870: Free Agency Fallout

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Speaker 1: This is the Labor Podcast with your host JJ zachersis J J. Zacher reson. What's up everyone. It's JJ zachar Esen in this episode eight hundred and seventy of the Late Round Fantasy Football podcast sponsored by Underdog Fantasy. Thanks for tuning in. I know every fantasy football podcast is gonna break down free agency, and some of you might be tired of all the takes at this point, and I can't lie to you. I don't know if my stances on what happened during free agency. I don't know if those stances are gonna be unique. I don't know if any perspective is gonna be different than what you've already heard. What I can tell you is that I always do my best to be rational with my thoughts, and I have plenty of math to back up my feelings on these moves. But yeah, this episode is a pretty generic episode. It's one where I'll be looking at some of the bigger moves that went down in free agency, and I'll be talking about how those moves impact things in fantasy football. And because there were so many things that happened, I won't be able to get to everything. But I chose some of the bigger storylines that may be tougher for gamers to figure out right now. Before we get into things, though, don't forget to check out Underdog Fantasy. It's the best and easiest place to play fantasy sports. You can draft a fantasy football team in minutes and with their best ball format. There's no waivers, trades or lineup setting. There's no league management. After your draft, you can sit back and relax. Drafts are happening right now over there. I know that because I'm participating, and you can use the information that I share on here or in my prospect guide to help you draft. If you're new to Underdog, make sure you use promo code late Round when you sign up. When you do that, you'll get a deposit matchup to one hundred dollars. That's promo code late Round. Head to underdog Fantasy dot com or download the Underdog Fantasy app to sign up. I think the single biggest move of free agency, at least in terms of how things will impact fantasy football, is with Kirk Cousins going to Atlanta. Over the last two years under Arthur Smith, the Falcons rang thirty first and twenty ninth in pass rate. They had four hundred and fifteen and five hundred and thirty pass attempts over those two seasons. Now we're getting a new coaching staff in Atlanta, which includes Sean McVay, coaching tree higher, Zach Robinson, his offensive coordinator. Robinson had worked as a quarterbacks coach and passing game coordinator in LA over the last two seasons, and he was on the staff since twenty nineteen. Chances are the Falcons are gonna want to sling it at least far more than what they did under Artie Smith. Cousins is also coming from Minnesota, where he played under Kevin O'Connell over the last two seasons, and Minnesota was third in the NFL both seasons and pass rate right before he got the head coaching gig for the Vikings Kevin O'Connell, as most of you guys know, he was the offensive coordinator for the Rams that was in twenty twenty and twenty twenty one under Sean McVay. Your offense with Cousins is going to have a massive effect on the weapons in Atlanta. Kyle Pitts should become a more reliable piece. Drake London, who scored really well in my Year two model last year, and he's someone I've touted a lot over the last year. He now looks like a potential wide receiver one in fantasy. And then there's Bjon Robinson. Robinson had what many thought was a disappointing season given the cost to acquire him last year, but his target share his receiving work was excellent among rookie running Mackson's twenty eleven Robinson's per game target chair trailed only Christian McCaffrey, Saquon Barkley, and Alvin Kamara. Now, I know a lot of people were saying that you should buy into the Falcons offense right now, and even though it's gonna drive up their ADPs, I still think it's valid unless you just started listening to me. You know that I'm a fan of a lot of the pieces there, and now you've got the right kind of coordinator and the right kind of quarterback to score fantasy points. My early projections think that London and Bijon Robinson specifically could be studs this year. London a lower end wide receiver one and Robinson the RB two and twenty twenty four. And I think if anyone can get close to Christian McCaffrey this year. It might be b John Robinson if things break his way, and Brece Hall gets a nod there too. But this is a giant w for fantasy managers who invested in these guys last season. Assuming that Kirk Cousins can come back and be his healthy self, this result could have been much, much worse. The only other big quarterback move is probably what we saw in Pittsburgh. But then the Steelers also moved on from Deontae Johnson, and it's a nice transition from talking about Arthur Smith's old team to his new one because he's now the offensive coordinator for Pittsburgh. So let's briefly touch on the Steelers. In my eyes, the quarterback position was upgraded when Russell Wilson signed in Pittsburgh, and now Justin Fields is backing him up. Kenny Pickett is gone. I don't think we've ever seen a bigger quarterback room overhaul in league history. The bottom line with a Pittsburgh offense, though, is that the aforementioned Arthur Smith is running that offense. Smith is known for his run heavy mentality, which I actually think is fine enough for a Pittsburgh team that constantly tries to be competitive, Like, it's not the way that I would team build, but if you're gonna have question marks at quarterback, you might as well find a coordinator that you can feel confident in with his run game, and Smith can at least provide that, even if it's in an inefficient way to run an offense. In twenty twenty four, Smith ranked twenty ninth and thirty first over his last two seasons in pass rate as the head coach in Atlanta, but they were two seasons with some really bad quarterback play. During his first year in Atlanta, the Falcons were eighth in pass rate. They actually had an above average drop backs over expected rate, and that was with Matt Ryan under center as offensive coordinator. In Tennessee, which was Smith's previous stop before Atlanta, the Titans were thirtieth and twenty ninth in pass rate. I was with Ryan Tannehill. Smith was a big help to Tannehill's resurgence in the NFL, and I think that's what we're really hoping for with the Steelers offense in twenty twenty four. We're hoping that Russell Wilson can revitalize his career, similar to how Ryan Tannehill did in that two year window. And it's not unlike what we had in Tennessee. You've got a veteran quarterback whose previous team gave up on him, you have run game pieces and running backs in place, and you've got your hypothetical alpha wide receiver. Smith had AJ Brown in twenty nineteen and twenty twenty. Those were Brown's first two years in the league. Now he'll have George Pickens, who is not AJ Brown. He's not that kind of talent. And I say Pickens only because the Steelers traded away Deontay Johnson. I'm assuming that they're going to do more at the position, but it's not like they need to go crazy and in Arthur smith offense. Historically, top receivers in this offense have been fine on the target share front. J Brown saw a twenty percent target chair per game rate as a rookie in twenty nineteen. His rate as a second year player was twenty six percent. In Atlanta, Drake London has seen target hairs of twenty nine percent and twenty three percent. But the obvious problem is that players like Brown in London needed those shares in order to be fantasy relevant because the passing volume just wasn't there, and that's probably the biggest problem in fear with George Pickens. London and Brown are better wide receivers than Pickens's. Pickens had a pretty underrated twenty twenty three whereas yards per route run set at two point one point one, but that's a huge improvement over twenty twenty two, and London himself has been at two point zero seven and one point eight six over his first two years in the league. That's in yards per route run, and AJ Brown was just on another level two. So I don't think that George Pickens is necessarily as good as Drake London and AJ Brown. Since twenty nineteen, when Smith became offensive coordinator for Tennessee and then went to coach Atlanta, the highest raw target total a wide receiver has seen in an Arthur Smith offense is just one hundred and seventeen that would have ranked twenty third in football last year, and that includes offensive talent like AJ Brown and Drake London. That's the fear with George Pickens that this offense is super, super run heavy and even a high target share won't really help him. Out. With that being said, I actually think there's a chance that Pickens is still a decent get in fantasy this year. He's got a reasonable wide receiver thirty two price tag on underdog right now, and I'd be surprised at this point if he makes it into the fourth round of your managed league drafts this summer. My early projections have him a handful of wide receiver spots higher than that. You might be able to play into the market's beliefs a bit here, because there's this run heavy offense that's gonna doom George Pickens. Right the market just generally knows that this is an Arthur Smith offense. I think that's gonna hurt him a ton. Yes, don't get me wrong. I just went through numbers to show you that our through Smith likes to run the football. But number one that seems priced in right now. Number two part of that price assumes that there's no step forward with Russell Wilson, or that Wilson won't work that much in this offense, which I think is premature. And then number three Pickens is coming off a really underrated twenty twenty three season where I think there's at least room for growth as a player. What if George Pickens is just better than what the market thinks. I wouldn't be buying him much higher than where he's at. And this is more of a redraft take, more of an underdog take rather than dynasty. But it's not totally awful for him, given Deontay Johnson is now out of town. We saw an absurd number of running back moves during this free agency period, and the most meaningful one was probably Saquon Barkley going to Philadelphia. I said this on Late Round Perspectives last week, but how you feel about Saquon Barkley and Philly could depend on your own perspective. I think it's an upgrade from the Giants, but I do think that we continue overvalue the situation in Philadelphia when it comes to running backs. Jalen Hurts has now been starter in Philly for three years. In those three seasons, Eagles running backs have ranked seventeenth, sixteenth, and twenty fifth in PPR points scored. This isn't automatically an amazing situation because we know there's a mobile quarterback, and that mobile quarterback takes plays away from everyone in the offense. Both between the twenties and at the goal line. Now, the positive side to this is that they haven't had a running back like Saquon Barkley, and I would imagine that not only do they lean on their backs more as a result or Saquon Barkley Moore as a result, but Saquon's going to see a larger chunk of the team's running back points. I also don't think that we can assume they're gonna tush push the way they've been tush pushing. With Jason Kelcey out of the picture. Now, we can't just ignore that, and that could help Saquon out at the goal line. So at the moment, I'm about at market with Saquon. My projections have him as a low end RB one and he'll be drafted in best play a little bit above that, more in the RB seven RB eight range. But I don't have a crazy issue with that. I'd have a bigger issue if people were taking him over someone like Kyron Williams, who just has a better volume profile. Now, I don't know if I'm gonna have a ton of Barkley this year. And you should understand that Philadelphia is not this ideal situation. This ideal destination. It's not a bad one, but it's not a great one like some people would believe. But if you want to invest in Barkley, that's not one that I'm gonna argue with. There's enough single game upside there to understand the appeal. Where I think I may end up differing versus the market this year is with Josh Jacobs. He's now a Green Bay Packer, and with the Packers releasing Aaron Jones, Jacob is their bellcow right now. He's their RB one. I have a few questions about this though. The first is how good is Josh Jacobs At this point last season, Jacob's rushing yards over expected per rush was minus point four. Zamir White in the same offense was at plus point three. It's not totally apples to apples, but it's interesting. Nonetheless, White had a better success rate and EPA per carry too, that's according to next Gen stats. My number two question is are we going to see a split backfield? Matt Lafleur has traditionally split his backfields up, and we can sit here and we can say that it was for the greater good, it was a good football move, But was it has it really been objectively smart. Lafleur was with the Rams as offensive coordinator in twenty seventeen and they fed Todd Gurley that year, so that's at least one good sign. The problem is coaches saw what happened with Gurley, and I think as humans that brings a lot of caution because look at what Laflour did when he went to Tennessee as offensive coordinator there in twenty eighteen. The back to was Dereck Henry and Dion Lewis. DeMarco Murray wasn't around Henry anymore. Henry ended up seeing just fifty eight percent of the team's running back rushes per game. He carried the ball just two hundred and fifteen times all season to Dion Lewis as one hundred and fifty five attempts. In Green Bay, we've seen split backfields since twenty nineteen, which is when La Floor got to Green Bay. The median top running back rush air by a Packers back was fifty nine point six percent. When you do that exercise for every NFL team, that's a bottom seven number. I think it's rational to look at this current backfield with Jacobs and aj Dillon who resigned there and give Jacobs a good backfield share, but I do think it's a little different than a player in a different spot. And then the last thing that I question is the receiving upside. Jacobs is definitely a capable receiver, but it hasn't always been there for him. He's shit a double digit percentage target share in each of his last three but he maxed out last year at a thirteen point three percent target chair. That's not a bad number, but it's not necessarily what we see from elite elite backs. And then what worries me a little bit isn't if Jacobs is going to be the top receiving back in this offense. He's a better receiver than aj Dillon. What worries me is that the Packers have a lot of alternatives in that offensive pass catcher. You have Jaden Reid, Christian Watson, Dontavian Wicks, Romeo Dobbs, two capable pass catching tight ends. There's only on one hundred percent target share to divvy up. There could be somewhat of a cap ceiling there for Josh Jacobs. Now, I don't think he's in like this bad spot. The Packers' offense is likely to be pretty good this year, and he will see volume. My fear is that he's gonna get steamed up, that people are gonna want to draft him in like the late first round and managed redraft leagues that he's a locked in top ten back. I don't think that's really the case, but I do want to wait until I get more clarity on his ADP before I definitively say that I'm in or out. For now, just know that there are some question marks with Josh Jacobs out of Vegas. Zamir White is now currently the RB one for the Raiders, and that could be big because as the team's top running back down the stretch last year, he was solid during the team's final four weeks last season, White average a nine point four percent target share per game rate. His running back rush share per game rate was eighty seven percent, and he scored between thirteen and seventeen and a half PPR points in every contest. Heath Cummings and I talked about White for a bit on last week's Perspectives episode, and we had the same general thoughts. There's a very real chance that the market makes some assumptions about the Raiders backfield as we enter the draft, that the Raiders will get a running back in that draft. And while that's definitely possible, we have to remember that this running back class isn't very strong, it's not that special. It's very possible that the running back they'd hypothetically draft, that that running back isn't any better than Samir White, whether as a prospect or right now, and there's a chance they just go for depth rather than take a running back with high draft capital. And then on Monday, the Raiders decide to sign Alexander Madison two. To me, that says that they're fine with White as their RB one and then Madison as the RB two. Maybe some see it as legit competition, maybe others see it as nothing and that they still might go to the draft to get a running back. To me, it says that this could just be their backfield in twenty twenty four, that they're okay with Zamir White being their RB one. I think that's a real possibility and we should buy into that to some degree. Now, Zamir White didn't have a good Year two model score. The Year two model helps predict how well a player's going to perform in year two and year three of his NFL career. By looking at rookie season inputs as well as a player's prospect scorer, Whites wasn't great because he wasn't a can't miss prospect and he didn't do anything as a rookie. Now, with that being said, from a redraft standpoint, the year two model doesn't have that much predictiveness for third year running backs when you factor in ADP. This is something I talk about last week. If you look at middle round running back since twenty eleven who are in their third year in the NFL, there's no correlation between those running backs exceeding ADP expectation and year two score. That's because if a player's a third year guy and he's being drafted as a middle round pick, chances are he hasn't truly broken out yet. And if a player had a high year two score and he still hasn't truly broken out or he's a middle round pick in year three, there's probably a problem. There's probably something going on there. A perfect example of this is with Clyde Edwards a laire As a prospect, even though he did have some MORTZ, he wasn't a horrific prospect, especially with draft capital. And then after year one he had some production. So his year two score wasn't awful, but then in year two he didn't do that much. So then in year three is adp was in the middle rounds. It wasn't very strong. What does that tell you? It tells you that there might be problems with Clyde Edwards layer or else. Why wouldn't he be an early round pick. So from a redraft perspective, I think buying into Zamir White right now makes a ton of sense because I'm not that fearful of the competition they might bring in, whether it's a rookie running back or if it is Alexander Madison. Neither of those scenarios scare me a lot, because I don't think there's a high chance that they use an early round pick on a running back. Now, from a dynasty perspective, you can hold off if you want, but there's a chance that people are concerned there too, And I'm always for playing against the market. As of right now, I'm more in the buy side with Zamir White than the cell side. I've been wrong about Derrick Henry more than i've been right through the years. He's broken math, he's broken logic, and he's truly a one of one type of player in this era of NFL. There's nothing wrong with admitting that he's now in Baltimore and the fit is absolutely perfect. In my opinion. He's never going to be a high volume receiver, and the Ravens have ranked twenty ninth, twenty sixth thirty, first, thirtieth, and twentieth in running back target share since Lamar Jackson became starter. That's fine. A healthy Derrick Henry can produce in this offense. Last year on her new offensive coordinator Todd Monkin, Ravens backs only trailed the Dolphins forty nine ers and Lions and fantasy points scored. That was with just two receiving touchdowns. It's no guarantee that they'll be that good this year, but it's not hard to see this is a top half destination for a guy like Derrick Henry. The concern is whether or not Henry still has it. We've seen some of his numbers drop in recent years, and he's now thirty years old. This is ninth NFL season since twenty eleven. When looking at the top three rounds of redraft leagues, and this is my fantasy league ADP. We've seen nine running back seasons where the back was drafted in that range in the first three rounds while in his ninth year in the league or later. The list includes guys like Leshaw McCoy, Adrian Peterson, Marshawn Lynch, Frank Gore, Steven Jackson, and there is one season of darren sprolls when those players have had ADPs in the top three rounds. Literally none of them have outperformed ADP expectation. Now, let me explain ADP expectation really quick. Every player is expected to score some number of Fantasy points per game at whatever ADP they have. Like a thirty second overall running back would be expected to score thirteen pp heer points per game based on history. When you compare that versus how the player actually performed, you can see who under and overperformed versus expectation. And every single one of these early round old running backs have underperformed expectation. That's a huge red flag for Derrick Henry. I think that's enough reason to not be overweight on him this year, but I'm still gonna have a little bit of exposure because the fit is there, the situation is there, and Derrick Henry has beaten the odds before. Now. Speaking of Derrick Henry, his old team is the Tennessee Titans, and they did a couple of things that messed with the fantasy football world too. That was adding both Tony Pollard and Calvin Ridley. The Calvin Ridley signing it was pretty surprising, but they definitely needed help at wide receiver. It doesn't look like Trey Loan Burks, is it, so having someone opposite of DeAndre Hopkins and allowing the team to move their wide receivers all over the field, having that versatility, it makes sense from a real football standpoint. We won't talk contract details. I just mean from a real football fit perspective. The issue is that the Tennessee Titans offense is currently being led by a huge question mark and Will Levis. Levis rang dead last in twenty twenty three and completion percentage over expected according to Next Gen Stats, he was twenty fourth out of thirty five qualified quarterbacks and EPA per dropback. If you look at how rookie quarterbacks have performed historically and try to project forward, you'd likely place will Levis in a probable bust bucket as opposed to a probable hit one. Right, will Levis is more likely to bust than hit at this point, but if you want the positives, he can at least get it down the field, and the Titans should be more pass heavy with a coaching staff that skewed that way more in twenty twenty three. I'm probably not gonna have a lot of d Hop or Calvin Ridley, but I understand this move from a real football perspective. The Tony Pollard signing was really interesting to me because I think most of us assumed that the Titans would get some other running back to compete with Tajy Spears, but I envisioned more of a bruiser, and Pollard showed us last year. He's probably not that. Here's where I'm at with the Pollard Spears split. This is now an ambiguous backfield where we're probably gonna see RB three type costs for both of these guys. People will run away from those backfields. People hate ambiguous backfields because from a projection standpoint, they don't look great, But as we know, we should run toward them because players can emerge from ambiguous backfields, and they emerge all the time. And right now I would bet more on Spears than Pollard. Not because I think Spears is gonna be this bell cow in the NFL. That's something I've consistently talked about since he was coming out last year. But I do think that he showed out in a big way in year one as a receiver. And historically second year running backs have been better ceiling bets than sixt year running backs have, So in my opinion, I think you can still take some shots at that backfield. I don't think it's necessarily an amazing situation, but don't let us split backfield push you away, because in the end, split backfields see lower costs in the fantasy football market. They're ADP's fall and that can create bigger values. Now, another split backfield to talk about today is the one in Cincinnati. Joe Mixon's out. Zach Moss is in. I send a Late Round newsletter blast out last week, which you can subscribe for for free just go to Late Round dot com. But I send this email blast out about Chase Brown, where I asked if Chase Brown is this year's were Shad White, He's a second year player and a pretty up in the air backfield. It seems like a reasonable comparison or a reasonable thing to dig into. Well, Brown's score in the year two model is below seventy. Players below that mark rarely work out in year two and year three and pretty much beyond. But we're talking only three of them since twenty eleven, giving us an RB one points per game season, with those being CJ Anderson, Miles Gaskin the last year Kyron Williams. If you want to talk about RB two seasons, you can add Chris Carson and Damien Harris to that list. It's really hard to overcome that low of a score. On top of that, I looked at second year middle round running back since twenty eleven by redraft ADP, and I looked at backs who had year two scores above seventy, and then the backsweed scores below seventy, and the second year middle round running backs who had year two scores below seventy really struggled. Their median difference between expected points per game by ADP and actual points per game was minus one point eight. The other group was plus two point four. And that's the group that had Rashad White in it last year. Now, similar to the Tennessee situation, go ahead and throw some darts to this ambiguous backfield. I think because of the year two model stuff, I'll probably have more Zach Moss than Chase Brown and Redraft. And I'd be willing to see if I could flip Brown right now for a second rounder in rookie drafts, because while he does have enough of a weekly ceiling due to his big playability, there's so much working against him. The odds that he becomes someone that you're really mad at yourself for trading away those odds are clearly small. I think best ball is a separate beast. But I'm probably still gonna have more Zach Moss than Chase Brown on Underdog this year too. Keep all of that in mind with his backfield. The last item I want to get to today is with Marquise Brown. Him going to Kansas City. It's a perfect fit. A problem with Brown is that he's quite literally seen worse efficiency marks every single year of his career. His yards per route run started at an impressive one point eight to one during his rookie season. Lamar Jackson's first MVP season it's gotten worse every single year since then. It was just one point twenty five last year, but he's still commanded high target shairs in his offenses. Brown had a twenty two point seven percent target shair per game rate last year. It was almost twenty four percent the year before that. He's hit a twenty two percent per game target share in each of his last four seasons. That's at least a signal for talent, and now he's in a much more advantageous situation with Patrick Mahomes and the Chiefs Kansas City. Despite winning the Super Bowl, they still had a glaring hole at wide receiver. They needed someone who could really stretch the field, and Brown can do that. Despite a down year, he was second on Arizona last season an average depth of target, and we've seen him make huge plays throughout his career. That pairs so unbelievably well with Rashie Rice. The big question mark with Rice, for me at least, is how he can grow as a wideout grow from being more of that lower aid dot yards after the catch wide receiver, because in twenty twenty three he ranked second among fifty plus target receivers and percentage of targets that came from screens, and among fifty plus target rookie wideout since twenty eleven, only Rondell Moore and Jarvis Landry had a lower average depth of target than Rashie Rice. I think it's fine to say that Rice got by a little bit this past season by lack of competition. He's extremely good with the ball in his hands, and this is the offense to be in to help him generate a ton of yards after the catch. Don't take this the wrong way. Rashie Rice is good and he's in the perfect spot for Rashee Rice. I'm just saying that with Hollywood Brown there, it's a good fit for Rice to maintain that role to a high level, to still see a high target chair. He can still maintain that awesome target shair that made him so fantasy relevant. And now the Chiefs probably feel less pressure to take a wide receiver super super high in the draft, although that's definitely still in play. But it's a good fit overall. It's a great fit. I think Brown can be a solid wide receiver three in fantasy this year, and Rice to me is fair in the late second round of best ball drafts right now. Now, there were other free agency storylines that I didn't get to today. For sure. Two backfield situations that specifically didn't get to are with Aaron Jones in Minnesota and Joe Mixon and Houston. I'll gladly talk more about those players on mailbag episodes, but I think we generally know what's going on there. Jones is probably gonna see a similar backfield chair as what he saw in Green Bay, and Mixon will likely be the bellcoal for Houston at this point, and there's also Sineckler in Washington and DeAndre Swift in Chicago too. I wanted to instead focus on some of the situations where people just have more questions, the more interesting situations in my mind, and hopefully I was able to answer those questions for you. That's it for today's show, though, thanks to all of you for listening. If you get subscribed to the Late Round Fantasy Football podcast, make sure you are by searching for it pretty much anywhere podcasts can be found, and don't follow me on Twitter at Late Round QB. Thanks for listening everyone. I'll have a Mailbag episode for you later in the week. I'll talk to you then