781: Mailbag 7/21/23

00:00:02
Speaker 1: This is the Late Podcast with your host JJ zacherajj Zachers. What's up everyone, It's JJ zachareson in this episode seven and eighty one of the Late Round Fantasy Football podcast sponsored by FanDuel.

00:00:20
Speaker 2: Thanks for tuning in. You know what time it is.

00:00:23
Speaker 1: It's time for me to tell you about the Late Round Draft Guide. The Late Round Draft Guide is everything you need to crush your redraft leagues this year. Their strategy, philosophy, players to target information, players to avoid info, rankings and tears, and more. You can purchase it on lateround dot com and when you do that, you'll get weekly updates to the guide straight to your inbox. Again, that's lateround dot com.

00:00:47
Speaker 2: The first question this week is an email from BK.

00:00:50
Speaker 1: It says, with the DeAndre Hopkins news, everyone is burying Treylon Burks. Am I crazy that the signing actually might be good for Burks? Won't he see less coverage, more space to work, and less pressure to break out being the number two? Do the numbers bear this out?

00:01:06
Speaker 2: Now?

00:01:06
Speaker 1: I don't know if I would describe this as good for Burks, because when you add a player like DeAndre Hopkins, it's naturally gonna cap a player's target share ceiling. Burks went from being the alpha in his offense and having that thirty percent target share upside to that likely not happening now. However, I've seen people really destroying Burks's fantasy value. I'm not sure that's fair either. What we have to remember is that Tennessee doesn't have many secondary weapons in that offense. Burks is still going to be on the field in two wide receiver sets. He's still not competing.

00:01:37
Speaker 2: With a whole lot.

00:01:39
Speaker 1: He can still get to that twenty two percent target share mark and be a solid fantasy asset. There are still outs for this to still go Burks's way, too. What if DeAndre Hopkins gets hurt. What if Hopkins actually does hit that age cliff. What if Hopkins and Burks just capture half of Tennessee's targets. I don't think that's out of the question, given what's on that roster right now.

00:02:02
Speaker 2: Now.

00:02:02
Speaker 1: Do I think that Hopkins's toast because of his age, No, not really. I sent a newsletter out about this on Monday. But Hopkins bounced back big time last year after a rough twenty twenty one. In twenty twenty one, his target share per game was below twenty percent for the first time since his rookie year. He had the lowest yards per route run since his second year in the league. But last season that targetshare per game jumped back up to almost thirty percent. His yards per route run was a healthy one point nine to eight. Honestly, my biggest question with DeAndre Hopkins it's the fact that he's still largely a boundary receiver. When receivers age, we often see them form into more of a slot role. Since twenty eleven, we've had five wideouts who were playing past their tenth year in the league give us a top twenty four PPR point per game season. In total, those five receivers did it seven times. There was only one instance among that group of seven receivers where the receiver played fewer than forty seven percent of his snaps from the slot, meeting. A lot of these older receivers, who have performed well over the last decade, did so while manning the slot on at least half of their routes. The one player who didn't was Andre Johnson. Now, I don't think that spells disaster for Hopkins. It's just something to keep in mind. He's thirty one years old. Anything should be possible.

00:03:16
Speaker 2: In your head. We shouldn't just totally ignore his age.

00:03:21
Speaker 1: But to me, he's sort of in that low end wide receiver two, high end wide receiver three range now. But Burks has enough outs to where he can still be a viable option, and he can still be a number two in that offense and be a wide receiver four or so, which isn't that far off from where he was being drafted this year. To me, the biggest foller from this deal is Chickakoonquo. He doesn't have the backbone that Burks has. Despite an amazingly efficient rookie season, he's now at best the team's third option. And when you get that low, it's tougher and tougher for a player to actually see a significant target share. His target shair ceiling is capped, and that's tough when you're in what should be a run heavy offense. But when it comes to Burks, I wasn't really drafting him that heavily before this deal went down. I've been about two wide receiver spots lower on him versus the consensus this offseason, But now the mark is probably going to overreact a little bit. It's not like he's a bad talent. He almost had the same yards per route run rate last year as Garrett Wilson. There's still room for Treylon Burks to have a fine fantasy season. This US question is from Bailey, and it says, hey, JJ, in season, we get new information every week about how players are performing, opportunities, injuries, et cetera. So it makes sense for ranks to change every week. What makes your ranks change in the off season though, without that same kind of new information, what happened between June and July to move players around? Is it all based on beat reports and hype new research? So the answer is all the above. One thing that's really important to always remember with rankings is that there's a ton of volatility when you get into the lower parts of those rankings. There's not a lot that actually separates those guys like one backup running back to the next.

00:05:06
Speaker 2: So any small insight that you.

00:05:07
Speaker 1: Find, like a report, maybe some research you uncover that can and should change your ranking. Now, ideally your rankings aren't dramatically changing week in and week out, especially at the top. But I don't think people always understand how little separates players in like the eleventh round range to the fifteenth round range. If it's the higher end players who are shifting a lot in rankings, that's a problem. There should be more reason for that aside from a random report from a beat reporter. But when you're throwing darts, you're trying to find any small edge that you can find. Because so many of those players aren't predicted to get a whole lot of work, there's more volatility there, and that causes rankings to fluctuate more even when football is not being played.

00:05:51
Speaker 2: That's question from Chase.

00:05:52
Speaker 1: It says, can you explain why it isn't good strategy to sell the most valuable players in Dynasty? There is nowhere to go but down in terms of value. I've seen this out there before. I disagree with this mentality that if you have a player who's ranked first, second, third, or first rounder in Dynasty startups, they should just sell him because he can't possibly become any more valuable. But that's like being given a car that you really really need and then selling that car just because you know it's going to depreciate and value and become less valuable.

00:06:23
Speaker 2: You might still need that car. You might need to keep that car to be able to drive to work or to get to the store.

00:06:30
Speaker 1: You still need these players on your fantasy roster because they're gonna score points, and it's beneficial for your starting lineup to have a player who's scoring a lot of points and one singular lineup slot. And if these players are being ranked really, really high, they're probably scoring a lot of points. Now, it's fine if you want to sell players off high. That's not what I'm saying here. There are times where you can sell these top ten players. I'm just saying that you should automatically do that because of the most valuable players for reason, they score the most points, and a lot of them are gonna be able to do that for multiple years at a time. This next question is from Chris. It says, curious why you aren't higher on James Cook in your rankings. When reading the running back section of the draft guide, not too many backs stand out as clearly this year, but Cook kept coming to mind for me. He's a young middle round guy in an ambiguous backfield getting drafted as the RB one on his team, with pass catching chops and a good offense without the history of production is his size plus Josh Allen's mobility really enough to bring him down. So I don't know if I'm really bringing him down per se, because I have him almost exactly at market value. So I'm not fading James Cook this year. I haven't met RB thirty one. That's where analysts on Fantasy pros have m that's where he's ranked in Best Ball. I'm at market value with James Cook, and he does fit some middle round breakout criteria. I wouldn't worry so much about him being the RB one on his team necessarily, but he's part of an ambiguous grip with Damien Harris there, and he should hypothetically be a pass catcher in that offense. I definitely don't mind if someone wants to go in that direction. I just have to look at the player himself here too. Not everything should just be based on the market trends. It's not only about those trends. And Cook doesn't profile to be a back who's going to number one. See a workhorse, workload in the number two, be the goal line guy. Both Josh Allen and Damien Harris could easily score more rushing touchdowns this year than James Cook. And yeah, that target share last year, it's a little bit concerning for me. I don't know if he gets to the levels that we want him to get to here in twenty twenty three, because that target share last year is under six percent.

00:08:40
Speaker 2: Now, I have no problem with James Cook.

00:08:42
Speaker 1: This year. We should be targeting uncertainty. He's definitely got that uncertainty. I just have questions about his ceiling. He's a smaller back playing on a team where his red zone usage should be capped, and it's on a team who has a quarterback that hasn't really targeted backs in the past. Maybe the personnel, maybe James Cook can change that. But he seems more like a very solid RB three type as opposed to someone who's going to give you that RB one upside. So he's a totally fine pick, especially on deeper rosters, but he's not something that I think is going to be a true true league winner. This as question is from Manny. It says, what does your research say on a team supporting three wide receivers such as the Seahawks receiving corps this year? So since twenty eleven, we've had five teams support three receivers who ranked in the top twenty four in points per game with them having a minimum eight games played, so it doesn't happen very often at all, and that's also points per game. If one player goes down, another one could benefit, which could kind of skew these results. Now we've seen it happen eleven times since twenty eleven when focusing on top thirty.

00:09:47
Speaker 2: Six wide receivers.

00:09:48
Speaker 1: So basically one team per year has three wide receivers who rank in the top thirty six and PPR points per game. Now, with that being said, I don't think that's the only way that you should be thinking about player value or the Sea Hawk's receivers value. The idea shouldn't only be about supporting all three receivers. It should be about understanding that one may not live up to expectation, or that there's upside if one gets hurt. And in this case, there are multiple outs because one of two wide receivers could get injured. If you're drafting Jackson Smith and Jigba, you don't only need Tyler Lockett to get hurt for JSN to maybe get more targets. DK Metcalf could get hurt too. If everyone stays healthy, it's possible that they finish all in the top twenty four.

00:10:32
Speaker 2: It's possible.

00:10:33
Speaker 1: It's just not probable at all given what we've seen historically. But to be fair, Lockett and JSN aren't really being drafted that way. This asked questions from Robert on Patreon. It says, question about Joe Mixon, average draft position for Jamar Chase T. Higgins and Joe Burrow makes the Bengals most likely a top ten offense and touchdowns per game. Mixon had an above ten percent target share last year and seems like that's possible. Again, he's being in the dead zone and he is also dare I say it old for a running back? How do you weigh these pros versus cons? His ADP is around fifty, so he's expected to score twelve point five points per game per year chart. I think he has done that every year except his rookie year. Is he not a great pick to maybe not be a true breakout, but at the very least beat expectation? So this question really pulls a lot from the Late Round Draft Guide. I did that episode on spotting good offenses by using ADP Episode seven hundred and seventy five and yes, the Bengals fit that criteria pretty well. I think we'd all agree that the Bengals are probably going to be a top ten offense this year. Now, running backs and good offenses tend to do better than running backs and bad ones in fantasy football, even when you adjust for the market in the running back dead zone. And yes, Joe Mixon probably is in store for close to that ten percent target share. The only bad mark for him with the running back dead zone analysis, as this question is asking, is age. Here's the thing, though, I don't think it's fair to say that this is gonna end up being Joe Mixon's ADP. A lot of average draft position right now is not only influenced by best ball drafts that just favor wide receiver, but Mixon himself was being pushed down draft boards because of his contract uncertainty and is off the field stuff. The contract stuff does seem to be put at rest now, but who knows what's gonna happen with this off the field situation. It's also important to remember to properly weigh all of these factors. There are multiple ADP trends presented in the draft guide on the show Wherever and not every running back will fit all of that criteria. There are a few examples where it's pretty obvious. Someone like Jamior Gibbs this year, he fits a lot of the dead zone criteria for a running back who could truly emerge from the dead zone. But there's a give and take with this stuff. To me, and this is really important. The market related trends that I talk about are mostly about process of elimination. If a player is just not hitting on any of them, then that player is probably more of an avoid. If a player is hitting on all of them, then that that player is probably a target. If a player is hitting on some of them, then you could just play your draft, play the market, see if he becomes a value during your particular draft. Now, I know that's not as formulaic as some of you want it to be, but it's still formulaic.

00:13:15
Speaker 2: To some degree.

00:13:17
Speaker 1: It's just important to not place players in the two distinct black and white buckets. There's a lot more gray area with this stuff. Now. The last question is from Fields of Hope on Patreon. It says, Hey, JJA, I just want to first say that your draft guide is amazing.

00:13:32
Speaker 2: Thank you. Anyways, I have a Bears.

00:13:34
Speaker 1: Question for you? What is your read on the Bears running backs? It seems to be an ambiguous situation. What are the main reasons you don't have any of the running backs as players to target? This seems like this could be a big year for Khalil Herbert because he has talent. Thanks, So this really goes back to what I was just talking about. We have all these historical ADP trends to help us find values in our drafts, and they're very, very helpful. I've used them for years on this show. But just because a player hits on one or two of those things, it doesn't mean you automatically draft that player, or it doesn't mean that I have to call him out as a player to target. Yes, the Bears have this ambiguous backfield, and because they're generally a late round ambiguous backfield, there's reason to believe that you should throw darts at this backfield, and I think that you can do that. But I'm not specifically calling out a player like Khalil Herbert, even though I think that he's a very talented runner. And the reason for that is because Herbert doesn't hit on another key criteria that we should always be looking for, which is pass catching. Not only were the Bears twenty fourth and running back target share last season, and not only did they add pass catching competition on that team this offseason in Dj Moore. But Herbert hasn't even seen a five percent target chair per game rate, and his two seasons in the league on a week to week basis, even considering that he's played games without David Montgomery, Herbert's reach a double digit percentage target share just four times. He's also playing with a mobile quarterback, and it's in an offense that's likely going to be pretty run heavy. I think they'll throw the ball more than they did last year, but they're still going to be a run heavy team. That's not necessarily or automatically a good thing for the running backs. You want them to see targets out of the backfield too. So yeah, the ambiguous backfield stuff absolutely there. And I think Khalil Herbert is a talented runner. I'm definitely not fading Khalil Herbert, but let's not pretend that he fits the criteria perfectly that we're looking for in a breakout running back. Throw your darts at these backfields, do it to it. You can draft Khalil Herbert. There just doesn't always have to be this obvious target within each one of these backfields.

00:15:44
Speaker 2: That's it for today's show, though, thanks to all of you for listening.

00:15:46
Speaker 1: If you get subscribed to the Late Round Fantasy Football podcast, make sure you are by searching for it pretty much anywhere podcast can be found, and don't follow me on Twitter at Late Round QB. Thanks for listening everyone, remember to check out the Late Round Draft Guide. Enjoy your weekiekend I'll talk to you next week.