFF, and he had the seventh best score in my model in my prospect model within this year's receiving class. He should start right away in the slot. And the Giants in this new regime, they drafted Wandel Robinson the second round. They gave him second round draft capital. And if you look at Brian Dables offenses of late Cole Beasley had pro rated target chairs of twenty three percent, twenty percent, and nineteen percent over his last three seasons in Buffalo. So the combination of Galladay's question marks alongside a really underrated Wandel Robinson profile that makes this prediction I think a reasonable one. The third bold prediction is that Deontay Johnson will finish as a wide receiver three. This one's bold because Johnson is consistently being drafted as a wide receiver two, and in a lot of drafts he's drafted as a higher end wide receiver two. Now, I think Deontay Johnson's a very good wide receiver. I've talked about him favorably for years on this show, and we should generally buy talent at wide receiver in fantasy football. But situationally, I'm just a little bit worried about Johnson in this new Steelers offense. Over the last two seasons, only Tampa Bay has thrown more passes than the Pittsburgh Steelers. Johnson's seen a really good target share over the last two years. It was twenty seven and a half percent per game last year. It was twenty three point six percent the year before that. So he's seeing high target shaars on a team that's been throwing the ball a lot. That's resulted in the fourth highest target total of any wide receiver in the NFL over the last two years. The Steelers are almost definitely not going to be as pass heavy this year, and that's going to naturally lower Johnson's volume. But what if whoever's under center isn't peppering Johnson the same way that Ben Roethlisberger did. Johnson's averaged up of target ranked in the twenty fourth percentile among fifty plus target wide receivers last year, and that was largely because the Steelers ran an offense that surrounded the idea of getting the ball out quick with a more mobile passer and hopefully a better offensive line. What if that changes a little bit. What if that allows players like Chase Claypool and George Pickens to develop more plays down the field. And this isn't to say that Johnson's incapable of doing that. It's just saying that there's good competition alongside Johnson right now who can also do those things. I think Johnson's a great wide receiver. This is a redraft take and not a dynasty one, but I think there are some concerns for fantasy purposes. The next bolpert is that Trey Lance will be a top three quarterback. This one's bold because Lance does go in the top ten in Best Ball formats, but aggurate ADP has him at QB thirteen. I think this could happen, though, because he's the quintessential late round quarterback target this year we want rushing from our fantasy quarterbacks. He brings that element. In his two starts last year as a rookie, he ran the ball twenty four times. He scored fourteen point six and nineteen point one Fantasy points in those two starts, but in one of those starts, he was about a centimeter away from scoring a rushing touchdown. And for some context, his twelve rushes per start last year, that's more than what we've seen from Lamar Jackson during his career. And yes, I am fully aware of this is a tiny, tiny sample size. We should not make these massive assumptions based on just two starts. What I'm saying is we do have evidence that Trey Lance will run, and this Shanahan system is a good system. Jimmy Garoppolo a player that no one wants right now. Jimmy Garoppolo was second in the NFL last year in yards per attempt. They've got three great receiving weapons in Brandon Aiyuk, George Kittle, and Deebo Samuel, and they have a good run game too. To me, Lance has the same type of overall profile as a quarterback that Jalen Hurts had entering last season. The difference, though, is that he might have better arm talent, and not only that, but his weapons in his surrounding supporting cast is a lot better than what Hurts was working with last year. And we saw how Hurtz did in fantasy football. So Trey Lance I do think has top three quarterback in his range of outcomes. The next Bowl prediction, Chris the Lava will be the highest scoring Saints wide receiver. This one's bold because Michael Thomas's ADP is skyrocketing and he usually goes well ahead of Chris Alave. But here's why this could happen. We haven't seen Michael Thomas play in a regular season game since December of twenty twenty. He was playing with Taysom Hill at quarterback and Drew Brees started that season under center for the Saints. Now he's more than a year and a half removed from an ankle injury and Jamis Winston is his quarterback. There's a lot of volatility there. Thomas's last two completed seasons, twenty eighteen and twenty nineteen were his two really really big ones in fantasy football. During those seasons, he had an average up a target of eight point two and seven point nine. He saw fifteen plus air yard targets at about a sixth percentile rate. Jamis Winston is an aggressive passer who generally take shots down the field. In twenty twenty one, before his injury, he was ninth out of thirty seven qualified quarterbacks in deep all rate. This favors Chris A Lava. A Lave had four to three nine speed and he's likely going to be deployed as a deep threat, and he's good. Only Drake London had a higher prospect score in my model this season out of that wide receiver draft class. In Chris A Lave, Michael Thomas might see more volume in this offense, but if a Lave makes enough splash plays, he can outscore him. This next bold prediction, it's pretty bold, but it's a fun one. Juju smith Schuster is this year's Cooper Cup. This one's obviously bold because Smith Schuster is not exactly an early round selection and Cooper Cup is coming off one of the best wide receiver seasons of all time. I don't actually think that we can project a nineteen hundred yard season from any wide receiver, let alone someone like Juju smith Schuster, but there are some interesting similarities between these two wide receivers and what's going on this season. Last year, Cooper Cup had a big quarterback upgrade and was being drafted in the running back dead zone. He'd already played four years in the NFL, averaging a slot snap rate per season of sixty four point nine percent, and he had been productive. He had given us multiple wide receiver two plus seasons. Smith Schuster is entering the season with a big quarterback upgrade while being drafted in the running back dead zone. He's already played five years in the NFL, averaging a slot snap rate per season of sixty nine point four percent, and he's been productive throughout his career, giving us multiple wide receiver two plus seasons. Juju fell victim to the aforementioned Steelers offense that didn't allow big plays to develop down the field. His average at the target was just six yards during his last healthy season with the Steelers, but his peripherals looked fine. His catch rate on deep balls remained pretty consistent year over year. He just wasn't seeing those types of targets as frequently. So I think that if there's someone who fits the Cooper Cup profile this year, it's Juju smith Schuster. Kenneth Gainwell will outscore Miles Sanders. This one's bold because Miles Sanders goes well ahead of Kenneth Gainwell in fantasy drafts, but this could happen. Kenneth Gainwell looked really good in both my prospect model and my year two model. He finished his rookie season with a ten point eight percent target share. There are only two other running backs since twenty eleven that during their rookie season saw a ten percent target share and fewer than one hundred rush attempts. Those two running backs outside of Kenneth Gainwell were Nahem Heinz and Tarik Cohen. Both of those players were effective moving forward. Tarik Cohen had an awesome second season and naim Heinz has become one of the best pass catching backs in the league. But I think that Gainwell actually has more early down upside than those two running backs did. Miles Sanders has been inconsistent throughout his career, and even just last year, Gainwell had a better success rate. So if for ports are true that Gainwell has a shot to see high leverage situations, I could see this happening. Elijah Moore will finish as a wide receiver one this one's bold because Elijah Moore's ADP isn't close to the top twelve at the position, and the Jets have more competition for him with Garrett Wilson there. I just think that this can happen because I feel like the fantasy football market doesn't fully realize how good Elijah Moore was last year. He entered the league with a ninety six percentile prospect score in my model, and he ended his first year in the league with a ninety seventh percentile rating my year two model. And get this, half of the players who hit a ninety fifth percentile rating in that year two model end up with at least one eighteen plus PPR point per game season, and either year two or year three. That since twenty eleven. That's what we've seen historically, and maybe that won't be more, but those are some really really attractive odds. More also hits a lot of the things that I've talked about with middle round wide receiver breakouts. He's the first pass catcher being drafted from his team by ADP, and he's a second year wide receiver and guys over his final seven games last year, he was averaging seventeen point seven pper points per game. That shows us that he has a very good ceiling. There's a very real chance this offense won't be able to support more as a true wide receiver one, but I do think it's possible Chase Edmonds will finish as a top fifteen running back. This one's bold because even though Edmunds has seen his ADP rise a bit over the last month or so, it's still not close to the top fifteen at the position. But I'm very intrigued by Edmonds. I've been drafting Edmonds a lot. He played the first ten snaps of Miami's second preseason game this past weekend, and he should have the receiving role locked up in that backfield. And I also think he's just an underrated runner. Last season, among fifty running backs with one hundred and more carries, Edmonds was fourth and percentage of runs that went ten or more yards, and he was seventeenth and percentage of runs that went twenty plus yards. He was also second last year in yards per carry minus his running back teammates yards per carry. To put that another way, he was significantly better than James Connor and yards per carry. He's had target share per game rates of thirteen point two percent and twelve point three percent over the last two seasons. We should feel good about him having that receiving role, and he also received a good contract this offseason. That's not everything, but it should make us feel a little bit more bullish on him. So I think Chase Edmonds is an underrated asset right now and he could finish as a top fifteen running back now. The last bold prediction, Christian Kirk will outscore DK Metcalf. This one's bold because according to Fantasy Pros aggregate ADP, Kirk is being drafted a wide receiver forty three, DK Metcalf wide receiver nineteen. But I do think that this could happen. The downside argument for DK Metcalf is pretty straightforward. The Seahawks have the worst quarterback situation in the NFL right now. Metcalf was fine with Geno Smith last year if you want to look at those splits, but he scored fifty percent of Seattle's offensive touchdowns during that time, and his target share per game was actually lower with Gino Smith than it was with Russell Wilson. Metcalf's an awesome player, but situationally, things do not look great in twenty twenty two. Meanwhile, Christian Kirk is a fifth year player. We've seen those fifth and sixty year wide receivers do well in the middle rounds of fantasy drafts historically. He also should be deployed in the slot a good bit in Jacksonville, and that's huge for him. In twenty twenty one, Kirk played seventy eight percent of his snaps from the slot for Arizona. That was by far a career high. He then came through with another career high in yards per route run, finishing just behind Terry McLaurin. Within that statistic, I'm currently higher than the market with Christian Kirk, and I'm lower than the market with DK Metcalf. That's what this one really comes down to. I do think that Christian Kirk can absolutely outscore DK Metcalf, But those are the ten bold predictions. Again, you can go subscribe to the newsletter over on Lateround dot com and get five more in your inbox tomorrow morning. That's gonna do 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, you know, for it to follow me on Twitter at LATEROUNDQB. Make sure to check out lateround dot com to join the Patreon, check out the draft guide, and again subscribe to that newsletter. Thanks everyone, I'll talk to you later in the week.