504: Utilizing Front Office Decision-Making

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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 Zacharyesen, the editor in chief at fandel and at Number five dot com in this episode five hundred and four of the Late Round Podcast. So many shows that are part of the FanDuel podcast network. Thanks for tuning in. The reason I love the NFL Draft so much, at least from a fantasy football perspective, is because we finally get to see how teams act. They can say what they want to members of the media, but when they're forced to make a selection, we gain intel, we get new information, and with new information comes better analysis. I do this show each season where instead of immediately just making my rookie rankings, I try to read between the lines. I try to look at the moves that some of these teams made during the NFL Draft, and I try to analyze those actions from front offices. And I'm not talking about specific player analysis. I'm talking about how teams approach the draft and what that says about how they might view players on their current roster. And before get into some of that analysis, I want to remind you guys about the FanDuel Home Run Challenge. It's free to play. All you have to do is draft a team of three players and you'll receive points for each home run they hit. You can then compete for a chance to win part of the ten thousand dollars prize pool. So head over to fandel and play the home Run Challenge for free. For more details as at fandle dot com or download the Fandel app. Eligibility restrictions apply. I wanted to start off today's show with a general lesson that I think everyone should take away from this year's draft, and to be honest, it's something that I tried to drive home on this podcast over the last couple of months. We collectively need to stop making assumptions, especially as it pertains to the running back position. Something I talked about was how there weren't a ton of true warkhorse backs in this class, but when you looked across the league pre draft, there were a decent number of teams who could have potentially gotten out and gotten one of those workhorses instead of a assuming naj Harris, Javonte Williams, and Travis etn were just gonna conveniently follow the Steelers Falcons or Jets. We all needed to have more of an open mind because drafts never go that cleanly ever, and this one was no different. The Steelers did get their Belcow and Naji Harris. That was to be expected, But Travis Etn is in Jacksonville, now Javonte Williams is in Denver. I can't give you a better example of embracing variants more than this one. Do you remember that mailbag episode from about a month or two ago where I was asked about Mike Davis. I didn't sit here and say, Mike Davis is gonna absolutely be the workhorse for the Atlanta Falcons this year. Instead, my approach was to recognize that we as a group were probably overstating the chance that Atlanta landed a meaningful running back in this draft. And look, the Falcons could and probably will still add something to that backfield. But if you embraced that variance, if you embrace the notion that we can't predict the future nearly as well as we think, then you're feeling good today because you probably Mike Davis for cheap, and now his value is skyrocketed. Even if they add someone, you still did a good job increasing that assets value. So I can't stress this enough. Don't overstate your ability to predict landing spot. And in addition to this, don't do that when it's very clear that a draft class is shallow at a certain position, like it was this year at running back. Now, Atlanta wasn't the only team who had a questionable backfield entering the draft who then didn't address the position. Miami's another one of those teams. They did address the position by getting Jared Doakes out of Cincinnati with their seventh round pick, but we can't make many assumptions about seventh round picks. Now. If I'm gonna pat myself in the back for how I handle the Mike Davis situation this offseason, I'll do the opposite for Miles Gaskin. He was a sell candidate for me on this podcast back in January. I still stand by that process, and I actually think that he's an even better sell candidate right now. He's now the lead back on Miami post draft, and even if you get a year production from him, I'd rather be early in selling him than late. There's a chance that we're back in this exact same position next year, where he has to survive the off season. I don't even know if Gaskin is gonna be the short yardage and goal line guy this year. That could be Malcolm Brown and that would hurt Gascon's ceiling. I can tell you that Gaskin is the RB twenty in my projections right now, though that's not necessarily where I'll have him ranked, but he's in a good spot to contribute. He's a big winner from the draft. But you do have to wonder if Miami would have taken Javonte Williams had Denver not traded up ahead of him. This running back class was thin. I can't stress that enough, so after those big three backs were off the board, teams likely didn't feel the need to reach for a running back. Now. The other team that didn't address the running back position who could have was Arizona. They signed James Connor this offseason, and Connor as competition for Chase Edmonds. Really isn't that bad for Edmonds. I do expect to be lower than the consensus on Edmund's post draft, though he's only seen one goal line rush in his entire NFL career, and Connor's a bruiser who can take on that role he can take on the short yardage role. Meanwhile, the Cardinals got Rondelle More in the draft, who may actually end up hurting Edmund's pass catching ceiling given the style of wide receiver that he is. I don't mind Edmunds. I'm just worried that he's gonna end up going really high in drafts, higher than I would want to take him. I don't want to pay up for someone who has a decent floor but not a decent ceiling. Let's keep the running back talp going with the Jacksonville Jaguars and what it means for James Robinson. Their selection of Travis Etn. That was a surprise, but it also wasn't a surprise. I'd been talking about Jacksonville taking a running back in this draft throughout the offseason, and they had been linked to Travis Etn. I thought maybe that running back would be a pass catcher like Kenneth Gainwell, but they opted for a pass catcher who can also be a workhorse. And just like that, James Robinson's fantasy football value went poof. And look I've seen the tweets. I've seen people say that they're now buying James Robinson or that this is the time to jump in and trade for James Robinson. It's over, guys. What's the point in buying Robinson when we know that he's absolutely going to have a cap ceiling as long as Travis Etn is healthy. Travis Etn is arguably the best receiving back in this class. He's explosive, and he's now a first round pick. First round running backs have averaged over two hundred rush attempts as rookies over the last decade. Now, I will say there's a chance that Urban Meyer just isn't very sharp. He actually said that Robinson in hyder is one two punch and that Travis Etn is their third down back. That's what he talked about post draft. I'm not even kidding. If that comes to fruition and the Jags use Etn in that way, then Jacksonville's got a lot to worry about with their new head coach. And some might look at that quote and view it as a plus for James Robinson. But an issue I have is that Meyer is still lumping Robinson in with Carlos Hide. It's not like he's saying James Robinson is the early down guy and Travis is a third down back. It all just screams coach speak. This is just a really good example of not overestimating your ability to predict how teams are going to be managed when there's a new regime that gets put in place. This was my biggest fear with James Robinson this offseason. As much as I liked him last year and as much as I like him in general, it's almost always better to sell an undrafted free agent than buy them, especially when there's a new coaching staff in town. A lot of mock drafts had the Giants going with Davonte Smith in the first round, but the Eagles got him before they were up to pick, so they traded back, and they allowed the Bears and then get Justin Fields. But when the Giants traded back, they still got a wide receiver, but instead of Smith, it was Kadarius Tony, who you guys know doesn't look very good in my prospect model, regardless of how I might feel about Tony himself. The apparent push for Devonte Smith that then turned into another wide receiver shows us that they're not totally content with their current wide receiver room. Maybe it's because Stirl think Sheppard could easily be gone next season, or maybe they just don't like Darius Slayton much. The difference, though, between Smith and Tony is pretty substantial. In my eyes. Tony could use the first year to develop and be more of a gadget type player as a rookie. That would allow the existing receivers to not get dinged all that much. If it had been Devonte Smith, I'd be way more concerned. Even still, the Giants clearly want to set Daniel Jones up for success, and they also clearly didn't feel one hundred percent great about their wide receiver group heading into that draft. That's not good news for non Kenny Galladay receivers on that team. The Steelers had pretty big offensive line issues heading into the draft. I've let it be known that a huge reason the Steelers did what they did offensively last year, which was not being able to run the ball and throw these quick short passes, was completely driven by the offensive line. They had to get the ball out quickly because they didn't have good protection. And as you guys know, I'm pretty anti first round running back. I can understand what the Steelers were thinking thinking with that Nase Harris pick. This running back class lacked depth. If they didn't get a running back with that pick, they weren't going to get a workhorse back, or at least a projected workhorse back. I just think the Steelers have enough holes up front where they should have addressed running back and free agency to have more flexibility during the draft or just trade down. Regardless, they went after Naji Harris. They have Naji Harris, and it seems like Pittsburgh believes that they have better personnel on that offensive line and on offense in general than others do. This quote from Mike Tomlins sort of says that Toman said quote. The improvements in the running game go beyond just the acquisition of additional players. We're capable of performing better than we have players. Aside schematics formations, the things that we do to give ourselves a strategic advantage need to be improved, and that's some of the things that we're working on. To be fair, it's hard for Pittsburgh's offensive line to be worse than it was last year, and we probably tend to be arrogant with our ability to predict offensive line play. The Steelers will likely try to be more more balanced than they were last year. But keep in mind, this is a team that's ranked in the top ten in neutral script passed to rush ratio in each of Ben Roethlisberger's last five seasons. The only time they weren't over the last six years was when Ben Roethlisberger was injured. So I do still expect them to be fairly pass heavy, at least compared to the average team. And that's fine for Najie Harris. He's a great receiver. He should be a beast in fantasy football right away. Right now. My projections have him as a mid to high end RB two. If you want to hear why I'm not a big fan of Baltimore as a landing spot for wide receivers, give last week's mail bag a listen. Clearly, when Baltimore took my wide receiver two Rashod Bateman at the end of the first round, I was tilted. I love the pick from a real football standpoint, I hated it from a fantasy one. I'll have my rankings show next week. But Bateman went from the top of that tier and he was bumped down a little bit because of this landing spot. He's not done for he just took a hit, but Baltimore also spent a fourth rounder on Tylan Wallace, who went later than expected in this draft. It doesn't take much reading between the lines to see that Baltimore's not satisfy with their current wide receivers, maybe Marki's Brown aside. These moves do hurt Marquise Brown though. As I said last week, he was good down the stretch last year, but that was also while averaging a touchdown per game in a thirty five percent target chair per game. He's not going to come close to that. With one of the best wide outs in this class in Rashad Bateman and then Tyland Wallace being a solid prospect as well, that's new and good competition for Hollywood Brown. I'd imagine the Ravens do become a little bit more pass heavy than they've been. To what degree is the question. That's what I talked about on last week's Mailbag show. I think people will project that bump in passing to be higher than I will. Rashad Bateman and Tayland Wallace don't necessarily mean the Ravens completely changes our offense. There's no reason for them to completely change it. They've been one of the best offenses in the league since Lamar Jackson took over, and Jackson is at his best when he's running football. That's why this is not the same situation as what we had with Buffalo last year. And we also can't assume that Rashod Bateman is as good as Stefan Diggs. The moves, though, made total sense from a real football perspective. From a fantasy one, it's definitely a boost for Lamar Jackson in the offense in general, but it's still not the most ideal landing spot for those receivers. Now. I mentioned Javonte Williams a little bit earlier on the show, and his landing spot was with Denver. At first, it does not look great, but Denver doesn't make that move with the intent of not using Javonte Williams. That's not how this works. Maybe Melvin Gordon does stick around and Williams is in this timeshare here in year one, but Denver knew what they were doing. They wanted Javonte Williams. They jumped a running back needy team in the draft, which was Miami, and they traded up to get Javonte. And for what it's worth, I have found that trade up running backs they fare better during their rookie seasons than non trade up ones. If you look back since twenty eleven, trade up running backs in round one, and there's not a big sample for round one guys, but they averaged about two hundred and twenty three attempts during their first season. Every other round one running back had an average attempts of one hundred and ninety nine. Now, non trade up running backs in round one did better than trade up ones from a points per game standpoint, but that's skewed because the players like Sakuon Barkley and Ezekiel Elliott most trade up situations in the first round or for the middle in the late first round. They're not trading up often for top five picks to get a running back. Where I'm more interested in, though, is round two and three. I looked at top one hundred picks when analyzing this, So if for looking at round two and three players, that's after pick thirty two up through pick one hundred, of the running backs who were traded up for they averaged about one hundred and twenty six attempts as rookies. That fell by about twenty two rush attempts for players who weren't traded up for, and in terms of PPR points per game, the trade up running backs averaged nine point two points per game. The non trade up running backs were at seven and a half. So there could be something there, and I think it intuitively does make some sense. Running backs need coaches to throw them on the field to produce. If a team is trading up to get that player, there's likely some sort of need, so those running backs then will have a higher shot to see the field. Overall, this wasn't a bad spot for Javonte Williams in my opinion, and I think that he could end up being an underrated value in redraft formats this year. This was a decent wide receiver class, but like the running back one, I viewed it as top heavy. It's just at the top of the wide receiver class was a little bit deeper than the running back one. Maybe that's why we saw what we saw last week with the draft. There are plenty of wide receiver needy teams out there, and a handful of them barely addressed the position. The Lions entered the draft with one of the worst wide receiver depth charts that I've ever seen, and I didn't address the position until I took Amen Ross Saint Brown to pick one hundred and twelve. I think it was a great value pick. Don't get me wrong, but the Lions are in rebuild mode and just picked off players that they liked best before addressing true needs. That's at least what it seemed like, and you can't necessarily fault them for that. Saint Brown walks into a situation though, where he could see volume right away, and I hope that he's able to play the slot there because he's more natural in the slot. He could be Jared Goff's new Cooper Cup. But like across the league, New England only got a seventh round wide receiver. Indianapolis only took one wide receiver, which was my guy, Mike Straan Kansas City after losing Sammy Watkins to Cornell Powell in the fifth That all speaks to the existing players on those rosters. Tennessee was the one team that surprised me most though, with their lack of wide receiver love in this draft. Their number two receiver entering the draft was Josh Reynolds, and despite having three Day two picks, Tennessee waited until day three to get Dez Fitzpatrick from Louisville, a player who really looks average in my model, and then they took Racy McMath in the sixth round, another player who didn't have great production, but he does have good athleticism. Maybe those guys' hits, it's just that there were some solid wide receivers to choose from in the second and third round, and Tennessee opted against getting those wide receivers. If you're looking for bench depth, Josh Reynolds is a low key winner of this draft, and then obviously AJ Brown could just have an insane year. The last situation and player that I want to touch on today is the forty nine Ers trading up and getting Trey Sermon. Sermon was my RB four pre draft, partially because I figured that he'd be the fourth running back off the board given his size and potential ability to handle a big workload. But San Francisco traded up to get him, and, like I said, that's a good sign for fantasy purposes. They also took Elijah Mitchell, and considering Kyle Shannan's history of getting something out of most running backs in his system, Mitchell's at least someone to watch out for. But I wouldn't be scared of Mitchell for Sermon, considering the capital spent and the type of players they are. Mitchell's a little bit leaner with speed. He could be a good change of pace back for the forty nine ers. Sermon could be a bell cow. I actually think that this is one of those ambiguous backfields that you can aggressively target and redraft leagues. Trey Sermon was a big, big winner this past week. Now, I know there are a lot of situations that I didn't fully cover on today's show. I just wanted to walk through the process that I think about once the draft is over. Hopefully it helped you think about the draft results a little bit differently and in a more meaningful way. I'll dig more into these prospects and their impacts on next week's show. That's the post draft ranking show. But if you have any questions about the draft, you can always hit me up for this week's mailback episode. That's gonna do it for today's show, though. Thanks to all of you for listening. If you've yet 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 for listening everyone, I'll talk to you later in the week.