598: Mailbag 12/17/21

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Speaker 1: This is the lad Podcast with your host JJ Zachersa Jay Jake Zacherson. What's up everyone. It's JJ Zachariesen, the editor in chief at fandle and at number fire dot com in this episode five and ninety eight of the Late Round podcast. So the many shows that are part of the Fandel podcast network. Thanks for tuning in. Fandel is giving you the opportunity to get in on the action. Each week, Fandel is offering fans a chance to win prizes by participating in daily fantasy football. The prize pool for this week's Sunday Million contest is a whopping one point three million dollars, with first place taking them two hundred and fifty thousand dollars. All you used to do is head over to fandle today and click on the NFL Sunday Million Contest. Draft your lineup of player, sit back, and enjoy Sunday NFL football. Go to Fandel dot com today to participate in the NFL Sunday Million. Eligibility restrictions apply. Go to fandle dot com or download the fandlel app for more details. The first male bad question this week is from at fut Bumbles. More of a dynasty question. But assuming Terrorist Marshall is a quote sell low based on your study on unproductive rookies, what kind of value would you be hoping to get in return. I'm inclined to hold, but would like your thoughts on his value threshold. Thanks. So, first off, I don't think he's necessarily or automatically a sell low like I said last week, even though a player who doesn't do that much during his rookie season is very unlikely to hit. The market matters here. If the market doesn't view Marshall very highly, then you don't have to sell, because low cost players don't hit at high rates to begin with. Basically, what I'm saying is, if you trade Marshall for another player, that player is likely to have a small rate of hitting anyway. So instead of just automatically selling, you should look at the market. It's not a bad idea to check out a resource like Dynasty League Football and look at their average draft position data. They have startup ADP from November, and that ADP still has Terrorist Marshall at wider forty one. Now a lots happened over the last month for Marshall, and his cost should be pushed down. But I'll tell you what, if you can get Marshall at that cost or even anywhere near that cost, I would jump on it. In this case, the market is saying that you should probably sell because we're talking about Marshall just ahead of players like Brandon Cooks and Michael Gallup. That's according to November's ADP. If we assume that he takes a big hit, you could still get a lot of solid pieces for him, like Van Jefferson could still potentially be in that range, or even a usable piece like Jarvis Landry if you're competitive. But players like Marshall usually have valuations all over the place. I mean, you can look at DLF's trade finder tool and you can see that he recently went for Kenyan Drake and Dalton Schultz, but then he also went into trade for Amari Cooper, which, by the way, if that's your league, you might want to look out for some collusion because that's a dumb trade. I'll at least anecdotally tell you that nine times out of ten, the price for these unproductive rookies is strong enough to sell, you usually should sell. But there's just such a wide range from evaluation standpoint, and as a result, you're best off just sending offers based on his startup ADP and then going from there. This has questions from at mister Davey Ross. In the playoffs, do you adapt to more of a DFS mindset given the need to win, for example, going with boom or bust players over someone perceived as safe, or playing a defense that is matched up against your opponent's quarterback, et cetera. Look, guys, don't overthink it. I got this type of question a couple of times this week, and I think that you're overthinking it. You're not playing a GPP in your fantasy league. It's still a head to head in ninety nine percent of cases. Going with just a ton of variants in your lineup, that's not necessary unless you're objectively a big underdog and you need to take that on. But that's the same answer that I would give you in the regular season two, because the game is the same. It didn't change. Because it's Week fifteen. You're still plying against an opponent, and you should treat the matchup the same way. If you're looking good, you can play it safer. If you're not, embrace more variants. This last question is from at TLNA FED. Can you talk about the Jerry Judy hype? Most of us felt bullish about him in the offseason. Actually, he is indeed the best wide receiver in Denver when he's healthy, but the output is not what we expected. What's wrong with it? The quarterback issue or does the team just want to be run heavy? Thanks? So, as someone who is into Jerry Judy this year, and as someone who has Judy on a lot of rosters, the situation does indeed suck. There are a handful of reasons for his lack of production this year. First and foremost, the obvious one is touchdowns. He hasn't scored in seven games played. That's going to hurt output. So is the fact that his target share per game rate is twenty one point two percent in an offense that ranks twentieth in pass rate, and it's an offense that's below the league average in overall pass attempts, and Judy's not seeing very many targets down the field. He has eight fifteen plus air yard targets this year. That's in seven games. For some comparison, Cortland Sutton has twenty five and thirteen games. Judy ranks in the nineteenth percentile on average depth of target among forty plus target wide receivers this year, So there's just a lot that's worked against him across the board. Those things are just sort of piling on top of one another. I still like Judy long term, but it's tough to get on board for the fantasy playoffs. This last persons from at Shy Bears five thirty. Now that Hopkins is out for the regular season, is AJ Green a good ad Christian Kirk? So? I know I talked about these two on yesterday's Sleepers episode, but I want to talk more about this on today's show because I got a lot of questions about it. The splits that the Cardinals have with and without DeAndre Hopkins, they're a little bit wonky because Kyler Murray was also sideline with DeAndre Hopkins this year. But what we can at least look at is the general usage data like routes run to see how things change for Green and Kirk without Hopkins. Hopkins missed weeks nine to ten and eleven this year, Christian Kirk has played every game and AJ Green missed one of those games without Hopkins. So let's look at the usage in weeks ten and eleven versus the rest of the season. I'll remove Week nine totally because Kirk played without both wide receivers in weeks ten and eleven. According to Pro Football Focus, Kirk ran the most routes on the team, and every week outside of weeks ten and eleven and week nine, AJ Green has led Kirk and routes run. Now, maybe some of that was injury related for AJ Green, but I think at the very least we can feel confident that Kirk is going to be a full time player in this Arizona offense without DeAndre Hopkins. That makes sense. That naturally means that he gets a bigger bump in playing time than AJ Green will because Green was already running more routes. Now, what's not surprising is that Kirk played a lot less than the slot without DeAndre Hopkins and without Green for that one game. Kirk has played eighty six percent of his snaps from the slot outside of those games, but his slot snap rate in those games was fifty six percent. So Kirk is gonna get a slightly different role with this, and that brings more ambiguity. I'm a fan of the talent of Christian Kirk. I think he's good, and I think that he does bring more upside than aj Green, But like I said on yesterday's show, both players should be rostered. Kirk just probably gets more of an uptick from his baseline. This best question is from at BGT Evan. Do you think ranking defensive opponents as first again, second against, et cetera is a suboptimal way to show matchup strength because the gaps aren't all equal? And would it be better if we simply stated how a defense statistically compares to league average. Yeah, it's suboptimal, just like player rankings are suboptimal. Rankings are linear. Players don't score fantasy points in that fashion. And to be clear, any sort of rank against a position is formulated by a number, some number. I've talked about this on the ten Trend Show. I talked about that earlier this week. On the ten Trend Show, I mentioned how the Vikings have played about eight points below expectation per game versus team wide receivers. The reason analysts like myself will reference a ranking is because it gives you better contest and it's quick and easy to talk about. But make no mistake, I'm not citing that ranking without a backbone. It's based on mathematical evidence and actual numbers. This next question is from at PJ Hen seventy seven. Hi, jj, I understand the state of the running back position, but is there a reason to still roster a player like Tony Pollard through the playoffs. He can't get himself on the field. His injury sounds worse than the Cowboys are letting on. He feels like a wasted bench spot. I think Tony Pollard needs to be rostered in every single league right now. Just because his injury might be worse than what the Cowboys are saying doesn't mean that it is. It doesn't mean that it will be. You can't make your fantasy decisions based on that kind of feel, and very few players have the upside that Pollard has. We're very much in handcuff season, and Pollard is a high end handcuff and a good offense. At the end of the season, when it's all said and done, he may not be usable, but from a process stamp point, he needs to be rostered. This as question is from at Israel Underscore twenty five, part of a ten team league with six playoff spots. I missed the playoffs, but was fifth in scoring victim of bad matchups. How do I convince my Cavemen league mates to leave the last playoff spot for most points not in the top five. I still haven't convinced them about dropping kickers. Honestly, you explain to them that you don't play defense in fantasy football. It's not real football. You're not stopping your opponent from scoring points in a given week by doing something special, so there's naturally some luck involved with whatever schedule you get. You can only control your team, so there should be a reward for teams that did that well. There are a lot of ways to do that, and there are a lot of ways to remove matchup luck. But if people can't understand that you're not playing defense in fantasy football, it's gonna be tough to change their minds. This last question, it's gonna be a long answer, but I think it's worth it. It's from at James Underscore or AG one. Do you have any data in regards to what general drafting strategy performed the best this year? It feels like it doesn't really matter what strategy you implemented. You just had to have the right players as always, so Since the start of fantasy analysis, people have been saying, Oh, strategy doesn't matter, You just have to pick the right players and you'll be fine. Okay, Well, how do you pick the right players? Because if you think that it's just one hundred percent luck, then you're gonna have a hard time winning in fantasy football year after year. Strategy is there to help increase your probability of hitting on the right players. Like, yes, it's possible to just go into your draft and just pick off guys one by one without any real plan. And maybe Frank from accounting, who knows very little about fantasy football strategy, walked away with Jonathan Taylor and Cooper Cup and Deebo Samuel and Leonard Fournette this year and he's set to win a championship. Strategy can help lead you to those players, though, even if it's by process of elimination. Let me give you an example, the running back dead zone. All off season analysts myself included, talked about avoiding running backs in the dead zone. My analysis showed me that running backs in that range in the round four and five range, especially that running backs typically don't hit at a high rate in that range. Historical average draft position data shows that, and it shows that league winners at running back are coming from around six, seven and eight at a very similar rate. Meanwhile, in that range, wide receivers hit at a pretty good rate, and wide receivers are sort of the alternative to not drafting a running back. If we're saying, don't get this running back, then that means you're almost definitely going to get a wide receiver instead. That's just how fantasy football is structured. Even if you had no favorite wide receivers in that round four and five range, had you followed the strategy of avoiding the running back dead zone, then you increased your chances of getting arguably the single best fantasy football asset this year in Cooper Cup. And if you avoided running backs in that range while then targeting running backs just a little bit later, you increased your chances of hitting another huge value in Leonard Fournette. Fantasy football strategy is not just about pinpointing the player to target. This is what I try to preach all off season. It's just as much about knowing which players to not target, whether that's based on their individual profile or what historical data has taught us. I can speak to this on a very individual level too. I generally know how my season went is an analyst based on how my own team's performed, and this season it was one where I made the playoffs at one of the highest rates in my fantasy football career. But my teams didn't necessarily dominate, like I have a couple of really awesome teams, but most of my teams are three, four or five seeds in the playoffs. And I think it's because I did a great job this year of pinpointing the players to not get in your draft. But I wasn't out there pounding my chest saying get Cooper Cup or absolutely get Deebo Samuel. I have Jonathan Taylor in some leagues. I got Cooper Cup in some leagues. I've got Leonard Fournette in some leagues, but they weren't my highest rostered players or anything. What I was able to do, though, is take all the strategic information that I spoke about over the off season and use that to know when to not get players. I have zero Allen Robinson this year. I was lower than the consensus on Robinson. Why because of that study I did on mobile quarterbacks and how they impact their pass catchers. I have barely any Noah Fant and Tyler Higbee. Why because I did a study on finding breakout tight ends that show that those types of tight ends, the ones who were drafted in the middle rounds with a teammate drafted ahead of them, those aren't the tight ends to target. Instead, you should look for tight ends late who were associated with top five quarterbacks by ADP, like Buffalo and Dallas, and naturally, I've got a ton of Dawson Knox, and I have a ton of Dalton Schultz once we saw that things were trending in his direction in a way from Blake Jarwin. I have Elijah Mitchell in a ton of spots. He's probably my highest rostered player this year. Why because I recognized that breakout running backs come from ambiguous backfields. And when Trey Sermon was inactive in Week one before that game, I added Elijah Mitchell everywhere. And I even talked about doing that on my start sit live stream. That's moning. I've got receipts. This isn't some hindsight look at me. I did so many good things bs. You guys know that's not what I do on this show. That's not how I go about things. I did a lot of bad things this year too. I'm simply pointing out that what led me to so many of these players this year wasn't simply player analysis. It was strategy. It's really easy to look at the end result in fantasy football and just see a list of names, and yes, luck is gonna play a factor. Getting Christian McCaffrey ruined your season. Getting Calvin Ridley really hurt your season too. But that doesn't mean that we just throw our arms up and say fantasy football is all Look, you just have to pick the right guys and anyone can do that. And James, I'm not saying that's what you're doing here. I'm just pointing out that there's so much more detail to this than player analysis. There's a process, and that process is undoubtedly going to help raise your probability of winning year in and year out. It may seem like people were just getting lucky and some people are in random seasons, but strategy is how we shift our chances of finding these league winning play. Strategy is your backbone in fantasy football, not player analysis. That's going to do it for today's show, though, thanks to all of you for listening. If you get subscribe to the Late Round podcast, make sure you are by searching for it pretty much anywhere podcasts can be found in effort to follow me on Twitter at Late Round QB. Thanks everyone, enjoy your weekend. Good luck in the fantasy playoffs. I'll talk to you next week.