292: Mailbag 10/4/19

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Speaker 1: This is the Label Podcast with your host JJ zacher Retha j J zacher reson.

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Speaker 2: What's up everyone?

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Speaker 1: It's JJ Zachareson, the editor in chief at Fandel and at number fire dot com. And this is episode two hundred and ninety two of the Late Round podcast, one of the many shows that are part of the FanDuel podcast Network. Thanks for tuning in for all you lovely Fandel Podcast Network listeners. We've got another FanDuel free play this week where you can win number five premium subscriptions in a little bit of cash. To enter, just go to Fandel dot com slash League slash number Fire. That's Fandel dot com Slash League slash number Fire to join this week's free play exclusively for FanDuel Podcast Network listeners. I kind of got into things quickly today and today is a mailbag show. And the first question comes from at Brian eight one two seven five, and it says, should you sell high on Leonard Fournett? No, I don't think that you sell high on Fournette because Fournette's getting some of the best usage at running back in football this year. He's seen eighty nine percent of his team's running back rushes and with an eighteen percent target share. The only players who are seeing better work than that are Le'Veon Bell and Christian McCaffrey and Fournette. Like I talked about on this week's ten Trend Show, he's the number one player for positive touchdown regression. When you look at yards versus touchdowns or how many yards a player has versus how many touchdowns they have. He's not someone that I would want to trade away right now.

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Speaker 2: Now.

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Speaker 1: Speaking of that yards to touchdown conversation, this next question says you sometimes refer to average yards per touchdown when talking about regression to the mean, do you think more context is needed, like offensive style, game situation, et cetera. It seems like a very broad stat but perhaps I'm overthinking things. Yeah, it is a broad stat. I hope I'm clear when I've talked about this in the past that using yards to spot touchdown regression is just a high level way of doing things. It should tell you to invent to gate further. For example, let's just go back and look at Leonard Fournette. If Fournette had all of these yards but he wasn't being used at all in the red zone, then Fournette wouldn't be as strong of a positive touchdown regression candidate. And then, sort of on the flip side, the players who generally outperform in that metric are in good offenses and they're seeing a lot of work of the goal line, like Todd Gurley last season. But those extreme examples shouldn't mean that we don't pay attention to the ratio. Everything needs context. Any piece of data needs some sort of context, meaning stand alone, it's not perfect, But as I always say, this is a game about probability. So if there's a player who's gotten a ton of yards from scrimmage but he hasn't found the end zone, I wouldn't bank on that player to continue to not find the end zone. I also think it's just a simple way of thinking about how touchdown regression works. It can be a confusing topic for a lot of people who aren't as into fantasy football as some of us are, some of us degenerates. But if you tell people look, if a player is seeing a lot of yards, generally he sees a lot of touchdowns too, then it starts to click for people. So to answer your question, yes, that type of analysis absolutely needs context. Players aren't all used the same way, and they're not all in the same offensive situations, but at the same time, that's not reason to ignore it. This next question is from at Grant zero zero seven nine zero eight five seven. You guys like your numbers In your Twitter handles, it says, how do you feel about handcuffing your running back? Still a no in your book. I'm cool with hoarding handcuffs right now if you need a high end bench stash, but I would also say that there aren't many handcuffs that are worth rostering to begin with.

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Speaker 2: You may think that you know who the handcuff.

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Speaker 1: Is for a certain player, but you probably don't, at least that's how it's been historically. But players like Tony Pollard and Alexander Madison, they should be rostered right now. I'm just not a fan of drafting them because of a study that I did a few years ago that says, number one, we don't usually get the handcuff right. Number two, when they do actually become starters, they underperform. And number three, the average running back injury, the average big running back injury generally doesn't come at the beginning of the season, So during your draft you're better off just taking flyers who aren't solely handcuffs but can carve out a role without an injury. Now, the term handcuff is different for everyone. I just see it as players who have no value unless an injury occurs. So that's the lens that I'm looking through when talking about them. This next question says, as Antonio Brown, a hold or a drop. Now, I've gotten this question a lot, so I'm just gonna answer it quickly.

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Speaker 2: Drop it like guitar, Drop it like guitar, Drop it like guitar.

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Speaker 1: This next question is from at Garrett Underscore Miller Underscore, because it's hard to find all four in a streaming defense. How do you rank these from most to least important? Being at home favored, good at getting sacks and pressure, opponent gives up sacks and pressure. So look, I know fantasy managers like yourself, Garrett, want a checklist to go down in order to make optimal decisions in fantasy football. But there's never gonna be a clear cut answer for something like this, and I think I need to say that before I dig further into this question. And it's a good question, but I think that that just needs to be said. So all four of those things are really important. Since you're streaming a defense, you're likely looking at opponent first, So I would say the opponent giving up sacks and pressure is more important than the defense itself getting sacks and pressure. If you've got a defense that has a ton of sacks but it is going up against a good offense and offensive line, you still won't want to use that defense. But if the opponent is bad, you're fine with using almost any defense in the NFL. I also wouldn't put being favored at the top of this list because sports books aren't always right. It's an input that you want to focus on because you want that positive game script for a defense, but scripts can go south in any game all the time, especially if they're only small favorites. I'd rather know I'm getting a bad matchup or a good matchup for the defense, because that's something that's not necessarily script dependent. So at a high level, it's looking at the opposing offense first, are they bad?

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Speaker 2: Do they turn the ball over a lot and get act a lot?

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Speaker 1: And then from there I'd want my defense to be at home as favorites, and then I'll worry about how good that defense actually is, but all four of those things are very very important. This next question is from at Mordy Lazar. What is your take on the Bucks wide receivers? Is there any trend to see if it'll be in Evans versus a Godwin game. I think this is a good example of sort of creating a narrative based on a small sample size, because moving forward, we shouldn't just assume that each game will be an Evans game or a Godwin game. Matchups won't always dictate that. But let's just start with what's gone down so far this year. Week one, it wasn't anyone's game. Godwin was the wide receiver thirty one, and Evans, who was sick physically ill, he was wide receiver seventy nine. Week two Godwin game, but it was reported that Evans still wasn't one hundred percent for that game. And not only that, but James Bradbury has had Evans number. Evans was four for sixty one and Week two, and last year he was four for forty eight and one for sixteen against Carolina. He only had five catches against them last year Week three Evans game. Because the Giant secondary is trash and if you can throw the ball down the field, which is what Evans role is more so than Chris Godwins, then you do it. That's what Bruce arians wants to do. He has a vertical offense. Week four Godwin game. The Rams haven't been great though against the slot this year. They've allowed thirty nine percent of the targets that they've faced to go to that area of the field. It's one of the highest rates in the league. Godwin played sixty three percent of his snaps from the slot on Sunday, and he caught seven of nine targets from there for one hundred and six yards in a touchdown.

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Speaker 2: And it's not like Mike Evans was bad in that game either.

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Speaker 1: So my general point here is that it's hard to say that one player is dominating, therefore the other one isn't. I wouldn't label each week as a Godwin week or in Evans week, especially with the small sample sizes that we're working with. I'd just look at both players as really good weekly options moving forward. This next question is from at burnsall level of panic for Juju. Yeah, so I talked about this a little bit on yesterday's Matchup show. How the industry isn't really reacting enough to what's going down in Pittsburgh. You can't treat Juju Smith Schuster as a wide receiver one or a high end wide receiver two right now. He doesn't have Ben Roethlisberger, and Mason Rudolph isn't locked into Juju the way that Ben has historically been locked into his top wideouts historically. Juju had just thirteen percent of Pittsburgh's targets last week, which just isn't gonna cut it. So it's probably tough to trade him right now, but I definitely wouldn't be buying him. This next question says, why do most rest of season ranks play it conservatively with low ceiling bench guys who get dropped or benched for injury, promoted handcuffs, and matchup rentals being ranked above up and comers. Maybe a new format of bench stash rankings is needed. Yeah, So, I mean, I don't look at a lot of rest of season rankings generally, so I don't know what they typically look like. But my guess is that they're being conservative in order to be accurate, and because they're working off a projections. For example, you can't project Tony Pollard for a lot of Fantasy points. From here on out, you may have Adam Humphries with more points, giving him a better rest of season ranking. But we know that Tony Pollard is a better bench stash than Adam Humphries is because if Zeke goes down, you have a very usable piece in your lineup. So that's just my guess as to why rankings look the way that they do. This next question is from at G. Santos seven to five. How do you go about making your starting lineup decisions? What are the most important factors to you? I seem to always get these decisions wrong, so I love your insight.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, so I think this is really what the Matchup show is about. Each week.

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Speaker 1: I fully recognize that a lot of players that I talk about on that show aren't on people's rosters, but you at least get to hear some of the things that I go through when I'm deciding who to play or who I like. And on that show, I'll reference over unders to see which games should have a lot of scoring. I'll look at cornerback data, I'll see where players are being lined up, and most importantly, I'll focus on vaultvolume. Volume is the single most important thing to fantasy football, and it always will be period. So if I'm between two players and one of them is in a cake matchup and the other one's in a tough one while seeing volume, I'm gonna go with the ladder always. But again, I don't have like a checklist to go through to help you weigh your start sit choice. But here's the other thing about start sit decisions. I try to be open and honest about this on my Facebook live each week, which, by the way, you should tune into Sunday's Facebook Live at noon Eastern on the FanDuel Facebook page. But a lot of times I have no strong feelings one way or another about a start sit choice, and I'll let that be known. I mean, if you think about it, the reason that you have a start sit decision in the first place is because you're talking about fringe players. You're talking about guys you typically don't plug and play. So don't beat yourself up if you've missed some start sit choices with a small sample size this year, that's gonna happen. We should always try to be as optimal as we can with the information that we have but sometimes the decisions that we make really are fifty to fifty. This last question is from at snack under score Mac. If you're in a ten team redraft league, how long would you hold on to Miles Sanders before going after potentially more usable pieces on the waiver wire. He's been sitting on my bench since I drafted him. I mean, I would argue that there likely isn't a better asset sitting on your waiver wire right now, so I would just keep holding on to Miles Sanders. He's still been somewhat usable this year without finding the end zone, but you still shouldn't be dropping running backs who have seen double digit carries in every game this season. Now.

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Speaker 2: I do believe that the.

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Speaker 1: Breakout may come later rather than sooner since Jordan Howard's playing well. But Sanders is the right kind of player to have on your bench because he not only can fill in if you're in a pinch, but he also has upside if Jordan Howard goes down. This last question says, what is your final definitive stance on kickers and Fantasy football? Look, I'd rather not have kickers in my league, but I do think that people go a little bit too far when talking about their unpredictability. There's plenty of unpredictability in all of fantasy football, and there's a process for selecting the right kicker. You want guys in good offenses who are likely to score points and have leads.

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Speaker 2: It's pretty straightforward, but you still.

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Speaker 1: See people rostering underdogs and kickers in bad offenses, which shows you that there still is an edge with selecting kickers. Now, I'd rather have a regular flex spot instead of a kicker, but I also don't hate kickers like some others do in the industry. That's gonna do it for today's show, though. Thanks to all of you guys for listening. If you've got to subscribe to the Late Round podcast, make sure you are by searching for it pretty much anywhere podcasts can be found. Don't forget to follow me on Twitter at Late Round QB. Thanks everyone, enjoy your weekend and good luck in Week five.