1071: 10 Trends for Week 16

00:00:02
Speaker 1: This is the Late Podcast with your host JJ zacherathas Jay Jake Zacher refa. What's up everyone, It's JJ Zacharyeson in this episode ten seventy one of the Late Round Fantasy Football podcast. Thanks for tuning in. This is the last week of regular content for the podcast given the holiday, and I know the season's about to end. However, make sure you don't miss out on anything going on during the offseason by subscribing to the Late Round newsletter. There's a lot going on with Late Round Fantasy Football, and the newsletter that's one way to stay on top of it all. Just had a Lateround dot com click newsletter. Sign up today for absolutely free. Now let's get to these ten trends. I feel like I have to talk about Kyle Pitts and what's been going on with him. You know, since he casually dropped over forty five PPR points on Thursday night. Now, I could get into how historic that game was, how it was one of the best tight end performances in NFL history. But beyond all of that, beyond the fact that he beat his previous single game high in PPR points by almost twenty, Pitts has just been trending in the right direction. Without Drake London in the lineup. He's seen target shares of twenty five percent, twenty six percent, thirty five percent, and twenty nine percent in his four games without London or his last four games, and earlier this year without London he had a thirty percent share. Even before that forty five point outing, he had scored fifteen and fifteen p pier points in his previous two games. Pitts is obviously a must start player as long as London is out. Just keep in mind that target share drops to about nineteen percent with London in the lineup, and there's at least some chance that he goes this week. It's just early, so I have no idea. The Rams are almost definitely going to finish the season with the lowest running back target share in the league. Again, they have a ten point two percent target share right now through fifteen weeks. That's actually a little bit lower than what we typically see from them, but not by much because over their last six seasons entering this one, the Rams of rank thirty second, thirtieth, thirty second, thirty first, thirty second, and thirty second in running back target chair and now they're thirty second once again. Now Kyron Williams has been fined for his cost and fantasy, but man managers are really lucky that that offense is cooking the way that it's cooking because he's not seeing the kind of volume that he's gotten in the past, but he's finding the end zone plenty. Now, speaking of running back target chairs, one change that we saw with the Colts this past weekend with Philip Rivers under center was more looks to the running backs through the air. Colts running backs had nearly a thirty five percent target chair against the Seahawks. Now, Seattle does have a high adjusted target shair a lot of running backs, it's the second highest in the league. But Rivers, he also doesn't have the strongest arm. We'd expect more dumpoffs and that's what we saw. That thirty five percent targehair was the highest mark of the season for them. Their previous high was just twenty one percent, and that right there could keep Jonathan Taylor afloat. In PPR formats, I called Troy Franklin a drop on last week's fifteen Transactions episode, and then it was announced later in the week that Pat Bryant was out, so I took that back real quick. But regardless, the production was there for Franklin in Week fifteen, but the usage it was still down. In general, even without Pat Bryant, Franklin ran fewer routes than Lil Jordan Humphrey. Now he did see a nineteen percent target chair he scored twenty one PPR points, so again he was fine. But I do think everyone needs to be aware that Franklin is not seeing the kind of work at least from a routeshare perspective, that he was earlier. This year. He's been below a seventy percent route share in each of his last three. His route share before all of this was eighty percent. In order for wide receivers to see targets, they need to run routes. So despite his production in Week fifteen, this is a concerning trend for Troy Franklin. The Chargers backfield sort of continued its Week fourteen ways into Week fifteen. Kamani Viadell did Outsnap Mariy and Hampton forty two to twenty four against Kansas City. That's a pretty big delta, but Hampton's seeing more ground game work. He out rushed Fidell fifteen to twelve. Now, that's snapshare difference that exists because Fidell's seeing more work on the clear passing downs, likely for pass pro reasons. According to Fantasy Life data, he's seen every two minute snap over the last two weeks. With Hampton back, he's seen the field on about ninety percent of their long down and distant snaps. And that's one hundred percent capping of Marie and Hampton's ceiling. Now, I know this isn't a matchup show, but it's gonna be really interesting to see the Browns face the Bills this week. And this is kind of trends related, so I'm gonna run with it. But it's gonna be interesting because Harold Fannin is seeing so many looks in that Brown's offense. Right now, He's coming off the game with a forty five percent target chair that's the highest from any tight end this season. The Browns actually have the highest tight end target share now, it's barely higher than Arizona's. Meanwhile, they get the Bills this week. Buffalo has allowed the fewest adjusted Fantasy points to tight ends this year, and no team has allowed a lower adjusted target Shair to the position. Here's the thing, though, when I'm talking about adjusted target share teams against Buffalo, they've seen their share decrease by six percentage points. Like I said, that's the biggest decline in the league, but six percentage points a six percentage points declined for the Browns, that would still put them as a top five team in tight end target share. So it's going to be really interesting to see how that all plays out. Mike Evans and Jayalen McMillan's return for the Buccaneers definitely changed the dynamic to that wide receiver room. According to PFF data, Chris Godwin led that team on Thursday night with a ninety five percent route share. Mike Evans he was next, seventy percent rout chair, then a Mecca Abuka was at sixty three percent, and Jalen McMillan had a fifty percent route share. Honestly, kind of bizarre usage. The Bucks literally hadn't given Chris Godwin that kind of route share all year. That was his highest of the season. Meanwhile, the Abuca route chair that was the lowest of his season. Now Abuka still saw a twenty two percent target share. That was really good to see. But he's probably even more volatile than people realize. Given that low sixty three percent route share, he's not a lock to be in your lineup, and it's been that way unfortunately for a while now. The Isaiah Likely game in Week fifteen really ruined a lot of fantasy matchups. And I'm with you, I feel you. The Ravens actually had just two tight end receptions against the Bengals. That's the fewest amount of tight end receptions that any team had had against them all year long. Go figure, Isaiah Likely didn't see a single target. But but I wouldn't be talking about this if there wasn't some sort of trend. Really, Item Likely actually ran one more route than Mark Andrews. That was the first time he had a higher route share since Week eight. Just get ready to be trolled and watch Likely have a big outing in Week sixteen when none of us trust him. That's just how fantasy football works. There is a stretch from Week four through week ten where Khalil Shakir was seeing about a twenty six percent target chair in the Buffalo offense. He was averaging over twelve PPR points per game across his first nine games of the season. Since then, he's been at eight PPR points per game, and over his last three Shakira seen target shairs below twenty percent in every contest. Now, Shakiir did have an eighty percent route share in week fifteen. That was great to see, but that was just the second time that he'd been over a seventy percent route share over his last five games. This is mostly to say that Shakir's stability that anyone drafted him for just really hasn't been there. He's not the easiest guy to trust down the street. Let's chat about Luther Burden to end today's show. I know his fantasy production hasn't been amazing and he's banged up right now. I don't know his status at the time of this recording. I don't know if he's gonna play this weekend. But Burden has been low key, very very very good over the last two games without Romadonsay, we've seen Burden with target shaares of twenty one percent and twenty six percent. He's seeing a target on thirty percent of his routes run over this time. That's truly an elite number. Just for some context among relevant wide receivers over the last couple of weeks. The only players with a higher targets perout run rate than Luther Burden are Pukaakua, T Higgins who didn't play last week, Aman Ross, Saint Brown, and Terry McLaurin. That's it. Right below Burden is AJ Brown, Michael Wilson, Christian Watson, Jamar Chase, and Rashid Rice. On the season. According to PFF data, Burdon has a two point four to eight yards per rout run rate among wide receivers with twenty or more targets this year. That number it only trails Jackson Smith and Jigba pokin Akua, Drake London, Ceedee Lamb, Aman Ross, Saint Brown, and Tyreek Hill. In other words, that's the seventh best number among all wide receivers, and it gets better. Yards per out run is one of the most predictive metrics that we can find for rookie wide receivers in terms of how well they're gonna do with the rest of their career. Since twenty eleven, among rookie wideouts with forty or more targets, only Mark Tavis, Bryant, Odell Beckham, AJ Brown, Justin, Jefferson, pokin Akua, and Jamar Chase finish their rookie seasons with a better yards pro out run rate than Burden's current rate. Guys, if Luther Burden can finish strong, he's gonna be an elite territory. And I know that sounds crazy because this fantasy production hasn't been amazing. He's just been so so good with every route run. And if there's someone out there in your dynasty league who's not buying into this, I'd do whatever I could to get Luther Burden on my roster. That's it for today's show, though, thanks to all of you for listening. If you get subscribe to the Late Round Fantasy Football podcast, make sure you are bro starting for it pretty much anywhere podcasts can be found, and to follow me on Twitter and on Blue Sky at Late Round QB. Thanks for listening everyone. I'll be back tomorrow with the Weekly Sleepers episode.