941: Mailbag 11/8/24

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Speaker 1: This is the last with your host, JJ zacherthas JJ Zacher refa. What's up everyone, It's JJ Zacharyeson in this episode nine and forty one of the Late Round Fantasy Football podcast sponsored by Underdog. Thanks for tuning in. Before I get to these mailbag questions, I want to remind you to check out Underdog over On Underdog you can play pick them in Champions mode, and of course you can do snake drafts each week. Just looking at the lobby, they're literally over twenty drafts. You can join right now for this week slate. To check it all out, head to Underdog Fantasy dot com and sign up with promo code Late Round. That'll get you a deposit offer. It's also going to get you a link to my rest of season rankings. Those are updated for you every Tuesday. That's only if you sign up with promo code Late Round, make a deposit, and start playing. Now let's get to these mailbag questions. The first question this week is from Twitter. It's from at Teberg Underscore Tray four. It says, when talking trades and selling players high, I often hear fantasy analysts say wait until next week because they have a good matchup this week. Shouldn't you be using this good matchup as a case to help you sell the player. Thanks for tuning in to my question. So I've said it before, I'll say it again. Calling a player a buy or a sell it's not as easy as it sounds, because everyone's going to have a different feel for how that player is valued within the market. We unfortunately don't have some generally accepted cost for each player during the season like we do at the beginning of one, which at the beginning of one it's an average rapt position. We kind of have that with rest of season rankings, but it's just not as readily available as ADP data is now. With that in mind, I think you can really approach this in both ways. The reason I like to throw the caveat of he has a good or bad matchup this week, so beware of that is because people are reactionary. So if a players sell high and that player has another good matchup upcoming after that next week, people might end up liking him that much more, and that's not always pushed into his cost if you're just saying, oh hey, look, he has a good matchup this week too, Like if a running backs is sell. But he's facing the Panthers this week. I'm probably gonna hesitate calling him a cell because we know that matchups against the Panthers tend to be great news for running backs. We're playing probability. We know that running backs when they face Carolina they perform better than their season long average. Now you can tell your league made Hey, this back gets Carolina this week too, and maybe that's gonna help your case. If that happens, then okay, sell them. But in my experience, fantasy football managers want to see production. They don't want to buy with the intent to forecast that production. It's why buys and sells are almost always based on production itself. We're trying to players who are over or underperforming, usually based on their underlying metrics. So you can do this. I just think that when you're talking about every league out there, when we're giving advice to tons and tons of people, people won't give schedule enough thought. They won't care enough about that upcoming matchup. They just want to see production. The next question is also from twitters from at big Ee Underscore Houston. All it says is xavierly get thoughts. So when we look at the metrics, I think it's kind of a mixed bag for xavierly get PFF right now has them with a pretty mediocre grade. His yards per route run this season it's only one point one six. When you look at rookie wide receiver since twenty eleven who have yards per rout run rates below that one point two mark, you're not looking at many hits. DeVante Adams is the go to with this kind of analysis. I actually talked about him earlier this week when doing similar analysis with Cedric Tillman. But outside of Devanta Adams, it's really only like Darnell Mooney. Now the season's not over, that number can improve. He's also working with not so great quarterback play. But you can also compare his number to other players on the team and it's not better than other players on the team. And then on top of that, there were some flaws to his prospect profile. Usually in these circumstances, if the prospect was really good, it's easier to sort of excuse a down rookie season or poorer production or poorer efficiency marks. And I don't want to say that le Guet was like a bad, bad prospect. He wasn't terrible, but he definitely had some issues. That's all outlined in the Late Round Prospect Guide. I mean, I talked about that on this show. So my thoughts only get is that he should be rostered in Redraft. I mean, obviously you should be rostered in Dynasty too. It's still early in his career. It's still early in this season to really definitively go one way or another here, But I'll just say this, he's not trending in the right direction. This best question is from Dirty Bears on Patreon. It says, Hey, JJ, thank you for all the hard work you put into everything. Shout out to the Discord this year. It has been fun to be part of it this season. Thank you for anyone else who wants to join the Discord, said the Late Round dot Com. It's all part of the Patreon package. But here's what the question says, what's the thought on Justin Herbert? Currently? He's quietly putting together a solid NFL season with ten touchdowns in one interception. Yes, they have been conservative to start the year, but the last couple of weeks they seem to be airing it out more. The Chargers seem like a playoff team. Or at least a contender for it. Also, you've been higher on the Chargers wide receivers this week with Johnston being an AD and you being higher on the market with lad McConkey. Could justin Herbert be a fantasy starter to end the year and not just a streamer. So, Herbert's been the QB seven and the QB eleven and weekly scoring over his last two he scored twenty four and twenty points in those contests. Prior to that and his other six games he never reached fifteen standard points. So the question is what changed. Well, one thing could just be his general health. I don't want to dismiss that after he was hurt earlier this season, But there are a couple of things that have happened over the last few weeks that weren't happening to start the year. One is the way that the team was managing the offense from weeks one through four. According to Fantasy Lives drop back over expected numbers, the Chargers were well below average every week within that metric, they were running way more than normal. Over their last four those numbers have been zero percent, so they were totally neutral that game plus eight percent plus three percent and then plus two percent. So the Chargers have been way more pass heavy over their last four games. Maybe that's because they just feel more comfortable doing that and they realize it's a smart thing to do, or maybe justin Herbert is just healthier now. Another reason we're seeing better success from Herbert is average depth of target from weeks one through four. So his first four games, Herbert was above an eight out of seven point six just once. That's a record to PFF data. Over his last four he hasn't been below an eight out of eight in any game. His a dot in total has gotten up over a yard over his last four games. And if you look at those games, while he's had better yardage totals, he averaged one hundred and forty four and a half passing yards per game over his first four, it's been two hundred and eighty six point eight over his last four. That's due to both an increase in volume like I just talked about, in a greater push to get the ball down the field. We have to also remember that quarterback scoring it's going to be driven by touchdowns more than anything else. And during this four game stretch where he's been throwing for more yards where he's been pushing the ball down the field. One of those games he faced Denver, we know it's going to be tougher to throw for touchdowns. He had one in that game. The next week was against Arizona, and despite three hundred and forty nine yards, he didn't throw for a touchdown. So regression was coming, and we've seen a more normalized rate of throwing touchdowns over his last two games. He's had two touchdowns in each of his last two. So what I'm getting at here is that, yes, you're right in thinking that Herbert's a better fantasy asset right now than he was at the beginning of the season. They're throwing the ball a lot more, he's pushing it down the field, and he's healthier. The Chargers also have the third best schedule in the short term and the tenth best schedule in the long term rest of season. That's according to adjusted Fantasy points allowed. So if you kind of want a cheaper quarterback, buy He's not a bad quarterback to call out. This has questions from twitters from at RM it says, is it smarter to make all your lineup decisions based on adjusted points against? Meaning regardless of weekly rankings. Sometimes I personally adjust my lineup solely based on average slash adjusted points against, especially look at the last four games. But is that smart? So? I know not everyone who listens to these podcast episodes will listen to late round perspectives, just like late round perspectives listeners won't always listen to shorter late round podcast episodes. But the episode that I did with Dwayne McFarlane about a month ago, I think it can help you guys out a lot with matchup related questions, or at least with matchup related data. Matchup data is important. I use it all the time. We want players in good matchups. But if you listen to my Sleepers episode or any other analysis that I do, I'm always gonna lead with the player, his talent, his volume, his role in his offense. When I don't do that, it's usually because it's a generally accepted idea. We generally know what that player's role is now. I don't think that you should be making start sit choices solely based on matchup. By this logic, you'd be starting Ricky pearsall over. Terry McLaurin. I don't think anyone's gonna do that right now, even if Pearsall has a chance to outscore him, and even if he was a sleeper for me this week, logically you're still playing Terry McLaurin in a tougher matchup over Ricky Piersoll because you're leading with the player and his talent profile and his projected volume. Matchups are then layered on top of that. But listen to that Perspective's episode that dropped early October definitely should help this asks questions from patreons From hare Hensley eleven, it says, hey, JJ Jamir Gibbs had his lowest snapshare of the season in Week nine. Do you believe this may be his type of usage moving forward? Or was the Green Bay game a one off? So Gibbs had a thirty six percent snapshare this past week, which, as you noted, that was his lowest of the season, and it came after a game where he had a forty percent snap share, his second lowest of the season. I think we have to remember a couple of things here though. Number One, the lines will often rotate by drive when they're in relatively neutral gamescript environments rotate their running backs. If you look at last week's game. It just so happened that a lot of Montgomery's drives lasted longer than the Gibbs drives. So when that happens, you get fewer plays and fewer snaps. Gamescript also plays a role here. Gibbs has seen snap shares of sixty percent or better twice this year, Week two and Week seven. In those two games, the Lions won by two and they lost by four. As we know, the Lions have only lost one game this year, and that two point victory over the Vikings was their closest win of the year. In other words, closer games, negative game scripts, they're gonna favor Gibbs more. So. You might say, well, that's a problem for him because the Lions are a good team. They're going to be leading, And I wouldn't disagree with you. That is somewhat of a problem for Jamior Gibbs, at least for his ceiling. I think there's at least a chance that we see in okay game script for him this week against the Texans and then maybe the Packers in Week fourteen, the Bills in Week fifteen, and the forty nine Ers in week seventeen. Their schedule is not a cakewalk. There are some tougher matchups upcoming and that should actually benefit Gibbs more than Montgomery. So it's just a games situation thing more than anything. I wouldn't expect a sub forty percent snapshare each week for Jamier Gibbs. The last question this week is also from Patreon, is from David R. Says, how do you balance your bench at this time of the season. So early on in the season, you're just generally stashing players who you think might be able to break out. We haven't seen any football right it's week one. We haven't seen anything other than the preseason. We don't know what these guys, specifically younger players, what they're made of. Now, as the season goes on and those breakouts don't happen, we obviously need to shift our expectations. Like if you were hopeful for Jalen Polk in Week one, clearly you feel differently right now, or you should feel differently. Could Polk break out later in the season, Sure, I mean anything's possible, but given the information that we have right now, we know the likelihood of that happening, it's lower compared to how we felt at the beginning of the year. What this means is that we can be a little bit more thoughtful with the type of breakout players that we have stashed. If our poll of potential rookie breakouts, let's say let's say it's fifty entering a season. Maybe that number is like twenty five or thirty. Now twenty five or thirty available players that we might want to stash. Now. I say that because now those extra bench spots can be used on players that are dictated by what your actual team is doing and how it's performing. For example, let's say that you're eight and one right now. If you're eight and one, you're looking good for the playoffs, maybe even a first round by You might just want some insurance. You may just want players on your bench who help your team's floor more than its ceiling, because the floor is really high. You're an eight and one team, you've probably got one of the best teams in the league. AKA, you might want to handcuff your own running backs. Now, on the other side, let's say that you're four and five. Your team's just okay. Maybe it has a shot to get in the playoffs, maybe it doesn't. You need more variants so you can stash handcuffs of other run because if that other running back gets hurt, then you have that starter alongside. You're already established starter, right This is something I talked about earlier this season. If you're a three or four win team right now, and you're sitting with Breise Hall on your roster, it might be a better idea to trade Braylen Allen for like Tyler Algeer. I don't like one for one trades like that, but you get the notion. You get the idea. Instead of having Allen as an insurance policy, you're getting a backup running back who, hypothetically, if his starter goes down, then all of a sudden, you have two starters on your team, and you need to take that chance. Because you only have three wins. You really have to ask yourself two things. Number one, how good is my team? Objectively? How competitive am I? And then number two, what are the range of outcomes for this particular player. If your team is good, you might win players who have more narrow ranges of outcomes, and this also depends on your own risk tolerance. But if your team is struggling, you probably want players with a wider range of outcomes. You need that variance because guys, you're not playing for sixth place. If you have a three win team right now or a four win team, getting into the playoffs is your number one priority, not finishing seventh place and being the best team that didn't make the playoffs. You're playing for first and that should dictate how you're managing your bench. That's it for today's show, though, thanks to all of you for listening. If you get subscribe to the Late Round Fantasy Football podcast, make sure you are restarting for it pretty much anywhere podcast can be found, and follow me on Twitter at Late Round QB. Thanks for listening everyone. I got a Late Round Perspectives episode dropping soon. Hope you listen to that. Otherwise, good luck this week. I'll talk to you next week.