656: Mailbag 7/22/22

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Speaker 1: This is the Late Podcast with your host JJ zacher Retha, j J zacher Resa, what's up everyone. It's JJ zach or Esen in this episode six hundred and fifty six of the Late Round Fantasy Football podcast sponsored by FanDuel. Thanks for tuning in. I've a few things I need to talk about before get into today's mailbag questions. First, I want to give a shout to the Establish the Run podcast. The podcast is free and it's hosted by two legends in the fantasy space, Adam Levitan and Evan Silva. You probably remember them for their time at Roade World. Establish the Run episodes are quick, fun and packed with analysis. They cover fantasy news and reactions, rankings, how to bet, player props, best ball, and more. I think it's a great compliment to the Late Round Fantasy Football podcast because it's more conversational in nature and they cover topics that I might not cover. I'm a longtime listener and I can vouch that they know what they're talking about. So check out the Established the Run podcast anywhere you listen to podcasts. Also, don't forget to sign up for FanDuel Fantasy for users you have yet to make it a posit on Fandle Fantasy. You can deposit today to receive two free entries. All I have to do is deposit a minimum of ten dollars in your Fandle DFS account and you'll be instantly rewarded with two free vouchers. Be sure to deposit now and play for free. Head over to fandle dot com or download the fandel Fantasy app today. Eligibility destrictions apply. Go to fandle dot com or download the fandle app for more details. And then one last thing. A couple of weeks ago, I talked about how I totally understand that not everyone can purchase a copy of the Late Round Draft Guide. You may not be interested in it, which is fine, but not everyone has twenty five dollars to spend on something like that. I've got to obviously make a living, but I completely understand that times are not always easy. There was a listener named Sam that messaged me after that episode and one to donate four Late Round Draft Guides to people who haven't had an opportunity to check it out. Those four guides are now available, and I'll be giving them away to the first four people who email me at podcast at lateround dot com, and please, I just asked that if you already have a guide, or if you're planning on buying it, don't send an email asking for one of the four guides. Sam really wants to give them to people who just may not be able to purchase it right now for whatever reason. So feel free to email podcast at lateround dot com and if you're one of the first four people to do so, I'll send you a copy of the guide and you can do it totally anonymously too. It's totally fine. Sam just wants to give back and thought that this was a great way to do that, and I'm very thankful for him and his generosity. The first question this week is from at Yo Pendleton. It says what is the most overlooked stack? So I can tell you that one of the stacks that I've gotten a lot this year is justin Fields and coal. Comet Fields is someone who came on strong last year, and we know the Russian component for quarterbacks is big in fantasy football. During his final four games that he finished last year, he scored no fewer than sixteen point nine points and he averaged almost twenty points per game. Those are low end QB one numbers, and he was averaging eight and a half rushes per game during that stretch, So if he improves as a passer in year two, it's not hard to imagine him giving us QB one numbers and commt is someone who could lock in a twenty percent target share in that offense, and that's been a target share seen by top ten tight ends consistently in fantasy football, and you can get both guys in the double digit rounds. I also don't mind going the Trevor Lawrence route, along with some of the Jags pass catchers like Christian Kirk and Evan Ingram. Obviously there's a lot of variance there, given Lawrence had a really miserable rookie season, but I've said it before on here that he's bound to be way better and touched on rate this season, and if the coaching staff clicks, then the offense might be better than expected. And then I also got to shout out the Giants, because I've been talking about how their offense is going to be better this season than it has been over the last two. But I've done enough drafts to where I've stacked most teams in most situations in some way. Those are just some of the ones that I've gravitated towards. The Jets are another one. It's just teams that have cheap options all around, and if the offense ends up hitting in some way, then they're all going to exceed expectation. This last question is also from Twitter's from at Lorniye Sizzle. It says, given your ambiguous wide receiver theory, is T Higgins someone you should avoid as Chase will be a first round pick and Higgins will likely be in the third or fourth round, so I doubt that he's going to be in the fourth round. He does get drafted in the third, but the fourth round probably not. But regardless, I actually got this question from multiple people this week and I wanted to use this time to clear something up. The answer is no. Remember everything that I talked about on the Ambiguous Wide Receiver Core episode and the episode earlier this week, it has nothing to do with early round picks. It's middle and late round picks that I analyzed, So don't use that criteria to justify fading someone like Alan Robinson and definitely not T Higgins. The criteria laid out was for middle and late round picks only. The next question is from Patreon. It's from you boy, JD. What's good? JJ, thanks for putting together great content for us. Who are you most worried you're wrong about this year? Either fading someone who could prove you wrong or putting a lot of eggs in a basket that could easily bust. I think there's a lot of variability with Kadarius Tony. I've been talking about him for months on here, and his ADP has risen a good bit since my initial take about him in Redraft. I like Kadarius Tony this season. He definitely hit a lot of great thresholds that we want from rookie wide receivers. He had a seventeen percent target chair per game rate that's only been hit by forty seven other rookie wide receivers who have played eight or more games since twenty eleven, or four to five rookie wide receivers per season, and many of those wide receivers are very good. He had a two point one yards per route run rate. The only rookies since twenty eleven to hit that mark have been Tyreek Hill, Odell Beckham, Doug Baldwin, Justin Jefferson, AJ Green, Jamar Chase, A J. Brown, Julio Jones, and Juju Smith Schuster. That's an unbelievable group. He was targeted per route at the second highest rate that we've seen from a rookie wide receiver since twenty eleven. The only player targeted at a higher rate per route run was Tyreek Hill. He's also now a second year wide receiver, and I talked about that earlier this week. That's the demographic that you want to target in the middle rounds. There is a lot to like about Kadarius Tony, but there's a new regime and that regime did not draft him. They selected Wandel Robinson in the second round. Who can play that slot role. Tony played over sixty percent of his snaps last year from the slot, and there's been some random off the field type rumors about him being available for trade. He's just someone that popped into my head with this question because I do think that at his price point, he is well worth the cost. There's a lot of upside there. There's a chance that he's a really good wide receiver or he turns into one. But I recognized the downside for a prospect that seemed overdrafted and lacked a good production profile. He wasn't Henry Ruggs bad as a first round pick, but he did have a negative stat score in my model, which is typically not a good sign. So I recognize the downside with Clarius Tony, but I'm still drafting him everywhere. I just recognize that there's a wide range of outcomes here. This last questions from twitters from at F Football Polls, it says what round should we draft JK Dobbins knowing he might not be ready week one or at full strength. I have Dobbins at about ADP right now in best ball drafts, so before you get to the Josh Jacobs Elijah Mitchell type tier. But overall, I have him lower than where Fantasy Pros ADP has him, and that ADP is pulling from a lot of different sources that aren't Best Ball. Chances are I'll end up being a little bit underweight on JK Dobbins this year. It's not just the injury either. I do think the injury is somewhat of a concern, though from everything that I've read, it's iffy if he's going to be ready for Week one that's accord to not just rap sheet and that report earlier this week, but all so doctor Edwin Polross over on Fantasy points dot Com. We sh just have to wait a little bit to see where he's at. I just still worry about what I've always worried about with JK. Dobbins, and that's the pass catching ceiling. The Ravens are likely going to be more run heavy this year. That limits volume through the air. Obviously. I talked about that on the Team Regression episode episode six hundred and forty nine. That means in order for a player like Dobbins or even Rashad Bateman. In order for a player like Dobbins to see a lot of raw volume, he needs a higher target share. But Baltimore under Lamar Jackson has not targeted their running backs heavily at all during his three years as starter. The Ravens are wearing thirty first, twenty fifth, and twenty ninth in running back target share, and remember that's on fewer pass attempts. Over the last three seasons. Baltimore running backs they're tied for dead last in the league, and running back targets they're tied with the Rams. The Ravens with Greg Roman, have traditionally rotated their running backs too. It's not that Dobbins can't meet expectation. I just worry about the ceiling. The only player to have a true league winning season with fewer than thirty targets over the last decade has been Derrick Henry. Maybe you want to throw Nick Chubb in there, maybe Adrian Peterson, but those are two of the best pure runners that the league has ever seen. Nick Chubb is unbelievably underrated as just a running back, and I like Dobbins the talent. It's just tough to bank on that kind of production and have for full PPR formats. That's all. So I'm basically at ADP with him. But I just generally prefer wide receivers in that range, so I'm likely going to go in that direction more often. This has questions from Patreon. It's from Bob. It says on your podcast you frequently say I recently did a study on X to see if there are any trends that we can spot. Of course the answer is yes, otherwise I wouldn't be doing this episode. My question is, can you tell us about some of the studies you've done that didn't give you any trends or correlations or anything. Maybe some area where you thought there would be interesting data to discuss but wound up not being what you expected. Yes, I analyze a lot of stuff, especially during the off season, and sometimes a lot of times it reveals absolutely nothing. One of the things that I've tried studying in the past is when the right time to spend your free agent auction budget should be. I get this question all the time, but I don't have an answer. I think a lot of people would assume it's at the beginning of the season, but I really couldn't find a ton of correlation. It's really just player dependent. But I never did an episode on in or anything because it wouldn't be very compelling. But that kind of thing happens a lot. I really just want to put content out there that's actionable for you. I don't want something that's really really boring and you can't really take anything away. The last question this week is an email that's from at SI Underscore a claw on Twitter. It says, hey, JJ, I found your podcast last weekend and have listened to most of your summer pods since. In some episodes several times. Thanks. Love the work, by the way, and your data driven approach is very appealing to me. A lot of your episodes talking about breakout players and ambiguous positions focus on targeting players that are breakouts and or true breakouts, which I can understand because those are league winning players. But the odds of finding league winning players in those middle and late rounds are slim. My question is how important is attempting to find a breakout player if you can select someone that has a high floor and hasn't had a decrease in talent or situation who projects to have a similar season. Specifically, Adam Thielen and Cordero Patterson are ranked seventy eighth and eighty fifth on Fantasy pros. They both averaged around fifteen PPO points per game last season. So if I can take someone like that in round eight, nine or ten, should I really be looking for a breakout player? Sorry for the long one. Thanks in advance. Okay, there's a lot to unpack here and to go over first. I wouldn't say the odds of finding breakouts is slim. This is why I talk about moderate and true breakouts. Moderate breakouts happen at almost a twenty five percent clip in the middle rounds at running back and wide receiver, So about twenty five percent of players will outproduce their ADP expectation by three or more PPR points per game. And yes, that number is much lower for true breakouts, but that's why I separated them into moderate and true, because we can see the really really high ceiling guys with the guys who are just really good but not elite. So I'd push back a little bit on that notion. The second thing to remember is that when I'm referring to breakouts, I'm not actually talking about players who have never done it before. I'm just talking about players who really exceeded expectation. If an older player who's on the wrong side of his age curve ends up doing really well, he can still be a breakout player like Adam Thielen can still be a breakout player this year. But I disagree with the overall premise here, and maybe this will shed some more light to those studies. You mentioned Adam thlen and Cordero Patterson as two players who averaged fifteen PPR points per game last year, and then their situations didn't change and now they're going a lot later. Why not just draft them and not worry about breakouts. Well, I'd say their situations did change. Thelan has a whole new coaching staff and he's another year older. Patterson's also another year older, and he has a brand new quarterback situation. He's also got completely different competition in his backfield. It's totally okay to think that Adam Theeling and Corderio Patterson are good picks right now. But it's just important from a process standpoint to not just take what happened last season and place it in the current season, because things always change. If you were guaranteed fifteen PPR points per game from Adam Theeln and Cordero Patterson this year at that ADP that you cited, sure get them. I looked over on Fantasy pros myself and in PPR formats across multiple platforms. Thelan has an ADP of seventy two. Patterson he's at seventy seven at those price points. If both guys were able to hit fifteen points per game, then they'd both end up as moderate breakouts. So yeah, you should draft them, or if that's your projection, if you think they're gonna score that many points, go ahead and draft them. I think there's historical evidence to show that they shouldn't be projected to score that many, but I don't want anyone to be confused here. The goal is to get players who really exceed expectation. I don't care what those players look like. I'm just trying to score fantasy points. But I'm trying to give you the tools. I'm trying to provide some trends to help you figure out who those players might be. And if those tools and trends lead you to Patterson or Thielen, what have you, that's fine. I think a lot of the trends show that they won't break out. But if your process leads you to them and you think they're gonna score that many fantasy points per game, draft them. This show is not about me giving you the answers. This show is about me teaching you a process. Now that's gonna do it for today's show. Thanks to all of you for listening. If you've got subscribe to the Late Round Fantasy Football podcast, make sure you are by searching for it pretty much anywhere podcasts can be found in effort to follow me on Twitter at LATEROUNDQB. Remember to check out lateround dot com to purchase the Laterounddraft Guide, join the Patreon, subscribe to the newsletter, all that good stuff. Thanks for listening, everyone, Enjoy your weekend. I'll talk to you next week