696: Mailbag 10/21/22

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Speaker 1: This is the lad Podcast with with your host JJ zacher rethas J J. Zacher reson. What's up everyone, It's JJ Zacharyesen in this episode six hundred and ninety six of the Late Round Fantasy Football podcast sponsored by FanDuel. Thanks for tuning in. I had this moment on Thursday where I realized and I forgot to talk about one of my sleeper picks from the Sleeper Show. So on this mailbag show, I'm adding a player to the mix. Nico Collins. He's rostered in twenty percent of Yahoo leagues and he gets the Raiders secondary that's been the sixth best opponent for wideouts and adjusted Fantasy points allowed. And Collins has averaged a nineteen percent target share per game over his last four and he should have a touchdown based on his production, but he's yet to find the end zone. So Nico Collins, adam to the list. Now that that's out of the way, I want to send another reminder about the GMC Sierra Mountain Climber. Pick Them a free to play contest series. It gives you a chance to win a share ten thousand dollars in fandle site credit every Sunday courtesy of GMC. Here's how it works. Every Sunday during the NFL season, you'll have a chance to answer questions based on the day's one PM and four twenty five PM games. The more questions you answer correctly, the higher up the mountain you'll move. If during any week you answer every question correctly for a perfect score, you'll reach the summit and when your share of ten thousand dollars in site credit. The contest series is now live, so head tofandel dot com Slash Free, Slash Contest slash GMC to start climbing the mountain. The first mailbag question this week is from Patreon. It's from Logan. It says m PPR four of the top five highest scoring non quarterback players are wide receivers. Due to positional scarcity, running backs are often valued around or above wide receivers who are outscoring them. This can be concerning for those of us who drafted running back heavy and are starting a running back in the flex spot when it seems starting three wide receivers would be more optimal. How would you navigate this, especially when league mates may be hesitant to give up a wide receiver for a quote similarly ranked running back who is putting up fewer points. So there's a lot to unpack here. First off, you're kind of noting this in the question, but value and fantasy football generally comes from how a player is performing versus his position, not across positions. I say generally because flex spots do exist. Now, I know you're bringing up running backs versus wide receivers because of those flex spots, but stating that four of the top five highest scoring non quarterback players are wide receivers, that doesn't really tell us that much what you're trying to say here. Overall not wrong, but solely with that information, the top running backs could still be more valuable than the top wide receivers, because you need baseline numbers to really grasp the value of the position. But let's keep this conversation a little bit simpler. I've talked about this plenty through the years on this show, but if you're in a full PPR league, your flex spot should more than likely go to a wide receiver, Like entering your draft, you should go with a more wide receiver heavy approach. Just to give you an example of why this is the case, if you look at the last five seasons of fantasy football, and you look at the average points per game of the RB one, the RB two, and so on, and you do the same at wide receiver. Top running backs have scored more PPR points than wide receivers. But once you get to like RB nine, RB ten, that starts to flip, and wide receivers begins scoring more points than running backs throughout the rest of the rankings, and that gap between wide receiver and running back just starts getting greater and greater and greater. Like at RB forty eight, the average has been seven point six PPR points per game. This is among players who played at least eight games. At wide receiver forty eight that numbers ten point one. So the wide receiver forty eight over the last five years has averaged ten point one PPR points per game. The RB forty eight has averaged seven point six. And this makes total sense. More wide receivers are seeing consistent work and they're catching more passes. An RB three or an RB four in fantasy football is relatively replaceable, and all a wide receiver needs to match an RB three or an RB four is like three or four catches a game. What we're seeing this year is definitely a down year for high end running backs, which is what you're noting in the question. Over the last five years, the RB one has scored a little over twenty six PPR points per game. The RB two has been at twenty two point eight, the RB three twenty one point three. So at running back you're at twenty six, then twenty three than twenty one. This season, we only have two running backs over twenty points per game in PPR leagues, and none of them are close to that twenty six mark. Now, this is gonna be a little bit tough to explain on a podcast, but I'm gonna try my best. I actually compared this season's top running backs and wide receivers by points per game versus the last five years average. So this year, our top running back, Austin Eckler, he scored twenty three points per game thus far. That's over three points lower than the average that we typically see from the RB one and fantasy football. When you do that at both running back and wide receiver, you find that nearly every single top twelve running back spot this season is scoring fewer points. They're scoring fewer points than the average over the last five years. If we were looking at positional value, then we'd also have to know how the rest of the position was performing. Because think of it this way. What if all running backs were scoring one fewer point per game, then that would be all relative. The position would be scoring less, but the value of the higher end players wouldn't be dramatically changing. They would change in the flex spot, but not within their position. That just hasn't been the case. Lower end running backs are scoring more than we typically see, higher end running backs are scoring less. In other words, that range is being shrunk, making those top running backs less valuable, and then the opposite is actually happening at wide receiver. This doesn't mean that this is the way it's going to be for the rest of the season. Plenty of highigher end running backs actually have some favorable regression heading their way. But it's not like we should have all the confidence in the world that higher end running backs will all of a sudden have the same historical advantage over the higher end wide receivers. It seems likely we're going to have a season where higher end running backs are worse from a value standpoint. So when you say quote, how would you navigate this, Especially when league mates may be hesitant to give up a wide receiver for a similarly ranked running back who is putting up fewer points. I would first say that I'm not sure there are just generally accepted rankings. How one person views someone is going to be different than how another person views them. But rest of season rankings across the industry are absolutely more wide receiver heavy right now than they were before the season, and they should be. But I'd also say that your league mates aren't valuing them improperly. Wide receivers are more valuable in PPR leagues where you can flex players. The higher end players of the position are performing better than the higher end running backs. They should be value viewing wide receivers more. So how you navigate that. If you're trying to get one of those wide receivers, you're gonna have to give up more than you probably think. If you're trying to get a deal done, that's what you have to do, because that's actually what their value is. And if you're like a one in five team, maybe a two to four team, you may just have to hope that regression hits for some of those higher end running backs. You have to play into variance a little bit more. But I think the lesson here is that in PPR formats where you can flex players, I don't advise that you go with some robust RB strategy. It's much more advantageous to go with a wide receiver heavy approach. And this is absolutely not me being reactive. My rankings reflected this entering the season, and I've talked about it before on this show. It's the proper way to draft in those formats. So given the answer to that question, this next question is kind of funny. It's from at PFF commentary. It says, what happened to zero RB this year? I'm constantly working the waivers, but my starting running backs are Eno Benjamin and AJ Dillon. Currently none of my stashes are panning out. Was hero RB the way to go? So I've said this time and time again on this show, and I wrote about it in the Late Round Draft Guide. In many fantasy formats, hero RB is very, very often the best approach to the running back position. But this is absolutely not a bad year for zero RB. It just sounds like you personally didn't hit on the position, but Josh Jacobs fell in a lot of leagues Ramandre Stevenson, Miles Sanders, Clyde Edwards Hilaire, who we know is a little bit overvalued, but he at least gave you some really good games. Damian Pierson more home leagues. Devin Singletary hasn't been bad. Now. I'm going to wait till the end of the season to sort of see how this year compares to other seasons, but there were some really strong middle round running backs who have looked great so far this year. Kenneth Walker is another example. I think that when you do analysis on this kind of thing, though, you have to look at more than just the running back position, right, because there's an opportunity cost involved. And wide receivers, like I just talked about, they're doing great. I mean, if you look at the top ten or so wide receivers by points per game, none of them were drafted past round five or six, and the majority of them were top two round picks. Travis Kelcey and Mark Andrews are crushing it. Josh Allen, Jalen Hurts, Lamar Jackson, Patrick Mahomes all crushing. When you go zero RB, you're taking on those types of players. Thus far, it's been a pretty good year for zero RB. It just sounds like you've had your own personal struggles with it, which can absolutely happen. That can happen with any sort of strategy, but that doesn't take away from the larger trends. This last questions from at goat wattles. It says are off season bold call piece is bad? Are they at all valuable? Everyone was somewhat in on juju, so this isn't calling out that specific prediction, but it feels like it makes us focus on one percent outcomes and not see the whole picture. Some of this is definitely how the human brain works. We get this grand idea in our head and it's hard to get it out even if we're told that it's not likely. It's why we buy lottery tickets despite the odds, Just wondering maybe it puts people's minds in the wrong place for drafting. As a fantasy football analyst, I get a front row seat to negativity bias. This is straight from Google, but it's a great definition. Negativity bias is a cognitive bias that explains why negative events or feelings typically have a more significant impact on our psychological state than positive events or feelings. Even when they are of equal proportion. I have to really be careful about how I answer this question because people will undoubtedly walk away from this podcast thinking that I'm complaining or that I'm defending a bad take. Please understand that's not the case. I'm just explaining what I see on a daily basis. But negativity bias is really what you're experiencing here. You read a Bold Predictions piece, which any person reading or consuming understands that it's looking at the outer range of outcomes, like someone consuming a Bold Prediction article or a Bold Predictions podcast inherently understands that these predictions will not pan out at the same rate as normal analysis. We can say that humans just get excited and they take them too far, which is what you're getting at in this question, But I would strongly argue that negativity bias is at play here too. With a Bold Predictions piece, the reason they're written and the reason that they work for content creators is because they're interesting and people remember them. More like, what if people remember from my off season the fact that I said that I liked Alan Robinson at ADP, or the fact that the headline and a Bold Predictions article said that Juju Smith Schuster would be this year's Cooper Cup. One of those statements is far edgier than the other, so people remembered that thing more. That's not where the negativity bias comes into play, though. It's sort of this compounding effect where you remember the bold predictions stuff more, but you also remember the wrong ones more. Do you know how many times people have mentioned the fact that I said that Juju Smith Schuster would be this year's Cooper Cup. I get it. It was sort of an insulting headline. I even recognized that the literal first line in that blurb that I emailed out to everyone, and I quote, no, I don't actually think a nineteen hundred yard season is in Smith Schuster's range of outcomes. But the headline was catchy, wasn't it. I did like Juju smith Schuster, though, don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to defend this take. I liked Juju this year. That's looking like an l But people remember that edgy, wrong thing that I said in a Bold Predictions piece. That's what they're gonna remember more. You know what, They don't remember the fact that, in that exact same Bold Predictions piece, I said that Chris Olave would outscore Michael Thomas. The fact that I said Ramandre Stevenson would score forty more PPR points than Damien Harris, the fact that I said Deontay Johnson would finish as a wide receiver three, or how David and Joku would outscore Pat Friarmouth. I got plenty of stuff wrong in that article and on that podcast too. I called Elijah More a freaking wide receiver one. I said Chase Edmonds would be a top fifteen running back. Trust me, I'm not sitting here patting myself on the back and saying I don't get many things wrong. Look at all these things that I got right. What I am saying as a fantasy analyst, and this goes for any person who's making predictions about the future in front of a group of people. When you get things wrong, you hear about that one hundred times more than the things that you get right. And it's not because people are jerks. It's because that's what people remember. And it's totally fine. I signed up for this, this is my job. I'm not complaining here. I'm simply answering this mailbag question by saying that the problem isn't the bold predictions piece. It's how human beings latch onto the things that go wrong rather than the things that go right. Think about your local weather person. They predict the weather every single day. Do you remember all the times they got the weather right when they absolutely nailed it? Of course not. You remember when they told you it was gonna rain and it ended up being a sunny day, And then you go tell your friends that Teddy Smith is the worst meteorologist that you've ever seen. Like, I totally get it, because I do the exact same thing. I'm human. I think what's healthy, though, is to recognize that it exists, and that negativity bias is very, very very real. So I don't think bold prediction articles are bad at all. I think they can be pretty thought provoking. I just think that humans remember the negative things without realizing that there can be a lot of good in something that we see as bad. This last question is from at sixty nine ers ff. It says, how do you handle the Aaron Jones situation? Green Bay keeps under utilizing him when he's obviously the more efficient running back. Do you hold and hope for better days or shop him after a good week. So this year, Aaron Jones is averaging thirteen point four PPR points per game. Last year that was fifteen point three, So he's not doing as well as he did last year, and that's despite the Packers losing DeVante Adams. And he is seeing less work this year, but it's really not by much. Last year, he had a forty nine point four percent running back rush year per game rate while averaging eleven point four rush attempts per game. This year, his rush attemps per game is actually up by point three. His running back rush here is down by about point six percent, so he's basically been seeing the same work on the ground through the air. His target share per game is down by two percentage points. That's a blow for sure. He's seeing point five fewer targets per game, so yeah, he's seeing less work overall, but given it's been six games, it's actually pretty in line with where he was at last year. It's just that people were hoping that he'd see more work overall and he's not. The Packers offense is just not nearly as good, and Jones is seeing fewer touchdowns. He's averaging point three to three touchdowns per game this year. That was double that amount last year. So the bigger issue for Jones right now is that Green Bay's offense is averaging two offensive touchdowns per game. Last year the number was over three, So I think that he's a hold for the time being. Green Bay's offense has some moving pieces, and Jones still has the upset of just getting more work naturally, but also getting more work with an AJ Dillon injury, and that's usually not priced into a running backs cost. So right now, in my opinion, you're probably selling him a little bit too low. This es question is from at Garbage Timer. It says, why do you think so few trades happen in most leagues? People are afraid to take risks. It's much easier to live with the consequences of not doing anything than if you actively go do something. Everyone wants to get a lopsided deal without realizing that to get a deal done, both sides need to win. You should be open to trading anyone on your roster. People aren't open to that. In order to live with a trade that they made, they needed to easily and I mean easily look better for them on paper. That's why I think trades don't get done. People are afraid to make a bad move because it's tougher to live with those consequences than if you were to stay put. This last question is from at Just Underscore Robin ninety four. Are you sounding the alarm on Christian Kirk yet? If not for being bailed out by a touchdown last week, he was on pace for another bad showing. So something I've noticed a lot this year, and I'm not necessarily saying it's happening here with this question, but people were drawing conclusions about individual players instead of looking at what's going on at the team level first. It's sort of like what I talked about with Joe flacko versus Zach Wilson earlier this week. The Jags have now scored five offensive touchdowns over their last three games. Over their first three, the number was ten. It was two times as much. The offense was clearly playing better. The offense has not been good over their last three games, and this past week they had a forty percent pass rate that was the lowest of their season. It's going to be difficult for wide receivers to thrive in that kind of environment. And if you look at their two games prior to last week. One of them, Kirk had a low target share and he had a bad game that's gonna happen. One was a game played in awful weather where Kirk saw a thirty nine percent target share, So a bad weather game, a bad offensive performance, and a forty percent pass rate. This certainly is not solely a Christian Kirk thing. The truth is, Kirk's target shairs haven't been dramatically different. Over the first three games of the season, he was averaging a twenty five point one percent target share per game. Over his next three, it's been twenty three percent, and that includes a game where he had a seven percent target share against Houston. Now, of course, Jacksonville's offense might just continue to be super run heavy and be really bad. But I just think it's really important to put that team level context onto player performance. It helps tell our story about a player a little bit better. It helps us understand why they're producing the way they're producing. I'm not sounding the alarm though, No. The Jacks have a pretty average schedule for wide receivers in both the short and the long term, and Kirk is consistently seeing great target shairs and he's shown to have the ceiling that we want out of a fantasy football wide receiver. He was a full blown wide receiver one to start the season. It's always possible that he doesn't work out, but I'm definitely more in the side of not panicking at least right now. There are specific circumstances that led to these performances. That's it for today's show, though, Thanks to all of you for listening. If you've got subscribe to Late Round Fantasy Football podcast, make sure you are by searching forward pretty much anywhere podcast can be found. Inef to follow me on Twitter at LATEROUNDQB. Remember to check out lateround dot com, join the Patreon, subscribe to the newsletter. I can't tell you guys enough about how awesome the Late Round Fantasy Football discord community is, and you get access to that through Patreon, so check it out lateround dot com and sign up. Thanks for listening this week, everyone really really appreciate it. Good luck in week seven. I'll talk to you next week.