783: Mailbag 7/28/23

00:00:02
Speaker 1: This is the Late Podcast with your host JJ zacher Retha j je zacher reson. What's up everyone. It's JJ zachar Eesen in this episode seven hundred and eighty three of the Late Round Fantasy Football podcast sponsored by FanDuel. Thanks for tuning in. Before we get into this week's mailbag episode, I want to send a reminder to go to lateround dot com and check out the Late Round Draft Guide. It's pack full of strategy related information to help you crush your drafts this year, and there are updates that are sent to your email inbox each and every week. You can read more about it and check it out on lateround dot com. Let's get to these questions. The first question this week is from Twitter's from at Tua Tongue Iloa thirteen. I guess I shouldn't say Twitter anymore, but I'm gonna still say Twitter. It says, does the Canarious Tony situation improve the outlook of Clyde Edwards a layer? Or is Rashi Rice the one who benefits? So, for anyone who's unaware, Kadarius Tony had knee surgery and his status for Week one seems up in the air. So Tony's hurt once again. Now I'm not saying what I'm about to say to Victory Lap some injury because that's absolutely idiotic. Anyone who does that should be banned from giving fantasy football advice. But I was lower than the market on Kadarius Tony before this injury happened. It's not because he was injury prone, though it has nothing to do with that. It was because we've yet to see him consistently be a receiver who can win on a variety of routes. He came into the NFL as a really raw prospect because he didn't have that much experience playing wide receiver. We've seen how amazing he can be with the ball in his hands. We've seen that the upside is there. We just haven't seen that translate consistently and that's been the problem. That's why sky Moore has been one of my players to target this offseason in redraft. That is because people being bullish on Cadarius Tony has pushed sky Moore too low in drafts in my opinion. Now, what this injury does is it helps sky Moore stay on the field a little bit more. If Carrius Tony's healthy we could see more of a rotation in two wide receiver sets in that offense, but one less player means there's not a whole lot of experience a wide receiver on that roster. So it helps a player like Sky or a guy like Mark haz Valdez Scanling. Now, I don't really think this matters for Clyde Edwards Hilaire. I know he took some first team reps this week, but it's logical to assume that the pass catching role in that backfield is going to be to jerck McKinnon. And yeah, McKinnon might hypothetically compete with Tony for some of those closer to the line of scrimmage targets, given what we saw last year, I don't think we should expect Ceh to play ahead of McKinnon. So McKinnon gets somewhat of a boost here, a low key boost. Now, when it comes to Rashi Rice, I'll be honest myself, my model, we didn't really like Rashie Rice as a prospect. He did land in the ideal spot, but Kansas City might be one of those teams that sort of slow plays their wide receivers. They don't just throw them on the field right away. Here's the really weird thing, though, I'm like fifteen wide receiver spots higher than the consensus over on Fantasy pros with Rashid Rice, so technically because of that, he's sort of like a late round dart throw for me. I'm not high on him per se, but he's not costly in drafts, and like I said, an injury to a player like this to Kadarius Tony could open up opportunity for other guys in this offense to see the field more, and that includes Rice. Let's not pretend this wide receiver depth chart is very good on paper. There are so many moving parts within this Chiefs offense right now. I'd say McKinnon and sky Moore are the two guys who probably benefit most here. Maybe Rashid Rice too, I think is a fine late round dart throw, and that's specifically because of the situation. I really am not that high on him as a player. But here's the thing. My evaluation it can and will be wrong. I'm not gonna get everything right, so play into that variance, especially when it's not very costly. This asked questions from at loot C twenty four on Twitter on x whatever we're gonna call it. Just listen to your regression episode. How early is too early for Deebo Samuel. I've got a good feeling about him this year, regressing to being a stud again. But I'm the first pick. Do you take him at the two to three turn or is that too early? So I feel like I'm kind of on an island with Deebo Samuel right now. He's getting hyped up beyond belief, and a lot of people do believe that he's worthy of being that two to three turn pick. Now, what I will say is that we sort of hit this wall in drafts in the middle of round three where we start to feel a lot less safe with the running backs who are there, and the wide receivers just don't seem to have the same profile as some of the ones going in round two, and that forces a lot of people to say, well, I guess I'll take an elite quarterback here. So I think it's reasonable enough to think of Debo as sort of in that cluster. I'm just a little bit lower on him because I do believe, wait for it, that there are too many mouths defeat in that offense. Yes, I just said that and I know that it's a very, very obnoxious phrase. It gets thrown around way too loosely in fantasy circles, But in the case of San Francisco, I think there's some validity to it. Deebo Samuel is a great player, but so is George Kittle, so is Brandon Ayuk, so is Christian McCaffrey. All of them can eat and be good in fantasy football. But my concern is how good? How much can they eat? To me? Of that bunch, George Kittle is by far the most overvalued. Kittle averaged less than a fourteen percent target share last season when all four of those guys were healthy. But I have concerns about Dbo two. Now. He was banged up down the stretch last year, so that plays a role here. But when the forty nine ers got Christian McCaffrey, Deebo's target shair per game rate dropped from almost twenty eight percent to a little over twenty one percent. His rushes per game were three point eight and that fell to two point seven. His PVIR points per game dropped from fifteen point two to eleven. Christian McCaffrey is somewhat of a red an asset to Deebo Samuel. Now, they both fit this offense really well. They're great for real football, but I do have concerns over how high Deebo's target share ceiling really is. And then the other concern that I feel like no one's talking about right now, San Francisco's offense is probably gonna regress a little bit. And I mean that in the context of them starting Brock Party. When Brock Purty took over in Week thirteen. From Week thirteen through Week eighteen, the forty nine Ers scored a touchdown on a league high thirty two point four percent of their drives. That's despite ranking ninth in yards per drive. On top of that, during the regular season with Perty, the forty nine Ers averaged three point eighty three offensive touchdowns per game. Since twenty eleven, there have only been five teams in the league who averaged better than that across an entire season. We can't just look at what happened last year with the forty nine Ers and with Brock Party and assume that's going to be the way that it's going to go this year. The forty nine Ers should be really strong offensively. They're a team who has three catchers with strong ADP. That's a good thing, like I talked about last month on the show, but I have a hard time believing that they're going to be a top ten offense of the last decade. We shouldn't project that. We can say it's possible. Maybe Brock Party really is that good, but I don't think that it's probable. And for the record, this is not a Brock Party. Take brock Party is actually a late round dart throw in my draft guide. I'm just saying keep all of that in mind. Now. I've warmed up to Deebo a little bit since my draft guide published, but it seems like everyone has, so I'm still lower on him versus the consensus. This last question is an email from Greg. It says, Hi, JJ love the show in the draft guide. Thanks. I had a question on touchdown dependent running backs like Damian Harris in your draft guide. Running backs like that seem to be buried down your rankings. I've noticed doing mock drafts on ESPN guys like this are buried down their rankings as well. At what point of a draft are these guys' values simply for the fact that they're ceiling is Hey, this guy might fall forward for six plus touchdowns. So yeah, anyone who's listened to the show in the past knows that I'm generally fading early down backs who are mostly touched on dependent backs. Two guys this year. I'm not that into Damian Harris and Brian Robinson. I want pass catchers. I don't want players with a limited ceiling like even if other players in those offenses get hurt, those players' roles Damien Harris and Brian Robinson probably aren't going to change that much. So the question of at what point of a draft are these guys values? The answer to that would be passed where I have them ranked. Damian Harris right now is my RB forty two. That's four running back spots lower than the expert consensus rankings on Fantasy Pros, and it's seventeen overall spots lower. Harris is the RB forty one it looks like on ESPN, and I'm nine spots lower and overall ranked there. So I'm still lower on a guy like Damien Harris compared to ESPN two. And it's pretty much the same deal with Brian Robinson. Those guys just don't do it for me. Since twenty eleven, we've only had five running backs and half PPR leagues. This is not even full PPR but five running backs and half PPR leagues where they had a target share per game rate below five percent and they finished as an RB one, so below a five percent target share top twelve running back and half PPR formats, and they had to have played a minimum of eight games. Every single one of those running backs scored at least eleven touchdowns that season. If one of those guys like Damien Harris or Brian Robinson, who were not projecting a pass catchers, if one of them gets to six or seven touchdowns, it's still not really moving the needle. Not in a regular redraft league. Not only do they likely need ten plus touchdowns to be relevant enough, but that's not even a guarantee. Even if they get there, they still might not be that relevant. Basically, you have to ask yourself, if I pass on this player, is he really gonna burn me? And in my opinion, the answer to that with Damien Harris and Brian Robinson is no. You should be chasing upside, especially at that point in your draft, and because of those guys pass catching profiles, I just don't see the upside now. Best ball is always a different beast because anything can happen in a single week. Brian Robinson, Damien Harris. They could fall into the end zone two or three times in a given week. But even then, I'm not overly excited about those types of backs. I want more of a ceiling. This nest question is from at Danny kran It says a lot of analysts are still holding out hope for Nico Collins. What is the likelihood that he's successful this year? Given that he has a rookie quarterback. If he has flashes of success, does it mean that he regains hold value for the following year. So a lot of the rookie stuff that I've researched has to do with early and middle round picks, because those are the ones that matter, those are the ones with higher opportunity costs. With Collins, he's still a late rounder. You'll be able to get him in the double digit rounds of your home league. I'm far less concerned about the quarterback situation there than I am with a higher pick. With that being said, I think Collins is a decent pick this year. He did what we wanted to see last season his targets year per game rate and improved from fourteen percent during his rookie year to nineteen percent last year. His yards per route run was healthy at one point sixty eight. He was targeted at a good rate per route run. Two, I've got him two wide receiver spots ahead of consensus, so I'm cool with targeting him this year. Now. I don't think that he was this unbelievably good prospect, but he saw his seventieth percentile prospect score in my model rise to about an eighty second percentile one in the year two model. That doesn't give me high hopes that he has this crazy, crazy ceiling, but he can definitely be a contributor. So my stances at Collins is a good bet to meet and maybe exceed expectation, but I'm not going to bank on him being a consistent every week starter. And ADP reflects that the most likely scenario for Collins this year, in my opinion, is that he's a good bye week villain, which is totally fine. The next question from at Leonard Stenson, it says, what kind of value does is a mere white hold at this point in training camp letting Jacob sits out. His attitude towards Vegas has soured, to say the least. White, someone who's in the late round draft gud is a late round dart throw. He's someone to target. Do I think he's gonna be in every down back if Josh Jacobs doesn't play, No, I don't they have pass catching backs on that team who could work that side of things. And White's never been a proven pass catcher dating back to college thanks to some serious competition at Georgia. But these guys are late round picks for a reason, their final round picks for a reason. They all have some issues of their profile. Zamir White has Josh Jacobs hypothetically ahead of him on the depth chart, So White's a straight up handcuff. And I'll be honest with you, guys, I'm not usually into handcuffs like this, where they don't have any value at all without an injury. We're not talking about Jalen Warren or Tank Bigsby, who could have some role even if Najie Harris and Traves Etn don't get hurt. Zamir White likely has zero fantasy value unless Josh Jacobs is out. But We're looking at a situation with Jacobs where this is not ordinary. You never know how these things are gonna pan out. Just ask the Steelers. We should have learned from the Le'Veon Bell situation. And of all the running backs who might have a contract issue right now, Jacobs is the one who's number one on a team that likely won't be super competitive this year, and number two probably has the best case for a better contract given what he did last season, given the state of the Raiders, maybe they just don't prioritize this contract with Jacobs. You just have to be open minded about that kind of thing. So I think White, even though he'd probably just be their early down guy, he deserves to be drafted. He deserves to be targeted late because you never know, and maybe they want to see if he could actually be a featured back. This best questions from threads and it's from Gerard. It says, hey, JJ, in terms of the Philadelphia backfield, you have two running backs that meet certain criteria that in theory, should make them targets. Swift is a dead zone, but he's young and a pass catcher in a good offense. Penny is a mid round running back. Who's RB one goes in the dead zone, he's in his sixth year, and he's in a very ambiguous backfield. Who would you rather target considering these factors. Yeah, so I think this goes back to what I had talked about recently on the show about using this criteria and saying this guy's a target based in the criteria, this guy isn't to think of it in that black and white of a way. Now, regarding the dead zone, we want pass catching backs who are ideally rookies, not just young players. We want rookies in the dead zone, and Swift is not a rookie, but he is a pass catching back. It's good to have a pass catcher. You want a pass catcher, but ideally when it comes to age, you want rookies out of the dead zone. Maybe second year guys too. But here's my thing with DeAndre Swift. We don't know that he's actually in store for a lot of targets in that offense. Someone like Rashad White, for instance, we can feel pretty good about him projecting out of ten eleven percent target shairer More. With Swift, we think that's possible, but it's not a lock. My projection has him around that ten percent mark, but without early down work and with Jalen Hurt steeling goal line work, that may not cut it. So he fits some criteria loosely, but he does not fit things flawlessly. Here again, I go back to Jumior Gibbs, who does fit things flawlessly, and then Rashod Penny. It's the same thing. Yes, having a middle round running back with a dead zone teammate. That's great. That's what Tony Pollard looked like last year. But Tony Pollard also had a great pass catching profile. Rashod Penny has not been a pass catcher in the NFL. We know this. That limits upside, and he's also past his fifth NFL season. We don't see players exceed ADP expectation by a whole lot of points per game when they're older guys getting drafted in the middle rounds past year five. It doesn't happen very often at all. We have to remember that these Brits take out trends that I talk about are not certainties. It's probability. There's a better chance for a player to hit if he ends up seeing a high target share. There's a better chance a player hits if he's part of an ambiguous backfield. But when I say hit, we're talking like twenty five thirty percent here. Those are our odds. Ambiguous backfields don't hit a lot. It's just that ambiguous backfields hit more often than non ambiguous backfields in those middle rounds, and as a result, it's okay to say this particular ambiguous backfield, I don't have a favorite. I think there's a reasonable chance of this stays ambiguous all year because there's not necessarily a clear favorite. Or if you really like that backfield, if you really like the Eagles backfield and you're playing in more than a couple of leagues, split the difference. Get Swift in one and get Rashad Penny in another. Now, I'm not trying to avoid this answer. If I were to choose one of these players at value, it would probably be Rashad Penny. He fits the Miles Sanders mold a lot more than DeAndre Swift does, and it's awesome spiked weeks in decent production from Sanders last year. I just don't think Penny is someone who's gonna end up going nuts this year similar to Sanders last year. Everyone's excited about Miles Sanders in twenty twenty two. Last season, he was the RB twenty two in PPR points per game. He was in RB two last year. Now, can Penny do that? Can he do better than that? Now? I think Penny's arguably a better runner, but I don't think he's gonna see a vastly different target share than Miles Sanders had last year. And that was really the difference in why Sanders couldn't get over that RB two hump. So both are just fine. It's a situation where I don't have a strong opinion because I think it's a pretty unique situation. And even though that offense should be good, we have to remember that there are awesome pass catchers there. Jalen Hurts is gonna steal some work at the goal line. It's not necessarily this awesome, awesome place for running backs to thrive. So to bring all that together, I'd probably draft Penny at his adp over Swift at his And I think this is looking like a true committee. It's fine to throw darts to this ambiguous backfield, but to me, neither guy checks a ton of the market related boxes that we'd ideally want them to check. The last one this week is an email from Ken. It says, Hey, JJ, love the show. Thanks. I was wondering how you felt about Elijah Moore this year. I know he was someone your model really loved and then he had a poor second season. It seems like he's getting some hype now in Cleveland, but is that warranted? Thanks? Ken. So I'm glad I got this email this week because Elijah Moore is actually someone that I added to my targets list in the Late Round Draft Guide. What's interesting about Moore is that traditionally, middle round wide receivers who are in their third year have not been good bets. We've only seen one big breakout from one since twenty eleven, or a true breakout as I call it, and that was with Deebo Samuel. He's the only true breakout out of the twenty five third year middle round wideouts who played eight or more games. So at first glance, it would probably make sense to not go after Elijah Moore, except I did a little bit more research than I had even done in my draft guide, and this is something I'm really looking forward to research for next year's draft guide. Elijah Moore was a good prospect in my eyes at least, and that led to him having a really strong Year two Model score, which helps predict how well a player is going to do in year two and year three of his NFL career. Anything in that Year two model above the ninetieth percentile is strong at wide receiver. Anything above the ninety fifth percentile is very very strong. It's elite. Elijah Moore was above the ninetieth percentile. I reworked that year two model this offseason and he was in like the ninety second, ninety third percentile. And here's the thing. Of those twenty five third year middle round wide receivers that I was referencing, twenty of them had a Year two Model score. Some of them were drafted before twenty eleven, so I don't have prospect scores for them, and there was one who wasn't invited to the combine and who was not drafted. So I'm looking at twenty third year wide out since twenty eleven who were drafted in the middle rounds who played eight or more games during that season. So during that third season, seven of those twenty had a Year two Model score above the ninetieth percentile. So thirteen of them did not. Of those seven with good year two model scores, every single one of them ended up exceeding ADP expectation. Their ADP said that they would score X number of points per game. They all outperformed that x. Now, not all of them did what Deebo Samuel did, but they definitely were not busts. And guess how many of the remaining thirteen players, the ones who did not get to a ninetieth percentile year two score, Guess how many of them exceeded ADP expectation one. I saw that, and I was absolutely floored. I hadn't done a ton of testing on my year two model with my redraft analysis, but this definitely tells me that I need to dig into this next offseason. I need to see if there's anything you nique to uncover. And I think the reason we're seeing this is because those players are just naturally better. They were better prospects. Something happened that made them become middle round picks and not earlier round picks. But those guys are just naturally better bets than the players who had more question marks entering the NFL. You're comparing a guy like Deebo Samuel to a guy like Gabe Davis or Robbie Anderson. This is why I always say that talent wins out. So Elijah Moore is in what should be a good offense or what we think is going to be a good offense, and he has a good Year two Model score as a result, I think he's a great pick. He's been one of my highest rostered players in Best Ball this offseason, and I'm about eight wide receiver spots ahead with Elijah Moore versus consensus. Now, maybe I'm naive, maybe I'm gonna get burned again, but I'm drafting Elijah Moore this year. 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 hurting for it pretty much anywhere podcasts can be found. You don't follow me on Twitter at Late Round QB. Thanks for listening to everyone. Have a great weekend. M m HM