859: Mailbag 1/26/24

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Speaker 1: This is the Lady Mold Podcast with your host JJ Zachertha jj Zachers. What's up everyone, It's JJ zachar Esen in this episode eight hundred and fifty nine of the Late Round Fantasy Football podcast sponsored by FanDuel. Thanks for tuning in. As a reminder, the Late Round Prospect Guide it's available for pre order. This year's guide. It's gonna be a little different than what you've gotten over the last two years, which is when I started publishing the guide. I revamped the prospect models and this year I'll be sharing my tight end model. On top of that, you get scores for every relevant prospect at running back, wide receiver, and tight end. And there's an entire section on the year two model for running backs and wide receivers. And if you're a nerd, I lay out what goes into these models. I'm trying to be as transparent as possible with my process. You can pre order it right now for eleven ninety nine over on lateround dot com. When the guide publishes in March, that price is going to rise to fourteen ninety nine. Now, today's a mailbag show, and I'll be honest, I didn't get a ton of questions that were relevant for the show. But this is also why I love the offseason, because I can take questions and I can do deep dives on those questions. There are just three of them this week, but it's the length of a normal mailbag episode because I can dig deep. So let's do it. The first question this week is from twitters from at MTN Garrett. It says Jaden Reid looked the part, and he produced when he had a leading role with everyone healthy, it seemed he had a smaller role as they spread the ball out more. Would you consider him as a cell high at this point? So this isn't wrong, especially when Christian Watson was active and games with Christian Watson during the regular season read average of fourteen point six percent target share per game rate that rose seven full percentage points when Watson was inactive, and his PPR points per game in this split was eleven point three versus sixteen point five. That's just one example of Reed's numbers being influenced by others in that offense, and it was no different in the playoffs. But here's the thing, and this is something that I'm always going to bring up when we're talking about buying and selling players. When you buy and sell a guy, it depends entirely on the market. If Jaden Reid was being valued as the second best wide receiver in Dynasty, then yes, he'd be an obvious sell. If he was being valued as the sixtieth best wide out in Dynasty, then he'd be an obvious buy. If you look at keeptrade cut dot com, he's currently being valued at wide receiver twenty four. He's one spot ahead of Deebo Samuel, He's one behind DK Metcalf, someone like Rashid Rice, Zay Flowers, other rookies from this class. They're ranked at wide receiver eighteen and wide receiver nineteen, which is a relatively decent margin when you're talking about higher end wide receivers. Now, do I think that's a fair ranking? Technically, that's about where I had Jaden Reid in my most recent Dynasty Rankings update. I do Dynasty Rankings updates on the Patriot at the beginning of every month, which means I'm right in the line with the market, which means I'm not looking necessarily to buy or sell now. Anyone who listened to my prospecting advice last year knows that I'm a big fan of Jayden Reid's and he had a very good season as a rookie. His year two score and the year two model did change slightly year over year, but his year two score it sits at ninety four point four. That's out of one hundred. A score of ninety four point four is really good and it tells us that he's likely going to be a really solid contributor, but maybe not be a completely elite asset. Pukinakua, for instance, has a ninety nine score. I think most of us would agree with that. And for the record, the year two model it's looking to project how well a player is going to perform in year two and year three of his NFL career. It's based off of his prospect Score along with some rookie season numbers. All of that's going to be in the Prospect Guide. Now. When you look at his peripherals last year, they were great. He had yards per run rate of two point zero five, which among rookie whindeout since twenty eleven to have run three hundred or more routes, that was the seventeenth best number. And you can check out the late round Fantasy Football Instagram page. By the way, at late round FF for that top twenty list to be on that list, to beat top twenty as a rookie and yards per route run since twenty eleven, that's impressive. It's filled with very good wide receivers. Now, the downside here is that I do think Green Bay has a lot of legit options in that offense. Now, last year's draft, they did a really good job, and they have Romeo Dobbs. He's an able body. Christian Watson, even if he doesn't hit his ceiling, he can still be a fifteen to eighteen percent target share player. Dontavian Wicks from last year's class, he had a really impressive rookie year, and both rookie tight ends from this past year looked good too. Now I'm someone who's gonna tell you to buy into talent because talent creates opportunity, and I do believe that. But as I also like to say, if a the team had Justin Jefferson, Tyreek Hill, Jamar Chase, Mark Andrews, and Garrett Wilson, each of those guys wouldn't be able to maintain a twenty five percent target share competition still does matter to some degree, and we can use these hypothetical examples to help understand that. And if we're of the belief that Jayden Reid is great but not elite, which I think is a reasonable assessment, then that means that he's not going to force his way into a twenty five percent target share year in and year out. Maybe he can get that high if there are injuries or some of these guys really don't work out, But right now today there looks to be pretty legit competition in that Green Bay offense. So I think Reid right now as a hold. I have him on a ton of my Dynasty rosters, and I'm just enjoying the ride. At this point. I don't think the masses are improperly valuing him, even with his rookie season splits, because remember he was a rookie and his first year numbers within the context of that were very, very impressive. This last question from Patreon is from Lefty Joe. It says, hey, hey, JJ, might be a little early, but how's Rashi Rice looking in your year two model? Trying to decide if I should be buying in Dynasty and how much it's gonna cost. So I thought Rice was a pretty volatile asset entering the NFL. He didn't have the best age adjusted production and Matt Harmon's reception perception didn't see him as a great route runner. Now, before I get into the data, what I do think that he showed us in year one and hopefully continues to show us in the playoffs, is that he's great with the ball in his hands. Kansas City gave him some necessary manufactured touches, and he did a lot with those touches. Did he show up as a stud route runner? I'm not sure he's there yet just yet, but I think he has the tools clearly. Now looking at the data, this definitely checks out. He had an average depth of target this year of five point two. That's, according to PFF, fewer than seven percent of his targets traveled fifteen or more air yards. Let me get some perspective. Among fifty plus target wide receivers this year, that a Dot ranked dead last in the league. It was the lowest, It was lower than Wandel Robinson's and his rate of seeing targets fifteen plus air yards down the field that was also last. And that's among eighty players, And that's because according to PFF, among the same demographic of wide receivers, only Jackson Smith and Jigba and Da Mario Douglas saw a higher percentage of targets come from screens. Douglas ended up seeing more deep targets, but JSN had a pretty low a dot as well, And again that's for all high volume wide receivers. It just so happens that the other wide receivers sort of in his bucket were rookies. So what does that mean. Well, we shouldn't take anything away from Rice. He performed well based on how the Chiefs used him. He had an elite yards per route run rate for a rookie wide receiver, really for any wide receiver, and his target share really picked up as the season went on. In the end, his year two model score, it's a little bit better than Jayden Ree. It's at ninety five point five. Now, I do have my hesitations. It's not that Rice can't become a very good wide receiver in the NFL. It's just that we don't fully know right now based on how the Chiefs used him this past year, And I think it's reasonable to at least question what happens if he doesn't quite develop elite route running skills, and if that doesn't happen and the Chiefs add more weapons, there's nothing wrong with at least questioning those things. It doesn't mean that he's a bad asset. I would love to have Rashi Rice on all of my Dynasty rosters. He's just not something that I'm aggressively buying, as this question sort of indicates. Like Jaden Reid, I think he's more of a hold, and I think the two of them are relatively close in value. They're both very good wide outs, but still need a little bit extra to have the elite ceiling that we're all looking for in our wide receivers. Now. This last question is from at Andrew Taylor nine oh four on Twitter. It says, was Kyrin Williams good enough to maintain a feature back? He was good enough to win me a championship? But can he do it again? Kien Williams is easily to me at least the toughest evaluation at running back right now. When he entered the league, I really thought that he was just gonna be more of a satellite back. Maybe he could take on some workload if there were injuries, but what he showed in twenty twenty three. I didn't think that was ever gonna happen. But let's look at that twenty twenty three season. The first question you ask is was he good enough to maintain a feature back roll? Now, good enough is obviously a judgment call, and it's judged by the team's coaching staff. So what I see in data and what I see with my eyes is not necessarily gonna match what Sean McVay sees, and Sean McVeigh seems to really like Kien Williams, which I don't think is nothing. Now, with that being said, let's look at Williams. This is accord to next Gen stats, but among all forty nine one hundred plus attempt running backs this year, Williams ring tenth in rushing yards over expected per rush, trailed only Devon h. Chan and expected points added per rush. He also trailed only a Chan in success rate. Now, according to PFF data, he was top ten in yards after contact per attempt. He gained ten or more yards at the twelfth highest rate among these running backs. He was stuffed for zero or fewer yards at a top five rate, meaning he was good at gaining positive yards. Kyan Williams was very good in twenty twenty three. His coaching staff likes him. Those are the reasons to think, hey, Kien Williams can just do this again in twenty twenty four. It's just not always that clean. First, a piece to his downside risk is that he didn't have that much competition. He saw a seventy eight percent running back rush are per game rate last year, which was a top six number in the league. He had a twelve point three percent target share per game rate. That's also really good. So he had bell Cow usage when he was healthy, but he didn't stay healthy. He's a little bit undersigned. So you have to wonder if the Rams add a body to that backfield this offseason to make sure they keep Kyron Williams healthy and on the field. Even if Williams was still there, Belcow, that extra body could dig into his numbers. Now, there's also this idea that a lot of the numbers that I mentioned, they're descriptive numbers. A lot of them are running back metrics are very reliant on team situation more than other positions, and we see a little bit more volatility with them as a result. Now you're also asking if Kyen can simply just do this again. He averaged twenty one point three PPERO points per game this past year. We usually only have two or three of those types of seasons each year, and most of the players who give you that kind of production consistently their earlier round picks in the NFL draft they were better prospects. Let me just give you an example of what I mean here. My prospect model tests everything against what I call B two s or best two seasons. It looks at the players first three years in the league and takes his top two seasons in PPR points per game and averages those out. So if a running backs scored eight, ten, and then twelve PPR points per game across their first three years, the B two s would be eleven because I toss out that eight number and that's what the minimum games played of eight each season. Now, my prospect database includes every running back that was drafted since twenty eleven, along with any running back that went to the NFL combine who was undrafted, So all NFL combined running backs are basically in this database. And then every once in a while you get a guy who was drafted who wasn't at the NFL combine among those players. This is since twenty eleven, and there's a lot of running backs in this database, but among the players who were either undrafted or were drafted at pick one hundred or later in the NFL draft, only two of them have a B two s above eighteen. So two running backs in the entire database who went undrafted or were drafted after pick ninety nine. Two running backs had two ceds during their first three in the league that averaged out in PPR points per game at eighteen or above. Those two backs were James Connor and Devonte Freeman, and neither of them had a B two s above nineteen and a half. So if you're buying into Kyron Williams doing the exact same thing in twenty twenty four as he did in twenty twenty three, then you're definitely buying into history because it would mean that you think that he can match his per game output from this year, and that would give him by far the best B two s among any Day three running back or undrafted running back since twenty eleven. I think it's okay to think that he's going to be an outlier to some degree. It's not like many running backs are getting into twenty one PPR points per game to begin with, especially once who were Day three picks. But beyond Kyron Williams, I don't think it's easy for any running back to repeat that kind of performance in general. With all that being said, after going through this process of answering this question, I'm definitely more in on Kyroen Williams than I thought that I would be. If you think of Kaiaran Williams in Dynasty, I think your best comps for him right now are DeVonta Freeman, James Connor, and probably Aaron Jones. All three of those players were under seven PPR points per game as rookies, but they ended up hitting a high B two S rate because of their second and third years in the league. There are two close ish comps in CJ. Anderson and Miles Gaskin, but neither of those players had a second season quite like Kien Williams. Not even close. Now, if you look at those original three running backs Devonte Freeman, James Connor, and Aaron Jones, Yeah, you could argue against Devonte Freeman having sustained success in the NFL, but at least the other two running backs, James Connor and Aaron Jones. They've had great careers and if you look at the dynasty market, these running backs actually held value fairly well. They weren't elite, but they held value to a decent degree. DeVonta Freeman, for instance, after his big year two, he went from RB four to then the RB five to then the RB ten. That's his three year stretch. That's according to Dynasty League Football dot Com and their ADP data. James Connor was RB ten, THN RB twenty one, then RB thirty three. That wasn't great. But Aaron Jones RB seventeen, then RB eleven and then RB sixteen. So Kyrien Williams kind of looks like a Devonte Freeman type. He's currently RB five. So I'm surprising myself with this answer. I know you didn't ask for my Dynasty take on him, but I'm a little bit more bullish than I expected. I don't think that i'd aggressively buy Kyron Williams right now because that price tag is pretty high. But I don't think i'd be actively selling him, especially if I had a win now team. But you should probably expect a little less production from him in twenty twenty four. That's just based on regression and being able to maintain that really high pace. And remember there's a chance for some competition even still. Based on how well he did in twenty twenty three and this coaching staff seeming to like him, Williams should still be pretty good in twenty twenty four. That's it for today's show, though, thanks to all of you for listening. If you get subscribed to the Late Round Fantasy Football podcast, make sure you are by searching for it pretty much anywhere. Podcasts can be found in door to follow me on Twitter at Late Round QB. Thanks for listening everyone. I'll be back on Tuesday with the episode of the Things that I Got right and Whether I got lucky or not, an easier one for me to do than the one earlier this week. Enjoy your weekend, though I'll talk to you then