750: Mailbag 3/24/23

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Speaker 1: This is the lad Podcast with your host JJ Zacherwtha, j J Zacherweth. What's up everyone, It's JJ zach er esen in. This is episode seven hundred and fifty of the Late Round Fantasy Football podcast sponsored by FanDuel. Thanks for tuning in. Before getting the mailbag questions this week, of course, I'm gonna remind you to pick up the Late Round Prospect Guide. It's fourteen ninety nine and gives you all you need to know analytically about this year's running back and wide receiver draft classes. And there's an entire section on my year two model as well with profiles of relevant second year NFL players. Again, it's just fourteen ninety nine and you can get it delivered to your inbox right now by purchasing on lateround dot com. Once the draft is over, you'll get a new copy sent to your email. And for anyone who's wondering, I'm aiming to do what I did last year, which was get the guide to you before that Monday. I know a lot of you of rookie drafts that start immediately after the draft ends, so I want this updated guide in your inbox as quick as possible. But go check it all out over on lateround dot com. The first question this week is from Zachary from Patreon. It says, could you explain why your prospect in Year two models generally don't account for things like injury or bad quarterback play? So this is an important question, and it's one that I touch on in the Prospect Guide. But even if you're not reading the guide, which is totally fine, I think the answer here still might be helpful. The first thing that keep in mind with my prospect model and my Year two model is that they're meant as a guide more than anything else. To me, They're there to keep you in check. There's no reason you need to feel some strong conviction when a player has a ninety second percentile score versus ninety first percentile score, the model sees one player as better than the other. But the model also isn't going to be perfect. If you like that ninety first percentile player, more have at it. If it's a ninety second percentile guy versus a seventy fifth percentile one, yeah, maybe you should think twice. That's what I mean by the model keeping you in check and being a guide. So what that means is that you can inject your own subjectivity into things. I wouldn't inject that subjectivity when scores are dramatically different. But if you notice something about a player's profile that the model might miss, go for it. The issue is that we can often overstate what those things are. Like. You're asking why the models don't account for injury or bad quarterback play, Well, how are you defining that? Why should you assume that a player not getting hurt would have meant he performs really well? Or why assume that quarterback play was the result of the poor production that a player had. This question seems more geared towards wide receivers, so I'll answer with that in mind. The prospect model uses some per game numbers, but the biggest production related metric in the model is yards per team pass attempt and that metric is looking at a player's best season, and it's not a pro rated number or a per game number. It's the raw receiving yards a player had, divided by his team's total pass attempts. So clearly, if a player got hurt, he'll look worse in a given season. Within that statistic, the numerator is going to be a lot smaller so how is that fair? Well, with questions like this, you have to ask yourself about the alternative. In this case, the alternative is should I use some sort of games cut off for yards per team pass attempt or should I use per game yards per team pass attempt numbers. You can start to come up with different iterations of the metric then, and I did that, I tested that, and within the model that I'm working with, the raw number worked best. Or I should at least say there wasn't any significant difference in using another method, And you might say, how is that possible? Well, a few things. Number one production is just one of the many inputs in the model. A player dropping in yards per team pass attempt doesn't make him irrelevant. Look at Drake London last year. Drake London was my wide receiver one in the model, and Drake Lonnon was hurt throughout college. His yards per team pass attempt number was not very good. Number two, though, you can still run into issues doing this a different way. For example, if you did a per game yards per team pass attempt number, which is totally fine to do for the record, but if you did it per game, you run into sample size problems. For players who didn't play a full season. A player who played six games could have a really good number there, But because it's across so few games, it's not necessarily indicative of the type of player that he is, the type of receiver that he is. Nothing is going to be perfect, but that's a good reason why across a large sample there's not a meaningful difference within this model when looking at raw numbers versus per game once. And then obviously when speaking about quarterback play, you have to remember that both models are utilizing market share statistics, which means a player is being compared to his teammates within those statistics, which means those guys are playing under the same circumstances. They're playing with the same quarterback. Now, I will say the year two model, it's a little bit different with this because something like yards per route run is in that model, and that can be influenced by better quarterback play. But we have to remember that if there's an exception to the rule, it doesn't mean the rule is invalid. We can sit here and say, look at this wide receiver who missed games as a rookie who ended up doing well, but that isn't happening nearly as much as you'd probably think. For example, if we focus on the wide receivers who are in my prospect database, so guys who would have a year two model score in the first place, a whole lot of them played fewer than half of their games as rookies, so fewer than eight games. I'm talking like three hundred and fifty four hundred players here, because a lot of guys are undrafted and just couldn't find the field in year one. Guess how many of those players. All of those players gave us a single season above thirteen pp euro points per game, and either year two or year three one of them one, and it was Alan Hearn's a guy my model wasn't gonna really pick up on. Anyway. We have to remember that the year two model is trying to predict what's gonna happen in year two and year three of a player's career. So when a player gets off to a slow start, if he misses games, it's gonna be harder for him to capitalize in the second or third year. And that's why Jamison Williams, while he can absolutely hit, because his prospect score was great, we have to be level headed about a situation. In my opinion, of course, every once in a while we're gonna have a situation like traves etn. But even then, since he plays the running back position, I told people to just ignore what happened in year one. He was a player to target in my draft guide. So we can use subjectivity to help us out with these very rare instances. But mathematically, the reason we don't need to overdo it just for these types of players is because number one, those types of players who miss an entire season don't exist in large numbers. But then number two, there actually might be reason to fade those players within the context of looking at you two and year three, we don't see hits from those guys very often at all, So you'd then be changing a model for the sake of just a handful of guys, And to me, that doesn't make that much sense to do. This next question is from Robert on Patreon. It says John Metchi missed last year. Can you discuss his prospect score and where it stands with this upcoming rookie class of wide receivers. I know, I am assuming he recovers fully and can be the same player as when coming out before the leukemia diagnosis. So Mechi wouldn't be ranked in the top five or six in this class if he were coming out this season. At least according to my model, he was an okay enough prospect, but he did have a negative draft capital delta and he wasn't close to the ninetieth percentile or anything. But he was a fine prospect. Obviously, because he didn't play last year, his year two model score isn't looking very good at all, And I think that makes plenty of sense given everything that I talked about with Jamison Williams. We just don't have much of a history of players missing most of their rookie season on wide receiver and then becoming a beast for fantasy purposes, and with Mechi, obviously, the circumstances are a whole lot different. So I think the way that I'm viewing this is the same way that everyone is. We're not really sure where things are right now. We're hoping for the best. Of course, his health is the number one priority here, but I'm not really counting on him being a fantasy contributor, not only because his prospect profile was a little bit iffy, but because there are bigger things at play here. It just wouldn't be fair to assume that he could bounce back and be fine right away. But as a prospect versus this class, he'd probably be around the wide receiver seven range. This next question is an email from Brent. It says, is there a sleeper wide receiver prospect that you seem to be gravitating towards most this year? Yes, there's one wide receiver who I think needs to be drafted way way higher than he's currently going, at least in mock drafts right now. This guy's wide receiver fourteen according to Dynasty League Football's most recent rookie ADP. He's not even listed on Keep Trade cut dot COM's rookie rankings. His name Jaden Reid. Reid has a really interesting profile. He started his collegiate journey at Western Michigan, where he played one season before transferring to Michigan State. Then at Michigan State, he kind of did it all. He returned punts and kicks, he had really strong receiving numbers, and he even saw touches on the ground. You already know a lot of this if you purchased the Late Round Prospect Guide, but there's even more to Reid's profile than what I just said. Like I said, he played at Western Michigan. Over the last two NFL drafts, we've seen two second round Western Michigan wide receivers. D Eskridge was one, sky Moore was the other. Now Eskridge looks like a bust and more is trending in the wrong direction. With that being said, when Reid was a freshman there, he outproduced d Eskridge. Eskridge was a junior, and then Reid left and sky Moore entered the picture. There. Sky Moore played within essentially the exact same offense as Jaden Reid did, and he ended up having a worse freshman season yards per team pass attempt compared to Jayden Reid. When I ran my comps for Jaden Reid, his top comp was Cam Phillips, so nothing special there. His number three comp was Tylan Wallace, again nothing special, but you know who his second best match was Stefan Diggs. Reid is a complete afterthought in rookie drafts right now, but over on NFL mock draft database, he's been moving up and he's now a top one hundred projected pick, So he could end up being a Day two guy if you're doing drafts before the NFL Draft, before we officially know draft capital, even after the NFL Draft, throw a dart at Jayden Reid. This est question is from at tarmau gooy ef. It says, what happens to Deuce Vaughan in your model with day two draft capital? Seems like he could be a huge riser based on your guide, with just the size and draft capital holding him back. He can't change his size, but let's imagine he does get day two draft capital. Well, the problem here is that size matters quite a bit. I've been talking a lot about running back size over the last month or two, and I sent an email newsletter about it too. We just don't see smaller running backs do as well as bigger ones in fantasy football, even when you adjust for draft capital. Now, I think duce Von can still be usable. He's got an insane production profile, and Tarik Cohne and Jaquiz Rogers or two of his comps, and he's better than both of those players, and both of those players had some usability in fantasy during their time in the NFL. But it'll take really high draft capital for Von to end up as like a ninetieth percentile running back in the model, and even then, he's not hitting that elite ninety fifth percentile range. In order for him to get to the ninetieth percentile, he need to get drafted like sixtieth overall, and I just don't think he's gonna come close to that. He's currently at one hundred and forty one over on NFL mock draft database. Now, it doesn't mean that I won't be drafting Von in rookie drafts. There's a big difference there because Von's one of those guys that you're picking against the market because the market doesn't want a five foot five running back. So you can still like Deuce Von more than the market while understanding that his ceiling isn't extremely high. If he does get Day two draft capital, he will rise, but he's unlikely to hit elite levels in the model. The last question this week is from Patreon. It's from Austin. It says, how does the Elijah Moore trade affect his dynasty value? Third year wide receiver who hasn't produced? So I wouldn't say that Elijah Moore hasn't produced. He averaged over twelve and a half PPR points per game as a rookie. He had the twenty six best points per game average as a rookie wide receiver since twenty eleven. Now, did he have a rough second season? Absolutely. I talked about this before, but his per route numbers are typically only seen by bus, whether you're looking at yards per rout run or targets per rout run. He definitely needed a change of scenery, though he had those off the field issues with the Jets last year, and now he's a Cleveland Brown after they sent a second round pick to acquire him in a third which seems like the right kind of bet to make for a promising slot player because he was and he still kind of is promising. He had almost a ninety six percentile score in my prospect model, and after reworking my year two model this year, his year two model score is like in the ninety third ninety fourth percentile. I mean, those are two groupings where we see a whole lot of hits at wide receiver, but of course it's not guaranteed. I will say though, after kind of being pessimistic about Elijah Wore earlier this offseason because of how poor his per route numbers were I was glad to see my friend Matt Harmon of reception perception give Elijah Moore some praise. Recently, Matt charts how well receivers do on all of their routes regardless of the actual outcome, and More actually graded out quite well in twenty twenty two. I think him going to Cleveland is good in general because he's getting away from the Jets and More should be able to capture the slot immediately. David Bell ran seventy two percent of his routes from that area of the field as a rookie. Last year, he walked away with the seventh worst yards per route run among all rookie wide receivers with thirty or more targets. Since twenty eleven, he was fifth worse than that group and targets per route run. Bell was a super volatile prospect. We'd seen some good hits with his type of profile in the past, like Devonte Adams, but we also saw some really big misses, and it just so happens that he's likely heading to that side of his range of outcomes. There's talk that Cleveland's going to be a lot more pass heavy this year too. And while I think Moore sticks to mostly being a slot player, he could still walk away with some decent usage and a Deshaun Watson led offense. Not only that, but I think there's a better chance in Cleveland for Elijah Moore to see perimeter work than there was in New York. New York has Garrett Wilson and Allen Lazard. Allen Lazard's fine is a number two. He brings more to the table than just a receiving skills, whereas I could see a scenario where Elijah Moore is playing over Donovan People's jones. Maybe not all the time, but sometimes. And don't forget Elijah Moore's rookie season, he didn't play in the slot that much. That was a reason to be bullish on him, because he did really well, and he did really well from the perimeter. I still don't think he's necessarily someone you need to aggressively go after, but I do think there's reason to believe that the talent is there. He ranked as a good prospect, and Harmon still sees good things in him even during a really bad year statistically, so I'm sort of a believer that he's more of a bye right now than he was before, because now people will think that this is a downgrade since he's not getting Aaron Rodgers. The Aaron Rodgers situation was already sort of baked into Elijah Moore's cost, so now people will see this as a downgrade. But I'm kind of excited for him to just be in a new environment altogether. That's it for today's show, though, thanks to all of you for listening. If you get subscribed to the Late Round Fantasy Football podcast, make sure you are by searching for it pretty much anywhere podcasts can be found, and to follow me on Twitter at Late Round QB. Thanks for listening. Everyone greatly appreciate it. Go check out the Late Round Prospect Guide. Otherwise, enjoy your weekend and I'll talk to you next week.