386: Mailbag 6/26/20

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Speaker 1: This is the lad Podcast with your host JJ Zacherretha j J zacherreson What's up everyone? It's JJ Zachares and the editor in chief at FanDuel and at number fire dot com. And this is episode three hundred and eighty six of the Late Round podcast, some of many shows that are part of the FanDuel podcast network. Thanks for tuning in. Before get into your wonderful questions this week, I want to let you guys know that the UFC continues to roll on and there's no better place to get in on the action than on FanDuel. For just eight dollars and eighty eight cents, enter Fandel's one hundred and fifty thousand dollars UFC Octagon for this Saturday's event and compete for your share of the one hundred and fifty thousand dollars prize pool, including a thirty thousand dollars first place prize. For more details, visit FanDuel dot com or download the Fandel app today. Eligibility restrictions apply. The first question this week is from Twitter. It's from at beard o six. Does Daryl Henderson still have a chance to become what the fantasy community hoped for what are the past examples of a rookie back disappointing in first year and blossoming in the second year. By the way, why is your surname pronounced Zacharieson and not Zachariason like a siasin so regarding my last name, it was actually Americanized when my family moved to the United States from Denmark generations ago. The pronunciation makes way more sense when you see the original spelling. But let's get to the fantasy football part of this question. That's what you guys care about. Episode three hundred and forty three talks about this in a lot more detail. That episode's called Bailing on Unproductive Rookies, where look at what happens to players when they don't produce during their first year. And generally speaking, good players in fantasy football were good during their rookie season, and so that makes Daryl Henderson's potential moving forward look not very good. It's not to say that he can't be successful, it's that historically we haven't seen players like him who have scored so few points during their rookie year really become anything. If you look at the running backs who were drafted in the top one hundred since twenty eleven, and the guys who scored as many points are fewer than Darryl Henderson had last year. There's only one who sort of hit out of eleven players, Shane Vereen is the only one who kind of mattered in fantasy Ronald Jones and Damian Harris and Darius Geist. They're still up in the air, and Geist obviously had the injury, so he really shouldn't be part of that group. But Henderson's outlook doesn't look great from that perspective. However, I do think Henderson's upside comp could be more in line with someone like Tevin Coleman or I guess it could be Kenyan Drake given where he's at right now too, But neither of them were super productive during their rookie year, and they became relevant in fantasy football, so it can happen. But they also weren't as bad as Henderson was during his rookie year, at least from a point scored stamp. But let me be clear about something else here too. I don't judge players strictly by their probability of success. Market value matters a ton here too. Henderson's gotten to the point in leagues where I actually think that he's a good value. He realistically fits the mold of being a breakout running back pretty well too, and I think he's a fine target as a result. If his ADP was higher, then I devoid him. You're not just weighing probability from the standpoint of what are the chances that this guy will pan out? It's what are the chances this guy pans out? And what's the cost to acquire that player? Since he's not costly, I actually like targeting Darryl Henderson. Don't hate the player, hate the cost. This last question is from at JS Conway. Is GoF a rebound candidate or dead forever? I don't think Goff is likely to be some like top five or six quarterback in Fantasy football moving forward, but he is a rebound candidate. Regression to the mean is coming his way. Last year, GoF had a three and a half percent touchdown rate that's easily the lowest that he's seen since Sean McVay became the head coach, and the Rams had the second lowest pass to rush touchdown ratio, meaning the way they were scoring touchdowns really skewed towards the run. That's something that generally regresses to the mean year over year, so i'd expect to bounce back in some way for GoF this year. All things being equal, I don't think you should be ranked as a top ten player, but he's a good option in superflex formats given the season that he's coming out of and the regression that's coming his way. This has questions from at Will Bullock. Three. If opportunity cost is virtually the same in round five, should I begin taking my guys regardless of ADP to make sure that I get them? Okay? So I want to be clear with the opportunity cost and round five thing. First off, it's after round five when we start to see the change in opportunity cost or around that time, but it doesn't become completely flat. Round six and round fourteen are not the same. It's just that after round five, opportunity costs tends to drop off. The difference between round six to round seven to round eight isn't as significant in what you're acquiring. A lot of league winning players in particular aren't coming from those rounds, so I wouldn't be taking my guys regardless of ADP. I think it's fine to reach a little bit to get a player that you want, but also don't overstate your ability to figure out who's good and who isn't good. Don't overstate your own abilities use the market to extract value. If you miss out on someone, it's not the end of the world. That player isn't guaranteed to be good. This next question is from at Zachary Underscore MJ. I have the eighth pick in my twelve man half PPR RE draft league. As of right now, I'm leaning towards either Joe Mixon, Kenyan Drake, or Josh Jacobs, but I'd love to know what your choice would be at eight, either between these three players or maybe another player entirely love the show, so of those three, I have mix in rank First, I do think there are plenty of concerns with Mixon as a pass catcher, but the way I view mixing is that we know he can be Fantasy relevant without that aspect to his game. He's basically been an RB one and two of his first three years in the league in points per game, and he's done that with target shares of just seven point six percent and ten point four percent. Imagine a world where things shift with a new quarterback in town. That's why it's easy to see a whole bunch of upside for mixin in that offense. Now, Kenyan Drake has that upside too, Don't get me wrong. My issue is that I'm less confident that Drake is going to be the workhorse in that offense versus Joe Mixon. But of the three, I'm easily lowest on Jacobs. I just don't see where the pass catching is gonna come from. They re signed Jalen Raschard, they drafted Lynn Boden. Those are two good pass catching options out of the backfield, and that was an issue for Jacobs last year. Not that I think that he can't catch passes, but he had a sixty one percent running back rush share in thirteen games, so that number should have been higher. And he had that rush share versus just a five point seven percent target share. That's not a great ratio. You need more receiving volume to be a true workhorse, And unlike Joe Mixon, there are players in Josh Jacob's way. So of those three guys, and I think of the pool that's likely to be available there, I would be going with Joe Mixon This nice question is from at Salmon Drums. Any thoughts on the San Francisco backfield. Yeah, I have a lot of thoughts on the San Francisco backfield. I think Raheem Mostert is overvalued, and I think the gap between Mostart and Tevin Coleman shouldn't be as large as it currently is. Last season, the highest single game running back rush are by a San Francisco running back came in Week thirteen, when Mostart had about seventy nine percent of the team's running back rushes. That number was the second lowest in the NFL, ahead of only Baltimore. It basically tells us what we already know. They split the backfield up in San Francisco. So fast forward to the playoffs. Moster gets twelve twenty nine and twelve carries that accounted for twenty nine percent, eighty one percent, and seventy one percent of San Francisco's rushes. Want to know what happened in those two games where his rushing share spiked. Tevin Coleman was hurt. He was injured in the NFC Championship Game, and he wasn't one hundred percent during the Super Bowl. Remember leading up to the Super Bowl. We didn't know if Tevin Coleman was going to play. Coleman actually ran as the clear number one running back during the divisional game against the Vikings, where he went for over one hundred yards in a pair of touchdowns. I'm just having a hard time buying into all of this. Moster was averaging about sixty two percent of San Francisco's running back rushes down the stretch last year over the final five games, and that's great because the forty nine ers were good. That turned into twelve point eight carries per game, but he also never saw more than two targets in a single contest. During that stretch, he hit a target share north of ten percent, and just two games last year, Coleman did that four times, and he hit a nine percent share nine times. I'm just not sure that we can confidently say, because of what happened towards the end of last year, that Mostard is the guy for San Francisco. I actually asked Twitter on Wednesday what the allure was with Raheem Mostert. I wanted to see what other people thought, and it seems like a lot of people think that if Mostert was locked into what he did at the end of last year that type of workload, he'd be a second round pick in fantasy. I don't really agree with that, though, mostly because if we're going to play the regression game for other players and knock them down like Aaron Jones, for instance, then we have to do the same for Mostard. Yeah, he averaged eighteen points per game during the final five regular season games last year, and he balled out in the playoffs when Coleman was banged up, but he also needed touchdowns to get there. He scored six touchdowns across the final five games of the regular season. The forty nine Ers are likely to be more pass heavy this year, because that's what naturally happens to teams who run the ball more than they throw it year over year, one year to the next. The forty nine ers are like to also have a pass to rush touchdown ratio that skews more to the pass this year. Those alone are two reasons most may struggle to maintain such ridiculous touchdown efficiency. And I haven't even mentioned the fact that Mostard is a late breakout who's twenty eight years old. Tevin Coleman is younger than Raheem Mostert, I, of course like the backfield. It's an attractive spot for a running back to be. That backfield scored the most Fantasy points in the league last year. But if I'm looking strictly at value, I'm siding with Coleman over Mostart. He's got more pass catching upside, and he's going a good bit later in drafts. Most are still leaving draft boards in a range where opportunity cost is pretty significant, especially the wide receivers that you're passing to get Mostered. It's not the biggest deal in the world if Moster doesn't pan out, but it's way, way less of a big deal if Tevin Coleman doesn't pan out. So I'm generally avoiding Raheem Mostert at least in any PPR formats, and I'm targeting Tevin Coleman. This asked questions from at rodo underscore insert name. How many carries do you realistically expect Dylan, Taylor and Dobbins to take away from Jones, Mac and Ingram's totals from last season? So I think what's important to keep in mind with the way that we look at these backfields is that these rookie running backs stepping in and they're getting a role. They're not automatically just digging into the starter's workload. Dobbins coming in doesn't mean all of Dobbin's work is coming from mark Ingram. Aj Dillon coming in is likely going to take work away from Jamal Williams and not just Aaron Jones and the Packers and Ravens specifically. We saw them with a split backfield pretty often last year. So the impact that these players make will be there, but probably not to the degree that some think. To answer this question super directly, my projections have Ingram at one hundred and fifty three attempts, Jones at two hundred and thirteen, and Mac at one hundred and twenty four. I could see the Mac one being a little bit low and maybe the Jones one being a tad high. But you can get the idea that these rookies aren't just taking work from the starters. The guys who really saw their value just be torpedoed were the Gus Edwards and the Jamal Williamses of the world. Now, don't get me wrong, the rookies definitely cap the upside for these running backs. I'm not saying that they do nothing I'm just using this question to make note that not a whole lot of NFL backfields have just one singular back, and in the case of a lot of the rookie running backs this year, they're walking into situations that were already sort of committees. This last question is from at CAVTX. What do you think of the Florida backfields? Miami a fifty to fifty split, Tampa Bay, Ronald Jones or Vaughn really their guy or do they bring in a veteran like Lamar Miller and then Jacksonville do they force feed Leonard Fournette. So I'll go on record and say that I think Keyshan Vaughan is the right type of bet to make in fantasy football. Do I think he's an unbelievable talent. No. I think he does a lot of things well, but he isn't excellent at one particular thing. But I do think he has way more pass catching upside than Ronald Jones has. Rojo has struggled as a receiver at every level. It was my biggest knock on his profile entering the NFL, and it's been a big issue for him in the NFL. And then Bruce Arians before the draft back in February, I think it was he talked about wanting a back who can catch the ball out of the backfield and play all three downs. There's a quote that I read on this show after the draft about that. So then they go out and they draft key Shan Vaughn in the third round, and it's only normal, in my opinion, to connect the dots and say, Wow, maybe Kei Shan Vaughn has some upside in this offense. I like him straight up more than Ronald Jones because of the pass catching point, and my model thinks Vaughn is a pretty good player and it's not like you're having to spend a lot to get him. Now. From a projection standpoint, the two come out pretty similar in terms of fantasy points scored. But I'm gonna favor the guy who has more ambiguity on his side, who looks to be the better receiver, and who could step in and play all three downs. To me, there's more upside for Vaughn than Ronald Jones, but I'm expecting a split to at least start the year with Miami. I'm again just favoring the pass catcher in Matt Brida. Both players may look similar in projections, with Howard being the goal line guy scoring more touchdowns, but I'm gonna favor a player who has a better pass catching skill set and one who's been pretty efficient and explosive throughout his career. Howard is a fine player, but in situations like this I almost always side with the pass catcher for reasons that I talked about on the Breakout running Back episode from earlier this month. And with Fournette, I think it's fine if you just want to avoid him. Sure the volume could be there, but I'm not very bollish on what he may do as a receiver, and that was really big for his fantasy production last year. Fournette had almost an eighteen percent target share in the offense last season. Now there's a new offensive coordinator. The Jags reportedly tried to trade him this offseason. We shouldn't assume that he gets the same type of workload, and if he does, and if he does hit, what are we missing out on? Really? Do we really think that he'll finish as a top five running back or a top three running back in that type of environment in Jacksonville. It's just hard to envision a super high ceiling for Fournett, even with lots of volume. We're not talking a situation where his quarterback is Patrick Mahomes. So basically, I think Fournett is fine. I likely won't draft much of him in his ADP, but he's fine. I get the argument that he should have a baseline from a volume standpoint, but my biggest worry is what's going to happen to his receiving numbers, because I do think that we could see his target share get cut in half this year. That's going to do it for today's show, though. Thanks to all of you for listening. If you've 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. Thanks everyone, enjoy your weekend and I will talk to you next week