1101: Insights From Building Projections

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Speaker 1: This is the Labor Podcast with your host JJ Zacher je zacheron. What's up everyone. It's JJ Zachary sin in this episode eleven oh one of the Late Round Fantasy Football podcast. Thanks for tuning in. I don't care about projections as much as others do in the fantasy football space. I know that probably seems backwards because of my approach to fantasy football being so analytics heavy, but it's true. I think projections are often overrated. And the reason I feel that way is because they don't capture range of outcomes that well, generally speaking, and they don't capture draft strategy. If you're in round eight of your fantasy draft, are you looking for median outcomes or high end outcomes? Are you looking at what's most likely to happen for a player or what could happen if things break a certain way. This isn't to say that you can't project for range of outcomes. You can do a degree. And this isn't me throwing shade to the people who build awesome projections. They're doing great work and it's not easy work to do. I'm just saying that I think people rely on projections a little bit too much. In the fantasy football world. The application is where I really disagree, but that certainly doesn't make them worthless. I do projections every single year. I don't maintain them throughout the summer and into the season as well as I probably should, because that can often just be like a full time job. But I have them. I build them out, and I've been doing that for years and years, and this year I got some help with them from Late Round Zone Brandon Godola. That was nice to get some relief with that process, So props to Godula for helping me out. I've always said, though, that building projections, it's not always about that end number, that final fantasy point projection. For me, it's always been about understanding the fantasy football landscape on a deeper level. When you're sorting through target shairs, when you're sorting through efficiency metrics, and when you're projecting team level production, you start to see some things the you might not have otherwise seen. And that's what this episode is about. Each year, I'm not gonna sit here and show you where late rounds projections differ from the market. That's not how I operate. You'll learn about my players to target and avoid throughout the summer. Instead, I want to talk through some of the more interesting insights that I thought about and discovered while we built projections this season. So, without further ado, let's dig in. I want to start today's episode by talking about the Raiders, because really, is there anything more thrilling than talking about an offense that has Jalen Naylor and Trey Tucker as starting wide receivers. The Raiders have a brand new coaching staff though, with Clint Kubiak in town, and he's obviously going to influence what they do in a major way. First off, Vegas ran very few plays last year. That obviously had to do with the combination of their style but also their efficiency. It was not a good offense. They ran the fewest plays per game last year, though, at fifty five point eight. Teams who have run fewer than fifty eight plays per game since twenty eleven have seen that number increased by over five the following year on average, So just purely from a regression perspective, we should see more plays from Vegas. Now that being said, Clint Kubiak has now coordinated three NFL offenses, the twenty twenty one Vikings, the twenty twenty four Saints and the twenty twenty five Seahawks. At each stop, his teams have had well below zero pass rate over expected rates last year for Seattle was nearly minus seven percent. As we know, they leaned heavily on the run. That's led to slightly lower paces and slightly fewer plays per game for Kubiak's offenses. So while I do expect Vegas to improve on plays per game, I think we should realize that Kubiak's offenses aren't like I don't know, Kellen Moors, they can run slower. What I do think we're going to see from his offense that was more efficiency. Over his last two stops, we've seen his offenses improve in yards per play year over year by about point two and point four yards per play, and he's done this through a heavier use of twelve per In twenty twenty four, the Saints' year over year use in twelve personnel rose by over six percentage points. For the Seahawks from twenty twenty four to twenty twenty five, theirs rose by almost thirteen percentage points. And the way this team is structured, that makes a lot of sense. They don't have super strong wide receivers, as I talked about at the top, but they have a good running back and elite tight end and a great second tight end in Michael Mayer. The Raiders are gonna want to pound the rock, but then also have the versatility to throw out of those heavier sets, which means Brock Bauers and Ashton Genty could eat in this offense. But also I wouldn't be surprised if Michael Mayer is involved a little bit more this year too. The fantasy friendliness of this offense is really going to come down to efficiency, but Kubiak has at least shown us that he can bring that to the table, and I think there's a chance that we see a really big season from brock Bauers, which is why he's my tight end one right now. Now, stemming from that discussion about Kubiak, let's talk about the wide receiver who dominated in his offense last year, which is Jackson Smith and Jigba. I'm not worried that Jasn is just gonna bust this year. He's an elite player who can quite literally do anything on an NFL field. What I'm a little bit concerned about is what the projections are picking up on and that's regression. JSN is not like the wide receiver eight or anything, but he's just not as clear cut in that top spot as you might think, like, for example, the projection is really like Aman Ross Saint Brown right now, he's honestly close to the same tier as JASN according to those projections. Maybe that's more of just a Saint Brown thing being undervalued, which I think is part of this, but also there is some natural regression that we should expect with JASN. First off, the dude had a thirty five percent target share last year, almost thirty six percent. Since twenty eleven, players who have been over a thirty percent target chair have seen an average and median drop of four percentage points in target share the following season. That's what the minimum eight games played in both seasons. That only gets higher as that threshold increases. And obviously JSN was a lot higher than a thirty percent target chair. So with JSN he's set up well to see a crazy target chair still, but it's no guarantee that he's gonna maintain his one hundred and sixty three targets total year over year. But even if he does, Let's assume that Seattle's more pass heavy with their new coordinator. There's no more Kenneth Walker, and maybe the defense just doesn't play as well. We typically do see that with defense is year over year, Smith and Jigba, regardless of volume, was unreal efficient last year. We have a sample of eighty five wide outs with fifty plus targets and back to back seasons who hit ten or more yards per target in that first season. On average, we see them dropping yards per target by two full yards year over year. JSN became one of the best deep threats in the league last year. That helped him out tremendously. I'm not expecting him to regress to his first two season average year. However, he had eleven yards per target last season. Among that same group of players who had ten or more yards per target in one year, roughly eighty percent of them ended up declining year over year in yards per target. And the players who typically do improve they're not crazy target hawks, they're more deep threats. I still have JSN ranked as my wide receiver three, but I do think that Puuka and Akua and Jamar Chase they project better than JSM this year just because there's a little bit more room for air, and don't sleep Phenomena Saint Brown. The projections really like him. They think that he should be living sort of closer to that JSN tier I just don't think that we can use Minnesota's twenty twenty five season as the baseline for what we're gonna see here in twenty twenty six. Kevin O'Connell's been their head coach now for four years. During his first three seasons, the Vikings average almost sixty four plays per game, over five and a half yards per play, almost two and a half touchdowns per game, and an average pass right to overexpected of nearly plus three percent. Last year, their plays per game fell by twelve percent, their yards per play by eleven percent, their touchdowns per game by eighteen percent, and their pass rate to overexpected went to minus one point two, which was four whole percentage points lower than their previous three year average. And obviously this stem from poor quarterback play. Now, we don't know exactly what Kyler Murray is going to look like in this offense, but it's pretty easy to say that it's gonna look better than whatever the heck it was last year. Minnesota was fourth worse than EPA per dropback last year, when they ranked ninth, sixteenth, and twelfth to three years prior, and that was across more than just one quarterback. Kyler Murray hasn't given us a ton in recent years, but I'm very hopeful that we're going to see a much better Minnesota offense this season here in twenty twenty six. Last year just stands out as such an outlier from what we've seen historically under Kevin O'Connell. People were burned by Terry McLaurin last year, but I'm here to say that McLaurin was still very good at hyde receiver. He himself, when healthy, when active at thirty years of age, was actually pretty awesome. Now. I talked about this on the show this offseason. Already I had him as a by candidate for when Now Teams in Dynasty, But McLaurin last season had his second best yards per team pass attempt rate of his entire career. He had his absolute best yards per rout run rate at two point twenty two. This was at thirty years old and an offense that had a carousela quarterback. McLaurin has still only hit a twenty five percent target share once in his career, but I actually think there's a chance that we see that again. In twenty twenty six. All they did was at Antonio Williams of the wide receiver room. Jayden Daniels is healthy and David Blau's offensive coordinator. Now. I remember being at Radio Road this year. We interviewed Josh Johnson on the Late Round Show, but he was very excited about Blow and Washington. We don't know exactly what this is going to look like, but from the interviews that I've watched, I like what I've heard. Law has talked about the importance of play action, which continues to be a cheat code, disguising his looks, getting creative to confuse defenses and to use motion, and they quite literally talked about Terry McLaurin being the centerpiece of this offense. In February, Blouse said, quote, this thing's going to be built around how do we get Terry ten targets per game? Considering McLaurin looked the part last year and looking at the competition right now on that team, Jayden Daniels is healthy. I'm in and projections reflect that too. Arizona's a tough team to wrap my head around right now. On one hand, we saw Jacoby Brissett not only allow Michael Wilson to be fantasy relevant last year and Trey McBride to just put up insane numbers, but he himself was relevant up until the end of the season. The backfield was a mess with injuries, but it was somewhat of a surprise offense for fantasy purposes. Now, in twenty twenty six, we're looking at a new coaching staff. Jacoby Brissette is probably under center. Then they added Jeremiah Love in the draft. Projecting this team is really not easy. Part of the problem is that last year the Cardinals were first in the league in pass attempts. Typically, given their pass attempt number, we've seen teams regress by a few pass attempts per game year over year, the majority of them do. If that happens, we're looking at the potential for fifty fewer pass attempts year over year for Arizona. Meanwhile, there's this really weird Michael Wilson problem to solve. Last year, Jacoby Brissett took over in week six. From Week one to week five, Michael Wilson averaged three point eight PPR points per game. That was along the same lines as Josh Reynolds and andre Yosibash. Brissette then takes over, and from Week six onward, Wilson was the wide receiver eleven in Fantasy football with sixteen point four PPR points per game. We would take that all day long this year, but we have to remember that Marvin Harrison Junior wasn't totally active and healthy over that time period. Post Week five, man Harrison Junior ran a route on eighty percent or more of Arizona's dropbacks in just three games Week seven nine to ten. He either missed every other game or he was well below that seventy percent mark, which is not his norm at all. In those three games, Michael Wilson scored nine point one, seven point four and seven point zero PPR points. That was on a thirteen point eight percent target share per game rate. To put that another way, all of Michael Wilson's serious production with Jacoby Brissett last year came without Marvin Harrison Junior being one hundred percent. And say what you want about Marvin Harrison Junior, he clearly has not lived up to the hype, but I think if you were to tell someone that last year he and Michael Wilson had almost identical yards per rout run rates one point five eight versus one point five to nine, they'd probably be surprised. Wilson commanded a target on twenty percent of his routes run Marvin Harrison Junior nineteen percent. And remember there was a large sample here where Michael Wilson was playing without Marvin Harrison Junior. That's why it's hard for me to feel really bullish about Michael Wilson in twenty twenty six, and I, along with the projections, we're more bullish on Marvin Harrison Junior between the two wide receivers. I pretty actively faded Marvin Harrison Junior last year. But at his current cost and what projections are saying, he's not a terrible pick because this is a brand new offense, a brand new system. I'd much rather bet on the high end prospect than the guy who only produced when an injury occurred to another player last year, and who did if we're just being honest with ourselves, he benefited from a team with a lot of passing volume. Honestly, guys, last year's Michael Wilson season reminds me a lot of twenty twenty four's Jerry Judy season. In twenty twenty four, Judy averaged fourteen PPR points per game. He had a stretch of games where he was dominating in fantasy football at Jamis Winston, but his peripherals were never spectacular. His yards per rout run rate that year was one point seventy two. Who it's not like he got significantly better as a player, and Judy also benefited from injuries to his teammates just like Michael Wilson, and Judy ended up running the most routes in the NFL that year because, like the Cardinals, the Browns led the league in pass attempts, and like Judy, Michael Wilson was fourth in the NFL last year and routes run according to PFF. Now, look, the Cardinals are probably gonna still be pass heavy just given how bad that defense projects. But with Wilson's peripherals really not being spectacular with his splits alongside a healthy Marvin Harrison junior last year, looking if he, I can see why the projections are just not that into him. Now, I mentioned the Brock Bauers stuff earlier, and I think Trey McBride he should still be the tight end two. But it's funny to say this after how his career started. He's probably not gonna score eleven touchdowns again. Now. It's true he didn't like harshly outperform as expected touchdowns last year, but the Cardinals also set him up well, and I'm not convinced that that's easily repeatable, especially because there's a very real chance that Jacoby Brissett is not starting for that team the entire season. We could get Carson Beck. In fact, I think we will get some Carson Beck. And then through all of this, there's also a lot of ambiguity with Jeremiah Love. That's why this whole thing is just really difficult to project. I didn't even mention the change in staff and how that comes into play. I do think we see a more effective run game, and we might see a team that wants to really run the football. They wouldn't have taken Love third overall if that wasn't the case. But there's also a classic case of not getting carried away with just duplicating what that team did during the back half of the twenty twenty five season. There's a lot of change in Arizona, and we can't forget about certain injuries that occurred last year that enabled some of these things to be unlocked. So the TLDR is that I'm afraid of this offense, and I'm definitely afraid of taking Michael Wilson at ADP given these projections. I've talked up both Jaden Reid and Josh Downs over the last month, but I want to call them out here because projections show that there's at least some opportunity. Projections are based on median outcomes, and the median outcome for Josh Downs and Jaden Reid is that they continue their slot roles. They don't grow that much from them, and that's it. They're not super relevant in fantasy football. But even with that being the assumption, Read and Downs are comfortably top fifty wide receivers right now in the projections front. And meanwhile, according to Fantasy Pro's average draft position data, Read is wide receiver thirty nine, Downs wide receiver forty five, which means where they're getting drafted right now really isn't that far off from just their median projection. But we know there are non injury outs for both wide receivers, which doesn't exist for many wide receivers in that range in general. For Reed, we're assuming that Matthew Golden takes a step he's really able to play consistently in two wide receiver sets for Josh downs. The only guy in his way in those groupings is Nick Westbrook a Keena. There was a fantastic article done by Fantasy Points Ryan Heath last week on play caller tendencies, and specifically he looked at play callers who often call plays with two or fewer wide receivers on the field at once. We've known for a while that heavier personnel or fewer wide receivers on the field can bring forth higher target shairs and better fantasy production for the wide receivers who are actually on the field for those plays in those situations, because instead of competing with other wideouts for targets, they're competing with tight ends or running backs. In that article, which everyone should read, hit my Twitter account if you want to see it. I quote tweeted it. But in it Ryan talks about Christian Watson, who to me has the most established role right now in that Green Bay offense at wide receiver, but he noted that the Packers when Tucker Craft was healthy last year, they ran a lot more plays with only two wide receivers on the field. That's gonna help Watson, there's no doubt, but it's also gonna help whoever wins out outside of Watson. And right now, I think throwing that dart at Matthew Golden, it's absolutely fine, despite the fact that I thought he was an overvalued prospect and he didn't do anything last year. But I am still drafting him right now. But because he's an overrated prospect and he didn't do anything last year, what if this is the year the Packers actually do use Jaden Reed more on the outside. He barely has played in two wide receiver sets in Green Bay, so don't get your hopes up. But Green Bay has historically had a lot more depth at wide receiver than they do right now. So for the Packers, I just like the Packers versus their cost because it's a bankable team. Matt Lafleur has had a top half offense in touchdowns per game every year that he's been the head coach there, and none of these guys, including Josh Jacobs, are super expensive, but in front of Jaden Reid is an often injured Christian Watson and a completely unproven entity in Matthew Golden. It's objectively an interesting setup for a guy who's been very, very efficient per out run throughout his NFL career, and with Josh Downs. I may not like the situation as much, but Nick Westbrook Akine is not tough competition. Again, median outcomes show that Reed and Downs are simply slot players. That's what the projection is going to show. But I wouldn't just make that assumption no matter what, if it doesn't happen, there's a chance they do very well against their ADP this year. So last season, the Jags acquired Jacobe Myers prior to their Week ten matchup against Houston. When they did that, Travis Hunter was done for the year and they were switching usage around for Parker Washington. From Week ten through Week eighteen, the Jags were fifth in drives ending in a touchdown, they were fifth in drives just ending in a scorer, and Trevor Lawrence averaged twenty two point seven standard Fantasy points per game through the end of the fantasy season. That was the second highest mark in fantasy football. The Jags were unlocked down the stretch last year, and I think we should feel very bullish about how that team overall is going to perform here in year two under Liam Cohen. With that being said, totally understanding the deployment for their personnel is a pretty tough task. Right now. You could argue that Parker Washington is similar to Michael Wilson, and then he kind of emerged out of nowhere. He was awesome for fantasy, but he didn't do it across the entire season. The difference for me with Washington and Wilson is that Washington was bawling out with pretty good competition. Wilson splits they were pretty brutal when Marvin Harrison Junior was active. That led to Washington having much better per route run numbers, a two point zero six yards per rout run rate, a twenty three percent targets per out run rate. He just needed the opportunity and he got that when Travis Hunter went down. Now, Washington played roughly half of his snaps from the slot last year according to PFF, and I think my fear with him, if I'm just gonna look at the downside risk is that despite his numbers, Jacksonville just doesn't use him as much as we want them to use him. They went tight end heavy in theft. They clearly are shifting to a heavier personnel offense, and that means the potential for fewer wide receivers on the field. With Jakobe Myers, Brian Thomas, and even Travis Hunter there, that could mean more of a rotation than we want for fantasy football. With that being said, I don't think I really want to fade anyone from this offense. It was so good last year when things started to click, and if you want to just capture all of it, you could obviously just get Trevor Lawrence too. But I'm just being honest right here in May. That passing attack is really hard to nail down. But it's a good offense and it projects well overall. We all know that Saquon Barkley struggled last year. Kevin Bittulo was terrible as offensive coordinator. I'm willing to put the blame on him. The Eagles were bottom ten in play action rate, they were bottom five in their use of motion, and they ranked twenty six and percentage drives that ended up in a score in twenty twenty four. Within that statistic, they were eighth. Now, I'm not saying Jalen Hurts was brilliant, but I do expect this Eagles offense to look better in twenty twenty six, specifically Sequon Barkley. Barkley in twenty twenty five saw very normal volume peripherals and eighty one percent running back rush air was nearly identical to what he saw in twenty twenty four. In fact, it was technically a little bit higher. His target share was eleven point six percent in twenty twenty five. It was eleven point four percent in twenty twenty four. The usage itself, the intent was mostly the same. The difference is that none of the explosive plays were there, and hey, maybe he's breaking down a little bit, and we knew that he was going to regress in some way. His twenty twenty four was just too out of control. But Barkley saw a twenty plus yard run on only one point four percent of his runs last year. That was by far a career low. He was able to gain positive yards at the second lowest rate of his career. And here's the real kicker. Barkley had fourteen attempts inside the five at the goal line. He converted just one of them, one goal line touchdown on fourteen goal line attempts. Now, obviously many of those attempts came outside push push range, but it's still a really bad conversion rate. Barkley ended up underperforming in the rushing touchdown column last year when looking versus expected, I fully expect things to be better for Saquon Barkley this year, and projections are showing that too. Miami's probably gonna be bad this year, which means they're gonna be forced to throw a little bit more than usual. But guys, I really think they're gonna just force feed their running backs and just let Malik Willnis run wild. They just don't have the pass catching depth to do anything significant through the air sustainably. And Malik Willis in his six career starts, he's thrown no more than twenty three pass attempts in a single start. He was at ten and sixteen in his first two starts to the Titans. But even if he hit that max of twenty three across the season, that would finish as the second lowest from any team since twenty eleven. If they did that per game. Now, this isn't horrible for Willis from a fantasy perspective because we know that he can run, and Devon a Chan could realistically see like a twenty percent target share in that offense. But if you're looking for a winner at wide receiver for the Dolphins, sure throw a dart at your favorite go for Jalen Tolbert if you want to. Just don't assume that someone has to emerge in this offense. This is almost definitely gonna be a ground and pound offense, which is shots down the field. The Malik willis special and the data certainly points that way. Let's talk about the Chargers to end today's show. Over the last two years, the Chargers had Greg Roman running their offense. Now it's Mike McDaniel. Roman is known for using heavier personnel his power run game, but he didn't do that quite as often with the Chargers. Mike McDaniel was actually bottom five and eleven personnel use each year in Miami as head coach. That wasn't always due to tight end usage, but I do think the recent signing of David Njoku tells us that they're o open to that and Some of the lack of eleven personnel use is undoubtedly due to personnel. They had Tyreek Hill, they had Jalen Waddle, and they didn't have that much after them. But if you can bine everything McDaniel's historical use, the Njoku signing, his use of fullbacks, I don't think this is automatically a heavy eleven personnel team because they drafted Trey Harris last year and they have Ladd McConkie and Quentin Johnston. What that means is that the wide receivers who are out there, who are out there in one or two wide receiver sets, they're probably gonna see an uptick and target share. And I think Ladd McConkie is the best wide receiver in that offense. So I've leaned into him in early Best Ball drafts. I think he's a candidate to make a leap this year. As I've noted on shows this offseason, there was a great nugget from that Ryan Heath article that I referenced earlier when it came to Ladd McConkie. He noted that McConkie ran just ten percent of his routes from sets with fewer than three wide receivers, and twenty twenty five, Jalen Waddle under Mike McDaniel was at forty six percent. So there's a lot of room for growth there for McConkey, assuming he's the one consistently staying on the field, which I think he's capable of doing because I think he's the best wide receiver on that team. And then whoever you like more Between Quentin Johnson and Trey Harris, their serious opportunity for them to make that jump as well. Right now, I would lean Quentin Johnston because I think he looked a lot better in twenty twenty five. Unlike Greg Roman, Mike McDaniel gets awesome efficiency and fantasy relevance from his wide receivers, and part of the reason for that is McDaniel has been more pass heavy as a coach. His Miami teams were seventeenth or higher and pass right over expected in all four years there. He had an average of plus one point one across his seasons as head coach. Roman was about two points below that with the Chargers. McDaniel's also known for scheming his guys open Miami ranked first, first, second, and first, and their use of motion while he was coaching there. For some context, Greg Roman's Chargers were twenty last year in their use of motion and shout out to Fantasy Life for that data. Basically, McDaniel's offenses will isolate wide receivers and allow them to see bigger boosts and target share. We have to be open to that being personnel driven. But the Chargers move this offseason tell me that they're probably still gonna install a similar offense. They got a blocking tight end, they snagged alec Engole to full back in free agency. They're probably gonna run the same Mike McDaniel offense, and I think that's good for basically everyone involved. Mconkee could thrive. The run game should be efficient. I'm not necessarily super high on a Marii and Hampton because I think Chase Brown in that range is just a better bet here in May, but I definitely haven't faded Hampton at all. Meanwhile, Keaton Mitchell's speed, who they signed this offseason. His speed in this offense is very alluring as well. There are a lot of pieces to like. And then there's the offensive line. The Chargers are getting Rashawn Slater and Joe Waltback, which should be a massive boost. All played a normal number of snaps last year in just four games. In those four games, justin Herbert average nearly twenty two standard Fantasy points per game. Outside of those four games, Herbert averaged sixteen point seven. Now it's a small sample, but we all watched the Chargers last year. Herbert finished with the highest quarterback pressure rate in football last year at nearly forty four percent according to Next Gen Stats. Now pressures they can be quarterback driven, so this isn't all on the offensive line, but that number was thirty three percent the year prior, with the exact same quarterback and the exact same offense. So I'm very much in on this Chargers offense this year. I think there's a chance that they're going to be seriously awesome. So those are my overall notes. There's plenty more to talk about. There's plenty more to discuss, but I wanted to get through some of the more pressing things. There's some of the things that I found most interesting. We've got a couple of months to dissect this stuff a lot further. That's it for today's show, though, thanks to all of you for listening. If you had subscribed to a Late Round fantasy football podcast. Make sure you are restriching for it pretty much anywhere. Podcasts can be found in do for to follow me on Twitter and on Blue Sky at Late Round QB. Thanks for listening everyone. As a reminder, the Late Round Show will be live on Tuesday at noon this week instead of Wednesday. It's gonna hit your feeds then on Thursday as usual, and then on Friday we've got another episode of Late Round Perspectives. I'll talk to you guys then