497: Mailbag 4/9/21

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Speaker 1: This is the Label podcast with your host JJ zacher Resa J J. Zacher reson What's up everyone? It's JJ Zachares and the editor in chief at fandle and at Number five dot com in this episode four hundred and ninety seven of the Late Round podcast. So many shows that are part of the FanDuel podcast network. Thanks for tuning in. Before get into the questions this week, did you know that there are plenty of opportunities to play NASCAR Daily Fantasy over at FANDEL this weekend. You can set a lineup of drivers for the Blue EMU Maximum Pain Relief five hundred, which is definitely a race for less than five dollars. You can compete for a chance to win a part of the sixty thousand dollars prize pool, with first place taking home ten thousand dollars. Head over to fandle today and set your lineup for more details at fandle dot com or download the fandel app today. Eligibility restrictions apply. First question this week is from at It's at Boy seventy five thoughts on mix in After Giovanni Bernard was released? Will he be more involved in the passing game? So back at the beginning of the off season, I did an episode on buy candidates Players I'm looking to trade for this offseason, and one of the running backs that I was looking to trade for was Joe Mixon, and it was for a couple of reasons. One was that this Giovanni Bernard release seemed inevitable. But aside from that, Mixon's numbers this past year were better than people realize, specifically his receiving numbers, and that's usually the knock for mix in. From a fantasy perspective, two of his six games played last year saw target shares of seventeen percent and twenty eight percent. His pro rated target share last season would have yielded a twelve point six percent share. There's absolutely nothing wrong with that at the running back position, and that's in an offense that's been really pass heavy under Zach Taylor. Now there's no Bernard, and the last time we saw mix in without Bernard, he saw a big boost in receiving volume. It may not be totally real of it, but there was a four game stretch without Bernard in twenty eighteen, from weeks five through eight. Those are the only games Bernard's missed since Joe Mixon entered the league. In those games, Mixon finishes the RB eleven eleven thirty two to four. He averaged nineteen PPR points per game, his target share per game was fourteen point six percent, and his lowest target share in any game during that stretch was twelve and a half percent. Now, I've never thought that Joe Mixon was some bad receiver. The usage just wasn't as good as what we'd like. But that usage should be there this year barring something crazy happening in the draft. He's been a bye and he's still a bye, though I would expect his cost to rise a little bit now. This last questions from at FF underscore disguise. Hey JJ, now that the NFL has expanded the number of games, would love to get your thoughts about how you see it affecting things in fantasy. Does adding one extra game do much? For example? Could it make the argument to lean into something like zero RB even more? And then I also got one from at part in my French that says, how should we handle projections with the change to seventeen games? Do you assume a full seventeen games for each player? Rest something else? Thanks? So, I think both of these questions are very, very valid, and I don't have a super analytical answer for these questions. I'm in the process of building out projections right now so I have them for draft night, and one of the things that I'm keeping in mind specifically is how teams are going to manage their running backs workload. Like, I think a player can maintain a strong target share at wide receiver across an entire season. Across a full seventeen game season, an extra game may not change anything aside from maybe an increased injury risk only because they're playing an additional game that means there's more opportunity to get hurt. But realistically, a team could save their lead running back a little bit more. It's impossible to know exactly what that number is, though, it's impossible to know the degree in which a team may not give their top running back a full workload. But my approach to projections is going to slightly change. Like, instead of looking at a sixteen game projection and just adding a game's worth of statistics, I'll likely be bumping down the rush share for some of the higher end running backs who are bound to see large rushing shares. It won't be dramatic enough to drastically change your draft strategy at least I don't think so. But it could allow traditional backups or traditional handcuffs to see more work throughout the year. Their production may not be predictable, but they may see more work and that might allow them to be more usable in a best ball format. It's just a tough one to answer right now because we don't have any data on what this will look like across seventeen games. But with a lot of people asking this, I figured i'd at least give my general thoughts on the topic. The next question is from at j Underscore Swizzy. Do you think Kyle Pitts is a good shot to buck the trend of tight ends taking a couple of years to produce for Fantasy? Obviously, landing spot will help determine that, But where do you currently have him ranked? I don't have rankings yet, but sure I think that he has a good shot. People are going to say that Pitts is over valued in redraft this year, and he might be. He might end up being drafted higher than I expect once July and August hits, But the name of the game with tight end in particular is upside. I want sincere upside with my tight ends and fantasy football, and I don't know how he wouldn't have that kind of upside versus other tight ends that you might be drafting in his draft area or where his ADP will fall. He's one of the best receiving tight end prospects we've seen in recent history, or at least he's in the conversation, so as of today, I'm all for it as long as his ADP doesn't get out of control. Tight End is a tough transition, but it's also a shallow position. Even when we think it's deep, it's usually not deep. So I think Kyle pitts as long as he's a late round tight end or a lateish round tight end, I think he makes sense as a target because the upside is obviously there, we have to see what his landing spot is. Though the s's questions from at Starchucker Dj Moore affected with the Sam Darnald trade, I was hopeful they would draft the long term answer instead of going after Dnald. So I'm sure you all saw the deal that went down earlier in the week with Sam Donald going to Carolina. I've been torn on Donald for a while. I lean on the side that he's not very good, because generally speaking, how a quarterback performs early in his career tells us a lot about his career trajectory and what it's going to look like. But at the same time, the players who sort of bucked that trend are the ones who had some sort of change in scenery, like Drew Brees or Alex Smith, and that's what Donald's getting, and he's getting that after having one of the worst situations around him to start his NFL career. The one thing that scares me, though, that's more numbers driven, and probably the reason I leaned towards him not being any sort of answer, is his clean pocket numbers. Last season, in a clean pocket, Donald was dead last according to Pro Football Focus and Quarterback Rating. He was worse than Carson Wentz. He was middle of the pack in twenty nineteen. That's not exactly a great endorsement. So I lean more towards selling Darnold in this idea that he's the next Ryan Tannehill. But I'm not blind to the fact that he's getting massive upgrades everywhere. His pass catchers are better, his coordinators better, he hasn't had that much to work with so far in his career, so there's at least some upside there. I'd rather take that upside for DJ Moore than have another year with Teddy Bridgewater. The thing with More, though, is that he's never really had great quarterback play. He's been in the league for three years now, so two of those years were when he wasn't a rookie, and in those two years he played with Kyle Allen and Teddy Bridgewater. Kyle Allen was third worst in clean pocket passer rating in twenty nineteen, and then this past year Teddy Bridgewater was just pretty average. Bridgewater was mostly replacement level even when you look at his deep ball numbers and how aggressive he was. But over the last two years, Moore has been super solid. He hit well over eleven hundred receiving yards in both seasons. He's actually just one of seven plays with eleven hundred more receiving yards in each of the last two years, and he's actually the only wide receiver with twelve hundred or more yards from scrimmage over this time. DJ Moore is really good. He's quarterback proof, and at least with Donald there's more of this unknown ceiling, so I like him there more than the alternatives currently in the league. I like Donald more than Teddy Bridgewater. But for Moore's case, I would have loved for Carolina to go trade up for something and lock in one of the quarterbacks from this year's draft class. That would have been a better solution for DJ Moore and probably the Panthers two than Sam Darnald. So overall, it's probably pretty lateral for more, He's still someone that's a very solid fantasy asset, especially with Curtis Samuel no longer there. The best question is from at Blue and White one in a single quarterback dynasty league, and assuming Pitts and Chaser off the board, who would be the best player available Harris, Lawrence, Bateman or Marshall. Given that it's a one quarter league in a week running back class, I'm feeling unsure on how to approach this at the one oh three spot, so I don't think that we should put Pitts and Chase as the one oh one and the one oh two in this class unless you're working within an environment where tight ends get some sort of scoring boost. I can understand Chase is the top pick, but not pits in a normal league format, given the value of the tight end position in fantasy football. I love Kyle Pitts, but tight ends don't matter as much as running backs and wide receivers too, and Trevor Lawrence shouldn't be up there either because of the single quarterback league, the position just is not meaningful enough. The real reason I wanted to keep this question for the show, though, is the piece about the week running back class. Yes, it is a week running back class overall, it's not as deep as last year's, but the top end of the draft is absolutely fine, whether you're talking about Najee Harris, Travis Etn, or even Javonte Williams. I actually think that Harris and Etn are the one oh one in the one oh two in rookie drafts this year, and that they're in the same tier as Jamar Chase. So it's a bad running back class in total, but there are still very good running backs in this class. This, as Quoson is from at H one to five one two underscore Love the show, JJ, and then in parentheses he says thanks thanks. My league is stubborn about not moving Draft Day up, primarily because someone always gets hurt in the preseason. Being a free agent budget league, what do you think of as signing free agent budget compensation according to what round that player is drafted and hurt before Week one? Okay, So, if I'm understanding this correctly, if a player gets hurt in the preseason, depending on the round that player was drafted in, you'd then give that manager who has that player more free agent dollars to play with. Now, I think that's a fun enough wrinkle, but I don't think it's entirely necessary. People get really irritated by early drafts because of what's being noted in this question, But early drafts will often benefit the managers who know what they're doing. When they're early on play, they're benefiting if they like a player before his ADP rises due to preseason player some other factor, then they should be rewarded for that. And the argument I think against this idea of adding free agent dollars to teams who had injured players in the preseason is why are we separating the preseason from the regular season. If a player gets hurt during the final preseason game versus Week one, why is that so much different? Like, Yeah, it sucks when you draft in late July in your first round draft selection tears his ACL on August fifth, that if you had just drafted on August sixth, you would have never taken that player. But players get injured all the time early in the season as well, and that's when all drafts are already completed. That's just part of this game that brings variance to fantasy football. Early drafts can be really really good for people who know their stuff. It brings more time for injuries to occur over the month of August, but drafting late isn't always the best solution, and because of that, I don't think it's necessary to add a role like this unless you just want another fun thing to track before the season starts. If that's the case, go for it. This last question from at luke Angelica one. How come you rarely talk about a prospect model for quarterback or tight end? Is it because they are onesie positions or does it have to do with the availability of consistent data and or metrics? Will you ever come up with a model down the road? Thanks love the pod. Thanks so, I only have models for running back and wide receivers, so I don't do it for quarterback and tight end. And the reason for that is because modeling for quarterback and tight end I found it to be pretty hard, and I've worked over the last few years on making the receiver and running back models pretty strong because those are the positions that matter most for fantasy purposes. Quarterback is really tough to evaluate and it's hard to find concrete data points that help predict success, and tight end often comes down to opportunity and athleticism. In the NFL, there are so many different ways that teams utilize their tight ends that makes them harder to prospect. I know some people have found success for those positions, but I just haven't had the time or ability to sit down and create models for the man. That's just my honest answer, but hopefully I'll get to it someday. The last question this week is from at Dave Hog seventeen. Who are your biggest sleepers being drafted in the third to fourth round in rookie drafts? So I'll use Dynasty League Football dot COM's adp'd answer this question. So I'll look at picks twenty five the beginning of round three through forty eight. I thought I was going to be lower than the consensus on Trey Sermon. I think I talked about that on a previous podcast. He's ranked twenty fifth overall right now, but I think he's gonna end up being a second round picking rookie drafts once this draft is over. He's got the right size and the classes doesn't have a lot of potential workhorses, and I think we may see his draft capital end up being better than expected. And that's huge at the running back position. He's just a volatile prospect because we don't have a huge sample on him, and I've been a Kylin Hill guy throughout this entire process as well. I'm just expecting him to be a Day three pick. I don't mind him as a dart throw though, because his overall analytical profile is actually pretty decent. He has good size, he has a really good receiving profile with that size too. That combination makes him really intriguing. And then at wide receiver in this group, how about Nico Collins. This wide receiver class has a lot of smaller pass catchers, but Collins is six foot four, he weighs two hundred and fifteen pounds. He has good athleticism measurables for what that's worth. He's in early declare and he has a good breakout age. His production profile isn't flawless, it's not great, but for a dart throw I think Collins is the right kind of pass catcher to target Late. That's going to do it for today's show though. Thanks to all of you for listening. If you've got subscribed to the Late Round podcast, make sure you are by searching for it pretty much anywhere podcast can be found, and never forgot to follow me on Twitter at Late Round QB. Thanks everyone, enjoy your weekend and I will talk to you next week.