374: Mailbag 5/15/20

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Speaker 1: This is the lad Podcast with your host JJ Zackerretha j J zacher reson.

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Speaker 2: What's up everyone?

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Speaker 1: It's JJ Zachares and the editor in chief at fandel and at number fire dot com in this episode three hundred and seventy four of the Late Round podcast many shows that are part of the FanDuel podcast network. Thanks for tuning in. So Fandals sent out my top ten quarterback rankings across their social media accounts this week, which means my mentions were totally normal and rational. But my top ten quarterback rankings, which are honestly pretty choky, they were published on social media this week and that caused some fun interaction and fun conversation on Twitter. I also got a couple of quarterback related questions on Twitter this week, and I don't know if they stem from the rankings being published, but they were asked. So figured out kickoff today's show talking about those questions. First at Chris vic three three one asked, have you established a Late Round quarterback target? Example Lamar Jackson like last year? Doubt there's a Lamar Jackson like available this year, but using this as an example. And then at Pat Underscore, Alex Zero asked, is it just me? Or are the late round quarterbacks boring this year? No one stands out as a screaming value who could vault their way into the top five. Do you share the same sentiment?

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Speaker 2: So let's just.

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Speaker 1: Tackle both of these since they're both about late round quarterbacks. First off, I don't think there's an obvious late round quarterback target like we saw last year with Lamar Jackson. But with a late round quarterback target, you're looking strictly for upside and ideally you're getting some rushing jews from that player as well. Two players do sort of come to mind with those filters. One of them is Joe Burrow, who's walking into a pretty decent situation, all things considered, as a really strong quarterback prospect. We don't usually see rookie quarterbacks thrive in fantasy football, but if we ignore downside, Burrow has the weapons, he could have the arm, and he has the rushing upside too, not to the degree of Lamar Jackson or even a Kyler Murray, but don't ignore his athleticism. Ryan Tannehill is also an interesting case. I think this sort of plays into the second question of is it just me or are the late round quarterbacks boring this year question. The market has become increasingly more efficient. Years ago, we may have seen Tannehill as a fringe top five quarterback. I mean, after all, when he took over in Week seven last year, from Week seven through Week sixteen, Tannehill was easily a top five quarterback in fantasy football. Only Lamar Jackson and Drew Brees averaged more points per game during that stretch. But this year, Tannehill's an afterthought. He's being ranked as the QB seventeen over on Fantasy Pros right now, and I can't say I totally disagree with that necessarily. I do think he's a little bit undervalued. But what this is really showing us is that people are getting smarter, people are recognizing regression more. Because Tannehill in that Titans offense is going to regress. They're not going to score touchdowns at the rate that they did last year from Week seven through the end of the regular season, and Tennessee scored a touchdown on thirty seven and a half percent of their drives. That was second in the NFL during that stretch, behind only Baltimore. The difference is that the Titans score they scored a touchdown or kicked a field goal on forty one point three percent of their drives. That ranked eighth best, meaning a lot of their drives were resulting in touchdowns and they were resulting in touchdowns at an unsustainable rate. Just three point eight percent of their drives were ending in field goals. That was the lowest rate in football, and that shows up in Tannehill's touchdown rate. Two. He had a seven point seven percent touchdown rate, which is a rate that quarterbacks just don't repeat year over year over year. So why would he be a viable late round quarterback option then, Because regression doesn't mean an over correction. Tannehill still has a shot to be in that six percent touchdown rate range and maybe even a little bit higher. And we know that there's a little bit of a rushing component to his game as well. I'm also interested in Teddy Bridgewater given the new offense in Carolina and the fact that the Panthers defense might be the worst one in the NFL this year. Plus they're playing in the NFC South and that NFC South features some of the best offenses in the game. They're gonna have to keep up and keep pace. But yeah, overall, the quarterback position is pretty efficient right now.

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Speaker 2: That's kind of why I'm chalky.

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Speaker 1: But it's incredibly deep, so there's no need to get one early unless there's a value. But people have caught on and they're realizing the upside and drafting the more mobile quarterbacks. That's not great for us late round quarterback drafters. Now, before we get into the other questions this week, I want to remind you that fandle is giving you an opportunity to win from home with their free props Pick Them contest.

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Speaker 1: Correctly pick five props every day and go at least twenty five or thirty five over the course of the week to split the twenty five hundred dollars weekly payout. Then you can get back in on the action next week. It's that easy. Age and location restrictions apply. No purchase necessary, voidware prohibited. For more details, VI was at fandle dot com and check out the win from Home banner and the FanDuel lobby today. This first question or I guess second question maybe third quot says Hi, JJ love the new cut.

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Speaker 2: Thank you, hope you're doing well.

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Speaker 1: You've spoken about how lack of offseason could affect rookies, but I'm wondering who else you think it could affect. I'm thinking guys like fant or Hockinson whose year two progression is important, or changing receivers like Cooks or Digs. Does this boost those with established rapport? Love the show? Thanks Michael, Yeah, I think that's the right way to look at it. Players who are developing and need that time to develop, and players who are switching teams need to build that rapport. They're just generally riskier right now. But I've gotten other questions about how this season is going to affect fantasy football, and like I've said in the past, I don't know.

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Speaker 2: I'm not going to pretend to know. But the easiest approach, in my.

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Speaker 1: Opinion, is to feel more secure about the players who are established and who are in established situations because you know that reps aren't as important for those players. It's just impossible to be more detailed, given there are about a thousand different directions that this could all go in. This next question is from at Ike Azar. If the Seahawks only bring in Marshawn Lynch, why aren't we hearing more about Chris Carson in the RB one Conversation for twenty twenty one.

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Speaker 2: Thing to always keep in.

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Speaker 1: Mind with preseason rankings, and this is why I hate looking at previous season rankings and finishes to make judgments about a player. But at the beginning of a season, we have perfect information. No one is hurt. At the end of a previous season, all kinds of players are hurt, but right now all running backs are healthy. Everything is butterflies and rainbows. That means there's just naturally more competition at every position, especially.

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Speaker 2: The running back position.

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Speaker 1: And if you look at the players ranked ahead of Carson, who's RB seventeen over on Fantasy Pros, it's hard to.

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Speaker 2: Fault any of them.

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Speaker 1: Maybe Gurley, who's right in front of him, or for Nett, who has more off the field type stuff going on or rumor related things happening, and maybe Clyde Edwards a layer because of the Damian Williams factor. But then you get to someone like Miles Sanders, and sure Carson can outperform any of these guys, but you could make the argument for other players there too, So I think his ADP and his ranking is fair. But to your question, yeah, I think Carson should be talked about more as a potential RB one. Not the RB one, but a potential RB one. Look at what he did last year. He was eleventh in the NFL and running back rush share, and that's on a team with Russell Wilson in an offense that will skew to be a little bit run heavy. He also didn't play a full sixteen game season, so that number could have been higher. And then we saw his target share rise by over three percent year over year to where he would have had a double digit target share if he would have played a full season more than likely. So I get the upside for Carson. The problem is that the competition at running back is always better before we start seeing games played. Since no one is hurt and he's still coming off that injury. That's putting doubt in people's minds. Even my projections aren't bullish on him because we don't have all that information yet. We don't know exactly how healthy Chris Carson is going to be. But I'm absolutely cool if you're someone who thinks that Carson could be an RB one this show, because that's absolutely in his range of outcomes. Last question says, I know you're very big on positional value and player value when it comes to drafting. I'd love to hear your thoughts on how this can be applied to an auction draft. Do you like to allocate a certain budget to each position and adjust as the draft goes. Do you assign a dollar value to each individual player and attack where you see value, or do you break players into tiers and assign a certain budget to those tiers. I know auctions are less common, but there are a ton of fun I agree, and it's hard to go back to a snake draft once you've had a taste for auction tom So, I've done a show on auction drafts in the past, but it's a little old now, so I won't bring back that episode and what episode number that it was.

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Speaker 2: I may do another one later in the summer.

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Speaker 1: But if I were to describe my auction approach, it' said I'm tiering players. So I'm grouping players who are interchangeable in rank and outlook. I'm assigning a dollar value pre draft to those tiers, and then I'm adjusting that dollar value as we see what the market value is for comparable players as the draft unfolds. Let's say I've got Tyreek Hill, Chris Godwin, and Julio Jones in one tier.

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Speaker 2: This is just an example.

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Speaker 1: I'm willing to spend let's say, sixty dollars of my two hundred dollars budget on one of those players in the draft. Tyreek Hill gets nominated first, he goes for fifty dollars. All of a sudden, that market value is set. So I know to expect to spend around fifty dollars for Chris Godwin and Julio Jones given where they're at in ADP, and given they're in the same tier as Tyreek Hill. If my tiers are way way different than ADP by the way, they don't have to adjust for that as well. But it's unlikely they'll be so drastically different to the point where I'm willing to spend substantially more or less for players, if that makes sense. That's the general approach, though, But I can try to do a show on this again if people are into it, just let me know this. Last questions from at pel three one six, how much should we care about team's strength of schedule if we assume the twenty twenty season will be played without fans in side stadiums. Well, I think we're caring about team strength of schedule, because a team isn't good or bad based on how strong their home field advantage is. If the Chiefs are playing in front of zero fans or sixty thousand fans, the Chiefs are still going to be a tough matchup for a defense.

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Speaker 2: Now, if we're thinking.

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Speaker 1: About how much we should care about a team's home field advantage, I think that's a very, very valid question. There's a chance we end up seeing some inefficiencies in the market because of all this. But I do think that being in a familiar place, using a familiar locker room, being in your normal time zone, all of that stuff probably still matters to some degree for these teams and for these individual players. But being at home without fans, you would think would give you less of a home field advantage.

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Speaker 2: But I also don't know.

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Speaker 1: What any of this is going to look like, So, like with any of these types of questions, this is just speculation in me.

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Speaker 2: Thinking out loud.

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Speaker 1: The next question was shortened a bit to be able to talk through on the show, but it says my question is without access to the top rookie running backs this year, who are some cheap slash underrage running backs that you think will provide some safety value and might be acquired at a discount for this year and or moving forward, basically the un sexy, reliable backs that you think can maintain their productivity for the time being. Rumor has it that the next couple of running back drafts may be a bit on the lighter side, and with the draft being the best place to replenish running backs, it could be difficult moving forward, Zach. So in the end, Zach, you're looking for cheap volume and production, and if you're looking for cheap volume in PPR formats, you can look at satellite backs. One player that popped into my head with this question is to Wreak Cohen. I was off of Cohen last year because what he did the prior year just was not sustainable. But I actually took him pretty late in a startup draft recently because he's a cheap way to get some receiving volume at the running back position. He saw seventy one targets his rookie year that jumped to ninety one and twenty eighteen, and then last year to Reecohen at one hundred and four targets. That might be surprising to some of you. He's not going to be a player who gives you RB one numbers, but he's a good enough fill in, and I think that's sort of what you're looking for with a question like this. I've got him projected for another eighty five targets this year, and I could see that reaching the lower nineties. We'll see what happens to him after the season because he's on the last year of his rookie deal. But I don't think people realize how involved he is in the passing game there. You can also just throw some darts at other rookie backs this year, like Anthony McFarlane or Joshua Kelly or Darrnton Evans or Antonio Gibson. I think the way that this question was framed was that the only running backs who are going to be fantasy relevant from this class were the expensive ones that go in the first round of rookie drafts. But like I've talked about on this show over the last month or so, I think this class is not just top heavy, especially after.

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Speaker 2: Seeing some of these landing spots.

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Speaker 1: And then, lastly, if you want a player who's gonna cost a little bit more than Tarik Cohen, but not only be usable this year, but could be really really usable over the next couple of years. Kareem Hunt could be that guy. We don't know what his future holds, but he's reasonably enough priced given the talent that's there, and maybe he finds a spot elsewhere after twenty twenty. If that's the case, he could be very, very usable. This next question is from at mdev Underscore nineteen eighty seven. Does low team pass volume prevent wide receivers from breaking out?

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Speaker 2: Last year?

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Speaker 1: Aj Brown, Deebo, Samuel DK, Metcalf, Terry McLaurin, all on low volume teams. Interested to hear your thoughts on that. This seems to be the argument against someone like Duverney. Thanks being on a team with little passing volume does not prevent a player from breaking out and being really usable in fantasy football.

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Speaker 2: No, it just.

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Speaker 1: Lowers their chances of hitting a true ceiling that's necessary to be a difference maker, like the guys that you just mentioned. Sure, they were all in low volume passing offenses, but the definition of breaking out here seems to mean that they exceeded expectation, not that they were studs.

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Speaker 2: In fantasy football.

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Speaker 1: Each of those guys that I just mentioned in this question ranked outside the top twenty four in points per game last year.

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Speaker 2: They broke out.

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Speaker 1: They all look like they have bright futures in the NFL, but none of them were like these massive, massive difference makers. They just really exceeded expectation. I mean, the bottom line is that you'd ideally like your wide receivers to be paired with good quarterbacks and an offense with a lot of passing. You want a Calvin Ridley type situation. You want a Chris Godwin from twenty nineteen type situation, because quite simply, if an offense has four hundred targeted attempts, someone's going to need a twenty five percent target share to hit one hundred targets. And that is not an easy target share to achieve. If that offense is throwing a six hundred times or has six hundred targeted attempts, then the target share just needs to be seventeen percent. Now, for reference, in twenty nineteen, eight wide receivers had a twenty five percent target chair. Thirty seven of them had a seventeen percent target chair. You're just playing probability. We know volume correlates strongly to fantasy success, so having a player in an offense that's going to have a lot of volume, that's a good thing. It doesn't mean a player in a lower volume offense is incapable of having a big season, especially if that player is playing with an efficient quarterback. It just means it'll be more difficult for those players to compile stats. This last question is from at Wagner one one zero nine, one to eight. With twenty nineteen being a down year and overall wide receiver scoring, do you expect a bounce to the mean for twenty twenty and if so, would that affect your draft strategy in the early rounds. So, I think it's important to note the difference between the wide receiver position being spread out versus the position not scoring a ton of points. In twenty nineteen, wide out scored forty eight and a half percent of all fantasy points among wide receivers, running backs, and tight ends. That was lower than in twenty eighteen, but it was higher than twenty seventeen. It was on the lower end compared to other seasons of the last decade, but it wasn't drastically lower. It's more that we're seeing a spread in those points. The same guys aren't scoring all of these points. That's what episode three hundred and thirty eight was all about, on the death of the elite wide receiver. But because fewer wide receivers like one or two per season are really giving you that difference maker type production, it makes having those receivers valuable, but it also makes getting those receivers tough. Your probability of finding that guy is not very strong. So in the early rounds, if you don't see a particular wide receiver being that huge difference maker, you're better off waiting a little bit at the position since the positional scoring is so flat, so you're naturally just gonna go a little bit more running back heavy. But I don't think a rebound is necessarily what we're talking about here. Maybe there's a rebound and that it's not just Michael Thomas in that top tier but DeVante Adams joins him. That kind of thing is bound to change, But it's unlikely we see a big Tier one cluster at wide receiver like we do running back. That makes it hard to pinpoint and draft the wide receiver difference maker early in your draft. That's gonna do it. For today's show, though, thanks to all of you for listening. If you've get subscribed to the Late Round podcast, make sure you are by searching forward pretty much anywhere podcasts can be found, and don't forget to follow me on Twitter at Late Round QB. Thanks everyone, enjoy your weekend.