749: Free Agency Fallout

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Speaker 1: This is the Lady Podcast with your host JJ Zachertha.

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Speaker 2: J J Zacherson.

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Speaker 1: What's up everyone, It's JJ zacher Esen in this episode seven hundred and forty nine of the Late Round Fantasy Football podcast sponsored by FanDuel.

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Speaker 2: Thanks for tuning in.

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Speaker 1: I've been doing a whole lot of prospect talk over the last month and a half. It's nice to change things up a bit. As most of you know, the free agency period started in the NFL and a lot has gone down across the league. I've talked about some of those moves on the Mailbag episodes, but as I do each year, this episode right here breaks down all of those free agency moves, or at least a lot of the major ones, and I'll talk about some of the trades that have gone down too. So on today's episode, I'm gonna give some fantasy football takes on what's gone down in free agency. But before digging in, I want to remind you all to check out the Late Round Prospect Guide. It's one hundred and thirty five pages of detailed numbers driven in out this about this year's running back and wide receiver draft classes. But then on top of that, I got an entire section in that guide dedicated to my year two model, which is a model that helps project how well second year players are going to do in year two and in year three. So to help you know what to do with guys like Isaiah Picchecko, Damian Pierce sky Moore what you should do with those guys in dynasty. You can check all of that out right now by heading to lateround dot com and purchasing the guide for just fourteen ninety nine. One of the big moves of this free agency period wasn't even a signing. It was a trade, and it was the trade that the Bears did with the Panthers to get out of the first overall pick. With that deal, DJ Moore became a Chicago Bear. Even though I believe the Bears are going to be more pass heavy this year, I don't think we're looking at a situation where the offense does what the Eagles offense did in twenty twenty two, which was support multiple high end pass catchers. In fantasy football, Chicago had i far the lowest pass rate in the league last year, and it was the lowest that we've seen since at least twenty eleven. That's just as far back as I go. Philadelphia was well above that in twenty twenty one before they took their step forward. But a team like Philly took a step forward not because their passing volume saw this serious spike. They increased their pass attempts per game by just two and a half year over year. It's about efficiency. Can Justin Fields be more efficient in twenty twenty three, I mean, he'd better be the team invested in weapons. That excuse is gone. But in twenty twenty two, Justin Fields was dead last in passing expected points per dropback according to number fires Expected Points model. That's among three hundred plus attempt passers, and it really wasn't even close. That was partially because of his arm, but it was also partially because he takes a lot of sacks.

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Speaker 2: He had a minus point one.

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Speaker 1: Point seven passing expected points per dropback the year prior. Jalen Hurts was nineteenth out of thirty qualified quarterbacks within that statistic, so he was better than Fields, and his per dropback efficiency was significantly better at positive point zero nine.

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Speaker 2: I think you can get.

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Speaker 1: Into a lot of trouble by just assuming giant leaps at the quarterback position. Yes, added weapons helped Josh Allen, it helped Jalen Hurts, and it will help justin fields too. But it's important to look at this from a probability standpoint rather than factually. So you've got an efficiency problem for DJ Moore on top of a volume one. Even if the Bear see the biggest increase in pass attempts per game year over year that we've seen from a team since twenty eleven, they'll still be a run heavy team. They'll still rank in the bottom five, at least the bottom ten in pass attempts. I love DJ Moore the player. He's seen pro rated target chairs of twenty eight percent over his last two seasons. But not only is that going to be hard to come by, but even if he does see that type of target chair in Chicago, that doesn't even guarantee him one hundred and thirty targets in this offense. A lot needs to go right for DJ Moore to be a wide receiver one in fantasy football. Maybe he can hit wide receiver two territory with a huge jump from fields, but I would not be surprised at all. And keep in mind this is me speaking before actually making projections for the season. But I would not be surprised if he was more of a wide receiver three in fantasy football this year, and since this deal went down, he's being drafted more as a low end wide receiver two. Now, speaking of the Bears, David Montgomery is no longer in Chicago. I'll get to that new backfield in the second, but let's talk about Montgomery first. Montgomery's gonna fill the Jamal Williams role in Detroit. It's a role that was pretty awesome for fantasy last year. Williams finish is an RB two and PPR points per game. He averaged thirteen point three points per contest. As we also know, he scored a whole lot of touchdowns. Williams finished the year with seventeen rushing touchdowns. That number has been hit just five other times since twenty eleven. The wild part about his season was that of the other guys who have gotten there, Williams had by far the worst peripherals. He finished last season with a running back rush share per game of sixty one percent. He saw two point nine percent of the team's targets. It was very much like Legarrett Blunt's twenty sixteen season with New England. That year, Blunt scored eighteen times in the ground, He carried seventy four percent of New England's running back rushes, and he had a one point five percent target share in that offense. Lagarrett Bunn had twenty nine goal line attempts that season. That was tied for the third most since twenty eleven. You know who had the most, Jamal Williams, he had thirty three. I'm here to be objective, and objectively numbers like that do not repeat, not from the same player and not from the same role. Blund had twenty nine goal line attempts in twenty sixteen. Like I said, he scored eighteen touchdowns. That next season, all New England running backs combined for sixteen rushing touchdowns on twenty three goal line attempts. So even if one running back saw one hundred percent of those numbers, it still wouldn't have surpassed Lagarrett Blunze twenty sixteen. We've seen twenty five seasons since twenty eleven where running back had twenty or more goal line rushes.

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Speaker 2: Remember Jamal Williams.

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Speaker 1: At thirty three significantly higher than twenty. Those twenty five seasons were made up of twenty two unique players, which means three players did it twice, those three being Michael Turner, Dalvin Cook, and Todd Gurley. And the reason that only three players have done that twice, the reason that only three players have seen multiple seasons of twenty plus goal line attempts is because it's very hard to get that many goal line attempts. It's not common. David Montgomery is going to play that role. Yes, he's probably gonna score a lot of touchdowns, But to anyone thinking he's gonna score Jamal Williams level touchdowns, I think that's a very bad bet based on history. What could be an okay bet is Montgomery seeing work through the air than what Williams did. Maybe that happens, and if you're a believer in that happening, then it can combat that touchdown regression a bit. But don't forget about DeAndre Swift. I know, I know he's burned you. The fantasy community overrates DeAndre Swift. I know, I've heard it, I've seen it, I've seen the takes about Swift, and the Montgomery signing was definitely not good for him at all. But I think it's a mistake to assume that last season is the norm for DeAndre Swift. He was banged up throughout the year, which is a totally separate issue, and he ended the season with a twenty eight percent running back rush air per game. His first year in the league, that number was forty five percent. In year two, it was fifty percent. Last year was twenty eight percent. All the while his per game target share was still fifteen percent. He's seen a thirteen percent, seventeen and a half percent, and fifteen percent target share per game rate over his three years in the league.

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Speaker 2: Those are very good numbers.

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Speaker 1: I just don't think it's rational to think that DeAndre Swift's running back rush are is going to continue to be so low. I mean, among all running backs with eight or more games played last year, Swifts was fiftieth and running back rush are per game fiftieth. You mean to tell me that there are that many running backs were better rushers than DeAndre Swift, or that deserve more work within their offense. He may not rank in the top ten or the top twenty, but I mean the dude had a lower share of his team's running back rushers than James Cook and Kenyan Drake and AJ Dillon last season. The list goes on and on. Maybe that means I'll be higher on Swift and lower on Montgomery. I don't think that's necessarily going to be the case, but maybe that is the case. I just think that kind of context is very important to me. We should not be projecting based on Swift's twenty twenty two season, and that could limit Montgomery more than expected, even with that decent deal that he got. But also keep in mind that both players can thrive in this offense and be fine, maybe not ones, but very fine and usable. We're living in a fantasy football world with tons of running back by committees, and the Lions should be strong offensively, and they should give their backfield plenty of opportunities. After all, they were first in the league and team fantasy points scored at that position last year. Now, with David Montgomery out of Chicago, that Bears backfield looked like it was going to be Khalil Herbert's. They signed Travis Homer, they have truston Ebner, and then there's Herbert, who's been a really, really good runner over his first two years in the league. And then they signed Deontay Formanto, a one year, three million dollar deal. My issue with this signing, aside from making this backfield even more crowded, is that it's a redundant piece to Khalil Herbert. It actually signals to me that while the Bears are doing what they can to surround justin fields with more talent, they still want to have a ground and pound mentality. That's their identity. Deontay Foreman is a bruiser. He ranked fourteenth last season and yards after contact per attempt according to PFF. He's over two hundred and thirty pounds. He was that type of runner as a prospect too. Khalil Herbert was fourth last year in yards after contact per attempt. No one can question if they have players who can break tackles. The problem is neither player has been much of a pass catcher throughout their career. Herbert's been above a fifteen percent target chair in just one career game. Foreman's been that high zero times. Foreman's actually never gotten past a ten percent target chair. Not that there's a ton of value in the pass catching back in an offense like this, but it would definitely give the early down back more of a ceiling. And now that there are redundant pieces back there. We're probably looking at a situation where neither guy is super fantasy relevant without an injury. So it made sense for real football this Deontay Foreman signing, but it may hurt in fake football. I talked about Derek Carr a couple of mailbag episodes ago, so I'll leave that take there. But Carr got a new weapon out of the backfield, and Jamal Williams someone I was talking about earlier. I think this signing is pretty straightforward. Alvin Kamara has historically had some sort of one B in his backfield throughout his career, but over the last two seasons he's seen his two highest running back rush shares. Last year, on a per game basis, he was handling over seventy six percent of the Saints running back rushes. The year before that almost seventy seven percent. During his four years before all that, his average was fifty percent. The Saints didn't really have a backup plan, and they not only need one as Kamara ages, but Kamera could be suspended this year too, so william steps in and he can serve as a change of pace bruiser type, all while seeing a lot of work of Kamara's sideline for any reason, whether that be injury or suspension. What that means for fantasy is that Williams is probably a better best ball type player. I hate to use that as an excuse. I hate to use that in my analysis, but it's true, and he's in that flex with upside territory. Given we know that he's a solid running back. The only quarterback move that I want to talk about on today's show is with Jimmy Garoppolo. I could talk about Baker Mayfield too, but I think we understand that situation a little bit more and that Baker is in any sort of long term solution unless things really really click. Jimmy Garoppolo is a very strange evaluation for me. He himself isn't gonna be anything more than a streamer in fantasy football.

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Speaker 2: More than likely.

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Speaker 1: I mean, in San Francisco, with better weapons, with a better offensive situation, he wasn't more than a streamer. We shouldn't expect more in Vegas. It's also unclear if he's someone who can elevate the guys around him. We know that Kyle shanahan offense is centered around getting the ball in his playmaker's hands and allowing them to generate yards after the catch. That's what that whole offense is about. Jimmy g had some unbelievably low deep ball rates as a forty nine er. He wasn't above fifteen percent on fifteen plus air yard throw rate and any of his last four seasons. The average across the league last year was closer to seventeen percent. Garoppolo hasn't come close to that over his last four Maybe that's why the Raiders went out and got Jakobe Meyer, because they didn't care to have someone who was going to stretch the field since the offense would become more horizontal in nature. They did sign Philip dor Set, another former Patriot, but unless Hunter Renfro and Jacoby Myers are sideline on three wide sets, Dorset's not going to see the field that much.

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Speaker 2: Now. Myers doesn't play.

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Speaker 1: Exclusively the slot, but he's definitely a slot receiver. He's played sixty to seventy percent of his snaps from that area of the field in each of his last three seasons. When we call someone a slot player, it doesn't mean that they're Cole Beasley. It just means that they're usually glued to that part of the field. With Hunter Renfro in the mix. In Vegas, though, I would imagine that we see Myers more on the outside, and I'm not sure that's the biggest deal in the world either, depending on your expectation. According to PFF, Meyers scored half of his touchdowns last year from the slot, and he saw about fifty five percent of his targets from that area of the field, but he ran almost seventy percent of his routes from there, so he actually didn't perform horribly outside that area of the field. Now, Mac Collins played this perimeter role last year for the Raiders. He saw almost a seventeen percent target chair per game rate, which is not that bad. And Myers is a better player than mac Collins and Darren Waller's now out, so I think that Jacobe Myers could approach a twenty percent target chair in this offense. And this also leads me to believe that they're going to use DeVante Adams just like they did last season. I don't think people realize how vertical adams role was. In twenty twenty two, Mac Collins had the highest average up the target on that team among the trio of wide receivers who saw the most targets, but.

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Speaker 2: It was only by a yard.

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Speaker 1: Adams had the highest aid out of his career last year, and he saw a fifteen plus air yard target on almost thirty percent of his targets. That was the second highest rate of his career. And the thing is, Jimmy g may not have pushed it down the field that often in San Francisco, but he was really accurate on fifteen plus air yard throws in two of his three seasons there where he saw a lot of volume. He did fall a bit this past year, but I think Garoppolo can sustain what Derek Carr was doing essentially, So to me, I think we're gonna see Jacobe Myers play more on the outside, and I would expect mostly the same from Devonte Adams. Maybe we see a dip in target chare because the rapport isn't there, at least not yet. But Garoppolo can hit those intermediate and deeper throws just as well as Derek Carr can. That's what the numbers say at least, and I would expect more eleven personnel from the Raiders now that Darren Waller's out more three wide sets, and that could actually really help Hunter Renfro, who often played behind Matt Collins last year.

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Speaker 2: So if they want to get their best.

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Speaker 1: Playmakers out there, they're gonna have to run more eleven personnel. So all of this is to say that things seem pretty neutral for the Raiders in my opinion. Maybe there's a slight downgrade because Garoppolo has only done serious work in an easier system, but it definitely could be worse. Let's go from the Raiders to an X Raider and Darren Waller. Waller was traded to the Giants, and it's a team that really didn't use their tight ends that much last year. Only the Bills and the Dolphins had lower tight end team target chair. But I say this all the time. Personnel can often drive those numbers. Walder immediately becomes a top option in that offense, and he should command a high target share as long as he's healthy. This is where you can often find edges in fantasy football because a lot of people are gonna automatically assume that this offense just doesn't run through tight ends, that tight ends just don't matter. But it's important to layer personnel on top of that even if you want to look at what Dable did in Buffalo. Sure they didn't use tight ends that much, but they also didn't have a Darren Waller type tight end. Again, that's assuming that he's healthy, which has not been a give in the last two years with only twenty games played.

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Speaker 2: But Daniel Jones targeted.

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Speaker 1: The slot a lot last year because the Giants lacked a perimeter presence. To me, that tells us that he'll be looking to throw to his best players. The Giants were twenty fifth in raw pass attempts last year, but they were eighteenth in overall targets to the slot. My stance overall is that if Waller is healthy, he should be competing for mid.

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Speaker 2: Tight end one territory.

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Speaker 1: I think the days of him being a dominant tight end one and fantasy football are probably done. But the Giants are trending up, and if they increase their pass volume, which may naturally happen this year, Wallert could see a lot of looks in that offense that lacks alternatives. Now I'll just group Juju, Smith, Schuster, and Mike Kasiki together and talk about this new look Patriots offense.

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Speaker 2: Straight up.

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Speaker 1: Juju looks like he's gonna replace Jacoby Myers. You know, last year we actually saw the Chiefs move Juju around quite a bit. According to PFF, smith Shuster ran forty three percent of his routes from the slot. That was a career low, and he ended up seeing a seventeen percent target share in that offense per game, which was also a low since his rookie season. I don't think that's a coincidence. I mean, Juju smith Schuster is a slot receiver, and given Jacoby Myers was getting close to that seventy percent mark in the slot, I would imagine that Juju season uptick there, that he's going to play more in the slot this year than he did last year, and that should increase his target share in that offense. And even though this offense is going to score far, far fewer touchdowns and wh Smith Schuster saw with Kansas City last year, he still only scored three times.

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Speaker 2: In twenty twenty two.

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Speaker 1: He had one touchdown on sixteen red zone targets. Based on where he was seeing his looks last year, he should have been closer to five touchdowns. For PPR purposes, I don't think this is that bad of a spot for Juju at least to be like a wide receiver three were there better landing spots, of course, but he could see a high target chair in this particular offense. He basically could replicate what Jacobe Myers did last year, and then Mikekaseiki could have had a worse landing spot too. I guess it could have been better, for sure, there are some teams out there that really need a tight end, but it could have been worse. I know John new Smith had a pretty underwhelming time in New England with nine to ten percent target chairs in that offense, but Kasiki is a better natural pass catcher and receiver than John new Smith is, so maybe he can get into that thirteen to fifteen percent target shair range. And maybe Bill O'Brien goes tight end heavy like we've seen at times in the past. But it's still an offense. It's probably not going to run a ton of plays, and it's not going to be super pass Basically, I would be surprised if either of these guys dominates in fantasy football next year. Tight End is bad enough to where Kasiki could end up being a usable piece and Juju might have an ok floor. But I would not bet on these guys being league winning players. The Carolina Panthers really didn't have that much going for them at the skill positions entering free agency, and they still kind of don't at the time.

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Speaker 2: Of this recording.

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Speaker 1: There are rumors that they're gonna get DJ Shark, but they also signed Miles Sanders, Adam Thielen, and Hayden Hurst. Chances are a rookie quarterback is going to play the vast majority of their quarterback snaps this season, and that's generally a bad thing for all positions in an offense. I talked about that all the way back on episode five hundred and eighteen. I think at this moment Adam Thielen is the best bet to lead that team in targets. But we have to be realistic about the kind of player that Adam Thielen is. He's seen his yards per route run rate drop in three consecutive seasons, and it was one point zero six this past year. That's really not good at all. Among all one hundred plus target wide receiver since twenty eleven, that yards per route run rate fifth worst. Right now, I would honestly rather just throw darts at terras Marshall. Not that I think he's gonna revive things and become this stud, but there's probably more upside given that he's entering year three. He's on the right side of his age curve. Now, I don't think that Hayden Hurst is someone to get super detailed about here, so let's just move to Miles Sanders. It's a good landing spot considering there's nothing else that Carolina backfield right now. But Duce Staley is the Carolina Panthers assistant coach and running backs coach, and that's not good news. We saw the split backfield in Detroit, which is where duce Staley was. We saw him not give Miles Sanders a bell cow workload in Philadelphia, and there's a tweet from the athletics Joe person who covers the Panthers for them. There's a tweet that says that duce Staley believes in using three running backs because the position is like being in a quote car wreck. I would highly, highly doubt that the Panthers enter the season with this running back room, and this is a deep running back class, so I would imagine that they try to add a running back, maybe with a third rounder. That they have or one of their fourth rounders. Sanders has never been a back who commands a high target chair either, so I'm not super bowlish on his fantasy outlook. He may end up getting by with volume, but it's not like the Panthers' offense is going to be shredding defenses next year. More than likely, Rashad Penny signed with the Eagles, and when it happened, everyone on Fantasy Twitter was understandably excited. Penny's been insanely banged up throughout his NFL career, but he's absolutely shown flashes. We all remember his stretch at the end of the twenty twenty one season where he won some fantasy leagues for people, and even last year he was effective on the ground. Over the last two years, he's outproduced his running back teammates in yards per carry by one point five yards and two point zero yards among all the fifty plus attempt rushers over these last two seasons. Those are both top five numbers. He has two of the top five seasons within that stat The biggest issue with Penny in Seattle was that he was never seeing looks through the air. He had a sub four percent target shair per game rate in every season there, but Philadelphia is the right spot for that to not matter. The Eagles were dead last and running back target share last year. Miles Sanders still got by behind a good offensive line and a lot of scoring opportunities. You could argue that a healthy Reshod Penny could be even more effective than Miles Sanders on the ground. Just don't sleep on the Eagles continuing to add pieces of that backfield. Kenneth Gainwell can steal some pass catching work, but Penny didn't sign for a whole lot of money at all. Philly could very easily add another piece during the draft. I just wouldn't expect it to be an early round one. Penny does have potential to replicate what Miles Sanders did last year. Just be aware that Sanders did outperform in the touchdown column by a couple of scores. Now, let's finish today's show by talking about the Cowboy. They did a few interesting things over the last couple of weeks, including keeping Tony Pollard around, getting rid of Ezekiel Elliott, and trading for Brandon Cooks. Pollard was someone who helped the hashtag brand a whole lot last year. I think he's an awesome player clearly, and I don't think I really need to talk about his upside without Zeke because we saw it last year. It's an RB one in Fantasy football, even a top six running back. But it's very clear that the Cowboys are going to do something more at running back. They're probably going to draft a running back. It's just Pollard to Malik Davis right now, and that's a problem. I don't think they'll be the ones who land Bjon Robinson, but we've seen them do irrational things with running back selections in the past. I do think that there's a chance at a better than expected running back lands there, and that may move Pollard's value downward in the market. We now have years of data showing us that the Cowboys don't view Tony Pollard as a true bell cow back. He's just so good that he can still be fantasy relevant. But he had a forty four percent running back rush air per game rate last year to go along with a ten point six percent target share per game rate. Those are good numbers, but they're nothing to write home about. I could absolutely see them adding one of the bigger bodied backs in this draft, whether it's a guy like Kendre Miller, maybe Izzy Abanacanada or Roshan Johnson. So as much as I love Pollard, as much as I want to see all the volume go to him, the depth chart tells us that there's more to come. Ezekiel Elliott as competition for Tony Pollard might have honestly been better than whatever they end up doing. And I love the Brandon Cooks move. I saw a lot of tweets saying that he was toast, but I don't really agree with that. He had a one point sixty four yards per route run rate last year, which isn't great, but it's fine, and that was on a team with really bad quarterback play. Cook's yards per route run was actually half a yard better than his wide receiver teammates. It was almost identical to Nico Collins, and that was all while having Ish Shooes with the team. I think it's a move the Cowboys desperately need to make in order to get a vertical threat in that offense. And he's still just twenty nine years old. It seems like Brandon Cooks should be thirty five, but he'll be thirty in September. So Pollard is going to get competition, and Cooks is the right fit for this offense, so Dak gets a boost. It should open things up for Cede Lamb and Michael Gallup gets knocked down, and Nico Collins is a little bit more interesting now too. That's the fantasy football impact of those moves.

00:25:31
Speaker 2: Now.

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Speaker 1: I know there are other things that happen in free agency, and obviously when players leave teams there's a domino effect. So if you have any more questions about this stuff, feel free to ask them For future mailbag episodes, I'll gladly answer, or join the Late Round Fantasy Football Patreon, where I'm going to be having more Q and A sessions now that things are starting to pick up again. But that's it for today's show. Thanks to all of you for listening. If you get subscribe to the Late Round Fantasy Football podcast, make sure you are by searching for it pretty much anywhere podcast can be found, and don't to follow me on Twitter at Late Round QB. Before I let you go, we've got another donation. Scott has decided to donate five guides, and as he told me, he doesn't want his arch nemesis to get it, so go to Lateround dot com and when you purchase this year's Prospect Guide, use promo code anyone butt Keegan and you'll get a free guide if you're one of the first five people to do that. Again, there are only five uses of that code, so when you're purchasing the guide and using that code, you'll know that it worked if you're purchasing for zero dollars. If it's not zero dollars, it means the five uses of that discount code have already been used up and again, the discount code is anyone butt Keegan, and please only use the code if you know that you're going to be unable to pay for the guide this year. This is really the community at work trying to pay it forward and it's greatly greatly appreciated. Thanks for listening everyone. I'll talk to you later in the week.