553: 10 Trends for Week 4

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Speaker 1: This is the Lab Podcast with your host JJ Zachersa j J Zacherson.

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Speaker 2: What's up everyone.

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Speaker 1: It's JJ Zachares and the editor in chief at Fandel and at Number five dot com in this episode five hundred and fifty three of the Late Round podcast and the many shows that are part of the Fandel podcast network.

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Speaker 2: Thanks for tuning in.

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Speaker 1: Hey, football fans, Fandel is giving you the opportunity to bet on Week four of the NFL season. All you have to do is go to fanduelsportsbook dot com or download the Fandel Sportsbook app. Place a three or more leg same game parlay wager with cash on any Week four NFL game, and if your bet loses, you can get a refund in sight credit with a max refund of ten dollars. Bet on Week four of the NFL season with Fandel by heading over to the FanDuel 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. Refund issued is non withdrawable site credit that expires in seven days. Max refund ten dollars. Restrictions apply see terms of sportsbook dot fandel dot com. Same game parlay available for multiple sports in all states on mobile, slash web gambling problem called one hundred Gambler or visit Fandle dot com, slash RG and Colorado, Iowa, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Virginia one one hundred nine, with Indiana one hundred two seven zero seven one one seven for confidential health in Michigan, tennessee Redline one eight hundred eight nine nine to seven eight nine. Visit one hundred gambler dot net West Virginia or called one hundred next Step or Tech's Next Step to five three three four two in Arizona. The first trend this week is that the Jets have run over seventy four percent of their offensive plays this year while trailing by ten or more points. The team that's in second is Jacksonville. They've run a little over fifty two percent of their plays while trailing by double digit points. One of the differences in fantasy between these two offenses is that Trevor Lawrence has been slinging it. Zach Wilson hasn't. Wilson has thrown at fifteen or more air yards and just sixteen percent of his attempts despite the team always trailing. Big Trevor Lawrence is at almost twenty five percent, one of the highest rates in the league. Everyone on the Jets is tough to trust in fantasy football, and that includes Corey Davis, who now has back to back weeks finishing worse than wide receiver fifty and weekly PPR scoring. Listen to Brandon Cooks's target shares over the first three weeks of the season twenty one point nine percent, fifty percent, forty four percent. Now, this likely isn't sustainable to this degree, but I do think that Cooks is a good example of something that I talk about on this show quite a bit. I don't completely agree with the idea that vacated targets matter a whole lot, but I also don't completely agree with the idea that they don't. What I mean by this is when players leave an offense, and Cooks his case we saw, will folder peace out this offseason. But when players leave an offense, the targets they accumulated don't just automatically get dispersed throughout that offense. Number One, that offense may get worse, which means less efficiency, less plays, and less volume for wide receivers. But number two, targets are earned. A player has to get open in order to see a target. Good wide receivers are seeing targets because they're getting opened more frequently. In the case of Cooks, he's a good player who's also benefiting from there not being any real alternatives in the offense. So even though the Texans have been pretty mediocre offensively, Cooks is still benefiting because he's a good player who's seeing an inflated target share thanks to the lack of alternatives in that offense. Just thought that i'd share that logic again, since we have a pretty good example of why vacated targets can matter when a player is good when a player isn't good, we shouldn't just assume he'll take on a large role. And for the record, no, Brandon Cooks will not finish the season with his current thirty eight percent target share. At least it's highly unlikely. I adjust fantasy points allowed. Think of it as looking at how many fantasy points a team is allowed to each position and then adjusting that for strength of opponent. Doing that adjustment gives me a number of points a team has allowed above or below expectation. When you look at fantasy points allowed so far this year to quarterbacks, the Broncos rank first. They're giving up ten point three standard fantasy points per game, but they've also faced Daniel Jones, Trevor Lawrence, and Zach Wilson. Of course, they've been good within this metric. You know which team actually ranks first and adjusted Fantasy points allowed to quarterbacks through three weeks, which, for the record, is still a pretty small sample sized to work off of here, But it's the Chargers. The Chargers are seventh best in points allowed to the position, but their first when you adjust that for opponent. Why well, they faced Washington in Week one and then they faced Dak Prescott and Patrick Mahomes.

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Speaker 2: They did work against Washington.

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Speaker 1: Dak Prescott finished with just seven and a half points against them, and Patrick Mahomes scored twenty three. That's something to monitor moving forward, especially considering that they face Derek Carr this week, who's been red hot. Trend four is about the Detri Lyons running backs. So far this season, they lead the league in percentage of targets that have gone to the running back position. Their running backs have almost a thirty three percent target share so far this season.

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Speaker 2: That's the highest in the league.

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Speaker 1: It's not that much higher than Atlanta, surprisingly because of Krudero Patterson, but it's the highest in the league.

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Speaker 2: But I think we should.

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Speaker 1: Probably expect this team to lead the league in this category throughout the season. Will they be able to sustain a thirty three percent target chair? I think odds are against that happening. That would be the fourth highest that we've seen since twenty eleven. But I don't think this is totally unsustainable. DeAndre Swift is some of that I would win on my fantasy roster.

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Speaker 2: Jamal Williams is someone.

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Speaker 1: Who will be a reasonable low end RB two or flex play. These Lions running backs should be heavily involved in the receiving game from here on out. This is not fluky. Dallas Goddard has a sub twelve percent target share on the season. Not only is that alarming, but over the last two weeks, in each game he's run fewer routes than teammate Zach ertz Ertz on the season now has the exact same target share in this offense. The splits for Goddard with and without zach Ers were well documented from last year. He's not close to the fantasy asset that people think that he is with a healthy zach Ertz, even though he's the better pass catcher at this point in their careers. Now, I'd rather have Goddard than ERT's moving forward, but it's tough to assume that Goddard's just this tight end one. It was honestly tough to assume that entering the year. We had a pretty classic Saquon Barkley game on Sunday, at least usage wise, Barkley through the first two weeks of the season averaged a running back rush are of about seventy four percent that jumped to eighty four percent in Week three. His target shairs across the first two games were eight point three percent and nine point four percent. On Sunday it was twenty percent. He finally found the end zone, and even though he wasn't effective on the ground for the most part, the receiving work is what really allowed him to be a top ten back in Week three. We need more of that, and I would expect more of that as we move forward. Cleveland has targeted their wide receivers at a league low thirty nine percent rate. The team's wide receiver group has a thirty nine percent target chair. Davante Adams alone has a thirty eight point two percent target chair. I'm bringing this up this week though, because we got Odell Beckham back in Week three and I thought Beckham looked great. He ended up having a thirty one percent target chair, which accounted for nine targets. He caught five of those for seventy seven yards. I honestly would lean by more than sell with OBJ right now. Trend eight this week is about the Saints play calling. So far this season. No team has a lower pass rate than the Saints. Their past to rush attempt ratio is just point sixty eight. The next team is Cleveland at point seventy nine. The difference is that Cleveland and neutral game scripts they have a one point two to two pass to rush ratio, so Cleveland's been a lot more average in terms of pass rate, or closer to average when games are close. The Saints neutral script is point seven to six. This is all hurting the pass catchers on that team. On the year, the Saints are averaging just twenty point three team targets per game. That's four less than any other team. It's tough to really trust anyone in this offense right now outside of Alvin Kamara. Speaking of pass rates, Cincinnati is doing something they just haven't done under Zach Taylor. They've been run heavy. They ranked twenty fourth in pass rate when games are within six points, and their overall pass to rush ratio.

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Speaker 2: Is below one. They've run more than they've passed so far this year.

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Speaker 1: The reason this is so surprising is because of how the Bengals have operated with Zach Taylor over the last two seasons. Cincinnati's ranked thirteenth and sixth in overall pass rate and sixth and third in pass rate in neutral gamescript situations. Maybe this has to do with getting Joe Burrow back to one hundred percent, or maybe the philosophy there has actually changed. Regardless, the Bengals are no longer the pass heavy team that we thought that they would be. Lastly, we've got to give some love to Derek Carr. Carr's highest rate of throwing at fifteen or more air yards came back in twenty fifteen. He was throwing it deep on eighteen and a half percent of his throws so far this year, he's tied for the league lead with a twenty five percent deep ball rate. Considering he's second in pass attempts, that deep ball rate is converting. No player is really close to him in passing yards. He is twelve hundred and three yards versus Tom Brady, who's in second at ten eighty seven some oftimes because the Raiders have had extra time to play. But make no mistake, Derek Carr has looked very good and he's done it against relatively tough opponents. Like I said on yesterday's show, we've got to recognize the weapons in this offense is fantasy relevant, or at least more than we thought entering the year. That's gonna do it for today's show. Thanks to all of you for listening. If you get subscribed to the Late Round podcast, make sure you are by searching for it pretty much anywhere podcast can be found, and you're follow me on Twitter at Late Round QB. Thanks everyone, I'll talk to you tomorrow with the Weekly Sleeper Show.