1038: Mailbag - Rashee Rice's Return, Jerry Jeudy's Outlook, and More

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Speaker 1: This is the Late Podcast with your host JJ Zacher Retha. JJ Zacher reson What's up everyone. It's JJ zachar Esen in this episode ten thirty eight of the Late Round Fantasy Football podcast sponsored by DraftKings. Thanks for tuning in. There's no better way to get closer to the action than with DraftKings Daily Fantasy, the ultimate destination for football fans. New customers can play free for their share of millions and prizes, with the first a positive five dollars or more. Download the DraftKings Daily Fantasy app and enter promo code Late Round to play free for your share of millions. The Crown is yours. Gambling promo called one hundred Gambler New York call eight seven seven eight Hope n Why in Connecticut called eighty to eight seven eight nine seven seven seven seven eighteen plus most states. Eligibility restrictions apply ends December thirty first see terms at DraftKings dot com slash promotions. It's a mail bag day. Let's get to these questions. The first rush this week is from Twitter. It's from at Webb's gems FFL. It says, what type of process do you use for a player like Rashi Rice coming off injury and now suspension. In terms of when to slot them into your lineup, do you need to sample size or do players of this caliber warn't immediate play in fantasy. So I got a couple questions about Rice this week. I'll just throw some thoughts out there. I can't imagine anyone with Rashi Rice has like two or three better options than him this week. Genuinely, wide receivers just really weak across the board this season. They're like ten to fifteen wide receivers that we actually feel good about each and every week, and there's just the rest, Like sure we like Chris Olave more than we like DJ Moore. I'm just saying from a true difference maker's perspective, there aren't many wide receivers and guys Rashi Rice has a legit chance to be a true difference maker. This isn't a borderline talent and a borderline situation type of play. This is a good player who plays a great roll in an offense that has an elite quarterback. Fire upper she Rice and enjoy the ride. This last question is also from twitters from at Urban Lab. It says thirteen targets for Jerry Judy. That's gotta warrant some analysis. Okay, let's do some analysis. Jerry Judy had thirteen targets against the Steelers. It still was just a twenty five point five percent target share though, and I say just because you'd expect to hire target share with thirteen targets. But the reason it wasn't higher is because Cleveland threw the ball a ton against the Steelers. Dylan Gabriel finished that game with fifty two pass attempts. The week prior to his debut, he was at thirty three and a much more neutral game script. To me, Judy only scoring nine point three p Piero points in an ideal game environment is pretty telling about him and this situation in general, Like that was without Cedric Tillman and with a banged up David and Joku. According to next Gens stats, his catch rate over expected, which is just telling the story more than anything else. I'm gonna be talking about these types of metrics in just a second later in the show, but his catch trade over expected was minus twenty one percent in that game. PFF had his catchable targets at sixty two percent. Like on paper, sure we would love this kind of usage in a different environment, no doubt, but Judy has topped out at eleven point six p per points this season. That was in Week one. He's still not producing much without Cedric Tillman in the lineup. Now. I think he's fine this week given the matchup, although watch the weather in that game. But I don't think we're gonna see consistent production from Jerry Judy this year, despite the fact that once again he leads the NFL in routes run. It's just that, as the kids would say, the offensive environment is cheeks, right, Did I get that right? Look? Man, I'm a millennial. I'm starting to get old. But Jerry Judy is not a good enough player to overcome this situation. This last question is from Patreon. It's from Rick. It says thoughts on the running back situation in both Jacksonville with Etn and Tutin and Houston with Chubb and Marx. ETN seemed to maybe slowed down and big week for Marx after the weird one versus Baltimore. I think what's important with these situations is to follow usage over production. Production obviously matters, and good production can clearly lead to more work I mean, look at the discussion happening right now in Carolina after Rico o'dowdle's got nuts over the last two weeks. But usage is gonna be more telling than actual production. Like, for instance, you're saying that Etn seemed to maybe slow down, but really all that's been happening is some regression on the production side. This is why I was talking about him a couple of weeks ago as a cell candidate. He wasn't gonna maintain his six yards per carry average while scoring a touchdown every single game. But there's gonna be more signal for us as fantasy players when we look at usage unless a player just playing like egregiously bad or egregiously worse than his backup, and that's not the case for Etn. What's funny is that over the last two weeks, when he hasn't been performing that well, Etn has actually seen his best running back rush are and target share combos of the season. From weeks one through four, his target share per game rate was just seven point four percent over his last two It's been fourteen percent weeks one to four. His running back rush share sixty nine percent per game over his last two, it's been close to seventy eight percent. And then meanwhile, his snapshare has basically been the same throughout the thing that change really is just some regression combined with tougher matchups. Now, I'm still holding Tutin because I liked him as a prospect and at the very least, he's a high end handcuff. This is an attractive rushing offense, and I'm still holding out hope that Etn gives some of his workaway as the season progresses, But it's clear right now today Touton's just a stash. Meanwhile, wood He Marx actually has some usability. I talked about this on the Sleeper Show yesterday. In a different game script, things would likely look a little bit different. But again, a lot of people seem to be looking at that game before the bye and getting concerned about Woody Marx because Nick Chubb outproduced him. And yes, of course we'd rather see Woody Marx outproduce Nick Chubb, but there can be instances where Nick Chubb outproduces Woody marks. It doesn't mean that Chubb is a better running back. It's just that sometimes that's due to matchup. Sometimes things really clicked for that running back in that game, and despite that game script against Baltimore being the way that it was, Marx still had a better snap share than Nick Chubb, and Chubb's only running routes on like twenty five to thirty percent of Houston's dropbacks. Right now, I think what's gonna be really important for fantasy managers, like if you have Woody Marx, is to not attribute some spike in Woody Marx's production this week to some post buy bump, because if that happens, if Woody Marx is a better game, it's I'm more than likely gonna have something to do with game script or just having a better game in general. I also don't think Marks is gonna be like a full blown bell cow in that offense. That's not how I viewed him as a prospect. He's someone that I like because we want receiving work with our running backs, and if he can find like a fifty percent sixty percent running back rush share in that offense to go along with that receiving work, he could be an RB two in fantasy. Just because Nick Chubb is getting some work doesn't mean that it's all over for what he Marks. Keep that in mind too. This ask question is also from Patreon, is from ap twenty three. It says, Hi, JJ, what do you think of Darnell Mooney? His rest of season ranking makes heaps of sense? But is the risk reward of holding attractive enough to keep taking a five bench spot for a team that doesn't need to win? Now? Yeah, you know, I like Darnell Mooney entering the season. I thought he was a good pick in the double digit rounds. He just hasn't been healthy period. I was gonna mention him on the Sleeper Show, but I just didn't have nearly enough information about his health at that point. But it does seem at least possible that he plays this weekend, and he should be rostered in way more than like the thirty percent of leagues that he's rostered in. The only reason he's not rostered in more leagues right now is his health. And yeah, maybe that hurts him rest of season. Maybe he won't be fully healthy. But I've said this before. Mooney's played in two full games this year, and one of them he ran around one hundred percent of Michael Pennick's dropbacks he had a nineteen percent target share, and the other one he had a twenty seven percent target chair. He had eleven targets. It just so happens that in those two games, Atlanta's passing attack really wasn't moving the ball. The Falcons desperately need him too. Last week, Drake London was the only Falcons wide receiver with a catch. He had a fifty two percent target share. But Mooney finished twenty twenty four with a ton of deep ball looks, an ad out of twelve point eight yards and a thirty three percent air yard share. He had a really solid one point eighty eight yards per out run rate. I mean, Darnell Mooney was good last year, and with wide receiver just not being a very strong position in fantasy football right now, I don't see why people wouldn't want to take a chance with Darnell Mooney now. Look, I felt similarly about Juwan Jennings last week and look at how that turned out. But I think this is the right way to approach this game. I don't want injuries to just make me completely forget who these players are, because yes, it can go south. Like we saw with Juwan Jennings, he was way more banged up than I initially thought I would have never recommended Juwan Jennings as a bye had I known that everything in his body was broken. I mean, not really, but you get what I'm saying. But the question have to ask is what if this player is actually healthy? What if Darnell Mooney is actually okay? Then I think that he can be a viable option in fantasy football. He's at least someone who should be rostered. This last question from Patreon is from Taylor. It says, if you have a strong team in record, how much important slash weight do you assign to securing a first round by in your decision making. For example, I am in the interesting situation where I have a six and zero team, but I've been hit with impactful injuries Hampton and now Agbuka in recent weeks. Yeah, I totally feel that I'm also facing a four and two team than the two other five and one teams and weeks eight through ten, And in addition to my injuries, I will also be at a disadvantage from a bye week perspective in two of those matchups. I'm weighing if I need to make a trade to put myself in a better spot for these matchups that have large bye week implications versus standing pat and aiming to optimize my roster for the playoff weeks. Curious your thoughts on how aggressive you get in terms of going for the buye. Thanks, So, you're probably not gonna want to hear this because it makes your life a lot more difficult. But bye weeks are hugely important and hugely underrated in fantasy football. I know we, myself included other fantasy analysts. We often say just get into the playoffs and let variants take the wheel. Now that's true to a degree for sure, but realistically, having a bye is a really big deal. Just think about it. Statistically, Let's assume you have a fifty to fifty shot to win each matchup. If you have two games to win, that means you have a twenty five percent chance of winning both games of winning the championship. If you have three games to win, that chance is twelve point five percent. So when you have a buye with that one game that you don't have to play, you double your title lots. Now. I've had many situations in my fantasy football career where one reason or another, sometimes reasons out of my control, like stupid league structures. I didn't get a bye when I probably should have gotten a buy. Like there's a situation last year where I didn't get a bye even though I had the second best record in the league. It's because there were divisions, and then my team lost in the first round of the playoffs, and then obviously, obviously the team goes off in the final two weeks and it's really frustrating. But in those situations, you really realize how important that bye week is. But look, don't go crazy and don't be suboptimal in your trading. Like I don't think you should just trade away at Mechaic Buca and sell them low just because you want to get that buy. But I think it's good to have that in mind. I think it's important to know the importance of that bye week. The last question this week is an email that says, hey, JJ, can you talk about rushing yards over expectations and how reliable or useful it is when guys like Chase Brown or the Patriots running backs are at the bottom? Is it as useful when they're run blocking? Isn't the best? Is it more of an indication on which side of a backfield pairing is better. Thanks Andrew So for the record, I'm recording this before Thursday Night's game. That's related to Chase Brown being in this question, even though my answer literally has nothing to do with him. I've said it before on the show, but I think most running back metrics are kind of iffy because running back is dependent on more factors than other positions are. I mean, even wide receiver metrics like yards per route run. Anyone selling those metrics as perfect, they're fooling you. They're just a piece of the puzzle because we know there's predictive value to them, or like first downs per oute run, whatever metric that you want to use that objectively has some predictive value. There are so many different running back metrics out there these days, so it's not easy to just test and see which ones are most predictive. But a lot of them are just descriptive, at least for fantasy purposes, meaning they tell you a story about how something went down, not how something is about to go down. Not only that, but some metrics are measured differently. I realized after the fact, but on Tuesday's fifteen Transaction show, when I talked about Ramandre Stevenson, I realized that people could just go to PFF and see totally different numbers than the ones that I talked about because I use next Gen Stats, That's where I pulled my data from. I wasn't trying to like fool you. It's just something like yards after contact is measured differently by different sources. Even targets, just raw targets can be measured differently. Some sites have different target numbers, so yards over expected isn't going to be any different. It's just one piece of the puzzle. But when I talk about a metric like that, I try to use it in conjunction with other metrics. I'll always cite something like success rate, which is a more binary way of looking at running backs. Success rate tells you how often a running back is providing a positive expected points play, did his run improve his team's chances of scoring on that drive? And I like using success rate alongside an efficiency metric that could be skewed by a big player too. I think some of these running back metrics get thrown around way too loosely, especially this time of year. Sample sizes are not big, and people just assume that what they're hearing has to be predictive and has to be useful. But realistically, even with yards over expected per rush, one big run can to really skew that data, because what if a player was expected to rush for four yards on a play and gets ninety right like David Montgomery. David Montgomery has the best rushing yards over expected in a single game this year. He was at plus one hundred and eight yards against Baltimore in Week three. That's according to next Gen Stats. That led to nine rushing yards over expected per rush. And he played a great game. Don't get me wrong, the Lions ran all over the Ravens, but in that game, Montgomery had a seventy two yard run on second and ten that's obviously gonna help his total. Maybe a better example of this is a Mari de Marcado on his now infamous fumble before the goal line. Play that was a third and one play from Arizona's twenty eight yard line. De Marcado gained seventy two yards. That's a huge run over expected, no matter how it's measured. And did you know, among all running backs in all games this year, de Marcado's plus twenty two point five rushing yards over expected per rush is the highest of any player in any game. That game where he fumbled the ball, he had the highest rushing yards over expected per rush, and it's because he ran the ball three times and one of them was really long. Now, look, these models are complicated. They're not something that I would have any idea how to build. Like the Next Gen Stats one is using relative location, speed, and direction of defenders to determine rushing yards over expected. I believe PFF uses blocking grades to help determine THEIRS. That's not something that I'd be able to do. In general, even if I had all the data in the world to help me out, it would at least be pretty difficult. But I do think it'll be impossible to capture an entire situation. Just to your question, like Choopa Hubbard right now, is that minus point three rushing yards over expected per rush that's actually lowest in all of football among thirty five qualified running backs. That's according to Next Gen Stats. He's one spot below Ramandre Stevenson. Meanwhile, Rico Daddle is fourth highest, kind only David Montgomery, b Jehan Robinson, and Jacory Krossky married. You can't tell me that opponent that situation has nothing to do with that. The fact that Daldo face Miami in Dallas doesn't play a role in that at all. This isn't me saying there's nothing to rushing yards over expected. I just think we should use it alongside other metrics, and I think you should do that with any metric in football and in fantasy football. Just don't stare at one of them and call it a day. And I think that is especially true when it comes to fantasy football, where we know volume driven statistics are gonna be more important. If it's not volume driven, you'll definitely want more context. And remember that a lot of these don't normalize for a while. I'm talking like one hundred plus carries ten plus games. Don't take them too far. But I don't think we just ignore the data. I'm down to compare and contrast different metrics to see if there are any glaring differences within a backfield, and then I want to investigate that further based on things like schedule an opponent. I think I did that on Tuesday Show with the Patriots or just now with the Panthers backfield. If our goal here is to see who's the better running back moving forward, we have to at least provide context for why the player performed a certain way in the past. This is the beauty of football data and fantasy football analysis in general. It's not solved, and because it's such a complicated game, it's not just the one to one thing like baseball, for instance, It's never going to be solved. That allows idiots like me to hop on a podcast and talk through things as opposed to just setting out a spreadsheet with definitive answers. It's what makes this game so awesome. That's it for today's show, though, thanks to all of you for listening. If you had subscribed to Late Round Fantasy Football podcast, make sure you are by searching for it pretty much anywhere podcast can be found it. Follow me on Twitter and on Blue Sky at Late Round QB. There's a Late Round Fantasy Football show happening at one pm Eastern here on Friday. Definitely check that out over on YouTube YouTube slash at LATEROUNDFF. But if you miss it, it'll drop in the podcast feed tomorrow morning, and then also later today you'll get another episode of Late Round Perspectives. Thanks for listening everyone, I greatly appreciate all of you. Have a great weekend and good luck in Week seven.