557: 10 Trends for Week 5

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Speaker 1: This is the Labor Podcast with your host JJ zacher Retha j Jake Zacher reson What's up everyone? It's JJ Zacharyaeson, the editor in chief at Fandel and at Number five dot com in this episode five hundred and fifty seven of the Late Round Podcast. So many shows that are part of the FanDuel podcast network. Thanks for tuning in. Fandal's giving you the opportunity to bet on Week five of the NFL season. All you have to do is go to Sportsbook dot fandle dot com or download the Fandal Sportsbook app, place a three or more leg same game parlay wager with cash on any Week five NFL game, and if your bet loses, you get a refund and site credit with a max refund of ten dollars. Bet on Week five of the NFL season with Fandal by heading over to Fandel Sportsbook Today and placing a risk free NFL same game parlay must be twenty one years older in president in Arizona, Colorado, Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Virginia, West Virginia. 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This was something that I didn't think would happen this year with Derrick Henry, and it's unlocked his true upside on the season, Henry has a ten percent target share and that's within an offense that's throwing the ball. More. Tennessee is averaging thirty eight pass attempts per game, so far this year their previous three year average. Their average under Mike Rabel has been twenty eight and a half pass attempts per game, So the Titans are being ten more pass attempts per game, and Derrick Henry is beating his career high target share by a significant margin. That combination is what's really unleashing Derrick Henry this year. Brandon Ayuk had another bad performance in Week four. But even though that performance was bad, even though the end result in fantasy wasn't what Ayuk managers wanted, he at least is playing more than what he played in weeks one and two. In week one, his snapshare was forty seven percent, in week two fifty four percent. Week three, that jumped up to eighty six percent, and in this past week it fell to sixty seven percent, So not quite as low as weeks one and two, but it's obviously not a good thing. According to Pro Football Focuses Routes run data, we saw a little more separation between Deebo Samuel and Brandon Ayuk in Week four versus Week three. But if you want to look at this from a glass half full perspective, at least Ayuk's peripherals don't look as bad as they did in weeks one and two. Where to go from here? I'm not totally sure. I think Ayuk is talented and it would be more involved in this offense. I also highly doubt, though, that he's gonna overtake Deebo Samuel and George Kittle in the pecking order at least this season. So it's hard to foresee some crazy ceiling coming from Ayuk, especially if they eventually make a permanent switch to Trey Lance. We typically don't see multiple pass catchers be fantasy relevant with rookie quarterbacks, so Ayuk's a hole now. Trend three is that no team has seen a more significant difference in their neutral script pass rate versus their overall pass rate than the Pittsburgh Steelers. This makes total sense when you think about it. The Steelers are bad, so when they're on offense, they're throwing the ball a lot. They're playing catch up. On the season, only Detroit and Washington have run more offensive plays while trailing, but when games are closer, the Steelers clearly want to try and establish it. Their neutral script pass rate is still fourth highest in the league, but their overall pass rate is by far the highest in the league. Even if the Steelers want to run the ball more, they kind of can't it. Sam Donald is making me look good, but he's also making me look like an idiot. He's been a streamer pretty consistently on the show this year and he's come through. But I also mentioned last week how he's not going to maintain his rushing touchdown rate and he just keeps scoring on the ground. Let's put his five rushing touchdowns into perspective. First off, Sam Darnald leads the league in rushing touchdowns, and yes, I still believe that this is not sustainable, but Darnald now has five touchdowns on twenty rush attempts. That's a touchdown on every four rush attempts. For some perspective, since twenty eleven, quarterbacks have averaged a touchdown on every twenty four rush attempts. So Darnald has basically been six times as efficient as the average quarterback at scoring touchdowns on the ground this year. Here's the thing, though, and I mentioned this on last week's Sleeper Show as well. Regression in rushing touchdowns doesn't mean that Darnald's going to become a lot less viable in fantasy like, Yeah, a rushing touchdown is worth more than a passing touchdown is. But what if Darnald had rushed for two touchdowns and instead of rushing for three more, he threw for three more. Sam Donald's touchdown rate is still just three point four percent. That's low, So when we see that regression happen on the ground, things will get better through the air as long as Carolina's offense remains the same. So don't automatically assume regression is a death sentence for Sam Donald's fantasy season. It's been a tough time for Alan Robinson this year. His highest single game wide receiver finish has been wide receiver forty nine. He's seen a twenty four percent target share on the year. That's not bad, but the offense just isn't working for him and he hasn't found the end zone. The Bears actually only have one passing touchdown this year through four weeks. Robinson has less than half the fantasy points that he had through four weeks last year. It's been that bad. If you want to think positively for Robinson, the way the Chicago scored their touchdowns this season, that will regress, but it's kind of tough to feel optimistic about Robinson's rest of season outlook when Darnell Mooney is out targeting him and outperforming him. You can't start Robinson until we see a strong game from him. Philadelphia running backs have carried the ball a grand total of thirteen times over the last two weeks. Miles Sanders has the exact same number of total touches as Kenneth Gainwell over this time, but Gainwell has been the primary pass catching option out of that backfield, so Gainwell has seen more valuable touches. This is gonna be a problem for Miles Sanders all season long unless one of two things happens. Either Philadelphia just starts utilizing Sanders more as they're two minute drill or pass catching back, or Philadelphia just needs to start playing better. They need to not be in negative game scripts like we saw against Dallas and like we saw against Kansas City. Now, let's assume the first thing doesn't happen. I mean, Kenneth Gainwell's good, so I don't think it's so egregious that he's on the field a lot. If you've got Sanders, you need Philly to be better as a team to generate positive game scripts. Well, the Eagles get Carolina this week in Charlotte, and then they're at home to face Tampa Bay, and then they're on the road and they get the Raiders. I expect things to get a little bit better for Sanders, just naturally, but I don't think that he's going to be some locked in RB two, some must start player. AJ Dillon was more involved in the Packers offense in Week four. He ended up seeing half the team's running back rushes, tying Aaron Jones with fifteen rush attempts his previous season high, and running back rush air was about twenty nine percent. There was a nice positive game script for Green Bay against Pittsburgh, kind of more than any other game that they've played this year. They had a ten point lead with over nine minutes left in the third quarter. And I think this is telling for us moving forward that if we need a flex play at running back and if Green Bay looks like a big favorite, Dylan could work. Trend eight this week is that Tom Brady has one passing touchdown over his last two games after having nine across his first two. I want to call this out not to say I told you regression was coming. Instead, I want to say that this isn't really regression. It's regression, and it's an over correction. Regression tells us that a number is going to get back to a mean or an average. Let's say we projected Tom Brady to throw two and a half touchdowns per game from Week three through the end of the season. That doesn't mean that we would expect Brady to throw one touchdown in two games to get his season long average down to two and a half touchdowns per game. It means the nine touchdowns that he's thrown, the nine touchdowns he had in weeks one and two, that's done. He's accomplished that. Moving forward, we should expect a more average performance within the context of Tom Brady. Or to put that another way, two and a half passing touchdowns per game. Did regression happen? Yes, it happened. It was bound to happen for all the reasons that I talked about on this show. But to this degree, No, that's not just regression. That's an over correction. That's something to always keep in mind when we're looking at these numbers. Amari Cooper's average a target share per game of nineteen percent this year that's a couple percent points lower than last year's average. His overall target share is over twenty one percent because that Week one game against Tampa Bay. That's helping his overall numbers. But over the last three weeks, Cooper' seen shares of eighteen and a half percent, sixteen percent, and then thirteen point six percent. Things are trending downward. I'm not panicking here though. The Cowboys offense is good. They should score points, and Cooper's been banged up here and there already this season. If you want to be a little uncomfortable with Cooper because of those injuries, I think that's more valid than feeling worried about his play. Michael Gallup coming back shouldn't really help things, but good players see volume and Cooper is great. Let's talk about something kind of crazy with the last trend this week. Since twenty eleven, wide receivers have scored a touchdown for every one hundred and sixty four point six receiving yards. So for every one hundred and sixty five receiving yards a wide receiver accumulates, he generally will have one touchdown to go along with it. Jacobi Myers has one, Thoy three hundred and thirty four career receiving yards and he hasn't scored a touchdown yet. Based on his yardage shuttle across his career, a random wide receiver would have been expected to score eight touchdowns. Myers has zero. And I know a lot of that has to do with how he's being used and where he's seeing targets and all of that. Trust me, I get it, but he does have twelve red zone targets throughout his career, and to not break a big play, to not find the end zone from further out, I mean, it's all just kind of wild. I'm gonna call it right now on this show. Jacoby Myers gets his first career touchdown this weekend against the Texans. That's gonna do it for today's show, though. Thanks to all of you for listening. If you've got subscribed to the Late Round podcast, make sure you are by starting for it pretty much anywhere podcasts can be found, and don't forget to follow me on Twitter at Late Round QB. Thanks for listening, everyone, talk to you tomorrow,