294: 10 Trends for Week 6

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Speaker 1: This is the Labor Podcast with your host JJ Zacher Retha Jay J Zacher Reason. What's up everyone? It's JJ Zachareson, the editor in chief at FanDuel and at Number five dot com. And this is episode two hundred and ninety four of the Late Round Podcast, one of the many shows that are part of the FanDuel podcast network. Thanks for tuning in. Before getting into this week's ten trends, I wanted to remind you guys to check out FanDuel's Gridiron Pick'm contest. If you pick all the games right this weekend, you'll get your share of a ten thousand dollars jackpot. To enter, just go to fandel dot com or download the app today. Eligibility restrictions apply. Trend one this week is that over the first three weeks of the season, Lamar Jackson threw at fifteen or more air yards at a twenty percent rate in week one, a thirty two point four percent rate in week two, and a thirty seven point two percent one in week three. However, over the last two weeks those numbers have fallen to eight point eight percent and seven point one percent. Jackson went from being one of the most frequent deep ball passers in football to basically throwing it at Teddy Bridgewater's rate over the last two weeks. And I'm a little concerned because these two games were against Pittsburgh and Cleveland too, tougher divisional contests. The first three games of the season were against Miami, Arizona and Kansas City. Now, Jackson should be okay enough in fantasy because of his legs, and I'd still consider him a QB one from here on out, but this trend makes me far less bollish on Hollywood Brown and even Mark Andrews to a degree. It's definitely something a monitor. Only six point nine nice percent of receiving yards allowed by the Falcons have gone to running backs this year. That's the lowest rate in the league. They've only allowed ninety one receiving yards to running backs this season, which is also the least in football. As some of you probably know, the Falcons have historically been pretty bad against running backs through the air, at least under Dan Quinn. Last year they were second in yards allowed to the position. In twenty seventeen they were fifth, and twenty sixteen they were first, and twenty fifteen they were second. So as an aside, each week, my plan is to tweet a chart that shows the number of receiving yards that teams are allowing to each position, and then beside that, it shows the percentage of receiving yards that accounts for. So Atlanta, as I noted, they've allowed about seven percent of their receiving yards to running backs and that's all shown in that chart. If you want to take a look at that chart, go follow me on Twitter at late round QB. But over the last couple of weeks when I've posted it, people have commented about Atlanta's defense against running backs, and I agree, it's really interesting given how they've historically performed against the position, and I think things look the way they do for a few reasons. First, it's a small sample size. A lot of weird things can happen in a five game sample. But second, Atlanta leads the NFL and plays run while trailing, meaning they've been in negative game scripts often, which means opposing teams aren't in negative game scripts, which means they're able to run their normal offenses more, which likely aren't dump offs to running backs. And the Falcons haven't faced teams that have really utilized their running backs this season as receivers. They did face Minnesota in Week one, but the Viking is barely through the football. After that, Atlanta's faced Philadelphia, Indianapolis, Tennessee, and Houston, each of those teams ranked below average and running back target share to start the season. And then on top of that, if we're being honest, Atlanta's just really beatable in their secondary this year. They've been awful there, so it's been an easier matchup to exploit. So I sort of think the perfect storm has happened. Atlanta hasn't been leading in games, their matchups haven't been to teams who utilize running backs that heavily as receivers, and the team itself is just bad all over the defense. Now, Trend three sort of ties into trend two, and it's that no team has seen a larger difference in overall pass to russia tempor ratio versus neutral script ratio than the Atlanta Falcons. In other words, Atlanta's offense and pass to RuSHA temp ratio really is skewed because of how often they've trailed. They want to be more run heavy, but they can't. Like I said, they've trailed a lot in games, but it doesn't look like things are gonna get much better for them with games against the Rams, Saints, and Seahawks upcoming, so we can keep banking on this Falcons passing attack in fantasy football. This next trend is that eight quarterbacks currently have one hundred or more rushing yards this year. Six of those quarterbacks are qb ones, our top twelve quarterbacks in fantasy football. All of them rank in the top fifteen in points per game. This is the Konami code. Hat tip to Rich Rebar of Sharp Football Analysis, but it's the Konami code in full effect. You want to target quarterbacks who can get things done through the air, sure, but also on the ground because it gives an added necessary element to their fantasy totals. So far this year that's been very true. The rushing element has been a cheat code. Courtland Sutton has seen at least one quarter of Denver's targets in all but one game this year. Only Michael Odell, Beckham, Adam Thielen, and Cooper Cupp have played five games and they can say the same thing, and only Michael Thomas has seen a target share of twenty five percent. Are better in every single game. I'm still mad at myself for not calling Sutton a buy candidate a couple of weeks ago on this show when I was talking about him, when I was talking about him being a positive regression candidate, all the numbers pointed to him being someone that you wanted to buy in fantasy football, but I was scared off because of Joe Flacco. I said as much on this show. So hopefully you were able to take that information that I talked about and ignore the idiot who was giving that information. Courtland Sutton is a legit weekly option right now at wide receiver. Trend six is pretty straightforward and actually pretty insane, and is that the New England Patriots haven't allowed a single passing touchdown this season. Josh Allen scored on the ground against them, as did Steven Simms last week for Washington, but New England still hasn't allowed a passing touchdown, and with all the injuries of the Giants, that could continue in Week six. And by the way, I was talking about this on Twitter this week and people were responding with but they haven't played anyone and those people were right. New England's faced a very cake schedule, but teams throw passing touchdowns very often in the NFL, like all the time. Just because a team faces an easy schedule doesn't mean they can't outperform those conditions. That's like saying someone who ran a five minute mile only did it because they didn't have to run up any hills. Okay, but like a five minute mile is still really freaking fast. We can appreciate the five minute mile, and we can appreciate this Patriots defense too. The Rams have targeted their running backs, still at the lowest rate in the league. However, the good news is that Todd Gurley's involvement in the passing game has gotten a lot better over the last couple of weeks. Now. LA has thrown it a lot over those two weeks, but Gurley's seen a double digit target share in both of those contests, giving him a share of ten percent or higher in three of five games this year. Now, we still aren't seeing incredible yardage totals from Gurley, but the touchdowns have saved him and allowed him to be fantasy relevant. Now, if I had to pick, I'd lean selling really, but I don't think it's necessary right now. Trend eight is that Patrick Mahomes has a five point six percent touchdown rate, which is the twelfth highest in the league. Now, touchdown rates regress, but that number should be higher for someone like Mahomes. But then on top of that, he's actually underperformed touchdown wise. When you look at the yards to touchdowns conversion at quarterback over the last five years, quarterbacks have thrown a touchdown for every one hundred and sixty one passing yards. So Mahomes should actually have eleven point three touchdowns based on that conversion. He has eleven. And we know Patrick Mahomes is better than the average. So for the first time ever, I'm declaring that Patrick Mahomes should positively regress. The next trend is that Michael Gallup leads the NFL in receiving yards per game at one hundred and thirteen and Amari Cooper is third. But Gallup has been awesome when he's been healthy this year. His target share is by week or twenty one point nine percent, twenty six point seven percent, and then last week thirty two point six percent. And Dallas hasn't been that run heavy of a team to start the year. In neutral game scripts, they have a one point five to eight past to rush attempt ratio that's actually above the average, so I expect Michael Gallup to continue to perform in fantasy football. This final trend is more hilarious and sort of depressing than anything else. But the Jets have averaged thirteen and a half yards per drive this season. The second worst team is Miami at twenty one point three yards per drive. But guys, get this, Christian McCaffrey and Dalvin Cook themselves as players, they're averaging more yards per drive right now than the Jets are. So let's hope that things can turn around for that team. With Sam Darnold back this week. 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 searching for it pretty much anywhere podcasts can be found, and don't forget to follow me on Twitter at Late Round QB. Talk to you all tomorrow with the weekly Match Chip Show. Thanks for listening,