794: 15 Transactions for Week 1

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Speaker 1: This is the Late Round Podcast with your host JAYJ Zacher Retha Jay.

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Speaker 2: Jay Zacher reson.

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Speaker 1: What's up everyone, It's JJ Zachary Sin in this episode seven hundred and ninety four of the Late Round Fantasy Football podcast sponsored by FanDuel.

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Speaker 2: Thanks for tuning in.

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Speaker 1: Welcome to the twenty twenty three fantasy football season. We've officially made it. This podcast feed is about to see five episodes per week through week seventeen.

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Speaker 2: You've got this show.

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Speaker 1: The fifteen transactions episode each Tuesday Wednesday, it's a ten trends episode where I go over some interesting data trends across the league.

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Speaker 2: Thursday is the Sleeper show.

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Speaker 1: Where I talk about players you might be able to pick off the waiver wire to throw into your starting lineup that week. And then Friday's a standard mailbag episode. And then Friday afternoon, so after the Mailbag is out, that's when Late Round Perspectives gets released. Five episodes each week, and there's even more content in the Late Round Fantasy Football Patreon if you're into that kind of thing. Today's episode, though, like I said, it's fifteen transactions each week, I'll be giving you buy, sell, ad and drop recommendations. And remember these are merely recommendations. You don't have to do them. I want you to feel empowered to make your own decisions. I'm not managing your teams for you. I'm just a guide, or, as I said in the newsletter this week, I'm your sidekick. I'm going to be wrong about a lot of these transactions throughout the season, but hopefully I'm right about a lot more of them. Hopefully the right far out weigh is the wrong. Now, with that being said, let's get to the first transaction of the season. Sell Derrick Henry. Look, it's never easy making a recommendation to sell a good player, an objectively good player, and it's even tougher when it's Derrick Henry because I've been burned by Derrick Henry many times in the past. But there are some reasons to be a little bit concerned about the start To's twenty twenty three season. We know that he's likely to play an early down role for the Titans.

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Speaker 2: Now.

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Speaker 1: His target share per game rate did hit a career high ten point three percent last year, but only three of his forty one targets came on third down in twenty twenty two He also only had fourteen targets when the Titans were trailing, and that could be a problem right away. Tennessee opens up their season against New Orleans. They're three point road underdogs. Then it's a game against a good Chargers team, followed by the Browns, Bengals, Colts, and Ravens. They might only be a favorite in one of those contests, so negative game scripts will likely impact Derrick Henry in some way. Now, the other thing that Henry's dealing with this year that he hasn't dealt with in the past is Taj Spears. Spears has definitely looked the part in the preseason. He's a great change of pace back and he's capable of stealing some receiving work out of that backfield. Now, overall, I don't think Dereck Henry is completely doomed, especially when you look at the landscape at running back. A lot has shifted over the last month because players have sort of fallen backs. Derrick Henry has naturally risen, So I think that he's okay enough to have roster because he's one of the stable pieces at running back. All I'm saying here is that there's a decent chance that he's less valuable in mid October than he is right now.

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Speaker 2: AD Marvin Mims.

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Speaker 1: Now, some people are gonna get frustrated each week by some of the AD recommendations that I talk about. I'm strictly working off of Yahoo's percent roster numbers, and right now over on Yahoo, Marvin Mims is rostered in just thirty five percent of leagues. That's despite Jerry Judy's hamstring injury that's threatening his Week one availability, and it's despite the fact that Marvin Mims is really good. Since twenty eleven, we've had eight wide receivers drafted between pick thirty two and pick one hundred, so Day two selections basically who broke out before turning nineteen years old and who had a best season yards per team pass attempt rate of two and a half for greater So what I'm basically saying here is is that they broke out early, they broke out before turning nineteen, and they had good college production. Five of those eight wide receivers ended up giving fantasy managers the season of at least fourteen PPR points per game during their first three years in the league. That's a rate of sixty two point five percent. Now, the other group, the players who didn't break out before turning nineteen, or the players who didn't hit a two and a half yards per team pass attempt rate, that other group it was twenty three point two percent. So the one group hit fourteen plus PPR points per game at a sixty three percent rate, the other one at twenty three percent rate. Now, I'm not saying that Marvin Mims is a lock to score fourteen PPR points per game this year. This is looking at the first three years of their career. What it is saying is that Marvin Mims is being placed with a very good group of wide receivers. He's been productive every single time he stepped on a football field since his freshman season, and with Jerry Judy's injury, he could see a lot more work right away than what summer. Anticipating Marvin Mims should be rostered in far more than thirty five percent of leagues by the Chargers passing attack. There are definitely high hopes for Justin Herbert and the Chargers offense this season. You get Kellen Moore, Hopefully they pick up the pace a little bit and hopefully they throw the ball down the field. Hopefully Justin Herbert no longer has a really really low average up the target, and the good news is that LA has a really nice start schedule wise to the season. They open up against a Dolphins team that doesn't have Jalen Ramsey and in that game, according to Fandal Sportsbook as a fifty and a half point over under right now. After the Dolphins in Week one, the Chargers then face the Titans, Vikings, and Raiders. According to Pro Football Focused preseason secondary rankings, each of those pass defense units ranked twenty fifth or worse entering the season. So I'm gonna call it right now. I think that after week four we're gonna have a lot of Justin Herbert for MVP talk. Add Dion Jackson and Evan Hall. Jonathan Taylor he's on the pup list. He's gonna be out during the first four weeks of the season at least, and that leaves the RB one spot in Indianapolis up in the air. You have Deon Jackson and you have Evan Hall fighting for week one snaps. Now Zach Moss is there too, but it sounds like he's more week two than week one given an injury of his own. I do think that Deon Jackson's gonna get first crack because he does have some NFL experience and he flashed a bit in twenty twenty two. He even posted an RB one overall week last year against the Jacks, and Jackson ended last season with six games above a ten percent target chair only twenty three other running backs accomplished that. I know twenty three sounds like a really big number, but Deon Jackson was a backup. He played behind Jonathan Taylor. So if you're looking for more of a win now piece, maybe you went zero RB during your draft. Maybe you have Cooper Cup because he might not play in Week one than Deon Jackson. Probably makes the most sense for you. If you're playing the long game, you might want to consider Evan Hall because there is a chance that Jonathan Taylor just does not suit up for the Colts this year. Maybe he holds out, maybe he's actually hurt and he can't get right. Maybe he ends up getting traded. That could lead to Hall emerging as the team's top back. Prior to this year's draft, and dating back to twenty eleven, my running Back Prospect Model's database had nine running backs with a twenty percent best season reception share a better. Christian McCaffrey, James White, and Tony Pollard were all hits from that list. Another player from that list is Rashad White. We don't really know if White's good or not, but that's at least a promising player. When you consider that Christian McCaffrey is the only player on that list with sincerely good draft capital, it should make you feel a little bit more excited about Evan Hall because Evan Hall is also part of that group. He's a pass catching back with good size. What do I say all the time on this show, If you can find a pass catching back who's got some weight to him, something that simple, that's sometimes all you need analytically to at least get you somewhat excited. Evan Hall had one of the best draft capital delta is within this year's draft class, which tells me tells us that he was underdrafted. Now Day three picks, they don't usually become huge fantasy football assets. Let's temper our expectations a little bit here, but I do think given Hall's unique profile, he's someone that's worth a target. Add Jaden Reid. So we go from one player that I liked a lot this year as a prospect to another and looking at Jaden Reid, if you were around during the offseason, then you know that one of the comps in my model for Reid was Stefan Diggs. Now, two of the other comps that were top four him were Cam Phillips and Tylan Wallace. So don't just run away with that take and say that I think that Jaden Reid is Stefan Diggs. It's just nice to have a player like that on accomp list. Now, Reid was not an early declare wide receiver, but he did break out as a freshman at Western Michigan before transferring to Michigan State. And at Michigan State, he lined up all over the field and he was used as a returner. That signal for talent. Coaches want to get him the ball. Now he's in Green Bay, you have Christian Watson and Romeo Dobbs there. Reid's gonna start the season as a team's top slock guy.

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Speaker 2: But here's the thing.

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Speaker 1: Christian Watson, Romeo Dobbs, they don't have some long history of being productive in the NFL. There's a chance here that Reid just emerges this season as the team's most reliable weapon. He had a much better prospect score than Romeo Dobbs in my model, though the model didn't mind Dobbs either, and while Dobbs did look fine in year one, he's not a lock to be some stud. Meanwhile, Christian Watson and Jaden Reid had very comparable prospect scores, and there's a chance, at least a chance, that Christian Watson is more like Chase Claypool than a true alpha wide receiver. Now, don't take any of that the wrong way. This is not a prediction. I've been talking about Christian Watson quite a bit this summer. He's someone that I heavily targeted this year because I'm very intrigued by the upside and I think there were ways to mitigate that downside risk. And I do think that Romeo Dobbs is fine as a player. This is just the way that I look at fantasy football. I look at it through the lens of probability. It's not crazy to think that Jaden Reid could end up being the best wide receiver in Green Bay, the most talented wide receiver. I think that's in his range of outcomes. And historical trends. They tell us that rookie wide receivers are good targets and re draft leagues. So all of that combined, Jaden Reid deserves to be on your bench right now by Geno Smith. So this one's pretty simple. Even if Jackson Smith and Jigba can't get healthy to start the season, Gino Smith's in a good spot. Week one, the Seahawks get the Rams. The Rams have a very inexperienced secondary. Week two, they get the Lions. Not only is that pass defense beatable, but that game has a shot to truly shoot out. The last time those two teams played last year, the final was forty eight to forty five. Last season, Gino Smith was first in the league in adjusted completion percentage. We're all hoping that he can build off of that and he could get off to a really nice start.

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Speaker 2: Giving these matchups in weeks one and.

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Speaker 1: Two, sell Naji Harris. Now, look, if you've listened to the Late Round podcast this offseason, this transaction is not a surprise at all. Harris has not been a target of mine here in twenty twenty three. I don't think he's going to be someone who completely tanks your fantasy team. He's gonna see volume in Pittsburgh. I just don't see the ceiling without a Jalen Warren injury. You can look at Naji Harris's splits last season, pre impost Week nine by and start to paint a really favorable picture, which is what a lot of people are doing. Before the bye, Harris was banged up, he had that steel plate in his cleat, and he was only averaging ten point nine pper points per game. From Week ten through the end of the season, that points per game average shot up to fifteen point two. The problem is that that jump was largely touchdown driven. His backfield share actually got worse from the front half of the season to the back half, and that's all because of Jalen Warren. We saw Harris's running back rush air drop by about ten percentage points, his target share by over a percentage point.

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Speaker 2: Jalen Warren's not going away now.

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Speaker 1: I know that Pittsburgh Beat reporters are talking about Nause Harris being the guy in the backfield, that it's still his backfield. I don't even disagree with that. That's likely true, but Beat reporters don't care that targets are twice as valuable as rush attemts at the running back position in fantasy football, because in one breath they'll say that Harris is the guy. In the next breath they say that Jalen Warren is the third down back. To beat reporters a lot of times, the guy is the guy who's seeing the most work on the ground. This is all precisely the problem with Naji Harris. There's likely a limited receiving ceiling in this offense as long as Jalen Warren is active. And if you look at the first two weeks of the season, the schedule is not that favorable. They get San Francisco in Week one and then Cleveland in week two. Those aren't the best fronts to face in the world, add Roshan Johnson. So I talk about it all the time in the show, but you want to target ambiguous backfields and fantasy football drafts, especially late round ambiguous backfields like we had in Miami and like we had in Chicago. Maybe it's Khalil Herbert who emerges. Maybe it's Deontay Foreman. I don't think it's gonna be Deontay Foreman, but maybe it's Roshan Johnson he didn't have good collegiate production because he played behind Bijon Robinson. But Johnson is a good pass blocker, and the Bears have asked Khalil Herbert to improve as a pass blocker because it's been a place where he's lacked. Whether the numbers say it or not, the Bears clearly want him to be better in that department, and Rochan Johnson can play that kind of role. Herbert's been awesome as a runner in the NFL, he just hasn't been that much of a pass catcher. He only has one game above a thirteen percent target share across the last two seasons, So that could be a place where Roschan Johnson steps in and shows out and then gets more work as a season goes on. I do think the expectation should be that Khalil Herbert is the RB one, at least the one A in that offense to start the year. But right now, Roshawn Johnson is still available in eighty five percent of Yahoo leagues. That's way too many for an ambiguous backfield like this, So go ahead and Adam ad Ty Chandler Alexander Madison. He's in store for a lot of volume in that Vikings backfield this year. The biggest question is will it last. That's one of the biggest questions in fantasy football this year. I sent a newsletter about this earlier this offseason. But there aren't a lot of recent examples of a veteran running back stepping into a big role like this and then thriving. We have a lot of failures a guy like Toby Gerhardt or Mike Davis. So basically, there's just an insane amount of volatility attached to Alexander Madison right now. If Madison does not work out, Ty Chandler is next in line.

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Speaker 2: Now.

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Speaker 1: The Vikings did get Miles Gaskin after the Dolphins cut him, so I think that Gaskin's actually someone to watch here too.

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Speaker 2: But Chandler is intriguing.

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Speaker 1: He compared favorably in my model to Elijah Mitchell coming out last year. He's got more burst than Madison does, and he could end up taking some pass catching work even without Madison failing. And if something does happen with Madison, whether it's injury or poor play, Chandler's gonna benefit. I think that he could be a twelve to fifteen touch guy. So there's a scenario here where Chandler's sort of this flex with upside type player sell George Kittle. Drafting George Kittle and best ball is one thing. You're gonna get some peaks, You're gonna get some monster performances. The problem is you're also gonna get some valleys fantasy lives. Dwayne MacFarland tweeted about this earlier in the offseason. But when the group of Brandon I, You, Christian McCaffrey, Deebo Samuel, and George Kittle were all healthy last year, Kittle was the one who suffered most. He had a sub fourteen percent target chair. I think a lot of people look back at that Brock Purty George Kittle connection and they think that it was awesome and only awesome. After all, Without Purty, Kitt'll average eleven point four PPR points per game. With Purdy that shot up to sixteen point three. He was basically the tight end two in fantasy football. The problem is that with Brock Purty George Kittle scored fifty four percent of San Francisco's receiving touchdowns. That's not sustainable. There are going to be weeks where George Kittle goes off but there are also going to be weeks where the other forty nine ers weapons they're the ones who are featured. You combine all that with his leg injury that he's now dealing with. I'm out on George Kittle and redraft ad Sean Tucker. Now, Rashad White was a late round Fantasy football darling this offseason, But once again, I'm looking at this through the lens of probability. There's a chance that Rashad White is not as good as I think that he is, or that he doesn't see the target share that I'm projecting him to see, and there's a chance that Sean Tucker is the one who benefits. Tucker went undraft in April because of a heart condition. Hopefully that's past him now because he's on the Bucks roster and he's been playing. He should have been drafted period. He had a really, really good profile, and his prospect score still looks pretty good in my prospect model. It ranks top ten among all undrafted running backs who went to the NFL Combine since twenty eleven, and it places him very very close to another guy that I liked coming out, and that's James Robinson. And you probably remember James Robinson crushed as a rookie, Tucker ended up being one of my favorite last round dart throws this year. He's on a lot of my rosters, So if he's on a lot of my rosters, I should tell you that he should be on yours too. By devon A Chain, I feel like the market just hasn't caught up with A Chain. Maybe it's the shoulder injury that he's been dealing with, but Sports Injury Central does not see that impacting his Week one availability. Maybe people were down on A Chain because of his size, and trust me, I get it. I did a study this offseason running back weight and eight Chain's outlook specifically from that study is not favorable. But I've been talking about A Chain a lot this summer, and what's been the consistent theme, This is the spot for him to thrive. This outside zone scheme that Miami runs has brought success to smaller running backs in recent memory, like Raheem Mostert, who's one hundred ninety five pounds in Elijah Mitchell who's two hundred and one. I know that E Chain's a little bit smaller than that, but his speed is perfect for this system. And now there's less in the way of him getting playing time. Jeff Wilson's on ir Raheem Moster's thirty one years old and he's often injured. Then you have a career backup in Savon Ahmed and then an undrafted rookie in Chris Brooks. Right now is the time to get Devon ah Chang add Jake Ferguson. I think for teams that didn't go with an early round tight end approach, Jake Ferguson is a really good target among nearly ninety rookie tight end since twenty eleven with one hundred or more routes run. Ferguson last year as a rookie, his yards per route run rate was ninth best and he was top ten in targets per route run rate.

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Speaker 2: Two.

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Speaker 1: Those are both fairly predicted metrics. We should be looking at second and third year tight ends as possible breakouts. Ferguson checks that box. Dalton Schultz no longer in Dallas, so Ferguson has a chance to find the field plenty. You might not want to start him in week one because there is some volatility there, but I think that he's a great stash add Luke Musgrave another tight end that you could target if you went with more of a late round tight end approach.

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Speaker 2: Luke Musgrave.

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Speaker 1: Now, I know rookie tight ends they don't work out in fantasy football, and that's true. But it's not that rookie tight ends can't be usable. It's that they usually don't run a high number of routes as they get acclimated to the NFL because they're doing so many jobs. It's no surprise that two of the top rookie t end season since twenty eleven came from Evan Ingram and Kyle Pitts. They ran the most routes of the position. Evan Ingram was a top five guy in points per game. Kyle Pitts was tight end eleven while scoring just one touchdown. Opportunity is still king. It's what matters most, not the status or the year of the tight end. And as it stands, there's no one in Musgrave's way in Green Bay. He is the tight end one in that offense. And not only that. In my tight end model that I haven't really released, I kind of released it, Dalton Kin Cad and Sam Laporta are the only tight ends from this year's class better than Luke Musgrave. And since twenty fifteen, which is where the model dates back to, there's only been fourteen tight ends that hit a ninetieth percent tile score better in that model, and Luke Musgrave is one of those tight ends. So the talent might be there, and now the opportunity might be there too. I think that he deserves to be on your bench right now. Add the Seattle Seahawks defense. If you drafted a defense and you didn't plan for week one, don't do that ever again. You should be thinking about week one first and foremost when you're drafting a defense during your fantasy draft. Now, if a team like New Orleans who has a great schedule to start the season, Denver who gets a great Week one in week two, or maybe even Washington who gets Arizona this week, if those defenses are on your waiver wire, I prefer them over Seattle to have rostered. But don't overlook the Seahawks. They face what's likely going to be a Cooper Cupless Rams offense. They're five and a half point home favorites. If Matthew Stafford hits a negative game script without Cooper cup there could be a lot of turnovers and a lot of sacks. 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 podcast can be found, and don't for it to follow me on Twitter at Late Round QB. Remember to also follow the Late Round Fantasy Football Instagram account that's at Late Round FF on Instagram. Thanks for listening everyone, I hope you enjoyed the first fifteen transactions episode of this season.

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Speaker 2: I'll talk to you tomorrow with a ten trend show