907: 10 Trends for Week 2

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Speaker 1: This is the Labor Podcast with your host JJ zachera jj zacher reason. What's up everyone, It's jj zachar Esen in this episode nine and seven of the Late Round Fantasy Football podcast sponsored by Underdog Fantasy. Thanks for tuning in. I've got some pretty cool news to share to open today's show. As you know, during the summer, I was giving away a free Late Round draft guide to any new Underdog user, any new user who used promo code Late Round when signing up. When you signed up, you got a free draft guide email to your inbox. Well, now that we're in season, that draft guide isn't as relevant, but my rest of season rankings are so for any new Underdog Fantasy user when you sign up, you not only get a deposit bonus, but you'll be email a link that contains my rest of season rankings. Those are updated every Tuesday for patrons, so you can get them on there too. You can get them in the Late Round Fantasy Football Patreon as well, but they're free if you sign up on Underdog Fantasy and make a deposit, and when you do that, you have to use promo code Late Round. That's Underdog Fantasy dot Com again. Promo code late round. The first trend this week is one that we kind of knew could happen based on preseason usage. But Cole Kmet is officially splitting time with Gerald Everett in Chicago. He's actually not even splitting time Everet's just the tight end one. Everett ran twenty one routes to Comet's twelve on Sunday, and Everett played more snaps as well. Maybe that's going to change as this offense evolves, but offensive coordinator Shane Waldron has now coached Everett on three separate teams over the last handful of years. It's his guy, so in most formats you can drop Comet. I talked about Isaiah Piiceco last week and how samajp Ryan had a chance to play a Jeric McKinnon role in that Chiefs offense. It wasn't a lock that he would play that role, just that there was a possibility. Well, in Week one, Pacheco had the second best route participation of the last two years. He ran a round on seventy one percent of Kansas City's dropbacks, he saw eighty eight percent of the team's running back rushes, and he had an eleven and a half percent target share. Maybe that doesn't maintain because samaj p Ren had just joined the team, but it was a huge, huge Week one for Isaiah Pacheco. Davante Smith ended up running seventy one percent of his routes out of the slot against the Packers this past week. That's according to PFF. Last year the number was thirty one percent. With the potential for good pace in a decent pass rate, combined with the good matchups that DeVante Smith is now going to see, we could see a great year from Devonte Smith. I wasn't very high on DeAndre Swift entering the season because I was worried about what can happen at the goal line with him, and I thought we'd see some sort of committee Roseean Johnson. Though he was a healthy scratch for the Bears in Week one and Swift being pretty bad in fantasy, he actually had strong usage. He was eleventh among running backs and rout participation and he handled seventy one percent of the team's running back rushes. His target chair was lower, but that route participation that was at least there. So I actually lean more by than sell with DeAndre Swift right now, Alec Pierce scored the fantasy points for Indianapolis in Week one, but Adnai Mitchell had a great game from a peripherals perspective. Not only could he have had a touchdown himself pretty easily in that contest, but he finished the day with a twenty six percent target chair that's about ten percentage points better than Pierce's and he ran a route on seventy five percent of the team's dropbacks Pierce was at eighty three percent. People are going to be rushing to the waiver wire to get Alec Pierce because he made some big plays in that game, but I still prefer the rookie. I still prefer Adnai Mitchell honestly, by a whole lot. According to PFFI Expected Fantasy Points formula, no running back underperformed more in Week one than Najie Harris. That's not necessarily a bad thing. It does mean that, based on his usage and where he was seeing touches, he should have been closer to fifteen sixteen PPR points rather than the nine that he actually scored. But it also tells us that his usage was pretty great, and it was. He had a seventy seven percent running back rush share and a nine percent target share. Those were numbers that were better than last year. With that being said, don't be surprised if we see more Jalen Warren as soon as Week two. As we know he was entering the season a little bit banged up. It was a tough week for Jackson Smith and Jigba Drafters. Myself included. I've bought in from a redraft perspective that things could turn around in this Ryan Grubb offense. But JSN ended up being used very similarly in Week one as he was last year. His average up at target just three point three. He lined up in the slot on ninety percent of his routes run. We wanted more than that. Now. If that being said, JSN did run more routes than Tyler Lockin on Sunday, and the Seahawks aleen very very heavily on the run, especially in the second half of that game. So I don't think it's time to bury him. But it wasn't the Week one that JSN truthers wanted. People were freaking out about a lot of the elite tight ends in Week one, but the underlying usage for a lot of those tight ends was totally fine. I actually have a hypothesis that with less scoring across the league, with such crappy offenses that we saw in Week one, that impacted tight ends a little bit more because these guys aren't typically first read players. But that's not a super fleshed out idea, so let's just move on. Daltonkin Kaid only had two PPR points in an eight point seven percent target shair. That's the bad news. The good news is that he ranked eighth in route participation this past week and tight end he got to eighty three percent. That's a higher number than what we saw for Kinkaid down the stretch last season when Dawson Knox returned, so better days are likely ahead for Dalton Kinkaid and Kyle Pitts, by the way, ran a route on one hundred percent of Atlanta's dropbacks. He's the only tight end who got there in Week one. Someone on Twitter told me that they were surprised that I didn't have Jamison Williams as an ad this week on the fifteen Transaction Show. But he was rostered in way too many leagues for me to call him out. But yeah, he should be on a roster, and after last week, I'm actually way ahead of the market on Jamison Williams. I like him a lot more. His usage was fantastic. He ran around on ninety four percent of Detroit's dropbacks. His average up at target was fourteen point six that's really solid, and his target share ended up being thirty two percent. Look, I had my question marks about Williams entering the season because even if we used his twenty twenty three numbers as his rookie season, his year two score in my year two model would have just been good, not great. He had an elite prospect score, but we haven't seen many players get it together like this in year three. But I do think that things may have just clicked for Jamison Williams, and this is one of those situations where, given the offensive environment, I don't think it's necessary to not lean into Jamison Williams because the market still has in price fairly low. Fantasy Pros rankers in their rest of season rankings have met wide receiver forty one. Fantasycalc dot Com has met wide receiver forty eight. I've got Williams at wide receiver thirty one, so I'm way way higher than the market. It looks like it just seems like one of those bets to make. It's not like he'd be coming from nowhere. He was an elite prospect coming out. This isn't like Alec Pierce having some big game in his first week of his third year. This is a much better prospect and a better environment, who had way better peripherals. So I guess I'll say it by high on Jamison Williams. I think the risk is worth the reward. The last one this week is a trend that I talked about a bit during the offseason, and it's why I was a little bit higher than the market on Chris a Lave, Alvin Kamara, and Rashid Shahit. Clint Kubiak is bringing more motion to the Saints offense, which is absolutely necessary because last season they ranked dead last in pre snap motion. They ranked dead last in play action rate. In Week one, no team had more pre snap motion than the New Orleans Saints, and next Gen stats they have the Saints in fourth and play action rate. Last year a corner next Gen stats, Chris a Lave was fourth in the league and yards per route run when put in motion. So I would not be concerned if I have Chris a lave on my fantasy roster what the Saints did in Week one. It was not solely driven by matchup. This is a much different offense than what we saw last 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 searching for it pretty much anywhere podcast can be found. Interffort to follow me on Twitter at Late Round QB, and make sure you subscribe to the Late Round Fantasy Football YouTube channel. It's YouTube dot com slash at Late Round ff. Thanks for listening everyone, I'll talk to you tomorrow with the weekly Sleeper Show.