708: Mailbag 11/11/22

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Speaker 1: This is the Late Podcast with your host JJ zachera J. J. Zacher reson What's up everyone? It's JJ Zacharyeson in this episode seven hundred and eight of the Late Round Fantasy Football podcast sponsored by a FanDuel. Thanks you tuning in. As a reminder, the week ten NFL Sunday Million is officially live on Fandel. Showcase your NFL knowledge and construct your best nine player roster while staying under the salary cap. Then follow along using FanDuel's live scoring feature to compete for your share of one point four million dollars in cash prizes, including a cool two hundred and fifty thousand dollars first place prize, all for just five dollars. Sunday is approaching quickly, so head to fandle and submit your lineups today. Eligibility restrictions apply. Go to fandel dot com or download the fandel app for more details. Now let's get to these mailbag questions. The first question this week is from at j four six six seven eighty three. It says, are you giving up on Tom Brady or his touchdown regression going to save us? I also got one from at Bob Forrest three that said drafted Herbert and picked up fields thanks to you being early on him. Thanks, by the way, no problem with guys like Justin Herbert, Tom Brady and Russell Wilson struggling so badly. Is it a safer bet to run with a young mobile waiver guy or should we expect regression from these stud quarterbacks? Now let's talk about Tom Brady first here. Do I think Brady is currently a no doubt starter in fantasy football? No? I don't. It's kind of hard to say that when he's ranked outside the top twelve at the position in weekly scoring every single week since Week five? Is he a touchdown regression candidate? Though? Yes, definitely. Pro football focuses expected touchdowns have Brady at nineteen point nine when he's only thrown ten. That's a massive, massive difference. If you do a quick yards to touchdown conversion, since yards correlated strongly to touchdowns, you see something similar. No player is a bigger touchdown regression candidate in football than Tom Brady when look through that lens. Based on how many yards quarterbacks have historically had per touchdown pass, Brady should have about six more passing touchdowns. So while I don't think we're gonna see high end QB one production from Brady. I do think we're gonna see far better production moving forward. Does that place him in like the Justin Fields tier rest of season? I don't think so personally. No, But should he be closer to someone like Gino Smith than he currently is? Yeah? Probably, I think that seems fair. Justin Herbert, like I talked about earlier this week, he's just not hitting those big plays and the weapons being banged up there. That doesn't give me a ton of optimism overall. And while Russell Wilson has the schedule in his favor, it's really hard to bank on him turning things around dramatically because he's just been really bad throughout the season. But one last thing that I do want to address is the comment of is it a safer bet to run with the young mobile waiver guy. I think there's still this idea out there that Justin Fields isn't a safe option because of what he did earlier in the season. What more does the man have to do? If not for a really rough playoff schedule, Justin Fields could be a league winner at the quarterback position, and he still might be that he's been a QB one in fantasy football for five straight games. He's been a top seven option in four straight. He's averaged almost thirty one points per game over his last three. Just because he played poorly over the first four games of the season doesn't mean that we have to hold on to our priors with the pocket passers throughout the league. The rushing component actually is what makes justin Field safe. He's a safer option than he's an upside option technically, and this is obviously now that he's running more, and this is under the assumption that he continues to run like he's running in this offense. But rushing brings up a quarterbacks floor where a ceiling has then hit is when the passing numbers come. We saw for years guys like Tim Tebow, even someone like Terrell pryor those guys were relevant in fantasy because it didn't take a whole lot for them to be relevant. If a quarterback gets sixty yards on the ground, his passing numbers don't have to be very good to hit QB one territory. But then sometimes those quarterbacks will throw for some touchdowns like Fields has done the last couple of weeks. That's what gives them an insane weekly ceiling. Now, we can't expect Fields to just post twenty five plus fantasy points each week. I would love that, but I don't think it's gonna happen. Things have really gone his way of late. He has a rushing touchdown in three consecutive games. That's not gonna happen each week. But Fields at least has an opportunity to hit a crazy ceiling every single week that he hits the football field, all while providing a pretty stable floor. Back In Week two, he scored nine fantasy points against Green Bay, he ran for just twenty yards. He's averaging almost eighty five rushing yards per game since Week three. And while you worry about that potential low floor hitting for Justin Fields, you can't ignore that same floor with the other quarterbacks. Russell Wilson has more single digit fantasy point games this year than Justin Fields has. Justin Herbert has the same number. Justin Herbert's coming off an off performance against a really bad secondary in Week nine. I know Justin Fields is a waiver wire guy. I know that you may question his passing numbers because the Bears don't throw a lot, but fantasy football is a completely different beast. Getting the rushing production that Fields is providing is huge, and it's why I've been so vocal about adding Fields over the last month on this show, because the Bears finally let him loose. This asked questions from at idp Evan. It says, who are some players you find yourself valuing differently than the market. So every week on the Late Round Fantasy Football Patreon, which you can check out by going to Lateround dot com, I post my updated rest of season rankings. And when I do that, I compare those rankings to what's happening on Fantasy Pros, because Fantasy Pros rankers will post their rest of season rankings as well. Now I do this so that I can sort of gauge who I'm higher and lower on versus the market. And I know the market isn't defined by what analysts think, but it's a methodical way to at least give me some answer. So I'll share a couple of players who I seem wildly different on this week. The first is Jeff Wilson. Fantasy Pros rankers have Raheem Moster at eight running back spots ahead of Jeff Wilson right now. But I think Wilson is better than most Aret rest of seasons. Straight up, I've got him one spot ahead. He literally just joined the Dolphins, walked in and immediately played more snaps than most at and he was really productive. Mostart's also got four years on Jeff Wilson. Wilson's at the right part of his career, and he's been good when given opportunity in this scheme. I don't think it should be a hot take to say that Wilson is preferred over Most at rest of season, though, I will say they're really close to my rankings. Like I said, they're a spot apart. That's because I think the most likely scenario is a split backfield for Miami, but to have that gap between those two doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me. I'm also interestingly higher on a lot of the higher end handcuffs in fantasy Rashad White, Alexander Madison, Jalen Warren. My rest of season rankings aren't done by projections. Maybe that's why there are plenty of guys who look better than those backup running backs in projections, but they don't have nearly the same upside. So those are some of the players. But like I said, I list out guys and I'm hiring lower on every single week so that people can use that information for trading purposes. It's a fun exercise to do each week too. This last question from at JD underscore figs and it says, do we start Deontay Johnson or George Pickens moving forward? Now. I don't do start sick questions on the mail Bag show each week because it's not very compelling content. I still have Deontay had a Pickens rest of season and even this week, but I'm not going to be surprised if Pickens does really well from here on out. As I talked about on the fifteen Transactions episode, I remember a couple of weeks ago on this mail Bag where someone asked me which rookie wide receivers could have an Amen Ross Saint Brown finish to the season, and that happened before the Chase Claypole trade post clay Pool trade. My number one pick for that answer is one hundred percent George Pickens. I talked about it earlier this week on the fifty Transaction show. But Pickens not only should see a bump and target share, and he's not only insanely talented, but the Steelers have one of the best wide receiver schedules from here on out and adjusted fantasy points allowed. Both Deontay and Pickens should get bumps without Claypool, and the schedule helps too, and both are really affordable. Right now, you can send bench assets to get Deontay Johnson and George Pickens, so maybe you should try to do that before this weekend hits. This last question is from at C a bunch of f's, and then twenty one says, JJ love the show. Thanks. How are you feeling about sky Moore? I know it's mid season and it's his rookie year, but there definitely seems to be cause for concern with his involvement. When do we stop giving players a pass just because they're rookies. I don't think we should give anyone a pass just because they're a rookie. I think we should give all of these players proper context. And I did an episode a while ago, episode three hundred and forty three, on bailing on unproductive rookies, essentially talking through how rookies who don't perform well they generally don't go on to be higher in assets in fantasy football, and sky Moore's absolutely on trending in that direction. I would highly doubt at this point in the season that he has some resurgence towards the end of the year. Usually players have done something up until this point of the season before ripping off huge fantasy production from here on out in the fantasy playoffs. I hope I'm wrong, but I don't feel optimistic at all about sky Moore. The last question this week is from at Nate Stunts and it says, as a proud Pittsburgh man, what's your feel in the Steelers backfield? So I want to spend a second talking about not just the Steelers backfield, but how I handle backfield reporting in general. I did talk about this a little bit on The Sleeper Show this week, but I want to get into more detail about my process with this sort of thing. This week, two backfields have been in the news. You've got the Steelers backfield with Najie Harris and Jalen Warren. You've got the Tampa Bay backfield with Leonard Fournett and Rashad White. If you were to go to NBC Sports Edge and some of the most recent blurbs for those backfields, you'd get the following. For Naji Harris and Pittsburgh. It's about how pro football talks. Mike Florio is saying that Jalen Warren is going to see more touches moving forward. For the Bucks and Rashad White, it's how the athletics. Greg Ahman wrote about how the momentum will likely be with Rashad White at the end of the season in that backfield. Do we need these reports to tell us these things? Though? This is what analysis is for. Whether you're grinding film or looking at data. I don't care. It doesn't matter no offense to beat reporters out there. But it's not like things haven't been trending this way anyway. Jalen Warren has largely outperformed Naji Harris this year. Per touch, He's looked better. Rashad White has a stronger success rate than Leonard Fournette. White has seen multiple games this season where his snapshare has gotten closer even exceeded forty percent. Jalen Warren's coming off a game before is by where he hit a season high forty three percent running back rush share. Beat reporters do important jobs. For us. There are times where they're getting us very good information on what a coach might be thinking, or give us insight into a team that we wouldn't have by looking at data. This is nothing against beat reporters. It's just that not only can their predictions and their projections be wrong, and not only are they wrong just like fantasy analysts are wrong, but a lot of times we ourselves can draw very similar conclusions. Of course, Jalen Warren is probably gonna see more touches. Rational coaching tells us that would happen, and he's already been trending in that direction. Of course, there's a possibility that Rashad White ends up being the one A in that backfield by the end of the year. The reason I sort of get passionate about this is because it's then very easy for fantasy managers to take that information way too far. It's pretty similar to what we saw with Rapaport a few weeks ago when he reported that Isaiah Pacheco would be the starter for the Chiefs. He mentioned that the backfield snapshare would be shifting, and even though it wasn't a very dramatic shift, it did shift. It's just that when sports like that come out, I think it's natural for fantasy analysts and managers to think it's gonna be super dramatic. I'm guilty of it. Everyone's guilty of it. And sometimes it is dramatic. But usually it doesn't just come from nowhere. Usually there's a gradual change, like we're seeing in Pittsburgh and Tampa Bay. Like if Jalen Warren plays more snaps than Naji Harris this weekend, which I still don't think is going to be the case. But let's pretend that that happens. Are we gonna say the only reason we could have seen that coming is because Florio reported that it would happen, or that a Pittsburgh radio hosts believe that the switch would happen. Nothing against those guys at all, but of course not. That's just additional evidence to what we've already seen, which is a backup running back already engine closer and closer to his starter's workload. This is the exact reason I do the ten Trends episode and why I talk about change in usage all the time, and why I brought up the Chiefs backfield so much on that show, Because these things usually don't flip overnight. There's usually some evidence suggesting that it could happen, and you want to be prepared because when a switch does happen, you want to have that player on your roster already. I am a proud Pittsburgh man, as this question says. I haven't lived there and over a decade, but pittsburghs where I was born and raised. I love that city, but I don't think it gives me some additional edge and knowing how this situation is going to play out. What gives me an edge is watching trends and coming to conclusions about player evaluation and thus far in twenty twenty two, Jalen Warren has looked the part more than Naji Harris objectively, and because of that we should be open to any possibility. The thing is, we didn't need a report for us to think that way. That's going to do for today's show, though, Thanks to all of you for listening. If you get subscribed to Late Round Fantasy Football podcast, make sure you are by searching for it pretty much anywhere podcasts can be found, and eft to follow me on Twitter at LATEROUNDQB. Remember to check out Lateround dot com Join the free newsletter where you can get the fifteen Transactions article in your inbox every Tuesday morning, and definitely check out the Patreon. Like I said, you can get rest of season rankings, weekly rankings, live Q and as, access to an awesome Discord community, and more. Thanks for listening this week everyone, I really really appreciate it. Have a great weekend, good luck in week ten. I'll talk to you next week.