369: Utilizing Front Office Decision-Making

00:00:02
Speaker 1: This is the Label Podcast with your host JJ zacher Retha jj zacher reson What's up everyone. It's JJ zacharyaes and the editor in chief at fandel and at number fire dot com in this episode three sixty nine of the Late Round podcast. On the many shows that are part of the FanDuel podcast network. Thanks for tuning in. I don't remember an NFL draft that changed the fantasy football landscape like the one that we just witnessed. The twenty twenty draft was wild, and things are a whole lot different today in fantasy football than they were a week ago, so we've got a lot to talk about. I'm gonna go through my rookie rankings and get to all that fun stuff eventually. But I like to do this show every year because I think it's important from a process standpoint. Instead of just looking at a player in his landing spot. Instead of saying, here's what Cede Lamb to Dallas means for Cedee Lamb's fantasy outlook, I like to look at the deeper meaning behind the moves that each team made, Like this is the one time during the year where we really get to see how teams are thinking. We get to see how they're trying to build their rosters through multiple transactions in the draft. They're paying up and spending valuable assets in order to get players and positions that they see as important. So as a result, we learn a lot about how teams feel about players on their current roster and where they see they need to improve. I'll get to my rankings next week. We have weeks to talk about rankings, but it's good to walk through this exercise before doing that, so we have a good grasp on the bigger picture now before getting into things today, I want to let you guys know that Fandel's Sportsbook is giving you a chance to get in on the action risk free. Create a Fandel Sportsbook account today and place your first bet. If you lose, you'll receive a refund of up to five hundred dollars in cite credit. It's that easy. For more details, visit Sportsbook dot Fandel dot com. Offer valid for new users only. Must be twenty one years old. Gambling problem called one hundred gambler. Okay, so let's dig into analyzing the front office decision making from the NFL Draft and how it all impacts fantasy football. The biggest story from the draft for fantasy purposes was that we saw an insane shift with the running back landscape. First, it was on Day one when the Chiefs shocked the fantasy football world with their pick of Clyde Edwards Hilaire. And in the second round we saw DeAndre Swift go to Detroit, Jonathan Taylor go to Indianapolis, cam Akers go to the Rams, JK. Dobbins go to the Ravens, and we even saw aj Dillon go to the Packers in more of a surprise move. And then the third it was Zach Moss going to Buffalo. Now I'm bringing those specific draft picks up because you look at those locations and you say to yourself, wait a second. The Lions have Carrie on Johnson, the Colts have Marlon Mack, the Rams have Darryl Henderson, the Ravens have mark Ingram, the Packers have Aaron Jones and Jamal Williams. The Bills have Devin Singletary. You might be thinking that this is all a mess because we've got teams with semi established running backs spending second round picks to get new running backs. Welcome to today's NFL, everyone, This is how it works at the running back position. I've been talking about the Lions going running back on this show for a while now, so them getting DeAndre Swift was not a shock to me. It seemed pretty clear that they didn't want carry on Johnson as an every down back. So we're looking at a huge value drop for Johnson when he has two more years left on his rookie deal. And then there's Marlon Mack. Why did the Colts take Jonathan Taylor when Marlon Mack is there and Marlon Mack is fine, Well, Mack's a free agent after this year. The Colts are planning ahead and getting a win now running back who, as you guys know, I compared to Ezekiel Elliott with the Ravens mark Ingram's thirty years old and he'll be thirty one at the end of the next football season. They drafted Justice Hill last year, sure, but he'll never profile to be an every down workhorse type back. They also didn't spend a Day two pick to get Justice Hill, and to me, it's pretty clear that the Rams don't love what they ended up getting in Darryl Henderson. I've talked about Henderson on this show over the last month. Given the Todd Gurley moved to Atlanta, and my thoughts have been that he's never gonna be a workhorse there, that he wasn't gonna just take over for Todd Gurley. His ceiling was more of being a one A in that offense. But that move to get cam Akers is pretty telling. It tells us that the Rams are willing to spend significant draft capital to beef up a position that wouldn't have needed to be beefed if they like Darryl Henderson. There's probably some reason as the why Henderson didn't see a ton of work last year, which was something that I referenced and talked about on my Bailing on Unproductive Rookies episode from a couple of months back. Now, I know, I just referenced a bunch of things that I've said on the show in the past, but it's easy for me to reference those things rather than rehashing those topics. The episode I'm Bailing on Unproductive Rookies, for example, is episode three hundred and forty three. You can go back and listen to that. The aj Dillon pick was weird. Running back in the short term isn't a huge need for Green Bay, but it is both Aaron Jones and Jamal Williams' final years on their rookie contracts. Again, it's a situation where a team is planning ahead while also changing their offensive identity a bit. It didn't make sense to me, but that's the logic behind that pick, And with Zach Moss, the Bills were gonna get a running back in this draft they had no depth. Moss is a good compliment to Devin Singletary, who really looked good as a pass catcher last year. Now, a lot of people are going to look at the twenty twenty season and just say, look at all these committees, this is a mess at running back. And while that might be true, each of the running back moves made some sense within context. Either the running back who was already there will serve better as a part time guy, or the new running back can very easily and clearly emerge in twenty twenty one, and even in redrafts, some of these guys are going to come through with big seasons, with the most likely probably being Clyde Edwards, Lair or Jonathan Taylor. If I'm thinking about twenty twenty only, I think Marlon Mack took the biggest hit among the established running backs that we're talking about here, which include Damien Williams, carry On Johnson, mark Ingram, Darryl Henderson, the Packers backs, and Devin Singletary, than Taylor has that potential to just take over the backfield. There but one more thing to point out here about the teams who decided to spend at the running back position. Some of these moves don't mean that the players involved are unusable or that the existing backs are now unusable. It just means that the high hopes that we might have had for their ceilings just aren't there anymore. That mostly goes for carry On Johnson and Devin Singletary. Singletary had that high end RB two type ceiling and that evaporated with the Bills getting Zach Moss in the third round. But if you're in a best ball format, especially where you don't have to worry about figuring out when to start those players, there's still some worth. There's still some value in the end. The true warhorse backs, the Christian mccaffreys of the world, they're still pretty rare. So if you're getting some production from a Singletary type player, it's still okay. In that type of format. Like my projections still have Devin Singletary getting almost one hundred and seventy five carries and catching thirty one passes. There's nothing wrong with that. Carry On Johnson's almost at one hundred fifty carries. Carry On got hurt more than Singletary did, sure, but there's still some usability in there, especially with an injury. It's where you have to actually start and sit these guys where things get very very iffy. It's gonna be tough to predict which games carry On Johnson or Devin Singletary end up being worthwhile. They'll get production at the end of the season, but when that production is compiled is going to be the big question mark. Now. On the other side of the running back spectrum are the teams that chose against using a Day one or Day two pick on the position when they easily could have. And three of them really stood out to me in this draft. I think there were a couple of others, but I want to focus on three here today. One was Pittsburgh, who has James Connor on the final year of his deal. One's the Chargers who lost Melvin Gordon this offseason, and the last one is Miami, who only really had Jordan Howard as a significant presence in their backfield entering the draft. The Steelers and Chargers ended up spending fourth round picks on running backs between getting Joshua Kelly in the fourth versus getting Cam Akers in the second. And I would argue the fact that since the Chargers actually traded away their Day two picks to trade up in Day one in round one, the fact that they did that showed me that they feel pretty good about their current running back room, and that's good news for Austin Eckler, at least in the short term. I do like Joshua Kelly as a player, and I think he's gonna take on that Melvin Gordon role almost right away. Probably not to the degree that Gordon did, but Kelly should see a good bit of early down work and he'll dig into Eckler's goal line upside as well. He's two hundred and twelve pounds and he ran a sub four or five forty. But without getting into the specifics with how I feel about that offense and how that affects Austin Eckler's output, because I can get into that on future shows, and there's a lot to cover. The good news is that he's not competing with a Day two pick. Austin Eckler is competing with a Day three pick. That's good news for Eckler. And then the same logic holds true for James Connor. Like the Joshua Kelly pick, the Anthony McFarlane one to Pittsburgh was a great compliment piece to what they already have on the team. James Connor may not see the same receiving ceiling that he was projected for prior to the draft, but if you were already projecting him to be in somewhat of a time share with the other Steelers running backs, this doesn't drastically change his output. And for the record, I'm a McFarlane guy. He was in my top thirty overall pre draft and now I think he's a top twenty four rookie pick. So because of the Chargers and Steelers waiting a bit at that position at the running back position, were able to feel a little bit more confident in Austin Eckler and James Connor in twenty twenty. And then there was Miami. The Dolphins are building in a really fun and smart way. I actually declared myself a Dolphins fan on the FANDUE live stream during the draft, but they had a very clear need at running back entering the draft. I mean, maybe I shouldn't say the word need when it comes to running back, but their depth chart was lacking. Instead of spending a high equity pick on one, the Dolphins got a lot of offensive line pieces to PLoP whoever the heck they want to PLoP into that backfield. They had your and Howard and he looked like a winner for a while until they ended up trading for Matt Brida. I'm not overly excited about either one of those guys in fantasy for twenty twenty, but the situation is set up well for a future running back to come through and emerge. Now, to be clear, there were other teams that didn't get a high end running back when they could have. The forty nine ers cleared a path for Raheem Moster to have a strong season. Miles Sanders didn't get any more competition. I just wanted to go over a few teams that seemed more likely. I'm sure I'll get mailback questions about the teams that I didn't talk about. Now I want to dedicate a portion of today's show to Keishan Vaughn. He's the big running back winner that I haven't mentioned yet, But I want to dissect what the Buccaneers have told us to try to make sense of this pick. First of all, I love Kishan Vaughn. I've mentioned him a lot on this show as someone who my prospect model was really into, so falling to one of the best spots for a running back in fantasy football was awesome. I want to kick things off, though, with Vaughn by reading a quote from head coach Bruce Arians from this offseason. Arian said in this was published on Buccaneers dot Com. But Arian said quote, you can see them all run. I want to see them catch and college football, they don't do a lot of pass blocking, so that's always a big step for them. Can they be a receiver that separates guys from having to come off the field. I had Christian Nakoye who led the league, but he never played on third down. Edgrin James never came off the field. Marshall Falk never came off the field. For me, I'm looking for that type of guy. Meanwhile, after the draft, Bucks Nation are at Bucks Underscore Nation on Twitter, they tweeted a quote from Bruce Arians that said, quote, Kishan Vaughn is a guy that can play every down. So let's look at this objectively, you guys, from a prospecting standpoint, Kishan Vaughn didn't turn a lot of heads. He did for me. And if you guys recall Evan Silva liked him too. When I brought Evan onto the show, we were both Vondtruthers. Now, all we heard from Arians around the running back position this offseason was that he wanted a pass catcher, which made sense considering Ronald Jones has struggled to do that dating back to college. He wasn't used heavily as a receiver back then, and we've seen him not be heavily involved in the NFL either. He had a six point eight percent target share last season. The first action the Buccaneers took this offseason wasn't to sign a veteran. It wasn't to trade for Leonard Fournette. It was to draft Keishan Vaughn, a player with the second highest final season reception share in this year's draft class, a player who fits the mold of exactly what Bruce arians was looking for now. I don't mind Ronald Jones as a runner at all, and I do think that he's still going to be involved on early downs. But the pieces seem to be coming together for the new running back in Tampa Bay, the running back who was actually drafted by this coaching staff. I'm definitely in the camp that Vaughn can step up and play a significant role in fantasy football. That's all for the running back position on today's show. Again, if you have questions about some of the guys in their landing spots, feel free to asked them for this week's mailback episode. Let's move on to the big position of this draft, and that's wide receiver. There were some teams who I was a little surprised didn't take a wide out, like Miami and maybe New England, but no team shocked me more than the Green Bay Packers. I won't get into why I think the Packers had a terrible draft. I actually think they might have had the worst draft I've ever seen. But instead of going wide receiver in the first round, they got Jordan Love. Instead of doing it in the second round and maybe trading up to do it, they got a pretty one dimensional running back and aj Dillon. And then they didn't do it in a third either or the fourth or the fifth. The Packers didn't draft a wide receiver. And now those of you with Alan Lazard are levitating, and I'm with you. I threw some darts with Lazard this offseason and I'm very happy about this outcome. He's a massive winner from draft night given his usage down the stretch last year, where he was averaging about a fifteen percent target chair per game. The Packers showed us with their actions that they have enough faith in that wide receiving group that they currently have. If I saw a lot of comments on Twitter this past week and about how the landing spots weren't very good for the wide receivers in this draft, I understand where that's coming from to a degree. But if you feel that way, I think you should take a step back and ask yourself where else could these wide outs have gone to have a better opportunity. Wide receivers create their own opportunity more than running backs do. If they're good and if they're on the field and they can consistently get open, they're going to see the ball. Multiple wide receivers from the same team can be viable in today's NFL. Now today, just a few days after the draft, it's not going to be easy to see a path to Michael Thomas upside for any rookie wide out. And what I mean by that is a path through like a thirty percent target shair for these wide receivers, and that path won't be paved until year two, three, or four, and maybe it won't be at all, because it's rare to have that high of a target share, especially in today's game. But with wide receivers in landing spots, you shouldn't worry so much. Good wide receivers will be surfaced. It just takes time, and as we know, situations can change in a hurry. So as these players develop, and it takes longer for wide house to develop than running backs, but as these players develop, their surroundings are inevitably going to change. One thing that you can sort of bank on in terms of environment is quarterback play. Like there are a handful of teams who have true franchise quarterbacks, quarterbacks who will be with that team for a while or would likely be with that team for a while, and there's some nice safety with that you can at least use it as a tiebreaker when you're ranking these guys. And that's my transition to Ceedee Lamb. I had Lamb at wide receiver two entering the draft, but he was super close to Jerry Judy. Exiting the draft, Lamb is my wide receiver one. Now you all might be saying, but jj he's now competing for targets with Amari Cooper and Michael Gallup, and that's true, he is. But first of all, Randall Cobbs saw a fourteen point four percent target share in that offense last year and it turned into eighty three targets. Lamb is likely to play the slot role, where according to Evan Silva from Established to Run, Lamb led the country in yards per route run from the slot in twenty nineteen. Now, the Cowboys will need to maintain a high pass volume offense for Lamb to have that eighty target floor in year one. But he's a better receiver than Randall Cobb, so it's not crazy to think that he can have that type of floor. But look beyond year one two, And that's why I'm talking about this in the first place. Given how Amari Cooper's contract is structured, the Cowboys could let him walk after twenty twenty one. All of a sudden, Lamb has a reasonable role for two years where he can be a productive fantasy asset, but then he has an opportunity to blow up in year three. So you're getting that floor production from the slot and then the ceiling can come if they do indeed let go of Amari. And as much as I like Michael Gallup, Lamb is a better prospect than Michael Gallup was. There's a path to upside through just being the best wide out on his team as well. Why can't Ceedee Lamb just be really really good? This is just a great example of not letting the immediate landing spot completely alter the way that you view a player. Ceedee Lamb had a pretty good landing spot in the end. I'll go through how I feel about a lot of the other wide receivers when I do my rankings episode next week, but I wanted to let this greater point be known. Don't let the short term landing spot completely dictate how you feel about a wide receiver. Now, the last thing I want to talk about is how two teams went absolutely nuts getting weapons for their quarterbacks in this draft, and they're both from the AFC West. The Broncos improved Drew Locke's output a lot, and the Raiders did the same for Derek Carr. Jerry Judy is my wide receiver too. Right now. Again, we can knock Landing spot all we want, but he's incredibly talented and he makes for a great compliment to Courtland Sutton. It's almost like a Julio Jones to Calvin Ridley type relationship, where Sutton's not as good as Julio and Judy has more potential than Calvin Ridley. But even in my projections, Judy has a sixteen percent target share for year one, even with Hamler and Alberto being drafted and Noah fant in, Courtland Sutton already being there, and Melvin Gordon entering the picture. The bottom line is more so that this is a huge draft for Drew Locke if he's legit, and I have my questions, but if he's legit, then the two main wide outs there are going to be just fine in fantasy football. I don't really think this drastically changes Courtland Sutton's outlook either. Now, what the Raiders did I thought was actually awesome. And super smart. If you look at their picks, and Henry Ruggs, Lynn Boden, who may play more of a running back position for them, and Brian Edwards, each of those players are playmakers when they get the ball in their hands. We know Ruggs can make defenders miss with his speed, but remember when I talked about Brian Edwards entering the draft, how South Carolina just fed him screen passes and he had a low average at the target. As a result, he fits with Derek Carr's conservative, low aid dot mentality really really well. And then Boden was arguably the most versatile player in the entire draft Offensively, Henry Ruggs is specifically landing in a strong spot because instead of simply being someone who would help his teammates with his speed, he has a lot of opportunity to show up and capture some volume as well. But the Raiders moves tell us that they're giving Derek Carr zero excuses this year, and the moves even work with Marcus Mariota too, And if car doesn't pan out, they've got the right pieces to PLoP another quarterback in there. Now, Look, everyone, there are so many things that I can talk and will talk about regarding this draft. I have takes on the rest of the wide receiver landing spots. I have takes on how running backs will look during their rookie season. I have takes, but this is sort of a primer to those takes. Over the week, I'll be publishing my rookie rankingsover on number fire dot com, so make sure you're following me on Twitter at Late Round QB for when that article drops, and then on next week's Monday show, I'll talk through those rankings and provide some context. Until then, make sure you get your mailbag questions ready. I'm sure there's going to be a ton of them about this draft, so I'll be looking forward to Friday's show. You can send them to me on Twitter, you can email me at JJ at number fire dot com. Thanks everyone, I'll have another rewind episode for you on Wednesday, so I'll talk to you then