Late-Round Perspectives: Mike Leone

00:00:00
Speaker 1: Mike Leoni is the director of analytics that established the run. He's a successful DFS player who's build insanely accurate projections. He's an avid runner, a proud dad, a spreadsheet virgin, and a long suffering Bills fan. These are his late round perspectives.

00:00:28
Speaker 2: With late Round perspectives.

00:00:30
Speaker 1: I haven't had a ton of people on yet that like, I mean, there's not like a ton of people in the fantasy space in general that I've like hung out with a lot, like you and I have hung out a lot, like throughout. Yeah, Like you were living down here for a little while while you left your wife back at home. She was pregnant at the time. Just just just really really great, great job made a husband there, But you leave your wife in Buffalo for like six months, you come down here fortunately. I mean, you hit on a GPP I like the last day, didn't you when you were down in Charlotte.

00:01:05
Speaker 3: I don't know if it was the last day, but it was definitely at some point I hit a baseball GPP.

00:01:09
Speaker 1: Yeah, at some point, yeah, I remember it was like, yeah, I remember it was like towards the tail end. But there aren't a ton of people just in the space in general that you get the ability to like hang out with all the time because we're all dispersed around not just the country.

00:01:22
Speaker 2: But like the world. Right.

00:01:24
Speaker 1: Yeah, so you're you're probably the first perspectives guest that I've hung out with the most, but you're one of the people that I've hung out with the most, you know, in the space in general. With that being said, I need you to tell the world about our two v two golf outing. The one time that we had this is maybe seven years ago at this point.

00:01:44
Speaker 3: It's it's probably a bad sign that the when you said I need you to tell the world, I thought of like three or four different things that could have been quite bad for me.

00:01:54
Speaker 1: I know, there have been many instances where things have gone south while we've been hanging out, but this one, this one went south for you. You want to just just let the listeners know what happened.

00:02:06
Speaker 3: Yeah, we were playing a two v two golf scramble my brother in law Jeremy and I versus JJ and i's friend Ricky, who is the best man in my wedding, and came down to the eighteenth hole and I mean it was JJ stripe to drive. Then goes pin seeking. I don't remember how close you were. I don't remember how long the putt was, but I know you made birdie just.

00:02:31
Speaker 1: Went we were we were, we were up, we were down by a stroke going into the last hole, and you guys bogied and I solo birdied, And.

00:02:40
Speaker 3: Yeah, how long got that? I don't think I don't even think it was that long.

00:02:43
Speaker 1: I think you just like, no, no, it was a very Yeah, it was a very lucky hole. But I'm always going to bring that up anytime that I can display that to everyone else.

00:02:52
Speaker 2: For those of the listeners.

00:02:54
Speaker 1: Because you started in more of the DFS world, I mean, now you kind of do just a little bit of everything, but you start in the DFS world. I think it would be helpful for people to sort of just know your background, how you got involved in fantasy sports in the first place, and sort of how you got involved specifically in like projection building.

00:03:12
Speaker 3: Yeah. Absolutely so. I went to college Cinisius College in Buffalo, New York, and I hopped around with my major so much because I had absolutely no idea what I wanted to do. Ended up settling on a math major because you know, I was kind of good at it and really no other reason, and I eventually just had to choose something and stick with it. But around the time I was graduating, I read this is so cliche, but I read the book Moneyball that really cut me into sports analytics, and I started writing for a fantasy baseball website called Fantastics that was kind of that was a really good first experience for me of like getting used to like descriptive stats versus predictive and like trying to ignore some conventional wisdom and like get at the root of like real answers. And Drew Dinkmeyer wrote for that site as well, and I messaged him when like draft Street, one of the original DFS sites, was taking off about actually about NBA DFS, because like I was fooling around and getting killed, and I knew he knew a lot about the NBA. And then him and I just started going back and forth, like trying to make really good lineups. And one of the things we did that just seems insane right now. We would copy and paste like the ACU score projected box scores into an Excel sheet to like calculate the projected DFS points from there. So I mean we've come a long way. But basically what we used to do was like we kind of knew what stats like mattered a little bit, like for baseball. Something that's gonna talk about other sports, because I really got started more like in basketball and baseball, and then NFL evolved from there. But baseball was one of the big sports that we did at first, and it used to just be like, I know, this guy like has good advance stats against left handed pitching or something, right like, so I just look at the leader board for the day of like stats versus splits, and like kind of knowing what matters, but like pretty subjectively being like, well, I guess that means easy good play. And the edgy is back then were so big that if you were just directionally accurate, that was good enough. But like anything, it became much more competitive. And as it became more competitive, you know, Drew and I kept trying to figure out what outweighs, like, okay, instead of just looking at the stats, we make our own models, and then you know, we would make models that weren't like directly projecting things that were just kind of like waiting different stats. And then it was like that was good for a while, but now we need to like actually come up with projections. We got to start being more and more precise as things become more and more competitive in the industry. And that's you know, kind of that need to just stay ahead is how I got into projections.

00:05:49
Speaker 1: So what do you think you would be doing then if you didn't kind of go down that route or was sports in general just like the direction you knew that you wanted to go in and then why you got into math and such in college?

00:06:04
Speaker 3: No, it was somewhat for to Like I was always a huge sports fan, like absolute fantasy baseball junkie, fantasy football junkie. Me and a buddy of mine in college came in second and like some really big fantasy like football contests a CDM salary Cap Challenge days for anybody who ever played that game. But you know, honestly just writing for this fantasy baseball site and just kind of like fate having me like connect with Drew and the advent of DFS like all coming together. It was like really fortuituss. Like I was working as a natural gas scheduler an energy analyst for like a third party natural gas company, like and I absolutely hated it. It was like soul sucking, like one of those jobs where you work like nine to five, but you really only have to work four hours, but you have to be there all eight and you're like, I am counting the hours that I'm just wasting of my life right now. So I'm not really sure what would happen, Like I always want to do something with with sports in some capacity, and then, like I said, like the cliche, reading Moneyball but being able to see how those intertwined was a big moment for me, and but definitely ran super pure and being able to actually turn it into a career.

00:07:15
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean a lot of people do. I mean I could say the same thing about myself. You know, I think that it's it's the the opportunity and preparing yourself for those opportunities when they arise obviously can help. But there's definitely a luck factor in anything that anyone does to find success, you know, in life.

00:07:32
Speaker 3: So just look one other thing I would point out too though for me, I came at like especially your listener probably like the less DFS focused than like some of our listeners. But so they may this may resonate with them a little bit more. But I also came from it from a background, like I really enjoyed trying to figure out the games and talking with people and like, it was just such a joy for people to actually read what I'm writing to help them play these games and figure out these games, which to me, you know, a little bit naive in the industry. I know, a lot of the more DFS side, like especially people who came from a poker background, were like, why are you giving away your edges for free? Like and that sort of stuff, and it's a little more cynical, but that was part of it too. It's like I just enjoyed, you know, writing about it and community, communicating with people who like minded.

00:08:20
Speaker 1: That's an underrated aspect I think to all of this as a tout as an analyst is that you know, some people prefer I know I do. I prefer the community aspect of things more than just kind of playing myself and doing things myself and kind of just like, like, I more power to people who are able to make a living and do what they do playing high stakes and stuff. But to me and personally, I just feel a lot more out of it and get a lot more out of it by communicating with others, by talking to others and by really figuring stuff out.

00:08:51
Speaker 2: There's nothing more.

00:08:52
Speaker 1: I mean, this is the nerdiest thing that I could possibly say, But there's nothing more like thrilling than discovering something within this space, right that you're really really amped about publishing that article, publishing that podcast and getting a reaction based on.

00:09:06
Speaker 2: What you discovered and what you researched.

00:09:08
Speaker 1: I mean, it's honestly, it's a very very like energizing and thrilling thing to do that clearly, you know motivates both of us, but I think it's sort of like an underrated aspect that doesn't get talked about enough with what we do with projections. So you obviously have found tons and tons of success, not success, not just playing dfs, but building projections out. Now, you guys are doing so much stuff at establish the run. You're doing stuff beyond just dfs these days too. I mean you're looking at best ball stuff and you're trying to figure things out on the projections and.

00:09:42
Speaker 2: On that side of things as well.

00:09:44
Speaker 1: The one thing that I've noticed through the years, because I build projections as well, it's just not as consumer facing as yours are. And we've had so many discussions throughout the years too with just like how we're building ours out or like just gut checks through text message to say this is makes sense, that kind of thing. But I think a lot of people, at least this is what I found, believe that projection building is super super formulaic to the point where you hit a button and these projections are formed. So I want you to explain to folks sort of what type of subjectivity sort of gets injected into your projection building process.

00:10:22
Speaker 2: And you know, I don't know if.

00:10:23
Speaker 1: There's like a true ratio of what's formulaic and what's not, but sort of what the balance is between that objectivity and subjectivity.

00:10:31
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's definitely a little bit of both. I think for most people, even us like being we have some of the most respected projections in the industry. Honestly, our basic framework is like really simple and rudimentry. It's like, let's project how many plays the team's gonna run, like the past run ratio, the target shares, how those get distributed. It's not like a crazy machine learning model to your point, where we just hit a button. And part of the reason for that is, you know, the need to really understand where things are coming from. Like sometimes if you're doing like a more advanced model, you don't really know why it's giving you the answer it's giving you. But part of it is there's always a subjective part of this game, like trying to understand what target share to put on a player. It's really difficult to do that in an automated fashion unless like you're really really good and you can take into account like lots of like mismatching data because there's always so much that are changing, like seven season overseason with player ages and guys in and out and injuries, so there's definitely just doing out though, So like I think it's good to have like a pretty basic framework where you really understand like why things are working. We have some models that are automated right where we just like run it and it tells us based on you know, the past x amount of games for the offense and the defense, like how many plays we think they're going to run. You know, it incorporates Vegas. We do have some models that you just run, but all those kind of like help us to get at like some of the inputs better. And then subjectively we're still tweaking some of that stuff where you know, maybe we think there's a change in the team's play calling that's intentional and if you're using some sort of regress baselines and we'll not pick up on that fast enough. So like we need to change and make this team, you know, pass heavier, Like maybe you think the Bears this year need to be a little pass heavier than they were last year. And obviously, but longer term, you're still using some of that data to help because stuff can be noisy week to week, so there's some push and pull there. The main subjectivity to me comes into, you know, the player volume, and that's something that's really difficult to kind of pin down on, both for season long and for dfs, but especially for season long projections.

00:12:48
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's kind of an art if we're being honest.

00:12:50
Speaker 1: I mean, if you have a projector you know, a model projections, what have you And I've done shows in the past on the process of building projections, but it's you have all these inputs, like you were saying, and a lot of the stuff that I'm working with is formulaic in order to get things like projected touchdowns based on yards, based on et cetera, et cetera. It all plays into one another, and it starts at the team level, and you can look at pass rates and see how that translates to how teams score touchdowns that sort of stuff. But at the end of the day, when you're going through player by player, you're still you know, you might get a baseline or some sort of projection of like what a target chair might be or might might look like, but there's gonna be a lot of subjectivity in terms of just like altering that fifteen percent target chair to a seventeen percent target chair or something, and it's just based on what you've seen, based on more of the I don't want to say gut feel, but it's true. I mean like there is more of that involved with building projections, and I think people realize. And you're reading news items too, you know, there's just stuff that that you see beat writers saying, and you trust certain beat writers more than others, and then you give players bumps that way. So I just think it's important to cover that first and say, hey, look, guys, yes it's it's a very nerdy thing. We're doing a very mathy thing here. But at the end of the day, there's still a lot of subjectivity involved.

00:14:08
Speaker 3: Yeah, I know, like Levitan for us at ETR always points this out too, because you know, I hate sometimes I say this, but I'm trying not to say this much probably like well, like like that's sort of like the math of the play. Like I'll say or someone will say, and he'll be like, yeah, well that's because you're giving the guy like a twenty five percent target share and should I think you should be twenty two percent, and like that makes all the difference in the world, Like all the math that stems from it is based on you know, one kind of key critical subjective assumption. So there's definitely some subjectivity of mix in to your point though I think you kind of mentioned, but like you do create a little bit of a baseline or like an anchoring point for me for season long and DFS projections that's super important where it's like, you know, I think this team might throw more, you know, and someone who's not using projections might like way overvalue those players, whereas me, like I kind of can see like what their pass rate probably should be, like what it might get to what that does to the player, and I can sort of move the player a little bit more organically as opposed to having to fully subjectively just guess where to put the players. So those anchoring points are super important. I know you experienced the same thing with your prospect model, which like I'm a huge fan of, where you know, you're you're making some subjective tweaks, but you're and you're taking into accountless subjective stuff that a lot of people other are, but you have this really good anchoring point that keeps you from you know, making a mistake, mistaken, maybe overweighting one or two pieces of information.

00:15:38
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's exactly what I was gonna say.

00:15:40
Speaker 1: I mean, last season, I think is a really good example with like a chrysal Lave, where just really easy to be like, hey, Chris a Lave is not an early declared wide receiver. Yeah yeah, he's a four year wide out, So I'm going to overstate what that means. And I think that's where things get lost, because then you get the other side who hate numbers, hate model hate When people reference models and they sit there and say, hey, remember when people faded Chris Alave because he wasn't an early declared wide receiver, It's like, okay, that as an input still matters. I mean, it's not like it's a completely irrelevant input. It's just that there are people that are working within data who will take that too far. And then it's very easy then when you have a model or something to really have a backbone and rely on, sort of hold yourself back and be like, Okay, this does exist, this is a thing, but look at all these other marks that appear favorable for this player, and therefore you can still draft this player.

00:16:35
Speaker 2: I think you're right. I mean the prospect model.

00:16:38
Speaker 1: When I really sort of started honing in on that over the last two or three years and rely on that more, it's been super super helpful.

00:16:44
Speaker 2: And the same goes with any sort of projection system.

00:16:46
Speaker 3: So I was going to say, like just some examples like quickly that come to mind for me too. Every off season there's a player that we liked a lot at the beginning of the off season that gets steamed and gets so much traction over the course of the off season, and at a certain point, like if you're not anchored to anything, like you have to make this decision of like do I continue to chase and stay ahead of ADP or like what we're trying to do is come up with the best bets possible at the cost, and like there's obviously like we're going to be you know, sometimes whether we're right or wrong, like not to try and sound not accountable is like less important than the process of like if it's a good bet. So like Kyle Pitts was won last year, where you know, we liked him a lot to begin the offseason, and then as he got steamed up, I'm looking at the Atlanta play calling and I'm like, like this could go bad, Like this is this bet is like no longer worth it. So that's just an example, and you know, it doesn't always work out favorably in the way of the projections that way, but I think we get more right than wrong by just having that anchoring point.

00:17:45
Speaker 2: Yeah.

00:17:46
Speaker 1: But the problem is though too, and this is the next question I wanted to ask you, is that do you think there is sort of at times an over reliance on projections. You know, we're talking about it being a guide, it being a baseline. Uh, but obviously we're relying on these projections and to some degree, right, But do you think that there then becomes sort of an overreliance because there are things that these projections, these models won't be able to capture obviously, and then in turn, you know, it could really screw us if we're if we're relying on them heavily.

00:18:19
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's a good question. And I'm kind of in the middle of this where I get annoyed sometimes at the criticisms of people relying on projections, and then I also get annoyed at the people who overly rely on projections. So I'm a hypocrite and play it both ways. But the thing you have to be in some ways the criticisms are against like bad projections as opposed to good projections. Not that ours are like perfect or anything, but the for like season long in particular, for example, one of the most difficult parts is there's a lot of uncertainty what's going to happen the second half of this season, and as a result, people will overrely on and overproject sort of the volume that we see on the depth chart day one. That's definitely an issue, and we kind of take measures to combat that and to do our best to kind of take into account the player's talent and like what that can translate into the target share over a season. And also like kind of like what impact I would actually have for your team if it is a hit. So there's some ways you can do that because I feel like some of the criticisms levied against projections and rely on them, like are assuming that people are just making like expected fantasy point models as their projections and going with it like, which is absolutely not the case. You know. I know for Philly for example, last year, we weren't as high on them as I would have liked to be, but like we saw, you know, they traded for aj Brown and we're like dissecting their play calling the year before, and it was like they came out and they did try to pass, they just got crazy run heavy because they kind of had to. So we made like a really big adjustment on their pass rate that you would not have got and just purely looking at the data. So if you're making good projections again, you're just trying to sort of like marry the two things, like definitely want to use some field. There's people who are really good at understanding football. That's where I'm lucky to be able to work with Levitan and Evan Silva and it can kind of take in what they say and make some tweets but yeah, if where people get into trouble with projections, I think though, is you know, if you are overly relying on like, Okay, Josh Jacobs is gonna have a seventy percent Carrie share week one, Like I'm just assuming that's gonna happen of course this season, and that's where like maybe you can get into trouble.

00:20:29
Speaker 2: Yeah.

00:20:29
Speaker 1: I also think that from a criticism perspective, because it's good to think about this from like how people sort of view this in the world, because people listening to this might view things a similar way. And I've seen plenty of criticism. Devon a Chan's a really good example of what's going on right now, where the assumption out there is that if you are a data heavy analyst who is building projections and models and such, there's no way you were right about Devon a Chan, right. And I think a really good example is, you know, if you look at my prospect model, the Prospect Guide and such, a Chan was not like like my model, like Zach Charboney more than a Chan. But I don't think that's that surprising when he had arguably a little bit better profile, he had better size, and he went around earlier than a Chan did. Right, But a Chan still ranked in like the eighty third percentile, Like he was above the eightieth mark, which I really looked for, and running backs and wide receivers, he was still there despite all of these knocks on his side, which is all embedded within that model. And so from my perspective, I looked at it as, Okay, a Chan fine enough prospect. I'm not going to be overly excited about this guy if he lands in a mediocre spot, but he lands in Miami, which is the literal place that he could thrive in, that he could be you know, I didn't project a Chris Johnson's career, but like where he could sort of go in that direction from an archetype standpoint. And so I think what's really frustrating is there's this assumption out there that if you are working with projections, if you are working with with models, that it's impossible to hit on any sort of outlier, or it's impossible to uh to get these players and beyond these players who do the unthinkable, who do the things that we're not capable of measuring in a spreadsheet, if you will. But I think that's wrong because like we said, we're using these, uh, this data and such to find trends to increase our probability of hitting on these guys. And it's not like it's impossible to still hit on those players.

00:22:27
Speaker 3: Yeah, one hundred percent. I do think sometimes, you know, the argument against projections would be that what really swings your fantasy leagues are the huge outliers, and the projections aren't going to capture the outliers, right, Like, that's the criticism we get a lot, and that has some merit to it when you look at like for season long fantasy, you know the types of players that can swing your leagues. If you look at their preseason projections, they're guys that crush their projections, you know, other than but there are things we can do, to your point, to put us in a better spot to like know when to make the bets on those guys. Like we do a lot of analysis, like archetype analysis to know, you know, what kind of breakout profiles we're looking at, and we can incorporate that into a projections. And again we incorporate that, but we still ultimately get to an anchoring point. Like at a certain point you have to be like in or out on a player based on the price. And that's where I think the projections are really important, Like your ability to take that analysis of give this to an uncertain situation, you know, kind of like Philly last year. Maybe they throw a lot more hurts, could go nuclear, and you sort of see how it works together and how all the numbers fit and like what the ranges of outcomes are. But that's the big thing, is like being able to put a range of outcomes on things too, as opposed to just having you know, one static number, which is difficult. You know, it's difficult to do. But that's what we're trying to do with our projections is like we incorporate for season long projections at least you know, a ceiling outcome and sort of like the odds of the player hitting the ceiling. So we might have you know, Jordan Addison for maybe not Addison's not a good example, but you know, a rookie wide receiver, like where she writes, we might have him with a really low target share based on medi and expectation, but then have you know some odds that he breaks out, and if he does break out, then what does the target share look like?

00:24:16
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's super super important to look at the range of outcomes. And the thing that I always say to people with the outlier discussion is you're not projecting Like I didn't project Devon Aitchen to do what he's done thus far. And each week, you know, from a weekly projection standpoint, you're not saying, oh, he's going to average seventeen yards per carry whenever he gets this like eight carry one hundred and ninety yard game or whatever. All I say to people is I just need to like this player a little bit more than the rest of the market, and that's gonna get me on the player enough to have exposure to then have that league winner and to draft him more frequently than when how frequently other people are drafting him.

00:24:55
Speaker 2: And so projections can still help you get to.

00:24:58
Speaker 1: That point and get to that realization of I like this guy and he can outperform that projection, but I liked him more regardless, you know, entering the season. Let's just run through one quick example so that people sort of like can wrap their head around like what you're looking at when you're building these projections. So justin Jefferson now out pours them out. That means that there's potential volume. Now with the pass catchers in Minnesota, you have Jordan Natison, you have kJ Osborne. kJ Osbourne though, was someone who was running in two wide receiver sets. But how would you look at his projection? How would that shift within your guys model and how you're projecting him.

00:25:35
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's difficult. And again starting at the team level, even there's some question mark with Minnesota. Do they adjust the way that they want to call plays without Justin Jefferson. You know, this is a team that is you know, positive and pass right over expectation, which means like relatively games script, they're gonna throw it more than the average team, and you have to sort of like account for are they going to continue to do that? I know for us, like we pulled it back little bit, just trying to take again capture a little bit of the uncertainty there that you know, maybe we'll see them play this week. We'll be like, Okay, they're gonna call plays like normal, but we want to capture some of that range of like maybe they dial it back without Justin Jefferson. And then when you're trying to assign target shares, these situations are incredibly difficult. We try not to, Like we're always very careful of overloading players that might not be that talented with too much volume just because it's there. That's definitely a mistake that you can make that's easy to fall into. There are some things that can help with that if you look at like the players targets per route run and stuff. Historically, even that can be challenging because kJ Osbourne's targets per out run is always going to be low because he's always playing with Justin Jefferson. But if you look at him compared to some of his teammates though, like Jordan Addison and TJ. Hockinson, you can start to see some differences. So Jordan Addison is actually going to get a much bigger spike in routes run than kJ Osborne, who's already run in a ton of route So we lean the target share higher on Jordan Addison kind of if you're looking at the targets per route run and how the route share is going to change with Jefferson out, you know, it looks like he's probably going to get more targets. We have it like kind of close. I think our initial projections are twenty one percent target share on Addison and eighteen percent on Osborne. Those might be a touch conservative, but hopefully, like some of those elements makes sense as to make the different things that you're looking at, and like lovers, you can kind of pull to try and figure out how to project, but it's definitely subjective to your point to figure out an uncertain situation like this.

00:27:37
Speaker 1: Yeah, not only that, but you got to know some ball to be able to build these projections, right, like you have to understand like someone who's fantastic in the like arguably the gold standard in terms of season long projections is Mike Klay, who's been doing it for years and years and years now he's doing it for ESPN, and Mike knows football just as much better than most people out there. When you know how things change and move and I know that this is like, I'm not an NBA DFS player, so I could be talking out of my butt right now, but it seems like with NBA right that when a player is out, the people who can take advantage of those last second scratches are the ones who just understand inherently basketball and then who steps in and who would get more minutes et cetera, et cetera. You're doing that in football too, where Jordan Addison has not been running in two wide sets. He's only been out there in eleven personnel for the most part, and so now all of a sudden, he's gonna be out there in two wide sets. So like you're saying, his routes run number is gonna go up, that means that he is the one who would then benefit more in that situation. Another example of that this week. I talked about this on my Sleeper show. But if you look at Houston, assuming that Tank Dell is out. We don't know at this point while we're recording this, but assuming that Tank Dell is out, people are gonna actually go to Robert Woods and say, oh, Robert Wood's gonna get this bump, He's gonna be something that I'm gonna like a little bit more. Which I get it. I mean, that's fine if you want to go to Robert Woods route. But he's already seen twenty percent plus target shares get and weak out in that offense, and he's running a decent number of routes. The real winner in that scenario is the player who isn't running in eleven personnel and running out there.

00:29:09
Speaker 2: That's John Metchi.

00:29:10
Speaker 1: He's the one who's actually seeing the biggest jump in the biggest spike.

00:29:15
Speaker 2: You know, with Tank Dell being sidelined.

00:29:17
Speaker 1: And so I think that just understanding the depth chart, understanding how teams are running their offenses also goes a really long way and how to build accurate and good projections, which is another reason why I always find it funny when people criticize the projection building process and the model building process that people who do them don't know ball. I would argue that the people who are building them, you know that that are good at it, right, are the ones who are adding that nuance and understanding football on a more meaningful level.

00:29:45
Speaker 3: Yeah, one hundred percent. And like I said, you know, repeating myself, but lucky to work with a bunch of people who do know ball. So it's a good it's a good marriage of things for sure. And there's different situations are different obviously. You know, if you get a situation let's say T Higgins was fully healthy and Jamar Chase was missing the game, you know, he might get a really big bump in target share, like because we know what type of player Tea Higgins is, and we're like confident in his skill ability. Like that's so even though his routes aren't going to increase similar to kJ Osbourne, we feel a lot more comfortable kind of slapping a much higher targets put out run on him than we do someone like kJ Osbourne. It's not going to all scale the same for each team. It's pretty dynamic.

00:30:28
Speaker 1: Yep, absolutely, all right, that's enough with projections. Let's shift our focus to some of the bigger items just going on in fantasy football right now. On the fifteen Transactions episode this week, this was probably the one transaction that got the most feedback, both positive and negative, but it was just feedback in general, and it was with Saquon Barkley. I had Saquon as a cell candidate this week. Do you think that that was stupid?

00:30:51
Speaker 2: Number? One?

00:30:52
Speaker 1: And then do you think that people would be okay even buying him right now? So obviously one of the hard things with fifteen Transactions is I'm saying, by this guy, sell this guy.

00:31:02
Speaker 2: I don't have.

00:31:02
Speaker 1: I don't know exactly what's going to go on in your league, and if people are like gonna be actively going after a player like Saquon, But just give me your take on Saquon and that transaction in particular.

00:31:12
Speaker 3: No, I honestly, I'm right in line with you. I think it makes a ton of sense where sometimes the move is to sell low, but like at the point where you can actually get out with something. Right. So, now he's coming back and people feel a little bit better, you sort of want to sell him before he comes back and is bad. Like this team's a bit of a train wreck right now. They have a quarterback injury, the offensive line is a disaster. They're taking sacks left and right, and you'll but Saquon still has that name recognition, you know, attached to him that's just going to carry some value. That value is gonna go away. If he comes back and plays three weeks and he's not fully healthy and the offense is terrible and he just can't put up big numbers, you're not gonna be able to trade him then. So I actually think that's like a probably a more nuanced take than people realize in making him a sell, And I think it makes sense.

00:32:04
Speaker 2: That's good here.

00:32:05
Speaker 1: I think it's a similar situation where I've had plenty of buys and sells where the following week, Like, let's say that I'm selling a player, Like let's say that I say sell Saquon Barkley and he's fully healthy and this week he gets Denver. Let's say, right, a lot of people would say, why are you doing this right now before he plays Denver? And you're gonna get this big spiked week out of this guy. And my response to that, you know, maybe Denver's an extreme example. And for the record, we're recording this before the Thursday night game, But maybe Denver's an extreme example because they've been so so bad against literally any offense this year, but they get a good matchup, I say to sell them. The reason why I still think it's okay to sell that player is because you're making the assumption that they're gonna have a good game based on matchup. And the issue that you could run into is like, let's say saque had a good matchup this week, and he does not perform well in said matchup, then all of a sudden, he looks even worse than if he had a bad game in a plus in a bad matchup, Right, So you have to at least understand that, like, yeah, we're projecting and we're saying this is the way we think things are gonna go. But you can't make the assumption that things are naturally just gonna Like a guy's gonna blow up against the Bears because the Bears defense sucks. There's still a chance that he loses value in that situation. There's also a chance that your league mates understand that he's facing that kind of defense too, and so they're not going to really buy into that performance in the first place. So just getting out, you know, as early as you can is sometimes the move. Another offense right now that is struggling, So we talked about the Giants a little bit with Saquan. Another offense is I don't want to say struggling, but at least playing probably below expectation. Kind of a disappointment, I mean, getting a lot of questions about them too. Is Jacksonville. What's your take on Jacksonville And do you think that there's any reason to believe that that offense can sort of turn things around.

00:33:55
Speaker 3: I'm still pretty into Jacksonville. I know, I was a little disappointed with some of the play calling out of the gate, you know where, especially in that game against Indy. You know, as a big Christian Kirk fan where they didn't play, you know, much of three wide receiver sets and they ran the ball a little bit more than I expected. That was frustrating, But most of the advanced metrics stuff that I've looked at seems to indicate that Trevor Lawrence is playing pretty pretty well. Their pass right over expectation the last couple of weeks has been positive. It really just seemed like the two games against opponents that they felt like going in were inferior in Houston and the Colts that they maybe had like a more specific game plan to run a bit more. So I do have optimism to pay. Stuff is also really good, like they're running a ton of plays per game, So I still feel pretty good about Jacksonville. I think there's gonna be some pretty good touchdown regression for Lawrence in particular moving forward, so I'm on them. I do worry about Ridley a little bit long term, but I'm mostly pro Jacksonville. I would stick it out if you've got some jags. Becially Lawrence is.

00:35:01
Speaker 1: The concern with Ridley just target share driven and the fact that like they're still giving Zay Jones decent looks when he's been active, and Christian Kirk, especially Christian Kirk versus man defenses, he's been just destroying. You know that that played a little bit of a role back in Week one when when Calvin Ridley went off. But is that part of the reason why there's some hesitation with with Ridley?

00:35:23
Speaker 3: Yeah, I thought the targets prout run would be a little bit better, and then you know, we talked about how this stuff's difficult and there's some feel element to it. But I do just wonder, you know, the ability to hold up over a full season at you know, one hundred. I'm not saying he's gonna get hurt and not play, but just you know, he came out that first game and like I did expect him to come out and start really hot, but it's also a guy that didn't play for like one to two years, and you just wonder, you know, he's not in decline by any means, but he's in his upper twenties and you just wonder, you know, if he's able to maintain like that level play that we saw week one when he was just like rolling over people energy wise, if that's gonna last the whole year.

00:36:04
Speaker 2: Yeah, I've found that Zay Jones.

00:36:06
Speaker 1: I know that he's banged up right now, but I've found that Zay Jones is just incredibly undervalued by the market in general. I don't know if that's translated to like the DFS world or what have you, but I, at least from the season long perspective, and probably dynasty too, I like those number three wideouts who at least can be flex options and you know, decent plays here and there who then have that continent upside of multiple outs with an injury.

00:36:29
Speaker 3: Right.

00:36:29
Speaker 1: So the reason why I'm holding on the Jackson Smith and Jigba still, if I'm being honest with you, is that, you know, I don't know if the projection is gonna look that great, but you know, as it stands right now, but having multiple outs, multiple injury outs is kind of underrated whenever a lot of other you know, number two wide outs need just one or one specific player to get hurt in order to see that true bump.

00:36:49
Speaker 3: Yeah. I think one of my blind spots too that I've discovered the last couple of years, and for season long in particular, is receivers like Jay Jones, who I know they helped the go Bills team win the FFP Maine event. Is like, I kind of have this binary reaction in season long where like, after I get past a certain point, I'm like upside only right, Like, yeah, I kind of like filter out too many receivers that like, Okay, maybe they don't have massive upside, but they have like better upside than you think. And there's also more outcomes than you realize, where like you might just need to start them and have them be decent. So I've definitely been burned like just you know, having blinders on with players like Zay.

00:37:29
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, me too.

00:37:29
Speaker 1: Another example of that this year for me was Jacoby Myers. I have some like I drafted him a little bit, but I didn't get enough of Meyers not thinking enough about He's always been a really solid player new environment now. I mean, there was more upside to that profile than I gave him credit for. And like you said, when a player is kind of buried on the depth chart or not the true alpha, the obvious alpha in the offense, and the offense doesn't look that attractive when you're looking at the quarterback and such in the scheme, it's easy to fall in the trap of just being like he doesn't have upside for at it, but it's also important to focus on the talent angle, and you know, Zay was trending in the right direction. He was looking decent last season, and obviously Jacobe Myers has throughout his career.

00:38:09
Speaker 2: So I think it's a really good call out.

00:38:12
Speaker 1: A player right now who's been very, very big in the fantasy space clearly is Cooper Cup. So I have a hard time understanding what's gonna happen with Cup rest of season, and I get questions about Cup literally, you know, every hour, it feels like. And so we saw him come back this past week. He ended up having a pretty solid game. I know a lot of his production ended up coming on that first drive, but he still had a really really solid game, really really solid target share. Are you worried about this lasting number one? And you know, kind of as in the side, is there a part of you that thinks that maybe we won't see the Cooper Cup of old?

00:38:51
Speaker 3: Uh?

00:38:52
Speaker 1: Just given the way of this offensive situated right now and how well phuk and Aku has played and even too two Atwell's played, like, is there a part of you that thinks, you know, we're gonna see a wide receiver one, but maybe not this like top three wide receiver in fantasy.

00:39:05
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean I feel pretty good about Cup overall. Like I was pretty nervous coming into things, and again like it's nuanced. I just said I'm worried about Ridley fading over the course of this season. It's perfectly reasonable to worry about Cup fading given the injury, but was just really impressed with that performance. And when you look at what he's been able to do the last couple of years when he's healthy and Matthew Stafford's healthy, there's like not really anyone who can compete with Cooper Cup. So even if he takes some step back with Pouka and Akua, I think there's enough there for both of them that the targets per out run could be something that rivals like what we're seeing in Las Vegas with the Raiders with Jacoby Myers and Devontae Adams, except you have a more talented quarterback and an offense that's way more up tempo, and I think that's huge. I know Pat Foreman in his Snaps and Pace article this week for US over it established to run had some no on the rams, but they've definitely like increased their no huddle rates the past few weeks, and there's some really good signs for them that they've been, you know, snapping the ball a little bit quicker, just playing more up tempo, and ultimately, like I don't know, this is a team that at the running back position too, can really just pound the rock. So I'm I think there might be some more systemic play calling things for the Rams that help to offset that. You know, Puoka is there basically.

00:40:30
Speaker 2: Yeah, No, I think that's all valid.

00:40:32
Speaker 1: You know, I definitely think that you should bake in the fact that he's coming off of this injury and it was really really ominous and it was just kind of rough. I think that needs to be baked into his so off, like if you want like a Stefan Diggs ahead of Cooper Cup rest of season, I think that's more than reasonable just based on that that inherent inherent risk.

00:40:52
Speaker 2: But it was It was wild to me because.

00:40:55
Speaker 1: Every week I knew my rest of the season rankings for Patrion for Patrons, and you know, I'm doing my season rankings. Then once I'm done with my rankings, I like to compare them to fantasy pros expert, you know, their they're expert rest of season rankings, and I was kind of shocked by how low Cooper Cup was. I think I had him at like wide receiver six, wide receiver seven or.

00:41:15
Speaker 2: Something like that.

00:41:16
Speaker 1: So I had him maybe in that tier, maybe the tier below, like the Digs tier, but he was even lower, like significantly lower with the the experts out there. And to me, maybe it's just the way that I approach fantasy and just wanting that upside, but I was still baking in the injury, Like that's the reason why he's not in that tier, you know, is the injury side of things.

00:41:39
Speaker 3: He's wide receiver six for us, just behind the Digs tier, so very similar. And that's like the opposite side of the Saquan conversation, right, like sometimes you got to buy high early if you think you need to, and if Cupp does what he did last week again, the window's gone. And like plain dynasty sort of helps you foresee these range of outcomes on like the trade value of a player in the direction it can go with just one or two bad performances. And yeah, I think cups values probably doesn't change a ton if he has like an okay game, but if he has a really good game, like the windows shut for trading.

00:42:13
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, I mean, I think the thing the only thing that really derails the season to being not a wide receiver one I'll just say top ten wide receiver. The only thing that really to me that would derail that is if the injury is bigger and you know, it happens again, which understandably is very very possible. A lot of Twitter doctors are not optimistic about what can happen rest of season with Cup. He's obviously on the older side. He entered the league as like a twenty four year old prospect, and so he's on the older side, and so you know that doesn't help things either when you're dealing with you know, hamstrings and these soft tissue stuff. So there is some concern there. But you know that aside, I don't see how he's not, you know, a locked in top ten guy rest of season, even with Pukaakua playing as well as he is. So I was just a little bit surprised that he was more of like I think he was like a high end two or something like that, like with with those rest of season and I you know, he's just he can. He can single handedly win weeks for you. All right, Let's move on to a guy that I talked about already and mentioned him very briefly, Jackson Smith and Jigba. I've taken some heat for JSN this season from a season long perspective, because, like I was in on him, I, you know, the price on certain platforms like an underdog. I wasn't as into him because Tyler Lockett was going right there. I ended up drafting more Lockett. But when I looked at my rankings versus expert consensus rankings and season long entering the year, I had him as like a low end three, and they had them had him as a wide receiver four, like a very solid wide receiver four, And so I thought he was a great value in season long drafts. And nothing's come to fruition so far. He's not been solid. He's being used in this really like wand Del Robinson like role in that in that Seattle offense. How are you handling JSN? I mean, you can give me a dynasty take too if you went in there, But if you had him in season long, are you holding on? Are you expecting something different out of the Seahawks by what are you doing?

00:44:13
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean it's definitely sad that we're having this conversation of like are you even holding on to him at this point in the season. And honestly, that answer I think changes a ton based on league and format. Like if I'm in one of these high stakes leagues with like big grand prizes and ten person bench, like, there's you know, no way in hell that I'm dropping him, or really anyone is. But yeah, maybe in your local league, Like just for an example, if you're a twelve team league with a six person bench, I'm probably holding him in most formats, I guess, like if you, I'd have a hard time dropping him. I really want to see what happens the next several weeks.

00:44:50
Speaker 2: Yo.

00:44:51
Speaker 3: This is where again the projections versus like projectable volume versus sort of like the long view of a player kind of butt and it's hard and you feel stupid sort of one way or the other. Sometimes, like if he breaks out in a huge way, you kind of feel dumb for like being worried about him being wide receiver three on a team that doesn't run three wide receiver sets a ton and vice versa. When he stinks. You kind of feel silly for like liking this guy who like clearly wasn't going to play a ton, But I do think zooming out given what type of prospect he was given. Also that you know, he did have that risk injury at the end of the offseason, So I don't want to, like, I don't want to blame that, but I don't want to totally dismiss it as part of the reason for a slow start. And then weach three and four when it felt like he was ramping up a bit more. They had pretty easy wins against Carolina and the Giants, and you know, especially in his current role right now, that's not going to be game environments that he's going to play a lot. I think like this could be a really good week for him out of the by versus Cincinnati, where hopefully he's healthy, hopefully they use him a little bit more, and just the nature of the game environment is helpful. You also alluded to JJ the contingent value. You know, these guys that like he could on pure talent breakout and be really important rest this season, regardless of what happens to Metcalf for Lockett, but he's also got you know, two guys in front of him that could go down that would force him to be an every down wide receiver. So I'm disappointed. I wouldn't say like I'm like super optimistic, but I'm definitely holy not at JSN.

00:46:23
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's exactly where I'm at.

00:46:25
Speaker 1: And and people are gonna hate that response because they want action or they look at the projection and they say, oh, he's gonna only see at most of fifteen percent target share and it's gonna be on like a three average depth of target the way they've been using him. And I get I understand all that frustration, And it's gonna sound like I'm just like doubling down on a bad take when I say that you should be holding onto JSN. But we've seen so many times historically where especially rookie wide receivers they break out in the second half of seasons. It happens all the time. I mean, hopefully we see it out of Marvin Mims, especially if Jerry Judy ends up getting traded.

00:47:00
Speaker 2: Uh.

00:47:00
Speaker 1: You know, there's tons of rookies out there that we're waiting for sort of that moment from the get more routes be on the field more and we see it every single year, these guys seeing much better point per game outputs during the second half of the season versus the first. I just I think five weeks is too early and too quick to get rid of a guy like Jayson. Would we have preferred him being at least a flex option so far? Of course, of course we want that. But you know, I think that if we're just being realistic about this situation, there's enough outs, and the talent is there, and everything pointed to him being a very, very good player, that I just don't think that right now is the time to just let him go. All right, Leoni, one more question before I let you go. Do you have any favorite bilos right now? Who's who's your guy that you're going after?

00:47:45
Speaker 3: Yeah, I've got a couple guys. Interesting your take on both of them, honestly, But Tony Pollard, I think they've had some weird games and he's underperformed. I'm a little worried about. You know, maybe I totally glossed over the injury he had last year because some of the advanced rushing stuff on him in the PFF grade for him, I know, isn't that good. But ultimately, just given what we've seen him be able to do and the types of opportunities he's receiving. I'm really in on that where that could just pay huge dividends for you over the course of this season. And then also, you know I talked about doubling down on takes JJ, I think I'd take someone like Jalen Wattle over DJ Moore rest of season. I think, oh yeah, the Wattle stuff is you know, it's been a tough start for him, but that offense is just so elite. He's a really talented playmaker that I think he's still gonna have some really big spike weeks. And then of course, if anything happened to Tyreek, you'd be talking a guy that's like a top ten wide receiver immediately because of the way they have to target him.

00:48:49
Speaker 1: Yeah, maybe even top five honestly, if something like that were to happen.

00:48:53
Speaker 2: Yeah, I like both of those a lot.

00:48:55
Speaker 1: The poward thing, and I think in general, I know that it's been five weeks and it's easy to think that we have these like locked in trends, this's the way that everything's gonna go for the rest of the season. But even performance, like individual performance can be skewed so dramatically by only two or three big plays that maybe have been close and just haven't hit yet. Wattle's sort of that example. I think he hasn't really had that like monster monster play even that that's hitting that offense, and so you know, in turn, people just view him, you know, not as favorably. I feel similarly, you know, if he weren't injured right now, But I feel similarly with the big play thing with like a Jamior Gibbs, where he just hasn't had that. Like like if if Gibbs had had one or two big, big plays to start the season, just one or two of them, I feel like the discourse surrounding him would be completely different than it is right now because his back his backfield chair numbers aren't like that that awful. His target chair is still pretty good per game. Obviously he's banged up right now. So this is just more you know, this is this is just a high level discussion, But I just I think that Gibbs would be viewed completely differently if you just had a couple of big plays.

00:50:06
Speaker 3: I definitely get ticked off too, because a lot of people are like, well, you should have known David Montgomery would be used that way. I know you and I were both heavily in on David Montgomery. Yeah, you know, like we knew he'd be used that way, and when kind of knew Gibbs would be that way. But to your point, like the explosive plays are a little bit unpredictable. And I talked about this on Establishing Millie a lot. But people are really good at being patient for like two to three weeks and then and then they start you know, it comes more difficult, because more difficult for me too, because like it's human nature. At some point you want to see the actual result, like you don't care about the process. But it's still an incredibly small sample. People hate hearing that, but it is true. So I think that's a really good point, especially on the players that you're betting on for efficiency, right, you know, a Chan could have had some games where he was bottled up and didnt have a ton of work and people would have been totally out on him. Of course, you know, he hit his huge plays in a big way. Maybe he's not the best example, but like it could have gone the other way for like Gibbs or even for Wattles.

00:51:04
Speaker 1: So far, Yeah, and it just so happens that variants hit for some of these guys at the beginning of the season and so, you know, in a favorable way, and so people have this anchoring bias towards those guys as if they're automatically gonna destroy the rest of the year. Like, like DJ Moore is a good example of this. I think that Dj Moore is absolutely something like I have h on fantasy rosters. I think he's someone that you would want on your fantasy roster. That's not what I'm saying here. I'm just saying that over the last couple of weeks, in particular, especially last week, I don't think people understand how historic his start has been. He has the highest yards per target rate that we've seen in NFL history. If he were to maintain this throughout the rest of the season, like, that's not gonna maintain and sustain.

00:51:46
Speaker 2: It's okay to say that while also.

00:51:48
Speaker 1: Recognizing that this guy can still be good, right, that he can still be in an asset that we want on our team.

00:51:55
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's really well put. Like, just because you're gonna get regression doesn't mean the players a bad player. And DJ Moore has been a tough one for me because I definitely wasn't in on him in the offseason after being in on him for three straight seasons. And I know there's like several other people out there that feel that way with me, and people are like, well, didn't you know when he played with a good quarterback that he would be good? And it's like, it's hard for me because he's like, he's probably not like a top five to ten wide receiver in the NFL. Like he's probably like top ten to fifteen, so it's not like this was Aj Brown or something. And also with the good quarterback stuff, Like to your point about his efficiency, if you look at fields, his efficiency to everyone else versus DJ Moore, like it's really wide. So even if you think more is good and Fields is good, that gap is like somewhat unexplainable. So we'll see what happens. And there are times too, where we do see guys that have these really strong efficient starts. They obviously will regress regress efficiency wise, but they'll also make up for it volume wise, where maybe you know, Chicago fels a little bit better leaning into the past, maybe you know DJ Moore's target share is like twenty seven to thirty percent rest this season rather than like twenty two percent, and he can make up for some of that regression.

00:53:12
Speaker 1: Yeah, for me, I was out on him until about July when I started doing that RPO research and then I'm like, Okay, maybe they're going to target him at a really high rate. But my process and so I drafted Dj Moore in a decent number of places, but my process was wrong.

00:53:27
Speaker 2: My process was not correct.

00:53:28
Speaker 1: With his target share has not even been that high all things considered, Like, it's not nearly as high as what we thought he needed in order to hit a high end outcome in this offense. Right, Like, he's still sort of in like a low end wide receiver one, like like across the league wide receiver one in real NFL target share. It's not like a high twenty percent range target share. And he's doing what he's doing, and I think that's important to recognize that. Like I ended up getting him and the result looked okay, but my process was not correct, not even running the many RPOs in that offense.

00:54:02
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's funny I tweet about this the other day, but our preseason expectations we had DJ Moore at six point three targets per game, and justin Fields at a sixty one point eight percent completion rate, more is at six point eight targets per game, so half a target per game. More Fields is literally to the decimal at the completion rate that we projected, and just none of its matter because DJ Moore, you know, kudos to him, has just been that amazing.

00:54:28
Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely, Leoni man, it was great to talk to you, great to have you on. Why don't you let everyone everyone know where they can find you.

00:54:35
Speaker 3: Yeah, first off, thanks so much for having me. Always appreciate chatting with you. But you can find me at two Hats one mic on Twitter and also all my workover it. Establish the Run definitely in the DFS streets in season here quite a bit. Drew Dinkmeyer and I do a show Unestablished a million for Established to run each Saturday morning kind of breaking down GPPs on DraftKings and FanDuel. So if you're into that, make sure you check us out.

00:54:59
Speaker 2: Awesome.

00:54:59
Speaker 1: Can't wait to se when you're here in Charlotte for for the marathon relay.

00:55:03
Speaker 2: Hopefully we'll get we'll get we'll get a picture this time.

00:55:05
Speaker 1: Last time I posted a picture of us on Twitter and it was a weird angle and uh, and our heads looked really big in the picture. I feel like this has been a common thing where you've posted pictures with other analysts and there's just been a really weird like angle and like the body sizes look all strange and whatnot. But there's also I said that we touched grass in the photo and in the caption, but it was actually fake grass.

00:55:30
Speaker 3: Fake grass, artificial grass. But yeah, no, I need redemption on the photo front because if I get three weird angle photos in a row, I don't know if I can keep using that. Yeah.

00:55:39
Speaker 2: Yeah, well we'll change things up this time.

00:55:41
Speaker 1: As always, you can follow me on Twitter at late Round QB all my stuff over on lateround dot com.

00:55:47
Speaker 2: As always, thanks for tuning in

00:56:01
Speaker 3: Four