630: Mailbag 4/15/22

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Speaker 1: This is the Labor Podcast with your host JJ Zachertha j J Zacherson. What's up everyone, It's JJ zachar Eson in. This is episode six hundred and thirty of the Late Round Fantasy Football podcast sponsored by FanDuel. Thanks for tuning in. There's no better time than today to sign up for Fandel Fantasy. For users who have yet to make a deposit on Fandle Fantasy, you can deposit today to receive two free entries. All you have to do is deposit a minimum of ten dollars into your fandl dfs account and you'll be instantly rewarded with two free vouchers. Is a limited time offer. To be sure to deposit now and play for free, head over to fandle dot com or download the Fandel Fantasy app today. Eligibility restrictions apply. Go to fandle dot com or download the Fandel app for more details. We've got a handful of mailbag questions this week. Let's get to it. The first questions from Twitter is from at Hoolly in twenty three, where do you rank Breece Hall and Dynasty startups? I'm seeing him ranked RB seven on different platforms and it seems way too high. Do you have him inside the top twelve? So first off, you can get my Dynasty rankings over on the Late Round Fantasy Football Patreon page. To find it, head to Lateround dot com. But I posted an updating rankings list with rookies at the end of March, and Brece was the RB eight in those rankings, So I don't have Breece at RB seven, but I do have him quite high. But this is about the combination of what the running back position looks like in Dynasty right now. Along with Brece Hall being a very very good prospect, here are the running backs that I have ahead of him, and I'm going in no particular order here because the good patrons are paying money for these rankings. But I have Joe Mixon and Austin Eckler ahead of him. I have Jonathan Taylor, Najie Harris, DeAndre Swift, Christian McCaffrey, and Javonte Williams all ahead of him. But that's it. That means that Hall is ahead of Cam Akers, Derek Hen, Antonio Gibson, JK. Dobbins, Alvin Kamaraz, Takewon Barkley, Nick Chubb, and so on. I actually don't think that's so controversial. Do you want to argue Cam Akers? Now? I like Akers as a player, but we can't deny that he's got a ton of risks to his profile, given the injuries that he's dealt with. Derrick Henry okay, he's twenty eight. Antonio Gibson. J D. McKissick is back in Washington, and there are reports that they could draft a running back higher than expected in this year's draft. JK. Dobbins. He's coming off a major injury, and he's in an offense that likely won't allow him to catch a ton of passes. Alvin Kamara, Takuon Barkley, Nick Chubb, they've all got at least five years on Hall. It's tough not knowing landing spot for sure. I get it. But as I talked about on last week's show, if you believe in the talent, the volume will come. There's obviously a chance that he goes to a really bad spot. Remember that these rankings are not permanent. But the case for Hall is that he's got the best odds to be an elite running back in this class, at least according to my now. And it's not like the rest of the running back position is super clean. There are question marks everywhere. That's why Hall should be a top twelve back easily. I think right now this has questions from at Castle underscore. Jeff, your talk with Alfredo this week was great and building upon the film versus analytics. I have concerns about Jamison going to the NFL. Jamison Williams couldn't get on the field at Ohio State. Will he struggled with equal talent in the NFL or did he put it together in the right system. So, for those of you who don't know, Jamison Williams was at Ohio State for his freshman and sophomore seasons before transferring to Alabama, and at Alabama he had his big twenty twenty one season where he basically posted his only significant production in college. I think, first off, we can at least understand why Williams would want to transfer. He was competing with three first round wide receivers. More than likely one of those guys was a year ahead in Chris Alave and the other was in his same class in Garrett Wilson. So yes, he didn't see as much playing time because Garrett Wilson played ahead of him, and a Lave was more experienced. That's likely why a Lave was on the field over Williams, and a Lave might just be better. Who knows. But I think the question here becomes is it a red flag that he couldn't beat out Garrett Wilson. That's what this really comes down to, because they were in the same class, and I mean maybe to some degree, maybe that's somewhat of a concern, but they were sophomores. It's not rare to see a player have a big junior breakout season and then declare early for the draft. And in those instances, we're not necessarily knocking the dude, like we see this a lot, and when that happens, we're not necessarily saying, oh, he wasn't that productive as freshman sophomore years despite this awesome junior season. I mean, we do say that, but not to an insane degree, not to the point where we just write the guy off. It's just extra nice when the wide receiver had production right away. And it's not like Garrett Wilson is protected to be some third rounder. He's the top wide receiver for a lot of people in this year's draft class. Wilson himself is really really good. So again he couldn't beat out Chris a Lave because a Lave was a year older, he was more experienced, and a Lave is good too. But then he didn't beat out Garrett Wilson because Garrett Wilson is an excellent wide receiver. And then, obviously it's not like Williams then went to a lesser program. He went to Alabama. There's always competition at Alabama and he thrived. So we've established two things here. Jamison Williams profile overall is good. Not having sophomore production isn't necessarily the end of the world, and that profile looks even better in my opinion when you factor in competition. And then number two, essentially that profile is being compared to Garrett Wilson with this question, another very good wide receiver. So we've got two wide receivers here who are clearly good. In turn, it's not hard to imagine some people having Williams over Wilson when you consider the things that translate to the NFL as in, someone may just think that the vertical tools that Jamison Williams brings to the table will matter more in the NFL. It will translate better, and that pushes him above Wilson. Basically, if this were a situation where Jamison Williams was losing time to some projected third round wide receiver, I think it would be totally different. But he lost playing time to a potential stud and Wilson looks better in my model right now than Williams does. That can change with draft capital, but Wilson has the better age adjusted production, so I have Wilson ahead of Williams. But I'm not concerned about Jamison Williams transferring, mostly because it was all logical and he produced immediately at the best college football program in the country. That alone says enough in my opinion. This question is an email from Olivia says, Hi, can you tell me your thoughts on Michael Pittman this year? With Matt Ryan, would he be a third year breakout candidate for you? You might remember that I was really into Michael Pittman last year because he fits so much of the criteria that I laid out on the Finding Breakout Wide Receivers episode from last summer. I think Michael Pittman has a lot of potential, and I can tell you that I did my first run with projections this week, and Pittman looks really good. Clearly things can change, but the projections had him over eleven hundred yards receiving and seven touchdowns. Last year he was at one thousand and eighty two yards and six scores. So I do think he has a good opportunity to see a year three bump. And that's even if Indianapolis does something a wide receiver in the draft. If you're doing early drafts, he looks like a very big value. So once again, as of today, as of right now, I'm in on Michael Pittman this year. This last questions from at Bob Forrest three, would you classify the Dallas Cowboys backfield as ambiguous? So when I've talked about ambiguous backfields in the past, I've done so in studies about breakout running backs. In those studies, I'm looking for players who are drafted after round five in a twelve team league. With Ezekiel Elliott getting drafted before round five, I don't think we should consider the backfield ambiguous per se. I also don't think Tony Pollard is a straight up handcuff, though I generally view handcuffs as running backs who are backing up another running back who's getting drafted early, and Elliott is not a first or second round pick, and I generally view handcuffs as players who don't have that much value unless the top running back goes down. That's not really the case with Tony Pollard. So you're in sort of this middle area with Zeke and Pollard. And I have to say, when I did my projections this week, Zeke looked worse than I thought that he would, and Pollard looked a little bit better than expected. I thought i'd be into Zeke and re draft this year just given cost, and I still might be. I don't know, but usually players like Zeke they look pretty good in projections, and he didn't look as good as I expected. He came in at RB twenty two. So no, it's probably not mbiguous, but that doesn't mean that I'm in or out on either one of these players. In fact, right now, I'm probably more into Tony Pollard than Ezekiel Elliott given their ADP. The last question this week is from at CFD three to five six. It says this stems from your watson over Burke's tweet earlier. How do you balance draft capital versus how much you liked a player pre draft. Can you liking a player account for a five spot difference a ten spot a full round. So this question stems from a tweet that I had set on Wednesday, where a reference how mel Kiper had Christian Watson going ahead of Treylon Berks in a recent mock draft. That's just you guys understand this context. But honestly, this is where having the prospect model can be really, really helpful. A good example of this is last year with Kadarius Tony. The fantasy community is a numbers driven community. Because we're playing a game about numbers, it makes sense we're a bunch of nerds. Kadarius Tony did not have the best collegiate production profile. He was not in early to clar there were definite red flags to his profile. Overall, there were some good things, but there were some bad things. But his production profile, at least in my model, it wasn't as bad as someone like Henry Ruggs who was drafted a year before him. But people had this idea pre draft that Tony was terrible, and when he went in Round one, they held onto that belief to some degree. If you look at last year's rookie draft ADP, and this is courtesy of my friends over at Dynasty League Football dot Com, which, by the way, DLF and Betspurts have a really cool new bundle that you can purchase where you get access to their services across a ton of different sports, so check that out. But according to DLF's ADP data, in April of last year, Kadarius Toni had an ADP of twenty first overall in rookie drafts. He was the wide receiver ten. That was in April and May. So after the draft, Tony's ADP rose to eighteenth overall and he became the wide receiver eight. Now, I don't think that was necessarily wrong within his position, just given the wide receivers who went ahead of him, but I would there in plenty of drafts where people opted for Diami Brown over Canarius Tony, and Brown went in round three. Even Amenros saying Brown over Tony was probably not the best process play, even though it worked out. I had Tony behind some of the second round wide receivers in my rankings last year. Full disclosure, I'm not hiding from that, but in hindsight, I should have listened to my model more and put him ahead of Rondell Moore and Arras Marshall because he had better scores than those guys in my model. Like you guys, I'm trying to learn from past mistakes. But this is why I love having the model. You get a good base line so you don't become too illogical with some take on a player that you had pre draft. And it can work in the opposite way too. When players don't get good draft capital after you really liked them, you should absolutely adjust your expectations. And I'm not saying the market doesn't do this. The market definitely adjusts at least to some degree, but there are individual managers in your league who don't adjust when they should because draft capital does get signal. Draft capital matters. So to answer your question, I utilize my model to sort of humble myself. It keeps me grounded with prospect evaluation. If a player has like a ten spot difference in draft capital, it's not necessarily the biggest deal in the world, especially in the later rounds. But when you're talking about a guy who goes in the middle of the first round versus one who goes in the late second or early third, you should at the very least start asking questions. Ask yourself why the NFL seem to like that player so much more. But I can use my model to see where the break even point is for some players, Like if Christian Watson goes twenty second overall, which is where mel Kiper had him projected, my model would peg him as an eighty seventh percentile wide receiver, which is not that strong for a first rounder. For the record, my model is not super into Watson given the school that he's coming from, the lack of early declared status, the only above average production, and the fact that the model doesn't care about athleticism about wide receiver. So you have to then ask yourself where Burks would have to go in the draft in order to be an eighty seventh percentile wide receiver, and the answer is about forty seventh overall. So my model have used Traylon Burks at forty seventh overall about the same way that have used Christian Watson twenty second overall. Now, clearly my rankings can change based on landing spot, but this is just an example that it's going to be dependent on the player himself and how good that player looks. If we were talking about sky Moore versus Treylon Burks, it's a different story. Sky Moore going twenty second overall makes him a ninety fourth percentile wide receiver. In my model, Traylon Burks would need almost identical draft capital as sky Moore. In this hypothetical situation, he'd have to have almost identical draft capital to look as good because the model without draft capital basically views those two players the same way. So the answer is that it depends. But I can utilize my model to help. And remember you can have access to the inner workings of this model by purchasing the Late Round Prospect Guide over on lateround dot com. You can get the pre draft version now, and I'm gonna send out a post draft version after the draft. That's gonna do it for today's show, though. Thanks to all of you for listening. If you got subscribe to Late Round Fantasy Football podcast, make sure you are by searching for it pretty much anywhere podcasts can be found, and fret to follow me on Twitter at Late Round QB. Thanks everyone, appreciate you listening. As always, I will talk to you next week.