1009: Bold Predictions

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Speaker 1: This is the Labor Podcast with your host JJ zachera j J zacher Reason. What's up everyone, It's JJ Zacharyesen in this episode one thousand and nine of the Late Round Fantasy Football podcast sponsored by DraftKings. Thanks for tuning in. Football season is right around the corner, and there's no better way to lock in your fantasy dominance early than with Best Ball on DraftKings, where you draft once and ride your roster all season long. And right now, DraftKings giving all customers a can't miss offer. Draft one, get one entern lineup in the fifteen million dollars Best Ball contest for just twenty dollars, and you'll score another Best Ball ticket to play free for share of that fifteen million, giving you a second shot to win big. It's easy. Just draft your dream team once, no weekly management required, and let your top scorers automatically start each week across the whole season. 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Eligibillion striations apply. Void were prohibited. One per customer entered the Best Ball fifteen million dollars Headliner contest by nine to four to twenty five to get one bonus entry. Twenty dollars entry required. Reward expires in thirty days. See terms at DraftKings dot com. Slash NFL dash Best Dashball sponsored by DK We've gone over a lot of stuff since last season ended. There was all the prospecting work during draft season. There were some strategy episodes of the show. There was the infamous Romadunze versus a Mecha Buca conversation back in May. We've done players to target, players to avoid, and that's just on the podcast. Outside of this show, you've had the Late Round Prospect Guy and the Late Round Draft Guide. You've had live streams the Patreon. There's been so much content and so much research. It's about time for this season to start. But before that happens, I've got to fire off some bold takes. Now, a lot of the Bold Predictions content in the fantasy football space it's just vibes based, and some of this is vibeses based too, Don't get me wrong, But I still want to stay true to myself as an analyst and just be logical, and I want to bring that to the Bold Prediction analysis. I always think of this as a range of outcomes exercise. I'm not looking at median outcomes here. I'm looking at the high end and the low end, and I'm explaining, hopefully thoughtfully, how those outcomes could come to be. And I hope this is more than just entertainment for you. I genuinely hope that you can walk away from today's show thinking about things a little bit differently after hearing the why. But today I'll be talking about ten bold predictions for the fantasy season, and there are actually five more of them that I'm gonna email out in the Late Round newsletter. Those won't go out until Thursday, so if you're not subscribed again, it's absolutely free. I'm giving you two days to subscribe. Just head the Lateround dot com click newsletter and submit your email address. It's that simple, and you may want to do that anyway, because in season content starts next week and I'll be sending my fifteen Transactions newsletter every Tuesday morning, so again, more bold predictions will come your way on Thursday. Just subscribe for free to that newsletter over on lateround dot com. That's enough with the intro, though, Let's get to these predictions. The first bold prediction is that Drake London will finish as a top three wide receiver in Fantasy football this year. Now this is bold because obviously there's a lot of good wide receiver competition out there, and Drake London right now is a fringe top ten wide out by ADP, but I think this could happen. He's been really good in the NFL. To start his career, He's seen a two point zero yards per out run rate, and two of his first three seasons we usually only see that from elite, elite wide receivers. Over his three years, he's had target shairs of twenty nine percent, twenty three percent, and twenty nine percent. Basically, his peripherals have been awesome. And now you get Michael Pennox under center for Atlanta. He's not afraid to take chances down the field. In fact, last year he had an averaged up the target of ten point six among all Atlanta Falcons quarterbacks since twenty eleven who had one hundred or more dropbacks, that a dot by Michael Pennix that was the highest. And in his three starts last year, yes, limited sample size, London had almost a thirty nine percent target share per game rate. So what if all of this just continues. What if Pennis continues to push it down the field and Drake lo London keeps seeing a really high target share And remember Darnell Mooney's banged up right now, So I could definitely see a monster season from Drake London. The second bold prediction, Trevor Lawrence will outscore Baker Mayfield. This is bold if you look at Football Guy's average draft position data, which is an aggregate. Mayfield's being drafted as a QB seven. Trevor Lawrence is the QB twenty. But here's why this could happen. Now, Obviously this seems like a Liam Cohen base prediction, and it kind of is. But it's kind of not. As I've been saying this offseason, Baker Mayfield, he's bound to regress. He had a seven point two percent touchdown rate last year, which was by far the highest of his career, and quarterbacks who have been close to that mark historically, they haven't done well the following season, or at least nearly as well. There have been fifteen quarterbacks since twenty eleven who had a touchdown rate between six point seven percent and seven point seven percent. So those are numbers that are plus or minus point five percent from Baker Mayfield's touchdown rate last year. Of those fifteen quarterbacks, they're average points per game in that season in that end season where they had a high touchdown rate, it was twenty one point four. That's in standard scoring. The following year, their average points per game was seventeen point two. Every single quarterback saw a drop in points per game, and losing Liam Cohen as his offensive coordinator that's not gonna help things, and the injuries across that offense that's not gonna help either. But Baker Mayfield's loss of Cohen is Trevor Lawrence's gain. Last season, Lawrence was solidly in the top twenty and fantasy points per dropback. That's one of the most predictive metrics that you're gonna find a quarterback. And Lawrence has some rushing upside too. He scored between two point seven and three point seven points per game via rushing every single year of his career. Mayfield, meanwhile, who was a really good rusher last year, He's only been well above that two point zero mark just once, just last year. Now, a lot of quarterbacks could have been thrown into Trevor Lawrence's spot in this prediction, whether it's Jordan Love, Justin Herbert whoever. I just went with Trevor Lawrence because I think he's a great value very very late in drafts. Traveon Henderson will finish as a top ten running back. Now, this is obviously more PPR focused, but this is bold because according to ADP, he's being drafted right now around RB eighteen. But this could happen. Trayvon Henderson had a very very good ZAP score. It was ninety four point one because of his pass catching profile. As a freshman at Ohio State, he got twenty seven balls for three hundred and twelve yards and four touchdowns. That might not sound very special, but it is when you look at that context. He did that on a team as a freshman while playing with Jackson Smith and Jigba, Garrett Wilson, Chris Olave, Marvin Harrison Junior, and a Mecha Buca. Henderson's immediately going to be a receiving thread out of the back field for New England. He has fifteen percent target share upside Romandre Stevenson. Last season he struggled in yards per route run and we know that's predictive for future season target share. So that should make us feel even more confident in Trayvon Henderson's pass catching ceiling. Now, the problem for Henderson is what he's going to do on the ground. Right Romandre Stevenson's there, He's probably gonna see a lot of the early down work, especially early on in the season. But this is about bold predictions. What if Henderson just sees a little bit more rushing work than we're expecting. I'm not talking like a huge backfield rush share, but what if he finishes the year with like a fifty five percent running back rush share per game that would have ranked twenty seventh last season. That's not far fetched. Well, since twenty eleven, there have been just five instances where a running back had between a fifty percent and sixty percent running back rush share and a thirteen percent and sixteen percent target share. I think it's very possible that Trayyon Henderson finishes within that range. Those five running backs, they finished eighteenth, thirteenth, twelfth, eighth, and sixth, and PPR points per game. So top ten is definitely feasible for Trayveon Henderson. Calvin Ridley will outscore Garrett Wilson. This one's bold because according to Football Guys Aggregate ADP, Ridley's falling off draft boards around wide receiver thirty Garrett Wilson wide receiver fifteen. Now, look, I've talked about this in the past, but rookie quarterbacks are not typically good news for their pass catchers, at least in fantasy football. Since twenty eleven, we've seen forty one first year quarterbacks throw at three hundred or more times. Only sixteen wideouts from those rookie quarterbacks teams they ended up finishing as a top twenty four option in PPR points per game. Only four of them were top twelve players. Now, the interesting part of that rookie quarterback statistic is that of the wide outs who bucked that trend, who finishes a top twenty four option their average target chair. The average target chair among those six teen wide receivers was almost twenty six percent, which means if a wide receiver typically does well with a rookie quarterback, he's doing well because he sees a high target share, Which makes sense because rookie quarterbacks their teams usually don't throw as much and their teams usually don't score as much either. And when you look at Calvin Ridley and you look at his situation, don't you see someone who has that twenty five, twenty six, even twenty seven percent target share upside? And yeah, before you come at me, I know that DJ Moore finishes a wide receiver one with Justin Fields in the past, but that year he had a higher yards per target, yards per route run, targets per route run, touchdown share, the list goes on and on. They were higher than Garrett Wilson has ever seen that he's ever had in his career. I don't think people fully realize that DJ Moore that season he was on another planet. From an efficiency perspective, Wilson has yet to beat his year one yards per rout run rate of one point eighty five, and despite having over one hundred catch last year, he was the wide receiver nineteen in PPR points per game. What are we really expecting out of a run heavy offense with Justin Fields's quarterback? So to me, if cam Ward is just like pretty good, he doesn't even have to be elite. He doesn't have to be Jaden Daniels from last year. If he's just pretty good, I think Calvin Ridley can easily outscore Garrett Wilson. The fifth bold prediction is that Drake May will end up as this year's best late round quarterback target. This one's bold because there are so many late round quarterbacks to choose from this year, and I like a lot of them, but I like Drake May the most. I did an episode earlier this offseason on second year quarterbacks, on sophomore quarterbacks, and they look really good this year. I love Drake May, I like bow Knicks, I love Caleb Williams. They're all in a really good spot. JJ McCarthy too, maybe even Michael Pennix. They're some of the best bets that you can make. And that QB seven to QB eighteen range by ADP. Now, I'm not talking about those specific quarterbacks. I'm just talking about second year guys in general, and we're always looking for mobility at the quarterback position. Two, Drake May's coming off a season where the average over four points per game with his legs. That was a top eight number in the league when looking at passers with at least three hundred dropbacks. And get this, here's a list of all the rookie quarterbacks who were able to hit three and a half points per game via rushing and eight points per game via passing with a minimum of three hundred dropbacks since twenty eleven. Cam Newton, Robert Griffin, Third Russell Wilson, Jamis Winston, Dak Prescott, Josh Allen, Kyler Murray, Justin Herbert, Drake May, Bo Nix, and Jaden Daniels. That's a pretty solid list of quarterbacks. Drake May's got a new system, he's got new weapons. He should be able to take a step forward as a passer this year, and if that happens, it's pretty easy to see him finishing as like a top six, top eight quarterback. Kyron Williams will finish outside the top eighteen running backs. This one's bold because on Ada he's being drafted as the RB twelve. He's been a top ten running back and back to back seasons in PPR points per game. And here's why this can happen. Now. I'm not massively low on Kyron Williams this year, mostly because there's sort of a dead zone in drafts around that third round range. Now, I don't think he should be drafted in the early third round, but if he's there in the late third, not a big deal. A lot of that just has to do with the competition around him just getting worse as this summer's gone on. But with that being said, I think Williams workload is more fragile than most realized. His running back rush share was almost eighty five percent last year, and that was after a season where it was at seventy eight percent. That's a really really high number. Since twenty eleven, we've seen seventeen running back seasons where the running back had a running back rush are per game of eighty percent or better while hitting three hundred rush attempts. So they saw a huge percentage of their team's backfield rushes and they also stayed healthy throughout the season. Now we have next season data on twelve of those seventeen runners, and of those twelve, only three of them saw their running back rush shares increase the following year, and the only one to see an increase of more than three percentage points is this outlier named Derrick Henry. The average player from that sample saw a drop of thirteen percentage points in running back rush share. I don't think it would be all that shocking if Kyrien Williams goes from an eighty five percent running back rush share last year to more like a seventy percent one this year. They added Jarques Hunter to the mix, who I thought was a really really good prospect, and he's had a good summer too. Meanwhile, where's the ceiling coming from from a pass catching standpoint. LA Over their last six seasons, they've ranked thirty second, thirty second, thirty first, thirty second, thirtieth, and thirty second in running back target share. Maybe that changes this year, but we can't really project that huge of a change, right. And then also on top of all this, you have this Matthew Stafford back issue. Hopefully that doesn't matter. Hopefully Stafford just plays the entire season, but that adds more volatility to Hyan Williams's overall profile. Like I said, I still have Williams ranked as a top fifteen running back in fantasy, but it's easy to see these paths where things can go slightly south, and if things go slightly south, he could hypothetically finish outside the top eighteen. Tucker Craft will finish as a top five tight end. Now. I know that Kraft is a popular late round tight end, but he's still tight end eleven by ADP. That's why this is bold, but I think this could happen. We're not gonna see Tucker Craft have a nine point three yards after the catch per reception rate like he had last year, because quite literally, since twenty eleven, only one other tight end has done that with at least fifty targets, but that one tight end, George Kittle. Sometimes when there are numbers that are bound to regress, they can still tell us a story craft. Even getting to that hive of a yak per reception is really impressive. Since twenty eleven, the only tight ends who have gotten to is seven and a half yards after the catch per reception with fifty or more targets have been George Kittle, Dallas Goddard, David Joku, Noah Vance McDonald, Evan Ingram, Travis Kelce, Rob Gronkowski, and Brent Sellick. That's not a bad list. We need athleticism for our tight ends to give us a big, big season, and Kraft has that. He showed that last year, and we also won a path for our tight end to be a top two target geter on his own team. Now, I like Matthew Golden, I like Jayden Reid, I even like Romeo Dobbs. But with the Packers pass catchers, this could go in a lot of different directions. That gives an opportunity for Tucker Kraft to see a lot of volume, and the Packers are definitely a candidate to throw the ball a lot more this year than they did last year, so it makes him a very intriguing late round option, and with tight end being so weak outside the top three, in my opinion, I think that he could finish as a top five option this year. Keon Coleman will outscore Jerry Judy. This one's bowld as Jerry Judy is the wide receiver thirty two by ADP. Keon Coleman Wide Receiver forty eight. Now, I think when I look back on this one, it could look really really stupid. I mean, a lot of these probably will. I'm probably only gonna hit on like four or five of them, but this one in particular might look kind of dumb. Because Keon Coleman last season wasn't like a special rookie wide receiver. I think that this season could go in a lot of different directions. But that's also entirely the point. Coleman's yards perout run last year was one point seven to one, actually not bad for a rookie wide receiver, and that was a harder number. He only ran thirty six routes from the slot last year. According to PFF, his average depth of target was fifteen point five, so He's basically just running down the field on the perimeter pretty consistently in that Bill's offense. And when you query some historical comps for Coleman, you do get some good names Courtland Sutton, Mike Evans, George Pickens, those types of wide receivers, those bigger bodied perimeter receivers who ruined to larger roles as they developed in the NFL. And Coleman, to me, has a chance for that. He was a little raw entering the league, which makes sense because he was twenty one years old, but he has the size and he has the ability to bring it all together and make a splash in the NFL. And I think his size, his frame is where this bold prediction can really work. He led Buffalo in red zone targets last year. Buffalo is a huge regression candidate with how they score their touchdowns. Forty eight percent of their scores last year came via the pass. That's a really low number. That number was closer to sixty five percent for them over the last five seasons. Meanwhile, on the other side of this prediction, you got Jerry Judy. He's never been much of a touchdown scorer. I mean the dude had twelve hundred and twenty nine yards last year and he found the end zone just four times. Some might say regression, but let's not pretend that Cleveland is projected to be some powerhouse offense. Now Joe Flacco is starting for Cleveland. That's better than the alternatives. From a fantasy footballpers there's no doubt, but we can't assume that he's going to be under center for all seventeen games. In fact, I would bet that he's not gonna be under center for all seventeen games. And while Judy did have some great moments last year, he also ran pretty pure. For instance, during the five week stretch where Cedric Tillman was a key player in that offense, Judy averaged a little over fourteen PPR points per game. He had a modest nineteen point six percent target share. That's fine from a production standpoint, but the peripherals really weren't that great. His yards per out run last year, his targets per out run, they didn't look all that different from previous seasons. And Jamis Winston played a huge role too. When Judy played without Jamis Winston, he averaged nine point three PPR points per game, and last season Cleveland finished with the second highest pass rate in football. No player ran more routes than Jerry Judy in the entire NFL. I just don't think that's going to continue, or at least I don't think we can bank on that. So much up in the air in Cleveland. I could see where this season goes south for Jerry Judy, and if Coleman's able to develop, maybe he scores more touchdowns this year in an offense that should have more passing touchdowns. I could see this bold prediction coming true. The ninth bold prediction today is at least eight quarterbacks will finish with twenty or more points per game. Now, this is in standard scoring, but since twenty eleven, there have only been three seasons where eight or more quarterbacks scored twenty or more standard Fantasy points per game. Over the last three years, we've been at four, four, and six quarterbacks hitting that mark. But I think this could happen this year. There's nothing wrong with spending up at quarterback and getting one of the Big four in my opinion, but outside of those quarterbacks, the position is so so deep. I mean, you're getting mid range quarterback twos like Jordan Love and Justin Herbert. Even low end QB two is like Bryce Young are in pretty good spots. So with the position being as strong as it is, and most importantly, with so many dual threat quarterbacks out there, it wouldn't shock me at all if we see one of the best quarterback seasons in some time, at least from a fantasy perspective. Now, I don't think that we're gonna see like a twenty twenty season where ten quarterbacks got to twenty plus points per game, but eight is definitely within reach, even though we haven't been close to that number since twenty twenty one. The last bold prediction today is that both JK. Dobbins and RJ. Harvey will finish as top twenty four running backs. This one's bold because obviously they play for the same team and JK. Dobbins he gets selected at RB thirty four, RJ. Harvey just inside the top twenty four. But here's why this could happen. Dating back to twenty eleven, we've averaged one point seven running back teammate pairings finishing in the top twenty four together in PPR points per game per season. In recent seasons, we've seen that with Detroit right, David Montgomery and Jamier Gibbs. In previous seasons, it was the Browns with like Nick Chubb, Kareem Hunt, you know who else did it New Orleans and they did it twice both times under Sean Payton. Peyton's backfields are very attractive for fantasy football purposes, since at least twenty eleven, his teams have never finished below sixth and running back target share. Even last year, when they had absolute dust at running back, the Broncos still finished eighteenth, the relatively average ranking and PPR points score at the position. The team invested in the explosive RJ. Harvey and then JK. Dobbins is coming off a solid season. They have a really good offensive line, and they have a really good defense that could keep them in positive game scripts and that could keep them focusing on the running back position and giving both Harvey and Dobbins a whole lot of work. So it would not shock me if Denver's one of those teams who has two running backs in the top twenty four this year in PPR points per game. Just to reiterate, there's gonna be five more bold predictions that will hit your inbox. If you're a Late Round newsletter subscriber. To subscribe, it's absolutely free. Go to Lateround dot com and just click newsletter. But that's it for today's show. Thanks Alvy for listening. If you get subscribed to the Late Round Fantasy Football podcast, make sure you are bustitting for it pretty much anywhere podcast can be found, and it'll follow me on Twitter and on Blue Sky at Late Round QB. The season finale of Becoming a Best Ball bro will drop tomorrow, and then later in the week we've got another mailbag episode. Appreciate you guys listening. I'll talk to you tomorrow