509: Mailbag 5/21/21

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Speaker 1: This is the Late Podcast with your host JJ Zachertha. J J Zacherson, what's up everyone, It's JJ Zacharyason, the editor in chief at fandel and at number fire dot com, in this episode five hundred and nine of the Late Round podcast the many shows that are part of the FanDuel podcast network. Thanks for tuning in. I know you guys are football fans, but if any of you like soccer or the other kind of football, I want to let you know that this season, Fandle and Captain Morgan are teaming up to give you a one of a kind soccer contest, introducing Captain Morgan's Soccer Pick Them, a weekly fantasy contest that's entirely free to play. The contest is simple. All you have to do is make quick predictions for Saturday games this soccer season. You'll earn points for each correct pick and compete for a chance to win up to three thousand dollars in prizes every single week. So head over to fandel and enter the Captain Morgan's Soccer Pick Them Today. Must be twenty one years or older to participate. For more details as at fandle dot com or download the FanDuel fantasy app eligibility restrictions apply, and don't forget to make your game day more delicious and sub in the captain. Today's a mailbag day, so let's get to these questions. The first question this week is from at a Rod seven oh six, piggybacking off your analysis of David Montgomery. It seems like Jonathan Taylor was in a similar situation last year and tore it up against kkewalk matchups and had an injury in the backfield. Besides freak athleticism, why is all of fantasy so much higher on him than Montgomery? I think this is a fair question to ask, and to be honest, my projections are slightly lower on Taylor than the market is. I still think he's an RB one, but on the lower end. But I do think there are objective reasons as to why he projects out significantly better than David Montgomery number one. Jonathan Taylor was a rookie last year, David Montgomery was not, so there's inherently more upside with Taylor as a player than there is for Montgomery. I mean, Jonathan Taylor's rushing total last year was higher than Montgomery's first two seasons in the league. We can say besides freak athleticism like you did in this question, but that freak athleticism allows Jonathan Taylor to be Jonathan Taylor. He's very good. That has to go into this analysis. Number two. You're making the comparison to situation and how both players had an injury to their backfield, But the players who were injured in those backfields were very different types of players. One was Toreek Cohen, who's seen at least a fifteen percent target share in every healthy season he's played in his career thus far. The other's Marlon Mack, who's now coming off an Achilles injury. Both players got boosted from injuries last year, both David Montgomery and Jonathan Taylor. They were better because of injury, There's no doubt. But Treek Cohen compliments David Montgomery, whereas Marlon Mack is just a simple downgrade from Jonathan Taylor. It's not rational to put Marlon Mack on the field instead of Jonathan Taylor. It is rational to sometimes put Trek Cohen on the field instead of David Montgomery in a lot of different situations. The Colts are also projected to be the better team Chicago's at seven and a half wins, while Indianapolis is at nine and a half according to FANDLS Sportsbook. That all plays into my projections, as do touchdowns, and Indianapolis is projected to score more touchdowns this season. All of those things add up. I don't think it's as simple as this player faced an easy schedule and he had an injury to his backfield. Therefore they're comparable pieces. There's more to it than that, and I definitely don't think that we can or should dismiss the fact that Taylor is entering his second season after a really, really good rookie campaign. His role has a higher ceiling than too. This last question says, we all want Antonio Gibson to ascend to a CMC like role in Scott Turner's offense, but JD McKissick was honestly quite good last year. Do you think he'll keep Gibson from becoming a superstar in twenty twenty one. This is one of those questions where I don't think it's helpful to answer it by saying Jad McKissick absolutely will keep Antonio Gibson from becoming a superstar, or he absolutely won't that doesn't do us any good. We've got to think, with game theory and probability in mind. Is JD. Mckisick a potential problem. Yes. I've talked about this before on the podcast when discussing Antonio Gibson. But Gibson outperformed expectation in the touchdown column last year. He's bound to regress in order to maintain what he'd been doing in fantasy. He needs some growth in terms of number one, the raw number of touchdowns at Washington scores, but then also number two, a bigger receiving workload. That's how you offset the touchdown regression. I talked about this about a month ago at the end of a Mailbag episode. If McKissick sees the same role this year that he had last year, that caps gibson ceiling. That would prevent him from becoming a superstar. Now we have to think a little bit more open minded than that when we're projecting. Look at this objectively. Washington drafted Antonio Gibson with a Day two pick last year. Gibson's a freak athlete, and Gibson played wide receiver in college. It's not like he can't catch. It's also advantageous to have a three down back, so you have more play calling flexibility. So it's then easy to see it. There's room for Gibson to be a full blown bell cow. All he's got to do is beat out and undersize JD mckissic for a pass catching role. Now you play the odds, look at where you're drafting Antonio Gibson. Look at what his projection might say without a huge boost in receiving production. Let's say that he's drafted as the RB twelve this year, and his projection without that receiving boost shows him as the RB sixteen. That means that even in the role that he played last year, he's still valuable enough. He's not giving you the ceiling that you won, but he's still got some value. Now, imagine a world where they do use him in that CMC type role. Now he has a top five ceiling, and because his non boosted receiving projection isn't that far off from his ADP, it's easier to draft him at his ADP knowing that that ceiling exists. So I hope that makes sense. But this is how I think about this kind of thing in fantasy football and Super simple terms, it's weighing all outcomes and comparing it to the market price. This ask question is from at Big Jeordy three thousand. Does the overall decrease in defenders BMI smaller linebackers, more defensive backs on the field every play factor into how you view running back BMI? Has running back BMI been less important in the last three years versus early in your data set? To be honest, I haven't studied if there's any correlation between smaller defenders and smaller running backs being more usable. But I want to reiterate a point that I've made on the show in the past. I don't actually know if small running backs can't handle big workloads and be fantasy football viable. My model in research tells me that they're generally bad bets, which they are, but that could have just as much to do with how coaches manage their backfields more than anything else. If a coach says I don't want to give this one hundred and ninety pound running back a big workload, then that one hundred and ninety pound running back won't be as good in fantasy football. That that could be the sole reason that running back weight matters across three years, though, we're probably not going to see any statistical significance like yeah, Philip Lindsay happened. But smaller running backs still aren't seeing massive workloads. They're still typically being used as pass catchers first and foremost, like what we've seen with Austin Eckler Tarik Cohen. Eckler's not even what I would consider small either. Even Philip Lindsay didn't see a huge proportion of Denver's rushes a couple of years ago when he had two hundred and twenty four rush attempts. I test my model every single year just for the record, and nothing's changed with running back BMI, so I'm not really looking at these players any differently. The bottom line is that it's hard for a small running back to have a high ceiling in fantasy football. He can be usable, he can be a viable pass catching option, but it's not common for them to be workhorses. This ask questions from at Bolt's chief, how would you treat Mike Davis in a dynasty league? Right now? I have Eckler, Akers and Javonte Williams, so I'm considering moving him for a future rookie pick. Would you try to keep him in twenty twenty one for insurance, or sell as high as possible, since next season he'll likely lose all his value. So I feel this way about most running backs who look like they could at least contribute in the immediate year but maybe not in future years. I trade them away now rather than waiting. Mike Davis is a twenty eight year old running back with just one pretty good season under his belt. I'm not taking away anything from what he could do in twenty twenty one, but there's also a non zero chance that he's no better than what we saw from like Todd Gurley last year. At times, from a production standpoint, we all know that's in his range of outcomes. I'd always rather sell early than late in dynasty. I know I was into Davis a bit pre draft, but that was all because of the assumption that everyone else was making that the Falcons would draft a high end running back. Mike Davis is still Mike Davis. He's got bigger quads than I thought he had, but he's still Mike Davis. He's not necessarily a special back. I think he's good, and I think there's absolutely reason to believe that he can be in RB two this year, but I would rather sell that idea now because we know there's a good chance he doesn't have that same status in twenty twenty two. This next question is from at Bob Forrest three. Hey late round, QB love the show. Thanks. How does Javian Hawkins from Atlanta look in your model for this year? Any chance he's this year's James Robinson? If not Hawkins, anyone else rate high in your model that fell in the actual draft? So funny enough. This question sort of combines what I've talked about over the last two questions. But I sent a tweet out last week that said Javian Hawkins is one hundred and eighty three pounds. Can he please stop being touted as this year's James Robinson please? I've seen it all over the place that Hawkins is this year's Robinson, but that doesn't make any sense to me at all. They're two totally different backs. James Robinson has size, and he had great college production. He wasn't this super athletic running, but he was very solid and he could handle a big workload. Javian Hawkins is not that He's five foot nine, one hundred and eighty three pounds. He had very average college production, and honestly, Hawkins didn't test that well athletically. Now, if we're dumbing this down to Hawkins can be the undrafted free agent running back who hits. If that's what we mean by this year's James Robinson, then sure, I guess that's fine enough. And let me be clear, I don't think Hawkins is a bad dart throw. Given the backfield that he's entering, there's not a lot of good competition in that Atlanta backfield. Throwing a late round rookie pick at Hawkins is absolutely fine. He has a shot to play a pass catching role in that Falcons offense. But I will say when you look at recent undrafted free agent running backs who have hit, they had far better profiles than Hawkins had. Philip Lindsay and Austin Eckler both had very very good college production. James Robinson had very very good college production. I mean, even if you go back to like Danny Woodhead, he had very very good college production. You're not making a significant bet when you draft Javian Hawkins. So it's not worth me saying that the odds of him hitting are low. I think we all know that, but I do think there's some process that we should go through to help us increase our probability of hitting some of these later round or UDFA guys. And generally speaking, the players who have hit historically have way better profiles than Hawkins. This doesn't mean that he can't hit. I'm just saying what's happened in recent history. I really don't like this running back class. I don't think there's going to be a James Robinson from the twenty twenty one class. I'm throwing some darts at Jared Doakes to go along with Hawkins because there's some ambiguity in that backfield and because he has good size. Doakes has good size, but even he's not a very good bet. None of the undrafted or late round guys are very good bets. And none of these guys pop in my model like James Robinson did last year. But sure draft Hawkins Dokes take those chances with low risk picks, but definitely don't set high expectations. There's a very very good chance that none of them are sustainable fantasy football pieces. This last question is from at g Mark four to three one one Travis etn getting reps at wide receiver and eventually becoming the lead in the backfield seems very exciting in PPR, like something I would want on my roster. But urban Meyer is an unknown. What does ETN seialing if things go great and his floor if Meyer barfs it. On one hand, I think people are probably making too big of a deal onto the Travis Etn wide receiver thing. It's not difficult for running backs to play running back and be at least replaceable at that position in the NFL, and what I'm talking about is what they do on the ground, not through the air. So learning the full route tree and getting reps at wide receiver is actually I think that more running backs should probably be doing Coaches should probably be doing this more often if they're not. Here's my hesitation and why it may actually be a bad thing for ETN. Though urban Meyer was on record talking about how he was upset that Kadarius Tony was selected by the Giants that Jacksonville couldn't get him. He won in Kadarius Tony, it almost seems like using ETN in this way is what he had envisioned for someone like Tony, or how he used someone like Curtis Samuel in college, and I don't think that that would be a good thing for Travis Etn. It makes me think it's more gadgety than anything else, and that usually means fewer but more impactful touches. Like I'll say what I said on a previous show, but we can't think rationally when it comes to a team that's acting irrationally. Jacksonville took a running back in the first round during a rebuild. You guys, urban Meyer doesn't have experience in this league. He's already done multiple questionable things. Would we be that shocked if at the end of this Travis Etn is used as a slot receiver who sometimes gets touches out of the backfield. I still think it's most logical to think that Etn is used like DeAndre Swift. That was my comp for him entering the league, where he's this big pass catching threat. But maybe he doesn't hit two hundred and fifty carries and that's fine, and I actually think that that's still the most likely outcome. But this unknown of urban Meyer, I think has to push Etn down just a little bit. He's still my RB two in this class, but I feel less confident than I did before the draft because I'm not sure urban Meyer is very sharp. Hopefully though he proves me wrong. This a's questions from at snow Naked. Who do you think is this year's Ridley slash Metcalf meaning a guy who will make a massive jump into the top ten. So keep in mind, Calvin Ridley and DK Metcalf had pretty high ADPs last year before making their leaps. Ridley was the forty fourth overall pick according to my Fantasy League dot COM's ADP. Metcalf was fifty sixth, and you'd be getting those guys in the third and fourth rounded times. I know that I drafted Calvin Ridley in the third often last year, so they were still highly touted. I think one guy who's sort of in that range though, that could make the leap is DJ Moore, some one who's listened to the show over the last few years. You know that I'm a big Dj Moore guy. I loved him coming out, and he's one of the better prospects in my prospect model. He's also been very good since entering the league. He's actually the only wide receiver over the last two years to have twelve hundred or more yards from scrimmage in both seasons. Now there's a new quarterback which maybe hits, maybe doesn't, probably doesn't. But as I alluded to on the show earlier in the week, when very good players don't have as much competition in the way, they can end up with really high target share ceilings. Maybe that's what happens with Moore this year and his second season under Matt Rowland. Joe Brady. An easier answer to this question is Terry McLaurin, but he's going earlier in drafts. DJ Moore is kind of interesting this year. The last question this week is from at Suave Swaversen. If the reason we tend to value running backs so highly in fantasy football is positional scarcity and value over replacement level for said position, why then do we not value elite type end prospects for the same reasons. If anything, the pool of difference maker tight ends is smaller than running backs. So I've answered a question similar to this one in the past, but I think it's an important one to bring back up. Typically, when we do value over replacement level calculations, we're not factoring in costs to acquire that replacement level player. So let me give you a quick and easy example. Let's say there's a fifty point difference between a running back and his replacement level player. Then there's a seventy point difference in projection between a tight end and his replacement level player. This would tell us that the tight end hypothetically is more valuable. But if you're getting that replacement level tight end really really late in your draft, whereas the running back goes in like round five, then the tight end is not necessarily the better pick because those points are being stretched across more rounds. You can get that replacement level player later, and that's what we've found Historically, usable tight ends are drafted late all the time. We see breakouts tight ends a lot in fantasy football, and part of that reason is because we see tight ends drafted later in fantasy drafts than we do at running back and wide receiver. Because you're only starting one of them in your typical league, there's less demand causing prices to fall. This can be attributed to trades or any other time that you need to evaluate positions in fantasy football. If replacement level tight ends are easier to acquire, just generally speaking, then that has to go into your value over replacement level evaluation. Now, this question seems to be more geared towards prospects in Dynasty, since you're referring to elite tight end prospects aka Kyle Pitts. One way that you can quickly see the value of a position is by looking at historical startup adp. We've never seen Travis Kelcey or George Kittle, and standard fantasy leagues have top five draft capital. That alone tells you that you shouldn't bank on that for Kyle Pitts. Kyle Pitts could be incredible. I think he will be incredible, but you have to at least factor in the market side of this, how the market reacts to players and how the market feels about players that matters, and that's all driven by positional importance. It's driven by the fact that you only need one of those tight ends versus two or three wide receivers, and you can get some of those replacement level players later in your draft. This isn't to say they have no value, This is just the logic behind it all. Basically, my stance is that value over replacement player is far more complicated than just looking at how one player scores versus another. There's a cost and market component to it as well, and that component is usually the most overlooked. That's going to do it for today's show, though, Thanks to all of you for listening. If you've yet subscribed to the Late Round podcast, make sure you are by searching for it pretty much anywhere podcasts can be found, and don't forget to follow me on Twitter at Late Round QB. Thanks for listening this week everyone, I really appreciate it. Hope you enjoy your weekend.