624: Mailbag 3/25/22

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Speaker 1: This is the Labor Podcast with your host JJ Zachertha. J J Zacherson. What's up everyone, It's JJ Zacharyeson in. This is episode six hundred and twenty four of the Late Round Fantasy Football podcast sponsored by FanDuel. Thanks for tuning in, Hey, sports fans. There's no better time than today to sign up for Fandel Fantasy. For users who have yet to make a deposit on Fandle Fantasy, you can deposit today to receive two free entries. All you have to do is the positive minimum of ten dollars into your Fandel DFS account and you will be instantly rewarded with two free vouchers. Is a limited time offer, so be sure to deposit now and play for free. Head over to fandle dot com or download the Fandle Fantasy app today. Eligibility autricians apply. Go to fandle dot com or download the fandal app for more details. It's a mailbag show. Let's get to these questions now. I'm not surprised by this at all, but there were a lot of questions this week that had to do with the how Players Rebound study that I published on Tuesday. I would probably listen to that episode if you haven't already before listening to today's mailbag. But the first question about it is from Twitter. It's from at Bobby Joe three five four six three three one one. It says JJ. On today's podcast, you mentioned Josh Jacobs is a Dynasty cell due to a drop of ten or more spots in his ADP. We've seen Jacobs have multiple RB one seasons. What do you think accounts for the drop in ADP and what would you be looking to move him for on a rebuilding team? So keep in mind that I used January ADP for the year over year study. In January of twenty twenty one, Jacobs had an ADP of nineteen overall according to Dynasty League Football's data. In February it was twenty three, so it fell four spots, likely due to some variants. In March it was twenty two. In April though of twenty twenty one, it was forty one, and that's more or less where it stayed until the season started. But then in January of twenty twenty two it was fifty nine. So what happened? Well, that initial drop in ADP from March to April likely had to do with the Raiders signing Kenyan Drake. If you remember, people weren't very bullish on Jacob's pass catching upside with the Raiders getting Drake, so his ADP fell, and then it fell another nineteen spots from August until January. But I will say I do think with Jacobs in particular, there's a little bit of ADP variants going on. It just so happens that Jacob's ADP shifted dramatically after the Kenyan Drake signing, soon after his January data point. And while it does show him with a big drop in ADP from August of last year to January this year, the February and March ADP data showed that he started to normalize a little bit and rise a little bit in ADP once again. In other words, the January data point does look like it was more of a blip. Now, I don't think this means the study is irrelevant. I do studies to find trends to make us analyze deeper on an individual level. That's no different here with Josh Jacobs, and I think the point still stands. With Jacobs. Generally speaking, if you're rebuilding, you may not want to take him on and it's very very unlikely that we're ever gonna see him as a top twenty Dynasty asset ever again. But could we see a Joe Mixon trajectory. Definitely possible, Absolutely possible. I actually thought that Jacobs was more of a buy than a sell before doing this study, and I very rarely am buying into running backs and Dynasty, as a lot of you guys know. But that's how I want people to think about these studies that I do. Just because there are a strategic parameters set doesn't mean you blindly follow them. It's just a starting point. That's why I said on the show to use that list of players who drop in ADP as a starting point for players to sell. It doesn't mean you automatically should be selling those players. But again, this is a study about market value, it's not a study about production. A running backs value naturally depreciates as he reaches twenty five, twenty six, twenty seven years old. Now Jacobs is a different case because he's still just twenty four, which is why he's an easy comparison to Joe Mixon. But as a running back increases in age, if he's not giving you elite elite production, he's likely going to see a dip in market value, even if it's a small one. He may still be fine production wise, But that's the difference between a rebuilding team and a win now team. If you're a win now team, you can take on a player like Leonard Fournette, even if he's someone who's not going to gain a ton of market value. Four Nett's projected to be a high end RB two, low end RB one this year. It's just that he's twenty seven years old, so it's highly unlikely we see him take some massive jump in ADP. If you're a rebuilding team and you know that that asset is not going to appreciate, it's not worth it. It's not worth taking that player on unless you're in a league that trades a lot and is superactive. Because if that's the case, then you can just flip a guy like Fournette later on in the season. But there's obvious risk to doing something like that too. So let me sum this up as clearly as I possibly can. Yes, the data on that episode was probably shocking to hear. Yes, you probably and you panicked about some of the players on your team, because yes, Generally speaking, if a player from January to January sees a significant drop in ADP, it's not good news at all. It's usually the start of a trend downwards. But please do not treat this as the end all. It's just a very convenient starting point. To me. There's a big, big difference between someone like Josh Jacobs and someone like Laviska Chenault. All right, even someone like Ezekiel Elliott. Ezekiel Elliott saw a January to January ADP drop of twenty seven. It makes far more sense to be selling someone like Elliott, especially as we get closer to redraft season, than it does someone like Josh Jacobs a ton more sense. And by the way, that list of players was sent out to Late Round Fantasy Football newsletter subscribers on Thursday. You can go subscribe to that newsletter on Lateround dot com. This next question is from Patreon. It's from Chuck. It says JJ and Light if your last episode regarding ADP slides, should we be selling Christian McCaffrey. Again, I just want to be clear that you shouldn't solely who's the data I provided on Tuesday to make your decision. It's just an input, and I think it's a helpful input, but it is just an input. I can tell you, though, that Christian McCaffrey has yet to see a drop in ADP of ten or more throughout his career, according to DLF January ADP data. I think you can probably find other months where the drop is significant enough to where he triggered the ten plus spot drop. But January to January it has not happened yet. He dropped nine spots year over year. Is he someone to sell again, that's a different question based on the study. You don't absolutely have to based on your team and where it's at, I don't think it's crazy to trade them away. I'd say it's likely that he's never going to see top five, top seven overall ADP. Ever, again, that's just how the market moves with running backs. This asked questions from Patreon is from Tom. It says, what's up, JJ, what's up? Tom? Curious how you feel about the Packers wide receivers. Did Amari Rodgers increase enough in his year two two model to warrant the Packers taking such a slow approach to the wide receiver market or do they have to buck their own trend and grab some wide receivers early in the draft this year. Thanks as always, JJ. I'm not that much of a believer in Amari Rodgers. He was a seventy fifth percentile prospect in my models. He was well below that eightieth percentile mark that I want wide receivers to hit entering the league, and he had pretty neutral draft capital delta, which is just my prospect scorer versus draft capital. You can learn all about that in the Late Round Prospect Guide available for fourteen ninety nine on Late round dot com. But Rogers didn't do anything as a rookie, so his year two model score is now in the sixty third percentile. Since twenty eleven, we've had thirty six wide receivers in that sixtieth to seventieth percentile in the year two model, and only one of them gave you a season with ten or more PPR points per game in either year two or year three, and zero of them gave you a season above twelve points per game. Mari Rodgers would have to be an insane outlier to be anything significant in fantasy football. That's just based on history. It seems clear to me that we're finally going to see Green Bay use some draft capital on wide receivers. This next question is another one from Patreon. It's from Garrett. It says, fascinating study on the podcast of eightyp rebounds. Thanks wondering your thoughts on reversing the advice given. Meaning, rebuilding teams are encouraged to trade these declining market value assets, but should competing teams use this as a buying opportunity? In other words, if you're going for a championship year after a year, do you just trash future market value analysis and grab production to put points on the board, or, as Les Sneed says, f them picks. A concrete example, I have a team coming off a championship. It's loaded, but could use help at flex. I gave the one to twelve for an admittedly aging DeAndre Hopkins, but a better bet to be a productive starter this year than whatever I would get at one to twelve. Yeah, I mean, I think it's totally fine to do this. I would question giving up your entire future for declining players, because you'll eventually hit a wall where you have no appreciating assets and no picks to help you rebuild. But if you have one off deals where you're in win now mode and you know that you're gonna get better production from a certain player versus a pick, go for it. It's very similar to what I talked about with Leonard Fournette earlier. It's Fournette technically a depreciating asset. Sort of. Yeah, it's unlikely you're going to see huge gains in the market from Leonard Fournette. But is he someone who can help you win this year. Absolutely, so trading for him is fine. I just wouldn't trade for all of those guys. You still need some semblance of balance so you don't really screw yourself in a year or two. And remember there's a lot of variance to fantasy football. If you're putting all of your eggs in the win now bucket, you're being a little bit arrogant because things can change. Players can drop off and just not perform well. They can get hurt. It can really screw you if you do that. So, yes, you can do that, but I would not go all in on only getting productive assets for this current season. This ask question is another one for Patreon and says, how do you feel about Diami Brown this year? He seems to fit as the deep ball wide receiver for Carson Wentz. So I wrote up Diami Brown in the Late Round Prospect Guy because I have an entire section about my Year two model and I have profiles for Year two players. Brown was some of that my model liked, but the model likely missed on him. He was in eighty third percentile prospect, so it's not like the model was in love with him, but he did get over that eightieth percentile mark. Now he's in the seventy second percentile in year two model score, so he most definitely has a better outlook than someone like Amari Rodgers. But players in that seventieth to seventy fifth percentile range rarely are giving you any sort of worthwhile season. Just five percent of them since twenty eleven have provided a season in years two or three with twelve plus PPR points per game. The seventy fifth to eightieth percentile tier is significantly better. But he didn't get there. Chances are and you should be playing the odds here. He's not going to be anything in fantasy football, and it's fortunately because my model definitely thought that there could have been something there. This as question says, do you think the average fantasy player would be better off if they didn't know or care who was coaching a given team. In the world of narratives, the whole coach X loves to feature his insert position of a Hall of Fame caliber player he coached seems to lead people astray e G. Clyde Edwards Hilaire. Okay, so I do have some thoughts on this, and I want to start with a few random thoughts on Clyde Edwards Alaire in particular. Yes, ce ended up being a bust. More than likely he at least didn't live up to that end of first round draft capital. And I'm not saying the person who asked this question is saying this, So please don't think that this is directed to you at all. I just think people have lost sight of the fact that it's not like Ceh with some bad prospect. Did he get propelled in rankings due to landing spot? Of course? Should he have been ranked ahead of Jonathan Taylor after his draft? Of course not. I'm not making that excuse. That would be stupid process why it wasn't the right move to shift him ahead of Jonathan Taylor. But the way people talk about Ceh, it's as if he was like Trey Sermon as a prospect. Ceh was not even a bad prospect, It's just the results seemed to be skewing people's minds about him. I just had to get that off my chest. But to your question, I don't think the average fantasy player would be better off not knowing history in how a coach deployed his players historically. I think the average fantasy player would benefit from understanding what that means. So don't remove it from people's brains. Just teach him that personnel typically drives these coaching narratives. It's similar to how I've used something like Mike Tomlin and his use of Bell Coow running backs. Have his teams used Bell Cow's pretty frequently, Yes, but he's also had Le'Veon Bell during his prime, D'Angelo Williams when Bell was out, James Connor, and Najie Harris. James Connor was also used as a Bell Coow down the stretch last year, and D'angela Williams had a very very good NFL career. Clearly those players are good. I don't think that we can just assume that literally anyone in Pittsburgh would see two hundred and fifty touches a season. The player still has to be a good running back. It's more so that if the player is good, we know the ceiling is there. We know that Tomlin has given that player a lot of touches in the past. Having that knowledge is not a bad thing. Naj Harris was on a lot of my redraft teams last year because I thought he was a good prospect and I felt pretty confident the Steelers would deploy him as a bell cow as they did. Tomlin's history reinforced that whole idea narrative. But it was only because I saw Harris as a good player. If he wasn't a good player, that might not have happened. So I don't think it's so binary. Are there instances where fantasy managers really stretch these narratives? Oh yeah, most definitely. Some of the stuff that I see about this is insane. But those people, instead of ignoring what data is saying, they should just give that data more context. They should just be more realistic. If we have a backbone of a coach doing something, that's not a bad thing. I don't think it that is necessary. I just think overrating that is very easy to do. There's a fine line, so let's just be self aware that it's easy to do. The bottom line here is to always remember that personnel leads to these coaching decisions. Most personnel is what's driving a lot of this historical data. This last questions from at blame underscore Hoffman. It says, Hey, JJ, love it all. Thanks. Did the Jets attempt at Tyreek Hill make you nervous at all about Elijah Moore? Seems like a big wide receiver acquisition is on their mind, if not through trade then the draft or did you already have that baked in? Thanks for everything, Jeff. Look, it's no secret that I really like Elijah Moore. It's also no secret that the Jets have a glaring need at wide receiver. So no, the Tyreek Hill interest doesn't surprise me. I'm fully expecting them to draft a wide receiver, probably high. If you want to wait to get Elijah Moore until after the NFL Draft, that's probably not a bad idea at all. But in dynasty, you're buying into players and their overall value. Elijah Moore, according to my analysis in my models, is a very very good wide receiver. He has a very good chance to hit. I mean, he already sort of has hit. Adding another player to that offense wouldn't make him bad. A guy like Tyreek Hill could change his short term production a little bit, sure, but Moore's overall value is tied to him as a player above all else, and that's how I viewed Dynasty in general. The last question this week is from at sy Analytics. It says, in a nutshell, what's next for your prospect model? I would imagine that the situation of players getting drafted into may be interesting looking at various proxies like how a team ranked in pass to run or where teammates are getting drafted, et cetera. I do think landing spot matters to some degree, as I've talked about before, but situations can change pretty drastically and pretty fast, so it's a really, really tough thing to nail down. Honestly, though, there's still a ton of data to uncover with this stuff. There are different ways to present things like Britain taut Age that I want to dig into next year. I try to look into those things and retest the model each and every year, and that's going to be no different in twenty twenty two. To twenty twenty three, and as I said in the Prospect Guide, which again lateround dot com, go buy that thing at the very least even if you hate the analysis. There's some dad jokes in it. But as I said in that guide, eventually, hopefully I'll have tight ending quarterback models too, so there's that to look forward to as well. That's going to do it for today's show, though. Thanks to all of you for listening. If you get to subscribe to the Late Round Fantasy Football podcast, make sure you are by searching for it pretty much anywhere podcasts can be found it over it's follow me on Twitter at Late Round QB. Thanks for listening this week everyone, I really really appreciate it. I know there are tons and tons of questions about this free agency period. I'm gonna hopefully answer those questions early next week with a free agency podcast. I'll talk to you then