1058: Mailbag - Bucky Irving's Outlook, Bo Nix's Struggles, and More

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Speaker 1: This is the Labor Podcast with your host JJ Zachertha JJ zacher rethon.

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Speaker 2: What's up everyone.

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Speaker 1: It's JJ zachar Esen in this episode ten fifty eight of the Late Round Fantasy Football podcast.

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Speaker 2: Thanks for tuning in.

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Speaker 1: I've got nothing for you to kick off today's show. Just make sure you're subscribe to the podcast, subscribe to the newsletter, and make sure you're not yelling at me when I inevitably get a ton of stuff wrong on today's show. Nothing but love for all of you. Let's get to these questions. The first question this week is from Twitter. It's from at TLW Travis. It says, how are you viewing Bashall, Tuton, Kyle Manungai, Sean Tucker and other similar running backs who appear to be earning more work approaching RB one B for their teams? Who do you like best rest of season to put on your bench? So it's kind of hard to know which other similar running backs you're talking about here, but I can at least talk through those three guys and give you an idea of where I stand. I say this to Late Round subscribers almost weekly when I do my rest of season rankings. But the hardest part about those rankings is balancing upside with immediate production. Like Brian Robinson has a decent amount of upside, but as immediate production, it's not gonna be there. Like I'm ranking Alvin Kamara ahead of Blake Korum this week. I believe Kamara is gonna score more points, but Blake Korum undoubtedly has more upside rest of season than Alvin Kamara does. If Kyraen Williams were to get hurt, we're talking about a lead back in one of the best offensive environments in football.

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Speaker 2: So how do you rank them?

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Speaker 1: I mean, I could argue strongly that there are some teams out there that would actually be better with Blake Korum than Alvin Kamara, that that's a better option for their bench. And I feel the exact same way when looking at questions like this, I at least go through a very similar exercise. BEI Jall, Tuton and Kyle Mnungai are actually in pretty similar situations at this point. And that's if we assume that Tuton's to continue to see a lot of work in that backfield like he did in Week eleven before he got hurt.

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Speaker 2: But if he keeps seeing that kind of work.

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Speaker 1: His backfield split might look like Chicago's, but either way, you're not like starting Kyle Mnungui every single week as long as DeAndre Swift is back and healthy.

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Speaker 2: Even if Manunguy has like a one or two point.

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Speaker 1: Edge and weekly projection versus Tutin, it still doesn't make him something that you want to start each and every week. So from that perspective, you're probably just looking at the upside case, and the upside case is that Tuton is a better prospect in my opinion. Of course, who's in a pretty comparable situation overall. Maybe it's slightly worse because the Bears have average like point three more PPR points per game as a backfield this year, but it's overall comparable enough. And I also think that Tutin has more big play and receiving ability. That's why I have Tutin ahead of Kyle Mnungui rest of season now. I had Sean Tucker a decent bit below those two running backs in my rest of season rankings this week because those rankings, he made the assumption that Bucky Irving would be back soon. But we've been saying that for like a month now, and it's not like things have gotten that much more optimistic this week. I think Tucker has worked himself into a bigger role, and as I'll talk about in a second, Tampa Bay is a pretty nice rest of season schedule. The weird thing with Tucker is that if everyone's healthy, I'd have him last on this list, probably because he does need multiple things to happen in order for him to be like that true RB one in his backfield that Bell Cow for Tutin and Manunguy. We only need one injury, and we saw that earlier this year with Kyle Munungui when DeAndre Swift was out. But I think there's a very real chance that we get more immediate production from Sean Tucker given this Bucky Irving situation.

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Speaker 2: So given everything I just.

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Speaker 1: Said, you can look at your team, evaluate your team, and see what you need, because that will dictate which one of these running backs you should be rostering. And speaking of Bucky Irving, let's talk about this next question. This next question from Twitter is from at Loodi Jibouti. It says, what kind of production do you expect from Bucky Irving if he reverts to a fifty five percent or so snapshare player? He was a league winner last year on a similar share, But I have a hard time convincing myself he can repeat, and reinjury risk seems high. Perhaps he's a sell on the positive news. Well, since his question was sent to me, there hasn't been that much positive news with Bucky Irving. That's not your fault. Things have just changed over the last twenty four to forty eight hours. Not only is Irving's status still totally up in the air, but now we're getting reports about him being on more of a snap count when he does return a ramp up period. But I got about one thousand Bucky Irving questions this week, So let's just talk about him, and let's first talk about his usage when he is healthy, when he's been healthy, forget all the injury stuff for a second. Bucky Irving's usage before he went down this year, it was awesome. He saw no worse than a thirteen percent target share in his four games, and he was averaging a seventy five percent running back rush air per game rate. I mean, that's truly an elite combination. And that was not on a fifty five percent snapshare. He was closer to seventy seventy five percent. The snapshare stuff from last year and the difference between that and what we saw at the beginning of this season. It was really the pass catching, Like Bucky had a much more impactful receiving role to start this season, which is why he was in such a good spot. Just as an example, so you guys can wrap your head around this, Bucky hit a fifty percent route share just three times last year. He's done that three times this year, and it probably would have been all four of his games had he not gotten hurt. So his increased snapshare isn't just him taking on more work on the ground. It's mostly that they were using him more as a receiver. We have to hope that that would continue because that's going to be more sustainable and more valuable for Bucky Irving, because, yes, what he did down the stretch last year not going to be super easy to repeat. When you're as efficient as he was last year, that's not easy to do year over year. But I don't see why Bucky Irving can't be a sixty percent running back rush are player with a ten percent target share. Those are lower numbers than where he was at earlier this year, So we're banking on some of the injury stuff. We're embedding that in his projection, but that's still very strong within a good offense because his workload looks so good to start the year. That shows intent on the Buccaneers end. Now, obviously things have changed with this injury, but I don't think that means that Bucky Irving is like a total fifty to fifty player with Sean Tucker rest of season, as long as he's fully healthy. Now, obviously the elephant in the room is that he's not healthy right now. If he was healthy, he would definitely be playing this week at the time of this recording. I have no idea if that's the case, and honestly, it sounds more pessimistic than optimistic. And this is one of those cases where I know just as much as you guys do.

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Speaker 2: I don't have any.

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Speaker 1: Inside information on Bucky Irving's injury and when he's back, Like the report said on Thursday, and how we just generally view this kind of situation, there's gonna be a ramp up period and that's a good thing for someone like Sean Tucker. And why I talked about Tucker having better immediate production than Beishall, Tooton, and Kyle Manungay, at least Kyle Manungai. Here's the thing, though, if I'm sitting there and I'm a playoff team, I don't think I would be selling Bucky Irving if I need a win right now. Sure, I can totally understand that.

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Speaker 2: And then on the.

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Speaker 1: By end, I might buy Bucky Irving if I could send bench.

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Speaker 2: Assets for him.

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Speaker 1: So buying him isn't out of the question either. It's just one of those scenarios where you have to know what's happening with your individual team. We're late in the season now, this isn't just one of those situations where it's Week four and we're taking a chance for rest of season value.

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Speaker 2: We know right.

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Speaker 1: Now where our teams stand. A lot of you have bye weeks already locked in. You know you're gonna be a bye week team, and if that's the case, it's a little bit easier to have Bucky Irving on your bench. But if you're a five win team, then Bucky Irving is not helping you at all. But overall, I do think that there's still a decent chance that we get really good production from him in the fantasy playoffs, the Bucks get the Falcons, Panthers, and Dolphins in weeks fifteen, sixteen, and seventeen. Right before that they get the Cardinals in the Saints. So after this week against the Rams, the five remaining games for Tampa Bay in this fantasy season, they're all pretty much average to above average matchups for running backs. So overall, I think the sentiment here is to hold tight with Bucky Irving.

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Speaker 2: Scared money, don't make money.

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Speaker 1: But if you absolutely need to sell because you need to win immediately, I totally get that. But if you're set, I wouldn't be aggressively trying to sell low. And maybe that comes back to bite you. Maybe you could get value right now and he's just going to be out rest of season.

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Speaker 2: We don't know that.

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Speaker 1: We don't have that answer, but what we do know is how they were using Bucky Irving earlier this year, and what we do know is that Bucky Irving is a very good running back. The Bucks are a team that need to stay competitive, and Bucky Irving is their best running back. So even if he reverts back to some of his usage from last year because of this schedule situation, as long as he is healthy, I still think he's gonna be pretty useful. This last question is from at Lensen one top f It says, should you buy into Chase Brown for the playoffs slash possible Joe Burrow return. Well, I'll say this about Chase Brown his rest of season's schedule.

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Speaker 2: It's awesome. After they get.

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Speaker 1: Past New England this week, they'll get Baltimore, the eighth best matchup by jessep points a lot to running backs Buffalo who's the third best, and this is being recorded before Thursday Night Football for the record. Then it's Baltimore again, Miami who's the twelfth best matchup, and then Arizona who's sixteenth. Literally only plus matchups after this win against the Patriots this week, the only thing standing in Chase Brown's way is Samaj p Ryan's ankle. Pee RAN's not gonna go this week, but Brown's usage over the bengals last two games, which will come largely without p Ryn, his.

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Speaker 2: Usage has been insane.

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Speaker 1: He's had snap rates of ninety five percent and eighty three percent. His route shares have been eighty six percent and eighty three percent. That's amazing for a running back. He's seen target shares of thirty one percent and twenty one percent. His running back rush heare is around eighty five percent. I mean he's seeing elite, elite, elite running back usage without Samaj p Ryan. If p Rand's back, we'd likely lose a little bit of that. Now. There's a chance that Brown plays into more work because he's playing a lot better. I'm just saying that if you're going to buy into Chase Brown, which is fine to do, make sure you're aware that his current usage may not be his usage during the Fantasy playoffs. There's a chance of that happening if Samaj pe Rine's back.

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Speaker 2: Now.

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Speaker 1: I don't have this strong urge to say to buy into Brown because I think fantasy managers generally know that he's getting more work, he's playing better, he's scoring more points, and Joe Burrow's coming back soon seemingly. But look, if you want to go for it, you want to trade for him, I think there's plenty of upside there. There's definitely reason to do it, and one of those main reasons is that schedule. The next question is from Blue Skies from atwith Parks. It says, can I get a confidence check on bow knicks going into the final stretch here he had some absolutely monster games, but the past two have been brutal duds, which doesn't inspire confidence come playoffs. Yeah, I think there's some reason to be nervous. Part of the problem is that bow Knicks is just not scrambling as much. I don't know if this is by choice or not, but from weeks one through six, he didn't have a single game with a scramble rate below three percent, and most of those games were closer to five percent. One of them was at a fifteen percent scramble rate. Since then, in his five games, he hasn't reached a three percent scramble rate once. That's literally what we need from bow Nicks to be fantasy relevant, because he's twenty eighth in the NFL right now and completion percentage over expected, he's twentieth in EPA per dropback. He has not been a great passer, so really what I'm nervous about is the lack of rushing. And not only that, Denver has a bottom ten fantasy playoff schedule according to my numbers for quarterbacks. So yeah, I'm not super into bo Knicks. If the rushing was there, I'd be a lot more confident. The next questions from Twitter is from at David T. Evans thirty seven. It says, I have some depth that I can trade away. I need an elite wide receiver to get me into the playoffs. Who are your favorite wide receiver targets for the next three weeks? So I'll just tell you which wide receivers have the best schedules over the next three weeks according to my numbers. I talk buys and sells in the fifteen Transaction Show each week, and I promise you, guys, I'm not hiding anything from you, but maybe this will give you some inspiration because there are some interesting teams with some pretty good wide receivers who have good schedules. Number one is Kansas City. Maybe you could buy a little bit low on Rashid Rice and that would fit what you're talking about trying to get an elite wide receiver. The Chiefs get the Colts, Cowboys, and then the Texans over their next three Now, obviously Houston wouldn't be the easiest spot in the world for him, but Indianapolis in Dallas not bad at all next to Cincinnati. You probably can't go with Jamar Chase because of that suspension, but Ti Higgins. Maybe they get the Patriots this week that's a plus matchup, and then the Ravens and then a not great matchup against the Bills. Pittsburgh and Philadelphia are next the Pennsylvania team, so DK Metcalf, Aj Brown, DeVante Smith. Pittsburgh gets the Bears, Bills, and Ravens, which honestly, I don't love those matchups. And DK Metcalf He's definitely not been an elite wide receiver by any means. It's just that in this case, Baltimore's numbers are being anchored a little bit by what happened earlier in the season. The Eagles, though, they get Dallas, Chicago and then the Chargers. It's not a bad stretch of three games, and then Detroit is another one all Dome games like I've talked about on this show, and they get the Giants, Packers, and Cowboys over their next three. Both Aman Ross, Saint Brown, and Jamison Williams are on the table with that one. No t has like three glorious matchups over their next three games. But those are some teams and players who could do pretty well during that stretch.

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Speaker 2: The last question this week is an.

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Speaker 1: Email it says HIJJ Love the pod. As we move past the bye weeks and head towards the playoffs, the question of carrying two team defenses is an annual tradition. Analysts often say it's a bad idea that makes sense if the choice is between a defense and a player like Blake Korum, who's a clear backup on a strong team.

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Speaker 2: But where is the real line.

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Speaker 1: If the worst running back on your roster is Bam Knight and the waiver wires empty, why would you not drop him and carry two defenses? In theory, if someone pops up on the wire, you still have a shot at that player. A bench stash depends on an injury and on the player being good enough to matter. A second defense can be a strategic move. Example, use Green Bay against Minnesota this week and stash San Francisco play them against Cleveland next week. If you already know you prefer San Francisco over green Bay in week thirteen, you remove the first layer of uncertainty that applies to skill players. At that point, all that remains is analyzing whether the choice was right, and that same risk exists with bench stashes that fail all the time. Thanks Dan So look, I talked about stashing multiple defenses a couple of weeks ago on this show, and since then, I've gotten a few messages from people that are sort of along these exact same lines. So let's just talk about this. When I give advice on this show, I obviously can't capture every league iteration and every possibility that's out there. Yes, if the player you're stashing is someone like I don't know, Phil MafA, yes, I'd rather roster another defense and play things one week ahead. Not only does an injury have to occur and other things have to occur for Phil MafA to even find the field, but even if he does, he's probably not a league winning type player given his receiving profile. But ninety nine percent of people listening to this show, they're not out there choosing me to a defense in Phil MafA. Someone like Blake Korum is still rostered in just fifteen percent of Yahoo leagues, and I know not in your league. I get it, he's rostered in all of mine too. But even if a slightly more hardcore audience is listening to my show right now, that still means the majority of people have Blake Krum sitting on their waiver wire. Now, I don't know where that obvious line is because it also depends on what the defensive situation looks like in your league. For instance, I'm in a league where people do hoard defenses. There are only like six available defenses right now, so I'm forced to roster multiple defenses. But if your league only has twelve defenses rostered, then there's less of a necessity to roster multiple defenses. I try to preach this all the time with roster management. When you're trying to judge what to stash on your bench, you should be looking at what's available on the waiver wire.

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Speaker 2: This is most obvious at quarterback. If you have a fringe quarterback starter and you're wondering if you should roster a second one, see how many quarterbacks are available on your waiver wire. If you'd have five to six choices each week with reasonable projections, then you don't need to roster a second quarterback. If the best waiver wire quarterback right now is Mason Rudolph, then yeah, you probably want to backup. There's nuance to all of this.

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Speaker 1: My main point in saying that non defensive stashes are more important than defenses is that there's a ton of variance with defenses, and generally speaking, it's a less valuable position. You're gonna gain a bigger edge in fantasy football if you have a backup running back who emerges from an injury.

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Speaker 2: Then if you have a defense that has a good matchup.

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Speaker 1: And yes, that injury still has to happen, and chances are it's not gonna happen, and yes, you could argue that you could just get that guy off the waiver wire when that injury occurs, but you could also argue that you can find a reasonable streaming defense off the waiver wire without having to stash it, and you can do that right before your playoff matchup. Really, guys, when you hear me give advice, I just want you to do what's most comfortable for you for your league. I'm not here to be a dictator. I'm here to just give you some ideas to help you manage your fantasy teams a little bit better. There's always going to be a lot of nuance with the things that I say on this podcast.

00:18:21
Speaker 2: But hopefully you're getting a good.

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Speaker 1: Baseline for analysis, and hopefully the things that I say they're at least making you think a little bit deeper about this game.

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Speaker 2: That's it for today's show, though, thanks to all of you for listening.

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Speaker 1: If you subscribe to the Late Round Fantasy Football podcast, make sure you are by searching for it pretty much anywhere podcast can be found. Andel follow me on Twitter and on Blue Sky at Late Round QB. As usual, there's going to be a Late Round Perspectives episode dropping later today, and then myself and David Kitchen we'll be live on YouTube YouTube dot com slash at Late Round FF will be live at one pm Eastern to do the Late Round Fantasy Football Show. You can watch that immediately on YouTube when we're done, or you can wait for it to hit this podcast feed tomorrow morning. Regardless, try to consume it. It's a fun show that we do. Thanks for listening everyone. Good luck in week twelve. I'll talk to you next week.