492: Free Agency Fallout

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Speaker 1: This is the last with your host JJ zacher Retha j J. Zacher reson What's up everyone. It's JJ Zacharyason, the editor in chief at fandel and at number fire dot com. And this is episode four hundred and ninety two of the Late Round Podcast on many shows that are part of the FanDuel podcast network. Thanks for tuning in. Some stuff changed across the NFL over the last week free agency started. Players switched teams and that's impacted fantasy football and I'm sure a lot of you are wondering where to go next with your fantasy football teams. That's what today is all about. I won't be able to talk about every single move that went down over the last week or so, but I'll try to touch on the most impactful signings and how they affect our fantasy football world. Now before get into all the free agency moves. As you know, here at the Late Round Podcast, we live and breathe football, but I think we can all agree that March belongs to basketball. And what better way to get caught up in the tournament action than with a huge new TV from Best Buy. Right now, you can find great deals on big screen TVs from brands like Samsung and LG. Best Buy will even bring it to you with fast free curbside pickup and delivery. Visit best buy dot com today. So if you listen to the last week's Mailbag episode, you heard me talk about the John news Smith Hunter Henry dynamic. I don't necessarily think signing both players is a bad thing for real football purposes, but for anyone who's expecting a big season from both players, you might want to temper those expectations. As I allude to on the Mailbag episode, we've only seen multiple tight ends finishes tight end ones together twice since twenty eleven. It happened once with the Eagles in twenty nineteen and once with the Patriots back in twenty eleven. In both of those seasons, those teams ended up targeting their tight ends a whole lot. The Eagles that season they ranked second and tight end target share when looking at every season since twenty eleven, and the Patriots ranked third. And look, I do think that there's a chance that we see both Hunter Henry and John news Smith with strong enough target shaars for the position. The problem is that the Eagles and the Patriots during those seasons they were two of the most past friendly teams in the league in terms of volume. New England was the opposite of that. In twenty twenty, they ranked second lowest in pass attempts, and I think we'd all agree that with Cam Newton, or really any rookie quarterback, it's unlikely we see the Patriots with a pass attempt number that ranks in the top half of the league. This is why it's really hard to be excited about any pass catcher for the Patriots. Whether it's their new wide receivers and Kendrick Born and Nelson Agalore, or the two tight ends that they signed, it's hard to be excited about them for fantasy purposes. In that offense, one of those players might emerge. I wouldn't bank on the receivers, but sure I could see John U being like a low end tight end one this year. But this isn't exactly the most friendly offense for pass catchers in the league. If there's one winner here, it would be Cam Newton. It seems like they're building an offense that should suit his rushing ability, and that means fantasy points for anyone who has him. The Washington Football team boosted their offense last week when they signed Ryan Fitzpatrick and Curtis Samuel. Let's start with Fitzpatrick here, since we know that quarterback play is going to influence this offense in a big way. Now, considering their quarterback situation and the pass catchers that are on that team, Washington actually wasn't that run heavy as a team last season when in neutral game script, so when games were within six points, Washington was thirteenth highest and passed to rush ratio. That was under Scott Turner's offensive coordinator, and it was Turner's first year's offensive coordinator. But for what it's worth, as the quarterbacks coach in twenty eighteen and most of twenty nineteen for Carolina, the Panthers in those seasons ranked tenth and fourteenth and passed to rush ratio. I think that's attractive for the pass catchers there. The problem last season was that they were playing with some dreadful quarterbacks who didn't push the ball down the field. Dwayne Haskins had a fifteen plus air yard rate of just a little over fourteen percent, and Alex Smith, who played the most games for them at quarterback last year, his deep ball rate was just eleven and a half percent. For some context, the average fifteen plus aird rate among quarterbacks with one hundred and more attempts last year was seventeen point three percent. Alex Smith ranked dead last. What do we want with our wide receivers and pass catchers in Fantasy football? Ideally high average depth of targets. Fitzpatrick had a deep ball rate of fifteen point seven percent last year. That was his lowest since twenty eleven. He's a much more aggressive thrower than anything Washington had last season, and that has me feeling good about the Washington pass catchers like Terry McLaurin and Logan Thomas. It also has me feeling pretty good about Curtis Samuel. In twenty twenty, with a new coaching staff in Carolina, Samuel was used differently than how he was using twenty nineteen when being coached by the aforementioned Turner and Ron Rivera. Last season, Samuel saw twenty one point seven percent of his targets go fifteen or more air yards. He had an average depth of target of seven point fifty four in twenty nineteen, so with Turner and Rivera, that deep ball rate was thirty four point six percent. Significantly higher, and the a dot was almost double his twenty twenty anyone at fourteen point seventy eight. Curtis Samuel was being used as a legit deep threat in twenty nineteen with a very similar coaching staff. The reason he wasn't more Fantasy relevant is because he had arguably the worst unrealized air yard profiles in the league because there was bad quarterback playing Carolina. Imagine a world where Samuel's used in that role, where he captures an eighteen to twenty percent target chair and now he's got Ryan Fitzpatrick throwing in the rock. It could be a really big year for Curtis Samuel and Washington. Two running backs who were free agents but ended up back with their original teams are Aaron Jones and Chris Carson. In situations like this, not a lot's changed, so we have a better idea of what to expect. I think Jones being back in Green Bay is one of the top spots he could have gone. People get worked up about Aaron Jones's workload or what his workload's been in Green Bay, and I understand that to a degree. In twenty nineteen, even with the benefit of sixteen games played, he ran fourteenth and running back rush share. This past year he was eighteenth with two games missed. Could those numbers be higher, Yeah, of course, but let's not lose sight of the overall situation in Green Bay. Over the last two seasons, Jones ranks in the top ten in goal line rushes and he's eleventh in the league and rushes from within the ten yard line. His target chairs have been boosted over the last couple of seasons as well, where he's hit at least a twelve and a half percent target share in both of those seasons. He should be drafted as an RB one, especially with Jamal Williams gune. And by the way, if you want my take on AJ Dillon, I talked about him on last week's Mailback Show with Chris Carson. I think he's just generally a little bit undervalued in fantasy. He had a pretty impressive eight point six percent target share last season in twelve games. That's a pro rated share of about eleven and a half percent, which we should take all day. In a Russell Wilson led or at least hopefully a Russell Wilson led offense, the touchdown upside for Carson should be there too, and he got pretty good money. I don't think money is everything when it comes to figuring out you, but it's an important factor to look at when it comes to running backs. Seattle clearly wants to use Chris Carson. And speaking of following the money, one of the bigger head scratchers in free agency was Kenyan Drake signing with the Raiders, and he signed for eleven million guaranteed dollars. This wasn't some small contract for Kenyan Drake all things considered, and obviously this is going to hurt Josh Jacobs. Now, I don't think Josh Jacobs is this like terrible running back. His price was just too high this offseason, given the season he's coming off of and the role that he's been playing as a pass catcher in the NFL. You can go back to The Cell Candidate's episode from January to hear more all about Josh Jacobs and how I feel about him. But Raiders. Wired dot Com had a story about the Drake signing with some quotes, specifically from Drake himself. This one seemed the most relevant. Drake said quote. What Coach Gruden said was that he was going to use me was just being on the field in a multitude of ways, playing receiver, playing running back. Just having that kind of ability to use my versatility as a weapon in the open field is something that really spoke to me. To share that role with Josh, with him being such a capable back, I feel like it spells success for this team. This almost feels like what the Raiders wanted to do with Lynn Boden last year, and that had a very real opportunity of capping Josh Jacobs's upside as a pass catcher. In this case, though, you're dealing with an established running back who's done good things over the last couple of years, who we know can also steal early down work. It's just a bad situation for Josh Jacobs. And that's without even noting the offensive line changes. Now, with Kenyan Drake officially gone from Arizona, Chase Edmonds gets elevated officially, and I think this is a good time to sell him in Dynasty. I actually did this past week. He doesn't have the traditional size profile for a true Belcal and the Cardinals almost have to do something at running back from now until the start of the season. I like Edmonds as a player. But I have my concerns about some of the things that Cliff Kingsbury is saying about Chase Edmonds being their bell cow. To me, you can use those quotes to your advantage in selling high on him, even if he is a bell cow. We've seen some turnover at the running back position in Arizona the last couple of years, and Edmonds is going to be twenty five years old in April. It's not like you're getting a guy who's coming out of school and he's got six years left in the league. So if you can sell high on this situation for Chase Edmonds right now, I'm all for it. Corey Davis signed a pretty strong deal with the Jets, and I don't necessarily see this as a terrible landing spot. And the same logic could be used for Denzel Mims, who's there but number one. I think Corey Davis likely works best in a number two role and not as a true alpha in a team's offense. The correlation between him becoming more relevant and aj Brown entering the league it's there, but to be fair, that also correlates with Ryan Tannehill becoming a thing. Again. The real reason I think he's best suited as a number two is just because it's a safe assumption to make. He never really did much with his volume, at least efficiency wise, until this past year when things were finally in place, and even when AJ Brown was out this past year, Davis didn't see his numbers go up. They actually were worse without AJ Brown. The Jets landing spot is fine in my eyes because we shouldn't project what's gone on with the Jets over the last couple of seasons to what's about to happen to the Jets. There's a completely new coaching staff there, and if they end up keeping Sam Donald, you have to feel a little bit bullish on Darnald's potential than you did with Adam Gase. If they don't keep Donald, then there's a chance for an upgrade of that position. There's no need to value Corey Davis highly, But I think this could be viewed as sort of a lateral move for fantasy purposes. Since the Titans are likely to be a fairly run heavy team, a twenty percent target chair in the Titans is likely not going to yield as many targets as a twenty percent target share on most teams. So I'm cool with his landing spot. I think there were very few spots, maybe one being Green Bay where Davis could have walked into and seen a decent uptick in fantasy value. Let's talk about tight ends. One of my favorite by type ends this offseason. One thing I talked about in the By Candidate show was Gerald Everett, and he found a home that I'd argue is one of the best spots he could have landed in in Seattle. Seattle's new offensive coordinator is Shane Waldron. He was the Rams passing game coordinator over the last couple of years, and he was also the tight ends coach. In twenty seventeen, he coached Gerald Everett. The tie between the two can't be a bad thing. Everett's an athletic tight end, though with legitimate upside. We want athleticism at the tight end position. It's one of the main things I've found in spotting breakout tight ends. And now Everett's on the team where there's opportunity at the position, and there's not a whole lot of pass catchers outside Seattle's top two wide receivers. And for what it's worth, even though they've got a new coordinator. The Seahawks have been pretty average and tight end target chhair over the last couple of seasons, it's not like they've ignored the position. Like New England. Jared Cook also found a new team. He's going to the Chargers, and the Chargers are probably the most attractive landing spot for a tight end now because Hunter Henry's gone and Justin Herbert's entering his second year now. Cook's still likely more of a dart throw type player and not one that you'll seriously need to spend up on for a lot of reasons. But this could be a time to buy Donald Parham in Dynasty since people may see Jared Cook and think that Param's now buried. But Parham is a freak size wise, and he's a whole lot younger and brings way more upside than Jared Cook. I could see them going after a tight end in the draft, but you shouldn't have to spend up for a parum dart throw. Will Fuller found a pretty good spot in Miami. I understand that some people don't see it that way, but there's not much in the way of competition for him, so he has the potential to see a similar type of role and target share as he saw in twenty twenty. Those throws are unfortunately not coming from Deshaun Watson anymore. But I think we've got to give to a little benefit of the doubt. He didn't have an offseason to prep. He was coming off a very significant injury, he didn't have that great of weapons to throw to, and his deep ball numbers last year they weren't that bad. He was below average and completion percentage on fifteen plus air yard throws, but he wasn't like dead last. I just think if there's there's a quarterback we should be somewhat lenient with, it would be Tua. I'm not saying that he hits. I just don't think that it's a guarantee that he's dust. That's my hope for Will Fulder. It's not necessarily all that analytical. I just see Fuller stepping in and having an opportunity to run a full route tree, and if there's improvement on TUI side, then Fuller can easily beat his ADP. And if you listen to last week's episode on Injury Prone No Thiss, you know not to totally totally worry about Fuller's injury history. Juju Smith Schuster's market wasn't as good as we all probably thought it would be six months ago. A big reason for that, I think is that teams probably don't view him as an alpha. He's seen his slot snap rate increase year over year with the Steelers and without Antonio Brown. That's basically what he's been a slot receiver. You don't need to pay up for that. This doesn't mean that I think Juju is replacement level. He's great after the catch, and he's a great red zone threat. A big reason Pittsburgh's a good spot for him and his fane production is because the Steelers have been pretty pass heavy over the last half decade, So an eighteen percent target chair there is going to be prettier than an eighteen percent target chair in most places. That can change, though. That's the fear with Juju is that the Steelers do get more run heavy and those team attempts dropped by like sixty. But I think we'll see something similar this year as we did this past year. James Washington probably gets the worst result here since Chase Claypole's bound to steal more snaps. But you've got Claypool and Deontay Johnson on the outside and they can move around of course too, But then Juju can sit in the slot as he did in twenty twenty. No players saw more slot targets last year than Juju Smith Schuster. That should provide him a decent floor, but again, given his role, I do think the ceiling is a little bit capped. That's my general take on Juju sticking with Pittsburgh Now. It took long enough, but Kenny Galladay finally found a team, and thankfully it's not with the Ravens, where he'd struggled to see a lot of volume. Instead, he landed with the Giants. Like a lot of these wide receiver landing spots, some people might not like this one, but I actually don't think it's all that bad. As I always say, good players see high target chairs. Target chairs are generally earned at the upper levels. Kenny Galladay didn't sign with the Giants to see a sixteen percent target chair, despite the competition there. I think it's very reasonable to think that he can be in line with what he'd been seeing in Detroit, which was a twenty one or twenty two percent target chair. This coaching staff for New York is probably gonna end up leaning a little bit more run heavy than the average team, but again we're not talking Baltimore. The Giants were nineteenth in overall pass the rush ratio last year and twenty fourth in neutral game scripts. And what I like about the match here for Galladay is Daniel Jones and what he showed last year with his deep ball ability. He didn't throw it down the field at a high rate this past year, but he completed fifty six percent of his throws on fifteen plus air yard tosses. That was the top five number in the league. Meanwhile, in twenty nineteen, which was Galladay's last full season because he didn't play that much last year, he led the league in yards on fifteen plus air yard throws. In twenty eighteen, he was top twenty despite missing a game. Kenny Galladay can get down the field and he's probably the best in the league. I can tested catches. This is sort of what the Giants needed. He compliments the rest of the weapons that they have in that offense really well, or I should say the other weapons compliment him well. And while I don't think it's a lock that he steps in and dominates, because this is also somewhat dependent on Daniel Jones. I think this is one of the better landing spots overall for Kenny Galladay. Now I know that I didn't get to all the moves that happened over the last week. If you have questions about anything in particular, like how I feel about Jamal Williams in Detroit, feel free to ask those questions for the mailbag. I'll be happy to answer. But that's going to do it for today's show. Thanks to all of you for listening. If you've got subscribed to Late Round podcast, make sure you are by searching for it pretty much anywhere podcasts can be found and no forgets. Follow me on Twitter at Late Round QB. Thanks everyone, talk to you later in the week.