495: Mailbag 4/2/21

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Speaker 1: This is the Late Podcast with your host JJ zacher Resa j J. Zacher reson What's up everyone? It's JJ Zacharyesen, the editor in chief at fandle and at number five dot com, in this episode four hundred and ninety five of the Late Round podcast. So the many shows that are part of the FanDuel podcast network. Thanks for tuning in. Georgia Magnolia Lane, the granddaddy of them all. Golf fans, get ready. It's almost time for the twenty twenty one Masters Tournament. For only fifteen dollars, you can take a shot at competing for a part of the massive one million dollar prize pool, with first place taking home two hundred thousand dollars. Head over to Fandel and set your fantasy lineup for this year's Masters Tournament. For more details is at fandele dot com or download the Fandel app today. Eligibility restrictions apply the first question this week because this is a mailbag episode. But the first question this week is an email from Joseph and it says, with the evolving running back takes in this year's Rookie class, I re listened to your episode on what makes a stud running back episode four hundred and eighty four. I was struck by your comment on your model, liking Javonte Williams over Harris and ETN. But how that would likely change because of draft capital. I was wondering if you could be more specific on what draft capital means. I'll ask this question using Harris and Williams, but leaving ETN out for simplicity's sake. For example, if Harris goes mid round one and Williams mid round two, I gather that you'd logically move Harris to number one. But what if Harris and Williams both go in round one? Does relative position within round one then become important or overall position in the round. It might be clear if Harris has chosen at number eighteen while Williams goes thirty two, But what if Harris is at eighteen Williams is at nineteen? Would you then favor Williams despite Harris's better draft capital? How about Harris at thirty one and Williams at thirty two, or even better, Harris at thirty two round one and Williams thirty three round two. Thanks for shedding light into your process. So I have a formula in my model that dictates this for me, and it's based off of previous hit rates. But I can tell you that when I'm referencing draft capital, I'm saying this player is likely to go well ahead of this other player. Like if Nag Harris goes two spots ahead of Javonte Williams, then my model's probably gonna like Javonte Williams more than Naji Harris. If Javante goes in round two when Harris goes in round one, which is very possible, then it's going to be clear that Harris is the better prospect that I want to draft Naji Harris. I don't really know how to answer this question by going through individual examples because there are a ton of iterations here, but I guess for purposes of this podcast and what you're asking, the answer is that the model has a formula, and that formula is based off of historical hit rates. So a top five pick like Saquon Barkley, he's essentially going to be a lock to be fantasy relevant in some way versus a late first round pick, even though they're both being drafted in the first round. Where they're being draft matters. My comment about Williams, though, is that I'm not expecting him to go in round one, whereas I think that we could see Etn or Naji Harris go in the first. If that's the case, the gap is likely to be meaningful and that'll push Javonte down to the RB three spot, whereas right now he sort of tied with the other running backs because remember after Etn weighed in, he became the model's RB one. But none of it really matters until we get the capitol piece, since that's part of what this model is based off of. This ask questions from at top three to three, what's your preferred regular season and playoff schedule set up? Now that there's a seventeenth game, I'm torn between adding a week to the regular season, adding two extra playoff teams, or switching to a two week championship week. So, first off, I might be alone on this, but I'm kind of upset that the NFL is switching to this seventeen game schedule. It feels like sixteen games and how things are laid out right now, it's just so perfect. I understand why they're doing it, which is money, but things just felt right, don't But anyway, I don't really have a strong stance here. I think any of the above, any of the things that you mentioned, they're all valid, maybe aside from adding teams to the playoffs, since that just piles on more variance to your playoff structure. My guest, though, is that the added regular season game is going to be the norm. So you play weeks one through fourteen the regular season. Week fifteen is the first week of the playoffs, Week sixteen is the second week, and week seventeen is championship week. That's just my guest though. This last question is from at We Won twenty four? How does your prospect model view the mid tier wide receivers in this year's rookie class. I feel like there's just a lump of guys with little to separate them. Thinking of guys like Tylan Wallace, Diami Brown, Saint Brown, et cetera. I think each of those players and players sort of in that tier. They're all solid, but they're in that tier for a reason. Amen Ross Saint Brown has the right general profile when looking at breakout age and his early declare status, but his stat score is lacking overall his max season yard ars per team pass attempt. It's not great and more on the film side, He's not very explosive. He doesn't fit the mold necessarily of someone who's got a really, really high ceiling. But I think he's a safe option of someone who could be like a wide receiver three in fantasy football. Dyami Brown and Tayland Wallace are better than Saint Brown in my model. Diamy Brown has incredible big playability. That's what he did in North Carolina. He made big plays. According to Pro Football Focus, Brown ranks seventh and average depth of target, fifth in deep ball catches, and second and deep ball yards in twenty twenty. He's in early declare too. Pair him with a vertical offense and a big arm quarterback and he could definitely be fantasy relevant. Tyland Wallace wasn't in early declare, and that kind of sucks. And he doesn't have ideal size, but he's explosive and he's got a pretty complete production profile. His max season yards per team attempt ranks in the top ten in this class. And I also don't mind Seth Williams in this group either. But if I had an overall stance on the middle tiers of your rookie draft or wide receivers that are gonna go in late round two and beyond it rookie draft is that there are just a lot of undersized players who are likely going to end up a slot guys in the NFL. And when that's the case, like I've said before on the show, I care less about production. Being strictly a slot receiver is almost a different position than someone who's lining up everywhere. Slot receivers are more replaceable, and so players who profile to be slot guys, and there are a lot of good ones like Elijah Moore is a beast and I hope that he can develop into something more in the NFL, and I think that's still a possibility, but you run the risk that that's not the possibility. So despite his insanely good profile, there's still some risk because he might just be a slot guy. Now more's not in that tier of wide receivers that we're talking about. To me, he's higher. But a lot of the highly productive players and I start digging into them and seeing what they're about, they're smaller in profile to play more in the slot, and that makes their awesome profiles less awesome. That's my general view of this class. The three wide receivers in this question aren't necessarily that. It's just that I I think in the end, I'm a little concerned with how teams may view some of these guys at the NFL level. That's part of the reason why I've cooled down a bit on this wide receiver class. So, speaking of how I feel about this class, I got a question from at data war UK that says you said in the latest podcast you've gone from loving this year's wide receiver class to being a little less into it. Is twenty twenty one a good opportunity for teams with no need at running back to consider a trade for future twenty twenty two picks. I have the one oh five, so I guess I'm gonna be picking either Smith or Pits. I don't think this is necessary. No from what I gather, the twenty twenty two class isn't all that special, but we know that can change quickly. But my stance in this wide receiver class, in this class in general, is less about the top of the class and more about what we're seeing after that first round. I think it's just hard to differentiate a lot of guys after that top tier. Maybe it has to do with the data that we're working with. But I think it just has to do with the types of receivers that we're looking at. So I don't think it's necessary to trade out of this draft at all. There are a lot of players that I still like. I'm just noting that I thought that we were going to be close to that twenty twenty class, but after doing more research, I don't think that's going to be the case at all. And I've been pretty consistent with my take that the running back class isn't very good outside that top tier. This has questions from at Boomer sharp. How does league size ten versus sixteen teams, for example, change your draft approach, especially regarding quarterback and tight end. So I've answered this question a lot of times on this show, but I don't expect everyone to listen to every single episode. If you've listened to every episode, then you're probably really sick of me by now. But the general way to think about this is that the smaller the league, the more flawless your team has to be. If you're in an eight or a ten team league, every team is going to look better on paper than if you're in a sixteen team league. That means your squad is going to score more points on a weekly basis than in a league with more teams as long as scoring settings in lineup restrictions are all the same. So what that means is, I'll be more inclined to go with an early round quarterback or a tight end, but mostly tight end in a shallower league. Of course, there comes a point in time in your draft where the quarterbacks supply dries up in some way, and a lot of people seem to focus on that aspect of things when thinking about how their draft strategy changes with a different league size. But think of it this way. Yes, in a sixteen team league, if we use twelve teams as a baseline league, that means four additional quarterbacks are being started each week. There are sixteen teams, which is four more teams than normal, and with each team starting one quarterback, that's four more quarterbacks being started. The thing is they're also starting at least eight more wide receivers and at least eight more running backs. Our brains, for whatever reason, don't always think about that, though, those positions actually become even more important because the demand increases at a higher rate than that quarterback and tight end again, assuming the roles are standard, so at a high level, that's how my strategy changes with those positions when the league size changes. The last question is from at Stags too, what's your outlook on a guy like Damian Harris? Yeah? So Harris is just not the type of player that I typically buy into. The ambiguity that surrounded his role last year made it easier to get him late, but that's sort of gone. We know what to generally expect, and I'm not all that interested in a running back who averaged a two point seven percent target chair per game last year, who never had higher than an eight point seven percent target chair in a single game, who's also playing in a run heavy offense where the quarterback of that offense is one of the better goal line threats in the NFL. Damien Harris just doesn't do it for me. He's just not the type of running back that I draft in fantasy football. The last one this week is sucking me back into the running backs don't matter debate, but I figured that since it's sort of a downtime, i'd answer it. But it's from at CJ Underscore Fish or ten and it says is it really a bad idea for a team to take a running back late in the first I do sway more towards the running backs don't matter camp. But if you can get the number one running back in the class and lock in a fifth year team option, you can have a stud for five years on a rookie contract. Or does it just come down to wanting to lock in another position that is valued more for five years? Just asking because it seems like every analyst hates the idea of taking a running back, even though this would keep you from having to pay top dollar for a potential workhorse. Love the show, Thanks JJ. So like, I don't think running backs are completely irrelevant. I think they're incredibly replaceable, but they can matter in small samples. They can matter on one play or in one game, or even across multiple games. The argument from people who say running backs don't matter has always been about cost and replaceability. On the replaceability end, not only are there are a lot of running backs available, but environment like offensive line can dictate so much it matters for all positions. Sure, but there's been extensive research done showing that offensive lines are basically what drives a running game. So you have an excess supply, and the position itself is not doing a lot for the offense's bottom line. On the cost end, it's about allocation of resources. You'd rather spend on a position that matters more. So, to your question, the reason people talk down on any first round running back choice is because there's a cost involved there. You could have that fifth year option on a position that matters more. I remember when New England drafted Sony Michelle in the first and this was the general thought that people had to sort of make sense of the pick, that they'd have Sony Michelle in his fifth year option. And I get it, but it still makes far more sense to me to want to use that option on a more impactful position. So there's an opportunity cost involved here. And then to your question at the end here where you say just asking because it seems like every analyst hates the idea of taking a running back even though this would keep you from having to pay top dollar for a potential workhorse. Why do you have to pay top dollar for a potential workhorse. The point of the movement that's happened over the last five years is to not do that. You don't want to pay a workhorse back, because the impact that workhorse back makes on your team isn't close to what people generally think it is. That's what the data and research says. So I agree with people who say to not spend a first round pick on a running back. You're drafting a position that isn't very important, and you're doing so at the cost of not drafting positions that are important, positions that generally cost more money. I'd much rather invest in my offensive line or things that either enhance the pass or stop the pass. That's going to do it for today's show, though, thanks to all of you for listening. If you've got subscribe 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 everyone, hope you enjoy your weekend and I will talk to you next week.