397: Players to Target

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Speaker 1: This is the Late Podcast with your host JJ Zachertha J J zacher reson What's up everyone. It's JJ Zacharyesen, the editor in chief at fandel and at Number five dot com. And this is episode three hundred and ninety seven of the Late Round podcast on the many shows that are part of the FanDuel podcast Network. Thanks for tuning in. We fit the part of the year where this podcast makes the shift from talking about high level strategy and process to stuff that's going on specifically this year. That's what happened last week when I talked about early season schedule analysis. As much as I love doing studies on ways to find breakout players and how your draft strategy should change based on where league winning players come from, we've got to focus on this singular season two. I don't want to leave you guys hanging. Like I said last week, I talked through early season schedule analysis that was obviously specific to this Wild Wild twenty twenty season. Today, the plan is to talk through some players that I'm targeting in fantasy drafts, and then next week I'll give a handful of players that I'm avoiding. It seems straightforward, and it is, but I do want to say before I get going today that the way that I draft isn't always just target specific guys in every single draft, making sure I don't leave my draft without them. Your consideration set of players should be pretty big in each draft. There are lots and lots of players who are going to be relevant in fantasy football this year. I've gathered a group of players that I'll talk about on today's show who seem to be undervalued. It seems like they're the right bets to make in your draft and to make it more actionable for you. The majority of these players are very, very draftable. They're mostly mid and late round picks. That means they have a higher likelihood to bust. Sure, but my plan is to be detailed and thoughtful with how I'm breaking down each of these players so that you can understand where I'm coming from with each recommendation. So, yes, this is a very simple episode. In the end, it's hey, draft these players of show. But I don't want to give you a list of guys and just log out. I want to explain it all so that you can understand the why, and you can take that why and attribute the process to other players. That you might be wanting to draft. Now, before get into those players, I want to send another reminder that number fire is rolling out a new premium package for just nine to ninety nine per month that will provide you with all the sports betting and daily fantasy tools that you need year round. What used to be up to forty nine to ninety nine a month is now just nine to ninety nine, and a lot of your favorite tools and expert analysis is now free, including number Fire's Draft kit, which inside you can get rankings from yours truly, So head to number fire dot com and check it out. So just so everyone knows, I wrote up these players to target over on number Fire last week, so you can get this list on there if you want. But since you're listening to the podcast, I'm going to throw out some additional names that didn't make that article. But the first player who was in the article who I think is a good late round quarterback target this year is Jared Goff. I've talked about this a lot on the show in the past, but there are really two main ways for quarterbacks to far exceed their average draft position in fantasy football. One way is through rushing the Konami code. As rich Reebar once wrote about years ago, rushing is a cheat code for fantasy football quarterbacks. Since twenty eleven, there have been twenty three seasons where a quarterback ran for five hundred or more yards. In eleven of those instances, that quarterback finishes a top five option in fantasy football, and sixteen of them finishes top ten ones. Rushing gives quarterbacks who can't pass very well or may struggle in passing statistics, like a Josh Allen type, it gives them a path to scoring fantasy points despite those struggles. But the other way to see a solid season from a quarterback is through touchdown rate or touchdowns divided by attempts. Since twenty eleven, we've had twenty seven instances where a quarterback was a top five option while rushing for fewer than three hundred yards, So those quarterbacks were scoring points largely with their arms. Only one of those twenty seven had a touchdown rate that year that was under five percent, and the average touchdown rate among that group was six point three percent. For context, the average league wide touchdown rate over this time four point four percent. So with Jared Goff, we're clearly banking on a player who would secure a higher touchdown rate because he's not going to give you that much juice with his legs, and I do think that Goff has the right kind of touchdown rate upside. During his first two years with Sean McVay, Goff had a touchdown rate of five point nine percent and five point seven percent. He finishes a QB one in each of those seasons in points per game. Then last year happened where his touchdown rate was just three and a half percent. That's likely to regress. Not only is that below his average, but the Rams had the second lowest pass to rush touchdown ratio last year, and that's a number that tends to regress at the team level year over year. I talked about that on episode three hundred and eighty seven. I'm also intrigued by the fact that Goff has multiple pass catchers being drafted fairly early in fantasy drafts this year. According to my Fantasy League dot COM's ADP data, we've had sixty occasions over the last nine years where two or more wide receivers and tight ends from the same team were drafted in the top sixty. So pass catching teammates in the first five rounds of drafts. The average quarterback finish from those teams has been QB eleven, and of the quarterbacks in that sample that were drafted QB fifteen or later, which is Jared Goff's range, seven of those eight ended up outperforming their ADP. To put this another way, if a late round quarterback has multiple pass catchers being drafted early, he's likely going to outperform expectation. There's a lot working in Jared Goff's favor. I love him in a two quarterback or a super flex format, but I do think that he should be serviceable in a single quarterback league. I'm confident that he's going to exceed expectation this year. Another quarterback to target is Jimmy Garoppolo. I kind of gave this away last week on the Early season Schedule Analysis episode, but Garoppolo is a great target for anyone looking to stream the position this year. Not only are the forty nine ers likely to regress positively because teams that run as much as they did last year almost always pass more the following year, but the opening schedule is amazing. The forty nine ers get Arizona in Week one, followed by the Jets, Giants, Eagles, and Dolphins. Pro Football Focus ranks those team secondaries all outside the top ten, and the Jets and Giants are in the bottom six. Fandal Sportsbook already has the forty nine Ers as eight and a half point favorites in their Week one game against Arizona, and that game has a forty six and a half point over under Garoppolo has some upside just naturally this year, with the forty nine Ers potentially throwing the ball more and him having another season in that offense, but at the very least he'll be a good streamer to start the year. The other thing to keep in mind here, though, and this is not part of my article on number fire, but if Cam Newton's ADP doesn't rise anymore, I think he's a very very good target. We should be shure voting for upside with our late round quarterback picks. And Cam obviously has that He's played eight seasons with fourteen or more games played. In those eight seasons, he's finished as a top five quarterback five different times, and he gets Miami in Week one, so he could get off to a nice start. So I would argue strongly that Cam Newton is the ideal late round quarterback this year if his ADP holds. I sort of alluded to this on the Mailbag episode that drops soon after he signed with New England. But if Cam's ADP rises, or you just don't want to take on the risk, you could easily pivot to Jimmy Garoppolo. The only early round pick that I rode up and I'm going to talk about today is Miles Sanders. A lot of fantasy managers are going to be picking from that running back tier this year, and they may not know which direction to go. You've got Kenyan Drake, You've got Austin Eckler, Nick Chubb, and even Joe Mixon, and I think Miles Sanders is the direction that you want to move in. The knock against Sanders is largely Doug Peterson related. Since Peterson became head coach, we haven't really seen a running back own that backfield. The highest single season rushing share by an Eagle's running back during the Peterson era has been forty six point four percent. Twenty six different running backs hit that mark last season alone, and that's the team's highest share under Doug Peterson. But it's no coincidence that Miles Sanders was the guy to get to that mark. It's not like Philadelphia has had good running backs under Peterson. The leading rusher during this era is Wendell Smallwood. We saw what Sanders is capable of last year when Jordan Howard was out. In seven games. Without Howard, his running back rush share rose to about sixty seven percent and his target share per game was twelve point two percent. That's almost double the running back rush shoar that he had with Jordan Howard healthy, and the target share per game rose by about three percentage points. Sanders ended up averaging seventeen point two PPR points per game without Jordan Howard, it was ten point nine with him. You may say that this is the result of a lack of alternatives in the Eagles offense, but what did they do to change that. It's not like they invested in the running back position this offseason. The fact is Miles Sanders is a direct path to be a workhorse running back. Push aside the Peterson narrative. A lot of coaching data like that is driven by personnel, and Peterson hasn't had a running back like Miles Sanders. At worst, Sanders is a committee back who is a good shot to at least match expectation. At best. He jumps into the tier of warkhorse backs of the true workhorse guys, and with the Eagles having a nine and a half win total this year, that means a lot of positive game scripts and that should help Sanders tremendously. I talked about Daryl Henderson on the Mailbag show last week, and I said that I talked about him on this episode, and here we are. I think Darryl Henderson is the right type of running back to target this year. And this is me after talking down on the type of season that he had as a rookie, since bad rookie seasons shouldn't give us a lot of hope for what's to come for players. In Fantasy Football episode three hundred and four three from earlier this offseason covered that. But here's why I like Darryl Henderson despite that fact, and despite the fact that the Rams drafted a running back who I like a lot, in cam Akers with a Day two pick this year, Henderson is just way too cheap right now given the things that are actually in his favor. Because there are things in his favor. First, off, we don't know for sure what this Rams backfield is going to look like and how the touches are going to be split. I do think cam Akers is the best bet to lead that backfield, And please don't take my recommendation to draft Darryl Henderson as one to avoid cam Akers. I wouldn't draft them on the same team. But I think having exposure to Acres makes some sense too. But Sean McVay has already hinted at sort of a hot hand approach to that backfield. Whether that comes to fruition or not, who knows, but he has said it. But if your argument for Acres getting a whole lot of touches has to do with draft capital, I'm not sure that holds a ton of weight because Darryl Henderson was a Day two pick last year and the Rams traded up to get him and he didn't do anything. If the argument is that cam Akers is a lot better, I can't argue against that. I think Acres is a better running back than Darryl Henderson too, But I'm looking at this with a probability lens. There's a massive cost difference between Acres and Henderson. There's no significant opportunity cost when you take Henderson, but there is with cam Akers. It's easy to just say, just get Cam Akers, he's better, but you can't just do that while ignoring cost. Not only that, but you might remember that in the breakout running back study from this offseason, one of the things that was pretty glaring was that breakout running backs usually come from ambiguous backfields. The starters at the breakout running backs that we've seen over the last decade, the starters entering the season were usually being drafted at the end of round five and into round six. So breakout running backs that were being drafted in round eleven, round twelve, round thirteen, the starting running back on those players teams, they weren't being drafted very high. That's basically what we're seeing with the Rams, and it's not like Henderson with some scrub prospect. One of the most predictive metrics that I use in my prospect model for running backs is total yards per team play. Over the last two years, the only player with a better mark in that category than Darryl Henderson is from Jonathan Taylor. And the Rams in general have a pretty good offense to invest in. They weren't as good offensively last year, but since Sean McVeigh became head coach, only the Saints and the Chiefs have scored more touchdowns than the Rams. Again, I can't stress this enough. I'm not drafting Daryl Henderson above cam Akers. I'm merely pointing out that this could go in a lot of different directions and the market is probably being a little bit too harsh on Darryl Henderson. It's no secret that I thought that Keyshawn Vaughn was a very solid prospect when he went to Tampa Bay in the third round. His value was sky high, but things have gotten a lot worse since then. There have been reports about Ronald Jones still being the main starter. Then Vaughn was placed in the COVID nineteen list, which means that he'll see even fewer reps than normal during this pandemic preseason. And in this past week the Bucks went out and they signed Lashaw McCoy. I'm fully expecting Keishan Vaughan to have a very low ADP. Bestballtens dot Com had his ADP in the eighties back when he was drafted, and then that dropped over the last couple of months to one hundred and ten, and now with the Lashaw McCoy signing, it's probably gonna drop even more. But I think he's the right type of risk reward bet to make. I don't think the likelihood of him being an RB one this year is like exceptionally high, but that's the case for anyone being drafted late. I just think that he's the best bet among those players. Let's talk about Bruce Arians and what he said before the NFL combine. First, he said, quote, you can see them all run. I want to see them catch. In college football, they don't do a lot of pass blocking, so that's always a big step for them. Can they be a receiver that separates guys from having to come off the field. I had Christian Nakoye who led the league, but he never played on third down. James never came off the field. Marshall Falk never came off the field. For me, I'm looking for that type of guy. Ronald Jones was not that type of guy under Bruce Arians last year. His highest single game snapshare was only fifty three percent. Eighteen different running backs averaged that all of last year, and Jones has struggled with pass protection and pass catching. He entered the NFL with a low final season reception share of four point two percent, and he hasn't been a high volume pass catcher in two years in the league. In Pro Football Focus gave him a below average pass blocking grade last year. After arians made that quote, the next move that the Bucks made was drafting Keishan Vaughn, who was a do it all back from Vanderbilt. Vaughn averaged one point seventy five total yards per team play last year. That was well above this year's draft class average, and he ranked second in the class in final season touchdown share and final season reception share. He has the ability to play that pass catching role in the Bucks offense. Meanwhile, Tom Brady, the Bucks new quarterback, he's targeted the running back position a lot over the last handful of years. The last time the Patriots ranked outside the top eight and running back target share was twenty fourteen. And look, maybe that work goes to Ronald Jones or Lashaw McCoy or even Dara a Goombawalle. That's totally possible, but I don't think it's crazy to think that Keishan Vaughn could grow into that role. Maybe it doesn't happen right away, but he's got the right skill set. I'm basically at the point where I think any of the Buccaneers running backs are worth drafting if you're playing in a bunch of different leagues. That includes Lashawn McCoy. Don't write off McCoy given the exact same quote and logic that I just talked about, I still have things ranked as Jones, then Vaughn, and then McCoy, just to be clear, and you know it's funny. I sent this tweet out after McCoy signed with the Buccaneers this past week because the parallels are just really weird. But in twenty fifteen, Bruce Arian's Cardinals signed veteran Chris Johnson after drafting twenty three year old David Johnson in the third round, and David Johnson was looking to replace a speedy back in Andre Ellington. Now fast forward five years to today and Bruce arians Buccaneers signed veteran Lashawn McCoy after drafting twenty three year old Keyshawn Vaughn in the third round and Vaughn was looking to replace a speedy back in Ronald Jones. It doesn't really mean anything aside from the fact that it's funny and interesting. But don't forget that David Johnson ended up crushing it down the stretch during his rookie year when he finally got his opportunity. I've been into Deontay Johnson all off season, so of course I'm buying into the hype. Johnson had a nineteen percent target share last year, which was fourth best among all rookie wideouts. Only DK Metcalf, Terry McLaurin, and AJ Brown had a higher target share. He also led all rookie wideouts and receptions, and that was with really crappy quarterbacks, like really really crappy quarterbacks now Ben Roethlisberger's back. During the four years prior to last season, the Steelers ranked in the top ten in every single year in neutral script pass to rush attempt ratio. They were consistently one of the most past friendly teams in the league with Ben Roethlisberger. Maybe we don't see as much of a pass heavy offense this year, given Roethlisberger's coming off that injury, and the Steelers have a good defense, so there could be more positive game scripts. But regardless, the team's single season low and pass attempts since twenty twelve is five hundred and seventy four that resulted in five hundred and sixty three targeted attempts. If Deontay Johnson just maintains his target share from last year, his rookie season, on five hundred and sixty three targeted attempts, he'd see one hundred and seven targets. Of all top twelve wide receiver seasons since twenty eleven, all but one has seen one hundred or more targets, so over ninety nine percent of season since then have had one hundred or more targets. It's a necessary number to hit to really have a lot of upside. Maybe you think that he can't get there because of Juju Smith Schuster now being healthy. Well. Of the rookie wide out since twenty eleven who had a target share at or above fifteen percent during their rookie seasons, seventy seven percent of them ended up increasing their per game target shares in year two and is slightly better among rookie wideouts with a share as high as Deontay Johnson's. And then there's obviously upside here too. Is it that crazy to think that Johnson, after doing what he did as a rookie ends up seeing a twenty two to twenty three or twenty four percent target share, Because if that happens, he's then all of a sudden a top fifteen or twenty wide receiver in targets. I've got to also add that he fits the criteria well for being a breakout wide receiver in my study, which you can hear more about an episode three hundred and eighty three, but in the study that I did on finding breakout wide receivers, one of the key indicators was that second year wide receivers tend to break out at a more intense rate than other ages. So basically what we're looking at with Johnson is that he's a second year wide receiver coming off a pretty great rookie year with bad quarterback play. Now the quarterback play is getting better, and it's on a team that's consistently ranked favorably in passing volume over the last seven or eight years, and considering what's around him competition wise, Johnson could easily walk into a higher target share. I think Johnson meets expectation by just seeing what he saw last season as a rookie. We should project him for that. But the upside is there, which is why I want him on my fantasy teams. Another second year wide receiver that I'm buying into is Marquise Brown. He wasn't totally healthy last year, but he still saw about seventeen percent of Baltimore's targets in fourteen games. He scored seven times on forty six catches. The Ravens should end up throwing more this year. Of the ten teams with a pass to rush at temph ratio at point nine or lower over the last nine seasons, and for the record, Baltimore was at point seven to four last year. That was the lowest rate within this timeframe. But of the ten teams, all of them ended up throwing more the following season, with the average increase at point twenty two. The Ravens only ran twenty one point six percent of their plays while trailing last year. That was by far the lowest rate in the league. That's bound to regress in twenty twenty. Now, going back to what I just said about Deontay Johnson, we really want a pack to a hundre targets for our wide receivers. Can Brown get there in an offense like this? Is it really possible. Well, my projections had the Ravens for four hundred and sixty seven targeted attempts. If Markus Brown gets to a twenty one percent target share, he'll get there. Considering his sixteen game pace last year was nineteen percent and he was banged up as a rookie, it's not hard to envision him getting to one hundred targets. We also know those targets would be really efficient targets. He ranked in the top half of the league last year an average depth of target, and he ended the year with nine end zone targets. Only fourteen wide receivers had more targets in the end zone. Shoot for upside Hollywood has that one of the easier late round picks at wide receiver to target, in my opinion, is Preston Williams. I'm not sure people realized that before his ACL tear in Week nine, Williams had seen eight more targets than Devonte Parker in that Dolphins offense. He had a twenty one point four percent target share. That's pretty nuts for an undrafted rookie. But Williams isn't some random undrafted rookie. He had some off the field stuff that pushed him in that direction. When you look at his draft class, Williams ranked second and best season receptions per game, ninth in best season yards per team attempt, and third in best season touchdown share. Those are the three main production metrics that go into my wide receiver prospect model. In other words, he was a pretty good prospect. He also fits the breakout wide receiver criteria really well. Like I said earlier, second year wide receivers are definitely the ones that you want to target for breakout purposes. But breakout wide receivers typically don't come from nowhere, which he's not. He was pacing for a high target share last year, and they're usually part of ambiguous wide receiving groups. Devonte Parker isn't being drafted as a stud, so I'm in de preston Williams this year given his wide receiver fifty three price tag. Of course, things can go south if he isn't fully recovered from last year's injury, but that's more than baked into his cost. Another wide receiver that I like this season, and it really just fits the theme of shooting for upside, but it's will Fuller. I wrote this in my article, but I'm sure a lot of you just rolled your eyes when I said Will Fuller's name, but hear me out. Over the last five seasons, among the wide receivers who have played more than one season in the NFL, which is a lot of wide receivers, Fuller's rate of finishing as a wide receiver one or a top twelve wide receiver has been twenty third best in the league. Legitimate studs are ranked ahead of will Fullder on that list, like Antonio Brown, Steve Smith, Jordy Nelson, and players like a Marii Cooper and t Y Hilton are ranked behind him. Meanwhile, among wide outs with one hundred and more targets during this time, Fuller's had a ninety first percentile average at the target and a seventy third percentile end zone targets per game rate. He's getting the exact type of targets that you look for in a fantasy football wide receiver. And this all happened with DeAndre Hopkins in Houston. An alpha wide receiver. Hopkins has seen at least twenty six percent of the team's targets in each of the last six seasons. Brandon Cooks is now there and Brandon Cooks is not DeAndre Hopkins. He's good, but he's not DeAndre Hopkins. As I always say, targets are earned. We can't just assume that Fuller jumps into some crazy high target chair without DeAndre Hopkins. But over the last two years, Fuller's pro rated target chair has actually been over twenty percent. Even just a slight bump in target share without Hopkins could put Fuller on a path to seeing one hundred and ten or more targets. Now, this is all assuming health. I get it. Imagine a world though, where we didn't have those question marks around Will Fuller. Where do you think he would be drafted this year? A full round earlier, maybe two rounds earlier. It's not like you're taking a zero in your lineup when Will Fuller misses time. When he's healthy, he's giving you a really strong top twelve rate. He's risky, but his price is already showing that he's worth it. This year now, the only tight end that I wrote up for my Players to Target article was IRV Smith Junior. He's being drafted at tight end twenty three. And while I understand that ADP, I don't think people are giving enough love to his potential upside this year last season as a rookie tight end, and we know that it's tough to transition into the league as a tight end, but as a rookie tight end, he basically produced just like teammate Kyle Rudolph. He ranches thirty three fewer routes and he had nearly the same number of targets. Now Stefan Diggs is gone, that's twenty one percent of the team's targets that will be spread out across the offense. Who's gonna benefit from that? Surely Justin Jefferson will, but he's a rookie during a really unfriendly preseason ramp up. Adam Thielen will probably get more volume, and you should be drafting Adam Thielen, by the way, But IRV Smith seems to be like a very obvious choice to see more work in that offense. He's a second year tight end, and young tight ends tend to break out at a higher rate than older ones do. Shocking, I know, But in my breakout tight end study, which is on episode three hundred and eighty five, I also found that both draft capital and athleticism matters for breakout tight ends Smith has both of those things. He's an afterthought right now, and I don't think you should be ranking him as like a top twelve option or anything. But again, I think he's the right type of bet to make later in your draft. Like a lot of the lists that I do for the show or for articles, I wasn't able to include everyone that I wanted to include. I already mentioned Cam Newton as one. I think that Cam should be targeted heavily, especially if his ADP doesn't move. I've gotten him at QB twelve, and I couldn't fault anyone for drafting him a little bit earlier than that. And I thought about talking about two Chicago Bears, which is kind of frightening, to be honest, But Tarik Cohen is the cheapest way to get receiving volume at running back, and Anthony Miller showed us last season that he's capable of putting together fantasy relevant performances week after week. When Taylor Gabriel went down last year, Miller really stepped up as a fringe wide receiver too. In fantasy, he could be in store for a breakout underrated season. But like I said at the top, I like a lot of players. Because I didn't mention Kenyan Drake on this show doesn't mean I wouldn't draft Kenyan Drake. I think Drake is a great second round pick. Or just because I didn't say Tyler Lockett or Terry McLaurin or TJ. Hokinson's names doesn't mean I don't want them. I want them. I would love to have them on my teams this year. The point of today was to get you focused on some players to target, sure, but it was also to see some of the things that I look for when I'm targeting specific players. Hopefully the why was able to help you out. That's gonna do it for today's show, though. Thanks to all of you 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, and don't forget to follow me on Twitter at Late Round QB. Thanks everyone, I'll catch you later in the week.